Shadowbringers RDM Wishlist

[Lauront]

Enfire and Enstone would be cool for the AOE phase if procced off of Scatter, with Enholy and Enflare as the AOE finishers (requiring above 70 of both manas), and could all modify Moulinet.

[Archwizard]

I have a few major issues with the class that I hope new spells next expansion will address.

• Boring/Slow AoE: Moving from BLM's exciting variety to RDM's lack therein was painful in this regard. Up to ten Scatters per Enchanted Moulinet, if I'm unlucky with procs (on average, 5-7 with procs)? I get that this one's a bit of a slippery slope (too much adjustment of the Scatter BM/WM economy could lead to its use in single-target) but anything to make reaching E-Moulinet a little faster (if not make the overall AoE more exciting than "spam Scatter until you can Moulinet") would not go remiss.
• No personal defense: Even BLM gets Manaward, and their rotation doesn't have a melee phase; meanwhile, in spite of our increased mobility, we have the casters' infamously low durability that gets us killed constantly by unavoidable damage (or people just not stacking for mechanics). I'd kill for some kind of counter-based defensive cooldown, and it wouldn't even be unfitting for a RDM to have one between the fencing motifs and mixed themes of "white magic for defense + black magic for reprisal".
• Limited MP recovery: We're the only Magic DPS who has to rely entirely on Lucid Dreaming or the availability of a Bard. I get that limiting our MP recovery keeps us from going overboard with Dualcast Verraise spam, but I've had fights where just casting Verraise once or twice (or being forced to heal myself due to lack of protection...) had me MP-starved within a minute; I dread a healer who asks me to Mana Shift; and with TP getting removed next expansion, we may see our melee become a consumer, too. Even without Verraise, our basic rotation can have us living from CD to CD with Lucid Dreaming if the fight goes long enough. I'm not asking for Umbral Ice-level recovery (since frankly this is more of a niche ask), just a little higher MP regen or a weak Refresh to bump us a tiny bit, or perhaps a situational recovery spell.
• Mobility CDs are used for damage: Because they're not on the GCD and have their own potency, Disengage and Corps-a-Corps are a part of our rotation in optimal play. Of the two, Disengage is the most problematic as it can tend to end a melee phase by propelling the RDM out of the arena to their deaths, but Corps-a-Corps' use as a damage cooldown rather than a mobility cooldown means it may be wasted by the RDM.

To be continued...

[Archwizard]

Continuing from my previous post, I have a few... sample suggestions to address each of the above points:

1. Verflood (5 sec cast): Deal water damage to enemies within 5y of your target, increase both Black Mana and White Mana by 2 per enemy hit, and gain Enhanced Scatter.

   The goal here is to rapidly speed up our AoE by giving us a spell that can be woven with Scatter to increase its Mana generation; on three targets, with the extra Mana from Verflood itself, the guaranteed proc of Enhanced Scatter will be enough to reach a single Moulinet in only 4 GCDs (less even, if you're fighting at least 5 targets or lucky with procs from Scatter itself). As for using "Verflood"... it seems fitting, both for us to have an AoE representing the cataclysm that birthed red magic, and for it to flood your Mana pool.

2. En-garde (2 min CD): Surround yourself in a barrier of swords, halving (or absorbing) incoming damage for up to 10 sec. When the effect ends or is canceled, the swords lash out and split unaspected damage between nearby enemies equal to the damage prevented.

   Based a bit loosely off of Reflect from Kingdom Hearts II and Noctis' guard ability from Final Fantasy XV, the idea with this skill is that it can synchronize with a RDM's melee phase, giving them protection while they rush in and detonating before they jump out. Alternately, it should last just long enough to pop in expectation of a big hit like Protostar and then detonate when the boss is available again.

3. Verfreeze (2 sec cast): Deal weak ice damage to enemies within 5y of your target, and inflict additional ice damage over 30 sec to all affected targets. While Verfreeze is active on at least one target, you regain 2% of base MP per second; this effect does not increase if more targets are affected.

