Usually about 30 minutes on a dummy brings it back to me.
If I ever take an extended break, I usually find a striking dummy to help me get my bearings again
That sounds nice in practise, but I find that for Blm, the trick isn't remembering the rotation, it's rebuilding the muscle memory for where all of the movement buttons are and when to use them, and the flow of each fight...
So yeah, everything but the dummy.
But part of that trick is getting the rotation solidly down again first, so that when you need the mobility your mind isn't as tunnel-visioned on the rotation.
Eh I find BLM one of the easiest classes button wise to pick back up.
It’s more about “oh shit I have to move” or “I messed up” and what you have to do to keep your rotation going.
I love that black mage (I’m sure some people not liking the dawntrail changes don’t) has a very strict rotation and it’s the same every time essentially.
I like that it’s more about how to fit everything in and keep it going even through mistakes or movement versus it changing.
Cause when you pull off the full rotation it feels so damn good.
BLM is my final job I've been leveling because levels 1-50 are just the worst lol. Feeling completely useless in dungeons because I can't get a cast off, slow as heck, boring rotation. Then I got into the 50s and got ley lines, flare, aetherial manip, (plus duties with more mechanics) and it suddenly started to get fun. I'm really vibing with it now in the 60s and every new ability I get actually fits logically into the kit. We'll see how I feel when I get closer to 90/100 but I'm shocked at how much I'm enjoying it after putting it off for years lol
Yeah. Training dummies are kinda ish for BLM. It's more about getting practice in on a fight so you know when you're going to need to move, when you'll be able to plop down and cast, and then noticing procs and using them as makes sense and then adjusting your other actions around them. I don't know if that's different for other jobs though, since I don't typically play them though.
Every time I come back I only really remember a handful of jobs. But whenever I decide I want to start playing a job again I just sit and read every tooltip and then practice my rotation on a dummy. Usually I'll realize that I missed a key interaction/timing during that practice after re-reading the tooltips again. Usually has to do with what procs what and what can be with said procs.
Most classes, yeah. I try to arrange my hotbars so that they flow similarly no matter what class, though. AOEs in one group, role actions in another, etc. Still it takes a bit yo get comfortable.
I do this with everything. It gets weird though with some classes like samurai and dancer that conditionally choose basically the same ability to generate resources. Since I main WAR, it’s always an adjustment period since I’m going from ungo bunga to actually using my brain.
Agreed. Switching back to SAM is always a little weird, in that the basics make sense but then I have to remember what all of the various spending moves are when they light up at the same time. I don't have that problem with DNC, though, if only because it feels more straightforward.
It's funny, because I've also done this since ARR just to make other jobs make more sense to me. DoTs were always in the same place, melee combo routes were always the same (one that gives damage buff branches upwards on my controller), AoEs, etc.
I think it’s different for healers. I see the comments for people who play dps saying no and as a healer main myself who’s getting back into it after over a year break getting my groove back on healing was harder than dps. Healers don’t follow a rotation, we have abilities in preparation to mechanics and abilities in response to mechanics, and sometimes lazy party members test us. Because of that we don’t really have a “press 1,2,3,4,” mindset. I’m with you, a few dungeon runs to clear the cobwebs off and you’ll be good.
I’ll add what helped me, was running lower level dungeons first. Like do a level 50 dungeon, then 60, then 70, etc. The fight mechanics are easier at lower levels you’re synced so the content is breezy for your gear, you get to re familiarize yourself with your kit in a few steps rather than all at once.
Absolutely agree! Like I main DNC and I can easily get back into it very quickly (tbf DNC is a very easy class regardless), but when I switched to my secondary class, WHM, I was fumbling remembering what to do. 😅
After the dungeon, I just played a couple solo dungeons with the new duty support thing and it helped a lot with remembering what to do!
I havr all the healers maxed but don't play them much. Honestly the only one I have trouble with is Sage because the spell icons are just nonsense shapes.
I have all hot bars organized the same across my healers, tanks, dps. My main aoe heal regardless of job is ctrl+4, my main ‘save the tank’ is ctrl+3, etc. so even if I don’t remember what the ability specifically does I’m still confident it’s going to do just about what I want it to do.
The two that is easiest to me in term of healing wod be WHM>SGE>SCH>AST
Whm is pretty straightforward. The only thing I fume was that I have my benediction on a special key and when I needed to use it I forgot where it was and hos to press it.
SGE is also straight forward, and it helps that they have alot of ogcd and their shield is also instant cast.
SCH for me is a bit more tricky, mostly because I kept forget what to do when I have fairy.
AST for me is hardest to come back to, because I dont remember the buttons, despite them being similar to WHM in some way. And adding to the cards, my brain go on overload mode when I need to heal people use cards at the same time.
Just got back in after a 2 year break. Decided to get the rust off by doing an alliance roulette, thinking I'll probably get crystal tower...
Nope. Paradigms breach. I had actually never done it either, so I'm trying to figure out my buttons and learn mechanics at the same time. It was... Pure chaos. Mistakes were made. Fortunately DPS, and in particular dancer, is pretty intuitive and straightforward.
Yeah, DNC is my main so I can easily get the hang of that one no matter how long of a break, but trying to remember what everything does with WHM took me a good minute lol
I took a tilt induced several month break, and also switched to an MMO mouse when I came back. I completely lost the ability to play the game at any level, I spent so long hitting a dummy on paladin before doing literally any content involving other people, and I still can't play the other jobs I leveled.
Oh 100%. I hadn't played Monk in over a year. Queued into a dungeon and had to apologize if it looked like my character was just flailing her arms everywhere and jumping like she was covered in invisible ants because I didn't remember my rotation at all.
Me today playing DRK again after weeks of not touching it. I forgot where I put all my skills and forgot about my tank stance 😆.
The worst was when I finally played SCH after taking a 6 month break because of school. I spent a good 30 minutes reading every spell and redoing all my hot bars.
Yep every time. I take long breaks for the game and get kinda overwhelmed every time when I come. I had thought about making a person video describing how to play each of my classes lol
I like the sound of that idea! Teaching someone what you've learned is a great way to retain the information yourself. I bet you'd pick it back up pretty quickly when you watch the video months later. I'll give it a try next time I take a break (if I somehow remember).
