Concerns about " Getting rid of unused and ineffective actions"

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Originally Posted by Pondera

And besides, there were still those unique individuals who would spec into talents that others would say are not viable for high level raiding. Was it non-viable and possibly a waste? Maybe, but by oversimplification, one is denied that chance to experiment. MMORPGs are all about growth, be it character development, the relentless hunt for higher stats, or understanding and mastery of your own abilities. If people want to have a 3 button rotation with 1 buff and an "ultimate",

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i played a game like this once, which i ended up making the i guess would be this games equivalent of what some want a redmage to be able to dim i wouldnt mind a more complez building system if the instructions were obscure and anything goes as long as you hit the limit, needless to say though before the game shutdown and i had my build, it proved to be much better than anyone esp my guild leader, thought was even possible.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

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Are you sure about that? Mitigating things with a press of a button is not unique to PLD, it is present on all tanks, PLD just has hallowed ground which is better (and WAR has ONE mitigation through action skill, storms path falls into the same camp as rage of halone and delerium). Pressing buttons to mitigate does not make PLD. The uniqueness of PLD does come from their support toolkit, WAR has wrath stacks, DRK has dark arts, and PLD has support/CC skills (cover, divine veil, clemency, shield bash, shield swipe (pacify), spirits within, protect, stoneskin).

I've also seen people complain that these skills are useless, but, with the exception of cover, I use these skills frequently in a raid environment (even clemency), which is why this side of PLD should be supported, not hindered by cutting away its cross class skills (I don't want another 3.0 PLD)

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Originally Posted by Pondera

I personally never did that. I did things the old fashioned way, and experimented and figured it out. It's the kind of thing that people seem to be averse to these days. Instead of learning fights, taking your licks and figuring out how to do better next time, I guess we can just whine at developers until they simplify things to the point that, as ADVSS put it, it's more like a quick time event than dungeon running.

And besides, there were still those unique individuals who would spec into talents that others would say are not viable for high level raiding. Was it non-viable and possibly a waste? Maybe, but by oversimplification, one is denied that chance to experiment. MMORPGs are all about growth, be it character development, the relentless hunt for higher stats, or understanding and mastery of your own abilities. If people want to have a 3 button rotation with 1 buff and an "ultimate", I would suggest they go play a MOBA instead. They can take two words from me with them on their way out the door and they are not "happy birthday"

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To be honest, the only spec I really felt like I needed to theorycraft the shit out of, even back in Wrath, was Death Knight. Just about every spec I ran was allegedly non-optimal, but I still had the highest output per gear score among all melee in my raid, even while participating more in mechanics than the others would for fear of dps loss. A very large part of the condemnation of Wrath talent systems was really due to people being unable to figure out how to best utilize them. The website builds then weren't just highest target dummy dps (often falling off under the strain of real mechanics), but with the least complexity. On pure DPS or pure Hybrid (original DK) classes, viable options still frequently remained to either side, greater mechanical leniency or greater rotational complexity.

Customization can give equally viable options while still varying in variety of ways (such as the above). It just depends on metas not being purely distinct (much like CC being unavailable in raids now, or saved burst priorities being prevalent only in PvP).

Another question this brings to light outside of what skills do they think are 100% pointless, is the looming question on whether or not this new system will reset preexisting hotbars. If they're purging skills or combining them this could also result in players having to inadvertently relearn how to play, as well as the addition of new skills . As an example BRD having to adjust to cast times due to the effects of WM. Let's say they removed WM altogether and gave Flaming Arrow the 30% increase WM gave BRDs and BRD goes back to being mobile, and turned Wide Volley into a ground based AoE, this would help BRD out. But now let's say they took MNK and combined Fists of Fire and a reworked Fists of Wind that gives cooldown rather speed boost into one skill and got rid of FoE. Now please release these are two random ideas I had, but where are they drawing the line with what they're planning to do?

I really feel that this topic should be one that SE actually engages the community with, rather then deciding things on their own before they ruin more classes like BRD or create issues like with SMN and SCH. I think they should be actually discussing possible changes with their players, as implementing a new system and going full rehaul without proper feedback can kill a game before it even gets any steam going.

