Red mage 7.0 Wishlist

[Silverquick]

Personally I feel one of the biggest improvements of the Red Mage over the last few iterations was being able to do the combo with only a 60% gauge.

Sure enchanted Reprise kinda falls by the wayside, but the ability to do combo upon combo has been huge.

One of the biggest additions I noticed was the Scorch and Resolution both adding Mana back to the gauge. It is so easy now to have another combo very quickly ready that I rarely have to spend time verthunder/aero anymore. Scorch was paying dividends in ShB but boy when you added Resolution to it, its just combo after combo these days.

One of the biggest changes I've noticed in playing Red Mage throughout the iterations is that even though it started as a kind of in and out fighter... nowadays due to the way it all works its firmly a job that stays mostly in melee range in order to take advantage of those continuous combos. That being the case...

1. Magic Barrier needs a 20 second duration if the CD is gonna be that long. Should at least be comparable to Embolden. It never should have had a 10s duration, that was utterly done without thinking.

2. Because of the way the continuous combos work and having to spend the majority of time in melee range and almost never leave... I suggest a new personal "heal" akin to Adlo. Keeping an Adlo style Preheal on you will give the Rdm staying power on the front line. Which can be a problem. So while I realize RDM DPS is NEVER going to be at the level of other DPS jobs, (or they would have done it long ago) it does need staying power on the front line.
RDM may not get damage... but he would then have Defense.

3. The reason I suggest Adloquium style is to differentiate it from the BLM and SMN Shielding and that type of a Shielding would set it apart while still maintaining staying power for the RDM on the front line, and fit the WHM?BLM/Fighter combo it is supposed to be.

Again this is all due to how much the RDM has changed since it's inception back in Stormblood.

I personally do not see mobility problems with the class right now, and most of that has to do with the fact I rarely have to spend much time anymore Verthunder/VerAeroing to build my guage back up. That USED to be the largest portion of my time spent Red Maging... It no longer is due to how the gauge and buildup, work much faster now. Most of my mobility is either handled with Corps'a'Corps or Displacement, because I need to be in melee range nowadays. If I'm out of it, it's only briefly.

[Rongway]

2. Because of the way the continuous combos work and having to spend the majority of time in melee range and almost never leave... I suggest a new personal "heal" akin to Adlo. Keeping an Adlo style Preheal on you will give the Rdm staying power on the front line. Which can be a problem. So while I realize RDM DPS is NEVER going to be at the level of other DPS jobs, (or they would have done it long ago) it does need staying power on the front line.
RDM may not get damage... but he would then have Defense.

Please no. I don't want more survivability actions to be taxed for. Just give me more dps.

I personally do not see mobility problems with the class right now, and most of that has to do with the fact I rarely have to spend much time anymore Verthunder/VerAeroing to build my guage back up. That USED to be the largest portion of my time spent Red Maging... It no longer is due to how the gauge and buildup, work much faster now.

That is your own misconception from your perception of banking combos so that you can multicombo, which is masking your recollection of the time spent building up those banked combos. We objectively still have to spend a lot of time casting:

             *Ready*
Action        Mana      Time  
Manafication  50|50       0.0s
Combo          0| 0       5.2s
Verfinishing *19| 8      12.7s
Dualcast      24|14*     17.7s
Dualcast     *30|19      22.7s
Dualcast      35|25*     27.7s
Dualcast      35|36*     32.7s
Dualcast     *41|41      37.7s
Dualcast      46|47*     42.7s
Dualcast     *52|52      47.7s
Dualcast     *63|52      52.7s
Dualcast      68|58*     57.7s
Dualcast     *74|63      62.7s
Dualcast      79|69*     67.7s
Dualcast     *85|74      72.7s
Dualcast      90|80*     77.7s
Dualcast     *96|85      82.7s
Combo        *46|35      87.9s
Verfinishing *54|54*     95.4s
Combo        * 4| 4*    100.6s
Verfinishing *12|23*    108.1s

Assuming you get a proc on every Dualcast, that's 28 non combo GCDs per 18 combo GCDs. Even if you make three of those casts instant, this is still more than half of the fight spent Dualcasting.

Most of my mobility is either handled with Corps'a'Corps or Displacement, because I need to be in melee range nowadays. If I'm out of it, it's only briefly.

You cannot depend on Displacement for movement because basically every non-storymode arena has a death wall, and mechanics that alternate between a stack-on-boss-center to an immediate out are very common.

[jdgev]

Please no. I don't want more survivability actions to be taxed for. Just give me more dps.

You're not gonna get more DPS (relative to other jobs), because there is no way in heck they will make Red Mage deal more damage than Summoner from a design perspective. That's never going to happen because Red Mage is a hybrid support-DPS job by the jobs design, and by long standing FF tradition.

