Positionals

[ssunny2008]

snip

In case of SAM it´s 10 kenki in one rotation and only 25 kenki are available at each rotation. You couldn´t even make use of Kaiten for Midare and Higabana without them. Then we´ve Shinten as powerful off gcd which gives as pretty decent damage boost since SAM is the only melee without those cd-based off gcd´s. Seigan is even slightly stronger. Gyoten needs 10 kenki aswell and is a really fast escape to hold uptime as long as it´s possible.
This means, those 10 kenki each rotation are very important and you´ll lose much more than those 0,5% damage if you ignore them or just play them "by accident" and only going to lose 5 kenki.

MNK relies completely on them, it´s the whole gameplay design... i see no need to argue more about that. It´s all whats left on the class and should NEVER leave it.

NIN / DRG are another thing yes. They could get ride of them on NIN and focus more on stealth or ninjutsus with internal cd, so you can´t just spam raiton or whatever. But backstabbing should be still someway important since you´re a NIN. It could be like a stackable passiv. You´ll get 1% more damage for every skill you use from behind stackable 5 times. If you attack from the side, you´ll lose 1 stack per attack. So you´re actually somehow forced to attack from behind.

DRG is actually the most boring melee in bossfights anyway. The rotation is simple, you use your gapclosers for damage and not to keep uptime. (Sometimes you do even die thx to animation stucks or mechanics like garuda in E6s.) Maintaining dragonheart is even simpler than maintaining old GL. You lost it? Press the button again. The whole kit needs some kind of rework, gapclosers should be gapclosers and not just damage off gcd´s. The kit has a soul, but it´s nothing but pressing buffs in a decent order and some cool skill animations. I wouldn´t care if they get ride of positionals on DRG, but the class needs way more stuff to care about.
On the other hand they could even use the jumps as buffs. One would bring you automatically behind the boss and buff the next 5 skills you do from behind. The 2nd jump would reposition you at the side and ofc the next 5 hits from the side would do increased damage. Those jumps shouldn´t be locked on cd, they should be created behind a ressource with a buffer, so you can adapt with them at certain mechanics without losing damage. Stuff like that would bring a bit more depth to the class, the player could always adapt and you wouldn´t waste your gapcloser on cd. You would be able to adjust as you want for more damage or more uptime. (In case of balancing just bring an internal cd on the buff, so you can´t use "from behind, from behind" all day long.)