Quote Originally Posted by Shurrikhan View Post
Heavy Shot*. It was too much to ask, prior to Burst Shot, for more than a 20% chance to get to hit another button more often than twice per 45 seconds, after all.

I jest, and I see what you mean and agree on the whole. However, that wouldn't be such a concern if they hadn't already axed so damn many 1-60 abilities. A ton of what made lower-level Monk interesting, for instance, (and provided a much more nuanced form of positional freedom), for instance, were Fracture and ToD, while optimizing tank damage around stances --say, via Sword Oath, which was originally given 10 levels earlier than Shield Oath-- made for considerably more interesting tank leveling (even if the effect was much diminished in 8-man content).
Ahh, Heavy Shot. I always mix the two up. And yes, that... was a very silly change.

Many of those abilities were axed not out of perceived button bloat but in the name of simplification. Yoshida outright said Heavy Thrust and Straight Shot buffs were removed because casual players weren't keeping them up and it caused too large a gap between them and experienced players. I have to disagree on tank stance. I found very little interesting about it. Paladin, in particular, was especially bad given it was more optimal to simply go stance-less than switch to Sword Oath due to the GCD requirement. The devs also seem to despise DoTs nowadays.

Quote Originally Posted by hagare View Post
that's the whole point of the thread isn't it.
Removing bloat and meaningless buttons.

lmao. ah well.
Redundancy eh.
Nothing is more redundant to me than a combo of 3 buttons with nothing in it but increase in potency.
I want buttons with actual meaning to it and not just an increase in potency and nothing else.
Your comparison still doesn't work because at least those combo actions had a function. Blood of the Dragon literally did nothing for any average Dragoon. You put it up once and never touched the button again unless there was a cut scene. It was functionally useless. Say what you will about combos but you're still pressing them. Nearly every single one of your examples didn't have that luxury. Some, like Fluid Aura and Sleep weren't even worth putting on your bar.

I'd like for buttons to mean something too. Alas, they aren't going to give us anything. So in the absence of nothing, I prefer the current system to spamming the same key endlessly. Tanks are already simplified. I'd rather not spam my 1 key 100 times. 123 isn't anything special but it's something.