Level Syncing is Becoming an Increasing Problem

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Unless they simply go for scaling down all our abilities, the devs need to readjust what level abilities are learned to make the early game experience less of a dreadful slog. Just for fun, I'm going to crunch down a few jobs with their current skill setups.

Dragoon

True Thrust - lvl. 1
Vorpal Thrust - lvl. 4
Heavy Thrust - lvl. 6
Full Thrust - lvl. 10
Piercing Talon - lvl. 12
Life Surge - lvl. 15
Impulse Drive - lvl. 18
Doom Spike - lvl. 20
Disembowel - lvl. 24
Chaos Thrust - 28
Blood for Blood - lvl 30
Jump - lvl. 30
Elusive Jump - lvl. 35
Sonic Thrust - lvl. 38
Spinershatter Dive - lvl. 40
Dragonfire Dive - lvl. 45
Battle Litany - lvl. 49
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Blood of the Dragoon - lvl. 51
Fang and Claw - lvl. 52
Wheeling Thrust lvl. 54
Dragon Sight - lvl. 55
Geirskogul - lvl. 60
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Mirage Dive - lvl. 62
Nastrond - lvl. 65
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This gives Dragoon its first full combo by level 10 and moves the second combo to level 38, thus the two core mechanics of the job are available fairly early on. It never made any sense to me when Impulse Drive is learned at level 6 but just loiters around for 30+ level being useless. With that now remedied, I brought Doom Spike down to a more sensible spot. The two new additions are Battle Litany and Sonic Thrust moving to pre-50. Why? For one, I want skills more front loaded and both were easy candidates. Sonic Thrust essentially replaced Ring of Thorns, so why we need to wait until 66, I have no idea. As for Litany, this puts more emphasis on Dragoon's party buffs.

Moving on to Heavensward, Dragon Sight comes down. Otherwise, not much has changed. I'm still toying with whether Nastrond should be learned earlier since it's the main component to Dragoon's rotation, but that leaves the 61-70 level range barren.

Warrior

Heavy Swing - lvl. 1
Skull Sunder - Lvl. 4
Berserk - lvl. 6
Butcher's Block - lvl. 10
Overpower - lvl. 12
Tomahawk - lvl. 15
Maim - lvl. 18
Thrill of Battle - lvl. 20
Storm's Eye - lvl. 24
Storm's Path - lvl. 28
Defiance - lvl. 30
Inner Beast - lvl. 30
Unchained - lvl. 33
Steel Cyclone - lvl. 36
Vengeance - lvl. 40
Infuriate - lvl 42
Deliverance - lvl. 45
Holmgang - lvl 49
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Fell Cleave - lvl. 51
Raw Inutition - lvl. 52
Onslaught - Lvl. 54
Equilibrium - lvl. 55
Decimate - lvl. 60
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Upheaval - lvl. 61
Shake It Off - Lvl. 63
Inner Release - lvl. 65

I think we know the big change here. Yes, I am bringing Deliverance down because it's simply obnoxious how Warrior fights for aggro or simply goes Stance-less. Moving Fell Cleave though would give Warrior far too much of an edge. Therefore, we'll leave that in the Heavensward category. I also swapped some abilities around like Vengeance as it made little sense to me you learn the far riskier Holmgang (at least for new players) first rather than your strongest CD. Likewise, since we aren't building gauge in the early levels, Eye is learned before Path. Personally, I don't see Butcher's surviving the 5.0 skill prune, but that's another discussion. We're working with the assumption every current skill remains.

Onslaught is brought down since I think it fits better learned early on than Upheaval. And while I wanted to shift Decimate down a little, It works fine where it is. The real dilemma I considered was what to do with Inner Release. Berserk feels awful, making pre-Stormblood Warrior less fun overall. But not only is Inner Release arguably too strong for 60 content, it leaves Warrior without any "big" skills post Heavensward. Ultimately, a buff or rework of Berserk seemed like a better solution.

Bard

Heavy Shot - lvl. 1
Straight Shot - lvl. 2
Raging Strikes - lvl. 4
Venomous Bite - Lvl. 6
Misery's End - lvl. 10
Bloodletter - lvl. 12
Repelling Shot - lvl. 15
Quick Nock - lvl. 18
Windbite - lvl. 22
Rain of Death - lvl. 30
Mage's Ballard - lvl. 30
Foe Requiem - lvl. 35
Barrage - lvl. 38
Army's Paeon - lvl. 40
Wanderer's Minuet - lvl. 45
Pitch Perfect - lvl. 45
Battle Voice - lvl. 49
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Iron Jaws - lvl. 51
Empyreal Arrow - lvl. 53
Warden's Paean - lvl. 54
Nature's Minne - lvl. 56
Sidewinder - lvl. 60
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Troubadour - lvl. 61
Caustic Bite - lvl. 63
Stormbite - lvl. 63
Refulgent Arrow - lvl. 65
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Bard presented an odd challenge. Unlike most jobs, it's songs are better tied into the quest chain, likely forcing more rewrites. Therefore, I left them mostly as is. The sole exception was moving Wanderer's Minuet down. It will certainly make Bard incredibly strong early on but the sheer amount of frustrated Bards losing a song when synced makes this a necessary change in my opinion. Rain of Death shifts way down to help bridge the sizable skill gap where you don't learn anything from 18 until 30.

Not much changes in the Heavensward or Stormblood category. Nature's Minne moves more to better front load abilities than anything else. Otherwise, I merely reduced the levels of when skills were learned.


Overall, I think this vastly improves the level pacing for new players. Of course, this entirely subjective. That said, I may do others later.