How do you feel about Role Actions?

[Acidblood]

It was a nice idea in theory (at least compared to cross-class), but horribly implemented due to the mix of 'must-have' and 'next-to-useless' abilities (to say nothing of the stripping of certain jobs only for them to have to buy everything back) ... and ultimately, even now that we can select all 10 (wasn’t this supposed to reduce button bloat?), still does more harm than good...

How so?

1. By making an ability 'cross-role' it means that all jobs of the role have access to it, and by extension must then be balanced around it...
Lucid Dreaming for example, is accessible to all healers and caster DPS, which then forces (for balance reasons) their other forms of MP regeneration to be weaker (than it otherwise would have been), or in the case of RDM, non-existent... and just to make it worse, because Lucid Dreaming is also an enmity drop, but otherwise of little use to BLM, BLM (or any other caster for that matter) cannot now be given their own (more useful and job fitting) enmity drop.

2. All 'similar' Jobs are forced to have the same identity...
BRD and MCH are probably the best example of this… i.e. because BRD is a 'support', with cross-roles for group MP and TP regen, MCH (and any future 'ranged DPS' jobs) are now forced to adopt this ‘support’ identity… and, flipping it around, RDM, which should arguably also be a ‘support’, cannot adopt this identity (or at least not in the same way as BRD) because it is instead a ‘caster DPS’, and it wouldn’t make sense for the likes of BLM, or even SMN, to be given too many support abilities.

3. It makes it harder to balance individual jobs...
One example of this is Low Blow (Tank Stun), which in HW belonged only to DRK and WAR, and had a modest cooldown of 15s (IIRC)…. now that it is a cross-role though it needs to have a longer cooldown (of 25s) lest PLD, who also has Shield Bash, become a crazy OP stun machine... similarly, Reprisal, with it’s now 60s cooldown, can't be made any more powerful for DRK (to give it some needed party mitigation) because then WAR and PLD would also benefit (and no, giving DRK a trait for Reprisal is a terrible idea, because now you have 2 version of Reprisal, in which case why is it even cross-role to begin with?).

4. It robs jobs of what could otherwise be unique utility...
Reprisal would be a direct example of this from HW > SB, but so would new utilities such as Mana Shift... e.g. if Mana Shift were BLM only (and possibly buffed a bit) then it could at least be used as some argument to bring a BLM over a SMN / RDM for raid progression (i.e. more MP for healers)... but because SMN and RDM also have Mana Shift, and (instant) Raise (at half the cooldown, or less) BLM is again left out.

So yeah, IMO cross-role should just be outright deleted and the jobs given back their individual abilities (even if they are exact clones; seriously who cares?), because at least that way jobs can have unique and interesting mechanics / utility, fit their identities properly, and be individually fine-tuned.

NB. And if they want to do customisation in future (which would be nice), it should be done at the individual job level (e.g. selectable traits).

[Seraphor]

Completely agree Acidblood, I really hope the job reworks in 5.0 are about feeding the role skills back into their respective jobs.

[XiXiQ]

at this stage they are 10 more buttons we can do without, dump the whole idea. There as some useful skills in there that can be made part of the job's toolkit instead.

[Jonnycbad]

DRK lost their "Low Blow" (the kick animation oGCD DMG+Stun) and received the ROLE ACTION "low blow", which is just a new weapon swing animation.

DRG lost their "Leg Sweep" (weapon swing animation) and got the ROLE ACTION "Leg Sweep" which is a kick animation from DRK's orignial "Low Blow".

It bothers the heck out of me because DRK having the kick is part of what made them edgy. Secondly, having an attack called "Leg Sweep" but it's actually a FORWARD kick to the chest-level of a humanoid enemy bothers the hell out of me.

[Connor]

They were a nice idea that unfortunately was only half-baked.

Having a selection of skills you can take based on your role sounds fun, especially if you have a choice of what to take.

But since they increased the skill slot amount to 10 (and there only 10 abilities lol), it’s less of a choice and more of a set of skills that you absolutely need to take

Edit:
Also, all role skills are either entirely required (Swiftcast, Refresh, Lucid Dreaming) or entirely useless (Break, Drain, all the CC skills for ranged)

[Seraphor]

Been thinking about how to feed role skills back into jobs, and get rid of them entirely, and so far this is what I've come up with...


TANK SKILLS
Rampart: PLD exclusive and reduce the cooldown.
Anticipation: PLD exclusive.
Reprisal: DRK exclusive and reduce the cooldown, with reprisal giving a 20% dmg reduction, and being upgraded to a 10% 6y aoe with the use of DA.
Convalescence: Becomes DRK exclusive.
Awareness: WAR exclusive, apply to direct hits as well as critical hits, and reduce the cooldown.
Ultimatum: WAR exclusive, also applies a 10% damage reduction debuff like Reprisal.
Low Blow: DRK and WAR ability, but with WAR getting a different name/animation.
Interject: PLD exclusive.
Provoke: WAR ability, with DRK and PLD getting their own versions, Blaspheme and Incite respectively. Blaspheme can be DA’d for additional aggro.
Shirk: WAR ability, with DRK and PLD getting their own versions Malign and Eschew respectively.

