Simulations?

I'm chuckling at that suggestion because design is so much less scientific than that. It really works like "hey this ability would look cool, lets see how it's used." Well not 100% like that but pretty close. There -is- a slight method involved with coming up with the basics. But after that, its a little haphazard. That is until the parses come in from actual player use. But again.. that's why you see such large 20-50% swings in abilities during patches and hotfixes. Instead of much smaller tweaks. Each production team has its way of doing it. And that depends if they have a mathematician on board or not.

The way they setup abilities in FFXIV.. well you've all have seen the patches. And 95% of content can be completed by 123, like I stated before. Until that changes, you're going to be hard pressed to convince me that they intended players to use 'optimal' rotations. I'm not convinced any of them know the optimal rotation for each class anyway. Or the skill speed sweet spot for certain classes.

Now if at least half of the 60 content at least required some measure of it. We'd be having a different conversation.