Quote Originally Posted by Nyarlha View Post
They didn't add more because they couldn't add more. As I said multiple time, the devs have been clear that they try and keep the amount of buttons relatively the same from level cap to level cap. If they consolidate combos, they could still keep the same amount of buttons (which is THEIR STATED GOAL) while giving us more than 2 new extremely situational abilities.
Yes and no. The button cap is important, but consider also what's being given, and in place of what. A lot of the times it's less a matter of having a capped capacity as just a lack of understanding of the job kits being changed or foresight as to how those changes would affect play.

Take Monk for example. In removing Fracture and Touch of Death, they killed Monk's ability to avoid positional requirements n times per 18|30 seconds, only to then have to go back and return that capacity via Role Actions that do not add to or fit job identity like True North and, later, Riddle of Earth. We lost more integral actions that better rewarded understanding of a given fight and provided useful rotational flexibility just to get... bland situationals that are available only much later in the experience.

Take Dragoon. In making its combo longer --rather than the two Dragon skills having any bankable effects, or even effects unique to themselves post-HW -- while also removing more modular actions like Heavy Thrust and Phlebotomize, they reduced the modularity in DRG's actions which then removed allowances for further rotational complexity.

We're not dealing merely with a button cap; we're dealing with a class dev team (duo? trio?) that only ever actively dumbs down the jobs they make any notable modifications to.

As Forte mentioned, job button counts are not equal, or even all that close to equal. Neither, even, are effective button counts (imagine every skill that could be consolidated, such as Ley Lines<>Between the Lines, Enochian->Blizzard IV<>Fire IV, Umbral Soul<>Transpose; RDM's melee chain, Verstone<>Veraero (unless Swiftcast/Dualcast), Verfire<>Verthunder (unless Swiftcast/Dualcast), Scorch replacing Verholy/Verflare, Impact replacing either AoE upon Dualcast or Swiftcast; Chaos Thrust Chain(+2), Full Thrust Chain(+2), Jump<>Mirage Dive, Blood of the Dragon<>Stardiver; etc., etc. and then consider what those jobs' button counts would be).