Thought about RDM's utility

[Leidiriv]

Aside from verraise and vercure, embolden is one garbage utility.

"Increases own magic damage dealt by 10% and physical damage dealt by nearby party members by 10%. Both effects are reduced by 20% every 4s."

Let's break it down. Shall we?

1. The user receives magic damage boost ONLY
2. The party receive physical damage boost ONLY
3. Effect gradually decreases by 20%

What kind of sadistic person creates such punishing buff? If the boost is 50%, then I can understand the trade offs. A 10% selective boost that grows weaker and weaker, lasts a mere 20s with a 2 min cd is a joke.

Good if you are a physical party member, but what about tanks that use spell also? Healers? Caster brothers? Well too bad so sad.

A job with low damage with 2 utilities that isn't needed (verraise and vercure) if everyone do their job correctly plus one garbage utility (embolden). If this isn't the one to cross out in your priority list, then who else is?

Using verraise and vercure as a an excuse to make RDM deal mediocre damage is such a bad decision. They are nice to have in most contents, but in harder end game content where people are expected to avoid death as much as possible; unfortunately such excuse is the reason for RDM to lag behind every other DPS jobs. It's just sad seeing people justify it.

Embolden is currently the second strongest raid buff in the game, providing anywhere between 750 and 800 rDPS for groups that know how to use it (roughly tied with Technical Step). During the same 10 seconds as Trick Attack, it's an average buff of 8.4%, which is pretty massive, all things considered. Also, when it comes to the tanks, the only tank that does any magic damage during Trick/Embolden/raid buffs as a whole is DRK, with their Shadow abilities. PLD is firmly in their FoF window at that point.

[Drayos]

All they realistically need to do is restore the gap to what it was in SB and we would be fine.

The problem isn’t our dps, the problem is how wide the dps difference is between RDM and BLM.

Just give RDM abit more dps and it’d be fine. But right now it’s like 2700 dps behind BLM. Which is too wide,

[Gaethan_Tessula]

Going from "Core Non-offensive utility needs to be shared amongst the role." to " we shouldn't eliminate non-DPS support abilities or make them cookie cutter across a role" is really shifting what i'm suggesting. As long as all members of the role brings an answer to the defining support, even if in a different form, then balance is still achieved. The tank invulnerabilities are an example of this. Old Mages Ballad and MP Promotion.

Your previous example was Shield Samba/Tactician/Troubadour. Which are literally the same skill except for the animation and what level they're learned (and BRD, the one who originated the skill, gets theirs LAST currently, sadly enough). That's cookie cutter. That's homogenization. Tank invuls are a better example of things that still allow for distinct and meaningful differences in a skill while still enabling the function across a role; I find the HW refresh mechanics to be dubious on that account.

Abilities that don't define the role, like mantra, Everlasting Flight and curing Waltz are weak enough that they don't have a considerable impact on job composition amongst the role, but still add flavor/ limited utility to the role.

If they're allowed to be useful? Great. But how far can a skill be pushed in relevance before it becomes "role defining?" I'd rather not see all possible support skills either be terribly weak or have to be role skills.

There are other games that have managed to find balance in diversity. FF14 isn't those games, but there's nothing that prescribes the present rigidity of capability it has even among the Trinity MMO subgenre either. Especially if the bigger definition of the role, raid DPS, is allowed to be more uniform across jobs and thus ceases to be weighed against a job's non-DPS support capabilities.

Raise is one of these skills that define the role. It warps the dps balance its so important to it. That needs to see an adjustment. Raise on a 2 minute cool down with 2 charges seems pretty balanced to me. Call it homogenization, but a Role sets a standard for what that role should be able to do. If 1/3 members can't use the defining feature of the role, the role needs adjusted or the odd man out needs removed from the role.

Everything warps DPS balance. Better healing and mitigation frees up healer GCD's. Better movement options make it easier to retain uptime. In this game, at least, it usually pales compared to the baseline DPS of a job. If baseline optimized rDPS can be brought more in line across DPS jobs, there's a lot of design spaced opened for new support abilities without unbalancing jobs completely. Given that weakness heavily penalizes DPS anyways, and some mechanics will just wipe the party if you fail, in the context of actually clearing difficult content I'd dispute the true potency of raise on preserving DPS. Clearly it hasn't been enough to justify RDM over BLM this expansion, and multi-rez wasn't enough to make RDM PAR with one-rez SUM during the latter's height in StB.