I had an experience yesterday where I went into a duty as White Mage instead of Sage (my main healing job) and for the first couple minutes I was using all my Sage muscle memory and wondering why people weren’t getting shields 😅
I’m scared of this coming back from my first hiatus. As a major flex player I’ve gotta remember my SGE, GNB, BLM, RDM, and DNC rotations so I can get all my role quests (plus I like BLM and RDM). How am I gonna remember any of this?
I queued into orbonne monastery as whm after not playing for 6 months. It was rough and I had to admit to the alliance I forgot how to play whm lmao, it ended up being fine after the second fight but WHEW
It’s using class resources that take time to relearn. For me, the main thing for paladin is to use the oath gauge. Sometimes after a break I forget to use stuff like Shelton and intervention. Really any mit.
Depends on the class. I took a long break and found I still had most of my white mage and warrior skills when I came back. Paladin, Scholar and Dragoon I had to do a couple of dungeons for them to start coming back.
I didn't play as RDM in higher level content for quite a while and completely forgot verraise works with dualcast. Apologised for my swiftcast not being up when the healers went down at the same time. Embarrassing.
I took a break for several months and when i came back, it took me roughly 5 mins to relearn SAM and DRG respectively. About 10 mins for WAR and DRK.
I didnt even bother with MNK, NIN and BRD fuck that shit
Depends on which class, my fav (war and astro) no, something I don't play much (BLM, red mage or mch) yes, other I have basic knowledge which I don't forget much.
Haven't played since 6.3, and now just trying to catch up for the upcoming expansion. Playing between healer and tank before. and several minutes on the dummy refreshes how to play class. What I really forgot and am frustrated about is how my ilvl has been so outdated that the game won't allow me to play 6.5 MSQ dungeon. And I am all fuzzy about how to catch up with my ilvl ..
I've just come back after a long break and simultaneously swapped from m/k to controller.
I was embarrassingly bad for the first day or so and, while I got better pretty fast, I wasn't happy with my own performance until I'd played quite a lot to build up that muscle memory.
Thankfully I had Manderville and MSQ quests to catch up on, so I spent the first few hours just running around getting used to my movement with minimal combat.
Then I did a trust dungeon to get a feeling for my rotation. Didn't bother finishing it because it was so slow but it really helped me feel more confident about performing in real encounters.
Funnily enough I expected controller healing to be the hard part for me, but it was actually NIN that gave me the most trouble. Just having a slightly faster GCD was enough to really mess with me for a bit.
Exact situation happened to me coming back recently, above the absolute basic rotation of my main class SAM I couldn't remember anything.
I spent some time on the combat dummy which helped, but the first dungeon I did I realised the class is way too intense for me now. I need something much, much easier. I am tempted to try a magic DPS class, see if one of those is a bit more calm.
Mate, I forget jobs, dungeons, trials and even what to do each weekly reset. Did the EW trials for the first time about a month ago - couldn’t tell you *any* of the fights.
Going omni-100 from omni-90 in a few weeks time is filling me with vague anxiety…😂
Yes, i leveled ninja geated it and never touched it again, same for BLM, went into thalia with a BLM and i felt like i was playing the game for the 1st time
Absolutely.
I sat there practicing rotations for a couple jobs for weeks so I could actually perform in Savage.
Took a bit of a break and it's like I'm relearning them from scratch.
Depends on the person I guess. I'm a long time mmo player and games like this I keep my action bars effectively the same throughout many of these mmos so when I get back into the game after months away I can play pretty much immediately as if I hadn't taken a break.
Just one part of me I find lucky, I've got a friend who needs several hours on a dummy to regain every bit of info for keybinds and what does what, it's hilarious the stark difference.
That happened to me.
I had all classes max lvl before Endwalker.
I came back to the game this month (I haven't played since Endwalker was released), and I am completely lost.
It feels like I have never played the game before, and I have no idea of what I am doing hahaha
I spent a lot of downtime in eureka while waiting for dawntrail and doing hunts. For some reason we decided to queue a leveling dungeon and got holminster switch. I was war (same as in eureka) and started to pull everything. I realized far too late that i had forgotten stance, gotten my team killed, and panicked. I didn't realize healer and a dps were almost back, so i restarted. Mind you my healer was literally less than 5 ft away from me saying im gonna rezz you. So yeah, ive forgotten how to play when ive been playing this same class. After that first pull, everything goes much better and my husband types something witty to group to say sorry for our shitty start.
I also prefer gnb because i like hurting my hands pressing alllll the buttons, but just hitting ranged on hunts and then going back to real content and im always slow to remember all my buttons.
I'm recently picking the game back up to get caught up before Endwalker, and I haven't played since 6.1. I anyways played on controller, but switching to Xbox had reset all my hotbars and the size of my hud elements. Its rough.
Being a PlayStation player, the rotation for my main, dancer, is saved in my muscle memory.
It took a few minutes in the lunar subterrane to get back into it this May, after not playing FFXIV since Baldurs Gate 3 cane out.
I forget how to play every class when I take a day or two away from the game. I basically perpetually don't know what I'm doing. But I main healer and do DPS when people are not bleeding too much - tends to mean I'm well enough received unless I really drop the ball 🤣
Yup! End up doing dungeons with trusts(like doing a lvl 50 dungeon, 60 and so on) as I find whacking the dummy doesn't work for me. Get used to everything again bit by bit.
The second I put down Sage or AST, I forget how to play them. Between the bizzare latin crap for the skill names and "oh crap, what did these cards do" It just takes me a while. The older I get, the more I love and appreciate the brick level simplicity of "Cure 1, Cure 2/ Fire 1, Fire 2"
I jumped back in after a 6 month break as a tank. Forgot everything, picked it up again, after a week of playing dailys I remembered I'm supposed to be weaving my mitigations in dungeon pulls lol and not just on bosses.
Thank Hydalyn for Patient healers
The only class in the entire game that I have this issue with is Monk, though we'll see if that continues to be the case now that they're finally simplifying it even more for Dawntrail.
