Red Mage Proposed Changes

Hello,

For some people, Red Mage feels underwhelming and is currently one of the lowest raid-contributing DPS in the game (https://www.fflogs.com/zone/statistics/29#boss=65). I feel that Square Enix has overlooked this class, which desperately need some changes to improve its gameplay.

Hopefully, in this thread, we can discuss some changes to improve Red Mage's gameplay.

Proposed Changes


1. Jolt II

With the trait up-grade Enhanced Jolt: Increase the mana gain from 3 White and Black to 4 White and Black.

This change will bring back the consistency with the opener. Currently, if you do not get a proc you may have to delay your opener by 1 GCD, delaying your melee opener is not good in certain fights. Making this small change significantly improves the job.


2. Veraero II and Verthunder II

With the trait up-grade Scatter Mastery: Increase the Potency of Verthunder II and Veraero II to 130 Potency

I find it annoying that on two targets it is optimal to Jolt II into Impact, which just feels wrong. Plus this Job's AOE is noticeably weaker in comparison to other classes.


3. Scatter/Impact

Scatter potency increased to 150 and increasing the mana gained from 3 White and Black to 4 White and Black (same for Impact)

It feels wrong that when you go into your finishing combo, you are gaining less mana even though the skill does more damage. This skill should be a "gain" in all accounts damage and mana.


4. Acceleration

Increase the buff duration to 15 seconds and grants "Dualcast" upon execution

Have you ever had that feeling that acceleration needs to be on cooldown but you pressed it too early into your melee combo? Well, these changes should address that issue. The addition of "Dualcast" to this skill allows it to be useful during AOE rotations.


5. Manafication (Rework)

Now increase White and Black mana by 40
Enhanced Manafication - Decrease the cooldown to 60 seconds and grants 2 charges

I feel like this change will make the Job more explosive in the opener but also "removing" the issue with over-capping mana.


6. Embolden (Rework)

Increases own damage dealt by 10% and increase of damage dealt 5% for nearby party members duration last 15 seconds. 120-second cooldown

I absolutely hate the decreasing damage effect from Embolden. This change would make the feel more consistent in terms of its personal and raid contribution.


7. Engagement

Increase potency to 200

I understand that this skill might completely replace displacement, but I also do not want to jump to my death.


8. Enchanted Reprise

Increase potency to 270 and decrease recast time to 2.0 seconds

This change would allow the skill to be "DPS neutral" whether it is for mobility or mana control.

As much as i Like these, I think RDMs are in for an umbral era as SE doesn't have any interest in us as seen in the most recent LL and the entire community doesn't seem to care because Verraise is apparently equivalent to being the lowest rdps coontributing job in the game which is tied with NIN of which there is so much more uproar.

I know don't see my level 80 rdm with ilvl 440 doing anymore than dmg than it did at level 70 with ilvl 400 gear. They really need to give them a boost.

Hmm I like these changes.
Can I add that they also should increase the potency of the finishers.
Verflare/holy potency increased to 800 and scorch to 900.

About the aoes, verthunder/aero 2 and impact are kinda fine, maybe that we get an aoe-finisher for moulinette, like using maybe after using it 4 times that we can cast an aoe called verfoul which has a potency of 450.

But but but raise utility and RDM are more braindeaderer than any other job they need to stay at the bottom of the totem pole

I'm not convinced about some of these changes, especially Manafication. With 2 charges and 60 seconds cooldown RDM would pretty much become melee job. Let's not forget RDM is still caster, melee combo is just a bonus.
RDM is absolutely fine at the moment, but could use stronger party buffs.

I've posted in the past that the proc rate for Verfire/stone Ready is just too high, especially for something that's barely a potency upgrade from Jolt II. 50% chance to activate, plus multiple ways to force it, doesn't make for interesting design since it's up more often than it's not. Increase the potency on them and either set it to something like a fixed 30-40% chance or tie it to crits from Verthunder/aero.

These changes seem nice but wouldn't make me change how I feel about the class for now.

I personally love RDM when it comes to their playstyle. (I love caster & melee hybrids & magic users with swords.)
But I'm a bit disappointed with the class for now.

Sure I didn't want them to completely rework the class but neither of the additions to RDM spice it up for me.
2 abilities are "situational" quality of life abilities (that the class didn't really need) & 1 is just another finisher.

What i'd like to see:
-Scorch is cool but I wish it would look a bit more more flashy & explosive.
-Overall potency buffs. I don't think res utility should tax our dps by that much. At some point resses become kinda pointless even though it helps people learn fights. But that's all. Too many resses & you won't make any DPS check/enrage.
-An AoE Melee finisher that procs Scorch & Scorch being AoE.

I'd have liked something to spice up our rotation a little too but maybe i'm expecting a bit too much.
And having a class balanced around progression & not being worth taking farming/speedclear parties isn't really a good way to balance a class imo.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cactusking

I've posted in the past that the proc rate for Verfire/stone Ready is just too high, especially for something that's barely a potency upgrade from Jolt II. 50% chance to activate, plus multiple ways to force it, doesn't make for interesting design since it's up more often than it's not. Increase the potency on them and either set it to something like a fixed 30-40% chance or tie it to crits from Verthunder/aero.

