PvP is a very reactive mode where you and other players may face a wide variety of combat scenarios; although similar situations may arise, it is very rare that there exists the optimal, one-size-fits-all solution. While this guide may give insight on common plays, it is important to note that you should improvise when needed.
In a similar preface, you, as well as many other players, may struggle sometimes to find the ideal solution, resulting in losses. Although it may be frustrating in hindsight, it is normal for mistakes to happen and to take breaks as to not allow emotions to cloud your judgement and future matches – as much as PvP is a competitive mode, it is still important for you and your team to be cooperative (even with a lack of free chat in Crystalline Conflict).
It is important to note that some factors cannot be controlled by you; your teammates. Because the game chooses at random on who goes on what team, you may have matches of extremes where you may face a sweeping loss, an easy win, matches ending as quickly as they started or prolonged. No matter the conditions of the match, it is still a good idea to take breaks when needed and to continue performing the best decisions possible at the time, as more practice will make you more experienced on how to make your plays.
PvP Modes
There are three modes in PvP: a 5v5 mode in the form of Crystalline Conflict, a 24v24 mode in the form of Rival Wings, and finally, a 24v24v24 big-scale battle mode in the form of Frontline. It is very important to note that all jobs are balanced for Crystalline Conflict. This means there will be disparities and less preferable jobs in the bigger-scale PvP modes, but all jobs are still viable, though may be harder to execute.
Job Identities
This section is written in the lens of Crystalline Conflict. Although some concepts may apply to bigger scale PvP modes, it is important to note that the high density of players and thus viability of jobs will very greatly.
Unlike in PvE, job roles are not to be taken literally – while they do elude a bit to their general playstyle, all jobs will play differently compared to each other. It also not imperative that a group have healers or tanks to win matches. Below are sections giving a general playstyle on what to expect from each job, whether if you are playing as them or against them, going into Crystalline Conflict.
Paladins are excellent frontliners, support, and utility. Shield Smite and Guardian are the highlights of their toolkit. Paladins, however, lack burst damage, and their damaging GCDs are locked behind Imperator. Their limit break, Phalanx is an incredibly potent tool on a two-minute timer that makes them invincible and grants high damage reduction to allies.
Holy Sheltron is able to grant mitigation or a huge damage and crowd-control AoE with a damage boost.
Shield Smite allows them to be able to halve the defensive bonus of Guard, allowing their group to continue focusing opponents or to force them out of play.
Imperator allows them and their teammates to sustain better, as dealing damage to an enemy hit with Imperator allows them to recover some HP.
Guardian is a gap-closer copy of Cover, allowing the paladin to take damage in place of an ally. As enemy cooldowns are typically nearly spent on the covered teammate, this action may save them from death, keeping control of the situation. Covered targets are also able to cast Elixir while covered. To read more on the extensive utility this action has, see its respective page.
Phalanx is a personal invuln and a 33% damage mitigation for nearby teammates. This heavily increases pressure on opponents, if not forces them to retreat. Guardian is especially a potent action while invincible.
Warriors are cooldown-reliant disruptors with the ability to reliably secure kills. Onslaught with Blota and Primal Rend are the highlights of their toolkit. Warriors are incredibly squishy tanks, and their ability to sustain both offensively and defensively are lacking, as they are reliant on cooldowns. Their limit break, Primal Scream, allows them to place immense pressure on opponents as it cancels the ability for them (and the warrior themselves) to use Guard while being on a 90-second timer.
Onslaught is a gap-closer that makes the target take more damage. Its duration is equal to its cooldown, meaning its debuff can be placed on enemies indefinitely, making them high-priority targets.
Blota draws a single enemy in and makes them heavy. This is potent in securing kills.
Primal Rend is a gap-closer AoE stun. Its ability to massively disrupt opponents is further rewarded by cleaving multiple enemies.
Primal Scream is a conal AoE that disables the ability for the warrior and opponents to use Guard. This greatly disrupts opponents and forces them to retreat. Executing three GCDs will grant a usage of Primal Wrath, a large point-blank AoE that binds enemies to, hopefully, secure kills.
Dark Knights are excellent frontliners that can group up opponents for the ability for teammate AoEs to cleave. Dark knights are rewarded on maintaining aggressive, but tactical strategies. Salted Earth, Plunge, and The Blackest Night are the highlights of their toolkit. As dark knights are rewarded on tactical plays, they are a high-priority for opponents to disrupt. Their tactical style also requires more attentiveness to the battlefield, also increasing their skill floor. Their limit break, Eventide, allows them to deal excellent burst damage, while also being unable to be KO'd for the duration. It is on a 2-minute timer.
Salted Earth draws all nearby enemies into it, while also giving a potent regen and damage reduction to the dark knight. Salt and Darkness can be used to keep targets within the bubble, and potentially allow for allies to cleave them.
