Quote Originally Posted by LeonKeyh View Post
I'm unsure how replacing all of your AoE attacks with 1 button which toggles all of your single target attacks into AoE attacks "add to button bloat"? The AoE and single target version would be the same button, they would "add" Apex Arrow II and Blast Arrow II just to replace Apex Arrow and Blast Arrow if you had the stance on

Stance dancing isn't the point of adding to gameplay, the point is to normalize single target gameplay and AoE gameplay, clean up the AoE abilities that you don't even use in high-level gameplay, and allow room on hotbars to make more meaningful abilities for both single target and AoE.
Okay—except Apex Arrow and Blast Arrow already provide both single-target and AOE gameplay. So now, adding in a single-target iteration (“Apex Arrow II” and “Blast Arrow II”) and tossing in your stance dance mechanic is redundant and pointless. Abilities already exist that are flexible and can be used in both scenarios. There is no reason to add in a second, more limited version. And without adding in this second rendition, there is no reason for an “AOE stance” mechanic.

I agree with making potent abiltiies both AoE and single target that's the "or just have everything cleave", and BRD is one of the lesser "bloated" jobs when it comes to AoE and one of the jobs with the least amount of difference between AoE game play and ST game play, but there are some that are bad, some jobs you have 6-7 AoE abilities that are just multitarget versions of single target abilities that you have that would easily benefit for something like this.
Then perhaps the suggestion should be to reconsider the additions of skills like Hissatsu: Senei and Shoha II (to provide two examples) versus creating a stance-dancing mechanic for streamlining. Senei and Shoha II don’t really need to exist when Guren was already a flexible skill, and Shoha could have just been made into the same via a trait upgrade if the developers wanted something to be obtained at level 82. The same could be said for Kyuten and Shinten. Make Shinten a potent Kenki dump that can also cleave in AOE situations, and remove Kyuten. Now there is no need for a stance-dance mechanic.

There are simpler solutions to the issue of bloat on the jobs that have it outside of adding in a stance-dance mechanic that will be used almost exclusively in dungeons. Having a handful of standard AOEs is fine. But your AOE renditions of single-target abilities would be ignored in a lot of content, and your stance dancing irrelevant. I don’t see the need to add in a gameplay mechanic that isn’t actively used a lot.

For DRG, you have a 3 ability combo instead of a 10 ability combo which makes a big difference between what you're doing dungeons versus bosses, that's where I'm mainly coming from. As you mentioned, SAM has several abilities that are an AoE version of ST abilities that could easily be condensed (and I'm fine with them being condensed into big hit on primary target + cleave). Healers basically have single target and AoE versions of the same abilities; Same with DRK, WAR, and PLD. All of those could just be condensed.
Except a lot of these jobs don’t really need condensing. Especially healers. We’re already barebones in terms of damage abilities, there’s nothing to condense for us anymore. Outside of straight removal. If your argument comes from a button bloat concern, the only healer that has button bloat would be AST; and it could be easily rectified by condensing some of the card-based abilities, not in reducing their AOE “rotation”. Adding in this single-target/AOE stance toggle wouldn’t remove any buttons from the healers. You’d be removing our one AOE and replacing it with a stance, so what did you really save healers in terms of hotbar space? Nothing.

As for DRG, I don’t see the need for condensing them either as hotbar space is not an issue on that job. I also just don’t think that the condensing and stance-dancing toggle would guarantee that the developers would add in “more meaningful abilities” to replace the ones removed/condensed. “Meaningful abilities” can also be achieved without needless condensing on jobs that don’t need it via ability upgrades in the form of traits, or ability procs that chain off of a previous one—like the Blast Arrow proc that replaces Apex Arrow if it’s used at 80+ gauge.

The amount of jobs that have actual bloat isn’t significant enough to provide an adequate defense for overhauling all of them with a stance dance mechanic.