Quote Originally Posted by Lumberfoot View Post
If it was gradual you would expect to gain about 15% of your job skills in this span. Instead its saturated around the HW expansion, meaning content before and after this will end up lacking the same pace of skill progression.
No, gradual doesn't have to fit into any specific distribution. It's a generic term, and the skill distributions I listed still showed a gradual progression.

There's definitively a difference between post ShB and ShB dungeon difficulty. Its not the most difficult content ever, but if you are used to the easier content it comes across as strange and even chaotic (depending on the job) to have both new core skills and an increase in difficulty at the same time, when a lot of skills could simply have been added earlier.
Some of the earlier dungeons are more difficult than the newer dungeons. The only danger the newer dungeons pose is if you pull more than your group can handle, but that's also true in the older dungeons as well. And people have the time to adjust because there is a gradual progression of skill. You can take the time to read what each new ability gives you as you level as well as the help text for the job gauges.

That's why I said "unless you go back to lower level content". One might also question why BLM before and after 60 almost plays as 2 different jobs. If you actually enjoy the simple gameplay of spamming fire I with the occasional firestarter proc and then switching to ice for MP regen, the new playstyle relying on keeping track of timer might turn you away from the job altogether.

Sure you don't have to do the MSQ over again, but it doesn't mitigate it at all. You still have to level up a new job, not unlike leveling up a new alt. And whether or not a time investment is expected, leveling a job that you end up not wanting to play is simply a waste.

Yes, but that's a totally different issue.
This is a game of change. A game where your character progresses in some way. If you don't want to take the time to learn the changes, then that's on you to decide.