Quote Originally Posted by Gruntler View Post
Look, I don't know how else to put this. The game's--in fact the entire subgenre's this game inhabits--core mechanic in combat is to take a bunch of numbers, and add them together, until they exceed a total; and to do this either before a rival set of numbers sums up to exceed a different total, or before a timer expires.
There is no reason to smart-arse me. You know perfectly well what I meant. If I have two abilities that are exactly the same but one does more damage then who in their right mind wouldn't use that. That facts that it's too clear-cut in XIV is exactly the issue. In encounters there is less reacting (since encounters are static) and more stand where we say when we say it. Rotations are static, encounters are static, (de)buffs do nothing but make numers bigger/smaller, crowd control abilities pretty much don't exist and since SB we now have tank #1 to #4 with different particles. Then there is gearing up (aka chrit till you can't crit anymore).

There is no meaningful decision to be had in such a design. It's either do as we say or don't bother. And the fact that so many here take that design as gospel only proofs my point. When did the game stop being about fun/varied encounters where you need to react and more of a mathematical equation?

The other MMO from SE did a way, way better job at giving you options whereas XIV seems Hells' bend to remove as much as possible at the moment.