Concerns about " Getting rid of unused and ineffective actions"

[Pondera]

I'm all for the number of abilities being reduced for every class/job. As it stands a lot of abilities are just anti-fun. I realise that is subjective but some are so situational they aren't used very often at all or they're just abilities that really should be baked into another ability instead.

Such as what? I haven't leveled Dragoon myself, but I hear thats a popular candidate for pruning. Especially something called Heavy Thrust, causing slow? You'd think, this game being so mechanics based as it is, that slowing down an enemy in a raid, or speeding up your own movement, like with Fists of Wind, would be extremely valuable.

[Nezerius]

Such as what? I haven't leveled Dragoon myself, but I hear thats a popular candidate for pruning. Especially something called Heavy Thrust, causing slow? You'd think, this game being so mechanics based as it is, that slowing down an enemy in a raid, or speeding up your own movement, like with Fists of Wind, would be extremely valuable.

Heavy Thrust is the ability that increases damage by 15%.

Feint has been mentioned multiple times, which is the Lancer ability that applies a +20% slow onto the target. It might sound great when just looking at the number, but it doesn't really have a noticeable effect against bosses, and that's if the boss isn't completely immune to it anyway. (which is the case for about 90% of them)

I mistook Featherfoot for Fists of Wind, so that movement speed increase stance isn't confirmed to be on the chopping block.

If I'd have to give my opinion on DRG pruning, I'd say pruning some of the oGCD abilities is a start, as their opener is filled with 2 oGCDs per GCD. Something like Leg Sweep could have its damage component removed, so it's only used when something needs to be stunned. That said, my opinion would be to remove the damage component of all stuns (minus Holy), and then make stunning bosses more important again.
Changing Blood of the Dragon would be nice too, as it can be frustrating to lose the buff before it comes off CD again.

[Duelle]

Something like Leg Sweep could have its damage component removed, so it's only used when something needs to be stunned. That said, my opinion would be to remove the damage component of all stuns (minus Holy), and then make stunning bosses more important again.

I agree that Leg Sweep should deal no damage, but the stun thing really needs to be reworked. I've been complaining about this since beta, but jobs should have interrupts rather than stuns, especially since stuns lead to immunity. You'd otherwise have to make bosses that reset themselves the way HM Ifrit did in order to mostly avoid immunity getting in the way of a stun rotation (and even then all it took was one guy spamming Shoulder Tackle/Leg Sweep to ruin things).

An alternative would be to sort of PvP-mode boss mobs by making all stuns last .5/1 second on bosses, but making it impossible for a boss to build immunity.

[Shurrikhan]

I agree that Leg Sweep should deal no damage, but the stun thing really needs to be reworked. I've been complaining about this since beta, but jobs should have interrupts rather than stuns, especially since stuns lead to immunity. You'd otherwise have to make bosses that reset themselves the way HM Ifrit did in order to mostly avoid immunity getting in the way of a stun rotation (and even then all it took was one guy spamming Shoulder Tackle/Leg Sweep to ruin things).

An alternative would be to sort of PvP-mode boss mobs by making all stuns last .5/1 second on bosses, but making it impossible for a boss to build immunity.

It has always seemed weird to me that whereas Silence has no DR cap, half of all melee have no equivalent uncapped 'interrupt' regularly available. I don't mind in that in those cases where the Silence can seem superior on bosses who can't be stunned anyways, but as a typical toolkit part that just seems... off. (Not that I'd want to spend an extra key just on that function, and sometimes where the need to save stuns exceeds the weight of damage output over time, that DR mechanic, including the last infinitesimally small (interrupt) stun, can be kind of interesting.)

Btw, weren't the A4 legs technically stunnable only while casting, as not to cap their DRs beforehand on a DPS-intensive fight? More of that concept might work as well.

[Duelle]

It has always seemed weird to me that whereas Silence has no DR cap, half of all melee have no equivalent uncapped 'interrupt' regularly available. I don't mind in that in those cases where the Silence can seem superior on bosses who can't be stunned anyways, but as a typical toolkit part that just seems... off. (Not that I'd want to spend an extra key just on that function, and sometimes where the need to save stuns exceeds the weight of damage output over time, that DR mechanic, including the last infinitesimally small (interrupt) stun, can be kind of interesting.)

