Gameplay lacking excitement?

You haven't even reached endgame and already complain. GL in coil.

The combat in this game sucks, but that's not why you play it. Content updates in this game are unmatched, and it's not overly aimed at casuals. Endgame is very challenging. Have yet to play an MMO where leveling was hard. That's just not where the focus is.

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Originally Posted by Phr3nic

While I haven't arrived at endgame yet

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This'll be why. :) Lemme tell you, the first time my coil group cleared T9 was one of the most adrenaline-pumped moments of my gaming life. Most of the coil fights are very fun when you do them with good people and it makes your play improve on an evolutionary scale. The Crystal Tower 24-man raids can be very fun and interesting as well, but these days (because everyone is ridiculously overgeared) you might find that people steamroll through it and don't really care about the mechanics of the fights. You really do need to have your job at level 50 to be able to use it properly though, missing just a couple of the skills and traits can detract heavily from your ability in battle.

That said, I've always been quite interested in Eorzea's history, its cities and its people. That makes the world a lot more fun to travel, and with some good FC mates even some of the most dull level 50 dungeons can be a blast. The best thing about FFXIV though is that there's always stuff to do (unless you're one of those people who have everything at 50, have cleared all coil turns and have BiS on several jobs).

If you go into endgame raiding with that mindset, you will fail utterly...

For example, what you said about BLM and dodging AoE, if you don't maximize the amount you stand still and are able to cast continuously, you're not going to put out enough DPS for the fight... Maybe if the others are doing good and you're overgeared (like people are now), you can still beat it, but good luck when the content is new...

For raids you have to have 100% focus all of the time, you have to play your job to a high degree (can't just press a couple of buttons like earlier content), and if you don't do everything right, you'll likely wipe your group.

In the expansion, they are going to add a normal mode raid, and a hard mode raid, so you'll most likely get some challenge from the normal mode, and the hard mode is going to be even harder than the current raids...

Also, if you think BRD and BLM are too boring, why don't you just play another job? Any of the melee jobs should be challenging enough, IF you are to get the DPS you need...

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Originally Posted by Phr3nic

So far I've heard MNK, DRG, NIN. Anyone care to give a quick overview or compare these classes? I'd be grateful.

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You mentioned earlier that in RPGs you typically roll mage. Running one of these will either be great or horrible for you.

Good: Change of pace; very active play-style; hectic.

Bad: "standing in the orange doom" syndrome; active play-style (you miss 1 buff and your whole rotation will suffer); hectic (remember which abilities you used that chain into other skills, using another will break your chain and making you a bad.)

Honestly, with people overgearing their jobs and it being so easy to gear other jobs with your main I have seen sooooo many fail melee. That is to say, people that main SMN/BLM/BRD and who aren't used to the playstyle of melee. I don't think anyone will disagree that for a large portion of fights melee get shorthanded compared to ranged.

I hope after you reach 50 and have had some fun running coil you'll see how fun XIV is.

The most amusing part of this thread is that the OP mains Thaumaturge, arguably the most snooze-inducing DPS base class. I personally did not start to really love BLM until I had F3, B3, and then Firestarter. Without smooth transitions between AF and UI and that main proc to manage, BLM is pretty damned boring.

Also, having Aetherial Manipulation reserved for lvl 50 is unfortunate. Maybe more BLMs would learn to use it properly if it were available while leveling.

The main issue here is that most classes don't get key parts of their rotation until 40+ which gives new players a very skewed impression of how they play. Also in terms of mechanics, most dungeons have one, maybe two at a time to deal with.

Compare that to level 50 where you typically have a moderately complex priority system to juggle, multiple cooldowns, procs and off-GCD abilities, and bosses throwing half a dozen different mechanics at you, and it's barely even the same game.

Wait for endgame stuff the game was so much fun on the beginning, now its easier, but wait for titan ex, you will hate him