Classes and Rotations to be "Easier" in 4.0. Predictions, Concerns, and Discussion.

As per the title, what all do you think these changes are going to apply to, and in your opinion what all or to what point should they be applied to?

I can only predict that even though they stated this, there will be ways to optimize your output. Otherwise the game would break in two.

iirc, in that interview Yoshi mentioned that he did not want to add so many "breaks" in combat which staggered the flow of the fight.

With that statement I can already assume the MNK move Tornado Kick will be revised or removed.

I can also assume potential skill consolidation.

All speculation but that's what I think is going to happen.

probably tiny fixes to things like drg 4th hit always being random, skill consolidation like you said. maybe enochian refreshing differently, extending timers on certain debuffs/buffs like heavy thrust, etc.

I expect that they'll make the timers for, say, enochian and BotD more lenient - maybe buff certain skills so that dropping enochian/BotD doesn't completely ruin you. Other than that, I hope for a bit of skill trimming to reduce the amount of buttons needed. For example, Stone III could have been a trait applied to Stone II at level 54, rather than a completely new skill. This way, I wouldn't have to keep a useless skill on my bar (or else constantly switch it out) in case I'm running content where I'm synced down.

I'd also like to see skills that, when activated, immediately switch into another skill. You can do this with macros and hotbar switching, but it's much clunkier than it could be. An example for this is the SMN's dreadwrym trance. Instead of having two separate hotkeys for dreadwyrm trance and deathflare, I'd like to see the skill toggle automatically into deathflare when DT is activated, since deathflare cannot be used outside of DT and ends it upon use. Something similar could be done with tank stances.

At first glance I'm somewhat concerned about the whole thing. It might only improve gameplay, but it might also trash gameplay I currently enjoy.

I play monk a lot. I love monk. The only thing I might change is to add one or two more things to do with meditation, and/or buff purification (since it restores less TP than cross-classed invigorate and is on the same cooldown). But neither of those really seem to qualify as changing the rotation, and certainly wouldn't be making it simpler. They could do things like make Twin Snakes simply a trait that adds the buff to True Strike, and, while I wouldn't be heartbroken over such a change, I like the number of skills monks have now. Same could be said for dragon kick. In more serious methods of making the job "Easier," they could reduce monks to two forms, get rid of our DoTs, reduce the number of oGCD abilities we have, or just roll back to the lv50 set of skills. Any of those, especially in combination, would probably send me to another job (or another game).

In contrast, I've leveled Black Mage to 60, but basically never play it. I basically never play it because the lv60 rotation feels clunky to me. First off, with how casters are structured in this game, anytime a caster wants to activate an oGCD ability, it is paired with downtime. Downtime on a DPS means lower DPS (there are some instants BLM has, but scathe would still be a decrease to DPS and Firestarter is a proc). At lv50, BLM had one damage buffing CD, raging strikes, and it was a cross-class ability. Between 50 and 60, they added Sharpcast, Enochian, and Ley Lines. The additional oGCDs annoy me, but I'm sure many people are not annoyed. The other issue I have with BLM is a vague timing complaint about enochian and Fire IV. Without ley lines up, a UI3-cast Fire III will only allow me 2 Fire IVs before I have to refresh AF, but a normally cast Fire III will allow me 3. In either case, it's a very small number of skills before I have to refresh AF. That by itself wouldn't be too bad. Even managing Enochian, Astral Fire, and MP wouldn't be too bad. It's when you have to manage Enochian, Astral Fire, MP, movement, thunderclouds, and the couple of oGCDs that I get sick of it. The windows are small and the interruptions and managed numbers many. There are a number of things they could do to make it more straightforward, and I would welcome just about anything.

I assume they plan to back away from the 'buff maintenance' they added to several jobs.

Some people find it fun, but not enough people to justify so many jobs having a variant of it.

I don't think we'll see some heavy changes, but I can see them being less strict on certain jobs to help bring numbers up across the board, much like they are with the change to auto-attacks coming soon.

Personally, I'd like them to look at maintence buffs ( BoTD, GL, Enochain), and scrap Cleric stance in favor of buffing all potencys of healing dps spells (Stone, Malefic, Dots, ect.). A change to Wanderer's Minuet and guassbarrel, away from having to plant myself like a tree .

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Originally Posted by Jandor

I assume they plan to back away from the 'buff maintenance' they added to several jobs.

