What are your thoughts on FFXIV's combat?

[Commander_Justitia]

I wish there would be a bit customization. Different styles, to not say talent tress directly. There was also this rumor about set bonuses once, where your skills get different traits the more items you get of the set?! It shouldn't be too hardcore, so it shouldn't matter too much what traits you pick - but it would give some variety. 2.x PvP had it in the very start. I don't see why they couldn't release it for PvE too.

[drtasteyummy]

I for one am not really a fan of the FFXIV combat system for many reasons.

1. It's absolutely bloated as hell with skills that could be combined to a point where I ask myself how people can play without MMO mouse

2. It's very static and therefore very boring by nature due to lack of surprise

3. Jobs are designed after a set basic guideline which makes every job category feel the same with different skills e.g. every melee has a dot, every melee has positionals [...]

4. Positionals are just a stupid concept, it's not very fun by itself but even less if you consider the boss randomly turning

5. Jobs have no good concept of flow they often just designed to go full piano mode once you reach the 60s or 120s burst phase which leads
to you focusing mostly on having no drift between those bursts

6. Simple drifts destroy the whole FFXIV combat concept which leads to an abuse of third party tools to fix the abysmal animation lock concept

7. Some cooldowns were forgotten in the 60s and 120s concept, leading to drifts due to their natural cooldown and therefore must be precalculated to be used correctly

[Shurrikhan]

I wish there would be a bit customization. Different styles, to not say talent tress directly. There was also this rumor about set bonuses once, where your skills get different traits the more items you get of the set?! It shouldn't be too hardcore, so it shouldn't matter too much what traits you pick - but it would give some variety. 2.x PvP had it in the very start. I don't see why they couldn't release it for PvE too.

That may well simply be a "know your playerbase" sort of thing, where --given that PvE is too shallow not to devolve into 2-minute-macrorotations while playing DDR-- the community tends to bar jobs over as little as 3% differences. If we tend to bar jobs (past their sub-role's stat bonus) for being at the bottom even while within 2% performance of the top, what kind of degenerative meta fixation would be applied then to those customization choices within them?

Granted, a large part of the reason WoW, for instance, might take a job/spec at the bottom of the barrel for a given fight is because job/specs there can have distinct enough damage profiles or utility to see use despite that general underperformance.

That has the opposite problem of certain jobs/specs being near must-picks for certain fights, but in terms of getting a community to look beyond just "ooh, biggest number on the tier statistics graph," occasional fight-specific near-must-picks may well be better than a lack of differentiation (and therefore reason to care about anything beyond a general-application / averages graph) enticing the community's acceptable bounds to shrink away to only the tiniest of margins.

In short, it kind of makes sense for the devs, seeing what they see from XIV's playerbase, to essentially remove any customization beyond job choice on the expectation that it'd become a non-choice despite adding a lot of work to their task of balancing everything. But that state is also arguably because of their decisions elsewhere (a sort of "poisoned chalice" issue).

/shrug

[Amenara]

Combat for me is just kind of meh. No customization, set in stone rotation, every fight is on a timer just kind of makes it meh to me. I am a bigger fan of reactive combat with procs in the rotation randomly going off and adjusting based off of that or priority rotations with abilities having different CDs to make it feel more random. The 2 minute burst windows definitely made it worse for me in EW as well.

[Recon1o6]

As time has gone on, ff14's combat has gotten worse tbh. It feels like new problems come up instead of being resolved. In terms of severity of issue

1. Healer jobs being 1 button dps
2. Extensive homogenisation and lack of identity
3. Artificially doubled ping and snapshotting
4. Puddle deep skill ceiling, and an extremely low skill floor while the game does not encourage getting better
5. Removal of combat mechanics in the name of "accessibility" "balance". Crowd control, cross class and the current 2m burst are all examples
6. Rigidity. Jobs are all rotational based, not a single one anymore is based on resource management
7. Unrewarding gameplay loops. A lot of jobs are build gauge then spend it. But the way the gauge is built it might as well not bother existing. Many buffs don't feel like they have any impact because either the numbers aren't noticable without a parser (such as ast cards) or they are flat out unused (feint, addle for anyone who doesnt play savage/ultimate)
8. Bloat of outdated buttons and lack of synergy in existing ones. cure 1, oblation, anatman...the list keeps going. So many buttons that have no purpose and/or don't feel like they were designed by someone who mains the job they are on. Meanwhile we have ones like synastry that should be really good for kit interaction, but don't (in synastry's case, it only affects spells...which you barely use if at all)

[Voltyblast]

Can you name some???

Just ask because this game tends to remove more and more skills. Do you want it to be purely 1,2,3 for everything?

I can't make many because I haven't leveled all jobs, so I'll say what I know for now, and I'll most likely forget some and it's not like you'll agree with me, so here we go: I'm currently playing Samurai but I ask "why having a button that does the same skill I did again when it could be just one button?".
I forgot the skill, but there are two 120s skills that share it. Why not just have one that encompasses both? Seems overkill to have several CD that, in essence, do the same thing.