So yeah, at least give RDM:
a) More support so it justifies it's lower damage (it's not a tax it's intentional, calling it a tax is ridiculous when it's literally the jobs design to use support).
b) More tools/options to make use of their main ability: dual cast.
c) A mechanic/bar that can that be toggled between white/black magic boost like they have on PVP, boosting support abilities when White, and boosting damage when Black or altering effects of certain abilities like in PVP.

Red Mage is a jack of all trades, master of none type of job. It's never going to be a high damage dealing job, just as Black Mage will never get a heal or a res.

PS: Checked and yeah RDM is basically on par or very slightly bellow SMN in damage. Exactly as it's intended. So yeah, we aren't getting more damage unless it's by non-intentional imbalance.

[Silverquick]

Please no. I don't want more survivability actions to be taxed for. Just give me more dps.

Do you have any idea of how long Red Mages have been asking for that. The answer has always been a flat no.

It is not coming any time soon. You talk about being "taxed" for non-DPS actions. They're F'n lying man trying to justify something that is not about that. Other jobs are not "taxed" for those kinds of actions. Yeah not even SMN.

That is your own misconception from your perception of banking combos so that you can multicombo, which is masking your recollection of the time spent building up those banked combos. We objectively still have to spend a lot of time casting:

             *Ready*
Action        Mana      Time  
Manafication  50|50       0.0s
Combo          0| 0       5.2s
Verfinishing *19| 8      12.7s
Dualcast      24|14*     17.7s
Dualcast     *30|19      22.7s
Dualcast      35|25*     27.7s
Dualcast      35|36*     32.7s
Dualcast     *41|41      37.7s
Dualcast      46|47*     42.7s
Dualcast     *52|52      47.7s
Dualcast     *63|52      52.7s
Dualcast      68|58*     57.7s
Dualcast     *74|63      62.7s
Dualcast      79|69*     67.7s
Dualcast     *85|74      72.7s
Dualcast      90|80*     77.7s
Dualcast     *96|85      82.7s
Combo        *46|35      87.9s
Verfinishing *54|54*     95.4s
Combo        * 4| 4*    100.6s
Verfinishing *12|23*    108.1s

No I'm really not,

If you are really doing it that way, you are spending way too much time building up to 100 Mana when you don't need to anymore. In reality you only need to build up to 50 mana to do a combo, I go 60 for a buffer but not always. The Dual Casts are about half what you demonstrated in your chart. It's why I'm sitting in melee all the time. You get even a single proc which you usually do after a finisher, and you're building much faster even than that. The only time I'm up at 100 Mana is when I'm building up for Boss fight with trashmobs in dungeon or Alliance Raid for the next fight.

Secondly you are assuming everything is an 8-Man what you showed only applies there, not to Alliance Raids or Expert Dungeons.

But even if you were to assume that, You're still spending time building to 100 when you no longer have to do that. It's much quicker these days. Yeah Enchanted Reprise kinda falls into the unused toolset now, but doing faster finishers will do more damage in the end, because that's the big damage portion and you do it much faster and more of them.

And it is because of that, and because you end up just sitting in melee range all the time that I am starting to suggest staying power in melee. Hence the Adlo idea and DEFINITELY extending the Magic Barrier to be the equivalent time to Embolden.

[Milkbeard]

If you are really doing it that way, you are spending way too much time building up to 100 Mana when you don't need to anymore. In reality you only need to build up to 50 mana to do a combo, I go 60 for a buffer but not always. The Dual Casts are about half what you demonstrated in your chart. It's why I'm sitting in melee all the time. You get even a single proc which you usually do after a finisher, and you're building much faster even than that. The only time I'm up at 100 Mana is when I'm building up for Boss fight with trashmobs in dungeon or Alliance Raid for the next fight.

Secondly you are assuming everything is an 8-Man what you showed only applies there, not to Alliance Raids or Expert Dungeons.

But even if you were to assume that, You're still spending time building to 100 when you no longer have to do that. It's much quicker these days. Yeah Enchanted Reprise kinda falls into the unused toolset now, but doing faster finishers will do more damage in the end, because that's the big damage portion and you do it much faster and more of them.

And it is because of that, and because you end up just sitting in melee range all the time that I am starting to suggest staying power in melee. Hence the Adlo idea and DEFINITELY extending the Magic Barrier to be the equivalent time to Embolden.

Just to quickly follow up with this.
Silver,
he listed the exact amount of time that is necessary for building the mana for a combo. It is a fact that you are casting more than you are sword comboing as a red mage. Its not just a preference, style of gameplay, or tailored to a specific encounter, red mage literally needs to cast more than it can do melee hits in all given encounters.