Some people find it fun, but not enough people to justify so many jobs having a variant of it.

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That's the thing, though. Not every job should be about stacks or buffs or <insert other overused mechanic>. You can have jobs with varying levels of difficulty or focused on certain mechanics while excluding others. When ROG/NIN was implemented, some people expectedly switched mains because ROG/NIN was not chained to positional attacks the way MNK and DRG were. This is also why people lost their shit when the devs talked about wanting to add positionals to NIN; the very thing they were trying to get away from was being forced on them through lack of alternatives.

Yes! TY, SE! I'm so tired of spending more time on the rotations above anything else! TY!

I literally spend most of the time in battles staring at the crossbar.

Reduce all classes to 2 buttons.

Heavy Attack
Light Attack

By pressing these buttons either rapidly or in alternating orders it will always perform all optimal skills.

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Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

Reduce all classes to 2 buttons.

Heavy Attack
Light Attack

By pressing these buttons either rapidly or in alternating orders it will always perform all optimal skills.

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Oh god, I'm having flash backs to the early days of 1.0. I say NO NO NO to this.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

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Originally Posted by Jandor

I assume they plan to back away from the 'buff maintenance' they added to several jobs.

Some people find it fun, but not enough people to justify so many jobs having a variant of it.

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That's the thing, though. Not every job should be about stacks or buffs or <insert other overused mechanic>. You can have jobs with varying levels of difficulty or focused on certain mechanics while excluding others. When ROG/NIN was implemented, some people expectedly switched mains because ROG/NIN was not chained to positional attacks the way MNK and DRG were. This is also why people lost their shit when the devs talked about wanting to add positionals to NIN; the very thing they were trying to get away from was being forced on them through lack of alternatives.

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What was mentioned was an exclusion—not a broadened inclusion—though, and already certain buff maintenance mechanics work almost identically to each other (BotD and Enochian) while also feeling more like mere CDs than any augmented gameplay or rotations when used in typical open-world combat. If anything, going by your quote I figured you'd think they should be more varied (in some cases by not being a matter of buff "maintenance")?

I think the easiest way to make things easier is to make the DPS difference between keeping something up or not would be smaller, or shortening the time you would be without said buff. Some changes can think of here is:
Eno/BotD cooldown from 60s to 40s.
Aethertrail Attunement staying around for a minute instead of 30s.
AF/UI/Eno checks only occurring the start of the cast, and no longer interrupting the cast when the buff expires (although the damage would still be lower when a F4 lands without F3/eno, you're not losing an entire cast).
Greased Lightning no longer providing the damage buff (damage increase built in the skills), and only the attack speed buff.

All these changes won't change the optimal rotation much, but will make the DPS loss for not performing that perfect rotation much lower, meaning it's easier to just focus on a mechanic and pick up the rotation afterwards.

My -hope- is that they're going to combine abilities or even make some into traits, and streamline the duration/cooldown timers on many abilities for simpler management.

For instance, DRG weaponskill "Heavy Thrust" could be nixed in favor of a trait that adds the effect of heavy thrust to "True Thrust" while increasing the duration. DRG weaponskill "Phlebotomize" could be taken out and have it's DoT added to "Chaos Thrust".

"Power Surge" could be made into a trait that increases "Jump" damage such that it amounts to the same thing in the long term.

BRD's "Bloodletter" ability could be made into a perpetual ability (like MNK "Fist of" abilities, ends on reuse) that adds an additional 150 potency auto-attack every 15 seconds, as well as whenever "River of Blood" procs. Timer displayed on hotbar and status icon.

Stuff like that would improve rotations and make it easier to maintain a proper DPS.

That's the type of change I would like to see, but across all classes.

My main problem with rotations is that they're way to scripted. Especially for DPS. I can't even play dps end game with all the skills and rules they have. One mess up and the dps is shit. Which is why I commend those who beat a3 a4s when it was relevant.

They would be smart to start replacing old skills or seriously consider trimming it down.
Eventually after x amount of expansions we'll reach level 100, and that means 20 more skills will be added on top of what we have. That's something I don't want to stick around for.

