Shadowbringers brought AoE, because they needed AoE in Frontline. That is the whole issue in the end. They make PvP for 2 modes, because they wanted to keep it simple and casual. Ignoring that the most fun players had, was when PvP wasn't simple. It was the beginning of the end. Making room for AoE skills, while removing single target skills that created more depth and complexity in gameplay.
Some other guy mentioned the tournament, I have said it like a year ago - the moment they announced it, you knew PvP won't change much gameplay wise anymore this addon. We have the next addon in half a year, they will add the new lvl 99/100 skills to the PvP rotation and remove some older ones again and probably call it a day.
I think the current mode is more "fun" for casuals, because the problem of Shadowbringers PvP was, that it got extremely predictable and boring. You had little CC, little big dmg skills, little regular offensive and defensive buffs. But as I said before, I don't think it is suitable for a Ranked mode, because of the RNG/Lag/snapshot dependence on some skills and how some limit breaks work. In older PvP you were able to carry your team to victory easily as a good player, now it wouldn't be rare to lose more games in the casual queue than in the top100 crystalqueue - why is that so?
In my opinion, they should split up Frontline and Arena PvP. Bring back PvP traits like we had them during ARR and HW. Let players make "talenttrees" of them, depending which mode they join, one of them activates automatically. PvP needs to stop catering to casual players so damn much. Stop rewarding inaction and losing in PvP so much. Add diminishing returns perks for CC in Frontline maybe even.
- I feel like the current gunsblazing PvP system would have worked better in a true "Arena" mode - similar to The Fold. Get in, unleash hell, and out. Win or lose and be done.
- The more tactical aspect of PvP would belong into the Feast era. 4 players - Heal, Tank, Melee, Range. More calculated, less RNG, more endurance/sustain focused, less crits/less LB memes.
- Current PvP system can be viable in Frontline, Rival Wings if there are additions to the gameplay that are Frontline specific.
So, make traits interesting, let players have 2 or 3 presets of them, mode dependent.
And I don't mean this meaningless shit that was barely optional, unless you wanted to be a special gardengnome.
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I mean the real shit.
Each "Enhanced XXX" was 1 Perk in the skill. Could make them even more interesting than just "more potency" and less "recast time". And let us pick more than 1 or 2.... We are not little kids who cant think what button to press, when we have more than 6 on our hotbar.
We went from this
to this...
Find the middle ground in the number of skills! And buff blackmage.