PCT PVP

[SeaJae]

6) Honorable mention: Motif selection. Some players I respect who've tried to like PCT have suggested something that allows you to more deterministically paint the motif you'd want for the situation. This is akin to some MCH players wanting the ability to skip (to?) certain tools in their cycle. I do not know exactly how you'd implement this for PCT. If I understand one friend's more detailed suggestion correctly, they'd like a button with a long cooldown (60s or whatever) that allows you to press it numerous times to cycle to a "free use" of any muse, that probably wouldn't apply to your mog sketches. I'd imagine it would cycle your current motif button and just highlight as a "proc" to consume, and upon consuming it, the 60s cooldown would start and you'd have to repaint your next motif as normal, but consuming the proc wouldn't use one of your two charges, probably? I also don't know whether it should skip you to the one after using the proc or if it should return you to your cycle or restart your cycle. I just figured I'd mention it because again, these are nebulous desires from some players who want to like PCT, who I consider good PvPers, but they aren't necessarily well thought out. For me, it's not too important. I understand it, though. I personally like lining up pom muse with my LB. That's not always possible. It'd be nice if it was.

I think most other commonly suggested buffs to this job would make games unfun or would make it a little too crazy. The job is very close to being very good. I've tried to suggest things that genuinely improve QoL, and tried to identify avenues for making it more of a threat (while keeping its strong support capabilities) when it comes to being left alone as opposed to bursting people who are vulnerable/making them vulnerable, which it is already good enough at. As mentioned in my first post, the job is at the mercy of the players and the jobs of those players. It's not as resilient to soloQ aspects as other jobs. It is also less forgiving throwing your damage into guards or padding your damage than pretty much every other job. Throwing away your comets and your muses hurts. Your targets have to be purposeful. For LP play I've heard there's some PCT compositions to apply massive vulns and global your call targets. I don't do LP but that sounds about right.

[Valence]

Another idea I had was that with picto being rather niche your team mates might not always know your about your kit's utility so it ends up being underused. Many may not be aware of clawed muse's debuff or chocobustion's healing buff & damage reduction and star prism's damage buff and heal for example.

It's generally not on other players to try and keep track of everything of the four other players do at all times unless you're literally a machine. It's the same thing with MCH chainsaw for example: you cannot expect people to immediately notice as soon as the vuln debuff goes up on enemies to take advantage of it, and even if they had noticed, perhaps their attack options aren't ready yet. Generally you just want to use those either for yourself and your own benefit to buff your own following attacks, or you want to use it on primary targets called for burst because odds are that allies are going to burst down that target and take advantage of the damage vuln for example. It's not that different from a stun move.

Hm, could you elaborate on the emphasised parts? Because I'm not sure if we actually disagree or if we might just misunderstand each other. Perhaps I just phrased my original point badly.

A hard counter means that it will shut down something so completely that it makes it 100% ineffective, or even a detriment.
DNC before using LB has not only to care for positioning and stealth (if it's too obvious you're going to get bursted down), but it also needs to keep track of the state of every ally and enemy and especially their LBs. Spite, Seiton, Zantetsuken, Meteodrive, Sky Shatter, Tenebrum, Phalanx, Living Dead, Celestial River, Southern Cross, Mesotes, Contradance, are all hard counters to Contradance (the ones in bold the most unforgiving).

[Loggos]

It's generally not on other players to try and keep track of everything of the four other players do at all times unless you're literally a machine. It's the same thing with MCH chainsaw for example: you cannot expect people to immediately notice as soon as the vuln debuff goes up on enemies to take advantage of it, and even if they had noticed, perhaps their attack options aren't ready yet. Generally you just want to use those either for yourself and your own benefit to buff your own following attacks, or you want to use it on primary targets called for burst because odds are that allies are going to burst down that target and take advantage of the damage vuln for example. It's not that different from a stun move.

Ah but that's not what I wanted to say. Of course I don't expect people to track everything (I can't do that myself even remotely) but I think knowing what a class does in general can still have an impact. If I know how bard's buff or PLD's LB work for example I can stick closer to them (esp. if they call out their LB is ready) since I have some general awareness of what they do. Even if I don't track their party buffs meticulously there's a chance I'll benefit from them more often. Or if I know how SAM's LB works I can try to track their LB status and chiiten. Even if I don't manage to do it all the time I might still avoid it more often.


