Discussing your 'unpopular' opinions

[Shurrikhan]

Confusing and wildly unpopular opinion: I loathe the entire concept of rotations. There ceases to be any kind of individuality in gameplay when everyone is the equivalent of a robot; all pre-programmed with a specific set of moves for 'optimum DPS', usually taken from some guy/gal on Reddit posting along with some unfathomable chart of numbers. I adore spontaneity and instinctive gameplay - something which, for me, *only a healer role really has in abundance.

The thing is, the two aren't mutually exclusive in the context of an actual fight. A proper rotation isn't a set rotation per se. It's a series of balancing acts, and any new stretch of downtime can require a recalculation of the whole mess, which is where the instincts really kick in, but also come to involve your party as well. The NIN is going to arrive back from solo airships 2 GCDs late; I'll hold on to Kaiten-Higanbana until he arrives again to instantly Trick Attack. You can run simple guidelines like 1 global tick wasted out of 20 = 5%, so I'm either going to wait or not wait based on how late that Trick Attack will be. When you get a clearer picture of how long the fight will actually take, these guidelines can be put away in favor of working backwards from the previous ending, thinking about the downtime variance you've felt and how many actual casts of a given ability you can really get, and then start weaving them around your team.

As rigid as they might seem, there's still a lot going on behind rotations, whether visible by preparation or solely by gamble when in the thick of the fight, so long as you're not regurgitating someone else's.

*Sidenote:

Personally I find tanks and healers to have the least spontaneous gameplay because they're relying on each other to keep to a certain plan; each is less free to adapt because the other is relying on them. Support-heavy DPS are second in this regard, while I find BLM and SAM to technically be the freest or most capable of spontaneous and adaptive change.