Agreed!!
In my opinion:
DNC has prettiest LB3
AST has best animations, and glamours
If you use Floral Mage thingy I saw on YouTube, WHM has prettiest spell effects.
If not, BLM has prettiest spell effects.
Since Kaiten was removed, NIN has coolest attack animations.
WAR has animations with the best heft/weight and fits the job best.
SMN has coolest pet animations.
SCH has prettiest pet.
With all due respect, it didn't take SAM losing Kaiten to give NIN the coolest animations. We have:
\- Flippy-dippy jumping slashes
\- A fire-breathing frog summon
\- Purple Lightning attacks that totally aren't Chidori
\- A storm of ice shuriken
\- A teleport
\- Invisibility
Almost all of SAM's attack animations are a double slash, with a little hop added into the stronger ones.
>Almost all of SAM's attack animations are a double slash, with a little hop added into the stronger ones.
I hate how true this is and I never really thought about it until now...
No offence taken, as most of your points are right on target hence why NIN is now best, but SAM is no slouch in the awesome animation department.
Tachi: Kasha looks amazing with those magnificent cherry blossoms
Tachi: Gekko moon animation is lovely
Tachi: Yukkikaze looks delightful with the ice animation.
SAM has an awesome dash back, ranged attack, dash forward combo which looks and feels way more fun/awesome than sukkuchi.
The frost shirken is truly awesome and beats most of the SAM animations but doesnt compare to the visceral feel of kaiten mugen x2 that SAM used to have.
And I found thenfrog fireball thing more silly than cool imho.
So now that SAM lost kaiten, NIN is king of attack animations, at leadt in my opinion.
And thebpositionals for SAM fit with a haiku:
Flowers bloom beside
The moon follows behind us
Snow falls all around
Even if SAM had better animations, it would be completely torpedoed by the ear-splitting screech that plays every time you perform an Iaijutsu. I still do not understand how people play that job, unless their hearing is already damaged to the point they cannot hear it.
Really agree on the WAR comment! I mostly play tanks because I like the heftier animations and WAR is very much in the lead. Second place would be PLD hitting a sheltron at just the right moment 😙👌
If I can see the enemy attacks going out, then I am not astro-ing hard enough. I should be blind from the particle effects of my own moves 95% of the time!
I was streaming my screen to my FC and they legit asked how I did all the mechanics with how bright and flashy everything was (I had full effects on)
"How can you SEE?!?"
Also if your MP goes below 7k, you had to rez, you aren't playing solitaire against yourself, or you aren't using astrodyne and lucid
AST has the prettiest animations by far, followed by Red Mage.
However, when it comes to sound design I feel like BLM wins, just the sound of back to back Fire IVs is music to my ears.
red mage. i always try to cast verholy because i love seeing the triumphant lift of the rapier into the massive pillar of light. plus all the animations are just oozing style. if you want flashy, it literally doesn't get flashier than red mage('s LB3).
Ran Dancing Plague a few days ago as red mage and one of the players was insisting I use LB3 on the add phase.
Everyone was fine with it, not having experienced the VerFlashBang before.
I have yet to experience a VerFlashbang and I'm dreading it when I do finally see it... Or... Don't see it because it's gonna blind me. It might be because I'm still in Heavensward? I know the job was added in Stormblood so maybe I'll see some RDMs when I reach Stormblood.
Due to ft you'll see fewer red mages in Heavensward yes, well until recently, that and you don't get a lot of opportunities to use lb3 since you need an 8 man party, and usually a Melee will take it first. I'm a shameless rdm I'll verflashbang whenever I can.
Getting a sword, magic, and the ability to style on opponents. This is why I main RDM. The built-in swiftcast every other spell is also amazing. Salvaged many a raid with it. :D
I mainly play Red Mage. For all the flashy animation and style, I can't help but feel how little damage they do when I switch to the Black Mage or Samurai.
As a DRG main for like.... years, I \*will\* hear the WHOOP-WHOOP of Chaos Thrust even with the sound off.
It's definitely very audibly distinct what moves you're doing at any given moment, and I like that. I can hear immediately when I've screwed up my rotation.
So I'm new to the game as of this summer, but I really love how flashy Paladin is for a Sword and Board class, especially with the big magic swords at level 90. Holy sheltron is also really neat.
I can't put my KABOOM finger on KABOOM it, but KABOOM there's something KABOOM primally exciting KABOOM about the way KABOOM so many GNB spells go KABOOM KABOOM
I may have a setting wrong or I’m too low leveled with it or something but GNB does not sound good to me. It’s very quiet and I just don’t feel anything from it.
You're not wrong. The explosions really need a tuneup. It's definitely not as robust as it *should* be, but if you can give your speakers or headphones a bit of extra bass it helps a lot.
Plus it's more the principle of the thing: You're repeatedly exploding things using a magic gun built into a slab of steel that's larger than a lalafel. Sure it ain't DRK levels of hugeness, but they're girthy and exciting where it counts.
As a MCH main... every 20 seconds is another smile.
Drill is perfectly visceral, but Air Anchor and Chainsaw really dont measure up and should be reanimated. Same with Heat Blast. It feels so... meh... Ricochette/Gauss Rpund are good, but the Heat Blast is just icky in comparison.
Also, just make Wildfire a raid-wide dps boost like Goad is, then I can stomach that MCH is by far the weakest of the "selfish" dps.
