Feedback on Frontline balance – tanks are too oppressive

[Ankhira]

Let me start by saying that my PvP experience in this game is focused entirely on Frontline. I don’t enjoy or participate in Crystalline Conflict, so my perspective is shaped by frontline and only covers frontline.

I began PvP at the end of Shadowbringers, and while I’ve not been a fan of the changes introduced since Endwalker, I understand that preferences vary some players enjoy the new direction, others don’t.

That said, there’s one issue that continues to keep being unaddressed: tanks are overwhelmingly dominant in Frontline.

Dark Knight, Gunbreaker (since 7.3), and Warrior have consistently remained oppressive. In fact, they were even buffed in the most recent patch. It’s hard to grasp how it’s considered balanced to give these jobs:

- Massive crowd control

- High health pools

- High damage output

- Strong mitigation

- And in some cases, reliable self-healing (Not counting the big heal button everyone has)

There are moments where five players are fighting a single Gunbreaker, and yet that Gunbreaker manages to escape. That's not balance.

Since the launch of patch 7.3, PvP has felt less enjoyable than ever to me and that’s saying something, considering the metas we’ve seen before. Right now, it feels like tank spam wins games, and the team with the most tanks has a clear advantage.

It’s also not a good look when most people’s first interaction with PvP is Frontline, and it remains in such a poor state balance-wise. It discourages players from engaging with PvP beyond the daily roulette.

What’s weird to me is how quickly other jobs have been adjusted, Scholar and Summoner were nerfed swiftly when they overperformed, and melee jobs were buffed when they were too squishy. Yet tanks seem to be exempt from this level of balancing. Why? You've shown you are willing to make specific changes to Frontline in the past so the whole "We balance around Crystaline Conflict" is not solid reasoning I think.

If tanks are going to have high damage and crowd control, they shouldn’t also have top-tier survivability. Alternatively, if they’re meant to be durable frontliners, then their damage and CC should be toned down. They shouldn’t excel at both.

I know not everyone will agree with me, and that’s okay. All I ask is that we keep the conversation respectful. It’s fine to disagree, but let’s avoid personal attacks or insults toward those who share different opinions.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

[Atreus]

It really comes down to the Job Modifiers shown in the FL pages, because all of the jobs you listed get blown up same as everyone else in Crystalline Conflict.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...e/frontline/3/

Frontline has been forcefully designed so that you're constantly fighting massive blobs of people, necessitating these massive job modifiers. I don't agree with job balancing around Frontline, because Frontline itself has been poorly designed for a long time.

[Valence]

I completely agree, there is a reason tanks and a couple of melees always form the backbone of any competent group. DRK has stepped back a little considering it's become almost as brittle as a DNC/RDM in FLs, but it still provides invaluable tools. Rampart is an invuln button, and Rampage breaks the mode when combined to AoE kitchen sinks.

[theunhappypotato]

cause Tanks are the best

[Commander_Justitia]

24 tanks would win every frontline match, just by battle high and never dying

[Polaritie]

It doesn't help that it's basically impossible to stop a DRK from engaging and pulling everyone in, or to punish them afterwards.

[Akimitsu]

I think you have to take a lot of things in consideration before saying tanks are too opressive (while I don't disagree), if they weren't opressive FL would be in an even more sorry state than it is at the moment.
Strictly speaking for FL too; GNB overperforms because of Nebula, the effect lasts way too long and PLD is in a weird spot because it does high damage but nerfing it (as seen before) quickly makes it too weak. PLD and DRK LBs also last too long. I'm not a rampart user, I prefer rampage but I absolutely agree with the fact that (taking into account the point I'm making next) rampart lasts too long and is too strong.

That being said, if the tanks were to lose their current staying power and without adjustments to other offenders (BRD and WHM notably) FL would devolve into something really stupid. Ever since the absurd change to purify that no one asked for, people on NA and JP have been clamoring for the removal of MP drain or making purify last longer, only to fall on deaf ears as so many complaints do with this game. I play WAR a lot, and hell, even when I play melee, you get close to a crowd, eat 2 polys or 2 brd LBs, get pushed back (if you're lucky) and it's really not fun, just stress. Tanks are meant to create openings, if they can't even stay on the frontlines for a sec what's even the point?

SE likes to create issues in environments that have a semblance of balance for the sake of "shaking it up" only to then make bad changes, that they are too stubborn to go back on, instead resorting to patching the issues with things that create other issues.

[IceEyes]

This is some kind of joke? Probably i didnt play on right DC, but FL after all patches get 0 changes.
The vast majority of players preferred ranged combat jobs, or someone that easily rack up kills, like nin or monk. Until I see all alliances consistently consist of at least a third tanks and healers, for me, such theses are empty words.

The most of players are still being squeezed out by one premade, whom well played and sync theire burst AoE dmg in one target.
Tanks may be damn good on paper, but in practice almost no one plays around them. And even more so, no one will play around their suppression.

If you are a lone tank, in theoretical 70% of cases, even a сlean initiation with drop a full rotation and lb will be ignored by your team, preferring a pew-pew random tab tragets or licking ice.

[Valence]

The reason most people play ranged isn't because ranged is better (although with the purify changes it's starting to shift for sure), but because most casual players can't play melee efficiently and just die. This is why SE constantly keeps melees incredibly strong in the hands of good players, so that the majority of FL players can still try and play them. But this results in good, skilled organized groups to abuse of this.

We're starting to see a lot of anti ranged complaints because we're slowly going back toward a loss of melee power recently with the changes (especially for the reasons brought up by Akimitsu above), but tanks are still incredibly batshit since the addition of game breaking role actions like Rampage or Rampart imo. And again this goes hand in hand with what I said above, there is a reason those melee role actions are crazy good especially because tanks have no zoom out options (unlike most melees but sam), and this messes with casuals too much.

That casual / skilled player divided has always been a balancing nightmare in FL.

[Commander_Justitia]

One could think the devs know their playerbase are casual players, that never would touch melee jobs, cause they get scared by getting hit.
Unless that changes, there is not much need to fix. Unless you show them how strong tank/melee grps are by playing and abusing it.

In general - the role action button was a good step in the right direction, that enables separation from CC and frontline mode. Which is what PvP really needs to be balanced better in frontline.
But why just 1 skill? They could give each mode 3-5 slots to pick from like 10 potential skills.
Current PvP skills often do 2-3 things at once, they are cc, they are offensive burst skills, they are defensive mitigation/healing skills - all in 1 single skill. Just take out the defensive part, make it and optional skill to pick from.
They need to split this up. Go wild.

Also think removal of TP was a mistake for PvP. Now you have purify and recuperate both consuming MP. May be better to reverse purify change. Not sure.