Let's say we'd get more skills - How would you handle them?

[Exidrial]

[...]and skills I just need for leveling roulette because they get replaced on higher level (like on WHM, Stone I and II) [...]

Oh god I didn't even think about classes that get skills replaced. Are those lower level skills completely useless in high level dungeons? If so then why the hell didn't SE just give you a passive at Level X that makes the skill more powerful? Makes no sense to me.

[Nyghtmarerobu]

Oh god I didn't even think about classes that get skills replaced. Are those lower level skills completely useless in high level dungeons? If so then why the hell didn't SE just give you a passive at Level X that makes the skill more powerful? Makes no sense to me.

Mostly because stone 1 has a slow, while stone 2 and 3 are pure dmg. This could be something that is changed to either put slow on all 3, or to take it off completely. If they decide to do what you say, they should do the same thing for astro as well, and change malefic...

[Gumbercules]

Yeah i see skill consolidation coming into play like the stone and slow thing mentioned above. There is also the incoming shared skills that are suspected to work something like a shared pool of skills that activate with your class lvl replacing the current version of cross class skills (ie you don't lvl gld to 22 for provoke, it just "activates"as a cross skill when your DoW reaches 22 etc) This one on itself could make some interesting rotation changes, and lead to skill reductions too. Skill bloat is a thing, and to be honest atm some classes are already at the brink imo, so with their design that they don't want rotations more complex than the current lvl 60 ones ill be interesting how they go about this, specially since they did already hint at "some" new skills :P

[Blueyes]

In a recent interview about 4.0, Yoshi-P said we won't be having more skills to use.

This is actually inaccurate. What was being talked about was the amount of skill required to perform well with a job. This was in reference to how rotations became more complex with Heavensward. The statement was made to assure that the complexity of jobs wouldn't be further increased.

[Dzian]

I don't think they'll add many more skills tbh simply because they have to make sure all those skills fit on a controller layout.

Makes me wonder what some people do with there hotbars. I play on a control pad and most of my jobs are set up using just 2 hotbars plus half of the expanded one (scholar uses all the expanded one for pet commands). and even at that many of my skills are duplicated on sets 1 and 2.

ninja for example 6 of the 8 buttons on the r2 side are exactly the same on set 1 and set 2. but I still have everything on 2 sets plus half the expanded one. even with the duplicated skills. same with blm pld and scholar. the r2 side is almost identical on sets 1 and 2 on all my jobs

if you needed more space could always use the whotbar. though the only things I really have on there are /countodown, phoenix downs in palace of the dead
and the occasional /p line macrodepending on the fight. so like /p left or /p right in seph ex. so if I'm orange ppl know which tower I'm getting.

So yeah I really don't get how ppl can need so many hotbars.

[Atoli]

This is actually inaccurate. What was being talked about was the amount of skill required to perform well with a job. This was in reference to how rotations became more complex with Heavensward. The statement was made to assure that the complexity of jobs wouldn't be further increased.

I am pretty sure the specific question actually WAS about button bloat. And he answered that rotations will need the same amount of skills as now, which I tried to convey by saying "[won't be having] more skills to use".
After all, unused skills can be taken off the hotbar/keybinds.

[MPNZ]

It would be a negative to me unless the plan on removing a few skills from our rotation.

[MPNZ]

I would like to see most of the new skills replace older ones, have them change some of the buffs into traits that can be CC'd like "Blood for Blood" and "Hawk's eye", make it so that some skills autocast themselves (Bloodletter) to ease rotational difficulty, maybe add a charge mechanic to replace cast times and spell clutter... And more traits!

I also wish that they would give PLD better damage and situational control and sheilds as opposed to current cover mechanic. And, that Bards would be able to control distance and supply support better and more easily. Especially, for crossbar players since Warden's Paeon just infuriates me as the keeping up with all of our procs and buffs does, becuase it's such a different job from what made it so much fun for me back in 2.0.

Edit: Sorry for the bump. I didn't check to see who had posted last. This is embarrassing...

