5.0 Combat changes: What do you expect?

[Physic]

I feel like ppl are misunderstanding one button combo for "one button for all attacks" maybe?

My understanding of this concept would be that it would be one button for each finisher... so it would primarily only affect melee dps and tanks as it is.


Tanks for example...

WAR would have 3 combo buttons: Storm's Eye, Storm's Path and Butcher Block. Consolidating 6 buttons down to 3.
PLD would have 3 combo buttons as well: Royal Authority, Goring Blade and Rage of Halone. Again, consolidating 6 buttons down to 3.
DRK would only have 2 combo buttons: Soul Eater and Power Slash. Consolidating 5 buttons down to 2.

So on PLD for example, there would be 3 buttons on the hotbar that would change as such.
Fast Blade >> Savage Blade >> Rage of Halone
Fast Blade >> Riot Blade >> Goring Blade
Fast Blade >> Riot Blade >> Royal Authority

And technically this would still allow for repetition of one-two combos, for whatever reason (assume maybe PLD or DRK want to spam Riot/Syphon for MP), as the Rage of Halone Combo would reset to Fast Blade as soon as Riot Blade is pressed because that combo string can no longer be continued.

EDIT: Forgot about the AoE combo...
For Melee DPS, DRG could get the most dramatic benefit (if Fang and Claw and Wheeling Thrust are tacked on to the combos... which they should be).
They'd have 3 combo buttons: Full Thrust and Chaos Thrust (which actually branch into F&G and Wheeling), and Sonic Thrust. Consolidating 10 buttons down to 3.

The two single-target combos would go:
True Thrust >> Vorpal Thrust >> Full Thrust >> Fang and Claw >> Wheeling Thrust
Impulse Drive >> Disembowel >> Chaos Thrust >> Wheeling Thrust >> Fang and Claw

NIN would get 3 combo buttons: Aoelian Edge, Shadow Fang and Armor Crush. Probably the least impact though since their combos don't branch until the last hit... it would only consolidate 5 buttons down to 3.

SAM would get 3 combo buttons: Gekko, Kasha and Yukikaze. Consolidating 6 buttons down to 3.
MNK could get 3 combos buttons as well: Snap Punch, Demolish and Rockbreaker. Consolidating 9 buttons down to 3.

The only difference with MNK is that the combos would progress based on the form, so they would go like this:

Dragon Kick >> Twin Snakes > Snap Punch (flank boosted attacks)
Bootshine >> True Strike >> Demolish (rear boosted attacks)
Arm of the Destroyer >> One Ilm Punch >> Rockbreaker ("special" attacks)

Regardless of whether Dragon, Boot or Arm is pressed, all 3 buttons would progress to their next step. If a form were to drop then all combo buttons would reset to the first step.


What makes MNK and SAM outliers though are Perfect Balance and Meikyo Shisui... and tbh... I'd rather see those 2 abilities get a rework so this system could work for all 7 jobs (8 assuming Gunbreaker will follow suit with at least an enmity combos and a damage combo).

problem is monk can skip ahead in the combo with the skill

[Rowde]

problem is monk can skip ahead in the combo with the skill

I mentioned that. So can SAM. Would rather see that those TWO skills for TWO jobs get reworked so more jobs overall (PLD, WAR, DRK, DRG, NIN, MNK, SAM, and prob Gunbreaker) could get the benefits of additional hotbar space from combo buttons.

[Ilan]

Someone questioned this in another thread, so I pretty much just copy and pasted my response with some changes.

Before Stormblood, Aetherflow originally was the only action that ACN/SMN/SCH had available (excluding Energy Drain) to restore their own MP. The original recovery cost was 20% instead of the 10% we get now, and there was no role action like Lucid as an alternative. Sure AF was used to deal damage/heal, but if no other player was in the party with Refresh capabilities (e.g. BRD/MCH) then it was something you needed to use it to manage your MP. After Lucid Dreaming was made cross-role it kinda made sense to reduce the effect of Aetherflow to 10%, otherwise that would of been a lot of MP being recovered. I mean neither kinda have MP issues now anyway, but it took several patches of fixes to get the jobs in to that place to begin with.

Also lucid is an emnity control skill which is useful to these two classes too.

I mentioned that. So can SAM. Would rather see that those TWO skills for TWO jobs get reworked so more jobs overall (PLD, WAR, DRK, DRG, NIN, MNK, SAM, and prob Gunbreaker) could get the benefits of additional hotbar space from combo buttons.

And for what in the world would we need more space in our skillbars? For more useless emotes or mounts? I don't understand why the hell people would want these combo buttons, set up propper keybinds and learn how to play with a controller instead of wanting to turn the game into a 1-3 button thing.

[Rowde]

Also lucid is an emnity control skill which is useful to these two classes too.


And for what in the world would we need more space in our skillbars? For more useless emotes or mounts? I don't understand why the hell people would want these combo buttons, set up propper keybinds and learn how to play with a controller instead of wanting to turn the game into a 1-3 button thing.

It would allow more oGCDs to be placed on the primary bar for one.

I play on PS4 with a controller.

I consider the primary bar to be the 16 actions quickly accessible with either L2 or R2.

16 more actions (8 at a time) can be accessed via Cross Hotbar by holding either L2 then R2 or holding R2 then L2.

Finally 8 more actions (4 at a time) can be accessed via W Cross Hotbar by double tapping then holding either L2 or R2.


