The Great Big Guide to FFXIV Combat 

For the Dynamo/Chariot, the only time i've ever heard those callouts is when people are talking about callouts, never in game. It's always just been In/Out during an actual encounter.

Read your tool tips....there you are instantly better than 70% of the player base

I remember you wishing that we had a better hall of the novice system in the future. While I still think that something like that is far away, having a guide like this which consolidates all combat is so useful for new players. I can tell already that this video will be a valuable resource for new players in the coming years. I'll be sure to send this to friends interested in starting ff14.

I'm very surprised you skipped on the HP bars being able to be assigned based on Role instead of a general colour which is fantastic for indicating who is what at a quick glance, but as you said there's so much to talk about here, it's hard to remember and mention everything. Absolutely massive video that probably took a crazy amount of time, and future videos which will take even more coming up. Congrats and well done on this one!

Excellent guide! I would actually suggest breaking out the part on mechanic markers into it's own video as well because that the sort of thing that could benefit a huge portion of the player base who may not want to or know to look for it in a Combat 101 Guide.

20 mins in and realising how much knowledge I have that I just take for granted that a new player wouldn't even know they should know that they don't know it...

Ive raided most savage and ultimate combat in this game with a preference for melee, I had no idea about the display indicating whether or not I am auto-attacking(note I knew via context so never needed to look). For teaching me something I didn't know, here's a like.

For new tanks the aggro list is one thing that they always overlooked, they often get confused as to which goon is doing them AoEs and have no idea who to kick.

By default, focusing a target is 'Shift+F' on keyboard and mouse.

I love watching videos of people doing something really well. Very useful, interesting, and satisfying. This showcases this perfectly. I have been playing ninja for about a year now and getting into healing now. Super excited about best practices/ hud/play style / tips for healing specifically!

I appreciate guides like these! Thank you!

i will never forgive you for calling Donut AoE, Dynamo.

Super comprehensive! There are so many aspects of FFXIV combat that aren't fully explained in game, and I'm sure this will be helpful for a lot of sprouts joining the game leading up to and after DT drops.

Nice list of basics. I like the topics covered and will be good material to send to my friend who just started out the game to get a handle of it

do i have almost 1500 hours in this game and have been playing since shb? yes. will i watch the whole thing? yes.

Absolutely worth mentioning in the UI settings is the party effects. NEVER change this to "Show none" as it removes any positive fields like Asylum or mitigation fields like Sacred Soil from your screen meaning you may be unintentionally making your healers life harder.

I think Jocat said it best, "The only difference between an amateur and a master is a master has fail a lot more times."

Ive never heard the term dynamo nor chariot in raid: its always been "donut" or simply "in", while the other shape has always been "out" or "point-blank"

This is super impressive. Well done!

This is such a great guide, and I truly appreciate the effort you've put into it. As I was watching, I realised I'm already well on my way to becoming a better player. :)

Wow, something to do while I work on my ARR relic grind, thanks!

Thank you thank you thank you!! I started playing FFXIV in January and have been looking for a video like this, but had never found one, til now. This was really thorough, it was SO helpful to have all of that info in one video (instead of 20 different ones), and I learned a couple of new things too. I'll be referencing this as I keep playing through the game :)

Monumental work. Thank you!

1:09:05 Real G reference to the extremely ancient "magnets: how do they work?" meme. Great guide.

Holy comprehensive guide, Batman! Definitely need to save this one and take notes 🌴

Been playing for two years now and still learned lots from this video!

This is perfect! I’m switching from console to pc and needed precisely this while retraining myself.

I dunno if you mention this later or something but i think it's important to note, max melee range is actually a bit further away than your max auto attack range, so you should be mindful of standing a bit closer than the distance at which your melee GCDs become usable if you want to be doing full damage. ~

huge video thank u

exquisite. thanks for this

Fantastic. I wish this existed when I started playing :)

This is simply amazing. As a veteran player I will now link your guide to all my friends that'll start XIV in DT :) Congrats on your guide!

Thanks so much, I started this game two weeks ago and I just beat Titan last night. I've been looking for a video like this. I really like playing with other people but I hate potentially being a burden because I don't know how certain things work.

