Red Mage "better"??

Anyone else feel like the potency increases for Red Mage are sad increases? I was expecting more.. disappointing SE...

Yeah, I agree. While I do like all of the changes, there really are very few of them. I didn't want and wasn't expecting any sort of job rework (I really like the way RDM feels to play as is), but I was hoping for more Oomph. These changes just feel like such small potatoes and not the sort of thing that will get us anywhere near over the hump of being the sad sack caster DPS role.

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Originally Posted by StriderShinryu

Yeah, I agree. While I do like all of the changes, there really are very few of them. I didn't want and wasn't expecting any sort of job rework (I really like the way RDM feels to play as is), but I was hoping for more Oomph. These changes just feel like such small potatoes and not the sort of thing that will get us anywhere near over the hump of being the sad sack caster DPS role.

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Exactly .. I play several classes, Machinist, RDM and Dancer are my preferences.. and they all seem to have gotten a "bandaid" potency increase for the gaping wound that is their lack of DPS.. what surprised me was that they increased Dragoon.. it was already in a good place for DPS and yet they incresed it again.. makes me wonder which of the SE senior devs plays Dragoon...

Well, the change to Acceleration guarantees that we get the Perfect Proc Opener every time, which gets more damage in raid buffs. The spell buffs work out to be roughly a 600 DPS increase, and the Reprise change is a pretty massive buff to both our rotations considering it's now our highest pps action aside from meleeing (but not quite as quantifiable until we know exactly how Reprise works in the rotation). Along with that, the buffs to our co-DPS end up making Embolden stronger, which will end up being a gain for us as well.

All things considered, RDM made out like a bandit this patch. We got substantial number buffs and we basically got a whole new button for our rotation even!

While the potency increases may seem small, you have to keep in mind you are spamming them constantly throughout the fight. Which means they are most certainly going to add up over the course of a fight. Not to mention, as Leidiriv says, we now have access to the perfect proc opener which means our opening burst is stronger and more consistent.

Personally all I felt RDM needed where potency boosts, so I'm more then happy with what they gave us.

I'm actually really happy with the changes. every single one of our base spells got increases, plus acceleration will very likely increase our overall mana gain; which will lead to more melee combos. guaranteeing 3 procs is a flat 40/31(without jolt) every 55 seconds. paired with swiftcast every 60s to even to 40/42, thats even better than manafication. and if we end with double procs, using reprise wont be a DPS loss to even us back out.


i'll miss not always having an accelleration at the ready with it's 35s cooldown, but i greatly appreciate it having a very static, predictable, and very potent impact on the rotation now. it didnt really have that before. no more burning it and STILL using jolt 2 GCDs later. I approve.

Every one of the core spells used for single target damage got a buff as well as out weavable skills.

The only change I have a wait and see attitude about is acceleration. Honestly I’d have preferred it get charges rather than buff all three of the following skills. At 55 seconds I’m not sure how well this will work into realigning mana levels after Verholy/Verflare or if it will cause us to get to 80/80 before Corps-a-Corps comes off cooldown. I’m going to have to play with it and see how it works out.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

Every one of the core spells used for single target damage got a buff as well as out weavable skills.

The only change I have a wait and see attitude about is acceleration. Honestly I’d have preferred it get charges rather than buff all three of the following skills. At 55 seconds I’m not sure how well this will work into realigning mana levels after Verholy/Verflare or if it will cause us to get to 80/80 before Corps-a-Corps comes off cooldown. I’m going to have to play with it and see how it works out.

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what does getting to 80/80 have to do with Corps-a-corps? This is just a flat-out buff to Accel and makes our mana generation more consistent. Having charges would have absolutely destroyed Accel, given how we use it in the opener. For instance, we can now guarantee the Perfect Proc Opener every single time (can't do that with charges) and even if we generate too much mana thanks to this change we have the newly buffed Enchanted Reprise to minimize how much we overcap by.

I'm hesitant to judge too harshly until I've got a chance to try it, since with changes like this it could go either way.
The Acceleration and Jolt changes look promising... I just thought there would be more because of the way the Live Letter translation was worded.
But who knows.

I really hope this pans out.

