Red Mage Changes

[Bhearil]

Imo the biggest problem is that even after buff RDM aoe resource generation is vastly inferior to single target one. Baseline on single target a RDM earns 8.5 mana per gcd with no procs at all while on aoe he will earn 6 mana per gcd.

The issue is due to that on single targets the chance for procs are either 100% (impact) or 50%, so when things are proccing properly, single target mana earnings is boosted to 10 per gcd with over 50% chance(low cd Aceleration helps), while even after buff aoeing gives 13 mana with a 30% chance (post buff)

Thats the reason why RDM tend to start doing single target rotation when enemies drop to 3 since even if the damage is nearly the same (570/540 if forced to use Jolt II vs 600 on 2 gcds), the mana earnings are much better (and after buff the damage losses will be lower with VerAero/Thunder potency buff, because the chance of proccing Enhanced Scatter is still too low and that small amount of extra damage doesnt justify the mana losses even if they are not as big as before)

If we use a battle with 100 gcds RDM aoe average earnings post buff would be 810 mana, meanwhile if we use single target (not counting Acceleration nor Impact to simplify) a RDM earns 925 mana on average surpassing aoe generation even without using Acceleration and Impact at all which would have boosted the value even further and closer to 15-20% more mana earnings

All of this means that if a RDM has to aoe and doesnt have mana meter high already (or at least enough to be worth to Manafication it), the sweet Enhanced Moulinet time is delayed due to slower earnings and sometimes that time arrives too late when mobs are almost dead already or just too few remain

[Zeign7]

Correct me if I am wrong but assuming 100 gcds and a 30% proc rate, 30 scatters should value 20 instead of 6.

So 70 gcds are worth 6 Mana (3 white/3 black) = 420.
30 gcds are worth 20 Mana (10 white/10 black) = 600.

The new AoE values would generate 1020 Mana, not 810, correct?

I know this is in a vacuum and rng will do its thing though.

I'm at work right now and can't really do the math to model accelerate and impact, and probability of other procs for single target. It would be interesting to see it though if someone has time. It might be worth comparing scatter into veraero/verthunder Mana generation on 3 targets as well, since there is no potency loss that way.

Edit: Forgot, this would actually be a slight potency increase with changes to aero/thunder.

[Bhearil]

Correct me if I am wrong but assuming 100 gcds and a 30% proc rate, 30 scatters should value 20 instead of 6.

So 70 gcds are worth 6 Mana (3 white/3 black) = 420.
30 gcds are worth 20 Mana (10 white/10 black) = 600.

The new AoE values would generate 1020 Mana, not 810, correct?

I know this is in a vacuum and rng will do its thing though.

I'm at work right now and can't really do the math to model accelerate and impact, and probability of other procs for single target. It would be interesting to see it though if someone has time. It might be worth comparing scatter into veraero/verthunder Mana generation on 3 targets as well, since there is no potency loss that way.

Edit: Forgot, this would actually be a slight potency increase with changes to aero/thunder.

Honestly i though about that as well, but remember that at least 50 of the gcds MUST be a normal Scatter, since Enhanced Scatter doesnt proc with itself, and need to start from Scatter so i considered the proc of 30% only on the remaniing 50 gcds. Even with 100% proc rate the max Enhanced Scatter possible on 100 gcds is just 50 not 99

So i used:

85 gcd of Scatter= 510 mana
15 gcd of Enhanced Scatter = 300 mana

Making a total of 810 mana

[Dualgunner]

Nerfing SMN won't make RDM/BLM automatically good. Why any caster would want SMN nerfed (aka kicked off the comp) is beyond me because it's just further proof that no lessons are being learned up at SE. It doesn't actually make anything better. What all casters should want is a hard push to break the whole DRG/BRD/NIN triad. Its like the physical jobs get perfect buffs for each other while the 3 casters are too busy fight over the scraps to realize that they are all getting the shaft.

Basically this. If every fight mandated a caster, and god I hope that's never the case because I value comp choice for the players (one of my least favorite parts about uwu was mandated caster despite being a caster main), then sure the nerf makes sense to hold all three in line.

But casters are fighting MCH for the fourth slot, and nerfing SMN didn't help BLM or RDM, it just helped MCH.

[Shiroe]

SE looked at the active raid player base, too many on smn => blm and rdm need buff

when smn drops again => smn needs buff

[MoroMurasaki]

I think it's funny that their idea of a buff to AoE is on the part of AoE you generally don't want to be using in a raid setting.

