RDM Scortch

[PatronasCharm]

So here's my take: we don't need to be rewarded for balance. In fact, we actively shouldn't be rewarded for it.

Thanks to that lovely Mana cap we have, we can at any time choose to balance our Mana. But we're designed that we never should by this method, to make it painfully clear that capping is bad for our DPS, and more than just "slightly". Arguably it could be considered harder to imbalance Mana without wasting active procs, especially as you get close to the Mana cap; this commonality is a large part of what makes the addition of Reprise so functional, to give us more breathing room to set up our Mana before hitting cap.
The current Verfinishers, sloppy though they may seem, accomplish in their requirement for imbalance a simple incentive not to cap your Mana -- but by the current design, the existence of a skill that can be executed and rewards you for capping out or just spamming Jolt to keep balance should be treated as a consolation for failing to execute other skills.

As we've already seen with attitudes around Engagement, "consolation" skills are not appreciated, and are treated more as a waste of design space that serve to bandaid other inherent problems within a kit.
And to say a "balance" Verfinisher should be stronger is like giving us Engagement and then making it stronger than Displacement.

If the design swerve we were served by the Verfinishers was to go out of our way to imbalance Mana, to turn back around and compel us to rebalance our Mana like we all were doing from 50 to 68 is a step backward for our gameplay, dumbing it down to an earlier state rather than building upon it.

But most importantly, and I cannot stress this enough, having 3 spells designed to accomplish one task -- regardless of how they're tuned -- is just too many freaking finishers. It's not about split-second decisions, it's about really asking to spend design resources and limited advancements on a spell that either invalidates existing spells or accomplishes a task they could with smaller adjustments, so you can glance at your Mana, go "oh I'm already 80/8X", and play whack-a-mole based on the value of X, now with 10% more laziness and a third hammering arm.
Two Verfinishers already gets weird looks for have two spells that are just the same description, but they get a pass specifically because of the intent of the Balance gauge as something that represents the volatility of two opposing forces, always in flux, never to be perfectly balanced but simply to be kept in check.
Three is just freaking ridiculous.

So they could add a third and fourth finisher, I say make AoE ones.

Verfreeze:

• Deals ice damage to a target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 290 for the first enemy, 15% less for the second, 30% less for the third, 45% less for the fourth, 60% less for the fifth, and 70% less for all remaining enemies.
• Black Mana by 21
• Additional Effect: 20% chance of becoming Verfire Ready

Verflood:

• Deals water damage to a target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 290 for the first enemy, 15% less for the second, 30% less for the third, 45% less for the fourth, 60% less for the fifth, and 70% less for all remaining enemies.
• White Mana by 21
• Additional Effect: 20% chance of becoming Verstone Ready

They could either A, have it tied in with the three-fold combo, but do:

Riposte >> Zwerchhau >> Moulinet >> Veraero II / Verthunder II become Verflood / Verfreeze

Or x3 Moulinets = Finisher

Or seeing the AoE Rotation is inverse, maybe

Moulinet >> Zwerchhau >> Riposte...

Idk, be pretty cool.

And it wouldn't really affect the general playstyle, just add another layer of AoE. Since they already tacked on a Finisher >> Scorch

Even, making Impact II be that initial Top off to Verfreeze / Verflood

Impact II:

Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 420 for the first enemy, 15% less for the second, 30% less for the third, 45% less for the fourth, 60% less for the fifth, and 70% less for all remaining enemies.
White and Black Mana by 8

[Archwizard]

So they could add a third and fourth finisher, I say make AoE ones.

Verfreeze:

• Deals ice damage to a target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 290 for the first enemy, 15% less for the second, 30% less for the third, 45% less for the fourth, 60% less for the fifth, and 70% less for all remaining enemies.
• Black Mana by 21
• Additional Effect: 20% chance of becoming Verfire Ready

Verflood:

• Deals water damage to a target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 290 for the first enemy, 15% less for the second, 30% less for the third, 45% less for the fourth, 60% less for the fifth, and 70% less for all remaining enemies.
• White Mana by 21
• Additional Effect: 20% chance of becoming Verstone Ready

They could either A, have it tied in with the three-fold combo, but do:

Riposte >> Zwerchhau >> Moulinet >> Veraero II / Verthunder II become Verflood / Verfreeze

Or x3 Moulinets = Finisher

Or seeing the AoE Rotation is inverse, maybe

Moulinet >> Zwerchhau >> Riposte...

Idk, be pretty cool.

And it wouldn't really affect the general playstyle, just add another layer of AoE. Since they already tacked on a Finisher >> Scorch

Even, making Impact II be that initial Top off to Verfreeze / Verflood

Impact II:

Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 420 for the first enemy, 15% less for the second, 30% less for the third, 45% less for the fourth, 60% less for the fifth, and 70% less for all remaining enemies.
White and Black Mana by 8

Two things.

1) Due to the nature of our AoE rotation, imbalancing is actually less likely there; we have no AoE procs (with the removal of Enhanced Scatter) and our only "imbalancing" method in ShB is through shortcasts, which makes it a very predictable rotation. Giving two AoE Verfinishers for this would be redundant, since assuming you start at 0, your Mana is only imbalanced for the single GCD after every other shortcast. Even the act of giving us procs for Verstone and Verfire is somewhat moot in AoE, since we would ignore them in any 3+ target scenario.

