Frontlines are so slow now

[Kansene]

You can solo most melee at 100% battle high on practically any dps.

While there is merit to the rest of your post to a degree, this one is blatantly just... I'm not buying it at all. A BLM emptying their entire LB whilst at full battle high on a stationary melee who does nothing to defend themselves whatsoever might be able to "solo" it, sure, but I'm pretty convinced it's borderline mathematically impossible for a ranged DPS to solo a melee who fights back currently.

[Ransu]

While there is merit to the rest of your post to a degree, this one is blatantly just... I'm not buying it at all. A BLM emptying their entire LB whilst at full battle high on a stationary melee who does nothing to defend themselves whatsoever might be able to "solo" it, sure, but I'm pretty convinced it's borderline mathematically impossible for a ranged DPS to solo a melee who fights back currently.

I have zero problem doing so when I'm on BRD and they objectively do much less damage than BLM. Once at 100% battle high I can consistently burn melee down pretty quickly during my silence burst window.

[Elfidan]

I believe it. BRD is actually really good right now.

[Jettinson]

I believe it. BRD is actually really good right now.

It has always been a good pick just for Silence alone and because Purify is still awful to use.

But I do not know why we went talking about 1v1 in a FL game unless you talk about Borderline Secure which honestly people mess around most of the time.
But since Ransu got the idea I constantly fight with no battle high where I didn't say any of that and got the idea that every class fights equal with battle high max against melees(which is another cans of worms to discuss in terms of balance, at least it is not Rival Wings where you just get LB refill fast at max stack).

You are not going to see a Summoner happily 1v1 a melee, not with that horrid kit. A Dancer has to spam En Avant to even make some difference with Saber Dance and Red Mage has to rely on meleeing of all things and so on.

A Dragoon can just murder or harass a Bard, anyone can do it your 20 second Silence be damned if you are alone. But in that regard it makes sense because melee SHOULD be scary for their damage and what mayhem they can cause, not straight up being hyper tanky.

[Kansene]

You can solo most melee at 100% battle high on practically any dps.

I have zero problem doing so when I'm on BRD and they objectively do much less damage than BLM. Once at 100% battle high I can consistently burn melee down pretty quickly during my silence burst window.

Alright, lemme share what I just tested. Let me know if there are any adjustments within FLs I have not taken into consideration during this simulation, also I am objectively horrible at math:

I stood at maximum distance from a target dummy on the wolf's den pier. Target dummies take the full potency of all skills, always.
Abilities used, and in what order:

Total damage: 46 740

It's worth noting that the abilities were used in a slightly incorrect order (empyreal arrow loosed too early, but everything followed Apex Arrow and as such there should be no DPS loss)

Assuming the 10% increase from Apex is stacked on top of BH, I added the 50% BH bonus first, then put 10% on top of that.
Total damage when accounting for battle high: 77 121

I then applied a 60% decrease to simulate the damage reduction a melee job has.
Total damage when accounting for melee damage reduction: 46 272.6

I then switched my job to monk.
This is my max health as a monk:


Unless I've made a grave miscalculation somewhere here, and the maths work differently than being additive then subtractive (feel free to enlighten me on this), this entire burst window (which by the way takes longer than the 3 sec silence window lasts), executed while under the effects of your LB, at the ideal range, in perfect conditions is literally not enough to even take down the health pool of a monk who's AFKing.
So I gotta ask, how are you soloing melees who are also fighting back against you?
Once your burst is spent, you'll be dealing wet noodle damage for ages, even with full BH. Against a melee who uses heals and defensives, it's simply not enough.

Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of damage, and it's of great help in FLs. Bards are amazing at setting up kills and helping burst people down. I main a BRD in PvP myself, both in FL and CC. But it's pretty hard to take your claim of soloing melee at face value given what I've not only experienced over the course of 321 frontlines in Endwalker (this character was made in June or July, don't recall the exact date), but also this brief experiment.

DISCLAIMER: Soloing people should not be a metric for a job's PvP viability, as the game is balanced around team fights.

EDIT: Adjusted the 10%/50% stacking from Apex/BH to make the result as favorable to the BRD player as possible, though I don't know in which order they're prioritized.

EDIT 2: Actually bungled up the math here. The end result you're seeing is everything under the Apex Arrow buff, then with added battle high, THEN with 10% on top of that, so this result is actually way higher than the actual damage total would be. Again, I'm awful at math.

