Quote Originally Posted by Gserpent View Post
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Step 1: Look at the commonly understood explanation for why jobs are getting easier (based upon developer comments and who actually benefits from the given changes, especially within the scope of the given development philosophy). Promptly dismiss it.

Step 2: Create a hypothetical demographic of players, which you explicitly note "literally does not exist and never has."

Step 3: Instead blame the latter literally inexistant group, and by extension any theorycrafters, optimizers, etc., on the basis that despite their being the one group wholly unburdened by the "problems" SE addressed in their changes their optimizations must have dumbed down the jobs.

Step 4: ?????? Profit???

Not that it matters, but... wut, mate?


Because a long time ago, WoW decided to go that route and as a result mundane combat in that game is a fucking *million* times better than XIV's. "Hit the button when it lights up" is not deep or nuanced gameplay, but it's not trying to be - it's just trying to keep you from falling asleep in your chair, and it succeeds at that. It's flashy and hitting the button when it lights up gives haha happy monke brain feelings, and that's all it needs to do. If you're going to go for a simplistic gameplay experience, then at least fucking do it right.
But... almost no part of what makes WoW's combat decent comes simply from "hit the button when it lights up". It comes generally from their APLs being contextual to upcoming uptime. The only part "lit button go!" procs play into that is that there's an actual frequent difference there in playing around a 33% chance of a 100% effect proc vs. a guaranteed bonus effect of 33% strength due to skill interactions.