Simplify 1-2-3 combos and reduce button bloat

[Tlamila]

No, but it makes it more boring. If you only want to press 2 buttons, but play new world or something.

Not even in ARR we had only 2 keys. We already have 3 full hotbars or almost (depending on the job), you're sayng consolidating the 1-2-3 combo into 1 button means suddenly you don't use the other 20+ skills? Unless right now you only use the 1-2-3 combo, in which case I'd worry more about learning to play.

[Ransu]

show us how you manage 30 hotkeys and move around at the same time with one hand, i am curious.

Not even in ARR we had only 2 keys. We already have 3 full hotbars or almost (depending on the job), you're sayng consolidating the 1-2-3 combo into 1 button means suddenly you don't use the other 20+ skills? Unless right now you only use the 1-2-3 combo, in which case I'd worry more about learning to play.

Most of the oGCD skills are burned on your opener. You spend the large majority of every encounter doing your main combos pressing the occasional oGCD skill. Its not a matter of "complicated" or not. It simply comes down to I'd rather press "1,2,3" than 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2.

Also, we had more skills in ARR/HW than we do now. The removal/redesign of "shared" skills from classes among other things have significantly reduced how many skills we have. I used to have nearly 5 bars full of stuff in HW. Now I'm down to two and half and its perfectly fine.

[Duskane]

now do it on this

[Shurrikhan]

Also, we had more skills in ARR/HW than we do now.

This is blatant misinformation. HW had the same number of skills, typically, as now. ARR had fewer.

Here's the ARR WHM kit, for instance:

• Stone (unused outside of T5)
• Stone II
• Aero
• Aero II
• Holy
• Regen
• Cure
• Cure II
• Cure III
• Medica
• Medica II
• Benediction
• Raise
• Shroud of Saints
• Divine Seal
• Presence of Mind
• Protect (literal bloat)
• Cleric Stance
• Stoneskin
• Repose
  
  
• Swiftcast
• Virus (and it granted a 70s immunity debuff after usage back then)
• Eye for an Eye
• Blizzard II (useful only in Garuda Ex, though that was usually covered instead by Shadowbind, and in certain weird T4 prog strats)
• Surecast (which then lasted only 3s and was cancelled by completing any cast and didn't yet grant KB immunity)

25 abilities. We currently have... 30 abilities (24 native, not counting any upgrades, plus 6 Role Actions).

Heavensward added Assize, Asylum, Tetra, and Aero III (Stone III just replaced Stone II) for 29.

The removal/redesign of "shared" skills from classes among other things have significantly reduced how many skills we have.

You could only take 5 of them. Only casters have so few Role Actions.

I used to have nearly 5 bars full of stuff in HW.

The only way for you to have "5 bars full of stuff in HW" was for you to have crammed it up chalk full of macros, likely for job/gear swapping. Even AST, with Sprint, potion, and a macro each for Undraw and Royal Road cancel, fit on 3 bars (<36 skills) at that time.

[Ransu]

now do it on this

Players clear savage and ultimate tier content all the time on controller. Seems like a you problem to me.

You have 8 pages for 128 total skills with multiple different shortcut methods to quickly use the other pages. I personally prefer m/kb, but a controller is hardly a handicap.

snip

I don't really care about WHM because they have always been in a weird state and healers in general have always had smaller kits, but good job cherry picking I guess? The majority of the DPS and Tanks had more fleshed out kits back then.

My old main DRG for example lost the following after HW;

Heavy Thrust
Phlebotmozie
Impulse Drive
Ring of Thorns
Blood for Blood
Invigorate (TP restore so I'm whatever about this one)
Keen Flurry
Power Surge (merged into dissembowel as a generic 10% buff instead of its own skill that buffed jump damage)
Goad (TP restore for teammates)
Internal release (cross class skill)
Foresight (cross class)
Mercy Stroke (cross class)
Mantra (before it was mnk only)
Featherfoot and haymaker (not really worth taking, but nice to have when solo)

Blood of the dragon is now a talent and mirage dive is now merged into high jump....so outside of the new aoe combo, drg hasn't really gained anything and has lost a ton.

[Duskane]

Players clear savage and ultimate tier content all the time on controller. Seems like a you problem to me.

You have 8 pages for 128 total skills with multiple different shortcut methods to quickly use the other pages. I personally prefer m/kb, but a controller is hardly a handicap.

nah i play on controller too i just wanted to see if you could do it with one hand

[Shurrikhan]

Players clear savage and ultimate tier content all the time on controller. Seems like a you problem to me.

You have 8 pages for 128 total skills with multiple different shortcut methods to quickly use the other pages. I personally prefer m/kb, but a controller is hardly a handicap.



I don't really care about WHM because they have always been in a weird state and healers in general have always had smaller kits, but good job cherry picking I guess? The majority of the DPS and Tanks had more fleshed out kits back then.

My old main DRG for example lost the following after HW;

Heavy Thrust
Phlebotmozie
Impulse Drive
Ring of Thorns
Blood for Blood
Invigorate (TP restore so I'm whatever about this one)
Keen Flurry
Power Surge (merged into dissembowel as a generic 10% buff instead of its own skill that buffed jump damage)
Goad (TP restore for teammates)
Internal release (cross class skill)
Foresight (cross class)
Mercy Stroke (cross class)
Mantra (before it was mnk only)
Featherfoot and haymaker (not really worth taking, but nice to have when solo)

Blood of the dragon is now a talent and mirage dive is now merged into high jump....so outside of the new aoe combo, drg hasn't really gained anything and has lost a ton.

