Has Gauges helped you a lot?

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Originally Posted by Zfz

Were they supposed to be HUDs to eliminate the need to focus on the buff bars?

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They are meant to bring certain core elements (thematically and mechanically) of each job to the forefront visually, not eliminate the need to look at the buff bars.

Not sure where people got the idea it was going to eliminate that aspect of gameplay.

Bard for example - songs and their respective procs/effects are a big part of the job now, so the guage acts as a clear indicator of the parts of the job that connect to the songs, rather than replacing the need to look at hotbar procs and the buff bar entirely.

Not at all. Gauges make it harder for me to notice when a NIN in my party doesn't use Huton, or a SCH isn't using Aetherflow, or a MNK can't keep up GL3.

Love the changes.

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Originally Posted by Berethos

They are meant to bring certain core elements (thematically and mechanically) of each job to the forefront visually, not eliminate the need to look at the buff bars.

Not sure where people got the idea it was going to eliminate that aspect of gameplay.

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Because it's inherently counterintuitive to bring gameplay elements to the forefront by removing them from the part of the screen you are already looking at (and need to continue looking at). That's removing them from the forefront and putting them somewhere else. You still need to watch for procs and watch your position and watch your allies and watch the enemies; why split buff management between so many different places too?

Some of them are nearly perfect; I would use them over the old display (BLM is fine for me, I put proc abilities around the gauge so I could see them in the same place on my screen). Some of them impede gameplay. Some of them can be hidden entirely with negligible impact on gameplay. It's all rather inconsistent which is why everyone is getting different messages from the design.

I hide my BLM one behind the chat box but I find the samurai and bard gauges useful. I hope they don't add too much more to the UI though. It's getting cluttered.

For AST and SMN, definitely. I appreciate the lack of clutter on the buff bar, and I like having a cool-looking indicator of where I'm at in my rotation (or what cards I have). Granted, they're probably adding card buffs back in 4.1, so double ASTs can coordinate.

Whilst for some classes it has seemed like a natural evolution, for others it has got in the way more than anything else.

The move to 'every class gets a gauge' - whether this be a sliding scale or item increase (lilies for example) - appears to have been driven through, sometimes with little or no benefit to the overall enjoyment of playing the class.
It seems now, that on taking up a new class one of the first actions is: 'right, where's the gauge for this one?'
We are all servants to class mechanics to some extent - global cooldowns, rotations etc. The addition of another thing to watch has the danger of making us more robotic in our gameplay - i.e. wait for bar to reach x, now use y - and so on.

So maybe good for some classes, but it didn't have to be all of them.

Of the jobs i do have @ 70 (Blm, Red Mage, Bard, Sam, Nin and Astro) i actually do like the Gauges.
War to me i do not like it and Monk i am unsure yet

BRD makes no sense to me now so Idk what I'll do when I go back to it. WHM, I made it small enough so it's not bothersome or distracting. SAM was made for it so it seems the best suited of course. WAR is fine very neutral. To be honest the best way I know the gauges are ready is the audio chime. That sticks out to me a lot for when it's ready. So for the jobs that have that it helps to avoid not looking at the bar.

For some classes it helped but it has it's drawbacks for sure such as Mch gauge you can't Cooldown until level 62 meaning you either have to Overheat and waste DPS or manually turn on/off Gauss Barrel so you don't Overheat at all which is weird design. Same goes for Drk you can get blood at 62 but you can only spend it every 2 minutes making it really awkward when you have this overflow of Blood and can't use it on something like Quietus or Bloodspiller as they're later.

Other drawbacks include having double Asts in the party meaning you can't see their cards due to the gauge which kinda sucks because overwriting cards can be super easy to do not to mention you can't tell what an Ast in your group is going to draw and use, I know in 4.1 they're fixing it.

Can't see GL3/Huton/Aetherflow/Dreadwyrm trails etc so if i'm in a party I can't see if people are just wasting them or what have you.

And the last thing I can think of, which is just nitpicking mostly, is some jobs just feel...empty until they hit certain levels Drg has a huge problem with this as you're spamming 1-2-3 until you get your OGCDs and Piercing Debuff and Chaos Thrust with Doomspike. Mch also falls into that category as it doesn't get many abilities either that compliments with these gauges, same with Drg as the emptiness with the gauge doesn't help. Once you reach those levels it's not an issue and the class is fun but yeah just a nitpick.