FINAL FANTASY XIV Online: Crystalline Conflict PvP Mode Guide

This guide’s purpose is to go through the basics of Crystalline Conflict PvP mode, some information about the maps and have a short Job overview.

I will also go over some basic tactics and how to get better.

Hopefully, it will serve as good base to start your journey.

 

The very Basics

Crystalline Conflict is a mode where your team of 5 players tries to push the big Crystal, that starts in the middle of the map, to the end point near enemy base.
Each map has Checkpoint at 50% of the way which takes a while to capture, these are usually points of heavy contesting because they are incredibly valuable when it
comes to end game advantage.

If neither team has managed to push the Crystal to 100%, after 5 minutes the game enters Overtime. In somewhat even games this happens nearly every time, which is why every % gotten before it is valuable.
The team that has more total % only needs to push the enemy team off the Crystal for 3 seconds to win, while the team with less % needs to push it past the enemy % to win. The team with more % starts with advantage and in some cases it might be massive.
The checkpoints are really hard to deal with against good teams in overtime so trying to get through them before is important.

If both teams are at exact same % (usually 50% due the checkpoints) then the team that first gets the Crystal tiny bit further past the point wins.
These games are usually really heavy slugfests because the game rarely ends with only one won fight as usually the other team has time to regroup for another fight before you can push it far enough.

Now that you have the general idea of what the game is about lets move onto the next point.

The Maps

Currently Crystalline Conflict has 3 different maps. The Palaistra is one without hazards but it has more space, more medkits and generally more paths to engage or escape than the other maps.
It’s fairly well balanced map that has different kind of areas for different roles with open mid favoring range and tight areas with walls around the checkpoints that favor a bit more melee etc.

Volcanic Heart is a very tight map with lots of paths to break line of sight to the enemy. It’s very good map for area of effect abilities and melee, also greatly benefiting Jobs that have stuns or knockbacks to put enemies in the line of Bombs. It also has powerful pickups that increase your damage and give instantly small amount of Limit Break bar.

Cloud Nine is open corridor map with little cover that favors ranged. It also has moving tornado hazards that can even knock you out of Guard. It also has the occasional burst of wind that will knock people up and take about half or more of their health if they do not use Guard to block it, there’s also few Chocobo markers that show the position of Feathers that you can reach by standing on them during the knock. Those Feathers give you instantly some Limit Break bar and prevent the fall damage.

Each map plays bit differently and favors different Jobs. You can play them all with the same, but learning secondary or tertiary Job to swap on based on map and people in queue can be helpful. However if you have very limited time to play, it’s better to master one.
Learning basic positioning in the maps is really important, especially in the beginning stand-off. For example in Cloud Nine you want to either hug the wall near the middle to force enemies out of position or stay back a bit to have clean shot on anyone who steps past the middle.
Likewise if you are going to engage you need to figure out how you can attack without losing the reach of your own team. Your healers will hate you if you go behind walls beyond their reach while being completely open to full enemy team’s fire.
Knowing basic positioning also helps you set yourself into range of potential kills or peels off your teammates. As melee you need to know how quickly you can get into cover and how fast you can dive people at different places.

Team compositions

Both teams will have 5 players, the game will attempt to match teams based on their total rating (in Crystal rank) or Stars (Unranked to Diamond). This won’t always have even teams due the amount of people queuing for the games, for Crystal matches the difference affects the ending gains and losses (default being +/- 100) but for sub-Crystal matches the results will always be gain or loss of a star, with possiblity to gain two stars when you reach a winstreak.

The system will also attempt to match Roles equally in teams and no team can have more than a single member of each Job. So no double or triple Warrior for example in one team.
However the system does not look further than the initial role so you can have teams like 1 tank 1 healer 1 caster 3 melee vs 3 melee 1 caster 1 ranged.
Knowing this can help you plan for meta or give you a hint on what to queue on based on other players who are queuing.
For example if there’s 4 Black Mages in Queue, then going in as one will potentially lead into long queue and it can be completely random on which one of them you will match.

The Jobs – Tanks
Paladin: Probably the most durable Tank, doesn’t bring much damage but is excellent at helping their team survive and setting up kills with the dash and stun. Their Limit Break can turn a fight around as it gives huge damage mitigation to nearby teammates and makes themselves invulnerable.
The biggest thing that sets them apart from other Tanks is Guardian.
With it the Paladin dashes to teammate and takes all their damage for a short period. This can be combined with Guard to heavily protect the target and even allowing them to use Elixir
while being under fire.

Warrior: Master of controlling the battlefield with their slowing pull and jumping area stun. They are also very durable as long as they can keep hitting.
Their thing is removing enemy ability to Guard at all with the Limit Break while becoming a damage dishing monster that is hard to stop for a while.
Very frustrating to play against if they manage to make most of their skills.

Dark Knight: The damage dishing master that bleeds. They have area pull that gives defensive advantage, but aside from that they are all about spending health to pump out area damage.
The less control enemy team has the more dangerous they are. However if enemy team has something like Ninja, they are very suspectible to being deleted.
Very high damage potential but balancing the risks of staying on lower health or even spending your heals to pump more damage make it a difficult to play on higher level.

