Role actions are lazy, a form of job homogenization, and a cause of hotbar bloat.

[Coolyy]

We can acknowledge that certain Role actions like Arm's Length, Surecast, Swiftcast, Provoke, Shirk and True North are fundamental to combat, while recognizing that the rest are poorly implemented hotbar bloat.

Before you immediately reject this statement, please hear me out.

Replacing generic abilities like Feint, Addle, and Reprisal with unique mitigation tools for each job would allow for more interesting and varied mitigation strategies. Why can’t we instead have more individual, job-specific mitigation like RDM’s Magick Barrier, WAR’s Shake It Off, PLD’s Divine Veil, or PCT’s Tempera Coat / Grassa? At the very least, we should get unique animations for mitigations, even if their effects are the same (PhysR.)

Why does every major melee mitigation have to be a flat 10% physical and 5% magical? Team composition should require more thought, and jobs should have clear upsides and downsides. If I’m playing Reaper, a hybrid physical/magic job, why can’t my mitigation be more magic focused? If I’m playing VPR, SAM, or DRG; jobs that don’t use magic at all, why am I mitigating magic damage?

Why can't the Esuna cleanse be incorporated into the healer's base kit. Certain abilities like Tetragrammaton, Essential Dignity, Lustrate, Druochole (these are just examples) can have additional effects like a cleanse.

Why can’t abilities like Repose and Rescue be exclusive to a single healer? For example, Repose could belong to AST and Rescue to WHM, giving each job a more distinct identity.

Why can’t stuns, interrupts, and other CC be additional effects attached to abilities in a job’s base kit instead of being standardized role actions?

Additionally, this is an obvious culprit of hotbar bloat. Controller already has a finite amount of buttons, why do they waste 2-3 slots with role actions that can easily be incorporated into each job? Healer is the biggest example.

I've heard the game used to be more like this, tactical & party composition. I've heard the old combat system was much more detailed, with unique buffs and debuffs tied to damage types like Piercing, Slashing, Blunt, Magical, and Physical. I can see how that's a bad system, since it would create job imbalance and very specific compositions. It's more suited for a single player JRPG.

But Role Actions don't even affect job DPS balance, which is why I'm confused how we got to this point with these actions. Can someone please tell me how the game used to feel before Role Actions were added in Stormblood?

The core idea behind the Final Fantasy job system is that each job should feel distinct and not share the same abilities. Role Actions completely go against this ideology.

[Veritas-Ancora]

I'll give you credit that you at least recognize why shared role actions are important.

Physical & Magical defense were god awful in Heavensward. It made DRK crap in some battles and ideal in others. But mostly crap.

There has to be a balance where jobs aren't disqualified or rejected simply because they're not optimal on their favorite job.

[Shurrikhan]

I'll give you credit that you at least recognize why shared role actions are important.

Physical & Magical defense were god awful in Heavensward. It made DRK crap in some battles and ideal in others. But mostly crap.

There has to be a balance where jobs aren't disqualified or rejected simply because they're not optimal on their favorite job.

This is irrelevant to role actions. Making shared effects share exactly the same name, icon, and animation had no impact on the remaining unshared portions of kit.

Shadowskin - 90s CD - 20% DR for 20s.
Rampart - 90s CD - 20% DR for 20s.

Ahh, yes, we certainly needed to standardize the job flavor of those otherwise identical skills... >.>

[ForsakenRoe]

Feint and Addle used to be one action, and weren't even on a Melee/Caster. It was an Arcanist action called Virus (that you could crossclass), and so via SCH it was arguably moreso known as being a Healer action than a DPS one (though SMN also had access to the trait-upgraded version too)

DRK used to be the sole owner of Reprisal, although it was not quite a 'party mit' in the sense Veil/Shake are as it required a Parry to proc it. Then SB came, and Reprisal was given out to PLD and WAR, and later WAR's SIO was reworked into its current form (it was originally a self-Esuna), leaving DRK as the only one without a 'party mit' of its own. Which then resulted in DRK getting Dark Missionary to bandaid the bullet wound that the Reprisal change left. Funny how SE created a problem and then had to create a solution to the problem of their own making

For the 'why can't...':

Feint was originally just 10% Physical, with no effect on Magical (and Addle the same in reverse). They got the 5% mitigation to their off-styles because SE oftentimes makes encounters that have like, zero Physical damage and so Feint ended up feeling pointless