I really, really loved this video. one tiny bit of feedback is that the choice of background music was too loud at points especially during its crescendo moments and brought back ARR PTSD from various mini trials xD. Apart from this rather petty critique, this video was so wholesome and genuinely useful. Your presentation style and method of teaching is a prime example of andragogy. Thank you so much for taking the time to create this wonderfully useful and detailed guide. May you ever walk in the light of the crystal.

I think there is a small note to put at 20:00. The enmity colors are a bit more than Yellow, Orange and Red, being 3,2,1. You can be second in aggro, but still have a blue color, since the tank may have a large lead in overall enmity relative to you. Would it be viable to say the Yellow, Orange, and Red colors on the enemys aggro list mean your relative enmity to the maximum amount aka tanking the mob?

For the Mechs Snapshot section, there's a third type of common snapshot method, which is audio cue. Typically with audio cues, a specific sound (or boss dialogue) plays, and the snapshot occurs when the sound ends. Classic example is in Garuda Ex or UWU for Feather Rain, where there's a distinct scream letting you know to move quickly. Once the scream is over the mechanic is snapshot. Another example is actually the Pinax Lightning shown 54:30 ; the lightning snapshot is actually sound-based as opposed to "feely craft."

You are a hero to me as a 2 month sprout

Dynamo/chariot is dead no one says that anymore unless they want to tell you they started the game before you. Donut is more common, but mostly people say in/out with specifics being mostly irrelevant.

this is the type of Guide i searched as a homecomer ^^

Man, l see your passion for this game.

So, I'm one of the few people who know the nuances of pets and how they work. So I'm going to give this information here in case any Scholars, Summoners or (hopefully not due to a pet rework) Beastmasters need it. I didn't see a section specifically dedicated to pets in the chapter list. But before we get into the... terror that awaits us, there are some things you just have to understand with pets: 1. Pets are not smart. 2. If a pet has to follow you, it's not optimal. (There are exceptions to this rule, but they're very niche.) 3. Summoned Pets (Fairies/Summoner pets) cannot be slain anymore, and are not affected by [most] debuffs. 4. Summoned Pets (Fairies/Summoner pets) copy your buffs. (If a rework happens and this doesn't happen, know that SCH/SMN pets will still get your buff bonuses unless they account for this with the rework.) 5. Most of the nuances with pets, including the points above haven't changed since pets were introduced in Closed Beta Phase 3 of A Realm Reborn with the addition of Arcanist, Summoner and Scholar. Don't expect any changes until Beastmaster's release at the earliest. Most of the issues with summoned pets, also apply to Chocobo Companions and Squadron NPCs. Okay, you got all of that? Good. Lyon, Take the Wheel! As a Scholar, your fairy summoned pet is probably the most fickle of all of the summoned pets in the game currently, with the exception of Chocobo Companions. When your fairy has to move, as stated before, they will usually prioritize moving before any other action. It is best to place the fairy in the middle of the arena if possible. Most summoned pets can ignore pitfalls, so do not worry if part of the arena is removed where your fairy is summoned. Just know you cannot place a fairy on empty space, even if there was a platform there before. In addition, fairies will prioritize their current action until it is complete, even if they have to move out of their placed spot. For instance, when you place the scholar fairy in the middle of the Garuda arena, before the pillars are destroyed, the fairy will have to move to heal anyone not in the line of sight of her in relation to the pillars. But, she also has to move back to her placed spot once she finishes that action. The majority of this nuance was mitigated by making fairy heals instant-cast however, so she can heal while moving, but she has to stop moving briefly. It should also be noted that a Fairy's Embrace has a maximum distance of 15 yalms, despite the old pet action stating that it was 20 or more yalms like other heals in the game. This is because the fairy's AI doesn't compute past 15 yalms. However, if a fairy moves to a new location as mentioned in the garuda scenario, the fairy's computing circle moves with her, so she will also attempt to heal anyone in her new spot too before fully heading back. As a Summoner, your pets are slightly less fickle than they used to be. They still have an issue they've always had however, and that's an issue most enemies have as well: AoE readiness. When your summoned pet travels to an enemy, if it does a self-circle AoE, like Titan-Egi's, it will use the AoE the moment that the AoE is within range of the targeted enemy. This means, instead of casting your Summon at the enemy in the middle of the pack, you should cast your summon at the enemy farthest in the pack in relation to your current location. This way, your titan-egi (or carbuncle) will end up in the middle of the group to do their self-circle. This does NOT apply to the level 90 summons (EG: Topaz Titan II.) As they all do their attacks similar to the Garuda Placed AoE (on the target) from before the rework. So while doing content that allows you to be 90 or above, you don't need to worry about not having to target the middle enemy in the pack. For Chocobo Companions and Squadron NPCs, the aforementioned nuances/mechanics/etc. all apply to them too. However, it should be noted, their AI computes differently to that of summoned pets. They will choose to heal you if you're under a specific HP range, but won't always do it if they are in the middle of a combo/etc. You can force your chocobo to only heal by changing them to Healer stance, which is ideal for anyone who solos non-group FATE Bosses such as "Roc of Ages." Also note that Choco Medica is not a good heal. So if you don't want the healer barding for your chocobo, it's recommended to not get the action, as it can prioritize it over the more powerful Choco Cure if more than one party member falls below the healing threshold.

