Cutting number of abilities in 4.0

I wonder how they gonna cut the number of abilities for the tanks. According to Yoshi the number of actions at 70 is supposed to be like 60 is atm.
Though which would you take away (Yoshi said something about the least used skills)? I guess they can't really take away the 3 combos (hate, damage, utility).
on PLD I would think of tempered will first and then maybe circle of scorn (but I'd rather see an adjustment here) and maybe clemency (but this one is rather unique).
for war maybe fracture (especially with how useless it is as cross class and the gonna change cross skills anyway), same with mercy stroke. and then? steel cyclone or decimate?
and drk? ya... dark dance maybe or sole survivor, but again adjustments would be enough for those. otherweise they would need to take away damage skills.

so what do you think?

Inner Beast/Fell Cleave and Steel Cyclone/Decimate will be one button respectively. It will act like Equilibrium where the stance determines what effect the button will do. I imagine Bloodbath and Berserk will be combined seeing as how most tanks use it with Berserk to max out the healing output during their burst, though I would hate to lose 10 seconds of bloodbath. Maybe the tank stances will be combined as well? Hard to say as alot of the war's utility is really good with exception of Fortify which is mediocre at best and niche at worst.

They might cut down on our defensive cooldowns and reduce the cooldown on the ones we have left. Because most of what you mention aren't abilities, they're weaponskills.

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Originally Posted by Marxam

Inner Beast/Fell Cleave and Steel Cyclone/Decimate will be one button respectively. It will act like Equilibrium where the stance determines what effect the button will do. I imagine Bloodbath and Berserk will be combined seeing as how most tanks use it with Berserk to max out the healing output during their burst, though I would hate to lose 10 seconds of bloodbath. Maybe the tank stances will be combined as well? Hard to say as alot of the war's utility is really good with exception of Fortify which is mediocre at best and niche at worst.

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Pretty much this - it was already weird that they did this with Equilibrium but not the other actions. Getting rid of the finicky macros to manage this would be most welcome.

I think they'll shuffle the defensive CDs around a little so that all three tanks have something for any situation, while hopefully still retaining their areas of expertise. Each will probably get their own Provoke, as well. I'd like to see Foresight removed and replaced with another flat percentage-based cooldown, weaker than Vengeance but with a shorter cooldown.

I dont know skill names off the top of my head but they could cut down a skill in pld and drk combos

ex now you do 1,2,3 for enmity and 1,4,5, for mp/hp on drk
why not instead 1,2,3 or 1,4,3 where the second skill in the combo determines what 3 will do, implement the alternate finisher as a trait that upgrades the skill

this with the previously mention war stance effects would be a small way to clear a little room

It's possible that they may not cut and/or combine that many things. 61-70 could also primarily grant new traits. So something like the Inner Beast/Fell Cleave and Steel Cyclone idea means 61-70 Warriors get three traits and two actions, for example.

Please remove dps dots on tanks that's my wish for the changes in the new combat review.

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Originally Posted by Inosaska

Please remove dps dots on tanks that's my wish for the changes in the new combat review.

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Out of everything that could be removed, why would you want to get rid of those?

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Originally Posted by EusisLandale

Out of everything that could be removed, why would you want to get rid of those?

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DoT effects are an easy way to increase someone's dps without having to actually buff how hard their other abilities hit. However, they aren't really very exciting and (in my opinion) are no different than the "maintenance" buffs like straight shot, heavy thrust, maim, etc. I wouldn't mind not having to hit Scourge every 24~ seconds on my drk, Goring Blade isn't so bad, it gives Paladin a nice steady rotation to work with (Goring, RAx2, Goring, RAx2, repeat), most Warriors don't even use Fracture nowadays, iirc Fracture is actually a dps loss unless they have Berserk up.

As for what I want cut for the tanks? I would say any highly situational ability can be cut and it wouldn't be a big loss.

Now for the breakdown for the specific things I want removed:

Paladin
1. Tempered Will- Removed
2. Convalescence- Becomes a passive for all tanks.
3. Awareness- Becomes a passive for all tanks.
4. Bulwark- Becomes a passive for Pld.

