Red Mage improvement suggestions from a RDM advocate.

[Hyrist]

It's no new thing that I defend Red mage to the bitter end, but even I can acknowledge when a class is under-tuned, or when there's something lacking with it. For those who are looking for admission from me - they can have it - Red Mage needs a buff to bring up its average performance and skill floor a bit.

(Summary is listed below, which is a copy-paste of the adjustments without the reasoning behind them.)

I do always, however press for fully exploring something before critiquing it and often when I keep this open perspective I begin to identify issues that are NOT being frequently talked about.

So let's get the obvious out of the way - I'd like to address a couple of matters that are commonly brought up and turn them on their head a little.

1. "Red Mage has no burst." - I agree with the sentiment, but not the details of why.

I agree that Red Mage's damage is too spread out from where it is now, but I do not believe this is as much of an issue with numbers as it is with delays. Between the ~2 Second CGD on Enchanted Redoublet and the 1.5 second animation delay on Verflare/Verholy, the Red Mage's strongest damage portions have this giant gap between when they hit, giving healers and tanks plenty of time to react.

Now it's been noted among the more dedicated Red Mages that it's possible to Jolt II before Verflare/Verholy, then still instant cast Impact afterwards, but the Animation and Recast delay on Verflare/Verholy still make this impractical to use as a full burst.

In fixing Red Mage's burst, I feel that it would be more important to implement the following before adding any potency changes.

Adjustments (Burst)
- Reduce the Recast Timer of Enchanted Redoublet to 1.5 seconds (Same as the two previous melee skills)
- Reduce the damage trigger for Verholy's and Verflare's animation to ~0.3-0.5 Seconds, and reduce its recast to 1.5 seconds.

Now there's something additional I'd like to add that will assist Red Mage's burst, but I feel that the change will also be better suited for the utility discussion.

2. Red mage has no Utility.

This phrase is just overall wrong semantically, but it's meaning is more or less accurate:

Red Mage has an instant, on-demand AoE Weight that deals 1000 damage to its primary target and fall-off damage to each additional target. The problem is that it's restricted to the GCD, costs 300 TP, and is Melee range conal.

While it is great for assisting with retreats and chases, Red Mage literally has no other utility to follow it up with, which makes me wonder why the ability just isn't all that powerful if it's going to be our ONLY utility. Address it's three innate flaws and this would quash all utility discussion for Red mage.

So here's the proposed change.

Adustments (Utility)
Replace Flunge with Contre Sixte - give it the same AoE Radius in PvE, put it off the global cooldown with a 30-45 second recast timer and remove the TP cost. Damage can be adjusted from 1000 for balance purposes if needed, but I'm not sure that due to the delay it will need it when Black mage already has Flare that does similar, on top of both Weight And Sleep in their kit.

If Red Mage is to be restricted to one utility skill, weighing down a clustered group of enemies off the global cooldown, that can be woven into a Red Mage's damage cycle and fits with its PvE themes, I feel, is the best way to go here.

3. Red Mage has too much risk for its burst. (Has to be in Melee Range.)

Here is where I disagree staunchly with most of the community. Right now PvP lacks a high-risk-high-reward style class, which Red Mage would fill if it was appropriately balanced. And if its damage and utility are corrected, this becomes a non-factor, as currently it's a very small factor that only manifests in drawn out fights, if anything I'd say Red Mage could afford give away its one 'defensive' buff to double down on playing aggressively while addressing the idea that Red Mage can't deal damage at range.

Monomachy, personally, to me is an Eyesore of a skill. There just does not seem to be any engaging gameplay of swapping a passive around that further highlights how predictable and tunneled Red Mage's damage already is - furthermore, it has no basis in any of Red Mage's PvE skill line up at all, which is contrary to every other PvP skill which at least has a basis in cross-role skills if not primary. So instead, let it be resplaced by something that's native to Red Mage's class that will address the more important matters of Red Mage's ranged damage, and it's burst window.

Adjustments (Misc)
- Replace Monomachy with Fleche, give Fleche a potency of 500-750 and a recast of 25-30 Seconds.

With this, a Red Mage's damage becomes versatile enough to be worked at a range, but at the cost of some of its Burst damage. And its strongest burst comes form risking itself in close range and blowing all of its off global cool-downs within it's melee burst, with plenty of flexibility to pull suprise tactics such as the Jolt II Ver(Flare/Holy) Impact along with Fleche and Contre Sixte.

The fact that this would make it an all-range damage threat with an OGC weight on top of it's movement tools would make diving it a deterrent unless CCed.

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So, to summarize my proposed adjustments:

- Reduce the Recast Timer of Enchanted Redoublet to 1.5 seconds (Same as the two previous melee skills)
- Reduce the damage trigger for Verholy's and Verflare's animation to ~0.3-0.5 Seconds, and reduce its recast to 1.5 seconds. (To remove awkward pauses in burst rotation)
- Replace Flunge with Contre Sixte - AoE off GCD 50% Slow for 3 seconds, no TP cost. 1000 potency with falloff. 30-45 Second Recast time. (Gives only utility skill proper impact)
- Replace Monomachy with Fleche - 500-750 potency and a recast of 25-30 Seconds. (Gives proper ranged component to burst, both addresses and doubles down on risk/reward system for Red Mage)


Disclaimer - I don't expect any of these adjustments to be taken verbatim, (pun intended) let alone in their entity. But any one grouping of them would be a massive improvement to Red Mage's overall performance - and I feel the list as a whole would convey the idea that Red Mage needs smoothing over. Note that most of this has more to do with shifting around the damage we already have into something more focused than just straight out buffing our damage. (Examples: Fleche actually deals less damage than the impact of Monomachy during a burst duration, but deals its damage at range and all at once. Contre Sixte does less damage over the course of a fight than utilizing Flunge but is more accessible to use in combo.) This highlights my idea that Red Mage does not need buffing so much as an adjustment of how its damage is distributed.

Anyways, thanks for your time.