Rdm in 5.0?

[Archwizard]

All AoE is boring... Actually Red Mages is already one of the more interesting ones... Scatter spam into Moulinet is more interesting than simple Death Blossom spam, or Total Eclipse spam, or Quick Nock spam, or Spread Shot spam...

Maybe I'm just a little spoiled by the more extensive options offered to Black Mage and Summoner then, particularly considering caster LBs are devoted to AoE which kinda makes it seem like AoE is a big "niche" for us. Might have something to do with the long cast times we casters face compared to the mostly instant classes you just listed off.

That suggestion was more to not waste action slots on AoE. I'm not a fan of the skill bloat we're seeing (which is an odd thing to say during a skill prune, but here we are...). Just converting an already existing skill (Scatter) into a stance? Achieves the exact same thing without bloating our hotbar. Actually arguably it can achieve more; Verstone and Verfire could become AoE as well, heck Vercure could. That'd be interesting.

You know what would be an even simpler solution than an AoE stance? Removing AoE from the game entirely! No more trash packs between bosses, just a chain of minibosses over and over.
What you're proposing is basically the same effect after all - same rotation in single-target as in AoE.
Except, AoE has its place in this game as with most others. Distilling gameplay to its most compact form is efficient design, but "efficient" is not always the same as "good" or even "preferable".

And again... what skill bloat? We're a new job, we suffered very little from skill bloat compared to someone like AST or SMN. Six role actions just got trimmed, both Verfinishers just got molded into other buttons and the new Scorch shares a slot with Jolt as well. Tether also may be gone to boot.
Meanwhile in your favor we have two known advancements on new buttons, and Scatter being split into -gasp- two skills -- wow -- and we also know that more iterations are coming to those based solely on their names being exact duplicates of existing skills.
So that's 4 new buttons, on top of dropping 10 (and saving one new one), on a class that was on the lower end of bloat to begin with? Without the role actions we break even.

Bear in mind, you're suggesting an alternate replacement for Scatter -- which means you're doing this to effectively trim one more button.
... This is the hill you want to die on?

I don't see changing AoE so it's the inverse of our single target rotation to really be "loads better".

On the contrary, I was focusing on multiple facets of it. For starters, it takes an average of 7-8 GCDs of just casting Scatter before we can perform one Enchanted Moulinet. Between the changes offered, it now takes only 4 GCDs to lead up to Enchanted Moulinet, the majority of which are different skills, in addition to the ability to stock up to five Moulinets in a row over the three we had before. It's intuitive without lacking in variety.

Machinist can summon B.O.B and I can spam White Scatter and Black Scatter instead of just Scatter in dungeons? Excuse me if I'm a little peeved at that.

Considering AoE is more than half of most dungeons (and alliance raids for that matter), I'm glad that I'm not going to spend several minutes at a time between bosses pressing one button over and over.

What he wants is stupid then,

And yet we still owe "what he wants" for the class we have. Please take your entitlement elsewhere.

[Nalien]

And yet we still owe "what he wants" for the class we have. Please take your entitlement elsewhere.

I'm sorry, I thought the point of these forums was to provide the dev team with feedback?

His vision for Corps-a-corps/Displacement does not match the realities of gameplay. Displacement outright by their own admission given the implementation of Engagement as a solution to "You couldn't use Displacement when it would throw you off arenas" problem.

Keeping them as part of the DPS rotation, and wasting a new skill on trying to fix issues with that, purely because the concept of dashing in for a combo then dashing out for a finisher looks nice? That is stupid. More so when it's entirely optional to even play to that "cool" rotation. They could certainly force us to play like that, but then the issues with Displacement become worse... It's almost like the whole concept is flawed and needs readdressing... That's why they made adjustments to other such skills in Stormblood, forcing Red Mage to be an exception that still has its dash skills as part of its DPS rotation, despite all that, simply because it looks cool... Frankly that is stupid...

You know what would be an even simpler solution than an AoE stance? Removing AoE from the game entirely! No more trash packs between bosses, just a chain of minibosses over and over.

That's a nice strawman you've crafted up there, love the hyperbole, really compelling argument.

And again... what skill bloat?

Right, when I say skill bloat I mean more the fact that Red Mage, purely as a result of its White/Black Gauge design, has a lot of skills that are completely identical. I think this is pretty much unavoidable at some level, but it's still something I'd like to minimize if at all possible, so now having White and Black Scatter? Doesn't help.

