Red mage 7.0 Wishlist

[Milkbeard]

Nothing feels natural until you get used to it. The dedicated buttons for VerFlare and VerHoly were removed and as far as I know:

The great thing of condensing it to one button is it is automatically optional: You place 3 Riposte buttons in your bar and press a different button for each step. You can try in PvP right now!

Yea that is true. As long as it is accompanied by more options such as this \/\/\/\/\/

Xenosys actually made a pretty good take on why he would prefer them to condense most job's 1-2-3 combo into one button. He proposes that the condensing of 3 buttons down to one button introduces 2 more buttons that they can use to add variety to the jobs. Maybe having 3 different combo buttons that all have their own 1-2-3 or 1-2 or 1-2-3-4 amount of buttons to press. I would be open to that change. If I was to add my flair I would like it if we get 3 buttons that all have their own combos that they still interact in some way. For example, lets say we have 3 different buttons that all have their own 1-2-3 combo. Pressing the 1 button twice, combos into one of the other 2 for a different 3rd combo finisher. Add a little spice to that filler rotation and boom fillers aren't so snooze fest anymore

Then its okay with me. But like other players have mentioned, PVP doesn't currently feel as good as PVE because of it. I have to do the multimapping of reposte to have fun on rdm in PVP. Also like I mentioned earlier, it conditions bad habits if you spend like 16 hours in pvp then go into raid night as rdm and end up riposting twice at 50/50 mana. (we've all done it atleast once)

But yea Deslyxic I agree completely with your sentiment. They condensed the spell finisher portion of the combo and it felt literally no different and opened things for new additions. Basically if you had verflare and verholy on your bar, you most likely replaced it with the new aoe moves veraero2 and verthunder2 this expansion.
It was a very intuitive change. It didn't simplify any thing to be honest. It just made verflare and verholy usable only when they were available, and had something in their place until then. I just hope if they were to do that with the sword combo they could do it in an equally intuitive way just like that. Does that makes sense? Like don't just condense, build upon the foundation and maybe have something in their place until we have the mana to use them.

If you really think about it, we only had to make space for 2 new button mappings this expansion. It was for engagement and magick barrier (some red mages just replaced displacement for engagement and there is absolutely nothing wrong about that). We gained 5 new abilities/spells but only had to make space for 1-2 actually new moves. I like this, and if we gain new abilities, stick with this trend. We don't need new buttons to press in order to enrich our rotation's complexity, this expansion proved that. More new buttons just leads to more clutter and power creep. MMOs tend to do that, 3 expansions of new buttons and then 4th expansion brings them back to only having to map 6 buttons. Lets just keep it at 6 but have it branch out while completing the rotation. Xeno made a good point about button condensing, he really takes a tank's perspective because they have a nasty habit of just adding more buttons to tanks while keeping them simple. Like paladin is the sillyiest, just make their spell phase and melee phase the same button mappings, they hardly have reason to use melee moves during requiescat, or holy spirit during fight or flight.

Edit: Gamers I haven't played paladin in a minute, did they fix that? Lol I just put on the job stone and saw fight or flight does a flat 20% damage increase. Well whatever you all got my point, right?

[SaberMaxwell]

Xenosys actually made a pretty good take on why he would prefer them to condense most job's 1-2-3 combo into one button. He proposes that the condensing of 3 buttons down to one button introduces 2 more buttons that they can use to add variety to the jobs. Maybe having 3 different combo buttons that all have their own 1-2-3 or 1-2 or 1-2-3-4 amount of buttons to press. I would be open to that change. If I was to add my flair I would like it if we get 3 buttons that all have their own combos that they still interact in some way. For example, lets say we have 3 different buttons that all have their own 1-2-3 combo. Pressing the 1 button twice, combos into one of the other 2 for a different 3rd combo finisher. Add a little spice to that filler rotation and boom fillers aren't so snooze fest anymore

My problem with this is the word "can." They CAN use the added space to make more variety, of course, and if they did it would be a net positive.

But WILL they? I'm not convinced. They didn't for healers. SMN is a canary in the coal mine for casters like as not.

I'm jaded and cynical though. Its a net positive if the reduction in combo buttons adds variety, but if they stop at step 1 here and drop the ball after, its gonna be aggravating personally speaking.

[Milkbeard]

Other than what has been expressed thus far, is there anything else you guys wish to add on to this wishlist thread? I feel like if the devs search the forums for feedback at some point before 7.0 they are more than likely going see the multiple threads tagged "7.0 wishlist" for the different classes -so if you can think of anything else, let me know and I'll add it to the post. As long as you keep it feasible, and not a creative rewrite of everything that is red mage, I think it can still fit it in. (I'm sure 10+ clones of this exact thread will pop up between now and release too)

[Rychu]

Throwing my hat in the ring for glam, I wish the artifact gear would try some more varied options. We have been getting variations of the same outfit since stormblood and personally, I think they have all looked objectively worse compared to the lvl 70 set. personally I would love to see either a butler aesthetic or just a more business/modern suit design. Red Mages to me, look the coolest when the flashiness is hidden until they start doing the flippy dippy shit and that would really scratch the 12 year in my brain and his sense of what is cool.