Esuna needs to remain easily accessible, for rapid access to debuff removal for high-priority debuffs like Doom. They could tie it to the base heal instead (Cure, Benefic, Physick, Diagnosis) to justify those buttons' continued existence, but I imagine they want to keep Esuna as it is due to it being a classic FF spell name. Having said that, I would prefer to go back to the older times, where we had unique name/animation for each (SCH had Leeches, AST had Exalted Detriment), as it'd allow for more interesting interplay in the kits potentially. For example, what if AST could cleanse two targets at once, by using Synastry to use Exalted Detriment on both simultaneously?

Repose has always felt pointless, and Rescue IMO is too susceptible to FFXIV's sluggish netcode to actually 'rescue' anyone reliably. Sometimes you can pull off a clutch save with it, but it seems far more likely the player you're trying to rescue ends up sliding over to you as a corpse. These could both be deleted and most players wouldn't even notice

I don't know if stuns/interrupts/CC need to be attached to other abilities, because I think the higher priority would be 'getting SE to make use of their existence more often'. Feels like each expansion, the number of interruptible casts can be counted on one hand

The Slash/Piercing/Blunt debuffs were, in hindsight, a bit of a mess. DRG was the only one that could apply Piercing, but THREE Jobs (DRG, BRD, MCH) benefitted from it. Not having a DRG in the party meant the BRD and MCH would just do less damage, with no counterplay. Meanwhile, WAR, NIN AND SAM could all apply Slashing, and MNK being both the only one to apply Blunt, and also the only one who used it for anything (besides healer autoattacks). Makes sense they'd remove it, as it's the simplest solution to the issue, and they love to take the simple solution of 'remove the offending design element'. It did indeed create a 'meta', but said 'meta' was not required to clear even the hardest content


The biggest offender IMO, is Lucid Dreaming. A complete nothingburger button that offers zero gameplay, and exists only as a 'press this once per minute because it's there and your MP economy is balanced around it being there'. It doesn't make gameplay more interesting, it actively punishes you for dying at the 'wrong' time, etc. Since it restores 3850MP per use, SE could literally just increase our MP regen rate from 200 to 400, and remove Lucid entirely. Since we get 20 ticks per minute, 20 X 200 is 4000, enough to cover the amount Lucid gives us


As for 'how it was before SB', TBH a lot of the actions we now have as Role Actions, were either akin to PhysRanged Mits (same effect, same CD, different VFX), for example Esuna/Leeches/ExaltedDetriment, or were actually just Role Actions by another name because you CrossClass'd them (EG WHMs and SCH's CrossClassing Surecast and Swiftcast from THM). Which was just the same as what we have now, but with the added downside of having to level some other class you might have zero interest in

I'll give you credit that you at least recognize why shared role actions are important.

Physical & Magical defense were god awful in Heavensward. It made DRK crap in some battles and ideal in others. But mostly crap.

You misspelled PLD. Being unable to block Magic back then rendered two of their CDs (Bulwark, Sheltron) completely dead against Magic Tankbusters (and raiding tends to be mainly Magic TBs). DRK held its own against both damage types fairly well (it did not struggle with Physical-based raids even half as much as PLD did against Magic-based raids), had Dark Dance's Parry/Evasion and Dark Passenger's Blind to mitigate in dungeons, plus had Reprisal (assuming the enemy would Physically attack and proc it) to reduce even the Typeless/Darkness/'Breath'/whatever raidwides that would sometimes be thrown at the party in those days. And was able to have 100% uptime on a 10% INT reduction effect on the enemy, akin to 100% uptime Addle in todays terms, thanks to the Delerium combo which was more damage than Souleater if you couldn't empower Souleater with Dark Arts. PLD, meanwhile, had to actively choose to use the worse damage option (Rage of Halone instead of Royal Authority) to get their 'equivalent' effect (hard to call it equivalent when it was way less impactful). And PLD's 123 combo contained a 2 which had 'increased Emnity' as an additional effect, so you'd naturally just steal the boss from your co-tank eventually, and without Shirk existing yet, this meant either 'PLD has to slow down and screw their own already-lacking damage up', or 'co-tank needs to be in TankStance for longer and screw THEIR damage up to fix the incoming issue stemming from PLD's bizarre design choices'

Yes, shared role actions are important to a degree. Phys/Magic split in HW was pretty bad. But DRK was not the one who had it hard when that system was in the game

[Jeeqbit]

Replacing generic abilities like Feint, Addle, and Reprisal with unique mitigation tools for each job would allow for more interesting and varied mitigation strategies. Why can’t we instead have more individual, job-specific mitigation like RDM’s Magick Barrier, WAR’s Shake It Off, PLD’s Divine Veil, or PCT’s Tempera Coat / Grassa? At the very least, we should get unique animations for mitigations, even if their effects are the same (PhysR.)

