FFXIV PVP Crystalline Conflict Guide: 8 ADVANCED Lessons For Ranked 

Currently working my way up through diamond myself, but biggest tip I have to agree with is to GROUP UP WITH YOUR TEAM after a lost fight. I've seen so many matches where after the first fight, people just trickle in 1 by 1 and get picked off instead of grouping back up to go in as a team. If you're a ranged or someone who can safely get away near the backline and the fight is lost, RUN AWAY. Don't go in alone and get staggered! The game mode is so short you can't afford to waste fights that are basically guaranteed losses: it's better to let the enemy take a little bit of space and reach the checkpoint in return for letting you regroup to take it back in a 5v5 later than to trickle in one at a time and just lose the entire rest of the match because you're outnumbered in every single fight in a 5v2 or 4v1 or whatever. Related to my first tip, the other main factor I have to really hammer home is to *secure kills.* So many times, I've seen teammates just let enemies with low health, no resources, no mp, no mobility charges left, just run away right behind something a few meters away and heal back up to full for completely free. Yes, you need to play the objective, yes you need to contest the crystal, but when an enemy is almost dead and running away, *secure the kill!!!* *Especially* if you have advantage! Only one person needs to be pushing the crystal, having more people doesn't make it go faster (afaik, except during checkpoint). There are so many times when after we win the teamfight, I see the enemy running away to regroup and heal with their respawning team (like a good player), and my team just doesn't pursue and lets them get away. If you have the ability, close the gap, CC them, and finish them off, *but do it safely.* If it looks like the enemy is about to respawn, back off again and regroup with your team, but don't let them just heal up and escape for free. If you kill them and stagger their respawn while the enemy team is still recovering, they have to wait that extra 10+ seconds to go in or else they're going in with a teammate down and you still have advantage, and that alone can snowball the match and win you the rest of the game in the way I mentioned in my first tip. Also one last thing, like Quazii mentioned, markers are extremely helpful for calling out which target you're attacking/which the team needs to focus. A bonus tip is that even after you die, if you see someone that's low or out of position or a good target, you can still mark them even as you're laying there dead. Might as well, since you can't do anything else while dead anyway, so just a little thing. wait one more tip! lmao I keep addiing to this list. But gamesense is so important! Pay attention to when dragoons jump with their limit break! and same with when it looks like WHMs are looking to giant laser your team. If you pop a guard at the right time you nullify a *crapton* of damage and CC that they basically just wasted, it's the difference between winning and losing a fight, so keep your eyes open and don't tunnel vision when you're fighting.

Great video, point number 2 is hell practically speaking though. Many times I've tanked two opponents for a while on their backline only to see my team get wiped individually in a 3v4 situation lmao.

Additional tip I've discovered by climbing up to plat 1 on MNK. When the match starts and you are able to target the enemy party, cycle through them quickly starting with their healer (especially if that healer is a WHM.) If you see them targeting you when you're not even close enough to receive damage, you're probably being marked for slaughter. This applies mostly to melee since we're usually the first ones to get focused down. If you know you're gonna get focused early, you can plan around it. I tend to bait the first round of attacks and then start moving back while using guard, purify and my own CC to keep myself alive while trying to drag attackers back to my side of the arena. If your team is paying attention, they will see the opportunity to down an enemy.

Great information, definitely didn''t understand overtime rules, thanks!

Great points! Looking forward to specific job guides!

Thank you for your videos! I got to Crystal on Monday and would love detailed guides on each class. Thanks for explaining overtime omg.. it's been so confusing.

superb analysis, understanding, and explanation. thank you!!

Congrats dude! I hope to get there sooner or later as well when I take some time

Thanks for the great tips, I didn't know how overtime worked at all!

I appreciate the guide! I would like to see more!

I need to get myself more time to sync into the grind to top rank! I think i've got what it takes just gotta win the numbers game. been awesome watching your streams while pvping

1:50 -- AS a summoner and Black mage I get focused down a lot by enemy DPS melees. The Summoner Stuns and slipstream skill are highly effective when used at the right times on the crystal. What I do as a BLM is to save my sleep and LB's for retreating, and do normal attacks and burst+Aether instant caste combo when I am normally out. Another advanced tactic for me in ranking matches is to fake like I'm hurting for MP or Resources by going to an obvious corner and starting to caste an elixir. Then when the DPS mad dog is drawn in, I hit them with sleep + Burst down + LB activation during the 3 seconds they are frozen.. I often get kills on people like that.

thank you for the tipps. I m stucking at platin for days now. Its really frustrating sometimes. and tbh. I struggle to know which enemy to target first and so do my teammates often :D

This was very helpful! Would love more CC guides (and even Frontlines maybe?), but I definitely will check out those PVP job guides. 🙏

You know a man is free when he smiles the way like that on the thumbnail. Congrats Quazii!

