Who is supposed to use limit break and when?

In a four player dungeon during a boss, after we had just taken a lot of damage, i used my bard (healing) limit break and the other party members were acting like i shouldn't have.

So my question is, who is typically supposed to use the limit break and when? I assumed mine would have been useful considering the circumstances, but I suppose they were intending to use their damage-dealing limit break near the very end of the fight or something?

Thanks

The only time it's a good idea to use bard (healing) limit break, is when you have level 3 and most of the party is dead. Any other time it's a waste.

In general the melee DPS will be the one to use limit break and it will be near the end of a fight in order to finish off the boss. However, depending on the fight, limit break can be used as part of a boss strategy. For example on ifrit HM, BLM will often limit break during the nails phase in order to kill all the nails quickly, or during garuda HM to kill the sisters quickly.

In most cases, limit break will be used to do damage. Tank and healer limit breaks are normally only used as a last resort.

Typically, one of the melee (monk,dragoon) or caster (black mage, summoner) will use the LB at the end on the boss or to meet a dps check.

Healers and ranged dps have a healing lb, but it is only used at endgame content to ressurect the entire party and prevent a wipe. These are most commonly used in trial content where the LB bar is immediately reset when they initiate the fight anyway, so the healing LB is just considered "better than nothing".

Tanks almost never use their LB, with the exception of one specific move (of great strategic value) in the Ultima HM fight.

The L2 and L3 healing limit break is very useful when it's needed but unfortunately it really can't be planned on so many people prefer not to use it even though it can save a run. I've personally used it to recover from Ifrit HM and post-heart Titan HM (although it's VERY difficult to time correctly on the latter), and even the level 2 has saved some dungeon runs like Stone Vigil with a not-so-hot healer and a Siren battle where a few party members didn't make it to the middle in time to avoid the room-wide charm.

I've also used the Tank limit break to keep the party alive during Titan HM's Stomps when he was at a sliver of health with both healers dead from bombs.

People just don't like saving it for emergencies I guess. Damage LB are extremely effective when planned around and are consistent so people just like to use it for those.

If the battle is going steadily then surely DPS should use.
But if in a situation like OP, I'd rather have healing LB to get party back into shape and continue the fight instead of a highly likely wipe. At that point it's probably just a matter of time before you kill the boss. With 1 of 2 DPS dead, you probably can't meet any DPS checks anyway if you need to rely on LB.

The problem with the healing LB is it rarely ever actually helps. The damage limit breaks are always useful, as they can either be used in situations where something needs to die ASAP (The aforementioned deal with Ifrit), or at the very least getting the fight over quicker.

The healer limit, on the other, oftentimes just delays the inevitable. It heals everyone, but does nothing to prevent what caused the damage in the first place. Most of the time, it will allow you to live... probably a few more seconds.

Ideally you want the worst-geared (or worst-performing) DPS in whatever LB you're using to be the actual LB user. LB damage is based on the average weapon level of the entire party, so it's just as strong when used by the (say) i50 DRG as the i90 DRG.

Additionally: if you have DRG and MNK, DRG should be the one to use melee LB. SMN should be the user if you have both SMN and BLM in most cases (some exceptions; BLM is more suited to using it in Titan EX if you do that, due to Manaward and Manawall). Both of these jobs have "filler" downtime (Ruin spam, Full Thrust combo) where their counterparts would be better off continuing their time-sensitive rotation.

Had a Haukke Manor HM with two bards once... was sad to see the LB2 not be used (wasn't needed really) as we only had tank and healer LB available.

LB 3 Sum Meteor FTW!

So many bad examples of timing and placements here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbjy764mPZc

I just watch the gauges. It really depends on the party and how they're doing. I've used lb even during fate raids and no one has complained.

So, I did some thinking on the two defensive limit breaks (healing and tank), and have considered ways they might be fixed.

