What should I be aware of going into PvP?

[caelumsixsmith]

I started doing PvP last week cuz I noticed Frontline roulette gives out tomes. I'm not gonna lie, I'm not a fan of PvP in general, but I actually had a fun time with FFXIV's. Perhaps it's the lack of toxicity, as I haven't seen anything harmful yet (I've also been running queues besides dailies). Something I really like is that Cleric Stance is not available for healers (or at least SCH), which makes healing our top priority.

Anyway, I'd like to know what I should be aware of. For instance, is PvP gear a requirement or can I just count on my Lv 60 equipment? How do healers fare in solo matches? Are newcomers welcomed at all at the Feast? And finally, who should healers stick to? Or should people go to them instead? One thing I notice happens a lot is, the party (or alliance) will break up and people will scatter throughout the field, making it difficult to keep up. Sometimes the other healer and I end up following the same group whilst a smaller one faces more enemies than they can handle. I don't run straight to them cuz as I see it, I'm far more useful alive and ready with a larger group instead of trying to keep a small bunch alive for a few more seconds, then eventually dying.

Thx in advance!

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

First thing's first. Let me hit you with raw realism: You WILL lose some. And while I don't wish it on anyone, you may very well run into toxicity at some point. Whether you make that one big mistake the team can't recover from, or whether you simply do something differently and it works, someone somewhere at some point is going to hold issue with it. What you do right, keep at it. What you do wrong, learn from it. Beyond that, who says what and how they say it simply doesn't matter.

Now then, most jobs are played a bit differently in PvP, as it's less about perfect DPS rotations and more about dealing burst damage or utilizing crowd control abilities to stop someone from doing the same. I can't elaborate on anything other than what I main (MCH), so I won't go into detail there. There are however many players and many guides available for specific jobs/modes if you're interested, so I will instead give the most basic, generally sound advice I can.

1. Communicate - This is paramount no matter what mode you're playing. I understand the Feast is set to lose text chat, but however you can, communicate with your team in order to coordinate your efforts, relay important info about the enemy, or give/receive the support needed. That is the key to success.

2. Cooperate - As you are new, don't be afraid to speak up that you are. Look to veteran players to help guide you and help you learn. Pay close attention to what they do and don't do. Listen to their directions and follow their lead. Ask questions (this goes back to communicating). And if and when you find yourself experienced enough that others are looking to you that same way, don't be afraid to lead. Beyond that, cover a teammate under attack, especially a healer, and they'll hopefully do the same. Whatever you do, keep teamwork in mind.

3. Use the Terrain - This is more relevant to Frontlines than the Feast, but still applicable. Areas of verticality offer opportunities to knock someone off, and even if they survive the fall, they now have to travel back to your position to continue attacking. Line of sight an enemy ranged to disrupt their attacks. There is an effective distance in which everyone can attack; get in and out of it as necessary, and prevent an enemy from doing the same. Use blind spots to ambush if you can. Force enemy players into situations where they have to fight for one objective or another. Flank, steal, lure, hide, evade, escape. . . use the terrain as part of your battle strategy.

4. Momentum - This is personal advice, and I give it somewhat warily. It works for me, but as with everything, it is not 100%. Going back to what I said about burst damage, if you engage an enemy, do so with the intent to kill in said engagement. If you can gain momentum on them (by which I mean do more damage to them before they can to you) you force them into making a spot decision to continue to fight, or disengaging you. If they disengage, always consider if letting them get away is the more strategically sound thing to do (i.e. will chasing them possibly lead you into the rest of their team? Is the rest of your team falling back? Are they weak enough to simply finish off and be done with it?) I admit, I tend to be more relentless in my attack; a bad habit learned from lack of healing support at times, so I try to do as much damage as I can, as quickly as I can (just in case there is/isn't backup from either side). I slightly brag to say it, but momentum is usually one of the biggest reasons I survive fights my job and the skills/limitations of it might not normally be meant to survive under most circumstances.

5. Don't Be Afraid - You're human. You're going to make a mistake at one point. You're going to try something and fail. Do so with the right intentions, and you'll feel better than NOT having tried. Sometimes you might need to be the guy who leads the charge when everyone else hesitates. Sometimes you might need to be the one who speaks up if a bad call is made or you see something others missed. This largely falls back in line with Communicate, but don't be afraid to make a bold play for the right reasons. Be aware, of course, of what you can and can't do within your given role, but don't be afraid. He who hesitates is lost.

I wish you all the best out there!

[KusoWat]

Check out pvpaissa.com

Quite a few guides up there for beginners, including the answers to many of your fact-based questions. Also, the advice within comes from reputable sources, not just some "anybodies".

[Februs]

I actually had a fun time with FFXIV's. Perhaps it's the lack of toxicity, as I haven't seen anything harmful yet

... Wut?