As for examples that come to mind: Warrior's extra rotation is only needed for that 10% more damage. It used to be a secondary rotation for dps, and before for 10% less dmg. Why even have it now? It's not like PLD that gives a dot, or OGCD rotation from GNB. DRK don't even HAVE a rotation but they still get that 10% extra dmg. I don't get it.
Orogeny is also kinda meh. you press it when it's up, don't when you need upheavel. Its only benefit is being OGCD, otherwise it's the same strength as Mythril Tempest. I even forgot it exists.
Also since Primal Rend only Activates during Inner Release, why not make Inner Release turn into Primal Rend? One less button to press already

Bard also feels kinda the same: most of their skills used to synergize with their dots, like Sidewinder or Shadowbite, but now the extra skills don't so all they do is more raw damage. You could just encompass them together instead of having one more button to press, especially when most other skills seems to be fine so far? Also I'm not a fan of the whole "stance dancing" of the songs, especially when I liked their older versions like MP recovery or Foe Requiem, but that's on me.
And while we're at it, I wish they'd give more importance to dots already...or just remove them altogether. They're barely important now and don't even proc Mage's Ballad or Army's Paeon. Either put more focus on them or just get them out. I personally want them to stay but now I digress.

Also as a BLM I feel that now that you must use High Fire and High Blizzard in your aoe rotation feels needless when you didn't need that before. It was okay to use Freeze to switch out and continue, but now I have 2 more aoes to keep in mind which is "meh". Not hard by any means, but just "meh". It's not like my aoe dmg was that important to begin with.
Also Blizzard III is still separated from Blizzard I. Very annoying when doing low-level queues. Can't they be just one already? Or will I have to constantly switch them out? I know Fire I doesn't get replaced but that skill is an integral part of your dps rotation (especially when you get Paradox) but Blizzard I doesn't feel the same away. I think something could be done by now?
Also Is Scathe still important or I'm just using it wrong? As in, practically never?

And in general I don't understand why so many AoEs: Most jobs had like, 2 or 3 at best and maybe jobs like BLM had more, but they were black mages so you kinda wanted that huge amount of fire power.
But for other jobs, why do we need so many aoes? Especially when aoes are mostly used during trash pulls and in some bosses for adds. I'm not saying "give us one button for aoe (which was the case for some jobs, like Warrior or Paladin in ARR)", but sheesh I feel like I need to remember what aoe goes after what. I think 3 or 4 is fine, which is why I like Monk (The beast Mantra skills are optional), or Machinist.

Again, Im most likely forgetting some, but I think you could merge some skills into one and not feel the difference. Or do something like pvp and have one button do multiple actions at once - I know, the blasphemy, it's not like GNB had 3 of their skills merged into one like in pvp!

Or maybe I'm just clueless, who knows?

[Shurrikhan]

I'm a little concerned that people think it's still bloated when we've had 2 expacs that have been simplifying the holy hell out of the game. I seriously do not know if they can go any further without it becoming a 1,2,3 fest. They'll find a way though.

Those same expansions also showed, very clearly, that button count is not a great indicator of depth.

And yes, there is bloat. That doesn't mean the only solution is to crop button-count, but there are existing abilities that add virtually (Anatman) to literally (F4 separate from B4; Flare separate from Freeze) nothing.

And then there's XIV's idea of "combos" --rigid linear sequences with zero reason to restart a given combo, such that they could be replaced with a single button each without any decrease in complexity-- in place of actual combinable skills (i.e., actual combos). Again, that's not an issue that can solely be addressed by reducing button count, but it is an issue of bloat.

[Gember]

I am not a fan of the 2 minute burst window that has been the new thing in Endwalker. It utterly punishes the players if not met and reduces creative combat to a near 0.

[Zachia]

Unlike WoW with its 1-3 button rotations (outside cds) FF14's combat is superior but a bit slower in my opinion. I would like the GCD to be shorter but thats about it. If i wanted to have no rotations or bare minimal i'd play skyrim or something.

[Aurikai]

Unlike WoW with its 1-3 button rotations (outside cds) FF14's combat is superior but a bit slower in my opinion. I would like the GCD to be shorter but thats about it. If i wanted to have no rotations or bare minimal i'd play skyrim or something.

Only a few of WoW's are 5 or less, actually WoW has higher CPM than FFXIV, look at something like Demon Hunter, you get like 12+
https://www.wowhead.com/guide/classe...#single-target

Two High Level Raid Logs comparisons by top teams in each game:
https://www.fflogs.com/reports/YwcJ7...=11&type=casts
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...=50&type=casts

Average CPM
https://i.imgur.com/aEUEFxD.png
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...minute_by_job/

As others have said, a lot of FFXIV are just button bloat, like 1,2,3 combos, Samurai is a prime example, takes like 3 bars with bloat, but with XiVCombo that's reduced to two. GCD may make PvE rotations feel "better", but is awful for PvP.