Quote Originally Posted by Shurrikhan View Post
The Post.
All of this.

One reason Jobs feel so HOMOGENIZED is because they have SO MANY BUTTONS.

Think about it. EVERY Tank and Melee has a 1-2-3 combo for single target and a 1-2 combo for AOE. And in many cases, they are more or less identical. SOME have a -4 buff upkeep button (WAR, NIN), some have a second separate combo (GNB), one has a -2b and -2c-3c secondary combo (SAM), but they all still have the core 1-2-3. Even MCH is in on that act. They all have the same 1-2 for AOE. Like...ALL of them have a 1-2 AOE. No one has a just 1spam and only one has a -3. It's just 1-2 + something random. Some do vaguely different things, like WAR's refreshing their damage buff or NIN's interacting with Doton. Some interact with other things, like SAM's giving them two seals for the AOE Iajutsu, but the base core of it is the same.

The only one that's really different there is DRG - and not because it doesn't have a 1-2 AOE rotation or doesn't have 1-2-3 core rotation, but rather because it has two 4 hit rotations chained end-to-end with each other - and MNK - which is the most distinct in that its 6 buttons across 3 stances can be used in different orders (and should be during the rotation), and that it is the only one with a -3 for the AOE combo.

That's 5 buttons EVERY Tank and Melee has (and 4 on MCH) that do THE EXACT SAME THING. Some damage. A little more damage (rarely some additional effect). Some more damage and a random effect that often ties into its Job gauge. And for AOE, it's the same thing.

Are those buttons making all the Jobs feel different or are they "peak of homogenization"?

More buttons != more diversity. In fact, as Shurrikhan says, more buttons can sometimes LEAD TO more homogenization.

PLD in ARR had a 1-2-3 and nothing more for its core rotation, and its AOE "rotation" was "Flash spam until low on MP, then 1-2 Riot to regain MP, repeat" while WAR's at the time was more involved (and there were the cursed MRD Cross-Class builds). You can't tell me that was MORE homogenized than Tanks are now, and that was with WAR and PLD both having only something like 2/3rds the buttons they have now.