Removing TP

[Shurrikhan]

It hasn't really had a purpose except to explicitly cause imbalance since it was changed from the Stamina bar. At best, ARR Monk was the exception, as it had significantly more TP-costly and TP-inexpensive options, and Fracture was not yet mandatory for the majority of SkS breakpoints, nor removed as it was later.

Apart from the above Monk exception, its historical uses are few and purely punitive:

• To nerf access to Sprint for physical classes only.
• To nerf sustainable AoE for physical classes only.
• To reduce the general sustainability of physical class combat.
• To nerf Skill Speed.

Even if we were to give Sprint back a drain cost, making it more punishing but also more flexible, it'd still make no sense for it to apply solely to TP. A combined SP or Stamina Points or whatever would make far more sense as it'd affect jobs evenly.

The changes should be insignificant here. There are only three jobs that actually include resources in their gameplay beyond the common sense of their ability usage (healers) or obvious limiters (resurrection spells, be it on healers or SMN and RDM), PLD, DRK, and BLM.

BLM won't be changed whatsoever as it never had any TP interaction anyways.
PLD will at most see its MP recovery slowed during melee rotations or TE, less punished during Flash, and accelerated during true downtime.
DRK will at most see its MP recovery slowed during melee rotations and accelerated during true downtime, almost as if the old Darkside drain cost ticked per (physical) action rather than every 3 seconds.

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It got carried over because the original concept for the battle system was gonna be an extension of the revamped system they did at the end of 1.23. where you actually had to build TP in order to do ya powerful combos which would have made combat a lot more tactical and less button spammy. In a sense of do you do your combo when you get to 1000TP or keep building to 3,000TP for a bigger burst of your combos later kinda sense...

Perhaps with a fundamental revision of that system what you're describing could have happened, but 1.23 was as far from tactical as you could possibly get.

Outside of reactives like Haymaker, there were only two actual TP costs in 1.23, either 1000 or 1500, due to the way the combo system worked.

As a Yoshida-era 1.x class/job, you had two options:

• You opened with your 1500 TP skill, which then gave your 2500 and 3000-TP skill for free, then alternated to your 1000 skill that gave the 2000 and other 3000 skill for free, then back but with the 3000 skill still on cooldown, then back again but with your other 3000 skill on cooldown; repeat.
• You opened with your 1000 TP skill, which then gave the 2000 and other 3000 skill for free, then alternated to your 1500 skill that gave the 2500 and other 3000 skill for free, then back but with the 3000 skill still on cooldown, then back again but with your other 3000 skill on cooldown; repeat.

That was literally it.

If you delayed in using your opening combo, you'd risk losing uses over the fight for literally no benefit. If you held onto TP, you'd waste time that could have been spent cooling a mid-combo ability, which in turn potentially cost you bridge and finisher uses over a fight. The combo conditions lasted long enough that if, on immediate use, the bridge would fade before your finisher could refresh from its cooldown, another combo would get you there in time anyways.

Yoshida had already removed any skill-chain like bonuses afforded by Battle Regimen, so there were no damage bonus windows. You used your skill-buff skill on a particular ability and on very few jobs alternated which it'd be applied to if the added use within a fight afforded you more potency than waiting for the stronger skill.

There was no tactical complexity whatsoever outside of maybe Fists of Wind and Keen Flurry on Monk (both then a CD reduction, meaning they could shake up your combo alternations very slightly if stacked). For everyone else, you solely alternated between combo one and combo two for as many GCDs as each would last. Anything else cost you performance.

Were the actions weighty? Yes. Did the system have the capacity to allow for rotational complexity? No. Was it more thoughtful? No. It had and has never been more braindead. For most fights, even Tanaka's systems had more to them.

That's not to say I wouldn't like a system that would have the depth you're describing, but... 1.23 was the antithesis of that, not its shining example.