Red Mage Changes

[Kyrotep]

I am really happy to see them try and balance the casters and that RM is getting some love. Even though the damage buff was needed, I would like to see them get some better utility. Someone else mentioned this, but why not give the RM a debuff? It fits with the whole theme of a RM and also would make them more wanted in groups.

[Maero]

Well we will not compete with aoe of that of blm or smn but at least be stronger then other jobs i guess? Rdm was not falling behind in aoe, it was already there.
At this point it is pure speculation however and i do not feel like doing calculations, haha

And my earlier comment i did not mean i think smn should have received changes despite it still being powerful. They simply do not know how to balance casters.

[Bhearil]

Imo the biggest problem is that even after buff RDM aoe resource generation is vastly inferior to single target one. Baseline on single target a RDM earns 8.5 mana per gcd with no procs at all while on aoe he will earn 6 mana per gcd.

The issue is due to that on single targets the chance for procs are either 100% (impact) or 50%, so when things are proccing properly, single target mana earnings is boosted to 10 per gcd with over 50% chance(low cd Aceleration helps), while even after buff aoeing gives 13 mana with a 30% chance (post buff)

Thats the reason why RDM tend to start doing single target rotation when enemies drop to 3 since even if the damage is nearly the same (570/540 if forced to use Jolt II vs 600 on 2 gcds), the mana earnings are much better (and after buff the damage losses will be lower with VerAero/Thunder potency buff, because the chance of proccing Enhanced Scatter is still too low and that small amount of extra damage doesnt justify the mana losses even if they are not as big as before)

If we use a battle with 100 gcds RDM aoe average earnings post buff would be 810 mana, meanwhile if we use single target (not counting Acceleration nor Impact to simplify) a RDM earns 925 mana on average surpassing aoe generation even without using Acceleration and Impact at all which would have boosted the value even further and closer to 15-20% more mana earnings

All of this means that if a RDM has to aoe and doesnt have mana meter high already (or at least enough to be worth to Manafication it), the sweet Enhanced Moulinet time is delayed due to slower earnings and sometimes that time arrives too late when mobs are almost dead already or just too few remain

[Zeign7]

Correct me if I am wrong but assuming 100 gcds and a 30% proc rate, 30 scatters should value 20 instead of 6.

So 70 gcds are worth 6 Mana (3 white/3 black) = 420.
30 gcds are worth 20 Mana (10 white/10 black) = 600.

The new AoE values would generate 1020 Mana, not 810, correct?

I know this is in a vacuum and rng will do its thing though.

I'm at work right now and can't really do the math to model accelerate and impact, and probability of other procs for single target. It would be interesting to see it though if someone has time. It might be worth comparing scatter into veraero/verthunder Mana generation on 3 targets as well, since there is no potency loss that way.

Edit: Forgot, this would actually be a slight potency increase with changes to aero/thunder.

[Bhearil]

Correct me if I am wrong but assuming 100 gcds and a 30% proc rate, 30 scatters should value 20 instead of 6.

So 70 gcds are worth 6 Mana (3 white/3 black) = 420.
30 gcds are worth 20 Mana (10 white/10 black) = 600.

The new AoE values would generate 1020 Mana, not 810, correct?

I know this is in a vacuum and rng will do its thing though.

I'm at work right now and can't really do the math to model accelerate and impact, and probability of other procs for single target. It would be interesting to see it though if someone has time. It might be worth comparing scatter into veraero/verthunder Mana generation on 3 targets as well, since there is no potency loss that way.

Edit: Forgot, this would actually be a slight potency increase with changes to aero/thunder.

