Thoughts on the removal of skills

[ReiMakoto]

They need to add in some kind of animation glam system which lets you slot in the animations from removed/upgraded skills over the newer ones

[EnigmaticDodo]

They need to add in some kind of animation glam system which lets you slot in the animations from removed/upgraded skills over the newer ones

I'd like that a lot. I miss Power Slash on DRK. They could also work out some kinda traits that if you proc something, the animation could be different/stronger version of an attack. Either way, yeah, I'm for this.

[Gemina]

I question the removal of skills far less than I do with the ones that remain, and those they change. I totally understand that skill/button bloat needs to be prevented, but I have difficulty making sense of that when they keep around redundant and tacked on skills like Fluid Aura, Assassinate, and Repose.

Then you have a skill like Temperance, which is just a glorified Largesse. A skill once exclusive to WHM, taken from them and given to every healer via the flawed role skill system, then taken from there, and given back to WHM as a cap skill. Seriously W....T.....effinnnnnnnnn..... F!?

I don't play any of the other jobs enough to know if this madness is as bad with them as it with healers, but I have to assume it is. Just reading through here I can tell that BRD is another job that have people continuously saying, "What the hell are you doing, SE?"

DRK is another job I play a lot, and while I do not know what I missed with HW DRK, I do know that current DRK doesn't feel like a DRK at all, and the resources their skills are tied to are totally arse backwards. Why are Edge/Flood OGCD but still consume MP? Why the hell are skills like Unleash and Unmend on the GCD but MP free? WTF is Abysmal Drain no longer a spell and on a ridiculous CD? I don't need to play HW DRK to know they really screwed this job up.

Adding onto that is my continued and vehement frustration with skills tied to multiple resources, or more accurately put, tying a skill to the job gauge and also giving it a CD timer.

In short, it's a really good thing that combat is only one of several things I enjoy about this game. Because if it were, I am not too sure I would still be here. As time goes on, I spend more and more of my time outside combat because I grow sick of the constant changes. It reminds of that neighbor who has been working on the same project in his garage for months with seemingly no progress to be observed whatsoever. 2 steps forward, and 2 steps back typically doesn't work for progression.

[MOZZYSTAR]

Despite only being on patch 5.1, I already find myself worried for the next expansion. It shouldn't be that way, but I can't help but be afraid of the job changes because of the removal of older skills.

I understand the argument that older abilities need to be cut to make room for new, and hopefully more interesting additions to our jobs, but I have a hard time thinking on what else they can possibly remove from the jobs without them losing what made them what they originally were.

My hotbar after the skill purge. Before 5.0, I didn't have Second Wind or Raging Strikes because I didn't have room. Now I have too much room and no use for the remaining role actions. Maybe I'll fill the gaps with more emotes. {/Lali ho!} Makes me wish I had a screenshots from before as a comaprison.

[Kyriss]

Because people are against it, apperently pressing three different buttons in order is more skill then pressing the same one three times.
And yes this is what people say to this idea, people not want PvP combos becaus its "less skill".

Wow! People are easily pleased if clicking three different buttons (that are vaguely the same thing) in a row counts as skill. I'd rather have a bunch of different abilities that are unique that I need to use depending on what's happening in the fight.

[linay]

Because people are against it, apperently pressing three different buttons in order is more skill then pressing the same one three times.
And yes this is what people say to this idea, people not want PvP combos becaus its "less skill".

For me, it's actually easier (perhaps psychologically) to do combos when they're on separate buttons as compared to the same button changing to different abilities.

My hotbar after the skill purge. Before 5.0, I didn't have Second Wind or Raging Strikes because I didn't have room. Now I have too much room and no use for the remaining role actions. Maybe I'll fill the gaps with more emotes. {/Lali ho!} Makes me wish I had a screenshots from before as a comaprison.

That's mine today at level 75. I think it's perfect in terms of number of combat abilities (including role actions, limit break, and duty action 1).

[CazzT]

Skill trimming/pruning is a big reason why I lost interest in WoW. It was poorly handled and completely unnecessary.

While EQ2 is not a big name in the MMO scene, I can give them credit that they have rarely, if ever, removed skills over the years. Some newer skills may replace older ones to the point that the older ones are no longer used at all, but they don't remove the skills themselves. I haven't played EQ2 in about two years, so my info may not be entirely accurate anymore, but it is how they did things for over a decade.

The skill gutting they did with ShB is concerning. The removal of TP is also concerning. I see FFXIV slowly homogenizing the classes similar to how WoW did, just at a slower pace. One of the things I love about FFXIV is how different each class feels to play. I'm worried that in 6.0 we're going to see another massive skill gutting and the jobs being homogenized even more.

[MOZZYSTAR]

For me, it's actually easier (perhaps psychologically) to do combos when they're on separate buttons as compared to the same button changing to different abilities.



That's mine today at level 75. I think it's perfect in terms of number of combat abilities (including role actions, limit break, and duty action 1).

