Job Gauges, OGCDs, buffs, etc.

Could we get an overhaul to this system? I can't ever look at what is happening on screen nor my character to enjoy their animations. This is a very big issue. Dragoon, for example, has like a 7 hit combo, on top of all of their dives, all which are gated behind BotD and LotD, and very limited time to do so. It's SUCH a chore, that I don't feel like i'm enjoying the fight because I can't actually watch it except to glance up to make sure i'm not getting hit. For MCH, same thing. Watching procs, then my ammo gauge, then my heat gauge, then keeping track of my OGCDs on top of when my turret is up, I don't actually get to play the game. I'm just managing this cluttered system of buttons. Can we put all procs on the job gauges? Can we get rid of some more clutter actions for jobs? Please square enix, make it so that we can watch what is happening on screen again instead of only our UI.

It's funny because the gauges were supposed to keep people from staring at buff icons, but for a number of classes, it's gotten worse.

IE, on AST, I have to look at my gauge to manage cards; look at buff icons to track Earthly Star; and look at my bars to see the cooldowns of card-related abilities as well as my normal healing abilities, not to mention having to look at health bars, etc like everyone else.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

It's funny because the gauges were supposed to keep people from staring at buff icons, but for a number of classes, it's gotten worse.

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Yep, I really wish they had just made the buff bar more customisable, with multiple moveable windows, white / black listing, and the option to have each window show as progress bars (useful for short duration buffs) or icons (useful for stances and procs) with an optional counter (either stacks or time remaining). Each window should be seperately resizable as well, as some buffs / debuffs are far more important than others.

God I miss Buff Bars and Power Auras from WoW.

PS. And if they wanted to do a 'Class UI' they could have just made some default sets.

I agree, gauges only made things worse. If they wanted to help people, they should look how it is done properly. Karuul alert addon from Rift, Buff Bars (from several other games) and some others. These are usefull tools so people dont have to stare at their skill bars watching from procs and can actually pay attention to fight and enjoy it. AST is terrible now, 3 new skills just to get rid of unwanted cards that we could previously just "click" away... :mad:

BRD has a lot to watch as well since we have to track our DoTs, Straight Shot buff, Song duration and stacks, Healer MP (good BRDs at least) and making sure we get that Refulgent Arrow off as well. Also assuming/hoping later on we'll have to track TP when Skill Speed starts to get high. Think at some point they said that they're going to do some gauge fixes from some classed in 4.1 or later so maybe we'll get some QoL improvements on them. But for some of the classes, the gauge feels tacked on. PLD is one that comes to mind since it effects Shelltron and Intervention and that's it (used to do Oath change but, eh). RDM is an example of a good class gauge IMO since there's not much to it and you can easily tell what's going on with it while actually serving a purpose. Don't get me wrong, they simply could have made it stacks (with different numbers that 1-100 obviously) and called it good