The mobility issues that individuals are talking about exist specifically within savage and ultimate content. No jobs, including red mage, have any mobility issues in the content outside of savage and ultimate raiding. To understand where people are coming from with the mobility gripe with red mage, you have to share their same experience- if you aren't doing that content, then yea, of course you can say that you have no issues with mobility, but that does not mean the class doesn't have mobility issues. It literally cannot do some of the mechanics because it's mobility is tied to its burst. Other jobs have utility that helps them move, we literally have to give up burst to move sometimes.

[Silverquick]

Just to quickly follow up with this.
Silver,
he listed the exact amount of time that is necessary for building the mana for a combo. It is a fact that you are casting more than you are sword comboing as a red mage. Its not just a preference, style of gameplay, or tailored to a specific encounter, red mage literally needs to cast more than it can do melee hits in all given encounters..

Lol don't worry this isn't about me and Rongway in some kind of fight.

He doesn't play that way either,(ie the way his chart demos). He knows full well not to go to 100%.

The things we are talking about came out of the end of Shadowbringers when there was a new way of Red Maging put forward back then. And I remember him being one of the people putting it forward. It's why I know he doesn't play that way either. It was basically this... the idea of skipping Enchanted Reprise and just using the bump from Verflare/Holy + Scorch to run faster combos and staying in melee the whole time. I was skeptical back then because I didn't think that it would make that much difference as Reprise was 300+ potency.

But decided to give it a try anyway and it did actually result in more combos, it wasn't overly significant, just worthwhile to do.

That didn't come until Endwalker.

Now we the finisher is VerFlare/Holy (600p) + Scorch (680p) + Resolution (750p) for a whopping 2000+ potency and a much more noticeable bump in Mana from them allowing you to combo almost repeatedly with a LOT less time spent doing Dual Casting. Because just as often as not you go Verfire/Stone ready when you do your finisher with an even bigger manabuild after that.

Now it really is eye-popping. His ideas may not have been significant back then, but they are now. RDM is, believe it or not, much more mobile now than it used to be due to that, and we spend significantly less time Dual Casting.. BUT the RDM playstyle has changed significantly to account for that where we really do spend that much more time in melee range.

While I do not deny that your point about the bad design of the Savage/Ultimates is true, that does not just affect RDM that affects all melee classes tied to a gauge not just RDM. RDM just happens to be affected by it because... well we are one now just due to the way things work.

Sad that Reprise fell to disuse, but

[Rongway]

No I'm really not,

If you are really doing it that way, you are spending way too much time building up to 100 Mana when you don't need to anymore. In reality you only need to build up to 50 mana to do a combo, I go 60 for a buffer but not always. The Dual Casts are about half what you demonstrated in your chart.

Whether you build up to 92|81 with Manafication available to do a triple combo or you combo immediately on 50|51 at every opportunity, you MUST spend the same amount of time building up Mana every 110 seconds: about 28 GCDs, less 1 Dualcast for residual Mana if your procs work out perfectly, plus up to 2 additional Dualcasts if you don't get any procs at all. That's between 65 and 80 seconds of Mana generation every 110 seconds. Whether you split this time into three sections or one is irrelevant. You still spend that much time on Mana generation, and during most of that time you can only move in short 2 second steps.


If a party burst ends immediately before an in-out or out-in mechanic and you have a depleted gauge, there may be no mobility option but to use E.Reprise, and E.Reprise is currently not a button we want to press. That would be easily fixed by making it cost a charge of timed gauge and increasing its potency or making it generate positive Mana.

[Rychu]

No I'm really not,

If you are really doing it that way, you are spending way too much time building up to 100 Mana when you don't need to anymore. In reality you only need to build up to 50 mana to do a combo, I go 60 for a buffer but not always. The Dual Casts are about half what you demonstrated in your chart. It's why I'm sitting in melee all the time. You get even a single proc which you usually do after a finisher, and you're building much faster even than that. The only time I'm up at 100 Mana is when I'm building up for Boss fight with trashmobs in dungeon or Alliance Raid for the next fight.

*homie gets shown definitive calculations of time to prove how long it takes to build up the same mobility as summoner* "nuh uhhhhh*

Secondly you are assuming everything is an 8-Man what you showed only applies there, not to Alliance Raids or Expert Dungeons.

That's because the game is balanced around the 8-man content, the rest of the game's battle content like alliance raids, deep dungeons, and casual MSQ progression all balance themselves around the players that do savage and ultimate because it's easier to do it that way.

