Jobs should gain their core rotations much earlier

[Rongway]

RDM doesn't start until 50, but has essentially its rotation done at 60 when it gets Embolden and Manafication. Yes, it adds Holy/Flare (70), Scorch (80), and Resolution (90) after that, but they're each just "press one more button at the end of the melee combo", which doesn't really change the gameplay much, and only Holy/Flare is a choice anyway, the other two you automatically do no matter what.

RDM is a bad example of having "essentially its rotation done at 60", though, as I pointed out in that other thread:

Red Mage for example. If they try to learn it like a Lv1 starter job, by only playing low level stuff until they're used to the basics, without cross referencing the higher level actions periodically, it's really easy to develop two bad habits:

1. Starting a melee combo at 50|50 or some other balanced value.
2. Casting Verstone-Verthunder when White is at +1 or Verfire-Veraero when Black is at +1, which leaves them balanced.

These two mistakes have no negative impact until 68/70, at which point they suddenly become significant mistakes.

If the addition of a single action or action pair ten levels later invalidates habits allowed or encouraged for the 50 levels prior, the "core" action set is incomplete. We should get weaker Vercombofinishers (Verquake? Verfreeze?) as soon as we get Redoublement.

[Mikey_R]

The first thing that needs to be considered, if you want to go down this path, is what counts as 'the core rotation' for the jobs?

The second is, would this be a good strategy? If you are having to get everything in a jobs core under 50, with everything above being classed as 'non core' or upgrades, would this feel good to actually play?

The last (at least of what I want to mention here) is the number of actions that need to be fitted in by level 50 and whether it is a realistic thing that can happen (and then whether it would leave the later levels bare bones as well).

And you cannot just leave a job with effectively nothing to change rotations around, of which I will reference SB Monk. They essentially got nothing, to list them, RoE (which was not as good on release as it has been), added in the RNG to Chakra gain (which was 50% on crit, lower than it is currently at 80% starting), elemental tackles, which was just a potency increase to Shoulder Tackle (became more useful towards the end with the TK rotation), RoF (Damage buff with a slowdown, effectively replacing Blood for Blood cross class) and Brotherhood which only increased physical damage and only proced off of weapon skills and not spells. Many people would have said early SB Monk was underwhelming, myself included and Monk was the first DPS I levelled in both ARR and HW, but it just didn't grab me (levelled it as a second DPS after MCH in SB).

Now, this isn't to say things that aren't part of the core rotation are all uninteresting. Going back to Monk, getting Form Shift in HW, whilst it doesn't seem like much on the surface, it did make a massive impact in how it was played as you now had to manage your buffs during downtime and which form you should enter back into (remembering back then it still cycled though the Monk's forms). Or, going to BLM, the introduction of Aspect Mastery where your opposite element spells cost no MP, in ShB, which was so useful, it was taken all the way down to level 1 in EW.

And so, going back to 'the core rotation', can you make a rotation interesting at level 50 and still add enough to keep people engaged through the 40, soon to be 50, levels to get to cap? If something gets added in an expansion, could this mean they potentially need to look at the 'core rotation' again and adjust if needed?

I think, ultimately, someone needs to define what a 'core rotation' is and take some examples of existing jobs and say how they would be changed to suit this idea, just to bring a more solid foundation to the idea.

[ForsakenRoe]

I think, ultimately, someone needs to define what a 'core rotation' is and take some examples of existing jobs and say how they would be changed to suit this idea, just to bring a more solid foundation to the idea.

I would look at ARR's Class/Job split for this one. Currently, the OG jobs learn stuff between 30 and 50 that are often integral to their gameplay, but it's flagged as being 'Class moves' rather than 'Job moves'. Storm's Eye on WAR, and it's buff, for example, are absolutely key to the gameplay of the WAR job, but that move is at level 50 in the class section of it's gameplay, from MRD. For a few weird levels, WAR wants to AOE in single target situations to put up the Surging Tempest buff, because you get Eye at 50, but Mythril Tempest at 40. I think that all the ARR jobs should have whatever they have in the 'class' section of the tree, from 1-50, moved down to be in the 1-30. This means, for example, MNK would have all 6 of it's ST moves by level 30. DRG would have both the True/Vorpal/Full combo, and the True/Disembowel/Chaotic combo, by level 30. Medica 2 on WHM would be moved down to 1-30 (helps with things like Aurum Vale, which currently syncs to 49 so you lose Med2). Warrior would, as mentioned, get Storm's Eye earlier than the AOE that gives the buff, which makes it make sense again (plus Vengeance). Paladin would get Circle of Scorn and Sentinel earlier.

Additionally, moving some key moves down the levels, to promote better play-feel at lower levels. Good examples of that would be BRD, swap Warden's (the esuna, level 35) with Wanderer's and PitchPerfect(the strongest of your 3 songs, level 52) so you can have your full 3 song rotation in 50 content instead of the weird dead gap. Or put Wanderer's at 45, and then move Rain of Death from there down to 35 (since you get Mages which resets it, at 30). NIN could get it's Armor Crush moved down a bit so you don't have to do the weird 'spend one mudra set per minute on refreshing Huton' in 50 content.

