Rotations: Making them DIFFERENT

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Note that I'm not talking about MINE.

I'm talking about people leveling a Job for the first time learning how to play it.

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Oh, I see.

I feel like I'm the exact wrong person to sympathize with your paladin example, having picked a gladiator for my first character, liking sword and board aesthetics, liking Cecil FF4, and then, upon finding out I'd be spending half my time at max level not hitting people but rather summoning dorky magic swords like a Bleach character, promptly shelving the character. When I do play the job I do so at low levels exclusively, so that I can still enjoy it.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

CONTRAST PLD. PLD doesn't even have a self-heal by level 50. It doesn't get that until a trait at level 84 for Holy Spirit/Circle, abilities it doesn't get until levels 64 and 72, respectively. It doesn't have Requiescat until 68, Atonement until 76, Confetior until 80, or Swords combo until 90. Each of these things completely alters its base rotation. Level 64 is the first time it can be said to have something resembling it's level 90 filler rotation, though not really until 76 with Atonement, and it doesn't have any rotational upkeep/self-healing until 84, having to rely on Clemency (58) for that. It gets Divine Veil first (56).

Granted, this isn't as bad as before 6.3, but it's still pretty bad.

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Funny, I think pre-6.3 PLD was good at this concept too. At 50 you have 123. At 60, you swapped every 4th 123 to a 124 to apply Goring (also 3 gets stronger as it becomes Royal). At 70 you have two 123s swapped out to do a magic burst window with Req and Holy Spirit. At 80 you swap the final Holy Spirit to a Confiteor, and any 123 that comes after a 123, into 3 Atonements. At 80, you swap the 124 immediately following the magic burst to the Blades combo. It all built upon itself in the same way that BLM has distinct, yet slight, rotational changes that do not completely upend the rotation each expansion, but slot into it (we don't talk about 50>60).

It's the reworked PLD that is the problem, because it doesn't feel like it makes much sense until you get Holy Spirit. Its like they designed that around the assumption that everyone was already 90, but designed the previous PLD around the assumption that people were levelling it from 1-90

I don't think pre-6.3 was particularly good at it, honestly. Maybe if we go back to SB? In ShB, you had Atonement change up the rotation, though it wasn't terrible in the sense it replaced a 1-2-3, but it was also weird in that you were supposed to drop Atonements, which isn't at all intuitive and there's no real way to determine that without using parsing/illegal 3rd party add-ons. That is, there was no way just using the game itself to determine that unless you're manually going to record videos of you with a target dummy for hours and then do the math all by hand.

It was even worse in EW. I remember the first dungeon I did after hitting 90 and playing with my capstone for a bit I kept exiting my caster phase into a Royal instead of a Goring, which was obviously wrong but REALLY annoying since that's what my muscle memory was for. It's one problem that BLM's have complained about for years that BLM feels horrible to play synced because of how your muscle memory works against you at lower levels. In PLD's case, it was literally anything that wasn't the current level cap (90).

New PLD feels much better to play at lower levels and less muscle memory working against you than pre-6.3 did. Post-6.3 feels like it builds on itself much better. You have the core 1-2-3, you add HS later but it doesn't seriously alter the cadence and works more like a "GCD oGCD" where you can use it kind of whenever you want in the rotation, and later you add -4-4-4 for Atonement, and simply swap back and forth between them. Requiescat is just an extension of Fight or Flight once it is introduced that "starts with a bang", but it's just pressing one button 4 times, which later evolves into pressing a different button...4 times, which isn't a terribly difficult transition to make. And your two oGCDs you still use at the same time from level 50 to level 90. The weird part is that PLD (despite its aesthetic) has no self-sustain in its core rotation until level 84.

Pre-6.3: At 50 you have 123 (and two oGCDs) with a 1 min burst. At 60, you swapped every 4th 123 to a 124 to apply Goring. At 70 you have two 123s swapped out to do a magic burst window with Req and Holy Spirit. At 80 you swap the final Holy Spirit to a Confiteor, and any 123 that comes after a 123, into 3 Atonements. At 90, you swap the 124 immediately following the magic burst to the Blades combo, and swap the 124 that was coming after the Confetior magic burst into a 123 instead.