I've got over 3,000 hours in this game, been playing since the end of heavensward, and even I learned something new from this video. Very in-depth and comprehensive, an absolute must to watch for anyone wanting to break into optimizing their gameplay better 👍

something of note, for the gaze mechanic its the player body that needs to look away, not the camera, had this come up with a sprout i was helping

i really love you so much

At 2:20 when you are explaining the holy trinity and mentioning healer and DPS, it highlights the opposite role. Healer highlights DPS/DPS highlights healer. Love your content Rinon!

You can bet I'm linking this video to every new players asking me for advices.

Good and thorough video! Two points of critique: while you didn’t say it that I caught, the blue orb player markers get called Defamations a lot; and for Acceleration Bomb rather than just showing the debuff symbol (which honestly I have never noticed outside of the last EW trial myself) I think you should have shown the swirly-dots-dice-countdown player effect. It gets used consistently, even in the Fall Guys collab, and it’s kind of confusing and alarming the first time you see it! A distinctive marker but not one that makes it really obvious that you’re meant to stand still at the end of it.

Soothing voice, big fan

Great video. Was wondering if it would be possible for you to share your UI?

Eeee! It was so nice to appear in the video, Rinon! Grateful to be able to contribute to such a great player resource, even in a small way. My friend who also appeared in the clip with me is geeking out too lmao. Wonderful stuff!

54:31 - The most egregious example of the "feely-craft snapshot" I can think of is p10s. Silkspit doesn't confirm damage until shortly before the attack landing, as the cast bar finishes about 10s before the attack itself happens. I remember panicking a bunch during prog and reclears about whether or not I actually timed my Addle correctly as I mostly time my Addles according to the cast bar

Some things noticed you missed that are worth mentioning: Playstation Markers - These are an X, Triangle, Square, and Circle marker that appear above players heads, usually in pairs so 2 players will get Circles and 2 players will get Squares ect. I *think* the first time we saw these markers was during Dragonsong's Reprise. You can "Display Target Info Independently" when editing your HUD. This splits your target info bar into 3 parts. The HP Bar, the Cast Bar and the Status Bar. This is useful if you want to make something like the cast bar much larger for easier visibility but don't want to make the HP and Status bar bigger (or in my case I actively make both of those elements smaller). You can split your own personal status bar into 1, 3, or 4 independent groups. If they are in a single group this shows your buffs, debuffs, and even food buffs all in the same bar. Splitting into 3 groups shows these all in their own separate locations. Splitting into 4 groups does the same thing but also takes any conditional buffs you might have (such as Triple Cast on Black Mage, but not Swift Cast for some reason?) in their own separate box. This can make it easier to track when you have certain buffs of debuffs.

Good video, I will mention, the Battle Music in the background is quite distracting. Maybe this is subjective, but i feel it would be easier to follow if there was more ambient music playing.

you're the top g

"That target ring that changes from yellow to red" My colorblind self: 🤯🤯🤯those are different colors?!?