Like no one wants to Scatter the Putrid Passenger adds during o5s, you want to preset your mana to 100 with Embolden and Manafaction ready.

I suppose it will be mildly helpful for dungeoning? The Contre buff is nice at least. Now as we're farming Shinryu I will probably one-shot the little adds.

Overall the more I think about and review how many times I use these skills over the course of a normal fight proportional to their potency increases the more I feel underwhelmed.

On my best Shinryu run which is pretty decent I would gain 610 potency from the Verthunder and Veraero buffs. 550 from the Contre buff (though I get two off on multiple targets during add phase and some others hit heart and main boss I think). 450 from Verfinishers. In a vacuum that's 1,510 potency over the course of a run.

By comparison the BLM in that same run who had an equally decent go of things gains 2,088 potency from the Fire IV buff when you factor in Astral Fire gains.

This is not in some kind of hyper-optimized raid setting, either. I would link the log if not for fear of getting banned for it. This means that a BLM (who already did the most dps of the casters) is gaining more from these buffs than a RDM (who already did the least damage of any job) which just feels kinda odd.

I am totally willing to wait and see how it all turns out on Tuesday and I'm sure I'll be too distracted by the pretty new primal and scary new raid tier to care much about any of this at that point but right now it feels like SE is just floundering with caster balance.

Don't get me started on the radiant shield thing. Now it's just another reason for SMN to use Garuda and buff their own damage even more with contagion. Again, thanks SE.

[Kabooa]

Honestly i though about that as well, but remember that at least 50 of the gcds MUST be a normal Scatter, since Enhanced Scatter doesnt proc with itself, and need to start from Scatter so i considered the proc of 30% only on the remaniing 50 gcds. Even with 100% proc rate the max Enhanced Scatter possible on 100 gcds is just 50 not 99

So i used:

85 gcd of Scatter= 510 mana
15 gcd of Enhanced Scatter = 300 mana

Making a total of 810 mana

You can have enhanced scatter strings.

[Bhearil]

You can have enhanced scatter strings.

If thats the case I stand corrected and in that case aoe value should be 1020

Also did a quick calc and added Impact to single target mana values, so without counting Accelerate the mana value is around 949 mana.

Seems the mana values on single target and aoe are now relatively similar with a marginal aoe advantage, but dont forget that Verholy/Flare refund 20 mana and have a 100%/20% chance to proc, while Enhanced Moulinet doesnt, so numbers would be even closer on a real situation where you actually use the expenders . Also, on single target is easier to recover from mana inbalances since you can focus on the kind of mana you are lacking. meanwhile if you start aoeing you will increase both at the same time which might be a problem if you started with some unbalanced mana values from the bat since no aoe skill can correct those values unless you switch to single target for a bit

On any case single target adds a more constant and reliable string of mana(single target 8.5 mana per gcd vs 6 aoeing both with no procs), while aoeing can bring even more mana... sometimes (10 mana single target vs 13 aoeing when chain proccing)

[Bernkastelx]

Yes blm can do more dmg in "certain" scenarios *cough* (padding), and on even ground it wasn't producing numbers where it was worth bringing over something that was a safer/brought more utility pick. We aren't even going to touch sam BEFORE it got buffed during mid sigma and even then its still not in a good spot. So no these blm and sam buffs are much needed and just seeing this fire iv 300 potency increase has me flashing back to when blm was announced it was getting buffed the first time in stormblood. The blm community literally did the math for the devs "300 potency for fire iv", we only got 280. Kinda sad/ironic seeing that in the patch notes this late in.

Smn has been the go to caster child for all content this expansion without a doubt. Kinda glad its getting a little baby bat nerf doesn't make sense how you advertise rdm/sam for your expansion and they aren't even mediocre at their roles. Hopefully the numbers we see change that. Also those aoe "buffs" are mainly for dungeon crawling, contre is a nice buff overall. There isn't an add phase long enough for you to get 3 moulinets off and scatter your way back to another 3 moulinets.

[EllieShadeflare]

Nerfing SMN won't make RDM/BLM automatically good. Why any caster would want SMN nerfed (aka kicked off the comp) is beyond me because it's just further proof that no lessons are being learned up at SE. It doesn't actually make anything better. What all casters should want is a hard push to break the whole DRG/BRD/NIN triad. Its like the physical jobs get perfect buffs for each other while the 3 casters are too busy fight over the scraps to realize that they are all getting the shaft.