And again, if you have Scatter as a stance instead... You've got a superior rotation to what they're even offering now, if you care about the AoE rotation so much... It would be the same as the single target rotation, except that's being pruned now since Jolt II no longer has Impactful. We've lost from the current rotation in order to do what? Make single target spell rotation Jolt II/Verstone/fire > Veraero/thunder and AoE Veraero/thunder > Impact?

Heck, with an AoE stance, why even stop at the spells? Lets move Reprise down to Lv52 in place of Moulinet and simply have it turn into Moulinet when you activate the stance... We get a niche skill like Reprise earlier, and free up the Lv76 slot for something (hopefully) a tad more exciting. Granted, enhanced Reprise could change opinions on that currently, but I wont hold my breath on that...

Considering AoE is more than half of most dungeons (and alliance raids for that matter), I'm glad that I'm not going to spend several minutes at a time between bosses pressing one button over and over.

Fair enough, if you find Verthunder > Impact > Veraero > Impact > Moulinet engaging I wont bother arguing otherwise. Personally I found AoE pulls more engaging by offering support to the tank/healer, losing additionals really hurts in that regard. I can't be the only person who actively used skills like Apocatastasis and Erase on such pulls, right? Personally I'd rather see that concept expanded upon to engage DPS in AoE pulls, than the fairly lame illusion of variety Black and White Scatter offer...

Granted, such content has never been tuned such that throwing out Apocatastasis when there are a bunch of magic based enemies really achieved anything, but by the same count, such content is tuned such that you can spam unenhanced Moulinet and still clear it...

Maybe I'm just a little spoiled by the more extensive options offered to Black Mage and Summoner then

Wait, what options does Summoner have exactly? That's purely just Tri-bind spam... And even that's only during Dreadwyrm Trance... Unless you're counting oGCDs, but in that case most Jobs have far more options, I don't mention them simply because oGCDs either maintain value in single target scenarios, or have some cost associated that provides a tad more depth to the Job using them. That's something that applies beyond AoE as well, Samurais Kenki for example does the same thing with it's dash-in and dash-out, the associated gauge cost makes such skills more interesting, IMO. As for Black Mage... Well most of its options are a result of it having more Job mechanics, Umbral/Astra namely, and actually having DoTs for Thunder, Flare and Foul have value in single target scenarios as well, although I suppose that might be changing with 5.0.

All that said, if we were sitting here looking at Red Mage having new ways to spend its gauge in AoE situations, instead of building it? I'd be a lot more interested. Just in general I'd like more things to do with the gauge, the building mechanic is already there and perfectly fine, it didn't really need new additions to it IMO. What we needed was more ways to play with the gauge. Hopefully enhanced Reprise can at least offer something there if nothing else, but the description given thus far leaves a lot to be desired...

[Zyneste]

Fair enough, if you find Verthunder > Impact > Veraero > Impact > Moulinet engaging I wont bother arguing otherwise. Personally I found AoE pulls more engaging by offering support to the tank/healer, losing additionals really hurts in that regard. I can't be the only person who actively used skills like Apocatastasis and Erase on such pulls, right? Personally I'd rather see that concept expanded upon to engage DPS in AoE pulls, than the fairly lame illusion of variety Black and White Scatter offer...

This is what has me the saddest. Not just for Trash pulls but for raids. Being able to apoc the tank while a healer is down then erase right after the tank buster without losing any damage, but significantly increasing the survival of the tank just feels so good. But we cut 3 skills (Erase/apoc/Manashift) for the sake of button bloat, but that leaves us at 5 less buttons than we had in SB? Surely we can handle 2-3 OGCD support skills with all this space they've created for us? Why can't we have the "Best" of both worlds and have this AOE system AND OGCD support? :c

[Archwizard]

I'm sorry, I thought the point of these forums was to provide the dev team with feedback?

Feedback is constructive and actionable. "Corps-a-corps and Displacement's intended uses differ from reality" is feedback, "keeping them in the DPS rotation diminishes their use as mobility tools" is feedback, "I'm disappointed in what I've seen but have ideas to improve it" is feedback.

"It's stupid" is hurling insults, itself a big part of why a lot of devs don't look at feedback.

"The devs' core intent for the class is stupid" is an implication that your design ideas differ wildly from the devs while simultaneously using insult to hold yours superior to theirs, with only personal bias to back that up. That's entitlement, plain and simple.

That's a nice strawman you've crafted up there, love the hyperbole, really compelling argument.

It would be a strawman if it was a stretch from what you said, but you literally just doubled-down on declaring that the gameplay of AoE and single-target should be exactly the same. Said hyperbole illustrated that the function is little different for us from what you suggested.