Yeah, that's because you don't combine Venomous Bite/Windbite, and you have one extra role actions I have no need for. You also have Limit Break, Teleport, Return, a minion, and something else on your main hotbar, whereas I have those types of items on a sidehotbar (I only had two unrelated bard items on my hotbar). So, that accounts for all the empty spaces, which is why yours looks fuller than mine. I really have no desire to fill mine up with crap I don't need on it. XD

So, in comparison to before when my hotbars were almost completely full with just bard actions: yeah. The purge hit hard and I do think the OP has a right to be worried XD. Because, if there was another skill purge in the next expansion, it'd be iffy for Bard. It would feel like there's not much left because right now it feels like it's the bare bones of the class. All my other classes don't have this issue, they're pretty much all full. A couple of bards skills just become "new and improved" versions of themselves (straight arrow to refulgent arrow, venomous bite to caustic bite, windbite to stormbite, not sure if there are others) so that + the lack of palisade/foe req/mp song/tp song/separated straight & refuleant arrow is probably why they feel so empty to me.

So, what would be the next skills to get purged in 6.0? Nature's Minne? Warden's Paeon? I'd be curious to see. :|

[Saix027]

I question the removal of skills far less than I do with the ones that remain, and those they change. I totally understand that skill/button bloat needs to be prevented, but I have difficulty making sense of that when they keep around redundant and tacked on skills like Fluid Aura, Assassinate, and Repose.

Then you have a skill like Temperance, which is just a glorified Largesse. A skill once exclusive to WHM, taken from them and given to every healer via the flawed role skill system, then taken from there, and given back to WHM as a cap skill. Seriously W....T.....effinnnnnnnnn..... F!?

I don't play any of the other jobs enough to know if this madness is as bad with them as it with healers, but I have to assume it is. Just reading through here I can tell that BRD is another job that have people continuously saying, "What the hell are you doing, SE?"

DRK is another job I play a lot, and while I do not know what I missed with HW DRK, I do know that current DRK doesn't feel like a DRK at all, and the resources their skills are tied to are totally arse backwards. Why are Edge/Flood OGCD but still consume MP? Why the hell are skills like Unleash and Unmend on the GCD but MP free? WTF is Abysmal Drain no longer a spell and on a ridiculous CD? I don't need to play HW DRK to know they really screwed this job up.

Adding onto that is my continued and vehement frustration with skills tied to multiple resources, or more accurately put, tying a skill to the job gauge and also giving it a CD timer.

In short, it's a really good thing that combat is only one of several things I enjoy about this game. Because if it were, I am not too sure I would still be here. As time goes on, I spend more and more of my time outside combat because I grow sick of the constant changes. It reminds of that neighbor who has been working on the same project in his garage for months with seemingly no progress to be observed whatsoever. 2 steps forward, and 2 steps back typically doesn't work for progression.

Oh, don't get me started on Esuna, taking it away only to add the exact same as roleskill back only to have it as primary abiltiy back aswell, while also loosing two cast animations with it since each healer had his own unique Esuna.

While then keep skills like range attack on DRG or the Watercannon from WHM, or even better, the slow and bind CC from roleskill for physical ranged, which by now are 90% of the enemys are immune to by now anyway. Or Redmages AoE CC, same issue.

[Sloprano]

This unsupervised pruning of skills was already rampart in Stormblood, but it's now in Shadowbringers this shit has gone too far.

I took a picture of my hotbars on Scholar recently and got one from four years ago below. Get sad looking at them and all the holes I have now.


Squared in red are my "anytime": What I mean by this is spells and gcds with no preqequisite combo or similar with less than 10 second cooldowns. Foregoing healing spells and not forgetting ED (even if SE did).

In 5.0 I have:
Broil III, Biolysis, Ruin II and Art of War.

BIII, RII and AoW are all just variants of each other. They don't interact, they don't affect eacher other: One is casted single-target, one weaker instant-target and one is flat out AoE. So in essence I have whole two "ready to go buttons" at any point and one is a 30s dot.

Rest are long cooldowns, oGCD heals and fairy commands that sometimes trigger the effect.

In 3.0, I had:
Ruin/Broil, Bio, Miasma, Bio 2, Bane, Miasma 2, Ruin II, Aero, Shadowflare, Stoneskin, Protect, Cleric Stance, Sustain, Embrace that healed a damn and two different summon spells for two different fairies. Bonus: Aetherflow was usable out of combat aswell, always leaving you with three stacks ready.

Won't claim Ruin II is wildly different just for it's Blind, as it don't affect everything. So can lump Ruin/Broil/Ruin II together, but not Miasma 2 as that was 90% dot.

Then we got fifteen. 15. Five dots on different durations, 3 spreadable, Shadowflare usable everywhere and anytime, Cleric Stance for raising the stakes, Stoneskin and Protect to reapply at any moment, Sustain for when Lily took a beating, costly and long cast to summon either Eos or Selene. Fifteen.

Scholar went down from having fifteen, 15, wildly and interesting different gcds right at it's fingertips that could make any fight a joy, down to two. How the hell was this greenlighted and allowed to pass testing, if there ever was any testing which current scholar seems like a testament to was not.