Are role actions a nerf?

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

all the things they took are things that every one of the jobs in that role should be able to do. like Provoke, Goad, Esuna, that's a very good reason.

The problem I see with that is those "skills every role should have" are non-choices. You take them, no ifs ands or buts about it. So, while I can't speak for any other healer, I personally feel compelled to always take Swiftcast for instant res, Protect to buff my groups, Esuna to remove any debuffs, Lucid Dream for mp management, and if that unknown skill using that recolored Divine Seal icon turns out to be Divine Seal, I'm gonna feel compelled to take that too leaving me with no choices at all for alternatives.

Now in a static where you and your co-healer can coordinate, sure you're going to have more wiggle room, but I'm not the type of person who likes to constantly swap skills. I didn't like it with WoW's talents and that hasn't changed. I pick the skills I feel I need for all the content I engage in and rarely if ever change them. Unfortunately its looking like all my "choices" have been made for me.

[Vhailor]

Personally I think this whole change is going to backfire hilariously.

I mean, think about it: SE has stated they want to (a) reduce button bloat, and (b) make the system more accessible / usable for casual players. Laudable goals, both, assuming they can be effectively achieved. But, it is arguable the nature of the role-based system might worsen both. Consider:

1.) Role-based skills are broad enough that it appears frequent swapping between skill combinations is encouraged. This means that users must integrate most or all of the Role-based skills onto their hotbars, rather than just the five I'd use now, all of which are relatively static.

2.) Role-based skills being flexible and guaranteed means the floodgates will be opened for players being told how to play. Think that situation is bad now? Wait until tanks start bitching at healers for not having Esuna selected. Wait until people wipe because the tank forgot to respec from a damage-oriented setup they were using for solo'ing. This isn't going to lead to a friendlier environment for casual or forgetful players.

Don't get me wrong, I think the role-based skill system is potentially a good idea - but it doesn't fix the problem. They've essentially removed the need to level other jobs, but shifted even MORE crucial abilities into optional skills. Healers in 3.x need to have Swiftcast, but now they need to make damned sure they've selected Esuna, too - and heaven help them if they don't. This would have worked a hell of a lot better if the role-based skills were optional things that gave non-crucial, but nonetheless useful, abilities. They should have behaved like Merit Point abilities in FFXI. Hell, they could have even allowed for the selection of a role-based Trait or two, something powerful, so people could really customize how their class felt. Instead, they've worsened almost all the problems of the cross-class system; the only thing they fixed (and it's debatable if this is a good thing or not) is the fact that players no longer have to level separate jobs they might not be interested in.

Truly a missed opportunity.

[OcieKo]

Snip.

I believe your concerns are fairly valid, but I also think that having a given answer will assuage many of yours, mine, and others concerns. Will the CD/OGCD Start/30s Penalty be going away? Will it simply be, "Must be out of combat", or will they be swappable on the fly?

I believe its like the "Must be out of combat" will be in place. With how its designed the current XC changing rulest would be crippling to the new XRS ability changes. And on the fly just defeats the purpose.

Most jobs will likely have a general-purpose set up before the 8man hits in july. Like healers will probably be Prot, Esuna, Swift, E4E, Virus. And likely in that order. And mostly boil down to messing with all but swiftcast depending on the situation.

Since I usually heal as a pair with my friend, im pretty sure outside of 4 mans ill probably never have prot on my bars.

[Reiryuu]

snip

You know, the more I think about it, the more this whole limitation thing makes absolutely no sense. Forced to make choices? Who are they kidding-- you can literally change it out at any time with no penalty-- they removed the cooldown a while ago. That's the complete opposite of enforcing a choice. In fact, because there is no penalty for switching, the case is even stronger for not having any limitations on how many you can put on your hotbar in the first place there IS no real choice to be made, so you might as well just let us use them all at will.

[Vhailor]

You know, the more I think about it, the more this whole limitation thing makes absolutely no sense. Forced to make choices? Who are they kidding-- you can literally change it out at any time with no penalty-- they removed the cooldown a while ago. That's the complete opposite of enforcing a choice. In fact, because there is no penalty for switching, the case is even stronger for not having any limitations on how many you can put on your hotbar in the first place there IS no real choice to be made, so you might as well just let us use them all at will.

The cooldown isn't complete removed. I know that when I went into a solo dungeon to test the swapping whilst double-checking the 'current state of things' before posting, it triggered a 30s penalty on all of my abilities upon making modifications. In safe areas like cities, you can change on the fly, but not elsewhere.

It's possible they'll remove this penalty for 4.0, but either way, there are unanswered questions and odd behaviour. If the penalty remains, they've diminished what appears to be a goal of the system. If the penalty is removed, their decision to limit how many abilities can be selected is really going to open it up for players micro-managing each other.

