Are role actions a nerf?

[Aquaslash]

Melee DPS lost some vital skills in Blood for Blood and Internal Release. This is potentially a nerf, depending on the final damage readings. We'll have to wait and see

[YitharV2]

Melee DPS lost some vital skills in Blood for Blood and Internal Release. This is potentially a nerf, depending on the final damage readings. We'll have to wait and see

I'm not sure about Ninja, but Monk got their own version with Riddle of Fire (which has the downside of making the GCD 15% slower). But we shall see.

[Fawkes]

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"""?!?!'

It sounds reasonable when talking about the MP skill, but when you apply the same logic to protect and esuna it doesn't sound as reasonable. Are they going to give every healer their own protect and then also have this second protect, or let healers keep their cleanse abilities and then give them a second one? That would be weird and redundant, and there wasn't really any indication of either of those scenarios.

They did say they were making changes to piety, so maybe MP won't be a huge problem. Or, maybe they expect healers who don't want to use lucid dream to ask BLMs to slot in their new MP ability that lets them give away 20% of their MP. Maybe they expect healers who don't want Esuna to ask BLMs to slot in Erase.

[Aquaslash]

I'm not sure about Ninja, but Monk got their own version with Riddle of Fire (which has the downside of making the GCD 15% slower). But we shall see.

Ageeed.
I like the IDEA of this. Like the cross class system, its trying to give us build diversity which is a thing this game could use more of. You're supposed to pick what best suits the situation, or your play style. Like a lesser version of skill trees.

Too bad the reality is some autist fine mathematician somewhere will figure out the EXACT combination of skills that does the most damage and nobody will be allowed to bring anything else ever.

The players are truly their own worst enemy

[Lambdafish]

According to Yoshi-P said, monk rotation hasn't changed that much. And someone said in the Reddit Discord that monk rotation was fine they just needed utility. Of course gameplay will change slightly (especially with The Forbidden Chakra) and my opener will change, but I actually don't think Monk will be that much relearning.

Besides its potency, it was a decent heal as well while soloing. Bloodbath's addition doesn't change anything because Monks already had Bloodbath as a cross class skill. My point is they took away something useful.

As a PLD, I more than anyone should understand your point considering I have lost synergy with WHM, but I understand that with the amount of change coming that the job will play differently in 4.0, and it may well be that the skills are not missed because the battle system works differently now. The point is that you haven't "lost" mercy stroke, it has simply been replaced with new abilities. You get leg sweep, goad, diversion, and a new role skill which takes away your directional requirements, most of which are better than mercy stroke.

[Vhailor]

Too bad the reality is some autist fine mathematician somewhere will figure out the EXACT combination of skills that does the most damage and nobody will be allowed to bring anything else ever.

The players are truly their own worst enemy

I'm not sure I agree, here. In 95% of content, nobody really cares if you're perfect; in the small amount of content where people DO care, it's arguably SE at fault more than anyone. They shouldn't be making fights that are such severe DPS / Healing / Tanking checks. So long as they design a fight around, say, 90% optimal DD output (with existing gear), nobody's going to throw a fit if you're not quite optimally specced, because the group will be clearing.

[Youkulm]

I'm not sure what the point of making people choose from these skills is. Rescue is literally a joke skill that will never be worth taking. Why would they create a scenario where your healer in Dun Scaith can't Esuna the Doom off you, but they can pull you out of the meteor circles? Do they think we don't have enough troll players?

I wondered the same thing. Why wouldn't we keep our own personal Esunas as healers? What is the point of it taking up an action slot we can put something else in. I mostly play SCH and AST but honestly, it feels like WHM got the shaft. All the WHM CDs seem to be in that action menu.

This wouldn't be so bad if they actually intended to give us more action slots.

I also worry about the same thing for PLD, even as a tank who only plays WAR. :/

I'm kind of hoping it'll be ok. I'm trying not to worry too much. No point in freaking out until we see everything for ourselves in a few weeks.

[Neophyte]

It sounds reasonable when talking about the MP skill, but when you apply the same logic to protect and esuna it doesn't sound as reasonable. Are they going to give every healer their own protect and then also have this second protect, or let healers keep their cleanse abilities and then give them a second one? That would be weird and redundant, and there wasn't really any indication of either of those scenarios.