I'd rather see BLM get removed from the role, and put into a new role with SAM and maybe MCH, than get a raise move.

All they realistically need to do is restore the gap to what it was in SB and we would be fine.

The problem isn’t our dps, the problem is how wide the dps difference is between RDM and BLM.

Just give RDM abit more dps and it’d be fine. But right now it’s like 2700 dps behind BLM. Which is too wide,

I don't think that's an adequate solution. I have a problem in general with raid buff rDPS jobs having less rDPS than selfish DPS. It's not as much an issue when your role is straight support or something like healer (though, debatable in FF14 given how they've chosen to balance WHM and the powerful focus on DPS'ing as healer). When you're a DPS, and a chunk of your DPS depends entirely on other players, and even at your and their BEST that doesn't take you above someone who can bring more independently? That's an issue.

Of course, the selfish DPS need their place too, which was the issue in StB. And the only real solution I can see if making optimal results from buffing only possible if you have a selfish in your party.

Also, by the gap, do you mean the absolute number or the percentage? Because if SE insists on maintaining a rDPS gap between jobs, basing it on the absolute number becomes increasingly meaningless as expansions and gear march on. I don't have a strong opinion here, but I do note that I see players saying the gap needs to go back to the exact number it was, while ignoring that now our DPS is about double what it was end StB.

[wereotter]

I\I’m starting to think RDM place is intended, it’s a job which primary use is a progression method for casters. And we are suspose to move onto another caster once that phase has ended.

Seeing verraise come through to the next expansion. And it’s dps taxed by it even harder kinda proves the direction of the job.

I don’t rly understand the concept behind creating a job which isn’t ment to participate in end game. But it would atleast appear that it is intended.

The problem, if this is the case, that they're overlooking is the fact that the three casting jobs value different job sub stats VERY differently. Where a red mage will want to avoid spell speed as much as possible, the stat scales better on both other casting jobs. Which means you have to have player who is proficient in multiple jobs to change once you're on farm, and who has to spend more time gearing up multiple jobs, or you just deal with that player playing a weaker job once you do have the fight cleared.

Either way, this is a poor concept for both players to have, only taking the red mage while you're learning the fight, and for developers if this is indeed what they intended. Though I suspect booting people off red mage is not the intent of the developers, and more likely something that players are pressuring casters to do.

Additionally, it's worth noting that if you do go the route of changing your casting job, you are, in effect, learning the fight twice since you'll have to spend time learning and practicing how the rotation of the other job needs to flow into the mechanics of the fight.

[Maero]

@ Leidiriv

Problem with this all is Red Mage as the job itself is not that great of damage (so many groups do not bother to take them)
I still stand by what i said in that people make embolden sound much stronger then what it is. It should boost both Physical+Magical damage for party members

[Lina_Slayer]

The problem, if this is the case, that they're overlooking is the fact that the three casting jobs value different job sub stats VERY differently. Where a red mage will want to avoid spell speed as much as possible, the stat scales better on both other casting jobs. Which means you have to have player who is proficient in multiple jobs to change once you're on farm, and who has to spend more time gearing up multiple jobs, or you just deal with that player playing a weaker job once you do have the fight cleared.

Either way, this is a poor concept for both players to have, only taking the red mage while you're learning the fight, and for developers if this is indeed what they intended. Though I suspect booting people off red mage is not the intent of the developers, and more likely something that players are pressuring casters to do.

Additionally, it's worth noting that if you do go the route of changing your casting job, you are, in effect, learning the fight twice since you'll have to spend time learning and practicing how the rotation of the other job needs to flow into the mechanics of the fight.

To be fair SMN also hates SpS, that class is way too based on double weaves and thus it can easily lead to clipping (not to mention the fact it won't buff oGCDs, making it a subpar stat by default), BLM loves SpS because literally all our damage comes from GCDs, as someone who mained both BLM and WAR, I always wanted something to be done with melds (like if you could meld twice in the same materia slot, but only activate one of the options or something like that) so I could swap jobs easier.

