Playing an MMO with a controller

[Kosmos992k]

In all honesty, I think a controller is faster and more flexible for a game such as this. I have immediate access to32 possible skills, instant analogue movement control, and no utterly unnatural backpedaling. I've read posts by keyboard mouse players who time and again dismiss the controller as less precise and too slow for skills. Utter garbage. This game does not require the precision of a sniper in an online shooter - which works very well on a controller BTW. and with GCD, I can hit heaven knows how many buttons in the standard GCD time. I can be switching enemy targets or party member, moving to a better location to avoid an AoE and then hit my chosen skill, even if it's on my secondary crossbar and still have time left over to wait for the casting time before moving again.Controller based movement is more fluid, natural and responsive than keyboard/mouse - IMHO.

With regard to the poster that mentioned not having enough skills available and having to spam R1, you can set an extended crossbar configuration to enable secondary Crossbar pages on each side of the controller, so a combination of R2-L2 allows you to have up to 32 commands instantly, rather than the normal 16. If I hold R2, and press-hold L2 I get a 3rd cross bar, and if I hold L2 then press and hold R2, I get a 4th, this is over and above the crossbars already configured on L2 and R2 themselves.

I think FFXIV has a very good controller scheme but it will never be as good as mouse & keyboard.**snip**
targeting with a controller is no match to mouse & keyboard as well.

Targeting is easy, as someone mentioned press L1 and the up/down controlls on the d-pad and you cycle through your enemy list, or press L1 or R1 during combat to cycle through them, use the up/down buttons to cycle through the party list, and left/right to cycle through targets on your current target filter setting. Trust me as a Paladin, when you finally figure out the ease of targeting with a controller you can split your rotation over 3 or more enemies if you must without a problem. And as a healer you can quickly pick an alternate party member to the one you keep targeted (tank) to receive a heal or other spell. Controller targeting is at least as easy and accurate as mouse keyboard. I'd contend that it's possibly quicker and easier to play on a controller than on mouse/keyboard.