How would you make RDM more complex?

[BigT102090]

To be honest I like red mage how it is. I would prefer having some higher AoE abilities. Scatter, Moulinet, and contre sixte are nice and all but it just seems to me like they dont do very much damage at all.

[Hellstorm]

personally only thing id like to see is holy and flare have situational useage maybe holy be single target while flare be aoe or one put phy debuff and other put magical.

[Shurrikhan]

By creating a Fencer class beneath it with adequate complexity in itself to be enjoyable at level 50, and then working the magic into a spellsword system, spending (based on macrorotational choices and build and the present situation) one third to two thirds of total time at melee.

Sadly, the spellsword system itself would require vast rehauls to introduce inherent by-element effects (not a mere rock-paper-scissors elemental wheel) into combat as a whole...

[XiXiQ]

I still don't want to see it made complex, but it could do with a DOT, a way to generate self-mana (needed after a KO), and one of the verHoly/Flare should be made into an aoe procced after moulinets. It also needs a self buff CD (speed or a double-cast). There, that will do fo RDM at 80

[Dualgunner]

I still don't want to see it made complex, but it could do with a DOT, a way to generate self-mana (needed after a KO), and one of the verHoly/Flare should be made into an aoe procced after moulinets. It also needs a self buff CD (speed or a double-cast). There, that will do fo RDM at 80

Don't need to change verholy or verflare for that--there's always verflood or or verfreeze, since we have no water/ice spells yet.

[dinnertime]

I want to see it changed up a bit to something varied and actually engaging while still keeping it about the same.
There's really not much variety on RDM due to a spell being parallel with another one.

I like the idea of more mana spenders that actually gives different effects. It's a simple solution to give RDM some variety into it.

spellsword system

I'm hoping they save that for a proper Mystic Knight. Pls be a tank

[Shurrikhan]

I'm hoping they save that for a proper Mystic Knight. Pls be a tank

I honestly don't think the domain is so narrow that it cannot be expressed very differently between the two. In fact, I'd most like for their manipulations to be like two sides of the same coin, or three facets each sharing a common base between MSK, RDM, and a third manipulative elementalist.

[Almandaragal]

Dude. First sentence. 'In the future.' The likelihood of mechanical changes now is very slim at best. I am not dissatisfied with Red Mage as it is currently but there's literally 0 depth, note Red Mage was not advertised as 'starter class extraordinaire' but high speed positioning combo caster . The entire class can be summed up with, 'spell 1 then spell 2 then proc 1 then spell 2 until stab 1 2 3 and boom.' The simplicity is nice to a point but a little extra would be nice. Fitting two combos under embolden is not optimization either unless you're lucky enough (re: not player controlled) to be coming up on 100/100 very close to the same time as Manafication comes off cooldown. The two things you mentioned in your last paragraph are QoL issues at most. They have nothing to do with complexity.

I swear I should've added, 'If you wanted to increase the depth on Red Mage please offer some suggestions, otherwise don't clutter the thread with pointless debate'

Indeed, you mention "in the future" in the first sentence. I suppose the vibe I got from your posts felt a bit more like "the sooner the better", given frustration seems to be pervading your posts, much like the start of your reply here to me. I understand the frustration of people coming in and saying, well, what I did: "I wouldn't", but you did ask a leading question. "Would you like RDM to be more complex, and if so, how would you do it?" is a more "fair" question to ask. The question you posed assumes that all of the readers, or at least responders, want added complexity. It's obvious at this point in time that not all RDM players do, and while some complexity is likely to be added (and isn't necessarily a bad thing), feedback is best representative of the community, at least those willing to post, as opposed to being led artificially in one direction.

Yes, the class is largely simple compared to a number of others that we have available, not that that's saying much with how ridiculous some situations get. That said, in keeping with the way the class currently has lore set up, there isn't a lot that can be done to add layers without going overboard. I'm mostly of the mind that Flare/Holy could get different effects as noted by others. I always kind of wondered why that wasn't a thing, since if you have things set up so they proc, you have to play super catch up with the lower mana color because you start out flirting with the allowed gap distance. Flare could lower mdef/raise magic vulnerability of target, Holy could lower the attack of the target. Or Flare could put a DoT on the target, Holy could put a few second silence.

