Changes to RDM Manafication feel detrimental

[Zjar]

Reaper is in a similar situation. Plentiful Harvest used to give 50 blue gage, which is enough for Enshroud. Instead, you get a buff to use Enshroud for free, now. The problem is, this is granted through a 30 second buff, instead of a non-timed buff, or 60 second buff like other Reaper temporary buffs are. This means if you end a pack or have to wait too long, you could Plentiful Harvest, and not use the buff in time to Enshroud. Feels shitty, especially with Plentiful Harvest only being usable after 2 minute cooldown Arcane Circle. I am sad to hear Red Mage has the same timed buff non-sense happening.

[Kaedys]

The new timer is not 30 seconds, it is 15.

Additionally, the amount of time you previously had to consume the mana, regardless of the combo timer, was in fact infinite.

Furthermore, the change was promoted as something to make it easier for players and help them to not waste the mana they received from the skill. If this was indeed the intent as they described, then the result is the opposite, regardless of whether you think the extra planning required for efficient use is a good or bad thing.

They're boosting the timer to at least 20s in 7.0.1. We don't know the exact amount yet, but they said they're increasing the duration, so either 20 or maybe 30, we'll have to see. That said, regardless of the change, you'd lose out on Prefulgence if you fail to use the Manafication stacks in the duration. And the stacks don't impact the new functionality anyway, since the major new functionality, not giving gauge and instead making the next 3 melee attacks free, lasts the same amount of time as the Manafication stacks anyway (and if you can't use all 3 melee stacks in that time, you're definitely not using all 6 of the Manafication stacks). Basically, the existence of Prefulgence means you never want to use Manafication if you're not going to be able to get all 6 attacks in anyway. Really the only thing that was lost with the change is you can't use it during downtime as easily.

I do, however, wish they would increase the cooldown on Manafication back up to 120s. It was set at 110s because we sometimes needed to delay it a smidge to avoid overcapping, so that extra 10s gave us some breathing room on re-syncing with raid buffs. But since that forced drifting is no longer an issue, I'd rather the whole debate over whether to desync it from raid buffs (ie. use it on CD) or keep it synced just get smothered entirely.

Reaper is in a similar situation. Plentiful Harvest used to give 50 blue gage, which is enough for Enshroud. Instead, you get a buff to use Enshroud for free, now. The problem is, this is granted through a 30 second buff, instead of a non-timed buff, or 60 second buff like other Reaper temporary buffs are. This means if you end a pack or have to wait too long, you could Plentiful Harvest, and not use the buff in time to Enshroud. Feels shitty, especially with Plentiful Harvest only being usable after 2 minute cooldown Arcane Circle. I am sad to hear Red Mage has the same timed buff non-sense happening.

Eh, they're about the same. The major difference, actually, is that Plentiful Harvest hits quite hard on its own, while Manafication does absolutely nothing if you're not attacking and consuming the buff. And Prefulgence means you never want to just do that halfway anyway.

Edit: It's also worth noting that Machinist's Barrel Stabilizer got this treatment. Weirdly, Ninja Meisui, Samurai Ikishoten, and Warrior Infuriate did not, despite working identically to Barrel Stabilizer (albeit on a shorter CD for two of those). Pictomancer's Starry Muse also works like Manafication, granting a free usage of Subtractive Palette, which is actually a bit annoying, since there's a pretty considerable delay before it's usable if you don't already have the Paint gauge for it, preventing double-weaving Starry into Subtractive without clipping.