6.0 Red Mage speculation

[Shurrikhan]

Is it bad that I don't want any new buttons (unless AoE is consolidated and Veraero-II and Verthunder-II both removed), and instead just want the existing kit to work more interestingly and cohesively?...

I guess if I could point out some general trajectories...

• I want some, even if very situational, reason to use a shortened melee combo, such as by having enchanted melee skills proc Dualcast and the MP costs standardize to 25 (instead of 30/25/25), or even ascend at 20/25/30, and the ppgcd cost of a shortened combo decreasing. Such would also help its place in the leveling experience.
  
  
• I'd like to see the melee combo be more flexibly timeable, whether that be in saving Verholy/Verflare as 10- or 15-second procs, or even having the enchanted weapon skills feed into each other (that effect fading linearly over 10 seconds or so) but not necessarily require that they be cast consecutively.
  
  
• If the above two points didn't make this obvious already, I want to feel like my sword affords me unique opportunities, rather than solely the weakness of a backloaded, inflexible melee-range burst period.
  
  
• Some reason to hardcast Veraero and Verthunder on occasion--sparingly, but not solely as locked behind CDs.
  
  
• AoE given more nuance, ideally through use of Scatter and/or Impact as (a) dynamic skill(s).
  
  
• Less dependence on perfect MP balance without devaluing MP management, such as by giving reason to perhaps favor one side or the other.
  
  
• Perhaps some actual impact from the elements themselves and more deliberate pathing around those factors, rather than merely reacting to procs.
  
  
• Nitpick, but... Verflare should really be Verfoul, if it's supposed to be iconic of pure Black Magic, opposite Verholy. Those would then intersect in the Red Magic of Scorch (which is not quite a traditional Fire spell).

[Cetek14]

Is it bad that I don't want any new buttons (unless AoE is consolidated and Veraero-II and Verthunder-II both removed), and instead just want the existing kit to work more interestingly and cohesively?...

Unfortunately people want all jobs reworked from scratch every expansion, instead of upgrading something that already works. I'm afraid RDM might meet its end in EW, especially because 5.0 changed almost nothing (since RDM was fine in the first place).

[Rongway]

Is it bad that I don't want any new buttons ... ?

No, RDM's rotation is great, and it's at the limit of button comfort. If we get any new actions, they need to upgrade existing actions by trait or by proc.

I'd like to see the melee combo be more flexibly timeable, whether that be in saving Verholy/Verflare as 10- or 15-second procs

Verfinishers are already available for 15s. You just can't do anything else until you cast one. What would you rather be able to do in the meantime? If you want to squeeze in a Dualcast between Redoublement and a Verfinisher, then the Verfinishers will need to be made into their own buttons again, and I'm 100% against that.

Even if we could spare the buttons, one of the few real player skill elements of RDM is making sure your mana is good in the one or two Dualcasts before a melee combo. If you allow another Dualcast between Redoublement and Verfinisher to fix a pre-imbalance or an underproc, it significantly reduces the player skill required to play what is already one of the easiest jobs in the game.

or even having the enchanted weapon skills feed into each other (that effect fading linearly over 10 seconds or so) but not necessarily require that they be cast consecutively.

This one could be fine depending on implementation. Allowing high level RDMs to

E.Riposte[Dualcast] > Verslowspell > E.Zwerchhau[Dualcast] > Verslowspell > E.Redoublement > Verfinisher

would be a slight DPS increase without breaking anything--roughly 60p over 2.5s, the difference between a Verfastspell and the Verslowspell that would be replacing it. However, it would overwrite procs frequently so you would want to prioritize starting the combo with no procs when possible.

Less dependence on perfect MP balance without devaluing MP management, such as by giving reason to perhaps favor one side or the other.

I dislike imbalance ideas, but at the very least, the combo outlined above would allow you to correct a near-imbalance in the middle of executing a combo, which could potentially be interesting. For example,

80|59 : E.Riposte
50|29 : Verthunder
50|40 : E.Zwerchhau
25|15 : Verthunder
25|26 : E.Redoublement
00|01 : Verholy
21|01 : Scorch
28|08

Or even

100|82 : E.Riposte
70|52 : Verthunder
70|63 : E.Zwerchhau
45|38 : Veraero
56|38 : E.Redoublement
31|13 : Verflare
31|34 : Scorch
38|41 : Verfire
38|50 : Veraero
49|50 : Manafication
98|100 : E.Riposte
68|70 : Veraero
79|70 : E.Zwerchhau
54|45 : Veraero
65|45 : E.Redoublement
40|20 : Verflare
40|41 : Scorch
47|48

I think we should avoid outright imbalance mechanics, though.