So if people know what chocobastion does for example they might stand in it more often or run in there specifically for healing. And if they know picto's LB comes with a damage buff they might stick closer to me if I call that my LB is ready/if they see chocobastion is up.

As for clawed muse I also don't think it's on people to track it of course. Rather, if they happen to notice the icon here and there, knowing what it is might benefit them because then they can decide if they want to capitalise on it (e.g. switch targets). If they notice it but don't know what it does then that option isn't even there.

A hard counter means that it will shut down something so completely that it makes it 100% ineffective, or even a detriment.
DNC before using LB has not only to care for positioning and stealth (if it's too obvious you're going to get bursted down), but it also needs to keep track of the state of every ally and enemy and especially their LBs. Spite, Seiton, Zantetsuken, Meteodrive, Sky Shatter, Tenebrum, Phalanx, Living Dead, Celestial River, Southern Cross, Mesotes, Contradance, are all hard counters to Contradance (the ones in bold the most unforgiving).

Ok, I see what you are getting at. I think I made my previous point badly because I really don't mean to undermine all the considerations dancers have to make.

I would argue some of these considerations picto has to make too (for example I also want to keep track of my allies' and enemies' LBs so I can buff as many of my team's LBs but also potentially counter enemy LBs with star prism's heals - or not waste it when the enemies are phalanxed or celestial-rivered).

But I understand that even if I don't track these things and/or my team is not in reach I can still get some utility out of the buffs and attack on my own in a way dancer (probably) can't.

What eases the burden on picto a lot compared to dancer is the fact that I have a "two part" LB. The thing I bemoan (having to "throw" half of my LB away) is also what allows me to get at least something out of it in situations that might be impossible for dancers. So whereas dancers always have to go all in I can reduce my personal risk if I decide not to use my LB at its full potential.

So I agree, whenever I choose the "weaker" route I can be a lot more lenient with positioning (while also saving purify) and need to take fewer variables into account because I can cast my LB behind corners or some steps away from the point.

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However the downside of this (and that is what I was trying to say) is that this results in you rarely (if ever) using your LB at its full potential.
Whereas to my understanding, as tricky as it is for dancers, they do manage to cast their full LB within enemy groups now and then.

My theory/assumption was that while pictos have a much easier time with their “partial LB”, trying to go for their full LB might be slightly more punishing for them than for dancers.

So my (perhaps flawed) point was dancers can’t “choose” their risk and always have a high risk but also a (somewhat?) realistic chance to cast their full LB. (Though I completely understand that dancer LB is probably in a very frustrating and unfair state nonetheless, esp. after 7.1, and I don’t want to downplay this at all.)
Pictos on the other hand can choose their risk but it’s either relatively low risk with considerably less pay-off or it’s so high that the chance of successfully pulling off your full LB might be even lower than dancers’, hence in the high risk case you also have considerably less – or no – pay-off.
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If I were to cast my LB within the enemy team (e.g. if I try to place it on the crystal) then I would argue at least some of the things you have mentioned above would also counter picto in their own ways. In fact (though I assume this is something picto and dancer share to a degree) the animation lock is so long you don't even need an LB as a hard-counter in that case. A coordinated team is enough and you lose everything without a single gain.
At the same time the only thing your enemy team would need a hard counter for in the first place (since your passive chocobo field just dies with you) is star prism (big aoe damage + heal + buff). But since it's so easy to kill a picto with regular attacking before they even get to casting star prism you rarely even need to think about hard-countering picto LBs if they are daring (or silly) enough to cast chocobastion in close/immediate enemy range.

So even if I do manage to cast chocobastion on the point it's very easy to be taken out right afterwards - so you still lose everything, even if you are successful, because now chocobastion is gone and you lost starprism too.

I might have this wrong so please correct me but if as a dancer you die late in your animation/after your animation does the charmed status persist? Or is it immediately removed with your death?
Because I was under the (wrong?) assumption that enemies stay charmed if you die, so if you get killed after LBing your team might still gain something from the remaining charmed debuff.