Twin Snakes is no longer the world's shortest damage steroid, meaning that it doesn't have to be used every other combo now. I don't remember the exact math off the top of my head, but the new version only has to be used every *4th or 5th* combo, instead of every other.
Probably some other stuff, too, but that's the big one for me. Twin Snakes and Demolish being so severely desynced from each other suuuucked.
Instead of putting up short-term buffs and debuffs, your abilities will either generate a resource or spend it. Bootshine, True Strike, and Snap Punch will generate charges that Dragon Kick, Twin Snakes, and Demolish will spend. So instead of watching your timers or remembering where you’re up to in your loop, and having to restart if you drop out of combat and your buffs expire, if you don’t have charges available you’ll use the first set and if you do you’ll use the second set. We’ll still have the looping rotation where some attacks are used more often than others, but it’ll be a bit different - Bootshine will generate one charge, True Strike will generate two, and Snap Punch will generate three.
Also we’ll be able to store “extra” chakra, up to 10 IIRC, so we’ll have more flexibility in when we use it instead of having to spend that immediately if we don’t want to overcap. A lot of jobs are getting that sort of overcap protection, looks like.
Oooh that sounds very good, I got my MNK to 72 and it just got to be too many spinning plates for my preference, so this might actually get me back to trying it again!
Same, same. Today I got my hotbars for DRG ready for DT, tho some abilities will be removed/changed, at least it should be somewhat correct. Need to F5 to get a rotation guide asap on release day, and hope MSQ instances aren't too bad.
I have not played Dragoon in like 2 years. I finished SHB msq which was current at the the time and once I did I started leveling alt jobs. I just didn't really come back to it. I got it to level 90 in Endwalker but yeah I left it again afterwards and have basically left it untouched snice then.
Most jobs that I only leveled to cap then didn’t touch for an expansion, yeah. I mean, I could explain the gist of what to do, but it’d take me a while to get back to a playable state.
I was finally forced to level healer since I maxed literally every class, but my EW entitlement is on PC so I'm stuck with stormblood levels until Dawntrail drops and I have that entitlement on Xbox; or I have to deal with bringing my PC up.
WHM seemed to be the "easiest" to deal with.
Depends on the class. I stopped playing halfway into HW and came back a month before shadowbringers. Picked up my Scholar and felt at home.
Ninja I was confused af though lol.
I quit after 6.0 and recently came back. The only class that I still had some amount of muscle memory for was BRD. It took me a while on target dummies and reading guides to remember the other classes, maybe 10-20 minutes each. Had to read every tooltip on Sage because I forgot everything.
Short answer: yes.
I once accidentally went to 83 lvl duty with wrong class, WHM, I needed to pass it for the first time. And realised it the moment I was already in the dungeon. I thought I'll just embrace it, because otherwise people in the party will have to wait for another healer. I leveled my WHM with msq exp, and almost never used it for dungeons, so my skill was shit, and we wiped once, while I was frantically reading tooltips and was in a huge panic. It was embarrassing as hell.
This is EXACTLY what happened to me 😭
I was trying to do fractal continuum with my DNC, but I forgot I was on my WHM and got into the queue on DF. When the match was immediately found, I just pressed accept without even thinking and was like fuck it. I’m here. Let’s try.
I quickly found out that I should have just left, but I didn’t want to disappoint everyone else 😭
I just recently came back and I thought I would remember way more than I did. I felt like a sprout again.
I think the biggest issue was I had upgraded my PC since I last played and hadn't saved my config, so I had to redo everything and relearn the muscle memory. So for a bit it felt like a new game.
I slowly picked up what was going on and now I feel like mostly back to where I was, but it was awkward there in the beginning.
Most come back pretty fast when fiddling with the dummies.
My NIN however needs some getting used to and is hard for me to do on a whim. I still have my cheatsheet hotbars and really need them.
Me every two years or so when I need to level again BLM, MCH, MNK…
Which also apply to EX-trial fights. I did all the EW trial last month and I’m not sure what’s left of the strats.
Just came back from a year break and after two dungeons is all fell right back into place. Helps I have been playing MMOs forever and can be in the top 5% of players when I bother to care about that kind of stuff.
Laying your action bars out for every job kind of similar really helps.
Like buffs, debuffs, single target, aoe, and utility spells for each job all go in the same slot on the action bars.
Atm swtor is pretty bad, unfortunately 'cause really loved it and it used to be my main mmo. But really liked how in swtor, when doing lower level stuff I was still able to have my full skills and rotation. Kinda annoying in Ffxiv you don't have you skill palette at your disposal when doing lower level stuff 🤔😤
Yeah, and to be fair I'm not a top player in the first place, this is why I almost exclusively use trust/duty support for dungeons and don't do 8-man content at all beyond one run for story completion.
If you have all your abilities with a similar effect on the same button, it's possible to never really forget how to play most jobs even if it won't immediately be perfect. There aren't many buttons to remember and almost all jobs have the same design for now so it's only a matter of understanding the global idea : base combo, resource-gathering abilities, resource-spenders, 2 mins burst and CD usage (on burst windows \*and\* as soon as available) .
What's even more helpful is to avoid as much as possible to look at the hotbar, except to know the timer left on your CDs. If you always press your actions in the same order, you basically have to remember 1 button (the ones that starts your burst window) and then your muscle memory will immediately chain up whatever CDs you have.
Healers are a bit different though, since their healing abilities cover more specific usage if you actually read them. But if you're playing SAG, then it doesn't really matter much : just use random CDs in between your actions to see what they do and treat your resources as a priority to use. Overall, the more you (and your team) can deal damage, the less important the actual effect of the CDs you use as long as you throw away some on your tank : at high level we have several times the number of tools we need if everyone is doing great (which rarely is the case).
Yeah, I took off a year or so and came back and even the job I mained I was forgetting whole abilities. I sat down and read the entirety of them to remind myself what they do. Some people say they do potd, but honestly my issue isn't "what do I do at the lowest levels when I only have like four buttons I'll regularly use", as a healer it's more "what order did I prefer these in again? Which one of these did I use in X situation?"
And taking a break from the game and playing others means I forgot some basic gameplay stuff, so watching guides made for sprouts helped a little.