Post-6.3: At 50 you have 123 (and two oGCDs) with a 1 min burst. At 54, you press Goring after FoF. At 64, you simply hit HS after 123 (with some flexibility that makes it nearly noobproof), and at 68 you hit Requiescat after FoF and do four HSs; 123 is still your filler. At 76, you press Atonement 3 times after 123, alternating the two combos. At 80 you press Confetior after Goring. At 90 you press Confetior 4x after Goring.

There's a lot less change post-6.3, and the changes are smaller. Going from "press 4 HS" to "press Confetior then 3 HS" to "press Confetior 4 times" isn't as much of a change as swapping every 4th rotation, alternating in-between rotations, or changing what combo you use when exiting your magic phase. While I get some people liked the pre-6.3 rotation better, this was not an advantage it held.

Again, I'll note that BLM which you praise here is one of the most generally maligned Jobs on this very point.

A far better example is RDM, which has its basic rotation by level 60 (the Job starts at 50, and ARGUABLY has its base rotation by 50) with its full melee combo by 50 and both Embolden and Manafication by 60. After that, each level cap just adds an extra attack onto the end of its combo. VerHoly/Flare at 70, Scorch at 80, and Resolution at 90. The other abilities it gains are utility stuff like Cure, Raise, and Barrier, niche things it actually tries not to use like Reprise, or spell upgrades that don't alter the ability use or rotation in any way (e.g. Verthunder into Verthunder III or Jolt into Jolt II). The core rotation of the Job is complete by level 70 at the latest, and arguably level 50 with everything after that being an additional stinger to its combo attack or a side utility ability that isn't part of its core rotation and muscle memory.

...and, obviously, SMN and Healers, which all establish their base rotations pretty early. Healers by level 4 other than some caveats with Plegma or Misery or Energy Drain, and SMN by roughly level 30, though the core concept is in place by level 6. These Jobs allow you to level from the start and pick up the muscle memory you need as you go by augmenting rather than rewriting how they play, which also leads into less trouble with muscle memory working against you when you get to level cap and sync lower level content. WHM is oddly the big exception here due to how Lilies work and how weird it feels when synced down to where you don't have them.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

I don't think pre-6.3 was particularly good at it, honestly. Maybe if we go back to SB? In ShB, you had Atonement change up the rotation, though it wasn't terrible in the sense it replaced a 1-2-3, but it was also weird in that you were supposed to drop Atonements, which isn't at all intuitive and there's no real way to determine that without using parsing/illegal 3rd party add-ons. That is, there was no way just using the game itself to determine that unless you're manually going to record videos of you with a target dummy for hours and then do the math all by hand.

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Actually, back in ShB you would drop a Holy Spirit in req and used Confit after 3 HS casts, buffed Atonement via FoF was stronger and with some planning (and enough SkS) you could fit 4 Atonements in a single FoF window. This could change from fight to fight based on optimizations, and wouldn't be possible if you started with the Req opener, but the standard FoF opener would do Atonement shifting.

I would also echo Roe here in that I think pre-6.3 PLD was much better at easing you into the rotation, albeit I think it didn't get "good" until lvl 68 when you finally get req > HS spam. But at the very least the basic flow of Goring > RA > RA > Goring was available by lvl 60. Then by 70 you had Req phase replace an RA > RA every minute with HS spam. Then by 80 you added a big finisher at the end of the HS spam and every second RA combo was Atonement spam instead. It all felt additive.

For current PLD, I actually find lvl 70 somewhat more enjoyable than 80 since I don't think Atonement fits into current PLD all that well. Atonement worked because it merely replaced a RA combo, and with some slight optimization, you could shift and move 1 of those stacks from an unbuffed window to a buffed window.

Current PLD changes rotation weirdly after you get Atonement, it goes from a pseudo 123(4) combo with HS spam every 60s, to having to use up those Atonement stacks, which makes the next HS proc feel delayed. Not to mention all that extra MP just goes to waste. Confiteor makes sense at 70, but then the blade combo makes Req nothing but blade fodder where before, it was your Holy Spirit phase with a big hit somewhere in there. It builds up the habit of "I should use this on Holy Spirit" to "Use 1 stack on Confiteor" and then replaces that with "only use this on Confiteor". Old PLD had a better Req phase IMO, it made sense for your HS phase to continue being your HS phase but with a big finisher at the end, then that big finisher does a RDM and keeps finishing.