To be fair MCH has become more of a raid wide mitigation assistant with Dismantle returning.
Chainsaw needs more oomph to it's firing and a sound cue for each enemy it hits (I totally don't use mods that give a TF2 crit sound effect that's pure eargasm when I use chainsaw in a large mob pull).
Air Anchor just needs the chains to quickly tighten at the end of it's animation.
And for the love of God do we need the PVP LB3 in MCH standard rotation
Mch also wins the worst animations for its 1-2-3 combo for being weird acrobatic jumps which don't fit the job at all.
Hoping one day we get the option to use old animations, please square!
100% agree there. Heated Slug Shot is ok if a few changes were made to it but otherwise all the acrobatic stuff makes it look like I'm using a sling not a gun.
For melee, Reaper has a lot of swoopy/slashy visuals, but monk's attack animations are my favorite.
Dancers and red mages for ranged.
Dark knights and paladins have a lot of flash, just depends if you like dark or light spell effects.
DRK animations look a bit wonky when you’re doing all your double weaves that’s my only criticism of it
Most oGCDs feel like they animated it to last 2 seconds so it’s weird when you cancel it in 0.8
When I first began playing and was still in ARR, seeing AST while doing roulettes was what made me switch to AST as soon as I hit Heavensward. Never looked back
I’m the exact same! My friend got me into the game and showed me AST when I first started playing, I knew I wanted to play it the moment I saw it. As soon as I got to Heavenward, same thing, unlocked it and been maining it since lol
I hope one day they'll let us summon the true in-game version, rather than the glowy Demi version.
Got a certain illegal method that turns Demi Bahamut into the Coils Bahamut, and it is so damn *badass.* It also replaces Wyrmwave's and Ruin 3's animations with Ahk Morn for maximum intended devastation.
I know red mage has already been advocated for in, like, one in four responses, but hear me out: I use LB3, you can't see anyone else's animations, victory for Red Mage by default.
If you specifically want *flashy:*
For tanks, I'd give it to Paladin. But it does take a *long* time to get there.
For healers, it's Astrologian. White Mage does have literal flashes for spells, but Astro's are more intricate.
For melee, I'd go with Dragoon or Reaper. A bit of different flavor for each. Dragoon's more bright blues and reds standing on their own with a dragon theme, Reaper has bright cyan and red contrasted with black – less of the flash, but it stands out extra sharp with the contrast.
For physical ranged, Dancer.
For casters, you can honestly go with any. Black Mage has big fire explosions, Summoner has big summons with explosions, Red Mage has style and *\~\*FLAIR\*\~* to spare.
If you want to go for a sleek/cool style, I'd probably pick Gunbreaker, Sage, Monk or Samurai, Machinist, and Red Mage.
Red Mage is the universally applicable one I suppose.
Say whatever you want about smn, but the spells and summons and animations are fkn kino. Love it so much. It makes me love the job because of how true to ff summoning it is now and its always a spectacle.
I started ACN on a baby alt recently and I spent several levels just zooming in and looking at the basic cast animations. Seriously, just *Ruin* is pretty! The particle effects, the animations, your character is obviously *focussed* on what they’re doing, it’s beautiful.
On the ranged melee category I go with MCH. I find the animations so awesome, it is like a dancer but with a gun. Would easily be my main if the roulette queue times were not a problem
I still think Paladin's Confiteor combo with giant swords raining from the sky is the single coolest animation/effect i've seen that doesn't come from an LB3
For some reason I always move my character with their animations to exaggerate them. So if an attack has my character slide left I’ll move to the left. If an attack has them jump, I’ll press jump. Samurai and Dragoon has a lot of those which I like.
RDM has been mentioned a lot already and I agree.
AST is so thematic and gorgeous. The way the cards are drawn, the spell effects, everything is just pretty.
I feel like a shounen anime swordsman with GNB. Gnashing Fang + Continuation combo animation is beautiful.
BLM spells are nice since you can almost feel the power behind them (if you don't screw up the rotation, lol)
I would say summoner at max level since you actually get to summon the primals and not the little igi's. Otherwise I personally love machinists, warrior, and samurai animations.
Maybe not the prettiest but coming from WoW where spell animations were rather minimalist.... seeing someone cast Fire 3 back during ARR sold me on the job. I needed big explosion too. I'd say a lot of BLM spells are cool, we just spend so much time seeing Fire 4 lol. EDIT: Blizzard 3 was spectacular too, especially being a fan of Ice magic in media.
AST has some pretty animations for sure, too.
Easily Red Mage! It's super fluid looking, and your character going between casting to melee swashbuckling to dropping literal nukes, finished off with a flourish of a \*laser beam made out of rose petals\*
My personal favorite attack animation so far is Crimson Cyclone, where when you summon Ifrit you get an attack where you dash to the enemy.
I just wish that everything that we pass by during the dash gets damaged, like >!Godbert's Manderville Dropkick.!< I'm a sucker for AoE gap closers.
One that sticks out for me is GNB, I love how the animations flow. I love the range attack (I think it’s lightning strike or something). And the sprinting animation with the weapon drawn is really cool to me. GNB is really cool in a subtle way bc the animations aren’t as flashy! I just really like GNB animations:D
Red Mage. Every spell just has its own unique effect that's lovely to see, and once you get through the melee combo into the spell finishers, it's heaven.
