Thread: Culling and restructuring skills to make room for 5.0 abilities

Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

I would rather press 1234 than spam 1111. At least I'm moving my finger, no matter how slight. And therein lies why people dislike the skill consolidation system. It's neither more difficult nor necessarily interesting, it simply feels better. Currently, <combo consolidation> is simply reducing everything to the healer equivalent of spamming Broil. Sure, you have different animations, but it feels very boring to me. Just like it does on them. They aren't going to add 5+ GCDs to DRG either, thus I'll spend most of 5.x spamming 1 and 2 endlessly. I prefer 1234 and alt 1234. As I said, at least I move my fingers slightly compared to not at all.

I get that. Though bloated, I'd likely still use the 1234 due to muscle memory and as not to trip up from inattention, myself. I just don't consider there to be enough merit to forbid the option for those who are running out of comfortable button space (given hand size, etc.) and for whom the merit of comfort is greater than that of easier timing.

If we had more combos or different branching combos, maybe it'd work better.

Agreed. And while Fire IV can feel satisfying despite its relatively redundant nature, that's hardly true of Heavy Shot, Malefic, or Stone, whatever their ranks. But that'd mean requiring more than 3 GCD actions from each melee (well, 4 from SAM and up to 9 from MNK)... I just hope XIV doesn't continue to assume players irredeemable stupid, under the guise of "combo" systems.

Regardless, it's not really a solution anyway because it doesn't help the Casters. Even on the melee/tank side, only Ninja and Paladin are crying for hot bar space.

There is some fairly considerable bind-trimming the non-melee can benefit from too, though.

Why should Enochian, Fire IV, and Blizzard IV be separate keys when they cannot be used separately? Why should Summon Bahamut be separate from Enkindle Bahamut? Or DWT from Deathflare, so long as the latter could not be queued before the first has finished activating? And Red Mage has its own melee combo.

Further, Straighter Shot is virtually never taken over Refulgent Arrow and Gauss Barrel may as well be a trait, just as Darkside and either tank DPS stance may as well be (Sword Oath and Deliverance merely deactivating during their respective tank stances).

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Right, I do so love using 5 different buttons to perform the same, single separable action on DRG...

I'd be cheering if our weaponskills were finally open to different sequences and situationals, but I cannot for the life of me understand how hitting 12345 or 67895 for Actions 1 and 2, respectively, is somehow better design than pressing 1 for as many GCDs as Action 1 takes, and 2 for as many GCDs as Action 2 takes.

To be honest it's the one thing that differentiates DRG from the other melee DPS in terms of their GCD rotation in the first place. MNK has flexible combos based on their stances, NIN/SAM have different combo branches (though not by much), and DRG has longer, linear combos that eventually cross over one another . One is for buffs/debuffs, the other is filler. That is a part of their identity. Preserving it is worth the effort. Plus if SE did go the route of consolidating the combo buttons down, it wouldn't hurt anyone to have the whole buff combo on 2 and the filler on 1, with Fang and Claw/Wheeling Thrust replacing both buttons once they're reached.

Not to derail but I can see BLU being a Scouting DPS. We just got a Casting and Striking DPS last expansion, so makes sense that BLU would be Scouting, especially if it's a support melee. Blue Magic would scale off of Dexterity (like Ninjutsu) and they would have their own equivalent of Trick Attack and Enmity manipulation to make them roughly on par as NIN.

Originally Posted by Raikai

Wildfire removed because it's redundant with Overheat. The latter already fills the role of the "bursty burst in a short window" (obviously, the damage would have to be adjusted somewhere to make up for WF).
Gauss Barrel turned into a trait so it wouldn't "drop off" after an overheat. You'd still have downtime, but now without that meaningless button to press to reapply the Gauss.

Removing Wildfire from Machinist would be like removing Mudras from Ninja or Jumps from Dragoon. It's the Job's signature skill, even if Overheating is redundant towards the purpose of being a damage buff they should just rework that instead of gutting the Job's identity.

Originally Posted by Raikai

Wildfire removed because it's redundant with Overheat. The latter already fills the role of the "bursty burst in a short window" (obviously, the damage would have to be adjusted somewhere to make up for WF).
Gauss Barrel turned into a trait so it wouldn't "drop off" after an overheat. You'd still have downtime, but now without that meaningless button to press to reapply the Gauss.

So you'd rather remove the less criticized and more iconic damage cooldown than the auxiliary mechanic highly criticized for its clunkiness?

Honestly, I feel like we'd see relatively little perceived loss from the removal of Overheat. That's no reason to remove it, but, compare that to Wildfire, without which MCH would feel awkwardly lacking of not only something rotationally and aesthetically identity-driving, but a seemingly obligatory damage-buff cooldown.

I'd like to see both revised, honestly -- Wildfire to go off instantly before a jump (if the boss would go immune during said jump) or at least to have a manual detonation procedure, and to deal AoE damage on eruption, and something far more significant to add more noticeable gameplay prior to Overheat itself as to feel more dynamic and less like a subtle trap.