EDIT 3: It occurs to me that it might stack in the way that BH is stacked first, then all non-BH buffs on top of it as a base, in which case I'm too smoothbrained to math it out without literally attacking an actual AFK melee in an actual FL, which is more effort and chance than I am willing to put into this. Suffice to say, I remain highly skeptical that it will achieve a total damage value of 60K against a melee.

[Knot_D]

Stop dying and build up your battle high?

Since you're a BRD, you're easily building battle high because their buffs, including their LB, counts as assist whenever your teammates defeat someone. It's difficult for a job like RDM to build battle high unless they're diving to packs and hoping for not targeted...

[Jettinson]

Since you're a BRD, you're easily building battle high because their buffs, including their LB, counts as assist whenever your teammates defeat someone. It's difficult for a job like RDM to build battle high unless they're diving to packs and hoping for not targeted...

With Red Mage you can use the buff/debuff skill to help you out on assists. Magick Barrier from white shift also counts as an assist just the same with Frazzle. You are probably going to contribute without diving at that point unless you can safely do that just to overwhelm someone similar to Summoner... but outside of that it can be rough and your damage isn't helping that much.

[Elfidan]

It has always been a good pick just for Silence alone and because Purify is still awful to use.

But I do not know why we went talking about 1v1 in a FL game unless you talk about Borderline Secure which honestly people mess around most of the time.
But since Ransu got the idea I constantly fight with no battle high where I didn't say any of that and got the idea that every class fights equal with battle high max against melees(which is another cans of worms to discuss in terms of balance, at least it is not Rival Wings where you just get LB refill fast at max stack).

The silence is great when applied at the right time, but I don't think BRD begins and ends there. Setting up your burst is a big part of 1v1 on most jobs. It does really well at zoning people thanks to the bind and warden's paean.

1v1 happen a decent amount as do 2v1 3v2 and the like. Not everyone can be NIN and RP walk away whenever they feel like it. Building BH early is pretty big but it's not always possible and depends on the team. I mean, it's just a flat 50% damage buff not like it's super technical, and tons of people never manage to get past BH1 because they are so busy trying to be the chad that scored 10 k.o. with skyshitter. I try not to play secure if I can help it.

You are not going to see a Summoner happily 1v1 a melee, not with that horrid kit. A Dancer has to spam En Avant to even make some difference with Saber Dance and Red Mage has to rely on meleeing of all things and so on.

A Dragoon can just murder or harass a Bard, anyone can do it your 20 second Silence be damned if you are alone. But in that regard it makes sense because melee SHOULD be scary for their damage and what mayhem they can cause, not straight up being hyper tanky.

It's funny you bring up summoner. I have a clip of an unfortunate SMN who thought chasing me down was a good idea.

I mean casting on RDM kind of feels bad most of the time because it's almost like a punishment for burning through melee combo and not managing a K.O.

DRG and RPR are pretty much in the same boat. Timing silence or bind correctly ruins their rhythm during burst. Most people who get caught at unawares by a DRG initiating are going to have a bad time regardless of the job.

I really like DNC in terms of power at the moment, but I would never 1v1 with it given the choice.

I think most people want to see DR adjustments. It took 8 years to fix animation lock on pve DRG so I guess we should "Look Forward to It." heh.

[Llynethil]

Only way you solo a melee job on FL as bard is if he's half hp, has everything on cooldown and has 600 ping, that or the ones you face are just keyboard turners that are horrible at the game.

Bards are freelo for melee jobs on frontlines including tanks, you outheal, outdamage and outtank a bard 1v1 every single time, and bard doesn't have enough peel to keep them away long enough to prevent getting destroyed, not to mention you can't LB as bard in 1v1, they can.

I love bard on frontlines, but you get absolutely destroyed by any melee in a 1v1 that has half a clue about how their job works, but if you stay at the back you can destroy them with your teams' help very well using silence.

[Towa-Musa]

Gotta fault the community on this one. Pre-patch……it was 6.1 I think??? FL were quick in KOs due to the revamp and the ppl were complaining that the yeeting was too fast lol. So SE gives us a lil dmg reduction. So you see it went from fast to slow and now ppl complaining that the they aren’t yeeting ppl quick enough lol. Went from chaos to chaos +5-10min extra time to end the run. Exaggeration….

i LOVED the quick KOs