Do all classes require 15+ buttons rotations?

[Radaney]

There are complex jobs like Monk and Ninja with quite a few buttons and lots of muscle memory.

Then there are simple jobs like Ranged DPS, new Summoner, Red Mage, Reaper for players who like less buttons.

Try everything and find what you like, switching jobs in this game is literally a quest and a button.

[Caprias]

omg what? That's huge!
So you're doing at most 24 actions per minute (excluding these off gcd buttons i have seen mentioned). talk about slow.

Well not quite, some jobs like reaper and redmage have short burst combos that have 1.5seconds which feels really nice, other jobs have quite a bit ogcds to weave in.


Job APM Min Max
NIN 45.6 44.4 46.4
MCH 45.1 44.2 46.4
BRD 42.5 42.1 43.3
SAM 42.2 40.5 43.2
GNB 41.5 39.7 43.9
DRG 40.9 40.3 41.8
MNK 39.8 38.8 41.3
AST 38.6 35.9 40.6
DNC 38.4 36.5 40.6
DRK 37.9 36.6 39.6
RDM 36.5 35.9 37.1
RPR 36.0 35.1 36.8
SMN 35.7 33.9 37.4
SCH 35.4 33.1 38.0
PLD 34.6 33.1 36.4
WAR 34.1 32.4 35.1
SGE 33.1 31.1 35.0
BLM 32.8 32.2 34.8
WHM 31.7 30.2 34.1

These are the numbers from the current EX-trial 2 from a reddit post i found.

I'm playing mage in WoW where frost and fire are on the higher side of apm (60-70), despite that i never felt bored playing any job in FF (except blackmage, don't level that as your first job XD)

[xmirrors]

The GCD problem is also made worse by confirmation bias. Let's say a new player hears about how the GCD isn't that bad and the game feels a lot faster than it sounds, but then they play the game and it's...well, slow. Exactly as they had heard. It doesn't matter that, in fact, at max level you have some burst windows with insane button pressing.

I think that's a problem with this game overall...the early game is nothing like the endgame. Obviously that's true for all MMOs but it is almost a meme in Final Fantasy. Don't worry, combat gets better! Don't worry, the story gets better in Heavensward! It is a massive, massive time investment to get to these juicy bits and that is not good.

I like that they've taken some steps to address this but they really need to do more. That is a different topic though...sorry for straying.

[Runicblood]

I've also seen something come up quite a bit here, something along the lines of "you must be able to manage your rotation while doing boss mechanics in order to be efficient"
Well.... i mean, isn't that the same in like any game? it's part of the skill curve. learning your priority systems / rotations so well you can do them with your eyes closed, allowing you to also perform boss dances while also doing maximum damage output.. if you can't do that, you can't do high end content, as it should be.

[ONCHEhap]

I've also seen something come up quite a bit here, something along the lines of "you must be able to manage your rotation while doing boss mechanics in order to be efficient"
Well.... i mean, isn't that the same in like any game? it's part of the skill curve. learning your priority systems / rotations so well you can do them with your eyes closed, allowing you to also perform boss dances while also doing maximum damage output.. if you can't do that, you can't do high end content, as it should be.

Yeah that part is pretty much the same as in WoW.
If you can't play your class well while handling mechanics in a mythic raid, you're gonna hit enrage too.
The difference is that you have 20 raiders in WoW as opposed to 8 in FFXIV, so it's much more likely to clear mythic as a bad player, which would help spread the ideas that you can beat mythic bosses while fumbling your rotation the whole time I guess

[Ghost of Cow]

Rotation complexity is a difficult thing to argue. Take BLM - on paper you have two clearly defined conservation and spending rotations but any BLM will tell you how difficult it is to maintain. It is a constant battle with pre-planning movement with smart use of instant ability procs and knowledge of the encounter. A struggle for new players but something that becomes second nature for an experienced one. So is it rigid, or not?

Funny you mention BLM, I was just thinking about that!

BLM is a good example of a class where your rotation is easily disrupted and you have to adjust accordingly. Which is good! But the goal is always to get back to that very strict rotation, which is a shame because at first glance BLM looks like a class with a lot of "thinking" involved.

That said, there are Thunder procs, which are something to react to! Not overcapping Polyglot is something to pay attention to as well, though not really an issue generally.

[|Dexter|]

I wonder why this is a problem for so many in this thread?
It's just a bit of muscle memory and keybinding with 1 to 2 modifiers, it's also not that bad.. every job can be played with under 36 binds (3 actionbars) while WoW will usually require 2 (except DHs )

It's also worth considering that most jobs have a 2,5 second gcd with the occasional weave or double weave, applying your muscle memory and executing the rotation correctly pretty much is the skill expression and mastery curve that makes it fun.

I'm borrowing this from jesse cox but I think he hit the nail on the head with that:"Combat in WoW feels like a street brawl while combat in FF14 feels like a dance", personally I can enjoy both for what they are.

I feel that WoW does combat best at least WoW Retail, it got just the right account of buttons for most classes... some got too few, however. I tried a lot of MMOs currently not playing any like I didn't find anything that I enjoyed playing. FF14 got me for a while but the long rotation and massive Lag Spikes (1000+ at some points)
Also with FF14 having a Dancer job/class, he is really on the nose with that quote.

