Red Mage: Potential adjustments

[Duelle]

Looking at the OP, I can sort of see what you're trying to do, though I'm not seeing the "why" for it. Is the goal to just make the melee combo more powerful (the only reason why one would change Fleche to turn each combo hit into a multi-hit skill)? Saying "change how the melee combo behaves" is too vague for me.

Also, I advise against adding more resource bars as I think having to manage two bars is enough as is. If you want to turn Fleche into a cooldown, I'd suggest making it melee Acceleration: pop buff, get 3 stacks that affect each combo hit. That said, I think it's something that could be implemented as a new skill, though mechanically it doesn't make much sense to me to create a cooldown that only interacts with the spender phase.

I don't see much of a point to your suggested change for Contre aside from making the melee swings have a greater effect range and deal AoE damage. The AoE part is already covered by Moulinet, and the effect range isn't much of a factor since the places where AoE damage is prominent (AKA dungeons and some 25-man raids) you basically stand behind a target and spam away. It'd be a different story if this game's encounter design had several fights where melee can't do anything and only ranged can attack a boss.

Feel free to ignore this next part:

I would probably grab your idea and mold it into a cooldown that breaks the monotony of spellspam by allowing use of the enchanted melee combo without having 80/80 mana and/or consuming mana. Here's a free example:

84 Ensorcell - Allows the execution of three enchanted weaponskills regardless of current mana accumulated. Mana is not consumed while this effect is active. Duration: 15s. Cooldown: 150s.

This would allow a free melee combo, would allow 3 free uses of Moulinet, and could be inserted anywhere. Could use it at the start to do the combo and generate some mana without having to burn Acceleration + Manafication at the start of a fight. Could use it midfight if you're about halfway on each bar to deal some burst damage and not lose out on resource generation, or could be used right after a melee combo, then followed up with Manafication if available for even more damage. That said, it also punishes the careless since Reprise would also consume Ensorcell charges.

The fact is Red Mage is tuned around it’s mana generation mechanic and if that core proves too restrictive in its current iteration to manipulate then yes it does need to be reworked. Not on the level that Summoner or other job reworks have gotten, but enough that it can fit more actions or cooldowns into its core rotation.

I'm glad people are noticing how restrictive the current design is.

That said, wanting to make adjustments to the base gameplay is easier said than done because of the rules in place for how the job plays. The mana bars limit what you can do because if anything you insert doesn't contribute to them in some way, that's lost DPS potential in the long run. Anything you add also cannot interfere with Dualcast because that is a key part of how RDM generates resources. Add that the toggle between regular weaponskills and enchanted weaponskills is automated instead of something the player has control over. This is why I push more for procs and oGCD skills since they're the only things that play within all those rules. I'm not opposed to having to make major changes, but I think the devs are afraid (and rightfully so) of another bowmage scenario.

I absolutely don't want any additional melee single target actions; we're already fighting for melee spots in some fights and it would only be a detriment if our rotation to require more melee time.

I take umbrage with this because I doubt parties are really trying to weigh a RDM vs a NIN, DRG or SAM. Also, almost every fight in this game has people stack directly behind the boss outside of having to handle mechanics, so more often than not RDMs are already standing within sword range of the kill target.

"Give RDM a DoT"
Adding a DoT just to add a DoT doesn't add anything of value to our Dualcast/ManaManagement mechanics.

If we have to make it a spell on the GCD, give it a 5s cast time and pair it with Jolt/Verfire/Verstone. Caveats here are that it'd need a decent duration to not be intrusive (30-50s duration?) and be either magic Higanbana (AKA a decent chunk of DPS) or generate mana.

"Give RDM a DoT with Mana ticks."
That makes Mana calculations unwieldy and inconsistent.

This isn't as big an issue, as it depends on how much mana is being generated per tick. 2/2 mana per tick sounds about right to me. Increase the amount to something like 5/5 per tick if you want to do something like an oGCD DoT with a 15s duration. There have been situations where a DoT generating mana per tick would have saved me one or two spells worth of time to hit 80/80, so I'm not opposed to a DoT that serves such a purpose.

With a Mana over time effect, two RDMs who do the exact same sequence of actions but just 0.1s apart can end up with different amounts of Mana, which would make such a Mana over time effect a bad design choice.

The only time this would matter/be noticed is in 25-man raids and stuff like level cap dungeons and expert roulette. Story mode raids care more about actually killing the boss than how much DPS people are dealing, and I doubt statics doing EX/Savage/Ultimate are running multiple RDMs.

