6.0 Red Mage speculation

How bad are we gonna get it, y'all? Will they have us fixed up by 6.1 this time or is it gonna be the .2 patch again? Personally I'm hoping we're able to perform our single-target rotation fairly self-sufficiently without going out of MP this time but that might be a bit much to ask.

RDM could do with some native MP regen, since unless you have very low spell speed it’s pretty easy to run dry (especially if you need to Rez often). There’s enough trade-off with rez weakness that I don’t think crippling the RDM’s mana is necessary as a balance. Maybe allow their OGCD’s or even their Melee combo to give some MP back, like Draw now does for AST?

As for new abilities, I can only think of one thing that’ll really complete RDM and make it feel perfect; an AoE finisher spell. I’d love VerFlood (since I’m sure most would agree that water magic needs more love, and RDM would work thematically as being borne from the remnants of a flooded world). Other than that, some spell upgrades for Verfire/stone to tier 2 and Verthunder/aero to tier 3 so they look a bit stronger and stylish to match their higher level wouldn't go amiss.

My Hopes: I'd love to see the AoE rotation made a little more satisfying. Enchanted Moulinet still feels really annoying to move after the changes to our AoE spell selection. I also think its about time they give us access to ice and water aspected ver-spells, if only just for flavor. Honestly surprised they didn't just make the AoE spells those elements to fill in the missing gaps.

While I don't expect this to happen either; I'd love some more sword skills to use our balance gauge on. Enchanted Reprise being our only option when we don't need to blow our load on a melee combo still feels odd. It'd honestly be pretty neat if the option of saving up for the big sword combo, or weaving in melee attacks between spells was a viable option; especially in situations where you don't have the time to stay in melee range, or the fight doesn't give you your chance to burst. As it stands now, we have tons of ways to build gauge, and only one real way to spend it.

Oh, and make Embolden buff up allies magic damage for f*ck's sake.

My expectations: Beefed up versions of the ver-spells, possibly another upgrade to jolt or another button after the verflare/holy scorch sequence, and maybe another melee button for us to push during the combo section.

I feel like RDM could use with some more variety in what it does; but I don't think the devs wanna rock the boat with its easy to learn and pick-up playstyle.

Of coarse I'd take a Mystic Knight over changing RDM into a more melee DPS role; if they opt for that instead lol

RDM doesn't need any extra MP recovery, don't know where people get this idea from as basing it on mass Raises is very situational. Scorch could get the MP cost removed I suppose if really necessary, otherwise I'd like to see a spell aoe finisher after using a sequence of Enchanted Moulinet.

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Originally Posted by Kurando

RDM doesn't need any extra MP recovery, don't know where people get this idea

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Well actually what happened is you completely missed that the OP is sassy snark about the devs' lack of care put into RDM, and the MP part itself was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the terrible state the job was in on ShB release.

It still feels weird to not have an aoe finisher, like, upgrade thunder/wind when our bar is full or smt...

I speculate at least one of the following will be given to RDM by 6.0:

1. We get Mend and Maim III
2. We get an extended enhanced state buff to use our blade skills after scorch to continue using the alternate verflare/verholy rotation
3. Veraero II and verthunder II becomes veraero IV and verthunder IV.
4. Trait that turns acceleration / new skill -- to allow vercure become vercure II or vermedica under the same MP cost.
5. Trait that turns verstone and verfire to verstone II and verfire II
6. An added gauge effect - Balanced Charge - when consuming at least 20 black and white mana on enhanced weaponskills, you get 1 Balanced Charge and this charge can be expended to access 2 new GCD skills - a more potent heal/AoE heal or an AoE damaging spell. RDM can hold up to 3 charges to prevent overcap and possibly use dualcasting with them.
7. Trait that reduces Fleche recast timer.
8. Trait that reduces Embolden's recast timer.


9. Enhanced Moulette gets a combo action with an AoE spell finisher verfreeze/ ... verfluidaura?

I hope they don't do much to RDM as it's pretty much perfect right now. That's my only real concern is that in trying to add to it, they're going to break it somehow.

