Too many "Must-Haves" in the Role Choices Menu.

[Maeka]

So we got rid of the Cross-Class System (which I'm all on-board for doing) and replaced it with the new Role System which is basically a Post-Mists of Pandaria WoW-Style Talent Tree or very close to it.



That's great, I liked that system.

However... just like Blizzard, we sadly made the same mistake: Too many of the "choices" are no-brainers and are not choices at all and they eat up our Role slots for things that SHOULD be baked into the class baseline.

Healers:

This is the most egregious so I'll start with it. Unless you are in an 8-man group, these are must-haves:

1). Protect (why is this not part of the class, baseline? What healer goes in without casting Protect on the group?)
2). Esuna (I am seeing a disturbing number of healers who go in without it and they make battles MUCH harder, especially on bosses such as the last one in Castrum Abania that puts powerful DoTs or other crippling status effects that can be removed).
3). Largesse (This is a no-brainer. I mean, seriously.)
4). Swiftcast (Again, no-brainer).

This leaves me with one choice left, and if you are a WHM, that choice is going to be Lucid Dreaming, hands-down. So that's 5/5 if you're a WHM, and 4/5 if you are SCH, and I dunno about AST. You could maybe swap out Protect if you are in an 8-man pre-made raid group, but in all honesty you're going to be assuming that you're going to need Protect. You could perhaps cast Protect and then swap the action out and put something else in, but... that only goes to show that you might as well just make Protect Baseline for all Healers.

Tanks:

1). Rampart. You'd have be an idiot to NOT choose Rampart.
2). Convalescence. No Brainer.
3). Provoke. No Brainer.
4). Low Blow. If you're not a PLD, and maybe even if you are a PLD, because PLD stun is on GCD.

So, again, 3 No-Brainers and 1 more depending on Job.

The abilities I mention above are things that are so basic and important to the job, they are simply "Must-Have", in that you really can't do your job effectively without them. Such shouldn't be "choices", but rather be baked in to the class/job from the start and they should be replaced with other situational stuff that revolves around playstyle and/or job choice, whether you want to specialize further or fill your job's weaknesses.

[Metsonm]

I agree completely. When the role action system was pitched I understood it to be "When a tank hits level X it learns provoke. No matter if it's Gladiator or Marauder or Dark Knight. When a healer hits Y it gets Esuna, no questions asked."

The role actions are just filled with useless or entirely situational abilities, mixed with essentials. It's only the illusion of choice in most cases.

[Legion88]

Imo the role system should be changed like the following:

3 basic skills every job of the role gets, no choice, he gets it like one of his natural skills.
and a 3 out of 7 choice for additional depth.

For a better understanding i will show it for Tank role skills with the current role skill list:

Skills you will just gain: Rampart, Provoke and Convalescence
Skills for the 3 out of 7 pool: Reprisal, Awarness, Low Blow, Anticipation, Interject, Ultimatum, Shirk

For Healer:

Skills you will just gain: Protect, Esuna and Largesse
Skills for the 3 out of 7 pool: Cleric Stance, Break, Lucid Dreaming, Swiftcast, Eye for an Eye, Surecast and Rescue

Also i don't get why someone would choose Break or Drain or why Addle and Erase/Crutch are no Healer skills especially why later are usefull in any situation of party content, when they can be used anyway and a healer should be available.
So in every list of role actions is at least one skill with very questionable usability or effectivness.

[Tint]

i 100% agree. i thought role actions would be a set of skills wich EVERY tank and EVERY healer and so on... gets. nothing with choices.

but to be honest: i don't have Convalescence slottet ^^ and on my WHM i also think to get rid of Largesse...

[Maeka]

You didn't slot Convalescence? Are you crazy? Conva is very powerful. Those mega heals healers like to dump on you, those 15k Cure IIs/Tetras/etc end up being 20k instead, which is nearly half your health. Even more if it crits. I've seen Conva+Crit Cure II bring me from 10% up to 90.

