Disappointed coming from WoW pvp

[Beamin]

i only played wow to pvp. quit because the game is awful. mostly because theyve pruned every class to having barely any abilities. loving ff14 because class design is so good with lots of abilities and ways to play.

but then turns out all your abilties go away when you pvp? i have even less abilities than in WoW. also the feast you are forced into a specific role comp? (tank melee ranged healer).

what even is the point of dragoon? i do less dmg than tanks and die 500x faster with less mobility. i have no cc and no defensive abilities. so what is like....the skill in this? i just press my 2 dps buttons. no timely defensives to save me. no making big plays with clutch cc/peels. how is pvp in this game so brainless compared to wow which is a completely neutered version of itself? surely there is something im missing here.

brb while me and my samurai friend duel and dont understand why we win or lose other than his class just happens to do more dmg with its 2 buttons than my 2 buttons does.

[RydiaFey]

Hey just wanted to ask if you opened your pvp profile and set up your hotbars. It's under the character tab. Actions are changed in pvp, but you most certainly have more than two abilities.
Good luck and welcome to FFXIV!

[Beamin]

Hey just wanted to ask if you opened your pvp profile and set up your hotbars. It's under the character tab. Actions are changed in pvp, but you most certainly have more than two abilities.
Good luck and welcome to FFXIV!

yea ive done that. i was being a little sarcastic about having 2 buttons, but only slighly. i have 2 buttons with 4 abilities baked into them. one dmg cd. BotD which is effectively a passive. hi jump. 1 gap closer. nd stardiver. very few abilities even by wows standards.

[Laphael]

I´m glad that FF14 has different skills for pve and pvp.
It would be horrible, if we had pve skills changed because they are to strong/weak in pvp.

[RydiaFey]

yea ive done that. i was being a little sarcastic about having 2 buttons, but only slighly. i have 2 buttons with 4 abilities baked into them. one dmg cd. BotD which is effectively a passive. hi jump. 1 gap closer. nd stardiver. very few abilities even by wows standards.

I figured you were being sarcastic, but wanted make sure lol.

As a melee dps you dictate who the focus target is and start the countdowns. There's a few pre-made macros and chat messages too since you can't talk in the match.
I don't have experience with dragoon, but in general try to have your most damaging abilities line up with the other dps using the countdowns.

[BloodRubyXII]

You're several years too late for PvE abilities being usable in PvP, it's changed a lot. Whilst we miss it, the changes were good long-term for the game, as much as I hate to admit it, like feast was actually dying. Duelling is pointless and frontlines are meme, ranked feast is pretty much the only satisfactory mode of PvP in this game with any real progression and even then it isn't that great, but some of the people I've met playing it and the Discord servers I've been a part of are what made the experience worth it for me. Plus we also get mounts that people cry about later that they couldn't be bothered to get, that's always nice. I have to drive this point though - SE do care about it and they do listen for the most part, it's just most of their best advice comes from players who consistently play in Diamond and finish top 10/20/50 every season and their views have a lot of depth, whereas the PvP in this game is not designed to be hardcore.

[Xyranthion]

You also have two more abilities in the additionals section of your PvP profile. Further customizing what you want to use. I personally like that combo skills are baked into one button. If they weren't... You'd still be using those same skills but they'd just take up more visual space on your bars.

And no, DRG doesn't have any CC because they're all about be damage. And they do a lot of it. The skill in feast comes from using your quick chat options (that you put on your hot bars) to designate focus targets, and to do countdowns on enemies. Melee actually have one of the hardest jobs in feast. You have to pay attention to who you're going to be bursting, what CD's the healer has, using a small burst on a target you don't intend on killing to bait CD's, then doing a new countdown on the truly desired kill target and lining up all your burst with the ranged and tank.

To tell your teammates you're ready to burst, the quick chat option of "hello" is widely known to be the indicator. Some people don't realize that though so it's best to just do countdowns and hope they know how to burst.

The basics of strategy are very similar to WoW arena. Tanks and healers have more CC options than DPS. FFXIV has much less CC in PvP than WoW and I personally like that. Imo WoW has way too much CC and games resulted in who could CC chain and line up burst better. That strategy is still apparent in XIV, but it's not as prominent. If you want to play a DPS that has a stun and silence, play ninja.

And in a 1v1, there's a good chance SAM could win if they use chi ten right, which is their defensive skill.

To learn where the skill is in XIV PvP, you have to get the way WoW goes about it out of your head.

[Xyranthion]

Also, a big point of skill for melee that other job roles don't necessarily have is that you are the one that signals when to burst, and who to do it on and when and if that's a proper time to do it or not.

You have to pay attention to who is picking up medals (players receive more damage with a higher medal count) and what CD's the healer still has still so you know if they're a good burst target or not. All of that responsibility is on your shoulders as melee. The skill ceiling is definitely there.

[Serret]

...

It's a fair sentiment and questions and I understand your point of comparison of FFXIV with WoW.
I have played WoW long long ago (from release to Wotlk), I don't consider myself an expert but I think I've been on both sides to be able to form a decent opion on the matter. Do note I don't know how WoW pvp is like now, I only know what it used to be.
That being said I enjoyed WoW PvP back then.

With that out of the way:

1. You probably heard this a lot but, FFXIV is primarily a PvE game. PvP came as an extra and even now there's very little focus and content made for it. I'm not saying this to discourage you but this is how things are.

2. PvP was considerably changed in Stormblood (iirc), the number of skills available to classes was reduced and PvP turned more into a Dota\LoL type thing where classes fill a specific role and have very limited skills.

3. WoW PvP was 2-ways while in FFXIV (feast and dotamode aside) it's 3-ways. This changes the dynamic a bit and makes you feel less in control as a good team can still be beaten if the 2 other teams decide to solely focus on denying you rather than winning.
I remeber the rush from playing CTF in Warsong Gulch, it was quite fun, sneaking in, CCing and stealing the flag, using all sorts of tricks including rocket boots It felt more strategic and had more surprise elements.
And yes I remember duels also being quite thrilling and strategic, you had to careful wait for your oponent to use that one skill to cancel it with yours and eventually turn the duel to your favor.
FFXIV is more limited in this regard, it mostly has domination\smack the rocks for points RNG game modes, where zerg tactics seem to be favored and as classes are more limited in skills you don't have that strategic feel where every canceled skill and a nicely timed CC makes the whole difference (this is not to say that it doesn't, in FFXIV a well placed silence on the healer for ex can destroy a whole party, but its in a much lower extent than what was the case in WoW).

4. Netcode, FFXIV PvP netcode is bad. There's no otherway to put it. If you recall WoW, when I hit a stun button, it's gonna stun near instantly, in FFXIV it's going to stun near half a second later even with decent ping.
This is relevant because again, establishing a comparison, Mage casts a spell in WoW, you could nearly wait for the cast bar to be at 3/4 completion and hit the stun\silence button and you knew that it would land, in FFXIV due to the netcode that doesn't happen, if you're not silencing at the start of the cast or before the cast is even made it won't land in time.


This being said, FFXIV does many many many other amazing things and better. Just not PvP, but again, it's not the main focus of the game. And most of the community is not really invested in this so I don't think it will ever be a content\improvement focus in terms of dev resource usage.

[Eskuire]

The amount of times I've staved off death and saved allies in Frontlines / Feast with my Bard and Shadowbind, and casually starting a 1v1 in a match with a "no way in hell I'd lose" opponent mentality only to dump out a mega potion for 3000 hp on my hotbar. Repelling Shot > Shadowbind > Mega Potion > Profit
I miss the old days. Thanks for making me sad now.

#BBSB [Bring back Shadowbind]