Anyway, for a change I'd like to see, I want AoE to be more satisfying. The basic "rotation" is fine as it is but it doesn't feel like it really builds to anything. EMoulinet spam is just sort of weak feeling. Maybe some sort of AoE big meter spender that you could use instead of EMoulinet in certain situations.

Tweaks/upgrades to the standard skills/traits would be nice as well but that's pretty much expected.

An interesting idea could be some way to burn a specific mana type if you do get unbalanced (or get there intentionally) but generally maintaining balance is pretty simple as is so going to far in this direction could end up forcing the class into playing differently than it currently does. Still, it could be a satisfying change to the class if done right and if they wanted to change things up.

I agree that raw upgrades to the ver spells and jolt would be wonderful, Especially if they do some neat aesthetic effects to make it feel more red magey, aka more rose petal impact effects.

the melee combo is fine, I do however love the idea of a "Enchanted Blade" effect that causes your autos you do for a brief period to have a chunk of magic potency thrown on them while doing your melee combo skills. the question would be figuring out the optimal combination of time and potency to make it just feel like a bonus and not something you have to build your burst rotation around.

I do agree with needing an aoe combo finisher. The trigger state, however is something that needs to be figured out. Personally I like the idea that each time you cast EM you build a stack of *insert cool name here* and then once you get 3-4 stacks you'd go into a combo of Verflood (White Mana)/Verfreeze into an AoE version of scorch (call it Ardor or something? not the most appropriate name considering lore stuff but whatever I'm just reaching for names)

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Originally Posted by Kuroka

It still feels weird to not have an aoe finisher, like, upgrade thunder/wind when our bar is full or smt...

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This is the main thing I would add to the job if I was the decision-maker, except have it be Ice and Water for black and white versions respectively. That covers two of the 5 skill additions, so here's my list of things I'd like to see (not in any particular order:

-Verblizzard: AoE spell finisher. Occupies the same place as Verflare does but for the AoE rotation. Usable after at least some minimum number of Enchanted Moulinet are used in a row, 4 or 5 suggested. Replaces Verthunder II on the hotbar when able to be used.
-Verwater: AoE spell finisher. Same but AoE analog of Verholy and replaces Veraero II on the hotbar when able to be used.
-Enchanced elementalism: a trait that upgrades verthunder/aero II to have a bit more damage and/or balance gain
-Envelopement: A weak single target ice-blade ogcd attack with a 60s cooldown that applies a small damage up debuff for 15s
-Zornhau: level 90 ability, AoE weapon finisher with same range as Moulinet but more damage. Primary target takes more damage than additional targets (to balance being able to use it both in melee and aoe rotation.) Usable only immediately after any of Scorch, Verblizzard or Verwater. Costs 10/10 mana to use the enchanted version. Replaces Moulinet and/or Redoublement on the hotbar when able to be used.

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Originally Posted by Mhaeric

This is the main thing I would add to the job if I was the decision-maker, except have it be Ice and Water for black and white versions respectively. That covers two of the 5 skill additions, so here's my list of things I'd like to see (not in any particular order:

-Zornhau: level 90 ability, AoE weapon finisher with same range as Moulinet but more damage. Primary target takes more damage than additional targets (to balance being able to use it both in melee and aoe rotation.) Usable only immediately after any of Scorch, Verblizzard or Verwater. Costs 10/10 mana to use the enchanted version. Replaces Moulinet and/or Redoublement on the hotbar when able to be used.

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I'm assuming when you say use it in both melee and AoE rotation you mean single target and AoE rotation.

Correct me if I'm wrong. Wouldn't it be a bad idea if Zornhau consumes 10/10 mana after a scorch combo? It would raise the requirement to use enhanced version to 90/90 mana if it was allowed in both Single Target and AoE combo, which would throw off the initial trigger of 80/80 mana triggering enhanced state on the crystal and require manafication to be used at 45/45 rather than 40/40. RDM gains around ~20 mana with ST for one element if they were dualcasting with verfire/verstone so it would require around 4 more GCDs and a higher chance of overcapping.