I expect them to remove useless spells and skill by either totally removing them from the game or doing a bit like in GW2 where the spell change everytime you press it as your progress into your combo so instead of having 3 spells for your basic rotation you'd have 1 that just change to the next one as you smash it.
I don't agree with people saying "this" would make the game too easy in the sens that smashing 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 doesn't much more skill than spamming 1 1 1 1 1 1
It would just free spell slot on your keyboard / controller.
Some spell could also see a great rewhole, things like Apocatastasis while good in raid are very dull. There are currently too many CD in the game with enormeous duration imo.
Also, a hard rotation isn't necearly an interesting rotation. They could make a 6 dots 8 active skill 5 out of cooldown skill rotation which could be extremly hard to master and yet dull as fuck and inninteresting.

i find it really hard to imagine how certain jobs could become easier. sure i guess you could take out comboless DoTs like mutilate, touch of death or phlebotomize. they could reduce the number of available combos per job. mnk e.g. could be more stream lined by actually giving it set combos, same for mch. give an enmity multiplier to the other tank combos and get rid of the enmity combo.
but in the end some of the jobs won't feel like they did so far or even worse, they will all play more or less the same.
though i think certain mechanics could be made a bit easier (enochian, blood of the dragon, shadow fang applying the slashing debuff and getting rid of dancing edge this way, Hotshot, etc.]

I can't possibly imagine this game being easier than it already is without being brain dead to boot.

It's already possible to hit 80% of the-best-possible-performance while being extremely sub-optimal.

hmmm, i really hope they prune abilities. there are so many buttons it's hard to use them all, esp with short fingers imo. i'm sure some people manage perfectly fine but it's a pain in the butt for me lol
i don't think a bloat of abilities makes it more interesting, actually, i think more variety in how to string skills together would be more fun. instead of one main/basic combo there could be more.. idk. that's probably not something they can do easily though. someone mentioned gw2, i liked that. a little different though. elementalist in gw2 was fun but other classes i tried as a bit boring at first. but something like that, yeah.
esp if every time theres new lvls you get new buttons and then theres the cross class skills like blood for blood and swiftcast
bleh

So if we want to go with predictions, here's mine for BLM in 4.0:

Enochian - Increases magic damage by 5% and reduces the mana cost of Fire IV / Blizzard IV.

So Enochian is still a buff you manage for optimal effect (read: more Fire IV casts) but it's not necessarily required for optimal dps output on a per cast basis (Fire IV and Blizzard IV retain their current damage).

Personally, and this is just me speaking, I'd rather they just make Thunder a 'third' element to use in 4.0, but more on that some other day. >.>


As for White Mage, here's my probably unpopular opinion:
- Cure 3 needs removed or outright changed from an overpowered AE heal. (I'd personally change it to a single target heal + regen component)

I'm not going to go into the reasons why it's an overpowered AE heal; I think we all know why, which is precisely the problem.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

That's the thing, though. Not every job should be about stacks or buffs or <insert other overused mechanic>. You can have jobs with varying levels of difficulty or focused on certain mechanics while excluding others. When ROG/NIN was implemented, some people expectedly switched mains because ROG/NIN was not chained to positional attacks the way MNK and DRG were. This is also why people lost their shit when the devs talked about wanting to add positionals to NIN; the very thing they were trying to get away from was being forced on them through lack of alternatives.

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I was thinking about these very same things myself today while mulling over the xpac we're getting and fanfest and I have to say I agree. Why can't we have a melee with no positionals? Why can't we have a dps class that doesn't have to manage stacks/buffs/debuffs? Why does every ranged class have to have cast times to their abilities?

Hypothetically, assuming nin had no positionals, I highly doubt it would suddenly cause everyone to start playing nin because maybe that person really does prefer mnk or drg. However if they got rid of positional attacks on one class and every person suddenly switched to it? I'd hope SE would take the hint. I personally hate the entire positional concept, I personally have always preferred the tried and true method of melee dps just hitting the boss from the back. I don't think the extra layer is needed by throwing on positionals.

They could start experimenting with positionals giving bonuses that are not just potency increases. Perhaps replacing potency bonuses for other bonuses could be better. For example on drg using wheeling thrust from the back could increase blood of the Dragon by 20sec instead of 15. Other modifiers they could try over potency, tp reduction, increase debuff duration or reduce cool down timers are certain abilities.

I'd like to see melee DPS classes (new or retooled old ones, I'm looking at you, Ninja) that rely on some gimmick other than positionals. There have got to be other ways to make DPS interesting without attaching it to the shimmy.

