Red mage 7.0 Wishlist

[Rongway]

Are you comfortable with the current status quo of the red mage glamour scene? lol

I don't know if we can really get what I want out of glamour without some sweeping changes to the system (universal all-role glamours excluding AF -or- all main stats collapsed to a single stat so gear can be redistributed by aesthetic rather than forcing all casters to wear robes, but that's a discussion for a different forum) but keeping it within the constraints of the current system, RDM could do with more roguey/scoundrely gear options (the debonair kind, not the skulking in back alleys kind). It's kinda weird for people to be performing flying lunges and backflips in mage robes.

[Milkbeard]

I don't know if we can really get what I want out of glamour without some sweeping changes to the system (universal all-role glamours excluding AF -or- all main stats collapsed to a single stat so gear can be redistributed by aesthetic rather than forcing all casters to wear robes, but that's a discussion for a different forum) but keeping it within the constraints of the current system, RDM could do with more roguey/scoundrely gear options (the debonair kind, not the skulking in back alleys kind). It's kinda weird for people to be performing flying lunges and backflips in mage robes.

I agree completely. Part of me wants access to bard items (for the hats dang it) but like you said, that would require an overhaul of the glamour system in general. Back flips in robes feels wrong though and I feel like they need to do something about it.

[Connor]

Now red mage does have a defensive buff in magick barrier and an offensive buff in embolden that makes the enemy take more damage already. Building upon your idea more, would you like to see those two moves condensed into one button, or perhaps both are provided for a longer duration and it shifts between the two based on preference or mana balance?

The shifting thing was just off of my head based on how it works in PvP, but as others have said it would then fall into the ‘use damage buff every time’ so it probably wouldn’t actually work. Similarly with the effect I basically just copied the PvP version, but I wouldn’t mind what kind of ‘debuff’ it provided as long as it was fun/interesting to use. I think a ‘Verreprise’ (aoe damage dealt reduction) would be pretty cool, and would synergise well with Magick Barrier.

Maybe instead of abilities they could work as actual spells?

Like ‘Frazzle’ (Verfrazzle? Lol) as a debuff spell that increases damage taken / reduces attack speed / whatever the effect was, and a ‘white magic parallel’ like ‘Verprotect’ that reduces damage taken for the target. They could act as long casts that increase their respective mana, so you could slot them in the place of Verfire / Verstone for a drop in attack potency but increased utility. Then they could make them interact with Acceleration too in some way, plus being made instant cast from it; again there’d a decision between acceleration and Veraero/Verthunder and the utility spells. It also means they don’t fall into the hole of competing for resources in a way that limits how/when they can be used.

That’s just my idea. It’s probably literally impossible game design / too supportive / ultimate balance-breaking, but it’s what I’d like to see lol.

[Shurrikhan]

Honestly, I feel like the levelcap experience is... fine, and would tend to be more worried by the prospect of changes than hopeful about them -- especially if short of a larger, in-depth, well-contextualized rework to make Black and White Mana not just different names for the same thing, etc.

For the leveling experience, though, and just the sake of iconics... I'd like to address RDM's "Chekov's Gun" issue a bit; our sword should be like something we can leverage, rather than merely a constraint we have to deal with. (No, I do not care whether it has been a wastefully bladed wand in previous iterations, too; that would have been wastefully dumb then, too.)

• Nothing should cancel Dualcast. It can be consumed, and that's it.
• Non-enchanted melee damage should be decent enough to act as a means of delaying macrorotation without any huge potency loss, giving that option pre-Reprise. (It should be buffed each time our spells and combos are.)
• Enchanted melee actions should outright grant Dualcast.
• The B/W-MP costs for Riposte, Zwerchhau, and Redoublement should scale with their potencies, such as at 10|20|30 B/W Mana across the three skills.
• MP generation should be increased by ~14-20%. Between this and the change above, this keeps Moulinet's rate of Flare/Holy combos on par with single-target.

Atop a tiny bit of QoL:

• Have Jolt replace Verfire and Verstone when those procs are not available.
• Jolt, Verfire, and Verstone cast times reduced to 2 seconds (recast remains unchanged). This gives a tiny bit more movement potential per cast-pair and avoids the animation clipping jank.
• Veraero and Verthunder cast times reduced to 3.5 seconds. (This just means one needn't begin precasting quite so soon, as is handy for dungeons.)
• If Impact is not on one's hotbar, it will replace Veraero II and Verthunder II during Dualcast/Swiftcast.
• Disengagement (and all other backsteps) now use pathing detection to "snap" their distance travelled up to 10% further or 25% shorter in order to reach (or remain within) pathable area. I.e., it now takes 33% more distance [1/.75] to actually be forced to backflip off an arena.