I'd say HM Ifrit failed to teach people to decide when to save stuns for interrupts as opposed to just DPSing, so at this point you'd have to make some heavy-handed changes to skills like Leg Sweep if you wanted to make interrupts a thing in encounters for 4.0. Removing damage and redesigning the skills may make gameplay less "interesting", but at least DPS would have no excuse to not partake in an interrupt rotation. Bonus being that tryhards wouldn't have the opportunity to screw things up for the other 3/7 people in the group.

[Neophyte]

I don't think they will get rid of many skills at all, it's more about revamping them and stepping a bit away from the cross class system.


Lv. 01 Heavy Swing
Lv. 02 Foresight
Lv. 04 Skull Sunder
Lv. 06 Fracture
Lv. 08 Bloodbath
Lv. 10 Brutal Swing
Lv. 10 Role base defensive Action (Covalecenz, Featherfoot, Second Wind, Mantra)
Lv. 12 Overpower
Lv. 15 Tomahawk
Lv. 15 Role base emnity Action (Provoce, Flash(?), something new?, Savage Blade with optional rotational requirements for WAR/DRK?!)
Lv. 18 Maim
Lv. 20 Role base defensive Action (as above)
Lv. 22 Berserk
Lv. 25 Role base offensive Action (Internal Release, something new with Slashing debuff (though only interesting for PLD/DRK maybe), Haymaker (changed/buffefd), Mercy Stroke, Fracture (untraited, but with more potency))
Lv. 26 Mercy Stroke
Lv. 30 Butcher's Block
Lv. 30 Role base emnity Action (as above)
Lv. 30 Defiance
Lv. 34 Thrill of Battle
Lv. 35 Inner Beast
Lv. 38 Storm's Path
Lv. 40 Unchained
Lv. 42 Holmgang
Lv. 45 Steel Cyclone
Lv. 46 Vengeance
Lv. 50 Storm's Eye
Lv. 50 Infuriate
Lv. 52 Deliverance
Lv. 54 Fell Cleave
Lv. 56 Raw Intuition
Lv. 58 Equilibrium
Lv. 60 Decimate


Plus revamps, but basically I expect something like this, with a bit more than 5 minutes invested for thinking about it like I did.

[Khalithar]

I don't think they will get rid of many skills at all, it's more about revamping them and stepping a bit away from the cross class system.

If we're going to keep getting new skills then yes we're going to need to prune a few and maybe more than a few. A few of the "maintenance" buffs as I call them could certainly stand to go away, for example, I've said this for a while now but if Heavy Thrust, Power Surge, Straight Shot, and Hot Shot were removed as an example, nothing of value would be lost. I know about the Straighter Shot proc effect, but I really don't think it's necessary if the numbers are adjusted correctly. Another example for Drg, Brd, and Mch is they have Ring Of Thorns/Doomspike, Wide Volley/Quick Nock, and Spread Shot/Grenado Shot respectively, do those classes really need to have 2 different AoE spells? I say no, no they do not. Pick one and let the player adjust to the right positioning for when to use each.

[Morningstar1337]

Such as what? I haven't leveled Dragoon myself, but I hear thats a popular candidate for pruning. Especially something called Heavy Thrust, causing slow? You'd think, this game being so mechanics based as it is, that slowing down an enemy in a raid, or speeding up your own movement, like with Fists of Wind, would be extremely valuable.

Heavy Thurs is one of DRG's combo pieces. I doubt they would remove that. Feint is the one causing Slow. And regarding Slow itself, the debate as few pages back is how CC abilities seem to be useless at endgame. Every dungeon mob from 50 onwards can't be sleeped or bound, Heavy is useless, and the only effective CC is Stun and only at Trash at that. (PvP aside, all CC abilites are useful there)

Regarding Slow specificity it only seems to affect the Auto attacks. You can't use it to slow down Magic or certain (read: most) mechanics, thought it likewise of little use and visibility. Also I think you got Slow mixed up with Heavy.

That said. Feint has a use...for exploting a loophole in Wanderer's Minuet and Gauss Barrel. The Loophole being that those abilities add cast times to ARC/BRD and MCH weaponskills, repsectibly, not LNC's so Feint remains the only option for AoE-phobic Ranged players apart form lower DPS

[Felis]

Such as what? I haven't leveled Dragoon myself, but I hear thats a popular candidate for pruning. Especially something called Heavy Thrust, causing slow? You'd think, this game being so mechanics based as it is, that slowing down an enemy in a raid, or speeding up your own movement, like with Fists of Wind, would be extremely valuable.

Fist of Wind: Only to run fast out of a big AoE. For the actual fight Fist of Fire have high priority.