Shadowbringers RDM Wishlist

[royox]

I would make it so RDM has 2 phases.

The normal one: like now. Balance white and black for a melee + ver finisher.

New one: the ver-finisher gives you a buff. Verholy a White Buff and verflare a black buff. This buff gives +dmg to the same color of the finisher. Then you have to reach 100 magic points of that Color to unleash a super strong elemental melee attack. Then back to normal rotation.

Would love a "balance and unbalace" gameplay :3

[Shewp]

My RDM is still lvl 60 so I don't know how much verholy/flare changes things but I want more melee hybrid rather than the caster with melee finisher we have now.

- Remove potency from the movement abilities and reduce their cooldown and then
- Add a melee combo to use when low/halfway mana. Have it increase mana or give a buff or something

[Archwizard]

I would make it so RDM has 2 phases.

The normal one: like now. Balance white and black for a melee + ver finisher.

New one: the ver-finisher gives you a buff. Verholy a White Buff and verflare a black buff. This buff gives +dmg to the same color of the finisher. Then you have to reach 100 magic points of that Color to unleash a super strong elemental melee attack. Then back to normal rotation.

Would love a "balance and unbalace" gameplay :3

I mean, we already have two phases - spells vs melee - and what you're describing would really add two more.

However, the "unbalance" gameplay you suggest just leaves us long periods of ignoring spells of the opposite element in favor of spamming the same black or white spells and Jolt/Impact.

But I think the major issue with something like this - much like the problems with suggesting a third Verfinisher to encourage alternating between Verholy/Verflare - is that it gives us the same issue Summoners have, where the peak of our output comes after several minutes of ramp-up, and an interruption like death (or possibly even just encountering a non-attackable phase) would not only inflict Weakness but set us back to the start of a very long chain.
I would much rather attempt to build off the base of our rotation rather than just its peak, especially considering how much buildup it takes to achieve our melee rotation in the first place.

My RDM is still lvl 60 so I don't know how much verholy/flare changes things but I want more melee hybrid rather than the caster with melee finisher we have now.

- Remove potency from the movement abilities and reduce their cooldown and then
- Add a melee combo to use when low/halfway mana. Have it increase mana or give a buff or something

I'm torn on this. My biggest conniption here is that at best we're making the base rotation more hectic by means of alternating between melee and range twice as often, and that being forced to significantly more time in melee range is not beneficial to us in any way.
Plus, giving us an entire extra builder combo would mean way more buttons for one goal.

While I understand you want a more magical melee class, the RDM is fundamentally a Disciple of Magic, and the addition of the melee finisher set is more just flair and flavor on top of our core spellcasting.

[Shurrikhan]

While I understand you want a more magical melee class, the RDM is fundamentally a Disciple of Magic, and the addition of the melee finisher set is more just flair and flavor on top of our core spellcasting.

Okay, but... does it have to be? And ought it to be? Is RDM made more fun by having its sword be basically an ornament?

[Kalise]

Okay, but... does it have to be? And ought it to be? Is RDM made more fun by having its sword be basically an ornament?

Have to be? Probably. For balancing reasons. Otherwise they'd have to try and figure out how to give them the toughness of a melee without making its ranged too good with that toughness (Or something like that)

Ought to be? Arguable. Personally, I felt a little let down when RDM was touted as a Caster/Melee hybrid but then its gameplay was merely Caster with a melee burst CD (That, until level 50 is actually not worth using because its DPA is lower than your spells...)

Then there's also some other oddities, like at level 1 (Which is literally only relevant in PotD) RDM only has Riposte and no actual spell. Jolt is learned at level 2. Which would suggest some more melee focus. But alas, that is not the case and the class ends up feeling quite BLM-y as a result (Especially given how GCD's function with "Instant Casts" so you don't even feel like much of a spell slinger with rapid casts... Especially if you use a high SpS build on your BLM...)