-Paladin: Cleave, ultra flash, or faster attack speed.
-Warrior: Remove parry or make parry better to justify having defiance buff it. Other than that, make wrath easier to rack up. Also make Fracture OBVIOUSLY useful.
-Dark Knight: If you're going to make everything spam AoEs and disappear every 3 seconds then please remove DRK's over-reliance on getting hit to restore MP (Blood Price). And also please remove Grit penalty on Blood Weapon.
-Black Mage: Enochian is the worst thing to happen to this job even with the increasing number of enemies who excessively forces you to move and/or wait. Remove it please and make thunder great again.
-Summoner: Please don't do bahamut powers again, unless its an egi more focused on exploding everything. Summoners should rely on their summoned minions to do the work, not the other way around.
-Machinist: It's a gun. Please remove cast times.
-Bard: Make buffs and Dots longer, or add more helpful songs. It's fun being immune to certain attacks.
-Ninja: Make hiding work. Cut back on the excessive timers and combos, cause this amount of work is absurd for the weakest melee DPS.
-Monk: Add ki blast.
-Dragoon: Change Fang&Claw and Wheeling Thrust so they are NOT identical attacks with the exception of positionals.
-AST: Make AST a NOT Discount WHM/SCH
-SCH: Make carry fairy better. Make Barriers stack.
-WHM: Keep accuracy off gear.

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Originally Posted by RiisWolf

-SCH: Make carry fairy better.

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Eos is actually pretty powerful already but to really bring out sch's full potential you need to make macros. With Eos on obey and the right macros commanding her to heal every single time you cast a spell? She really shines. The fact that sch is really the only class that "needs" macros for max efficiency is a separate discussion though.

I mean... easier?? I've seen lvl 60 dragoons that don't even use heavy thrust. It's a fukking lvl 12 move and they can't figure out it's actually useful. And we want to cater to these people? God help us all

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

Eos is actually pretty powerful already but to really bring out sch's full potential you need to make macros. With Eos on obey and the right macros commanding her to heal every single time you cast a spell? She really shines. The fact that sch is really the only class that "needs" macros for max efficiency is a separate discussion though.

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This topic is a question/wishlist about making classes easier, NOT if someones doing anything right and/or efficiently. So that is best left for another topic. ;)

I am actually extremely worried that they'll change my favourite job(s) in ways that makes it less enjoyable to me. I try not to dwell on it, but it's hard... I've always been equally worried when new mechanics are added to YuGiOh for example, but at least then I would always be able to keep my old decks. Come 4.0, SMN as I know it might be gone.

That said, I try to stay positive. There are SMN skills I never even touch. Virus is great but I don't want to lock it from the healers, so I never use it. Tri-Bind doesn't even exist to me. So if they got rid of such spells and/or replaced them with something worth using for the job I wouldn't mind.

I just wanna keep having fun :(

I really really hope this just means condensing skills and Quality of Life stuff. I'm a Bard main and it has enough problems without the already very simplistic dps rotation being made even easier. And considering how easy healing is as a mechanic, the idea of it becoming even easier is terrifying.
That said, for Bard I can see them removing Bloodletter procs, removing Venomous / Windbite, having Irons Jaws apply the DoT itself, all songs become instant cast (because wtf Bards aren't meant to spend time singing!), maybe Raging Strikes / Hawk's Eye consolidated into a single dps buff. Which would completely kill the job in terms of being fun to play, but it's honestly the only way they can make the job easier.

The only reason "simplifying" jobs would be valuable is if they plan on adding a bunch of new moves later on. Which is going to happen at some point. So i get it... new moves get added and old moves either become irrelevant or the rotations become even longer. I don't like smn/sch because you can't really play those classes well only using two hotbars. Every other class i play i worked into two. Maybe it'll just be 1 or 2 new moves between 60 - 70.

They need to reduce skill bloat.

Just looking at DRG and Monk, BotD and Power Surge are the same thing, merge them. The two random positionals are redundant, make it one skill with one positional.

Monk, please remove all the fists and merge them either into one or make all of these abilities static traits on them.
Ninja has static movement speed and jump damage padding not sure why Monk can't.
Also please just make purification free. Charging up chakra for that is just silly. Equilibrium is free, there is no reason Purification shouldn't be.

psurge and botd would be really dope actually, jumps felt less awesome in 2.0
if anything the identity thing would be great

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

They need to reduce skill bloat.

Just looking at DRG and Monk, BotD and Power Surge are the same thing, merge them. The two random positionals are redundant, make it one skill with one positional.