My only fear is that cute animations will forever be lost to us, One Ilm Punch has a beautiful animation tbf.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

I really hope you are right. The devs need to have a serious think about PLDs job identity, and also work out a way to compensate PLD (as well as DRG) for the skills that they will inevitably lose with this change to the system. As it stands, PLD will lose Provoke, Convalescence, Awareness(?), and potentially Flash (though this will probably just be excempt from the system, and hopefully changed). They are also the only job that will potentially lose an entire cross class job from their list (to be replaced with DRK... hooray for homogenization), healers won't lose BLM skills, as all healers have BLM as a cross class, so the relevant skills will be kept for all healers.

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Actually, now that I think about it, I think that alternatively, a new system would basically keep cross classes in order to keep class uniqueness so to speak (some classes would actually get NEW cross classes), but the absolute most vital skills would be thrown into a general pool that wouldn't require leveling any other classes to obtain.

With such an idea, I could see tanks working out like this:

Tank 'general' skills:
- Lv. 5: Bloodbath
- Lv. 15: Convalesence
- Lv. 25: Provoke
- Lv. 35: Awareness

PLD Cross Classes: WHM and - instead of WAR - they get to cross class with DRG instead, gaining Feint, Keen Flurry, and Life Surge. As a result of this though, they lose Foresight and Mercy Stroke from WAR, among other things.
WAR Cross Classes: PLD and MNK (remains the same)
DRK Cross Classes: WAR and - instead of PLD - they get to cross class with NIN instead, gaining Shade Shift and Mug. As a result of this though, they lose, uhhh, Flash from PLD. (I want to say Death Blossom too for MAXIMUM edginess, but that's probably a REALLY bad idea)

Skills in the 'general' section are automatically learned upon reaching those levels as any tank class without having to level any other class.
Cross classes however will still require learning the skills as the other class beforehand. However, all such cross class skills should be shuffled to be obtainable within the first 20 levels.

And for healers:

Healer 'general' skills:
- Lv. 5: Cleric Stance
- Lv. 15: Protect
- Lv. 25: Surecast (would assume Surecast gets overhauled to allow casting while moving)
- Lv. 35: Swiftcast

WHM cross classes: SCH and BLM (remains the same, with one key difference - WHM can now get Manaward and Scathe from BLM)
SCH cross classes: WHM and - instead of BLM - they get AST, which grants them Combust and Stella. However, they lose Blizzard II from BLM.
AST cross classes: BLM (also gaining Manaward and Scathe) and - instead of WHM - they get SCH, which grants them Virus and Eye for an Eye. However, they lose Aero and Stoneskin from WHM.

(Yeah, it was difficult to come up with new cross classes for the healers... It'd probably be much more varied if we could get another caster, because it makes zero sense for any of the healers to cross class with any DoW class.)

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Originally Posted by Jetstream_Fox

I really feel that this topic should be one that SE actually engages the community with, rather then deciding things on their own before they ruin more classes like BRD or create issues like with SMN and SCH. I think they should be actually discussing possible changes with their players, as implementing a new system and going full rehaul without proper feedback can kill a game before it even gets any steam going.

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FOX! will you be my new best friend? We have so much in common! But, joking aside, you are absolutely right. One of the big weaknesses Blizzard had that I think really undermined consumer confidence is that they looked down on those that bought their games. I use the "you think you want that, but you really don't" comment as evidence to this statement. When they wanted to make changes to the game that they saw as their property, they just went ahead and did it, and ignored the fan backlash. Fun be cursed, there were developer egos at stake!

Fortunately, Yoshi P has more creative integrity and passion for game making in his pinky than the entirety of Blizzard does at this point, so I'm sure the communication with the fans is inevitable at this point. Especially since this thread has, like, over 7,000 views and plenty of discussion to go with it. But, for this to work, they need to take into account the opinions of everyone involved: the casuals who don't often have time to play, the low level players who are still working on their first class, the raiders, the super hard core, everyone. Raiders may not have any use for, say, sleep, as a black mage, but it's saved my life several times when I was first leveling a thaumaturge way back when. If this kind of thing can't happen so the positions of every player demographic can be taken into account for the change, then it should not occur. The system isn't broke, so don't fix it.

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Originally Posted by Pomelo

My only fear is that cute animations will forever be lost to us, One Ilm Punch has a beautiful animation tbf.

