Its ffxiv combat really so slow and boring?

[Dualgunner]

Getting back to your main bar though needs to cycle through R1 unless you do R1 + triangle. Plus, if you run a pet job, r1 is set aside for pet actions anyways. You can also access four bars instead of one via face buttons.

PLD isn't a pet job, so you're shifting the goal posts a bit there. You can set what bars are available to be cycled through both with weapon sheathed and weapon unsheathed in the options menu.



EDIT: Regarding the pet hotbar, this can be disabled, and all its abilities can be mapped to the regular bars as well. Would this be feasible? I couldn't say, but it's possible.

Unless its on the main tank, it's almost always reactively. Even if you know it's coming, you don't know who the mechanic will be on.

Only situation that comes to mind where you'd cover somebody but don't know who is O6S, and even then you know who gets targeted by the rock spire earthquake ability well in advance of it actually going off. Otherwise, you only really ever cover MT for tankbuster help or the BRD/MCH for knockback mechanics. Both of which you should know will happen and who to target well in advance of it.

It's the same issue with rescue, imo. It's actually really hard to use it effectively, and the processing time doesn't help.

There's a reason it's not taken much? It's so niche of an ability and its rewards are only tentative. Might as well take something else that would be more useful. In niche situations it's useful but again, in those situations you know who you're targeting: in O4S for example, you rescue the PLD back after the knockback tankbuster the tanks share, because PLD doesn't have a gap closer.

Sort of an issue with SB abilities overall bards that use palisade effectively are very rare for example.

In lower end content where it's not as important, yes, you'll see less people bother with mitigation.

Or say a BLM that uses apoc, the processing overhead gets high with moves targeting another, and the controller has a slight delay that doesn't help it.

BLM have their own problems with oGCDs in particular, given their cast time is larger than their GCD. However, they obviously find ways to do it or Aetherial Manipulation would be a borderline useless skill.

You're blowing the difficulty out of proportion, really.

[Darrcyphfeid]

Regarding the pet hotbar, this can be disabled, and all its abilities can be mapped to the regular bars as well. Would this be feasible? I couldn't say, but it's possible.

Yes, it is. This is actually how I play SCH and SMN because the Pet Hotbar irritates me and is full of buttons I don't (constantly) need. It's easier to just take the buttons you do need and assign them to your primary attack bars, while placing other things onto a non-attack bar. I actually have the controls for the Companion Chocobo set up the same way.

[RiyahArp]

PLD isn't a pet job, so you're shifting the goal posts a bit there. You can set what bars are available to be cycled through both with weapon sheathed and weapon unsheathed in the options menu.

Eh, but the single tap is also vulnerable to fat fingering it. Otherwise the WXHD would be fine. And you're also needing to deal with muscle memory, so it doesn't work well unless you can map abilities in a manner. Like my base cure and my base stone sharing x is ok, but Aero 3 and a strong cure in the same button can mess you up. And for me, I play every single job at 70, so the layouts vary a lot and make having multiple bars a bit of a pain too past 32. Or rather, it did in HW, i just wound up dropping jobs then.
In any case, I don't think it can be said it's easy to access beyond 32; you are still dealing with a decent learning curve, both in configuring your layout and triaging abilities, and there still is reaction time penalty, so it's best anyways to reserve it for macros or uncommonly used stuff.

[Dualgunner]

Eh, but the single tap is also vulnerable to fat fingering it.

Everything is vulnerable to fatfingering. I fatfingered displacement and killed myself when I meant to hit corps-a-corps more times than I care to count.

And you're also needing to deal with muscle memory, so it doesn't work well unless you can map abilities in a manner.

AKA: Practice.

you are still dealing with a decent learning curve, both in configuring your layout and triaging abilities, and there still is reaction time penalty, so it's best anyways to reserve it for macros or uncommonly used stuff.

I'm glad we agree it's easy to access more than 32 abilities. Yes there's a learning curve, but it's a curve worth exploring, practicing, and mastering rather than begging for button consolidation.

[RiyahArp]

Yes there's a learning curve, but it's a curve worth exploring, practicing, and mastering rather than begging for button consolidation.

it will happen anyways. Do you really think we're going to be able to add 5-10 more abilities next expansion to our current setups, on top of the expanded role slots? We're back to HW in which you can talk about practice all you like, that didn't overcome the skill floor issue. If they add any more abilities, stuff is going to need to be taken away, and combos can be pruned to a 1-1-2/3/4 with no issue.

If anything, the combos in this game solely exist because SE tied buffs and debuffs to each hit, not because hitting 6 buttons is better than one. And a lot of those debuffs are bad design; people have been annoyed at the piercing one for years for example. I don't see anyone here complaining much about missing maintaining 2-3 dots as a melee class, even in HW where AST and MCH started at base 30 for theirs, not base 15ish for many jobs. You could easily just tie the buffs/debuffs to last hit buttons, and remove bridging hits without much issue. Stuff like needing an enmity and non enmity combo could probably be tied more into the last hit or given alternate styles of play.

Something will have to change for 5.0, because if we go back to HW ability levels, but with SB's mobile bosses, we will all be in big trouble.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

it will happen anyways. Do you really think we're going to be able to add 5-10 more abilities next expansion to our current setups, on top of the expanded role slots? We're back to HW in which you can talk about practice all you like, that didn't overcome the skill floor issue. If they add any more abilities, stuff is going to need to be taken away, and combos can be pruned to a 1-1-2/3/4 with no issue.

If anything, the combos in this game solely exist because SE tied buffs and debuffs to each hit, not because hitting 6 buttons is better than one. And a lot of those debuffs are bad design; people have been annoyed at the piercing one for years for example. I don't see anyone here complaining much about missing maintaining 2-3 dots as a melee class, even in HW where AST and MCH started at base 30 for theirs, not base 15ish for many jobs. You could easily just tie the buffs/debuffs to last hit buttons, and remove bridging hits without much issue. Stuff like needing an enmity and non enmity combo could probably be tied more into the last hit or given alternate styles of play.

Something will have to change for 5.0, because if we go back to HW ability levels, but with SB's mobile bosses, we will all be in big trouble.

Uh, most jobs got no more than three new skills; with four being the exception. We're not getting anywhere near ten. Some basically got the same skill back at a higher level, i.e. Ring of Thorns deleted for Sonic Thrust or Stoneskin for Divine Benison

snipThere is no way to do it than this, nor is there any reason as to why One Ilm Punch shouldn't be there. It's not used by monks?! And who cares?! It still won't be used by monks. There's no reason why it would need to be used by monks if it's crap. But it DOES exist and it IS optional part of a combo so it obviously would be consolidated.

One problem with that. Unless you can customize the consolidation, you'd be forced to use One Ilm Punch since using Arm of the Destroyer would have to advance all three buttons into the Raptor, thus locking out access to True Strike and Twin Snakes.