Shadowbringers RDM Wishlist

[Seraphor]

Verraise: Now costs 5 White mana.

New spell: Verward
Cooldown: 60s
Grants target party member the effect of Verward, decreasing damage received by 20% for 20s, effect reduced by 20% every 4s. costs 5 Black mana.

New trait: Enchanted Moulinet has a 30% chance of resetting the cooldown of Contre Sixte.

New trait: When White and Black mana are equal, Verholy and Verflare both change into Ardor

New spell: Ardor
Same potency as Verholy/Verflare.
Additional Effect: Generates 10 of each White and Black mana and grants the effect of Impactful.


Oh also, remove the damage value from Displacement, add that back in by increasing Corps-a-corps, Ripose, Zwerchhau and Redoublement by 30 potency each.

[Seraphor]

Bit of a shot in the dark, but if you look at the state of our rotation...

Shortcasts: Jolt/II, Impact, Scatter, Verfire, Verstone (and Vercure)
Longcasts: Veraero, Verthunder (and Verraise)

It probably shouldn't surprise anyone if we end up getting a new Longcast or two next expansion.

There’s no real reason for another long-cast spell.
The two we have are our main mana generators, one for each colour. The only option for a third would be another ‘balance’ option, which would be redundant.
Of the short-cast spells, three of them are (random) procs, so they’re not really available on demand, and they all serve as Dualcast facilitators.

I think we need a ‘balance’ finisher, something that doesn’t penalise you for having equal mana levels or reaching cap, because it’s supposed to be about balancing them after all. Ardor that I’ve suggested above would be perfect, it suits the aesthetic of the other ‘balance’ spells and being an ‘Arcane’ magic rather than Black or White is ideal. It isn’t ‘better’ than Verholy/Verflare, so you’re not striving for perfect balance, but if you happen to land on say 90/90, you don’t have to squeeze out another spell before you burst.

Then better AoE facility, the simplest option for that is granting more Contre Sixte’s, doesn’t require any new skills so no button bloat.
The only ‘extra buttons’ I’d be happy with really is additional utility, and preferably Black aspected to complement our White utility in Vercure and Verraise.

[Lauront]

Red Veil: Channeled ability. Gain white and black mana each second. Whichever mana is lower will gain 5, and whichever is higher will gain 3. These values will shift to whichever mana is lower or higher at any given time. Costs 250 MP each second. Moving, to include facing a different direction, will cancel this effect. 60 second recast. [If you black is lower, it will gain 5 mana per second until it is higher than the white mana, then it will gain 3 mana per second]

Gah, I'd love that one. But yes, with the MP cost removed as per the below post.

[Dualgunner]

Red Veil: Channeled ability. Gain white and black mana each second. Whichever mana is lower will gain 5, and whichever is higher will gain 3. These values will shift to whichever mana is lower or higher at any given time. Costs 250 MP each second. Moving, to include facing a different direction, will cancel this effect. 60 second recast. [If you black is lower, it will gain 5 mana per second until it is higher than the white mana, then it will gain 3 mana per second]

I like this, but I'd take out the mp cost since it's essentially the same ability as Meditation on SAM.

[Lubu_Mykono]

Just give me a buff that makes it raid relevant.

[Archwizard]

There’s no real reason for another long-cast spell.
The two we have are our main mana generators, one for each colour. The only option for a third would be another ‘balance’ option, which would be redundant.

Not necessarily. For instance, we have no Longcast AoE spells, and there are always opportunities to "proc upgrade" Veraero and Verthunder into other spells (such as Verwater or Verblizzard).

The only option for a third would be another ‘balance’ option, which would be redundant.

I think we need a ‘balance’ finisher, something that doesn’t penalise you for having equal mana levels or reaching cap

These two statements appear contradictory, but I'll deconstruct the latter either way. I previously considered a third Verfinisher myself for exactly the reasons you discussed, but ultimately decided against it for the following reason.

Let's say we have a third Verfinisher representing "Balance" -- Ardor, Verultima, whatever. Now we're looking at two scenarios:

1) The new Verfinisher is ultimately stronger or weaker than the other two options; it either obsoletes them, making the other two buttons clutter and compelling you to try to balance or cap your mana every time, or it is a "better luck next time" consolation prize which becomes an ideal goal of the rotation to never use. Either way the player safely leaves one or the others off their action bar.
(As an aside, Ardor as suggested would end up weaker than the other two, providing both inferior mana and a more readily available proc. The best way to improve it to the level you suggest would be to have it ignore Impactful entirely, and just provide 12-15 of each mana outright as each Verfinisher+proc technically provides 30... but...)

2) As you hope: The new Verfinisher somehow ends up being perfectly balanced with the other two, allowing the user to... safely ignore the balance gauge mechanic entirely. All three being essentially equal, having three Verfinishers is redundant and ultimately serves to clutter the design space, leading to calls to remove one or the others.

I think the takeaway from the "balance" concept isn't that we should be constantly choking our black-to-white casting ratio to be pixel-perfect -- focusing on red spells and only using black to get ahead when we can safely counter with white -- but rather that we always attempt to correct imbalances that may crop up while allowing both to flourish, empowering our white magic when our black magic pushes ahead and vice versa; that's ultimately the goal of Verholy and Verflare, and why our rotation is so proc-dependent in the first place.

