Biolysis and SCH

[Packetdancer]

I would love to be in a group like that and I'm sure you would to, but we both know that unless you go in there with those people and that same intent, it's not gonna happen. You still have to deal with carrying the other two parties that may or may not know what they're doing. Add to that the fact that you're one of the squishier targets even with shielding and no status effects in your arsenal.

Unlike Crystalline Conflict, Frontlines allows communication; even without going in with a premade (which is definitely the most effective way to do a Book Club, I grant), it's not terribly hard to be like "Hey, anyone else in our party want to go be Murder Book Club together?" and discuss the strategy.

I mean, this is true of other strategies besides "a roving pack of homicidal nerds engaging in biological warfare". (Many of which are more likely to be effective; as noted before, even with coordination, if the other team is wise to how not to let SCHs farm assists, the SCHs stay squishy and not a problem.)

I have seen just as much attempt to stack 5 or more SCHs foiled, simply by telling the alliance of their presence and marking them. Seen our WARs/RDMs/SMNs specifically try to cc them when they dash forward. Seen DRGs coordinating their jumps to obliterate them while entirely negating their ticking DoT.

Precisely this. Honestly, the roving Book Club tactic is becoming less effective as time goes on, because more people are wise to "Hey, look, three SCH standing near each other. Let's put an end to this scenario before it gets started."

I mean, in order to be able to wipe an alliance, SCH needs to:

1. Gather into a group.

2. Farm battle high (likely by DoT-granted assists, since SCH's individual damage without any battle high is, uh, we'll go with "not great"). This is tricky because Biolysis has a terrible range compared to many other PvP abilities, and the SCH is incredibly vulnerable while trying to do this. And, of course, any deaths make getting a really tasty battle high a lot more difficult.

3. Continue to move in a pack, ideally with a higher-damage job as escort to deal with things if you run into a DRG or whoever.

4. Find an enemy alliance in a tight enough cluster, and then get close enough to Biolysis them (without being yoinked around or stunned by a WAR, stunned and vaporized by a WHM's LB, and so on). This is tricky, because Biolysis has a 25y range, and if you want to Deploy from a target in the center of a group -- which you do, if you want to get your maximum "oomph" from the deployment -- you have to just about be inside that group.

5. Assuming all the previous have been done successfully, all SCHs deploy their Biolysis across the group. And then run like hell.

That's honestly pretty involved, and requires a fair amount of coordination between the SCH players. It's very effective (and satisfying) when it works, but that "when it works" is not 100% of the time, and -- as I mentioned -- the percentage that it is continues to drop as more people are wise to the strategy.

Conversely, WHM can just spot a tight cluster of opponents and be like "yeah okay imma stun you all from over here 40y away, hit you with a big flower of death, and then let the DRG finish you off with their LB while you're nicely clustered". And limit breaks build up even across death, so they don't have to farm battle high (and stay alive while doing it) for that to work.

Roving biohazard nerd hit-squads are really annoying, but they're also super easy to counter if you deal with them early on rather than ignoring them. And without that battle high (or a bunch of other SCHs at their side), even that DoT is not as high as some other jobs' damage is. It's just a lot easier for people to overlook if they're tunnel-visioned on "IMMA KILL THIS WARRIOR, RAWR".

There are many, many more obnoxious potential combinations of jobs in Frontlines.

[AnotherPerson]

Yes, but that's from ONE Scholar not 5. 5 Recited Biolysis DoTs on you deal 22500 damage every 3 seconds. Even just three Recited Biolysis DoTs on you is oppressive at 13500 damage every 3 seconds. 3 Recited Biolysis's chunk 21% of a Warrior's health pool every 3 seconds. That Warrior's dead in 14 seconds if they have no MP to use Recuperate. 3 Recited Biolysis DoTs will kill anyone with less than 53000 HP in less than 12 seconds.

The DoT is manageagle at 2 but the moment you go to 3, let alone 5, it's too much. It either needs a hard target cap of 5, 8 or 10, or the DoT can no longer be stacked or the DoT needs to be able to be cleansed with Purify.