And Largesse... dude. Again, that just.... wut? I couldn't imagine not having Largesse. Largesse+2 Medicas is a watered down healer LB lol.

[Legion88]

You didn't slot Convalescence? Are you crazy? Conva is very powerful. Those mega heals healers like to dump on you, those 15k Cure IIs/Tetras/etc end up being 20k instead, which is nearly half your health. Even more if it crits. I've seen Conva+Crit Cure II bring me from 10% up to 90.

And Largesse... dude. Again, that just.... wut? I couldn't imagine not having Largesse. Largesse+2 Medicas is a watered down healer LB lol.

Conva doesn't boost abilities only spells, so Tetra, Lustrate, Indom, Excog etc. are not affected by this in my experience.

If they changed this it would boost Conva a big step upwards.

[Tint]

You didn't slot Convalescence? Are you crazy? Conva is very powerful.

yeah, conva is a powerfull skill... however, the problem is the long cooldown. rampart for 20 seconds, shadow wall for 10 seconds, convalescence for 20 seconds and then minutes of waiting without any mitigation for those trash pulls. either i only have for like 20 seconds per trash group a cooldown running, wich is too short, or i have nothing at all for every second group.
i rather use Anticipation wich is weaker, but with 20 seconds duration and only 60 seconds cooldown fills the gap between the other cooldowns much better.

i use Provoke, Rampart, Anticipation, Low Blow and Reprisal.

[Leigaon]

I, like others have posted, agree that many of these are staples. I think though this is their way of testing the waters with role based actions....

I think what they'll end up doing is make increase the role actions slots / add more role based actions and make some of the mandatory ones permanent, and some you can weave in and out.

Pretty much that would be their way of saying "Okay you all have rampart, but you can't change it out b/c you all say you don't need to" give an extra slot for other customization and add a few more from there.

Something like Shirk is great so I'd like to see more of that.

Though, I think a lot of it for me has to do with the fact that I am so use to these moves I'm afraid of using other things. I had a healer who didn't have Esuna, instead used Rescue to sprint and pull moves to me and pull me to them when they could...i guess that's ok.

I know on my healer I have Largesse, but I rarely ever use it. I know I'm afraid to take it off because I'll get that tank who stays in DPS stance and uses only FoF or Berserk as their only buff.

i use Provoke, Rampart, Anticipation, Low Blow and Reprisal.

I will admit the more I think about it and my past expierences taking a Tank in 4.0, Convalescence is nice if I'm doing giant pulls but otherwise it's not the saving grace I praised it to be. In which case Anticipation would be a nicer route to take.

I don't see the point of Interject though, maybe that's more of a raid thing. Only thing I remember having to use it on was Coil turn 1.

Their intentions are good, I like it and I hope they expand on it. This way they can make moves that are powerful but without the staple. Shirk is a wonderful tool

I do like the other skills that can help other party members too, like Goad, Crutch and other moves that if used properly bring you together as a party. I just don't think anyone cares to use them which is sad.

[Gravton]

Why are we even capped on how many we can use if they are all considered essential? How game breaking would it be to just let us use them all?

[Maeka]

Why are we even capped on how many we can use if they are all considered essential? How game breaking would it be to just let us use them all?

They want to give you "choices" even though half of the "choices" aren't actual "choices".

IMO, they indeed should just dump the extra roles and make all of this stuff available from the get-go.

It's an artifact from the days of "Customization" in MMOs, but the years and experience have taught us, that "Customization" can never exist, because there will always be the choices that are good, and the choices that are bad. You'll get a list of choices you should pick if you are doing this, or choices you should pick if you are doing that and you either do those, or you're a newb/scrub/whatever.


Customization only works when the skills are so close to each other that they really are a playstyle preference, but this happens so very rarely. Otherwise, you are either good if you chose correctly or you're gimping yourself by choosing the wrong choices.

Given this is a game where you can change jobs anytime you want, I think that gives you enough choices in playstyle that we don't really need the role action "choices". Now, in a game like WoW where you can't change your class... yeah, the 3 talent trees are needed there. But not so much in this game.