[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Binaris]

I see you meantioned target healing being gross. Just fyi You can mouse-over macro. People will tell you macros bad, and for dps rotaitons that is very true, but for heals, you aren't going to suffer using them because this isn't a game of HPS.

Overall, I would say this game is very different from wow.

Easiest to play : Tank > Healer > DPS

Tank is super easy, the only challenge will come in raiding when working with an offtank. And even then, the game uses mechanics that are obvious for tank swaps.

Healer is all about doing the bare minimum healing needed to live, and doing damage with a basic idiotproof rotation. Damage is so predictable once you learn fights that you can be dpsing 75% of the time.

DPS rotations are overly complicated for my taste. Where wow goes with 4-5 buttons of whackamole that can easily all be tied to one button mouse apps. FF14 has long complex rotations where cooldown timing matters. The enrage timers are normally so tight in savage that a single mistimed trick attack can ruin an entire pull.

All of this is irrelevant though to the normal gamer. The only challenge you'll find is in savage and extremes. Outside of that, this game is best played with a jump in with both feet mentality. You will learn your class as you level it no matter what you choose. Im with Granyala, just dive in.

[Granyala]

Healer is all about doing the bare minimum healing needed to live, and doing damage with a basic idiotproof rotation. Damage is so predictable once you learn fights that you can be dpsing 75% of the time.

In an elite group: yup.
In a normal group? best be on your feet and ready to save asses or rez... and then you can kiss you DPS goodbye. :>

[Hyral]

I have always been intrigued by being a tank (always mained healer in wow), but the idea of having to be the "leader" of the group, especially when I don't know my face from my ass in this game more times than not, is intimidating).

DPS melee moslty seem to be the same sort of sryle of 3 button 'combos' with a builder spender sort of thing going on as well (and ur dot/buff/debuff abilities sprinkled in).

In wow I was a Rsham for almost 10 years, but also really enjoyed rogue, ret Pala, and frost fk once upon a time. I'd almost certainly try to main another healer in ff14 if you didn't have to Target heal everybody

Yeah, after spending the last decade exclusively tanking in WoW trying it in XIV is like erasing everything that's given depth to tanking and going back to the tried old focus on holding threat. At the beginning that translates to spam Flash/Overpower a few times and problem solved. It can't get any more braindead than that. You really don't have to worry about it.

Later on you get about two hundred defensive cooldowns and your playstyle will eventually evolve into learning when you want to use which defensives and how to maximize your dps but that's much later in the game and by then you'll most likely figure it out on your own. Also many of your abilities come from Role actions which means all other tank jobs in the game will share many of those same abilities, helping you transition to Gunbreaker when it comes out.

Tanking here is as basic as it can be. For better or worse. You'll be fine. Now healing, that's a role I don't understand how anyone can perform in XIV with the dreaded 2.5s GCD. If I decide to cast anything besides a heal, even an instant ability, by the time the GCD is over there's someone who is almost or already dead. It's maddening.

[Eleccybubb]

Yeah, after spending the last decade exclusively tanking in WoW trying it in XIV is like erasing everything that's given depth to tanking and going back to the tried old focus on holding threat. At the beginning that translates to spam Flash/Overpower a few times and problem solved. It can't get any more braindead than that. You really don't have to worry about it.

Later on you get about two hundred defensive cooldowns and your playstyle will eventually evolve into learning when you want to use which defensives and how to maximize your dps but that's much later in the game and by then you'll most likely figure it out on your own. Also many of your abilities come from Role actions which means all other tank jobs in the game will share many of those same abilities, helping you transition to Gunbreaker when it comes out.

Tanking here is as basic as it can be. For better or worse. You'll be fine. Now healing, that's a role I don't understand how anyone can perform in XIV with the dreaded 2.5s GCD. If I decide to cast anything besides a heal, even an instant ability, by the time the GCD is over there's someone who is almost or already dead. It's maddening.

I can tell you right now that if you are spamming Flash as a tank you will not be holding threat for very long as that just places you at the top of the list of emnity. It doesn't actually generate emnity like the combo or Circle of Scorn.

And if you are Overpower spamming as a Warrior you will be running out of TP very quickly. Both tanks have combos or other abilities they use to build up threat.

You should NEVER ever Flash spam and that is flat out bad advice for someone looking to get into tanking.

As for healing. I have no problem off dpsing and keeping people alive so /shrug. Dunno how you play so can't comment. And I play all 3 of them extensively.

[Binaris]

I can tell you right now that if you are spamming Flash as a tank you will not be holding threat for very long as that just places you at the top of the list of emnity. It doesn't actually generate emnity like the combo per se or Circle of Scorn.

And if you are Overpower spamming as a Warrior you will be running out of TP very quickly.