And a tiny bit of unbloating and further polish, given all the above:

• Reprisal is now a variant of Riposte, automatically used in place of Riposte if out of range but dealing 30 potency less. It likewise generates Dualcast and preps a combo for Zwerchhau. This saves a button.
• Disengagement and Corps-a-corps now share 3 15s charges. Corps-a-Corps's movement lock from its gap-closing has been significantly shortened and Corps-a-corps now increases the potency of your next weaponskill within 10 seconds by 40 and causes your next Disengagement within 10 seconds to increase the damage of your next spell by 10%.
• Engagement has been removed, now that it is no longer necessary, due to Disengagement being more safe and technically avoidable regardless (via charges shared with CaC). This, too, saves a button.

Edit: If I wanted to be a bit more ambitious, though, I'd probably also...

• Remove Jolt/Scatter as Mana generators and instead turn them into more interesting spenders, with our finisher combos being based instead on B/W Mana spent, rather than necessarily a trio of certain consecutive actions.
• Make our weaponskills, too, able to generate mana, and allow them to build up granular buffs based on potency dealt, such as pairs of any among Critical Chance, Critical Bonus, Determination, with the type of buff determined by the element of the most recent spell cast before them.
• Have our ST spells would gain some splash damage (e.g., 30 or 50%, and our AoE spells would gain some priority damage (30% additional potency split over all targets hit), and have those "AoE" spells would switch from yet another Thunder/Wind set to Freeze (Ice) and Flood (Water), giving us access to all 6 elements. (Fire/Stone procs would affect the spells cast after them, as to synergize with both "ST" and "AoE" lines, and all elements would technically be used for categories of situations, though in differing combos and ratios.)

[SaberMaxwell]

I have seen this sentiment before, that mobility difficulties are part of the classes identity.

Sorry, I didn't mean to cause a misunderstanding. I don't think mobility issues are a part of Red Mage identity, I believe they should be core to the identities of the entire caster subrole. How the individual jobs approach these challenges is how they will be defined. For instance, Red Mage approaches it through management of its dualcast windows, and these can be managed through use of swift/accel/melee, all of which change your casting rhythm by one "beat" as it were.

Regarding caster balance, I am frequently criticized for my desire for RDM to shed the useless support abilities so it can punch in a similar weight to its peers. RDM doesn't need to do as much damage as BLM ofc but the gulf between the two shouldn't be so wide imo. I could probably write a whole master's thesis on my opinions about caster balance although this is a wishlist thread.

And returning to that topic, I'm not so sure I have any major additions I'd want for Red Mage, besides bringing E. Reprise back to what it was in Shadowbringers--a tool not just for movement (it ain't even that rn to be fair but follow me)--but also to optimize mana usage.

Or, off the wall, maybe an ability that in one gcd just cannons your mana at the enemy, variable potency based on how much you have, to add a sort of execution ability. I wouldn't mind that so much.

[Milkbeard]

Or, off the wall, maybe an ability that in one gcd just cannons your mana at the enemy, variable potency based on how much you have, to add a sort of execution ability. I wouldn't mind that so much.

A full resource dump. Other classes have similar things and I kind of like the idea of this being adopted by red mage. Black mage can end a line early with an early despair which is optimal for bosses that are dying or transitioning soon. Summoner can fast forward through their summons. It kind of only makes sense that red mage have access to a full on resource dump as well, although they'd have to make it quite worth it because red mages have no way of currently generating resource outside of up time except for manaifcation. I like this idea though.

[Milkbeard]

The shifting thing was just off of my head based on how it works in PvP, but as others have said it would then fall into the ‘use damage buff every time’ so it probably wouldn’t actually work. Similarly with the effect I basically just copied the PvP version, but I wouldn’t mind what kind of ‘debuff’ it provided as long as it was fun/interesting to use. I think a ‘Verreprise’ (aoe damage dealt reduction) would be pretty cool, and would synergise well with Magick Barrier.

Maybe instead of abilities they could work as actual spells?

Like ‘Frazzle’ (Verfrazzle? Lol) as a debuff spell that increases damage taken / reduces attack speed / whatever the effect was, and a ‘white magic parallel’ like ‘Verprotect’ that reduces damage taken for the target. They could act as long casts that increase their respective mana, so you could slot them in the place of Verfire / Verstone for a drop in attack potency but increased utility. Then they could make them interact with Acceleration too in some way, plus being made instant cast from it; again there’d a decision between acceleration and Veraero/Verthunder and the utility spells. It also means they don’t fall into the hole of competing for resources in a way that limits how/when they can be used.