The issue then would be that the 30-50 gap would be 'learn one thing per 5 levels', I guess, but hopefully frontloading the other 1-50 stuff a bit harder would help to disguise that gap a bit

[Colt47]

I mean the problem mostly is that people aren't getting the rotation early enough, so they are kind of blind buying into a job and hoping that after all the time they spend on it the job will play the way they like. As a consequence someone can like playing a Lancer and dislike playing dragoon way later, or find BLM / that prelude job boring, but then like BLM later after it got its keystone rotation in place.

It doesn't take long to figure out if someone likes a job or not, but there's no way to know that until climbing to some pretty high levels.

[PercibelTheren]

Just give me an AoE earlier, please.

[Renathras]

RDM is a bad example of having "essentially its rotation done at 60", though, as I pointed out in that other thread:
...
If the addition of a single action or action pair ten levels later invalidates habits allowed or encouraged for the 50 levels prior, the "core" action set is incomplete. We should get weaker Vercombofinishers (Verquake? Verfreeze?) as soon as we get Redoublement.

It really does, though. The concept of the party buff (Embolden) and of using Manification to get to a melee combo are both there at 60. So are Swiftcast and Acceleration, and all your oGCD attacks. The only things you're missing out on are Verraise (64) and Magick Barrier (84) as situational abilities, Reprise (76) which is a movement tool that's generally avoided, and upgrades to Jolt II (62), Verthunder III and Veraero III (82), and Impact (66), none of which alter the rotation. The 50/50 would be a good point, except you generally aren't landing at EXACTLY 50/50 at any point, and it's extremely easy to tap your balance off from that and easy to learn at 68/70 when it matters. It doesn't change the overall core rotation or concept of the Job in ways that are really significant. It doesn't change the short-long cast cycles, and it doesn't change that you go into your burst once you have the mana for it unless you're holding for burst, where you also exploit Manafication and Embolden to boost damage and fit in more burst combos.

The ability to choose Holy or Flare is not a difficult evolution, and it doesn't completely alter the rotation.

Contrast something like BLM, where the rotation shifts significantly over the course of leveling, or PLD where it changes once you get Requiescat and again when you get Attonement.

RDM is "essentially" done at 60. I didn't say it was "completely" done, because it's not - nothing is, not even WAR. But the overall flow of the Job, how things work, the timers, the weaves, and the concept of overall how it works IS done by then. If you sync down from 90 to 60 on RDM, you can play it mostly the same. You're ABLE, if you want, to melee at 50/50, but you can keep going melee at 51/50 and are not harmed by doing so. That's what I mean.

As for someone leveling, presumably they at last glance at their tooltips. If they don't, then the conversation is moot anyway since they wouldn't even know what manafication does or why 50/50 is needed for the melee combos.

The first thing that needs to be considered, if you want to go down this path, is what counts as 'the core rotation' for the jobs?

This is honestly the bigger thing. Some Jobs it's pretty easy to define this (SMN and WAR, for example), but some Jobs, less so. Is Atonement part of the "core" PLD rotation? Holy Might? Requiescat? But aren't Swords? Is Holy Spirit x4 an adequate low level substitute?

It can be a tricky question for some Jobs, so that's a fair point.

For me personally, I think players should be exposed to the main concepts of the Job (for RDM, this would be short-long casts, the melee burst phase, oGCD weaves, and the enhancements to it with Manafication; for WAR, the 1-2-3, -4 upkeep buff, the 1 min CD, and the Beast Gauge spender) and have the complete rotation, if applicable, by level 60 at the latest. Additional charges to things (e.g. Acceleration's second charge), situational abilities (e.g. Magick Barrier), and so on are the things that should be pushed to the later part of the leveling experience, once players actually have encounters that flex them and the other Jobs have more of theirs to work together with.

WHM doesn't even get its first Lily spell (core to its endgame gameplay) until 52, and doesn't get Misery until 74. That's basically the core that WHM's gameplay is built around now, alongside using oGCDs to heal (you don't get your first of those until 50, and it's Benediction - this should probably be swapped with Tetragrammaton at 60).

I would look at ARR's Class/Job split for this one.

Agree with basically all of this post.

[Rongway]

The ability to choose Holy or Flare is not a difficult evolution, and it doesn't completely alter the rotation.

It really does, though.

Prior to learning Vercombofinishers it is always acceptable to begin a melee combo with balanced Mana and it is always acceptable to cross colors in a Dualcast if it wouldn't overwrite a proc. After learning Vercombofinishers it's almost never okay to begin a melee combo with balanced Mana and it's not okay to cross colors over 50|50 if the first color was at +1 of the other color unless you have a Swiftcast or Acceleration to fix the resulting balance. For example if you're at 51|50 and have no Accelerations or Swiftcasts left, Verstone-Verthunder is a blunder because in the very likely event that it doesn't proc it leaves you at 56|56 with no way to fix it. The correct dualcast in that case would be Verstone-Veraero, which puts you at 62|50 and with the option to start a melee combo if it doesn't proc.

A lot of people think Verholy and Verflare are "just another button to press after the melee combo". They're not. Gaining them adds meaningful constraints to the RDM rotation that aren't there from Lv10 to Lv69. The rotation is therefore incomplete without them.

[PyurBlue]

I would honestly just take all the level 50 skills for every class and make them level 1. Maybe level 10 if you wanted to really lower the learning curve.