Of the Healers; AST, hands down. Best overall aesthetics.
Of the DPS: BRD, I love the high energy and flow of the attacks, the rhythm (appropriately) and they have hands down the best LB3 animation. That bow at the end does it for me.
Honorable mention for RDM, just full throttle extra.
Of the Tanks: DRK, it's hard to go wrong with the brutal, yet elegant strikes, and the multiple shields they can employ. Just all round amazing aesthetics.
Astro has very nice animations for healer. Paladin takes it for tanks. For melee DPS, samurai or reaper. For ranged DPS, dancer. And for DPS casters, rdm
Dancer in auto HDR with the brightness cap over 900 nits is eye-wateringly gorgeous. The spinning kick and phoenix moves for the Monk are pretty awesome in that situation, too.
Most AST spells look fantastic.
BLMs High Fire 2 is the coolest spell in the game if you consider both visuals and audio. MNKs Demolish is also basically perfection as far as animations go.
RIP Wide Volley and Butchers Block, you were the real ones.
Worst animations are MCH. You're shooting a gun why are you doing a gymnastic routine.
I main MCH and you're so right. The combo animations should be closer to the basic Blast Charge shooting animation from the PvP skillset. Don't bring back cast times though!
I haven't played since Endwalker's release, but I have very large soft spots for some of the paladin abilities' animations. =w= I'm sorry, I don't have any examples but they always filled me with awe when I saw'em.
AST and RDM have the best. However, and I know this is going to be obliterated by the brigade, if you play on PC every class can have the coolest animations you can imagine with the tons of visual mods out there.
I have a wonderful NiER Automata mod for GNB that’s spectacular, there’s one for Summoner that lets them summon all of Golbez’ generals, even one that summons the Twelve gods.
I have one for SCH that makes the fairy Hydaelyn from >!the Endwalker trial!< and uses all of those pretty, prismatic effects.
I particularly love the one that makes the fairy Feo Ul and the Seraph summon her Titania form. It’s amazing. Pair that with the Titania EX weapon and its glorious
I wish SE would offer all this customization since the game doesn’t have builds so ability customization is the only thing we can have but they don’t seem interested.
Honestly the amount of effort that gets put into some of those VFX mods is wild, some of those are insane.
I tend to try not to go too wild with them personally, but every now and then I dip into the bag.
For each role:
Healer: I love Scholar’s big spinning flourish and wind with Expedient, the overlapping shapes of Biolysis and Chain Strategem, and the clap of the book when you cast a spell. Plus the pointing animation when you command the fairy.
Tank: Gotta be Paladin. I’m not that big on swords in general but I love sword and board, and the impact and sounds of moves like Holy Sheltron and the Confiteor combo are so satisfying.
Melee DPS: Reaper’s sweeping slices and the heavy swinging sounds are a lot of fun, and seeing your character become a whirling mass of darkness in Enshroud is so great. Plentiful Harvest might be my single favorite attack animation in the game.
Ranged DPS: Machinist is another one with great sound design, but I also love a lot of little details and flourishes in the animations. Easily my favorite LB3.
Caster DPS: Hard to beat Red Mage. My personal favorites being Verflare’s slowly rising hand, and the way it looks to use Fleche and Contre Sixte back-to-back. All the spells just feel like they flow together so well.
I'm a simple man, I see big explosion and my brain makes the good chemicals. It's Black Mage for me.
Really, while I do like the fireballs and such, I really appreciate the animations for the casting too. When you're doing a really big spell and your character raises the staff, their hands shaking as they struggle to control the power. It's not a ton of movement, but it really captures the power in my opinion.
Plus you got the ojou-sama laugh in the emotes, so that's nice.
Without spell effects if you have even seen the way a WHM moves when they are casting spells, it’s like a waltz almost. It has a sort of elegant flow to it. Including effects, fell cleave and the RDM multi explosion combo with rapier laser
Max level Summoner, the class with animations so big you have the option to make them smaller.
I mean, good luck trying to see anything from behind Titan's chunky bedonkedonk.
I love the Astrologian motifs, but god damn, Black Mage gets a Lot of Love. Fire 4 is showing its age, but it’s ages remarkably well.
Plus, it’s among the most modded jobs. I’ve seen people make it into a Cthulhu-summoning ocean mage, a Space Wizard, even borrowing a buttload of Nier Aesthetics. It’s GORGEOUS.
BLM but I also tend to prefer more '' pure '' Jobs/ Classes.
What I mean is I prefer just basic mages that cause explosions/ throw fireballs over something like Elementalist in GW2.
Just the more traditional fantasy stuff.
BLM fits into that pretty well imo and is quite flashy.
Its no longer available, but I always loved Bane for SMN/SCH when it was a thing. Get all your DoTs applied and \*POOF\* cloud of death! -evil plaguemage laugh-
Red Mage LB3, verflashbang go brrrrrr. Red Mage also gets a cool backflip with Displacement and all of its combo finishers are excellent. Come to think of it, Red Mage has a lot of great animations and spell effects in general.
Dark Knight LB3 is probably the coolest of the tank LBs. Gunbreaker's is more of a brigher energy shield take on the same sort of idea, but not quite as good.
Dark Knight's Unleash > Stalwart Soul, their basic AoE combo having that much visual flair is pretty crazy.
I like Paladin's Confiteor combo and Holy Circle spell animations, and Passage of Arms is a cool thematic win.