That's purely just Tri-bind spam... And even that's only during Dreadwyrm Trance... Unless you're counting oGCDs, but in that case most Jobs have far more options, I don't mention them simply because oGCDs either maintain value in single target scenarios, or have some cost associated that provides a tad more depth to the Job using them.

You can't really write-off the Aetherflow oGCDs in SMN's case. Painflare and Bane are both important aspects of SMN AoE, especially when they're part of activating Dreadwyrm Trance in the first place -- and of course, Bane has its own prerequisites. Deathflare is as big to their AoE as Foul is for BLMs and Contre Sixte for us.

All that said, if we were sitting here looking at Red Mage having new ways to spend its gauge in AoE situations, instead of building it? I'd be a lot more interested. Just in general I'd like more things to do with the gauge, the building mechanic is already there and perfectly fine, it didn't really need new additions to it IMO. What we needed was more ways to play with the gauge.

I disagree. It makes more practical sense to strengthen our foundations before adding more to the top, especially when you consider aspects like how long you're spending building up the gauge versus the length of the windows where you're actually expending it.

While obviously not as extreme, that principle is a big part of the feedback against SMNs: Demi-Bahamut took way too long to build up versus the value it had upon the rotation, yet SMN keeps continuously building upward.

Reduce buildup time to a reasonable balance and then it will be more exciting to have a top-heavy rotation.

[Nalien]

It would be a strawman if it was a stretch from what you said, but you literally just doubled-down on declaring that the gameplay of AoE and single-target should be exactly the same. Said hyperbole illustrated that the function is little different for us from what you suggested.

I fail to see how my simple apathy to AoE GCD rotations in any way leads to the ridiculousness of your strawman argument of "Just remove trash packs entirely!". Just because I simply don't care if I'm spamming Scatter or using three different spells instead, doesn't remotely indicate such an absurdity... All I'm saying is a stance achieves pretty much the exact same thing, if not more (since you can apply it to Verstone/etc and have the exact same depth of the single target rotation in the AoE one, even have it the toggle for Moulinet which frees up space for other skills, heck you could work it on Vercure if we're feeling spicy), while also paving the way towards a new avenue for Red Mage to go down (abilities that alter the spells effects).

You can dislike the suggestion if you like, but there's no reason to resort to such absurdities. Has me more incline to just ignore what you're saying than bother engaging in any form of debate.

"The devs' core intent for the class is stupid" is an implication that your design ideas differ wildly from the devs while simultaneously using insult to hold yours superior to theirs, with only personal bias to back that up. That's entitlement, plain and simple.

Corps-a-corps and Displacement are the core of Red Mage? Pretty sure the core is building the gauge, using it on the melee combo, and performing the finisher. Corps-a-corps and Displacement are just tools to help with mobility. Tools most Jobs have, but are not required as part of any DPS rotation, because SE rightly identified the issues inherent to that... Except for Red Mage, Red Mage has to include them as part of their DPS rotations because it looks cool... I'm sorry, but if you cannot see the idiotic hypocrisy on display here, then there's no point continuing this argument... I mean, I think Repelling Shot has a cool animation too, and I enjoyed it being part of Bards damage rotation before they rightly removed the damage from it because the concept didn't work in practice...

You can't really write-off the Aetherflow oGCDs in SMN's case. Painflare and Bane are both important aspects of SMN AoE, especially when they're part of activating Dreadwyrm Trance in the first place -- and of course, Bane has its own prerequisites. Deathflare is as big to their AoE as Foul is for BLMs and Contre Sixte for us.

I'm not writing them off, it's just they're oGCDs. They have cooldowns. They can still potentially be useful in single target situations. What you spam is Tri-Bind. What you spam is Fire II (or at least it was, I've not checked in with Black Mage in a long time). oGCDs are mixed in to spice things up, but Veraero II and Verthunder II (I assume they missed a II off the naming for the showcase build) are not oGCDs, they don't spice anything up IMO. I honestly just don't see a world of difference between Scatter spam, and doing Veraero II > Impact > Verthunder II > Impact. You're just pressing 1 3 2 3 instead of 1 1 1 1, there's still nothing to really keep track of or focus on... Mix a Verstone II and Verfire II in there and perhaps its a bit more interesting, since you'd be watching for Ready procs just like the single target rotation, but do that an we're really talking about skill bloat which brings us right back to "Just add a stance".

