Shadowbringers RDM Wishlist

[Archwizard]

In other news...

I think a lot of the ideas we have for new spells are awfully hung up on "every Black spell must have a White counterpart and vice versa".
Bear in mind, we have two White utility spells that presently have no counterparts whatsoever and are not relegated to building White Mana -- and with the current state of BLM we don't have many options in the way of Black utilities to balance them out, either.

This in particular is why I'm completely fine with introducing Ice and Water spells as having entirely unrelated positions in the rotation; at the end of the day, there are multiple ways for spells to "balance" to the satisfaction of Red Mage lore, particularly if we argue we cast both sides just as often overall. (Sure, it may be a bit lopsided in practice, but I know loads of RDMs who go out of their way to only use their favorite Verfinisher, so practice clearly isn't a make-or-break concern.)

Why not have Ice magic as our MP recovery, if we cast it as infrequently in a raid as recovery spells? Why not have Water magic as our main cleave, if we churn out just as much Ice damage in and out of AoE? Why not have a Black AoE Verfinisher if we built it with White spells (other than that we probably don't need an AoE Verfinisher all that much right now)?
Would anyone object if they swapped Verflare with Verfoul? I think it'd be more fitting to have the opposite of Holy be a Dark spell after all. They could always recycle Verflare elsewhere.

Just a bit of rambling. Probably an unpopular opinion, I just think we're limiting ourselves by declaring "copy this spell twice but change the element" as the only means to "balance" our casting as far as lore is concerned.

[Kalise]

I think a lot of the ideas we have for new spells are awfully hung up on "every Black spell must have a White counterpart and vice versa".

Most of it is gameplay related.

Since, like you said, there are limited option of Black Magic utility.

So it's likely that any Black Magic will be an offensive cast. Meaning, logically, it should build Black Mana.

Without a White counterpart, we now have a situation where RDM is inherently imbalanced between Black and White Mana.

Unless said Black spell is something more akin to Jolt/Impact and thus can be considered "Neutral" and grant both Mana types.

This is where utilities comes into play. We can easily have inequal amounts of utilities like Vercure/Verraise as due to their niche usage, they don't generate any Mana so don't impact the gameplay of RDM which is about managing and balancing out Mana.

As such, imbalance between the schools of magic can exist, so long as you are able to justify why said skill won't generate Mana or would generate both types of Mana.

[Archwizard]

Meaning, logically, it should build Black Mana.

Why? As I said, Vercure and Verraise don't generate White Mana, so logically not every Black or White spell needs to, even when they have a potency value.

If a Black spell were to recover MP instead of generate Mana, how would that be any different than recovering HP?

[Kalise]

Why? As I said, Vercure and Verraise don't generate White Mana, so logically not every Black or White spell needs to, even when they have a potency value.

If a Black spell were to recover MP instead of generate Mana, how would that be any different than recovering HP?

so long as you are able to justify why said skill won't generate Mana or would generate both types of Mana.

As is currently, every Black spell is a damaging skill that is part of the RDM rotation and generates Black Mana.

You need to justify why a skill won't follow this pattern.

Especially with something as vague as "If a Black spell were to recover MP". What are its mechanics? Where does it fit? Is it akin to Assize? Or is it more like Syphon Strike/Riot Blade? How much Potency does it have? Will people actually ever cast the thing instead of trying to play around Lucid/Refresh? Is it oGCD?

A spell needs justification for existing and for its mechanics.

If such a spell is a GCD skill, then it will need to either be REALLY strong (Thus being used on CD irregardless of MP restore) or generate Mana in order to see much use within RDM kits (Basically, it needs to be able to not be a massive DPS loss to cast it and given how much of RDM revolves around getting off as many melee combos as possible Mana or high raw potency to offset the delay in Mana generation is required). Since if its entire point of existing is "Sometimes you die and get raised and Lucid and Refresh are on CD and then you can use this skill" that's not a particularly interesting skill.

If it's oGCD, then there's no reason it needs to be a Black spell. You could just make it a hybrid spell like Jolt/Impact/Scatter or a neutral spell like Fleche/Contre Sixte (The former makes more sense as an attack that restores MP, combining Black (Damage) and White (Support) aspects)

These are the things to think about.

If you're adding a Black Spell for support. Why? What is it about Black that makes it be the go to school (Given Black magic is traditionally focused on making thing explode)? Why wouldn't it work better as a Hybrid/White spell?

If you're just adding the skill as a Black spell because "Well, we have 2 White support spells" then aren't you also just following the thought process you were just complaining about people being stuck in?

In general, because Black spells are more explody in nature, it is assumed that Black spells in RDM's kit will be offensive casts that generate Black Mana and be part of their rotation. Anything outside of that needs some quantifying about why it exists. With Black support skills needing even more because of White's natural affinity for supportive spells (Including MP related things, see: Assize and Thin Air and to an extent, Freecure)

[Archwizard]

Especially with something as vague as "If a Black spell were to recover MP". What are its mechanics? Where does it fit? Is it akin to Assize? Or is it more like Syphon Strike/Riot Blade? How much Potency does it have? Will people actually ever cast the thing instead of trying to play around Lucid/Refresh? Is it oGCD?