Monk, please remove all the fists and merge them either into one or make all of these abilities static traits on them.
Ninja has static movement speed and jump damage padding not sure why Monk can't.
Also please just make purification free. Charging up chakra for that is just silly. Equilibrium is free, there is no reason Purification shouldn't be.

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I get the desire to trim down on the total skill count, but if you're ever looking for a proportion or sense of button-efficiency (how much fun or control can be packed into how few keys) I suggest you consider also how many buttons' worth of functionality can be gained from a couple extra buttons. This is especially the case in things that could be revamped like the Monk Elemental Fists, or uses of their Chakra system, if they were just improved upon rather than outright removed.

Consider also what making Purification free would mean for Monk dps. That'd be an extra 75% TP restoration -- for free. There are plenty of reasons not to do that. At present Monks at least have to choose between extra uptime or AoE damage in the form of more Rockbreakers or overall TP longevity via Purification vs. the extra potency of The Forbidden Chakra. Should in-combat Meditation ever become viable (e.g. scaling with attack speed) that decision will only become more prevolent. Should Skill Speed ever become viable as a high-DPS, albeit massively TP-expensive, option, then its bonus dps vs. the uptime lost in having to use Purification will become yet another decision available to Monks. But if you instead chop off that functionality, making it basically a Invigorate trait with more output and control than Dragoon's, those decisions can never form, and Monks' dps will likely suffer somewhat to balance out their massively increased TP longevity. (At low skill speed, Monk TP would be infinite; Warrior OT TP longevity would be a joke by comparison.)

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Originally Posted by bardaboo

I mean... easier?? I've seen lvl 60 dragoons that don't even use heavy thrust. It's a fukking lvl 12 move and they can't figure out it's actually useful. And we want to cater to these people? God help us all

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Now welcome to the wonderful world of "reassesment of skills/actions/whatever".

Heavy Thrurst is a spell, that in the grand scheme of things, adds to depth to gameplay, but a certain subset of players fail to use it for the most likely the simple reason possible: It doesn't combo, i shouldn't use it.
Even worse: It's a single-target action, that enables an AoE Combo actions.

This trait can be easily applied to the worst abilities in game: 30 seconds no-other-effect- DoTs - Fracture, Phleb, Scourge, Touch of Death, Mutilate.
That's the epitome of redundant spells that add absolutely zero depth to gameplay, and seemingly only exist for the sake of having an additional spell to learn.
Additionaly, given that all of the classes with this DoT, are melees and their combo actions, having these DoTs is kind of like "hey, delay don't use your combo".
They are an absolutely unnecessary existance, they're confusing for newbies because of the combo actions, they add zero depth to gameplay, they exist for the sole sake of having an additional action to learn on all classes.
You could just as well replace all these DoTs with a passive trait, that adds a DoT component to one of the combo-actions. Saves an button, and likely better gameplay.

You can expand that for virtually every weaponskill that is not a combo-action out there. So putting it bluntly:

EVERY Weaponskill that is not a combo-action should flat out be removed (with a certain few exclusion, generally the ranged ability on melees to pull stuff).

Given that - here is a full overview on how i'd change/remove stuff for all weapon-skill related classes

Lancer: Heavy Thrust, Phlebotomize are removed - Doomspike is now learned signficantly earlier, and Ring of Thorns combo is of Doomspike
Pugilist: Touch of Death, Haymaker removed.
Rogue: Mutilate removed
Marauder: Fracture removed
DRK: Scourge removed.

Let's take a look at another spell - that in my opinion saves hardly any purpose - aside of costing an additional button: Ruin 3.
It is your filler spell during Dreadwyrm trance, and you can use if outside of DWT to gain additional damage - BUT WAIT, there was a spell that already did similar stuff, it was called Ruin 2.

Whatever Ruin 3 does could easily be split between Ruin I and Ruin 2. DWT now increased damage of Ruin 1 - while Ruin 2 gets a slightly increased mana cost/damage ratio. (But but senpai, i use Ruin 2 to deal damage while moving - great, now you use your overflow mana to deal additional damage while movement OR standing still, instead of using additional mana to deal additional damage while standing still).

And you can expand this to several (a lot) of other actions. They don't serve any purpose aside of looking prettier. (A SCH hardly need Ruin 1/2 once he has Broil)

Just turn all these redundant actions into passive traits, and give us a glamour system for abilities to keep the effects around. (hello Egi-Glamour, your system could be expanded to practically all spells).