Just hit Crystal using MNK the whole way through. Lessons learned from playing Lee Sin in league apply pretty well to this job. Be a bruiser/tank that disrupts the backline, peel for your healers, and use your mobility to escape in the end. I needed to make macros to quickly dash to party members 2-5 but it feels amazing when you fly around a 5v5 with Thunderclap.

Keep it coming with the PvP stuff.... you're getting shared in the FC discord.

Thank you for your content.

Still kicking around the bronze 1 gutter, but you're making me want to try to push rank this weekend lol. So far Samurai and Summoner feel the most comfortable to play, but I haven't spent much time experimenting with different jobs. Really looking forward to the job guides!

Got to diamond as SCH.While not the best healer out there i just enjoy it's buffing/debuffing part.Tested WHM and i can see why it's so strong as the holy lazer just can change a while tide of battle and at the same time heal your team.

Thank you man. I'm so frustrated with being stuck at diamond 5 that I even considered to stop pvpeing or playing the game all together. But I've decided to try to implement some of the stuff you are teaching before giving it all up.

Heyo, just gotta say popped in for the end of (what seemed to be a very interesting) stream with a sweet loving mammal, and I both have gotten a lot of benefit from your pvp guides and appreciate the way your treat others. Plus ur both great at rhetorical debate and make me do a haha. Not one to engage hella creators, but you're a great! Looking forward to more content, and thank u for helping me not embarrass myself in CC by having hardcore in my adventurer plate and wiping the party because buttons. Unrelated to vod kinda but w/e my contribution is: sages, move your LB around because most people don't know what it does(plus chaos), and it's utility when your team DOES can quite literally save a match, while still presenting decent AoE potential compared to whm. Sages are also excellent at pre-bursting or following up a melee for nearly guaranteed kills if you time your kit correctly. Watch your melees/rdm burst, dot and phlg'em accordingly. Also good to prepare opponents to get destroyed by a nin/mch if you can anticipate their LB and communicate accordingly. I'm on an 8-win streak in diamond/crystal on sage atm and you couldn't pay me to swap to whm. No imp tho :sadge:

Damn got to crystal yesterday, hope to see you in battle

Never thought I'd get the Frontline 10 Wins w/ Garo Title. Thankfully, because of PvP update, Frontline is alive and well - finally being able to quickly pop into a match any time of day. Got my 10th win today and riding my new shiny mount ^w^

Looking forward to job guides!

6:01 I'm in Plat 3 and I get teammates that don't try to focus down anything, run around the map randomly, and can't use their job well enough to kill anything

Good tips. I'm glad you mentioned that playing meta jobs isn't necessarily the answer despite them having a general advantage over weaker jobs. For example, MNK is my main and I really enjoy it. I play it the most and understand what I can and can't accomplish in various situations due to experience so I can try to make smarter plays. My mind is also less focused on playing the job itself and more on strategy so I'm juggling fewer tasks. Even if I pick up DRG, which I feel is simpler to play and generally more powerful than MNK, I still may not do as well. I'm also giving up job specific tools like knockback, easy to use/low CD stun, high mobility/potential for assisting teammates, and a Guard-breaking LB that can also burst, all of which can turn the tide of a fight despite not having on-demand raw power like other melee DPS.

Getting a PLD/DRK on your team when the enemy team has a WAR feels so fuckin bad.

As for the marker thing at the end. I find it completely frustrating when one person who tries to take over “shot called” targets. Examples like constantly switching the current target marker for no good reason, marking and a not-so ideal target (Full HP PLD not on the circle vs a half health RDM on it.) Or even using incorrect or strange markers like Do Not Attack 1 over an enemy player along with a chat message saying attack that target. I’ve had a few experiences where matches were just thrown due to poor, inexperienced or overzealous play calling. Usually those are the same people who spam nice job or good match when their play calls don’t work out. Definitely more of a hurdle in the silver and gold brackets but it happens in Plat and even Diamond occasionally. The norm should honestly be this: Targets Markers 1 and 2 should be your primary use for kill order. Hold shape marking for your own tanks / healers if needed. And lastly, Do Not Attack should only ever be used on targets such as Samurai with their LB up and some other niche plays.

most of this shit goes out the window when you get a team full of broccolis

I havent been able to play much since the patch launch, but i played a few games with Drg and had a lot of fun. I stopped pvping in Wow a long time ago, but i cant wait to get some free time and play some more CC

what are the rewards for rank pvp ?

