Removal of the cross class system announced.

[Reynhart]

Even where two skills are clones of each other—and I'm not saying that's okay—I'd much rather have Shadowskin on my edgy DRK job than Rampart, and would rather not have it on my Paladin, merely in terms of name and appearance.

The name doesn't really matter in the end. As for the animation, you could have a different one depending on the job. Like doing Fracture with a Sword is different than with an Axe.

Moreover, moving it to a broad "tank" skill does nothing for customization or button-bloat. It'd still be a required choice;

Considering there's no real customization with the cross-class, it wouldn't worsen the situation. The most important part, for me, is that I don't think you'll have to chose the role skills. You'll just have all of them available. But keep in mind that if tank skills are always available, you can still have traits to modify them. Maybe WAR will have the basic "Rampart-like" but PLD and DRK will keep the improved version.

Making a universal enmity combo does not save space. It replaces three more unique slots with 3 absolutely homogenized ones that force the remaining skills to then also be more homogenized.

Stormblood will not reduce the number of skills we have at our disposal, anyway. They already said that moving skills to the role-pool will give room for more personal skills.

It tears apart each tank's previous rotational priorities, where they previously all varied immensely.

Level 70 will already change our rotation, it's not a big deal.

I don't understand why you would think that would be, in any way, a good thing.

IIRC, I never said this was "good". For me, not designing an expanded class/job system is where the system started declining.

But eh, it worked that way from the start "Ok we have a deep but flawed system, how do we fix it ? Adressing the flaw is boring, let's make the system as bland as possible, it can't come bite us in the future, right ?"

[Shurrikhan]

IIRC, I never said this was "good". For me, not designing an expanded class/job system is where the system started declining.

But eh, it worked that way from the start "Ok we have a deep but flawed, how do we fix it ? Adressing the flaw is boring, let's make the system as bland as possible, it can't come bite us in the future, right ?"

My apologies for mis-extrapolating there.

And yes, painfully true.

Stormblood will not reduce the number of skills we have at our disposal, anyway. They already said that moving skills to the role-pool will give room for more personal skills.

My only point here is that they said either that—and my memory isn't perfect here—that our total skill-count or the general skill requirements (skill floor and ceiling) would be the same in SB as in HW. And as long as these role skills are free, rather than having to sacrifice a native skill to be taken, then that movement has absolutely no effect on button-bloat. Whether you need to level Paladin to 22 for Provoke, or get it automatically, you still have it and 4 other obligatory "cross-class"/"role-based" skills on your bar in addition to all your native skills. There is zero effect on the total skill-count by just changing that label. You still have exactly 32 skills (+ whatever net addition, if any, comes with SB).

Level 70 will already change our rotation, it's not a big deal.

Better to still have some differences... Further homogenization, at this point, should be all the scarier, not just inundating to the point of apathy.

[Reynhart]

My apologies for mis-extrapolating there.

No hard feeling

My only point here is that they said either that—and my memory isn't perfect here—that our total skill-count or the general skill requirements (skill floor and ceiling) would be the same in SB as in HW.

When questionned about that during the Q/A session at Fanfest, I think Yoshida meant that the skills needed for our rotations will not change. It doesn't automatically means that we won't have more situationnal skills on top of that. For example, as a DRG, you have access to Foresight, Featherfoot and Mantra, or even Ring of Thorns and Doomspike...Some of those skills are still useful, but you don't need to take them into account when practicing an optimal rotation.