Shadowbringers RDM Wishlist

[Sylvain]

My wishlist :
I think RDM has a good enough amount of skills, and more would just bloat the UI so instead of properly adding new button to push, I rather add new functionnality to existing skills so we keep the same number of skills but with more things to press and more options.

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lv72 [Trait] Improved Dual Cast
Dual Cast also reduce the recast time of your next spell by 0.7s (down to 1.8s)

lv74 [Trait] Improved Acceleration
Acceleration also double the mana generation of VerAero and VerThunder to 16 and Impact to 8/8. While under the effect of Acceleration, Ver-Cure becomes Ver-Medica.
Acceleration Recharge is now 20s.


lv76 [Spell] Ver-Blizzard/Water
Grant access to Ver-Blizzard or Ver-Water depending on which Mana is currently the lowest. If both mana have equal value, a random spell is activated.

lv78 [Trait]Vermillion Art&Style
Excecuting Enchanted Redoublement grants Vermillion Art, increasing the critical hit chance of your next spell to 100%.
Executing Enchanted Moulinet grants Vermillion Style - Last 60s (3 stack max).
Having two stack of Vermillion Style changes VerHoly and VerFlare to Vermillion Blade

lv80 [Spell] Vermillion Splendor
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 850.
Additional Effect: Increases Black and White Mana by 15
Additional Effect: 20% chance of becoming Impact Ready
Duration: 30s
When under the effect of Vermillion Attunement, both Ver-Holy and Ver-Flare become Vermillion Splendor.
Can only be executed after landing Enchanted Redoublement.
Consumes White Attunement, Black Attunement and Vermillion Attunement.


New Spell description

[Spell] Ver-Blizzard - Instant
Deals Ice damage with a potency of 210.
Additional Effect: Increases White Mana by 4 and proc Dual Cast
[Spell] Ver-Water - Instant
Deals Water damage with a potency of 210.
Additional Effect: Increases White Mana by 4 and proc Dual Cast

Vermillion Blade
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 450.
Duration: 30s

VerMedica - Instant
Restores own HP and the HP of all nearby party members.
Cure Potency: 200

Old Spell Change (lv 80)

VerHoly
Now grants "White Attunement". If Black Attunement was up, also grant Vermillion Attunement.
White Attunement grants a 2 White Mana every 3s unless the Balance Gauge has too much white mana. Last 60s.
Also restore 10% max mp


VerFlare
Now grants "Black Attunement". If White Attunement was up, also grant Vermillion Attunement.
Black Attunement grants a 2 Black Mana every 3s unless the Balance Gauge has too much black mana. Last 60s.
Also restore 10% max mp

Scatter [change]
Additional Effect: Based on your current highest Mana, you have a chance to be granted Enhanced Scatter. (100% for 0mana, 50% for 50mana, 25% for 75mana)
Duration: 10s


Thought behind the new spells
First, only one new button has been added, VerWater/Freeze. This ensures ShB RDM doesn't have any Skillbloat issue. All the new functionnality are traits enhancing the current set.

To me, RDM is all about keeping the balance between B&W mana. I've always concidered
the RDM to be the fast paced BLM. While BLM has to stand still (as much as possible) casting long and powerful spells, RDM would have shorter cast and good mobility.
To "some" extent this is the case, but as many people have noticed, this delay after casting VerAero/Thunder kind of kills it, we basically spend half our gcd waiting to be able to cast the next spell. This is where Improved DualCast comes into play.
The goal is to make RDM gameplay faster, exploit its simplicty to allow a more nervous and fast paced rotation.
I am very aware that a recharge cast of 1.8s (minus spellspeed) could create some clipping issues with too much SpellSpeed, but since they're already avoiding it, 1.8s should be enough to weave 1 ogcd (not dual weave tho)

I wanted to make Acceleration more interesting. It is (imo) a very boring spell with very little to zero thought required behind its use. You press it on CD and use it on wathever the spell you don't have the proc yet. its impact is also limited has it only has 50% chance to granting you the proc (since the other 50% would be you procing it anyway).
The new acceleration also has an important play with the whole Black and Mana attunement helping the player restoring the slowly, but steady, imbalance created by the buff. Regarding VerMedica, I wanted to add another support skill (that we would avoid anyway) but not at the cost of an actual new trait/spell.
Ver-Medica would be a powerful assisting tool but gated behind a 20s CD while would, on top of it, cost a buffed VerThunder/Aero.
Definitely not something people would abuse, but always handy if the need arises.