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Originally Posted by Katie_Kitty

Well actually what happened is you completely missed that the OP is sassy snark about the devs' lack of care put into RDM, and the MP part itself was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the terrible state the job was in on ShB release.

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Wdym "lack of care"? RDM was one of the most polished and intuitive jobs the game has had upon its initial release in 4.0 and the devs have only built on that further.

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Originally Posted by waifugenerator

Wdym "lack of care"? RDM was one of the most polished and intuitive jobs the game has had upon its initial release in 4.0 and the devs have only built on that further.

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Shadowbringers release, RDM would actually run out of MP given enough time during an encounter. Effectively killing the use of carrying a raise and making the class inherently frustrating to play.

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Originally Posted by kajv95

Shadowbringers release, RDM would actually run out of MP given enough time during an encounter. Effectively killing the use of carrying a raise and making the class inherently frustrating to play.

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Is this still an issue? I literally unlocked RDM tonight specifically because I was frustrated I couldn’t support anyone as Black Mage when things go sideways. (So much death in those 24 mans!!)

No, they fixed it quickly. There's always minor balancing issues like it that crop up at the start of every expansion.

RDM does not need MP recovery. I can do my rotation for like 7 min without coming close to running out of MP, and in that time I'd have 7 Lucid Dreaming's. You're only running out of MP if you're spamming verraise.

I can see them adding a combo action to Moulinet and that procs an AoE spell finisher (Ardor/Vercomet). But that would really only help for dungeons and not be very useful for raiding since very few raids have AoE situations. Maybe a 2nd gauge that fills as we spend finishers and use that bar for some other kind of fancy oGCDs like how BRD has a Soul Voice gauge for Apex Arrow.

Adding on to the thread, I personally would enjoy something along the lines of what AST got, MP recovery on an integral part of the rotation. Lucid Dreaming feels a little like a set-and-forget kind of thing, like how Heavy Thrust on DRG was kind of just a thing that you needed to do every so often. Not that what we have now doesn't work - it definitely does, it's just that it's the one thing that feels like it doesn't really flow well with what's otherwise such a smooth job. And hopefully Embolden can start affecting casters or something, I dunno.

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Originally Posted by MorionQ

Is this still an issue? I literally unlocked RDM tonight specifically because I was frustrated I couldn’t support anyone as Black Mage when things go sideways. (So much death in those 24 mans!!)

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Thank the heavens they fixed it rather quickly. It's just odd how it came to be, since I feel like that's something that would've come up in testing. Red Mage on release was kind of in a really bad spot, being easily the worst caster with overly high "raise tax" too. It's all much better now, possibly thanks to every single caster thread derailing into "RDMs have it much worse!" at the time.

That’s a relief to know, thank you guys.

Personally I'm hoping that we get some of if not all of the following

1. Verflood and Verfreeze as aoe finishers. Can either go one then the other, or one then scorch to transition to single target damage easier (verflood or verfreeze- scorch for example)
2. Verflare's sound to be changed to something that sounds like an explosion. something closer to exdeath's or voidwalkers flares
3. Scorch to have its sound changed to something other than a dull thud
4. Enchanted moulinet to get a cost and damage increase, and proc verflood/verfreeze
I'm picturing the rotation like this: verthunder 2- impact, veraero 2- impact, ench moulinet, verfreeze, verflood, back to start

5. Corps a corps and displacement to get charges

Other thoughts for spell/ability ideas that could work but not really bothered about

Scheitelhau- Parting-hew, a german sword technique designed to pierce certain guards through the principle of überlauffen, "overrunning" or "overreaching"- a sword action that burns excess black or white mana in order to get back into balance, on cd for some considerable time to prevent overuse
None of the other classes really get punished for screwing up so why do rdm? (personally I'm against the idea of most jobs being able to get off free for not playing hteir kit correctly, but this is more along the lines of SE thinking)