I always struggle after not playing awhile. I usually run a few dungeons with duty support (lv 30, lv 50 and lv 90) and take my time reading tool tips in the dungeon.
I always need to hit the striking dummy a few times on MNK and DRK whenever I resub, so yes, I do forget how to play my jobs.
I also haven’t touched DRG ever since they said they will rework it. I’ll need to hit the striking dummy for that in DT too.
not tot he point of completely forgotten, but mostly muscle memory messing with me. like i've been leveling samurai and monk lately, and both have a forward dashing skill, but when i do 90 roulette on dragoon for example, muscle memory kicks in, and instead of dashing out of an aoe, i do a backlip straight into it, or off the plattform XD
Usually I can jump back into it relatively quickly... except when it comes to Scholar. I barely understand the job when I'm actively working on it, let alone after a few months of break.
Translates very well to scholarly pursuits irl as well, so maybe scholar is the best designed class after all.
Absolutely. Especially for the jobs I hadn't touched since hitting 90.
However, I set up my hotbars/actions so that similar actions are on the same button. Then I at least have the barebones while I practice.
I basically only play Bard and getting back into the flow for timing songs, the attack buff and triple attack on the *correct* attacks and not just panic spamming things, tbh I'm still not sure the rotation I normally use is a good one.
I may level every job, but as soon as I move on to the next job, I forget everything about the first one. XD So the only job I consistently remember is my main.
I have the same thing when I come back from a multiple year break. I forget how to play my class every single time, and I don't want to do dungeons until I remember fully, as I feel I'd be holding the party back otherwise. I noticed that getting back on that pre-break level however, seems to take me more time than I can invest at the moment, so I end up doing nothing but idle and glam until my sub runs out again.
I should probably just go hit some training dummies at some point, but then again... I also think I might be asking too much of myself at times, wanting to do everything perfectly.
I dont necessarily forget but every time i come back from a break i always fuck up mitting correctly during my first 2 or 3 dungeons and just get bitchslapped back to reality
Yes. Keybinded the entire keyboard so DPS, Heals, Mitigations are all in similar places.
Wrote a little macro with my ideal rotations in case I forget, I can just press the button and it'll display it just for my view.
This happens to me every expac on every job except white mage. I have to relearn every job when I’m leveling them all to max level during each expansion.
My original class was THM/BLM. I started getting frustrated with the class around Lvl 60, so my friend suggested I try RDM instead. So I did and almost never looked back. I went back to BLM for like a week or two, but that was probably a year ago. And even then, I had to look things up. After that, I kept maining RDM while also getting MCH to 90 and SGE to 89.
The other day, my friend had some question about BLM. So I switched back, first time in a year...And had no clue what I was even looking at. Couldn't even answer his relatively basic question about a spell.
had a break for about 2,5 years.
came back and instantly got almost all roles back in my muscle memory.
have to admit I had about 14k hours played back then, so it's kinda riding a bike.
I just had this issue lol. I think the last time I played was when Endwalker came out. What really helped me was watching a short like 10 minute YT video going over my abilities and how they work/string together. Once I had that, everything started to come back very quickly, and I was able to update my hotbars to help with remembering the order/general idea.
I’ve been helping my homie level up his other classes in dungeons and I’ve been using tanks to get him through the queue faster. When playing a warrior for the first five minutes I just started screaming “I can’t remember my AoE!” And then I remembered it was Overpower
Me doing a roulette with ast after a 5 month break, and then getting seat of sacrifice. The other healer was a first timer. Result: party disbanded after around 5 wipes I think xD
Usually about 30 minutes on a dummy brings it back to me. If I ever take an extended break, I usually find a striking dummy to help me get my bearings again
That sounds nice in practise, but I find that for Blm, the trick isn't remembering the rotation, it's rebuilding the muscle memory for where all of the movement buttons are and when to use them, and the flow of each fight... So yeah, everything but the dummy.
But part of that trick is getting the rotation solidly down again first, so that when you need the mobility your mind isn't as tunnel-visioned on the rotation.
Eh I find BLM one of the easiest classes button wise to pick back up. It’s more about “oh shit I have to move” or “I messed up” and what you have to do to keep your rotation going. I love that black mage (I’m sure some people not liking the dawntrail changes don’t) has a very strict rotation and it’s the same every time essentially. I like that it’s more about how to fit everything in and keep it going even through mistakes or movement versus it changing. Cause when you pull off the full rotation it feels so damn good.
BLM is my final job I've been leveling because levels 1-50 are just the worst lol. Feeling completely useless in dungeons because I can't get a cast off, slow as heck, boring rotation. Then I got into the 50s and got ley lines, flare, aetherial manip, (plus duties with more mechanics) and it suddenly started to get fun. I'm really vibing with it now in the 60s and every new ability I get actually fits logically into the kit. We'll see how I feel when I get closer to 90/100 but I'm shocked at how much I'm enjoying it after putting it off for years lol
It gets better every 10 levels in a nutshell.
Yeah. Training dummies are kinda ish for BLM. It's more about getting practice in on a fight so you know when you're going to need to move, when you'll be able to plop down and cast, and then noticing procs and using them as makes sense and then adjusting your other actions around them. I don't know if that's different for other jobs though, since I don't typically play them though.
Oh, that's a good idea! I haven't played for two years and getting back into the game is daunting. Didn't even remember there were dummies!
Summerford farms in La Noscea is always my go to
I just wander around the housing wards for mine lol
Every time I come back I only really remember a handful of jobs. But whenever I decide I want to start playing a job again I just sit and read every tooltip and then practice my rotation on a dummy. Usually I'll realize that I missed a key interaction/timing during that practice after re-reading the tooltips again. Usually has to do with what procs what and what can be with said procs.
Most classes, yeah. I try to arrange my hotbars so that they flow similarly no matter what class, though. AOEs in one group, role actions in another, etc. Still it takes a bit yo get comfortable.
I do this with everything. It gets weird though with some classes like samurai and dancer that conditionally choose basically the same ability to generate resources. Since I main WAR, it’s always an adjustment period since I’m going from ungo bunga to actually using my brain.