Let's just say it could remove the DoT: People just blew their Purify, that's on a long 30s cooldown, on cleansing a DoT, that can be reapplied in another 15 seconds, instead of breaking out of cc. I'd say that's a win for SCH because that person won't have Purify available to break out of cc if they elect to use Purify to remove Biolysis.

???????
And what's stopping 5 White Mages from blasting you with Afflatus Misery simultaneously, doing 50k in one go? Your recuperation isn't going to save you from a coordinated attack when your HP drops from 100% to 0% in less than a second.

Same thing with multiple White Mages using Afflatus Purgatory on the same group of targets.

Same thing about multiple MCH using Empowered Drill or 5 WARs using Primal Rend consecutively.

Same thing about multiple DRGs deciding to use their LB to dive on you.

Same thing about multiple SAMs using Zantensuken. No counterplay.

The fact is that if you let multiple enemies hit you in succession, you're dead regardless of how it's done.
The key is team coordination. Of course teams who play more coordinated will do better. That's how PvP works. That's not something that needs to be nerfed.

If they do nerf SCH's only strong damaging skill that makes their whole role feel very tactical, they might as well go back to making PvP unplayable again by killing job expression and turning the whole game into the stale PvE mode that only a handful of people want to play again.

[Cithaerias_pyropina]

???????
And what's stopping 5 White Mages from blasting you with Afflatus Misery simultaneously, doing 50k in one go? Your recuperation isn't going to save you from a coordinated attack when your HP drops from 100% to 0% in less than a second.

Same thing with multiple White Mages using Afflatus Purgatory on the same group of targets.

Same thing about multiple MCH using Empowered Drill or 5 WARs using Primal Rend consecutively.

Same thing about multiple DRGs deciding to use their LB to dive on you.

Same thing about multiple SAMs using Zantensuken. No counterplay.

The fact is that if you let multiple enemies hit you in succession, you're dead regardless of how it's done.
The key is team coordination. Of course teams who play more coordinated will do better. That's how PvP works. That's not something that needs to be nerfed.

If they do nerf SCH's only strong damaging skill that makes their whole role feel very tactical, they might as well go back to making PvP unplayable again by killing job expression and turning the whole game into the stale PvE mode that only a handful of people want to play again.

-Misery is a puny 5 meter radius. Deployment is 15 meters.

-Can only happen every 60 seconds because Purgation is on a 60 second cooldown. Deployment is on a 30 second cooldown.

-Drill is a single target attack on a 40 second cooldown. And can only be used as this kind of tactic once per encounter as the MCH then needs to go through the entire combo, and into melee range for Bioblaster, just to get back to it. 5 Chain Saws are deadlier than 5 drills anyway and the MCH needs to get through Bioblaster first.

-Primal Rend is a 5 meter radius like Misery.

-Dragoon LB is on a 90s cooldown is slow moving and isn't instant like Deployment Tactics is.

-Samurai LB is on a 90s cooldown and has a puny 5 meter radius unlike Deployment with its massive 15 meters.

And for the people saying the SCH has to get up close to the enemy. Biolysis has the same 25 meter range like every other jobs ranged attacks do. So SCH isn't the only job that needs to get into danger to do things.

[gotaname1]

Is this the part where I mention that Biolysis + Deployment is a combo that can't be followed up instantaneously, increasing the chances of target dying before being able to cast Deployment? Everything about it seems more of a downside than anything. Im quite certain most, if not all, of the mentioned skills don't require much situationals to churn out lethal damage. Again, you are literally screaming about a puny dot that is only dangerous in extremely niche (but fun) situations. But I comment your effort to troll. It has been quite succesfull so far, but I for one am clocking out.

[BaconBits]

IMO what really needs to be reevaluated is just how damn potent crowd control is. Some kind of fall off or grace period where after one crowd control debuff wears off you can't be afflicted with another for 3 seconds.

