Differences between WoW and FFXIV

The combat feeling is very different between both games when it comes to group content.

FFXIV has a 2.5 second global cooldown (GCD). This makes the low level (pre lvl 30) game feel very slow compared to WoW. I think WoWs GCD is 1.5 seconds throughout. Note that in both games, the GCD can be reduced through acquired gear.

From lvl 30+ onwards, FFXIV adds off global cooldown (oGCD) buffs and skills. These oGCD buffs have a long cooldown (from 30+ seconds or more), and a short duration. Proper usage of these oGCDs during battle is the key to being a good player.

WoW's buffs are the opposite. They tend to be long duration cast before battle, fire and forget affairs. In return, WoW offers a lot more GCD skills. Using the right GCD skill at the right time is the key to being a good player.

FFXIV dungeons also have many more telegraphed AoE attacks. These attacks, commonly known as mechanics, need to be dodged or countered appropriately. Combat at higher levels is definitely not the 'stand in one spot and press buttons' type of affair.

WoW's dungeons just ramp up the damage and have special undodgable bursts. So the key here is to constantly use your skills/magic and to use the correct skill/magic at the correct time.

Finally, FFXIV is strongly story focused. Almost all content is gated behind its main scenario quest (MSQ) . Many people feel that the MSQ itself is overly long, especially pre 50 and before the Heavensward expansion; but improves trememdously after that. The devs also add more quests to the MSQ once every 3.5 months.

WoW's MSQ is mostly optional. Content is rarely gated. Having said that, the devs do not add to the MSQ anywhere near as often.

Some other subtle differences from the perspective of a filthy casual:

UI

FFXIV beats WoW in the default UI department because of the immediate customization - you can move anything, or resize anything. However, WoW has far more options for customizing the UI and wins out if you're a customization junkie because of the sheer number of addons available.

Combat/UI

In FFXIV you play with no addons. Addons can in fact get you banned. You can't even talk about using them. This is a complete opposite to WoW. Thankfully, FFXIV is designed so that you never need to use addons like boss timers, you just "learn the dance" which is the same every time (some tiny exceptions like T9 or Nidhogg Ex divebombs). Nothing like WoW where not knowing which mechanic is coming can wipe your raid in a split second (Coven lightning/ghosts). The only mods/addons you might use in FFXIV are DPS/Healing parsers, but you have to be very careful about using them, and you cannot talk about them in-game without risk of being banned, even talking with people you trust 100%. SquareEnix is apparently extremely serious about it.

The most UI-intensive fight I can think of in FFXIV is Shinryu Ex, where you're watching your character for a green spike, your party members if you're a healer, the floor so you don't fall off or place the spike in the wrong spot, and the cast bar of one of his limbs at the same time so you don't get one-shotted by something, but it's all there in the default UI and requires no extra addons to track. You can get a little nuts with voice macros in the ACT addon, but it's absolutely not necessary if you become comfortable with the fight and position the default UI elements well enough.

Melee

One thing FFXIV does extremely well, given that the game is known for its over-the-top flashy spells and particle effects, is let you turn off those effects when they are generated by other players. In WoW I've repeatedly been clipped by landmines in Antorus' High Command fight as melee because I just couldn't see them under the pile of enraged hunter/warlock pets and the storm of spell particles from the casters on the back line. I have decent peripheral vision, but these get me every time while I'm locking down the Pyromancer on phase 1. Playing melee in FFXIV is a pleasure, in my opinion, mainly because of this very thing not being an issue. It's harder to fail mechanics as melee in FFXIV because you "couldn't see parts of the fight." FFXIV also sets up its boss chambers so that camera collision is almost never a problem. This, however, is a source of conflict for some. Some are upset that every boss fight in FFXIV is a circular arena in an inexplicable clearing in the environment. However, it does help with the camera.

Also, as melee in FFXIV you have positional attacks, which enhance your damage slightly if executed from the correct angle on the boss. It's nothing huge (nowadays), but enough to keep a melee constantly thinking, so long as they want to not fail some of the tighter DPS checks.

Melee in FFXIV allows a very forgiving range of your attacks, as well. In WoW, to do proper damage as a melee, you have to be right up on the boss or you'll be losing chunks of DPS and botching your rotation at the slightest wrong movement. This is something I hope they change in WoW, actually. BS mechanics like "Flames of reorigination" (Hello unavoidable one-shot!) often make me regret playing melee in WoW. Some melee in WoWcan spec for extra range on melee attacks, and it actually makes them much more fun to play, akin to FFXIV.

FFXIV is much more forgiving toward melee in general, mechanics-wise, especially these days when the melee classes have been polished a bit, and rotation mechanics have been eased (2.0 Dragoon Heavy Thrust buff was a huge offender of this).

Developers:

Both games have great development teams. They listen to feedback a lot more than people give them credit for. Competition in the market is healthy for both developers, and the consumer ultimately reaps the benefits as they try to one-up each other.