Those "small" potency increases add up when they're attached to abilities you're basically spamming 24/7. I'm pretty sure the buff that made BLM somewhat relevant in SB was a 50 potency buff to Fire IV

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Originally Posted by Capn_Goggles

Those "small" potency increases add up when they're attached to abilities you're basically spamming 24/7. I'm pretty sure the buff that made BLM somewhat relevant in SB was a 50 potency buff to Fire IV

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even smaller iirc. They reduced the cast time from 3s to 2.8s.

Without mentionning help given rotation wise by the new Accel (always perfect opener is crucial for DPS, or the fact that maybe we'll get 1 more combo or the same number but more lined up combos), the bump in potencies is a straight 6% buff to RDM. Someone doing 14k2 before will do 15k now without anymore effort. So yes it's not a BLM yet, but we're starting to positively close the gap with melee / BLM that was way too big.

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Originally Posted by Leidiriv

what does getting to 80/80 have to do with Corps-a-corps? This is just a flat-out buff to Accel and makes our mana generation more consistent. Having charges would have absolutely destroyed Accel, given how we use it in the opener. For instance, we can now guarantee the Perfect Proc Opener every single time (can't do that with charges) and even if we generate too much mana thanks to this change we have the newly buffed Enchanted Reprise to minimize how much we overcap by.

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That’s why I said I have to see it in action. But my expectation is not regarding the opener, but every other time you use acceleration in your rotation you’ll be generating a lot more black and white mana. My concern is this skill may make it so that we’re getting to the 80/80 mark faster than the cooldown for Corps-a-Corps which in turn will make the job feel more clunky.

I would prefer not to have to burn off excess mana with Reprise as a bandaid to the developers not taking this into consideration. I’d prefer the damage from the movement skills be removed and distributed to another skill and the cooldown dramatically reduced just to make sure the job retains a nicer flow.

But I also admit that my concern may be unwarranted and the amount of mana we generate won’t cause a problem, which is why I said I’d have to see it in action.

Also, unrelated to this... I had really hoped to see a buff to the duration of Enhanced Manafication. 10 seconds is too short. It breaks my heart to always see the buff drop right before I cast Scorch. 12-15 seconds would be ideal.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

That’s why I said I have to see it in action. But my expectation is not regarding the opener, but every other time you use acceleration in your rotation you’ll be generating a lot more black and white mana. My concern is this skill may make it so that we’re getting to the 80/80 mark faster than the cooldown for Corps-a-Corps which in turn will make the job feel more clunky.

I would prefer not to have to burn off excess mana with Reprise as a bandaid to the developers not taking this into consideration. I’d prefer the damage from the movement skills be removed and distributed to another skill and the cooldown dramatically reduced just to make sure the job retains a nicer flow.

But I also admit that my concern may be unwarranted and the amount of mana we generate won’t cause a problem, which is why I said I’d have to see it in action.

Also, unrelated to this... I had really hoped to see a buff to the duration of Enhanced Manafication. 10 seconds is too short. It breaks my heart to always see the buff drop right before I cast Scorch. 12-15 seconds would be ideal.

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Rest assured that Scorch still gets the damage buff from Enhanced Manafication. Scorch is cast at roughly 7.7 seconds into the combo and snapshots the buff damage the moment you press the button.

Also, I'm still not seeing the connection between CaC and hitting 80/80 to melee. You should be in melee range whenever possible anyway, CaC is just a damage oGCD.

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Originally Posted by Leidiriv

Also, I'm still not seeing the connection between CaC and hitting 80/80 to melee. You should be in melee range whenever possible anyway, CaC is just a damage oGCD.

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Your auto-attack damage as RDM isn't nearly potent enough (and is hardly fast enough for that matter) to make that a necessity, and Embolden is both predictable enough to reposition yourself before the cast and, thanks to Manafication, frequently lined up with your melee phase anyway.

The obvious intent of the kit, as demonstrated by multiple NPCs (and the devs' refusal to remove Displacement's damage gain), is for the RDM to fire spells at a distance until they reach 80/80, CaC as a gap-closer, combo, Displace back and repeat.
If that's not the way the kit is handled by players then yeah, the devs need to re-examine that.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

Your auto-attack damage as RDM isn't nearly potent enough (and is hardly fast enough for that matter) to make that a necessity, and Embolden is both predictable enough to reposition yourself before the cast and, thanks to Manafication, frequently lined up with your melee phase anyway.