Healer's issue, as I mentioned before, is that it only solves a minor problem that could probably be solved with a medica/succor or two. It does what'd take you probably 6 seconds of time, whereas the damage ones can shave off minutes of time. It also does nothing to aid with problems down the road (likely coming if the enemy got you that low in the first place). So, my proposal for the healing limit is, on top of the existing effects, add a regen to HP/MP/TP when used, possibly based on weapon level of the party (Like the damage limits are). Duration should last a decent amount of time, at least 30 seconds, possibly up to a minute. This not only handles party healing so the healer can focus on the tank and/or damage the boss, it also reflects the support nature of the jobs that get it by allowing the party to fight at their best.

Now, tank's issue is simple: The duration is too short. While negating up to 50% damage sounds nice, it's only really usable if you know a big attack is coming and have no way to circumvent it normally. I know of only one attack in the game like that (Ultima hard mode's final explosives). If the duration was noticeably increased (say, 30 seconds to a minute), it would be usable to help a party recover or attempt things that would normally be too risky.

Generally LB priority goes like this:

Bosses:
Melee LB --> Caster LB --> Healer LB --> Tank LB
Melee use their Limit Break at an opportune time to either take a chunk out of the boss's HP or to finish it off. EXCEPTION: Ifrit EX has the melee LB the large nail often.
Casters use their Limit Break if no melee are available or if a damage check needs to be passed fighting multiple enemies.
Healer LBs are used at level 3 to prevent a full wipe and recover from a bad situation. Generally these aren't used before that.
Tank LBs when there's really no other thing to use the LB for. EXCEPTION: Ultima HM, when tanks are the ONLY ones LBing.

Dungeon Mobs/FATE:
Caster LB --> Melee LB --> Don't LB lol
Caster LBs destroy mobs.
Melee LB only if there are no casters to LB, or if there's a big monster.
Don't LB otherwise, waste of time/LB meter for incoming bosses.

If the whole party is both geared and competent, then you will use the LB to make things go faster.

If you are playing with PUGs or don't have the content mastered yet, then you will save the LB for the healers so they can save the day, if need be. If the fight goes well, typically a damage dealer will use it to make the last phase of a boss go faster.

As a Bard, the only time you should use the LB is when you have 3 bars up and two or mor party members are dead (especially if that includes one healer) - but try to get into a central position so you raise all of the dead guys. Using a one or two bar limit is usually considered a waste since that only heals those that are alive, which is the Healers' job anyway.

I've heard you save LB for mainly for melee, MNK or DRG, for like Titans HM Heart phase. for Ifrit HM BLM/SMN on 3 nails? or if many is dead lv 3 LB SCH/WHM/BRD, and not sure when tanks should use

I think during fate DD BLM save and use lv 2 LB during the first or last set of adds whole party would get more exp its not like melee would get more exp for using LB. and also save a lv 2 LB for BLM/SMN for fates that have lots of mobs, mainly would be BLM and BLM/SMN should use on for 2nd or 3rd set adds of during Go Go Gorgimera

I'll use the healing LB when I see most of the party getting wiped(more than half). Beyond that I rarely use it. Hmm do like the idea of adding HP/MP/TP regen but the LB already restores all of that to all from what I can tell.

Ifrit HM is actually a decent place to use the Tank LB if you don't have LB3 for nails and DPS is too slow. The Hellfire damage can be survived with a LVL 2 LB if you have better than AF gear. There are Garuda XM strats also where you leave Chirada up and use Tank LB for Mistral..Shriek?

However, in the OP's situation, there is really no situation at all in a 4 man where a Healer LB will be more useful than a dmg LB. Especially if your criteria is 'the party had taken a lot of damage'.

lol SMN using limit break!!! dont ever run with me. i wont use it. so don't ask me to. someone else can do it better then I can so no SMN shouldnt use the limit break unless SMN is the last one standing with the boss having less then 1% health left... Leave it to the more powerful DPS to use. The SMN's egi is more poewrful then the SMN so dont use it SMN. leave it to NIN, BLM, or DRG. Healers only when whole party is down and you have 3 limit bars. Tanks... Please Tanks dont use either unless you know exactly what your doing, further more it is only a last resort to finish off the boss as with SMN.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by EllieGirl48

lol SMN using limit break!!! dont ever run with me. i wont use it. so don't ask me to. someone else can do it better then I can so no SMN shouldnt use the limit break unless SMN is the last one standing with the boss having less then 1% health left... Leave it to the more powerful DPS to use. The SMN's egi is more poewrful then the SMN so dont use it SMN. leave it to NIN, BLM, or DRG. Healers only when whole party is down and you have 3 limit bars. Tanks... Please Tanks dont use either unless you know exactly what your doing, further more it is only a last resort to finish off the boss as with SMN.

