Rotations: Making them DIFFERENT

[Renathras]

I don't think pre-6.3 was particularly good at it, honestly. Maybe if we go back to SB? In ShB, you had Atonement change up the rotation, though it wasn't terrible in the sense it replaced a 1-2-3, but it was also weird in that you were supposed to drop Atonements, which isn't at all intuitive and there's no real way to determine that without using parsing/illegal 3rd party add-ons. That is, there was no way just using the game itself to determine that unless you're manually going to record videos of you with a target dummy for hours and then do the math all by hand.

It was even worse in EW. I remember the first dungeon I did after hitting 90 and playing with my capstone for a bit I kept exiting my caster phase into a Royal instead of a Goring, which was obviously wrong but REALLY annoying since that's what my muscle memory was for. It's one problem that BLM's have complained about for years that BLM feels horrible to play synced because of how your muscle memory works against you at lower levels. In PLD's case, it was literally anything that wasn't the current level cap (90).

New PLD feels much better to play at lower levels and less muscle memory working against you than pre-6.3 did. Post-6.3 feels like it builds on itself much better. You have the core 1-2-3, you add HS later but it doesn't seriously alter the cadence and works more like a "GCD oGCD" where you can use it kind of whenever you want in the rotation, and later you add -4-4-4 for Atonement, and simply swap back and forth between them. Requiescat is just an extension of Fight or Flight once it is introduced that "starts with a bang", but it's just pressing one button 4 times, which later evolves into pressing a different button...4 times, which isn't a terribly difficult transition to make. And your two oGCDs you still use at the same time from level 50 to level 90. The weird part is that PLD (despite its aesthetic) has no self-sustain in its core rotation until level 84.

Pre-6.3: At 50 you have 123 (and two oGCDs) with a 1 min burst. At 60, you swapped every 4th 123 to a 124 to apply Goring. At 70 you have two 123s swapped out to do a magic burst window with Req and Holy Spirit. At 80 you swap the final Holy Spirit to a Confiteor, and any 123 that comes after a 123, into 3 Atonements. At 90, you swap the 124 immediately following the magic burst to the Blades combo, and swap the 124 that was coming after the Confetior magic burst into a 123 instead.

Post-6.3: At 50 you have 123 (and two oGCDs) with a 1 min burst. At 54, you press Goring after FoF. At 64, you simply hit HS after 123 (with some flexibility that makes it nearly noobproof), and at 68 you hit Requiescat after FoF and do four HSs; 123 is still your filler. At 76, you press Atonement 3 times after 123, alternating the two combos. At 80 you press Confetior after Goring. At 90 you press Confetior 4x after Goring.

There's a lot less change post-6.3, and the changes are smaller. Going from "press 4 HS" to "press Confetior then 3 HS" to "press Confetior 4 times" isn't as much of a change as swapping every 4th rotation, alternating in-between rotations, or changing what combo you use when exiting your magic phase. While I get some people liked the pre-6.3 rotation better, this was not an advantage it held.

Again, I'll note that BLM which you praise here is one of the most generally maligned Jobs on this very point.

A far better example is RDM, which has its basic rotation by level 60 (the Job starts at 50, and ARGUABLY has its base rotation by 50) with its full melee combo by 50 and both Embolden and Manafication by 60. After that, each level cap just adds an extra attack onto the end of its combo. VerHoly/Flare at 70, Scorch at 80, and Resolution at 90. The other abilities it gains are utility stuff like Cure, Raise, and Barrier, niche things it actually tries not to use like Reprise, or spell upgrades that don't alter the ability use or rotation in any way (e.g. Verthunder into Verthunder III or Jolt into Jolt II). The core rotation of the Job is complete by level 70 at the latest, and arguably level 50 with everything after that being an additional stinger to its combo attack or a side utility ability that isn't part of its core rotation and muscle memory.

...and, obviously, SMN and Healers, which all establish their base rotations pretty early. Healers by level 4 other than some caveats with Plegma or Misery or Energy Drain, and SMN by roughly level 30, though the core concept is in place by level 6. These Jobs allow you to level from the start and pick up the muscle memory you need as you go by augmenting rather than rewriting how they play, which also leads into less trouble with muscle memory working against you when you get to level cap and sync lower level content. WHM is oddly the big exception here due to how Lilies work and how weird it feels when synced down to where you don't have them.

[TheDustyOne]

I don't think pre-6.3 was particularly good at it, honestly. Maybe if we go back to SB? In ShB, you had Atonement change up the rotation, though it wasn't terrible in the sense it replaced a 1-2-3, but it was also weird in that you were supposed to drop Atonements, which isn't at all intuitive and there's no real way to determine that without using parsing/illegal 3rd party add-ons. That is, there was no way just using the game itself to determine that unless you're manually going to record videos of you with a target dummy for hours and then do the math all by hand.

Actually, back in ShB you would drop a Holy Spirit in req and used Confit after 3 HS casts, buffed Atonement via FoF was stronger and with some planning (and enough SkS) you could fit 4 Atonements in a single FoF window. This could change from fight to fight based on optimizations, and wouldn't be possible if you started with the Req opener, but the standard FoF opener would do Atonement shifting.

I would also echo Roe here in that I think pre-6.3 PLD was much better at easing you into the rotation, albeit I think it didn't get "good" until lvl 68 when you finally get req > HS spam. But at the very least the basic flow of Goring > RA > RA > Goring was available by lvl 60. Then by 70 you had Req phase replace an RA > RA every minute with HS spam. Then by 80 you added a big finisher at the end of the HS spam and every second RA combo was Atonement spam instead. It all felt additive.

For current PLD, I actually find lvl 70 somewhat more enjoyable than 80 since I don't think Atonement fits into current PLD all that well. Atonement worked because it merely replaced a RA combo, and with some slight optimization, you could shift and move 1 of those stacks from an unbuffed window to a buffed window.

Current PLD changes rotation weirdly after you get Atonement, it goes from a pseudo 123(4) combo with HS spam every 60s, to having to use up those Atonement stacks, which makes the next HS proc feel delayed. Not to mention all that extra MP just goes to waste. Confiteor makes sense at 70, but then the blade combo makes Req nothing but blade fodder where before, it was your Holy Spirit phase with a big hit somewhere in there. It builds up the habit of "I should use this on Holy Spirit" to "Use 1 stack on Confiteor" and then replaces that with "only use this on Confiteor". Old PLD had a better Req phase IMO, it made sense for your HS phase to continue being your HS phase but with a big finisher at the end, then that big finisher does a RDM and keeps finishing.

[ForsakenRoe]

Old PLD had a better Req phase IMO, it made sense for your HS phase to continue being your HS phase but with a big finisher at the end, then that big finisher does a RDM and keeps finishing.

And that's why I'd make Req a hard hitting GCD (like 600+), that upgrades into Confiteor at 80, with it/Conf granting 3 stacks of the buff that makes Blades do actual damage. As it is now, Req is just... there, for the sake of being 'the button that makes Blades do not-trash damage', when it could be baked into Conf, and that frees up a hotbar space (PLD's already on struggle street for hotbar realestate anyway)