Each expansion I get hyped and also worried about more skills.

[Ayuhra]

I find this quite funny too... there's very little difference about pressing the same key 3 times while it changes than pressing 3 different keys that people put right next to each other in the correct order.

Consolidating the combo systems would allow space to add more abilities to be woven in or more skills that interact with different stages of the combo.

Plus there is indeed a ton of buttons for casters too, for example... Why Seraph and Consolation aren't the same button? Why Dreadyrm Trance doesn't turn into Summon Bahamut, and then into Enkindle Bahamut? Ley Lines could turn into Between the Lines while active. Dream within a Dream could turn into Assassination.

Basically there are a ton of conditional abilities that are only usable after a previous ability is pressed, and those could really merge into the same button.

I agree with this. Also things like Fire IV and Blizzard IV on a BLM. If you can use one you literally cannot use the other even by accident, why are they different buttons?

Yeah no. There are other ways to address by simply enhancing current abilities. Swear to god noone learned any lessons from what Blizzard did over at WoW. Pruning sounds real great until it actually happens and you realize you are left with a bunch of jobs that are just copy and paste of each with literally no differences. We have examples of other MMO's where this has occurred and EVERY single time it was a disaster.

It is a childish MMO playerbase of people all in our 30's by now that cry for new shiny abilities like little kids. They could raise the level cap by 5 and change some of the potencies and I would be happy.

I think you are misreading what I said. I said button prune, not ability prune. There are so many abilities that are only usable while under a condition set by another ability and there are some abilities that are mutually exclusive. These could all get condensed into one button without ruining the flow.

I am also open to combos being put on one button but am a little less sure about that except in conditional combos (1-2-3 but 2 is literally only usable after 1 and 1 does not branch etc)