That's not how flash works. It is not taunt. It is ae threat and actually quite viable to flash 3-4 times at the start of a pull then use the dps combo to build mp for next pull.

https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Flash "Increases enmity in all nearby enemies."

https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Provoke "Gesture threateningly, placing yourself at the top of a target's enmity list."

Yes overpower is a tp hog. No way around that. a couple OPs before tab targetting gives a nice cushion though.

Im interested to see where they go with things in ShB since i heard tp is going away.

[Eleccybubb]

Thats not how flash works. It is not taunt. It is ae threat and actually quite viable to flash 3-4 times at the start of a pull then use the dps combo to build mp for next pull.

Yes overpower is a tp hog. No way around that. a couple OPs before tab targetting gives a nice cushion though.

Im interested to see where they go with things in ShB since i heard tp is going away.

You should never be spamming Flash hard. It's an AoE threat yes but it places you at the top of the list. So 1 hit on another mob you usually lose emnity.

Overpower does damage as well as AoE well a cone. It works a lot better and it's what Flash should do with a 50 potency imo. Better yet they should just get rid of Total Eclipse for Paladin and bake 50-60 potency into Flash.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._flash_advice/

From 2015 but it's most certainly still relevant today.

[Binaris]

You should nver be spamming Flash hard. It's an AoE threat yes but it places you at the top of the list. So 1 hit on another mob you usually lose emnity.

Overpower does damage as well as AoE well a cone. It works a lot better and it's what Flash should do with a 50 potency imo. Better yet they should just get rid of Total Eclipse for Paladin and bake 50-60 potency into Flash.

No it does not put you at the top of the list. It is not ideal to spam flash hard but 2-3 is a decent threat start, especially early levels where it is your only option. Please see the links i added to previous post. It does not do what you think it does.

[Eleccybubb]

No it does not put you at the top of the list. It is not ideal to spam flash hard but 2-3 is a decent threat start, especially early levels where it is your only option. Please see the links i added to previous post. It does not do what you think it does.

Yeah 2-3. That's not spam.

I meant just hitting it. You should be throwing Fast Blade and whatnot in at low levels.

And Flash basically does since it increases emnity and using it before anyone else hits the boss you will be at the top of the Emnity list.

It increases emnity and it will obviously place the tank at the top of the list because they will all be hitting the tank.

Telling a lowbie tank to "just spam flash or overpower" is flat out bad advice. Period. 2-3 is fine that's not spam in my book.

I'm just speaking out of frustration because I see a lot of lowbie GLAs and even high level PLDs just spam it and I end up with threat because naturally as RDM on big backs I'll Scatter spam.

[Katchii]

Tanking here is as basic as it can be. For better or worse. You'll be fine. Now healing, that's a role I don't understand how anyone can perform in XIV with the dreaded 2.5s GCD. If I decide to cast anything besides a heal, even an instant ability, by the time the GCD is over there's someone who is almost or already dead. It's maddening.

You get to know the fights as a healer to know when you should or shouldn't be healing. You get used to it. Saving your "oh shit" heals like Benediction for emergencies is pretty common in random dungeon content. People don't die that quickly in this game unless they're playing badly, getting hit by avoidable damage, and/or standing in shit they shouldn't be. There are VERY few exceptions to that. The most notable one I can think of was the last boss in the World of Darkness 24-man raid, Cloud of Darkness, who just hit like a fucking truck taking nearly 1/3 or more of a tanks health using her regular attacks, but that was also incredibly predictable damage so you could heal it easily.

I honestly don't feel like healing here is much different than WoW, it just happens slower, but the mentality and skills needed to play a good healer are the same in both IMO.

[Binaris]

Yeah 2-3. That's not spam.

I meant just hitting it. You should be throwing Fast Blade and whatnot in at low levels.

And Flash basically does since it increases emnity and using it before anyone else hits the boss you will be at the top of the Emnity list.

It increases emnity and it will obviously place the tank at the top of the list because they will all be hitting the tank.

Telling a lowbie tank to "just spam flash or overpower" is flat out bad advice. Period. 2-3 is fine that's not spam in my book.

I'm just speaking out of frustration because I see a lot of lowbie GLAs and even high level PLDs just spam it and I end up with threat because naturally as RDM on big backs I'll Scatter spam.

You still dont know how it works. Increased enmity just means it does a high amount of it. Flash does an increased amount of threat based on your attack power. It is actually quite significant amount. A little less that the savage blade step in the threat combo. It does not place you on top of any list, it is simply an attack that does no damage but adds threat.

Your other aoe option, total eclipse is 110 potency attack, so for dps reasons, 3+ targets to even be worth it and it has no threat modifier so is far less ideal. You will lose threat if you depend on it.

I agree they should bake them together. There was a purpose to flash doing no damage however. In ARR, we had to use cc more. the big group tanking crap wasnt ideal while leveling and flash let us have threat on sleepers without breaking cc.