Dark Knight
1. Scourge- Removed, DoT effect worked in to it's combos somewhere, maybe Power Slash?
2. Dark Dance- Parry effect becomes a passive for Drk.
3. Blood Price- Becomes a passive for Drk.
4. Blood Weapon- Effect folded in to Darkside.

Warrior
1. Maim- Becomes a passive, combo is reworked in to Heavy Swing -> Storm's Path -> Storm's Eye
2. Foresight- Becomes a passive.
3. Inner Beast/Fell Cleave- Becomes a single button that changes depending on your stance.
4. Steel Cyclone/Decimate- Becomes a single button that changes depending on your stance.
5. Unchained- I kind of like the idea of folding the effect in to Berserk.
6. Fracture- Removed.
7. Defiance- Additional healing effect removed since Conv. is a passive.

Edit: One thing I want to add about Awareness, in WoW and a few other MMO's, all tanks get a passive ability that makes them immune to critical hits from enemies excepting in the case of an enemy using an ability that guarantees a critical hit. I don't see why it should be different for the sake of being different in FFXIV.

According to "sources" (ie datamining, believe what you will) we are only looking at 2 job quests for established jobs between 60-70. So if true that is only 2 new skills.

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Originally Posted by ErikMynhier

According to "sources" (ie datamining, believe what you will) we are only looking at 2 job quests for established jobs between 60-70. So if true that is only 2 new skills.

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I've heard as much also but one of the things they mentioned during the interviews leading up to stormblood was that they didn't want to link the new abilities to the new job quests because they had to tie the abilities to the Job quests themselves. So I'm pretty sure that the number of job quests isn't related to that much to all the new abilities we get. That is of course subject to change though,

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

Changes

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20% more healing all the time, never get crit, +60% Block/30% Parry/20% Defense tank dependant all the time, enmity combo rendered necessary even as OT for DRK with Power Slash being buffed to an effective 700 potency, 1070 full combo, DRK constantly getting 5% MP back when hit, DRK with a constant +15% damage, +10% haste, -20% TP cost, +3.4% MP on hit buff, WAR getting a permanent 20% damage boost that can never be lost with a 670 direct potency combo carrying two vital debuffs, WARs being able to shut off Defiance's drawback more often without even burning their stacks or perhaps worse being able to Berserk less often at the cost of their stacks to no benefit in Deliverance.

So, what I'm seeing here is you want PLDs to become completely and utterly useless while rendering DRKs and WARs completely overpowered death machines and just generally removing a ton of resource and cooldown management that tanks handle?

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Originally Posted by EusisLandale

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Pld become useless? Definitely not. I never stated what I would want to see added to them to make their DPS just as good as the two other tanks because I honestly have no idea what to give Pld to make it's dps better at this point outside of raw potency boosts. Also your post is a bit misleading with the ideas I posted.

War and Drk damage is tuned assuming you have Darkside and Maim up at all times, turning Maim in to a passive leaves Warrior's dps basically the same, it's just a small quality of life change. Putting Stormx2 and adjusting the potencies (you're right, the potency would be too high but that can always be changed) accordingly would let them apply their debuffs in a row while keeping their damage the same, it's once again a QoL change. As far as tying unchained in to Berserk, like I said, I kind of like the idea, but I'm not sold on it.

As far as Drk goes, putting scourge on Power Slash was just the first idea that came to mind and once again, it wouldn't be a buff. It would still be the same dps since you would only use the combo every 24~ seconds to maintain the DoT effect. Saying the permanent +15% damage is a buff is also misleading, you should be keeping Darkside up 100% of the time you're in combat, Drk should ALWAYS have the +15% damage. That being said, Darkside needed something to make it more interesting, folding Blood Weapon in to it is the best bet in my opinion.

I've also been an advocate for ditching the tank stances entirely for Drk/Pld and making stances more meaningful for warrior than they are now since I rarely ever see warriors using Defiance anyway and spending 99% of their time in Deliverance, but I digress. I definitely would want to see pld buffed up to have it's dps increased, but for the life of me I don't know what. Besides the question was what abilities we want to see removed, not what buffs or new abilities we want to see. For all we know if they did make those changes they could give Pld some crazy dps moves to bring it up to par, I have no idea.