Verultima- A capstone achieved via two stacks of elemental balance. One stack of elemental balance is granted every time the b/w gauges get above 80. Verultima does powerful single target damage plus fixed aoe damage and grants the buff elemental harmony
Elemental harmony: gives 10% damage buff for next 5 abilities

I don't expect to see a lot of expansion to our Melee (like branching combos or anything) -- not without first shoring up our Magic significantly to reduce the 40-second delay between Melee phases. It would be counterintuitive to increase the effective cost of our Melee per rotation by adding more Mana-consuming skills necessary to maximize output, unless we got to a point where we're generating more Mana than we can possibly burn with our normal rotation.
Which, to be fair, does seem to be a theme throughout our leveling experience: Acceleration at 50, Manafication at 60 (and its improvement), the Verfinishers at 70 and Scorch at 80 all are balanced to shave a couple GCDs off that delay on average. It will not surprise me at all when that particular trend continues at 90, well before we become any type of Spellblade hybrid.

With regards to getting an AoE Combo Finisher... maybe? Considering how high level it would be, I expect it would more likely be some kind of proc or cooldown that would be applicable in both single-target and AoE -- like how Foul was a BLM finisher for both scenarios before they got a single-target equivalent, or how SMN and WHM got skills for both like Deathflare and Afflatus Misery. If a proc, maybe something that occurs more often via Enchanted Moulinet hitting multiple targets, as with Thundercloud or Quick Nock. If a cooldown, perhaps something where the timer is reduced by each successful cast of Enchanted Moulinet -- something they could easily do with Contre Sixte now.

There is the possibility of the whispered Raise Tax being "addressed", but I would need to hear more about any plans for Healer changes before I say anything to that. At the moment SMN doesn't pay such a tax for their Raise, and Verraise isn't particularly meaningful in end-game content anyway since most comps would sooner wipe than cast it. I have my own ideas about it, but it remains to be seen whether it's on their radar to begin with.

As far as evolving the job goes, yes we have what could be considered a whole rotation so a lot of naysayers will claim there's nothing more to add, but mechanically we're very simplistic and still have room for additional growth and dev creativity, particularly considering how little change we got this expansion compared to other casters. The AoE changes were welcome, but considering we had 10 Scatters per Moulinet before, it was more "past due correction of a seeming oversight" than truly "growth".

In the barest minimum of terms, I could see at least one of three things happening as an evolution to the job:
1) A new proc effect (a la Thundercloud/Firestarter) -- something like a new instant spell that accelerates our average Mana gain by a couple seconds. Kill two birds with one stone by having it be used in AoE as well.
2) A timer, like a DoT or a buff to maintain through the rotation (a la Enochian, Trances, Blood of the Dragon, Darkside, etc) -- something that might replace every 5th Jolt/Verfire/Verstone, for instance.
3) A tertiary resource that functions as a charge system for a new ability (a la Polyglot, Dreadwyrm Aether, Blood Lily, etc).
Personally I think the first two are more in line with the job (considering our relationship with Mana is already essentially equal to Ninjutsu or the Blood Gauge, so I don't see the devs giving us the same mechanic again). Admittedly the latter two categories seem more likely to have room for actual player engagement, but the first still has potential depending on the nature of the proc, like if it actually prompts a choice (which considering how our Mana already works, seems plausible to implement)... provided it can set itself apart from the two Ready procs we already have, without breaking the system.

Otherwise, largely just damage/Mana traits and new cooldowns. Maybe a personal Lightspeed/Trance/Triplecast-type cooldown to silo out some Veraero/Verthunder/Impacts and get to our melee rotation a little faster, or adding a small Mana boost to Fleche (3/3?) and Contre Sixte (1/1 per target hit?), or putting our movement skills on charges in addition to reducing their CDs so they continue to line up with our melee rotation. There are still ways to safely bulldoze Engagement and push its role onto Corps-a-Corps to clear a little bar space (and they could always just put the melee combo on one button like in PvP since there is no reason to separate it except to chew on more buttons, given how linear the combo is)... not that we necessarily need that much more space, since we're still pretty light compared to someone like SMN even with 3 Opposite Mana Clone pairs.

