(Discussion/Suggestion) "Skill Ready" buff names

[ShermTank]

Hello FFXIV Localizers and fellow English players of FFXIV,

I wanted to provide feedback and start a discussion on some of the conditional buffs that were added with 7.0's changes to how skills proc other skills (for example, how Fight or Flight now adds "Goring Blade Ready").

In my opinion, the buffs that follow the naming pattern of "X Ready" are, well... somewhat boring. Not bad, just not really that engaging as, for example, "Perfect Host" for Reaper or "Magicked Swordplay" for Red Mage.

To that end, I wanted to provide some suggested alternatives for existing buffs that follow this naming pattern. This is by no means exhaustive, but as I was playing in Patch 7.0, some of these ideas came to me. Please feel free to leave your own suggestions for these and other names.

PLD
* "Goring Blade Ready" - "Ready to Gore" or (to go with "Fight or Flight") "Ready to Fight"
* "Blade of Honor Ready" - "Honor-bound" or "Bound by Honor"
WAR
* "Primal Rend Ready" - "Ready to Rend" or "Rending Strength"
* "Primal Ruination Ready" - "Ready to Ruin" or "Ruining Power"
DRG
* "Dive Ready" - "Dragon's Mirage"
* "Nastrond Ready" - "Eyes of the Dragon" (this would "bring back" the eye theming as well!)
MCH
* "Excavator Ready" - "Excavator Prepared" ("prepared" would fit thematically with MCH being gadget-themed)
DNC
* "Last Dance Ready" - "Finale"/"Grand Finale"
* "Finishing Move Ready" - "Flourishing Finish" (since it is provided by Flourish)
* "Dance of the Dawn Ready" - "Encore"/"Grand Encore" (since it is executed after Technical Step)

I'm not sure what flexibility the localization team has with respect to naming buffs like this, but given that some names follow the "X Ready" pattern and others don't, I hope that at least some of these can be considered.

Thank you,
ShermTank
S'maha Durhanta@Coeurl

[Rongway]

If a buff's sole purpose is to fuel a one-off attack that is completely unusable except when that buff is active, "Action Ready" is a good name for it. Boring or not, names are an interface, and "Goring Blade Ready" is a simple and effective way to tell someone that Goring Blade is...well...ready. These buff names appear in the flytext and the names make their effects self explanatory. If you change it to "Ready to Fight" it tells you nothing of what it does, the flytext is meaningless, and if you want to read the description you need to mouseover the buff in your buff bar. Further, some of the actions that grant Action Ready begin as simpler actions that don't grant Action Ready. You get Fight or Flight at Lv2, for example. One might reach Goring Blade level and not even think to check the Action Help for Fight or Flight, and leaving the buff name as Goring Blade Ready makes checking it unnecessary.

"Magicked Swordplay" is kind of a different case because you can use enchanted weaponskills without that buff active. Magicked Swordplay is also Manafication's only effect when you first acquire it, meaning its effect is already there in the Action Help the first time you read it. Honestly though, the effect should just be called "Manafication". But anyway, later when Manafication gains the additional effect Prefulgence Ready, there's no reason to look at the Action Help again to check what Prefulgence Ready does because it just means Prefulgence is ready.

Sometimes flavor isn't as important as clarity. In most cases:

• If Action can only be used by consuming a buff that does nothing except fuel that Action, the buff should be called Action Ready.
• If an action grants any other kind of buff, the buff should just be the name of the action.
• If an action grants multiple buffs that are not Action Ready, the main one should be the name of the action and additional buffs can have related but different names.

[ShermTank]

I see what you mean that the naming is an interface, but then what about these examples, then?

* BRD's "Hawk's Eye" instead of "Straight Shot Ready" (this was even changed in 7.0)
* GNB's "Ready to Rip"/"Ready to Tear"/etc. instead of "Jugular Rip Ready"/"Abdomen Tear Ready"/etc. - to go with your example for Paladin, you get access to Gnashing Fang at level 60 and get access to Continuation at level 70, so you have 10 levels without these "Ready" skills
* VPR's "Poised for Twinfang"/"Poised for Twinblood" instead of "Uncoiled Twinfang Ready"/"Uncoiled Twinblood Ready" - again, there's 10 levels between learning Uncoiled Fury and Uncoiled Fury granting access to these two follow-up actions
* VPR not granting any associated buffs for the various Legacy skills when they are unlocked (no popup says "First Legacy Ready", "Second Legacy Ready", etc.) - once again there's 10 levels between unlocking Reawakening and gaining access to these Abilities
* DNC's "Flourishing Starfall" instead of "Starfall Dance Ready" - there are 28 levels between Devilment and it unlocking this trait
* SMN's "Ifrit's Favor"/"Titan's Favor"/"Garuda's Favor" instead of "Crimson Cyclone Ready"/"Mountain Buster Ready"/"Slipstream Ready" - there are 26 levels between acquiring Astral Flow (which initially only applies to Bahamut and doesn't have an associated buff there) and the Elemental Mastery trait which unlocks the Favor buffs

There's precedent for not always having a "X Ready" nomenclature.