The obvious intent of the kit, as demonstrated by multiple NPCs, is for the RDM to fire spells at a distance until they reach 80/80, CaC as a gap-closer, combo, Displace back and repeat.
If that's not the way the kit is handled by players then yeah, the devs need to re-examine that.

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What about being in range for heals from your healers consistently? Plus bosses are generally kept in the middle of the arena and being in the very middle tends to give you lots of time to position with your group for upcoming mechanics. It's just good etiquette to stack with the group no matter your role.

The only way SE could actually make RDM stand at range is by putting a minimum range on everything but our melee combo and you can bet people would be straddling that minimum range at pretty much all times.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

Your auto-attack damage as RDM isn't nearly potent enough (and is hardly fast enough for that matter) to make that a necessity, and Embolden is both predictable enough to reposition yourself before the cast and, thanks to Manafication, frequently lined up with your melee phase anyway.

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The reason to why you stack with the group is for heals, buffs, and mechanics. And since melees and tanks need to be melee range, naturally the party would be in melee range too.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

The obvious intent of the kit, as demonstrated by multiple NPCs

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Or maybe how the job is played should be demonstrated by skilled players and not NPCs.

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Originally Posted by Leidiriv

What about being in range for heals from your healers consistently? Plus bosses are generally kept in the middle of the arena and being in the very middle tends to give you lots of time to position with your group for upcoming mechanics. It's just good etiquette to stack with the group no matter your role.

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Good etiquette, maybe, but there are a number of mechanics that encourage a loose spread (particularly so players don't run in lockstep with each other when AoE markers start being dropped underfoot), and most healers' radii and cast distances are wide enough to include the BLM standing off by their lonesome so others don't drop markers in their Ley Lines. You don't need to have your avatar inside the DRG for the rest of the fight.

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The only way SE could actually make RDM stand at range is by putting a minimum range on everything but our melee combo and you can bet people would be straddling that minimum range at pretty much all times.

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Which would be absolutely ridiculous, since it would arbitrarily penalize players even further in closed spaces (except instead of losing 50 potency, we lose our entire kit), and make it impossible to solo or quest.

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Originally Posted by OneTrueMiqote

Or maybe how the job is played should be demonstrated by skilled players and not NPCs.

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I'm providing evidence of dev intent over player use. We can easily lay out dozens of examples of "skilled players figured out how to do something the devs didn't intend, so the devs patched it out."

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

While the potency increases may seem small

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Originally Posted by StriderShinryu

but I was hoping for more Oomph.

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Originally Posted by Seabhacgra

Anyone else feel like the potency increases for Red Mage are sad increases? I was expecting more.. disappointing SE...

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Early rough estimates have the overall damage increase for Red Mage to be 6% to 6.5% (and this is likely to be a minimum as more procs from Acceleration change is not factored and Embolden being slightly buffed due to other physicals being buffed). This is by no means a small increase. In fact it's one of the bigger potency increases this patch and it is certainly enough.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

I'm providing evidence of dev intent over player use. We can easily lay out dozens of examples of "skilled players figured out how to do something the devs didn't intend, so the devs patched it out."

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Dev intent with those moves is aesthetics. Dash in, melee, dash out, looks cool. And they have accomplished just that. If you want to look cool, by all means and use the movement tools in conjunction with your melee combo. However this is not what we do in optimized play.

It needs to be stated that these buffs, while small, will add up. We have to remember that, of the 3 "main" casters, RDM is the fastest, that's part of the reason they got MP nerfs in the previous update, they were so fast they kept running out of MP, even with Lucid Dreaming on CD. We'll still have to wait and see, but for the most part things seem good.

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Originally Posted by OneTrueMiqote

Dev intent with those moves is aesthetics. Dash in, melee, dash out, looks cool. And they have accomplished just that. If you want to look cool, by all means and use the movement tools in conjunction with your melee combo. However this is not what we do in optimized play.

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Then let me be more clear.