I can only pray that they reduce the backstep of Displacement from 15-yalms to something much more reasonable like 10 yalms.

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Originally Posted by Pyitoechito

I can only pray that they reduce the backstep of Displacement from 15-yalms to something much more reasonable like 10 yalms.

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Now this is definitely something I could get behind. Heck, there are times I would take a reduced distance displacement over a fancy new attack as our level 90 capstone.

i dont think we need any more aoe adjustments outside maybe letting moulinet reset contre strix CD after 3 hits or it triggers verflare/holy and they become AOE

id like them to fix Dual cast going away after doing an Action like melee combo,sprint or using a potion ,it doesnt do this in pvp not sure why its like this in pve.

I'd like AoE to be changed. And I'd love for a true Verblizzard/Verwater appearance.

I echo that Enchanted Moulinet should be used once which then procs AoE versions of Verflare/Verholy/Scorch (maybe like Verscourge and Verbanish to echo 1.0 and add in Ardor from XII). Or maybe make the three spells AoE period and have them be like Afflatus Misery with fall off damage. Or just have Enchanted Moulinet trigger Ardor as an AoE Scorch variant and skip the middleman. It just needs some sort of finisher after melee to feel "right" to me.

I'd like Verwater to be an oGCD DoT that turns into Verblizzard which us used to "freeze" that DoT in place to tick for more damage. Have them only contribute 1 white/black mana each so if you accidentally even them out you can ensure your Verholy/Verflare. 60s cooldown on Verwater which starts ticking even while Verblizzard is ready. Verwater DoT of 15s, Verblizzard functionally extends duration by 15s.

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Originally Posted by Pyitoechito

I can only pray that they reduce the backstep of Displacement from 15-yalms to something much more reasonable like 10 yalms.

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Originally Posted by StriderShinryu

Now this is definitely something I could get behind. Heck, there are times I would take a reduced distance displacement over a fancy new attack as our level 90 capstone.

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Isn't Engagement supposed to be the alternative if you can't or don't want to backflip through Displacement? If anything, the former could be made available at a lower level so players have the choice to use whatever they are comfortable with.

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Originally Posted by Kurando

Isn't Engagement supposed to be the alternative if you can't or don't want to backflip through Displacement? If anything, the former could be made available at a lower level so players have the choice to use whatever they are comfortable with.

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At the cost of DPS. On some arenas displacement is really tricky.

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Originally Posted by Karshan

At the cost of DPS. On some arenas displacement is really tricky.

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SE doesn't care if you couldn't get top logs because you took a minor damage loss from using one thing instead of something else (just generally, not directed at you). They could make Engagement same potency as Displacement, but the choice is there to use depending on your situation, that's why they share a cooldown timer.

I'd like them to do more with the support aspect of rdm by adding an aoe esuna, call it verasuna.

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Originally Posted by VictorTheed

I'd like them to do more with the support aspect of rdm by adding an aoe esuna, call it verasuna.

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Still waiting for the legendary Vermedica.:p

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Originally Posted by VictorTheed

I'd like them to do more with the support aspect of rdm by adding an aoe esuna, call it verasuna.

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Originally Posted by Katie_Kitty

Still waiting for the legendary Vermedica.:p

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While I can see where you're coming from with regards to Red Mage's origins and history throughout the series, it's important to remember that were it not for its use as a means to generate a Dualcast without a target, we as DPS wouldn't even have Vercure. As far as White Magical utilities, Verraise is already pretty darn strong, especially with Dualcast.

Now, given that BRD has Warden's Paean, DNC has Curing Waltz and SMN has Everlasting Flight, it's within the realm of possibility for us to get some kind of recovery-oriented Ability in the future... though even ignoring that cloning another job's unique utility wholesale would be kinda frowned upon, a "Veresuna" sounds like Erase by another name, and an AoE version would be absurdly powerful in a dedicated Healer's hands, much less ours.