Two charges of The Blackest Night allows for party support and personal sustain. Upon gaining Dark Arts when the shield breaks, dark knights can use Shadowbringer without consuming HP:
Shadowbringer is an oGCD that costs a significant amount of HP or Dark Arts. It grants the ability to use an attack within the Torcleaver combo, allowing for superb single-target DPS, especially at lower health.
Plunge is a gap-closer that applies Sole Survivor. When the target afflicted with it is KO'd, the recast timer of Plunge is reset, while also recovering HP and MP. It is imperative that dark knights properly execute this action to sustain longer in fights.
Eventide deals more damage at high health in a line in front and behind. It can be used for a very high burst of damage after pulling enemies with Salted Earth. It also grants access to Disesteem, another line AoE GCD.
Gunbreakers are excellent single-target bruisers with good sustain. They especially excel in disrupting backlining jobs, weakening a single target, and like with dark knight, excel in establishing a frontline. Fated Circle and their Continuation abilities are the highlights of their toolkit. Gunbreakers, while they can do good amounts of sustained damage, struggle with burst damage. Because of Nebula, it is highly incentivized to not attack them. They are largely ignored as a result, and also lack crowd-control abilities. Their limit break, Relentless Rush, allows them to maintain direct pressure by increasing damage opponents take, followed with a stun. It is on a 1-minute timer.
Multiple charges of Rough Divide incentivizes gunbreakers to remain on enemies, while giving them a plethora of buffs to ensure they are hard to peel away.
Fated Circle allows for a usage of Fated Brand, which grants a sizeable shield and applies heavy to targets. They also counter enemy attacks through the buff Nebula, which discourages enemies to hit them.
All abilities executed with Continuation grant a stacking shield to the gunbreaker. These shields make gunbreakers last longer, but does not last long, however.
White Mages excel in raw power, whether it may be through healing or damage. Seraph Strike and the actions it grants and Miracle of Nature are the highlights of its toolkit. Their limit break, Afflatus Purgation, is a line AoE that stuns and grants a regen to the party. It is on a 60-second timer.
Seraph Strike grants a damage reduction effect to nearby members, while also giving access to Glare IV and Cure III, an incredibly powerful AoE healing action.
Miracle of Nature will severely enfeeble a target. If timed correctly, it can cancel enemy animations and attacks.
Aquaveil grants a potent shield, and if it removes a cleanseable status effect on application, doubles its strength.
Scholars engage in long term tactical plays, being able to heal over sustained periods of time while hindering opponents' capabilities of healing. Deployment Tactics, Expedient, and Chain Stratagem are the highlights of their toolkit. While scholars excel in control and damage mitigation, they have less tools to facilitate burst healing. Their limit break, Seraphism, allows them to deal AoE damage on the move and have access to one strong AoE burst heal. It is on a 90-second timer.
Astrologian is a mobile and powerful support healer, with very effective single-target burst and ability to sustain directly. Retrograde, Macrocosmos, Double Cast and its interactions are the highlights of their toolkit. As astrologians are mainly intended for support, their overall damage is generally lacking. Their limit break, Celestial River, allows them to heavy establish a frontline as it weakens melee-based jobs and massively increases damage dealt and healing received. It is on a 105-second timer.
Retrograde is similar to Hell's Ingress, in being that it dashes them forward while leaving a Pole Star, which the astrologian can dash back to instantly similar to Regress. This grants incredible survivability and mobility as it grants a shield, and can be placed to take advantage of LoS blockers, such as corners.
Macrocosmos is similar to its PvE variant in that it compiles damage taken into a heal. This allows for excellent party-wide sustain and burst-healing.
Two charges of Aspected Benefic makes it a very powerful single-target burst heal, increasing in effectiveness the lower health their target is at. When casted with Double Cast, it also grants a shield.
Sages are very mobile and offensive DPS-healers, being able to output a ton of damage and crowd-control, even surpassing DPS jobs in with their effectiveness. Phlegma III, Toxikon and Toxikon II, and Icarus are the highlights of their toolkit. Sages are very high-priority targets as they are very fragile, even as healers, and can be dangerous with their damage and crowd-control. Knowledge and execution of Kardia places them on a higher skill-floor, and may be difficult for beginners. Their limit break, Mesotes, places a circle that grants invulnerability to any party member standing within – enemies must be within the circle to deal damage to anyone within the circle. It is on a two-minute timer.
Phlegma III draws enemies into the initial target and binds them. It also grants access to , which deals high AoE damage to grouped enemies.
Kardia behaves similarly to its PvE variant, in that it heals when doing damage, albeit only with Dosis III. It instead grants a shield with Eukrasian Dosis III, which grants Addersting when broken, allowing access to Toxikon II:
Toxikon and Toxikon II increases damage enemies take. Toxikon II additionally deals greater damage, and does not require a stack of Toxikon to execute.
Mesotes, as stated before, grants invulnerability to any party member standing within. Enemies must enter the circle to damage party members, but standing within the circle makes enemies prone to additional crowd-control and take a very potent DoT. As such, this limit break establishes control in engagements.
