How do you feel about Role Actions?

The recent update turned them into what I expected them to be from their announcement. You level a tank to 15? Bam, provoke. No questions asked. Fights are balanced around protect? Sure, every healer gets protect, no problem.

When it was released and we could only juggle 5 abilities in the name of "choice" and "customisation" I was very disappointed, especially because there were some mandatory skills in there leading to dumb protect macros. As it stands now, having the role action pool just being for things you actually need to do your job in a general sense is a fantastic change. The only issue now is what's in there. Do we need Break? Are they going to make a fight this expansion where it's useful? I feel they could replace that with something else.

But overall I like how it's sitting right now.

I'd hope they dont balance fights under tge assumption everyone has every role action available.
Even with 10 slots, its not viable for controller isers to use them all, i ceetainly dont have break on my xhotbars.

Protect is an issue in itself, its not necessary at all, the defence boost is minescule and make no noticable difference in casual content (non savage) and even if it did, its a pointless skill that only exists for the sake of it.
It needs to go, rebalance the latest trials if necessary, but it doesnt serve a purpose besides causing irrational anxiety when its not active.
Give it back to WHM with a buff, they need mitigation before level 66.

As of now it feels way too generic and tasteless compared to the actual job design. Protect, for example... it's just a maintenance buff for the sake of it. Every healer got it no matter what... there's no decision there. I'd rather nerf it a bit and give baseline to one healer, and the other 2 having similar counterparts but with different kinds of defensive.

Imo, the role system could be replaced with a revisioned cross-class comeback.

You could equip or mix and match a set of active and a set of traits that is generated from leveling a class to 15, and 30 respectively. The actives would be a basic toolkit from that class... same for the traits. None of them would be focused into actually affecting the job's performance, but to offer some added utility: (below is just an example! obviously a trait set with mp regen would be req. for many healers out there)

For example, a conjurer active toolkit could make a Monk having access to Cure, Cure 2 and Regen... But then, Monk's MP would need a boost... You'd see amazing MP recovery Thaumaturge cross-class traits, then you choose that one. Bam, you can offheal in a pinch. Wouldn't make for an actual healer... but could mean saving a wipe while they get rezzed.

Or if you want to bring a bit more dps as a scholar... You choose the thaumaturge active toolkit to get some fire and thunder spells. You also pick up the Marauder trait kit and find there some nice defensive passives... There you go, you can now solo stuff more reliably and even contribute with a bit more damage, since your group is too good and you can spare mana to the expensive fire and thunder spells.

I can't really flesh out many details, because that would be a long process, but this idea is to bring back cross class as a form of situational utility or simply QoL for soloing purposes, more or less like in Final Fantasy Tactics. Role actions, the ones that are really vital to the game could be baked into the job's skillpool.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

No one really loses much here, but it does give BLM an edge over the others without giving it additional utility.
Casters don’t really use Break, Drain or Erase, only BLM’s really use Mana Shift but they also gain exclusive use of Addle as a perk above the others.
As with SCH, SMN gets Surecast over Swiftcast, and RDM gets Dualcast anyway.

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"RDM gets dualcast anyway."

Okay, sure; we do get a free cast of movement after every cast. As it is though, Swift is a very important skill in RDM's kit for a few reasons:

Shift the cast to dualcast period:
Going back to "free period of movement after every cast", there comes the fact we need that first cast to go off. Swiftcast can be used to shift what 2 seconds we'll be casting vs what 2 seconds we won't be while preserving ABC; it can help avoid sticky problems like having interrupted casts (and because it's a dual cast, if you miss one cast you've now missed two) due to heavy mechanics.

Snap Movement:
RDM has none. SMN can Ruin 2/4 and move on a whim. In this scenario, BLM has its swiftcast. RDM uses Swift for snap movement, or for extended movement (cast+dual+swift). Take that away and you're restricting RDM's mobility for no reason.

Extra strong spell during a burst window:
Doesn't seem like much but fitting an extra veraero in during Trick is an extra 31 potency.

Part of RDM's actual burst rotation:
And finally, it would affect RDM's rotation at the base level because Swift is used in the rotation at a few points: to get a double verfinisher under one embolden, it's a startlingly important tool. To get an extra veraero in under embolden before the next tick wears the buff down further. If Swift were just taken away from RDM, it would need something to compensate the loss of an extremely important tool to its kit.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

Part of RDM's actual burst rotation:
And finally, it would affect RDM's rotation at the base level because Swift is used in the rotation at a few points: to get a double verfinisher under one embolden, it's a startlingly important tool. To get an extra veraero in under embolden before the next tick wears the buff down further. If Swift were just taken away from RDM, it would need something to compensate the loss of an extremely important tool to its kit.

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Agreed. It would be similar to Monk losing control over its stance timings otherwise, apparently irrelevant to SE, but the loss of a core mechanic to any mediocre or better player.

I would hope something would be done with the Acceleration tool, allowing it to be say, a jack-of-all-needs resource between cooldown reduction, a proc guarantee, and cast-time negation.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Agreed. It would be similar to Monk losing control over its stance timings otherwise, apparently irrelevant to SE, but the loss of a core mechanic to any mediocre or better player.

I would hope something would be done with the Acceleration tool, allowing it to be say, a jack-of-all-needs resource between cooldown reduction, a proc guarantee, and cast-time negation.

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Making Acceleration work like that would honestly be really cool. If that change accompanied the loss of Swift I wouldn't mind it too much, it creates more tactical decisions to make in combat.

I think these changes are crap. I also think saying "Giving everyone everything" is an illusionary statement ment to destract from the fact that skills and abilities we could have used in the passed, that are taken away form us now, had to be:

"EARNED BY LEVELING THE CLASS IT CAME FROM!"
AS IN YOU WHERE NOT GIVEN EVERYTHING! YOU HAD TO LEVEL YOUR CHARACTER TO UNLOCK IT TO BE ABLE TO USE IT!

