Job action combos one button

[Shurrikhan]

I do find it weird that some people act like collapsing combos is such a huge deal in terms of reducing button bloat but at the same time act like it's no big deal at all whenever they face pushback against the idea.

As an option, it would be a pretty big deal for certain jobs.

Consider DRG, for instance. There's just 1 button to save via other means, Mirage Dive hotswapping onto (High) Jump, but up to 7 to save by offering simply a Chaos Thrust, Full Thrust, and Coerthan Tempest combo. SAM sees a fair bit from both ends, 3 buttons saved from combo consolidation and a button each saved from consolidation on Ikishoten and Tsubame Gaeshi, and perhaps one further if --per other, alternate requests-- Senei were made a traited, conditional variation of Guren (for when only one enemy is found within its AoE check). On the other hand, other jobs, like Monk, only have those other forms of consolidation anyways, such as the Masterful Blitz hotswapping over Perfect Balance.

I think for many, though, it's more a matter of principle: the only difference between (A) skills that literally cannot be used except in order or on available proc, and can therefore just be key-slid* over to the same effect as button consolidation anyways, and (B) true combos is simply possibility for hitting the wrong key, which quickly becomes insignificant except for those with significant lost physical dexterity and the like, an odd choice for skill-gap.

*Key sliding is when the sliding of one's finger across a set of keys, from highest to lowest priority, such that the first possible action is used. For instance, with the old Gnashing Fang combo, one could just slide from Shift-3 (Wicked Talon) to Shift-1 (Gnashing Fang) to guarantee that you'd hit the next skill in series, and even now one can do the same for Wheeling Thrust and Fang and Claw and Refulgent Arrow and Burst Shot. There's no more actual need to hit the "right" key than with consolidation.

In other words, despite the set of actions ("true combos") being equally mutually exclusive and unable to be reordered in practice, they are somehow protected as a category of their own, which can seem rather... odd. They have none of the affordances (reordering for optimization) than Monk combos have, yet take up just as many buttons.

Consider: Monk and DRG each have 11 GCD skills, yet while Monk has 11 GCD choices, and 3-9 rotational choices in a given GCD, DRG has only 4 GCD choices, and only 1 to 2 rotational choices in a given GCD. Combo consolation (the likes of Gnashing Fang) or combo freeing (the likes of Monk) would simply put their choices-per-button-spent on par, one way or the other.

Additionally, there is a difference between arguing that (A) yes, such an option would provide significant unbloating for the most affected jobs, and (B) no, the mere fact that buttons are saved for those who use the option would not necessitate that the job kits suddenly get more tools to fill those spaces. It's not a contradiction; they address two separate questions: Can combo consolidation provide significant savings? Yes. Would this actually be an option? Yes; there's no reason to think the devs would suddenly feel pressured to fill the saved button space or thereby disadvantage players who chose not to consolidate their combos (who have lower button efficiency but retain their tactile cues and likely chose not to consolidate specifically because those cues were more valuable to them than that efficiency).