GCD or insta-cast abilities more important?

[Ecosmith]

Why? I can understand each ability having a recharge timer, but not why using one would stop me using another. Will it eventually be possible for me to make an attack chain that has no gaps?

[Spoekes]

In this game your character has 2 types of being "occupied" while using abilities.

1. 2.5 seconds global Cooldown (GCD-ability)
   Most of your abilities take your character 2.5 seconds before he can take another action.
   
2. ~1.3 sec "instant" Abilities(offGCD-ability)
   These abilities do not trigger the 2.5 seconds global Cooldown, but prevent your character from using any other ability the next ~1.3 seconds.

For any class it is usually the best to try to weave offGCD abilities between you GCD abilities.
I.E. you as Warrior should try to weave in your defensive Cooldown right after you triggered one abilitiy of your attack combos, this way you don't waste time/GCDs.

[Ecosmith]

I think the reason why I can't 'get' the GCD thing is that the animations dont take 2.5 seconds, so what I see is:
Aargh, take this, evil squirrel! [huge swipe with axe]
Stand like lemon doing nothing for a bit.
Warrgh!!! Get some! [swing wildly woth axe]
Da de da, waiting for some reason. Maybe my arms are tired?
Graaagh!! [chop chop]
Yawn. Be with you in a minute.
Yaaroogh!!! [slice!]
Etc.

I played City of Heroes for a while. That game had no GCD. The various abikities all had different cooldown periods, some v long, but it was possible after abt lvl 10 to get a cool seamless attack chain going, both power use wise and animation wise.

Hopefully as I level up in FF14 I'll be able to simulate this. It's the 'doing nothing' steps in between ability uses that's causing my thematic disconnect.

[vanityobscene]

Aargh, take this, evil squirrel! [huge swipe with axe]
Stand like lemon doing nothing for a bit.
Warrgh!!! Get some! [swing wildly woth axe]
Da de da, waiting for some reason. Maybe my arms are tired?
Graaagh!! [chop chop]
Yawn. Be with you in a minute.
Yaaroogh!!! [slice!]
Etc.

Genuinely the funniest rendition I've seen. This is how I'm going to think of Marauders hereafter.

[Ecosmith]

Is it possible through levelling other classes to acheive a hotbar woth no GCD abilities, and hence not have to idle about for 2.5 seconds waiting for abilities to recharge? The 'instacast' ones seem to have animations that take abt a second, so using all instas would be far less annoying than the strange GCD ones.

[Muzy]

The animation from most of the GCD abilities should last most of the GCD, and no, you will never achieve being able to use that many abilities that are off the GCD, for one, most of them have cooldown times, and two, most of the the cross classeable ones do not deal damage.

I'm used to a 1.5s GCD, so the 2.5s GCD feels pretty slow.

Also, I do not know what MMO's you have played before without some sort of global cooldown or animation that acts as the global cooldown, but this is pretty standard, a bit on the slower side, but pretty much the industry norm.

So apparently you posted a second one while I was typing this up...


Closest you'll get to something like what your talking about is playing Monk, and 95% of their actual rotations are on the GCD.

[Scorp6]

Thanks for all the help everyone. I have made a couple macros to test while I finish leveling. I have one for heavy shot (heavy, ME, BL), one for straight shot (straight shot, ME, BL) and one for my buffs (internal release, hawks eye, raging strikes, barrage). I don't have blood for blood yet. I'm thinking of only using the regular straight shot so I don't accidentally delay getting the buff up and/or delay using a straight shot proc.

I understand this isn't the most efficient way to dps but it wil make some room for the situational things on my cross bar like songs. Often I'm on my playstation vita so changing bars isn't as seamless with the back touchpad. Any further suggestions are welcome. Thanks again!