By Hovann 2024-12-26 15:10:35
The majority of PvP in Asura is done in house within the JP community. I'm sure a quick search of their names from recent videos would direct you on who to talk too.
Bear in mind their version of PvP is a format called "HAKO" which has actually been around for more than a decade (which, surprise, was introduced by the JP community). It's a community-fixed format where certain jobs are allowed and it's always in a mirror-match. I know that doesn't seem enticing at first since Ballista's claim to fame was it's variance, but having played it myself, it does get rather skill-driven with how many intricacies there are in mechanics (animation cancels, timing auto attacks, disengaging to dig for items/petra in tune with your auto attacks, knowing who to go for when they have Gate Breach and when, interrupting people who are trying to interrupt your main scorer, etc.) There is a lot of Chess activity going around and while I don't play it as much anymore due to time constraints, there is a lot going for it.
The reality is that due to Sqaure's infamous negligence of the game, the balancing is out of wack. Elemental Magic has been scaled hard so RDM and BLM are often considered broken and was common courtesy back then to mirror in OMs. Same thing with BST and PUP where the level scaling doesn't affect them as often, often leading to 1k Arcuballistas and repeatable 600+ damage Spinning Fin from the Eft pet. Again, it was considered a sort of silent agreement to mirror match but not everything was perfect.
HAKO was a way to correct this. Obviously it's not perfect, and we would love for SE to step in one day, but this is what the current solution is at the moment.
Upbeat is half-right when it comes to gear--you can actually get away with matches with mostly ilvl119 gear since the way gear is scaled down is that each gear slot has an assigned amount of HP/MP/STR/DEX/VIT/AGI/INT/MND/CHR/Accuracy/Evasion/M.Acc that carries over. Weapons/Grips also have the above but allow other mechanics like Magic Attack Bonus to carry over, but not from non-weapon gear. If you really wanted to Min/Max, you do Grounds of Valor NMs once an earth day with a Lv60 or less gear and hope you get a good augment. The best augments to go for are actually certain element resistances. Ice Resistance +X is considered amazing since it guards against Paralyze/Bind, or Wind Resistance +X for Silence/Gravity if you are on WHM.
So no, gear grinding isn't as bad unless you really want to go down the rabbit hole of SE's proto-gacha phase.