Besides that, I would love if they did some more stuff with the swords we summon. While cool and badass conceptually, we really don't do much with them with them only being two ogcds. I would love if maybe as an alternative movement option they had a phase of the rotation that the summoning of swords. Maybe after we stack up enough verfinishers? IDK that would need to be workshop-ed hard

[Milkbeard]

Besides that, I would love if they did some more stuff with the swords we summon. While cool and badass conceptually, we really don't do much with them with them only being two ogcds. I would love if maybe as an alternative movement option they had a phase of the rotation that the summoning of swords. Maybe after we stack up enough verfinishers? IDK that would need to be workshop-ed hard

Yoo i didn't think about that!! Put some glowing swords in our sword combo!!

This seg-ways perfectly into these questions

What kind of new animations would you like to see for new moves? What could be some new moves they could add? Bonus points if you have a lore justification for them adding them!

[Rychu]

Yoo i didn't think about that!! Put some glowing swords in our sword combo!!

This seg-ways perfectly into these questions

What kind of new animations would you like to see for new moves? What could be some new moves they could add? Bonus points if you have a lore justification for them adding them!

Yeah see?? No one thinks about the conjured swords which is why I think they feel so tacked on and forgotten about. If they were to lean into the glowing swords, my personal taste would be this and ill try to paint a good image. You build up say three stacks from doing your verfinisher combo which leads into a glowing sword combo, completely ranged and instant cast to help with the movement issues. You do however many wooshy wooshy of the swords being conjured that the developers wants and then you do a VerUltima which can be a tiny little ball thrown at the enemy that does nothing until your next skill which sends one more sword to pierce it and then BOOM. Big animation for most likely mediocre damage but who gives a fuck that sounds cool to me. It would never happen but hey, a homie can dream right?

Either that or just give me a literal flash grenade so I can blind the party even when LB3 isn't up

[Milkbeard]

What are some people's thoughts on mana rushing? Do you want to see it continue as a playstyle in 7.0?

For those not completely in the loop, red mage meta leans into popping manaification off cd as a form of optimization (for a lot of fights). This is done to squeeze out additional sword combos through out a total encounter. It can also yield some fight specific buff alignments. Manarushing is done despite the intended design of manaification offering a temporary damage buff that intuitively suggests it should be popped when a boss is targetable.

Here are some pros and cons of mana rushing
Pros
You get more sword combos overall depending on how many 2 minute intervals are in a fight.
It can help guarantee your reopeners have a full 2 sword combos depending on certain fights or phases (its currently our only way of building resource when boss is gone).
It can be rewarding researching fights that you haven't cleared, gauging what your comp's clear time is capable of, then choosing to mana rush.

Cons
Manaification and embolden drift apart from each other. Some fights it is minor, others it can be drastic. Basically you may not be getting a clean triple finisher pot or double sword under embolden in some encounters.
The (5%) damage boost from manaification often means less, or sometimes means nothing, as you are popping it when the boss isn't targetable, or you are popping it outside of standard burst window activation.
It requires more encounter research than anything else for red mage. You can't go into new fights or phases knowing whether or not it is optimal to mana rush, its something you learn from estimating and researching specific encounter durations from those who have already cleared. If executed inappropriately, you will experience a sharp dps loss from personal burst misalignment.



What changes would you make to manaification/resource generation? Would you like to see devs lean into this player designed meta of manarushing? Or make a change to manaification that makes manaification optimal only when bosses are targetable?

[Narigo1]

What we getting are Verfire and Verstone upgrades and new physical combo finisher

[Higashikata]

I think red mage should have a DoT or anything to give them more damage

[SargeTheSeagull]

Overall I agree. That said, I don't want a time built resource like xeno or misery. I'd rather something like RDM gets two new spells: Vermisery and Verfoul. Share a 1 minute ish cooldown. Generate 50 white mana and 50 black mana respectively. 3 second cast. Cannot be dualcasted. Not a targeted spell, instead it's an AoE over you like Holy on WHM so you can cast without a target.

The idea is this: You know a boss is gonna disengage for 45 seconds and will come back just in time for a burst window. You build 50 black mana before he jumps away. Do the trio, 2.5 seconds before boss comes back you start casting Vermisery, boss comes back, vermisery finishes casting, gives you 50 white mana, bam you have enough mana to use your melee combo and stay aligned. This way RDM has another bit of skill expression, leans more into the "jack of all trades" theme, and has a way to keep up with extended downtime fights while still feeling distict and not having another "resource that auto builds over time" like so many other jobs.