That’s just my idea. It’s probably literally impossible game design / too supportive / ultimate balance-breaking, but it’s what I’d like to see lol.

I like these ideas. I wouldn't worry too much about the balancing or game design perspective. Balancing the game is the developers job, not any single one of us on the forums (although many may feel the opposite) are responsible for making this stuff actually work within the game's overall design. I like creativity. I do personally believe that any give-and-take rotation changes should be met with a ton of developer testing and supervision. If they do implement any changes that make red mages have to actively choose between supporting, or dpsing, it need to be done with great care.

[jdgev]

Regarding adding the PVP toggle ability into PVE, I see no problem why it wouldn't work. All they need to do is something like this:

Black Mana Toggle - Spells deal 25% more damage, while support is 25% less effective. Spells cast generate more Black Mana and hasten the cast time of the next spell by X%.
White Mana Toggle - Spells deal 25% less damage, while support is 25% more effective. Spells cast generate more White Mana, and heal the user for X% of the damage.

Yes you will default to Black when you want to do more damage, and you will go White when you want to support. What's the problem? Don't tell me all you do in the game as a red mage is to dps lol. That's why I added the generate more white/black mana anyways because, in raids (doesn't matter anywhere else), after a big burst phase where you are generating way higher black mana, you will go white to generate white to compensate, while also boosting your support abilities.

Then, all they need to do is add more support to RDM. Give them a targeted "Protect" shield and give them a weak AOE heal and buff Vercure a little bit by making it generate White mana.

Finally, make Enchanted Reprise worth using and voila, no more mobility issues.

Idk seems good enough for me, but I'm not one of those b*tching about needing 1% more damage and removing support for it lol...

PS: Problem isn't that support is useless if you can even consider that (meaning raids only, support is useful for 99% of the content in the game duh). Problem is raid encounters are too scripted and it's way too easy to plan support. Make new fights more random, with no certain timeline for boss abilities, and hectic so that support users can shine. I understand this is harder because of the 2 min window now, but it's not impossible at all. Just make mechanics last so that there always will be an option for a 2 min window in some way or another, or pick and choose which mechanics can appear at certain points of the fight to ensure there is a window. But fights just following an easy to read script makes support less valuable. Sadly, I don't see them going this route... but I'm just describing what I think would be ideal. I still think RDM needs more support than it has to become the true hybrid dps job it's suppose to be. Which is exactly what is in PVP.

PSS: There are probably better ideas than this for the toggle. This was just a quick idea, but I'm sure the toggle mechanic would work in PVE too. They just need to get creative.

[Rychu]

There is exactly two changes/additions that I would like to see to improve the game play feel while playing red mage.

1. We need to change how the mobility works for red mage, but to emphasize, I don't mean changing the cast a fast spell and dual cast a slow spell. That is actually really intuitive and I really like that. The problem is that our mobility is tied to building up black and white mana and that enchanted reprise is a dog shit ability that needed to have been reviewed further when they reworked the mana system for Endwalker. Personally, I would like to see red mage have something added to red mage that is similar to xenoglossy. A spell that we can prep and hold onto and then use for mobility when the time is right. Either that or here is "easy as shit" solution, have enchanted reprise grant a mana stack. Having enchanted reprise grant a mana stack would solve a lot of mobility problems since it will only take 15 black/white mana to do a finisher combo and you will have free movement during the entire thing. Potencies may have to be adjusted around since technically you can do a lot more finisher combos doing that, but honestly people would probably be fine with enchanted reprise being weaker if it means having that as an option. That way you actually have some decision making, "can I afford to hold my mana for a full sword combo which is stronger or do I need to just reprise for the sake of mobility and survivability during this mechanic?"

2. Verfire and verstone are ironically too punishing when you are proccing them constantly. Picture this scenario. You are in p8s, just after doing your opener and you are building up mana for more finishers. You know Twist Nature is coming up and is a spread so you want to start your sword combo to have full mobility during the mechanic but both verfire and verstone keep proccing. You are now forced to waste one of them just so you can cast verflare/verholy because you were *too* lucky. This is just bad design to me, neither summoner nor black mage have a situation where you are too lucky with your procs. Summoner doesn't even have chance procs and black mages fire starter and thunder spell are literally just a "when it comes up press them". I would like to see a trait added that if you press verthunder/veraero while either of their respective spells are up, that verthunder/veraero have their damage boosted to compensate for the potential waster verfire/verstone that you can have. I don't know how much, but red mage is one of the only jobs where you can be punished for playing too well.

[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.