Tip: Legacy is king even with mouse/keyboard :3

For the uptime melee you all should watch the old momo video about it The video is crazy and you'll learn a lot about the game itself even if you're not a meleei

39:30 it _may_ be worth noting that maximum _skill_ range and maximum _auto-attack_ range inexplicably differ in the game. And not even consistently differ, as it depends on the size of the target's hitbox, iirc, but auto-attack range is typically close to a yalm shorter than skill range. But it's quite a bit easier than it should be to stand within skill attack range, but be outside of auto-attack range and thus losing all of that passive auto-attack damage, which is usually ~10%+ of your overall damage output as a melee. I always try to give a glance to that auto-attack indicator, either over the boss's head or on their target frame, to make sure it's spinning each auto-attack interval, and thus that I'm in range for auto-attacking. Obviously, GCDs are going to do more, so being in range of skills but not auto-attacks is still preferable to being entirely out of range, especially if it lets you keep GCD uptime whilst dodging something, but standing at absolute maximum skill attack range is _usually_ just throwing away free auto-attack damage.

For positionals, does it matter how close/far you are to the boss aka if im 1 pixel behind the boss center pixel but right under him, does that still count as rear?

The cognitive WHIPLASH I got with hearing your voice set over Karariko Village is INTENSE.

Gonna be real I've been playing since the start of HW and for the common terminology I NEVER hear anyone say these things aside from like Xenos when he's streaming hahahha. Whenever im in raiding or in PF people just call the mechanic what it is and the classic Spreads and stacks is about it.

I'd just say to any new player, don't get overwhelmed and scared, thinking the game is more complex than it is. What is described here is the ideal, and you are not expected to execute on all of it to perfection, even in savage level of raiding. The difficulty ramps up slowly and you have time acclimate. But you *should* strive to improve towards this ideal.

banger video

word of warning about keeping anything in "your field of view" you need to balance such things and focus on what's important for your needs. you still want to maintain as much of a viewport to the arena, or world as you can so that you can keep tabs on what's going on. however, there are something that you can benefit from for having in your field of view. if the enmity list is one of those things, then go for it, i personally keep my next to the party list because i need to be able to see what's happening in the arena, more so then what specific mobs have aggro or what they are casting. as tank this is more so to keep tabs on what is on me and what's not. Or as anything else to check both player HP and enemy HP at the same time. so yeah, its' a bit of a learn what works for you.

cute catgirl

Sometimes the knockback marker can be purple. Purple means that if you are inside it, it's a guaranteed KO. Blue knockback can be survived even if inside it, but I don't recommend making a habit of it.

Imagine not being constantly flashbanged by all the party effects. Couldn't be me :P

One extra thing for focus target is yourself. Not so much for the information, but rather the arrow icon above your head making it easier to locate yourself in much bigger fights. Like on special FATEs where you have 100 bodies all condensed into one spot and aoes are going out in that area.

Really good video, but there is one area where I disagree on: Newbies and materia. I feel that, rather than telling them to ignore it for now, newbies should be encouraged to play with it and given just a brief rundown of how it works (stat caps based in ilvl and slot, red means you've gone over it) and advised to not overmeld until endgame. Reason being, it's free stats, they'll likely be passively acquiring materia, and until they hit the current endgame the materia they can use has a 100% success rate to be removed. This makes it literally free for them to play with it.

Dude, I'll save this video for rewatching once a week until I've absorbed e-v-e-r-y w-o-r-d

The section "How FFXIV combat works" is really great. And as a WoW and FFXIV player I really appreciate that you choose to deliberately compare them in that aspect because it's very rarely mentioned in comparisons of these games, FFXIV reviews or guides for new players.

Absolutely fantastic. Can you maybe do a deep dive of your current UI as a separate video?

Sprout Rinon kinda cursed

Lit

the amount of ff14 players who genuinely need this video is sad but good on you for making it. read your tooltips, keep your gcd spinning...use your brain since the game itself is braindead easy (as admitted by yoship himself). and done! boom, you are better than 85% of the community!

Wait I'm in this video 👀

I might have 800+ hours in this game... but i'll watch the damn thing anyways!

17:56 if only it could be full... 10 is the max sadly. Or rather why can be there more than 10 to go over the ma icon display.

@1:29:20 **pathetic**

Collect as many vuln stickers as you can for the big bonus!

