Cooldowns should be the only penalty. WS animation lock isn't anything bad at all if you make fights that don't make it inconvenient (Looking at you, Ifrit!).
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i dont get what people want instead though. No animations just cause people cant time stuff?
and how would a cool down be a penalty for doing big damage. Its just a timer for when you cause it again, its not penalizing you
ifrt is the most predictable mob in game, you shouldn't get stuck in an locks.
In FFXI maybe, but in FFXIV, the battle system is faster paced and depends heavily on positioning to get your combos inputted.
Most MMO's don't have animation lock when using a WS, being able to control your character while using a special ability, unless there is a cast timer on it. FFXIV is sort of aiming toward this type of system. However, even FFXIV doesn't have a fast paced method that other MMO's do, so an animation lock still kind of makes sense. The problem is that developers did not put this into mind when they created Ifrit.
While yes, Ifrit is predictable now, it isn't right that you are caught in it simply because the game wouldn't allow you to move, especially with the lag issues it presents.
Simply put, people won't complain about animation lock if SE makes fights that don't make it an inconvenience.
Ifrit imo was made to make people plan there moves, not nonstop WS. he only has like 50k hp which if everyone is doing aound 8-10k damage wont take more then 7-10 mins to beat, If you could attack faster it would only be like a 3 min fight every time.
There is plenty of tie for long animation skill in ifrit.
the pld should turn into a white dragon and explode and then spin around into a pulpy blood tornado EPIC
Looking at the class reform info, this WS is the final step of a combo following a block.
The animation perfectly makes sense with its role, in my opinion.
(animation lock wouldn't be that bad if there wasn't lag from server side UI / bad server causing these issues)
By the by, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqoaPWyLE1g this is one of the PLD WS's in FFXI (BLU and RDM can use it too, but it's more linked to PLD.)
It doesn't need to be flashy, but that does prove the point about people when they expect things lol. Flashy =/= good quality because being too flashy actually distracts you from the design of the root animation, which in FFXIV is some of the best.