I know that there's already been a few responses, and while you are correct about the Triad, you don't seem to fully understand the actual problem people have had with SMN.

Summoner is quite frankly the perfect DPS as far as FFXIV is concerned. It has

A. Excellent damage.
B. Decent support capabilities (albeit, not as much as dedicated supports like NIN, BRD and MCH, but still enough to pull its weight by giving a universal 2% damage increase, a further 2% for physical classes (which helps in the physical meta) and a further 10% for magic classes (since pet dancing is actually viable))
C. Almost Red Mage levels of mobility without losing out on most of their damage.

Point A. is handled under three points:

I: Whether you like it or not, their DoTs generate far more damage than one would like to admit. Applying both is a 100 DPT (Damage per tic) and between spreading it with Bane, using them to trigger Fester, and using Tri-Disaster which also gives a pseudo-DoT in Ruination (by buffing Ruin spells by 20 potency), there is no reason you won't have that 100 potency on your targets. The only other class with as good DoTs in the game is Bard, but that class also happens to be on the lower end of pure damage on its own.

II: Their pets are free damage, even with their slight decrease in damage versus the caster... though, this can be mitigated by Enkindle, Bahamut, and Rouse. Also, the pets dealing damage also decrease the CD of Enkindle, as well as grant Ruin IV, for further DPS boosts.

III: Their oGCD game is also quite impressive, even as a Caster. Compared to most other classes, Summoner can unleash a whopping 900 potency every minute through Fester (all three of which within 15 seconds), a Deathflare in that same minute for another 300 potency (that's also an AoE with dropoff) all on top of their DoTs and potential Ruin IVs. Within two minutes, they can get 1800 potency from Fester, 600 potency from Deathflare... and almost 1400 potency from Akh Morn. There might be some pet damage reduction for Akh Morn, but it's still an impressive amount for two minutes. By comparison, Red Mage can only get 840 from Fleche and (currently) 300 from Contre Sexte, without DoTs and only their (albeit, potent) spells for damage in that minute. Within two minutes, Fleche becomes 2940 potency (with 7.2 casts in that two minutes, rounding down to 7), and 1200 potency from Contre Sexte. Summoner outpaces Red Mage in a minute in oGCDs by 60, but is SLIGHTLY outpaced by Red Mage in two minute by 340 potency. On the surface? That doesn't seem so bad. But... because their pets and DoTs also exist, alongside inbuilt (and good) support options, Summoner will STILL outpace Red Mage in the long run. Note that I removed Enkindle from the equation because of both the pet damage decrease and the fact that its cooldown is variable due to the Enkindle Mastery trait.

IV: In addition to all of the above, Summoners can quite literally "always be casting". Not only because they're only stuck to 2.5s base cast times while Black Mage often has 2.8s cast times, but they only lose 20 potency per cast when they DO move, where as Black Mage goes all the way down to 100 potency over (currently) 555 potency unless Triple/Swiftcasting and Red Mage outright lack an instant cast outside of Swiftcast or Dualcasts. Unless of course, your pet procs Ruin IV, then you just get back the potency you would have lost plus interest. And while in Dreadwyrm Trance? Not only do you gain a boost in damage for Ruin III, but it also becomes Instant Cast itself, further decreasing the risk of movement. With DoTs in place, and their pet attacking, a Summoner gets about 300 potency per 3 seconds, Red Mage 285 potency per three seconds (the average of Verstone/Impact/Verfire and Verthunder/Veraero) and Black Mage 555. Red Mage has objectively worse support options than SMN, but still deals less damage, and Black Mage won't inflict enough damage to make up for the support options that SMN provides to other classes, since 5/8 of them will be getting a 2% * 2% increase from Devotion+Radiant Shield, and 3/8 (including the summoner) will get a 2% * 10% increase from Devotion+Contagion, not to mention Black Mage doesn't rez.

The physical meta's problem has to do with support options rather than "these classes deal so much damage, oooo yeah~". Even WITH the nerf, SMN will still more likely have a place in the meta than Red Mage and Black Mage due to increasing with the other multipliers. Red Mage's boost might give it a chance with its crappy Embolden and its decent damage, and maybe Black Mage's damage + filler will give it a fighting chance too, but Summoner will not lose its place unless something serious happens to the class as a whole and not just "oops we lost the reflect potency from Radiant Shield!".