   Killing two birds with one stone here - the idea with this DoT is that it can be used as an opener in both area-effect and lengthy single-target encounters (pairing nicely with Verflood above before you cast Scatter), while also alleviating our costly MP issues. Mixing our MP generation with ice magic also serves as a shout-out to Black Mages' use of Umbral Ice; 2% MP/s is low enough that it would still take 10 seconds to replenish the cost of a Verraise, but we could likely sustain our main combo off half that... assuming our melee combo doesn't switch from TP to MP in Shadowbringers.

4. Disengage no longer deals damage, but instead applies Heavy to the target for 3-5 sec, a la its PvP incarnation. Corps-a-Corps also no longer deals damage, but instead stuns the target for 1 sec; damage of both skills is instead displaced into the Enchanted Melee combo.

   With Corps-a-Corps having a 40 sec cooldown, the stun effect would be equally available to RDM as Leg Sweep is to any (other?) melee DPS, while the slow effect on Disengage would justify the current animation lacking damage. Otherwise giving bonus effects to either one is more for QoL than necessity; the important thing is removing the damage from them so you're compelled to use them as needed.

[Dualgunner]

It would be nice to have a form of defense. Something to protect myself from getting crunched by mesohigh because my sch forgot to shield me. Maybe have verwater be a defensive shield, next hit taken does 10% less damage and causes verblizzard ready. Verblizzard can then be a 310 potency Insta cast not affected by dualcast. Seems very third eye, but I'm a sucker for reprisal mechanics like that and it fits whm def blm reprisal that was mentioned before.

[Lauront]

En-garde is very good and fits right in with the job's theme. I like the rest too, and I think coupled with some of Grimoire-M's ideas and the En-elemental trait, it'd give RDM a very nice, rounded ability repertoire.

[Lauront]

They've sort of boxed SAM into the sword mage role, though. Like how they describe its Iaijutsu in lorebook 2.0, as a form of martial magecraft. Not saying they couldn't bring in such a job, particularly if they avoided making it a sword user as there's an amplitude of those. It'd need ample padding out to work.

[M1551NGN0]

I would like a trait similar to Lance Mastery. Pop a Verflare after a Verholy, and vice-versa.

And some AoE finishers after three Enchanted Moulinets.

[Wayfinder3]

VerFlare and VerHoly do AoE damage of 550 potency that scales down by 25% after the 2nd enemy hit, and 50% for every hit after. 550+550 potency on 2 targets. “Mostly needed for 2 target situations such as adds phase in Ucob to help rdm properly keep an offensive presence.” Moulinet Hits with a potency of 200 and that has no fall off, so at 5 enemies, Moulinet will hit for 1000 potency per enemy hit. costing 30 mana means that at 90 mana, you get 3 cast for a whopping 3000 potency per enemy hit for the next 3 gcds. These changes to Holy and Flare will not challenge that as it's one GCD for 550 +550 +412.5+ 275 +275=2062.5 potency for 1 hit, but still much weaker than dedicating time to using moulinet rotation as there is no other AoE cast aside from that one hit.

Manafication is changed to say (Resets the cooldown on Corp a Corp and Displacement. Allows for the use of 3 Enchanted Weaponskills ignoring BW mana generated for 10secs. Effect ends after the 3rd Enchanted Weaponskill or combo is broken)
"A huge change to help RDM's burst window fall in line with raid buffs"

Sprint does not cancel dualcast
“kinda stupid that it does”

Embolden made to buff all damage, I don’t mind the idea of a decaying buff if it benefits the raid as it promote better synergy. If too strong, I’d reduce to a static 5-6% for 20secs

Corp a Corp, applies piercing damage up for 40secs. "If these debuffs are going to stay, then dragoon can't be alone in distributing this. ranged dps are far too powerful to place this themselves."