VerBlizzard/Water is here to answer a few issues the new RDM will have.
First, because of the new Improved Dualcast, RDM mobility would be severely impaired.
VerBlizz/Water is basically RDM Ruin2, it's instant, procs DualCast so you can still keep up your rotation. And can be use for Dualweaving. But due to its slightly lower potency and mana generation, you simply don't spam it.

I thought of making it two spells but after some thought I really didn't see the point. It would bloat the UI with one extra skill for no reason. But that's still something that could be done without any issue.

Vermillion Art&Style is here to solve the RDM AoE issue and give some oomph to our combo finisher. Many people proposed to use Ver-Flood/Freeze for AoE, but I don't think it is such a great idea anymore. I rather have most skill working for our Single Target rotation. With this, using two Enchanted Moulinet would grant a strong AoE finisher. With a duration of 60s people should be able to keep the stack between pulls during dungeon and steadily unleash a good burst. The basic rotation is still Scatter spam altough the rework on Scatter should help.

Finally Vermillion Splendor is here to work as the new central gameplay of the RDM.
Not only did we have to keep our mana balanced, now we'll have to balance both our use of Ver-Flare and Ver-Holy. However just this wouldn't make the whole rotation quiet new and wouldn't exploit some of our new tools to their full extent, such as Improved Acceleration. White and Black Attunement serve this purpose. By Attuning to a specific element it changes, slightly, the way you handle your rotation.
Basically you have to be more careful with your mana generation.

I've also seen many people wishing for some passive mana generation (through the use of a DoT usually) so there you go.

As a reward, we get a new more powerful finisher following the whole RDM theme. A finisher both white and black, a red finisher!


In the end not much would change for the RDM as I concider the job isn't lacking anything in particular beside a bit more exciting AoE.

The new rotation would be essentially the same but faster, you raise both mana equally, finish with V-Holy or V-Flare, do the same again with the other one and finish with a "Ver Redboom". If you need to cast while moving you now have access to verblizz/water.

[Archwizard]

Verum Oratio (Enochian): Grants the RDM a SpS buff that stacks up to 5 times as they cycle through Verfinishers, probably capping out at 10% or so. (Gain 1 stack each time you use a Verfinisher, 45s duration)

Aetheric Reversal (Transpose): Swaps your White and Black mana totals, on something like a 60s cooldown.

Not thrilled about Verum Oratio, partly since Spell Speed isn't of huge value to us and partly because that's an awfully roundabout way to give us Enochian, which I for one jumped to RDM to avoid.

I'm kind of wondering what the practical function of Aetheric Reversal would be, since both Verholy and Verflare are presently identical just with different totals. I suppose maybe if you have a Verfire/Verstone proc of the wrong mana type, but even then a 60 second CD is a bit much and we have plenty of other control tools...

-snip-

I like the idea of upgrading Vercure to affect the party (or at least targets around your target), but... I have a few concerns.

1) If Verblizzard and Verwater both deal the same damage as Jolt II and have a faster cast time, what's to stop them from simply replacing Jolt II so you can spam instants? Combined with Improved Dualcast and uninterrupted movement, it's easy to see that as being a total throughput upgrade.
2) Why change both Verholy and Verflare into Vermilion Blade, rather than Enchanted Moulinet? Why allow Vermilion Style to stack to 3 if the effect only requires 2 stacks? Is Vermilion Blade intended to be an AoE? The description just says it does heavy damage.
3) Wouldn't Improved Acceleration encourage holding Acceleration's buff to get more mileage from Impact? Would it be consumed by Vermedica?
4) Is it intended for the change to Enhanced Scatter to encourage players to hit Enchanted Moulinet as soon as it comes up to keep below 50 MP?
5) If your overall concern is button bloat, why not advocate for the compression of existing skills, like our melee combo or proc-exclusive spells (a la PVP)?

[Sylvain]

First thank you for reading the skill set I proposed and leaving feedback

I like the idea of upgrading Vercure to affect the party (or at least targets around your target), but... I have a few concerns.

1) If Verblizzard and Verwater both deal the same damage as Jolt II and have a faster cast time, what's to stop them from simply replacing Jolt II so you can spam instants? Combined with Improved Dualcast and uninterrupted movement, it's easy to see that as being a total throughput upgrade.

Well first off, Jolt2 has a potency of 240 and grant 3/3 mana whereas the proposed VerBlizz/Water has 210 and 4mana. You're overall loosing 2mana and 30 potency.
This spell is intended to be your "movement spell" but never something you spam randomly, consider it like Ruin2 on the SMN. It's only 20 potency difference but at the end of a fight it can make a significant difference.