Dragoons deal excellent AoE burst damage at mid-range, while also posessing a powerful mitigation tool to help them engage or disengage. Geirskogul and the actions it grants access to, Elusive Jump, and Horrid Roar are the highlights of their toolkit. Dragoons struggle in crowd-control, as they have no access to such abilities, and take additional damage while under the effect of Life of the Dragon, making them especially vulnerable targets. One of their biggest hits, Wyrmwind Thrust, is easily countered by close-range jobs. Outside of their bursts, dragoons deal pitiful amounts of sustained damage. Their limit break, Sky High, grants invulnerability, movement speed, and unrivalled AoE burst damage in conjunction with a potent shield when landing with Sky Shatter. It is on a 90-second timer.
Elusive Jump is a backstep, being able to cleanse both bind and heavy while also increasing movement speed. It also grants a usage of Wyrmwind Thrust, one of dragoon's biggest hits whose damage scales based on range.
Geirskogul increases all damage damage dealt and damage received, while also granting a usage of Starcross, a powerful AoE GCD. Life of the Dragon may be ended at any time with the execution of Nastrond, an oGCD whose damage is increased the lower health the target is at. Due to the amount of damage dragoons may receive while under the effect of Life of the Dragon, further emphasing proper usage of Horrid Roar:
Horrid Roar is an offensive mitigation ability, reducing the amount of damage opponents within range do to the dragoon, similar to Reprisal.
Monks have unrivalled mobility, good sustain, and are good single-target sustained DPS, as they stick onto enemies while having the ability to soak great amounts of damage. They can also shield their allies, if needed. Thunderclap, Wind's Reply, Riddle of Earth, and Phantom Rush are the highlights of their toolkit. Monks struggle in AoE crowd control, as they have little access to crowd control abilities outside of their limit break, Meteodrive, which hard-stuns a target for an extended period of time while also dealing excellent damage and bypassing Guard. It is on a 75-second timer.
Thunderclap is a gap-closer to any target on a very low cooldown, while granting a shield to themselves or on allies if targeting them.
Wind's Reply grants movement speed, and Pressure Point to targets, which deals additional damage when struck again. It also has a knockback, which may aid in allies also engaging the target if aimed correctly.
Riddle of Earth allows for damage to be compiled. Earth's Reply will heal the monk for half the compiled damage, while also dealing damage equal to quarter of the amount of damage they soaked. This allows for extended sustaining against encounters.
Phantom Rush is the final hit in their basic combo, as a reward for maintaining uptime and pressure. Its damage is buffed further through Rising Phoenix, which increases the damage of a subsequent weaponskill by 50%.
If a combo is set up correctly with Meteodrive, monks can KO any target, including tanks.
Ninjas are excellent tactical DPS and have excellent single-target burst damage. They are unrivalled in finishing off opponents. Their entire toolkit is specifically tailored to a fitting situation at hand. As ninjas are better fit to capitalize on teammates' success, they are relatively docile, especially if they must use their tools for their own recovery. Their limit break, Seiton Tenchu, allows them to instantly incapacitate any enemy whose HP is under 50%, and can be chained indefinitely if successful. It is on a 90-second timer.
The Three Mudra ninjas have grants access to a multitude of actions.
Their Raiju can allow access to two subsequent gap-closer stuns. These stuns are excellent in finishing, or helping allies to finish opponents.
deals excellent single-target burst damage.
Goka Mekkyaku is a very potent AoE dot with a big radius, helping to wittle opponents down.
Doton grants damage reduction when standing in it, and is a DoT similar to its PvE variant. Enemies standing in the Doton also take additional damage from Hollow Nozuchi when a weaponskill or other select actions are executed.
Huton grants a potent barrier, greatly increase movement speed, and a haste.
Shukuchi allows ninjas to travel a good distance and become invisible for a limited time. This helps in them getting away, or, when used offensively to begin a burst, grants access to Assassinate which ignores Guard.
Samurai are good frontliners, while also having the ability to deal excellent single-target damage. Hissatsu: Soten, Ogi Namikiri, Meikyo Shisui and Hissatsu: Chiten are the highlights of their toolkit. Their limit break, Zantetsuken, is a powerful AoE gap-closer that ignores Guard, and if the target is afflicted with Kuzushi, deals damage equal to their maximum health. It is on a 2-minute timer.
Three charges of Hissatsu: Soten while on a very short cooldown provides a lot of offensive mobility, while also granting access to more powerful actions in the basic Kasha combo with Kaiten. Hyosetsu, which is Yukikaze buffed by Kaiten, is an AoE bind.
Ogi Namikiri and Kaeshi: Namikiri are powerful hits, and when hitting multiple targets, decreases its potency but grants powerful, but short-lasting barriers.
Meikyo Shisui increases healing received and pre-emptively nullifies cleanseable status effects, making it a powerful engagement tool. It also grants access to Tendo Setsugekka and Tendo Kaeshi Setsugekka, samurai's hardest single-target hits that also heals them.