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You get to know the fights as a healer to know when you should or shouldn't be healing. You get used to it. Saving your "oh shit" heals like Benediction for emergencies is pretty common in random dungeon content. People don't die that quickly in this game unless they're playing badly, getting hit by avoidable damage, and/or standing in shit they shouldn't be. There are VERY few exceptions to that. The most notable one I can think of was the last boss in the World of Darkness 24-man raid, Cloud of Darkness, who just hit like a fucking truck taking nearly 1/3 or more of a tanks health using her regular attacks, but that was also incredibly predictable damage so you could heal it easily.

I honestly don't feel like healing here is much different than WoW, it just happens slower, but the mentality and skills needed to play a good healer are the same in both IMO.

Benediction isn't an oh shit to be saved, it is a dps cooldown to let you keep spamming holy. WHM dps!

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I'm just speaking out of frustration because I see a lot of lowbie GLAs and even high level PLDs just spam it and I end up with threat because naturally as RDM on big backs I'll Scatter spam.

If you are getting threat through flash spam, the idiots are doing trash in sword oath. Shield for trash, sword for bosses.

[Wrecktangle]

I can tell you right now that if you are spamming Flash as a tank you will not be holding threat for very long as that just places you at the top of the list of emnity. It doesn't actually generate emnity like the combo or Circle of Scorn.

You should NEVER ever Flash spam and that is flat out bad advice for someone looking to get into tanking.

Binaris already covered it so I won't rehash how Flash actually works; and while you're technically right that you should never be spamming flash, it's only because it offers 0 DPS to speed up the run.

As a top performing PLD, In max level content I don't even have flash on my bars. You don't need it with careful target spreading. Unfortunately if I get stuck in low level content it's often required, but I never use it more than once. Once is more than enough to give time to target spread and get threat, even against RDMs.

I need to start playing again, but I'll just be waiting for the expansion most likely. I do need to go collect my Agrias armor though. Ugh. The idea of running 24's back to back sounds toxic as fuck. Did they ever revert or change the 24 man loot structure? I remember they changed it, but then I remembered a lot of back lash so not sure where it got left.

[Hyral]

I can tell you right now that if you are spamming Flash as a tank you will not be holding threat for very long as that just places you at the top of the list of emnity. It doesn't actually generate emnity like the combo or Circle of Scorn.

And if you are Overpower spamming as a Warrior you will be running out of TP very quickly. Both tanks have combos or other abilities they use to build up threat.

You should NEVER ever Flash spam and that is flat out bad advice for someone looking to get into tanking.

Well I'm replying to someone who is afraid to get into tanking. That means they would be starting a new tank class and the earliest they would be doing a dungeon is 15, at which point neither tank class even has a full combo learned yet and opening a pull with a few (as I said on my post) Flash and Overpowers does hold you threat. He is looking to start, no need to tell him about abilities you don't get until 50. And I did tell him as the game progresses things will be different but picking it up is not hard, echoing the suggestion of everyone else to dive in.

As for Flash putting you at the top of the list, are you sure you are not confusing it with Ultimatum? Flash does generate threat, it's not a taunt. And at the early levels it's good to open with it a few times than tabbing to combo things after face pulling, you'll be running around chasing mobs trying to land a hit.

As for healing. I have no problem off dpsing and keeping people alive so /shrug. Dunno how you play so can't comment. And I play all 3 of them extensively.

Oh, you are just looking to make yourself feel better. Nvm.

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I honestly don't feel like healing here is much different than WoW, it just happens slower, but the mentality and skills needed to play a good healer are the same in both IMO.

The speed is what messes me up though, but maybe because I've only healed as Disc and Resto druid. The faster playstyle of WoW lets me just quickly patch people up, meanwhile I'm waiting and eternity in XIV to just do anything while I see health bars going lower and lower.

Mind you my highest healer is a white mage at like 20 so I really have no high end experience with it, just doing dungeons with tanks who don't turn mobs around. I admire people who stick with it, to me it looks pretty stressful but I hope to get the hang of it eventually.

[Cattleya]

My biggest issue with healing in FFXIV is most of the time, you're supposed to help DPS stuff. I'm not a fan of that. I like the healer role to be "do your damn best to make sure nobody dies", like in WoW, rather than "throw a heal here and there but really spend most of your time tickling the boss to help raid DPS" like in FFXIV.

Probably part of the reason I haven't mained a healer job in XIV since Heavensward's launch.

[Dugna]

Well I'm replying to someone who is afraid to get into tanking. That means they would be starting a new tank class and the earliest they would be doing a dungeon is 15, at which point neither tank class even has a full combo learned yet and opening a pull with a few (as I said on my post) Flash and Overpowers does hold you threat. He is looking to start, no need to tell him about abilities you don't get until 50. And I did tell him as the game progresses things will be different but picking it up is not hard, echoing the suggestion of everyone else to dive in.

