Red Mage Abilities

[Rongway]

Apparently, the elemental spells are Ver-elements.

Verthunder
Verfire
Veraero
Verstone

[Silverquick]

Going by the two videos we have of their gameplay so far, here's my take on what SE means when they say red magic is a white and black magic hybrid. I suspect it just means that instead of being limited to the division of elements used like White Mages (only earth, air, water) and Black Mages (only fire, ice, lightning) are, Red Mages will have access to all element types. There's a bit of speculation here, but we do have enough visual evidence to at least partially support this theory:

In the lead up to the melee attack in both trailers they appear to be using some basic elemental casts.

That is pretty much exactly what I see too...

I was watching what appeared to be dual casting Aeros, Bliz, Lightning, Fire, Stone, (one almost looked like Gravity) combos, then once the guage filled he lept in to do a large zoro style melee attack.

[ShaolinMike]

That is pretty much exactly what I see too...

I was watching what appeared to be dual casting Aeros, Bliz, Lightning, Fire, Stone, (one almost looked like Gravity) combos, then once the guage filled he lept in to do a large zoro style melee attack.

The "dual casting" you saw was RDM's chainspell trait. They explained in the letter that whenever RDM casts a spell that has a cast time, the next spell is automatically insta-cast.

[Silverquick]

The "dual casting" you saw was RDM's chainspell trait. They explained in the letter that whenever RDM casts a spell that has a cast time, the next spell is automatically insta-cast.

Yeah that's actually called Dual Cast in the classic sense of the Traditional Red Mage who had that trait in the previous Final Fantasy games. And its exactly how it worked.

Chainspell was a separate ability that allowed you to cast them in succession instantly.

Dual cast was casting 2 spells at once, and that's more what it looked like.

[Mhaeric]

Okay, I've done a quick bit of analysis on the red mage procs and chainspell system and I think this will be the most efficient way to manage them and build elemental charge for the melee attacks. Note that this isn't a full analysis of everything, just the strategy of how best to manage the four base elemental spells.

The base elemental spells Thunder and Air are very high cast time with a higher, but still spammable mp cost and a 50% chance (without using the 100% proc ability) to proc the second spell in the chain. The proc'd spells Fire and Stone have a very low cast time with a very spammable mp cost. All four do roughly the same damage and elemental charge build, although the proc spells are ever so slightly lower for both. The cast time is the significant difference, making the proc spells much more effective in terms of output per second despite being objectively weaker per cast.

Chainspell literally makes it so that RDM are guaranteed to never have cast time on two spells in a row. Most of the time this means that they alternate between a spell with cast time and an instant spell. The only exception is if you insert a spell that is inherently instant cast after a chainspelled instant cast to get two instants in a row, although they would still be subject to gcd.

So, with those two things taken together, the goal appears to be to minimize the amount of time spent hard casting the base elemental spells Thunder and Air, and maximize the amount of time spent hard casting the proc'd spells Fire and Stone. Even though the latter do slightly less output both in damage and elemental charge building, the faster cast time results in greater effect over time. So an ideal rotation assuming all the proc effects land would be Thunder-->Chainspelled Air-->Fire-->Chainspelled Stone. Assuming a base GCD of ~2.5s, this would have ~7 seconds of cast time over a period of ~12.5s (the extra 2.5 is due to the gcd clipping from the long cast on the Thunder spell). If you were to do Thunder-->Chainspelled Fire-->Air-->Chainspelled Stone that would result in ~10s of casting time over a period of ~15s. As you can see that's quite a difference.

I don't think Swiftcast makes a difference in this, since the chainspell effect is inherently at least equal or better. The best I could come up with is Swiftcast Thunder-->Air-->Chainspelled Fire-->Stone. This results in ~7s of cast time over a period of ~12.5s which is the same as the non-swiftcast rotation. It appears swiftcast will be saved for raising situations, and even then it's likely that a RDM can just use chainspell to get an instant raise off anyway. I suspect RDM will be the first healer/caster to not have swiftcast be a required cross-role ability.

Now, that's all the ideal situation where you proc 100% of time. The general priority holds though: Cast your base elemental spells while under the effects of chainspell as much as possible and cast your elemental procs while not under the effects of chainspell as much as possible. The choice of which element to use comes down to the status of current procs combined with the one in which you have less charge built up in order to make sure they build up at similar rates.

I'm sure someone else will have a more in depth analysis that includes the melee phase and proc management.

As for me... I really suck at MCH, so I'm a little wary about how this will pan out for me. Hopefully I'll be able to wrap my head around the priority rotation that RDM will have better than I am the MCH one.