I was discussing it because Leidiriv was being intentionally obtuse about the dev intent of CaC with relation to the melee rotation.

Functionally, you are correct that in optimized play it would just be an oGCD. However, it is not the dev intent for it to be purely an oGCD for damage, shown by the gap-closer component, connection to Manafication, and its original timing to come off cooldown approximately as often as we melee.

Wereotter had a point that if melee rotation frequency increases significantly, then the dev intent of CaC falls apart, which is why it is surprising that its CD is thus far unaffected.

Not here to argue that "you should stay back 20y and silo spells", only to point out that no, you know exactly why CaC was brought up, even if that's not how you use it.

Ultimately it doesn't matter, line up with CaC doesn't matter, you have plenty of time to run in range when you see you're approaching the mana level of melee combo, it doesn't ruin anything, you don't have to spam reprise, you don't have to lower your mana, just literally walk to the boss during a dualcast window and you can melee, because being able to reposition in dualcast also happens to be a flavor of RDM.

I don't know if you and the other guy are expecting the devs to hold the "dash in - melee - dash out" as if it was some immutable canon.

Also if the dev intent was just the visual aesthetic they would have removed any potency from both movement skills, as long as RDM has RNG procs and those skills have potency they won't always line up. The fact that they keep the potency post 5.0 changes means they are okay with the way people are using them as ogcds, and they even added a high payout / low payout version of the disengage skill.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

Then let me be more clear.

I was discussing it because Leidiriv was being intentionally obtuse about the dev intent of CaC with relation to the melee rotation.

Functionally, you are correct that in optimized play it would just be an oGCD. However, it is not the dev intent for it to be purely an oGCD for damage, shown by the gap-closer component, connection to Manafication, and its original timing to come off cooldown approximately as often as we melee.

Wereotter had a point that if melee rotation frequency increases significantly, then the dev intent of CaC falls apart, which is why it is surprising that its CD is thus far unaffected.

Not here to argue that "you should stay back 20y and silo spells", only to point out that no, you know exactly why CaC was brought up, even if that's not how you use it.

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It's not being intentionally obtuse to separate gameplay from cinematics. If the dev intention was truly that we should dash > melee > Displacement/Engagement > use finishers, they would have linked the skills together mechanically. Since they didn't, we can assume they intended for us to use the skills more freely than that.

Never Happy,
redmage dps increase is pretty big and absolutely not weak .
is 6.5% is pretty nice .

If you were doing 14,000 you will now be doing 14,900 wihtout making anymore effort. Plus you always have perfect opener, so no more junk like in E1S where no perfect opener means a hard time hitting melee before V&V.
Come on guys, like Remiff said it's really a good patch.

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Originally Posted by Seabhacgra

Exactly .. I play several classes, Machinist, RDM and Dancer are my preferences.. and they all seem to have gotten a "bandaid" potency increase for the gaping wound that is their lack of DPS.. what surprised me was that they increased Dragoon.. it was already in a good place for DPS and yet they incresed it again.. makes me wonder which of the SE senior devs plays Dragoon...

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I mean, look at Black Mage throughout stormblood and you'll realize this is par for the course.

First in 4.05, cast time from 3s to 2.8 on fire/blizzard 4, reduced mana cost of fire 1 (to match fire 4), foul made free, triplecast recast time dropped to 60s from 90.

Then in 4.2, Transpose dropped to 8s from 12, Firestarter and Thundercloud durations buffed to 18s, Aetherial Manipulation down to 10s from 30, Fire 4 potency buffed from 260 to 280.

Then in 4.4, Fire 4 bumped from 280 to 300 potency.

My point is, that took them over a year to get BLM where they wanted it, and it wasn't until the second raid tier, 6 months into the expansion, that BLM was actually viable as a selfish DPS class. Up until that point the class was nowhere near the top on DPS charts, eclipsed by classes like Monk or Summoner, you know, supporty DPS classes.

It takes time and they don't like overdoing it because they'd rather buff a class instead of nerf it. I'm already insanely surprised at the relatively major changes they're making to classes like Ninja, Summoner, AST and RDM (acceleration specifically) because the devs have a history of not making drastic changes mid-expansion.