Gunbreaker: Used to be one of the worst Jobs but now can dish heavy damage, though the healer and tank Junctions are reliant on enemy team and could be better.
Has one of the most devastating Limit Breaks IF they can get it off uninterrupted, which becomes very hard at higher levels and against certain Jobs. At least they can instantly dump it for a weaker effect but one that can’t be stopped as easily.

The Jobs – Healers

White Mage: Job with probably strongest total healing. They can push closer to 2 million healing done during your matches and while their damage is bit on the weak side, they make up for it with control. Miracle of Nature is un-purifiable ability that is excellent for setting up kills or stopping enemies at the right moment from killing your teammates. Their Limit Break is one of the fastest loading ones with big area stun and bunch of smaller effects. Excellent support.

Scholar: The grindiest healer. Everything they do is pushing your advantage and whittle the enemy away. Slowly eating at enemy health with spread DoT? Check, Having damage buffs and shields up on your team? Check. Giving a burst of speed for chase or escape? Sure, why not.
Their major downsides are having to get close to melee range to use their healing reduction area attack and the slowness of their Limit Break. It takes something like 4 seconds for the Seraph to appear and activate. You can’t even tell it to use its ability the moment it appears though it does auto apply a lot of goodies to teammates in the area. Their healing is on weaker side outside of Seraph but it can be enough to push the advantage.

Astrologian: The Powerhouse do-it-all. Astrologian is incredibly potent Job with massive instant area damage, instant heals that scale when your teammate approaches 50% or goes under.
Has cards that can either return mana, give damage buff or give Limit Break regen bonus which is absurd. There’s not much downsides to Astro aside from having to sometimes pick how to use the dual cast, making them unable to constantly do everything very good but still most of the time. Their Limit Break is momentarily massive advantage that diminishes fairly fast.

Sage: Just like Gunbreaker, Sage is almost closer to DPS Job rather than Healer. They have lots of mobility and powerful burst, though they have to go into melee range to use a lot of it. High risk, high reward.
Also getting the most out of their Kardia buff, you need to actively juggle it between teammates which can take a lot of focus for newer players.
Their Limit Break is completely opposite though, extremely defensive ability that forces enemies to get out of position or deal no damage against those within. It is superb at taking points but also puts massive marker on top of you the moment you drop it as it dissapears if you die.

The Jobs – Melee DPS

Monk: They are almost like a Tank with their high health and Riddle of Earth buff running.
They have 3! gap closers that leave shield either on you or teammate if used on them. They have a really sucky and long combo but it ends up in juicy big hit that can be further buffed by your other ability.
They also have the fastest Limit Break in the game that combined with the pressure point debuff can straight up delete people. Not many thing are scarier than being focused by a Monk.
While their damage is bit lacking compared to most DPS their solo kill potential and durability make up for it.

Dragoon: Huge damage, no control, mobility with jumps. Dragoon is solid at pressuring or even killing people, though their damage buff also weakens yourself, your damage debuff more than counteracts it.
They are very solid and some of the earliest high ranks used it to climb. While more experienced people can see their Limit Break coming from a far, it still has potential with combos and forcing people to at least burn their guards.

Ninja: Similar to Astro, they just do it all and do it pretty good too. The amount of utility from Ninjutsu are insane: Need speed and shield? Check. Need heals? Check? Stun? Single target burst? Area burn? They have it all.
On top of the insane utility their Limit Break is oppressive if used well. Any target below 50% is potentially straight up dead and it can be chained. Running out of reapplying time? Still a big hit that can be refreshed by killing the current target fast. Also the only Job with momentary stealth.

Samurai: A heavy hitter with cast times. Samurai is almost like a bruiser since using their defensives and mobility well can make them hard to kill. Their biggest downside is the cast timers in abilities but those hit like a truck.
A lot of dashes like monk and they change their basic hits into alternatives like area bind or lifesteal. Their Limit Break also has one of the biggest potentials in the game but the higher you go the harder it gets to properly use. If your enemies hit your defensive you can one-shot them even through Guard with Limit Break.

Reaper: Probably the Job I have least experience with. They are fairly durable and slowly build up into massive burst over the game. They have insanely fast Limit Break generation too and it is great at either breaking Guard or pushing people off the point. Their damage potential starts low and their burst is highly telegraphed, however their damage potential is massive.

The Jobs – Physical Ranged DPS

Bard: Great at supporting team and picking of single target with help of others, can dish reliable damage but has to position awkwardly at times to do it.
Biggest issue with Bard is that others don’t really know what it does and the lack of communication and knowledge makes Bard weaker because their team doesn’t utilize their buffs to their most.
Also the Limit Break is super team centric and incredibly clunky to apply properly.
Pretty good survivability with Warden’s and the binding shot, decent kill potential with the silence and burst. Still probably weakest Job due over reliance to their team.