Personally though, I'd like to see some more Black Magic-oriented skills added to the kit.
We often seem to forget that while most of our spells are dedicated to damage (because we're a damage job), Verstone, Veraero and Verholy are still White Magic; while most of our provided Ver-spells have aesthetic and mechanical opposites, Vercure and Verraise infamously do not.
If we can stretch the ask of donated White Magic skills to include Flood despite its absence from WHM's kit, I see no reason we can't do the same for Black Magic in spite of BLM's lack of utility and limited non-damage skills.

Vercure is basically Verwater as it has a light blue aura around the red mage's feet when casting and a blue aura on their sword hilt. They just didn't want to make all the Ver spells offensive. In my mind Fleche is our ice spell (I know it's physical and unaspected, but the swords look like they're made of ice,and it physical to make it not synergize with embolden.

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

Vercure is basically Verwater as it has a light blue aura around the red mage's feet when casting and a blue aura on their sword hilt. They just didn't want to make all the Ver spells offensive. In my mind Fleche is our ice spell (I know it's physical and unaspected, but the swords look like they're made of ice,and it physical to make it not synergize with embolden.

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You've been saying that for a long time and been debunked on several counts before. I'm not going to derail another thread by addressing it, so I'll leave it at this: Ultimately as you've just admitted, that's just your headcanon until the devs say otherwise.

And let's be honest, even if the devs did explicitly say that was the intent, people would still ask for "real" water and ice spells regardless. It doesn't help that literally zero full-casters available have access to water damage, making it appear underrepresented and neglected, while BLM holds a monopoly on ice magic.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

You've been saying that for a long time and been debunked on several counts before. I'm not going to derail another thread by addressing it, so I'll leave it at this: Ultimately as you've just admitted, that's just your headcanon until the devs say otherwise.

And let's be honest, even if the devs did explicitly say that was the intent, people would still ask for "real" water and ice spells regardless. It doesn't help that literally zero full-casters available have access to water damage, making it appear underrepresented and neglected, while BLM holds a monopoly on ice magic.

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Y'shtola uses water and she's a full caster :p

Honestly, I'd like to see the class embrace more of its sword magic (introduced with Fleche and Contre Sixte). I'm surprised they didn't build upon it more in ShB.
Overall, I enjoy the way the class involves red magic, there's a nice split between the red magic itself aesthetically (Scorch and Jolt are pretty cool) and it's black/white spells. However, I think the classes true separation from it being a generic FF class is within its sword skills, which are seemingly unexplained in lore and in game. They are by far the most visually appealing aspects of the Job for me, yet they feel so out of place as it begs the question of how they are related to the class in the first place.

In terms of bringing them more to the forefront in gameplay, maybe adding a sword skill to follow up Moliuet with could be cool.
Given how quickly we add to our balance meter now because of scorch, adding something to the melee combo seems likely, I would actually love a samurai style melee charged finisher given that the double finishers are both instant cast (Melee combo/charged finisher/Double instant cast finishers).

RDM remained mostly the same with its aoe being adjusted and the fine buff to acceleration. But what RDM needs is more things to do maybe more sword play even its support is bare bones and situational. only MCH of all things is a easier job, but unlike MCH RDM has a nice base to work off of. also Embolden is rubbish

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Originally Posted by Hypephoon

Honestly, I'd like to see the class embrace more of its sword magic (introduced with Fleche and Contre Sixte). I'm surprised they didn't build upon it more in ShB.
Overall, I enjoy the way the class involves red magic, there's a nice split between the red magic itself aesthetically (Scorch and Jolt are pretty cool) and it's black/white spells. However, I think the classes true separation from it being a generic FF class is within its sword skills, which are seemingly unexplained in lore and in game. They are by far the most visually appealing aspects of the Job for me, yet they feel so out of place as it begs the question of how they are related to the class in the first place.

