Abilities can't be used till animation ends.

[Kat_Manx]

I guess this could all be fixed if they changed the ability info tab from saying "Instant" to "Kinda-almost-instant." xD

[Fayto]

So, I got bored and decided to debunk this entire idea of "you can't interrupt animations at all". I was able to interrupt the animations of the following abilities: Straight shot, Heavy shot, Blood letter, Venom bite, Wind bite, Quelling strikes, Raging strikes, Blood for blood, Barrage, Hawks Eye, and Internal release. I was not able to interrupt Repelling shot (because the animation moves you away from the target) and Blunt arrow (because the animation is too quick to interrupt with the current invisible 1 second between abilities timer).

On another note, I didn't try any of my AoE abilities because WHO CARES, isn't 11 abilities enough to prove that this doesn't hold up anyways?

You done this on Bard but animation canceling is how you get maximum DPS out of Dragoon. Just replying to add to your comment.

[tymora]

Mmmm, doesn't really bother me. "Characters having non-stop spasms" due to no animation lock will however.

[Jonjon]

This game has no animation lock, it only has ability delay. Animation lock =/= ability delay, please use the correct term in the correct place.

FFXIV 1.2 had animation lock, you used an ability and you were LOCKED IN PLACE until the animation finished, you couldn't move, you couldn't use another ability. All you could do was hope and pray you were alive by the time it finished.

No it does have animation lock. Dragoon Jump, being resurrected, many others. For the first 4 months of this game you could be killed while in resurrection animation lock.
IE: Oh I am being resurrected, oh look at that aoe that just spawned under me. I die. Rez please?

Also Yoshi used the term "animation lock" so there's that.

With that said, however, we'd like to touch on a few of the changes we have planned, and to start off I'll talk about dragoon. We'll be reducing the cooldown timer of Power Surge by 30 seconds and increasing the damage of their standard three action combo. Also, Jump will be adjusted so that execution is quicker, animation lock is reduced, and landing point is changed. Overall DPS will be increased by approximately 10%, so burst damage will greatly increase.

See this Producer live letter. Please learn your facts before attacking people.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...812-02-2013%29

I dunno, anyone I've played with hasn't complained about this so I can't sympathise.

I've played countless MMOs and can't really see what the OPs pointing out. Unless I've jaded over time and gotten used to it.

People have been complaining about this since at least Beta 3, if not alpha. While I was in the alpha I did not read the forums much until beta 3.

[Moirear]

You call it potato, I call it vodka.

For you, this system may be "bad" and the pace of combat as too slow, but for me it's nice and the pace is just right.

Just saying, coming from the ATB-based FF games to this one, it feels about right in the pace imposed by the GCD and animation frame locks.

Been saying this since beta to the naysayers. By now I've played on every class/job in the game to give a slightly more informed opinion, too.

[Doo]

Makes it feel clunky for sure.

[Roris]

It's bad design really, instant abilities should be instant, there's no excuse at all no matter how much some people still want to pass it off as "skill", and no liking Final Fantasy doesn't instantly make it acceptable, it's as silly as when people were defending the exact same ability delay in TOR just because they liked Star Wars. It also has to do with the slow server response so that the servers don't get too "stressed", that's why you see stuff like a Lustrate and Benediction go off on someone with enough HP left and enough time to get saved by it and that person will still die. Hopefully it'll get fixed eventually and won't just keep getting passed off as another quirk or even a feature of the game.

[UBERHAXED]

It is a feature of the skill. Look at the spell holy. Do mobs take damage when the GCD finishes? No. Do they take damage when the cast finishes? No. They intentionally make skills only go into effect when their animation finishes so they can tune specific skills without affecting other skills by altering GCD or making them impractical by having you have to stand for 7 seconds in place to complete the cast. FYI, they changed the animation of holy in patch 2.1 to balance the skill (so you can use less in the same time frame) and this is an intentional way of balancing combat.

[VisRalis]

Mmmm, doesn't really bother me. "Characters having non-stop spasms" due to no animation lock will however.

Same, it always gets me, the skill spam repeat animation looks pretty bad when I really think about it.
I guess its a matter of having gotten used to it that makes it seem normal.

But I'm all for a FFXIV to be a bit more responsive and smoother.
It can be better...

[Synestra]

Just saying, coming from the ATB-based FF games to this one, it feels about right in the pace imposed by the GCD and animation frame locks

With 2.5sec GCD instead normal 1sec i think SE is trying to mimic old FF ATB system in here.