2.5s Recast/GCD feels wayyy too long.

[Powercow]

Hit max post limit today so I'm going to edit this one.

I started out with 2.5s GCD for the rotation, 2.5*23 = 57.5 seconds, because not everybody has 13% speed. Afterwards, I accounted for the 13% skill speed in the post and increased the action counts,, it is below the rotations. Also, I use rotation from balance discord. http://ffxivrotations.com/24az So you can see I didn't just pull it out of nowhere. The only difference between this and mine is potion usage and meditate. As for 105 vs 135 kenki, I might've made a typo putting it into the calculator. However, that 30 extra Kenki adds 1 extra attack, bumping it from 33-34. Not enough to make a massive difference in combat style.

First, 2.5 * 24 is exactly 60 so not sure why you did 23. Second, you can't just say "oh but I don't count X Y and Z" for no reason at all. You have to take the entire package of a job. The extra actions also turn into extra Kenki, which turns into more actions.

If you have a high Skillspeed amount you should be able to get 30 GCDs in no problem per minute.. So your 23-step minute-long whateverthehell is not only missing the 30 Kenki, but also 7 more GCD's worth of Kenki (so let's assuming you finish your combo and do the others, so 5 10 5 5 10 5 15.) So 65 Kenki + 30 you miscounted, or almost an additional 4 actions. That's 11, *eleven* actions you missed per minute. That's a huge amount! You said it was 33 actions per minute, but it should be 44 -- 33.3% (hey didn't I say 30% from the start? Not bad for a cursory glance right?) more than you thought it was. That is a "massive difference in combat style."

So you talk about MOBAs a bunch. Imagine if you saw someone on a MOBA forum who used their skills in the wrong order, or who couldn't land a skillshot to save their life and that person began complaining how the game's combat sucks. He the proceeded to throw out a bunch of important-sounding numbers and grandiose statements, but upon even a moderate read you look at them and think, "What? No, crits don't work that way. DoTs don't work that way. Skillshots don't work that way! Armor doesn't work that way! Nothing this guy said has been accurate!"

Would you look at that guy and think, "man, this guy's opinion on the game's systems is super valuable! He's entirely in the right!" Or would you look at him and think, "oh man, this guy's got some wildly wrong assumptions about game mechanics. Maybe I should tell him how it is?"

Now to be helpful, even though you didn't ask and don't deserve it (maybe someone else reading this will learn from it, even if you don't):

Are you hesitating on your GCDs to hit positionals? In almost all cases just hitting the button is better than getting into position and delaying your GCD, so if you're holding off to dodge a boss's move it's usually better to go ahead and just hit it.
Are you hesitating due to a lack of confidence in your rotation? If so, the best way to practice I've found is to take a piece of paper or book and cover up your hotbars and just practice on a dummy until you can do it.
Are you using macros? If so, STOP. Macros do not queue actions in this game, so at absolute best if you use a macro you're adding your latency onto every GCD'd macro you have. Over time this results in a massive loss.
Are you hesitating to dodge boss AOEs? With a handful of exceptions where bosses continue to melt the area (the last boss of Holminster does it with the chain + conal) you can dash right in after the ground AOE disappears. Visually it'll look like you got hit, but as long as the center of your hitbox isn't in the danger area of the ground marker before it disappears you won't be hit. The same also applies to stuff like the purple markers on Titania or most Eden fights -- you won't hit an ally assuming the effect disappeared before you moved back in.

[Xyr]

Snip

23 because I thought Midare took longer than 2.5s. I don't use macros. Sure my rotation wasn't on par when I just started lvling, however now it's much better. As I said before my logs on those two fights were bad because I never done it before and was just winging it. My play isn't perfect, nor do I do perfectly in every fight, however, I do good enough once a while to know that the combat is very meh and slow paced without a natural course of flow. I don't need to be top 10 ranked to know that. I will momentarily unhide my logs, however I hide them because privacy, simple as that, why should I display my information to everybody? I'm not a politician.

[Powercow]

23 because I thought Midare took longer than 2.5s. I don't use macros. Sure my rotation wasn't on par when I just started lvling, however now it's much better. As I said before my logs on those two fights were bad because I never done it before and was just winging it. My play isn't perfect, nor do I do perfectly in every fight, however, I do good enough once a while to know that the combat is very meh and slow paced without a natural course of flow. I don't need to be top 10 ranked to know that. I will momentarily unhide my logs, however I hide them because privacy, simple as that, why should I display my information to everybody? I'm not a politician.

[Senator Armstrong intensifies] Am I getting through to him?

The reason I pointed to your logs is that, from as far as I can tell your complaint is that the Samurai rotation is slow and has no smooth flow to it. However, few people share this complaint (about Samurai anyway), and the job itself is fairly fast, even compared to its contemporaries in WoW. So the natural response is to see if something is off with the playstyle -- I've had people tell me Black Mage sucks and is boring to play only to see their playstyle is "Fire III -> Blizzard III -> repeat." Your rotation isn't as much of a comedic mess as that, but it does seem to have the same problem I see time and time again with people in melee roles -- they're simply not pushing enough buttons fast enough. Compound that core issue with the fact your complaints were that the rotation is slow and, well, it seemed like a very easy-to-fix problem. Just play faster and it's entirely possible that the gameplay won't feel as slow.

Part of the problem, I think, is your current experience is with entry-level stuff and you're a bit of an MMO vet. The current Extreme primals are a joke and there's a lot of time during them where nothing is happening. Even the normal raids regularly have people just standing there. Frankly, the jobs aren't super well-suited to easy content. It's actually one of the main flaws I have with this game -- low level gameplay is boring for anyone who's played an MMO before.