One thing I see people get "wrong" often is that there's really no rule for how far you should stand from a proximity AOE, except that you rarely have to be as far as possible, as the damage can only be reduced up to a minimum value. Experiment and find out what you can get away with! As an example, the second boss of Castrum Meridianum doesn't have to move an inch from the center for you to take minimum damage from the proximity markers it puts in the corners. You can literally just spin around the boss and be fine!

hey bro, im a controller player looking to heal in ultimates. I just struggle to target people and keep things in order. any tips?

Dude. I just wanted to play the only FF i haven't beaten. This is too much, man. fuck

I think it would be good to also talk a bit about targeting of abilities. How some require you to have a target and some don't, how healing and similar spells will target you if you are targeting an enemy/nothing, or ground targeted abilities. Otherwise this was an informative video, I never knew sps affected DoT damage.

when i slidecast, my character literally slides while still in cast position

5th

Worth noting: blue knock back puddles and yellow knock back arrows are immutable, whereas purple puddles and purple arrows are Not Immunable

The other, unintended use of Focus Target: putting an arrow marker over someone's head that only you can see so you can more easily keep track of them. Back in the day as a baby sprout new to everything I'd focus target an FC mate/friend who knew what they were doing and just... trail after them like a lost puppy. These days if I don't need need Focus Target to keep track of a second target's casts and/or check role partners for debuffs for the purpose of flexing (like in P8S snakes), I use it to keep track of the location of my pair stack partner (because there's almost always at least _one_ pair stack mech these days). Especially handy if they happen to be a tiny lalafell whose glam blends in with the arena floor; I'm constantly losing those lil buggers

Is HQ gear really needed for new players though? The stat increase is minimal and for normal content being done by newer players, it seems a waste of their limited gil. And once you get into the expansions, the previous top-ilvl tomestone gear + a few dungeon drops is usually perfectly adequate for getting through the base expansion and your free set of job gear.

Will say 1 thing was missed with pyretic. You cant do ANYTHING including auto attacks, so in addition to not moving make sure the target is un targeted or stow your weapon or you will fail the mechanic (mostly issue for melee)

My fav macro that doesn't negatively interfere with rotations: Mouse over, by adding "" after an action name. As a DRG main and AST side, Dragon Sight and buffing others with cards respectively was always a pain - double weaving while changing target? Ugh! But with a mouse over I can easily hover over the party list. Especially as AST my mouse rests near the party list anyway, and as DRG I can find that SAM, BLM or MCH either in the list or on the battlefield every 2 minutes.

had a few additional notes. There was so much content here obviously you can't cover EVERYTHING... and if you did mention these and I missed it, I apologize food buff, eat twice to double up for 1hr of buff for long content (unless you have FC buff for food to last longer) keyboard shortcut for 3rd person camera control is Ctrl+"Up arrow" or Ctrl+"Down arrow" (you said you use controller but it's super useful to be able to change it on the fly to see stuff like the "don't look at me!" mechanics over bosses that may clip out of view otherwise... looking at you... or not... tower of darkness eyeball)

elemental dmg not mattering? tell that to the zombies in the palace of the dead boss for floor like 150, where the zombies are very weak to air damage, so veraero from redmage is really good there! I really love how palace of the dead is kinda a bubble into old ffxiv. Mobs being able to just BS crit you, elemental damage mattering, and some others i cant remember right now off the top of my head. :D

6th

YoshiP should have you as a dev hehe. THere are sooo many new ppl to the game...this was much needed...I just hope they find this

Honestly, when I started playing this game trying to follow the ABC rule did me more bad than good. Every guide I watched kept hammering on it, so I ended up so focused on my hotbars/uptime that I would lose track of my position or fail mechanics. I appreciate you mentioning to only start to greed after you're more comfortable!

Cool, now rank all the trials

I never realized that there is a little symbol that indicates whether or not you're auto-attacking a target. Also I never really understood what ALL and OTHERS mean above your HP bar when you Sheathe / Unsheathe your weapons. It seems like it is a HUD element that is archaic, that does not have the text really convey ANY sort of info. The only thing that does is the little sword/sheathed sword icon.

my super raider!

Even as an Omni 90 (100 come DT), it's still good to go back and study the basics every so often. It's always possible to learn something new, even after having capped out everything.