Preface: I've had this idea now for a while and it wasn't until returning to BDO recently and seeing the changes they made to awakened Valkyrie (my main class since literally day 1 of BDO) that I wanted to open up a discussion about it. I wouldn't be suprised if this has been suggested before, but either way, here's my take on it:

Idea: I think all skills that have the ability to CC an opponent should not be naturually protected on its own. When a player wants to attempt to CC an opponent, they should then be at risk of being CC'd themselves. I am certain there are going to be many players that won't agree with this, and if you're one of them that's absolutely okay! But hear me out first :)

Context: Making the GIANT assumption (lol) that a 1 v 1 interaction is mostly balanced (FPS, latency, GS, etc.) - Landing a successful CC in most cases would probably mean a win, and I think this is how PvP in BDO should be in order to keep it both fast-paced and fluid, while still making it feasable to win a skirmish with another player. BDO PvP undoubtedly has its flaws, but even still, it has a wonderful system for players to have skill expression, learn new mechanics, achieve personal growth and more that can be seen and felt without solely falling on GS in order to win fights.

So if landing a CC on your opponent is the main method to achieve victory, attemping one should put you at risk for being CC'd yourself. Being able to execute protected CCs appears to have very little (if any at all) risk and mostly reward if it lands successfully. As awakening Valkyrie currently is, the only way to achieve a protected CC is with a core skill, but from my observations, not all classes have this limitation. I actually don't mind this limitation on Valk since many of the skills can be cancelled (albeit with different timings) via Guard (Q); I actually think it's more balanced now even though I find myself having a harder time winning 1 v 1s than I did before she was patched, though as I improve with my guard cancelling, I'm seeing more and more victories on my part. I also imagine others classes with shields would/could work in a similiar manner. Classes without shields should/could have movement/teleport-based cancels in lieu of a guard.

Since guard does not have a "timer" of sorts (i.e. like movement and stamina), movement based classes should be able to move for longer periods of time (i.e. less stamina consumption) while also protected, and only when they go in for a CC do those protections drop. Similiarly, for guard based classes, they can keep their guard up (with FG meter being the consumable resource like stamina) and in order to CC, they must bring their guard down and thusly, become unprotected. Iframe protected movement should be restricted to teleport-based movement skills only while still consuming stamina, but the distance is far less than with non-teleport-based movement.

Additional Notes: IF, however, a CC skill must be protected for balacing reasons, a longer and unprotected recovery frame/window could be applied at the end of that skill to create an opening for the opponent to attempt a CC. Grabs should absolutely not be protected and whiffing one should end up with additional recovery frames, however, grabs should only be available to shield classes. To be able to move/teleport and grab can be unbalanced and that's without taking latency and FPS into account.

Final Thoughts: As previously stated, I'm sure there will be many that disagree and that's absolutely okay by me! Even if somehow 99% of the community agreed with me, the changes needed to rebalance it all out would probably be way too much $ for PA to stomach XD

I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feeback though and thanks for reading!

If you really want to balance PvP, get rid of the ability to PK the defenseless. Instead of just taking a big karma hit when you attack someone with a much lower gear score, just make it impossible to attck them. This is really the number one complaint about PvP - lifeskillers and hunters getting attacked and one-shotted, and PK's at boss fihgt just trying to wipe out as many people as they can for the jollies.

I'd rather PA focus on higher GS players griefing newer players in the game.

this doesn't happen lol