Nitpick, but... Verflare should really be Verfoul

But RDMs don't speak Enochian...

RDM is ironically the most inmobile of the mages

Basically RDM is mobile for 1 gcd after every hard cast.

Depending on spell speed, BLM has unrestricted movement for 17s-20s of every minute through two Sharpcasts, a Triple Cast, a Swiftcast, and two Xenoglossies. RDM has unrestricted movement for minimally 30s of every minute through Dualcasts.

[Shurrikhan]

Verfinishers are already available for 15s.

You're describing a combo. Every combo allowance is available for 15 seconds after its prerequisite cast and is negated if one uses any other combat action. I am explicitly asking it not to be a combo, and instead be a saveable proc in the same vein as Verfire and Verstone activations, even if that proc duration may be reduced to a mere 10 seconds in compensation. (Tbf, part of that is also just because I'd really like to attach an AoE element to Verflare, Verholy, and Scorch; making those bankable would allow for some killer on-add-spawn burst.)

If you allow another Dualcast between Redoublement and Verfinisher to fix a pre-imbalance or an underproc, it significantly reduces the player skill required to play what is already one of the easiest jobs in the game.

That is a very real concern for me, but I'd rather add new means of engagement to replace that particular contributor than necessarily fetter RDM to the rigidities that come with any single current means of difficulty. In this particular case, I'd be unwilling to sacrifice that difficulty unless there were some meaningful elemental interplay or the like to replace it, but at the same time, I want RDM to actually feel like it's actively doing RDM things more than just in the 2-6 GCDs before its melee combo and its quick reminder as to whether to hit Verflare or Verholy at that combo's end, which will likely require at least imagining RDM without that particular fetter.

[Wayfinder3]

You're describing a combo. Every combo allowance is available for 15 seconds after its prerequisite cast and is negated if one uses any other combat action. I am explicitly asking it not to be a combo, and instead be a saveable proc in the same vein as Verfire and Verstone activations, even if that proc duration may be reduced to a mere 10 seconds in compensation. (Tbf, part of that is also just because I'd really like to attach an AoE element to Verflare, Verholy, and Scorch; making those bankable would allow for some killer on-add-spawn burst.)


That is a very real concern for me, but I'd rather add new means of engagement to replace that particular contributor than necessarily fetter RDM to the rigidities that come with any single current means of difficulty. In this particular case, I'd be unwilling to sacrifice that difficulty unless there were some meaningful elemental interplay or the like to replace it, but at the same time, I want RDM to actually feel like it's actively doing RDM things more than just in the 2-6 GCDs before its melee combo and its quick reminder as to whether to hit Verflare or Verholy at that combo's end, which will likely require at least imagining RDM without that particular fetter.

I agree with this quite a bit. RDM has this illusion of being busy and tedious however, this is really just a façade that falls apart the more you play it, and it becomes much more pronounced if you main it, or play the other casters and watch as this one suffers from not enough mechanics. What's strange to me is that SMN has a genuine identity crisis, Trances, Egis, Aetherflow, ruin 4 etc... IT has so many more mechanics baked into it's job that it's taken them a staggering amount of time converting it into a coherent job that still manages to feel rather segmented. SMN feels like it's diametrically opposed to RDM in it's design where one has way too much going on, and the other has one mechanic that is only fleshed out for single target damage while being almost incomplete in all other areas. SMN has so many moving parts that it's entire mechanic is done completely independent of ruin 3 (it's most used spell) while RDM lives and dies by a gauge that the job doesn't need because it'd be better off if the melee combo was a burst combo on a 30/60 rotation as thats how it's used anyway. I personally believe taking emphasis away from the melee combo by making it just another cooldown to manage, and repurposing the job gauge to enrich the melee experience akin to something like a Fell Cleave option that you build inbetween your burst phases and expend alongside the melee combo is a strong way of allowing the job to be fleshed out, and expanding on it. Removing the rng tied to the spells and abolishing jolt 2 (as this only exist to fix an issue the job shouldn't have) would be a step in the right direction.

[Katie_Kitty]

I personally believe taking emphasis away from the melee combo by making it just another cooldown to manage, and repurposing the job gauge to enrich the melee experience akin to something like a Fell Cleave option that you build inbetween your burst phases and expend alongside the melee combo is a strong way of allowing the job to be fleshed out, and expanding on it. Removing the rng tied to the spells and abolishing jolt 2 (as this only exist to fix an issue the job shouldn't have) would be a step in the right direction.