Note that it's only instant, it is not a ogcd. It still triggers the gcd and can be considered a regular 2.5s cast (except that you can do it while moving and weave 2 ogcd after)

So technically in an ideal scenario, beside for a few dual weave (like on pull I suppose or for Embolden + Manafication), you would never want to press those skills. They're simply weaker than Jolt2.

They are here to counter the loss of mobility due to the enhanced dual-cast.

2) Why change both Verholy and Verflare into Vermilion Blade, rather than Enchanted Moulinet? Why allow Vermilion Style to stack to 3 if the effect only requires 2 stacks? Is Vermilion Blade intended to be an AoE? The description just says it does heavy damage.

Simply consider Vermillion Blade as your "AoE finisher", in single target you do your melee combo and end with Holy/Flare, in AoE you do moulinet and end with Blade.

The reasoning for changing skill is to prevent skill bloat.
There is no need to add a whole new skill for that. (Like for Medica basically)

Then I allowed to stack to 3 for 2 reasons.

One, we can effectively do 3 Enchanted Moulinet. With Manafication you can quickly do with 90/90 do Moulinetx2 V-Blade, Manafication (30/30 -> 60/60), Moulinetx2, V-Blade and I thought that would be cool and people would enjoy doing that sort of wombo combo in dungeon.

Second, Ver-Holy/Flare turning into Ver-Blade is to have a finisher but that stack both mana because RDM AoE rotation is only based on Scatter which is a "red" spell. If I were to simply make "Holy/Flare now deal AoE" you'd end up having unbalanced mana during your AoE (like you'd start with 23/3) which, imo, would be more annoying than anything else.

3) Wouldn't Improved Acceleration encourage holding Acceleration's buff to get more mileage from Impact? Would it be consumed by Vermedica?

Maybe, sometime I do have the feeling "Impact" doesn't have enough... well impact on our gameplay. Maybe it's too strong for impact but the goal was simply to make acceleration a bit more interesting to use. You're not just triggering something, you're also generating a lot of mana so depending on your current state a wrong choice could make you have too much of either.

And yes it is consumed by Vermedica. When you press acceleration Ver-Cure becomes Ver-Medica and can only be used once every 20s. I do not want to RDM to be able to spam Ver-medica, (I'm afraid we could end up with some 1heal1rdm meta if it could). But even if I would want that, I do believe SE wouldn't allow it.
They clearly made so that RDM is a dps and they don't want any hybrid (I mean Y.P is annoyed by healer dps so... I don't think he'll allow "proper" dps heal), so instead of doing wishfull thinking, I'd rather go with what we have and see what could be added. (I'm still extremely skeptical regarding the addition of VerMedica tbh)

Obviously this is a huge loss of dps loss so this is purely intended to be used as an emergency skill.

4) Is it intended for the change to Enhanced Scatter to encourage players to hit Enchanted Moulinet as soon as it comes up to keep below 50 MP?

The goal is to make your mana generation faster so you can moulinet more often.
It could be a 100% proc (but it'd be boring), so here the idea behind the dynamic proc rate is to, as you thought, having a proper milestone where you would want to start using moulinet.
It's meant to be more engaging. Technically I think the ideal scenario for fast AoE would be Scatter until 30/30, then Moulinet, then again, then Verblade.

The problem I have with the 30% is that it feels very slow and too random, sometime you're lucky and will proc it non stop, and sometime the PLD can end up doing more than you do.

5) If your overall concern is button bloat, why not advocate for the compression of existing skills, like our melee combo or proc-exclusive spells (a la PVP)?

I would advocate for this but I have a very strong feeling they won't do it.
So my goal was to add the least amount of button.

In the end, only one button has been added for a total of 5 new skills,
Ver Blizz
Ver Water
Ver Medica
Ver Blade
Ver Splendor

The overall gameplay hasn't changed all that much but RDM would now be a much faster paced caster with, hopefully, a more engaging AoE rotation.

[Mansion]

My wishlist :

On improved Dualcast : then you need to revise all potencies. Because RDM has high raw potencies on each spell. Sneaking more spells thanks to a 1.8GCD would make it OP...
Otherwise, I guess you ideas are fine. Now the "one VerHoly, one VerFlare then Vermillion Splendor" feels a bit too simple and long. I'd rather see your Splendor back to back to the second Ver-finisher, with a reduced potency.
Guarenteed crit after Redoublement is OP. I'd rather have something to even the gaps in RDM damage imput. Namely, have a way to make Jolt II stronger in the case of no proc once you have used all your proc-fishing tools. Maybe a trait called "Hopelessness" once you have used Swiftcast and Accceleration is on cooldown ;D

[Sylvain]

On improved Dualcast : then you need to revise all potencies. Because RDM has high raw potencies on each spell. Sneaking more spells thanks to a 1.8GCD would make it OP...

