FFXIV: The biggest tip to improving that NOBODY talks about

[@Lafeon09]

"get on a dummy you dummy"

[@Kazeryuun]

Soft Brain: Using a striking dummy on your personal/fc lawn Big Brain: Using a neighbor's striking dummy to save that one exterior furniture slot

[@orange51599]

Mega Brain: Finding Lynx's specific plot and dummy and practicing with him

[@permeus2nd]

Dandy Daddy there is a training dummy just outside limsa (the Circular settlement that I forget the name of to the north east) it’s a level 1 dummy so you don’t have to worry about attacks not landing.

[@MidoriGa95]

I did that when I got bored training in my FC's lawn lol. There was even a day I just went through almost all ward to see houses and trained for a min on their dummy xD

[@kanahana999]

This is why we had to move ours, pls don't.

[@roerd]

@@permeus2nd There are also multiple training dummies on that pvp island.

[@onthespoke2]

That retainer be like "this is fine"

[@Hayseus712]

Using a practice dummy for several hours on Red Mage brought me from consistently sub-50% parses to some of the highest RDM parses on my server (which is Mateus, so it's a low bar, but I'm still proud of myself :P). You're absolutely right that it's not enough to practice the opener and call it a day. You HAVE to do your rotation for at LEAST 10 minutes at a time when you're trying to improve.

[@UrickSan92]

3:11 Im dead serious, thats how I was able to clear TEA. I was able to mimic forced marches and downtime while a vid of the fight played on my other screen. That tip is extremely valuable

[@Se7enYearItch]

Lol I did the same for Uwu. I don't typically play DRK and decided to give it a shot but having to move Garuda a bunch in the beginning had me curious how I was gonna execute an opener. So I practiced on a dummy with a video on my 2nd montior.

[@Pmak]

This definitely works for DPS and Tanks....but I play healer and unless y'all do a perfect run, you guys always fuck up my Glare rotation!

[@NamesLynx]

LMAO the struggles of playing a healer, reliant on your party to keep a consistent rotation :'(

[@RichieRK7]

As WHM as my main my typical dungeon rotation is..Medica2, Regen, Holy x3-4, Assize, swift cast holy, cure as needed. Lol Throwing in a divine benison, temperance, Aslym as needed lol Presence of mind helps speed it up as well, and if it's a boss then just replace the holy with glare 🤷🏽‍♂️ hah

[@Hayseus712]

@@RichieRK7 just a heads up, there's almost never a reason to use medica 2 in a dungeon pull in my experience. it may feel like the extra regen ticking on the tank is nice to have, but that mana/gcd would be better put to use casting a damage spell or a bigger single target heal on the tank. Even if you just cast it between pulls so that it's not affecting your mana/gcd use while actually in combat, you have to stand still to cast it. You'd be better off using those 2+ seconds running to the next mobs so you can start casting holy sooner. Not to mention the extra regen is virtually pointless when you're spamming holy at the beginning of a pull bc most of its (small) value is lost to the fact that the mobs will be stunned for a while and won't be hitting the tank anyway. Just a small optimization tip :P

[@TGameDev]

I feel this. Its the worst when you're having an awesome run and people keep taking hits to dumb shit. Not even during learning too, but after a few months of running the same fights.

[@kylesteinhauser2535]

@@RichieRK7 you also have to be careful because regen is a HUGE aggro generator and if your tank hasn’t gathered everyone yet, you can take some hits you shouldn’t have to take and it can mess some things up.

[@Longlius]

I always spend about 10-30 minutes on raid days practicing my rotation on the dummies before our group meets up. Not only is it good practice, but since I typically play other games throughout the week, it refreshes my muscle memory on FF14 controls.

[@keyblade365able]

Honestly for healers you can figure out how many gcds you can cast before you have to reapply your dot as well as your slidecasting time with the dummies. As well as practicing weaving your ogcd skills with your dps

[@danm2084]

Whats gcds and ogcd?

[@hellomynameisjim]

@@danm2084 It's been 3 months, if you're still playing, you probably know by now. But... A GCD, for a healer, can be identified on the skill tooltip as a "Spell", while oGCDs are labelled as "Ability". A GCD (Cure, Stone, Aero, Regen, etc. [Can you tell I'm a WHM?]) has a recast time (determined by your Spell Speed stat) meaning you can only cast another once that time is up. It's best to keep your damage GCDs rolling as much as possible. oGCDs (Assize, Presence of Mind, Lucid Dreaming, Divine Benison, etc.), however, can be cast in quick succession. If you have a GCD spell that has a shorter cast time than your recast time, you can "weave" oGCD abilities while your recast timer is ticking so as to not miss out on rolling your GCD rotation.

[@strikingdummy8001]

I love Striking Dummies. That’s why I literally named my character Striking Dummy in the game lol

[@NamesLynx]

Actually big brain

[@Pmak]

Wait, how did you name yourself Rhitahtyn sas Arvina?