Honestly i though about that as well, but remember that at least 50 of the gcds MUST be a normal Scatter, since Enhanced Scatter doesnt proc with itself, and need to start from Scatter so i considered the proc of 30% only on the remaniing 50 gcds. Even with 100% proc rate the max Enhanced Scatter possible on 100 gcds is just 50 not 99

So i used:

85 gcd of Scatter= 510 mana
15 gcd of Enhanced Scatter = 300 mana

Making a total of 810 mana

[Kabooa]

Honestly i though about that as well, but remember that at least 50 of the gcds MUST be a normal Scatter, since Enhanced Scatter doesnt proc with itself, and need to start from Scatter so i considered the proc of 30% only on the remaniing 50 gcds. Even with 100% proc rate the max Enhanced Scatter possible on 100 gcds is just 50 not 99

So i used:

85 gcd of Scatter= 510 mana
15 gcd of Enhanced Scatter = 300 mana

Making a total of 810 mana

You can have enhanced scatter strings.

[Dualgunner]

Nerfing SMN won't make RDM/BLM automatically good. Why any caster would want SMN nerfed (aka kicked off the comp) is beyond me because it's just further proof that no lessons are being learned up at SE. It doesn't actually make anything better. What all casters should want is a hard push to break the whole DRG/BRD/NIN triad. Its like the physical jobs get perfect buffs for each other while the 3 casters are too busy fight over the scraps to realize that they are all getting the shaft.

Basically this. If every fight mandated a caster, and god I hope that's never the case because I value comp choice for the players (one of my least favorite parts about uwu was mandated caster despite being a caster main), then sure the nerf makes sense to hold all three in line.

But casters are fighting MCH for the fourth slot, and nerfing SMN didn't help BLM or RDM, it just helped MCH.

[Shiroe]

SE looked at the active raid player base, too many on smn => blm and rdm need buff

when smn drops again => smn needs buff

[MoroMurasaki]

I think it's funny that their idea of a buff to AoE is on the part of AoE you generally don't want to be using in a raid setting.

Like no one wants to Scatter the Putrid Passenger adds during o5s, you want to preset your mana to 100 with Embolden and Manafaction ready.

I suppose it will be mildly helpful for dungeoning? The Contre buff is nice at least. Now as we're farming Shinryu I will probably one-shot the little adds.

Overall the more I think about and review how many times I use these skills over the course of a normal fight proportional to their potency increases the more I feel underwhelmed.

On my best Shinryu run which is pretty decent I would gain 610 potency from the Verthunder and Veraero buffs. 550 from the Contre buff (though I get two off on multiple targets during add phase and some others hit heart and main boss I think). 450 from Verfinishers. In a vacuum that's 1,510 potency over the course of a run.

By comparison the BLM in that same run who had an equally decent go of things gains 2,088 potency from the Fire IV buff when you factor in Astral Fire gains.

This is not in some kind of hyper-optimized raid setting, either. I would link the log if not for fear of getting banned for it. This means that a BLM (who already did the most dps of the casters) is gaining more from these buffs than a RDM (who already did the least damage of any job) which just feels kinda odd.

I am totally willing to wait and see how it all turns out on Tuesday and I'm sure I'll be too distracted by the pretty new primal and scary new raid tier to care much about any of this at that point but right now it feels like SE is just floundering with caster balance.

Don't get me started on the radiant shield thing. Now it's just another reason for SMN to use Garuda and buff their own damage even more with contagion. Again, thanks SE.

[Bhearil]

You can have enhanced scatter strings.

If thats the case I stand corrected and in that case aoe value should be 1020

Also did a quick calc and added Impact to single target mana values, so without counting Accelerate the mana value is around 949 mana.

Seems the mana values on single target and aoe are now relatively similar with a marginal aoe advantage, but dont forget that Verholy/Flare refund 20 mana and have a 100%/20% chance to proc, while Enhanced Moulinet doesnt, so numbers would be even closer on a real situation where you actually use the expenders . Also, on single target is easier to recover from mana inbalances since you can focus on the kind of mana you are lacking. meanwhile if you start aoeing you will increase both at the same time which might be a problem if you started with some unbalanced mana values from the bat since no aoe skill can correct those values unless you switch to single target for a bit

On any case single target adds a more constant and reliable string of mana(single target 8.5 mana per gcd vs 6 aoeing both with no procs), while aoeing can bring even more mana... sometimes (10 mana single target vs 13 aoeing when chain proccing)