Of course you are right, dancers are still exposed to many risks after successfully LBing but even if you don't catch every enemy, I assume catching some of them will still result in somewhat less damage received and in some team benefit (provided your team is coordinated around you)?

[Valence]

It probably suffers from the fate of all red ranged jobs. There is almost none played seriously at high crystal rating for a reason. Add to it that it's probably one of the hardest casters and it adds up. But, to give credit where credit is due, there is one PCT on EU that is within the top 10, and mad respect for it.

I cannot agree with the comparison with contradance though. Chocobastion isn't hard countered by 80% of the LBs in existence for starters. Chocobastion requires a tenth of the considerations that Contradance does, and Contra will rarely if ever catch all the opponents so you'll keep eating damage after, and you'll be half naked because already low HP and out of purify. But this doesn't detract for the points you made that the animation may be too long, etc. I'm not enough qualified in PCT to judge on my end.

[SweetPete]

It probably suffers from the fate of all red ranged jobs. There is almost none played seriously at high crystal rating for a reason. Add to it that it's probably one of the hardest casters and it adds up. But, to give credit where credit is due, there is one PCT on EU that is within the top 10, and mad respect for it.

I cannot agree with the comparison with contradance though. Chocobastion isn't hard countered by 80% of the LBs in existence for starters. Chocobastion requires a tenth of the considerations that Contradance does, and Contra will rarely if ever catch all the opponents so you'll keep eating damage after, and you'll be half naked because already low HP and out of purify. But this doesn't detract for the points you made that the animation may be too long, etc. I'm not enough qualified in PCT to judge on my end.

Yeah we have some very good PCTs on NA as well. Very few but some nonetheless.

[Loggos]

Very happy to see activation changes to Holy in White and Chocobastion. I hope the former is a meaningful speed boost to the heal and I'm praying the LB mention means the animation lock is not as long anymore.

Curious to see what the Black Comet changes will bring. Whereas I did say I want Black Comets to be just a bit faster/snappier I hope it doesn't mean they can't be comboed with muse oGCDs anymore.

But all in all, on paper it looks like the changes could be promising.

[SeaJae]

Curious to see what the Black Comet changes will bring. Whereas I did say I want Black Comets to be just a bit faster/snappier I hope it doesn't mean they can't be comboed with muse oGCDs anymore.

It's probably donezo if they sped up comet even a little bit. I think the gimmick was already ping-dependent. That being said, it only matters for 2 of the 4 muses. You can still stack the damage on the other two and not "lose" benefit since they don't give things to buff the comet. I'm curious how all the speed ups will affect the 'lower winrate" of the job they have been seeing. Depending on the actual changes they made to the LB animation, that might be the most impactful yet.

Edit: I'll be honest, I cannot tell on first glance the difference of any of the hit detection changes this patch. Everything feels and works as it did before the patch for PCT.

[Loggos]

Edit: I'll be honest, I cannot tell on first glance the difference of any of the hit detection changes this patch. Everything feels and works as it did before the patch for PCT.

Oh ok that is kind of unexpected. O_o
No changes to Black Comet may be a blessing then, but no changes to the LB and perhaps Holy's healing is kinda sad.

It's probably donezo if they sped up comet even a little bit. I think the gimmick was already ping-dependent. That being said, it only matters for 2 of the 4 muses. You can still stack the damage on the other two and not "lose" benefit since they don't give things to buff the comet. I'm curious how all the speed ups will affect the 'lower winrate" of the job they have been seeing. Depending on the actual changes they made to the LB animation, that might be the most impactful yet.

That's a good point. Perhaps I have bad ping because the combo still worked for me even when I buffed black comet with winged muse's speed buff (speed buff --> black comet --> clawed muse --> black comet + clawed muse hit simultaneously and black comet is also buffed by clawed muse). That's pre 7.2 though, I haven't tried it out yet today.

Was it possible to align clawed muse and black comet like this with good ping?

[Loggos]

Ok, I've tried picto now and I don't notice any changes either. It's a bummer wrt the LB and white comet but all in all perhaps this is for the better because if they don't change anything they also can't make anything worse. So with picto being in a decent state already I don't think the non-update is really bad.