Nobody is expecting you to be in the top 10, but looking to those in the top 10 is a great way to learn. You can see what they're doing that you're not, and see if mimicking them can lead to improvement.

Also, hiding your personal information is like, the most politician-like thing you can possibly do. Hide those skeletons in that closet!

[Xyr]

Snip

No, faster raid mechanics don't have anything to do with it. Simple example, BDO has amazing combat that flows very well, yet there's no dungeons or raids. You don't need difficult bosses to know whether the combat is good or bad. I know even when I do nearly perfect on my rotation that the playstyle is not very fast, every action doesn't feel like it leads to the next naturally other than that the next skill lights up. As for weaving, the amount of extra skills are very limited by the Kenki, not to mention the idea of "weaving" itself is an unnatural concept. It's basically "here, while you are waiting for your combos to come up, use this completely unrelated skill as filler.

It's essentially watching a TV show and every 3 episodes, one episode is a filler, it has nothing to do with the plot whatsoever and is only there to fill the timeslot.

As for the thing about politicians. I completely disagree. People don't have to show others their taxes, they don't have to show others their income, they don't even need to show others their birthday. SE doesn't show FFXIV subscription numbers. Everything is private, and for a good reason. What does it mean when they don't show such information? Absolutely nothing.

Here is this post again. So here we go! First You don’t explain what “clunky” combat is. (I hate when ppl say that, the combat is very smooth) Your numbers don’t make since ether. A quick google search and you can find a interview with yoshi p talking about the GCD. Basically the devs said they want every skill you cast to mean something and not button mash. A 1.5 GCD doesn’t allow for a few things like spell animations, difficult raid mechanics. And melee would never move. Sorry but your post is dumb

Clunky combat, one, it's slow paced, two each action seems like an individual action of its own, it doesn't direct into the next action or make it feel like they are connected to each other. Their animations don't connect with each other. Imagine hitting a punching bag, you punch it with your right-hand, now there are many actions that would flow rather nicely, since your lefthand is pulled back, it is in position to strike, or you could kick with the leg that is positioned well. However, instead of striking with any bodypart that has good momentum, you instead extend your chest and strike them with it. It does not make sense, and there's no natural flow. That's how ffxiv combat feels. The only thing that make those skills connected is a light that lights up saying "hey, this button is the next combo." Every skill is going to matter as long as they're high potency, mashing or not has no relevance.


And saying that low gcd doesn't allow for animation or raid mechanics is just bad design.

[Powercow]

No, faster raid mechanics don't have anything to do with it. Simple example, BDO has amazing combat that flows very well, yet there's no dungeons or raids. You don't need difficult bosses to know whether the combat is good or bad. I know even when I do nearly perfect on my rotation that the playstyle is not very fast, every action doesn't feel like it leads to the next naturally other than that the next skill lights up. As for weaving, the amount of extra skills are very limited by the Kenki, not to mention the idea of "weaving" itself is an unnatural concept. It's basically "here, while you are waiting for your combos to come up, use this completely unrelated skill as filler.

It's essentially watching a TV show and every 3 episodes, one episode is a filler, it has nothing to do with the plot whatsoever and is only there to fill the timeslot.

So you like DMC, BDO, etc. Have you tried one of those rhythm games like Osu! or StepMania or something? Those are much faster but would likely ruin your enjoyment of those other games. I get the feeling that raw speed seems to be the only thing that matters, and only in a vacuum, completely devoid of any context. You keep compartmentalizing the individual aspects of combat, it's a mental thing that some people have trouble overcoming. You say the opponent doesn't matter in terms of making the fight interesting, which is a... unique sentiment. To you, fighting a training dummy needs to be as exciting as fighting a dragon god. A perfect example was earlier with you thinking that "I can take X skills and just multiply it by 13%", completely missing the extra Kenki you would have gotten. It's like you see a tree, and another tree, and all these other trees but can't see there's a forest there.

As for your TV analogy, bizarre as it is... FFXIV's combat is more like an episode. No good TV show is "100% GOGOGO" the whole time. Action movies, Kung Fu movies, even stuff like DBZ knows that in order to keep the audience engaged you need to slow down sometimes. Take any epic battle scene -- a lightsaber duel, a fighter jet battle, an epic cavalry charge, whatever it is and you'll see that there's always moments where things slow down. Do you flip out at the movie for taking a moment to breathe? Without those moments, the more exciting times aren't exciting. It gets exhausting. Same thing happens with MMOs -- if you have a spec that's ALL OUT ALL THE TIME then it gets very boring after a while.

Also I watched a BDO combat video and... yikes you wanna talk about animations not flowing? I couldn't find an example of any two skills used in sequence that didn't look jarring as hell. Know what might help make it flow? Slowing it down a notch so the animation could finish. But nah, let's do a spin, then when the sword is behind my back and I'm facing the wrong way snap to me facing forward and slamming the ground -- only to snap into me charging forward with my sword at a completely different angle. Such flow, such smooth, such not-clunky!

You can just create a macro for hiding and showing your skillbars with "/hotbar display [Number]"

*looks at old textbook*
Well old friend, it seems you've been replaced...

[Pepsi_Plunge]

Are you hesitating due to a lack of confidence in your rotation? If so, the best way to practice I've found is to take a piece of paper or book and cover up your hotbars and just practice on a dummy until you can do it.

You can just create a macro for hiding and showing your skillbars with "/hotbar display [Number]"