Since everyone else is talking about raiding and combat and stuff, let me talk about crafting and gathering, instead:

Last time I played WoW, crafting and gathering was just "Hit a button, craft/gather a thing with a % chance for it depending on your skill level". This may have changed recently, but not that I'm aware of. There's not necessarily anything wrong with this system, but I think it can generally be agreed that it is a simple system.

FFXIV's crafting and, to a lesser extent, gathering are far more in-depth.

Crafting consists of two parts: Progress and quality. In order to craft an item, all you have to do is fill up the progress bar by using crafting skills, in the same way that you would fight monsters on your combat jobs by using combat skills. Quality, on the other hand, affects the % chance for your crafted item to be of high quality rather than normal quality. While normal quality items can and do sell on the marketboards, most "serious" crafters aim for a 100% chance of high quality on the stuff that they craft in order to achieve maximum profit. Increasing quality is simple at lower levels (Press a button to increase quality rather than increase progress) but at higher levels it requires complex rotations in order to ensure maximum quality gain. People can, will, and do spend millions of gil purchasing the best crafting gear they can because of how difficult high quality crafts at maximum level can be. Unlike in combat, at least, you have as much time as you want to consider your next move between each crafting action you perform.

Gathering is a bit more simple than crafting, but is still more complex than WoW's. Every time you go to a gathering node, there are anywhere between one and eight items on the node, depending on which one you gather at. Each item has a percentage chance to acquire the item, and then there's an additional percentage chance that if you do acquire the item, that you acquire it as high quality. What I said about HQ crafted items applies here, as well. As a gatherer, you have certain skills that can increase your chance to gather an item, your chance to gather HQ items, the number of items you gather in one attempt, or the number of times you can attempt to gather at any particular node (default is four times). Some nodes have bonuses that give you bonuses to any of these things when you're gathering at them specifically.

In Heavensward, the first expansion after A Realm Reborn, FFXIV added an additional layer of complexity to crafting and gathering: Collectables.

Collectables for crafting is roughly the same as achieving HQ; you add quality to an item, and the more quality there is when you finish it, the higher its "collectability" rating, which determines the amount of rewards you receive when you turn it into an NPC.

Collectables for gathering are far more complex than the ones for crafting. When you tap a node, you can choose to gather a handful of specific items as "collectables". When you select which item you want to gather as a collectable, you go into a new interface. In this interface, you use a variety of skills unique to gathering collectables that add collectability in various ways. The system is rather complicated, but let's just say that there's a lot of risk management involved.

In addition, rather than just gathering collectables for turn-ins, gatherers can also "reduce" an even narrower range of collected items. Doing so grants crystals (which are required when crafting any item) and aethersands (which are required when crafting very high level items). There are many people who make vast amounts of profit just by gathering these "reducible" collectables and turning them into crystals and aethersands.

As with combat jobs in FFXIV, one character can possess all crafting and gathering classes.

Again, I would never deign to call WoW's crafting and gathering system "bad", but it is categorically true that FFXIV's crafting and gathering systems are a lot more "involved" and "deep".

Having played both I will do my best to answer.

Over all the games are pretty similar in my eyes when it comes to dungeons and raids. They are both usually described as a theme park mmorpg.

The biggest difference in my eyes would be the class system in FFXIV. Your character can level every class in the game to max level. You change your class by equipping a different weapon. Where in WoW a character has one class with three specializations.

The way professions work is different too. FFXIV treats professions as classes almost so a single character can max out all the professions and freely switch between them. It's been a bit since I played WoW but from what I remember is you could only have two active professions at a time.

The dungeons and raids are similar enough and the pvp is kinda the same too since they are both games with gcd's to limit skill spam.

Price wise wow has more expansions so it could be a higher upfront cost for the game. The subscription model is $15 a month, but if you earn enough gold you can buy a subscription token which allows you to play for free if you want to grind the gold every month.

FFXIV has the same subscription model, but it also has a $12 a month option I think, but it might limit you to only one character.

That's really all the differences that spring to mind. I do think they are similar enough that going from one to the other wouldn't be difficult at all.

wows combat and gameplay is a lot more polished

ffxiv lets u pay a reduced sub fee if u only play one character, so i guess thats cheaper

hm I see. to be honest the 1.5 sec gcd of wow is too fast for my taste in the end of the day and FFXIV too slow (that doesnt mean i dont enjoy them). I played rift the other day for fun and the gcd was actually between these two it felt much more smooth

To be honest, i never saw much of FFXIV when i tried to play it. Combat and Quests were so boring, the World felt so empty, i never got far, because i couldn't get myself motivated to do questing. The Rotation on the Blackmage was boring and slow. Everybody kept saying it get's good, when you reach level 30/40 (or so), but i died of boredom way before that point. I don't like to play something that isn't fun or engaging the first levels. I'd rather leave.

I play GW2 (not so much right now) and WoW. I like both games for their approach on leveling and faster combat. I like the content on both as there is much to do, even if i don't want to raid. Lore on both is interesting (enough) for me to care (still don't like Anduin as King. The brat robbed my last nerve in MoP 😝) and stay interested.

FFXIV has lots of treble.