Was BLM not enough?

[Azurarok]

Also since manafication's generally best used on cooldown anyways it's going to drift out of buffs in longer fights, so it's not even a good approach for what they wanted to do.

If they absolutely had to do the extension it should've come with some dps loss so you still want to get close but it exists as a backup plan to avoid drifting cooldowns/overflowing gauge

[Glitchima]

Can we simply talk about the fact that from the perspective of how this *looks* and *feels*, it sucks more to be able to execute these melee combos when there is a literal SLASHING SOUND EFFECT playing when you execute the combos? What's the point of the animation playing of the slash when you are far away and your weapon isn't actually slashing anything/anyone and instead its just casting magic at your enemy?

I have complained so many times about changes like these that they've done to the jobs. Astrologian is a huge one for me - A job all about tarot, and the whole POINT of tarot had always been that you know, you don't get to pick and choose which cards you play. You leave it up to fate, and all that. And that's how the job used to function. Yes it was a bit wonky in fights, and I understand people complained, but we've been talking about job identity for years now and how it feels like those things are being lost - To me, these are integral things to how a job feels to play. Dark Knight losing its plunge is also another big one, at the top of my head, or how scholar for some reason gained angel wings. I don't play every job, so I am not sure how many similar stories people have of other jobs, but frankly this kind of stuff is just making me feel less inclined to trust the dev team's vision on how a job "should" look and feel like to play.

All of this being said, I feel ridiculous using the "melee" combo from far away and hearing the sfx. Tinkering with these designs with seemingly little care is becoming rather aggravating.

[Voidmage]

Also since manafication's generally best used on cooldown anyways it's going to drift out of buffs in longer fights, so it's not even a good approach for what they wanted to do.

If they absolutely had to do the extension it should've come with some dps loss so you still want to get close but it exists as a backup plan to avoid drifting cooldowns/overflowing gauge

This is actually what bothers me most, same as with BLM.
Why not give options?

A ranged choice that is safer and easier but also weaker and a melee choice that is more difficult to execute but stronger.
Flarestar as well. Using it at max but stronger and with cast time or beforehand but weaker and faster.

Skill expression would still be there while at the same time giving an easier method.
The problem is less that the devs choose to do these things but that they always have to go full nuclear in only one direction as if the word nuance doesn't exist in japanese (it's actually ニュアンス btw).

[Sarantserel]

Also since manafication's generally best used on cooldown anyways it's going to drift out of buffs in longer fights, so it's not even a good approach for what they wanted to do.

If they absolutely had to do the extension it should've come with some dps loss so you still want to get close but it exists as a backup plan to avoid drifting cooldowns/overflowing gauge

Since they removed the damage buff from manafication, the only damage gain tied to manafication at this point is prefulgence (which you get the moment you press manafication now) and the flexibility of the melee combos being made ranged. Even in the last tier, there might have only been 1 melee combo you would have wanted to be ranged. Unless every fight this tier has RDM standing way outside for melee range for burst, you might be able to use manafication as uptime tool even if you need to sacrifice buffed prefulgence for it. Gaining an extra prefulgence by rushing might be a gain from keeping it lined up for burst.

[Shistar]

Making some sort of "magic slash/tear" VFX that originates from your rapier and moves to the target rapidly would be a relatively decent solution for the visual disconnect happening. Kind of like this (I pulled these from Google):

Doesn't one of the sword characters in Smash have a similar move? Was it Marth?

[Azurarok]

Since they removed the damage buff from manafication, the only damage gain tied to manafication at this point is prefulgence (which you get the moment you press manafication now) and the flexibility of the melee combos being made ranged. Even in the last tier, there might have only been 1 melee combo you would have wanted to be ranged. Unless every fight this tier has RDM standing way outside for melee range for burst, you might be able to use manafication as uptime tool even if you need to sacrifice buffed prefulgence for it. Gaining an extra prefulgence by rushing might be a gain from keeping it lined up for burst.

actually forgot about the change to Prefulgence, them activating it with Manafication means it'll fall off buffs sooner than before now. Not sure if that makes it not worth using it on cooldown unless you know you lose a use otherwise, but I guess it was always an attempt to force players to use it the way they intended, like Flare Star was

[WawaMaxHeightLala]

actually forgot about the change to Prefulgence, them activating it with Manafication means it'll fall off buffs sooner than before now. Not sure if that makes it not worth using it on cooldown unless you know you lose a use otherwise, but I guess it was always an attempt to force players to use it the way they intended, like Flare Star was

It feels like they are trying to force 1 way to play each class which sucks. This change is definitely trying to force manafication to be used during burst only. Game is just turning into DDR easy mode with changes like this, why compromise what made jobs challenging and fun.

[Sarantserel]

actually forgot about the change to Prefulgence, them activating it with Manafication means it'll fall off buffs sooner than before now. Not sure if that makes it not worth using it on cooldown unless you know you lose a use otherwise, but I guess it was always an attempt to force players to use it the way they intended, like Flare Star was

Considering you gain 4730 potency from the extra combo and prefulgence, I think rushing manafication is always worth it if your group has a kill time that allows it. Now the thing that will weigh is whether or not you NEED manafication to handle forced disconnect during burst. In which case, then keeping Manafication aligned with Embolden will be required.

[Xieldras]

The shredding of job complexity will continue until morale revenue improves. /s

[Kisshu]

Also since manafication's generally best used on cooldown anyways it's going to drift out of buffs in longer fights, so it's not even a good approach for what they wanted to do.

If they absolutely had to do the extension it should've come with some dps loss so you still want to get close but it exists as a backup plan to avoid drifting cooldowns/overflowing gauge

They need something like an overcharge for non-stack abilities.
Activates after the first usage of an ability.
So for Manafication, it's a 120 cooldown, but if you don't use it right as it's available, it overcharges up to a max amount of seconds. When you use the ability, the overcharge is used to reduce the cooldown.
If you let Manafication overcharge go to nine seconds and use it, it will have a cooldown of 111 seconds.