"RDM is a caster. Give them less melee."
Red Mage is a fighter mage. Sword use is a deeply ingrained feature of Red Mage history.

Despite being a melee proponent, I'll say that those asking for this aren't completely in the wrong. FFXIV's implementation of RDM has reduced the sword to "glowy stick you swing 3 times per 18 GCDs". I've argued in the past that the melee combo is so tacked on that you could replace it with a combo of three ranged spells and you'd see little difference in the gameplay (aside from making Corps and Displacement moot). I don't celebrate that, and instead see it as a problem that needs to be addressed.

[Shurrikhan]

This isn't as big an issue, as it depends on how much mana is being generated per tick. 2/2 mana per tick sounds about right to me. Increase the amount to something like 5/5 per tick if you want to do something like an oGCD DoT with a 15s duration. There have been situations where a DoT generating mana per tick would have saved me one or two spells worth of time to hit 80/80, so I'm not opposed to a DoT that serves such a purpose.

Still, though, I have to wonder at the point of having a DoT on RDM.

At its most fundamental point of departure, a periodic effect is (1) a soft CD or (2) a means of banking (resource generation afforded through typical play).

Maintained DoTs are skills which outperform direct damage skills after n GCD. Especially when, say, uniquely instant-cast among a particular toolkit, that then gives a level of frequency by which one can use an instant cast against a given target (and increases mobility with target count, up to the point where multi-DoTing is eclipsed by AoE casts, assuming said AoEs are also casted), but doesn't outright prevent otherwise potency-wasteful casts for mobility. In practice, they can therefore function in a surprising clever way so long as some situational advantage is tied to them.

Meanwhile, in the case of Mana generation per tick, one can readily imagine that you might put out a situational (at least, if rapidly-ticking) DoT before you'd otherwise overcap in order to allow for, say, 5 back-to-back Enchanted Moulinet casts.

But if the DoT doesn't have some further allowance, such as the aforementioned mobility-on-soft-CD or opportunities for extended burst/spending, it becomes mere maintenance, and I have to wonder... why we'd necessarily want that. Much like Lead Shot on HW MCH, it just seems like something that'd delay more iconic and engaging gameplay through an incohesive element.

[Duelle]

Still, though, I have to wonder at the point of having a DoT on RDM.

At its most fundamental point of departure, a periodic effect is (1) a soft CD or (2) a means of banking (resource generation afforded through typical play).

You're neglecting to mention that a DoT is also supplemental damage. Someone could plausibly ask for a DoT just because they want it to contribute to RDM DPS output and there would be nothing wrong with such a request, despite it being just periodic damage and offering no additional functionality. Of course, there is the matter of how the DoT is designed (because we don't want a repeat of Fracture), but the act of making such a request is not inherently wrong.

Meanwhile, in the case of Mana generation per tick, one can readily imagine that you might put out a situational (at least, if rapidly-ticking) DoT before you'd otherwise overcap in order to allow for, say, 5 back-to-back Enchanted Moulinet casts.

Personally, I wouldn't implement a DoT that gives high mana ticks, as not only would it be awkward to use, but would end up being a slower Manafication. I'm more a fan of a "reapply every 45-60s to get 2/2 mana per server tick", as it would be a benefit over time between the supplemental damage and the additional mana gained. Depending on circumstances, this would make the difference between going straight into the melee combo or having to cast one or two more spells (imagine being at something like 76/69 with no Verfire/Verstone Ready; Jolt + 11 mana verspell won't let you do the melee combo, but if you factor in 2/2 mana generated by a DoT you applied earlier in the fight you'd generate the mana to take you to 80/80 by the time you finish casting the 11 mana verspell).

[Shurrikhan]

You're neglecting to mention that a DoT is also supplemental damage.

It's no more supplemental than literally other form of damage. And that's mentioned right in the post you've quoted, as a soft CD access to an above-average ppgcd skill.

(because we don't want a repeat of Fracture)

Hell, if it did even half the things for RDM that Fracture did for Monk (adding soft-CD access to a non-positional skill AND a rotational +1 mod, atop a ppgcd bonus, per ~18 seconds), I think we'd be happy. But it's a matter of context. If it does nothing more than the ppgcd bonus, it merely makes RDM feel slower to ramp up.

but if you factor in 2/2 mana generated by a DoT you applied earlier in the fight you'd generate the mana to take you to 80/80 by the time you finish casting the 11 mana verspell.

Again, though, is that fun?

If it is, even just for a narrow portion of RDM players, then we've got something to build on. If not, especially given the annoyance or perceived slowness it'd cause for others, we don't.