1. You could only take 5 Additional Skills ("Cross-class actions", though the prior was their in-game name). DRG generally took Bloodbath, Second Wind, and Featherfoot, Mercy Stroke, and Internal Release (+10% Crit). Goad (worth only ~1.5 GCDs and only usable on others despite DRG having the highest relative TP costs), Foresight (3% mitigation) and Mantra (5% bonus healing from spells only) were not worth taking [and if you somehow wanted Goad for PvP to allow for an extra Sprint for a finish, you'd go Lancer and Raging Strikes... or, more often, just Wolf's Den as Marauder].
   
   Of those, only Mercy Stroke, Featherfoot, and Internal Release have been lost, with Feint, Arm's Length, and True North taking their place. We now have 6 Role Actions, up from 5 Cross-class skills. That's not a net positive for HW DRG there.
   
   
2. You didn't lose Blood for Blood; it was just renamed to Lance Charge after people realized the name was a poor fit given that it no longer increased your damage taken.
   
   
3. Invigorate you've already acknowledged was pointless bloat. So that's another out.
   
   
4. Blood of the Dragon hasn't had any attached gameplay since HW outside of rare moments following forced, lengthy downtime; you basically could not lose it as long as you didn't have over 15s of downtime. By Shadowbringers, its CD was shorter than its entry duration by Shadowbringers. It was bloat.
   
   
5. Consolidating Mirage Dive as a follow-up to a skill that it can only be used after did not cost you anything. This would be like yelling to the moon over Shadowbringers Assassination not taking an extra button to be used after Dream Within a Dream... when it could only ever be used after DWaD anyways.
   
   
6. Ring of Thorns was a dps loss relative to Doom Spike. Its sole use case was if Heavy Thrust procced it for an incredibly minor TP efficiency bonus. About the only people who'd use it are the kind who'd refuse the extra range (and, yes, square meters area of effect) of old Overpower just to no longer have to target anything. Unless you'd otherwise TP-starve in the middle of a dungeon AoE pull, it was a trap button.
   
   
7. Impulse Drive was literally just True Thrust but with 30 more potency, to slightly bump up Chaos Thrust combos' otherwise notably inferior direct potency and to make gameplay slightly "staler" for about 12 levels to those who really like their buttons by making 333333 spam slightly superior, even, to 121212 spam, albeit at an extra 2.5 TP per GCD. No complexity was lost with its removal, and just adding back that potency to Disembowel and Chaos Thrust themselves kept its removal from having any rotational implications.
   
   
8. Power Surge was a skill you used before every other Jump and only Jump for 50% more damage. It was effectively Life Surge, but without any actual complexity, alignment, or compromise to manage.

Meanwhile, DRG gained:

• Nostrand
• Stardiver
• Mirage Dive (yes, it's still a separate action)
• Sonic Thrust
• Coerthan Tempest
• Dragon Sight
• Wyrmwind Thrust

Lost: 4 bloat/trap skills.
Gained: 6 skills as real as any others.

Amazing how much you can type and still be incorrect lol.

Meanwhile, you literally can't remember how cross-classing worked.

[Ransu]

Amazing how much you can type and still be incorrect lol.

[MilkieTea]

Rather than consolidate the 1-2-3 (which is there to allow for player mistakes), can we focus on consolidating redundant buttons? Leylines/Between-the-leylines, as an example. You can *never* use Between the Leylines unless you've set your leylines down and have the buff active, and you cannot use Leylines again until the CD for it is over.

[Lustre]

This is blatant misinformation. HW had the same number of skills, typically, as now. ARR had fewer.

Here's the ARR WHM kit, for instance:

• Stone (unused outside of T5)
• Stone II
• Aero
• Aero II
• Holy
• Regen
• Cure
• Cure II
• Cure III
• Medica
• Medica II
• Benediction
• Raise
• Shroud of Saints
• Divine Seal
• Presence of Mind
• Protect (literal bloat)
• Cleric Stance
• Stoneskin
• Repose
  
  
• Swiftcast
• Virus (and it granted a 70s immunity debuff after usage back then)
• Eye for an Eye
• Blizzard II (useful only in Garuda Ex, though that was usually covered instead by Shadowbind, and in certain weird T4 prog strats)
• Surecast (which then lasted only 3s and was cancelled by completing any cast and didn't yet grant KB immunity)

25 abilities. We currently have... 30 abilities (24 native, not counting any upgrades, plus 6 Role Actions).

Heavensward added Assize, Asylum, Tetra, and Aero III (Stone III just replaced Stone II) for 29.



You could only take 5 of them. Only casters have so few Role Actions.


The only way for you to have "5 bars full of stuff in HW" was for you to have crammed it up chalk full of macros, likely for job/gear swapping. Even AST, with Sprint, potion, and a macro each for Undraw and Royal Road cancel, fit on 3 bars (<36 skills) at that time.

"Misinformation" is such a loaded term to use in regards to discussion of amount of buttons in an MMO it actually made me cringe irl