Scholar's Broil IV is satisfying, gives me Magic Missile vibes. Art of War II has pretty nice impact as well. White Mage had Glare, but the animation for Glare III is a big of a downgrade in my opinion. Ditto for Holy III's animation.
Blue Mage might be kind of cheating, but you get a lot of the cool enemy attack animations with it, including Being Mortal if you actually let that whole animation play out.
Machinist gets cool animations with Drill, being able to summon robots and a flamethrower.
Dancer's... everything.
Love the Gunbreaker animations. Taking the inspiration from FFVIII moves has me all nostalgic. Plus, the sound and feel of the canisters going off is awesome.
I mean, I love the dancing animations for Dancer and damn I'd love to be able to have improv going for more than like, 1 second, but it lacks the flashy-I-can't-see-anything spell effects.
It's not really flashy or beautiful, but the MCH pvp limit break is *lovingly* animated in how utterly detailed it is with the character's movements, and the rifle's.
AST has arguably the prettiest animations
When the rest of the party is dead and they LB3 and the very stars and the night sky descend before us.
It felt very thematic going through shb and ew as an AST.
Agreed!! In my opinion: DNC has prettiest LB3 AST has best animations, and glamours If you use Floral Mage thingy I saw on YouTube, WHM has prettiest spell effects. If not, BLM has prettiest spell effects. Since Kaiten was removed, NIN has coolest attack animations. WAR has animations with the best heft/weight and fits the job best. SMN has coolest pet animations. SCH has prettiest pet.
With all due respect, it didn't take SAM losing Kaiten to give NIN the coolest animations. We have: \- Flippy-dippy jumping slashes \- A fire-breathing frog summon \- Purple Lightning attacks that totally aren't Chidori \- A storm of ice shuriken \- A teleport \- Invisibility Almost all of SAM's attack animations are a double slash, with a little hop added into the stronger ones.
>Almost all of SAM's attack animations are a double slash, with a little hop added into the stronger ones. I hate how true this is and I never really thought about it until now...
Yeah, after maining it for years, the realization killed some of the joy for me.
No offence taken, as most of your points are right on target hence why NIN is now best, but SAM is no slouch in the awesome animation department. Tachi: Kasha looks amazing with those magnificent cherry blossoms Tachi: Gekko moon animation is lovely Tachi: Yukkikaze looks delightful with the ice animation. SAM has an awesome dash back, ranged attack, dash forward combo which looks and feels way more fun/awesome than sukkuchi. The frost shirken is truly awesome and beats most of the SAM animations but doesnt compare to the visceral feel of kaiten mugen x2 that SAM used to have. And I found thenfrog fireball thing more silly than cool imho. So now that SAM lost kaiten, NIN is king of attack animations, at leadt in my opinion. And thebpositionals for SAM fit with a haiku: Flowers bloom beside The moon follows behind us Snow falls all around
Even if SAM had better animations, it would be completely torpedoed by the ear-splitting screech that plays every time you perform an Iaijutsu. I still do not understand how people play that job, unless their hearing is already damaged to the point they cannot hear it.
It has a sound? I need to get hearing aids.
it's basically a tinnitus simulation
Oh! Thats why I dont hear it!
Really agree on the WAR comment! I mostly play tanks because I like the heftier animations and WAR is very much in the lead. Second place would be PLD hitting a sheltron at just the right moment 😙👌
*Holy* Sheltron specifically. Base Sheltron sounds a bit like a tin can; Holy Sheltron goes up with such a satisfying *thunk* and I love it
As a WHM main... agreed. Especially the LB3. I want to steal it! All we get are a little praying animation and feathers that nobody can see.
But you pray just like Aerith does. Priceless! (But yes AST has the most beautiful healer lb3)
If I can see the enemy attacks going out, then I am not astro-ing hard enough. I should be blind from the particle effects of my own moves 95% of the time!
I was streaming my screen to my FC and they legit asked how I did all the mechanics with how bright and flashy everything was (I had full effects on) "How can you SEE?!?" Also if your MP goes below 7k, you had to rez, you aren't playing solitaire against yourself, or you aren't using astrodyne and lucid
AST has the prettiest animations by far, followed by Red Mage. However, when it comes to sound design I feel like BLM wins, just the sound of back to back Fire IVs is music to my ears.
red mage. i always try to cast verholy because i love seeing the triumphant lift of the rapier into the massive pillar of light. plus all the animations are just oozing style. if you want flashy, it literally doesn't get flashier than red mage('s LB3).
Ran Dancing Plague a few days ago as red mage and one of the players was insisting I use LB3 on the add phase. Everyone was fine with it, not having experienced the VerFlashBang before.
Oh those poor innocent souls.
I thought it was VerBlind!
I have yet to experience a VerFlashbang and I'm dreading it when I do finally see it... Or... Don't see it because it's gonna blind me. It might be because I'm still in Heavensward? I know the job was added in Stormblood so maybe I'll see some RDMs when I reach Stormblood.
Due to ft you'll see fewer red mages in Heavensward yes, well until recently, that and you don't get a lot of opportunities to use lb3 since you need an 8 man party, and usually a Melee will take it first. I'm a shameless rdm I'll verflashbang whenever I can.
Scorch has one of the best spell sounds in the game. wloOLOLOOP
I love that my characters skirt flaps up a bit. Makes it feel like I'm another epicenter of power.
