Limit Breaks - Useless or Unappreciated?Follow

I've been playing this game for well over a year now. I'm a 44 Pally, first and only Job/Class past level 12 (waiting on DRK), and while I love so many aspects of this game, there is one that I feel goes completely to the wayside: Limit Breaks.

For the entire length of my play through, those two bars up in the upper left corner of the screen have always been a mystery to me. Oh I've had people tell me that the effect is different depending on the Class that activates it, like a VIT increase if my Pally does, a full heal if the CON/WHM does, etc. But I have never seen it used, ever. I don't know if there's some cool animation or screen effect to it, I don't know if it's worth putting on the skill bar (PS4 player here) to have at the ready, and there seems to be no talk of using it for end game material either.

Why is this? Why ignore something that is named after one of the best character features of past FF games? Especially if the CON/WHM one is a full heal on the party? You say "I'm going to activate the Limit Break" and everyone in the party is like "Don't bother..." "Wait until we almost wipe!" "It's useless in this fight"

Is it really not worth the effort?

Side Note: Maybe it would be different if the Limit Break system was drastically changed to something the individual builds to instead of the party, and, like in past FF games, because a cool attack or special effect the one person can activate. Kind of like how XI had Weapon Skills, that was always like past FF game's limit breaks.

Limit Breaks are like Megalixirs in Single-player FFs.

You don't get them all that often (at least in the 4 man dungeons), and when you do have one, you usually think "I better save that until I REALLY need it..."

Then before you know it, you're on the last boss and you have 1 bar filled in, and by the time the 2nd bar fills in, the boss is about ready to drop dead and there's no real need to use it.

You wind up doing the entire dungeon without ever touching the Limit Break..... just like most players finish a Single-player FF game without hardly ever touching any Elixirs, Megalixirs, etc.

EDIT: Relevant link: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TooAwesomeToUse

Edited, Mar 7th 2015 10:32am by Lyrailis

Black Mage limit break 3 is a very satisfying limit break to use in the situations where you actually use it. Giant meteor from heaven FTW.

Even at lvl 50, if you're running a 4 man dungeon, the Limit Break is more of a time saver than anything else. Got a BLM or SMN? Use it speed up killing a large group of mobs. If not, let a melee DPS use it on a boss. Got 2 BRDs? Well, that's boring, since BRDs do the same healing limit break as healers.

Just last night, when I was doing Wanderer's Palace Hard Mode, I used our Limit Break on a group of mobs just after the 2nd boss, and we filled the first bar half way through the final boss. For "easy" stuff like 4 man dungeons, there's no need to save it for those "just in case" moments.

In 8 man or 24 man stuff, then it might be worth holding onto it just in case, and that's assuming that you're not doing really difficult content (like Coil) where your group's strategy might be to use a specific Limit Break at a specific time.

Given how Limit Breaks work their way into Coil, I'm fine with the way it is, as compared to something like FFXI. The true FFXI equivalent would be 2 hours. And some jobs had amazing, game changing 2 hours while other jobs had fairly worthless 2 hours. If you needed your 2 hour for a particularly tough fight, then you hope you don't wipe after using it, or you may find yourself having to wait a long time to try again.

MNK can cross class mercy stroke. The indicator is 20% not 10%. To be honest, I haven't found the indicator useful since they added the HP percentage to the mobs HP bar.

Everything else I've read is that buffs don't affect LB damage. Here's on reddit thread where a group specifically tested Blood for Blood while testing for what does affect LB damage:
http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/1oaflu/lb_damage_tested/

I did see one thread that mentioned how the snakes in Turn 5 took more damage from LB because of the increased damage taken debuffs they receive. So it's possible that the debuffs on a mob affect LB damage, but not buffs on players. I think that would make sense, as LB seems to be designed in a way that the effectiveness of it is based on the group (i.e. average weapon item level of the group) rather than the individual performing it.

Yep, LB benefits from debuffs but not buffs. It's damage is mostly based on party combined weapon ilvl. (Which is why it's pretty obvious when your group is geared to the teeth vs a bunch of fresh 50s with level 32 weapons even if you and your ilvl135 weapon is doing the LB.)

They work fine but I'd prefer individual limit breaks like FFVII, granting access to better weaponskills. Battle system could use more depth.

I truly wish they would do this... sucks so bad with duty finder when it sets up all DPS in the group as BRD. I'd ask for it to be situational (ie, all BRD DPS = DPS LB, Any other DPS in PT = Heals LB) but that would cause confusion for a lot of folks I guess.

There has been a lot of times a LB has saved a wipe, especially doing events or learning parties. Ofcourse with people who are very experienced its an extra but again it's supposed to be situational.