Hey there o/

I just finished the MSQ, got 4 jobs to 80 and a few others to 70ish and have been spamming dungeons / FATEs / raids for a while.

Overall I rly like the game - from world building to the varied game modes - and I do enjoy the Job designs.

However, although I really like the combat animations and even the pacing with weaving ogcd's etc, I gotta say half the skills in my bar feel like boring bloat.

Does anyone else get the feeling that some skills are just generic and uninspired? Is anyone excited to use Arm's Length?

Let me elaborate:

Dragoon:

Blood / Life of the Dragon is great. A buff to manage, full uptime, multiple functions and fun visuals.

Then you get:

Lance Charge - a measly 15% with 23% uptime... I'm not excited to use it, it just feels like a chore and one extra pointless button. Burst window yada yada... boring.

Dragon Sight - 10% / 5% buff with a range req. Again, why such a paltry number? If this was permanent once cast until broken i could get behind it, but still.

All the role actions also are sooo boring. I mean I get that they're meant to be lined up with mechanics so that fights are tight and they're needed to survive stuff, but goddamn they feel so pointless. You press a button with a large CD and nothing interesting happens XD

Frankly I'd find it more fun if most of this fluff was streamlined, for instance:

Life Surge is only ever used with the heavy hitters like Full Thrust, so why not simply roll a +X% crit chance into the skill itself instead of making it a separate CD? Or better yet, make is so Nostrund guarantees Stardiver will crit, or something more interesting.

Inner release is super fun, because it lasts long enough to be an exciting "phase" of sorts, but not these disposable minor buffs...

I mean, There's nothing inherently wrong with the skills themselves, but if I'm using a 90s+ CD I expect at least 100% increase in DMG / Healing etc. Something meaty.

Same goes for most filler attacks. All are standardized variations of "deals 280 ~ 330 potency", and the "hard hitters" hover around 400 to 700. With the exception of SAM's repeat Midare at 1600+ and maybe a couple BLM bursts, nothing feels meaningful. It's just a sequence of flashy lights that deal pretty abysmal dmg.

I'd expect something like Death Flare, which ends a phase, to be like 2000, not a pitiful 400. It's effectively on a 2m ~ 2.5m cd, and it barely hits harder than Ruin 4 which is spammable...