Concerns about " Getting rid of unused and ineffective actions"

[Shurrikhan]

A lot of combos can already be condensed through the use of macros, a point I've made several times before during this thread. We most certainly don't need devs to hold our hand in this regard, skilled and talented though they may be. They are called expansions for a reason, and if your character that you've spent hundreds of hours on, is made lesser not through any triumph of evil, but because the powers that be have declared a play style that you've come to cherish as "too complicated" for people who aren't going to dodge that AoE no matter how simple the game is for them, no amount of shiny baubles is going to fix that feeling of "used to be able to do that cool thing, but now you can't because "reasons".

To be honest though, if a series of actions all perform a single decision/action, why spend 3-4 buttons on it? Each is a mere fraction of a real key-choice. All 8 DRG combo abilities for instance come down to an entirety of 2 decisions—do I want direct damage or a much more powerful wt-Vulnerability and DoT, which usually comes down to a single check of 'how much uptime will I lose on the Vuln and DoT if I CT+1 again right now?' In the regular 60 rotation, that decision simplifies to "which combo did I just use, so I can use the opposite?" And yet we spend 8 keybinds on the damn thing. I'd call that the obvious place to start cutting down on button bloat rather than "hand-holding", if SE was to start by allowing those combos to be simplified to a single button each. Granted, I'd much prefer that combos be more or less taken out altogether, and each of those skills be given a real purpose, but I don't see anything wrong with Thrust Combo vs. Drive Chain, where each advances up to a new point (weaponskill) as you acquire more abilities within the chain. Heck, you could give more reasons to drop a combo early and still simplify the key binds for maximum choice per button.

I'm really hoping my fears are unfounded and Yoshi-P is going to pull out some more gaming wisdom. I'm hoping that when he says "reassessment", he's talking about why Skull Sunder and Savage Blade are cross-class skills. Or why Black Mages have access to a cross class skill that increases damage based on dexterity. I'm hoping that he's looking at Cross class skills and realizing that, with a selection of imperative ones, a selection of okay ones, and a selection of ones that simply don't do anything, people are making the same choices 100% of the time.

And I'm just hoping that comes from making the others more viable choices, rather than axing them altogether. Give Savage Blade and Skull Sunder unique mechanics, make more use of Hawk Eye's perfect accuracy (probably just takes more periodically super-evasive enemies, etc.), make Featherfoot and Keen Flurry more reliable (much like Perfect Dodge before its change) so that it can be used to bend strategies, rather than as general, indistinct filler mitigation. Revamp what you can where the opportunity arises to bring in something interesting and otherwise missing from classes attuned to the particular skill.

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EDIT:

oh, Savage Blade and Skull Sunder do have unique mechanics. It's just that they're mid parts of a combo, so without the action prior to that, their usefulness is questionable. To GLD, DRK and WAR, they already have threat acquiring combos, and to every other class, such as ARC, ROG, and DRG, these are somewhat frail DPS classes that, should they pull threat away from the tank, their lifespan is measured in seconds. Perhaps I've missed something in my analysis?

I've used Skull Sunder only a couple times off class, when first tanking one of the Titan Ex adds and later a full dungeon as a Monk. The 450 potency of enmity was handy, even if it did come at a real potency cost. DPS classes are generally far from frail given Heavensward tuning, or even before that. I've tanked numerous Expert roulettes on my Monk, Ninja, or Dragoon since, albeit without bothering with Skull Sunder.

What I meant though is that Skull Sunder and Savage Blade have no inherent mechanic apart from their enmity modifier, which already made Skull Sunder the only viable choice between the two (4.5x rather than 3x enmity originally, closer or equal now). Let's say Savage Blade were made to hit with additional damage based on damage RNG-mitigated (dodged, blocked, or parried) within a second of Savage Blade, while Skull Sunder instead had a higher "stagger" modifier (some new 4.0 system where in damage can sap the attack power, accuracy, and/or the next x damage of the attacker at a given percentage), making it more useful for mitigation. Both feed from either's <Combo 1>, but only the native skill combos on to Step 3 (Rage of Halone / Royal Authority or Butcher's Block).

As for Keen Flurry, this is something I really wish was available to tanking classes. Womping up my parry rate by 40% on top of Dark Dance's 30% would make my DRK a parrying machine. Low Blow would NEVER be on cool down, but it's only available to DPS classes and, as I mentioned before, they're moments away from repainting the walls in fresh crimson the moment they get more bossly attention than the tank, and it doesn't matter if they parry or not. I can see it being useful in leveling or solo work though. DPS do need the occasional defensive cooldown, just as tanks need offensive ones, just not as many as would exceed their role specialty.

Featherfoot is something I'm really surprised to see on the chopping block, assuming reports are right and it's not Fists of Wind they're thinking of (though an increase in mobility before a boss blankets the room in AoEs could be extremely useful still). A 20% chance to safely ignore all damage, be it magic or physical, could save one's bacon. Again, I'd love to see this on my DRK. Stacking with DA-Dark Dance, 50% chance to dodge? Move over PLD, there's a new sheriff in town, and I'll be MTing everything from this point on.

My issue with these is simply that they aren't reliable enough to allow a melee to do anything differently in themselves, given a situation where mitigation would make the difference. Take Garuda Ex's Wicked Wheel during the tornado-strewn add phase (so, the stacked Garuda and Suparna) for instance. At minimum ilvl, a Dragoon could barely survive being one-shot due to his higher physical defense. A Monk could do the same with Fists of Earth. Sacred Soil could provide the same for all melee in the area. Both jobs could memorize the telegraphs to pull out in time, but taking the damage and then stacking within range of the tank without losing positionals for an Overcure Cure III was more efficient if at least 2 members were injured, or even a non-procced Cure III or Medica if 3 or more were, especially given the long period in which to regen that health.

However, Keen Flurry and Featherfoot could never factor into this decision anyways, or only as extra chance mitigation on an already present change rather than being the means to bend the strategy. If it triggered the dodge, great, but with both tanks and likely 2+ melee over there, you're still getting the AoE heal regardless. Only Ninja could reliably ignore that damage, with Perfect Dodge's one-time 100% mitigation. Given that incoming AoE, Perfect Dodge's change to Shade Shift's 20% HP physical shield is actually more effective in many cases because the healer decision is otherwise unchanged, but it is rarely as exciting, and would actually be less effective if only the majority of other melee (including tanks) within the AoE radius also had a means of reliable active mitigation. That's why I wish Featherfoot would be revised to a sort of 'smart' CD. That role being filled, I'd then be fine with Keen Flurry either being exchanged for a sort of increasing-over-time chance, attack-rate-dependent chance, or even overhauled back into its original offensive ability CD-reducing skill.

I can think of certain situations in which that "gravy" mitigation is a more appropriate design choice, e.g. in situations where you don't want to require that particular cross-class skill, but generally it feels lackluster, especially for something DPS can use, in which case I'd have thought the purpose was manipulation of tactics rather than raw potential mitigation. And its not like you can't have both, satisfying the needs of both tanks and dps. It just might require certain undermechanics at the worst.

And yeah, that would be frighteningly powerful stacked with Awareness while Blood Price is unavailable.