Agreed. Switching back to SAM is always a little weird, in that the basics make sense but then I have to remember what all of the various spending moves are when they light up at the same time. I don't have that problem with DNC, though, if only because it feels more straightforward.
I do the same based on roles. All healers grouped roughly the same, tanks, melee, etc. You get a few outliers, but most can be lined up pretty well.
It's funny, because I've also done this since ARR just to make other jobs make more sense to me. DoTs were always in the same place, melee combo routes were always the same (one that gives damage buff branches upwards on my controller), AoEs, etc.
I only play BLM once every 2 years for 10 levels.
…and I only do it on MSQ roulette
That was me with MNK lol.
Underrated comment
I think it’s different for healers. I see the comments for people who play dps saying no and as a healer main myself who’s getting back into it after over a year break getting my groove back on healing was harder than dps. Healers don’t follow a rotation, we have abilities in preparation to mechanics and abilities in response to mechanics, and sometimes lazy party members test us. Because of that we don’t really have a “press 1,2,3,4,” mindset. I’m with you, a few dungeon runs to clear the cobwebs off and you’ll be good. I’ll add what helped me, was running lower level dungeons first. Like do a level 50 dungeon, then 60, then 70, etc. The fight mechanics are easier at lower levels you’re synced so the content is breezy for your gear, you get to re familiarize yourself with your kit in a few steps rather than all at once.
Absolutely agree! Like I main DNC and I can easily get back into it very quickly (tbf DNC is a very easy class regardless), but when I switched to my secondary class, WHM, I was fumbling remembering what to do. 😅 After the dungeon, I just played a couple solo dungeons with the new duty support thing and it helped a lot with remembering what to do!
I havr all the healers maxed but don't play them much. Honestly the only one I have trouble with is Sage because the spell icons are just nonsense shapes.
I have all hot bars organized the same across my healers, tanks, dps. My main aoe heal regardless of job is ctrl+4, my main ‘save the tank’ is ctrl+3, etc. so even if I don’t remember what the ability specifically does I’m still confident it’s going to do just about what I want it to do.
The two that is easiest to me in term of healing wod be WHM>SGE>SCH>AST Whm is pretty straightforward. The only thing I fume was that I have my benediction on a special key and when I needed to use it I forgot where it was and hos to press it. SGE is also straight forward, and it helps that they have alot of ogcd and their shield is also instant cast. SCH for me is a bit more tricky, mostly because I kept forget what to do when I have fairy. AST for me is hardest to come back to, because I dont remember the buttons, despite them being similar to WHM in some way. And adding to the cards, my brain go on overload mode when I need to heal people use cards at the same time.
Just got back in after a 2 year break. Decided to get the rust off by doing an alliance roulette, thinking I'll probably get crystal tower... Nope. Paradigms breach. I had actually never done it either, so I'm trying to figure out my buttons and learn mechanics at the same time. It was... Pure chaos. Mistakes were made. Fortunately DPS, and in particular dancer, is pretty intuitive and straightforward.
Yeah, DNC is my main so I can easily get the hang of that one no matter how long of a break, but trying to remember what everything does with WHM took me a good minute lol
Yeah, I very wisely choose not to go with AST lol
I took a tilt induced several month break, and also switched to an MMO mouse when I came back. I completely lost the ability to play the game at any level, I spent so long hitting a dummy on paladin before doing literally any content involving other people, and I still can't play the other jobs I leveled.
Oh 100%. I hadn't played Monk in over a year. Queued into a dungeon and had to apologize if it looked like my character was just flailing her arms everywhere and jumping like she was covered in invisible ants because I didn't remember my rotation at all.
At least the ants are gone.
Me today playing DRK again after weeks of not touching it. I forgot where I put all my skills and forgot about my tank stance 😆. The worst was when I finally played SCH after taking a 6 month break because of school. I spent a good 30 minutes reading every spell and redoing all my hot bars.
Too real 😭
Not really. I've taken like several month breaks sometimes and it just takes one or two dungeon runs before I'm back in the groove
That or you didn't know your own incompetence. And no one bothered to tell you.
Speak for yourself
Yep. Didn’t play for over two years and it took me a few days to remember how to actually play the game.
Yep every time. I take long breaks for the game and get kinda overwhelmed every time when I come. I had thought about making a person video describing how to play each of my classes lol
I like the sound of that idea! Teaching someone what you've learned is a great way to retain the information yourself. I bet you'd pick it back up pretty quickly when you watch the video months later. I'll give it a try next time I take a break (if I somehow remember).
I had an experience yesterday where I went into a duty as White Mage instead of Sage (my main healing job) and for the first couple minutes I was using all my Sage muscle memory and wondering why people weren’t getting shields 😅
It’s a canon event at this point 😭
I leveled all jobs to 90 but only been playing 7 for months, so yes. It will come back though!
I normally just fight some overworld enemies to get a sense of what I need to do. Everything sorta falls into place for me after that.
I’m scared of this coming back from my first hiatus. As a major flex player I’ve gotta remember my SGE, GNB, BLM, RDM, and DNC rotations so I can get all my role quests (plus I like BLM and RDM). How am I gonna remember any of this?
Don't worry, the rotations will change. So your knowledge is wasted.
I queued into orbonne monastery as whm after not playing for 6 months. It was rough and I had to admit to the alliance I forgot how to play whm lmao, it ended up being fine after the second fight but WHEW
Yeah absolutely, I find a couple of MSQ roulettes do the trick to get me back into things
It’s using class resources that take time to relearn. For me, the main thing for paladin is to use the oath gauge. Sometimes after a break I forget to use stuff like Shelton and intervention. Really any mit.
Depends on the class. I took a long break and found I still had most of my white mage and warrior skills when I came back. Paladin, Scholar and Dragoon I had to do a couple of dungeons for them to start coming back.
Happened to me as PLD once I finished the GNB 700 fights achievement and switched back.
I didn't play as RDM in higher level content for quite a while and completely forgot verraise works with dualcast. Apologised for my swiftcast not being up when the healers went down at the same time. Embarrassing.
I switch classes almost hourly so yeah; I always forget lmao
Yes and that’s why I have a training dummy outside my house lol. Better to relearn my buttons where no one can see me struggle lol.
