FFXIV: What is True North & What Does it Do?

In Final Fantasy XIV, you have to be in a certain place to use certain attacks and abilities.

This means that they might have extra effects or do more damage if the player is on the side or back of the enemy.

True North is a skill that gets rid of the need to be in a certain position.

This means that the skill or ability can be used to its full potential from anywhere.

At level 50, you’ll be able to play True North.

And if you haven’t been reading about the game, you probably won’t understand what its point is.

“Nullifies all action direction requirements” is all that’s written about this ability in the text.

So yeah.

It’s a role action, not a skill for a specific job, and it’s available to all DPS jobs.

I flew through A Realm Reborn like the world was on fire behind me.

I was leveling a Dragoon at the time, and even though I knew how to do the basic rotation, I still had a lot to learn about the class.

I hadn’t really seen positional abilities in an MMO before, so I didn’t know how to use them or if they were really that important.

Let’s start at the beginning.

What Are Positional and How Do You Hit Them?

True North

I’ll use the Dragoon class as an example, but everything I say applies to all positional skills in general.

The DPS job that does backflips and uses a lance has positional attacks like Fang and Claw/Wheeling Thrust, which are more powerful from the side and back, respectively.

The damage difference adds up.

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When you can, you should always try to use your positional abilities.

More damage is usually a good thing.

And, unless it’s a matter of life and death, it’s important to work them into your schedule.

There’s no point in keeping your DPS up if it’s going to kill you.

Here’s how positional work: when you aim at an enemy in XIV, a red ring will appear under their feet.

Most of the time, there will be an arrow in this ring that points in the direction that the enemy is facing.

Most of the time, the flanks are on the left and right sides of this ring.

The back of the enemy will, of course, be on the exact opposite side of the ring’s arrow (ie. the opposite side the enemy is facing).

Also, don’t stand too close to the ring, because the game won’t always recognize where you are if you’re too close to the enemy.

When To Use True North?

Most of the time, a good tank will try to keep the enemy in one place and facing the same way.

This makes it easier for DPS players to set up their positional attacks.

Things don’t always go as planned, though.

The tank might have to avoid an AOE or go pull another group of enemies.

There are also bosses who just move around a lot.

So it can be hard to keep up with your normal rotation and try to hit those positional.

True North has two charges, and each one lasts 10 seconds.

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Each charge wears off after 45 seconds, so you can use it a lot if you want.

It’s not a direct replacement for always being in the right place.

But it can make a huge difference in your life.

When you use True North, your positional abilities will work at full power no matter where you are in relation to the enemy.

This lets you keep your rotation going at full power.

True North wears off quickly, but you should still save it for boss fights so you can use it when you need to.

It would be easy to just hit it out of boredom.

But the boss could decide at any time to run to the other side of the arena.

Or, your current location could be the target of an area-of-effect (AoE) attack or the tank could move in a way that you can’t predict, which would change how much damage you do.

When this happens, you’ll be glad you have an extra True North charge.