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Originally Posted by Hustensaft

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I love your ideas and can certainly get behind all of them. The thing with the DoT spells is though is that they're a good way of adding dps to a class without overly it's frontloaded burst and allows them to keep up a bit of damage when they break off a target. As much as I love the idea of getting rid of all those abilities, there would have to be a lot of potency adjustments to compensate.

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Originally Posted by Hustensaft

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Just playing devil's advocate here, but, DoTs do add at least as much depth as any other core attack, whatever their duration.

• They fill rotational space, and therefore are limited in where they can be placed within certain windows, and can often be pushed at cost of buff reapplication timings -- creating a point of decision, or compromise.
• They provide per-execute potency dynamics that depend on expected remaining seconds' of life on the target -- creating a point of foresight.
• None of them have natively enhanced enmity, and are all below the direct potency of non-DoTs -- creating a compromise between setup for enmity or immediacy of damage and enhanced dps.
• They allow for a second, more TP-efficient means of "AoE", DoT spreading -- this requires the player to consider his overall TP needs and resource, the total (per-execute) potency that can be inflicted by his AoEs, and the total (per-execute, including combo setup) potency that can be inflicted by each of his DoTs.

The only complexity any combo carries is due entirely to the windows caused by the player's DoTs and buffs.

Now let's take those last bits, e.g. Ruin III. Ruin II does not deal any more damage than Ruin I. It costs additional mana in order to free oGCD space and be used on the move; that is all. While the comparison between Ruin I and Boil is apt, the efficiency ratio is drastically different moving from Ruin I to Ruin III. Ruin III has far higher opportunity cost. Now, you could easily add mechanics to Ruin and Ruin II to allow for increased control of mana consumption for damage (altogether, output vs. efficiency) and perhaps even again give their maximum or near-maximum benefit for free while under DWT, but until that time, you are reducing complexity. You can mimic conventional use of Ruin III by, say, having Ruin I cost a % of current mana, and deal higher damage accordingly, but that still won't allow for maxing output before a combat-break, unloading on an enemy at all costs, or saving mana for a potential Swift-Ress.

The very idea of any buff or debuff is "do I have the time to make use of it" and "will it do what I need in time". Turn all that instead into passives, and the player makes no decisions. Hardware macro your way to victory.

That's not redacting until you find new ways to create points of decision. That's gutting.

Potency adjustments are easy. Retaining a playerbase who might enjoy challenge after trimming a huge portion of it from their personal rotations? Not so much.

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Originally Posted by Hustensaft

EVERY Weaponskill that is not a combo-action should flat out be removed.

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Or to put this quote another way: 'all weaponskills or buttons for them (with few exceptions) should be our combos.'

But do we really need so many buttons for our combos anyways?

Let's keep in mind how many actual actions we have. If you never choose not to complete a combo, then the only actual action you have is the finisher for that combo. That "combo" is no different from Fracture, Heavy Thrust, or Phlebotomize, except that it takes an additional 2 to 3 GCDs to go off.

On a level 50 Dragoon for instance that would give you four weaponskills — Chaos Thrust, Full Thrust, Heavy Thrust, and Phlebotomize; 6 core abilities — Leg Sweep, Power Surge, Jump, Spineshatter Dive, Dragonfire Dive, and Blood for Blood; and 3 auxiliary abilities — Invigorate, Keen Flurry, and Elusive Jump; and your 5 cross-class skills.
:: Heavy Thrust and Phlebotomize make up half your separate weaponskills, but only 9% of your total bindings at level 50 and 7.4% at level 60, or 25% of your weaponskill bindings at level 50, and 20% at level 60. 20% to 25% of the weaponskill button space makes up half your choices, while 8 slots at level 60 carry only one choice (do I start with Full Thrust or Chaos Thrust, and unless that mob is going to live for fewer than 5 GCDs, the answer will always be Chaos Thrust). Which set is the more efficient?

But, for now, let's go ahead and trim all non-combo weaponskills. That leaves your weaponskill total at 2 buttons on Dragoon, 3 on Monk, Paladin, and Dark Knight, 4 on Ninja (can be reduced to 3), and 5 on Warrior (can be reduced to 4).
At that point you wouldn't have to worry about button-bloat. Though you have specs that are simpler than the most pruned on WoW, and each combo use would make you feel like you have a GCD of 5 to 10 seconds.