Or, if we really wanted to have some interesting effects, have Verraise ad an 8s regen if White mana was at 100 at time of casting, etc. Not really sure I like that kind of thing though, because RDM is a DPS, and we don't actually have support classes officially recognized. If such a thing doesn't come about, and I don't see it happening, then RDM needs more damage, not more utility. We already pay a higher price in damage than our utility is useful once people know a given fight at all.

Just to toss another couple of things out there, Contre Sixte could have an X% chance to proc a free Moulinet/Enchanted Moulinet, or give a Y% buff for the next one since a free one might be a bit much if the proc rate was too high.

Still though, while any number of things could be interesting, I'm not sure I'd want to see much more added, and certainly nothing along the lines of vernochian. If I wanted that pain while dealing with mechanics, I'd still be maining my BLM.

[PrismaticDaybreak]

Wouldn't you be frustrated if the question you asked immediately got panic reactions from people who frankly gave off the impression that the slightest amount of nuance would make RDM an overly complex piano class like SMN? Now I'm being overanalyzed by someone who thinks I have some sort of duty to be 'fair' as if this is some sort of scholarly forum. Plainly I don't give a fig about the other side of the argument since to me it appears either complacent or boring. In my mind there's no realistic keep it simple argument since mechanical changes are the bread and butter of each expansion thus far. The question I made was to elicit responses from people who would desire more complexity to the class, others could've kept browsing. I wasn't manufacturing discussion I liked, I was inviting like minded others to share ideas.

The class is largely simple without any relativity thrown into the mix. There's not much more to it than the oversimplified sentence fragments I used rhetorically above and vaguely mentioning anecdotal situations does nothing to make RDM seem less simple. Lore is not an argument to be used here. We have one game worth of established lore which boils down to accelerating forms of Black Magic and White Magic so we don't use external Aether and harm the environment, the accelerated magic causes Mana build up which is then released through sword play. There's the lore, you can branch out quite easily from there without undermining the concept. The only proposed way I've seen of solely modifying Verholy and Verflare is what Llugen mentioned above since they're both offensive options, realistically no one is going to use a defensive damage down proc or a control effect since in either case it's simply not useful or incredibly difficult to time.

That Verraise suggestion isn't interesting, it's the kind of overly superfluous effect I'd like to avoid since having your mana at 100 is generally a loss in DPS either from mana not gained or holding onto your melee combo for too long. I agree with the rest of this paragraph.

Sure, but it wouldn't actually change gameplay that much, with the free proc version it wouldn't even be an increase in single target DPS considering the recast is 1.5 seconds along with whatever potential time is consumed by repositioning and Jolt II/Impact/Verfire/Verstone all cast at a realistic time of about 1.9 seconds for 40-70 more potency followed by Verthunder or Veraero for 300 more potency.

As for Vernochian, it's not viable either and not the kind of gameplay I, or most RDMs, would want, juggling a 10 second stance for Black Magic and then White Magic, assuming that's how it would be implemented, would be tedious at best and laborious at worst if you need a non gameplay reason it's also not lore friendly since it's about balancing the use of Aether not just focusing on one until it's depleted.

If you want a post by post breakdown my tone went from inspired excitement, to patient, to slightly irritated since 3 people immediately decided to post basically the same thing. I like theorizing, I like creating an idea to be critiqued. I don't like it when people immediately decide to attack the motive rather than just looking at the suggestion critically and then deciding their personal thoughts about it.

[Ceallach]

We could use more area attacks than Scatter and Moulinet. How about new spells that work off of Enhanced Scatter? For example, let's say the next expansion raises the level cap to 80.

Level 72: Scattershot
Trait
Improves chance of acquiring Enhanced Scatter from casting Scatter to 50%.

Level 75: Verwater
Spell
MP Cost: equal to Impact
Potency: 150 water
Range: 25 yalms, hits target and all enemies within a 5-yalm radius of target
Requires Enhanced Scatter to be cast. All enemies hit take 30 potency water damage over time for 21 seconds. Grants 5 white mana. 25% chance of granting the caster Enhanced Scatter.

Level 78: Verblizzard
Spell
MP Cost: equal to Impact
Potency: 200 ice
Range: 25 yalms, hits target and all enemies within a 5-yalm radius of target
Requires Enhanced Scatter to be cast. All enemies other than the first two hit do 5% less damage for 10 seconds. Grants 5 black mana. 25% chance of granting the caster Enhanced Scatter.