How would you make RDM more complex?

[PrismaticDaybreak]

So seeing as RDM currently is a very straightforward proc-based, build up and spend style of play right now, there's a couple paths I can see them going for in the future, increased support (kind of boring but que sera sera) or hopefully increased complexity (more room for optimizing damage etc. etc.).

Now personally I wouldn't mind juggling a minor maintenance buff of some sort, other people have mentioned additional mana spenders which could also be interesting as a primer spender that leads up to the main combo or a high damage nuke with a moderate cooldown (Ardor basically). That said I'll put forth what I think would be interesting for the former two.


Acceleration Cascade (Maintenance buff): Each time you consume Dualcast with a damaging spell or use an Enchanted Weaponskill you gain a stack of Acceleration Cascade, increasing your spellspeed by 2% for 10 seconds stacking up to 5 times. Casting Verholy or Verflare doubles the effect of each stack for the next 10-20 seconds. Acceleration Cascade can only be generated from Vercure once every 5 seconds. This is a trait

Chainspell (Primer spender): Consume all of your mana, gaining Chainspell for 1 second per 10 mana points consumed (would be subject to change). Chainspell grants instant casts for damaging spells for its duration and reduces your GCD by 1.5 seconds. The idea here would be to generate enough mana that using Chainspell would allow you to cast Veraero/thunder enough to get you back to the main combo, might have to have it reduce the potency of them by a slight amount. This ability would probably need a modest recast. Note this specifically affects damaging spells because being able to Verraise or Vercure every second for up to 20 seconds would be absolutely bananas. And I don't like bananas.

--This one isn't necessarily in any of the categories I mentioned but I thought it might be interesting--

Applied Discipline: For the next 15 seconds your Enchanted Weaponskills do not cost mana, but their damage is reduced by 20%. For 15 seconds after that, Verthunder and Veraero have their cast times reduced by 80% but do 15% less damage and do not proc Dualcast (the GCD would artificially be reduced down to whatever Verthunder/aero cast time would be, but only if one of those two were cast). The theme here would be that the Red Mage temporarily focuses on only one side of their power for a short duration. Needs more polish to be sure but thought it would be an interesting concept. Additionally you could have them last 20 seconds but whichever discipline you get is determined by what mana is higher at the time. (White for weaponskills, Black for spells and you only get one.)

Constructive criticism, thoughts, alternative suggestions on the topic are all welcome. Destructive criticism while not welcome will still be considered.

Edit: If you're at least reading the OP instead of just responding to the title, if your response is somewhere along the lines of, "I wouldn't make it complex I like it simple because X," or the also popular, "There are other complex jobs why'd you pick this one," please move on, it's already been covered.

[Lunali]

The first question you should ask is should you make it more complex? There are plenty of complex classes out there, and those classes are rewarded for that complexity. If anything, there's a shortage of very straightforward classes.

[PrismaticDaybreak]

The first question you should ask is should you make it more complex? There are plenty of complex classes out there, and those classes are rewarded for that complexity. If anything, there's a shortage of very straightforward classes.

Well by more complex I meant just a couple simple things like the above, not MCH or SMN level complex but enough to tickle the people who would enjoy more optimization other than using Corps-a-corps and Displacement ASAP. Notice the maintenance buff I proposed isn't exactly that difficult, it just makes choosing between doing damage or support a little more impactful and the Chainspell suggestion gives what I perceive to be a interesting alternative to the rather rote repetition of the exact same play over and over again.

Edit: Which classes exactly are you talking about for complexity. There's SMN and MCH that just adequately award complexity, I'd balk at the suggestion that any of the other particular classes are overly complex on their own.

[XiXiQ]

I'd not make it any more complex, that's the beauty of it at the moment. Not every job needs to be complicated, or have a rotation that is baulked by latency/pings. it does need something along the lines of blm convert (mainly because it's a pig for MP after a KO)

[TarynH]

Sometimes it's just nice to have something simple. I wouldn't change RDM to be more complex. It's enjoyable in its simplicity.

[PrismaticDaybreak]

Sometimes it's just nice to have something simple. I wouldn't change RDM to be more complex. It's enjoyable in its simplicity.

The basic rotation doesn't change, RDM at it's core would still be very simple, just with some potentially optimizable cooldowns or maintenance buffs.

[TarynH]

The basic rotation doesn't change, RDM at it's core would still be very simple, just with some potentially optimizable cooldowns or maintenance buffs.

That's the thing. To keep it simple, means to not have other buffs/debuffs/cooldowns to manage. There are plenty of other jobs for that. If you're playing RDM for complexity, you picked the wrong job.

[PrismaticDaybreak]

That's the thing. To keep it simple, means to not have other buffs/debuffs/cooldowns to manage. There are plenty of other jobs for that. If you're playing RDM for complexity, you picked the wrong job.

I'm playing it because I really like the theme, I don't want it to be a button bloat, micromanagement nightmare like SMN, I don't want it's damage potential completely tied up in a buff that ends up being a hindrance in any boss fight with a transition like MNK. It would be nice if there was a little more nuance then, "have proc A? cast proc A then spell B". Considering how similar RDM now is to BLM at level 50 I guarantee you they're going to add some sort of complexity to the job since there's only so much support you can add (which pretty much we've already got any non offensive support they could heap on Red Mage) before you have to go "Vermedica" or "Enchanted Trick Attack."

[TarynH]

I guarantee you they're going to add some sort of complexity to the job

There's plenty of stuff they could add to the job. It could get VerDia/VerBio for DoTs; that would need to be maintained to keep white/black from falling to 0. It could get VerSleep, or VerEnspells. They could give us VerCure II and VerRefresh, and reduce RDM's damage until we're forced to play it as a mediocre healer and refresh whore, like FFXI. Or Chainspell VerStun! Maybe add 3-4 buffs to maintain in between all the Verring. How bad would you be willing to let it get? :P

I just don't see any additions being anything more than "I wanna press more buttons."

[PrismaticDaybreak]

Yeah except the things I suggested aren't the most blatantly horrible things I've ever seen. Just look at how useless Sleep is in the game anyway. There's going to be additions, you might as well give them ideas for which buttons you want to press and how often. Note with a maintenance buff there aren't more buttons to press, with more spenders like the ones I proposed that's one or two buttons at most every minute or two for a little bit of optimization. You're exaggerating and making it seem like that literally any nuance added is going to make RDM into SMN-junior. There's literally 5 things they can do in the space of one expansion to each class if they stick to the one trait/action per 2 levels for 10 levels pattern. One of them is easily going to just be Verfire/Stone II and Verthunder/Aero II. They might even give us two traits and give us Jolt III and Impact II.