Consolidated Combos would solve the issue of button bloat going into Shadowbringers

[Sandpark]

Also just like Seraphor said, you think this'd simplify the system down for some people but it won't. Most people already have enough problem doing 1-2-3 correctly, asking them to remember 'How many times had I press 1 already?', 'Do I switch to 2 on the next button?', 'Do weave this oGCD with the next 1, or the next 1?" will bring in more problems than it solves.

Players having trouble to pushing 6 buttons has nothing to do with memory and more with hand coordination or finger fatigue. No need to remember anything anyways since combos hotbar lights up when executable. Not only does it light up the icon changes if we still need more visual reference. The OP is not asking to remove the current option with multiple buttons but add an option for consolidated combos.

If you know your skill animations, you do not have to watch the UI either to know when to press something.

Monk Consolidated rear combo:
Bootshine- True Strike - Demolish(1-1-1)
Monk consolidated flank combo:
Dragon Kick- Twin Snakes- Snap Punch(2-2-2)
Monk consolidated AOE combo:
AOD- Rockbreaker- Howling Fist(3-3-3, forms and bonuses would have to be shuffled, HF added to combo removed from Ogcd)

That reduces 9 buttons down to three freeing up 6 spaces for other skills. Still requires movement but less back forth.

Just an option not a replacement. Potions are nice, but if they become a meta for rotations used so often they need to be removed and replaced with skills that accomplish the same goal.

[Shurrikhan]

While I don't think hitting 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-6-5 on Dragoon is any more entertaining than hitting 1-2-2-2-2-2-3-3-3-3-3 or really even 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1, I'd actually much rather see combos made more flexible than that they be consolidated, especially without the tiered structure useful to that consolidation.

The ideal structure for key-shift play is something with an equal number of choices at each stage in decision-making (thus creating a geometric series, over n steps until cycled, of its total number of choices -- e.g. 3, 6, 9 or 3n (n=3) in the case of Monk). At present, Monk is the only job that would lend itself well to key-shift play, and even then only without considering Perfect Balance, which would have to be completely reworked.

In Opo-opo, Monk has three choices. In Raptor, three choices (True replaces Boot, Twin replaces Dragon, and One-Ilm replaces Destroyer). In Coerul, three choices (Snap replaces True, Demo replaces Twin, and Rockbreaker replaces One-Ilm).
In its first GCD, Dragoon has three choices. If he uses Heavy Thrust, he then has two real choices. Once either of those two remaining choices are used (with or without Heavy Thrust), the 2nd GCD has no choices (well, 1 and only 1). 3rd GCD - no choice. 4th GCD - no choice. 5th GCD - no choice. 6th GCD - no choice. 7th GCD - 01 to 3 choice. 8th GCD - 1-2 choices. 9th GCD - no choice. 10th GCD - no choice. Etc. Though it certainly makes no sense in its present setup, it makes little sense in key-swap consolidation either. The table of skills is simply very poorly designed. 3x1x1x1x1x1x2x1x1x1x1x1 does not a cohesive system make.

And, again, though the worst offender, it's not the only job unfit for a key-shift system. The standard Spinning Edge, Fast Blade, Heavy Swing, Hakaze, Hard Slash, etc. opening melee skills kidney shot that system from the beginning. Unless one is willing to sacrifice access to AoE skills and ranged skills mid-combo, the disjointed expansion of skill-tables following the opening ST melee (e.g Hakaze into Yuki/Shifu/Jinpu for a 1x3x1 table) prevents any fewer than the maximum spread's keys from being used at all times.

Now, if we're willing to give up that access, locking ourselves into a choice set for the full 10 seconds of combo or whatnot, then we could have something like this:

Hakaze ----- Jinpu -------- Gekko
Enpi -------- Shifu --------- Enpi
Fuga ------- Yukikaze ----- Fuga

But, frankly, even that looks awful.