I am sorely tempted to sign this or save it somewhere so I can whip it out next time some salty PvE'er complains about toxicity in PvP lol.

Jokes aside, there is some salt in the PvP community. You'll find most of it in Feast, because the game mode is ranked and each loss counts big time against your standing. The matchmaking is also a rotting cesspool of shattered hopes and dreams, so people can get pretty upset pretty quickly. Brace yourself, and try not to take it personally. Learn. Grow. Keep a tough skin, and don't feed the trolls. That last part is especially important, because in a game like this, anyone who is spending more time chatting than fighting is probably doing much worse than the people they are complaining about.

As for your question, I'll just get to what you specifically asked about.

• 1. GEAR
  
  The short and simple answer is that any PvE gear at ~190 or above will be fine for PvP, and you won't notice any substantial stat gaps. The slightly longer and more complicated explanation is that, if you're interested in optimizing your PvP performance, than you have to look at minimizing and maximizing your stats. That can only be done by creating a custom build with a healthy mix of PvP/PvE gear.
  
  The first thing you have to realize is that all stats are NOT equal in PvP. There are some stats that you simply don't use. The accuracy requirement, for example, is quite low in PvP, so you DO NOT need to cap that stat to never miss a target. Slotting additional points into that stat beyond the minimum requirement is pointless and wastes stat allocation. The second thing to realize is that all stats are synced down to lvl 150, meaning that your stats are capped at that level. Say, for example, that the stat cap for Det is 100 (it's not, I'm just throwing out a number). Even if you stat 500 Det, you still get synced down to 100, so slotting that additional Det does nothing except waste gear space.
  
  The idea behind min/maxing your secondary stats is to find the right mix and match of gear so that you can cap the stats you actually need, whereas you leave the stats you don't need below cap or at their minimum requirement. It is important to note that those stat caps are different for each job, and each job also prioritizes different stats. You also cannot preview the stat caps until you are actually synced within a duty, so it'll take some tinkering back and forth before you get your build right. You should also keep in mind that we are talking about peanuts between a purely optimized build and one that is simply running with your run of the mill set, so I wouldn't take it too seriously if someone gripes at you for not running a pure meta try-hard build. Some things (such as Crowd Control) are not even effected by optimzed gear, so there is a certain level of stat discrepancy that can be bridged by simply playing better than your opponent.
  
  
• 2. HEALERS
  
  Are abused in PvP.
  
  I'm not going to sugar coat that for you. They are one of the hardest jobs to play in PvP, they are utterly essential, and they are just as underappreciated. Healers are often the fist priority target of the enemy team, because a good healer can make or break a match. They are also the first person yelled at when things go south. That said, there is a reason for that. Most PvP'ers have seen good and bad healing, and they can spot the difference between a PvP vet and a PvE guppy right off the bat. I can not stress this enough, if you chose to heal in PvP then you best bring your big boy pants, expect a steep learning curve over PvE healing, and grow some very thick skin. You also need to learn how to protect yourself, because there's only so much your team can do for you. There's a limit to how much CC your team can provide, and baby sitting a weak healer can cost the match. It's better if you learn to take care of yourself, because you won't be able to rely on your team to do it for you all the time.
  
  
• 3. NEWCOMERS IN FEAST
  
  Oooooh this is a controversial one. Quite frankly, I don't think there's a PvP'er in the game who does not want new people to join Feast, because we all want to see the community grow ... That said, Feast is ranked. Getting new players consecutively can cost you your standing. New healers, in particular, are the bane of ranking up, because they almost always lose their matches, especially against higher ranked healers. For that reason, new players are often discouraged, or outright hated, when they join Feast. That's also partly SE's fault, because the matchmaking is absolutely awful and pairs high rankers with low rankers, even when it shouldn't.
  
  That said, I wouldn't let that discourage you. Join up. We need more players, and you're only going to get better in Feast by playing Feast. Also, you pay your sub just like everyone else, so the game is there for you to try out. Give it a go and to hell with any haters you get. Just makes sure that you actually try to learn from your mistakes and try to improve. Most PvP'ers are more than happy to help a new person if they actually show sign of improving. If you keep making the same mistakes over and over, however, then they are far less tolerant of seeing you in consecutive matches.
  
  
• 4. PRIORITY HEALING
  
  You don't, technically, "stick" to anyone in PvP as a healer. You just maintain lines of sight. In Frontlines this is a little trickier, because you have a HUGE team and they can all scatter to the winds. In that situation, you just have to make a tactical call. Go where you are needed. Just remember that "where you are needed" is not always where your team is dying. When all is said and done, all PvP (including Frontlines) is objective based. There is no point to you putting your neck out to rescue a bunch of players who are making their last heroic stand in the middle of nowhere for the sake of nothing, especially when you have another set of heroes out there doing the exact same thing ... only they're fighting for an objective.
  