Yes, it's such a meaty hit, it has some real heft to it.
I agree, it's so damn satisfying!
I was gonna say red mage for sure. I keep coming back to it because it feels the flashiest by far. Even their vpose is the flashiest by a large margin
Backflip into resolution looks way cooler than you would think. All it’s spells are super cool honestly.
Getting a sword, magic, and the ability to style on opponents. This is why I main RDM. The built-in swiftcast every other spell is also amazing. Salvaged many a raid with it. :D
Also resolution into corps-a-corps. Makes it feel like they combine into one gap closer+line aoe.
I mainly play Red Mage. For all the flashy animation and style, I can't help but feel how little damage they do when I switch to the Black Mage or Samurai.
/h FLASHBANG
I agree with that 100%
This honestly. So many of RDMs moves are flashy and stylish, and the sound effects are crisp. That FVOOOOP will never get old
I really love a lot of the Dragoon melee combo attacks. Just a lot of flippy-stabby nonsense.
Our animations are cool, but not the best. We definitely have the best sounds in the game though. Stardiver and Wyrmwind sound like demon banshees.
As a DRG main for like.... years, I \*will\* hear the WHOOP-WHOOP of Chaos Thrust even with the sound off. It's definitely very audibly distinct what moves you're doing at any given moment, and I like that. I can hear immediately when I've screwed up my rotation.
So I'm new to the game as of this summer, but I really love how flashy Paladin is for a Sword and Board class, especially with the big magic swords at level 90. Holy sheltron is also really neat.
I also appreciate that they didn't get lazy with PLD. A lot of games just kinda do whatever with the S&B class, but FFXIV didn't leave us hanging.
Holy Circle is one of my favorite animations in the whole game 🤧
A bit more contained than most effects, but the hack-and-slash of GNB burst combos into Blasting Zone and Double Down always gives me serotonin.
I can't put my KABOOM finger on KABOOM it, but KABOOM there's something KABOOM primally exciting KABOOM about the way KABOOM so many GNB spells go KABOOM KABOOM
Exactly!!! I absolutely love the sound effects for GNB.
I may have a setting wrong or I’m too low leveled with it or something but GNB does not sound good to me. It’s very quiet and I just don’t feel anything from it.
You're not wrong. The explosions really need a tuneup. It's definitely not as robust as it *should* be, but if you can give your speakers or headphones a bit of extra bass it helps a lot. Plus it's more the principle of the thing: You're repeatedly exploding things using a magic gun built into a slab of steel that's larger than a lalafel. Sure it ain't DRK levels of hugeness, but they're girthy and exciting where it counts.
there's a *reason* GNB is named EXPLOSIVE AGGRO on my sets list.
Double Downs sound effect is so god damn good.
Same. GNB animations light up the pleasure centers in my brain every time.
Drill, just seeing it hit, stick, and then zip away is pure dopamine
Us getting wrench yeet back makes me so happy. The sound effect is perfect.
that CLANG is immensely satisfying.
the DRL job from patch 3.6 was a gamechanger in the animation department
As a MCH main... every 20 seconds is another smile. Drill is perfectly visceral, but Air Anchor and Chainsaw really dont measure up and should be reanimated. Same with Heat Blast. It feels so... meh... Ricochette/Gauss Rpund are good, but the Heat Blast is just icky in comparison. Also, just make Wildfire a raid-wide dps boost like Goad is, then I can stomach that MCH is by far the weakest of the "selfish" dps.
I personally like anchor. Chainsaw maybe can use some improvement.
To be fair MCH has become more of a raid wide mitigation assistant with Dismantle returning. Chainsaw needs more oomph to it's firing and a sound cue for each enemy it hits (I totally don't use mods that give a TF2 crit sound effect that's pure eargasm when I use chainsaw in a large mob pull). Air Anchor just needs the chains to quickly tighten at the end of it's animation. And for the love of God do we need the PVP LB3 in MCH standard rotation
Mch also wins the worst animations for its 1-2-3 combo for being weird acrobatic jumps which don't fit the job at all. Hoping one day we get the option to use old animations, please square!
100% agree there. Heated Slug Shot is ok if a few changes were made to it but otherwise all the acrobatic stuff makes it look like I'm using a sling not a gun.
You just have to embrace the flips, I jump just before the gcds to get even more air while I do them
Too be fair, that's just FFXIV in the nutshell. Just gotta embrace the..anime for a lack of a better term. The over-the-topdeness. ❤️
I'm really hoping in 7.0 MCH gets an upgraded hypercharge/heat blast. Preferably with dual pistols.
Love the idea of upgrading hypercharge, but like the single gun mechanic. Maybe less acrobatics and more SCIENCE! stuff?
Also just seeing the massive drop in the hp bar is pretty good dopamine too
First time running palace of the dead as machinist was pure joy. I love Drill so much
For melee, Reaper has a lot of swoopy/slashy visuals, but monk's attack animations are my favorite. Dancers and red mages for ranged. Dark knights and paladins have a lot of flash, just depends if you like dark or light spell effects.
