I would love to see Role Actions replaced

[Sjol]

I find role actions to be a useful tool for understanding different roles, but also a big part of why I find various jobs to be homogenous.

My preference would be for them to be separate job-specific spells, weapon skills, and abilities that work more cleanly into each job's lore. It would also help with button bloat since you could roll extra charges into existing abilities rather than have a separate button.

E.g., PLD could get Shield Bash as an ability with unlimited charges, but a buff on the target that prevents future Shield Bashes for 10s.

Mind you, these are just examples, and the designers would surely do a better job.

Swiftcast might not work the same on every job. E.g., it could roll into Triplecast earlier which we could get earlier.

That's not to say that certain core capabilities wouldn't be retained, like Esuna, but it could operate differently per job. E.g., maybe it's a group cleanse on one job, but an oGCD on another.

BLM could just ditch Lucid Dreaming completely as it doesn't work past a pretty early level and is strictly inferior to any level of Umbral Phase.

Other examples, ideas, and critiques encouraged.

[LilimoLimomo]

I honestly think Role Actions are just the most honest part of the homogeneity in jobs, which makes them obvious targets for scrutiny while distracting from the majority of the offenders. Like for example, how much of any tank's "unique" kit is nearly identical to those of other tanks? 1-2-3 combo, 1-2 AoE combo, tank stance, invuln, enmity ranged attack, gap closer, 120 second damage reduction CD, short cooldown damage reduction for party member, short cooldown damage reduction for self. There is so little to every tank that is actually distinct to them and gives them a meaningful personality or play style beyond the VFX. It's a similar situation for healers, too.

[Sjol]

I honestly think Role Actions are just the most honest part of the homogeneity in jobs, which makes them obvious targets for scrutiny while distracting from the majority of the offenders. Like for example, how much of any tank's "unique" kit is nearly identical to those of other tanks? 1-2-3 combo, 1-2 AoE combo, tank stance, invuln, enmity ranged attack, gap closer, 120 second damage reduction CD, short cooldown damage reduction for party member, short cooldown damage reduction for self. There is so little to every tank that is actually distinct to them and gives them a meaningful personality or play style beyond the VFX. It's a similar situation for healers, too.

Honest, sure, but I also think they limit the design potential of the jobs because they're a fixed design element that you have to design around. This is especially egregious as it prevents you from adding additional access or charges to their tank-specific kit. You definitely need certain capabilities to be represented by all the various jobs of a role, but they don't have to agree. What if the movement prevention of Arm's Length were moved to Salted Earth? If you want the tank to feel different you could make all their defensive cooldowns also offensive. You could give Arm's Length movement restriction as just a default trait that's always on except when you choose to disable it.

There's definitely a lot of design space that could be used, but the role actions shrink that space quite a bit it seems.

[AmiableApkallu]

Honest, sure, but I also think they limit the design potential of the jobs because they're a fixed design element that you have to design around.

I suspect that for SE, it's actually flipped around: role actions solve the problem of having to design around 354 different ways that a problem might be answered by the player.

[Sjol]

I suspect that for SE, it's actually flipped around: role actions solve the problem of having to design around 354 different ways that a problem might be answered by the player.

I agree that they're likely a design shortcut. Reducing design space isn't a bad thing on a time budget, but I do feel like it adds to homogeneity. It would be harder for them to widen the design space, but I do believe it would lead to better outcomes long-term.

[AmiableApkallu]

I'd like to see every role action returned to being exclusive to the class/job it originated from. Then, if other classes and jobs need that functionality back, they should, at the very least, get an action with an animation that's specific to those classes and jobs. And sure, there's plenty of room here, I think (I hope?), for providing that functionality in some way that isn't necessarily an exact copy.

[Allegor]

I'd like to see every role action returned to being exclusive to the class/job it originated from. Then, if other classes and jobs need that functionality back, they should, at the very least, get an action with an animation that's specific to those classes and jobs. And sure, there's plenty of room here, I think (I hope?), for providing that functionality in some way that isn't necessarily an exact copy.

So...Troubadour/Tactician/Shield Samba. For the record, when either BRD, MCH and DNC use Peloton, they each have a unique animation for it too. I always found it odd, but nice.

[Gemina]

Role actions don't need to be replaced, they just need a more clear cut definition of what dictates a skill being a role action, and which roles should actually get them. Right now, it's a bit jumbled and could use some refinement. I'll break it down:

Healer:
Repose - Removed
Esuna - Returned to each healer with their own version and animation
Swiftcast - Fine as is
Lucid Dreaming - Fine as is
Rescue - Fine as is
Surecast - Fine as is

Tank:
Rampart - Returned to PLD. Other tanks given their own version and animation
Low Blow - Fine as is
Provoke - Fine as is
Interject - Removed from tank role action and moved over to healer role actions
Reprisal - Fine as is
Arm's Length - Fine as is
Shirk - Fine as is

Melee DPS:
Second Wind - Fine as is
Bloodbath - Fine as is
Leg Sweep - Fine as is
Feint - Fine as is
Arm's length - Name changed (suggestion: Invigorate) Grants knockback and draw in immunity. Slow effect replaced with grants 2% damage increase when barrier is struck, duration 8s
True North - Fine as is. *deleted if positional are removed in 7.0

Physical Ranged DPS:
Foot Graze - Removed
Leg Graze - Removed
Head Graze - Fine as is
Arm's Length - Name changed (suggestion: Sharp Focus) Grants knockback and draw in immunity. Slow effect if barrier is struck removed and replaced with gaze attack immunity. Duration 8s
Second Wind - Removed
Peloton - Fine as is (BRD still retains its animation for whatever reason, so I do suggest adding an animation for DNC, while MCH can keep the current animation)
Side step - *New role action. Instantly step 5 yalms to either flank. Charges = 2, Recast 30s

Magical ranged DPS:
Addle - Fine as is
Sleep - Removed
Swiftcast - Fine as is
Lucid Dreaming - Name changed (suggestion: Refresh) effect changed to restore 12% MP, recast 60s
Surecast - Fine as is

[Valence]

If SE was willing to introduce an actually interesting facet of new gameplay around crowd control and debuffs, I'd want to keep things like repose or foot graze but otherwise right now... It's very tied to things like deep dungeons or eureka, which I think could warrant SE to keep them, but perhaps not inside the main toolkit of those jobs and instead in a secondary kit proper to specific types of content.

Also if you remove lucid from BLM, all the BLM mains that claim to like non standard lines will lose half of their lines, amusingly enough. It's one of the main skills making non standard possible, behind transpose.

[Sjol]

If SE was willing to introduce an actually interesting facet of new gameplay around crowd control and debuffs, I'd want to keep things like repose or foot graze but otherwise right now... It's very tied to things like deep dungeons or eureka, which I think could warrant SE to keep them, but perhaps not inside the main toolkit of those jobs and instead in a secondary kit proper to specific types of content.

Also if you remove lucid from BLM, all the BLM mains that claim to like non standard lines will lose half of their lines, amusingly enough. It's one of the main skills making non standard possible, behind transpose.

I wouldn't necessarily remove Bind and Sleep effects from the game, but you could then spread them out and give them different cast times, target styles, and durations.

BLM could pick up a multi-target sleep effect, SCH could pick up a multi-target Rescue, PLD could get a multi-target Immovable, DRK could get Rampart, but with spikes/damage back. There's lots of design space to make things feel different. Each of those 5-6 role abilities per job would be opportunities for distinction between the jobs in those roles.