[@strikingdummy8001]

Pmak lmao yea I actually did

[@RyukoPresents]

The tip about watching a video of a fight WHILE also practicing your rotation at the same time is actually really great. I'm solid on my rotation, so the challenge/fun for me is always figuring out exactly where my rotation needs to be tweaked in a fight for that top tier damage. That said, if someone is not quite as comfortable with their rotation, this would be a great way to kind of... prepare for that, or at least be less flustered when it comes to maintaining rotation and handling mechanics in the "real" fight.

[@albertobegara2087]

There is a fate, outside of eulmore you need do the rotation perfect in a training duming or fail, i use this for perfect my rotation and helo me a lot

[@celestialkitsune]

You mean Stone, Sky, Sea? It's been around since Heavensward.

[@errolglenn4548]

That's only a 3 minute fight at most. What I do is at least 2 full HP of a lv80 dummy

[@brycemoorhead3535]

As someone who is just now emerging into endgame content, I’m really happy I found your channel. You give really solid advice that many other content creators overlook, and have given me a good idea on where and how to improve my gameplay. Thanks!

[@NamesLynx]

I appreciate that!

[@safikachel]

1:29 this is exactly why i want Square Enix to add an optional "GCD Clock Widget" into the HUD customisation options. I want to be able to place a widget in a more central place i on the screen so i don't have to look at my hotbar every 2.4 seconds, because i've played some of my jobs so much that i more or less know the placement of my skills by heart. The only reason i look down at my hotbar now is to see when the GCD is reset. If there was a widget, i could have that beside my Job gauge or something. I'd also like to note that the widget would have an opacity option

[@25cats]

hi, sorry for the late reply, but maybe you could try placing a random GCD on a floating hotbar, hide unassigned slots, make the skill really big or place it near the center of the screen to keep track of it. Eventually you won't need to look at it with experience. That's what i do with my cooldowns

[@tencatogaming1927]

I never thought of do the rotation watching a video of the fight! Very good advice

[@TheZGonzales]

Man...I'm just stumbling on these tips videos these days and it's really refreshing that most of the tips are in line with ideas I was coming up with on my own to improve. I used to play a lot of fighting games back in the day and utilizing training mode there is very similar to my mindset in using my FC's training dummy. Good video, man! :D

[@Shuhannazy]

these videos are very helpful to share with my fc and my static. they explain things calmly and well while showing examples. and i appreciate you making these. i hope you continue.

[@JustSkram]

I'm glad someone brought this up. Dummys helped me a TON when learning ninja and monk and helped me master DoT/dps rotation with bard

[@gingerspice5477]

I can’t stress how much I agree with this as this i was told something close to this as advice for competitive swimming. Even if you don’t realize it Your taking something can be applied to most sports and applying it to FFXIV and it works! Taking Inspiration from things just similar enough to what your doing and applying that to what you are doing is the sign of someone who is amazing at what they do.

[@bradwalter8356]

This is exactly what I needed! The first part of this video hits my problem completely. I'm constantly trying to remember my rotation as well as the fight. Thank you!

[@algallontheobserver3780]

Listening to your WoW story is like talking to my old self back in the WoW days.

[@MrMuziekman]

ikr? brings bakc the memorys off spending all that tim e on the dummy's,i sitll play biut cant say is itll do that but with 13+ years is that rly needed anymore? xD

[@JeffGessas]

The boss video on second monitor while planning out a fight rotation is a brilliant idea. Thanks for that.

[@KazBarVT]

This is a very underrated piece of advice. Thanks to spamming the striking dummy, I actually managed to build on the resources from the Balance and make my own MCH opener-rotation that I am comfortable with, prevents overcharging battery for Queen, and lines up with Trick Attack and buffs.

[@Mari_Yumishi]

I love the idea of having a video of the fight playing as well, to mix in mechanics. Going to start doing this.

[@MugiwarasNakama]

I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But it's not really the purpose of this excercise. Its what i tell every one i mentor. The purpose is to make you play your class without thinking about it. It's not even to learn your rotation since your rotation will change every fight. In the end learning a fight is a different bbeast altogether and it depends on the individual how well they do. The most important part of raiding is finding the right group to raid with.

[@Nemeniah]

You have no idea how much you have enlightened me. Now I know it isn't my OCD speaking for wanting to hit the striking dummy so frequently. I was never the brightest tool in the shed and have often mess up my rotations in key moments and potentially adds to the cause for enrages. Many discourage me for taking it too harshly and being obsess with hitting the dummy for long hours, but they fail to realize that I wasn't trying to improve for them, but for myself. They call me crazy and make fun of me, but you know what ? Haters gotta hate. They can hate on me for missing ready checks & wanting to finish my reps before raids, but while they're busy hating and wasting their time, I am honing my GCDs and furthering the skillgap between the haters and myself. ㅤ Thanks Lynx, very useful and eye-opening guide. Like & subbed.

[@IkarosTypeAlpha]

This is a similar principle to labbing for fighting games It's always good to remember that if you want to get good at a game, and it has a free range practice option, don't be afraid to use it. You'd be surprised at the skills you can learn from beating up practice AI or even just an inanimate dummy.

[@smolpeepee245]

I find that training dummies are great for muscle memory, especially if you're switching between classes and need to readjust!

