Disciples of War & Magic

How to effectively play your Job and use your Rotations!

Primary Stats

• Vitality – Increases maximum HP.
• Strength – Increases melee physical attack power for most classes and jobs.
• Dexterity – Increases ranged physical attack power, as well as melee physical attack power for Rogues and Ninjas.
• Intelligence – Increases attack magic potency for DPS & tanks, as well as the healing magic potency of Red Mage.
• Mind – Increases healing magic potency, as well as the attack magic potency for healers.

Secondary Stats

• Skill Speed – Affects both the casting and recast timers, as well as the damage over time potency for weapon skills and auto-attacks. The higher the value, the shorter the timers/higher the potency.
• Spell Speed – Affects both the casting and recast timers for spells. The higher the value, the shorter the timers. Also affects a spell’s damage over time or healing over time potency.
• Tenacity – Decreases damage taken, increases HP received and damage dealt. Only effective when playing as a tank.
• Piety – Increases MP regen speed. Only effective when playing as a healer.
• Direct Hit – Increases probability and potency of scoring a Direct Hit. Direct Hits are not as strong as Critical Hits, but happen more frequently.
• Critical Hit – Increases probability and potency of scoring a Critical Hit. Critical hits are stronger than Direct Hits, but don’t happen as often. Also applies to healing.
• Determination – Affects the amount of damage dealt by both physical and magic attacks, as well as the amount of HP restored by healing spells.

Best Guides for Combat Jobs
AkhMorning & SaltedXIV
• Your rotations will be on these sites!
• Your Best in Slot will be on these sites!

YouTube Channels for Most Fight Mechanics
MTQ Capture
Hector Hectorson
Moonshadow Fantasy

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Casuals vs. Parsers vs. Speedrunners

Sometimes, there is some contention within the community of FFXIV regarding these three playstyles. Below, we will explain~

What each playstyle means:
Casuals: People who run with unoptimized parties and adapt to unscripted events. Their playstyle isn’t as optimized as possible due to unusual circumstances (i.e new tank, new person to the instance, etc.)

Parsers: People who push their job to the limit and push out as much damage as possible. Typically reviled by the casual audience due to their lack of healing, their movement style, or their consistent greed.

Speedrunners: These are the people looking to put in as much effort to reduce kill time (or completion of the instance). Often confused with parsers, they are the ones who will willingly sit in AoEs for increased uptime to try and beat the clock as soon as possible.

Where the contention comes into play:
The contention stems from the thought that people need to stick with the convention of their role’s responsibilities. Optimized playstyles are doing as much DPS as possible (similarly to parsing) while still performing the fundamentals of their role. In the case of FFXIV, the rule of thumb is that everyone does DPS as much as possible and keeps people in survivable conditions. Therefore, the contention itself is false. Whether you are a casual player or a parser, everyone should be optimizing their level of play.

There are three tenets to playing FFXIV:

1. Teamwork – Everyone can contribute in some way to the party. Every job can mitigate, some jobs can boost healing/heal, everyone can deal damage and everyone can avoid unnecessary damage. It is important to do your part in all four aspects.
2. Be Respectful – On the same hand everyone doesn’t know every aspect of the game, the flip side is to also do your part and learn more about the game so you are respecting their time. Respect goes both ways. Always look for help to make your life and their lives easier and be honest that you need help to learn something. The Perpetually Sprouts have made efforts to take as much information out there and condense it as much as possible to help everyone. It is still a lot of information, but we do it because we want people to enjoy the game with the same love we have to write guides.
3. Always put forth your best – Whether it is raiding, crafting, role-playing, PvP, or whatever you do, put your best effort into everything you commit to in the game. If you get stuck, we can help.

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Checking Your DPS

If you want to know if you are contributing the average level of DPS for your job, go hit a striking dummy at the Stone, Sea, and Sky!

• Available at every 10th level past Level 60, the dummies are a good way to check if you are doing what you need to do for normal content, extremes, savages, and ultimates.
• The goal is to see if your baseline damage is enough to clear, so don’t use Tinctures (commonly referred to as pots) to gain a radical boost in damage.
• Every job has a different health gauge dummy, so practice until you clear!

Available at these locations:

• Lv. 60 – Dravanian Hinterlands. Entrance is through the Goodly Adventurer (Dravanian Hinterlands: x18,y10) and started from NPC Boisterous Bruiser (Idyllshire: x7,y6)
• Lv. 70 – The Fringes. Entrance is through the Battle-Scarred Veteran (The Fringes: x30,y11) and started from NPC Starry Eyed Ala Mhigan (Rhalgr’s Reach: x12,y13)
• Lv. 80 – Kholusia. Entrance is through the Soft-Faced Bloke (Kholusia: x23,y37) and started from NPC Weary Dockworker (Eulmore: 9,9)
• Lv. 90 – Thavnair. Entrance is through the Sharp-Eyed Radiant (Thavnair: x12,y10) and started from NPC Hardy-Looking Radiant (Radz-At-Han: x12,y10)

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Healing Notes

As a Healer, you do have the responsibility for the parties’ overall health and survivability. But as we discussed, EVERYONE should be contributing to mitigating incoming damage.

• Tanks and DPS have mitigation tools that they can use to reduce the healer’s burden as well.

That being said, there are keynotes for Healers to remember:

• It is not your job to get everyone to 100% health. Consistently using your tools to force everyone to 100% health will cause you to empty yourself out when you do need to critically heal. Instead, get everyone to survivable health and let the innate health regen kick in for those who are not getting damaged.
• Let your regen buff do its job. I’ve seen countless healers that use a party-wide regen spell only to cast it again because it didn’t do the job of getting everyone to full health. DO NOT DO THIS. Just cast it once and let the regen do the rest.
• Always be triaging the situation. When it comes to healing, there will always be the people who need to be healed first before the rest of the party. In a full-party situation, the standard list should go: MT>Caster DPS>=Ranged DPS>Melee DPS>OT. The reason the Melee and Off-Tank are at the bottom of the triage list is because they should be using their innate abilities to top up their own health. The priorities do change depending on the level of content you are running so be prepared with the list of people you do need to be more mindful of healing.
• Be aware of the rate of damage, the percentage of damage you need to heal, and the amount you heal. Like the adage, you don’t bring a knife to a gunfight, you always want to choose the best tool for the job. Use the appropriate healing skill/ability for your task.

For Everyone Else:

• The Healer is not there to continually clean up your mess. Do your best to learn mechanics and your job to help them out. The less burden they have to deal with, the smoother the run will go for you and the party.

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