I hope we get balancing fast cuz some of the classes is just outright better than the others. Specially the long casting ones like blm and summoner, its really easy to just hide behind walls then go back and continue to dps compared to like rdm where they can just melee.

I would want to see you do a GNB video on their role and how it best changes. Trash job or not I'd still like to make it as good as it can be. Seems the biggest thing is understanding the fundamentals of the role it can fill and when best to fill it. That and positioning.

A tip for overtime : If you were the leading team and the crystal is close to their base, if u can't get a clean team wipe quickly, just back off and let them push even if u have all 5 up. This pushes the crystal away from their base so they have to run further to get back if your team can only stagger the kills. If you wait too long before backing up, you let them build lb for free and give them potential to wipe your party

Thanks for the info, I see that I was doing some mistakes XD

Anyone know where I can find the focus macros?

Would the SAM LB be considered better then the NIN as the NIN is also a 1 shot if target is below 50% and you can keep using the NIN LB if you get the kill (or get the kill 5 Sec after LBing the target?)

I need a Reaper main to sound off. Can it be done? Is Crystal possible?

I don't see the macro in the description! Not too hard to google it but would like to see what you are using! And looking forward to BlackMage guide...as they are...tough to feel useful playing them haha. I'm getting a good grasp, I feel like it's a more support Freeze CC'ing rather than bursting down, besides the LB windows.

Any tips for DRK? I feel it just doesn't add much to the mix, when WAR is way better with it CC and It's my only job apart from dragoon that I played in the whole game. (Right now don't feel like trying other ones)

Dude you're Crystal? I'm so impressed, literally you motivated me to rank more than gold. Btw, you have any thoughts om gnb? I don't understand my role, I feel like a paper tank unless I'm spanking someone with nebula/aurora junction

I can already tell im going to be much better by the time they go into the next series/season for CC.

Pressuring certain opponents sounds like a great idea, but so far my experience in CC is that I get focused down instantly by the enemy team, and my team just runs around doing... something?

I stopped playing League to relax and enjoy this wonderful adventure called FFXIV.....and here I am..... again.

I only play this with my dancer class. Feels like it’s overall a quite bad class for pvp?

Hit Diamond on Sage and tempered my desire to climb higher. While some jobs are definitely viable, the higher I’ve climbed the more I feel like my comfort class is a liability compared to the meta comps that burst someone out. Kudos on hitting crystal, and great tips. I’ll be content with my tier until we get another pvp balance update.

Gotta get to Crystal before they nerf RDM

My biggest hurdle in this mode is targetting and unresponsive controls. What kind of targeting do you use? My biggest problem is controlling who I target, even with the new auto targetting it's all over the place, targeting with the mouse barely works, tab targeting doesn't cycle properly, and "closest" seems to work randomly.

I honestly nervous to ask. But how can you succeed as a controller player?

What am I supposed to do as GNB? I feel like I do a reasonably good job surviving and being an annoyance to the enemy team when I junction Tank, and to a lesser degree Healer, but the damage buff from DPS just doesn't seem worth it. I feel like I just get focused immediately every time I try to make a play with DPS. Similarly, my only crowd control is my LB, but I don't think I've found a team yet that has capitalized on the AoE vuln ups or stun, and I just get stunned and focused down whenever I use it.

That video felt like reading Sun Tzu. xD

I made it up to diamond pretty easily yesterday. After that my teams started to get dumpsterd at the start

best ff14 pvp guide on youtube

The real question is why does everyone else feel invincible while I feel like a wet noodle… 🤔😭

I need a controller guide lol. But this was great. Watched your first video hit Silver first day I started and now I'm Gold. Dragoon main.

now target for no1 ! tq for the advanced Tips btw

If there is one person I can trust to dissect BLM pvp, it’s Quazii. I can’t wait for the class guides

i"m frustrated where I see WHM (who does not understand OT objective) stood and dps outside the circle while looking at the last team member on the circle(me) fighting and die and wouldn't throw her butt in to guard (the last moment) like what else to lose at that moment? NOTHING! But that last 5 seconds of guard have turned the game around SO MANY TIMES!!!