[@witchermadmax2293]

I switched my control from keyboard to controller and the strinking has been my best friend for a while

[@Luna3rd990]

I'm glad someone finally said this. Being able to do your rotation without thinking let's you focus jn the fight

[@Vanitas369]

Stone, sea, sky for the raid/ trial you are trying to do is also a good place to see where you stand. It doesnt take in to account mechanics, but at least it can give you a good idea of your performance as it is.

[@projectonestar]

Thanks for all of your inner thoughts on this. I was one of the types that was "derp derp, opener only! Everything else will follow." This opened my eyes a lot, so thank you.

[@zurcarak]

Yeah i love this. I used to practice 3 hours a day the combos in GunZ(when i was like 10 years old) and never forgot em until this day of that much muscle memory, nowadays for mmorpgs with just 30 minute 1 hour total for a rotation i can get it fast and never forget it again, rest its experience and how to use that rotation in actual encounters

[@Vyomesh839]

I'm still chugging along towards endgame in FFXIV, but as an ex WoW player I agree 100% with training dummy practice. It just feels so good to have your DPS rotation in your muscle memory. I bet I could still do my old Blood DK DPS rotation from Wotlk today, haha

[@Agarokk]

Just found your channel today and really liking your calm explaining. I'm hoping to see a lot more videos in the future ^^

[@nuhyu4711]

I never looked at dummies this way. I always used them for practive and testing but not to actually develop muscle memory! Will take this tip to heart and thank you so much for the advice, no matter how obvious it seems to some!

[@Kaubocks]

I once spent an entire day hitting a dummy as MCH just to shift Barrel Stabilizer use after Wildfire instead of before. On paper that's a really, really easy change -- you take one oGCD and move it from here to there. Done. Right? Well, no. Really happy to hear you say "people only practice 1-2 minutes of their rotation and call it a day" because this was absolutely a case where you need more. The opener doesn't change, so you can't even begin to test this until the two minute mark, and even then you don't even begin to feel the ripples of this change until four minutes in. Throughout an entire 10-15 minute fight, the levels of heat you'll have as you approach Wildfire windows are going to be completely variable and you need to be able to recognize whether it's better to hold Hypercharge or not to be able to get them both at the same time. That's just one change on one class. I've spent hours upon hours just practicing rotations for extended periods of time - even on classes I already know! - just to help drill it even further into my brain. training dummy is bae

[@chanjiajin5603]

This. This is the one tip I always tell new players and friends of mine that are either new to the game or picked up new jobs but are unaware of how to learn them. Many people assume its ok to just run into a dungeon without knowing their skill kit and rotations, which is not good. While it is ok to do so for lower level dungeons, higher-level ones (level 50 and beyond for me) makes it harder for them to run when they fumble about reading their skills and trying to do mechanics. Saying this as about half the jobs are unlockable at relatively high levels (SB and SHB especially), and I have seen people unlocking them and jumping into content without prior experimentation of the class they are playing on.

[@Rewwgh]

This is actually something I figured out a few years ago in Dota. Whenever I did not have a teammate to queue with or didn't feel like doing a solo queue, I would fire up a bot match and just focus on last hitting creeps and creep camp pull times. This enabled me to upkeep a certain level of mechanics that allowed me to excel. In MMOs it has been very much the same, though I do prefer a FATE boss to a training dummy since they usually have a mechanic or two to make it more interesting. But that's only feasible for tanks since DPS are more squishy. Moving my focus away from the Ability Bar is a sign of maturity. It is like finally learning to type without having to look at your keys. I find XIV's learning curve for this to be much lower than any other MMO I've played and I'm pretty close to internalizing my rotations on a couple Jobs now.

[@entiresquare6262]

I started doing the same in games when i played starcraft 2. In that game it was almost requirement to practice your build order and memorize it if you wanted to get better. Same applied in CS go with learning grenade trajectories, different angles, stutter stepping etc. Great thing about MMO is that the physical requirement of the mechanics isnt that high, so when you learn the muscle memory once, you can just maintain it by playing, no need to do external practice.

[@jerphunter]

Good video. I usually say this as well. People just don't hit buttons enough. However If you're like me and you gotta be in the fire to learn not to stand it in (learning by doing) I suggest running DF content with the intent to practice your rotation as much as possible. In expert/80 content I'd purposely save CDs before a boss to properly open and reopen during a fight and learn the rotation. The dummy made me understand but the trivial but somewhat engaging DF content gave me a ring to box in and not get my head knocked off. Many people see casual content as stuff they don't need to focus on when doing the content well benefits everyone for more than one reason.

[@gundampharmacist7348]

I actually did this a lot at first when I was an active player, especially after any significant patch changes. I don't have every class to 80 yet, but I'd spend a good ten-twenty minutes on every class I used frequently, going through each action on controller and experimenting with rotations until I felt comfortable. I believe it's a huge contributing factor to me being immediately comfortable with Samurai and pretty comfortable with Red Mage whenever I took them into a dungeon... whereas recently I've slipped and just tried to pug as a Summoner or Gunbreaker and... yeah... need to get back on that training dummy.

