Shadowbringers RDM Wishlist

[Shurrikhan]

Ultimately, I'd like to see the whole "red" aspect take on some weight of its own, not as its own element, but some greater-than-sum-of-parts use of white with black and vice-versa. Ideally, this should be based on 'acceleration', however (and the more differently or uniquely the better) RDM can define it.

Apart from that:
- A standardized or diminishing (not counting the MP bonus of Flare) ratio of R-MP to bonus potency over the melee-Flare combo.
- Standard R-MP increments. Either 25 or 20 per cast, rather than 30 for E.Moulinet/E.Riposte, and 25 for the rest. Added frequency and flexibility.
- Manafication limitations removed. Added frequency and flexibility.
- Embolden reworked for added timing and compositional flexibility.

If allowed more significant (well, huge) changes, I'd completely interweave elements into melee work via native Enspelling.

[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".

[Seraphor]

Personally, all I want for RDM is for the Devs to not throw any random new mechanics at the Job - leave the Enspells and whatnot to future Jobs (Spellblade job similar in style to FFXVs Ignis? Yes please!)
I'd just want them to look at the parts of RDM that already work and elaborate on them.
Thus I like the Idea of more Manaspenders, Melee-Skills and Support options.
(Also, can we just get rid of Verraise? And Resurrection on SMN? I'm sick of just being the Rez-Battery xD Make Caster-rez a role skill on a 90 Second CD or something so we can have it whenever we need it but can swap it for something more useful if we don't)

Nah, please don't get rid of Verraise, some of u enjoy being useful in different ways.
Hard DPS for when it's needed, Rez-bot for prog or when a new 24-man comes out, I actually find that fun.

But perhaps it should be inhibited a bit more than it already is.
Given that Verraise is unique to RDM (unlike SMN sharing Resurrect with SCH) it could come with a mana cost, White Mana that is.
A typical melee combo only requires 90 of each mana, so anything up to 10 mana is a viable cost.

Then we could get an additional, BLM inspired utility spell, another burst multiplier perhaps, Spellspeed inspired by Leylines (Verley?), or more magic damage inspired by Enochian (Vernochian?), that costs a similar about of Black mana.

[Archwizard]

Ultimately, I'd like to see the whole "red" aspect take on some weight of its own, not as its own element, but some greater-than-sum-of-parts use of white with black and vice-versa.

I agree completely. Red Mages have a unique vantage point between White Mages and Black Mages, able to wield the fundamentals of each but unbridled by eithers' philosophies. They should be able to cross each type of magic's classical benefits for use in ways that pure White or Black Mages wouldn't dare.

Buffing allies to increase their damage is just the tip of the iceberg there, especially with so many other possibilities: Shielding yourself to inflict damage, crippling enemies to protect or restore yourself and allies, etc. Domination through cooperation, resilience in hand with deviance, learning from both the mistakes and successes of each heritage for more than just direct attacks.

If allowed more significant (well, huge) changes, I'd completely interweave elements into melee work via native Enspelling.

Isn't that kinda what the Enchanted Melee Combo is supposed to do? My main concern with Enspelling, even for oneself, is in determining what the value would be in swapping elements, or even justifying adding as many as 6 different elemental Enspell buttons (not necessarily all in one expansion of course, but just in general).

... Although I did just get a delicious idea that instead of getting Verblizzard or Verwater, we could get Enblizzard (with a small ice damage addition and bonus MP regeneration to all attacks, netting a positive in melee) and Enwater (with partial splash water damage on all attacks for cleave/AoE, turning each target of Scatter/Moulinet into a bomb) as a sort of stance system... though admittedly the ideas I have in mind for this would either be rather passive, or exacerbate our current mana-generation issues.

[Shurrikhan]

Isn't that kinda what the Enchanted Melee Combo is supposed to do? My main concern with Enspelling, even for oneself, is in determining what the value would be in swapping elements, or even justifying adding as many as 6 different elemental Enspell buttons (not necessarily all in one expansion of course, but just in general).

... Although I did just get a delicious idea that instead of getting Verblizzard or Verwater, we could get Enblizzard (with a small ice damage addition and bonus MP regeneration to all attacks, netting a positive in melee) and Enwater (with partial splash water damage on all attacks for cleave/AoE, turning each target of Scatter/Moulinet into a bomb) as a sort of stance system... though admittedly the ideas I have in mind for this would either be rather passive, or exacerbate our current mana-generation issues.

If so, that's like tossing a pebble 20 meters out into the Atlantic and saying "well, it was supposed to hit the other side." Our 4-step melee action does not interweave elements, nor does it work like spellfencing in any way.

I don't mean wholly manual Enspelling as if from a palette or bank of Enspell options, to be clear -- ideally it wouldn't take up more than a single button -- and absolutely nothing that comes down to the painfully silly "elemental wheel" or pure damage. If all it were to accomplish are shades of damage based on arbitrary enemy types, that's not gameplay -- that's bloat.

