6.0 Red Mage speculation

[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.