As said, maybe protect isn't a per design mandatory 30 min x% reduction damage buff anymore, but more like a Spread Bole is now (x% damage reduction on group for x seconds).
The current protect is weird anyway.
And if not, still only 1 healer needs to slot it. Esuna (and if one or two healers need it), depends on content. I think in 75% of all fights you don't need that ability and in many of them were you can Esuna something one healer doing that would be enough.

They did say they were making changes to piety, so maybe MP won't be a huge problem. Or, maybe they expect healers who don't want to use lucid dream to ask BLMs to slot in their new MP ability that lets them give away 20% of their MP. Maybe they expect healers who don't want Esuna to ask BLMs to slot in Erase.

As said. I don't think that SCH (which still has the same abilities as before, regarding mana-reg and probably also the same abilites as before regarding healing+) will be the only job with built-in tools to manage MP or buff their healing.

Right now, all we know is:

Aetherflow and Energy Drain stays on SCH
There will propably be a role based skill to reg MP.

I don't know about others, but my first thought looking at this is not "Oh no, WHM/AST only have that optional tool or have to rely on others for MP, while SCH will be even more OP regarding ressources with Aetherflow+ED+SoS", but more like "Well, I'm curious what the main-mechanic to manage your ressources will be on AST/WHM and if my playstyle with those jobs affords that additional optional reg".

I wondered the same thing. Why wouldn't we keep our own personal Esunas as healers? What is the point of it taking up an action slot we can put something else in. I mostly play SCH and AST but honestly, it feels like WHM got the shaft. All the WHM CDs seem to be in that action menu.

Why should that be bad?

1) The more skills you lose to the role base system, the more new/reworked skills you get as job/class abilities to keep the same ammount of skills from HW->SB.
2) The less skills you lose to the role base system, the more old skills get consolidated/removed to keep the same ammount of skills from HW->SB.

[Youkulm]

Why should that be bad?

As it is, Esuna, Protect, Swiftcast, Eye for Eye are seen are required action for any healer ( when possible ). This leaves 1-2 slots for other actions, on any healer, when before it was 3-4.

It's bad IMO especially when it seems they removed Shroud and Divine Seal from WHM. I don't main WHM but I do play it on occasion and I can tell you I used those CDs all the time. Why remove them from WHM and force them to use a space in what is very limited.

Its silly.

Like I said. Trying not to worry about it too much until I see and play. But from what I can see? It could have been handled better. There was no reason in the world to remove Esuna from all the healers.

I'll leave you with this, this will be a small % of healers, but I promise you will see it Thanks to Nicodemus for typing this out a few posts back.

I wonder what the forums will look like if we start seeing healers in dungeons with these as their shared role actions:

Cleric Stance
Break
Rescue
Surecast
Eye for an Eye

"Healer please cast protect", "Sorry, I don't have Protect"
"Healer please remove this debuff", "Sorry, I don't have Esuna"
"Healer, why is it taking so long to res people?", "Sorry, I don't have Swiftcast"
"Healer why aren't you healing?", "My mp ran out and I don't have Lucid Dream"
"So what CAN you do healer?, "Oh I can give myself a 5% damage buff for 15 seconds, zap a mob and slow it, yank the BLM out of his leylines for the lawls, make myself immune to knockbacks and pulls, and give you a defensive buff with a short duration and long cooldown! "

I know this little fiction is ridiculous and hardly likely to ever happen unless someone is trying to troll groups, but the fact that it's even possible is frightening.

[YitharV2]

As a PLD, I more than anyone should understand your point considering I have lost synergy with WHM, but I understand that with the amount of change coming that the job will play differently in 4.0, and it may well be that the skills are not missed because the battle system works differently now. The point is that you haven't "lost" mercy stroke, it has simply been replaced with new abilities. You get leg sweep, goad, diversion, and a new role skill which takes away your directional requirements, most of which are better than mercy stroke.

Hmm yeah I guess I can't complain considering I really wanted an enmity reduction ability for MNK.