[@Its_an_Eze]

Training dummies. Let's see : one at the house one at a friend's house, 2 at the fc, and the lawns. Literally using all of them lol especially the lawns 😂 but I highly agree it's under utilized

[@NamesLynx]

WE NEED MORE!

[@Its_an_Eze]

@@NamesLynx Never enough 😂😂

[@needlessnash]

Let’s not forget the dummies in your neighbor’s yard.

[@lobobizarro]

"I can play w/o hotbars!" ME: CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!! *RAWR* "THIS IS EXCESSIVE!!! Please USE. Your. Hotbars!!!" Me: Oh... ok... *pout*

[@PreshaOrion]

It's not quite as good, but the Trust system has really helped me work on long dps rotations. Specifically because the npcs single target and pull small, all the trash mob fights take longer. Longer fights means more time spent rotating. As a healer, it means I need to be more on top of mp managment. After the long fight, I can pause for a minute and think about what I messed up on and do it better for the next trash or boss pull. Naturally since only me in the instance I am not wasting anyone else's time, and can still have a little change of scenery. (It's really great to have almost the full set of dungeon gear for every class as they level as well)

[@marcorossi2127]

The way I do it is while leveling the class is trying to make sense of the button placement on my hotbars until I reach a critical point/ 80. At that point I end up looking up openers and general advice for the skills and their priority, however as you said there is no extended optimized opener that can be used as an example. Which makes sense since those needs adjusting on higher difficulty levels, depending on the boss. Still, I to tend to look a lot at my hotbars no matter how much I play a class and have yet to reach a point where an actual rotation is going on. It's more like doing the opener that I learned, getting everything on cooldown and after that pressing buttons that are off the CD/ are at the brink of running out/ overcapping on resources. Turns into something like hit the mole instead of an actual rotation, might need extensive training at a dummy when the expansion changes hit. It's one of the reasons I didn't bother doing savage, since I don't want to drag other people down.

[@cardcaptorsnaruto]

I played wow for years before I came to final fantasy. When I came to Final fantasy I put all of my "Oh shit" buttons and similar damage buttons in the same spot on my ui. I was used to hitting a certain button to save my party in wow and I set it to the same button in final fantasy. It worked pretty well for a healer. If its muscle memory you don't have to worry about your abilities just the boss.

[@drkshdwthizz]

This is a great way of explaining system 1 and system 2 decision making. Another video that explains this well is Core A Gaming's playing fast and slow. I recommend you guys watch it too!

[@Darkflare221]

Is this Kahneman's 2 system thinking model applied specifically to how to comprehend gaming? Fair enough I suppose -- it is applicable.

[@Guardian-of-Light137]

So the quick version is train on the dummy where you can't be hurt till you get in a pattern that is most effective. And muscle memory will do the rest while you watch the enemy.

[@cianphillips1099]

I absolutely agree. Before the first Eden patch came out I sat on the striking dummy for 2-3hours à day for 2 weeks and I drastically improved

[@smitemil]

TBH, even if I knew that a training dummy was a good idea probably, finding a video that sells it to me is more valuable because it's going to get me to do it -- especially when I have healing anxiety for content in ShB! I wanted to sharpen my tanking (my fave class), and then get back to healing, so this guide was a friendly way to realize I don't have to just drag myself through Trust again. This gets to the heart of the problem, and as a console player, rotation comfort is everything since I only really use the keyboard to communicate -- my controller use needs to be down pat. Long way of saying, I value content like this a LOT, and I'm glad 2.8k people gave it a chance. Going to check out your other content right after this is done -- thanks for this push! :)

[@HarryVoyager]

I remember doing that when I was playing FFXIV. Very useful in learning the Monk rotation, and finding some errors I had at the time. I so need to find the equivalent for ESO and work on my solo rotations there.

[@ChemBoy613]

As someone who has been raiding for a while (also in FF14 now) i also understand and agree! Play bard i would say the biggest issue is making sure you hit your snapshots under buffs and during mechanics, which is a little harder to practice. What i do i literally count my DOT timers like 12, 9, 6, 4, 1 (iron jaws), repeat. I also find practicing on easier fights (say 24 man raids or normal raids) to be really helpful as well.

[@yxyburke]

This is so true. I was crap before I had actually worked on my "rotation" (I'm a sch) and after only an hour I increased my parse in e5s by 19% from just that one hour Edit: by no means am I good yet but what I'm getting at is that even with a small bit of serious practice you can get a decent ammount of increase in your damage.

[@Cloudo4]

As SCH its not really a thing of practicing dps. You practice healing so you got more time to dps. Dummies doesnt help healers at all.

[@Theihe]

@@Cloudo4 ???????

[@Cloudo4]

@@Theihe Need some more input than "???????".

