Shadowbringers RDM Wishlist

[SaberMaxwell]

Hello everyone, OP's friend posting on behalf of OP.

EDIT: OP said to say thank you all for making this such a huge thread!

[*]Engagement's heart is in the right place, but costing us DPS to use just makes smaller arenas feel like a targeted damage penalty towards us.

This is totally fair, but it's worth point out that small arenas are already targeted against us. An ability like Engagement reduces the effect of that targeted reduction by a reasonable amount. It was a good compromise IMO that gives us a risk v reward decision to make: is the risk of missing aoe heals / hitting a wall worth the extra 50 potency? Etc.

[*]Reprise is an interesting idea, but unless it gives us more than "Scathe, at a price" it also will be avoided as often as we can help it. It honestly seems very odd that two of our five advancements are spent on "optimally, you'll never use this because you have better skills for all other intents and purposes" niche skills -- and I'm concerned the other two besides Scorch will just be minor traits that don't change our gameplay at all.

I can see where you're coming from here. Personally I see Reprise as both "Scathe at a price" and "I won't be able to get back to melee due to mechanics anytime soon, but I don't want to overcap mana." It's a net to catch mistakes I think. Who knows, maybe it could also function as a "delay the melee burst for when TA is up." type deal as well.

[*]Really hoping Scorch isn't an AoE skill. Doing an entire single-target melee combo to unlock an AoE spell when we have a perfectly good AoE melee attack that could never do so, would be jarring.

Up until Shadowbringers, RDM was the only mage whose finisher wasn't AoE. Foul and Akh Morn/Deathflare were both AoE finishers that hit hard. I wouldn't mind Scorch being AoE I think, but I honestly am surprised they're making our spike damage even spikier.

[*]From an aesthetic standpoint: I don't mind moving Impact, but why'd they give us another Verthunder and Veraero when we have room for Verwater and Verblizzard? I mean, the visual effects look good but the names and technical effects are very, very confusing.

I admit I was also confused by the new effects; when I first saw them I thought they were Verthunder 2 and Veraero 2 and both would be single-target upgrades. Had to rewatch to catch that they're AoE. I think Verwater and Verblizzard would have been better names too. I'm also of team "Impact should be called Roseflare." But yeah, I'm glad that Impact has its own identity now beyond "Jolt 2 but better unless you try casting it too late."

[*]No word whatsoever on what happens to Verraise since it still costs just as much, which I would think would be all over Yoshi P's mind presenting us. Gonna call the leaks about us fake until we hear otherwise.

This disappointed me the most. I was hoping they would make Verraise a 60s CD with no cost: it would have been a great compromise! RDM's raises would still have a unique power (insta and free) but also be much more easily controlled as far as prog goes (no spammability).

[*]... which means our MP concerns are still exactly the same as before, just without Mana Shift eating us.[/list]

We'll have to see how the actual numbers turn out, but Lucid's CD was 60 seconds and I don't think Ranged DPS lost their mana song abilities. Even just with Lucid being 60s cooldown as far as the showcase we got had, we should be fine unless we try to be the Human Healer LB3.