Culling and restructuring skills to make room for 5.0 abilities

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Yeah, because 123 is much more interesting than 111

I would rather press 1234 than spam 1111. At least I'm moving my finger, no matter how slight. And therein lies why people dislike the skill consolidation system. It's neither more difficult nor necessarily interesting, it simply feels better. If we had more combos or different branching combos, maybe it'd work better. Currently, it's simply reducing everything to the healer equivalent of spamming Broil. Sure, you have different animations, but it feels very boring to me. Just like it does on them. They aren't going to add 5+ GCDs to DRG either, thus I'll spend most of 5.x spamming 1 and 2 endlessly. I prefer 1234 and alt 1234. As I said, at least I move my fingers slightly compared to not at all.

Regardless, it's not really a solution anyway because it doesn't help the Casters. Even on the melee/tank side, only Ninja and Paladin are crying for hot bar space.

[Shurrikhan]

I would rather press 1234 than spam 1111. At least I'm moving my finger, no matter how slight. And therein lies why people dislike the skill consolidation system. It's neither more difficult nor necessarily interesting, it simply feels better. Currently, <combo consolidation> is simply reducing everything to the healer equivalent of spamming Broil. Sure, you have different animations, but it feels very boring to me. Just like it does on them. They aren't going to add 5+ GCDs to DRG either, thus I'll spend most of 5.x spamming 1 and 2 endlessly. I prefer 1234 and alt 1234. As I said, at least I move my fingers slightly compared to not at all.

I get that. Though bloated, I'd likely still use the 1234 due to muscle memory and as not to trip up from inattention, myself. I just don't consider there to be enough merit to forbid the option for those who are running out of comfortable button space (given hand size, etc.) and for whom the merit of comfort is greater than that of easier timing.

If we had more combos or different branching combos, maybe it'd work better.

Agreed. And while Fire IV can feel satisfying despite its relatively redundant nature, that's hardly true of Heavy Shot, Malefic, or Stone, whatever their ranks. But that'd mean requiring more than 3 GCD actions from each melee (well, 4 from SAM and up to 9 from MNK)... I just hope XIV doesn't continue to assume players irredeemable stupid, under the guise of "combo" systems.

Regardless, it's not really a solution anyway because it doesn't help the Casters. Even on the melee/tank side, only Ninja and Paladin are crying for hot bar space.

There is some fairly considerable bind-trimming the non-melee can benefit from too, though.

Why should Enochian, Fire IV, and Blizzard IV be separate keys when they cannot be used separately? Why should Summon Bahamut be separate from Enkindle Bahamut? Or DWT from Deathflare, so long as the latter could not be queued before the first has finished activating? And Red Mage has its own melee combo.

Further, Straighter Shot is virtually never taken over Refulgent Arrow and Gauss Barrel may as well be a trait, just as Darkside and either tank DPS stance may as well be (Sword Oath and Deliverance merely deactivating during their respective tank stances).