[xyaie]

snip

I dont think we are going to see a real analysts until we see a full movelist (i'm hoping soon!).

But in the video yoshi uses scatter (2s cast, 100 potency AoE) as his "first" spell then chaincasted the 5 second spells. so scatter -> chain air -> fire -> chain stone would have only had 4 seconds spent actually casting rather than your 7.

i'm suspecting there will be a better "1" spell than a low potency AoE however.

[Mhaeric]

I dont think we are going to see a real analysts until we see a full movelist (i'm hoping soon!).

so scatter -> chain air -> fire -> chain stone would have only had 4 seconds spent actually casting rather than your 7.

That's missing Thunder which is necessary for the Fire so add 5s cast time. I did look at scatter as a possible filler, but its low potency, high cost and potential to only self-proc for more elemental charge takes it out of consideration outside of AoE rotations. I do suspect there might be a debuff spell that fills this role. That or that Impact proccing spell without a name.

Anywho, I'm not talking about full rotations or openers here, just the basic concept of how the elemental spells work which I don't think any other abilities will greatly change. I.e. cast Thunder/Air while chainspelled as much as possible and use the Fire/Stone procs when you are not in order to mitigate the high cast times.

[Shayuki]

We actually do have almost the entire rotation. Also, the AoE TP skill starts spending B/W mana at 30 of each. That also is the time when the gauge lit up, so I imagine that's when the first combo skill starts spending it as well(But the video had the third hit spending mana even from 27 to 2, so I think that this only holds true for the first ability of the combo).

Of course, we don't have all the abilities and things might change, but I think that most people are overthinking it. Note that the spell names probably aren't accurate, and this is just for single target. Still, it really is quite simple: You alternate between these two sets:

#1: 5s cast time, used when you have Chainspell:

Val Thunder(Black), Val Aero(White). Both have 300 potency and restore 11 mana.

Priority: Choose the skill for which you have less Mana. If your White mana is lower, pick Aero. If your Black mana is lower, pick Thunder. If they both are equal it doesn't matter. Simple as that.

#2: 2s cast time, used when you don't have Chainspell:

Val Fire(270 potency, 9 Black), Val Stone(270 potency, 9 White), Jolt(~240 potency, 3B/3W), Impact(270 potency, 4B/4W)

Val Fire and Val Stone have the highest priority because they generate 9 total mana(9 Black / 9 White, respectively), while Jolt generates only 6 total mana(3/3) and Impact 8(4/4). The actual element for Fire and Stone doesn't really have an effect unless you're about to cap, because the 5s spells are the ones you use to balance the mana gauge. Getting 9 mana instead of 8 is far more important. Impact seems to trigger whenever you cast Jolt, so basically, whenever you don't have either Val Fire or Val Stone, you alternate between Impact and Jolt. Impact has priority over Jolt because it deals more damage and restores more mana. You just cast Jolt when it's your only option.

As such, the priority: Val Fire/Val Stone(Whichever is up) > Impact > Jolt


Alternating between these two sets seems to be the entire rotation unless there's some curveball thrown in. If not, you do this until you are at 75+ mana. Then, you go into melee with the gap closer, perform the 3 hit combo, and I believe that the 3 hit combo then activates the Spellblade finishers. Those would be the Flare and Holy type spells, likely dealing massive damage and restoring 21 Black or White mana respectively.



A simplified sample opener:

(precast Acceleration(100% proc) Hardcast Val Thunder(5s+ before pull) -> Chain Val Aero(oGCD Embolden + Contra de Sixte, or something) -> Val Fire

Then, if Val Stone procced, cast Val Thunder -> Val Stone. Then, if Val Fire procced, cast Val Aero -> Val Fire. This sequence goes on until a spell does not proc(Likely far sooner than this). Let's assume that neither of these two Aeros(the previous one and the next one) procs Stone. In that case, the sequence from here goes, for instance:

Val Aero -> Jolt

Now, at this point, we'd have accumulated a total of 40 Black Mana and 42 White Mana. So next we go:

Val Thunder -> Impact/Val Fire(if procced)

and so on.

[Mhaeric]

One thing i didn't really wrap my head around fully until just now is just how fast and mobile RDM casting will be. The bulk of our cast time will be 2s base making our cast times in the 1.8s range when not simply instant casting every other spell. I.e.most of the time we will be super mobile and only being held back in speed of rotation by gcd. I figure only about 1.8s out of every 5s will be spent in a cast bar.

[Rawrz]

Still micro-hoping for a lower potency int based indom/assize for the whm side of things. Probably not though.