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And any reference to Bruce Lee is worthy to stick around in my book. For monks? That kind of thing should be SACRED.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

Are you sure about that? Mitigating things with a press of a button is not unique to PLD, it is present on all tanks, PLD just has hallowed ground which is better (and WAR has ONE mitigation through action skill, storms path falls into the same camp as rage of halone and delerium). Pressing buttons to mitigate does not make PLD. The uniqueness of PLD does come from their support toolkit, WAR has wrath stacks, DRK has dark arts, and PLD has support/CC skills (cover, divine veil, clemency, shield bash, shield swipe (pacify), spirits within, protect, stoneskin).

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Claiming PLD is defined by having access to cure, protect and stoneskin is disingenuous.

What defines the tanks is gameplay. PLD just happens to have a very straightforward approach to doing so, while WAR has to manage Wrath and their active mitigation elements. DRK is on a similar boat with the added stress of managing MP and knowing when to trigger Dark Arts.

Access to weak magic is a Final Fantasy Knight/Paladin thing, which in this case comes in the form of cross class abilities (and at that, cross class skills are just window dressing), but those do not define the Knight/Paladin job.

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Originally Posted by Pondera

And besides, there were still those unique individuals who would spec into talents that others would say are not viable for high level raiding. Was it non-viable and possibly a waste? Maybe, but by oversimplification, one is denied that chance to experiment.

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I generally don't mind freedom in design, but over time I've learned that false choices are simply no choices at all in the greater scheme of things when it comes to multiplayer games. I'll gladly take a more restrictive design where all the pieces play their part equally well over a system with false choices that feed the illusion of being a unique snowflake.

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If people want to have a 3 button rotation with 1 buff and an "ultimate", I would suggest they go play a MOBA instead.

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Now you're projecting something that's clearly not there on to the discussion.

Redundancy and button bloat ARE a problem in this game. Some classes feel it more than others, but it's there. Also keep in mind we don't even have the luxury of custom action bar addons like WoW does, on top of having to keep players that use controllers in mind. As I've said in the past, the fact that we got 5 new abilities with Heavensward instead of the 2 or 3 I was expecting exacerbates the problem. On top of that, there are abilities that have become redundant thanks to the HW skills (Unchained comes to mind). Taking all this into consideration, we're due for some adjustments and skill pruning. Even if they were to keep all the existing skills (which I find very likely because removing some skills would create gaps during the leveling experience), collapsing certain combos into 1 button by default won't hurt anyone.

What I am expecting is redesigns of certain abilities. Fracture, Touch of Death and Scathe come to mind.

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Originally Posted by Morningstar1337

[*]Grenado Shot and Wide Volley: as it stands They are the Range Melee counterparts to Freeze, A non-self-centered version of their self-centered AoEs. But the thing is, a BLM can get its MP back, a BRD or MCH can't get TP back with the same rate, and unlike freeze it doesn't even have higher potency.

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You couldn't be more wrong. While I agree that BRD and MCH do not have a lot of options to regain their TP, the options they *do* have makes up for it and allows them to do more sustainable AoE DPS over a longer period of time than a BLM could (because state switching breaking up the AoE rotation for BLM's).

Wide Volley and Grenado Shot are an essential part of the BRD and MCH toolkit and are widely used to deal with large groups alongside their other AoE's (Bishop Autoturret and Flaming Arrow/Rain of Death). If they'd end up upping the damage, fine. If they remove it, I'd see very little reason to play BRD anymore, because then it would be massively outclassed by DRG and MNK.

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Originally Posted by The_Shang

You couldn't be more wrong. While I agree that BRD and MCH do not have a lot of options to regain their TP, the options they *do* have makes up for it and allows them to do more sustainable AoE DPS over a longer period of time than a BLM could (because state switching breaking up the AoE rotation for BLM's).

Wide Volley and Grenado Shot are an essential part of the BRD and MCH toolkit and are widely used to deal with large groups alongside their other AoE's (Bishop Autoturret and Flaming Arrow/Rain of Death). If they'd end up upping the damage, fine. If they remove it, I'd see very little reason to play BRD anymore, because then it would be massively outclassed by DRG and MNK.

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And to add to this, BRD and MCH has the ability to pop all their buffs at once to skyrocket their mobbing damage, and BRD especially has resource-free Rain of Death to sustain it (though it heavily relies on RNG and requires setup beforehand - as in Straight Shot -> Windbite on 3 mobs first before you go to town). Ideally mob packs will be dead or nearly so by the time you run out of TP, and if not, there's your party TP regen to get you back up (though while it reduces your damage, it's far better than standing there like an idiot).