But even if you were to assume that, You're still spending time building to 100 when you no longer have to do that. It's much quicker these days. Yeah Enchanted Reprise kinda falls into the unused toolset now, but doing faster finishers will do more damage in the end, because that's the big damage portion and you do it much faster and more of them.

That is and I mean this quite literally, not how it works. It still takes almost the same amount of time to build up your mana between the old 80/80 and the current 50/50 "Developer confirmed", you are just able to build up more of it. And process this for me, saving 50/50 mana and doing your combo does not provide more damage "by doing faster finishers will do more damage in the end" than saving almost 100 and doing them both back to back...because you'll still have to save up another 50/50 mana to so a second combo.

And it is because of that, and because you end up just sitting in melee range all the time that I am starting to suggest staying power in melee. Hence the Adlo idea and DEFINITELY extending the Magic Barrier to be the equivalent time to Embolden.

I agree. Completely actually, for magick barrier at least. It is incredibly stupid that a spell we get at such a high level provides so little overall. It is super ironic that the same expansion that Red Mage gets a magic only utility spell, is also the same expansion that has the harder physical damage healer check we have ever seen. I am personally more of the opinion that it should mitigate all damage by 10% and increase the duration to 15 seconds. The 5% healing boost is also so small it might as well not be there.

[Silverquick]

*homie gets shown definitive calculations of time to prove how long it takes to build up the same mobility as summoner* "nuh uhhhhh*

No the calculations are incorrect and misleading.

I pointed out they only apply to one kind of content, second of all they don't apply to reality in that content. I didn't go into it, because I had already pointed out the problems with it.

But... first of all... spending that much time going to 100% Mana Gauge or thereabouts means you are going to be wasting time sitting there for no reason stationary.

Nor does it jive with the very things Rongway was advocating back in the day. I knew he was pushing something inaccurate from the beginning and something even he didn't believe in. He and other RDMS were the ones saying you don't need to go to 100% anymore just blow as many combos as you can as soon as you reach that 50% or therabouts mark. (Which by the way is something I implemented in my playstyle, because... it worked, even if back then it didn't net much... it does today.)

Secondly it does not apply the Verfire/verstone ready that the Finisher often invokes making the Mana Gain much faster than demonstrated in that chart... ergo those numbers are not accurate.

Thirdly it doesn't take into account any procs after that, which further reduce the dual casting which again make that not very accurate.

Reality is?

Likely you're only going to be doing 4-6 dual casts before blowing a 2000+ potency combo. Which is a far cry from 12.

[Rongway]

No the calculations are incorrect and misleading.

I pointed out they only apply to one kind of content, second of all they don't apply to reality in that content. I didn't go into it, because I had already pointed out the problems with it.

But... first of all... spending that much time going to 100% Mana Gauge or thereabouts means you are going to be wasting time sitting there for no reason stationary.

Nor does it jive with the very things Rongway was advocating back in the day. I knew he was pushing something inaccurate from the beginning and something even he didn't believe in. He and other RDMS were the ones saying you don't need to go to 100% anymore just blow as many combos as you can as soon as you reach that 50% or therabouts mark. (Which by the way is something I implemented in my playstyle, because... it worked, even if back then it didn't net much... it does today.)

Secondly it does not apply the Verfire/verstone ready that the Finisher often invokes making the Mana Gain much faster than demonstrated in that chart... ergo those numbers are not accurate.

Thirdly it doesn't take into account any procs after that, which further reduce the dual casting which again make that not very accurate.

Reality is?

Likely you're only going to be doing 4-6 dual casts before blowing a 2000+ potency combo. Which is a far cry from 12.

All those things you're talking about are things my calculations accounted for. Insofar as total movement vs total casting is concerned, there is no difference between building up to a triple combo or using combos immediately as they become available. You still have to spend the same total time casting, and that table I wrote up includes the 8|19 or 19|8 Mana rebates from Verfinishing and lays out the best case scenario assuming 100% procs. If you're only thinking about one combo at a time you need to triple the number of casts you think you're doing because my calculations are for a 110-ish second rotation that includes three combos.



About deciding whether to bank combos or use them immediately: EW RDM adjustments gave us, in many but not all cases, the flexibility to use one combo per minute specifically as a movement tool while still having one combo available for the party burst. There's also the option to reserve one of those movement combos so that there are two combos available during the party burst (though Embolden and other 20s buffs only give you time for 1.5 combos). Most of the time there is no additional benefit to performing a triple combo because 1.5 of those combos are going to be outside of the party burst no matter what and it's really easy to overcap while doing so. The exception to this is during the potion burst window, which will cover about 2.5 combos. Regardless of which of these options you choose, the total time spent casting will be the same. None of these choices offers more total mobility than the others; the only difference is when that mobility is available.