new player general thoughts/questions

[Fiye]

This is by all means not a definite order. But if you're going to follow one, you'll probably want to go this way.

CUL -> 15 (Hasty Touch)
GSM -> 15 (Manipulation)
ALC -> 15 (Tricks of the Trade)

You'll want to get CUL ->37 sooner than later. You'll get Steady Hand 2, which provides a 10% more success rate over Steady Hand 1. And going from a 70% success rate on hasty to 80% is a huuuuge jump.

Then you'll want

CRP -> 50 (Byregot's Blessing)
GSM -> 50 (Innovation)
WVR -> 50 (Careful Synthesis 2)
ALC -> 50 (Comfort Zone)
ARM -> 50 (Piece by Piece)
BSM -> 50 (Ingenuity 2)
LTW -> 50 (Waste Not 2)
CUL -> 50 (Reclaim)

If you want to level all your crafts up. Take advantage of XP boosting scrolls from 1-15 (Buy them at your GC). Once you hit 15 from sheer grinding start taking up Levequests and the Beast Tribe Dailies from the Ixali.

Caimie's guide is very good to learn from - http://ffxivrealm.com/guides/ff14-ad...ie-tsukino.39/

Don't forgot about gathering as well. Sometimes its good to be able to hop to a place, hit a node 3 times to get the stuff you need.

[Raldo]

Manipulation saves you like... 4 or 6 CP over Master's Mend; I really wouldn't put that up in the "important skills" section, certainly not above Tricks. I'd also put WVR ahead of GSM to 50, 'cause I've never found Innovation to be super useful as anything more than a cheap-ish step to waste to fish for Good/Excellent.

[octopus]

I'm a big fan of Rapid Synthesis (lv15 armorer), but properly not that essential as a leveling up tool.

[Pruviant]

Manipulation saves you like... 4 or 6 CP over Master's Mend; I really wouldn't put that up in the "important skills" section, certainly not above Tricks. I'd also put WVR ahead of GSM to 50, 'cause I've never found Innovation to be super useful as anything more than a cheap-ish step to waste to fish for Good/Excellent.

Manipulation combined with Waste Not is invaluable on 35/40 durability synths. Very, very important in my opinion.

I agree about Innovation though, and you don't need Piece by Piece for anything now since name/brand of element and Muscle Memory.

[vagus]

Does a windower exist for FF14? Tabbing in and out is annoying with the SE windower.

[Kaisha]

No, and what's wrong with the built-in windowed/borderless-window ARR already has?

[BaneTheBrawler]

Probably that it locks the cursor into the window. Only thing I can think of. There's a setting to toggle that, though.

[Seravi Edalborez]

Borderless windowed is the way to go.

[FHT]

So this isn't a real new player question but more like a job question.

My friend is AST53, its her 1st job as she's a new player (3 months) and has WHM51 as well. I am no healer, and she asked me how to DPS properly on AST. I took her to Phraos on Unsync with me as DRK60. She did great on packs but I could not really see during bosses because of all the adds I had to take care of. She's okay for the gears as I keep her topped up with HQs all the time as I am able to craft what she need.

A good sources gave me some infos already but I would like to have some more advices for her if possible, so any AST here can spare a few suggestion on which Rotation/Priority to use for DPS, an example of a situation where its ok to use Cleric and a few examples of Cross Skills please?

That would be really appreciated. Thanks.

[Elcura]

There is no rule. You DPS only when you feel comfortable or you know there's a gap for it. All AST does for DPS is Combust 1 and 2, it's not a complicated rotation. Just add Malefic afterwards. Stack Regens, DPS. Shield, DPS, etc. Have Essential Dignity, Synastry, Bole or Lightspeed? DPS. Of course, drawing and using cards effectively helps too.

Interesting that this seems complicated. SCH is the only healer that has an actual rotation, WHM and AST are just put dots up, do direct damage.

[BaneTheBrawler]

Even sch, there's only a rotation as long as the tank is predictable. if they arent popping cooldowns i have to interrupt my dps to help eos keep up.

90% of dpsing as healer is situational awareness/knowing the fights.

I tend to pop specific cooldowns on specific pulls, but scholar doesn't really have any longer cooldowns like whm and (i think) ast so im not sure how that works with those.

[Niiro]

-Clerics on
-Cast your DoTs from highest potency->lowest, then direct damage spells
-If a DPS dies hit raise, preferably with a condescending /p macro
-Drop Clerics and heal when the tank is about to die
-If you're too late and the tank dies, tell him to use cooldowns/stop taking so much damage

Special SCH edition:
-Clerics on
-Complete dungeon

[FHT]

-Clerics on
-Cast your DoTs from highest potency->lowest, then direct damage spells
-If a DPS dies hit raise, preferably with a condescending /p macro
-Drop Clerics and heal when the tank is about to die
-If you're too late and the tank dies, tell him to use cooldowns/stop taking so much damage

Special SCH edition:
-Clerics on
-Complete dungeon

lol thanks, shall I advise her to use that OF Macro saying "You wanted me to DPS so here you go!" or what was it?

[Niiro]

That one's good, anything rage-inducing should work just fine.

[Silenka]

It's much more fun to dps on WHM than AST. Both SCH and WHM can put out some awesome damage, AST not quite as much. WHM's combo of regens and damage spells makes it extremely fun to put the beatdown on stuff with. I can't say I have a similar experience with AST dps, but the buffing others aspect makes up for it. If she really wants to practice with beefy healer dps WHM is the way to go between those 2.

[Dotsudoku]

Assuming we're talking about trash situations, I would have agreed before the most recent AST updates. Synastry + double aspected regens + CC, and then whatever our stun thing is to enhance the durations. Your tank starts rolling with several thousand/tick regens for quite a while. Lots and lots of time to Gravity.

[vagus]

Interesting post. Gf is focusing on sch. I just got gld to 30. Now I need to level cnj to 15 to unlock old. Ugh. Not a fan of Mage jobs in 14. Pld and maybe rng in this game. In 11 my main was war and whm. Heh.

[BaneTheBrawler]

there is no ranger. there is only bard. and machinist.

[Niiro]

there is no ranger. there is only bardmage. and machinist.

ftfy

[Silenka]

Well, I find healers nice because (as stated above) aside from SCH, they're reactionary instead of sticking to a rotation. I really dislike hitting the same buttons in the same order every time. Your mileage may vary, but I feel much more like I'm playing my job when I'm the one deciding which skill to use and when, instead of a rotation doing that for me. Also, there's a good balance of responsibility. You feel important to the party. So it's not all bad!

As far as tanking, I like PLD too but it can't be denied that WAR is king right now. They have the most utility and put out amazing dps, almost like a pure dps class. PLD is suffering currently, who knows when they'll get an update. If you used to play WAR in XI you might wanna try out WAR in XIV, they're pretty similar to each other currently as far as function and types of abilities. (Also Bardmage sucks, if you really like ranged jobs definitely go machinist!)

@Dotsudoku - Regardless of being able to keep the tank up, AST still has the worst dps output of the 3 by quite a lot. It's the only thing I think AST needs a change to now, but SE is unlikely to give AST better dps because of buffing capacity.