Robbing gap closers of damage makes the game even less fun.

[Mortex]

I definitely agree with Thunderclap being a fantastic move. Aside from being able to quickly hop to an ally like BLM, MNK's thunderclap is really good for catching up to allies and also maintaining uptime on bosses , especially with how they sometimes reposition-teleport to the edge or middle of arenas quite frequently as of late.

I recall in P5S the double-dash patterns you could just jump on the boss twice without dropping any GCDs, another example would be those alliance raid bosses that like to triple jump, you can follow each leap quite comfortably. Honourable mention to most knockback mechanics too, you can kinda skip those with a good timed leap to negate the knockback effect which is nice in the occasional cases you get KB'd more than once in 120s.

You can definitely play a MNK like a magic-less BLM with 3x uses of Aetherial Manipulation and slide across the map like crazy. (If you want)

Let’s be honest shukuchi if you have the skill for it is the most broken and best dash in this game. It resets through ninjutsu and it’s the most flexible skill for all situations. Also in minimal settings you can pinpoint were you wanna go while thunderclap or ae will let you dash near the target but not fully in the middle of the target (caloric says hi)

[SeverianLyonesse]

I'm fine with the DPS and healers having non-damaging gap closers. Dragoon needs a jump for its gap closer, but otherwise the principle of removing the potency is sound.

Imo the tanks didn't really need it as much. They are always going to be up in the faces of the key enemy anyway, unlike DPS which need to bounce around more. And tanks don't have very complicated rotations, so resource-managing an oGCD gap-closer with damage actually adds a decent facet of decision-making to their kits. I just think they went a little overboard removing it from the tanks--especially gunbreaker, since if any tank deserved to keep a damaging gap-closer it would be the boom-boom tank.

[Lyth]

This issue relates back to fight design philosophy. Many Endwalker fights are generally designed with full uptime in mind. Even PBAoEs don't really force you off the boss, as you're generally able to maintain your uptime at max melee range. Under such conditions, movement tools lose their value.

This type of design is nice if your main goal is specifically to execute the 'perfect run'. However, if you want to really differentiate player performance, then you have to make players earn that uptime. That does mean using forced disengagements to see if players can squeeze out that extra GCD or two by using movement tools. This was one thing that I enjoyed about some Criterion fights in particular.

I might be overly optimistic, but I'm hoping that the changes that we're seeing are to allow for that type of design more regularly. To do so, you need players who have ready access to movement tools, both in terms of gap closers and gap extenders. You also do need some downtime tools that melee can use to help bridge these disconnects and keep them somewhat rotationally engaging, and we saw a number of examples of these during the showcase. I suspect that the drop on Swiftcast's recast was made with the expectation of fights with more active movement (or perhaps due to Caster complaints about job difficulty, who knows).

I'll also say that movement tools this expansion were one of the few areas that helped melee job playstyles feel unique. I love how SAM's demand gap extender can 'bounce' you off mobs to different parts of the arena and then back. It's likewise satisfying to use RPR's Regress to pull yourself back to a safe spot that you prepared for yourself 10 seconds earlier. The mobility provided by Shukuchi is probably the most powerful out of all of them, and Forked Raiju provides some interesting rotational considerations around how you time your movement. These tools all deserve to be stretched in ways that give players bigger performance gains. If you're used to the mindset that 'gap closers are meant to be burnt off for damage', then wait till you start actually using some of these approaches. You'll question why you ever put up with a melee range job that didn't have these features built in (then again, WAR had a damage-neutral SAM style gap closer and then rejected it, so who knows what current tanks are thinking).

I'm also a bit worried about the lack of a gap extender on VPR. Even if the gap closer was set as a fixed-distance dash (which it isn't, as you can see a red 'x' on the icon in the Live Letter video when the player is too far from the target), I'd still want the option to disengage while facing the target.

[Mecia]

Theres a good reason for doing so but i like OGCDs so its a bummer for me.

If its a button bloat issue again then theyre really bad at actually fixing the culprits.

[OdrN]

I don't mind the removal of damages, but the DRG new gap closer just looks really bad (the GNB too, btw). The only reason I imagine this is no more a jump is because you will be allowed to use is on party members like the MNK one.

[Metricasc]

DRG's Spineshatter dive, PLD's Intervene etc are announced for having their damage taken off, leaving them as just a gap closer.

Just. Leave. Things. Alone.

Controller players especially are able to enjoy using the 2 Spineshatters and Dragonfire Dive to chain bounce 3 enemies (switching targets between each action), more fun after 180+ Elusive jumping towards them beforehand. Why remove fun? There is no valid reason to remove the damage the gap closers do. This so game is going to drop off so hard if this Nintendo Mentality continues to be applied to the game. Far more often than not, the fun you have in any game is the fun you make for yourself, not the fun that's been 'planned' for you. Even in it's current state, I cannot recommend this game to anyone and will probably start actively warning people away from this dying game. There is a certain worrying symbolism in targetting this random aspect of the game and taking it away, as any other random fun thing could get deleted from the game if they notice it. The future of this game is sadly just more and more restrictions and gameplay funnelling.

depends on how you see the things, the main problem with a lot of the current gap closers is that they are often really only used in your burst windows since for a lot of them, they are a source of OGCD damage, and often the 2 charges will be up for a 1 min burst (tanks) or a 2 min burst (WAR being the only exception though its just 1 in 1 min, all 3 in 2 mins). the classes that don't really have that issue overall are classes that are already light on OGCD weaves (WAR and PLD), classes that don't have damage associated to them already (MNK, NIN) the fact a class with them is a caster generally (RDM) or the class has a resource cost on them and is often used to fill a loop at a specific GCD (SAM).