Either way, I maintain that the central problem with the cross-class system is that certain abilities came to be viewed as 'essential' because of how powerful / useful they were. Blood for Blood, Raging Strikes, Swiftcast, Provoke, etc. They appear to have worsened this situation with the role-based system. I don't care what sort of shiny bow they've tied around it; if that fundamental problem still exists, or is worsened, then the system will still be the source of much unnecessary frustration. They needed to re-cast these elective abilities as optional, roughly-equivalent bonuses that allowed people to customize how their character played and felt. That is the only path I can see that would allow for customization without a huge amount of grief.

[YitharV2]

Either way, I maintain that the central problem with the cross-class system is that certain abilities came to be viewed as 'essential' because of how powerful / useful they were. Blood for Blood, Raging Strikes, Swiftcast, Provoke, etc. They appear to have worsened this situation with the role-based system. I don't care what sort of shiny bow they've tied around it; if that fundamental problem still exists, or is worsened, then the system will still be the source of much unnecessary frustration. They needed to re-cast these elective abilities as optional, roughly-equivalent bonuses that allowed people to customize how their character played and felt. That is the only path I can see that would allow for customization without a huge amount of grief.

Yeah... this honestly feels A LOT like the problem with cross class skills. I think they think that they're fixing the system and giving us more choice, but I'm not quite so sure about that. The only thing I feel it really fixed was needing to level another class.

[Neophyte]

You know, the more I think about it, the more this whole limitation thing makes absolutely no sense. Forced to make choices? Who are .
they kidding-- you can literally change it out at any time with no penalty-- they removed the cooldown a while ago. That's the complete opposite of enforcing a choice. In fact, because there is no penalty for switching, the case is even stronger for not having any limitations on how many you can put on your hotbar in the first place there IS no real choice to be made, so you might as well just let us use them all at will.

There is still a CD now, if you swap CC abilities. If it's a oGCD I'm not sure, bit a GCD sets all GCDs on 30s CD in a dungeon.

Also you're only talking about dungeons, you can't switch in a fight nor in trials/raids ofc.

Who needs E4E in Sophia with only her tankbuster with a chance to proc, because everything other is magical (ok.. add phase...)? On the other hand I really would slot that rescue skill in a Sophia Ex kill group.

Maybe WHMs are even more strong in raw healing now than AST/SCH that this Divine Seal skill is more likely to be taken in AST/SCH comps.
Maybe WHM has still it's own emnity/mp management, like SCH with Aetherflow too, and the SoS role-based skill is more like an option for people struggling to use their job-inherent tools right or do things like solo-healing.
Maybe Protect isn't a 30 min buff with op damage reduction, but more like a skill you can use for additional temporary mitigation and fights are designed that a mandatory 100% uptime of x% damage reduction you apply just before the pull is a thing of the past.
Maybe...

You get the point, right?

[Fawkes]

Maybe WHMs are even more strong in raw healing now than AST/SCH that this Divine Seal skill is more likely to be taken in AST/SCH comps.
Maybe WHM has still it's own emnity/mp management, like SCH with Aetherflow too, and the SoS role-based skill is more like an option for people struggling to use their job-inherent tools right or do things like solo-healing.
Maybe...

you get the point right?

It's great to be optimistic. Maybe everything will be totally cool and I'll look dumb for ever making this thread. That would be rad, I hope it happens. I like this game and I want it to continue to be good.

[Neophyte]

It's great to be optimistic. Maybe everything will be totally cool and I'll look dumb for ever making this thread. That would be rad, I hope it happens. I like this game and I want it to continue to be good.

I thinks it's pretty reasonable to expect Healers to have a job-specific tool to manage mp/emnity (because SCH has still Aetherflow+Energy Drain... they can't be taken without taking them from SMN, too, and that did not happen) and a WHM without emnity reduction is pretty much a dead man in serious fights.

So it's way more reasonable to expect 'This rolebased mp regen might just be an optional bonus for those who need it.' than expecting 'Omg, without that skill I will always run dry on MP, what is this """"choices"""?!?!'

SCH might still be able to consume their fairy or still have the fairy skill with healing+ and Rouse. He didn't have Divine Seal before and maybe he don't necessarily need it on top of this three job-specific tools to buff his outgoing healing now.
I don't see that this would be mandatory except maybe in solo-heal fights or savage progression.
So it's also pretty reasonable to expect job-built in healing+ buffs or bigger healing right from the get-go on WHM and AST as well on top of the optional healing buff.

SCH will most likely not be the only healer with job-built in abilities as counterparts to those skills, lol. But that's how people sound here.

[Fawkes]

Hell, they could have even allowed for the selection of a role-based Trait or two, something powerful, so people could really customize how their class felt.

Yeah, they could've made something like, every healer has their normal esuna but could also pick esuna from this list to get an AoE esuna or esuna that clears multiple dots. Or given every healer protect by default and made choosing protect give it a slight boost or made it also cast stoneskin 2 when out of combat. Maybe people would still gravitate towards a specific setup, but at least you'd have some wiggle room to pick what you wanted because you wouldn't completely lose an essential skill.