[@Theihe]

@@Cloudo4 I'm honestly so confused by your statement. Priority for healers basically always go -> dps -> heal. You should always heal encounters to ensure the party's absolute survival, but with healers this expansion pulling DPS numbers that exceed the best tanks, saying that you should practice healing over dps is misinformation. You should always practice your dps opener on all the healer jobs, scholar especially, as a dissipation can allow you 3 more stacks of aetherflow. It's just about mapping out your cooldowns really

[@Cloudo4]

@@Theihe Mapping out your cooldowns is exactly what practicing healing is. You learn how to heal as much as needed to survive without the usage of too many gcds you could use for damage. Doing damage as healer is simply. You press one button and sometimes another. Thats why I said dummies dont help as healer. Doing your opener right is the thing everyone who cares a bit about damage should learn. Thats nothing special and not hard for any healer. AST has the hardest but only because of the cards. WHM is braindead and SCH is also very simple. There is not much you have to learn dps-wise as healer. You just have to know how little you can heal so that no one dies. This always relies a bit on the other healer, too, ofc.

[@oxdaman1]

That TEA example made me feel good, only because I made a MNK re-opener specifically for that fight and E8S since you don't have time to go into coeurl stance after the cutscene transition.

[@zoruasnivy]

I play RDM and it has a very loose style of playing compared to DPS with a more strict rotation, but even so, I found practising on a dummy for a few minutes to be helpful. I'm a flower who hasn't played the game in a year or two, and I'm slowly training the tunnel vision out again. I found myself playing better and getting more comms when I was able to look at the fight more than my hotbar.

[@namehere3026]

Real Life: Trains for days with dummy, knows the best optimum rotation, knows all mechs and does the biggest damage among all... gets 1 commend

[@ghettosagal]

I get commends when my playing is shit, I feel like people just give them randomly

[@makerx3833]

@@ghettosagal yup, most of them gives commend randomly, I too do that unless I'm very impressed by a player

[@servpro5star389]

Real life: dps gets no commends

[@makerx3833]

@@servpro5star389 correction : most of the time I do get commends sometimes as dps but it's like I said "sometimes"

[@martinsmith9371]

Either that or tank moves around so you loose your major damage from positional attacks.

[@Layazeroda]

when Eureka was new & relevant... I used the mindless mob killing and NMs to practice the MCH and MNK rotations. Two birds in one stone, honestly one of the most worthwhile things I got out of that place. Sadly it doesn't work nowadays since Eureka is stuck at lv70. And mind you, that was stormblood MCH and tornado kick rotation MNK.

[@sodathejunker]

Wise words. When I learn new skills or play a new class I usually get to a training dummy and practice up until I can do my rotation without the HUD on. It genuinely helps to have that muscle memory. Can’t be understated.

[@n00exec]

Agree, completely, I started to stream my own gameplay, not because I want to be a streamer but because I want to see my own mistakes and pov!, In my last reclear on Shiva, I notice a BIG improvement watching my previous reclears! It was great and fun to watch, now I feel much confident at WHM!

[@LyviannaXIV]

I've been using a similar strategy once my party got to Perfect Alexander. Since I had my battle plan for up to the end phase 3 and always ended up with 90/90+ Mana on Red Mage upon entering phase 4, I could replay videos with different scenarios, emulating downtime and Motion/Stillness- or Almighty Judgement scenarios. It's been a great help getting optimizations done in Ultimate, and I have applied it to my savage game plan ever since. Though far from perfect, only being part of FF14 for about a year now, I can comfortably and consistently perform at about 90+ percentiles on my main classes. The training dummy and videos r a huge tool to be used

[@MassisKharne]

Here’s my thing, a lot of people will feel like their rotations are easy enough and attempt content while screwing up their rotas, but the people like some people (such as myself) we play many different MMO’s and figure out GCD’s fairly quickly, letting us figure out combos and weaving OGCD’s in between our GCD’s making a full rotation. Thanks for the advice, Lynx. Appreciate it as always. :)

[@genisay]

I'm kinda more like that. I've played WoW for years, and while I wasn't the best raider, I caught on to how things worked pretty quick. And honestly, playing DPS on WoW, rotations were actually pretty simple. Far fewer abilities then playing say, Bard, where I can switch songs depending on situations. I know some classes have stricter cycles because they work on combo setups, but for a few of them, I never bothered developing a set rotation opener, because how I played the class needed to be flexible and change with the situation or modifiers I was using. The same rotation would not work for every situation, so most of my openers are like six abilities long when everything is fresh and not yet on CD. Mostly for me it was more about finding the right rhythm. So far, after raiding for several years in WoW, I have found most of FFXIV's dungeons and raids to be a lot of fun, but not really all that hard. Hardest run I have done so far is my roommate and I duo running Garuda during early Stormblood. I am hoping there will be some more challenging ones when I get to the end of Shadow Bringers or into doing things like POTD.

[@carthius]

So i do very much agree that Training dummies are important for rotations but you should also talk about the Boss DPS test dummies. Those are vital if not more so after you are full on comfortable with your rotation. It will show a person if they are stat wise ready for a Boss.

[@NamesLynx]

I definitely think I should've added a section on stone sky sea looking back, it just escaped my mind while making the video.

[@carthius]

@@NamesLynx guess this just means youll have a part 2 :)

[@deanna1410]

When I get a gaming mouse and find a hotbar arrangement with it, I'm definitely doing this. Thanks!