Heck, it gets worse when you factor in the potency of spells... Given Impact is 220 potency, and Veraero and Verthunder are 310 potency, Impact is worthwhile even on two mobs (120 potency more). This effectively removes what I'd be more incline to enjoy from the current AoE rotation (were I to care about AoE rotations), recognizing that we're down to three mobs and mixing Veraero and Verthunder in instead. I have to pay attention with that, that's more engaging IMO.

I disagree. It makes more practical sense to strengthen our foundations before adding more to the top, especially when you consider aspects like how long you're spending building up the gauge versus the length of the windows where you're actually expending it.

I think the foundations were solid enough as is... Veraero II and Verthunder II don't really add anything, all they've done is stabilize the gauge building by removing Scatter procs. The change that is actually nice is the one to the cost of Enhanced Moulinet, Veraero II and Verthunder II are inconsequential next to that... If gauge building is that big a problem though, I'd again say the solution is more oGCDs rather than two new AoE GCDs... Something like Manafication helps with gauge building in both single target and AoE situations, for example...

Now that I think about it, actually... It's a shame Acceleration still has no place in the AoE rotation... I always wished it would get adjusted to force a Scatter proc, since that would give you one more thing to remember during AoE rotations, but with Scatter gone that's no longer a possibility...

I'm also honestly not seeing how the new rotation is a faster buildup actually... You get to Moulinet faster purely because it costs 10 gauge less, other than that the only thing it is is more consistent because of a lack of Scatter RNG.

Lets just look at 10 GCDs for simplicity sake;

With the 5.0 changes, you'll get to 36 - 29 on your gauge. (Aero (7 - 0) > Impact (10 - 3) > Thunder (10 - 10) > Impact (13 - 13) > Aero (20 - 13) > Impact (23 - 16) > Thunder (23 - 23) > Impact (26 - 26) > Aero (33 - 26) > Impact (36 - 29))
With 10 Scatters? That's 30 - 30 with no procs. Throw a single proc in and that's 37 - 37. While RNG never works like this, 30% chance for a proc should mean you get at least two procs over 10 GCDs, which would put you at 44 - 44.

Not that I'm a fan of Scatter RNG, but well... Like I said, the main change here is the reduction to Enhanced Moulinets cost... You hit that threshold faster because of that change, not because of any change to the rate we fill the gauge, if anything that's slower, although it's nice for it not to be RNG dependent, but again I think just letting Acceleration play a role there would have helped with that...

[Archwizard]

Corps-a-corps and Displacement are the core of Red Mage?

Believe it or not, the driving force behind most design intent is archetypal aesthetics. You can apply that to most jobs: from classic war wizard aesthetic for the Black Mage to the Naruto mudra shuffling of Ninjas to the rhythm gameplay of Dancers. In our case, the aesthetic of balancing white and black magic, of weaving magic with fencing, of agilely flipping in and out of action -- trying to fit the "jack of all trades" imagery into a pure DPS with supportive utility.
Taking the visual image of "I'd like to see this" gives the devs a kernel to build around, and defines or influences what a job should and shouldn't receive in the future.

I'm not saying you're wrong that having our flips influence our damage output is a bad idea -- it's one I wholeheartedly agree with, and believe that our mobility tools should be conserved for said mobility -- but in seeking to fulfill the aesthetic, the devs wanted to create an incentive for us to use the flips regularly (as opposed to just sitting in melee, auto-attacking between casts for bonus DPS, never touching Displacement). We can agree that they chose a poor incentive and discuss better ones instead, but simply saying "that's dumb, remove it" is a slap in the face to the design intent.

What you spam is Fire II (or at least it was, I've not checked in with Black Mage in a long time).

Hasn't been Fire 2 for a long time; nobody really uses the "II" spells as BLM anymore.
For SB it's been more a weave of Bliz3, Bliz4, Fire3, Flare x2, Transpose, repeat until Foul and sprinkling Thunder 4 as Thundercloud procs pop or the DoT falls off. The changes in ShB will hopefully replace the Bliz spells with Freeze, asserting more area damage into the AoE rotation. Big reason we're not including oGCDs here is 'cuz its cast times are longer than its GCD, unlike SMN and RDM, and their CDs are longer than most trash pulls.
Point being, much like SMN, way more active than "spam Scatter till it dies".

Now that I think about it, actually... It's a shame Acceleration still has no place in the AoE rotation... I always wished it would get adjusted to force a Scatter proc, since that would give you one more thing to remember during AoE rotations, but with Scatter gone that's no longer a possibility...