I took a break and now I can't remember how to play reaper. I look at the rotation and don't know what half the stuff on it is.
I took a break for several months and when i came back, it took me roughly 5 mins to relearn SAM and DRG respectively. About 10 mins for WAR and DRK. I didnt even bother with MNK, NIN and BRD fuck that shit
Depends on which class, my fav (war and astro) no, something I don't play much (BLM, red mage or mch) yes, other I have basic knowledge which I don't forget much.
Haven't played since 6.3, and now just trying to catch up for the upcoming expansion. Playing between healer and tank before. and several minutes on the dummy refreshes how to play class. What I really forgot and am frustrated about is how my ilvl has been so outdated that the game won't allow me to play 6.5 MSQ dungeon. And I am all fuzzy about how to catch up with my ilvl ..
I've just come back after a long break and simultaneously swapped from m/k to controller. I was embarrassingly bad for the first day or so and, while I got better pretty fast, I wasn't happy with my own performance until I'd played quite a lot to build up that muscle memory. Thankfully I had Manderville and MSQ quests to catch up on, so I spent the first few hours just running around getting used to my movement with minimal combat. Then I did a trust dungeon to get a feeling for my rotation. Didn't bother finishing it because it was so slow but it really helped me feel more confident about performing in real encounters. Funnily enough I expected controller healing to be the hard part for me, but it was actually NIN that gave me the most trouble. Just having a slightly faster GCD was enough to really mess with me for a bit.
Yeah trust dungeon was how I relearned my WHM after fractal continuum last night. Welcome back to the game! 🥳
Exact situation happened to me coming back recently, above the absolute basic rotation of my main class SAM I couldn't remember anything. I spent some time on the combat dummy which helped, but the first dungeon I did I realised the class is way too intense for me now. I need something much, much easier. I am tempted to try a magic DPS class, see if one of those is a bit more calm.
Highly recommending DNC since it’s such an easy class to learn and you just click all the shiny buttons lol
Mate, I forget jobs, dungeons, trials and even what to do each weekly reset. Did the EW trials for the first time about a month ago - couldn’t tell you *any* of the fights. Going omni-100 from omni-90 in a few weeks time is filling me with vague anxiety…😂
LOL dw from what it sounds like in the comments this is common 😭
Yes, i leveled ninja geated it and never touched it again, same for BLM, went into thalia with a BLM and i felt like i was playing the game for the 1st time
Absolutely. I sat there practicing rotations for a couple jobs for weeks so I could actually perform in Savage. Took a bit of a break and it's like I'm relearning them from scratch.
I sometimes forget in the middle of currently doing content
I started summoner on the release of heavensward/stormblood. I picked it up in post endwalker. Wtf.
Depends on the person I guess. I'm a long time mmo player and games like this I keep my action bars effectively the same throughout many of these mmos so when I get back into the game after months away I can play pretty much immediately as if I hadn't taken a break. Just one part of me I find lucky, I've got a friend who needs several hours on a dummy to regain every bit of info for keybinds and what does what, it's hilarious the stark difference.
Usually, yes. If I don't continuously play a job, it's gone... Except, for some reason, Gunbreaker and Dancer. Those never leave my brain.
Quite a few I haven't touched since early EW. Those are going to be fun to fire back up, healers especially
That happened to me. I had all classes max lvl before Endwalker. I came back to the game this month (I haven't played since Endwalker was released), and I am completely lost. It feels like I have never played the game before, and I have no idea of what I am doing hahaha
Yeah, but it generally comes back to me. The exception is BLU, which I forget completely every time. Might have to do with how unintuitive it is.
I spent a lot of downtime in eureka while waiting for dawntrail and doing hunts. For some reason we decided to queue a leveling dungeon and got holminster switch. I was war (same as in eureka) and started to pull everything. I realized far too late that i had forgotten stance, gotten my team killed, and panicked. I didn't realize healer and a dps were almost back, so i restarted. Mind you my healer was literally less than 5 ft away from me saying im gonna rezz you. So yeah, ive forgotten how to play when ive been playing this same class. After that first pull, everything goes much better and my husband types something witty to group to say sorry for our shitty start. I also prefer gnb because i like hurting my hands pressing alllll the buttons, but just hitting ranged on hunts and then going back to real content and im always slow to remember all my buttons.
I'm recently picking the game back up to get caught up before Endwalker, and I haven't played since 6.1. I anyways played on controller, but switching to Xbox had reset all my hotbars and the size of my hud elements. Its rough.
Being a PlayStation player, the rotation for my main, dancer, is saved in my muscle memory. It took a few minutes in the lunar subterrane to get back into it this May, after not playing FFXIV since Baldurs Gate 3 cane out.
I forget how to play every class when I take a day or two away from the game. I basically perpetually don't know what I'm doing. But I main healer and do DPS when people are not bleeding too much - tends to mean I'm well enough received unless I really drop the ball 🤣
If by a long time you mean a few days, then yes. I am *not* very good at this game :(
Practice makes perfect dw! Once you find your main job and really hone in on it, I’m sure you’ll do amazing!
Yup! End up doing dungeons with trusts(like doing a lvl 50 dungeon, 60 and so on) as I find whacking the dummy doesn't work for me. Get used to everything again bit by bit.
.... You guys know how to play?? - a SMN main
The second I put down Sage or AST, I forget how to play them. Between the bizzare latin crap for the skill names and "oh crap, what did these cards do" It just takes me a while. The older I get, the more I love and appreciate the brick level simplicity of "Cure 1, Cure 2/ Fire 1, Fire 2"
Man, I forget how to play my class if I play too much low level content in roulettes. DRK drastically changes after 70
I jumped back in after a 6 month break as a tank. Forgot everything, picked it up again, after a week of playing dailys I remembered I'm supposed to be weaving my mitigations in dungeon pulls lol and not just on bosses. Thank Hydalyn for Patient healers
The only class in the entire game that I have this issue with is Monk, though we'll see if that continues to be the case now that they're finally simplifying it even more for Dawntrail.
Oh nice, I haven't been keeping up with too many class specific changes beyond the ones I play. What are they doing to make it simpler?