Given that most of the Tank skills are different forms of mitigation on varying cooldowns, I thought the simplest way was to simply reduce their cooldowns so each tank only needs to rely on one or two of them instead of juggling the lot. PLD gets shield and parry boost, DRK gets dmg reduction and healing boost, WAR gets two different forms of dmg reduction.
They then get either a stun or a silence, and their own version of Provoke/Shirk.


HEALER SKILLS
Cleric Stance: WHM exclusive, boosted to 10%.
Break: AST exclusive.
Protect: WHM exclusive, buffed to a flat 10% damage reduction buff for 20s, 60s cooldown, making up for WHM lack of mitigation.
Esuna: WHM ability, with SCH/ACH versions being Cleanse/Reverse.
Lucid Dreaming: WHM ability. Arcanist and AST would get similar abilities for refresh, but only WHM would get the enmity reduction. Arcanist would have a longer refresh duration to 28s.
Swiftcast: WHM and BLM exclusive. AST’s Lightspeed gets a cooldown reduction, while SCH gets…
Surecast: Arcanist exclusive, allows for no interruptions, including your own movement (you can move and cast at the same time) and reduces the cast time by 2s. On a shorter cooldown than Swiftcast.
Eye for an Eye: Arcanist exclusive.
Largesse: AST exclusive, with the Sect buffs reduced from 10/15% to 5/10%.
Rescue: SCH exclusive.

The three healers regain some more unique utility with these redistributions, with AST getting Break back plus a potency booster, SCH getting a return dmg and Rescue, and WHM regaining Protect and Cleric Stance as a dps booster.
The main difference here is with Swiftcast, as you’ll notice that AST and SCH get inferior versions. To coincide, all raising spells have their cast times reduced from 8s to 5s, thus making a Lightspeed+Ascend a 2.5s cast, and Surecast+Resurrect a 3s cast with invulnerability. I don’t think this would be game-breaking, and would make hardcasting a raise more viable, but would serve to give WHM an edge in one respect above the other two healers.


CASTER SKILLS
Addle: BLM exclusive.
Break: Gone (AST exclusive)
Drain: Arcanist exclusive.
Diversion: They all get this, but with a different moniker for each job, Pacify for SMN, Doppelgang for BLM and Passe for RDM.
Lucid Dreaming: Given to WHM, Arcanist gets a similar ability as mentioned, RDM also gains a similar ability, and this effect is bundled in with Leylines for BLM.
Mana Shift: BLM exclusive.
Apocatastasis: Arcanist exclusive.
Surecast: Arcanist exclusive, allows for no interruptions, including your own movement (you can move and cast at the same time) and reduces the cast time by 2s. On a shorter cooldown than Swiftcast.
Swiftcast: WHM and BLM exclusive.
Erase: RDM exclusive.

No one really loses much here, but it does give BLM an edge over the others without giving it additional utility.
Casters don’t really use Break, Drain or Erase, only BLM’s really use Mana Shift but they also gain exclusive use of Addle as a perk above the others.
As with SCH, SMN gets Surecast over Swiftcast, and RDM gets Dualcast anyway.


RANGED DPS SKILLS
Second Wind: All jobs get this, all of them.
Invigorate: Again, all jobs get this, but it also refills some MP as well.
Foot/Arm Graze: MCH exclusives (Bind and Stun)
Head/Leg Graze: BRD exclusives (Heavy and Silence)
Peloton: Both still get this.
Refresh, Tactician and Palisade: BRD exclusives.

You’ll notice MCH loses its support DPS identity and would instead become a debuffer with the addition/adjustment of the following skills:
Hot Shot: Inflicts Piercing debuff for 10s, cooldown 20s.
Grazing Shot: Inflicts Slashing debuff for 10s, cooldown 20s.
Buck Shot: Inflicts Blunt debuff for 10s, cooldown 20s.
Hypercharge: Causes turret attacks to inflict a 10% defence debuff, AND a 10% damage debuff.


MELEE DPS SKILLS
Second Wind: All jobs get this, all of them.
Invigorate: Again, all jobs get this, but it also refills some MP as well.
Bloodbath: DRG exclusive.
Leg Sweep: MNK exclusive, but NIN gets a similar ability.
Goad: MNK exclusive.
Crutch: MNK exclusive, but also applies to Paralysis.
True North: MNK exclusive.
Feint: NIN exclusive.
Arms Length: SAM exclusive.
Diversion: becomes DRG exclusive, SAM gets a similar ability. MNK instead gets an enmity reducing effect bundled in with Riddle of Earth. While NIN’s Smoke Screen can be used on itself for half of its effect.

