Should they remove positionals at this point?

[Jijifli]

Yes, Sneak- and Trick Attack always had positionals. But the other positionals were added with the release of Heavensward, originallay NINs combos didn't had them.

Sadly it's not stated in detail in the 3.0 patchnotes, but they were talking about it in a Liveletter:

Oh, then I stand corrected.

Still wouldn't say NIN feels forced into it though. They at least made it clear from the moment someone would level it, rather than SAM where people manage to get into savage without knowing they gained positionals. And it kinda makes sense to be behind your opponent...

[Vahlnir]

I don't mind having positionals but if they were to be removed I probably wouldn't care.

[JunseiKei]

You only need to be on your positional just as you hit the button to do your attack. You can frick off otherwise. Monk is really the only one that suffers from positionals, anyway, as they are basically the only class that has these requirements on six of their nine weaponskills; the skills that don't are their AoEs and One Ilm Punch. That was part of the reason why the class did so much damage; it rewarded good play. Then samurai came out and monk completely lost its identity. ARR and HW monk felt like you were playing Goku when you did everything right - you were top DPS and it felt great. SB feels like you're playing adult Gohan now and watching samurai take over Goku while still busting your ass and coming out with less damage. It just doesn't feel good.

Basically, no, positionals shouldn't go away. Most classes don't have that many positionals to begin with and the only class that does should honestly do more damage or gain more offensive utility.

~snip~

I dunno, I feel that positional's add some depth to melee and isn't something I want to see removed based on "I dun like it" because I think it adds just enough to make them more engaging than without. A lot of people express disappointment in missing positional's or how sometimes its impossible, but its not like you are expected to hit the positional every single time without fail, you learn to hit as many as possible as you learn the fight.

Take Pantokrator in 011s, I can't hit every positional when circling the boss, if I tried, I would die, so I save True North for it, minimizing the loss as much as possible but even then I can still miss some, it is all part of the dance and I enjoy that.

Also, pretty much this.

[Kahnom]

In my opinion,they can remove positional actions from DRG,SAM,NiN,I don’t care.
But please leave MNK alone.
Doing - Flank,Rear,Flank
Rear,Flank,Rear
Flank,Rear,Rear
Rear,Flank,Flank is what we’re doing and enjoy it.
End of Story.

[zeth07]

I think some people in this thread missed the point for thinking that not wanting them is about them being "too complicated" to do, especially the person who posted the training dummy and explaining how they work.

Doing the positionals themselves are easy, especially on a training dummy, you barely move a cm and suddenly you did your positional, then a few seconds later move again and there's the other one. This is not hard or complicated, and I don't think anyone would argue that to begin with.

It is when you have to do this when actual mechanics are happening that seem to have been purposefully designed against doing positionals. You either forgo uptime/actions to maintain the positional which is bad, or maintain uptime and forgo the positional which is also bad.

Which just brings me back to the things I already discussed. That is bad design, one way or the other, pick your poison. Either it is bad mechanics design or bad job skillset design. They are designing fights going into it saying it is ok to play suboptimally because you have no choice, you just make do with what you get.

If the positionals did not exist then all the fights that are mechanic heavy with a lot of built in movement would not suddenly become less complicated it would just mean the actions can function to their full potential.

Missing out on 40 potency because the boss decided to turn/teleport in the middle of my combo is out of my control, especially if this occurs more often than True North can cover. That isn't some sudden jump in a skill gap, it is the difference between taking a step to the left or right, and yet the bosses tend to just ignore that entirely either due to hitbox sizes/turning completely or abruptness of movement.

We already have decent fights that don't require positionals so the proof is already there, I don't think anyone would say Shinryu EX was a boring fight or not complicated enough, ignoring the add phase since they have it.

Lastly I will just say between ARR/HW to SB I believe there has been a sharp increase in mechanics + movement either as a player/party or the bosses themselves compared to the old ones. The differences between the ARR extremes and the SB extremes seem like night and day for example. This in general is fine, I'm not complaining about that per se, in fact they've been great but something has to give if the fights themselves are going to be more complicated and that's part of why I would suggest the positionals be removed.

[mosaicex]

....

So what you're saying is doing positional is easy except when it isn't easy, in which case it becomes difficult. Nice revelation going on there.

Also why are you people acting like missing a few positionals will dumpster your DPS? This hasn't been the case since 2.4, since then they have been continuously easing the penalty of missing positionals from "rotation crasher" to just "cool if you do it, fine if you don't (as long as you don't intentionally miss all of it)"

This isn't 2.0-2.3 DRG era anymore, where missing a positional outright denied you the damage buff or won't let you progress further into your combo, or in 3.1 where missing positional with Fang & Claw and Wheeling Thrust dumpster'd your whole potency per gcd to below the point where not doing them gave higher gain.

Of course except for NIN, but such is the cost of powerful debuff like Trick Attack, and even then unless the boss is spinning like spinning top there's no excuse not to wait a few seconds to land it safely.
This is also assuming you're playing by ears and not already have all CDs planned out like you should be.

Sure some fight(s) are a bit tougher on landing positionals eg. Suzaku EX (especially if tank isn't so good at minimizing the movement) but none of the Savage fights through 3 whole SB-tier have this particular problem.

"BUT SHINRYU EX"
This is not really relevant. Shinryu EX is not Suzaku EX, much like how Neo Exdeath isn't God Kefka or Final Omega. If fights weren't designed with postionals in mind then of course they will have to compensate in some other ways.
It's all about the fights presentation first, mechanics second, unless you're somehow suggesting it's the other way around ("Gee, I don't wat Shinryu EX to have positional so I guess I will present him like this")

Sometimes you just have to accept that you will miss a few of them and move on.

[Sieben79]

I think some people in this thread missed the point for thinking that not wanting them is about them being "too complicated" to do, especially the person who posted the training dummy and explaining how they work.

Doing the positionals themselves are easy, especially on a training dummy, you barely move a cm and suddenly you did your positional, then a few seconds later move again and there's the other one. This is not hard or complicated, and I don't think anyone would argue that to begin with.

As a Blackmage the rotation on a training dummy is easy. At SSS-dummy I do 8,5k on Chaos (O9S). In the real fight my highest was 7,2k, building up from 4,6K at my first kill.
And Chaos is a really slow fight.

So there comes Seiryu, quick mechanics, much random stuff. First kill 4,9k and my last kill 6,1k (have 22 kills and much more training sessions).

Its all about training and learning the fights. Had a Monk in my team who had done 6,2k. So it seems, he had no problems doing the positionals.

Train and get better, like with every Job.

[Brightamethyst]

Part of why I don't think dropping positionals as a mechanic would hurt anything is because we already watched something similar play out with another love it or hate it skill based mechanic. Cleric Stance.

I loved Cleric Stance. I thought it was a fun and interesting thing and was proud of my stance dancing skill, and was sad in pre-SB when I heard it was going away. Wouldn't healing be super boring without it? As it turns out, no. Not at all. As much as I liked the play style, the reality is that it's been a year and a half now and I honestly haven't missed the stance dance at all. Looking back and comparing I think the game is better off without Cleric Stance and I think the same would probably be true if they dropped (or downplayed) positionals.

[Nyvara]

It never really made sense to me why monks have positionals in the first place. Dragoons and Ninjas sure. One fights dragons the other is a sneaky stabby type. But monks always struck me as a fighter that takes advantage of all positions.

[Hamada]

To me a lot of fights are designed acting like positionals do not exist. So my take is stop desgining fights like that or change positionals stuff again, like limiting them to last move in a combo, with it only effecting one combo of a job.