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Originally Posted by Karshan

If you were doing 14,000 you will now be doing 14,900 wihtout making anymore effort. Plus you always have perfect opener, so no more junk like in E1S where no perfect opener means a hard time hitting melee before V&V.
Come on guys, like Remiff said it's really a good patch.

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I think the issue is that with all the buffs everyone else is getting, that proposed 900 damage likely won't be enough to pull it out of the spot it's currently in.

I hope that's wrong though, as I'd love to start playing RDM again. But honestly I'm a bit pessimistic about this...

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Originally Posted by Rivinhal

I think the issue is that with all the buffs everyone else is getting, that proposed 900 damage likely won't be enough to pull it out of the spot it's currently in.

I hope that's wrong though, as I'd love to start playing RDM again. But honestly I'm a bit pessimistic about this...

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It's honestly fine just because the ceiling (BLM and MNK*) stayed the same. They pulled the floor up closer to the ceiling, and that's one of the two things that needed to happen.

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Originally Posted by Seabhacgra

Exactly .. I play several classes, Machinist, RDM and Dancer are my preferences.. and they all seem to have gotten a "bandaid" potency increase for the gaping wound that is their lack of DPS.. what surprised me was that they increased Dragoon.. it was already in a good place for DPS and yet they incresed it again.. makes me wonder which of the SE senior devs plays Dragoon...

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Dragoon was buffed for a single reason: they don't want to nerf Monk.

Both Samurai and Ninja have increased potencies baked into their respective changes. Thus, if they did nothing to Dragoon, it would linger behind. The buffs aren't even that substantial; netting roughly a 1% increase give or take. It'll basically keep Dragoon fighting with Ninja.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

It's honestly fine just because the ceiling (BLM and MNK*) stayed the same. They pulled the floor up closer to the ceiling, and that's one of the two things that needed to happen.

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I agree to a certain extent (and I hope you're right). But the overall concern is this:
"Did they pull the floor up high enough?"

I hope they did, but... RDM is competing with SMN and BLM. And SMN also got some meaningful changes, and BLM was a literal monster lol.

Either way I suppose we'll see on Monday. I'm pessimistic but hopeful.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Dragoon was buffed for a single reason: they don't want to nerf Monk.

Both Samurai and Ninja have increased potencies baked into their respective changes. Thus, if they did nothing to Dragoon, it would linger behind. The buffs aren't even that substantial; netting roughly a 1% increase give or take. It'll basically keep Dragoon fighting with Ninja.

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Yeah.

OT here, but It's funny... In some of the DRG groups I'm in, players are mad they didn't get more buffs (I've seen some literally saying DRG was nerfed lol) because now they're afraid they'll be behind everyone else. On the other hand, I've seen SAM players really upset we got buffs. Meanwhile I'm just sad we didn't get Stardiver animation-lock adjustments lol.

Imo it's just a sign that people aren't really sure how melee will shake out.

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Originally Posted by Leidiriv

It's not being intentionally obtuse to separate gameplay from cinematics. If the dev intention was truly that we should dash > melee > Displacement/Engagement > use finishers, they would have linked the skills together mechanically. Since they didn't, we can assume they intended for us to use the skills more freely than that.

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It's not about cinematics. As was stated, there's a reason things like Manafication reset the Cooldown of Corps-a-Corps. They INTENDED red mage to cast spells at a reasonable distance, dash in for the melee combo, dash out to return to slinging spells. This is not what all players do. There are fights where it makes more sense to use these skills for movement during certain phases, there are fights where some players choose to just use them as soon as they come off of cooldown. But this does not change the way that the skills were designed to be used. This is shown with how Alisae plays in Trust dungeons and how red mage plays in all of the job action trailers.

So my point stands. For those who chose to use the movement skills primarily to work with the natural flow of the job rather than spamming them like you would Flèche or Contre Sixte, then the fact that changes to Manafication likely will mean red mage generates black and white mana at an accelerated rate while not changing the cooldown of the movement skills for the melee rotation seems a pretty massive oversight.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

It's not about cinematics. As was stated, there's a reason things like Manafication reset the Cooldown of Corps-a-Corps. They INTENDED red mage to cast spells at a reasonable distance, dash in for the melee combo, dash out to return to slinging spells.

