Quote Originally Posted by KiriA500 View Post
You have to target enemies in Final Fantasy XIV to attack them, so the sluggish inertia animations don't do a single thing for strategy.
Except you're forgetting the range for all of the melee characters. If one of you can reach the range faster than the other one, you can deal more damage while your opponent is getting into position.

Every single skill (unless the PvP exclusive skills are different, which they won't be) are cast/used directly on the target. The only "strategy" involved in moving would be to avoid having them hit you from a specific direction, which the inertia animation has nothing to do with.
Adding to what I said above, you still have to face the target to be able to attack. There is of course the "face target" hack they implemented because of the laggy servers, but why would it be there for ARR? The inertia animation has to do with avoiding getting hit from a specific direction in the sense of making you plan ahead.

OH, HE STAGGERED TO THE LEFT! GOOD THING I AM STILL STANDING STILL AND CASTING MAGIC!
Magic is about the only thing that isn't affected by opponent's direction changes, but I'd like to hope SE will be able to balance the system in a way that doesn't involve the usual LULZNEEDSM0ARBLM.