10 Unexplained Game Mechanics [Final Fantasy XIV]



Hidden or unexplained mechanics can be found all throughout Final Fantasy XIV—between visual cues and random trivia, here are 10 examples that range from obvious, new-player oriented combat tips and tricks to obscure UI and system interactions.

Hopefully, even if you’re a veteran player, you learn something new and interesting!

Timestamps are as follows:

0:00 – Intro
0:27 – Interrupts
0:36 – Debuffs (and Buffs)
0:57 – How Rez Immunity Works
1:44 – An Emote Better than Esuna?
1:54 – Blocks and Parries
2:14 – Healer Shield Interactions
2:43 – The Power of CTRL
3:19 – The BEST Tooltips in the Game
3:29 – Rescue Canceling
3:37 – Leveling Cheese
4:34 – Outro

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40 thoughts on “10 Unexplained Game Mechanics [Final Fantasy XIV]”

  1. I still remember using /comfort for misery all these years since Heavensward was new, all because of Maroon 5's song 'Misery'. "I am in 'misery' there ain't nobody to 'comfort' me." ♪ It always boosts up my mood while healing in dungeons by just randomly singing, lol.

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  2. here's one for all the ninja mains you can stack your debuffs. I know I know shocking but if you use Suiton when trick is under 20 secs on the cool down you can put both Mug and Trick in the same gcd (if you can double weave) this gives you a 15% damage buff for yourself and 5% for all your allies which is massive.
    Also secret second tip Raiton does more dmg than Doton in 98% of scenarios. Unless doton is hitting 3 or more ads or gets time to hit two ads for it's full duration your doing more dmg in a raiton. This should help avoiding STD (single target doton)

    Is this me projecting against all the NIN mains I see not using Trick in lv 70+ content is this me having to watch another NIN use doton in Crystal Towers. PROBABLY NOT BUT WHO ARE WE TO JUDGE.

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  3. Yay. I knew all of them! Though, I’ll admit, a few were “Oh yeah, I remember that now.”

    Here’s a one of mine: Enemies require line of sight to attack, just like players do. You can use this to your advantage as a tank by ducking around a corner until the ranged adds clump up with everyone else. Be careful though, because your healer also needs LOS to heal you.

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  4. On the subject of EXP buffs and level sync, they recently buffed the Mentor EXP buff to apply all the way to level 80 (instead of the nearly useless level 20 cap before). You won't benefit from that from being matched in the duty finder but if you party up beforehand, its a nice bonus for new or returning players with a mentor friend. Even the mentor themselves can benefit from the bonus exp to level other classes.

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  5. i have over 1000 hrs of ffxiv. Just learned about Transcendence.

    Another helpful tip I have.

    If you're playing a job that has a DoT and there's other people playing the same job as you, You can tell which DoT is yours on the Enemy Target Plate because the countdown text of the DoT is slightly green.

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  6. Ctrl will also bring NPC's names to the forefront, so if you're doing MSQ on day one and a hundred people are surrounding the quest NPC, just hold down Ctrl to hide everyone else's names and make it easy to click on the MSQ guy.

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  7. Have been playing for over half a year and did not know about the misery debuff. This actually happened to me today in the Great Gubal library while I was tanking. The healer randomly comforted me in the middle of battle. I just thought he was perhaps being overly empathic or passive aggressive about me taking too much damage?

    Ironically he was still a sprout while I have lost my sprout cherry for a while now.

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  8. To the newcomers, here's to an exciting adventure. To the veterans, here's to new discoveries, new ways to find comfort.
    A couple more that seem intuitive only in hindsight, some are PC-exclusive, though:
    —————
    1) If you have an enemy targeted, you will see numbers and "A" beside each of the allies engaged with that enemy. This is the emnity order. Enemy will attack A until A or enemy are dead, or if you exceed the amount of emnity A has generated. If A dies, each party member is bumped up the queue, and whoever hits "1" is the new "A". There will also be a bar to measure how close you are to A under each ally's job icon. Useful to watch for between levels 35 and 49.
    2) By default, the keys F1-F8 will target yourself, an allied tank/healer, and down the party list as it appears. However, you can always target yourself with F1, even if not in a party. Useful for avoiding what I like to call "Tab Roulette".
    3) Several buttons you see in-game and menu options can be pulled to your hotbar – incredibly useful for housing, emote macros, accessing glamor plates, and more than what even Lucy can fit in a YouTube video.
    – Not exclusively a game mechanic, but… …other ill-documented things worth attention: –
    1) Hotbars 1-8 can all be done (Though you may need to adjust keybinds) using different modifiers of Ctrl, Shift, and Alt while pressing all the same keys you would use by default:
    None, Ctrl, Alt, Shift, Ctrl+Alt, Ctrl+Shift, Alt+Shift, and Ctrl+Shift+Alt. These hotbars are usable even if not visible, though you will need to set things to your hotbar first.
    2) Hotbars without job-exclusive or role-exclusive actions on them will be shared between all of your jobs/roles.
    3) Ctrl+Esc will bring up the Start Menu on Windows. Don't try to keybind that. It ends poorly.

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  9. If you tilted your camera for fun (or any other reason really!) and want it set back at the default angle, the keybind is ctrl+shift+end 🙂 It will also reset how close the camera is to your character but that's a minor setback!

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  10. 1:34 that is not quite true, you loose transcendence if you take any action that would put you in combat. This is important for casters who rez with almost no mana and doubley for SMN who rez without their pet. You can cast Lucid Dreaming for a boost in mana regen and Summon Carbuncle without loosing Transcendence

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  11. Been playing since 2.0 and genuinely didn't know that the icons for buffs and debuffs pointed in different directions.

    I didn't know about the ctrl button, either, but I play with a controller on PS5, so I don't think that one really applies to me. The camera thing sounds really nice though.

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  12. Yeah I knew all these, but I've also been here since ARR. Also some of the stuff you can figure out just by reading tool tips or messing around. Like shields not overwriting if they are lower crit. Whenever you cast a shield just look if it says it refreshed galvanize or not.

    It's not a hidden mechanic more of a bug, but if you're a WHM (or any caster) and you parry an attack while casting you will stand there doing no animation while still casting for the duration of that cast.

    If fishing while using a controller the rumble will tell you if it's a big fish or not. Longer rumble is bigger fish.

    It more than likely doesn't matter anymore but there was/is a sight seeing log jump in ARR that was easier to do if you set your frame rate to 15. A lot of jumps are easier with lower FPS.

    When you jump you gain full momentum after roughly 2 seconds after you start running so your jump will be longer.

    Your hitbox is a pixel under your character. Target your character, and place a dot in the very center of the ring, that's your actual hitbox. That's why you can stand in trash and not get hit. The hitbox is the same for every race.

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  13. Debuffs you apply to a mob have a light green color to the numbers, whereas everyone else's will be white. Friends trolling you with rescue? Arms Length/Surecast will prevent Rescue as it is considered a knockback.
    Counterpoint to the res immunity: while you are invulnerable, you are not invulnerable to debuffs, meaning you can still can have DoTs or other effects applied to you.

    This one mostly only applies to PVP Frontline: movement effects such as Ingress/Elusive Jump etc can be used as ways to rapidly descend terrain without taking damage, as any movement effect automatically places you on the ground as you travel from point A to B. This is also why you cannot use movement effects to cross gaps in boss arenas.

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