Quote Originally Posted by dspguy View Post
I love the PLD-to-WAR comparison. And that right there is why SE being so formulaic is hurting the game. I have my PLD and WAR hotbars nearly identical. The 1-2-3 Royal Authority combo is my Storm's Path combo. The PLD DoT combo is my Storm's Eye combo. Requiescat is slotted where Inner Release is. Holy Spirit/Circle are slotted for Fell Cleave and Decimate. Holy Sheltron is where Bloodwhetting is - Sentinel where Vengeance is. Etc etc etc. The differences are minor. While the rotation is different, it isn't that different.
Having hotbars being nearly identical isn't a bad thing, IMO. That dramatically lowers the skill floor for any given class, as your hands are already somewhat used to what they'll be doing.

The issue is that Square-Enix has been lowering the skill *ceiling* of classes at the same time they lower the floor... and IMO, to a much greater extent than they lower the floor (since the floor in ShB was already fairly low.) About a thousand different issues with their current design of, "everyone uses everything in 20 seconds every 120 seconds." Hopefully they admit they screwed up and walk back some of these changes for 7.0, because the more things you sand off or homogenize away, the fewer things you can tinker with for the purposes of design and balance.