Quote Originally Posted by ty_taurus View Post
EDIT: Also, isn't this sentence an oxymoron? "Past need not be prologue, especially since "add more attack" is already the opposite direction they've been taking Healers." If the past need not be prologue, then what makes the prospect of going back and adding more DPS options for healers somehow more unreasonable than choosing to leave any or every job in stasis and neither adding nor removing anything from them?
No, that was my point - you can't appeal to the standard in one case (always adding new abilities) while rejecting the standard in another (that they'll switch from NOT adding DPS abilities to Healers [and, in fact, pruning them] to adding DPS abilities to Healers).

In other words, you cannot appeal to the standard of always adding something at the same time as NOT appealing to the standard of not adding DPS abilities.

And while it's true MMOs pretty much always add abilities, they don't always add abilities, exactly. For example, is Holy Shelltron an added ability? TECHNICALLY yes...but in practice, no, it's an upgrade of an existing ability. Was adding a second charge to Divine Benison adding a new ability? TECHNICALLY it was adding a new Trait, so it DID add a change, so to speak, but it didn't add any new ability at all while still changing (slightly) the Job from what it was before.

For example, suppose in 7.0 for WHM, they had Afflatus Misery upgrade into Afflatus Purgation, Aquaveil get a reduced CD to 45 seconds, and Assize get a second charge. Those would absolutely be changes, and Purgation would technically be a new ability...but since it just outright replaces Misery, it would not generally be treated as a new thing, and Aquaveil and Assize would not even be seen as new. Heck, WHM could get that thing I suggested before where every 4th Glare cast gave you a double power Holy (or whatever made it a DPS gain over Glare) and people wouldn't see that as a new ability, even though it actually WOULD change WHM's rotation.