Quote Originally Posted by Carighan View Post
Hrm this makes me think I'd prefer if the game (and it's near-absolute lack of combat depth despite the 20+ buttons on each class) were more... honest?

Like, have an actual "autoattack". A skill that automatically casts/hits if you're not doing something else. Paladins for example would have a 6-hit combo, their current 1-2-3 and then the Atonement chain. Black Mages would auto-cast Blizzard IV in ice and Fire IV in fire. Etc.

Would that be weird as hell? Of course. But in a lot of ways, that just saves our fingers from more RSI, we do that with no more brain activity than an autoattack button would. We do exactly that, basically. Might as well make it more obvious how non-interactive these fillers are, no?
In my mind, more specifically healer dots are used as a substitution for auto attacks. So to me, there is very little mechanical difference between a dot, and auto attacks with the only major difference is that dots can deal damage to enemies you are not actively targeting. And this is a reason why I roll my eyes at maintenance mechanics because of how comparable they are to auto attacks. They're so passive. I'm also just spoiled by Blue Mage dots where their potencies are so high that you can actually notice them ripping enemies to shreds. But again, you can just move the little sticker from the boss to the player, and have it like quadruple the potency of auto attacks, and achieve similar results.