Back when Feint and Addle were made role actions, those were some of the only mits DPS jobs had and they were cross-class. Now that almost every DPS job has their own, you may have a point. They likely just haven't even thought about how the game has changed.

Why does every major melee mitigation have to be a flat 10% physical and 5% magical? Team composition should require more thought, and jobs should have clear upsides and downsides. If I’m playing Reaper, a hybrid physical/magic job, why can’t my mitigation be more magic focused? If I’m playing VPR, SAM, or DRG; jobs that don’t use magic at all, why am I mitigating magic damage?

Mainly because of how FFXIV is. A lot of players aren't very good. So let's say you are the one "good" player in your party, and most of them aren't using their Addles/Feints/Reprisals well. So you, as a melee DPS, are good and use your Feint on a raid-wide to save the pull.

This was a real scenario that was happening before Dawntrail, and the Feint did nothing on these magic raid-wides, so despite how "good" the melee DPS was, they could not save the run or express their "skill and knowledge". I saw actual wipes to a simple raid wide that a mere 5% more mit would have prevented.

Why can't the Esuna cleanse be incorporated into the healer's base kit.

It used to be. But we all knew it as Esuna and it was needed on all healers so what was the point in it being named different?

Why can’t abilities like Repose and Rescue be exclusive to a single healer? For example, Repose could belong to AST and Rescue to WHM, giving each job a more distinct identity.

I'm not opposed to Rescue being exclusive, but I do like being able to use it on any healer. As for Repose, I believe that used to be a Black Mage skill, but I think it's generic enough a concept that all casters should be able to do it. In other games it is known as crowd control.

Why can’t stuns, interrupts, and other CC be additional effects attached to abilities in a job’s base kit instead of being standardized role actions?

Stuns were another example of where tanks and melee DPS had one but it was basically the same action. I think it is fine for there to be a role action "stun" but it should have a unique icon/animation with potentially unique additional effects depending on the job.

Interrupts used to be additional effects in ARR and Heavensward but there was a major issue with it. It was known as "Silence". Paladin's Spirit's Within attack was an example of a silence, but nobody will remember this because they used it as an attack off cooldown. Moreover, nobody knew when an attack could be silenced.

So in Shadowbringers, SE overhauled the system. They changed "Silence" into "Interrupts" and added a role action called "Interrupt". They made the casts flash orange if they could be interrupted. All to make it so that people would actually utilize the interrupt system. And still, there are tanks that won't know that interrupts exist and leave them to wipe everyone in an alliance raid, or buff enemy damage in dungeons, but at least the awareness is higher with the current system. It's a practical thing due to how FFXIV is a very casual game filled with casual players, and the system just kinda has to reflect that to an extent.

Can someone please tell me how the game used to feel before Role Actions were added in Stormblood?

Before Stormblood, we had cross-class skills. This required leveling up Paladin just to get Provoke, for example. We also had a lot of homogenization under a certain guise. For example, all tanks had their version of "Rampart" from Paladin, so if we tried to discuss it in a general sense, we couldn't say "use Rampart". Instead, we had to remember the name of it on a given tank. All healers had an "Esuna", but once again, we had to remember what it was called on other healers and that was a giant headache.

We needed a solution, and role actions were what we were so obviously crying out for. So it was done.

The issues with cross-class were the chore of leveling up other jobs for basic role actions, the fact you just know most players won't have done that and will join a Savage party without Provoke etc, the fact they didn't update the system. Cross-class only took class actions, not job actions, from level 50 and below. Their traits did not apply to them - so Bard's DoTs which were cross-class only had a duration of several seconds which was so useless, while cross-classing Cure did not benefit from "enhanced healing potency" traits on roles that already were not stacking Mind.

