They are gutting Black Mage even more in 7.2

[Rithy255]

It helps if we can define what "clunky" even means.

I've heard old PLD defined as clunky, SCH Energy Drain, Kaiten, long cast times, cast times in general, every gap closer. What counts as clunky and not? And within that definition, why would X mechanic count as clunky?

Clunky is the excuse people make up when they don't like how a job plays. Clunky basically means "wah wah I can't play it optimally without picking it up in one second"

BLM doesn't feel clunky to me, old DOT PLD didn't feel clunky ect.

The only thing "clunky" I can think of is the delay in boss attacks.

[TheDustyOne]

Clunky is the excuse people make up when they don't like how a job plays. Clunky basically means "wah wah I can't play it optimally without picking it up in one second"

BLM doesn't feel clunky to me, old DOT PLD didn't feel clunky ect.

The only thing "clunky" I can think of is the delay in boss attacks.

I mean, yeah that's the obvious definition. But even still, when someone says X is clunky, they don't usually want it to mean "I don't like how it plays", but rather something more like "it's contradictory to the rest of the jobs design; it encourages unorthodox play" or something along those lines. My biggest problem is that they don't go over why something is clunky in their view, instead just saying "clunky" without elaborating.

Old Anatman is something I'd point to as "clunky", especially the initial version in ShB that was oGCD since you could use it in the opener to squeeze in an extra GL stack just as the boss was pulled before starting the fight proper. The reason it was clunky in my view was because you had to be able to track server ticks (something that the UI just doesn't natively do outside asking one of the healers pop a regen beforehand) in the hopes that you could get a stack just in time to not screw up your opener. Further, it was obviously not the intended opener to use Anatman since it messed with the flow of an opener just for one GL stack.

Despite that however, I'm sure there were others that liked the idea of old Anatman and would've been disappointed at losing it when Anatman became a GCD. They'd be few in number, but even still, a "clunky" mechanic that was more or less optional was removed when it could've just been a mark of someone trying to get the absolute most out of their job.

In the end, I'd rather have a little "clunk" if it meant giving every job a unique feel and some optional optimizations.

[Rithy255]

In the end, I'd rather have a little "clunk" if it meant giving every job a unique feel and some optional optimizations.

Pretty much jobs need pain points and little bit of "clunk" to stand out, I actually thought animation locks to dragoon added some skill expression to the job and were designed that way on purpose for example.

I don't think all examples of "clunk" or "pain points" are always good for example Heavensward Paladin should have been able to do block magic (or at the very least fights should have a physical importance that PLD isn't a meme grief job).

I think one big issue is that they don't just remove something from a job and try to find something to bring some extra skill in another way, they end up removing something from a job and completely ignore the massive skill expression they took out, the black mage rework is a key example of this they took out the timer... do they bother to find at least something else interesting for the black mage to manage...? no...?

Theirs some instances where things should be took out but the sheer lack of effort to find anything engaging to replace that frustrates me, I wish there was job designers that were actually passionate about making the jobs feel like a "job" and not just a animation visual difference from another job.