Hey you, yeah you, use countdown timers and openers. Whether you wanna believe, these are beneficial tools that make hard fights safer. Everyone benefits from proper openers and countdowns. We should be using them, no matter how “hard” the content is. Especially since that is subjective and good habits don’t end just because the content got easier.
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If it wasn't already difficult to get everything right at endgame and even certain points in progression, I would agree 100%. Whenever I think of optimization on that level, my mind can't keep up. I mainly play red mage because of the ease of use and the flair. I didn't even know there was a concrete opener for it, despite reading guides. How does one safely practice openers in a realistic environment without royally messing up mechanics that are prevalent in higher tier activities?
The only time I get annoyed at openers is when its taking me fucking forever to get them in my head so I can do them without having to look at a picture. I spent what felt like 2 hours day before yesterday sat outside my guild house staring at a training dummy trying to get the Monk opener from your video in my head so I could do it from memory without having to look away from the screen. I beat that thing up so fucking much in the process. Thankfully, minus occasionally messing it up or having a mind blank on it every now and then, I've got it and I can do it just fine now.
This was a treat to hear! I always try to at least do a ready check for the final boss of a dungeon, unless it's clear that everyone knows it and is overgeared for it, but given I've had wipes on some expert dungeons that should otherwise be on lock down for everyone running the roulette, even a bit of preparation can help everyone. I feel more confident to do countdowns even for normal content after watching this. At least as tank or MT, still not sure how well it'd go over as healer or dps. But then, I guess, the worst that could happen is the fight starts before countdown finishes, so not a big deal really.
All I have to say on this is this:
I remember doing one of the crystal tower raids (I think it was the last boss in LotA), and someone used a 15 second countdown before the fight. What followed was one of the smoothest fights of that boss I've experienced. This is as someone who has so far only done Ramuh EX, Tsu's Ballad, and Dancing Plague EX synced. No savage content experience yet.
If that's not evidence that openers matter, I don't know what is.
I feel this I often get shit for doing a ready check and 20s timers by the average player for openers but it’s just a natural part of the game.
only recently got into raiding and learning but after learning it becomes second nature and obvious why we would want to do it.
it’s safe very rarely are you in danger during the opener windows and it improves our chances.
I still have a long way to go before I’m great but an opener isn’t something the average player should shun at all.
I agree with this video but I can already see the casual player base that can’t be asked to do anything getting upset or thinking it’s toxic or elitist even if people aren’t enforcing it.
i like people using a timer just so i can practice being efficient in real situations.
and i don't do any content more intense than normal raids
Playing more Ninja at 80 opened my eyes to doing a countdown whenever I tank. Nothing more annoying than a tank rushing in to start when I haven't even gotten Huton up yet
Now I know not to pull instantly and try to understand my classes (even if they’re only 3 at the moment) a lot more better, thanks!
Well done.
I wish there was more meta content about FF14, so thank you for this
Good video, although I think mentioning specific cases (Red mage comes to mind, and my SMN friends always complain about lacks of openers?) where not having an opener actually makes your rotation feel cursed would have been nice.
Seriously, red mage with and without opener is such a huge difference, without one you just have to start improvising right from the start :/
“Just look at the mess that is Astrologian” I felt that.
I just had a debate on reddit about underperformance-toxicity and had to argue that WHM during dungeon content can easily be seen to hit harder than a reasonably performing DPS role, 1) in general because WHM is OP in dungeons and 2) because said DPS role is holding onto their DPS buff cooldowns due to boss coming up. This 2nd idea was foreign to the other poster who massively engaged in a pointless knowledge-flex about fflogs, completely missing the variance in playstyles or goals leading to "results that don't give you an excuse to be toxic." Someone else even came in and asked me why would a DPS not use a DPS buff cooldown. They argued that I'd be losing DPS by 1) holding onto the buff and 2) not using it during AoE trash where the DPS numbers are higher.
That was literally a conversation with players peacocking game knowledge on 4-man dungeons. I don't care if I play the "entirety" of a 4-man dungeon at somewhat higher efficiency if I skip practicing openers on every-single-boss fight. Trash mobs are not worth optimizing anything for. As long as I do my basic rotation, and use that buff if I'm sure we're far away from the next boss, I'm good. The average tank does NOT do cooldown on any boss in dungeon, and certainly isn't the kind that's waiting for ready up, or taking feedback to delay start for 15-20 seconds for that buff to come off cooldown. As such, I'm holding it always so I can use it to open on normal bosses correctly so when I run normal tier raids, or extreme trials, I'm able to do with with solid practice behind me because openers start to matter for those fights, but that doesn't mean it should have been the start to practice.
This does not change the fact that in Australia there are 48 million kangaroos and in Uruguay there are 3,457,380 inhabitants. So if the kangaroos decide to invade Uruguay, each Uruguayan will have to fight 14 kangaroos.
A lot of getting better at dps in this game is practice, having a consistent way to start fights helps get practice for how the player should act in future fights (edit: looking back on this with more experience with the game god I wish any somewhat relevant fight at like 70+ maybe earlier had a timer. As a dancer main who doesn’t want to pull early, not having a countdown means I need to telekinetically guess when the tank will pull or risk screwing up a huge part of my rotation by misaligning my dances)
I'm stupid but I don't really get the 20 second timer you mention is it the 20 second get ready timer before a fight? Not sure how it affects the fight. Same with Tank instantly pulling.