Machinist: Solid damage and huge burst potential. Limit Break with Wildfire can delete people and as it snapshots a lot of people try to Guard it too late. The main issue is the clunkiness of Bioblaster in their tool rotation, forcing you to get closer up just to keep the items changing and rolling.
Drill and Air Anchor are excellent. Chainsaw can feel like cheating IF you manage to luck out. Having potential 3% instant kill is bad design though.

Dancer: Mobile support with pretty good area burst. They are bit less reliant to their team than Bard but offer all kinds of good stuff to their dance partner and bit to their team.
Limit Break is excellent with coordination, but the lack of it makes it sometimes seem super weak. Their range is on the shorter side to compensate for instant attacks so they can feel bit weird as their positioning is different from everyone else.

The Jobs – Magical Ranged DPS

Black Mage: The current Flavor of the Month, got overbuffed by far and the nerf was too light. Their massive control gained by using Ice has very little damage loss compared to Fire and dishing out 3 second stun equivalents is painful to be in receiving end of.
They have some mobility, big and powerful shield with damage.
Fast Limit Break gain that makes them very mobile and powerful. If they can have a free reign the game will be massive uphill battle. At higher matches they get heavily focused because of this but spending so much effort on them lets the rest of the team potentially pop off hard.

Summoner: Potentially powerful, but hits like wet noodle during downtime. Their main attack is weaker than healers (on par with Sage due its healing part) but the rest of the kit packs good power, from area control to damage to some single target chase and damage to fairly big shield with good damage reduction.
They also have two Limit Break options one more offensive and one more defensive.

Red Mage: The duelist Job, if they are allowed to single someone out or even dive with at teammate, they will mess their target up. If their target doesn’t Guard early they will burn from the DoTs. Verholy/flare is also snapshot with good damage so if you Guard even slightly late you will get hit by it regardless. They have great damage potential and some utility in few of their skills. Area silence is a big one.
Their Limit Break is bit lackluster though but still good enough to drop some extra damage.

Shared Actions and Staying in the game

Every Jobs has handful of Actions that is shared among all of them. Utilizing these properly makes massive difference.

Guard is your bread and butter defensive, making you slow but reducing damage taken by 90%. Do note that any damage over time ability applied will keep hitting for full amount if it gets in before Guard is up.
Properly timing Guard is of utmost importance, at best you can soak up multiple people’s burst or Limit Breaks. It is also one of the core things for stalling on point or trying to just make it out alive.

Purify is your debuff removal, very helpful to get out of jail, but bit clunky because the secondary effect of protecting you from next crowd control effect for short while can be circumvented if you are controlled just before it applies.
Gauging whether you should use it or not makes a big difference at higher levels. Without it you can be a sitting duck for over 10 seconds if enemy team proceeds to properly chain you.

Recuperate is your self heal, you really want to weave it between your actions in tight combat or when focused, the MP is meant to be used, don’t save it if it could save your life. There are so many people in lower ranks or Casual matches that barely use it or use it very clunkily and occasionally that it makes big difference on their survival and how the match is played out.
Also on higher level matches you will get focused harder if you run out but that’s why we have the next item.

Standard Issue Elixir is your comeback tool. When you are low on MP or even HP and there’s a moment of respite you want to pop it to be fresh again. Properly using them is one of the main difference between the high ranks and the rest.
Being able to keep up and fight again and again is game changer. Even in endgame overtime tug of war, the team that can make an opening for their weakest player to back off a bit and pop an elixir gets pretty good advantage.

Use your defensive to stay alive as much as possible. You want to stay alive not just to play the objective and help your team but also because Limit Break only builds up when you are alive.
Another huge difference between the high end that relates to this is actually falling back. You can still see people in Diamond rushing back to fight something like 2v5 even if its not overtime yet.
Against good player you have to bail something like 3v5 even if it means leaving your teammate to die, the only way you can fight with less numbers is if the enemies are split chasing people at other side of map.
Regrouping and staying alive gives a lot higher chances to turn it around than headlessly charging in and trying to outplay your enemy with lesser numbers. The only time to do it is during desperate overtime when you need to stall to avoid loss.

Summary

Now that you have brief overview of everything, you should have the basics to build upon.
Focus a Job or two you enjoy and learn them inside out, try to learn other Jobs abilities or at least the key ones so you know what they can or can’t do.
Remember that good positioning gives big advantage, always try to force or bait enemies into bad positions. Keep your self-heals rolling, when something like Machinist decides to take aim you better be full health.
Learn which abilities snapshot (even with animation their damage/effect is counted the moment they are activated, even if it looks delayed).
Learn to properly fall back and regroup so you can take another teamfight.
Keep abusing Elixir whenever you have downtime.
And most of all, learn to identify the gamestate. So many people keep rushing the Crystal even when they have % advantage on overtime, you can make so much better choices as team if you know which team has to do and what.

If you have more Job specific questions or want to chat with a lot of high ranking players, consider joining the Revival Wings PvP Discord. They have channels for each Datacenter: discord.gg/pvprevival

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