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Originally Posted by TheDustyOne

Old PLD had a better Req phase IMO, it made sense for your HS phase to continue being your HS phase but with a big finisher at the end, then that big finisher does a RDM and keeps finishing.

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And that's why I'd make Req a hard hitting GCD (like 600+), that upgrades into Confiteor at 80, with it/Conf granting 3 stacks of the buff that makes Blades do actual damage. As it is now, Req is just... there, for the sake of being 'the button that makes Blades do not-trash damage', when it could be baked into Conf, and that frees up a hotbar space (PLD's already on struggle street for hotbar realestate anyway)

There's a couple of candidates for button consolidation on current PLD I can think of;

1: Combine FoF and Req
Self explanatory, we're already double-weaving them as-is

2: Replace Goring with Req
Goring feels vestigial and boring, whereas Req begins a new phase in the rotation, they're already on the same timer and get used close together.

In general though I just don't like how the blades combo works currently, I don't mind that they're big hits in succession, I just hate that it's all we use Req on. The magic phase in general is something I've always felt could do with a couple of tweaks since HS spam isn't all that interesting either, but current PLD just changes it from spam HS button to spam Confit button.

I'd rather just revert to old PLD, the only thing jank about it in this meta was pre-pull FoF, which could be fixed by removing FoF and buffing the physical abilities to compensate. If it really needed more burst, then we redistribute potency to the magic phase.

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Anyway, I got thinking on "what if WHM had old PLD rotation?" and brainstormed something quickly:

Stone: (RA combo)
X potency, grants 1 stack of Thingy, up to a max of 3

Aero: (Goring)
Y potency over time, 18s

Water: (Atonement)
Z potency, requires and consumes 1 stack of Thingy

Requiesdog:
60s cooldown, XX potency, gives 5 stack of Updog

Glare: (HS)
YY potency, requires and consumes 1 stack of Updog

Banish: (Confit)
ZZ potency, consumes all remaining Updog stacks
Combo: Tornado

Tornado: (Blade 1)
XXX potency, Y potency over time, 18s, can't stack with Aero
Combo: Quake

Quake: (Blade 2)
YYY potency, grants 1 stack of Thingy
Combo: Flood

Flood: (Blade 3)
ZZZ potency, grants 1 stack of Thingy

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Originally Posted by TheDustyOne

There's a couple of candidates for button consolidation on current PLD I can think of;

1: Combine FoF and Req
Self explanatory, we're already double-weaving them as-is

2: Replace Goring with Req
Goring feels vestigial and boring, whereas Req begins a new phase in the rotation, they're already on the same timer and get used close together.

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What if they removed FoF and added its effect to Goring instead? That would trim one button without changing much with the gameplay.

While that can also work, I like that damage buffs on a timer can be weaved late to potentially gain one more buffed GCD with the right speed (not that it would matter on current PLD, Square please merge SkS and SpS). I think buffs gained from big cooldown GCDs like Goring are better stack-based since it ignores any potential speed and latency shenanigans like Bahamut needing 2.47s.

That's just my personal preference though.

So, is there any lesson to be learned from PLD rotation changes for healers?

I think the lesson to be learned is that if you want the rotations to feel different then they shouldn't start off by trying to make them conform to the 2min meta. PLD's felt more distinct before it was fixed to fit in 6.3, and here most of the suggestions are to trim a thing or two that would make it fit better because they're buttons that feel vestigial because they're simply potency now (akin to many healer tools like Celestial Opposition or arguably ground targeted fields with their massive ranges today), or easily combined every minute.

I wish they'd just break some shit. Players will always figure out the best way to play whatever their given, and the only time they're ever in a rush to make adjustments is when there's actually an imbalance in performance, so it gets fixed during the expansion. Not when all the jobs in a single role feel equally boring.