I mean, It is a 72 trait balanced around lv 80 gameplay. I assume every other job will get in a form or another some dmg potential buff in a way or another.

Obviously if you'd give that to the current RDM that would make utterly op, like giving FireIV to a BLM at lv 50 would break them.

But I agree, Enhanced DualCast is the most significant dps boost for the RDM up to lv 80 that's for sure. And yes somehow some potency adjustement might be necessary. (Basically this trait is the one I want the most yet the most problematic)

Otherwise, I guess you ideas are fine. Now the "one VerHoly, one VerFlare then Vermillion Splendor" feels a bit too simple and long. I'd rather see your Splendor back to back to the second Ver-finisher, with a reduced potency.

Well, with the new Dual-Cast, Acceleration and White/Black Attunement you would be able to do Flare/Holy much more often, so I really don't think it would be all that long.
I really want to push forward the balancing part of the RDM. I was quite disapointed that choosing between holy/flare had such a low impact on our dps. You could litterally limit yourself to VerHoly and do barely less than someone doing it right. 10-14 proc of verStone is a dps boost, but it's not gamebreaking. (Just loosing 2-3 gcd is a bigger dps loss)

Guarenteed crit after Redoublement is OP. I'd rather have something to even the gaps in RDM damage imput. Namely, have a way to make Jolt II stronger in the case of no proc once you have used all your proc-fishing tools. Maybe a trait called "Hopelessness" once you have used Swiftcast and Accceleration is on cooldown ;D

I personally do not think a garanteed crit on VerHoly/Flare (and eventually Splendor) would be op. Just checking the fflog of a 95+ parse RDM on OS12-2,
he did 14 holy/flare, with an average crit chance of 50%.
The average hit was 21k and average crit was 34k. So a 13k difference. He'd get this extra 13k 7 times (half the time). that's 91k, He did 4.32m damage, that's 2% dps increase.

I chuckled at the Hopelessness ^^

The only thing really op is that enhanced dualcast. The rest should just push our dps around 5-7% forward.

[Dualgunner]

Then why pick the class that's historically half Black Mage and half White Mage...?

Because it's the closest we currently and probably will ever have to a dps that fits the spellblade archetype. Regardless if I wanted to play a healer I'd play a healer.

[Kurando]

Also to add to Kalise's post.

The problem is in past FF titles it didn't really matter what a job had available or how they were balanced as it wouldn't effect any other players (except XI). XIV is built around a trinity system and although we do have some hybrid jobs, they will always be intended to fit one of the three roles we have in-game. A RDM healing the party is not doing damage regardless of whether they get a damage buff from it, and if they need to heal so much then the question is what is/are the actual healer(s) doing. Even if something required way more healing than usual, the game would balance it so that the healer(s) are more than capable because there is no guarantee a RDM would be present, nor would they want to make one job a must pick to clear it, all DPS must be viable in the majority of content (players may have job preferences for Savage/Ultimate raids however).

[Wayfinder3]

If rdm is to get any more Healing utility, unless it’s a heal gcd that tops the entire party in one cast. It needs to be an Ogcd to warrant using. The only thing I’d dare give them is a Regen akin to Medica 2 or whispering dawn. Give it a lengthy cooldown between 90 to 180 secs. This way, it doesn’t cost them any dps, while still keeping their roots in WHM viable. Rdm doesn’t need Meta utility to compete for speeds, it just needs to do damage relative to BLM and SMN and excel beyond them in progression. Rdm damage compared to the both of them atm is pretty good. Let’s pray 5.0 doesn’t ruin it

[Shurrikhan]

If rdm is to get any more Healing utility, unless it’s a heal gcd that tops the entire party in one cast. It needs to be an Ogcd to warrant using. The only thing I’d dare give them is a Regen akin to Medica 2 or whispering dawn. Give it a lengthy cooldown between 90 to 180 secs. This way, it doesn’t cost them any dps, while still keeping their roots in WHM viable. Rdm doesn’t need Meta utility to compete for speeds, it just needs to do damage relative to BLM and SMN and excel beyond them in progression. Rdm damage compared to the both of them atm is pretty good. Let’s pray 5.0 doesn’t ruin it

"Warrant using" and oGCD don't belong in the same sentence unless there's another resource cost. You're simply adding the free capacity without any significant player control or decision-making necessary.

