It's already hard enough to chat and play an MMO at the same time anyways.
I can't imagine playing this with only a keyboard or only a gamepad. You really need to use both in order to have the best experience.
I just did Ifrit. Took me five tries to beat him. The first three times, Hellfire wiped us. The fourth time, we survived, but our Healer got killed, so we wiped again. Fifth time, we beat him! I really have only one word to describe this battle: epic. Awesome would work, too. Love the Ifrit design, love the music, love the story. This game's giving me more and more reasons to play the full version (which I already was planning to). One of these days I'll preorder the collector's edition.