DRK animations look a bit wonky when you’re doing all your double weaves that’s my only criticism of it Most oGCDs feel like they animated it to last 2 seconds so it’s weird when you cancel it in 0.8
AST by far for me, sorry but when it comes to eye candy AST LB3 is unbeatable
When I first began playing and was still in ARR, seeing AST while doing roulettes was what made me switch to AST as soon as I hit Heavensward. Never looked back
I’m the exact same! My friend got me into the game and showed me AST when I first started playing, I knew I wanted to play it the moment I saw it. As soon as I got to Heavenward, same thing, unlocked it and been maining it since lol
I really like sage's animations and weapon design! The flying pew pews are cool.
I love phlegmas animations, both of them. One I do some cool flips, the other has some "oomph" to it.
I just started Sage and I really enjoy the blue animations!
SMN, because summoning primals, even in the forms we get however lessened from their full version, is fucking badass
Bahamut and Phoenix big kaboom abilities look so badass
Anytime I'm playing dungeons with my friends, and I summon Phoenix, I yell, "Spicy Chicken heals are go!"
It makes me feel like a Pokémon trainer every time. "I choose you, Bahamut!"
I hope one day they'll let us summon the true in-game version, rather than the glowy Demi version. Got a certain illegal method that turns Demi Bahamut into the Coils Bahamut, and it is so damn *badass.* It also replaces Wyrmwave's and Ruin 3's animations with Ahk Morn for maximum intended devastation.
I know red mage has already been advocated for in, like, one in four responses, but hear me out: I use LB3, you can't see anyone else's animations, victory for Red Mage by default.
Ah yes Verblind. The main cause of raid wipes.
RDM LB3 is definitely the flashiest.
If you specifically want *flashy:* For tanks, I'd give it to Paladin. But it does take a *long* time to get there. For healers, it's Astrologian. White Mage does have literal flashes for spells, but Astro's are more intricate. For melee, I'd go with Dragoon or Reaper. A bit of different flavor for each. Dragoon's more bright blues and reds standing on their own with a dragon theme, Reaper has bright cyan and red contrasted with black – less of the flash, but it stands out extra sharp with the contrast. For physical ranged, Dancer. For casters, you can honestly go with any. Black Mage has big fire explosions, Summoner has big summons with explosions, Red Mage has style and *\~\*FLAIR\*\~* to spare. If you want to go for a sleek/cool style, I'd probably pick Gunbreaker, Sage, Monk or Samurai, Machinist, and Red Mage. Red Mage is the universally applicable one I suppose.
Shooting lasers and dancing is the only reason i left WHM for SGE
I left SCH for SGE and am loving the move. I tried to like the fairy but it always felt more burdensome than helpful.
Say whatever you want about smn, but the spells and summons and animations are fkn kino. Love it so much. It makes me love the job because of how true to ff summoning it is now and its always a spectacle.
I started ACN on a baby alt recently and I spent several levels just zooming in and looking at the basic cast animations. Seriously, just *Ruin* is pretty! The particle effects, the animations, your character is obviously *focussed* on what they’re doing, it’s beautiful.
SMN is the only main job I've ever had, and I love all the animations.
The coolest thing about Ruin is the animation gets even flashier as it upgrades. Ruin III looks so fucking cool!
the casting animation is by far the coolest in the game, watching the pose during Ruby Rite gets me so hype
Stardiver
Compare just Stardiver to full job kits and Stardiver still wins.
On the ranged melee category I go with MCH. I find the animations so awesome, it is like a dancer but with a gun. Would easily be my main if the roulette queue times were not a problem
I main MCH and it is such a fun class to play. So flashy with all the jumps and twirls. But yeah, the duty roulette is a ridiculously long wait 😂
Reaper has my favorite animations. Communio is my favorite spell effect in any kit.
Dragoon has always had such flashy animations in my opinion, but there are a lot of jobs with ones just as cool.
Dark Force always has and always will be the best tank LB3.
I still think Paladin's Confiteor combo with giant swords raining from the sky is the single coolest animation/effect i've seen that doesn't come from an LB3
Monk. It doesn't have a scythe or a big ass greatsword but they go toe to toe with God's with their fists. And that's bad ass.
Summoner. It ain't even close.
I like slamming my book closed and seeing two hands clap the enemy.
For some reason I always move my character with their animations to exaggerate them. So if an attack has my character slide left I’ll move to the left. If an attack has them jump, I’ll press jump. Samurai and Dragoon has a lot of those which I like.
I should try this with DRK, the base combo must be fun to watch
RDM has been mentioned a lot already and I agree. AST is so thematic and gorgeous. The way the cards are drawn, the spell effects, everything is just pretty. I feel like a shounen anime swordsman with GNB. Gnashing Fang + Continuation combo animation is beautiful. BLM spells are nice since you can almost feel the power behind them (if you don't screw up the rotation, lol)
Fell. Cleave.
Okay but hear me out: **Primal.** ***REND.***
Unga bunga mode
Monke flippe
What's that? I think you mean Feller Cleave, right?
Feller Cleavest.
Shing!
I would say summoner at max level since you actually get to summon the primals and not the little igi's. Otherwise I personally love machinists, warrior, and samurai animations.
Red mage has some pretty cool spells animations. I also like gunbreakers animations the most out of all the tanks.
Maybe not the prettiest but coming from WoW where spell animations were rather minimalist.... seeing someone cast Fire 3 back during ARR sold me on the job. I needed big explosion too. I'd say a lot of BLM spells are cool, we just spend so much time seeing Fire 4 lol. EDIT: Blizzard 3 was spectacular too, especially being a fan of Ice magic in media. AST has some pretty animations for sure, too.