Alternatively, you can keep the non-combo abilities AND reduce the buttons necessary to perform your combos, at which point you retain the same level of control, but need 3 to 7 fewer keys per job.

Some examples of reducing button bloat, including two perfect cases, and then the one I find messiest, reducing all to 3 buttons from an original 5 to 9 buttons.

Perfect Cases:
Dragoon - Two buttons, one per combo. F&C and WT combined and become same-slot positionally-defined skills.
Monk - Three buttons, rotating through stance. (1) Bootshine, (2) Dragon Kick, (3) AotD > (1) True Strike, (2) Twin Snakes, (3) 1IP > (1) Snap Punch, (2) Demolish, (3) Rockbreaker, player-rearrangeable.

Messy:
Ninja - 3 buttons. Starts as (1) Spinning Edge, (2) Mutilate, (3) Throwing Daggers.
On Spinning Edge: (1) Gust Slash, (2) Shadow Fang, (3) Throwing Daggers.
On Gust Slash: (1) Aeolian Edge, (2) Dancing Fang, (3) Armor Crush.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Or to put it another way: all weaponskills or buttons for them (with few exceptions) should be combos

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That's actually a fantastic idea and something I could definitely get behind instead of scrapping dots entirely. I play Drk and Pld as my mains, I will say that Goring Blade "flows" a lot better than Scourge in my opinion. Random thought, change Scourge to combo off Spinning Slash, it would give me a reason to use something besides Delirium/Souleater when I'm OT or have my threat fully established.

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Originally Posted by Hustensaft

DRK: Scourge removed.

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and its AWESOME animation is given to Hard Slash.

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

That's actually a fantastic idea and something I could definitely get behind instead of scrapping dots entirely. I play Drk and Pld as my mains, I will say that Goring Blade "flows" a lot better than Scourge in my opinion. Random thought, change Scourge to combo off Spinning Slash, it would give me a reason to use something besides Delirium/Souleater when I'm OT or have my threat fully established.

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I'll edit for clarification.

The rest of my post detailed how the removal of DoTs (and buffs) leaves players with nearly a one-button rotation, how that'd be a bad thing, and why it is unnecessary to remove non-combo abilities to combat button bloat given that combos themselves are the prime example of button bloat. They are a single ability, in multiple steps, yet despite being locked in manage to take up a separate bind per step. Starting instead with pruning the non-combo abilities, the ones that are not inherently bloated, makes about as much sense entering a crime scene with the murder still hacking away at the corpse and a scared child huddling in the corner and saying "that child looks suspicious; bring her in for questioning." It also begs the question: what the hell do I do with the non-melee?

Aside:
You'd have to be at an awkward skill speed plateau to smoothly fit that extra Spinning Slash into your rotation just to use your strongest attack (Scourge) on debuff, and combining the two would cut your cleave efficiency by 35%, one of DRK's prime strengths in 3-target rotations. Goring Blade's being tied to a combo makes it far more difficult to initiate and greatly reduces the chance of it being maximized; if the target was to die in ~24 seconds time, perfect for Goring Blade, you've used up 7.5 seconds just putting the DoT up, so that only 16.5 seconds (~70%) of the DoT can actually be used. Numbers can be adjusted to compensate for external balance, such as between classes, but design itself is the main determiner of internal balance (whether an ability is worth using in x situation). Pruning abilities and redistributing their effects into passives will necessarily change the internal balance of the remaining skills, and unless aimed purposely otherwise, that rebalance tends to leave fewer viable options per scenario among the remaining abilities as well.

BLM: Take some or all of this.


1) Fire IV potency reduced from 280 to 260. Fire IV now grants Astral Fire or removes Umbral Ice. Enochian no longer required to cast.
Blizzard IV potency reduced to 260. Enochian no longer required to cast. Grants Umbral Ice or Removes Astral Fire.

2) Freeze grants Umbral Ice III and removes Astral Fire.

3) Enochian renewal no longer reduced by 5s each time.

4) Surecast allows for casting while moving.


Thereby Enochian is simply a 5% damage buff that BLM's renew once per minute with B4. F4 x5 is the new rotation- total potency remains unchanged compared to the F4x2 F1x1 F4x2 we do now. Fire I's are only used with sharpcast when a proc is wanted. Freeze can be used in AoE rotation. Surecast becomes useful.