Now, all that work has become nearly meaningless, unless you are achievement hunting.

Achievement hunting is not enough of a reason for me to level every class and job. The past cross class skill ability allowed us to choose what ever extra skill we wanted, since there was a wider range of classes it was allowed to function on. This new system completely wreaks that flexibility as well as denigrates a since of reward for leveling alternative classes/job.

This new system reduces leveling up other classes/jobs to nothing more then an achievement hunting venture, that has no substance or actual usefulness. All you get now is nothing more then "BRAGGING RIGHTS." you don't get any actual extra skill or ability from it, like you used too.

I liked being able too add buffs/heals/taunts/debuffs to classes/jobs/roles that didn't have them. An archer or summoner DPs that could throw down an occasional heal or even stat debuff that didn't exist in there class, a healer that can stun or sleep an enemy before that enemy throws down a party/raid wiping attack that no one else managed to stop. I remember managing to save a couple of groups from being completely destroyed at the end of a dungeon a couple of times because of having a cross over skill from a class that doesn't normally use such abilities. Or even to be able to use a self heal or heal/attack like Second Wind and/or Drain, to heal myself when a healer is so focused on healing the tank that they would run out of mana to do anything else. there where moments where healers didn't have protect as a skill and it had not become a community wide expectation of healers to have, yet on my DPSers I would occasionally have it, normally for my own conveyance, but enjoyed buffing the entire group as well, before returning to DPS. Then healers started to catch on about its usefulness and healers buffing the groups with protect started becoming more common and more common. At some people it some how turned into an expectation. that asi9de, I liked the flexibility to use that and other skills even just for myself. It was nice to throw out an emergency heal every now and then to stop a party from wiping, or to stun, sleep, taunt a boss to prevent it from using a skill or killing someone, using a skill not normally expected from the class/role expected, able to use a summoner to tuant and kite a boss around the room, while healing myself and the almost dead healer, after the tank died and the healer was almost next and eventually finishing the dungeon off more then once. an emergency save that is no longer possible in this new system.

This new system completely destroys that!

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Originally Posted by Ryoko_D

I think these changes are crap. I also think saying "Giving everyone everything" is an illusionary statement ment to destract from the fact that skills and abilities we could have used in the passed, that are taken away form us now, had to be:

"EARNED BY LEVELING THE CLASS IT CAME FROM!"
AS IN YOU WHERE NOT GIVEN EVERYTHING! YOU HAD TO LEVEL YOUR CHARACTER TO UNLOCK IT TO BE ABLE TO USE IT!

This new system reduces leveling up other classes/jobs to nothing more then an achievement hunting venture, that has no substance or actual usefulness. All you get now is nothing more then "BRAGGING RIGHTS." you don't get any actual extra skill or ability from it, like you used too.

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There is nothing worse than being forced to level a class you didn't want to because it had an ability that was mandatory.

I hated Archer. I hated Arcanist. But as a Black Mage, I had to level them, one for the job, both for skills that came in around level 34.

You shouldn't need a reason to level another job other than "I want to try this job"

Why do you feel that you needed the skill it had? Is that a requirement for the role in the first place? Or is it one of those things like protect, it wasn't actually require, someone started using it cause it could help, then everyone started realizing its potential, in an environment where they all previous thought it was useless, then one person uses it, likes it, shows everyone its usefulness, then everyone likes it and somehow that ends up becoming a requirement that was't originally designed into the class or gameplay! and now you complain about a large number of people turning a perk into a requirement and wanna nerf something someone worked hard at and take away a reward that was fairly earned? And now you have turned your problem into my problem!

If that is how it is going to be, I want a refund!
I shouldn't get nerfed and any work I did nullified, for your social perception problems and/or laziness!
Wasn't the game originally designed around a single class being leveled up and to be a challenge for that? wasn't the inclusion of cross class abilities meant to only be a perk that could make your game play experience have an interesting additional flare? so isn't the perception of treating cross class skills as a requirement an error in judgement, since the game, by the design, was not meant to treat secondary cross class abilities as mandatory, only supplemental and optional? So where do you get off thinking you HAD to level another class and thinking that because you hated having to do something you didn't have to do, that you have any right to complain about something and get it nerfed all too H***, because you didn't like the extra effort, for a conveyance that wasn't designed to be mandatory in the game and was only something that was socially enforced?

This is why we can't have nice things!

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Originally Posted by Ryoko_D

Why do you feel that you needed the skill it had? Is that a requirement for the role in the first place? Or is it one of those things like protect, it wasn't actually require, someone started using it cause it could help, then everyone started realizing its potential, in an environment where they all previous thought it was useless, then one person uses it, likes it, shows everyone its usefulness, then everyone likes it and somehow that ends up becoming a requirement that was't originally designed into the class or gameplay! and now you complain about a large number of people turning a perk into a requirement and wanna nerf something someone worked hard at and take away a reward that was fairly earned? And now you have turned your problem into my problem!

If that is how it is going to be, I want a refund!
I shouldn't get nerfed and any work I did nullified, for your social perception problems and/or laziness!

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Provoke is a mandatory skill which was locked behind leveling Gladiator to, I believe, level 22. If you did not have it, you couldn't prefer tank swaps, which usually meant someone died. Likewise, skills such as Swiftcast, Blood for Blood and Quelling Strikes were essentially required due to their sheer usefulness to the raid. Not taking them simply meant you were inferior to someone who did out of pure laziness. Regardless, you weren't nerfed. Literally nothing was changed regarding the jobs themselves. You just were no longer required to play a job you may not like to access skills you were expected to have.