While Cross Hotbar is pretty reliable, sometimes there can be derp if I'm already holding L2 or R2 to input an action and I want to weave something in on a cross hotbar, but either I don't let go of the trigger in time (or server doesn't read it...) and I get the wrong crossbar up... W Cross Hotbar is a nightmare in intense situations. The more stuff that is happening, the more likely it seems that my double tap won't be registered. I already put my least used skills there, but about half the times I want to use them in an adequate emergency the bar doesn't appear.


So I for one, would use the new real estate on my primary bar for oGCDs from my crossbar and perhaps some of the emergency abilities from my W Hotbar that I tend to go to first.

[Ilan]

It would allow more oGCDs to be placed on the primary bar for one.

I play on PS4 with a controller.

I consider the primary bar to be the 16 actions quickly accessible with either L2 or R2.

16 more actions (8 at a time) can be accessed via Cross Hotbar by holding either L2 then R2 or holding R2 then L2.

Finally 8 more actions (4 at a time) can be accessed via W Cross Hotbar by double tapping then holding either L2 or R2.


While Cross Hotbar is pretty reliable, sometimes there can be derp if I'm already holding L2 or R2 to input an action and I want to weave something in on a cross hotbar, but either I don't let go of the trigger in time (or server doesn't read it...) and I get the wrong crossbar up... W Cross Hotbar is a nightmare in intense situations. The more stuff that is happening, the more likely it seems that my double tap won't be registered. I already put my least used skills there, but about half the times I want to use them in an adequate emergency the bar doesn't appear.


So I for one, would use the new real estate on my primary bar for oGCDs from my crossbar and perhaps some of the emergency abilities from my W Hotbar that I tend to go to first.

I don't play with a controller so i can't go in debth with that but everyone i know who plays on a console doesn't have any problems doing so. Maybe you should try to play with mouse and keyboard if you are having issues with a controller. I'm sure someone who plays on PS4 can go further into that controller topic.

[Rowde]

I don't play with a controller so i can't go in debth with that but everyone i know who plays on a console doesn't have any problems doing so. Maybe you should try to play with mouse and keyboard if you are having issues with a controller. I'm sure someone who plays on PS4 can go further into that controller topic.

I mean, my issues are not so bad that the game is unplayable. But I recognize that consolidating buttons would exponentially increase the ease of use.

Because of how often action buttons are pressed in combat, that immediately necessitates that any actions used as part of combos go on to the Primary hotbar. So for most melee that means 40% - 50% of my primary bar has to be populated by the these combos.

For the most part my Cross Hotbars are populated by my CDs and weaves, and to keep it simple across all jobs I try to separate each side of the cross hotbar into defensive and offensive so it's easier to remember.

However that means for the most part my W Bars get the panic buttons, because they aren't pressed as often... but there's also a 50% chance that it won't appear so eh...


At any rate, consolidating the combos would mean I could promote some of my weaves and CDs from the cross hotbar to the primary bar so I could 1) get to the buttons faster and easier and 2) in theory, use them more often since the icons will be more visible to me so I'll know when they come off CD.

[HyoMinPark]

It would allow more oGCDs to be placed on the primary bar for one.

I play on PS4 with a controller.

I consider the primary bar to be the 16 actions quickly accessible with either L2 or R2.

16 more actions (8 at a time) can be accessed via Cross Hotbar by holding either L2 then R2 or holding R2 then L2.

Finally 8 more actions (4 at a time) can be accessed via W Cross Hotbar by double tapping then holding either L2 or R2.


While Cross Hotbar is pretty reliable, sometimes there can be derp if I'm already holding L2 or R2 to input an action and I want to weave something in on a cross hotbar, but either I don't let go of the trigger in time (or server doesn't read it...) and I get the wrong crossbar up... W Cross Hotbar is a nightmare in intense situations. The more stuff that is happening, the more likely it seems that my double tap won't be registered. I already put my least used skills there, but about half the times I want to use them in an adequate emergency the bar doesn't appear.


So I for one, would use the new real estate on my primary bar for oGCDs from my crossbar and perhaps some of the emergency abilities from my W Hotbar that I tend to go to first.

Derping and simply pressing the wrong button (or fat fingering) is something that can happen even on a primary hotbar (mfw I accidentally fat finger a song too early >.>), as well as on a Keyboard/Mouse. It’s fairly common with anyone, so I don’t really see it as an adequate defense for consolidation. Not to mention, it still won’t help jobs that cannot be squished into just 16 buttons because they simply don’t have buttons that can be logically consolidated (e.g., the casters, the healers, BRD, MCH).

You can try to better organize your hotbars if you find you have issues getting to important skills. This is how I did mine—the primary bar should be the most frequently used skills, with the first half of the extended cross being skills with second highest frequency (e.g., cooldowns, short-cooldown buffs) and the second half being skills with the least frequency (situational things, long-cooldown abilities, physical ranged LB). My hands tend to default to the R2>L2 hold first, so I’ve made it the “primary” extended cross, with L2>R2 being the secondary one since my hands don’t default to it first (could be because I’m right-handed is why that happens).

At any rate, consolidating the combos would mean I could promote some of my weaves and CDs from the cross hotbar to the primary bar so I could 1) get to the buttons faster and easier and 2) in theory, use them more often since the icons will be more visible to me so I'll know when they come off CD.

For cooldowns I don’t have on my primary bar, I have one of the regular hotbars set up just above my crossbar with them on it so that I can track cooldowns. It allows me to see that they’re coming off cooldown without checking my extended cross or shuffling through hotbars.