Please, NEVER nerf RDM!

[SaitoHikari]

30 seconds? what in gods name. seriously? the 9 second cast isnt enough for you?

RDM should not be able to raise multiple players faster than healers can with no penalty besides a hit to their MP.

Leveling RDM myself, I am in agreement that it needs nerfs, because its damage is WAY too high for all the utility it has. But rather than a straight up nerf, I think a damage redistribution would be better. Here's what I'd do:

- Drop potency of Jolt II/Veraero/Verthunder by 25 (I don't include Impact/Fire/Stone since they're procs)
- Increase Enchanted Riposte/Zwerchhau/Redoublement potency by 40-50.
- Increase the amount of white/black mana that Impact generates from 4 to 6 so that it's more than a proc-based improved Jolt.
- Increase proc rate of Enhanced Scatter from 25% to 40%.
- Increase Fleche CD to 45 seconds OR drop potency to 300.

Rewards RDM that have effective management of the balance meter, especially where Manification usage is concerned. And if watching other RDM is anything to go by, most RDM don't manage said meter effectively.

Upon further thought, adding a 30 second recast timer to Verraise wouldn't work since it's a spell and not an ability. If the devs converted it to an ability, it'd become an instant cast skill, which also means it'd no longer have anything to do with the doublecast mechanic. What's probably more fitting is that Verraise should require 10 White Mana to cast. The actual MP cost of the skill should be slashed in half to compensate. RDM still gets to retain its ability to raise multiple players better than healers can, but doing so will result in a MASSIVE personal DPS loss, so it should be a last resort thing. As it currently is, I see healers yelling at RDM to raise first, and that doesn't rub me the right way.

Fleche should also be nerfed in some fashion. I dunno about you guys, but a 420 potency oGCD on a 30 second cooldown that has absolutely nothing to do with their meter management (or any other skill, for that matter) is disgustingly high, and would be a pretty big contributing reason why RDM has higher practical damage output compared to SMN and BLM. For comparison, Bard's Sidewinder (another oGCD that doesn't have anything to do with a meter) has 260 potency on a 60 second cooldown, AND it requires both DoT effects to be on the enemy.

Its the launch of an expansion. The odds of all classes being balanced is pretty poor. So, what you do is, you plan for the future. Introduce the buffs needed to bring the classes to the same levels of performance or close enough that they can compete with one another. Sacrifice the balance of existing content. Then, for the first major patch, 4.1, you tune the new content around the now balanced classes.

Very simple process.

Power creep is bad because some things are just so broken that no amount of buffing other classes will fix the issue without causing design problems for the rest of the game. I witnessed this concept taken to the extreme in a different game, and it decimated the community in the long term.

I don't believe RDM is THAT broken to discourage power creep mentality outside of Fleche and its uncanny ability to raise better than healers can, though. On the other hand, Astrologian Balance is definitely one of those things.