As for the res caster into BLM for kill you are talking about I tried to do it by playing SMN on E3S for progression, but I realised exactly what you are saying, for me it's really important to "map" your GCD usage while learning a fight on a caster, so you know which mechanics you can deal with by just slidecasting and which ones you'll want an instant cast.

[Kurando]

I still stand by what i said in that people make embolden sound much stronger then what it is. It should boost both Physical+Magical damage for party members

Perhaps instead of this change, Embolden could double as a mana generator as well similar to DNC's Espirit buff. For every action used by allies gives the RDM maybe 1 mana of both White and Black, so with it lasting 20s that's a decent window to generate mana passively from others. Of course RDM still needs some potency adjustments but it's just an idea to make Embolden a bit more rewarding if your party is unbalanced for it (i.e. too many casters).

[Maero]

Perhaps instead of this change, Embolden could double as a mana generator as well similar to DNC's Espirit buff. For every action used by allies gives the RDM maybe 1 mana of both White and Black, so with it lasting 20s that's a decent window to generate mana passively from others. Of course RDM still needs some potency adjustments but it's just an idea to make Embolden a bit more rewarding if your party is unbalanced for it (i.e. too many casters).

I would not oppose that either, the job just needs to be better with it's utility and damage. Atm it is kind of painful to play while compaired to other jobs

[Seraphor]

Raise isn't a caster role skill.
When we only had two casters, only one of them had a Raise, and that’s purely because it shared a class with a healer.
When we got our third caster, it got a raise because it’s part of its job identity.
BLM does not need a raise, it wouldn’t work with its kit at all, Swiftcast is needed in its rotation and to help maintain AF/Enochian, and it has unlimited MP.

We don’t say that ‘buffing party damage’ is a Physical ranged role skill do we? Two out of three of them can do that.
What about HP Shields being a healer role function? Two of those three have that.

Please, let’s not cash in on these ‘role skills’, that’s what leads to job homogenisation.
BLM is in a great place without raise.

What needs to happen, is RDM needs more restriction on its own Verraise use. Apparently MP alone isn’t enough so…

Change Dualcast into ‘Reduces cast time by 5s”
This way, every other spell will still be instant, but Verraise will only be reduced to 5s, forcing you to use it with Swiftcast.
It would still have an edge over SMN with a non-Swiftcasted raise, at 5s instead of 8s, but it wouldn’t be spammable.

There is no reason why RDM needs to deal as little damage as it currently does, because until 6 weeks ago, it was absolutely fine.

To be fair SMN also hates SpS, that class is way too based on double weaves and thus it can easily lead to clipping (not to mention the fact it won't buff oGCDs, making it a subpar stat by default), BLM loves SpS because literally all our damage comes from GCDs, as someone who mained both BLM and WAR, I always wanted something to be done with melds (like if you could meld twice in the same materia slot, but only activate one of the options or something like that) so I could swap jobs easier.

I play both RDM and BLM.
What I usually do, is meld Spellspeed into the BLM weapon, and one overmelded ring.
They share gear, except for that one ring, and with a couple of the pieces having native Spellspeed, that's enough Spellspeed for BLM and not too much for RDM.

[Duelle]

Raise isn't a caster role skill.

Giving caster DPS the ability to battle rez in controlled amounts wouldn't be a bad thing. I'd personally go for introducing "DPS raise" as an ability on a 60s cooldown (subsequently remove Verraise and SMN's access to Resurrect).

When we got our third caster, it got a raise because it’s part of its job identity.

Raise may be a white magic spell, but it is not a defining aspect of RDM.

BLM does not need a raise, it wouldn’t work with its kit at all, Swiftcast is needed in its rotation and to help maintain AF/Enochian, and it has unlimited MP.

Making it a role ability on a 60s cooldown means MP is not a factor.

PS: Job homogenization is a non-threat, as BLM still has Enochian/Polyglot/Astral Fire/Umbral Ice, SMN would still have trances and aetheflow, and RDM would still have spell spam & the glowy toy sword.