Would you improve if the content required it?

[JunseiKei]

That said, adapting without memorization of the solution to a given problem is going to rely purely on luck. You might do the right thing, you might do the wrong thing. If you ever see someone run away from you with a tether that's meant to make you stack together, chances are he was trying to adapt by recalling the knowledge of the burning chain tether in the Vault and applying it. That's the wrong solution for that tether however and they will need to memorize that fact and the proper solution to boot.

That would fall under memorized visual queue, not the mechanic. Rolling Thunder, Burning Chain, Rafflesia's tether (that I have long forgotten the name to) - they all have a debuff on your status bar telling you that you will take damage. Though how and why may differ between fights (damage with each action, including auto and broken by being grounded; damage tick with time and broken with distance from each other; etc.). Unlike Imdugud's tether, which was a soak that had no indication other than, oh look, you visually have a tether (if memory serves me; it's been a while since I stepped into T10, even with Tails) was still different in that sense than the aforementioned tethers. Even in T13 with Flare Star; you got a tether, visually only again, that would come to you and do damage to you, eventually.

So while many mechanics might still look the same or incredibly similar, people don't actively look at things that tend to set them apart and lump them all as the same because it's a line attached to their character on a screen.