The slow decline of FFXIV, a summary.

[Valence]

In my experience, this is also false. Because encounter difficulty and job complexity are not mutually exclusive. At the end of the day, cookie cutter playstyles and builds will always win out no matter how complex a class plays because the end-goal is to clear the content in the best way possible.

Builds aren’t something that really applies to this game, but the meta absolutely does.

We went through this in WoW. They used to have pretty complex and layered talent trees for each class that Blizzard gutted because raiders and PvPers had meta builds that were considered to be required to clear content or for arena comps.

They’ve since revamped the talent trees but it didn’t take long for “mandatory” builds to appear again.

What you call levers that are totally optional is the illusion of choice. There will always be levers that are mandatory. The rest will just be “Oh yeah, I forgot I had those!”

I think you misunderstand me, the levers I talk about isn't about class customization. It's simply playing your class well and making your own fun even in resident sleeper encounters because your class is engaging and has levers to play with, which hasn't truly been the case since ShB dropped.