All those games in Paladins lead to this moment.

I get to plat 3 then lose two games then make it back to plat 3 rinse and repeat. its pretty frustrating. Not sure what I could do differently in my matches. Most of the time the games vs diamonds are easier than the games vs plats and golds.

From mythic wow raider to advanced XIV pvper. This is amazing. :) Great tips on this vid, and congrats on the Crystal achievement!

On the flip side though, if your team does not have the advantage in overtime, you need to be standing in the crystal!! Watch out for sam.drg lb and have guard ready obviously, but it needs to be more than one person in this situation. Maybe this is just a difference of NA/EU or even specific data centres, but soooo many times it’s clear that 3/5 teammates do not understand the simple concept that we lose when the last of us in that circle dies or is pushed out. I had an infuriating loss when I played machinist and was forced to go try to stall it because even though my entire team was alive, they were running around and not willing to go in. I got knocked back, and because I was the only one in at the time, we lost with literally 2 of my ranged teammates and 1 melee all standing juuuust outside the crystal ring, with the last one off 1v1ing someone. Literally 2 presses of W forward would have been enough, but the concept that you lose when you step out in overtime and the enemy has progressed more just isn’t understood. It’s especially stressful because the jobs I play the most have a lot of movement and gap closers, like monk, dragoon, red mage, dancer. Yet… if I’m the only one willing to stand in the crystal in that critical overtime push, I can’t risk using gap closers or the dragoon leap backward since the enemies can easily bait me out of it that way. Healers, casters, and tanks especially need to be willing to claim that space during such times so melees can fight off the enemies without worrying about exact placement and losing a lot of damage in the process.

if you played early it was easy to get to crystal. trying to get a 2nd char to crystal feels literally impossible every match is a coin flip il have times i go from gold 4 to gold 1 then il get imbalanced team comps or people that go in 1 by 1 or some stupid bullshit for 10 games and drop back to gold 4 just to win a bunch back up to gold 1 again and then it happens all over again.

There's nothing like an enemy team that all but has victory assured, C9'ing from the objective during Overtime to hand the other team the win.

Can't wait for the BLM guide!!

As a RM, I just sit on WHM & other RM the whole game lol i save my silence for them always. Even when they run back into the group, Im ready to silence them and keep them on the backfoot the whole game

im honestly surprise no one really talks about reaper, its honestly quite balanced! Good peel, gap closer is amazing and has amazing team regen. Then the LB is just bonkers to rip the team apart, figuratively and literally!

I hate Crystalline conflict. I only did it to get the horses, now that I have them I'm not going to play pvp again (except the roulette one that gives a lot of exp) Nice video good sir!

And here I am still stuck on Bronze xD

Day 876 and still no 2v2 or 3v3 in ff14. Ill check back again later lol.

Just got to Gold last week, haven't been able to do grind ranks again due to progging TEA right now. I feel like Gold is the new Bronze lmao, played a few games but some of the players are just bad as in they don't know how to hold back and wait for teammates to revive lmao

I got Crystal in some weird ways imo. I did SMN from start til Gold/low plat > then DRG til Diamond 4 > NIN til Crystal and NIN ever since. I find if you don't have some kind of "carry potential" (mostly through "plays" rather than straight up kills) you can really struggle. NIN seems to flow with me as I am someone that tends to focus on the back line NOT the front. Who the fuck cares about a tank? Too many people off load all their damage on a WAR that is just going to heal. He has a stun but does mediocre damage. WAR really isn't a priority. RDM/SMN/MCH/BRD/WHM can all cause havoc if left alone. My prio as NIN is always backlines > frontliners > tank. (unless the tank goes mega low then just kill em obv)

nah bro silver hell is a thing, no matter how hard you try you get people who arnt smart and do 90% of these things. literally doing everything i can as a sam. we do a good push, overtime hits and then my team decides to hop off point and we lose. like WTF PEOPLE ARE BLIND AND CANT READ WHEN I SPAM PUSH CRYSTAL

6:00 better teammates? Welp I'm in Bronze hell.