I can get behind this tbh. Remove the dumb RNG, make our melee combo a 30-second cooldown or whatever (the actual numbers matter less right now than the concept anyway), and give us something new and interesting to do with the job gauge. I think I'd be happy with that but we'd have to see how the actual implementation turns out.

[Gruntler]

I can get behind this tbh. Remove the dumb RNG, make our melee combo a 30-second cooldown or whatever (the actual numbers matter less right now than the concept anyway), and give us something new and interesting to do with the job gauge. I think I'd be happy with that but we'd have to see how the actual implementation turns out.

Or, play one of the millions of jobs without RNG if you want a job without RNG. Some of us actually like proc-based casting and the variance that it lends to a kit and the play. Making a simple class even more dumbed down is not a path to making it better for everyone.

Like I mentioned with Vercure. It's almost never useful, but I enjoy when it is. Would be the same for VerEsuna. It's also why I said I was "half-joking".

How many times did you use Erase in SB? Be honest.

[Katie_Kitty]

Or, play one of the millions of jobs without RNG if you want a job without RNG. Some of us actually like proc-based casting and the variance that it lends to a kit and the play. Making a simple class even more dumbed down is not a path to making it better for everyone.

RNG procs for verfire and verstone do not add anything worthy of note to the job, and in any case, I was a RDM fan before FFXIV was even a concept in anyone's mind so no thank you I will play the job I like while advocating for changes I want. You're welcome to deal with it however you like, but that's not changing.

[NYCLouisGamer]

I can get behind this tbh. Remove the dumb RNG, make our melee combo a 30-second cooldown or whatever (the actual numbers matter less right now than the concept anyway), and give us something new and interesting to do with the job gauge. I think I'd be happy with that but we'd have to see how the actual implementation turns out.

I support Katie_Kitty's idea. If we have a series of 3-4 buttons that are always pushed in the same order at the same time, they are not genuinely 3-4 separate abilities. They are 1 ability and can be 1 button. This would free up space for more cool actions without deleting existing ones.

The Rogue's 1st ability is called Spinning Edge & it involves using 2 slashes. Would it really be 2 different actions if the 1st action was called Spinning with 1 slash & a 2nd ability was called Edge with 1 slash and they were always used together in that exact order?

[Shurrikhan]

I support Katie_Kitty's idea. If we have a series of 3-4 buttons that are always pushed in the same order at the same time, they are not genuinely 3-4 separate abilities. They are 1 ability and can be 1 button. This would free up space for more cool actions without deleting existing ones.

I, too, like that part of it. The less bloat, the better.

That said, I would like to first see if there's anything that can make those 3 buttons be worth having as separate buttons, as we can't so easily undo that change. (Any change perceived as "QoL", no matter how detrimental to actual engagement, is very, very difficult to remove.)

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Personally, I'd like to see more melee interaction on RDM. However, I feel that simply converting the base kit (or "combo") from a spender to a CD that in turn builds up a new spender is insufficient and would make RDM feel unsatisfactory for an even larger portion of its level span.

It wouldn't be much worse, mind you, but it occludes a fundamental issue by simply slapping a coat of QoL and "new feature!" paint on top of it, while still leaving it (even more) gut-less. I'd rather deal with that fundamental issue as directly and comprehensively as possible.

For me, that issue is two-fold:

1. It's a "Chekov's Gun" issue. If you give a caster a sword, then no matter how wastefully ornamentally its previous iterations may previously had made it, the sword should be meaningfully used.
   
   
2. The sword, at present, is an additional liability (unique among casters), rather than a unique advantage.

   While what may be seen as a unique weakness from one side of the coin can meaningfully direct job design or playflow, if you deliberately attach some cross-over element to a given role base, one would assume it an advantage, rather than a fetter.
   
   Yet, that's not how melee elements play out on RDM presently. Rather than being some caster-fighter that can all the more easily adjust with the flow of a fight, or the like, it's uniquely hampered with the least consecutive mobility except in the same brief window into which it is forced into melee range. The melee portion is not bankable enough to exploit its trade-off favorably and thus be a unique affordance. It instead, in practice, just gives it an additional weakness.
   
   Or, put more simply, our single-target melee kit is presently little more than a bloated Foul that forces us into melee range.