Quote Originally Posted by Shurrikhan View Post
Aye. I don't especially care for Ren's suggested procedure, but there seems no point in leaving certain buttons dead in any almost all serious content.

:: Inb4 any what-about for Repose, Esuna, etc. Yes, ideally I wouldn't leave those dead, either. But not necessarily going for one more instance of bloat doesn't require removing every single other instance of it.
The idea solution to Esuna is simply make debuffs more consistent. There are a couple of issues with Esuna as it stands: 1. The UI is in dire need of a modernization to make cleansable debuffs more visible. A hair-thin, tiny blue line above an already tiny debuff icon is something I'm astonished has not been updated at this point. 2. Debuffs have a tendency to either be inconsequential and thus not worth casting Esuna, or fatal if not cleansed and thus must be Esuna'd.

If we updated the game's UI for buffs and debuffs to not be a hideous eyesore and actually communicate information to the player, we can resolve point 1 very quickly. Point 2 is something I've talked about before and gave examples as to other debuffs that provide players with a choice they get to make. For example, Infirmity is a debuff that greatly reduces the HP restored to a target. Using that for heal checks and giving the player the option to cleanse it with Esuna allows the player to choose what's most effective, removing it to heal effectively, or spend more cooldowns to heal through the debuff. If you strike the balance correctly, that could create more opportunities for healers to make choices during combat.

The more basic solution I've proposed if we're going to continue to leave debuffs largely out of sight and out of design space, then simply merge Esuna with your basic Cure, Physick, Benefic, and Diagnosis. You cut down on button bloat by combing two incredibly niche resources. It would still not be used all that often, but it's more efficient to a single action that can cover multiple niches rather than several buttons that each cover their own niches.