After playing both games a considerable amount the past year, I feel like ff14 actually has more in depth rotations while WoW rotations are more customizable.
It’s hard to say which is better between the two but I do like the feel of specs in WoW and the amount of variety.
I’ve played a few classes since I started FF14 in 2015, and the ones I did play felt more like combo-chains rather than a priority rotation.
While in a priority rotation you’ll return back to previously used abilities in a certain order that just fell off of cooldown, in a chained combo you’ll just continue using subsequent abilities to finish the chain regardless of previous CDs.
I enjoy FF’s because DPSing feels simpler and more straightforward, so it’s easier to learn without the help of a third-party site. Each of the class playstyles still feels different; I haven’t felt like the overlap of similar playstyles yet.
WoW’s rotations are customizable but with the downside of being very convoluted/tedious. Depending on the class, rotations change as you change your talents, legendaries, hero/lust/TW/NW, buff/proc conditions, and resource levels. Systems like this are why we are so dependent on websites and mods like WeakAuras, DPS rotation helpers, and CD timers.
I really do miss WoW’s original talent trees. It allowed players to play with so many combinations of traits, trying out unorthodox methods and making it work for them. Now it’s hard to talk variety when our current tree-style is…boring… if that’s the right word… on top of the mindset of meta overshadowing “choices.”
As far as specs go, if WoW was designed like FF14, each spec would be its own class, making us have 36 classes. Unfortunately, the class-spec style makes it hard to add more new classes because nearly everything has been done by a spec. Not to mention balancing issues, as possible changes happening to classes may affect each spec differently.
As a long-time XIV devotee coming back to WoW, I agree completely with the point about rotations feeling like combo chains. I prefer the WoW ones actually, since I have more freedom to interrupt a rotation to take care of healing or damage mitigation.
Well, unless you’re playing a healer. In that case you spend all your time pushing your one DPS button and refreshing your one DOT.
Also, in duty finder content you’re usually on a tourist trip because 3 of the 4 tanks can heal themselves better than you and in fact don’t need you to be there at all.
I’m actually surprised we don’t see more expert roulette PF groups with 1 WAR 3 DPS since you can cap tomestomes in less than an hour with that comp. It will probably come in time if SE doesn’t bring back tank self-healing to more reasonable levels.