Shadowbringers RDM Wishlist

[Nalien]

On the plus side I imagine Red Mage will be seeing love in 5.1+, serious Shake it Off/Scholar vibes from 4.0 at this point though.

[Grimoire-M]

In terms of potency per mana Reprise is respectable tbh. It's close to hitting as hard as Veraero/Thunder too so it's not really a heavy DPS loss compared to your normal rotation. It actually seems worthwhile to dump 1 or 2 Reprises before Manafication if that ever comes up. It's certainly worth using to align your melee combo with raid buffs. Just not spam-worthy.

[Lauront]

Stahp im already sad. Gun looking sexy for self shields and Aurora alone. ;c

Yep. Boring, but not "bad." :c

I realllllly wanted to see Erase get that shorter 60 sec cd with 400 potency or to see RDM get their own unique skill that melded Black and White magic together, something like an OGCD Magic Damage taken reduced by 5-10% for 8 seconds and a HoT for 12 seconds with a cool down of 60 seconds.

It's just a pity that 2 of the 3 casters' new job abilities could be described as "boring but not bad". A lot of the upgrades are functional in nature, but at the same time they're the kind of thing you could achieve through trait/ability consolidation and reworking existing abilities, and not things that merit a level 70-80 skill. I'm still tentative on how SMN will turn out, but it's looking like the trailblazer of the 3 in terms of new abilities.

[Nalien]

I really wish they'd played up Red Mages swordplay a bit more. Arguably Engagement and Reprise do just that, but they're both so niche by design that I can't really call them part of Red Mages active rotation.

Engagement specifically I feel needs to be addressed ASAP. I think it needs to do something that rewards you for staying in melee range, rather than checking out with Displacement, rather than the current "I'm being punished by losing 50 potency solely because of this arenas design" utility it currently represents. Honestly I think an auto-attack buff would be interesting, something similar to Sword Oath, a bit late for animation reworks of course, but having Red Mage shoot out a Fleche style sword (still need an updated unique animation for those, too) with each auto-attack would also be a whole lot more visually interesting than what we've currently seen.

[Jollyy5]

For months I've been telling people that RDM is in a scary place like Monk was because it has such a solid and well flowing rotation, so the developers wouldn't know what to do with it, and it seems my fears have come true...

Receiving two abilities that are effectively just "penalties" for not positioning yourself well is a real kick in the nethers, and the remaining skills we get are just plain boring.

[Nalien]

and the remaining skills we get are just plain boring.

Remaining skill, Scorch is it I'd say. Veraero II and Verthunder II are both boring (although one can argue less so that Scatter spam, but I'd also argue the change from Scatter spam to including Veraero and Verthunder as the number of targets decreased was more engaging and we've lost that, Impact is superior even on just two mobs) and technically a nerf. The rate you build gauge in 5.0 off AoE is IMO slower. It's less RNG dependent, which is nice, but it's ultimately slower as a result. The nice change to AoE isn't the addition of an actual AoE rotation, it's the reduction in the cost of Moulinet.

Also, just as a complete aside, I hope they swap Jolt II and Impact... Make Jolt II the AoE (makes sense, II spells tend to be AoEs) and give it the old Scatter animation... Jolt IIs animation is so dull... It's fine now when it's the spell you really don't want to use, but with the loss of Impact Ready it'll be used a whole lot more...

It's likely Critlo's getting removed with that action they've added. SE's already said they're planning on shield nerfs, and you won't be able to Deploy off of your Fairy anymore either. Don't expect Critlo Cheese to be as strong as it now.

Just seen an updated tooltip for Adloquium; 300 potency, granted Galvanize shield equal to 125% of HP restored. If critical also applied Catalyze shield equal to HP restored. Wont know for sure for a while, but that "also" makes it sound like you get a 125% of the Crit HP shield, +100% of the Crit HP shield. My guess would be they've balanced this out by making Deployment not work on Catalyze?

Comparing Samurais Guren and Senei (my god that potency) really doesn't help raise my opinion on Displacement and Engagement... Samurai gets a 450 potency increase for single target vs AoE scenarios. Red Mage gets a 50 potency loss by virtue of arena design... This really isn't how shared recast abilities should work... It's kind of hard to believe the same team that worked on every other Job also worked on Red Mage... Were the adjustments for this Job passed off to an intern or something?

[Grimoire-M]

For months I've been telling people that RDM is in a scary place like Monk was because it has such a solid and well flowing rotation, so the developers wouldn't know what to do with it, and it seems my fears have come true...

Receiving two abilities that are effectively just "penalties" for not positioning yourself well is a real kick in the nethers, and the remaining skills we get are just plain boring.

There are ways to evolve the job still. They're not implemented, sure, but it's not nearly as bad as Monk simply because Monk's been around long enough that SE should have done something right by them twice over now.

I personally wouldn't have implemented Reprise or Engagement but I'm glad they exist. Their AoE burst has improved too.

What I would've wanted more is Verwater/blizzard, Chainspell as a cooldown, and another damage oGCD to juggle that helps with their MP problems and mana generation, but everything we got works.

[Archwizard]

I do find it amusing that in broad terms, everything we got was what we asked for, just not how we wanted it.

Better MP management? Lucid Dreaming's CD got halved, MP got standardized, Mana Shift got axed.
More Mana spenders? Reprise.
More time in melee? Engagement.
Faster melee combos? 10 sec off Manafication.
A "balanced" Verfinisher? Scorch.

Say what you will but at least "more engaging AoE" actually came out more or less how we expected.

[Lauront]

I think that's pretty much the issue. They were the right things to focus on but the implementation leaves something to be desired, i.e. they used up the 70-80 toolkit for it, barring the first point, which was more of a "meta" decision impacting all casters.

Particularly in the case of the AOE spells, since they're adding new ones... why not redress the absence of any frost or water spells with them? It's a peculiar decision to simply rehash Aero III (ironically, axed) and Thunder IV. Although it makes thematic sense... it feels like a missed opportunity.

[Archwizard]

I think that's pretty much the issue. They were the right things to focus on but the implementation leaves something to be desired, i.e. they used up the 70-80 toolkit for it, barring the first point, which was more of a "meta" decision impacting all casters.

Particularly in the case of the AOE spells, since they're adding new ones... why not redress the absence of any frost or water spells with them? It's a peculiar decision to simply rehash Aero III (ironically, axed) and Thunder IV. Although it makes thematic sense... it feels like a missed opportunity.

Even worse if the two new AoEs don't proc Verfire/Verstone under Acceleration.

Honestly, why do the devs seem hell-bent on making sure Ninja is the only job with all six elements? It makes sense in the case of WHM and BLM, but you ever notice we share all the same elements with SMN, aside from the addition of Thunder? Right down to the Fire/Unaspected mega-spells...