Shadowbringers RDM Wishlist

[Mansion]

The biggest game-changer I find, will be increasing our ability to regenerate MP on demand. I would much rather have Lucid Dreaming as an emergency tool than be forced to live cooldown-to-cooldown with it, especially with our melee combo being taken off TP next expansion. I've seen some suggestions to attach it to the melee combo, but I'm wary of this suggestion since that would mean needing enough MP to get to our melee combo before we can regenerate MP.
We don't need a lot of MP generation, just enough trickling in to kickstart our rotation if we get raised, or at least sustain it if we aren't spam-raising.

Fully with you on this one. RDM being the only caster without a MP regen in its kit / rotation, it leaves us with a dangerous Lucid Dreaming addiction :
Being KO'ed while Lucid is on cooldown,
High threat (because of Tank death or else) and Lucid is on cooldown
Using Lucid to help with raises, effectively patching for this mana loss, but not for your DPS rotation just after that.

I suggested that our un-enchanted melee combo should give us a nice chunk of mana back. I think it would be the easiest way, let's say one third of our mana pool in three actions (remember that they have a lower potency and don't trigger the 1.5 GCD).
So giving one or two full un-enchanted combo after a raise / death would be still a DPS loss, but it would make sure we can resume our DPS safely.

[Archwizard]

I suggested that our un-enchanted melee combo should give us a nice chunk of mana back. I think it would be the easiest way, let's say one third of our mana pool in three actions (remember that they have a lower potency and don't trigger the 1.5 GCD).
So giving one or two full un-enchanted combo after a raise / death would be still a DPS loss, but it would make sure we can resume our DPS safely.

I think my main concern with this is that while the option's there for us to use, it encourages bad practices for RDMs and doesn't give us that level of sustainability in our primary rotation.
Not to mention that a third of our mana pool per use means very fast recovery from Verraise, which I think defeats the purpose of making rez-spam so expensive for us. The pendulum would swing straight from "crippling addiction to LD" to "never needing to touch LD just like BLM", and giving up DPS for recovery means squat when the alternative is having zero resources to DPS.

It seems more balanced to me, and more fitting I think, for us to gain some type of boost to our natural MP regen, or a weak Refresh state we can keep up at all times. Enough so we recover MP faster than our main rotation spends it, but still require time to recover from Verraise spam.

Pretty quick test shows it takes us about ~13 seconds to recover 1200 MP while in combat at 70 (14400 max); we spend on average 840 MP every 4.5-ish seconds before SpS; napkin math says 4.5 sec is around 415 MP recovered, so under current conditions we just need to double our natural regen to make the rotation sustainable -- about 2% Refresh.
This is of course assuming our melee combo doesn't gain an MP cost in Shadowbringers, and without taking into account how SpS may increase our need. However, given that DoT and HoT effects are affected by SpS anyway, connecting future regen to that instead of base MP regeneration would take the anxiety away from that.

Hence my prior suggestion of Verfreeze.

[Mansion]

I think my main concern with this is that while the option's there for us to use, it encourages bad practices for RDMs

Well so does VerCure actually. Playing healer in most roulettes / raids, I see a lot of RDM using VerCure when they technically should not.
Now, reading your post does make it clear about the numbers, I did not give it too much thoughts. The idea is just that when you are out of mana with no recovery solutions, well your Melee combo is the only thing left, and it still has a decent DPS output (still more than VerCure ;D) as it scales on INT.
A small refresh additional effect on something, coupled with Lucid Dreaming would be okay


Seraphor, I think we don't agree. I belive almost everything is designed with an end-game mindset when it comes to job kits, with a few exceptions here and there for CC / solo content that do not come in calculation. AOE is basic for most jobs and I don't get the point of going extensively in that direction when it's only used in dungeons, when it's content that does not need any particular skill or effort.
Now if ShB makes dungeons actually challenging (and the overall game a bit harder), then I'm up for discussion on this topic. Right now, I don't see the point.

I think it's a waste of a Trait/Action slot to add an AOE finisher in the 70-80 levels. If it's an earlier level change, then it's fine (Tether could be reworked as Tri-Bind was for SMN and it did change its AOE rotation)

[Seraphor]

Seraphor, I think we don't agree. I belive almost everything is designed with an end-game mindset when it comes to job kits, with a few exceptions here and there for CC / solo content that do not come in calculation. AOE is basic for most jobs and I don't get the point of going extensively in that direction when it's only used in dungeons, when it's content that does not need any particular skill or effort.
Now if ShB makes dungeons actually challenging (and the overall game a bit harder), then I'm up for discussion on this topic. Right now, I don't see the point.

Considering the vast majority of content and duties at set at the level caps of 50, 60 and 70, anything post level 60 has to be intended for 'end game' level content.

Black Mage learns Thunder IV and Foul after level 60, the latter is it's level 70 skill.
Summoners level 70 Akh Morn is an AoE.
Samurai again has level 64 and level 70 AoE skills.
Dragoon has level 60, 62 and 70 AoE attacks.
Hellfrog medium, level 62.
Quietus, level 64 AoE utility skill.

And probably most notably, Red Mage doesn't get Verraise until level 64.

While high end raids are certainly their first concern, to say that they ignore all other content at high levels isn't at all accurate, and neither should they regardless.

[Archwizard]

Well so does VerCure actually. Playing healer in most roulettes / raids, I see a lot of RDM using VerCure when they technically should not.

Eh, to be honest I can understand that. There have been as many times where I got told off for using Vercure after a big hit as there have been instances where the healer completely ignored healing me in preparation for big hits (expecting me to patch myself up), or I ended up some distance from the rest of the group and needed to self-heal, even an instance or two where I had to raise the healer(s) and quickly heal the tank to give them a moment to recover MP. Sometimes you just don't know whether your healer is competent, much less looking out for you.

Nobody's contesting that it's a DPS loss to use Vercure (in much the same way it's a DPS loss for the caster to use Mage's Ballad), but it is being used as intended in those cases, especially when dying is a bigger loss.

Meanwhile doing a non-Enchanted melee combo at all would go against the intended use, and breaking even with our MP expenditure is a fundamental necessity of our rotation. You'd not only change the intent of the non-Enchanted melee abilities, but require introducing them to your rotation to maintain the playstyle.

I think it's a waste of a Trait/Action slot to add an AOE finisher in the 70-80 levels. If it's an earlier level change, then it's fine (Tether could be reworked as Tri-Bind was for SMN and it did change its AOE rotation)

On the one-hand I will agree that it's very late for us to gain more AoE actions. On the other, I won't object to having anything to reduce Scatter spam for an entire expansion, and it's not like BLMs get their main AoEs particularly early.