Mineuchi stuns a single target, while increasing damage dealt to them. If the target is inflicted with Kuzushi from Hissatsu: Chiten, it increases the duration:
Hissatsu: Chiten is a short-lasting mitigation tool that applies Kuzushi to targets when struck, increasing the amount of damage the samurai deals to them, and counters. If the target is under the effect of Kuzushi, Zantetsuken deals unique damage equal to targets' maximum HP that cannot be mitigated. Opponents at full HP with a barrier will survive, however.
Reapers can soak good amounts of damage and are mobile, having the ability to constantly place crowd-control effects on their targets, while having a good ability to finish opponents. Hell's Ingress, Grim Swathe, Arcane Crest and Death Warrant are the highlights of their toolkit. Reapers are lacking in damage, only having the capability to deal very high burst damage through their limit break, Tenebrae Lemurum, while also giving them good sustain and is an AoE crowd-control. It is on a 75-second timer.
Hell's Ingress is an excellent mobility tool that leaves a Hellsgate that can be teleported back to instantly through Regress. If placed and executed properly, reapers can take advantage of corners to immediately break line-of-sight, appearing to go through walls.
Arcane Crest is a powerful and long-lasting shield that grants a very strong regen to themselves and party members when broken.
Plentiful Harvest is heavy-hitting line AoE. Its potency is increased for every execution of Executioner's Guillotine, or every assist or KOs the reaper deals. It is on a very long cooldown, making its usage difficult. If the reaper is KO'd, the potency of Plentiful Harvest is reset.
Death Warrant compiles damage dealt by the reaper to a target. When the Death Warrant is served, it deals unique damage that cannot be mitigated against, allowing for extremely high extra burst damage, especially through the GCDs of Tenebrae Lemurum:
Tenebrae Lemurum is a wide crowd-control that makes targets run away from the reaper, massively controlling the tempo and turning the tide against opponents. It Enshrouds the reaper, granting them access to Lemure's Slice, a conal AoE ability that binds, and five (ideally four) usages of Void Reaping and Cross Reaping, that also heals with half the damage dealt. Like its PvE variant, Communio ends Enshroud. It also grants access to Perfectio, an AoE follow-up that incapacitates any target whose HP is under 25%.
Vipers are mobile and have notable sustain, while also having the capability of soaking damage and dealing very high AoE burst damage in the form of a parry. Snake Scales and Serpents Tail are the highlights of their toolkit. Vipers lack crowd control and burst damage, while also having a low skill-ceiling, further limiting their mileage. Their limit break, World-swallower, allows them to deal very high sustained damage that can ignore Guard. Their limit break is on a 90-second timer, but can be shortened through uptime.
Every execution of Serpent's Tail ignores Guard and adds three seconds to the limit gauge.
Two charges of Slither make viper very mobile, as it is a gap-closer on any target, while massively increasing movement speed for a short duration. This helps the viper stick onto their targets, or disengage.
Snake Scales immobilizes the viper, but grants a shield, great damage resistance, and immunity to typical crowd-control actions. If the shield is broken during this time, the next execution of Backlash will deal increased damage with a greatly increased radius, while also having a potent lifesteal.
Bards specialize in party-wide support and possess numerous crowd-control abilities, while also having AoE damage on most of their skills. The Warden's Paean, Apex Arrow, and Silent Nocturne are the highlights of their toolkit. Their limit break, Final Fantasia, greatly buffs teammates and increases the rate of which their limit gauge increases, while massively draining MP resources of enemies. It is on a 2-minute timer. All of these buffs and crowd-control abilities bards possess make them a very high-priority target, and if they are KO'd while singing a song, their effects are nullified for their party members.
The Warden's Paean pre-emptively or immediately nullifies a cleanseable status effect, while also decreasing damage taken and increase the amount of healing received. It can additionally placed on party members.
Apex Arrow grants a functionally permanent party buff that increases damage dealt, and giving a haste buff to the bard themselves. It also grants access to Blast Arrow, which deals greater damage and knocks opponents back.
Final Fantasia further increases damage dealt, movement speed, and limit gauge of all party members. It also grants access to Encore of Light, an AoE that massively decreases the MP of opponents.
Machinists possess high damage tools, with a bit of utility. Bishop Autoturret, Wildfire, Drill, and Air Anchor are the highlights of their toolkit. Their limit break, Marksman's Spite, is the single hardest-hitting ability in PvP. Because the current multitool is listed as a visible buff, and because the limit break can kill nearly any player instantly, machinists are very predictable to play against. Machinists are also the most fragile PvP job, possessing very few tools to aid in their survivability and have no mobility tools.
Bishop Autoturret places an autoturret that executes Aether Mortar four times, dealing damage to enemies and shielding allies within its radius.
Wildfire is an AoE ability that deals no damage. Its damage is increased for every action the machinist executes on the target. This action further makes machinist more predictable, as opponents may disengage or Guard against incoming burst damage.