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1. What a necro
2. Smn and blm can and should use lb, not on bosses or single target, but in huge trash pulls. Itll regenerate, calm down.

Use Limit Break on a boss as soon as you get one. So it can rebuild again. you should be able to LB 3 times in some dungeons. LB on a big group of trash mobs is also ok. I don't get why people save LB all the way to the last boss when it was ready during the first boss.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by EllieGirl48

lol SMN using limit break!!! dont ever run with me. i wont use it. so don't ask me to. someone else can do it better then I can so no SMN shouldnt use the limit break unless SMN is the last one standing with the boss having less then 1% health left... Leave it to the more powerful DPS to use. The SMN's egi is more poewrful then the SMN so dont use it SMN. leave it to NIN, BLM, or DRG. Healers only when whole party is down and you have 3 limit bars. Tanks... Please Tanks dont use either unless you know exactly what your doing, further more it is only a last resort to finish off the boss as with SMN.

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Not sure why you felt the need to necro a thread from 2 years ago...especially one with out of date information since BRD LB is not a healing one anymore. Surely you could of made a new thread about this sort of topic if wanted to talk about it instead of using one that has out of date information and is 2 years old. Did you just google when to use FF14 limit breaks and never bothered to check the date on this thread before commented? I can't imagine you scrolled through 2 years worth of posts to find it... :)

Not to mention with incorrect information as well... The reason they state they wont use it is because their Egi is somehow a better damage dealer then they are, so any other DD should use it. They neglected to note the fact that It is based off the entire party's damage not theirs alone that effect it.

And someone feel free to correct me if im wrong, but i thought the person who res'd the thread had the heirarchy wrong too. My understanding is that the per-target damage goes MELEE>Ranged>caster. But with that said, if the situation calls for a caster limit break doesnt the group lose more overall damage if the BLM activates it? If i stop what im doing for the 10ish(ive never actually timed it, but the higher level LBs feel like they take forever) seconds to trigger, cast, and animation-lock a limit im resigning myself to only doing thunder damage(40 potency per tick) rather then 3ish active casts(and for reference, a single fire 4 cast under normal conditions is roughly 529.2 potency). A summoner who does the same is also giving up active casting, but potentially has multiple dots going plus a pet doing damage for them while they are locked into flaring the world - thus an overall gain for the group since the damage from the limit itself should be the same.

Unless im remembering it all wrong because im tired.

Depends on situation also, if you have a large clump of enemies that need to go down and the group does not think it could dps in time, caster lb would be the way to go. Single target enemies like bosses or a target that needs to go down because of death otherwise, Melee would be best.
Other limit breaks such as Bard does have it's use at times, obviously this was an old post as Bard lb is no longer a heal one, lol

Using Melee Limit Break as the standard to compare to: Caster Limit Break is roughly 2/3 of Melee Limit Break and Ranged Limit Break is roughly 90% of Caster Limit Break. That's right. Ranged Limit Break is almost as useless as it was pre-3.0! Weaker than Caster Limit Break, very thin so it's easy to miss enemies with (like every line attack), and just to make sure it's awful, the person using it can't even see its area of effect. I don't know why the devs decided to be total idiots here. However, because it is still 90% of Caster Limit Break's damage, it's still considerably better than Melee Limit Break against even 2 enemies. Melee Limit Break is only to be used for single-target fights or if Caster/Ranged Limit Break would cause too much overkill.

I've never bothered with the math to figure out if BLM using Level 1 Limit Break, Skyshard, on a single target is actually a DPS loss or not, but I'm pretty sure it is unless it kills the enemy, obviously. Of course SMN using Level 1 Limit Break on a single target is a DPS gain as long as they cast it right after Fester so that its cooldown is going during Skyshard.