Vermedica "Ability" 90secs Applies an AoE regen with an initial potency of 200, regen Potency is 50 for 30secs.
"This job has healer roots and i personally would like to see it explored. I love the power dualcast Verraise enables in progression and i think rdm should move foward with this identity in mind. As long as it's damage is lower but close enough to SMN and MCH to allow for a safe route at the expense of a little dps. Vercure is a nice button to gain dualcast procs when the boss is untargetable as well promote a situation where rdm could save a party member however, this comes at the cost of a gcd and i don't think rdm should have to pay for exercising it routes as healer beyond it's total rdps contribution being lower than SMN. RDM should be rewarded for healing while not costing any of their dps which is where vercure fails"

Enliven "Ability" 120secs Increases the MP of all party members for 30secs (Effect cannot be applied with Refresh) "Seriously, refresh belongs to rdm and was given away, it's time we got it back while also giving this job some method of recurring mp"

Manaward, I think this skill should be moved into the Cross role action for casters, it gives them all fair ways to mitigate damage in situations where we may need to take less damage ( think Hello World or ifrit nails)

Swiftcast applies Dualcast. it Increases mobility by simulating BLM's triplecast. Cast -> Instant (swift) -> Instant -> Instant.

As for AoE phase
I don't mind some fine tuning however, i prefer we don't get more than 2 GCDs dedicated to it, Scatter and Moulinet are fine but could use some efficiency boosting.

I think VerThunder and VerAero can be scaled back down to 300 potency with some of these changes. Alot of this is probably very overpowered and can be scaled back to be made more reasonable within the games scope. This is a rough wishlist i'd like to see

[Archwizard]

Corp a Corp, applies piercing damage up for 40secs. "If these debuffs are going to stay, then dragoon can't be alone in distributing this. ranged dps are far too powerful to place this themselves."

Vermedica "Ability" 90secs Applies an AoE regen with an initial potency of 200, regen Potency is 50 for 30secs.
"This job has healer roots and i personally would like to see it explored. I love the power dualcast Verraise enables in progression and i think rdm should move foward with this identity in mind. As long as it's damage is lower but close enough to SMN and MCH to allow for a safe route at the expense of a little dps. Vercure is a nice button to gain dualcast procs when the boss is untargetable as well promote a situation where rdm could save a party member however, this comes at the cost of a gcd and i don't think rdm should have to pay for exercising it routes as healer beyond it's total rdps contribution being lower than SMN. RDM should be rewarded for healing while not costing any of their dps which is where vercure fails"

As far as Corps-a-Corps, I'm not sure how many piercing damage skills we have, but the more relevant point to make here is that if it applies a debuff then we'll still be obligated to tap it on-cooldown to keep it up at all times -- including scenarios where it would be dangerous for the RDM to charge into melee.

As for "Vermedica", I'm torn. While RDM has its roots in crossing Black and White magic, we're not supposed to be a dedicated healing class; while being able to raise allies is always a boon and makes us outshine virtually every job in the game at it, having a semi-potent Regen effect won't have us recognized in that regard.

I think you guys are missing the point of why I believe the Ver Finshers should be AoE. It’s because I’m situations where there are 2 targets in which it’s a dps loss to use scatter and Moulinet. Rdm falls behind BLM and SMN as they have dots and AoE that give them more flexibility. Guardian was an example where the Verfinsher doing AoE damage wouldve been a nice way to help rdm keep pace with casters in those niche but very real situations.

Scatter spam is boring and inefficient but it’s designed for 3 or more targets and thus, has nothing to do with the change. Rdm needs a 2 target option and I believe that doing this will make it less of a burden on the job, then say giving them a dot

And while that's valid, it's generally accepted that in any two- (or less) target scenario, the player just focuses each target down, for virtually all classes -- in fact, I think a two-target specific option is arguably the most niche ask of all.

Even as far as giving us a DoT is concerned, that could easily replace one cast of Jolt or Impact every 15-30 sec, and would lead to a greater portion of our damage being mobilized.

[Mansion]

I'm not so interested in AOE options because we just use it for dungeons... unless a raid forces to do AOE, I don't get the point of giving us more AOE tools.

Like OP, I'd like to use my Mana for some other things than the combo. I had in mind something like "Black Sword" or "White Sword" that would use 10-20 of said Mana and place a debuff (Black) on the enemy and a buff (White) to a party member. They would share a CD, and it could give RDM more support tools.

Embolden needs to gradually increase, not decrease. And it needs flat damage up, not aspected physical/magic damage. It makes no sense that it does not buff our own Fleche / Contre de Sixte.

I don't know about Holy / Flare in AOE. I remember DeathFlare on SMN would always come up with Ulthros pop on O11S and my tank hated me.

(If our not-enchanted melee combo could give us a good chunk of Mana back, that would be dandy)