Quote Originally Posted by SpeckledBurd View Post
And there's a difference between skills like those and skills that don't see use at all because their design rendered it non-functional in all situations.

If you're peeved about the removal of One Ilm Punch I don't know what to tell you dude. There have been Niche actions in the game on all jobs that may as well have been useless, but One Ilm Punch wasn't utility. It was a button that did nothing but punish you for hitting it without actually giving you any effect because it was so bad.
Fun strawman. Fun hyperbole.

I said that I'd prefer that situational skills (Defensives beyond merely Second Wind for DPS, Bloodbath for Tanks, etc., etc.) not be killed on sight over a mistaken belief that they will be replaced with something better. When something replaces them at all, they tend to be more obligatory actions, sure, but rarely any more satisfying, often trading non-obligatory "bloat" for obligatory "bloat".

OIP traded 50 potency for a stun. That is quite literally an effect. It's mostly crap, but it is an effect, whereby if that stun let, say, your SAM manage a single extra positional and you save a fifth of a GCD of uptime by not having to run out and back, it was already an rDPS gain. That's far from as useful as it could or should have been, but unless the existence of every single weaponskill besides the most optimal in a given GCD is likewise "punishing you" just for being a choice that you didn't take off your hotbar, it's just a niche skill, not a poison.

I never argued its loss was a problem. I argued that removing things the use of which wasn't obligatory in the first place, usually to be replaced by something obligatory but no more satisfying -- or by nothing at all, is at best a lateral move.

Something unenjoyable that you don't have to deal with (e.g. OIP) is generally going to be a fair sight better than something unenjoyable that you are obliged to deal with (e.g. Anatman openers). Insisting that every skill that sees situational use be removed without any idea of what to replace it with does us no favors.