4.4: Role Action slots increased to 10. Thoughts?

[Lambdafish]

Nobody is forcing you to use the 5 extra slots so please don’t ruin it for the rest of us.

So complaining about SE undermining one of the systems in the game is ruining your experience? I personally don't care, but people have the right to complain about decisions that they feel to be questionable or poor. I personally would have said 7 slots was the magic number to hit (5 plus essentials), but SE decided to be irrational and remove the limit altogether.

[Mesarthim]

So complaining about SE undermining one of the systems in the game is ruining your experience? I personally don't care, but people have the right to complain about decisions that they feel to be questionable or poor. I personally would have said 7 slots was the magic number to hit (5 plus essentials), but SE decided to be irrational and remove the limit altogether.

It was "irrational" for them to have put us in this situation to begin with. The illusion of choice wasn't a brilliant one and they are now moving to correct it.

What the end result will be by next expansion remains to be seen.

[BillyKaplan]

but SE decided to be irrational and remove the limit altogether.

There's nothing irrational about that. So long as there are more skills than there are slots, some abilities will barely see use, be it because of the meta, laziness in swapping out skills, or any other number of reasons. Their options are thus to remove the limit, or remove the skills, which will definitely hurt SOMEONE who did use them.
So given how SE thought it was a good idea to put those abilities in the game in the first place, and changes to that will probably not get here until 5.0 at the earliest, removing the limit is the fastest, safest way to ensure those skills see at least some use.

[CrystalRainbow]

They don't have time to fix a broken system vs adding 1 action to solve the issue for Healers. They just give everyone everything. Lazy fix.

It tells a lot about the funtion of what is happening in the DEV offices.
It's Broken. Can we fix it. Yes but it will cost a lot. Can we do it cheaply. Ya just change the Class vs Job flag... DO THAT.

I play PLD and WAR in ARR they felt different. in HW they had more stuff that was just there own and they could be played differently.
DEV... In SB I remember making jobs and it sucked can we make less jobs it's to much work... in 5.X can we just get rid of jobs and give Roles. TANK HEALER MELEE DPS RANGE DPS. That way we can give everyone everything even more. And they can all play how they want to.
Community finds best way to play.
DEV Damn it we didn't think they could do that we will have to nerf the abilities.


I thought the idea in 4 was to deal with ability blot. Lets just give them 5 more action.

[Xlantaa]

I guess it s because the alarming number of healers without Esuna.

[Deceptus]

"Button Bloat"
... but:

Healers: break, Eye for an Eye *
BRD/MCH: Foot Graze, Leg Graze, Arm Graze, Head Graze**
Casters: Erase***, Break, Drain***
Melee: Leg Sweep**, Crutch***

... that's not 10 abilities for a majority of the classes. In fact, Ranged Phys have it easy and relatively unchanged

"But just give us other abilities back"
Okay, but: I don't want stoneskin back. I don't care if it was useful on White Mage, that shit can stay there. I had way too many fights with people over bringing stoneskin on Scholar. It was NOT better no matter what people said and I proved it mathematically that a single-target Adlo was far more effective, faster to cast, had a heal with it, and cheaper than a stoneskin.

* = rare use or would probably only get use now that it's automatic
** = an ability with use, but another class has a more effective ability for that/is often the one to take theirs.
*** = screw these

Break should get four Asterisks. I have never once used that spell.

About Stoneskin: It's there better in Divine Benison. Also, as a SCH in dungeons, I'd SS at the end of a pull and Adlo when they were running and that would allow me to DPS comfortably at the start of the next pull. Also, it was AMAZING on fate NPCs and story quest who's health was huge. It very much had it's uses. People just weren't thinking outside of the box.

So what was the point of ALL of this?
I think they should remove role actions all together. All healers need protect, swiftcast, esuna and mana regen. All dps needs enmity reductions or contrary tanks need more enmity gain by their attacks, so either remove diversion and make tank enmity adjustable with dps, or just give all dps diversion basically. All melee / physical ranged dps need tp regen. There is no point of not taking invigorate so... either reduce tp costs for aoe or make invigorate for those jobs. Tactician / Refresh is a part of support dps basically. Because well they are supposed to support... right?

That's the point of role actions so they don't have to make 3 different spells for each of those things for say RDM/SMN/BLM or the healers.

[Reynhart]

The illusion of choice wasn't a brilliant one and they are now moving to correct it.

It could have been meaningful if you had less slots that useful abilities...which would also have reduced button bloat, by the way.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Break should get four Asterisks. I have never once used that spell.

About Stoneskin: It's there better in Divine Benison. Also, as a SCH in dungeons, I'd SS at the end of a pull and Adlo when they were running and that would allow me to DPS comfortably at the start of the next pull. Also, it was AMAZING on fate NPCs and story quest who's health was huge. It very much had it's uses. People just weren't thinking outside of the box.



That's the point of role actions so they don't have to make 3 different spells for each of those things for say RDM/SMN/BLM or the healers.

Considering we had Stone I and Blizzard I with Heavy at 40% in HW (which were both stronger than Break on potency and Heavy) and Lethargy was one of a few utilities BLM had in HW before being butchered by role actions, Break takes the cake of the most useless role action with a pitiful 50 potency and having cast time - just to be accessible accross the board. The 0MP cost does nothing to lighten the issue.

[Bahati]

As a healer main I can't imagine what the plan is for healers in 5.0. There is less and less distinction between the three and more and more buttons. At least WHM will get their entire kit back if we are indeed getting 10 role action slots.

[LineageRazor]

Didn't they say *up to* 10 or 10 been confirmed?
Anyway if it is 10, role action system is completely useless now.

Most likely, this is a quick fix leading to a full removal of the Role Action system come 5.0. SE has recognized that selecting role actions is needlessly annoying. There's not a lot of gameplay value to be gained because someone forgets to equip silence, or whatever, and the group wipes as a result. However, I'd imagine that pulling the system entirely is a big undertaking, and not appropriate to do mid-expansion. They need to wait until Stormblood is done before doing so. In the meantime, adding five more slots is a workable solution that essentially solves the problem. It's not pretty, but it will do for now.