[@Lady-Saturn]

Finally, someone gets it! You perfect your rotation on a dummy so that when you play in raids your rotation is second nature and therefore you are a better raider. Thanks for getting the word out there.

[@NEETmoreAnime]

"DPS is as important as knowing mechanic." Square Enix thinks so, as well. Why else would they design Tanks / Healers so that they also do DPS and even implement a damage test dummy for Savage content.

[@azza9423]

Its fecking refreshing to see dps treated as important, we know we melt things, thats a given, but in WoW if you dps, you are literally a nobody.

[@skilletus7334]

Subscribed! Watched a couple of vids and they’re really good! I agree DPS is as important as mechanics in fights but I’d argue while progging mechanics are just slightly more so mostly cos dead is no dps anyway. I’d also noticed no one seemed to utilise the training dummy. I literally use it all the time and still use it on jobs I’m comfortable with just to maintain muscle memory.

[@nervnerd]

A thing I would recommend if your into this as well: Grab stupid cheap dps potions as well. When I practice my rotation I use cheap consumes to get a feel for timings so I can better figure my uptime and basically bake it in. This helps me since I'm better at learning by doing actively. Stat pots hqs all have a recast of 4m30s and you should effortlessly be able to obtain the materials to get them (most are vendorable) and just crank a shit ton out and not really waste anything while getting primed.

[@TGameDev]

Legitimately this. Swapped from healer to summoner, a job i hadn't touched beyond leveling, and was able to get to the point where I didn't need to look at my hotbar in one weekend. Spent like 16 hours on a dummy, and noticed nuanced annoyances such as having to delay the 2nd Phoenix by a few seconds so that I'm able to get aeitherpact off in the trick window. As for samurai (my main), I could do that in my sleep and I almost don't need to look at my timers since I know whats going to be up and when.

[@gir123315]

I'll be honest, as a player who has all 80's I know most of the classes on a very basic level, and only maybe 2 or 3 jobs on any advanced level, like DNC my current main since the launch of SHB, where I've gotten really good at the class I know i'm not perfect and practice always helps, its the advice I give everyone for improving, Practice, it's how people improve at any skill, but sadly, its never the answer people want to hear, it's like when people ask how they can get as 'good' as art as I am, I've gotten the question for YEARS, and they always got the same answer "I'm not that good, but I've put in a lot of practice to get to this point" The answer of practice doesn't seem to satisfy most people, seeing as they think there's an easier, less effort way of it, or in other cases they think that it's just not something they have the 'talent' for. BUT EVERYONE CAN DO ANYTHING THEY SET THEIR MIND TO, BY THINKING THAT WAY THEY ARE ONLY HOLDING THEMSELVES BACK. >n

[@NamesLynx]

The more important part of practicing is practicing correctly. You can practice incorrect techniques or practice an area of a skill that won't get you anywhere; you have to practice effectively.

[@gir123315]

I can agree with that, pointers always help in order to properly improve. I would not have gotten any skill on DNC without the guides and resources on the balance, they were a great source for me to start to improve with my practice, I have a long way to go still, but there has been very obvious improvements from all my practice especially after looking at guides, openers and as much as I could asking others on things they do.

[@c_huvaknunh9138]

great video, like the time stamps

[@fayt13leingod]

I agree, using the training dummy to get really comfortable with your rotation can make all the difference when it comes time to do rotation with mechanics.

[@SIrL0bster]

Yep, I drill pretty frequently on training dummies and it helped my DPS immensely. I barely have to think about my rotation when playing BLM or RDM, still working on gitting gud at SAM and SMN.

[@Zackarco]

Thing that sucks for me is I play with the K+M. I've seen people who use mostly just the keyboard for playing and to this very day I still question how people play like that. I've tried it and I just couldn't make it work haha

[@Frostfang_Piglet]

Same

[@lokithecat7225]

MMO style mouse has 12 buttons on the side, left hand is just for moving (asdw) and modifiers (ctrl, and if needed alt / shift) right hand operate your hotbars with the thumb (12 buttons) and if you need to change perspective / facing (r mouse + drag). I don't think anyone actually is playing with just a keyboard, and trying to use one hand to move and another for the hotbar, although I suppose you could learn to do that. I'm just guessing that what you saw (like in Lynxs video) is what you are talking about, where you see a button being spammed, but no cursor clicking it.

[@luke_of_astora]

I used matric to turn one of my old tablets into a straight up spell book; it's significantly more fun than K+M in a fight

[@kelseylynnmac]

Doing this at the start of each expansion and once reaching the level cap is super important. Plus reading the patch notes when your class gets changed, many people don’t even know when their skills have changed.

[@WhoThisMonkey]

I figured this one out for myself yesterday, then found your clip today. Thank you, I might not have figured it out yesterday 😅

[@Phase4TheProphet]

Training dummy has been especially useful as I'm starting to get into raid content; I main BLM and since my gear is still fluctuating as I get allegory/phantasmagoria, I'm really having to practice to adjust to spell speed changes. And since I feel like BLM is especially dependent on knowing when to create openings for oGCDs, finding a rhythm before trying to actually run content has been really important.

