Shadowbringers RDM Wishlist

[Grimoire-M]

For months I've been telling people that RDM is in a scary place like Monk was because it has such a solid and well flowing rotation, so the developers wouldn't know what to do with it, and it seems my fears have come true...

Receiving two abilities that are effectively just "penalties" for not positioning yourself well is a real kick in the nethers, and the remaining skills we get are just plain boring.

There are ways to evolve the job still. They're not implemented, sure, but it's not nearly as bad as Monk simply because Monk's been around long enough that SE should have done something right by them twice over now.

I personally wouldn't have implemented Reprise or Engagement but I'm glad they exist. Their AoE burst has improved too.

What I would've wanted more is Verwater/blizzard, Chainspell as a cooldown, and another damage oGCD to juggle that helps with their MP problems and mana generation, but everything we got works.

[Archwizard]

I do find it amusing that in broad terms, everything we got was what we asked for, just not how we wanted it.

Better MP management? Lucid Dreaming's CD got halved, MP got standardized, Mana Shift got axed.
More Mana spenders? Reprise.
More time in melee? Engagement.
Faster melee combos? 10 sec off Manafication.
A "balanced" Verfinisher? Scorch.

Say what you will but at least "more engaging AoE" actually came out more or less how we expected.

[Lauront]

I think that's pretty much the issue. They were the right things to focus on but the implementation leaves something to be desired, i.e. they used up the 70-80 toolkit for it, barring the first point, which was more of a "meta" decision impacting all casters.

Particularly in the case of the AOE spells, since they're adding new ones... why not redress the absence of any frost or water spells with them? It's a peculiar decision to simply rehash Aero III (ironically, axed) and Thunder IV. Although it makes thematic sense... it feels like a missed opportunity.

[Archwizard]

I think that's pretty much the issue. They were the right things to focus on but the implementation leaves something to be desired, i.e. they used up the 70-80 toolkit for it, barring the first point, which was more of a "meta" decision impacting all casters.

Particularly in the case of the AOE spells, since they're adding new ones... why not redress the absence of any frost or water spells with them? It's a peculiar decision to simply rehash Aero III (ironically, axed) and Thunder IV. Although it makes thematic sense... it feels like a missed opportunity.

Even worse if the two new AoEs don't proc Verfire/Verstone under Acceleration.

Honestly, why do the devs seem hell-bent on making sure Ninja is the only job with all six elements? It makes sense in the case of WHM and BLM, but you ever notice we share all the same elements with SMN, aside from the addition of Thunder? Right down to the Fire/Unaspected mega-spells...

[Grimoire-M]

Even worse if the two new AoEs don't proc Verfire/Verstone under Acceleration.

Honestly, why do the devs seem hell-bent on making sure Ninja is the only job with all six elements? It makes sense in the case of WHM and BLM, but you ever notice we share all the same elements with SMN, aside from the addition of Thunder? Right down to the Fire/Unaspected mega-spells...

I believe the reason for that is because Blizzard and Water are loosely tied to WHM and BLM's respective lore/mechanics as ways to restore MP, which invariably means they'd have to draw out excess aether from the environment in order to manifest them at all. I'd speculate that it actually goes against the core tenets of RDM's practices to use either element because their common properties invariably violate those tenets. We don't really have proof any of that that I can recall though. I'd have to dig through at the Conjurer/Thaumaturge quests again to be sure. That's my semi-educated half-forgotten overly-confident theoretical guess, at least.

[Nalien]

As far as lore goes, Cure and healing spells are actually Water-aspected (I believe this was an answer given long ago with regards to why White Mage has no Water spell outside something like Fluid Aura), this is particularly noticeable in something like Asylum which has a very water-y effect to it. As such, I always took Vercure as Red Mages "water" spell. As for ice... My headcannon is that Fleche and Contre Sixte are actually ice blades... Perhaps if the animation for them wasn't reusing assets that could be a bit clearer...

[Archwizard]

I believe the reason for that is because Blizzard and Water are loosely tied to WHM and BLM's respective lore/mechanics as ways to restore MP, which invariably means they'd have to draw out excess aether from the environment in order to manifest them at all. I'd speculate that it actually goes against the core tenets of RDM's practices to use either element because their common properties invariably violate those tenets. We don't really have proof any of that that I can recall though. I'd have to dig through at the Conjurer/Thaumaturge quests again to be sure. That's my semi-educated half-forgotten overly-confident theoretical guess, at least.

