Shadowbringers RDM Wishlist

[Kalise]

So a Living Bomb / early Explosive Arrow ordeal? Wouldn't that be just as passive as the current spam, though? Such mechanics are also rather frustrating to use, like any other DoT, when enemy mobs don't have much TTK if allies decide to swap to it (the chance of which seems to increase with every DoT thereby wasteable...).

Well, the suggestion wasn't supposed to really impact the AoE rotation. More so to add in a DoT in a way would allow for some extra damage utility, such as increasing damage while movement is required and having a form of passive Mana generation to play with that can aid with increasing the rate at which melee combo's are generated without simply slapping bonus generation onto existing skills.

Adding in more AoE's for the rotation... Is a much different proposition. One that I haven't been able to make a particularly satisfying rendition for. Only thing I've been able to come up with is replacing Enhanced Scatter (Possibly with a Scatter II) with an Impactful II buff that allows the use of an Impact II which is an AoE form of Impact with higher damage and Mana generation than Scatter (II).

A concern was with button space though... However, I suppose that Jolt and Scatter could simply be replaced by Impact and Impact II respectively given that I don't believe there's any reason you'd want to use the base versions over the Impact procs.

A fun little side note is that it would mean that RDM would be one step closer to being a Flower Mage with more flowery Impact casts ;D

Moreover, why aren't Verholy/Verflare AoEs?

I guess because of two reasons:

1) Tying AoE damage behind the ST melee combo is not particularly fun design (It's a similar situation to WAR with their AoE Beast Gauge spenders, whom can only generate Beast Gauge with ST skills so can only use Overpower in AoE situations outside of using Inner Release to bypass Beast Gauge costs)

2) Allowing use of Verholy/Verflare after say, a (New) Moulinet combo would be awkward as they'd imbalance Mana while RDM AoE rotation builds Mana relatively equally given it mostly spams Scatter as opposed to alternating between Black and White AoE skills akin to the ST rotation.

With a possible third reason being to try and signify that BLM and WHM are more potent in their respective schools of magic compared to RDM that utilizes both. So that the RDM versions of these ancient magicks are only powerful enough to harm a single target.

[Lauront]

I like the TAoE dot idea, as it kills many birds with one stone (especially with a mana replenishment mechanic), but I agree that the job could use another spell to weave into AOEs. It has to have one of the dullest AOE rotations of any job.

[Archwizard]

I will say, the compelling thing I find about the TAoE DoT suggestion is that it does make it easy to balance - the DoT could deal moderate damage to the primary target for single-target value but only partial splash damage to other enemies in AoE, as opposed to just giving us Thunder II/IV or Aero III which would do equivalent damage in either. (I just figured we'd probably end up with a minor damage effect either way.)

However, if the point of the exercise is to limit ourselves to one DoT with distinct purposes and advantages in both single-target and AoE, it may be best to focus the return benefits on being agnostic to either - easy enough if we're only allowed one instance of the DoT at a time. Flat MP recovery or B/W Mana generation while the main DoT persists should be plenty.

[Lauront]

So a Living Bomb / early Explosive Arrow ordeal? Wouldn't that be just as passive as the current spam, though? Such mechanics are also rather frustrating to use, like any other DoT, when enemy mobs don't have much TTK if allies decide to swap to it (the chance of which seems to increase with every DoT thereby wasteable...).

Wouldn't some manner of "detonate" mechanic help get around that, though? As in, triggering it to "detonate" at a discount of its total damage, still high enough to make it worth using in AoE contexts in the first place. The speed with which trash dies is frustrating for a lot of caster AoE rotations, tbh.

Still, given that the spell has hybrid ST/AOE uses, I think it's just being proposed as a component of a revised RDM AoE package, and not the final solution. I agree that you'd need to go further than that to make RDM AoE interesting.

With a possible third reason being to try and signify that BLM and WHM are more potent in their respective schools of magic compared to RDM that utilizes both. So that the RDM versions of these ancient magicks are only powerful enough to harm a single target.

Indeed. And whilst the potencies are higher than Flare/Holy, I believe this is a mechanical contrivance for rotational flow/impact and not intended to be seen as anything more than that, since both spells are essentially work arounds to re-create their BLM/WHM analogues.

[MorbolvampireQueen6]

no 2 the chain thing good with all other
y because its already more op than white or black mage .. and black mage has 3x already it was bad enough red got flare and holy both whm,blm signatures

[Archwizard]

"Already more OP than White or Black Mage"...

We do ~10% less damage than BLM and have only one weak/expensive heal to compare to WHM's entire arsenal. The most "OP" thing we have is insta-raising, and even then we have no MP recovery tools of our own so doing so comes at significant cost to us. It's a stretch to say we even got BLM's Flare or WHM's Holy, since the spells we can cast resemble them in name only.
That's a very immature comparison.

That said, I will agree that giving us a Chaincast ability is completely unnecessary. Just adjust Dualcast so it can proc from a spell that has been Swiftcast and we'll have the same effect, three instants in a row where we won't just spam Jolt-Impact-Jolt-Impact after.