[@akirandrake414]

Huh, I planned to do that after I get to cap, I'm glad it's a good idea.

[@ricardomorales4502]

This is very true. You don't notice, but you waste time by constantly looking at the hot-bar. If you can memorize buttons in other games, it's possible for this as well. There is so much going on besides your skill activation that doing this gives you time to see other aspects of fights. For example, boss skill activation, other players who need help (healing or reinforcement), buffs, de-buffs, aoe effects, extra enemies spawning out of nowhere, etc... But yea, it's still good to take a look at the hot-bar every now and then. Great advice!

[@wojtala13bravo]

I just started playin FF14 dumped wow a while back and the game is just bad ass. I played as a tank there and did the same spending alot of time on a training dummy but where do i find one when im only a level 30 and with a week in to the game.

[@NamesLynx]

I believe there are level 1 striking dummies at summerford farms, in middle la noscea.

[@wojtala13bravo]

@@NamesLynx thank you for the tip

[@erwark]

I definitely find value in smashing a dummy for 10-15 mins. In addition to "automation" you learn to deal with or mitigate CD drift. I think the current healer "rotations" are simple enough that they are automatically in this muscle memory mode, where they can focus on the fight/healing.

[@lr6891]

Thank you for the video, that's a very good tip! I enjoyed your previous 2 guides too. Questions- 1. I noticed you had skills spread across the entire numbers row (1, 2, 3, ..., 9, 0, -, =). How do you manage to press them while moving (since they're quite far from wasd)? Or do you find it's unnecessary to move around that often? 2. What shoes does your retainer have? e.g. at 0:20. I haven't heels like that ingame before.

[@NamesLynx]

Thanks! 1. I use an mmo mouse, the type of mouse with 12 buttons on the side, so all my actions are on my thumb 2. They're modded, you can find the mod here: xivmodarchive.com/modid/6150

[@lr6891]

@@NamesLynx Thank you!!

[@drathmor1401]

thats good advice for any MMO i know in DCUO I would live at the training dummy every time i changed powers

[@grenadine5571]

I think there is a lot to gain from healers using the dummy to polish their rotation. I'm currently playing Conjurer, and on every dungeon boss I've fought so far I have a tendency to refresh my DoT 8 sseconds into its duration instead of using my stone spell. Because I'm not relaxed with such encounters yet I could be getting off two more stone spells before I need to refresh. Using a dummy would get me more use to my very small rotation so I can use my offense on instinct and spend more attention on the damage output of the current pull.

[@Astrokittens]

I hit striking dummies so often, my fc built one especially for me. Big fan.

[@sarahsanders1729]

I thought about this last night and suddenly it shows up in my feed, spooky

[@Gnosii]

Thanks dude this really helps me out. I'm just starting as a THM/BLM, so I don't really have a lot of useful skills but, I k ow when I do get some I would probably get overwhelmed. Honestly I think you fixed that for me and I now have an idea about how im gonna player once I reach 60+.

[@NamesLynx]

Glad I could help!

[@loganblaze2164]

Nice video! I currently have MCH hotbar memorized but I have mitigation CDs memorized on drk & war now.

[@thegrandpotato217]

That thing you said about using two monitors is actually so smart

[@LyrikalMaestro]

I completed arr with monk and had a lot of fun rotating my forms with occasional aoes when needed (I never tunnel vision regardless of game genre) but once I went back to finishing my lancer I noticed at titan I got jailed 6 times where I was a bit confused wondering if it was one of my rotations were off but noticed our tank didnt keep aggro where I accidentally stole it. I reworked my hb set ups and have seen better promise now currently on my pursuit of arr to be completed soon but I seem to find boosteds that don't know how to play their roles where my dumbness goes out of position trying to get a reset to happen for our favor (copperhell mines tota rahk and brayflox longdrop respectively is my misfortune) I can admit without using the dummies and analyzing my errors I felt quite pleased fixing my set ups though it seems my monk surpasses a lot of peoples expectations so this vid gets a like and a sub for some good validity and points.

[@marionettemaster]

I 100% agree. Changing from healer to dps for our raid group, spent an decent chunk of time on a dummy to gain comfortability. You should not have to think much about your rotation while fighting

[@lokithecat7225]

Biggest tip to improving that Nobody talks about: Get a MMO gaming mouse, 12 buttons on the side means that you can spam buttons without having to be moving your cursor around.

[@geekatari4391]

I have one, never being able to play clicking again.

[@Hanzo1]

*cries in ps4*

[@nalylovedoncat]

This is so underrated. I hear lots of people say "I could never get used to it." It takes time! I've been using the naga 12 button mouse for about five years. When I first started, I could only comfortably use around three buttons. I focused on the buttons that felt most comfortable for my thumb to reach. I gradually added one more button over time, never forcing it. I can't say how long it took, but eventually I could use all twelve buttons comfortably. It just takes time but it's so useful. What people don't realize, is it isn't just twelve buttons. Think of all the combos! My hot bar one is 1-12. My hotbar two is SHFT1-12. My hotbar 3 is CTRL 1-12; ETC. I will never go back. I even bought multiple NAGA mouse in case my main one breaks, I have a backup ready to go. I've only had one break in five years.