Analysis augments the machinist's multitool weaponskills. Drill will deal double damage, Bioblaster's damage and DoT will be increased, Air Anchor's damage will be increased and stun the target, and Chain Saw will increase opponents' damage taken. Drill and Air Anchor should always be augmented by Analysis.
Drill deals very high damage, while ignoring the effects of Guard.
Air Anchor deals respectable damage, while also stunning the target for on-demand crowd-control.
Dancers are mobile and provide powerful utility buffs to themselves and to their Dance Partner, while occasionally joining in the frontline. The highlights of their toolkit are Honing Dance and Closed Position with the utility it brings. Dancers, for a ranged job, are closer range opponents. In conjunction with giving powerful buffs, they are high priority targets and are somewhat fragile and lacking in personal damage. Furthermore, their success is tied to their partner's ability to place additional pressure when the opportunity shows itself. Their limit break, Contradance, is an AoE uncleansable crowd-control, with afflicted enemies being lured to the dancer. Enemies hit while seduced will be seduced for longer. It is on a 90-second timer.
Honing Dance decreases damage taken and increases movement speed, while dealing constant point-blank AoE damage. Honing Ovation is executed at the end of its duration or on demand, which deals AoE damage and granting a shield. Both effects are doubled within close range.
Closed Position allows dancers to massively buff themselves and one other party member. The following actions interact with the dancer and their Dance Partner:
Curing Waltz is a potent AoE burst heal ability on both the dancer and their dance partner. Like its PvE variant, the dancer and their partner can stack for increased burst healing.
Starfall Dance is a potent line AoE weaponskill, while also increasing movement speed.
Fan Dance is a conal AoE that decreases damage taken. It is frequently paired with Honing Dance to further increase survivability.
Saber Dance increases damage dealt. If the dance partner (and not any other party member or the dancer themselves) KOs a target (KO, not an assist), Saber Dance is upgraded to Dance of the Dawn, which increases damage dealt by the same amount, but also increases both the dancer's and their dance partner's limit gauge.
Black Mages deal extremely high amounts of sustained damage, while also having tools to make them surprisingly mobile while still doing damage, and sustain a little better while under attack. Elemental Weave and Xenoglossy are the highlights of their toolkit. Black Mages have less bursting potential compared to other jobs, but simply rely more on consistent and high pressure as a turret mage. Their limit break, Soul Resonance, grants them access to even higher consistent sustained AoE damage. It is on a one-minute timer.
Aetherial Manipulation allows for excellent mobility, as it is a gap-closer on any target while also being on a very low cooldown.
Burst is a potent point-blank AoE, while also granting a potent barrier. It is often paired with Aetherial Manipulation.
Elemental Weave grants damage reduction and counters damage when under Umbral Ice, or additional AoE damage that ignores Guard when executing any spell under Astral Fire, including Burst or Xenoglossy:
Xenoglossy is an instant-cast spell that deals high damage at high health, or recovers HP when under 50% HP.
Soul Resonance grants access to five usages of Flare or Freeze. It also grants access to Flare Star or Frost Star, with Flare Star dealing extremely high AoE damage while also inflicting a DoT, and Frost Star freezing opponents.
Summoners combine both utility and generally high damage, while being very simple to play. Slipstream and Crimson Strike are the highlights of their toolkit. Even with their defensive moves, summoners are very fragile and are high priority targets to focus down. Their limit breaks, Summon Bahamut and Summon Phoenix are on a 90-second timer.
Slipstream increases movement speed of party members who are near the enemy hit with this action, while also inflicting a potent DoT to enemies.
Crimson Cyclone is a gap-closer AoE ability. It grants access Crimson Strike, which is ranged and creates a knockback from the first target.
Mountain Buster is melee-range conal spell that stuns targets and decreases damage taken to the summoner.
Radiant Aegis is a powerful shielding spell that also decreases damage taken. It can also be placed on party members.
Summon Bahamut is a very powerful and huge targetable AoE that forcefully establishes a frontline. It also Bahamut on the battlefield will repeatedly cast Wyrmwave, a single-target attack. It will also grant access to Deathflare, a potent AoE.
Summon Phoenix maintains tempo, as it grants a party-wide regen and an -like heal. Phoenix will cast Scarlet Flame, a DoT. It will also grant access to Brand of Purgatory, an AoE which heavily decreases damage dealt by enemies while also inflicting a DoT.
Red Mages provide excellent supporting DPS and utilities, while being very mobile. They are also excellent in one-on-one engagements with their ability to sustain. Resolution, Embolden and their enchanted blade combo are the highlights of their toolkit. Red mage bursts and rotations are very well known, making them somewhat predictable in engagements. Their limit break, Southern Cross, provides versatile AoE burst damage, while also healing allies within its mark. It is on a 90-second timer.
Displacement is a backstep ability that increases the damage and healing (if applicable) of the next spell. Corps-a-corps is a gap-closer ability that increases the red mage's damage dealt to the afflicted target.