A much better option, imo, would be to give each ability actual weight. Still allow for rotations, but there should be inherent value to each skill.

Make use of TP. It's every bit as much a matter of bloat at present as Dragoon's skill count. It's a resource dedicated solely to ensuring that everyone takes and presses an additional button's worth of bloat every two minuets. (Apart from ensuring that physical classes are always inferior in sustained AoE compared to casters).

Use TP as the guiding parameter for combos. Every skill can be used on its own for additional power based on current TP. You regenerate TP over time. Before adding in additional factors, the simple idea is that the more potential damage there is in a skill, the more TP it would consume. If you want to open into combat with Heavy Thrust into an immediate Chaos Thrust spread across three targets, that'd just barely be possible, but it'd cost and maybe even diminish the last of those three Chaos Thrusts. If you attempt to use a skill without sufficient TP, it cuts down its duration and potency proportionately.

Let's say we regen 50 TP per GCD. Let's use the example of a Dragoon for this. And let's say we have a TP maximum of 500 by level 50 and beyond. Here are your TP costs:

True Thrust - 0
Impulse Drive - 20
Vorpal Thrust - 100
Disembowel - 120
Full Thrust - 240
Chaos Thrust - 270

Each action reduces the cost of skills deeper within its combo set 50%, stacking multiplicatively.
Thus in a True Thrust combo one would generate 50, 0, -10 TP, for a total of 90 TP regenerated over 3 GCDs. That means you could afford a free Full Thrust every 2.66 FT combos, and a free Chaos Thrust every 3.33 FT combos.
An Impulse Drive combo, likewise, would generate 30, -10, -20 TP, for a total of 0 TP regenerated over its GCDs. Thus, if rotating CT, FT, FT, FT, would regenerate 270 TP every 4 combos, enough for a free Chaos Thrust every normal use of Chaos Thrust.

Note that if Heavy Thrust weren't a thing, CT-FT-FT-FT;repeat would perfectly time to Chaos Thrust's DoT's replacement at a 2.5 GCD. 30 seconds / 2.5 seconds per GCD = 12 GCDs; 12 GCDs / 3 steps per combo = 4 combos (per 30 seconds).

So, every time you'd normally be able again to Chaos Thrust you could Chaos Thrust an extra time. And every 3 rotational strings at level 50 by which you'd refresh Chaos Thrust, you could (if maximum TP were high enough) replace the whole of an FT combo (TT-VT-FT) with 3 back-to-back Full Thrusts.

There, now you have variety available to rotation, a bit of added flexibility, a way to manage your own TP to bring melee ramp-up more in line with that of casters, and no need for a two-minute cooldown. And with all that you can give each skill importance of its own, e.g. Vorpal Thrust for pushing enemies to the side via paired WASD / AnalogStick movement, Full Thrust for knocking enemies into the air, Disembowel for its auto-parry component and its bonus counterattack damage, etc., etc. Now you finally have a functional and meaningful use for all of those weaponskills and for the TP system restricting them.

[Kurando]

snip.

Seeing as TP is being removed in the new expac, we have no idea how much actions will cost or whether melee types will have other stuff that also costs the same resource (probably MP) so we'll have to wait and see on that.

[Shurrikhan]

Seeing as TP is being removed in the new expac, we have no idea how much actions will cost or whether melee types will have other stuff that also costs the same resource (probably MP) so we'll have to wait and see on that.

It doesn't matter whether you call it MP or TP so long as physical attacks still consume it only to an extent that their sustained AoE is gutted and all else merely requires them to hit another bloat button every two minutes.

It's a resource. Right now one of the current is useless but at least doesn't require further bloat. We will loose it and keep just the one that does require further bloat. The question is why have them at all unless they're actually going to do something to make the other systems more satisfying. My suggestion was to that effect.

[Kalise]

Personally, I found it odd when playing some of the classes, where combos would branch off a particular starter and then go into 2 distinct follow ups and culminating in a single finisher per path...

Or worse...