Openers have really helped me understand classes better. My ability to contribute throughout an entire fight has gone up because of them.
i play for a few days coming from another mmo and i have a genuine question. so what happens if the fight takes longer? is there a timer that makes u wipe when u are behind in time? why cant u just fight the boss for longer, are resources running out? what is it? im coming from a mmo where those prinicples only apply when going for a world record speedrun or something, where u have to beat that .x seconds to get the record. its really hard to imagine that this is a requirement just to get a clear.
i also hate how the only skillexpression in ff14 seems to be if you get an extra gcd in more than another player… but thats the nature of this combat system i guess. let me know if im wrong about that assumption tho.
AST is just cry over cards spam malefic heal cry over cards oh divination! Rinse and repeat
Then tanks are always at fault. Well thank you. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Yaaaaawn
Another thing that makes a good opener important and useful in a big fight is that the bossfight usually starts with a 10-15 second "free DPS" where the boss either only attacks the tank, only does a tankbuster or showcases their various mechanics one at a time to show you what it can do before rolling into the actual fight itself. Which means that you can pretty much do a clean burst opener right before actual mayhem breaks out. And as you said, with the entire party buffed and various dots and debuffs rolling on the target, that can make for a LOT of damage output right at the start of combat.
I like your BLM clip, once you demonstrated that you are willing to take an AOE hit to stay in your layline, you got dance partner.
The only opener I know is dancer T-T. Maybe Bard. Just beat Emerald Weapon extreme. We killed it with just a sliver left until enrage. Every bit of dps counts
This idea is very new to me, so I've got a question or two. If I am a tank, what am I aiming to do. In my head I've currently got the following:
1. Start a 5 or 10 second countdown timer before a boss
2. The moment that timer hits 0 is the moment I'm expecting my first hit (likely ranged) to land, or is that the point I press the button in the knowledge that there is a bit of leeway anyway?
I guess I'm not sure how important it is for me to immediately have emnity the moment the countdown finishes, vs. just knowing that I will have emnity by the time the boss performs an action. Does that make sense?
The next question is, does that mean I need to be in range of the enemy for my attack to land when the countdown finishes?
Lots of questions, but yeah, just trying to figure out how I actually do this.
Cheers
My mentality when it comes to optimizing damage is that I want to treat every encounter as a DPS check, so that when an actual DPS check comes my way I'll be more than ready.
I never even knew openers were controversial. I am a new tank (in between hw and storm blood, and pumped to try raiding) and learned how to play my job with ur videos and always thought that openers were a standard that I always had to do. Honestly, I think I’m better off for it because this isn’t even an argument. Openers are just better.
Thank you so much for these guides, one of the best content creators for this game especially helpful as a new player to this game and MMOs in general, I always leave a video knowing more and also having some laughs with how in depth the information is and how well done the commentary is. Thank you again for these videos!
Slow and steady wins the race indeed. I once blew the mind of all parties in the Labyrinth of Ancients by saying, Slow down to speed up. Because they kept running into the Atomos fight forcing everyone to be teleported into the A side meaning B and C either had not enough players to even push a button or no one at all. Sometimes stopping to catch your breath or let others catch up will save time. Also I'm really bad at openers but when I tank I try to at least do a count down but seems that the end of a 15 second count down happens at 5 seconds.
Late to the party but what if you have trouble remembering openers.
I wanna try and improve with Samurai and learn the opener but my horrendous sleep schedule coupled with depression just gives me a lack of motivation. What should I do?
I really wish random dungeon tanks would do countdowns. Be the change you like to see in the world, I guess.
I play with a friend who has mained PLD for like 6 years and he never waits to pull it's so frustrating that he doesn't understand the concept of openers lol
Only took me two freaken months to realize the crime against humanity that is the pun on your thumbnail…well played >.>
New monk main anyone can tell me how they work wit the camera for hitting positionals?
In my previous static, my raid lead won't give me 30 seconds for an AST card.
So yeah.
The same mentality of being mediocre not even trying openers is the same of you pulling you tank it. Be better and help others be better, don't create a toxic environment and team work gets easier
I understand that is important for high end content like extreme stuff (which I most avoid for not having the patience for the stuff, same as PVP), I don't know how to fully explain but it feels…like I'm being forced to play in a way because it's the "right way" and feels less fun to figure out stuff for yourself and finding a way to play that you enjoy, a rotation that you fell confortable, I have been yelled for "overhealing", I do take care to manage my mana, but someone freaked out because I was keeping the party at full health as a white mage once in a trial, sometimes after a day's work I just want to enjoy my red mage flashy skills, so my take is, if isn't anything overly difficult, it's fine to be slacky with optimal stuff and max/min dmg/cd, you video has great content as always anyway
When a warrior discovers a knockback aligns with an inner release. Openers make that consistent
It's really just very very hard to change how some people think.
Tried doing a countdown in a dungeon, healer gets angry and prepulled.
So yeah.
Im getting into end game bard, one of the biggest things ive learned from watching more experienced play is not clipping my GCD. Its really easy to see proc and press proc, but making sure that im getting only 2 weaves in has really brought up my over all performance. I think this kind of optimization is fun, but it's something that i would have taken ages to realize by myself.