The Refreshed Final Fantasy XIV PVP has so much personality that I might even play it.
PVP isn’t for everyone in Final Fantasy XIV. PVP can feel disconnected from the main game and cause confusion, stress, and chaos. This is true even after Patch6.1 in Endwalker. The update did, however, make the competitive suite much more modern. Some modes have been removed or put on hold, while Crystalline Conflict provides a more efficient alternative. Even more important is that virtually every PVP skill has been updated or replaced in the game. This means that you can swap out your hotbars before going into battle.
I know. You should be like me!
FFXIV has a way of changing hotbars, those rows of abilities that you need to fight. You will be required to change hotbars with every expansion of the critically acclaimed MMO. New ones replace old skills. This is the cycle of life in an ever-changing MMO. FFXIV does not always do it right. It simply greys out skills that are no longer relevant. These skills can be manually deleted and replaced with something new. This PVP update has a lot of new features. This is why I stumbled upon my “Frontline” Duty Roulette and couldn’t do one thing.
Each of my Dark Knight skills was greyed out (see the image above, taken from my PC copy before resetting the hot bars). There is a short grace period before Frontline Battles. This allows players to prepare their strategies and get ready for combat. It’s not enough time to delete all the old skills and replace them with newer ones. So I was cold when I entered the battle. Unprepared. I was utterly lost.
It’s not that much different from my average PVP experience. It’s an excellent way to get XP for my other Jobs, but I don’t use it that much in the competitive modes. In the months leading up to Patch 6.1, I did start slowly practising. This allowed me to try Crystalline Conflict and the redesigned combat skills. It was a tiny part of my hopes for the update, so I didn’t bother to visit the Wolves Den Pier and change my bars.
The new FFXIV structure is getting a positive response from everyone. These new skills are streamlined, just like the game mode. They are also very cool. FFXIV has, in my humble opinion, sanded away many of Jobs’ gameplay identities over the years. The tanks are very similar, with only minor differences in potency and cooldown times. Some of the new PVP skills, however, are pretty wild.
For example, my Dark Knight got a new Limit Break called Eventide. This decreases the Dark Knight player’s HP to 1 HP. They also become invincible for 10 seconds while massively damaging their enemies in front and behind them. They also steal HP back when they attack someone for 10 seconds, much like the Dark Knight skill Living Dead. The entire Dark Knight kit is about sacrificing HP to score massive hits and sucking health back up vampire-like from opposing players.