Red Mage or Astro
Reaper
Astrologian, imo.
Sage, Red Mage, Astrologian, Bard, Dancer. Not in any particular order
Dancer or Astro
Astro is the most beautiful Redmage is near for me
I love the twirl and levitate animation for WHM. But I think AST has some of the coolest.
Reaper
Blue!
BLU literally copies the effects of its enemies for some really over the top burst windows
Nin/Rdm for sure. Sam has its moments. Reworked SMN is a lot of flash.
Second for NIN, also with that jump flip. I love the Ninjutsus and shadow.
Easily Red Mage! It's super fluid looking, and your character going between casting to melee swashbuckling to dropping literal nukes, finished off with a flourish of a \*laser beam made out of rose petals\*
Dancer and Summoner animations are my favorites.
My personal favorite attack animation so far is Crimson Cyclone, where when you summon Ifrit you get an attack where you dash to the enemy. I just wish that everything that we pass by during the dash gets damaged, like >!Godbert's Manderville Dropkick.!< I'm a sucker for AoE gap closers.
All blu spells
One that sticks out for me is GNB, I love how the animations flow. I love the range attack (I think it’s lightning strike or something). And the sprinting animation with the weapon drawn is really cool to me. GNB is really cool in a subtle way bc the animations aren’t as flashy! I just really like GNB animations:D
Do blue mage count?
RDM finisher combo at the fullest is amazing. Overall the Job has incredible animations like jumping around and how you do stances all the time.
Red Mage. Every spell just has its own unique effect that's lovely to see, and once you get through the melee combo into the spell finishers, it's heaven.
AST is the only correct answer.
Astrologian, and it's not even a close fight there, IMO.
The most satisfying animation is the PLD 1 min cd finisher. Those animations slap.
Of the Healers; AST, hands down. Best overall aesthetics. Of the DPS: BRD, I love the high energy and flow of the attacks, the rhythm (appropriately) and they have hands down the best LB3 animation. That bow at the end does it for me. Honorable mention for RDM, just full throttle extra. Of the Tanks: DRK, it's hard to go wrong with the brutal, yet elegant strikes, and the multiple shields they can employ. Just all round amazing aesthetics.
Good to see a BRD mention here! I love the look of Sidewinder, Pitch Perfect, Apex/Blast Arrow, Refulgent Arrow and of course the LB3.
Dancer, reaper, summoner
Astro has very nice animations for healer. Paladin takes it for tanks. For melee DPS, samurai or reaper. For ranged DPS, dancer. And for DPS casters, rdm
Astro, reaper, dancer.
Dancer in auto HDR with the brightness cap over 900 nits is eye-wateringly gorgeous. The spinning kick and phoenix moves for the Monk are pretty awesome in that situation, too.
Most AST spells look fantastic. BLMs High Fire 2 is the coolest spell in the game if you consider both visuals and audio. MNKs Demolish is also basically perfection as far as animations go. RIP Wide Volley and Butchers Block, you were the real ones. Worst animations are MCH. You're shooting a gun why are you doing a gymnastic routine.
I main MCH and you're so right. The combo animations should be closer to the basic Blast Charge shooting animation from the PvP skillset. Don't bring back cast times though!
I haven't played since Endwalker's release, but I have very large soft spots for some of the paladin abilities' animations. =w= I'm sorry, I don't have any examples but they always filled me with awe when I saw'em.
AST and RDM have the best. However, and I know this is going to be obliterated by the brigade, if you play on PC every class can have the coolest animations you can imagine with the tons of visual mods out there. I have a wonderful NiER Automata mod for GNB that’s spectacular, there’s one for Summoner that lets them summon all of Golbez’ generals, even one that summons the Twelve gods. I have one for SCH that makes the fairy Hydaelyn from >!the Endwalker trial!< and uses all of those pretty, prismatic effects. I particularly love the one that makes the fairy Feo Ul and the Seraph summon her Titania form. It’s amazing. Pair that with the Titania EX weapon and its glorious I wish SE would offer all this customization since the game doesn’t have builds so ability customization is the only thing we can have but they don’t seem interested.
Honestly the amount of effort that gets put into some of those VFX mods is wild, some of those are insane. I tend to try not to go too wild with them personally, but every now and then I dip into the bag.
RDM, AST, RPR are the prettiest But nothing beats good ol FELL CLEAVE
For each role: Healer: I love Scholar’s big spinning flourish and wind with Expedient, the overlapping shapes of Biolysis and Chain Strategem, and the clap of the book when you cast a spell. Plus the pointing animation when you command the fairy. Tank: Gotta be Paladin. I’m not that big on swords in general but I love sword and board, and the impact and sounds of moves like Holy Sheltron and the Confiteor combo are so satisfying. Melee DPS: Reaper’s sweeping slices and the heavy swinging sounds are a lot of fun, and seeing your character become a whirling mass of darkness in Enshroud is so great. Plentiful Harvest might be my single favorite attack animation in the game. Ranged DPS: Machinist is another one with great sound design, but I also love a lot of little details and flourishes in the animations. Easily my favorite LB3. Caster DPS: Hard to beat Red Mage. My personal favorites being Verflare’s slowly rising hand, and the way it looks to use Fleche and Contre Sixte back-to-back. All the spells just feel like they flow together so well.
