DRK's make frontlines not fun.

[Jettinson]

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.

All spot on, Dancer is a big In and Out class, it can easily be killed the moment you misplaced yourself or linger too much/make obvious plays so it heavily relies on others. Its Dance Partner has only 1 second cooldown making it even more a class that demands more attention on the whole field, switching partner on the fly can easily help out any partners. Curing Waltz is decent if done on party stack and Honing Dance is a button that you can't just press it without care.

I still hope they balance better Dancer, at least it has its uses...

[BaroLlyonesse]

Yes, that would really work, wouldn't it. can you imagine how much fun playing a healer would be based on your model? Neither can I.

What, a healer that concentrates more on supporting the team and healing than dealing damage, who survives by applying DR and shields? Like a healer should be doing? How terrible.

[IDontPetLalas]

What, a healer that concentrates more on supporting the team and healing than dealing damage, who survives by applying DR and shields? Like a healer should be doing? How terrible.

Here, let me quote this again since you seem to have missed this at the first go-round " Healer: Low Survival, Low DPS, High Healing."

Let's play out how this works if the healer happens to get into a 1v1 - which I will admit beforehand is not a situation that we want to get into- but while rejoin the party, it's easy enough to find ourselves in that situation. Low survival and high healing- so , ideally, we don't die, but we're basically in a mode where we need to kite, heal and hope that we get help because with low DPS we won't kill anyone. I would even question the "low" survival. Why? because we're casters? Well there's one hell of an incentive to roll a healer lmao.

Interestingly enough, there are MMOs in which support and healing classes/jobs have skill trees or specs that allow them to run heal spec/hybrid/DPS spec in PVP. I've played those games, sometimes heal spec was better, sometimes DPS spec, depending upon the circumstances, however it was considered normal to have options for those classes and it was a welcome change to have distinct identities for each healer in PVP.

It should make you happy that in the present mode, there are healers who can supply DR as well as shields, as well as doing damage, while having a good time. Imagine, healers actually enjoying themselves just like any other job expects to do, that should make for better PVP.

[Gserpent]

What, a healer that concentrates more on supporting the team and healing than dealing damage, who survives by applying DR and shields? Like a healer should be doing? How terrible.

You should probably try playing classes before trying to talk about them.

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.

If you don't notice when your character is being pulled in by an effect, you're probably a terror in Party Finder groups.

[Middie]

If you don't notice when your character is being pulled in by an effect, you're probably a terror in Party Finder groups.

Sorry, but where did I say I wasn't reacting to being pulled in? Just that once you're in that effect, your chances of getting Guard up diminish, and you chances go up if you spot the charge/dash.

It's blind habit now to hit Guard when I see the effect, but you'd just prefer to assume the negative and insult me.

[Gserpent]

You literally said, "if you see them coming," implying that you miss getting pulled in.

[Middie]

I think I see the confusion.

My first sentence is in reference to "Your issue is not pressing guard when the very obvious DRK charges at you". I'm agreeing to that statement, with the caveat if you can spot it

The second sentence says if you have to react to the vacuum, your chances of getting Guard up go down. I didn't intend it to be read not noticing the vacuum, sorry.

[Sililos]

TY everyone for the info, has helped a bit.

DNC part aside, This still brings up an issue from DRK's that im seeing from multiple posts and in practice on OCE. DRK comp groups.
How Frontlines works on OCE is, there are 2 groups of premades with DRK's and some stun jobs, im not sure which, The DRK's constantly spam macros placing down markers and chat commands to guide the group, you will see 3, 2, 1, in chat and then literally everyone from the enemy team gets pulled in, stunned and killed from full health near instantly, they literally just drop you regardless of job, including other DRK's.
I have seen one of these DRK guides single handed wipe out nearly an entire team with his burst. And im not talking about a 4 or 8 man team.
If you are on a team without a 'guide' you will not win, the 2 guide teams appear to work together, i guess they have a discord to co-ordinate the 2 different Alliances they fall on, the 2 guide teams will not attack each other more often than not, they will gang up on and pincer the non guided team repeatedly.
If say, a crystal, is up, then they will go to town on each other but if the non guided team shows up, they stop and focus that team instead of each other. (Bar the few outliers who don't follow instructions or want to finish what they see as an easy kill).
The sad part is, when these guides are not active, Frontlines isn't active, nobody on OCE will even queue up for the entire day and the moment these guides say goodbye for the night, that's the end of frontlines for the day outright.

Its frustrating, but it shows a real issue with DRKs that they can pull so many people in and kill them with ease. I have been in the middle of one of these pulls at full health with my guard up and i still dropped in what felt like a single hit.

I guess im just a bit bitter as a DNC, I see so many durable jobs, with high damage and in some cases even one hit kill moves or procs, while im not aloud defense, damage, nor even healing and only have a LB most people ignore lol. Worst part about our LB is, we dont even have to be stunned for it to be cancelled, just moved from our position, say by a DRK.
Im getting better at zipping in and out and being opportunistic, but unless I have help, I'm not going to get anyone down, i just don't have the damage to do so while the enemy is also popping their heal everyone gets.
I was told today that DNC never gets buffed because SE thinks its balanced, i fail to see what's balanced about DNC in PvP compared to, pretty much every other job lol.

Still, as long as there's no DRK;s in CC, or i don't get 5v1, I can do ok as a distraction or crystal pusher. But that is all.

From my perspective, every job got a scoop of icecream, they may not all like the flavor they were given, but DNC was given a scoop of yellow snow and told "Good enough, this is fine." I know thing's wont change, but well, can always wish they would lol.

[Towa-Musa]

they should just bring back fast KOs.