Job action combos one button

[Shurrikhan]

I can picture that, explained that way, yes. But those muscle memory trackings are irrelevant to what Jijifli said about procs. For classes that are borderline random (DNC and BRD mostly), procs are too random to help with that, and the only thing that help is focus. And that focus is, I think, more disturbed the more buttons you have to press. Maybe it can help and that's just not how my mind works but anyway, nobody's asking to have mandatory concatenated combos, I'm just advocating for the option to, so... why would anyone cry against that ?

Sorry, I should probably have started from that exact example. Again, for me procs don't make much of a difference unless I can meaningfully bank them -- short of that, they actually make things more mind-numbing for me. Heck, when they're literally locked out until the proc, one can just key-swipe / button-slide (2->1 for Refulgent if available, Burst if not; Reverse Cascade if procced, Cascade otherwise; etc.), so there's no need to even have the procs on one's screen.

But, for some... maybe. Maybe they're on a controller and don't claw-grip and therefore key-sliding isn't as practical and "hit button when flashing" is enough to give them their kicks, which in turn gets them thinking about their next Standard Step. I don't know. That certainly doesn't match my experience, but so long as there is some degree of bankability such that the separate buttons are actually doing something, I don't see it as a waste. Inefficient, sure --such that I'd prefer more involved mechanics around them-- but not pure bloat.

I just don't find rigid combos to have any such redeeming feature and would prefer they therefore be redesigned to offer some reason for needing separate buttons (a la Monk) or the option be given to consolidate them and, if it came down to either job depth from making use of the buttons saved for smaller total button counts for those who want every action to have its own button, that we favor depth over pretense.

Now, one may point out that so long as the future of job kits would depend on that consolidation, and those who don't use that option to consolidate as reasonable might therefore end up with an uncomfortable amount of buttons, then the player choice to consolidate wouldn't really be an "option". And that's true. Eventually, maybe, consolidating or not would be only nebulously a "choice", favoring ease of button-presses on one hand and subconscious ease of tracking timing on the other. But that's still a whole lot more choice than is allowed to console (or mod-less) players presently.

But DRG, on the other hand, can have its 5 GCD combo (or 10, if we want to go that far) reduced from 7 buttons to 1, and that's a lot against bloating.

3 or 4. You'd still want to give the option for multi-DoTing via back-to-back CT combos, or to overextend towards a further Full Thrust combo in finishing off an enemy. And of course the AoE combo would be its own button. Though, that'd still save 60% to 70% of the button count required for DRG's combos (10 keys total). Add to that Jump -> Mirage Dive (though you'll likely want a player-choseable safety period, for those of us who button-mash), and you should have some very comfortable palettes (sets of 4 keys) on controller.

That "or 4" is just a question of whether you want to be able to cancel your Wheeling/Fang steps in favor of another combo, which is basically never viable once you get Lance Mastery II, even if Life Surge is coming back up, since the +100 potency 5th step more than makes up Life Surge being used on it instead of Full Thrust if it must be.

If the options were left to us, I'd just use 3 buttons. Chaos+2, Full+2, AoE. (Piercing Talon not here accounted for, but obviously its own button as well, especially now that it no longer breaks combos.)

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Some final food for thought:

True customization would allow us a bit of QoL even if these buttons (e.g., Refulgent Arrow, which will currently always be used over Burst Shot) were given reason to exist separately. For instance, one might have a key use Refulgent over Burst Shot if available, or Bootshine over Dragon Kick if Leaden Fist is up, without sacrificing the ability to deliberately Burst Shot despite having a proc or deliberate Bootshine even without Leaden Fist. As such, players who'd prefer to split their buttons to "conserve resource" vs. "burn resources" or "prioritize sustain" vs. "prioritize burst" could do so, as may make more sense to them.

I certainly expect that to some players those procs and how they shuffle which button we ought to press for what general decision (that is, again, until we just key-swipe to the same effect as the aforementioned Refulgent-over-Burst, etc.), is compelling gameplay (yet only compelling enough to follow if everyone is likewise forced to), so I doubt that would ever get anywhere, but that is just another avenue that such changes could go down, if we had interest.