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And Again, the proc rate isn't "too high." If anything having 4 jolts in a row is soul crushing. If you do a fight like E3s you can literally feel yourself getting behind in the fight because of bad Jolt procs. In some places you just need to have melee combo for mobility or to get it out of the way before separating for mechanics. If anything we need more consistency in fights like this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cetek14

I'm not convinced about some of these changes, especially Manafication. With 2 charges and 60 seconds cooldown RDM would pretty much become melee job. Let's not forget RDM is still caster, melee combo is just a bonus.
RDM is absolutely fine at the moment, but could use stronger party buffs.

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A fun aside, I counted RDM melee skill use in 4.x on a dummy savage fight and compared it to its total casts to come up with the fact that 1/8th of all our attacks required being melee, effectively making us 1/8th melee. Now in 5.x in E2s, 1/5th of our buttons pressed are melee. We are becoming melee.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cactusking

I've posted in the past that the proc rate for Verfire/stone Ready is just too high, especially for something that's barely a potency upgrade from Jolt II. 50% chance to activate, plus multiple ways to force it, doesn't make for interesting design since it's up more often than it's not. Increase the potency on them and either set it to something like a fixed 30-40% chance or tie it to crits from Verthunder/aero.

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No.
/10char

If anything, to give RDM slightly more consistency in combat I'd love to see an Impactful equivalent brought back, a buff to Fire/Stone's potency to bring them to 290, a buff to Acceleration to make it generate 4/4 mana when used in combat, a buff to the Manafication magic buff, and a slight buff to Scorch's potency (and making the actual spell effect look about 10% bigger).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

But but but raise utility and RDM are more braindeaderer than any other job they need to stay at the bottom of the totem pole

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Gotta keep the meme true! XD

On a serious note.

I’m rather dissapointed by the lack of tools the job got I was expecting RDM to get more

Imho if I was to ask for changes they’d be a lot bigger then this tbh and here’s why:

We still missing he 6th element from the wheel, I’d like some water and ice based abilities,

I’d like Verwater as a ST OGCD

Verblizzard as a AoE

I want reprise to return to its 300 potency prime.

I want melee abilities which don’t cost mana

I want a second gauge which feeds into the mana bars, (not a new mechanic as the RDM role is defined in its mana usuage but something that feeds into our existing one)

I’d love to see us get a secondary gauge which we are able to build through spending white and black mana

We are the only magical melee hybrid, make the fantasy true.. take a risk with the job and give us something more then the same static rotation with a new ability to hit on the end

I

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cetek14

I'm not convinced about some of these changes, especially Manafication. With 2 charges and 60 seconds cooldown RDM would pretty much become melee job. Let's not forget RDM is still caster, melee combo is just a bonus.
RDM is absolutely fine at the moment, but could use stronger party buffs.

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It wouldn't and that's an exaggeration, but a more frequent melee combo is exactly the thing Red Mages need to differentiate themselves as a Job from SMN and BLM, especially if it's done in a way that further differentiates average RDMs and skilled ones.

In regards to OP specifically, I think Jolt II -> Impact is fine and fun, and RDM should have a couple unique mix-ups. I agree with most of the rest though.

Couple thoughts:

• To be honest I'm not sure why I didn't jump on the "increase Jolt II by 1/1 Mana" train before, since it is understandably jarring that our Ver-2 AoEs generate more Mana than Jolt or Impact -- which I usually just resorted to "nerf them by 1 Mana each", but this works just as well and is more positive for us in the long run. It's a buff on paper, but in reality it just diminishes the gap with Verfire/Verstone and the loss of "peak performance" to bad RNG. Sounds good to me!
• An alternative suggestion I've made in the past for Impact would be scaling the Mana gained based on the number of targets hit, perhaps with a cap. This way you can get the effective value of Enhanced Scatter of old without having to balance it around being gamed in single-target. Say, 2/2 per target up to 10/10?
• Just for the sheer urgency of the value of increasing the Ver-II spells' potency, I would also suggest reducing Impact's potency by 10 as an immediate offset; it would still be more effective at 2 targets but could at least sweeten things for the devs so they won't have to worry about readjusting numbers.
• I'm all for increasing the duration of Acceleration for QoL, not sure I'm for it proccing Dualcast since that would mean another Swiftcast on half the cooldown. Plus I would worry about habitually tapping it right before casting Jolt/Verfire/Verstone thinking "it won't matter, it'll only burn the charge on Verthunder/aero -- oh, oops, just Dual'd the wrong spell."
• I love love love the idea with Manafication just giving a flat amount of Mana outright, but I don't see them halving the cooldown, much less adding charges. However, I could see Enhanced Manafication bumping it from 40/40 Mana to 50/50 Mana, partly for AoE value and partly to align better with damage windows.
• I'm on the fence about the Engagement suggestion. I'm against Engagement conceptually since I believe the devs could have solved the problem of Displacement killing people without adding another button that continues to penalize our damage based on arena design, like putting it on shared charges with Corps-a-corps, or even having Displacement fling you back to the last position you Corps'd from. But if I want to consider things with immediate implementation value... shrinking the gap between Engagement and Displacement (without removing it completely) would address it. Maybe even give it its PVP effect of placing a barrier on you while you're in melee.
  This is, of course, operating entirely under the assumption of Engagement being a placeholder for a better solution.
• Enchanted Reprise... I like the suggestions conceptually but that's a big buff you're asking for.