But the fact remains that in an MMO with Holy Trinity balancing, a DPS will never want, nor need, to use a Healing skill for healing....<snip>

...It's a situation where Healers ALREADY have healing in such abundance, that they try to minimize GCD's spent on healing skills so they can push out a bit more of their meagre DPS. Then any time additional healing may be needed, well, that's when people use Tank LB to drastically reduce incoming damage and make healing easier.

As such, it will always come down to a DPS only ever wanting to use a healing skill for utility. Even then, people will just calculate what offers more DPS, the utility provided by the skill or another DPS skill. Since that will be the primary concern of ever DPS class and in lieu of Hybrid role balancing will be the primary concern for RDM....

This. But, only due to the rutts XIV has dug itself into.

Just food for thought:

1.x modeled its roles a bit more alike to an elemental wheel rather than hard and fast roles.
Lancer was a strike leader, complete with some deflection, heightened armor, and raid healing via its raid debuffs.
Pugilist had strong tank-supportive-utility, the best snap-mitigation, and some of the best peaking scalar mitigation.
Gladiator had the strongest burst mitigation and swap-off and swap-in tools with good optional single-target focus but little bonus eHP outside of mitigation tools and weaker enmity tools than Marauder.
Marauder had the greatest eHP pool and sustainable enmity generation but little technical mitigation and only moderate (and AoE) enmity generation.
Archer had enmity-manipulation and buff-removal tools but also one complete mitigation tool with further enmity displacement and the highest single-target burst damage-increasing skill.
Conjurer had the most elemental diversity, but with the most direct effects. Straightforward. One thing at a time. Direct-healing-heavy.
Thaumaturge had only four elements' access (Dark, Light, Poison, Blood), largely mingled, but the most means of manipulating them and most simultaneously dual-purpose spells, and the most cost-reward spells. Doubles up. HoT-heavy.

There was considerable care not to have set roles--let alone ones as broad as the trinity--only tasks that could be achieved in many ways, and never to give direct competition for a niche that would not also re-situate that task. The question was how to do what was necessary more so than which job to take for a pre-tooled "role".

[Wayfinder3]

But the fact remains that in an MMO with Holy Trinity balancing, a DPS will never want, nor need, to use a Healing skill for healing.

Since, again, unless content is designed around RDM being present, healers will be able to handle any and all situations presented to them as they will be balanced to do so.

Cutting into the DPS of a DPS class will always have more impact than cutting into the DPS of a Healing class, because the DPS class will inherently have higher DPS.

Not to mention the current fact where Healers have plenty of oGCD's that they can use as well as the number of shields that are relied upon (Which cannot overheal).

The general balancing of Holy Trinity system just makes it so that anyone who has a healing skill that isn't a healer, simply will not care to use said healing skill for actual healing. This is why RDM currently doesn't really care about Vercure and why PLD doesn't really care about Clemency.

It's a situation where Healers ALREADY have healing in such abundance, that they try to minimize GCD's spent on healing skills so they can push out a bit more of their meagre DPS. Then any time additional healing may be needed, well, that's when people use Tank LB to drastically reduce incoming damage and make healing easier.

As such, it will always come down to a DPS only ever wanting to use a healing skill for utility. Even then, people will just calculate what offers more DPS, the utility provided by the skill or another DPS skill. Since that will be the primary concern of ever DPS class and in lieu of Hybrid role balancing will be the primary concern for RDM.

Of course, there's always the option of making oGCD heals so that they don't compete with DPS GCD's, but then you create a situation where RDM can replace actual Healers due to having the higher DPS even if the other actual Healer has to spend a few more GCD's on healing to make up for a RDM's lower output than a 2nd Healer (Given that DPS deal approximately 2x the DPS than Healers)

It depends on the utility given, Healers are already so strong that any of them could Solo heal if mana allowed it. Both Ultimates have been solo healed at this given point in time. Rdm getting heal utility won’t really add to this anymore unless it’s significant. The problem is, that if rdm has to pay for its healer utility, it’s wasted utility that the job has to pay for in damage and identity. This means the job is in a position where it needs to get this kind of utility with it being basically tax free as dps with healing abilities don’t have much value. The fact that Vercure has less value than Nature’s Minne should tell you how strong healer kits are currently