Also tone down the cc stacking for the love of God. There is nothing more humiliating than getting absolutely mollywhopped by an entire arsenal of stuns, binds, silences, polymorphs, knockbacks, draw-in effects, and only 1 charge of Purify to deal with it all.

[Packetdancer]

And for the people saying the SCH has to get up close to the enemy. Biolysis has the same 25 meter range like every other jobs ranged attacks do. So SCH isn't the only job that needs to get into danger to do things.

Many jobs have extremely potent abilities within that range, which take one cast and leave the enemy unable to respond. RDM's Resolution is a single damaging cast which will do sizable damage, silence, and bind the target (leaving them vulnerable to teammates at your side). Many others have gap-closers which allow them to be instantly at your side using abilities other than ranged.

SCH has literally two abilities that do damage at that range: Broil and Biolysis, neither of which is terribly powerful on its own, and neither of which is an AoE (unless you get off that Deployment Tactics on Biolysis). Moreover, to Biolysis and then Deploy the DoT across a group, you have to be within that range for two casts. (Yes, you can back away 5y between the two, but that's rarely enough to save you.) Two casts during which the WAR can yank you in, the RDM can Silence you (preventing that Biolysis cast in the first place) and bind you in place for their allies, or someone can stun you and prevent the Deployment Tactics ability, and so on.

Especially since if you have a cluster of people that's, say, 10y across and want to hit someone in the center (to guarantee you get the whole group when using Deployment Tactics), that means you need to have the last 5y of Biolysis' range within the group, putting you within 20y rather than 25y. And Expedience being up to buff the Biolysis does not help -- either with speed or the Desperate Measures damage reduction buff -- if you're yanked into the crowd, CC'd, and then vaporized.

And remember: you can only Deploy Biolysis from a target you applied it to. So you can't really untarget the one you DoT'd to even try to deal with whoever's coming after you -- not that Broil is going to save you -- unless you give up on the Deployment, or are very good at switching back to the original target afterwards. (Focus target is admittedly very helpful here. Not that you'll survive using just Broil, regardless.) Moreover, every moment the SCH can't use Deployment Tactics is that much less time that the DoT ticks if they do manage to spread it.

It is obviously quite possible to make the mass Biolysis strategy work; many of us have. But it is also extremely easy to counter, moreso than many PvP tactics are; it is a strategy that relies as much on the enemy being careless as it does any skill or strategy on the part of the SCH.

[NorthernLadMSP]

No. If you want to nerf something, nerf SAM's LB. There is nothing more broken than me as a BH5 at full health dying to a one-hit insta kill from someone who has no BH at all. This is the most broken crap I've ever seen.

[SnowVix]

No. If you want to nerf something, nerf SAM's LB. There is nothing more broken than me as a BH5 at full health dying to a one-hit insta kill from someone who has no BH at all. This is the most broken crap I've ever seen.

I mean, that can be prevented by not attacking into them when they have Hissatsu: Chiten up.

[NorthernLadMSP]

???????
And what's stopping 5 White Mages from blasting you with Afflatus Misery simultaneously, doing 50k in one go? Your recuperation isn't going to save you from a coordinated attack when your HP drops from 100% to 0% in less than a second.

Same thing with multiple White Mages using Afflatus Purgatory on the same group of targets.

Same thing about multiple MCH using Empowered Drill or 5 WARs using Primal Rend consecutively.

Same thing about multiple DRGs deciding to use their LB to dive on you.

Same thing about multiple SAMs using Zantensuken. No counterplay.

The fact is that if you let multiple enemies hit you in succession, you're dead regardless of how it's done.
The key is team coordination. Of course teams who play more coordinated will do better. That's how PvP works. That's not something that needs to be nerfed.

If they do nerf SCH's only strong damaging skill that makes their whole role feel very tactical, they might as well go back to making PvP unplayable again by killing job expression and turning the whole game into the stale PvE mode that only a handful of people want to play again.

Excellent post!