I can understand why they didn't, though. Scatter procs gave 20 Mana, second in gains only to our Verfinishers, while the other options we could produce only gave 9 Mana apiece -- and the act of using the proc in itself gave a chance to proc another.
I know I for one have popped an Enhanced Scatter in single-target just for the speed. Sure it was a direct damage loss, but dropping a Jolt for it also saved multiple GCDs on the way to our melee combo.
Trying to rebalance this (or at least iron out the unintended niche) may very well have influenced the decision to remove Scatter.

I'm also honestly not seeing how the new rotation is a faster buildup actually...

In fairness to this point, the rotation does slow down slightly once you pick up Impact (as each of the quickcasts produce 7 Mana of their respective types while Impact produces only 6 total), which is a point I hope they will change.
Even at Impact 4/4, you'd be 41-34 which while below 10 Scatters with 2 or more procs, would be stronger than one proc and still be more reliable, not to mention generally less mindless.
Personally I hope they go the full 9 yards and tweak it to give more Mana based on the number of targets hit.

[Zyneste]

In our case, the aesthetic of balancing white and black magic, of weaving magic with fencing, of agilely flipping in and out of action -- trying to fit the "jack of all trades" imagery into a pure DPS with supportive utility.

We sure are supportive now with our uh Addle and uh our two other skills that cost us 274~368 potency per cast while stalling our actual job mechanics. I am really low key hoping that they take VerRaise off the GCD [Same for SMN if they still even have a raise] and just put it on a 60 second timer.

If we lack any real tools to keep people off the ground we shouldn't be punished for when they die. Our support shouldn't cost us DPS. See the rework of Mage's Ballad [Damage reduced, PT MP restored over time] into refresh [no cost MP restore over time.]

[Archwizard]

We sure are supportive now with our uh Addle and uh our two other skills that cost us 274~368 potency per cast while stalling our actual job mechanics.

I mean... would you rather not have Vercure and Verraise? Nobody's forcing you to use them.

Also, why do you people keep on naming role actions as if they're exclusive to us? BLM gets the same ones we do, I've yet to see anyone claiming BLM gets potent utility. Erase and Apocatastasis weren't exactly gamechanging like the stuns melee get or the interrupts ranged are getting, they just let us sneak the value of an Esuna or heal in before the healer does -- like wow, you saved them the MP of one of their cheapest casts?

[Zyneste]

I mean... would you rather not have Vercure and Verraise? Nobody's forcing you to use them.

Also, why do you people keep on naming role actions as if they're exclusive to us? BLM gets the same ones we do, I've yet to see anyone claiming BLM gets potent utility. Erase and Apocatastasis weren't exactly gamechanging like the stuns melee get or the interrupts ranged are getting, they just let us sneak the value of an Esuna or heal in before the healer does -- like wow, you saved them the MP of one of their cheapest casts?

If someone dies with a BLM in the party, what does the BLM care so long as the run is still viable? It won't affect their rotation in the slightest. If someone dies with a RDM in the party and both healers aren't able to raise, guess who should be raising?

RDM has an incentive to stay supportive, BLM is the selfish DPS archetype. Even though they shared the same skills, using Manashift was much more detrimental to their DPS and was really only available during their umbral phase again, because of DPS. All of their OGCD support skills really rely on triple cast use lining up with their need to use it.

RDM can support on the fly. Every 3 seconds we can shoot off that OGCD ability and at no cost. This made the support feel natural and added to the complexity of the job without being a burden to DPS, like it is on BLM.

Its more like, if those were considered "roles" of the caster then why didn't SE further them into SHB? Why didn't we see more meaningful skills worth staying as a role skill, something like Erase at 400 potency and 60 second CD? Looking at dancer's OGCD 400 potency AOE heal and GUN's 1200 HoT really shows that they are all for giving non-healing classes limited OGCD healing/party mitigation for burst moments.

Why then did they skip casters, when they had already established that casters could contribute to party survivability with the previous role skills [Addle, manashift, erase, apocastasis.] Why remove them when we have no button bloat?

If Dancer is the only Ranged with a viable heal, I don't see why RDM couldn't bring one as well. Vercure is great and all, but its well known that its just for its RDM novelty and for when you need to proc a dualcast before a boss reappears.

[Kabooa]

If we lack any real tools to keep people off the ground we shouldn't be punished for when they die. Our support shouldn't cost us DPS. See the rework of Mage's Ballad [Damage reduced, PT MP restored over time] into refresh [no cost MP restore over time.]

This is literally like the worst example to use, because it's one of the reasons Ranged DPS came extremely close to completely invalidating casters.