As for Flash putting you at the top of the list, are you sure you are not confusing it with Ultimatum? Flash does generate threat, it's not a taunt. And at the early levels it's good to open with it a few times than tabbing to combo things after face pulling, you'll be running around chasing mobs trying to land a hit.


Oh, you are just looking to make yourself feel better. Nvm.

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The speed is what messes me up though, but maybe because I've only healed as Disc and Resto druid. The faster playstyle of WoW lets me just quickly patch people up, meanwhile I'm waiting and eternity in XIV to just do anything while I see health bars going lower and lower.

Mind you my highest healer is a white mage at like 20 so I really have no high end experience with it, just doing dungeons with tanks who don't turn mobs around. I admire people who stick with it, to me it looks pretty stressful but I hope to get the hang of it eventually.

most of the time people falling over dead isn't your fault its either they didn't mitigate dmg or use healing cds to help or heck just stood in one thing that brought them down enough for that random unavoidable aoe to kill them. its a mix of things if the group actually does mechanics well like said above you can dps freely.

[Katchii]

Benediction isn't an oh shit to be saved, it is a dps cooldown to let you keep spamming holy. WHM dps!

I did mention it was for random dungeon content, though. When you know the group and can set your watch to the tank performance you can absolutely min max your healing usage and therefore your DPS. In random dungeons, you CAN do that, but I'm much more anxious about blowing cool downs like that in random groups where people can do stupid stuff. Healers are still one of the roles when if played well in a bad group, can keep it from being a total failure due to other members idiocy.

[Onikaroshi]

Did they ever revert or change the 24 man loot structure? I remember they changed it, but then I remembered a lot of back lash so not sure where it got left.

Yea.. that lasted like a couple of weeks max, you can need once again.

[Katchii]

The speed is what messes me up though, but maybe because I've only healed as Disc and Resto druid. The faster playstyle of WoW lets me just quickly patch people up, meanwhile I'm waiting and eternity in XIV to just do anything while I see health bars going lower and lower.

Mind you my highest healer is a white mage at like 20 so I really have no high end experience with it, just doing dungeons with tanks who don't turn mobs around. I admire people who stick with it, to me it looks pretty stressful but I hope to get the hang of it eventually.

IMO it feels very similar at max levels, compared to WoW. You have your full kit with multiple direct heals, a HoT or shield depending on which healer and your AoE tools as well. The incoming damage in FFXIV is slower than in WoW so the slower GCD really doesn't change much, it just feels bad because at lower levels you have worse gear, few spells and so the ones you have feel extremely underwhelming.

Lower levels (pretty much anything less than level 30) are painful because of the limited tool kit of everyone involved. Tanks don't have very many damage mitigation cool downs (if any) or their tank stance, healers don't have many spells or mitigation cool downs either and DPS don't have anything to help much either.

I promise things get MUCH better at higher levels when tanks and healers have more of their tool kit.

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My biggest issue with healing in FFXIV is most of the time, you're supposed to help DPS stuff. I'm not a fan of that. I like the healer role to be "do your damn best to make sure nobody dies", like in WoW, rather than "throw a heal here and there but really spend most of your time tickling the boss to help raid DPS" like in FFXIV.

Probably part of the reason I haven't mained a healer job in XIV since Heavensward's launch.

There are a few healing intense fights, but the situation you're talking about comes about when the group out gears the content. Tanks take less damage overall, healers put out bigger heals which means overall you need to heal less. The same problem exists in WoW. Last time I played my Resto Druid I spent more time DPS'ing than healing because Wild Growth and a few Rejuv's were doing the job.

I think with the way gearing works in both games now, out gearing the content occurs much faster than it used to so this "issue" is pretty prevalent.

[Graeham II]

I've been getting back into PLD lately as preparation for 5.0 as I make it a point to go through the MSQ as a tank for the sake of quick queues. I'm a little rusty, but things are going decently.

[Professor Issu]

I've been getting back into PLD lately as preparation for 5.0 as I make it a point to go through the MSQ as a tank for the sake of quick queues. I'm a little rusty, but things are going decently.

I thought about getting back into PLD, but my SAM keep calling me back.

[Granyala]

Tanking here is as basic as it can be. For better or worse. You'll be fine. Now healing, that's a role I don't understand how anyone can perform in XIV with the dreaded 2.5s GCD. If I decide to cast anything besides a heal, even an instant ability, by the time the GCD is over there's someone who is almost or already dead. It's maddening.

Naah, not really.
Even in savage you find plenty of room to squeeze in a few DPS related casts.
Provided you're not touring with morons that eat every avoidable damage available of course.

How you can perform as a healer largely depends on your group in addition to your own skill.
Which can indeed be frustrating at times, given how much this boneheaded community focuses on healer DPS.