DRK's make frontlines not fun.

[Divinemights]

While i appreciate the advice and can see how it would work in the right circumstances, The issue on OCE is, we get 2 hours a day where frontlines are active, in that time there are 2-3 'guides' providing macro info and assigning targets, DNC seems to be a primary as i will always have an entire team of sometimes 30+ players target me all at once and flatten me after using every CC in the book at the same time with some staggered for Esuna use, using Guard? seems worthless, i still take damage when its up as some ability's ignore it, and those ability's get used a lot.

Unfortunately, the balance shouldn't base on the unique circumstance of a region for a multi-national mmorpg like FF14.
Not to mention your reason is only because you can not survive one a specific job
That is now how job balance works, especially when it comes to PvP.
DRK strategy has many counters.
Are you saying the job need to be chance because the team your pair up with is incompetence?
I mean, your team has DRK, PLD, and WAR and they decides doing nothing when DRK charge in to setup?
That doesn't make any sense at all

[LilFlowers]

For people trying to give advice you havent seen the level of cheese going on in that server, in the last game of PVP I played on OCE before moving back to JP last week there was a four man pre made Drk/War group. They were all toxic, clearly taking advantage of the newer player base on OCE and I decided if PVP would only be active for an hour or two that it just wasnt worth having groups like that be in charge of it all. They use the whole server to meme n mess around with broken kits that they know would get properly countered and be useless on the JP server that they likely play PVP on with their mains as soon as OCE queues die.

TL,DR: Moved to JP from OCE been having more fun in PVP already (Series rank 5 to 25 in ONE WEEK and been able to get PVP queues to pop too I guess)

[Divinemights]

For people trying to give advice you havent seen the level of cheese going on in that server, in the last game of PVP I played on OCE before moving back to JP last week there was a four man pre made Drk/War group. They were all toxic, clearly taking advantage of the never player base on OCE and I decided if PVP would only be active for an hour or two that it just wasnt worth having groups like that be in charge of it all. They use the whole server to meme n mess around with broken kits that they know would get properly countered and be useless on the JP server that they likely play PVP on with their mains as soon as OCE queues die.

TL,DR: Moved to JP from OCE been having more fun in PVP already (Series rank 5 to 25 in ONE WEEK and been able to get PVP queues to pop too I guess)

I don’t know where you get the idea that other region don’t have people using this DRK set up strategy
I also amazed that you care claiming JP is not using this strategy because it is not true.
It is playerbas know ho to counter mostly

[BubblyBoar]

I dont know what OCE servers are like. NA has DRK comps all over the place. People just understand them and can counter them. It isn't balanced, but FL never is. The dev team straight up says they have kits balanced for small scale PVP. From what I understand based on the comments here, the problem on OCE is the lack of people PVPing. A single 4-man group being able to command an entire game that well basically means they are the only people ding it and the other 68 people are just praying to be on their team. And the only way to fix that is to get more people in FL or to get the people currently playing FL to play better. Which means you are going to have to do the thing people don't want to do in FL, shotcall. There's nothing stopping you from marking and commanding your alliance. Seems like no one but those few are actually doing that.



As for DNC, it just seems like you have to play better. Understand that you are a DNC. That means you have no damage reduction ad your damage on melees and tanks is going to suck. Don't even bother with those 15y moves unless you are poking at a straggler. And even then, you only ever want to do it to proc Saber Dance. in FL, you have only 2 objectives. Buff your dance partner and to LB big groups of people to help your alliance. You should NOT be the first person to jump in. It's up to your tanks or the enemy tanks to do that. And once that is done you make your move. If you let your tanks draw fire or the DRK CC the group, you can dash in and LB. If their DRK jumps on your group and you dash passed them to LB their group, that means they are focusing you and not blowing up your pulled alliance. You'll die, but your alliance will be alive long enough to get out of the DRK pull. After that, it's up to their own skill to not take your enemy's AoE damage when they aren't even CC'd.


If you are playing DNC by dashing into your 15y range to do damage, you are basically a free kill in FL. Stop doing that. DRK pull isn't what is at fault there.