[Leigaon]

Yeah button bloat is an issue but I think SE is working on it...

That's what I'm waiting to see how they do. Instead of Shadowskin, Foresight and Rampart. Condense them all down to one and adjust the traits to make it work out better. So for that example you push them all into one skill and add traits as you go along. One to reduce the cooldown time, another to lengthen the duration and another to increase the damage -%.

Mix that up with the spells that need to be written out, should make enough room for new abilities. Fracture, could be tacked onto a weaponskill instead of its own thing.

Or go into something that's more comfortable for me. White Mage. We don't need Stone I , II , III unless they do something drastic and majorly different. Make them one skill and then a trait will enhance it and change the icon / damage. Repose, never used that after so long. Fluid Aura..make Aero I / II / II like Stone but all aoe and give us Tornado as white mage.

What's so hard is that we don't really have much to do in combat besides deal as much damage as possible, so it's difficult to put other things in there. So a lot of things they could put in they can't, buffs don't last that long...maybe that's an issue that needs to be resolved. Instead of chaining in some abilities that do the same thing about, why not increase the duration..cut back on some of the needed buffs and boost that duration.

[Shurrikhan]

That's what I'm waiting to see how they do. Instead of Shadowskin, Foresight and Rampart. Condense them all down to one and adjust the traits to make it work out better. So for that example you push them all into one skill and add traits as you go along. One to reduce the cooldown time, another to lengthen the duration and another to increase the damage -%.

That would only save you one button, while reducing the level of control a given tank has over their incoming damage. I would certainly hope the skills aren't there just to make sure you can passively ("umm, tanky button?") get through whatever situation is designed for us. The numbers can be tuned at will, the only difference then being the amount of passive strength they wish to put into tanks vs. other roles. Your Foresight/Rampart/Shadowskin (of which you can only have two in the first place) doesn't need to be 30 seconds long while mitigating a quarter of all incoming damage. The only reason to do empower the mitigation toolkit is to underpower non-tank survivability, and the only reason to passively ball them up into one when they've had distinct places before is to ensure that a tank experiences periods of weakness (no CD coverage — e.g. not even Foresight/Awareness) by forcing those capabilities to be stacked. Particular boss timings aside, it's no different than taking your Sentinel away in exchange for an excessively empowered Rampart, or your Rampart taken away for a slightly shorter Sentinel CD which falls nonetheless short of meeting the timings you want.

Or go into something that's more comfortable for me. White Mage. We don't need Stone I , II , III unless they do something drastic and majorly different. Make them one skill and then a trait will enhance it and change the icon / damage. Repose, never used that after so long. Fluid Aura..make Aero I / II / II like Stone but all aoe and give us Tornado as white mage.

While I'll agree about Stone II and III, Stone I and II / III are as different as Stella and Malefic. It's your heavy, which merely happens to double as filler damage until Stone II.

What's so hard is that we don't really have much to do in combat besides deal as much damage as possible, so it's difficult to put other things in there. So a lot of things they could put in they can't, buffs don't last that long...maybe that's an issue that needs to be resolved. Instead of chaining in some abilities that do the same thing about, why not increase the duration..cut back on some of the needed buffs and boost that duration.

Increasing the duration of buffs would mean that you spend even more time doing nothing but spamming (filler) damage keys. At present, with very few exceptions (Fracture and ToD) every ability that is weak in the short term is proportionately stronger, if maximized, in the long term. Those buffs are already your strongest damage abilities, but the fact that they're not overwhelming long or powerful does at least allow you the occasional reason to forgo them.

__________________

You could probably redo those triads of each element to be stackable, Magicka-esque elemental modifiers that provide satisfying player control in each situation, variable to each situation, but as long as we're just talking basic SE abilities here, all but Stone II are still as distinct as any other attack arsenal. That may be leaving the bar low, but your alternative would leave it lower still (short a Heavy for WHMs, or spending extra mana to deplete heavy DRs needlessly, etc.).