[|Dexter|]

Short rotations aren't much fun either. It has to be a balance of engagement vs frustration, which FFXIV doesn't do perfectly but does well enough imo. Further complicating matters is the fact that you have different forms of content. In your typical dungeon you can get away with getting hit by a mechanic or two but a savage raid will demand that you do the mechanic while still pulling off your rotation. I don't know that any MMO with this combat style will be able to satisfy everyone.

True and for me in those dungeon raids with hug lag spikes it was frustrating and stressful, fearing I was slowing everyone down by not doing all the DPS numbers my job suppose to do... dying A LOT because the bosses are insane they really make you move around and hitting you like a truck if you do not... and there are a lot of parts where if you mess up something you hurt all the group. And those parts were the worst bits of the game for me. I was enjoying the story and got blocked with some mini raid or dungeon and just wanted to scream every time! However, got to mention that most people inside that group content were friendly and understanding...

[Caprias]

There is an addon that makes your combo abilities work like they do in pvp, but everywhere, where you just hit the same button and it automatically changes to the next ability...Effectively cutting down your buttons in your rotation by a huge chunk.

Life has been real good since I discovered that..

Attic? I'd love to use it for stuff like drg but I'm shit scared SE will crack down out of the blue with permabans or long temp bans tbh.
But i think that plugin is a good example of how some jobs might have a bit too much button bloat.

[Katchii]

What other jobs don't have rigid rotations?

I'm sure you can say something like "SMN can use their legos in any order!" but that's hardly some big reaction-based gameplay.

Most don't have a rigid rotation. According you, which jobs DO have an absolutely rigid rotation with no deviations?

There are some that come way closer than others, true, but I honestly can't think of any that have a strict, rigid rotation with no deviation whatsoever.

- - - Updated - - -

omg what? That's huge!
So you're doing at most 24 actions per minute (excluding these off gcd buttons i have seen mentioned). talk about slow.

You're severely discounting the off GCD abilities, and how the GCD actually feels in game.

It honestly doesn't feel that slow, IMO. At least at higher levels.

Yes, at low levels where you have a severely limited kit, it does feel slow but not at higher levels.

That said, it takes way too long to get to the point where it doesn't feel slow. That is a legitimate issue.

[Depakote]

No class does.

[Narzok]

Attic? I'd love to use it for stuff like drg but I'm shit scared SE will crack down out of the blue with permabans or long temp bans tbh.
But i think that plugin is a good example of how some jobs might have a bit too much button bloat.

unless they change their stance on 3rd party tools, they will not ban things that are funktionally identical to usual game behaviour.

the game only cares that during a sinle GCD, only 1 GCD action can be executed.
since the tool would just change what skill is on a given keybind you could, in theory, just do it manually between combo hits, just drag your skills over.

i know this sounds stupid, but they used a similar analogy for dps meters:
you could have a calculator and look at the battle log and calculate dps manually.

[Lord Kragan]

(excluding these off gcd buttons i have seen mentioned)

Yes. If you exclude 2 thirds of your actions, you don't do much. Seriously, did you think before posting this?

[Caprias]

Yes. If you explode 2 thirds of your actions, you don't do much. Seriously, did you think before posting this?

*exclude.
No need to be rude.

[Lord Kragan]

*exclude.
No need to be rude.

I mean, there's also no need to be dishonest, either. :V

[Dismayxz]

Let's take Dragoon for example:
True Thrust - GCD, part of main combo
Vorpal Thrust - GCD, part of main combo
Full Thrust - GCD, part of main combo
Disembowel - GCD, part of main combo
Chaos Thrust - GCD, part of main combo
Fang and Claw - GCD, part of main combo
Wheeling Thrust - GCD, part of main combo
Life Surge - oGCD, mainly used on Full Thrust
Lance Charge - oGCD, main personal damage boost
Jump - oGCD, used on cooldown
Spineshatter Dive - oGCD, used on cooldown despite being gap closer, because of potency
Dragonfire Dive - oGCD, used on cooldown even in ST despite technically being AoE ability
Battle Litany - oGCD, main raid cooldown
Geirskogul/Nastrond - oGCD, used on cooldown
Dragon Sight - secondary raid cooldown
Mirage Dive - oGCD, procced by Jump, used instantly after it, because creating more useless keybinds is fun
Stardiver - oGCD, used on cooldown

There you go, 17 abilities in your ST rotation, something you've claimed not to exist. I wish you spent more time actually playing the game than spouting uninformed nonsense about it.

You definitely found more than 15 Buttons that should be bound on a DRG and frequently used but it's still funny that you're basically going "You should actually play the game than spout uninformed nonsense", while citing Life Surge is mainly used on Full Thrust like a good little Balance boy. Most high-parsing Dragoons actually keep and even cap Life Surge Charges for short durations sometimes, because they weave well and hold for 2 min cycles or LC windows with a full Thrust. Balance-reliant Dragoons just monkey into Full Thrusts, even outside of CD's, just expend on-CD, rarely consider the 5th F&C/WT as a viable option for Life Surging even though even Balance makes a point that this is a viable option. And Spineshatter is currently technically used on Cooldown, but literally anything else that's off-GCD has a higher priority, so it's totally fine to let it drift unless you have free space.. in which case you either use it well after it's Cooldown ran through outside of CD's or just spend it before capping and then put the drifted Spineshatter into the next damage window.