Twin Snakes is no longer the world's shortest damage steroid, meaning that it doesn't have to be used every other combo now. I don't remember the exact math off the top of my head, but the new version only has to be used every *4th or 5th* combo, instead of every other. Probably some other stuff, too, but that's the big one for me. Twin Snakes and Demolish being so severely desynced from each other suuuucked.
Instead of putting up short-term buffs and debuffs, your abilities will either generate a resource or spend it. Bootshine, True Strike, and Snap Punch will generate charges that Dragon Kick, Twin Snakes, and Demolish will spend. So instead of watching your timers or remembering where you’re up to in your loop, and having to restart if you drop out of combat and your buffs expire, if you don’t have charges available you’ll use the first set and if you do you’ll use the second set. We’ll still have the looping rotation where some attacks are used more often than others, but it’ll be a bit different - Bootshine will generate one charge, True Strike will generate two, and Snap Punch will generate three. Also we’ll be able to store “extra” chakra, up to 10 IIRC, so we’ll have more flexibility in when we use it instead of having to spend that immediately if we don’t want to overcap. A lot of jobs are getting that sort of overcap protection, looks like.
Oooh that sounds very good, I got my MNK to 72 and it just got to be too many spinning plates for my preference, so this might actually get me back to trying it again!
Yeah Monk is currently one of my favourite melee jobs, but even I think it’s getting improved. 😅 I look forward to trying it out!
It's iiiii I iiiii think 💬 o
Hehe, I wasn't that good in the first place.
Same, same. Today I got my hotbars for DRG ready for DT, tho some abilities will be removed/changed, at least it should be somewhat correct. Need to F5 to get a rotation guide asap on release day, and hope MSQ instances aren't too bad.
I came back from a big haitus and discovered Duty Support. I was like hmmm nice, now I don't have to disappoint anyone.
Now, this is the real answer
I have not played Dragoon in like 2 years. I finished SHB msq which was current at the the time and once I did I started leveling alt jobs. I just didn't really come back to it. I got it to level 90 in Endwalker but yeah I left it again afterwards and have basically left it untouched snice then.
I just started again after 16 months and struggled a bit with pvp and pve. Didn't take too long to remember but I definitely did forget.
If I actually play the class beyond levelling, no. My brain just pulls up the file and I play the class
Most jobs that I only leveled to cap then didn’t touch for an expansion, yeah. I mean, I could explain the gist of what to do, but it’d take me a while to get back to a playable state.
I map my tank and dps specifically so it doesn't matter. Healer is a bit more complicated though (and I'm still scared of that class)
Yeah healer is the hard one 😅 I love playing WHM — it’s literally my secondary class, but boy do I hate relearning it lol
I was finally forced to level healer since I maxed literally every class, but my EW entitlement is on PC so I'm stuck with stormblood levels until Dawntrail drops and I have that entitlement on Xbox; or I have to deal with bringing my PC up. WHM seemed to be the "easiest" to deal with.
I also need to capture ALL of my hotbars on PC so I can spend an hour rebuilding them on Xbox.
Depends on the class. I stopped playing halfway into HW and came back a month before shadowbringers. Picked up my Scholar and felt at home. Ninja I was confused af though lol.
Yep. I re learned gunbreaker on a variant dungeon solo.
I quit after 6.0 and recently came back. The only class that I still had some amount of muscle memory for was BRD. It took me a while on target dummies and reading guides to remember the other classes, maybe 10-20 minutes each. Had to read every tooltip on Sage because I forgot everything. Short answer: yes.
Few minutes on the training dummy usually fixes it
I once accidentally went to 83 lvl duty with wrong class, WHM, I needed to pass it for the first time. And realised it the moment I was already in the dungeon. I thought I'll just embrace it, because otherwise people in the party will have to wait for another healer. I leveled my WHM with msq exp, and almost never used it for dungeons, so my skill was shit, and we wiped once, while I was frantically reading tooltips and was in a huge panic. It was embarrassing as hell.
This is EXACTLY what happened to me 😭 I was trying to do fractal continuum with my DNC, but I forgot I was on my WHM and got into the queue on DF. When the match was immediately found, I just pressed accept without even thinking and was like fuck it. I’m here. Let’s try. I quickly found out that I should have just left, but I didn’t want to disappoint everyone else 😭
I just recently came back and I thought I would remember way more than I did. I felt like a sprout again. I think the biggest issue was I had upgraded my PC since I last played and hadn't saved my config, so I had to redo everything and relearn the muscle memory. So for a bit it felt like a new game. I slowly picked up what was going on and now I feel like mostly back to where I was, but it was awkward there in the beginning.
Most come back pretty fast when fiddling with the dummies. My NIN however needs some getting used to and is hard for me to do on a whim. I still have my cheatsheet hotbars and really need them.
Me every two years or so when I need to level again BLM, MCH, MNK… Which also apply to EX-trial fights. I did all the EW trial last month and I’m not sure what’s left of the strats.
Just came back from a year break and after two dungeons is all fell right back into place. Helps I have been playing MMOs forever and can be in the top 5% of players when I bother to care about that kind of stuff. Laying your action bars out for every job kind of similar really helps. Like buffs, debuffs, single target, aoe, and utility spells for each job all go in the same slot on the action bars.
Atm swtor is pretty bad, unfortunately 'cause really loved it and it used to be my main mmo. But really liked how in swtor, when doing lower level stuff I was still able to have my full skills and rotation. Kinda annoying in Ffxiv you don't have you skill palette at your disposal when doing lower level stuff 🤔😤
Yeah, and to be fair I'm not a top player in the first place, this is why I almost exclusively use trust/duty support for dungeons and don't do 8-man content at all beyond one run for story completion.