2) There's little value in expanding on our existing AoE rotation, largely due to the infrequency of its use on bosses. It's more efficient for us to use our AoE rotation to slowly build up the Mana gauge on trash packs, and use Moulinet conservatively to minimize Mana loss. Moulinet's purpose isn't to give us an AoE reflection of our single-target melee combo -- its intent, like Reprise, is to give us a snap means to dump Mana to prevent from overcapping. The grand call before ShB for us to have more AoE tools was because our rotation was limited to ~7 Scatter casts to the Moulinet and a 45-sec CD; now we have 5 AoE tools of frequent use, which is already on par with BLM and more than SMN.
You could arguably get just as much mileage out of just having Moulinet reduce the CD of Contre Sixte as you would get out of even one AoE Verfinisher.

[Singularity]

It's more efficient for us to use our AoE rotation to slowly build up the Mana gauge on trash packs, and use Moulinet conservatively to minimize Mana loss.

E. Moulinet is more potency per mana than the melee combo at 3+ targets, so in an instance like a dungeon where your resources are maintained throughout, it's actually most efficient to use it as much as possible provided the packs are big enough.

Everything you said above is fine as an opinion, though I disagree with the part about taking a step backward. We, in general, don't try to balance our mana from 50 to 68. There's nothing in our kit at those levels that's affected by it so we don't actually care at all beyond needing to get it above 80/80. "I don't care what my mana levels are relative to each other" is not the same thing as "I want my mana levels to be balanced".

[Archwizard]

E. Moulinet is more potency per mana than the melee combo at 3+ targets, so in an instance like a dungeon where your resources are maintained throughout, it's actually most efficient to use it as much as possible provided the packs are big enough.

To be perfectly clear, I'm not suggesting abandoning E. Moulinet altogether. By all means use it on 3+ targets, but ultimately the greater cost of completing the entire melee combo versus the time it takes to build up your standalone cleave attack means you're better off saving Mana around trash packs till you're around 80-90ish of each type and just using Moulinet once or twice each time you get into that range, shaving off the top top stay below cap rather than spending it all at once, so that you still have some Mana left over when you go into your next boss fight. In theory it's roughly the same amount of Mana being gained and spent either way, it just gives you an earlier burst phase for boss fights.
Same way we'll probably end up using Reprise when we want to mulligan our Mana near cap or not waste anything on our Manafication.

Everything you said above is fine as an opinion, though I disagree with the part about taking a step backward. We, in general, don't try to balance our mana from 50 to 68. There's nothing in our kit at those levels that's affected by it so we don't actually care at all beyond needing to get it above 80/80. "I don't care what my mana levels are relative to each other" is not the same thing as "I want my mana levels to be balanced".

Except prior to level 68, that exact same amount of disinterest kept us from going "I'll just spend another couple GCDs imbalancing my Mana" in situations where you ended up incidentally even or pushed too close to cap.

Fact is, best case scenario, Verholy and Verflare remain relevant in the presence of a "Balance" Verfinisher only because they're mathematically equal, such that the existence of all three reinstates the mindset of not caring what Mana levels are like and just hitting the appropriate button when your Mana's at least 80/80.

Worst case, you win, the Balance Verfinisher is "better" -- so the two we had are no longer relevant because even in the absence of a mana cap, between Acceleration, Reprise and the disuse of our biggest imbalancers, we have enough tools to retune our Mana should we so choose. The existing Verfinishers become dead weight skills, which means we've completely lost two advancements that could have gone anywhere else, and behaviorally we do a complete 180 as soon as we get the new skill.
Y'know how people are saying in the BLM threads to remove Fire 2 and Blizzard 2 because nobody uses them after level 50? That's what'd happen to our Verfinishers. Except in BLM's case they were part of the progressive iteration that just became obsolete, while your goal is not simple obsolescence but for even the behavior caused by Verholy and Verflare to be erased.

You've yet to say anything about why we should continue to hold, much less use, Verholy and Verflare in such a case. Because as discussed --

So, you want a reason to never cast Verholy/Verflare ever again.

Yes, that is the point.

There are a lot of ideas for ways to spend that slot that add to our kit rather than actively subtract from it as a third Verfinisher would. I can only hope the devs choose those instead.

[Burningskull]

Look at it this way. When we go from 80-90 they'll give you a trait that lets you cast Verflare after Verholy and vise versa so you can VerFlare > Scorch > VerHoly > Scorch.
(BTW if this happens it's not my fault. I was just joking Although I also wouldn't be sad if it did.)

[Singularity]

Damage on bosses is not more important than damage on trash packs. Everything in the dungeon needs to die (unless it can be skipped, but opportunities like that are rare) for the dungeon to be complete, so it's actually more efficient to save mana at the end of a boss in order to Moulinet the trash mobs more, since you generate the same amount of mana either way and Moulinet gets more damage out of whatever mana you generate.