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Part of the problem I think is that the devs shackled themselves to a design that doesn't have much room for sword skills. For weaponskills on the GCD you'd need to make them either proc Dualcast (which makes no sense concept-wise in the current design), generate mana (which makes no sense concept-wise in the current design), or deal really high damage to offset the loss of mana generation per GCD (which would be broken and probably still be a DPS loss).

oGCDs have a little more leeway, though that isn't saying much. You'd need abilities that interact with procs, or deal higher damage than the current oGCDs. The former could make sword use contribute to mana generation without breaking the hard rules the devs created for RDM sword skills (i.e, they are either regular weaponskills that hit like a soft breeze, or enchanted weaponskills that deal actual damage). One suggestion I've been thinking about is an oGCD sword skill (requires melee range because I'm a melee proponent) that consumes Verfire/Verstone Ready and generates the proc's respective mana (+9 Black Mana for consuming Verfire Ready, +9 White Mana for consuming Verstone Ready, +9 B/W Mana if you have both effects active) on a 15-20s cooldown. I also still think Engagement's damage needs to be buffed and separated from Displacement's cooldown.

To answer your question regarding Fleche and Contre, they're likely there because actual sword skills (that require swinging a sword) couldn't be in the skill list due to the job being put in the ranged caster DPS category when it was introduced. My own hypothesis is that it's also a callback to an MMD animation of a spell fencer fighting a monster (because the swords she conjured in the video were very similar to the swords we see in Fleche and Contre's animations). I thought it looked ridiculous, but some people liked it.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Part of the problem I think is that the devs shackled themselves to a design that doesn't have much room for sword skills. For weaponskills on the GCD you'd need to make them either proc Dualcast (which makes no sense concept-wise in the current design), generate mana (which makes no sense concept-wise in the current design), or deal really high damage to offset the loss of mana generation per GCD (which would be broken and probably still be a DPS loss).

oGCDs have a little more leeway, though that isn't saying much. You'd need abilities that interact with procs, or deal higher damage than the current oGCDs. The former could make sword use contribute to mana generation without breaking the hard rules the devs created for RDM sword skills (i.e, they are either regular weaponskills that hit like a soft breeze, or enchanted weaponskills that deal actual damage). One suggestion I've been thinking about is an oGCD sword skill (requires melee range because I'm a melee proponent) that consumes Verfire/Verstone Ready and generates the proc's respective mana (+9 Black Mana for consuming Verfire Ready, +9 White Mana for consuming Verstone Ready, +9 B/W Mana if you have both effects active) on a 15-20s cooldown. I also still think Engagement's damage needs to be buffed and separated from Displacement's cooldown.

To answer your question regarding Fleche and Contre, they're likely there because actual sword skills (that require swinging a sword) couldn't be in the skill list due to the job being put in the ranged caster DPS category when it was introduced. My own hypothesis is that it's also a callback to an MMD animation of a spell fencer fighting a monster (because the swords she conjured in the video were very similar to the swords we see in Fleche and Contre's animations). I thought it looked ridiculous, but some people liked it.

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I've actually been advocating for a continuation-type skill that you can use during your melee combo. I like the idea of having a button similar to GNB's continuation that does two things:

1) It performs a powerful oGCD melee attack in-between melee steps

2) It channels the b/w mana gauge spent on enchanted melee combo steps into a secondary job gauge which is used to perform a powerful finisher melee attack at the end.

For example

Melee 1 (b/w gauge goes down) + Continuation (2nd gauge goes up) > Melee 1 (b/w gauge goes down) + Continuation (2nd gauge goes up) > Melee 3 (b/w gauge goes down) + Continuation (2nd gauge goes up) > Verflare/holy + Melee finisher + double-weaved oGCD > Scorch + 2 double-weaved oGCDs

Maybe the melee finisher could be a DoT. Or, alternatively, instead of a melee finisher the new 2nd job gauge could produce a major damage buff for the next few spells. That might be neat.

I think when speculating about red mage you need to look at the job as it is currently and the areas it is lacking in compared to other jobs, but, also see what is demanded in the end and where it has plenty.