I'm a fan of the damage being removed from them overall as it allows them to be used more efficiently in scenarios where as a melee, you need to take downtime to resolve a mechanic or avoid an AoE. then you have a charge to quickly dash back on hand to then get back into melee range. and the case for DRG, is that this also makes it equal if not a better option than ingress/egress for RPR. and the case for DRG, GNB, DRK, and now VPR. is that it also frees up 2 OGCD weaves in the burst windows.

[GoatOfWar]

depends on how you see the things, the main problem with a lot of the current gap closers is that they are often really only used in your burst windows since for a lot of them, they are a source of OGCD damage, and often the 2 charges will be up for a 1 min burst (tanks) or a 2 min burst (WAR being the only exception though its just 1 in 1 min, all 3 in 2 mins). the classes that don't really have that issue overall are classes that are already light on OGCD weaves (WAR and PLD), classes that don't have damage associated to them already (MNK, NIN) the fact a class with them is a caster generally (RDM) or the class has a resource cost on them and is often used to fill a loop at a specific GCD (SAM).

I'm a fan of the damage being removed from them overall as it allows them to be used more efficiently in scenarios where as a melee, you need to take downtime to resolve a mechanic or avoid an AoE. then you have a charge to quickly dash back on hand to then get back into melee range. and the case for DRG, is that this also makes it equal if not a better option than ingress/egress for RPR. and the case for DRG, GNB, DRK, and now VPR. is that it also frees up 2 OGCD weaves in the burst windows.

The OGCD heavy playstyle is what makes Drk appealing, no need to take it away.
If people struggle THAT much planning their gapclosers, which isn't even that big of an ask to begin with, perhaps they can find another job to play.
But no, people who enjoy it have to lose it so that people who don't even play the jobs might feel more inclined to play them.
Gap closers will be *completely* thoughtless if you only have to use them when you need them. They'll always be available. Might as well scrap them and give everyone more dps buttons tbh.

[Reimmi]

DRG's Spineshatter dive, PLD's Intervene etc are announced for having their damage taken off, leaving them as just a gap closer.

Just. Leave. Things. Alone.

Controller players especially are able to enjoy using the 2 Spineshatters and Dragonfire Dive to chain bounce 3 enemies (switching targets between each action), more fun after 180+ Elusive jumping towards them beforehand. Why remove fun? There is no valid reason to remove the damage the gap closers do. This so game is going to drop off so hard if this Nintendo Mentality continues to be applied to the game. Far more often than not, the fun you have in any game is the fun you make for yourself, not the fun that's been 'planned' for you. Even in it's current state, I cannot recommend this game to anyone and will probably start actively warning people away from this dying game. There is a certain worrying symbolism in targetting this random aspect of the game and taking it away, as any other random fun thing could get deleted from the game if they notice it. The future of this game is sadly just more and more restrictions and gameplay funnelling.

Nah i'm okay with this, but i would add new ogcds for the jobs that are losing them in their place
having to use your mobility for burst windows made absolutely 0 damn sense

Warrior is the one suffering the most from it, it needs a short cd OGCD to replace it or its gonna be even more boring lol

[Shurrikhan]

Before: You have 8 oGCDs useful in all situations. Among these, you also get 4 dashes per 2 minutes. Using fewer than 2 dashes within your 2-minute window costs you ~30 potency each, which is less that what a tenth a GCD's lost uptime would cost you. For best performance, you keep a charge in reserve for each time it'd thereby save you 10+% of a GCD of uptime.

After: You have 7 oGCDs useful in all situations, and an athematic dash useful in some. You do not need to think about upcoming mechanics that could otherwise reduce uptime because there is no further optimization available to them and they are less frequent than your CD.

I fail to see how this doesn't follow the very same broad trend of dumbing things down that tends to see poor reactions elsewhere.

One is certainly free to like that trend, but pretending that using movement skills for movement was somehow impossible just because they saw use either way and offered an optimization layer that gave little reward compared to its risk beyond just not overcapping their charges (also thereby favoring use for movement) requires some substantial mental gymnastics. And arguing this is a good change even while condemning loss of skill expression elsewhere is likewise contradictory.

[SalamanderIX]

Better yet, if we had gap closers that did damage and ones that didn't. Sometimes within the same role or job?

What if Paladin's gapcloser did damage but Gunbreakers did? Then you have a situation where the tank jobs have a difference in their mobility concern.. it might actually create variety??..
Instead it really does seem we're getting damageless gapclosers across the board. Remains to be seen about Samurai Gyoten though.