For example, DRG having True Thrust > Vorpal Thrust > Full Thrust and Impulse Drive > Disembowel > Chaos Thrust as 2 separate attack chains.

Then you have NIN whom uses just a single starter and follow up to branch into all 3 of their finishers with Spinning Edge > Gust Slash > Aeolian Edge/Shadow Fang/Armor Crush

Like, especially when the 1 > 2 just do damage and offer little to no additional effects and really it's just that finisher that actually does something different.

Though, there are exceptions like, as a WAR I basically want to use Heavy Swing > Maim > Storm's Path/Storm's Eye as much as possible and only ever touch the Heavy Swing > Skull Sunder > Butcher's Block chain if I'm having threat issues. But again, it's bloating my action bar with having this vestigial Skull Sunder and Butcher's Block skills when really, it would be simple enough to just merge Maim and Skull Sunder and have that lead into either Storm's Path/Storm's Eye/Butcher's Block (Though, it'd be nice also if Storm's Path wasn't the only finisher that generated 20 Beast Gauge... So I wasn't incentivised to use it at every availability due to it healing AND giving more BG than alternatives, but I digress...)

So yeah... Would make a lot of sense if things just used the same combo start up and then branched out into multiple skills as finishers, rather than having all these needless transitional skills that are barely any different from each other... At the very least, if you wanna keep things with a bunch of buttons to press, just extend the combo's into 4th skills instead of piling on the 2nd skills or the DRG thing of having 2 completely separate chains.

I mean True Thrust > Vorpal Thrust is just 160 Potency > 250 Potency while Impulse Drive > Disembowel is 200 Potency > 240 Potency + Piercing Resistance Down.

Are they really that dissimilar that they're both required?

That said, I could see an issue with trying to consolidate SAM down, given that Jinpu, Shifu and Yukikaze are all quite different... (But then again, having exceptions to a rule creates more diverse jobs...)

[Ruinfeild]

Regardless, there's a reason none of the melee DPS or tanks use their potions pre-pull.

Not sure what groups you run with but most if not almost all tanks when ask about potions in the balance discord are told to pop them at least two seconds pre-pull. Hell, I do it all the time.

[Shurrikhan]

Not sure what groups you run with but most if not almost all tanks when ask about potions in the balance discord are told to pop them at least two seconds pre-pull. Hell, I do it all the time.

Why, unless the fight would end with n seconds remaining otherwise? Your opener isn't that packed on any tank to spend it on two weaker GCDs when you could otherwise not. You're still going to wait for TA, BL, HC, BV, CS to go ham anyways.

[Dmhlucky]

Maybe they will just upgrade and augment the current abilities in Shadowbringers.
Or maybe less new abilities/spells and more traits.
Too much on the toolbar was breaching on a problem before Stormblood, and its only going to get worse the further forward we go up until 99 or 100.

Menu's have an advantage here, as they are unlimited, and yes, we can opt out of some abilities, but then why have them.

But for healers and damage spells, it is pretty bad. We basically have 2 options, AOE or Single target. Stone 4 was cool when it was released, now i don't even watch the screen sometimes (solo crap, not party)

I keep going back to this argument, we needed functional elements that mean something. Give Whm another water based spell. Give an actual damage based Wind spell, maybe something that could be used with lilies or boosted with lilies (or whatever they are to be replaced with, since the consensus is they are horrible)
Boost holy and Stone with them, and make it last a few seconds, not just 1 spell cast.

Since the most important stat on abilities it their Potency, having 2 skills withe the same value, that have no other effects is pointless. (without elements) If there are conditions, like After a cure, Stone's potancy is boosted by 30, or after a regen or medica 2, Aero's potancy is boosted by 30 and dot by 5, or something of the like.

Its hard to break free from the idea of different circumstances need different abilities that i have from 11, its something that i've always missed from that game. It is something that they had in 1.0, but i do get why they dropped it. It won't work in this game.