Combat system is beyond saving.

[Karen_Cerfrumos]

lol OP expects people to not have played in Heavensward
yeah it had failure states and the game now doesn't have failure states
it was also giga jank on every level and no there weren't "multiple viable builds", there was one way to play correctly
TP was also never a good mechanic, not since 2.0
stop rage baiting

[Vyrerus]

it was also giga jank on every level and no there weren't "multiple viable builds", there was one way to play correctly

It wasn't giga jank. But there certainly weren't, "Builds." Just Cross-class skills, which did have a few iterations per job that were better for certain situations.

Like you didn't always want your raid important cross class skills if you were soloing for instance, like in Palace of The Dead.

Certain cross class skills were better in dungeons.

But you could only set 5 at a time as a counter to button bloat, so most people looked up what they needed for raid, and then didn't bother with anything else. And a lot of people also just didn't bother. Every so often you'd run into a healer that didn't have Swiftcast unlocked from level 26 Thaumaturge.

Interpreting OP charitably, if they weren't referring to cross-class skills, perhaps they were referring to party comps. Heavensward wasn't the first time there was a meta party comp, because all meta comp means is what's best at the time mathematically (and actually changes on a fight by fight basis depending on what phases do).

It was however responsible for introducing one that was malms better than other ones, due to that comp stacking damage increasing debuffs on the monster. And that party comp was WAR DRK NIN DRG BRD MCH AST SCH.

Any road...

TP was a great mechanic. Resource management takes extra thought, and the better you were at it, the less you had to demand that a BRD or MCH use Army's Paeon or Muscle Relaxant to restore the party's TP. It also incentivized folks to deal in optimal skill speed builds, so that they didn't overvalue the weakest DPS substat. It also made death more punishing, to incentivize better play. More than that, TP MAKES SENSE. No physical fighter, however godly conditioned, can swing a sword forever. TP costs were relative to the difficulty of the action performed. Big AOE swings costed big TP because it's harder to swing your sword through multiple foes than it is to swing it through one. It's the same rationale as MP and AOE spell cost, which if my glance over incoming 14 changes, they're making it not cost more than single target... Begs the question of why keep MP at all? Literally it's about to be a resource that is only for limiting our number of raises with the cost to spells to just be to keep it consistent across casters.

[xivYuiM]

Interpreting OP charitably, if they weren't referring to cross-class skills, perhaps they were referring to party comps.

...

TP was a great mechanic.

Finally, another TP enjoyer. It was a great mechanic that died too soon. Also, I was more referring to the fact that not every job had an objectively correct build that was always the right one to use no matter what. A couple examples being balancing strength and vit accessories on tanks in order to find the perfect balance between damage and HP and also how some black mages would prioritize spell speed vs raw INT or even build for a specific amount of MP based on their preferences.

[AlucaDragonheart]

A couple examples being balancing strength and vit accessories on tanks in order to find the perfect balance between damage and HP and also how some black mages would prioritize spell speed vs raw INT or even build for a specific amount of MP based on their preferences.

I loved equipping accessories on the Warrior that I wasn't "supposed" to, and creating an amazing powerhouse of an offtank.

[xivYuiM]

I loved equipping accessories on the Warrior that I wasn't "supposed" to, and creating an amazing powerhouse of an offtank.

Doing this during EX roulette was the some of most fun I ever had on this game after clearing T9 and T13 when they were relevant.

[Espon]

Half of the playerbase hasn’t even experienced the actual final fantasy XIV combat system that had things like:

• Aggro management
• Cleric stance and Multiple tank stances (3.x WAR was the best job in the history of this game)
• TP (sprint not draining it was a good change)
• Dungeon packs actually being a threat
• Multiple viable builds for all jobs
• Power level being driven by skill rather than solely depending on your gear ilvl

The list goes on.

A lot of your points makes it sound like you never actually played back in Heavensward and are just basing it off things you read online. Also what you find fun does not extend to absolutely everyone. I've been playing since ARR beta and many things you've stated in this thread I find as needless jank and am glad it has been removed or changed. There are many areas in this game I feel could use improvements, but bringing back old frustrating elements does not make the game more fun for me, it makes the game more frustrating and annoying to play.

Aggro management amounted to being in tank stance for a few seconds then being in DPS stance for the rest of the fight, and I never felt swapping in and out of Cleric stance was fun and engaging. All TP did was limit your AoE damage output, it was about as pointless as MP currently is.
Dungeons were never difficult outside a few of the old ones allowing you to pull all the packs from one boss to the other and being overwhelmed.
What build variety? Do you mean cross-class skills? The skills that only had a few good ones and you were considered trash if you didn't have them? Oh yeah I sure miss having to do tank swaps with other tanks that didn't have Provoke because they decided to go with a different cross-class skill (aka never bothered to level gladiator high enough)...yeah that was definite the peak of gameplay. Or how about those healers without Swiftcast that would just sit there for several seconds trying to revive someone?
You make it sound like skill is meaningless now. Item level always had a significant impact on your performance due to how much stats increase between raid tiers since this game only has vertical progression.

The thing with stuff like cleric stance is, it was optional. If you were doing any content that was the "normal difficulty" of the time then there was nobody forcing you to use it. If you were worried about activating it and then getting caught unable to heal enough then simply don't use it! It was a brilliant way for people who spent the time to learn the limits of their job to take the risk of turning it on to squeeze out extra damage when they could and, if done appropriately, they would be rewarded for doing so. There is nothing even close to that in the game the way it is today.

Everything is optional. I can choose to not AoE on packs or only spam a single healing spell and still clear most content outside of high-end raids, but that doesn't mean my party will like that I'm playing badly and significantly slowing things down. Healers were expected to use Cleric Stance, especially since all your damage was based on your INT stat and even since the very beginning healers were expected to deal damage.