I doubt that's the reason, honestly. Bear in mind that Fire magic doesn't lock our MP regen, nor do Aero or Thunder magic manifest as DoTs for us (the CNJ questline makes a point about Wind being the "death by a thousand paper-cuts" element), or Flare and Holy as AoEs.
It should be more sufficient to say in this context that RDM's practices have already adjusted those spells to be more environmentally friendly.

As far as lore goes, Cure and healing spells are actually Water-aspected (I believe this was an answer given long ago with regards to why White Mage has no Water spell outside something like Fluid Aura), this is particularly noticeable in something like Asylum which has a very water-y effect to it. As such, I always took Vercure as Red Mages "water" spell. As for ice... My headcannon is that Fleche and Contre Sixte are actually ice blades... Perhaps if the animation for them wasn't reusing assets that could be a bit clearer...

I don't ascribe to that at all. CNJ and ACN use the same green casting effect on their healing spells, while AST and RDM share the same faded blue effect with each other; attributing elements to either one supposes that SCH uses wind magic to heal and AST uses water magic, which are patently false since their powers have no elemental charge within the lore.
Unless, of course, we assume instead that green heals draw from the land and blue heals draw from extraterrestrial sources, but then that just leads to a whole can of worms about the RDM's healing. Sufficed to say, our healing magic is as different from WHM's as our battle magic is from BLM's.
Until Yoshi-P comes out and says Vercure is water magic, I'm choosing to believe it's just a blue heal. Likewise, until he says they're anything but Crystallized Aether, I think consensus is that our sword spells are just Crystallized Aether.

[Nalien]

I don't ascribe to that at all.

It was specifically the White Mage line of healing spells, as far as I remember. This dated back to 1.x though, around when White Mage was first introduced (so Astrologian and Scholar weren't even things), so it's entirely possible they abandoned that concept, but I distinctly remember them saying the Cure line of spells were White Mages water spells, "Waters of Life" sort of thing, it's often a trope in fantasy that water is used in recovery (something like Breath of the Wild being the most obvious recent example, wake up in water, the Zora (water) power was healing based, etc.). And again, it's hard to look at the animation for Asylum and not see the water effect.

Whether that carries over to Vercure or not, I can't know for certain, but Red Mage was built from White Mage and Black Mage, not Astrologian or Scholar, and it's Vercure, not Verbenefic or Verphysick. I'd imagine the same lore that applies to Cure applies to Vercure.

[Zyneste]

Was thinking about what I would really want if I could design my own skill and why I would want it would be something like:

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Ability- Indemnity:Restores target for 200 potency while reducing magic damage taken by 5% and applying a heal over time for 12 seconds. Regen potency 70. Cool down of 60 seconds. [Total healing potency of 480.]

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Wraps the base potency of Erase, into a mild Apoc, with a short but powerful HoT. Lets RDM support on the OGCD without being broken and do it frequently enough. Its one skill with a bunch of built in effects, encompassing small support effects like a RDM should be able to have adding up to a difference.

[Mansion]

SEE WHAT YOU DID?!
This topic was hell about "I'm bored when I use scatter" and now we have AoE re-design that stripped us off Impact.
"You brought this up on yourself" as Seiryu would say. ;D

Joke aside, that's my MAIN problem with what I've seen from RDM kit : the loss of Impact (even if Jolt II is buffed, it's still 20 less in potency than VerFire/VerStone). So unless Acceleration gets a buff to milk more VerFire/VerStone, I'm a bit sad.
Scorch is alright. Not interesting
I don't get the point of Engagement, when Displacement is still stronger. Now I'm trying to think, but apart from the Fire phase in O9S, and unlucky tail slams on Shinryu, there's no fight that make it impossible to use Displacement. It's scary on Suzaku, but you can make it.
The ranged Mana spender... 300 pot for 10 mana, I'm not sure I see the point apart from bieng some kind of Scathe ability. If a mechanic forces you to move, you have slide-cast the first spell, dual cast the second, (Swiftcast the third) and you still need to move, yeah maybe.

Anyway, I'm rambling about that but we'll get more info tomorrow so I should probably take it easy.

I'm really happy we did not get any healing ability/support though.