Thoughts on Red Sands?

[VoidsentStatus]

I've never been especially bothered by this personally, but I know that the lack of cover is going to drive a lot of complaints, both from melees and ranged, as seen in C9 already.

My own concern is that insanely long HoT area which I really, really don't like at least at first glance. This removes most options of going through any other path seeing how powerful this is. You can even imagine camping the enemy team right at the exit of the quicksands, and if they dare take another path to not fall right into your camp, you'll still have the huge regen advantage for 30s and they won't, and with that potency, perhaps I'm clueless, but I feel like it's a game changer on the level of a SCH LB or more.

I'd have been happier with this only activating during the environmental heat event or something (run to safety here or suffer through it)...

Edit: another concern being the sheer distance between the final checkpoints and the team spawn points, this seriously limits the defender's advantage, but perhaps on the other end will just end games that are already lost more quickly?

It's only a game changer for gold/plat and below rankings on EU and NA (I'm going to pretend OCE doesn't exist) because most of the general population is trash and doesn't know how to play with their team and burst a target properly. In Diamond+ rankings, killing someone within 3-4s is common so at best you have 7500 extra health assuming it ticks mid-burst. On JP, even in casuals people listen to calls and know how to burst so they won't have this issue. Your team should only be attacking one person at a time so multiple people having regen isn't important since they'll be high on health full mana likely anyway. Even if you have 4 people camping the quicksand, you take the other route and your team bursts whoever is alone on the crystal since they're likely going to be out of the line of sight/range of their teammates depending on exact locations.

[Valence]

It's only a game changer for gold/plat and below rankings on EU and NA (I'm going to pretend OCE doesn't exist) because most of the general population is trash and doesn't know how to play with their team and burst a target properly. In Diamond+ rankings, killing someone within 3-4s is common so at best you have 7500 extra health assuming it ticks mid-burst. On JP, even in casuals people listen to calls and know how to burst so they won't have this issue. Your team should only be attacking one person at a time so multiple people having regen isn't important since they'll be high on health full mana likely anyway. Even if you have 4 people camping the quicksand, you take the other route and your team bursts whoever is alone on the crystal since they're likely going to be out of the line of sight/range of their teammates depending on exact locations.

And you think even one single tick of 7500 additional health is a joke? Are you telling me that any heal (recuperate, healers, etc) in the game is a joke?

Having a quasi perma regen is not important? What? You know that's literally a hard counter to scholar dots? Or general AoE pressure? I understand that the meta is all about burst, and that's what matters the most, but you're dreaming if you think that a burst is always done in a perfect vacuum, deleting people one after another methodically with them not defending themselves or zooming away. Pvp is way messier than this idealistic view.

Also why would there be someone else alone on the crystal if the team stays together?

[VoidsentStatus]

*

I don't think, I know it's a joke. Go to Mana or Gaia on JP and get to Diamond rank and then come back to the forums and tell me you can't be bursted within 2-3s consistently for the entire match. There is no defending yourself against people that actually know what they're doing. There is no zooming away. On JP, by the time I hit Diamond, I was getting killed in <1s consistently. You will die before you can get an animation off after purify, you can horrid roar the entire team as DRG for a 50% damage reduction and still die before a polymorph wears off. Every single WHM LB, Every MNK LB, Every MCH LB will be combo'd with some other team member to full life you with 0 counterplay and you will have to deal with that potentially 10+ times in a match, consistently. When I say NA and EU is trash, I mean I can go into Casuals on Mana and find regular unranked people better than Gold and Plat. They play the game fundamentally different to the point other data regions look like they're toddlers playing with Lego's without a context of what they're supposed to build. You're just clanking pieces of a pvp kit against each other and having fun, but you don't understand the full potential of what you have yet.

That aside, If a WHM and AST healer can't save you, that heal ain't doing nothing. That heal isn't stopping a DRG+RDM LB full life of 3 people on your team. That heal isn't going to let you 3v5 the enemy team and not lose crystal progress. That doesn't stop the triple WHM LB's. That doesn't stop the Ninja rampaging with Death Link. That doesn't stop the double and triple kill Samurai's. It might help you barely live if you're 1v1'ing a MNK trying to LB combo you because the damage is delayed, but that's not going to stop high ranking people from being wiped and getting wipes to push the crystal. The majority of crystal movement isn't done in skirmishes, it's done once 2 or more people are dead, which happens mostly from LB's in high rankings. All they did was give you a pocket semi-nerfed AST on your team, so anyone used to bursting through AST heals isn't going to care about that HoT. If you're used to dealing with 2-3 healer comps, you're not going to care.

Yes, it's a counter to scholar dots, but scholar dots never did anything regardless damage wise.They're just padded aoe damage for the scorecard like the SMN aoe field.

And the reason someone has to be alone on the crystal is because that's the main route. Who cares about the enemy team camping your spawn if the crystal isn't moving. They're going to have to leave that healing area to be close enough to the crystal path to actively fight. At which point, either bursting efficiently or guard stalling can run out the clock as counters and the ranged members of your team will be able to go and pick up the HoT mid-fight while still contributing enough. It's mainly melee's that would be out of position from having to go and pick it up mid-fight.