Overtime is wackkkkk let us be able to push absolutely no need, I want my games dragged out longer who said a match clock that low was a good idea

Nobody: My team: marks warrior first

6:00 yeah nah, thats a lie, most people on plat do command like targeting people and stuff, but people from diamond rarely do that and just hit whoever they want and no one commanding

These tips will indeed work wonders in increasing your odds of winning. However, as many have pointed out, it's all for naught when your teammates are just facerolling their keyboards. Personally, I REALLY hope they introduce a team variant of ranked. That way, the casuals that refuse to use the casual playlist can be left to fight amongst themselves in the solo ranked playlist, while the more serious folks can actually make progress and/or have quality matches. Having said that, if they decide to keep it purely solo, I hope they add a personal performance system for rank progress. As much as it pains me to say, I'd prefer something like Halo Infinite's system over the coin flip rng type we have now. Mind you, I have no idea how they would/should do it, but I'd prefer it over the current system regardless.

I can't lie watching everyone make crystal makes me feel like hot garbage. I've been stuck at bronze since launch. I'm just not dominate enough to carry teams to stay on a streak.

Good step I learned was don’t pick BLM. 😅

You guys can get out of bronze right now? bruh. I go on a win streak, I get to needing 1 win to reach Silver and boom, I get team goofy that wont push crystal or can get any kills. And I'll mark targets and call out when my LB is ready, but most of the time it's like screaming into the void. So I'll go back down to Bronze 3. Then I'll get lucky with the teams and go back to needing 1 win to escape bronze and... team goofy. And what's worse. The teams I've stomped, the next match, they'll be on my team xD My biggest regret, is that I didn't grind out CC ranked on day 1. Because I feel like unless I get lucky with the teams, I aint leaving Bronze, no matter how hard I carry. And even if I did get Silver, I get matched with Silvers anyway, so I'm guessing it's not much different until maybe Gold.

If you get no other piece of advice. PUSH THE DAMN CRYSTAL!!! 99% of my losses have come from people getting baited & leaving one or two to push the payload. Everything else is fluff.

Matchmaking sadly ruins any strat. I had 7 kills and 10 assists in a game today twice saved the crystal by killing 2-3 people with my Sam LB. But my other team mates barely got 1-2 kills. One got 0. Needless to say, we lost. It makes ranked a frustrating mess and I don't think I have the patience to get out of even Bronze.

And here I am 60 wins in and still bronze rank. Because it’s just so damn luck based what other people you have in the party.

most of this i agree with ...accept in pvp the basics of pvp ..is healers first ...dps second ...tanks last ...so if white mage ...scholar...sage is on the field they should be marked number 1 to be the first to go ...everytime

Most are garbage at crystal atm. Also we RDM are not stronger. We do more damage as we can keep doing damage even when we aren't on the front lines by just casting from the distance. If all we did was cast we'd be no different in DPS really then the healers. It's when we melee and silence. RDM should not be first priority. It should only be when your party is full of casters healers and tanks as silence will be effective. The WAR's stun is far more potent and you'll likely die to it more over then a stun. Stun from WAR in volcanic heat. Chances to be nuked from bombs. Stun half health then fell cleave dead. Stun before tornadoes half health in Cloud Nine. Dead. WAR attacking RDM repeatedly. The RDM is equivalent to casters on lb. That's why WHM's LB is powerful. It's just treated like another caster. SMN will literally nuke parties much more often. Also Warrior is squishy so why are you giving bad advice stating they hold great sustain. Because they're a tank and sustain well in dungeons and raids? This is PvP, They don't sustain well. The only tanks that really do are DRK and PLD. SAM and MNK are likely going to sustain better then your WAR. Also SAM Chitan is not so good from an LB from range. Don't be afraid of them and avoid them. They go down fairly easy and left to their own devices will take out your party. DRG and WAR however may do it faster then SAM. Chitan is more effective if people are close. Not really as effective otherwise. Actually standing on the edge isn't smart either. Casters as an example love it when you huddle together. Only having 1 to 2 in circle is the right way. If they die you don't all die. People however need to be in it in OT after 1 checkpoint is taken if it wasn't taken before the OT or they can lose the match. Match continues until someone takes a checkpoint as much as the progress bar is above and the team has to have people in the circle after this. It will not end until a checkpoint is taken. I've had 25 minute runs because of just that. Have to take a checkpoint though regardless of percentage. No one takes a checkpoint it goes on til you do.

Remember everyone - don't play Reaper. It's bad. Terrible. And bad.

Just use "They" or "One" instead of "He or she" if you want to be PC.

i died to a monk knocking me up in the air and just freekilling me while i was flying till he knocked me on the floor i was like oookkayyy??!