As far resources go, good drk's manage their mp fine, I only ever see warrior's fell cleave all over the place with the occasional Decimate for AoE, and Pld has no resources to manage anyway. I don't really see what's lost in the process. As far as defensive cooldowns go, Drk still has to manage Dark Mind, Shadow Skin, Living Dead, and Shadow Wall, Warrior still has to know when to use Raw Intuition, Equilibrium, Thrill of Battle, Holmgang, and Vengeance, and Paladin still has to manage Rampart, Sentinel, and Hallowed Ground. I really don't think losing Awareness, Foresight, and Convalescence is that big a loss.

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

Saying the permanent +15% damage is a buff is also misleading, you should be keeping Darkside up 100% of the time you're in combat, Drk should ALWAYS have the +15% damage. That being said, Darkside needed something to make it more interesting, folding Blood Weapon in to it is the best bet in my opinion.

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I'm not saying that the 15% is a buff to Darkside, I'm saying that that, along with everything else on the Darkside buff, is rather excessive. Even if you made it a true stance and thus mutually exclusive with Grit that all combined is still far above anything Sword Oath or Deliverance provides.

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As far resources go, good drk's manage their mp fine,

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And the changes you suggest get rid of almost all of that management effort when every hit you make and take forever feed you MP.

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I really don't think losing Awareness, Foresight, and Convalescence is that big a loss.

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It would require considerable rebalancing of all existing content. Everything will have to hit harder baseline because there'd be no threat otherwise due to easier healing and no spikes beyond tank busters. Situations where crits are normally guaranteed are prevented by Awareness, so either the passive doesn't take priority and thus loses it's primary purpose or it utterly trivializes the only periods where crits are a threat.
The loss of these abilities also messes with enmity generation to an extent. As I recall every buff you use generates about 210 potency worth of enmity to everything in combat. 14/19.25 a second (those plus BP, BW, DD) lost to Dark Knight, 6.42 a second (those and Bulwark) for Paladin, 5.8 a second for Warrior. This is comparable to, or worse than, taking away Salted Earth (11.5 per second), Circle of Scorn's dot (6 per second), or requiring a stack of 10 Abandon (and permitting such a stack) to use Decimate (variable but roughly 1.3, 2.6 with the two Storms in a combo idea, per second on weaponskill combos alone). Unless I'm screwing my math up somewhere.

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Originally Posted by EusisLandale

It's possible that they may not cut and/or combine that many things. 61-70 could also primarily grant new traits. So something like the Inner Beast/Fell Cleave and Steel Cyclone idea means 61-70 Warriors get three traits and two actions, for example.

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They recently said (per Mr Happy's video) at the Euro fan fest that under used skills would be removed and their effects if any merged into other skills. They said their goal is for you to have the same number of skills at 70 as you have at 60 now.

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Originally Posted by Khel

They recently said (per Mr Happy's video) at the Euro fan fest that under used skills would be removed and their effects if any merged into other skills. They said their goal is for you to have the same number of skills at 70 as you have at 60 now.

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I wasn't really arguing against anything like that. Was just pointing out that, if there's not much to cut and combine, traits are another way to reach that "same number of skills at 70 as at 60" goal

topic is old but wont create new one.
i can talk from DK perspective, but i think there is few skills in DK rotation what overlap functionality.[i would not remove dot ability, its make difference between good and better player, which remembers to use it]
-[shadowskin + shadow wall] is obvious, they do same thing, make it one skill adjust cd
-[unleash + abyssal drain] just leave unleash with abyssal drain dark art buff
-[unmend + provoke] just leave provoke with shorter cd
-[dark dance + dark mind] people dont like dodge on dk because its collide with blood price, make it magic def with with parry plus more bonus magic def dark art buff or something like that, or just remove dark dance?.... not sure with this one

With those we have 4 less key binds but we still have as much to click.

I don't like idea of merging dots into rotation or making things passive, because its take away from class complexity
I'm sure there is as much to do in other classes

PS: i want red gloving eyes while dark arts on.

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Originally Posted by VaulRi

-[unmend + provoke] just leave provoke with shorter cd.

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provoke and unmend are not overlapping and should not be treated as such....

In a famitsu interview with Yoshi-P, he said that GCD combos would not be changed. So everyone will still have 1-2a-3a, 1-2b-3b, 1-2b-3c combos. It's the oGCDs and non-combo GCDs that will be pruned.

