I love beautiful animations.. but I think they're too slow for this game

[Phobos]

Show me any modern game that suffers animation lock, I can't think of any and certainly not the newest MMO's around, which are moving more towards action based combat.

I don't think dealing with animation lock is a skill... its more a necessity.

Animation lock is present in action based combat. Ever play a fighting game or the like? The concept is as northernsky points out:

...You could auto-attack the whole fight, or take the risk to launch greater damage at the expense of being hit by a mob special attack...

I've played DCUO which had animation lock. It's a much faster paced MMO than this with incredibly fast PvP and PvE content. IMO, the animation lock (even though you could clip many abilities) makes a fast paced action style game more strategic and similar to a fighting game.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, and will expand upon here - some things should not lock you in animation. I mentioned spells; you're already forced to stand in place to cast, why force animation lock when all you're doing is raising your hand. This simply hurts when there is server lag because you can be moving but still finish a cast and lock yourself. There should also be some abilities/weapon skills that don't animation lock, based on the logistics of the move. For instance, on PGL/MNK - Haymaker seems to utilize the lower body for more power (there's a large torso twist and the character bends down a touch) while something like Aura Pulse has the character jumping in the air and could lend itself to not locking in place, but locking momentum. If some of the "locks" were more logical and nonexistent where it makes sense to be this wouldn't be much of an issue.

That being said, coping with animation lock is a skill. In FFXI for me there were a lot off odd skills that seperated the excellent players from the good players - things like being able to judge your enmity as a BLM and not take hate but maximize damage, etc. Here, in FFXIV we have faster paced combat with animation locks. These locks have their place, though could be considered overused right now. As northernsky mentioned and I'll bring up again - the animation lock serves to make weapon skills dangerous for the user as well as the recipient.

Just because you have to avoid something doesn't mean the ability to avoid it is not a skill.