[Archwizard]

In other news...

I think a lot of the ideas we have for new spells are awfully hung up on "every Black spell must have a White counterpart and vice versa".
Bear in mind, we have two White utility spells that presently have no counterparts whatsoever and are not relegated to building White Mana -- and with the current state of BLM we don't have many options in the way of Black utilities to balance them out, either.

This in particular is why I'm completely fine with introducing Ice and Water spells as having entirely unrelated positions in the rotation; at the end of the day, there are multiple ways for spells to "balance" to the satisfaction of Red Mage lore, particularly if we argue we cast both sides just as often overall. (Sure, it may be a bit lopsided in practice, but I know loads of RDMs who go out of their way to only use their favorite Verfinisher, so practice clearly isn't a make-or-break concern.)

Why not have Ice magic as our MP recovery, if we cast it as infrequently in a raid as recovery spells? Why not have Water magic as our main cleave, if we churn out just as much Ice damage in and out of AoE? Why not have a Black AoE Verfinisher if we built it with White spells (other than that we probably don't need an AoE Verfinisher all that much right now)?
Would anyone object if they swapped Verflare with Verfoul? I think it'd be more fitting to have the opposite of Holy be a Dark spell after all. They could always recycle Verflare elsewhere.

Just a bit of rambling. Probably an unpopular opinion, I just think we're limiting ourselves by declaring "copy this spell twice but change the element" as the only means to "balance" our casting as far as lore is concerned.

[Kalise]

I think a lot of the ideas we have for new spells are awfully hung up on "every Black spell must have a White counterpart and vice versa".

Most of it is gameplay related.

Since, like you said, there are limited option of Black Magic utility.

So it's likely that any Black Magic will be an offensive cast. Meaning, logically, it should build Black Mana.

Without a White counterpart, we now have a situation where RDM is inherently imbalanced between Black and White Mana.

Unless said Black spell is something more akin to Jolt/Impact and thus can be considered "Neutral" and grant both Mana types.

This is where utilities comes into play. We can easily have inequal amounts of utilities like Vercure/Verraise as due to their niche usage, they don't generate any Mana so don't impact the gameplay of RDM which is about managing and balancing out Mana.

As such, imbalance between the schools of magic can exist, so long as you are able to justify why said skill won't generate Mana or would generate both types of Mana.

[Archwizard]

Meaning, logically, it should build Black Mana.

Why? As I said, Vercure and Verraise don't generate White Mana, so logically not every Black or White spell needs to, even when they have a potency value.

If a Black spell were to recover MP instead of generate Mana, how would that be any different than recovering HP?

[Kalise]

Why? As I said, Vercure and Verraise don't generate White Mana, so logically not every Black or White spell needs to, even when they have a potency value.

If a Black spell were to recover MP instead of generate Mana, how would that be any different than recovering HP?

so long as you are able to justify why said skill won't generate Mana or would generate both types of Mana.

As is currently, every Black spell is a damaging skill that is part of the RDM rotation and generates Black Mana.

You need to justify why a skill won't follow this pattern.

Especially with something as vague as "If a Black spell were to recover MP". What are its mechanics? Where does it fit? Is it akin to Assize? Or is it more like Syphon Strike/Riot Blade? How much Potency does it have? Will people actually ever cast the thing instead of trying to play around Lucid/Refresh? Is it oGCD?

A spell needs justification for existing and for its mechanics.

If such a spell is a GCD skill, then it will need to either be REALLY strong (Thus being used on CD irregardless of MP restore) or generate Mana in order to see much use within RDM kits (Basically, it needs to be able to not be a massive DPS loss to cast it and given how much of RDM revolves around getting off as many melee combos as possible Mana or high raw potency to offset the delay in Mana generation is required). Since if its entire point of existing is "Sometimes you die and get raised and Lucid and Refresh are on CD and then you can use this skill" that's not a particularly interesting skill.

If it's oGCD, then there's no reason it needs to be a Black spell. You could just make it a hybrid spell like Jolt/Impact/Scatter or a neutral spell like Fleche/Contre Sixte (The former makes more sense as an attack that restores MP, combining Black (Damage) and White (Support) aspects)

These are the things to think about.

If you're adding a Black Spell for support. Why? What is it about Black that makes it be the go to school (Given Black magic is traditionally focused on making thing explode)? Why wouldn't it work better as a Hybrid/White spell?

If you're just adding the skill as a Black spell because "Well, we have 2 White support spells" then aren't you also just following the thought process you were just complaining about people being stuck in?

In general, because Black spells are more explody in nature, it is assumed that Black spells in RDM's kit will be offensive casts that generate Black Mana and be part of their rotation. Anything outside of that needs some quantifying about why it exists. With Black support skills needing even more because of White's natural affinity for supportive spells (Including MP related things, see: Assize and Thin Air and to an extent, Freecure)