What abilities are you most sad got removed?

[Carighan]

I like Continuation, for example, because I like the way my fingers move across the keyboard when using it, between the GCD and oGCD, and that I don't have to worry about accidentally delaying a defensive by an animation time's gap if I accidentally double-hit the action and they were consolidated onto the same key. But, that too is within limits to me.

This is actually a really good example of what I mean. Continuation is close to being a really cool mechanism, it just isn't. As-is, it could be removed at no loss of gameplay complexity or - if you prefer that - it could be kept and vast swaths of the remaining kit could be removed, again at no loss of gameplay complexity, folded into auto-combos via Continuation.

However, what makes it "close but not quite there" is essentially just that you always want to press Continuation. With just minor-tweaking to make it a "Usually, but not always"-skill, it'd have tremendous value, in particular as it gets added to more an more elements of the kit. It'd also make Gunbreaker elegant insofar that the raw hotbar space-usage would be low, instead there's a button that combos from ~most abilities into something else, should you need it or want it at the time buuuuut these combo options don't last, as they overwrite one another.

In particular I'd probably shift the cartridge cost of many skills onto their continuation. With some potency rebalancing this would already evoke much of this "Usually you want to use this, but sometimes you do not". If it then also has interactions with some defensive/utility skills, it'd be a really interesting job where a single mechanism is the centerpiece of it, and interacts with every single part of the job equally but without being a rote button press.

And yeah of course there's limit to simplification, at least in context. For animation-sake if nothing else, like you say, rule of cool. I have no qualms with having an absurdly long combo on an autocombo button, but the final button that has some sick big animation that you only get if you get to skill #8 while also having a specific buff up, that one probably ought to be separate just for that reason: It feels awesome to then hit the big red nuke button.