But, think of it like six different systems, by adjacencies, of resource-reward. Wind taps into something that's not quite what the rest tap into. It gives some reward, which would likely be 'similar' to Fire and Ice, with which it synergizes (in that using Wind does a good job of depositing the sources for one or the other), but the different source makes each far from interchangeable at that point in time. Heck, the reward can technically be mostly the same thing ("acceleration"), but the main thing is moving between them so that you can keep playing off the prior momentum through forking options and thereby potential loops of variable length and complexity. Let's say Fire applies... Heat, which will change Ice to Water, create 'Steam' from water, push Wind (including Steam) magic away from the target, and -- if high enough -- source Lightning directly. Thus a damn good Fire phase almost always makes for a short-lived but incredibly good Lightning phase thereafter (dashing everywhere, skewering everything), while an imperfect Fire phase would probably better be twisted towards Wind AoE from around a focus target or two or three. Technically, Earth can do a fair trick of a follow-up, by maintaining the heat longer for a delayed burst phase while offering a Tempered blade. Water can be off-handedly tossed in to end Fire early and skip to Lightning regardless or open up your Wind options. From Fire you'd want to follow, usually, with Wind or Lightning, but you could also delay the momentum for later. And from Wind, say, you may want to juggle Fire and Ice to maximize Turbulance, ultimately returning to Fire or going to Ice. From Ice you'd want to stay well away from Fire while tapping a bit into Earth for Rigor (though then you'd have to stay clear of needing Lighning utility) and Water for cheaper sourcing, especially at first. So on and so forth. And finally, you can tap into your Acceleration resource to reverse time or elemental effects around you up to some cap (consequent to your resource available at the time) to completely flip things on their head. Basically, it'd be an overarching system of limitations that can be creatively dealt with so that the arsenal, even at any one point in time, feels larger and grander than it otherwise would, all while keeping manageable what would otherwise be OP.

Then we could get an additional, BLM inspired utility spell, another burst multiplier perhaps, Spellspeed inspired by Leylines (Verley?), or more magic damage inspired by Enochian (Vernochian?), that costs a similar about of Black mana.

It feels like the majority of our job identity (and many a parity) issues already come back to copy-pasta. Do we really need more, just dressed in vermillion?

[Leidiriv]

Who says we have to have the entire wheel of En-spells? The way I see it, we only need one black and one white, to maintain parity between the two. Blizzard and Water are probably the best candidates though, so that we can get mirrored benefits. One generates white mana and helps us deal damage, while the other generates black mana and helps us deal damage.

[Mansion]

It feels like the majority of our job identity (and many a parity) issues already come back to copy-pasta. Do we really need more, just dressed in vermillion?

Yeah. I'm more in the side of Red Mage identity being built around those 6 offensive core spells (3 White 3 Black), and red magic becoming more proeminent from now on.

And please stop trying to make Spell Speed happen on RDM. As long as we have that poor MP recovery, we can't afford to sneak more GCDs in.

[Seraphor]

I'm thinking that rather than just 'copying' black and white magic, RDM should be able to re-purpose it in different ways.
Enhancing the offensive nature of white magic, which it already does really, and by utilising black magic as party utility instead of selfish dps.
Hence, a party magic damage buff, or magic resist. down debuff maybe. Maybe spellspeed isn't a good candidate, but I was thinking more along the lines of a party-wide spellspeed buff.

I'd also like to echo sentiments of reserving En-spells for another job more aligned with Mystic Knight. It's not really a Red Mage signature, and they already have Enchanted blade attacks, which is what the En-Spells are, En for Enchanted. Without elemental effects... what's the point?

[Seraph522]

Yeah. I'm more in the side of Red Mage identity being built around those 6 offensive core spells (3 White 3 Black), and red magic becoming more proeminent from now on.

And please stop trying to make Spell Speed happen on RDM. As long as we have that poor MP recovery, we can't afford to sneak more GCDs in.

I'm kind of hoping that part of the removal of TP in Shadowbringers will bring about better MP recovery options for all classes, including RDM. Maybe a buff/refresh oGCD of some sort that uses up black and white mana, so you have to choose between continuing to build up to the melee phase or build MP back up. Maybe call it "Charge" like in FFXII? Only danger there is that Verrraise will need to be reworked as well, as the current major limit on spamming that is related to how quickly it drains our MP.

[Leidiriv]

Here's a kinda novel idea I had

Ardor: Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 250. Potency is increased by 250 while you are under the effects of Verstone Ready or Verfire Ready.
Additional Effect: Generates 7 White Mana and 7 Black Mana. This amount is increased by 8 White Mana and 8 Black Mana while you are under the effects of Verstone Ready or Verfire Ready.
Additional Effect: Consumes Verstone Ready and Verfire Ready.
Cast time: 2s | Recast time: 30s | Range: 25y | Spell