Praise for RDM design

[Kaedys]

I mean SMN is undertuned, but let us RDM have our first expansion where we're NOT undertuned and enjoy us avoiding the expac launch shitshows that we usually have faced in the past.

It's not even about tuning. RDM is simply fun right now. The Manafication change was absolutely exemplary, as was the change to mana costs and generation levels, giving us substantially more room for pooling and timing melee combos, and a much MUCH smoother opener. I was initially ambivalent about the Acceleration change, but it's also phenomenal. Add to that an additional spell finisher, and one that looks and feels amazing (swirly swirly punch LASER), a raid buff that's no longer so weird and bad for backloaded burst windows (cough Samurai cough cough), and a new additional raid defensive tool that we 100% didn't need (but I won't say "no" to), and RDM is in a fantastic spot. Flashy, flexible, strong on support, and having a very dynamic and fun rotation. A+ design in EW, imo.

My sole wishlist item is that they'd reduce the mana cost of Enchanted Reprise. Because of the change to mana costs elsewhere, and the increase in our mana finisher potency total and general rotational potency, using Enchanted Reprise is now slightly more than twice as much of a potency loss as it was before, meaning it's actually better to spend a fair percentage of a GCD doing nothing at all than it is to use Enchanted Reprise for that GCD. I'm fine with it being a DPS loss to use versus the main rotation, all of the instacast mobility buttons are, but Enchanted Reprise is rather especially bad atm (especially compared to itself back in Shadowbringers, when 5/5 mana wasn't 10% of a melee combo). They need to either reduce the cost and boost its potency a bit, or remove the cost entirely and reduce the potency a bit. Personally, I'd prefer the latter. Still, with the number of options RDM has for movement (60-70% of our rotational time isn't limited by movement, and that's not including our mana combo, plus Acceleration and Swiftcast), it's rarely an issue. Just feels bad, how harsh of a loss Enchanted Reprise is versus its Shadowbringers incarnation, which is purely a result of it not being adjusted alongside the other changes.

[Gruntler]

It's not even about tuning. RDM is simply fun right now.

Oh. Yes. Very yes.

The Manafication change was absolutely exemplary, as was the change to mana costs and generation levels, giving us substantially more room for pooling and timing melee combos, and a much MUCH smoother opener. I was initially ambivalent about the Acceleration change, but it's also phenomenal. Add to that an additional spell finisher, and one that looks and feels amazing (swirly swirly punch LASER), a raid buff that's no longer so weird and bad for backloaded burst windows (cough Samurai cough cough), and a new additional raid defensive tool that we 100% didn't need (but I won't say "no" to), and RDM is in a fantastic spot. Flashy, flexible, strong on support, and having a very dynamic and fun rotation. A+ design in EW, imo.

The change was so good it made ShB RDM look bad in comparison, like it stripped apart ShB RDM's issues that we just accepted as things we had in our lives and went 'Okay, but how about if we don't have all these things.' EW is so far ahead of ShB RDM and I loved ShB RDM.

My sole wishlist item is that they'd reduce the mana cost of Enchanted Reprise. Because of the change to mana costs elsewhere, and the increase in our mana finisher potency total and general rotational potency, using Enchanted Reprise is now slightly more than twice as much of a potency loss as it was before, meaning it's actually better to spend a fair percentage of a GCD doing nothing at all than it is to use Enchanted Reprise for that GCD. I'm fine with it being a DPS loss to use versus the main rotation, all of the instacast mobility buttons are, but Enchanted Reprise is rather especially bad atm (especially compared to itself back in Shadowbringers, when 5/5 mana wasn't 10% of a melee combo). They need to either reduce the cost and boost its potency a bit, or remove the cost entirely and reduce the potency a bit. Personally, I'd prefer the latter. Still, with the number of options RDM has for movement (60-70% of our rotational time isn't limited by movement, and that's not including our mana combo, plus Acceleration and Swiftcast), it's rarely an issue. Just feels bad, how harsh of a loss Enchanted Reprise is versus its Shadowbringers incarnation, which is purely a result of it not being adjusted alongside the other changes.

I can't disagree but I can accept Reprise being worse than before simply because of how much additional movement we got and flexibility in other areas. Like, if that's the cost I have to pay for having the rest of the rotation the way it is, I can't really complain--I've already had Christmas.