Bloodbath enhances DRG’s identity and gives it added survivability compared to the others given it’s… vulnerabilities.
MNK is the real beneficiary here as it gains the close combat moves and party utility, while NIN gets the debuffing skills.
This would in some ways make MNK a sort of support melee DPS, with NIN being the debuffer, like the BRD/MCH split.
MNK also gets exclusive use of True North as it’s by far the biggest victim of positionals, NIN only really cares about Trick Attack/Slashing, and both are Rear which is easier to hit than the flank.

As for Second Wind and Invigorate, they’re pretty much equivalent to potions, and it would be helpful for newbies of any class to have access to a free potion and MP/TP regen. Basically everyone starting out will get their first Weaponskill/Spell, Second Wind, and Invigorate as their starting skills.

[Grimoire-M]

To be honest I don't mind the role system as it is. Yes there are balance concerns, but the system itself should remain in place to cut out a lot of the chaff. A lot of otherwise useless/situational buttons should go here, and we should aim to minimize the number of core abilities present in there. I would like to see role traits added next expansion, and be exclusive to some classes in order to buff these skills, if that class relies on them. Absolutely, stuff like Rampart, Refresh, and Lucid Dreaming is a problem, but stuff like Swiftcast, protect, esuna, and the crowd control/knockback immunity skills is why this system should exist in the first place.

I feel the main problem with MCH/BRD is Refresh/Tactician are both AoE and Mana Shift is complete utter trash. I'd like to see these skills all reworked to be less required. These TP/MP regen effects (whether for yourself or allies) should be around the level of Goa. Useful during prog when someone dies, but not required once you know a fight. Higher cooldowns on the Role Actions in general would support that idea. Especially Refresh/Tactician. They should be on the level of Hallowed Ground if they're going to keep that ridiculous AoE effect. The MP generation that's baked into the healer and caster classes should be improved to meet what they need baseline to operate effectively without a death. I'd definitely argue to remove lucid entirely and give all of those classes better forms of personal MP regeneration again (except BLM cause they'll live without it).

On the subject of aggro, however...I'm a little torn. I feel like the DPS stances on tanks should reduce their aggro generation (for DRK maybe taking off grit would dump 25% of it instead) and tank stances should either have a lower DPS penalty or none at all. Provoke and Ultimatum are absolutely fine. However, I'm not sure if Shirk should stay. In general I'd like to see tanks have to care about aggro or at least stance swapping more next expansion and part of facilitating that might require Circle Shirking to be removed, but I also understand that off-tank mains need something to do. It's one of those things that SE has to alter their savage raid design to address first and foremost.

For melee Shadewalker may need to replace Diversion, or be removed. It's the same issue as Shirk really. BRD/MCH should get Diversion instead of needing to use Tactician/Refresh to dump their aggro. Diversion is honestly the best skill for this as it stands. You could easily give it the half-aggro dump that Lucid has and it would be fine for every DPS class. I'd apply that to Shadewalker too. NIN can keep smokescreen if another melee gets a way to help out with aggro but honestly the only class that 100% cares about it on a regular basis atm is WHM. WHM should get its own aggro dump tool. Thin Air should apply Diversion to them for its duration 100%. My concern with Shadewalker specifically is mainly due to how Exdeath required it to be comfortable in some cases. Maybe tanks just need an emnity modifier on their basic attack that leads into all of their combos, just to help out a bit in that situation.

I feel the same way about healers that I do tanks to be honest. There should be more tradeoffs between damage and healing, though not as much as tanks need it as reducing the tank/healer dps gap would be better for the game overall. Old Cleric did amazing things for them in that regard. I feel that can't be addressed by the role actions however, rather their base kits should get a lot more damage added to them without pushing on their MP. I'd probably improve the current Cleric Stance instead to help with this. Largesse should really be baked into each Healer's kit in some unique way. Divine Seal was fine. Synastry was not. Dissipation still is, but stacking Largesse with it is not.

[Kabooa]

"Surecast is Arcanist exclusive"

Really, the one caster class that has the least punishment for downgrading to their available instant cast spells to deal with forced movement?

[Seraphor]

"Surecast is Arcanist exclusive"

Really, the one caster class that has the least punishment for downgrading to their available instant cast spells to deal with forced movement?

Could swap it with Swiftcast, both aren't needed, but I felt WHM and BLM deserved the better option.

[Kabooa]

Could swap it with Swiftcast, both aren't needed, but I felt WHM and BLM deserved the better option.

Swiftcast is utilized to deal with movement. This is notably different than -forced- movement. It's not that you need to move, it's that you're -going- to move. That's what Surecast is for, for Black Mages, and arguably white mages / any other caster who has a huge (Re: Almost 60-80% potency) loss because there's a knock back, outside where you have to be because Chaos.

So you're effectively removing a needed tool, that was originally Black Mages to start with.