[Archwizard]

Have to be? Probably. For balancing reasons. Otherwise they'd have to try and figure out how to give them the toughness of a melee without making its ranged too good with that toughness (Or something like that)

That's already a fault we have though. We spend more time in melee range than other casters and are less durable than BLMs, with only self-healing (which ideally we should rarely use -- and won't help us in the face of getting one-shot) as a saving grace in that regard. We can't even claim it's due to our advanced mobility allowing us to dodge skills they're encouraged to tank, since BLMs have as many teleports as we have movement skills!

[Dualgunner]

Ought to be? Arguable. Personally, I felt a little let down when RDM was touted as a Caster/Melee hybrid but then its gameplay was merely Caster with a melee burst CD (That, until level 50 is actually not worth using because its DPA is lower than your spells...)

Damage per Action? I mean, sure Enchanted Riposte is lower potency than even Jolt, but the 1.5s GCD on it makes it a stronger relative attack on its own than Veraero.

210/1.5= 140pps
310/2.43= 127.6pps

[Lauront]

Have to be? Probably. For balancing reasons. Otherwise they'd have to try and figure out how to give them the toughness of a melee without making its ranged too good with that toughness (Or something like that)

Ought to be? Arguable. Personally, I felt a little let down when RDM was touted as a Caster/Melee hybrid but then its gameplay was merely Caster with a melee burst CD (That, until level 50 is actually not worth using because its DPA is lower than your spells...)

Then there's also some other oddities, like at level 1 (Which is literally only relevant in PotD) RDM only has Riposte and no actual spell. Jolt is learned at level 2. Which would suggest some more melee focus. But alas, that is not the case and the class ends up feeling quite BLM-y as a result (Especially given how GCD's function with "Instant Casts" so you don't even feel like much of a spell slinger with rapid casts... Especially if you use a high SpS build on your BLM...)

They'd need to give it a pretty significant overhaul to allow for the melee phase to play more of a role, though, and I think they may be a bit leery of doing that. It's not unprecedented for them to do it for jobs, like HW gave more complex rotations to each job and they tried to fix broken jobs in SB (and will in 5.0 again), but RDM is perceived to be a success because it has a comparatively smooth playstyle. I'd like to see them take some risks, though, and that's not restricted to RDM.

[chamberdown]

I'd say the main thing I'd hope for with RDM is more stuff to do with less stuff to do. I'll explain: Currently we have a black/white balancing act with a melee phase and finisher essentially and some self and raid utility sprinkled in. I think it would be cool if there was an AoE and ST stance that turned your skills into one or the other, such as enchanted moulinet being turned into riposte under the ST stance or Fleche becoming Contra Sixte in the AoE stance. Hopefully this would come with a potency increase due to losing some flexibility in usage. Sometimes extra buttons is fun and feels good, and sometimes it doesnt. I think in the case of RDM it doesn't add much depth to the gameplay. I think you could add depth without extra buttons by using triggered buffs. Maybe something like a successful melee combo + finisher resets oGCD skills increases damage by 10% and makes all casts instant for 10s. This effectively extends your "burst window" , adds some flavor outside of the melee combo, and reduces the amount of casting back and forth white and black generation in a given builder/finisher cycle. I would also agree that for RDM, you should do something to make verraise more punishing like doubling or tripling its MP cost, and then increase RDM's damage a bit to compensate. It's neat that it can spam raise, but not even actual healers in the game can do this. Lastly, the fun part about RDM for me is the fast GCD with the melee combo. The quick strikes feel satisfying. Maybe SE could do something like using the same fast GCD from the melee combo and applying it elsewhere in the rotation via either an active buff (add to embolden for 10s?) or a combo result somewhere maybe as a buff after successful melee combo like mentioned above. just some thoughts.

[Kleeya]

I would also agree that for RDM, you should do something to make verraise more punishing like doubling or tripling its MP cost, and then increase RDM's damage a bit to compensate. It's neat that it can spam raise, but not even actual healers in the game can do this.

Omg please no. It already happens way too often to get out of mana when people are dying too often, i sure dont want that to happen even more quickly. I would prefer to have Verraise totally removed from the job.

And for what i would want :

- attack potency removed from displacement, and added to corps-a-corps (since you cant use displacement in a lot of fights if you want to avoid falling of a platform, stay stacked with the others players, etc);

- a less boring aoe system, the scatter spam is getting old really fast.