Should certain skills be turned into AoEs?

So I was leveling PLD and noticed something "off". I know they made the change to some old skills, and some new ones, that when you press a buff it procs an attack. Nothing too odd, but those attacks are mostly AoE, since odds are you'll be using the buff both in single and multi-target situations. This applies to Goring Blade as well. But, it's still a single target weaponskill. Why? Shouldn't it have been made AoE, with falloff? GNB suffers from the same issue with Sonic Break. But DRK's new skill Disesteem (what did he do to be dissed?) Has all of the same activation criteria, but is an AoE with falloff.

This seems like one of those oversights that the devs won't notice until we say something, since every job with new skills like this, which is basically all of them, has the skill as an AoE. Hopefully, SE makes the adjustments. It's not game breaking, just an odd choice not to update the skills.

I'm guessing it's limited by their animation budget. Updating single target skills requires them to create new animations for them, and it's relatively low priority since AOEs are pretty much only used in casual content nowadays.

I miss old Scholar where you had 2 dots and could spread them with ogc aether stack even in lower dungeons. Nowadays I have to watch people fight as Art of War comes at lvl 46...

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Originally Posted by Eloah

So I was leveling PLD and noticed something "off". I know they made the change to some old skills, and some new ones, that when you press a buff it procs an attack. Nothing too odd, but those attacks are mostly AoE, since odds are you'll be using the buff both in single and multi-target situations. This applies to Goring Blade as well. But, it's still a single target weaponskill. Why? Shouldn't it have been made AoE, with falloff? GNB suffers from the same issue with Sonic Break. But DRK's new skill Disesteem (what did he do to be dissed?) Has all of the same activation criteria, but is an AoE with falloff.

This seems like one of those oversights that the devs won't notice until we say something, since every job with new skills like this, which is basically all of them, has the skill as an AoE. Hopefully, SE makes the adjustments. It's not game breaking, just an odd choice not to update the skills.

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Atonement.sequence is NOT aoe, holy spirit is not aoe, intervene is not aoe.
When I need to deal group damage I don't use these abilities (except intervene), even if these are ready to use.

There are a lot of skills that need this treatment.
Playing PCT made it really obvious. Almost all of PCT's abilities are AoE with falloff, it's really fun to play in dungeons because your rotation doesn't change into a more stripped down version during an AoE situation.
There's also some other questionable choices, like WAR's Oregeny and Upheaval being separate abilities, when they could just make Orogeny AoE with dropoff (They literally did this with Spirits within turning into Expiacion) and give WAR an extra ability.
A lot of the old job's abilities really need an overhaul to match how PCT was designed, it would make them so much more fun in AoE situations.

It's very inconsistent. They combined SAM's Shoha and Shoha II because the latter was just the former but AoE, but the same job still has Guren and Senei, with the former being a line AoE with falloff and the latter being single target. They also have identical kenki costs and share a cooldown.

I've thought about this a bit, and I'm only hesitant to suggest that all actions be this way because I have some vague hope that they might return boss mechanics that involve NOT hitting certain targets, like Spiny Plume, Jagd Dolls and adds with parry counters/explosion on death.

Playing e.g. DNC on some of those fights can throw a bit of a wrench into your rotation as you might have to abstain from using Standard Step for a while.

I enjoy these mechanics for variety's sake, and streamlining more jobs to not have alternatives or just have every action be 'AoE centered on target with falloff' reduces their ability to include these types of mechanics while also making more jobs play more similarly, and both are negatives in my mind.

Granted, I don't think old Shoha 1&2 and current Upheaval & Orogeny are good answers and feel better. I think they're lazy actions to include to show in a job actions trailer, and to change buttons for the sake of novelty. I also don't think these types of mechanics are likely to appear very often even if they did somehow include them once again.

Sidewinder on Bard feels weird being a naked 60-second single target skill. Should at least be AoE.

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Originally Posted by RascalCase

I'm guessing it's limited by their animation budget. Updating single target skills requires them to create new animations for them, and it's relatively low priority since AOEs are pretty much only used in casual content nowadays.

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While I wouldn't say this can't be true, some of the animations look like AoEs anyway, so the adjustment should be easy. One would think. Goring Blade in particular, at least I think so. Plus I don't think Pitch Perfect's animation changed all that much, if at all.

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Originally Posted by Mr_Gyactus

Atonement.sequence is NOT aoe, holy spirit is not aoe, intervene is not aoe.
When I need to deal group damage I don't use these abilities (except intervene), even if these are ready to use.

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None of the skills you mentioned would be a part of an AoE rotation. Even the movement skill, as we have learned, wouldn't need damage. So what are you trying to say? The point of the discussion is should some skills be made AoE, since they would be used in both kinds of rotations anyway. Like how they finally made Pitch Perfect AoE, and VerHoly and VerFlare.