- - - Updated - - -

unless they change their stance on 3rd party tools, they will not ban things that are funktionally identical to usual game behaviour.

the game only cares that during a sinle GCD, only 1 GCD action can be executed.
since the tool would just change what skill is on a given keybind you could, in theory, just do it manually between combo hits, just drag your skills over.

i know this sounds stupid, but they used a similar analogy for dps meters:
you could have a calculator and look at the battle log and calculate dps manually.

True, pretty much. When it comes to Plugins, you either A) Don't talk about it and B) If you do, more often than not GMs will look the other way, actually, as far as my personal experience goes. Damage Meters usually get you banned when used to harass people. Pcombo, which reduces rotational button bloat does the same thing as the PvP Button, so if anything it raises the question why this is something that's used in PvP, but isn't present where safely applicable outside of PvP? Even had a dude get off the hook for using XIVAlexander, because he's just using it to be able to even play the game properly and double weave with super bad international ping. You triple weave and get caught? You're done for. You're humble about it, reasonable and just wanna make up for something relatively outside of your control that makes the game experience worse? Seems understandable that somebody would consider the option.

- - - Updated - - -

Well not quite, some jobs like reaper and redmage have short burst combos that have 1.5seconds which feels really nice, other jobs have quite a bit ogcds to weave in.


Job APM Min Max
NIN 45.6 44.4 46.4
MCH 45.1 44.2 46.4
BRD 42.5 42.1 43.3
SAM 42.2 40.5 43.2
GNB 41.5 39.7 43.9
DRG 40.9 40.3 41.8
MNK 39.8 38.8 41.3
AST 38.6 35.9 40.6
DNC 38.4 36.5 40.6
DRK 37.9 36.6 39.6
RDM 36.5 35.9 37.1
RPR 36.0 35.1 36.8
SMN 35.7 33.9 37.4
SCH 35.4 33.1 38.0
PLD 34.6 33.1 36.4
WAR 34.1 32.4 35.1
SGE 33.1 31.1 35.0
BLM 32.8 32.2 34.8
WHM 31.7 30.2 34.1

These are the numbers from the current EX-trial 2 from a reddit post i found.

I'm playing mage in WoW where frost and fire are on the higher side of apm (60-70), despite that i never felt bored playing any job in FF (except blackmage, don't level that as your first job XD)

That is actually also a good comparison and (technically) shoutout to make. The real problem, if anything, with 'FF14 button bloat' is the amounts you might need to keybind. The actual speed of how things progress tends to be on the lower side compared to WoW. I'd assume this game is a nightmare for clickers and people who have really bad binds or.. "somehow not enough".

[Deneios]

Base rotations are usually 3 buttons with or 2 x 3 buttons combos. Some jobs have a extra burst combo when they fill their meter. Rest of the skill are either dps CDs, survival or movement.
They are not rocket science but people have been conformed to retail wow style where every class that doesnt use mana is either warrior/rage or rogue energy&CP copy. There was a time when backstab and mutilate had to be done from behind.

[Dzonathan]

There is an addon that makes your combo abilities work like they do in pvp, but everywhere, where you just hit the same button and it automatically changes to the next ability...Effectively cutting down your buttons in your rotation by a huge chunk.

Life has been real good since I discovered that..

Sounds like one step away from a rotation bot if you combine it with a macro keyboard or an AHK script.
Not that I have problem with this because MMORPGs pretending to have combos is just making auto attack manual.

How does it handle combo breaking?
Can you shove in oGCDs into the combos?
What happens when you rapidly change classes?
Do you need to remake all the combos if so?

Not being snide or snarky, genuinely interested.

[Devilyaki]

Sounds like one step away from a rotation bot if you combine it with a macro keyboard or an AHK script.
Not that I have problem with this because MMORPGs pretending to have combos is just making auto attack manual.

How does it handle combo breaking?
Can you shove in oGCDs into the combos?
What happens when you rapidly change classes?
Do you need to remake all the combos if so?

Not being snide or snarky, genuinely interested.

It has preset what button are removed for each job. So switching isn’t a problem long as you have set your bars it’s fine. Only problem is when theres an update/patch and the add on is disabled and you have to go back to normal mode and add back everything back on your bars.

[infinitemeridian]

Sounds like one step away from a rotation bot if you combine it with a macro keyboard or an AHK script.
Not that I have problem with this because MMORPGs pretending to have combos is just making auto attack manual.

How does it handle combo breaking?
Can you shove in oGCDs into the combos?
What happens when you rapidly change classes?
Do you need to remake all the combos if so?

Not being snide or snarky, genuinely interested.

1. You never break combos, so that wouldn't matter. But you can.
2. Yes
3. The combos are per job, so it carries over
4. No, but they break every expansion