Embolden is a powerful engagement and support ability that increases all party members' damage dealt and decreases damage taken. It also grants access to Prefulgence, an AoE spell that also heals all party members caught within its radius.
Red mage's enchanted blade combo, while dealing low damage itself, ignores Guard while granting a stacking shield to the red mage. When the three-part combo is complete, it grants access to Scorch, a powerful AoE spell that inflicts a DoT.
Pictomancers have excellent amount of mobility, AoE crowd-control, AoE burst damage, and team utility, making them a vastly remarkable overall job. Nearly every cooldown within their aresenal plays a good role in bursting, crowd-control, or utility. Pictomancers may struggle with sustained damage, with being a turret mage their only option. Their limit break, Advent of Chocobastion, grants a powerful defensive area while also granting access to a powerful AoE heal and damage buff to allies, while also dealing very high AoE damage. It is on a 105-second timer.
Subtractive Palette changes the pictomancer's basic combo to be mobile, or stronger with cast times, akin to black mage's Umbral Ice and Astral Fire. More notably, it can change Holy in White, a heal, to Comet in Black, a powerful AoE spell. Both actions deal delayed damage, which allows for Living Muses to deal extra burst damage:
Living Muses grants buffs (if painting a Moogle, or debuffs to enemies (if painting a ). Both the moogle and Madeen are line AoE spells, that silences and stuns, respectively.
Tempera Coat is a powerful shield, whose cooldown is reduced if it is spent. Like its PvE variant, the shield may be spread at a lower potency with Tempera Grassa.
Advent of Chocobastion places an AoE that decreases damage taken and increases healing received of all party members. It also grants access to Star Prism, which greatly increases damage dealt and heals all party members. This limit break has a lengthy initial animation, which makes the pictomancer a particularly vulnerable target.
Common PvP Actions, and How to Use Them
Have Sprint, Recuperate, Purify, Standard-issue Elixir, and Guard on your hotbars. Each and every action are integral to PvP engagements. Below is general advice on where and how to use the actions:
A general rule is to always be sprinting whenever out of combat or trying to disengage out of combat. Sprinting has no cooldown and has an infinite duration, but is cancelled whenever any action is executed. Furthermore, the execution of sprint itself will activate the global cooldown, preventing any actions on the global cooldown from being executed. As a result, sprinting in combat to try and catch up to an enemy is generally not very effective; enemies who are retreating should instead be crowd-controlled properly, if it is possible that they may be defeated. It is ill-advised to stick onto and follow enemies if KO'ing them is unlikely, as they may lead you to their own allies which may result in your own defeat, or at the very least, leave your team at a numbers disadvantage for the next engagement.
Recuperate is an oGCD 16,000 potency heal, costing 2,000 MP. Purify is an oGCD Esuna, only being able to nullify cleanseable status effects (marked with a blue line, similar to Esuna). Both actions consume MP, which is exclusively used for these actions, and are integral for sustaining within engagements.
Considering your team's and the enemy team's MP resources is critical for gauging on where to proceed. If your entire team has less MP compared to the opponent's team, it may be a good idea retreating and regrouping to re-engage at full strength again after using Standard-issue Elixir. If the enemy team has less MP, it may be a good idea pressuring them further in an attempt to secure some KOs, or if you are low, stay behind and use Standard-issue Elixir to join them at full-strength. Alternatively, if everyone is somewhat low on resources, everyone would benefit from retreating, regrouping, and using Standard-issue Elixir, similar to the enemy team, to re-engage at full strength.
A 4.5 second-cast to completely replenish HP and MP. Any player running away while low on resources, especially MP, makes them a particularly vulnerable target to CC or finish off as they do not have any methods of healing more with Recuperate, or cleansing status effects with Purify. Because of the amount of time it takes to disengage, find cover, possibly peel enemies, and execute this action, it will leave your team at a numbers advantage. Consider the following circumstances that may take place when disengaging:
After the first engagement, where your team is at a resource disadvantage: it may be beneficial for everyone to disengage and execute this action. A negative feedback loop will occur if your team tries to secure the Tactical Crystal while having already lost the battle, especially if your teammates engage one at a time, and are picked off one at a time.
Did your team just win an engagement? The chances are the enemy team will disengage to recover, as stated above. You and your team should also recover, if possible, if there are no leftover opponents to interrupt this action.
How much cover do you, or will you have? Is it possible that you or other teammates will be flanked while casting this action? Depending on how much health or MP you have, enemies may overextend and interrupt your casting to keep you out of the battle for longer, or KO you if you are very low, or out of resources. Taking advantage of corners and other LOS blockers, or otherwise being way out of the line of fire will increase the odds you recover. Keep in mind of any enemy AoEs that may clip you if a teammate is near you, while you are around a corner. You should also keep in mind of any buffs from your party members that may not go through obstructions.