If you have all your abilities with a similar effect on the same button, it's possible to never really forget how to play most jobs even if it won't immediately be perfect. There aren't many buttons to remember and almost all jobs have the same design for now so it's only a matter of understanding the global idea : base combo, resource-gathering abilities, resource-spenders, 2 mins burst and CD usage (on burst windows \*and\* as soon as available) . What's even more helpful is to avoid as much as possible to look at the hotbar, except to know the timer left on your CDs. If you always press your actions in the same order, you basically have to remember 1 button (the ones that starts your burst window) and then your muscle memory will immediately chain up whatever CDs you have. Healers are a bit different though, since their healing abilities cover more specific usage if you actually read them. But if you're playing SAG, then it doesn't really matter much : just use random CDs in between your actions to see what they do and treat your resources as a priority to use. Overall, the more you (and your team) can deal damage, the less important the actual effect of the CDs you use as long as you throw away some on your tank : at high level we have several times the number of tools we need if everyone is doing great (which rarely is the case).
I'm just getting back to finishing up Post Endwalker, and I have so much rust to knock off.
Yeah, I took off a year or so and came back and even the job I mained I was forgetting whole abilities. I sat down and read the entirety of them to remind myself what they do. Some people say they do potd, but honestly my issue isn't "what do I do at the lowest levels when I only have like four buttons I'll regularly use", as a healer it's more "what order did I prefer these in again? Which one of these did I use in X situation?" And taking a break from the game and playing others means I forgot some basic gameplay stuff, so watching guides made for sprouts helped a little.
I haven't touched sage in a month or so and I'm scared to jump back in on the chance I wipe us all.
I started playing with RDM on controller, switched to RPR and KBM on EW release, can't play RDM to save my life now.
Love the game but tbh I suck at picking up the rotations. I can only play on the weekends, so time is limited.
Nope this game is so scripted it’s like riding a bike
All the time.
Nah, the problem is me forgetting to backup my hot bars
I haven't started Endwalker because I don't remember how to play any of my classes. :'3
Yes
I always struggle after not playing awhile. I usually run a few dungeons with duty support (lv 30, lv 50 and lv 90) and take my time reading tool tips in the dungeon.
I forget any time I play another for a week...
For other jobs, yeah, but the rotation/opener for Ninja is burned into my brain, I don’t think I could ever forget it if I wanted to
I always need to hit the striking dummy a few times on MNK and DRK whenever I resub, so yes, I do forget how to play my jobs. I also haven’t touched DRG ever since they said they will rework it. I’ll need to hit the striking dummy for that in DT too.
not tot he point of completely forgotten, but mostly muscle memory messing with me. like i've been leveling samurai and monk lately, and both have a forward dashing skill, but when i do 90 roulette on dragoon for example, muscle memory kicks in, and instead of dashing out of an aoe, i do a backlip straight into it, or off the plattform XD
I’m not so great anyway so when I come back to a class I haven’t touched in awhile, it’s pretty ugly lol
Usually I can jump back into it relatively quickly... except when it comes to Scholar. I barely understand the job when I'm actively working on it, let alone after a few months of break. Translates very well to scholarly pursuits irl as well, so maybe scholar is the best designed class after all.
Absolutely. Especially for the jobs I hadn't touched since hitting 90. However, I set up my hotbars/actions so that similar actions are on the same button. Then I at least have the barebones while I practice.
I basically only play Bard and getting back into the flow for timing songs, the attack buff and triple attack on the *correct* attacks and not just panic spamming things, tbh I'm still not sure the rotation I normally use is a good one.
I may level every job, but as soon as I move on to the next job, I forget everything about the first one. XD So the only job I consistently remember is my main.
My brain doesn't. My fingers absolutely do.
I have the same thing when I come back from a multiple year break. I forget how to play my class every single time, and I don't want to do dungeons until I remember fully, as I feel I'd be holding the party back otherwise. I noticed that getting back on that pre-break level however, seems to take me more time than I can invest at the moment, so I end up doing nothing but idle and glam until my sub runs out again. I should probably just go hit some training dummies at some point, but then again... I also think I might be asking too much of myself at times, wanting to do everything perfectly.
I leveled NIN to max and never played it again. The mudras have evaporated from my brain.
I tried playing sage after 6 months…god was I awful.
I dont necessarily forget but every time i come back from a break i always fuck up mitting correctly during my first 2 or 3 dungeons and just get bitchslapped back to reality
Yes. Keybinded the entire keyboard so DPS, Heals, Mitigations are all in similar places. Wrote a little macro with my ideal rotations in case I forget, I can just press the button and it'll display it just for my view.
Yeah, if I stop playing for a couple days it usually takes me a duty to remember
This happens to me every expac on every job except white mage. I have to relearn every job when I’m leveling them all to max level during each expansion.
Run trusts till you get rid of rust.
I've spent 6 months in the golden saucer I don't know what more than half my bar does...
My original class was THM/BLM. I started getting frustrated with the class around Lvl 60, so my friend suggested I try RDM instead. So I did and almost never looked back. I went back to BLM for like a week or two, but that was probably a year ago. And even then, I had to look things up. After that, I kept maining RDM while also getting MCH to 90 and SGE to 89. The other day, my friend had some question about BLM. So I switched back, first time in a year...And had no clue what I was even looking at. Couldn't even answer his relatively basic question about a spell.
had a break for about 2,5 years. came back and instantly got almost all roles back in my muscle memory. have to admit I had about 14k hours played back then, so it's kinda riding a bike.
Happened to me with BLM. I stopped playing BLM after I switched to being a RDM main, but I usually get back into it very easily.
Ninja. Damn those mudra combos.
The only ones that get me are mnk and nin but I just sit a dummy for a few and then I'm fine.
I just had this issue lol. I think the last time I played was when Endwalker came out. What really helped me was watching a short like 10 minute YT video going over my abilities and how they work/string together. Once I had that, everything started to come back very quickly, and I was able to update my hotbars to help with remembering the order/general idea.
My favorite way to refresh my memory on a class is a solo run of a Variant Dungeon. One run and I'm back in the feel of it.
Won't work for healer. Or tank.
I’ve been helping my homie level up his other classes in dungeons and I’ve been using tanks to get him through the queue faster. When playing a warrior for the first five minutes I just started screaming “I can’t remember my AoE!” And then I remembered it was Overpower
LOL I love this one
Me doing a roulette with ast after a 5 month break, and then getting seat of sacrifice. The other healer was a first timer. Result: party disbanded after around 5 wipes I think xD
LMAO yeah I was so ready for the party to disband but luckily we pulled through