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If this was the intention, dead zones would have been implemented. An actual incentive for the player to move and position in such a way; "if <15y distance, Veraero does 280 potency instead of 310" as an exaggerated example. Instead we have two damaging cooldowns that, as you yourself lament, are not aligned with our melee combos. In the same expansion they introduced Displacement they took the damage off of Bard's jumpback attack too.

I can also make the argument and observation that Manafication resetting CaC means we have some leeway on the cooldown and don't have to pop it exactly on cooldown--we can meander a second or two and the reset will cover us. This forgiveness on the cooldown that Manafication gives is the leeway that makes us not need charges on the abilities, it's just not as evident.

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This is shown with how Alisae plays in Trust dungeons

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In the trust dungeons where NPCs are basically intentionally playing wrong so that they don't overtake actual players and make DF take too long. She's not even playing to what an optimally programmed RDM could be.

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and how red mage plays in all of the job action trailers.

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Where all jobs are shown kinda wonky cuz they just wanna show off the cool looking abilities.

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So my point stands. For those who chose to use the movement skills primarily to work with the natural flow of the job rather than spamming them like you would Flèche or Contre Sixte, then the fact that changes to Manafication likely will mean red mage generates black and white mana at an accelerated rate while not changing the cooldown of the movement skills for the melee rotation seems a pretty massive oversight.

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One could also argue that the changes they're making that push further away from this concept might be evidence that it is, in fact, not developer intent that they be used solely for distance shifting.

Hey guys, what's going on in this thread?

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They INTENDED red mage to cast spells at a reasonable distance, dash in for the melee combo, dash out to return to slinging spells.

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Oh.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

This is shown with how Alisae plays in Trust dungeons and how red mage plays in all of the job action trailers.

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The job action trailer also shows the BLM using freeze to change to UI on single target. It also shows the AST not using malefic to weaving oGCDs. It also shows the NIN using kass on a GCD to use goka on a single target.

My point is, the trailers are to showcase new skills. Not to show you the rotation.

And why would you ever base your rotation off what an npc is doing? Last I checked Ryne has a 20s trick that she only does once per mob pack, Alphinaud has a carbuncle despite having a scholar kit, and AST Urianger can cast Doom. They are not good references.

My point is not discussing optimal play. I stated this already. It's what is obvious as developer intent.

We already know that players don't always use skills as developers intended them to be used (see also Anatman) because sometimes using a skill in an unintended way causes higher damage. I'm not debating if using the skills immediately on cooldown is the better usage or not. I'm strictly discussing the skill as it pertains to your casual player who reads these movement skills, saw the way they're used multiple times by NPCs in game and in the job reveal trailer, and follows that basic instruction of how to play the job. When that player generates black and white mana faster than the cooldown of the movement skills that bring the player into range to perform a melee combo and jump back to get out of range, then that player will feel like the job doesn't play correctly.

I can not be any more clear in what point I'm trying to make. Not the player in Ultimate raiding who needs to squeeze every bit of damage from the job and optimize it perfectly. The more typical player.

But since making that point seems to be akin to smashing my head into a brick wall... I think I might just go do that for a while instead.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

My point is not discussing optimal play. I stated this already. It's what is obvious as developer intent.

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People are responding that as much evidence as you have that this is "developer intent," there is evidence against that. Whenever players drift too far from intent the skill gets changed, I'll point you to your own Anatman and its GCD change; deadzones for Red Mage aren't implemented so there's no encouragement to ever be far from the boss in the first place; the cooldowns do damage compared to Repelling Shot which, in the expansion Red Mage was introduced, had its damage stripped away. The changes that are being made to RDM as it is promote even further that CaC and Displacement are not meant to only be used for the melee combo. Scorch itself sped the process to getting to the next melee combo well beyond what CaC+Displacement can align with naturally.

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I can not be any more clear in what point I'm trying to make. Not the player in Ultimate raiding who needs to squeeze every bit of damage from the job and optimize it perfectly. The more typical player.

