Skills that can be consolidated in 5.0 [Proc/Summon Skills Consolidation]

[Zyneste]

I suspect SE has targeted for jobs to have a rough number of actions available to them. They consolidate as necessary to make sure the number of actions don't grow beyond some upper bound they've got in mind (likely anchored primarily around the controller experience), but they also want to make sure the number doesn't drop too low, and is balanced with other jobs.

This make sense from a design perspective. It also makes sense from an experience perspective, as there is an inverse relationship between the pace of a game and how many actions can and should be available at any given time. FFXIV has a fairly long GCD as modern MMOs go, and its fights and rotations are heavily scripted; this means there needs to be a decent number of actions to keep the engagement and challenge up. It might be frustrating for someone who would prefer more, ah, 'streamlined' combat, but everyone has different feelings here. After all, for a lot of people, the sentence I emphasized above would have 'cannot' swapped to 'should not'. Imagine what a job like, say, RDM would change to, then? The melee single-target combo would be broken down to a single button. Theoretically Veraero / Verthunder could be swapped to a single button based on whatever element is lowest on the gauge. Certainly Jolt II and Impactful would be merged (IIRC this is shifting for Shadowbringers anyway). And of course, as the OP mentioned, Verflare and Verholy would swap in for Verthunder and Veraero, respectively, when available. For Stormblood, this would result in a job that already feels simplistic - 24 primary Job actions - being reduced to 18 primary job actions, with a primary combo consisting of four buttons. For some people, that would be great; for me, it would be coma-inducing.

All this to say, we all have our ideal 'comfort zone' in terms of the action count. Going too much above that is an issue, but so is going too far below it. SE has to maintain a rough middle ground for everyone, which means that their goal isn't to streamline as much as possible - it's to roughly align job action counts with a predetermined target that they consider optimal. That's likely the core reason why action consolidation of the type discussed in this thread isn't happening.

If you look at the number of button disparity between classes you'd see they are just overall inconsistent with their actions.

Some classes have as low as 27 buttons (28 with Pot) and others as high as 34, (35 with pot.)

For controllers their breakpoints are in multiples of 16. So 32 button spots would ideally be the amount of buttons youd use to stay within 2 hotbars, or by using the expanded system.

If RDM hadn't been touched with this consolidation, it would be at 30 buttons instead of 28, (31 if you include potions.)

PLD a very button bloated class at this point (worth it, don't get me wrong) is sitting at 34 buttons, (35 with pot.)

Royal Authority into Atonement could easily alliveate some of the button bloat.

Looking at Scholar, with 32 skills, (33 with pot) they could have easily consolidated it down to 32 with Summon Seraph and consolation.

Dancer has 27 buttons (28 with pot) and could have easily gotten 4 seperate skills for their steps with this lower number of 31 buttons, but they were instead consolidated into their combo actions.

As an aside, Jolt II into Impact wouldn't be the same as any of these other listed. Stormblood's Impactful buff had a limited duration and Jolt II had a cast time. If it fell off during the cast, it would cancel the cast. No other suggestions listed have both of these qualities.

[Kirsten_Rev]

If you look at the number of button disparity between classes you'd see they are just overall inconsistent with their actions.

Some classes have as low as 27 buttons (28 with Pot) and others as high as 34, (35 with pot.)

For controllers their breakpoints are in multiples of 16. So 32 button spots would ideally be the amount of buttons youd use to stay within 2 hotbars, or by using the expanded system.

If RDM hadn't been touched with this consolidation, it would be at 30 buttons instead of 28, (31 if you include potions.)

PLD a very button bloated class at this point (worth it, don't get me wrong) is sitting at 34 buttons, (35 with pot.)

Royal Authority into Atonement could easily alliveate some of the button bloat.

Looking at Scholar, with 32 skills, (33 with pot) they could have easily consolidated it down to 32 with Summon Seraph and consolation.

