DRK AST premade issue. one trick pony strategy

[Yukimin]

So basically we have 1 DRK and 3 AST premades, and all those people do every day is do Salted Earth followed by Macrocosm.
Literally the only thing I see every day, every match, the same lame strategy every time. DRK dives in, press their vacuum cleaner ability while his AST buddies press a single button killing everyone.
I think it's about to time outright remove Salted Earth or at the very least remove the draw-in effect it has because Jesus Christ, a single job shouldn't change how FL plays out every match.

I may as well be shouting at the sky but I'm sure I'm not the only person extremely not satisfied with the current state of Frontline.
Salted Earth > 3x Macrocosm > Rinse and Repeat
That's it, that's what Frontline is today, people doing this obnoxious strategy that only requires just a very few button presses then they think they're hot shit for padding out their damage and K/D ratio in the scoreboard afterwards. But I'm sure we'll be forced to play like this until Square Enix wakes up in a year and realize how bad it really is.

TL;DR
Remove Salted Earth or its draw-in effect as most of FL balancing problems can be attributed to this single obnoxious ability.

[Mawlzy]

As you'll see from other recent threads, you're not the only person complaining about this, but unfortunately there's by no means a consensus. My own frustration with the current situation means I've gone from > 15 hrs/week FL to 0 for the moment. A steady stream of the 2nd and 3rd place teams on Onsal struggling to reach 700 just sucked the fun out of it.

It's unfortunate we don't (apparently) have the opportunity for play-testing or a test server to address these issues empirically. I would guess, for example, that changing the current queue in FL to solo-only might be basically a flick of a switch. If we could play FL for a week under those conditions, I think we could determine whether premades are the primary problem (as I suspect). If nothing improves, I'll quit yapping and many of the other interesting solutions could be tried.

[maximesan514]

Square enix does not care. They are too busy making more merch to milk the beyond ff14 simpin wage slaves. Just do like me and stop playing. Maybe we get something better in 7.0 but I would set expectation to a solid 0 if I was you.

[EZGIL]

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

The issue is not Salted Earth existing, it is Salted Earth existing with no drawback at 6 or more targets. The second issue is Macrocosmos existing with 12000 base damage rather than the 8000 it was supposed to stay at.

Stop suggesting stupid changes like removing Salted Earth, it is a normal ability in the mode it is intended in. Removing the draw-in in general would cripple the ability, so ask for changes suited for large-scale PvP. Also seriously, Macrocosmos should not do this much damage for a 15y radius (!!) oGCD.

Suggested changes
DRK
- Salted Earth:-80%/-90%/-100% draw-in effect on target #6 or more
[Reasoning] Salted Earth needs no global change, only one that affects Frontlines and Rival Wings. The ability is less broken than you think it is. Gravity II change also brings the ability usecase in line with WHM's Afflatus Misery.

AST
- Macrocosmos: base damage 12000 -> 8000 (revert to old damage)
- Gravity II (non-Doublecast): 8000 -> 12000
[Reasoning] Keeps overall burst potential of AST the same on 5y radius / single-target and nerfs the 15y radius nuke it currently is.

[IDontPetLalas]

The issue is not Salted Earth existing, it is Salted Earth existing with no drawback at 6 or more targets. The second issue is Macrocosmos existing with 12000 base damage rather than the 8000 it was supposed to stay at.

Stop suggesting stupid changes like removing Salted Earth, it is a normal ability in the mode it is intended in. Removing the draw-in in general would cripple the ability, so ask for changes suited for large-scale PvP. Also seriously, Macrocosmos should not do this much damage for a 15y radius (!!) oGCD.

Suggested changes
DRK
- Salted Earth:-80%/-90%/-100% draw-in effect on target #6 or more
[Reasoning] Salted Earth needs no global change, only one that affects Frontlines and Rival Wings. The ability is less broken than you think it is. Gravity II change also brings the ability usecase in line with WHM's Afflatus Misery.

AST
- Macrocosmos: base damage 12000 -> 8000 (revert to old damage)
- Gravity II (non-Doublecast): 8000 -> 12000
[Reasoning] Keeps overall burst potential of AST the same on 5y radius / single-target and nerfs the 15y radius nuke it currently is.

I do agree that the issue is the number of targets for DRKs (as well as some other jobs).

Regarding AST - I see why you are proposing those changes , however those changes would also impact healing and from what I can see that would mean that AST would have both less AOE damage than a WHM and less AOE healing (I'm not considering their LBs), so that would be a "no" from me.

[Yukimin]

The issue is not Salted Earth existing, it is Salted Earth existing with no drawback at 6 or more targets. The second issue is Macrocosmos existing with 12000 base damage rather than the 8000 it was supposed to stay at.

Stop suggesting stupid changes like removing Salted Earth, it is a normal ability in the mode it is intended in. Removing the draw-in in general would cripple the ability, so ask for changes suited for large-scale PvP. Also seriously, Macrocosmos should not do this much damage for a 15y radius (!!) oGCD.

Suggested changes
DRK
- Salted Earth:-80%/-90%/-100% draw-in effect on target #6 or more
[Reasoning] Salted Earth needs no global change, only one that affects Frontlines and Rival Wings. The ability is less broken than you think it is. Gravity II change also brings the ability usecase in line with WHM's Afflatus Misery.

AST
- Macrocosmos: base damage 12000 -> 8000 (revert to old damage)
- Gravity II (non-Doublecast): 8000 -> 12000
[Reasoning] Keeps overall burst potential of AST the same on 5y radius / single-target and nerfs the 15y radius nuke it currently is.

No I won't stop suggesting that because Salted Earth sucks as it is. Your job identity revolves on using Plunge, Salted Earth on a group of people who can barely see that coming in the midst of name blobs unless the DRK is marked. I have no issue with it in CC but on FL it's so unbalanced it's not even funny, it's just a dumb ability where people with strong aoes use to take advantage of it.
Salted Earth must lose it's draw-in or be outright removed since this single ability makes Frontline awful to play.
"It's less broken than you think it is"
lol no. It's responsible for most of the awful metas you see pop up and needs to go.

Why did you post that .gif symbolizing Dark Knights when people call out their one trick pony playstyle that they repeat ad nauseum?

[Araxes]

My Wife and i also play less and less because we ALWAYS have a DRK/AST/DRG premade and you just die in the draw-in movement THROUGH shield cause somehow the delay counts the AST/DRG damage before the shield mitigation.
We try to play a few Games and when we see premades we usually stop, wich is currently, always.

[VictorSpoils]

It's a premade/zerg issue, not just DRK/AST. Many other job combos shred though entire teams just as efficiently. There were several DRK/AST on our side today joking around about how it's the "meta" now...before promptly finishing with zero kills because there was, per usual, no coordination. Problem is these guys think they can just queue up as DRK, put a marker on themselves, and that's good enough to win. It's never the case.

also, literally™

[Zeastria]

- Add CC immunity after first CC ( prevent chain cc)
- Salted Earth : Remove/rework the draw in effect ( animation lock is the issue here).