[@geekatari4391]

@@nalylovedoncat I did the same and my wife also, shift +, control +, easy way to have all of the skills we need easy to reach. I didn't go fancy with a naga, mine is a cheap Redragon mouse.

[@necronmaniac6674]

@@nalylovedoncat I keep saying i need to get one but so far I'm doing fine without one so i keep putting it off xD

[@PersonaMC231]

Every time a major expansion/update comes, I always practice in front of a dummy for all of my classes up to 2 hours with ACT on just to measure the differences.

[@astral_bear0]

I have to say this is inspiring me to redo my hot bars so I don't get tunnel vision on proc classes

[@KazumiKiguma]

So, I have a legitimate question based on your stand on dps: Watching your tanking tips video where you showed footage of E8S, for Light's Rampart, you used the strat commonly referred to as the "ilya strat", something that's either loved or hated by the community because it's braindead easy to pull off but the uptime for melee dps and tanks ends up getting shafted. Was this a run where uptime wasn't an issue for the group like a PUG, an early clear before uptime strats came out, or is there more method to the madness? We have one member of our group who is *ADAMANT* about us not even bothering to attempt the ilya strat (we've already gotten past the mechanic with another strat, but she threw a huge fit when some of us went to practice with pugs without her one time and ilya strat was mentioned. also she's SMN so it's not affecting her personally), and I think an explanation from someone who's rank 1 would be much more insightful for her than random reddit posts.

[@NamesLynx]

That video uses footage from my very first shiva clear during the first week the content was out where strats hadn't gotten set in stone yet, it was a strat we made based on the info we had at the time. It was safe & consistent so we used it for the clear. After the clear we went back in and came up with slightly higher uptime strats, but for progression I just think you should go with what's most consistent assuming it doesn't cost you a ton of dps. The strat works, it's clean, and you barely lose any uptime if you're smart about it. Once you're super comfy with the fight and want to chase parses then you can optimize your strat further.

[@Spritus3241]

I gotta say this is some great advice, however I think I learned my rotes just based on my skill speed and cooldowns during prog on the MSQ. At lot of which in my mind saying: "what can I combo before that 30+ second cooldown comes back?" but then my brain can't be trusted to remember complete active lists and I drop a button or so, but I don't lose my rotation, because by the short window I've realized I didn't pop no mercy or something I'm already back onto my next rotation phase.

[@minementalx]

Nice video! A bit late but: I'm a trial player for 2-3 weeks and what irritated me about ffxiv in the first week was, that there were no training dummies to be found in the 3 capital cities. And training rotations while leveling is not very good, because you constantly lose your abilities due to level sync in dungeons and open world mobs are too weak for a rotation. I hope they change the sync mechanic in the future!

[@dauxgaming577]

As a healer main and ninja this is facts

[@rahsan8139]

I’m only playing my 2 favorite FF Jobs WHM and DRK and lets be honest WHM is pretty simple but DRK I’ve been spending like and hr a day practicing 👍 I’m making good progress tho. Sometimes I’ll flop and it’s pretty obvious but for the most part I can get us through an instance without getting wiped

[@cwwisch]

Okay, so I believe all of what you are saying is true, but ima dum, and I'm really not sure what the actual process of practicing on a training dummy is like do you just doing rotation til you mess up? When do you stop? How do you make sure you aren't building muscle memory for a mistake? Also when do you start practicing on the dummy? Level cap? When your job starts to have a reasonable rotation? Etc. Sorry for the long post but I really want to get better I just dont actually know how.

[@capo3645]

hey, I often use the Stone, Sky, Sea dummies to try and improve on classes I'm not that familiar with, how accurate do you think those dummies are? and how helpful are they, in your opinion?

[@NamesLynx]

Capo they’re good, in the bare minimum of gear they are pretty challenging which is pretty accurate to doing savage in low ilevel gear. I wouldn’t say SSS is 100% perfect but it’s a good tool to see where you stand

[@NeFlorence]

Idk if there’s a way around it but my biggest gripe with training on dummies is that what if I mess up after I press a skill with a long cooldown? Like say Im playing SMN and I pressed Aetherpact and DW/FB Trance and along the way I messed up and didnt time stuff correctly and I wanna re-do it. I have to wait until those abilities are ready again to keep practicing that sequence.

[@NamesLynx]

Go into an unsynced sastasha and it will reset your cooldowns, you can leave immediately after queueing in.

[@trav76457]

I could not agree more. I spend a few hours a week on training dummies. It is great to re-train muscle memory, when you play multiple classes.

[@SuikodenGR]

Any source of high end level rotation for every jobs? I'm a little pessimistic but am open to improvement. Always been a midcote level player (only do up to extreme mode for mount farming since 2.0) but now with college finally almost over, I open to advance training when it comes to be at Savage level game play at least. ( im too old to even consider Ultimate, lol)

[@NamesLynx]

The balance discord written guides are pretty good

[@SuikodenGR]

@@NamesLynx ahh ty :). Just checked it out, looks very informative and a little intimidating 😅🙂