I agree with not liking the reduction in abilities.
It's not just reduction in types of interesting stuff you can do abilities but laziness too IMO.
Symbiosis was a good concept IMO but had some problems, so they just removed it.
They've been doing that a lot with interesting abilities like that.
Sure some people may not like Symbiosis but I've played plenty of games with that type of mechanic that worked fine.
it's crazy fun stuff you can experiment on and see work well that makes the game fun.
That's actually why I don't like ARR as much. The classes/jobs all play too similarly IMO and there's not many interesting abilities that could or could not change how an encounter or raid is done compared to WoW or even FFXI (FFXI may have a simple battle system but at least the class/job system offers decent customization).
Another thing with having more abilities is that it does allow classes to have gimmicks that make them play differently from others.
A thing I like about RPGs is the preparation aspect. Reading up on rotations or trying to experiment with a few abilities or playing a class that isn't as popular but doing well on it is one of the aspects WoW did well with. Monk was a really interesting class all around but they really simplified a lot of Monk (for example) since MoP.
It's actually why I still play FFXI (occasionally) still. The game hasn't really change since release but instead have more stuff added. FFXI has a simplified battle system but ever since like WotG, FFXI team never really cared about balance and just said screwed it and just tried whatever they thought it was fun without any care for balance at all.
Which may be why FFXI is still alive even though they said they were going to stop updates altogether.
When shifting service over to the Windows platform only, a great number of users moved from their previous platforms, which exceed our expected numbers. While this showed us good prospects, in order to ensure we can continue service for a long time to come we would like to do everything that we can.
Now arguably, it's hard to say whether FFXI would still be alive or not but the fact they went for the extreme update route ever since WotG and just started randomly add whatever content they can think of without regard to balance at all (same with class changes) and more and more ridiculous item upgrading scheme (there's like 7 different end game armor sets in FFXI right now you can collect with all different upgrade methods) is possibly why the game still has a fanbase that seems to not move away.
The game has 4 different ultimate weapons currently (relic, mythic, empyrean, and aeonic) alongside various other end game weapons that all comparable with each other.
Anyway, the point is, FFXI has the most options out of any MMO I played and IMO, I think it's worth it over balance.
ARR is too safe and WoW is going that route too it seems. The problem I have with what Blizzard is doing is whether it actually would increase or decrease the fanbase. There's plenty of people that do welcome the changes though but there's also plenty of people against it. I'd argue it'd be fine to have simple rotations if it was a choice alongside more interesting rotations (or interesting abilities).
Take Symbiosis for example, they could made it a talent that competes with two other abilities that offer similar strengths. People that want a crazy ability can pick Symbiosis but if someone else wants another play style, they'll pick another ability.
Right now, just removing abilities outright is kind of a lazy move IMO. I think giving players options to pick various abilities to customize their own play style (while attempting to keep balance between all play styles) is something they should have went for instead.