Overall, the system was poorly implemented. They could have improved the cross-class system, but instead of improving problematic features, SE typically just removes them entirely, leading to where we are now: an overly simplistic battle system. People are crying out for some more battle system depth because they removed most of it, so we'll likely find out how they plan to add some back in April at Fan Fest.

The core idea behind the Final Fantasy job system is that each job should feel distinct and not share the same abilities. Role Actions completely go against this ideology.

Players complained that their job was imbalanced:

• "Other tanks can handle magic, why can't I?" - granted, blocks now mit magic on PLD
• "Other tanks have AoEs, why can't I?" - granted, AoEs added to PLD
• "Other tanks have circle AoEs, why can't I?" - granted, cones removed from WAR
• "DRK has a gap closer, why can't I?" - granted, all tanks get them now
• "Other tanks have self-heals, why can't I?" - granted, Carve & Spit now heals on DRK
• "Other tanks have a raid-wide mit, why can't I?" - granted, Dark Missionary added on DRK
• "Other DPS don't have so many positionals" - granted, positionals equalized on MNK/DRG

You see how these seemingly reasonable complaints, that reasonably get solved by SE at each expansion release after being brought up on the forums, progressively homogenized the game, and kept it homogenized?

It's hard but somehow, someone has to figure out what needs to be balanced, and what doesn't. All I know is that I appreciated the "soft" uniqueness we had in Stormblood where, for example, Warrior was the "high HP, takes full hit, heals self" tank while Paladin was the "mitigate it, damage reduction" tank. Same result, at the end of the day, but achives goal a little differently.

I also appreciated the uniqueness of Astrologian playing a card game, something that I feel has just been ruined and homogenized into the ground now, with cards effectively just being the heals/mits/shields/regens other healers have.

[VictorSpoils]

But we all knew it as Esuna and it was needed on all healers so what was the point in it being named different?

kappa

[LeCorbeaux]

You misspelled PLD. Being unable to block Magic back then rendered two of their CDs (Bulwark, Sheltron) completely dead against Magic Tankbusters (and raiding tends to be mainly Magic TBs).

In a more nuanced system, a solution to that would be able to modify/enchant your gear to provide you with Magic resistance, at the cost of things you are getting from your traits and actions anyway. And also have multiple sets of gear with different stats but the same ILVL you can use. So now you can keep your identity while modifying the exact mitigation values to suit your needs - or have multiple sets of gear for different situations, if you can afford them.

SQEX hates nuanced systems.

[Jeeqbit]

kappa

I've said before that stuff like that would also make sense as a role action. The icon and animations can be different, but if the effects are the same then it makes more sense to be under "Role".

Like, I might say a healer ressurects. I might call it raise. But I sure am not gonna call it Egeiro or Ascend.

And how many people refer to tank stances so specifically like "Iron Will", "Defiance", "Grit", what is Gunbreaker's... "Royal Guard".

Trying to talk about an ability that is generic to a role when you don't know which job specifically they are or will be playing just gets annoying due to all these different names for the same thing.

SQEX hates nuanced systems.

Many of the developers also worked on FF11; didn't that have deep systems? I believe they stopped doing deep systems because 1.0 failed and they realized everything had to be casual-friendly and shallow. Teleporting used to be limited so that we would have to travel on foot a lot, but as a central complaint that people had (wasting precious real life time running around), in ARR they let us just teleport as much as we want and obliterated the need to travel on foot. If you think about it, almost anything that gets "deep" ends up taking more time so they just keep away from that so that people can jump in quickly and be done quickly.

[VeyaAkemi]

A small advantage of Role Actions over other skills is that you can't lose them to level sync, you still lose trait-based upgrades to them, such as the Swiftcast's reduction to its CD, but the skill itself will still be there, it is a very small advantage because role actions doesn't level super high, the highest is True North at 50, but it means you still have Arm's Length as a Tank in very low level dungeons which is a huge boon at those levels.

Thanks to this quirk of them, it actually makes me wish we had *more* of them and that they leveled higher.

[Valence]

I agree with your original premise but would actually push it even further: the role actions that you identified as fundamental to combat can perfectly well come attached to specific job gameplay, for instance a summoner having certain summons that do offer a form of immunity against forced movement to work as surecast (Titan, the immovable mountain?), like Riddle of Earth on MNK for Arm's Length, etc.