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No, you're talking developer intent. You're saying "The developers intended CaC+Displacement to be used exactly this way, because of reason X." You've since dug your heels in that X is correct, when the reasons (at least I) disagree with you are Y and Z. If the developers really intended RDM to play like you've stated, they've done virtually nothing to encourage that playstyle, but rather they've done much to the contrary. Let's say for the sake of argument that Job trailers are indeed how jobs are meant to be played (see Aeos' post for why that would be silly); fine that's all well and good. They haven't done any of the legwork to encourage players to actually play that way.

There's no reason to be out of melee range as a RDM 90% of the time, and to top it off CaC and Displacement do damage. It doesn't take a particularly inquisitive mind to then put two and two together and figure out to use Displacement and Engagement as damaging oGCDs. We can also mention being obnoxiously far is more of an annoyance to the healers than anything else. They've made no changes to CaC and Displacement to discourage using them as damaging oGCDs; in fact, they've gone the opposite direction by buffing Displacement to 200 potency and granting Engagement as a safety net. They continue going in the opposite direction, as your complaint from the beginning was, by increasing mana gen without regard for the cooldowns of Displace and CaC.

If it was really their intent for RDM to play exactly as you say, why do so many of their decisions in its design show otherwise?

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Originally Posted by wereotter

My point is not discussing optimal play. I stated this already. It's what is obvious as developer intent.

We already know that players don't always use skills as developers intended them to be used (see also Anatman) because sometimes using a skill in an unintended way causes higher damage. I'm not debating if using the skills immediately on cooldown is the better usage or not. I'm strictly discussing the skill as it pertains to your casual player who reads these movement skills, saw the way they're used multiple times by NPCs in game and in the job reveal trailer, and follows that basic instruction of how to play the job. When that player generates black and white mana faster than the cooldown of the movement skills that bring the player into range to perform a melee combo and jump back to get out of range, then that player will feel like the job doesn't play correctly.

I can not be any more clear in what point I'm trying to make. Not the player in Ultimate raiding who needs to squeeze every bit of damage from the job and optimize it perfectly. The more typical player.

But since making that point seems to be akin to smashing my head into a brick wall... I think I might just go do that for a while instead.

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Okay, players use skills in unintended ways. But how many of those uses have remained in the game unchanged? Prepull Huton? Made more accessible. Prepull dual Aetherflow? Gone, reduced to atoms. In-fight Anatman, Meditation fishing, Tornado Kick, 2 melee/2 phys ranged in HW, the 4.0 mana imbalance glitch that also cut mana spending to 1/3. All of them gone. But SE has left CaC and Displacement alone, which implies that they intend it as is.

As for the typical player, new players are normally inclined to move when they can anyway, so the bit of movement they're encouraged to do via Dualcast (also thanks to NPCs, mind you) covers what happens while CaC is on cooldown.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

When that player generates black and white mana faster than the cooldown of the movement skills that bring the player into range to perform a melee combo and jump back to get out of range, then that player will feel like the job doesn't play correctly.

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Maybe, maybe not. Such a thing could most definitely happen. If a new player were to encounter such a problem, perhaps they would do some research into why this is happening and what they could do instead.
If the player does not care, well then, the problem has solved itself.

It sounds an awful lot like you’re trying to project your dissatisfaction of RDM onto a part of the community that doesn’t find this a problem.

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Originally Posted by Aeos

My point is, the trailers are to showcase new skills. Not to show you the rotation.

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In most cases, the trailers are also supposed to give you an idea of what the job is capable of, especially when it's a new job added to the game. RDM happens to have the misfortune of having been advertised with forced positioning (AKA Corps + Displacement) since the reveal, on top of being hailed as a "melee/ranged hybrid". It's easy to reach wereotter's conclusion between the job reveal, the trailers and how RDM NPCs fight, regardless of what is the job's optimal gameplay.

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And why would you ever base your rotation off what an npc is doing?

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NPCs have to be programmed to play as they do. It'd be one thing if they were 1 damage per hit extras that are there for immersion or played like ice mages, but that's far from the case.

Mind that I dislike the jumping around, but any deviation from it has been entirely player-driven as far as I can tell (otherwise the devs would have given RDM a greater melee presence in gameplay and/or stuff like Engagement wouldn't be intentionally weaker than Displacement).