Well, what I've been working with, refined by our more recent discussions:

Verfreeze (240 MP, 2 sec cast): Deals ice damage to the target and enemies nearby it with a potency of 50 to the first target and 40% less for all remaining enemies.
Additional effect: Ice damage over time
> Potency: 35
> Duration: 30 sec
> The caster can only have one instance of this effect active at a time.
Additional effect: Damage over time ticks inflict 60% damage to enemies within 5y
Additional effect: Refresh
> Potency: 20
> This effect persists while Verfreeze is active on an enemy.

If my math's right, Refresh 20 is about enough to double our base MP economy and allow us to break even with our main rotation, saving LD for emergencies.
Damage numbers are subject to change, but they're presently based on the removal of potency from movement skills (approx 195p/30s), replacing one Jolt II per cast, and the approximate damage difference between Thunder III and IV (40%). This isn't accounting for the effect the loss of a GCD of mana would have on our theoretical DPS, of course, but I would hope the MP generation and reduced cost would net neutral at least.
And of course, the TAoE portion allows us to save button space from gaining 3-4 iterations of the same DoT, with one button that's equally useful in ST (for the MP) and AoE (for the cleave damage).

I believe this fits all of your stated criteria, and works as a "BLM utility" given the connection to Umbral Ice. Would you not concur?

[Kalise]

I believe this fits all of your stated criteria, and works as a "BLM utility" given the connection to Umbral Ice. Would you not concur?

I'm against passive MP regen that you just put up on CD. That you just keep up 100% of the time irregardless of its MP regen effect.

Since, unlike those 3 main jobs that have MP regen mechanics as part of their normal rotation (PLD, DRK, BLM) RDM doesn't have the same level of MP expenditure and as a result, focus on leveraging MP gain/usage.

This kind of suggestion is akin to suggesting "RDM's rotation skills should cost no MP" which is a step backwards in my opinion. I think active MP management should be more of a thing in the game, especially heading into ShB where TP is being removed (So maybe physical classes might also need resource management with no more infinite TP)

Now, because of RDM's focus on Mana management, I don't necessarily require something like with PLD/DRK/BLM where they have to focus around the MP generator, but something a little more thought provoking than "You get infinite MP (Outside having to Raise a bunch... But then you get Lucid to aid with that)"

[Shurrikhan]

Snip

Don't we have enough maintenance buffs? If Mana is to be such an issue, shouldn't we simply reduce RDM's MP costs, apart from Verraise, in the first place? And if we want to abuse our utility even further, then, frankly, the compensating MP restoration should be more alike to a GCD-spam.

[Archwizard]

I'm against passive MP regen that you just put up on CD. That you just keep up 100% of the time irregardless of its MP regen effect.

This kind of suggestion is akin to suggesting "RDM's rotation skills should cost no MP" which is a step backwards in my opinion. I think active MP management should be more of a thing in the game, especially heading into ShB where TP is being removed (So maybe physical classes might also need resource management with no more infinite TP)

Now, because of RDM's focus on Mana management, I don't necessarily require something like with PLD/DRK/BLM where they have to focus around the MP generator, but something a little more thought provoking than "You get infinite MP (Outside having to Raise a bunch... But then you get Lucid to aid with that)"

Yet you were advocating for a passive Mana generator in the one area of our damage we explicitly don't want another passive.

To say it's akin to saying "our rotation should be free" or "we should have infinite MP" is a stretch; you could use exactly the same logic to justify not giving any kind of MP recovery to anyone if they could potentially net-neutral.
I'm simply arguing that under current circumstances, in most high-end content we're basically living CD to CD with Lucid. In fact, exactly because TP is going away in ShB is why we RDMs in particular should raise our concerns with this, because if our melee combo isn't going to cost us TP anymore, just what do you think it'll cost?

Giving us a constant, weak Refresh mechanic that we would have to maintain is little different from giving us a rotational ability we build up to or a CD we'll smack on cooldown that gives us a large % of MP all at once, except that we would still have to wait at least ten seconds to regenerate the MP necessary to cast Verraise, rather than casting it immediately. And funnily enough, exactly those kinds of abilities already exist among other casters -- even BLM has one they never use!

Don't we have enough maintenance buffs? If Mana is to be such an issue, shouldn't we simply reduce RDM's MP costs, apart from Verraise, in the first place? And if we want to abuse our utility even further, then, frankly, the compensating MP restoration should be more alike to a GCD-spam.

What "maintenance buffs" do we have as RDMs? Access only to Lucid Dreaming is precisely the point being argued, and we don't juggle buffs or debuffs like other casters or even most other DPS; aside from Embolden, our entire rotation centers around instantaneous and single-use effects.

Meanwhile, we already have some of the lowest MP costs in the game, Vercure and Verraise aside, and yet here we are because we can't recover near what we spend. Besides, how would reducing the costs across the board to be closer to our base regen be any better than just raising our regen (and maybe the cost of Verraise)?