Those who want to deal significant damage in Final Fantasy XIV must pay attention to many things: gear, weapons, and buffs. MyMMO editor Sophia Weiss finally wants to get involved as well again, but first there’s some house cleaning to do.
Final Fantasy XIV is a theme park MMORPG with traditional tab targeting. You select an enemy by clicking or pressing an in-game button, and initiate the attack. This is done through actions distributed across so-called hotbars, which can be triggered using the keyboard or mouse clicks.
I have now finally reached the endgame with my Dragoon of Dawntrail after struggling for two years. Of course, I want to directly dive into raids, farm gear, and complete the patch quests. However, I am already struggling with the most important basic: hotbar organization. At least I have now found my error.
Maximum efficiency and damage? Do some cleaning, Girl!
I am finally done with FFXIV 7.0, meaning I am finally able to dive into the endgame. To do so, I need current gear, buffs, and above all an optimal rotation. I can obtain the gear while playing; I can buy or craft the buffs.
The optimal rotation remains, which is the most efficient triggering of my job actions.
What is a Dragoon?
A Dragoon is a so-called job from Final Fantasy XIV, for which you need at least a level 30 lancer as a base class. You can unlock that one in Gridania.
The job is a melee damage dealer. Due to its relatively simple rotation, it is also suitable for beginners. Like many other DPS classes, Dragoon players tend to want to maximize their damage output and can easily fall victim to area effects. Additionally, Dragoons face the challenge that if they jump backward in the wrong direction, they can jump into effects or over the edge of arenas.
According to the lore: Dragoons actually originate from the city-state of Ishgard and are a special class trained for combat against flying dragons. One of their trademarks is their spiked armor and the other are their distinctive jumping attacks.
My first stop was a training dummy. You can find those for level 100, for example, in Living Memory
, the latest new area from Dawntrail, right next to the Aetheryte at 21.5 X and 38.4 Y and 0.7 X.
My second stop was Google, or more specifically, using Google to find the website Icy Veins. It was the first result for the search for the perfect level 100 rotation for my job, the Dragoon.
That’s where I started thinking: Why the hell are some actions missing on my hotbar, when I had actually neatly sorted all my abilities? Things like the powerful Starcross
were missing for example – those are important!
So, I placed the actions on the hotbar, only to realize: These are all actions that automatically overwrite other actions when triggered. Please imagine that I took a very deep breath and adjusted the hotbar again.
A hotbar is basically a kind of digital chocolate bar that you populate with the actions to be used in combat. You can also assign keys on the keyboard to the individual elements, allowing you to trigger actions even faster than it would likely be able to with a mouse click.
Icy Veins not only has a flowchart for the standard opener but also for situations where the enemy stands a bit farther away. For example, you save yourself the hassle of running over by jumping backward towards the opponent with the Elusive Jump
(which is usually used to dodge) and almost simultaneously triggering the ranged attack Piercing Talon
.
Why would I want to do that?
Time in battle is limited, and every second counts if you want to deal as much damage as possible to the opponent. Additionally, it grants you dominance over your main tank, if you draw first blood and the attention of the enemy onto yourself. (Please don’t do this; let your tank do their job! I am very much joking.)
My second problem, however, became apparent with another alternative opener, the Winged Glide
opener.
Another action bites the dust
This was yet another ability that I didn’t have on my hotbar. It’s pretty cool: Winged Glide
allows the character to quickly approach an enemy while dealing damage at the same time. So I don’t even need the opener with Piercing Talon
– why press two buttons when one suffices?
At first, I actually thought that Winged Glide
was a conditional action that would trigger if I met the conditions, too. It would then automatically appear on the hotbar. But no: Winged Glide
is a perfectly normal action.
And I hadn’t managed to put it on my hotbar. Yes, I haven’t been really active in Final Fantasy XIV for a long time, and it shows.
So what do I learn from this?
When I reach endgame after a major update, I shall first check whether I truly have all the necessary skills on my hotbar. I then check to see if any abilities unlock automatically as soon as they are usable. This should keep my hotbar, and consequently my keybinds, clean, allowing me to learn my optimal rotation calmly.
In the meantime, I got everything fixed, and have been practicing the action sequence again and again. Currently, I’m struggling to trigger an ability with a timer on time, but in the correct place within the rotation. Practice will make me a master once again, I am sure of that. I am preparing for the upcoming expansion Evercold, wanting to hit the ground running. By the way, my colleague Alexander Mehrwald has a clear opinion about it: For 11 years, FF14 has been my second home, and I say: Evercold is the best thing that can happen to the MMORPG right now
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