To be honest, I think there are ways to make a third Verfinisher plausible by virtue of giving it its own niche (which is ultimately the point of the Red Mage, compared to Black and White), but the trouble is that in order to keep the player using all three, such scenarios would have to be so far between as to make the addition a pointless gesture.
For instance, you could have a third Verfinisher representing "balance" that substitutes mana gain for cleave damage... but then you wouldn't be able to use it with Moulinet, in scenarios where you may actually want cleave damage.
You could have a third Verfinisher that substitutes mana gain for MP gain... but then you'd be losing output from the other Verfinishers, so you'd never willingly put it into your main rotation for maintenance (though I suppose if it fully replenished your MP bar, you might consider it once in a boss fight...), and you'd have to invest ludicrous amounts of MP in order to gain MP back, making it counterintuitive to use when actually needed (ie right after being revived).

[Seraphor]

As I explained, you're currently penalised for having perfect balance, a very common scenario when the goal is to balance your mana levels.
This is very disruptive to your rotation and flow of battle, when you'd like to jump into your melee rotation you'll find yourself discouraged at the risk of losing DPS, so you have to cast another spell before you burst, which delays your burst and again reduces your average DPS.

There's no reason to penalise having a perfect balance. It wouldn't lead you to ignoring the balance gauge altogether, because you'd still need to know if one was higher than the other, or if they were equal, to know which finisher you'll need and which follow up spell will proc.

As it stands, you're paying too much attention to the balance gauge, because you're not just thinking "which one is lowest" you're thinking "which one is lowest, and which spell will not put me in perfect balance, I can either add 9 or 11 and need to ensure the diference between levels isn't exactly 9 or 11" you're forced to do constant arithmetic, which is distracting.

Having a viable option for either scenario doesn't remove any difficulty or result in less attention being required, too much reduction in attention rather, because which of the three options you find yourself using still affects how your rotation progresses.

[Archwizard]

As I explained, you're currently penalised for having perfect balance, a very common scenario when the goal is to balance your mana levels.

I wouldn't really call it a "penalty". It's not like you lose out on 600 potency if you balance -- you just go from 100% chance to proc a spell that's 1 mana stronger than Impact, to 20% (and that's not even considering if you already had the corresponding procs active going into your combo, which is arguably just as common as going into melee with a perfect balance). The fact that there's still a chance to get the proc anyway shows the devs fully expected exactly the scenarios you mentioned.
To call that a penalty is a matter of perspective; I'd argue it's more of a reward for going into it slightly unbalanced (bearing in mind that with a 100 cap and an 80 buy-in, any imbalance is still within the red territory), especially as each Verfinisher gives you the bonus for rebalancing.

Okay, sure, you lose out on damage if you overcap, but managing and controlling resource generation is a key part of gameplay for any resource. If anything I'd argue if that was truly so out of hand for us, there's more cause for another ability that shaves off some mana than a redundant finisher.
But either way what you're really asking for is a safety net against bad procs (or just bad play), which already is fairly mitigated in our design.

[Archwizard]

So, with regards to the discussion of MP:

The way I see it, there are four different ways to accomplish a unique MP recovery skill.

1) On-demand generation. Either a new spell (such as Osmose) or a trait on an existing, underused ability (ie non-Enchanted melee) that gives us a small amount of generation each time it's used, encouraging us to spam the ability as often as we need MP.
Positives: Easy to use after death, or when running out of MP as a result of Verraising. Aesthetically, a new spell could provide a Black equivalent to Vercure.
Negatives: Spells of this variety that already exist (Blood Drain, Energy Drain) are never optimally used within the core rotation, primarily because the tradeoff for generating MP comes at the cost of damage or alternative resources; if the primary intent of MP generation is rotational upkeep, then forcing the user to venture outside of it to maintain it is counter-intuitive and rewarding bad play. Plus the existing versions have painfully low generation, forcing long breaks from the rotation for a modicum of recovery.

2) Passive generation. Either a weak Refresh buff we can use on-demand, or a trait to increase our base MP recovery in-combat.
Positives: Can be slipped into the rotation opener so we can pay off upkeep, and can pay off Verraise costs at a staggered, easily-tuned rate. May not require a target.
Negatives: Boring. Slow. Literally passive. If in the form of a Refresh buff, forces maintenance within the rotation not unlike a DoT. Allows you to completely forget about MP outside of Verraise or death.

3) Burst generation. Take a strong, infrequent ability within the rotation (ie Enchanted melee/Verfinishers) and add substantial MP gain.
Positives: Already within the rotation allowing for easy maintenance, substantial MP gain can quickly (albeit infrequently) charge another use of Verraise.
Negatives: Requires us to perform a substantial portion of our rotation just to regain MP, which can be difficult if we're running low and need to regain MP.

4) Off-GCD Cooldown. Aetherflow, Convert, Assize, Ewer, another Lucid Dreaming. Either add MP gain to an existing CD (Fleche, Contre Sixte) or create a new one.
Positives: Dependent on potency. Can easily be used after resurrection or pooled for Verraising. Could be traited to dynamically reduce its recovery time during the course of combat, allowing idyllic rotational upkeep. Could inflict damage to become a part of the rotation or potentially be used without a target; broad possibilities.
Negatives: Dependent on cooldown length (though most outside LD are short; Convert is 3m but belongs to a class with innate recovery anyway). From experience with Lucid Dreaming, recovery via CD is limiting, particularly when that CD has already been activated. Plus, everyone else has one, and we already cycle like 3-4 oGCDs in our rotation.

Conclusions: Any type of MP generation needs to evenly weigh the ability to recover from a low MP state against the ability to maintain our core rotation. Every type of MP recovery known to us prioritizes one but imbalances the other. As long as we can rotate with Lucid Dreaming, pick your poison, not everyone will be happy regardless.

[kidalutz]

like Burns or Windburn there you go enhanced the basic package for RDM but lets also bear in mind the utility of Verraise and Vercure something that makes the middle of the pack damage worth taking a RDM over the Turret or DoT Boy.