Cleaning up Stormblood

[cactusking]

So this expansion introduced some new tech that allows skill buttons to automatically change based on certain conditions, and you see this primarily in PVP. Key examples include combos, like the BRD shots/bites, but also skills that respond to buffs on the player, such as Flare/Freeze/Foul for BLM. If this was a change that went through sometime late in the last expansion, forgive me, I haven't played in a while.

Now this is really exciting, especially if it gets expanded into PVE settings. Some great applications of this would be for WAR skills. Under Defiance, you have Inner Beast, Steel Cyclone and Unchained. Using the new tech, these skills would simply switch to their Deliverance versions: Inner Beast becomes Fell Cleave, Steel Cyclone becomes Decimate and Unchained becomes Inner Beast. This is both a great quality of life change and a more elegant solution than using macros.

Oh, and apparently there's a limit on how long posts can be, so this is part one of two.

[cactusking]

Let's see if we can apply this to Paladins as well. First, we'll have Rage of Halone switch to Royal Authority when under Sword Oath, and maybe Savage Blade only generates increased enmity while Shield Oath is up. Second, have Shield Swipe swap to anything else while under Sword Oath since it's 100% useless when you're not actively tanking. The old version of Reprisal had this same issue since it relied on the tank parrying an attack. Actually, why not have Shield Swipe change to Spirits Within? Finally, give Paladins an offensive oath gauge spender. Sheltron won't see any use while off-tanking, which is what Intervention is for, but you'll need something other than Sheltron while soloing, especially since you generate way more gauge in Sword than in Shield.

Ok, the post limit is really small, so there's a third part coming.

[cactusking]

Now my last point, and by far the most important one, is bring back Sustain. Thanks in advance.

PS. I know you guys are scrambling to get those servers stable, but definitely see what changes you can make before the game actually launches. If you thought the complaining was bad already, imagine how much worse it'll get when the rest of your playerbase shows up.

[Priya]

I've been feeling the same way. Quoting myself from another thread:

If a skill is only active under certain conditions, such as being a proc, the button should change as it does in pvp. For example, Jolt 2 procs Impact, and you will always use Impact over Jolt; the Jolt button should change to impact in PvE just like it does in PvP. You literally cannot use impact otherwise, so it doesn't need its own button.

Similarly Ver Holy/Flare are only available once certain conditions are met and they should replace Ver Stone/Fire respectively. Especially since the former will proc the latter after use. You need 4 key binds for these spells when you should really only need 2.

Another example is when Bahamut is out, Ahk Morn should replace the Deathflare key. Also, Ruin should have been upgraded to Ruin 3 like other numbered spells.

I don't mind keeping non conditional skills separated for PvE as that keeps a little bit of risk involved ("oops, I fat-fingered that"), but if a skill literally cannot be used except under certain conditions, the key should change accordingly, even in PvE.

Combat in the current form feels almost as bloated as it did in Heavensward. I'm not seeing the pruning I was promised aside from tiered spells. It's still necessary to bind abilities to awkward keys.

[Faeon]

You can reply to your own thread and bypass the limit. Ya I saw that function on WAR, that was a nice small little QOL to get. I do wish we could customize the buff / debuffs in hud editor