Dancer has 27 buttons (28 with pot) and could have easily gotten 4 seperate skills for their steps with this lower number of 31 buttons, but they were instead consolidated into their combo actions.

I did say roughly, in fairness. I'm also not arguing with the idea that certain consolidations would make sense, or that SE is the definition of consistency (they aren't - on anything). What I was pointing out is that blanket statements maximizing consolidation under certain parameters wouldn't improve things for all users, a point that I maintain - and a design decision that at least on some level SE seems to have made as well.

Also, I'd generally agree with the idea that action counts should ideally be kept under 30 (allowing space for potions and Sprint to bring it to 32 max in combat), but the combat system really isn't set up for it. SE would have been wise to knock the ability count down to around 20 - 25, with situational abilities playing a stronger role, but then they went and brutally script-locked every boss fight in the game, which renders such an approach problematic at best. Unfortunately, without truly dynamic ability usage, it's tough to create a fresh experience through tweaks to existing tools - they're more often forced to add new ones. And long-term, that inevitably leads to the myriad issues facing combat adjustments at the start of each expansion, including button bloat.

[Eloah]

Nothing, but the 6 axed role skills.

That really ticks me off. BLM was never really a broken job. It just needed tweaks to a few skills, like Blizzard 2 and Freeze, and only freeze gets a fix a post level 70. But like what makes them so special to net get completley gutted like some of the others. Is their playstyle "good" and flows nicely, so was SCH, but we see what happened to them. It's official BLM is THE job of FFXIV since Yoshi-P plays it. All other jobs are secondary.

[Rongway]

You could macro them together if you need more space on hotbars.

/macroicon "skills you want icon for"
/ac "oGCD skill you want to use"
/ac "GCD skill"

So whenever you push the button you execute the GCD if oGCD is not up, if oGCD is up then it is used first and then after second press it will execute GCD skill.

Macros are horrible when you want to do decent damage.

Besides, this isn't about combining oGCDs and GCDs, or combining oGCDs and oGCDs or some arbitrary consolidation of skills. This is about making it so that very specific skills that can't be used under any circumstances, except through the pressing of a specific other button first, aren't taking up space on your bar 100% of the time. You absolutely cannot use Between The Lines unless Ley Lines is active; therefore, the Ley Lines button should become Between The Lines once you activate it. That's the sort of thing we're talking about here.

(Aside from the Scathe>Xenoglossy change, which I don't support, as it's not a mutual exclusion situation.)

[CaptainLagbeard]

Mild necro but,

One thing that should definitely be made in an option for consolidating the amount of weaponskills would be the option for turning the combos into a single button, kind of like how they are in PvP. Most classes could drop 2-3 buttons with that, MNK could drop 6.

[Rongway]

Mild necro but,

One thing that should definitely be made in an option for consolidating the amount of weaponskills would be the option for turning the combos into a single button, kind of like how they are in PvP. Most classes could drop 2-3 buttons with that, MNK could drop 6.

This thread is specifically about skills that are completely unusable except under specific conditions, or skills that have mutually exclusive usability. For these skills, the matter is an interface issue, as skills that cannot be used most of the time still take up hotbar space all of the time (barring creative hotbar manipulation macros). Combo consolidation, on the other hand, is a question of gameplay philosophy.

[Videra]

I'd really like to see Blizzard one become Blizzard three when you get it, as you will never have need to use Blizz 1 again. Similarly, Blizzard 2 with freeze. Fire 2 is a mess and I don't know how I'd consolidate it.

[TaranTatsuuchi]

These button Replacements are something that would be great to have.

[Reynhart]

[*]Blizzard IV becomes Fire IV while under the effect of Astral Fire (or some varient of the two.)

Technically, Enochian could become Blizzard IV/Fire IV under Enochian and the Umbral/Astral effect.

As for SMN, you could simply "fuse" all three Enkindles under one the same slot.

[Verlyn]

SMN: Egi Assault and Egi Assault II into one skill with 4 charges. Dreadwyrm Trance becomes Deathflare while active.