Do you even need to disengage? You should begin to consider disengaging while at half MP, or at the very least, act more cautious as you have less uses of Recuperate and Purify left. However, depending on the status of your team, it may be wise to either help in peeling off enemies from your teammates if they are trying to retreat, or to place additional pressure while the situation is in your team's favour. In the case of the latter situation, take care to not overextend.
Do you have any healers, buffs that may heal you, or other support? Healers, unsurprisingly, have healing and mitigation actions they may use on you. You may find less effectiveness with sages and scholars, if you are not taking ongoing damage or in Guard. If you are a monk, Earth's Reply is a very potent heal, even if you need to allocate resources to it, assuming you have executed Riddle of Earth beforehand. If you have an astrologian on your team, consider how much damage you have taken since Macrocosmos has been executed. It is important to note that the astrologian may not always execute Microcosmos in time, or appropriately for its healing.
Some other factors to consider are the following before casting this action:
Are you affected with any debuffs? It is important to ensure that you will not be KO'd due to any DoTs. Furthermore, some abilities may deal damage after a set amount of time, which may interrupt your cast. Some examples are Wildfire and Death Warrant – Fate Sealed will mark the Death Warrant being served. Both actions in particular may deal a great amount of damage if you have allowed a machinist and reaper, respectively, to contribute to these actions. If you must, and in the case that it is not already on cooldown, Guard will protect you against the damage of Wildfire, but notDeath Warrant.
Has a paladin covered you with Guardian? You may execute Standard-issue Elixir without interruption while being covered (i.e. with the tether visible); it is expected of you, or other covered allies or enemies to recover while covered. If ongoing pressure is too excessive on you to the point where the paladin is at risk of being KO'd by covering you, you may not get covered.
Guard is the most important button in completely preventing and negating incoming bursts. It may require some foresight to know when a burst is imminent, or when the burst will deal the most amount of damage. It is as important to be proactive with Guard, as with being reactive with it; being proactive in knowing when bursts are possible in the form of enemy limit breaks, during the first battle, or after downtime where enemy cooldowns have likely recovered, will let you know when to react to Guard against cooldowns or limit breaks.
It is important to note the possible actions or limit breaks that can bypass, prevent the use of, or weaken Guard, which can be found on its respective page, here. Outside of coordinated bursts, some enemy actions may be Guarded against to severely limit their effectiveness as they may have a short animation delay before damage, or their debuffs, are dealt, some examples being Harmonic Arrow, Wildfire, Marksman's Spite, or Wind's Reply.
While anyone can move while Guarding, it is a channelled ability wherein any action will end the use prematurely, intentional or not. Healers may commonly heal or shield targets who are Guarding, to ensure they may disengage at a lower risk.
Rules of Engagement
This section is written in the lens of Crystalline Conflict. Although some concepts may still apply to big-scale PvP modes, some sections may not apply entirely to those modes.
As stated before, there are no one-size-fits-all solution, guide, or strategy on how to engage the enemy team, as there are a ton of individual factors that will affect how you and your team will engage. As such, take the following factors into consideration, before even the first encounter with the enemy team:
What rank bracket are you in? What are your teammates' and opponents' ranks?
At lower ranks, both teammates and opponents are less insightful on properly engaging, using the entirety of their toolkit with a purpose – or inversely dumping all of their cooldowns without a purpose, or on how to support teammates. Due to the potential lack of experience, some players may not know how certain jobs play, or what those jobs excel in. This may lead to some jobs being inherently better on lower ranking brackets due to the nature of the job itself, or the job being able to further capitalize on their strengths ( gunbreaker, monk, viper, samurai, dragoon, amongst other potential jobs). Inversely, some jobs that rely more on proper teamwork may struggle a bit more due to some teammates not being able to properly focus down a high-priority target, synergize with the utilities you may bring, or otherwise needing some form of teamwork to be see more effectiveness ( ninja, red mage, summoner, warrior, scholar, sage, dancer, bard).
At higher ranks, some jobs may lose some viability while some other jobs begin to excel further, simply due to more players generally knowing more about job mechanics, rotations, and predictability. This is to not say that some jobs become unviable, but instead requiring further knowledge on your own job, how to play around its weaknesses, and consider its potential interactions with other jobs.
The following is an example with machinist: machinists are incredibly fragile and predictable, due to their rotations literally being visible along with a high-threat limit break, while not possessing many mobility tools or survivability tools that aid with ongoing punishment, outside of Scattergun and Bishop Autoturret. A common combo for machinists is to use Wildfire to build up a combo and finishing that combo with Marksman's Spite:
Due to Wildfire being a sign of an incoming single-target burst from a machinist, opponents familiar with this combo, typically seen at higher ranks, will be ready to, or even pre-emptively execute Guard to nullify the combo. A clever machinist could bait their target into using Guard with Wildfire, but immediately execute Marksman's Spite after their target is out of Guard. This combo also is not considering that the target may Guard against the damage from the machinist and disengage, leaving them vulnerable targets if they choose to re-engage as Guard would be on cooldown, leaving them vulnerable to Marksman's Spite at any period of time.