My earlier post suggests a scenario that allows a third finisher to exist without rendering the existing two obsolete. Remember that overuse of those mana tools is a potency loss, and at some point the loss is so big that it's better to just use a normal finisher.

I'll admit I was being facetious with the last remark quoted, though only because I thought the question was also facetious.

[Archwizard]

Damage on bosses is not more important than damage on trash packs. Everything in the dungeon needs to die (unless it can be skipped, but opportunities like that are rare) for the dungeon to be complete, so it's actually more efficient to save mana at the end of a boss in order to Moulinet the trash mobs more, since you generate the same amount of mana either way and Moulinet gets more damage out of whatever mana you generate.

Dungeons begin with trash packs and end with a boss, so shifting the save periods onto bosses is clearly a loss. And generally, the boss is the one that has phases that need to be burst through. Doesn't matter how the trash dies as long as it's dead, that's why it's called trash. If trash packs mattered just as much as dungeon bosses (and this is ignoring trials and overworld content as major offsets), every job would have an AoE rotation as extensive as their single-target's.
But it's not, because trash packs are literally filler content.
Even the concept of "potency per mana" can only go so far, since obviously any AoE is going to be stronger on 12 targets than it is on 3, it really becomes a matter of most efficiently eliminating how many AoE casts you get -- and tanks do love to make big pulls don't they?

At any rate, we're getting away from the main point here: behaviorally, the use of Moulinet is not of equal value to us as the use of the single-target combo is, particularly because the latter gives us access to Verfinishers to refund that Mana, not to mention being applicable to more scenarios -- and I already explained why balancing that with an AoE Verfinisher probably wouldn't work too well.

Unless of course we went against my better judgement concerning AoE Verfinishers and decided to kill two birds with one stone, making just one AoE Verfinisher based around "balance" or Red magic or whatever to satisfy both your cravings, since it fits the AoE design better and so we don't have to balance it against the other two in single target at all. Speaking of which:

My earlier post suggests a scenario that allows a third finisher to exist without rendering the existing two obsolete. Remember that overuse of those mana tools is a potency loss, and at some point the loss is so big that it's better to just use a normal finisher.

No, your earlier post describes how to get away with balancing a third Verfinisher to be "slightly" stronger than the other two, without stating what the point is in having three -- especially since you clearly wish there was only the one. You haven't touched at all on the purpose of the existing two in a world with a focus on a better Verfinisher.

And before you imply anything to do with "consolation prizes", I remind you that performance isn't balanced around "consolations", it's downtuned to contour around the peaks; just look at the healer treatment for ShB. We'll be expected to land that new skill every time (or at least kick ourselves if we can't, rather than ooh and ahh at the times we get it), because again, there is no such thing as a "bonus reward" in theorycraft.
At any rate, the erasure of our Verfinishers' 20% proc chance effects and the mixed-at-best reception for Engagement shows what RDMs think about "consolations".

Your argument relies both on players intentionally working to balance their Mana while explaining that it's a loss for them to use the tools to actually do so. At best you're arguing for a system that rewards luck as much as (if not more than) risk and intent. At worst, ludicrous amounts of math that the player won't ever be able to intuit, since there's no way to tell when it becomes a bigger loss to hit Reprise and try again (especially amongst other casts to expend any remaining procs) versus giving up and hitting Verflhoarley.

If RDM is supposed to be so simple we don't even have a DoT, why on Hydaelyn would we want to bother with that much spurious math?

I'll admit I was being facetious with the last remark quoted, though only because I thought the question was also facetious.

Clearly tones of acerbic wit don't translate well over the internet.

I hope it's more than clear by now that my quoted remark was quite serious.

[Archwizard]

Look at it this way. When we go from 80-90 they'll give you a trait that lets you cast Verflare after Verholy and vise versa so you can VerFlare > Scorch > VerHoly > Scorch.
(BTW if this happens it's not my fault. I was just joking Although I also wouldn't be sad if it did.)

I have recommended before a trait to allow you to cast a Verfinisher outside of the melee combo -- something like either an upgrade to Acceleration, or a proc on initiating a certain chain of spells (ie using Fire, Ice and Lightning magic procs Verholy to balance it out).

That's a long way off in my mind though, and was more designed to facilitate ideas I've seen about "give us a stronger combo finisher that only procs when you've used both Verholy/Verflare."

[Burningskull]

I have recommended before a trait to allow you to cast a Verfinisher outside of the melee combo -- something like either an upgrade to Acceleration, or a proc on initiating a certain chain of spells (ie using Fire, Ice and Lightning magic procs Verholy to balance it out).

That's a long way off in my mind though, and was more designed to facilitate ideas I've seen about "give us a stronger combo finisher that only procs when you've used both Verholy/Verflare."

They could go the SMN route. SMN has to have 2 Dreadwyrm Trances to summon Bahamut. They could always give you a spell that you have to cast VerFlare or VerHoly twice. But at that point it's not really any different than what Scorch does.

[Archwizard]

They could go the SMN route. SMN has to have 2 Dreadwyrm Trances to summon Bahamut.

Which is exactly what I'd want to avoid. SMN's buildup time was absurd and I'm hoping the changes in ShB will substantially trim it down.