[LilFlowers]

First few games on JP I actually saw 95% DPS jobs on the post game stats. Over time I did see some cheesy healer or tank stuff but a lot less than NA honestly. Can't get away with half the stuff I do on NA or OCE in the JP games so yeah there is some kinda difference. The 4 man tank team I played with themselves said something like "Uh well we don't know if JP does the 4 man Dark thing but...." I definitely get pulled in and stunned and destroyed by tanks on JP but do I see premade tank or healer groups at the top of every game with 3 to 4 mil damage? No at least not so far.

[Aravell]

JP frontlines do have DRK combos from time to time, they're also very coordinated since DRK mains tend to command the alliance and also have a burst countdown macro. But for most matches on JP, you'll run into the SAM meta a lot more, they just stack SAMs and try to snipe multiple people with their LB.

[AlunKha]

I am a regular enjoyer of FL games on OCE. Your issue is not pressing guard when the very obvious DRK charges at you. That's all.
Enjoy JP tho, they do exactly the same stuff.

[Cidel]

As already mentioned, repeatedly, as soon as you see your character getting drawn-in, you should instinctively be activating your Guard and crawling away from the epicenter. Most DRK draw-in comps mostly rely on players not knowing any better and only rack-up kills on people who don't activate their Guards on reaction. There's only real danger if a DNC or WAR is involved in the synchronized LBs to deny Guard usage(which I've rarely encountered on Primal, most DRK comps are all just spamming their own and other group damage LBs after the draw-in).

Honestly, this strat is way more manageable to react to and counterplay than PLD's cheap Onsal capping or SMN stacked Bahamut tactical nukes / WHM stacked laser spam pre-nerf. It's effective for now because a large chunk of the people queuing Frontlines are the iconic tic tac toe 'just a game' memers getting their daily exp/mogtomes and are the perfect fodder for getting nailed by it.

As for DNC in Frontlines, not too long ago I did think it was the worst job there, but after spending time on it now I think that's RDM with SGE as a runner-up. The thing about DNC in Frontlines is you need to be extremely opportunistic and hard to pin down. You need to be zipping in and out with En Avants (be sure to use their proc weaponskills though) and try to never be stationary or linger in the front line unless your team is pushing. As a general rule (with all jobs really), you should be identifying overextended or isolated ranged enemies as you are very unlikely to be a threat to any melee. Even if you can't pin anyone down, you can harass and build your Saber Dance for a target that you can feasibly (assist in) bursting down. You probably won't be scoring too many kills (though a single-target Saber Dance has kill potential on weakened targets), but you can easily accumulate assists.

As a general rule for myself, if I'm on a team that's oversaturated with MCHs, BRDs, casters and healers (and other DNCs), I am not going to play as DNC in that match because your team will have like no front line full of melee or tanks to speak of to hold the line for you to safely poke at people. Your LB is also largely dependent on your team; if you can't have people to hide behind to activate it, you will die if you try using it for anything other than helping finish-off a runner trying to stall/Guard near death in or out of a small skirmish. You also want your LB to be sudden and (for the most part) unexpected; don't linger near a cluster of people before using it (by then you may have already been targeted by savvy/aware players and just activating your LB is a invitation to get dogpiled on before the charmed status takes hold, and even then, 2 seconds is barely anything as your animation lock is arguably longer than the initial charm effect). Identify where you're going to use it, En Avant in, pop it, and make a split-decision if you can afford to AoE people to increase the duration or maybe pick just one person to increase it on or just En Avant back out. If you are not used to making judgement calls on when its safe to engage or not, DNC is not a good job to play in Frontlines.

[Necrotica]

This doesn't make sense. If they have ENTIRELY different abilities for PVP and PVE they can make entirely different abilities for Frontlines and Crystal Conflict.

I do not understand how they can be so bad at their jobs like this.

[Middie]

I am a regular enjoyer of FL games on OCE. Your issue is not pressing guard when the very obvious DRK charges at you. That's all.

If you see them coming, sure. If they get their vacuum off, it's a less than 50% chance you're get Guard up in time.

A lot of the time I get wrecked through the Guard, so it feels like Guard isn't as viable as people make it to be, either due to Guard ignoring abilities, or the raw damage that comes after the DRK.

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Frontlines seems to be defined by the DRK tactic, at least on OCE, and I don't see that as exactly healthy PVP balance that there is such a dominant tactic.