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.