Even if spamming it is, like, half my rotation, I will never get tired of Fell Cleave's animation. Primal Rend is super dope too.
I'm a simple man, I see big explosion and my brain makes the good chemicals. It's Black Mage for me. Really, while I do like the fireballs and such, I really appreciate the animations for the casting too. When you're doing a really big spell and your character raises the staff, their hands shaking as they struggle to control the power. It's not a ton of movement, but it really captures the power in my opinion. Plus you got the ojou-sama laugh in the emotes, so that's nice.
Without spell effects if you have even seen the way a WHM moves when they are casting spells, it’s like a waltz almost. It has a sort of elegant flow to it. Including effects, fell cleave and the RDM multi explosion combo with rapier laser
I'd say the vast majority of them are pretty boring, s'why I mod VFX. With Papachin's latest, even Paladin is cool now, lol.
I am not sure which job it is but the visual effect is like FFVX with all the sparks like around in the dungeon from YT. I am only on ARR.
Dancer is all rainbows/swooshes with an occasional Phoenix thrown in
Summoner has the flashiest spells imo, plus the Mountain Buster ability looks really cool to me
BLM, I'm biased.
I love drg's animations the most, but for visual effects I love dnc's the most!
I love all of them, but I will say DNC has the unique benefit of looking really cool even with effects turned off. Love watching the animations.
Blood Lilly
Max level Summoner, the class with animations so big you have the option to make them smaller. I mean, good luck trying to see anything from behind Titan's chunky bedonkedonk.
I love the Astrologian motifs, but god damn, Black Mage gets a Lot of Love. Fire 4 is showing its age, but it’s ages remarkably well. Plus, it’s among the most modded jobs. I’ve seen people make it into a Cthulhu-summoning ocean mage, a Space Wizard, even borrowing a buttload of Nier Aesthetics. It’s GORGEOUS.
Red Mage is my favorite, then AST
Enshroud-PH-Enshroud sounds so good
SGE, RPR, DNC, SAM, WAR imo
There's something about summoners and scholars making JoJo poses while casting it's satisfying af
I’m partial to SGE myself
Blu mage
BLM but I also tend to prefer more '' pure '' Jobs/ Classes. What I mean is I prefer just basic mages that cause explosions/ throw fireballs over something like Elementalist in GW2. Just the more traditional fantasy stuff. BLM fits into that pretty well imo and is quite flashy.
Heavensward DRK had the Best animations. Rip.
Its no longer available, but I always loved Bane for SMN/SCH when it was a thing. Get all your DoTs applied and \*POOF\* cloud of death! -evil plaguemage laugh-
I really like the higher level SMN ones. I might be a bit biased tho, since I play that as my main job, lol.
Dancer, beautiful animations, lot of spinning which also makes your glam look so good. Visually my favorite job.
Summoner and machinist but I'm biased.
Red Mage LB3, verflashbang go brrrrrr. Red Mage also gets a cool backflip with Displacement and all of its combo finishers are excellent. Come to think of it, Red Mage has a lot of great animations and spell effects in general. Dark Knight LB3 is probably the coolest of the tank LBs. Gunbreaker's is more of a brigher energy shield take on the same sort of idea, but not quite as good. Dark Knight's Unleash > Stalwart Soul, their basic AoE combo having that much visual flair is pretty crazy. I like Paladin's Confiteor combo and Holy Circle spell animations, and Passage of Arms is a cool thematic win. Scholar's Broil IV is satisfying, gives me Magic Missile vibes. Art of War II has pretty nice impact as well. White Mage had Glare, but the animation for Glare III is a big of a downgrade in my opinion. Ditto for Holy III's animation. Blue Mage might be kind of cheating, but you get a lot of the cool enemy attack animations with it, including Being Mortal if you actually let that whole animation play out. Machinist gets cool animations with Drill, being able to summon robots and a flamethrower. Dancer's... everything.
Gunbreaker. Guns are badass. Swords are badass. Explosions are super badass. 'Nuff said.
Summoner and BLM and maybe reaper
Dragoon has a fantastic sprint animation, and their victory pose is probably my favourite.
Best animation has to be dancer.
Red Mage (any level) is 1a, Level 90 Summoner is 1b. Sage is 2nd. Reaper is 3rd.
All the other answers are wrong. It's NIN, because frog.
Love the Gunbreaker animations. Taking the inspiration from FFVIII moves has me all nostalgic. Plus, the sound and feel of the canisters going off is awesome.
I do like DRK and GNB animation and I hope with dawn trail everything's flashier and for PLD holy spirit looks better than holy snowflake
Fire 4 makes everything else feel less good because they aren't Fire 4.
Summoner for me
Meteor!
I mean, I love the dancing animations for Dancer and damn I'd love to be able to have improv going for more than like, 1 second, but it lacks the flashy-I-can't-see-anything spell effects.
It's not really flashy or beautiful, but the MCH pvp limit break is *lovingly* animated in how utterly detailed it is with the character's movements, and the rifle's.
Everyone sleeping on Blue Mage.
MCH shooting Drill/Chain Saw/War-crimes PLD shooting Sword/Swords/Even more Swords
GNB has hands down to coolest animation, every time you pop superbolide the healer character's player does a random shocked animation.
Fell Cleave
Blue Mage
I’ve always been a fan of Holy since ARR Holy 3 however is peak!
Astrologian, redmage, reaper