Shadowbringers RDM Wishlist

[Kurando]

The only other MP using jobs are Arcanist ones. Which, I mentioned that SMN was poorly designed because you just use Aetherflow irregardless of its MP restore because you need to use it for damage."

I just wanted to interject that originally Aetherflow was the only action that ACN/SMN/SCH had available (excluding Energy Drain) to restore their own MP. The original recovery cost was 20% instead of the 10% we get now, and there was no role action like Lucid as an alternative. Sure AF was used to deal damage, but if no other player was in the party with Refresh capabilities (e.g. BRD/MCH) then you did have to watch your MP with it (especially when Ruin III used to cost a stupid amount to cast and Miasma II was still available to them as a dot option).

[Shurrikhan]

I just wanted to interject that originally Aetherflow was the only action that ACN/SMN/SCH had available (excluding Energy Drain) to restore their own MP. The original recovery cost was 20% instead of the 10% we get now, and there was no role action like Lucid as an alternative. Sure AF was used to deal damage, but if no other player was in the party with Refresh capabilities (e.g. BRD/MCH) then you did have to watch your MP with it (especially when Ruin III used to cost a stupid amount to cast and Miasma II was still available to them as a dot option).

Which then actually gave it [well, came as part of] a sense of gameplay instead of merely "hit this every couple minutes, roughly on cooldown"...

[Kabooa]

Which then actually gave it a sense of gameplay instead of merely "hit this every couple minutes, roughly on cooldown"...

Summoner rotation then was MP Surplus. You spent excess on Ruin 3, generally during raid buffs down to like 50%, then just let the natural surplus from Aetherflow 20% top you back up for the next burst window to happen outside of Dreadwyrm.

The MP restores was secondary and it still was entirely around the actual stacks themselves. Any further consideration was largely due to dreadwyrm stacks having a duration.

[Shurrikhan]

Summoner rotation then was MP Surplus. You spent excess on Ruin 3, generally during raid buffs down to like 50%, then just let the natural surplus from Aetherflow 20% top you back up for the next burst window to happen outside of Dreadwyrm.

The MP restores was secondary and it still was entirely around the actual stacks themselves. Any further consideration was largely due to dreadwyrm stacks having a duration.

Oh I don't care much that the MP itself wasn't gameplay, only that it was bound to something with an actual sense of tempo. Aetherflow-DWT had that. Why we needed to add something like LD, which just feels saggy and bloated by comparison, is beyond me. We already have Diversion. And frankly I'd have been fine with enmity skills still belonging solely to Shadewalker, Quelling Strikes, and Elusive Jump.

I'm fine with MP being a non-factor for casters apart from rez costs. I'm not fine, however, with spending even more buttons on said non-factor.

[Archwizard]

Since when is WHM based around MP management?

Since when is AST based around MP management?

Exactly as you said, they're both healers -- some of the most MP intensive jobs in the game, and the majority of the reason BLMs can consider Mana Shift a semi-viable utility. If your healer runs out of MP, people die.

The second suggestion, has some merit, because you'd want to time it around maximizing your spell cast output to maximize gains. Whether or not such a thing would end up working well is questionable.

My concern with a suggestion like this, much like the question of having our Enchanted melee restore MP, is that we have to already have a significant MP investment in order to be able to replenish our MP in this manner.
A DoT may be boring, yes, but at least you can use it when you're at low MP to catch up more easily.

MP regen is easily fixed by increasing more melee comboes. PLD used to have tp problems too, but once holy spirit become part of rotation, tp become infinite. Same way rdm regain mana while rotating melee combo, since melee combo is free mana wise and passive mana is 2% mana every 3 seconds.

Except that TP is going the way of the Dodo in Shadowbringers, so we have no idea whether the melee combo will continue to be 'free' or begin consuming MP like our other abilities.

I'm fine with MP being a non-factor for casters apart from rez costs. I'm not fine, however, with spending even more buttons on said non-factor.

My take on this, from a design perspective, is that every gap in the design should be taken as an opportunity for expansion rather than just a problem to slap down.
Increasing MP regen or cutting costs would fix the problem, but it wouldn't expand the gameplay in any way. Restoring MP by doing our melee combo doesn't expand the gameplay either.
About the only options for expansion are "create new interactions between skills we already have" or "more buttons" -- and personally I don't see why we should overcomplicate the solution to such a simple issue.

[Shurrikhan]

My take on this, from a design perspective, is that every gap in the design should be taken as an opportunity for expansion rather than just a problem to slap down.

And I would normally agree. I've suggested as much in regards to MP since HW. However, I have to wonder what even the most ideal manipulation of MP as a mechanic would add, and at what costs.

About the only options for expansion are "create new interactions between skills we already have" or "more buttons" -- and personally I don't see why we should overcomplicate the solution to such a simple issue.

And, again, I'd be fine with the first, so long as it doesn't get in the way of whatever more attractive gameplay it would cost. I'm not at all fine with the second.

Restoring MP by doing our melee combo doesn't expand the gameplay either.

Naturally, as you most often need MP after Verraise, which doesn't remotely sync to your melee combos, or after death, which depletes the resource needed to perform your melee combos...

What can expand gameplay, however, is to make RDM's sword and its melee aspect more than just a tacked-on accessory. If there was reason to actually weave in melee more than once per vH/F cycle, you could use that to manage MP. The only issue is that it still comes at the cost of weaving melee for actual utility, power, timing, burst, or efficiency beyond simply "I overexpended MP/died recently".

[Archwizard]

Naturally, as you most often need MP after Verraise, which doesn't remotely sync to your melee combos, or after death, which depletes the resource needed to perform your melee combos...

While true -- particularly due to needing to invest MP into performing the melee combo before you could melee combo for MP, especially if they put the melee combo onto an MP cost with the removal of TP in ShB -- my intent with that statement was more geared toward the fact that melee comboing is something we already do. Simply tacking "also recovers X% of MP" onto any existing ability would not change in the slightest how we use the abilities, except possibly to encourage subpar gameplay; for instance, "just spam your unenchanted melee combo if MP gets low" sounds great if you only consider running low on MP to be a niche case caused only by death or Verraising, but not as a result of running your actual rotation for long periods, meaning it would eventually turn from a niche case into a part of the core rotation.
It would address the immediate problem of MP consumption, but it would not add to the core playstyle in any positive way.

Besides, if the worry is that MP would only become a concern to us after Verraise spam, wouldn't giving us another means to burst-return MP be a bad thing...?