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Originally Posted by Okamimaru

provoke and unmend are not overlapping and should not be treated as such....

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well imo they are.
i use unmend only to pull trash, and provoke with shorter cd would serve same purpose.
obviously i would stick to unmand animation, and do same with all tank classes[shield lob etc.]
For what other purpose are You using unmend? Maybe i missing something

Unmend is for pulling, provoke is for tank swapping or grabbing aggro from someone who stole it and is pulling too hard to easily steal it back... you sound like you just want ez mode tanking

Ez mode tanking is paladin, and guess what...paladin have about same number of skills to use as dark Knight. Paladin is boring imo.

Not number of skills make challange but complexity of mechanic.
Mana management and dark arts is what makes DK challanging and interesting not number of buttons to press.

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

1. DoT effects are an easy way to increase someone's dps without having to actually buff how hard their other abilities hit. However, they aren't really very exciting and (in my opinion) are no different than the "maintenance" buffs like straight shot, heavy thrust, maim, etc. I wouldn't mind not having to hit Scourge every 24~ seconds on my drk, Goring Blade isn't so bad, it gives Paladin a nice steady rotation to work with (Goring, RAx2, Goring, RAx2, repeat), most Warriors don't even use Fracture nowadays, iirc Fracture is actually a dps loss unless they have Berserk up.

2. <snipped: ability trim suggestions>

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1. They are 100% maintenance buffs, but they also have a larger range of output. Moving dps output from ST filler to ST DoTs increases "cleave", for one thing, and whereas most buffs are either short enough or strong enough never to forgo them, even if the fight is nearly over, a DoT will often be forgone due to an enemy dying to quickly. It's not an especially interesting mechanic by any means, but it's, sadly, one of the more interesting practical gameplay concepts we have, be that as a tank or anyone else. The longish durations also highlight windows of stance dancing (Fracture less so than Scourge or Goring Blade, as it's oddly weak).

I'd say we're better off with than without, but that's not at all to say that just about anything in that mix could be improved.

2. I have to say I'd be far more annoyed by the removal of these CDs by turning them into passives, however. I enjoy thinking about when to use a particular ability. While I'd enjoy additional interplay, opportunity cost, and so forth, I'd fine nothing entertaining about simply making tanks more passively overpowered rather than having to timely deploy our defensives.

:: Awareness is probably an ability rather than a tank-passive not because XIV is trying to be "different" but because there are so many abilities and adds/bosses that, under a given buff or phase, will auto-crit, making it a hard-counter ability. Tanks could gain an ability that makes them immune to trash mob critical hits, but then Awareness would feel a waste. I personally find the CD fine as it is, and, if anything, want there to be more crits taken. If it ends up a cross-class skill, the CD could then also be reduced to 90 seconds.

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Originally Posted by VaulRi

i can talk from DK perspective, but i think there is few skills in DK rotation what overlap functionality.[i would not remove dot ability, its make difference between good and better player, which remembers to use it]
-[shadowskin + shadow wall] is obvious, they do same thing, make it one skill adjust cd

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Then what if you need to use both of them?

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Originally Posted by VaulRi

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Do you know what provoke does? It makes your enmity the same as the person who is highest on the enmity tables, then gives your enmity one more point than them. This means that no matter how far behind you are in enmity, you absolutely will gain the attention of the target. Never waste it on pulling. Just use unmend for that. Use Provoke where the healer/dps accidentally gets the attention of the boss, you need to swap tanking positions with another tank, or if you are significantly behind in enmity.

I'm really happy with the ability cut because i play on ps4 and i'm confortable only with 24 abilities (that is what i can activate keeping l2 or r2 or both pressed).
As of today i've already groupped a few defensive CD's on a single macro. It's not optimal from an efficiency point but i get by with no trouble in instances and normal raid (i don't do savage, too much stress for me :)).
So, basically, i have 24 buttons my fingers can manage on a pad and i'd love for that number to be the maximum number of abilities CAP
(oh, obviously abilities like grit or cleric stance and buffs like protect doesn't count to the 24 cap for me. I have them on a different ability bar since i have to cast them only at the start of the dungeon)