One change I would like to see is a small MP refund for using our enchanted sword moves. Sword moves exist almost exclusively inside the burst combo so having them give us a small benefit(I wouldn't honestly refund more than 500 mp per move) would help RDM. On the OGCD front, I think as it is red mage has so much that it doesn't necessarily need more. If a continuation like addition to the sword combo would make it so the RDM is wasting fleches and contre-sixtes and their other OGCD skills over a fight which seems like a waste. Also, I've only got controller room for like 3 more buffs or OGCD's before red mage hits bloat and more GCDS is basically out of the picture :(

As for the AOE combo, Its really close to good but still feels lacking, AOE is only used in dungeons and other content and our DPS output there is fine, however, I would like to see perhaps a secondary sword AOE move with moulinet that maybe consumes 30 gauge but has a combo potency making it worth it so it would translate from 7 moulinets into 3 combined sword(6 actions) AOE's max. Also perhaps some kind of proc that would result in the AOE magic combo generating more black or white MP. Because in terms of getting to 100/100 currently, It takes around 14 dual casts or roughly 28 GCDS from 0/0 which is a little over a minute, I believe, of saving resources to feel a big pay off, whereas many other jobs hit their AOE stride every 30 seconds and don't have to save near as much.

Also, I might be alone in this but jobs with more than one job gauge or a useless job gauge are smelly. I think the Black/White mana gauge Does enough for us and don't want unnecessary clutter on my screen or dictating my play. there is alot of depth with the current gauge too allowing for a variety of openers and optimization.

As far as AoE combo goes, I would like to see something like BLU's Surpanakha added to Enchanted Moulinet.

Trait- "Enhanced Spellblade"

Quote:

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Enchanted Moulinet
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 200 to all enemies in a cone before you.
Additional Effect: Grants "Ensorcellment", increasing potency of next Weapon Skill by 30.
Can be stacked up to 3 times.
Duration 15s.

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Then we get a verfinisher called Ardor that requires and then consumes 3 stacks of Ensorcellement while refunding us back 7 black&white mana like Scorch does. Like Verflare/Verholy, Ardor would replace Impact on the hotbar when you have 3 stacks.

Quote:

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Ardor
Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 550 for the first enemy, and 25% less for all remaining enemies.
Consumes 3 stacks of Ensorcellment.
Additional Effect: Increases both Black Mana and White Mana by 7

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This basically gives us an aoe "combo" that culminates into an AoE finisher spell. Ardor was a spell exclusive to Red Battlemage class in FF12:TZA, so I think it fits.

I'm still getting around RDM, think the job is really nice without an overflow of buttons like the others. I've got some observations so far that might or might not be wrong, due to my still novice-ness to the job:

- I'd love if Engagement became the default melee 200 potency finisher and Displacement had both its damage and target requirement components removed, thus becoming purely a movement based skill, to be used on demand at the end of the melee combo or if you'd actually had to leap some other time. It always feels a bit weird to tie in utility (movement) abilities with dps components.

- I wish the potency of the non-enchanted melee combo was raised, but not to the point of being the same of the jolt>etc rotation... Reason is, there would be a few opportunities to use that on trash targets that would die too fast for you to complete cast spells... It wouldn't really affect the main rotation at all, but offer an option in such cases. E.G. Heaven on High runs where things die way too fast, I feel kinda useless as a RDM.

- I find very fun the melee aspect of the job... I wish it we had means to maintain it for a bit longer, somehow.

Edit, Adding as I'm experiencing 80's playstyle in Bozja...:

- I take that Enchanted Reprise is meant to fill in a movement-heavy moment? But even at a very low b/w mana cost, is it worth to cast a few times and inevitably delay your next melee phase? I almost never find a good situation to use that, to the point that I actually wish for a rework or something that would make it truly an on-the-run useful spell without compromising your melee phase timing.

- Dunno, but the AoE combo feels kind of incomplete. I'd love if they could expand it a bit in 6.0... Moulinet could've been an OGC so we could weave in after Impacts, or at least it could have a second combo sequence.