  The rule of thumb here is to weigh your priorities and the priorities of the team. How many points do you stand to lose? How many do you stand to gain? It all changes on a case by case basis, so you have to make the best judgement call you can in the moment.
  
  As for Feast, that changes a bit. In Feast, you don't have to decide which group to follow. You only have one group. What you have to do instead is decide who gets priority healing within that group. That can be decided based on ticket count (who has how many stacks of medals), enemy burst rotations, and your own mana reserve. Most of the time, you're going to want to stay out of the way to discourage people from targeting you, and when they do target you, you'll have to kite them around the map to avoid dying. While you do that, your 1st priority is to keep lines of sight on your teammates so you can actually heal them. If they break LoS, give them a shout to stop being a moron in the chat box. After that, it's just a matter of making a judgement call on who needs to be focused.

That came out much longer than I intended, but I hope it all helps. I'll shrink it down in hidden bars to keep it nice and compact for you. If you have any more specific questions, ask away. Most of the forum people are actually pretty helpful with this kind of thing.

[Rhekshi-Ehki]

To let you know, Cleric Stance is disabled for all healers in PvP. I main WHM and SCH, but as a WHM, I typically try to sleep, slow, and add a distracting debuff where I can. Like you said, the focus should be healing and your survival is paramount. If you notice someone getting swarmed by enemies and it's less efficient to heal them through (capability and MP management), then you will have to let them die.

<< More to come>>

[Rhekshi-Ehki]

As a SCH, I find it easier to let my fairy do her thing (embarrassingly I still don't have the micro down yet) while I focus on damage mitigation. Virus healers and bane groups of enemies if you can afford the stacks.

While most of my advice is from my limited experience, a lot comes secondhand, like when it comes to gear: your level 60 gear is good enough, but try to get some fending gear for that HP boost, up to at least 10K. That way you can survive most LB's.

[Rhekshi-Ehki]

Don't be afraid to use protect, especially against Monks and AST, but this may not be viable in the middle of a feast match. Capitalize on PvP skills and NEVER use the PvE Raise/Ressurect/Ascend. Also the PvP raise (can't remember the name, sorry) is instant cast so you won't have to waste your Swift Cast. If you're surrounded by melee, use Aetheric Burst and Aura Burst (I think?) since this is an AOE Fluid Aura; just be weary of a tank's Pushback ability. If not, just Blizzard II and run. One last thing, don't waste time casting Shadow Flare unless you're breaking Ice or forcing people out of bubbles, leave that to SMN.

Hope this helps but you can get better advice from other people. Oh, right, don't worry about any venom you may get for being new; they were new at some point.

[TiramisuMacaron]

For future reference you can edit your post to go over the character limit.

[Vaeria]

Considering youve decided to carry the biggest cross in pvp, ya get props for taking the time to do some homework.

1. Don't take Frontlines too seriously. Consider it the open air lab of experimentation. Get as intimate/reflexive/instinctive a feel of each skill as ya possibly can since you and your teammates will live or die by how ya use em but don't be scared to screw up horribly. Keep in mind, amidst your best efforts, reckless idiotic teammates like me will run out of your healing range in search of adventure. Say a silent prayer for such a one, then just move on..nothing more ya can do.

2. Take 'ranked' Feast....mortally serious. Until you have a solid grasp of your skills under multiple situations, don't even look at the que option for it. All the toxicity of FF 14 youve yet to be exposed to lurks in there. (Would be safe to say just leave ranked alone altogether this season, your time will come) When you do decide to go in...proceed with the mentality that you already have both feet in your coffin and need only to lie down. Reason being, as a healer above all other jobs...minute its established you're 'weak', you'll be targetted mercilessly. And while you may have the most decent of teammates, you can be asured even they'll be groaning under their breath.

3. Find a style of play that works for you personally and run to hell and back with it. Be open to criticism, especially at this stage, but keep in mind at the end of the day, its you whose doing the footwork. Again...experiment. And lastly~

4. Always, always, ALWAYS...assist your team in killing the lalas of the opposing team first above all else. I cannot state this fact enough. If you notice one of your melee dps is targetting something else while an enemy lala is in the vicinity..stop healing him. If it comes between keeping your ranged dps alive and casting holy on a low hp lala, tell your ranged dps you sincerely appreciate the sacrifice he's now going to make. Lalas...are the #1 reason for much of the confusion and disfunction seen in pvp currently and the problems only getting worse. Exercise your god-given right and do everything within your power to keep their numbers firmly under foot.



Other than that...just have fun.

[KfLeX]

I even thought of changing into lala and hope to magically be better in pvp