Thread: Very concerned about 4.0 gameplay having no strategy

Originally Posted by Greywolfamakir

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True. I am assuming due to percentile CDs being mentioned as a source of "bloating" whereas non-utility direct-damaging oGCDs apparently were not considered as such. The issue is that the both have synergy primarily only with each other (buffs of the same type are treated additively, and the damage dealt by one direct damage skill has no effect on another's). As far as we know, it seems likely that Wildfire is the only of the percentile abilities to survive. Had it simply been an issue of skills lacking unique aesthetics/names, they wouldn't have torn exactly that out of Luminferous Aether, Shroud of Saints, Energy Drain, and Shadowskin. Instead, gameplay screenshots show them all removed even from their native class, Bard (in addition to Flaming Arrow, oddly enough).

Originally Posted by Lambdafish

The way the role system is set up lends itself to a lot of strategy actually. All the skills in it are useful in some situations but not all, I can see players wanting to optimise their role skills frequently depending on the encounter. For example: Healers won't want cleric stance while learning a fight, but once they have cleared and are wanting to optimise for farm, then they will consider taking it. Esuna isn't used for all fights, and they might consider replacing it for something like Rescue if it is a dead skill on their hotbar etc. (Healer is the only role skill menu that I remember, though I vaguely remember being impressed with the others as well)

Strategy has been reduced in some areas, sure, but it has been enhanced in other areas. I would suggest waiting until you actually play the expansion until you make a judgement on how complex the updated battle system is, because I feel like we will need to completely change our mindset regarding how we utilise it, and currently a lot of people are thinking with outdated logic, and clinging to how these changes work in isolation within the current battle system.

Oh I agree absolutely with that. To be honest, my first thought was towards that of WoW: WoD/Legion's talents, which, while capable of a fairly "standard" build given one's gear, vary from fight to fight. In our case there would be no consumable to allow for swapping between individual bosses of the same instance, luckily, but we would have the opportunity to min-max based on need for a given instance entire. I mentioned elsewhere that I was actually fairly glad that Cleric Stance's buff was small enough not to be requirement for every progression team, or likely even for farms so long as the other X-role skills can indirectly squeeze out a bit of combined dps, and I'm certainly looking forward to choosing when or when not to take Ultimatum, etc. Inevitably, some skills will end up being taken for nearly all fights and others for very few, but that's alright, imo, so long as the balance can be close enough not to mandate specific abilities for each instance.