It feels like SCH is slowly losing its identity

[Sanctify]

Fairy abilities becoming player actions removes complexity that I enjoyed.

Does this mean the accursed days of having a mandatory pet cross hotbar on controller is over? If so, that's amazing and a massive boon.

[LegoTechnic]

Does this mean the accursed days of having a mandatory pet cross hotbar on controller is over? If so, that's amazing and a massive boon.

This statement confuses me. You have never been required to have a pet crossbar specifically, and could freely link pet abilities to your standard crossbar when you wanted them. If you were concerned about space, all you had to do was write Summon macros that replaced the same spots with the summoned fairy's abilities so that when you summoned Eos her abilities would be on bar, and when you summoned Selene hers would take their places.

If you did this, like most SCH who used a controller, then you'll see absolutely no crossbar differences from fairy actions becoming player abilities in Shadowbringers, with one annoying exception. Since they're now player abilities they're treated like Fey Union (the tether cast), meaning the player has to cast them with an animation trigger. This means you can't cast Whispering Dawn while in the middle of casting Broil like we previously could.

[Nerfworthy]

Does this mean the accursed days of having a mandatory pet cross hotbar on controller is over? If so, that's amazing and a massive boon.

You could always use pet abilities on your normal bar. Like the poster above, I had a macro tied to my summon pet ability to swap the abilities when I switched fairies. This is a massive nerf because now pet abilities trigger your GCD. Before they did not. Definitely not a boon..

The things I love about SCH are being stripped away, as demonstrated here. Being able to continue to dps while ordering my fairy to heal at the same time is amazing. It really separated the good SCH from the great SCH to be able to micro-manage like that.