At lower ranks instead, this combo may instead be executed on an unknowing frontliner, potentially without them even Guarding against the damage entirely.
Due to the potential damage bursts or forcing Guard from machinists, players at the higher rank will take advantage of machinist's fragility, amongst other potentially squishy backliners, and choose to focus them instead of the frontline. It is very ill-advised to allow a machinist, or any backline job, to perform whatever strategies they wish. To counter this issue, the backliners may potentially focus down the offending frontliner (known as "rats"), or even ignore them entirely.
Who is playing as what job?
While it is not required to have a balanced team to win (i.e. having healers, tanks, frontline/backline jobs), it is undeniable they still contribute valuable tools to directly influence how you should engage, and how long you can engage for. In the same aspect, it is also important to consider what jobs the enemy team has, in addition to how much burst damage they can deal, if they have any crowd-control abilities, of if they can rat the backline on your team (see the next section on if you know any players).
If you are the only frontline job on your team, your team will depend on you tanking bursts as long as you can, with personal outgoing damage, while still important and helpful, may be less feasible, especially if you are a ninja, for example. This means that, even with healers, you will be forced to disengage sooner to recover resources – your backlining jobs have some tools that aid in survivability to last a bit longer, as well.
Do you know any players on either team?
Knowing how some players engage may give you an advantage, whether if they are on your team or not. If you know that a player is overly aggressive, but overextends, you may use that info to your knowledge and bring them to your team, or to support a teammate by peeling them off, if peeling is viable. In the aspect, if that same player is on your team, you could also overextend to help them KO a target, if it is possible that the target may be KO'd in a short amount of time with your contributions. It may otherwise be wise to tell them to regroup. In another example, a player who is more "unexperienced" may be a more vulnerable target, allowing you and your team to focus them down, or to try and communicate more often if they are on your team.
This same concept will also apply to you. If players learn what your playstyle is, they may consider how you play and how effective you are. If you typically play "effectually", you may be targeted more often with crowd-control or bursted down quicker, or your teammates may listen to, or even coordinate their plays around yours, especially if you are a frontline job.
Engaging and Disengaging
Unlike in PvE, the mantra to Always Be Casting (on the offense), while still important in PvP, is not as imperative; keeping your GCD rolling by constantly stagger-engaging when your entire team is KO'd will only further hinder the pace of you
Common PvP Terms; Glossary
CC (context-dependent):
Crowd-control. Also can be used as a verb – "I got CC'd!", "CC this player!"
Guardian, a party member gap-closer accessible to paladin wherein the paladin takes all damage and status effect damage for you, assuming you remain close to them. Is called "cover" due to the similar PvE action, Cover.
Backline, backliner:
A job, or jobs, that engage, or specialize in engaging as players who use distance and the players who are the first-most to tank for them, while they deal damage from afar. Jobs that specialize in backlining are typically higher in damage, though a bit more squishy in terms of survivability. In contract with frontline, or frontliner.
Frontline, frontliner:
A job, or jobs, that engage, or specialize in engaging as the first possible players to be targeted by the enemy team, most likely to be targeted and bursted first. Jobs specializing in frontlining typically have more tools to aid in their survivability. In contract with backline, or backliners.
LoS, line-of-sight:
Any obstacle or obstruction that prevents the targeting of a player. Rounding corners is an example of breaking line-of-sight so players cannot target and thus damage (or even heal) that player. Actions whose effects can bypass obstructions will say so in their tooltip (i.e. Star Prism.
Momentum:
The ongoing pressure of an advantaged team against the team with a disadvantage.
Overextend:
To go ahead of your teammates to chase down an enemy (or enemies), or to establish a point of conflict far ahead of teammates. This may place the overextender at risk of being focused down by the enemy team. This also frequently places your team at a numbers advantage for engagements.
Peel:
To get an enemy (or enemies) to stop following you, or a teammate. Crowd-control abilities aid in peeling the enemy off, and other tools that may aid in survivability may help. The opponent(s) may overextend, which means leading them to your teammates may help in focusing them down, instead. Some jobs are harder to peel off, such as gunbreakers and monks.
Rat:
To disrupt the enemy team by being a nuisance to establish aggro. A common form of "ratting" is to disrupt and distract the enemy backline. gunbreakers and monks especially excel in this role. This strategy may be less effective at higher ranks.
Stagger (context dependent):
When a player(s) is defeated on either team, leading to an advantage for the team with the greater amount of players to maintain pressure and momentum.
Stagger engage: engaging in combat with one player at a time. Is generally considered poor practice outside of exceptional circumstances, as it is better to engage against a full team with a full team. May also apply to overextenders who arrive late to battle when at a numbers disadvantage.
Tempo:
The ongoing pace of a match or (an imminent) engagement. Tempo will slow down after the conclusion of any engagement as a period to recover or respawn. Tempo will increase again during the initial execution and ongoing engagement. Both aforementioned examples are the extremes of tempo in a match.
