Shadowbringers RDM Wishlist

[SaberMaxwell]

What several of us want, and have said as much in this thread. There are other ways to address Displacement than contributing to bloat by giving us the option to ignore it, especially since it will mean an arbitrary damage penalty based on encounter design. Displacement has issues; that very fact is why we have the band-aid. Engagement is to us what Scathe is to BLMs: the "I couldn't hit what I really wanted" button.

Engagement versus Displacement is, in my opinion, a strong decision to have a player make and a good bit of depth all on its own. Having to choose between 200 potency and forced movement, or 150 potency and no forced movement, I think, tasks the player to keep an eye on several variables in the battlefield. I'll narrow these to two main categories:

1: Battlefield Awareness
Of course, this includes "Is the arena really small?" That's the only one of these I see most people ever consider in this category. Other considerations that are worth taking into account are:
"Is there anything behind me that I need to be aware of?" This includes AoEs, teammates that you do not want to be near (including "They have an AoE" or "You have an AoE"), boss placement, boss mechanics that might target the farthest player, whether an AoE is a "donut" so one can capitalize on ranging the AoE instead of standing under the boss, and many more things besides.

Of course you can backflip off of the arena. You can also backflip into AoEs, into teammates, your backflip can alter boss behavior (Seiryu EX as an example); your backflip can also put you in an out-of-the-way location so nobody steps over your twisters, keep you well out of the feather rain bait stack so neither you nor your team need to worry if you are in any way unstacked.

2: Team Awareness
This category includes much more team-focused considerations, including raid buffs and raid healing. It's happened several times where my Displacement usage has caused me to lose out on Battle Litany; it's never happened to me that using Displacement has gotten me killed due to lack of healing, however, because I take very good care to not displace during raid busters. The latter is certainly also very possible. Being aware of your team's actions will help you make better decisions regarding displacement, and get more out of the ability.

It's important to note that, in all of these situations, "Just hold displacement" is a valid answer. It's also worthy to note that, every second Displacement isn't used is a second it's not cooling down; this is, in most cases, much more of a loss than using an ability like Engagement. Holding Displacement for any reason is going to put you in a weird spot, which is one big thing I think we'll see Engagement used as from now on: immediate followup to Manafy. You can't Displace during the melee combo, but you *can* Engagement during it.

That said, 4 Engagements is only equivalent to 3 Displacements; meaning every four times Engagement is used, you are essentially forfeiting one Displacement entirely. Keeping that in mind, you know exactly what the reward is when you refuse the risk outright.

You can look at it like an "I couldn't hit what I really wanted" button or a "bandaid that solves nothing," I see it as an increase to the decisionmaking that Displacement gives the job. That's why it's perplexing to me, given all of these thoughts I need to take into account regarding a singular ability of Red Mage's, that you want it gone (or mitigated) and yet advocate for Red Mage to get a DoT because it's much needed "depth of gameplay." I don't need to think about a DoT like I need to think about Displacement.

[Archwizard]

You can look at it like an "I couldn't hit what I really wanted" button or a "bandaid that solves nothing," I see it as an increase to the decisionmaking that Displacement gives the job. That's why it's perplexing to me, given all of these thoughts I need to take into account regarding a singular ability of Red Mage's, that you want it gone (or mitigated) and yet advocate for Red Mage to get a DoT because it's much needed "depth of gameplay." I don't need to think about a DoT like I need to think about Displacement.

As I've repeatedly said, I don't care if we get a DoT as long as we get something to shake up gameplay, I just won't mind if we get one; most of the "defending" I do for the stance of a DoT isn't pure advocation out of any sense we "need" one, it's addressing the knee-jerk dismissal of DoTs in general for such trumped-up charges as "it would disrupt the flow of the rotation" and "they replace auto-attacks" (lol?) and "they're boring", none of which necessarily are/need be true.

[CorbinDallas]

I didn't say I couldn't do it, I said I didn't enjoy the stress of strict timers, so I switched jobs. People are allowed to not enjoy things, and to switch jobs if they do so; it's a fairly common response to not enjoying things. Don't damn me if I do, thanks.

You would have a point if this was BLM discussion and I was saying that was an aspect of BLM that needed to change. This isn't. This is a RDM discussion where I'm adding credence to opinions about not making the job more like BLM.
Your "git gud" attitude is unnecessary, irrelevant, and just flat-out rude, so please ride your high horse out of here.

You brought up BLM saying it had something that needed changing, to which I wholly disagree. My jaded "git gud" attitude is completely the fault of players like you, who even though they don't like a job, suggest to "fix" a problem with it which frankly isn't there. Enochian and Thunder 3 don't need to be changed.

I don't like a multitude of jobs, so I just don't play them. I also don't put forward opinions or suggestions on how to fix them because I frankly don't have enough experience with them, which is evidently the case with you and BLM. Use the job as a comparison all you like, but don't claim to know things you don't.

[Shurrikhan]

You brought up BLM saying it had something that needed changing, to which I wholly disagree. My jaded "git gud" attitude is completely the fault of players like you, who even though they don't like a job, suggest to "fix" a problem with it which frankly isn't there. Enochian and Thunder 3 don't need to be changed.

I don't like a multitude of jobs, so I just don't play them. I also don't put forward opinions or suggestions on how to fix them because I frankly don't have enough experience with them, which is evidently the case with you and BLM. Use the job as a comparison all you like, but don't claim to know things you don't.

I'd normally agree with you, especially as twice now I've seen my favorite jobs effectively squashed by pandering changes like you describe, but there are some changes that can benefit players not already enjoying the job as much as they would like without negatively affecting those who already love it. These are, unfortunately, rarely the kind the devs go with, but the possibilities do exist.

What I want to protect on my jobs are the constraints and decisions that contribute enjoyable difficulty. But I do have to wonder, would BLM be any less fun or challenging if, say, Enochian worked in as a trait instead of an ability, or at least offered an MP-less quickcast when it expires? One's efficiency-based design, but can easily be brought in such a way that you'd at most lose a bit of burst potency in incredibly short (e.g. sub-15-second) fights but lose zero reason to pursue the actions necessary to maintain Enochian as it is (i.e. no change in gameplay). The other's a more gimmicky QoL bonus, but can as much be a fun manipulable for skilled players as a safety line for the unskilled. Probably neither of those spontaneous spitballs would suit, but there is almost always some design that would -- a benefit without requiring compromise. It just scares me when one who doesn't play the job much puts these forward as complete, both-sided solutions when they, almost by definition, could not know what they've missed (though I suppose one could say the same of a veteran's sense of weighing the attractiveness of a job, though that subject is far more subjective than the mechanics of a given job).

It's irrelevant in either case, though. This is a RDM thread. The BLM stuff Arch mentioned was solely for context in discussing how and why he wouldn't want RDM to be more BLM-like.

[Archwizard]

You brought up BLM saying it had something that needed changing, to which I wholly disagree.

I never said they needed changing. I never even implied they needed changing. I don't believe they need changing in any manner you're implying, and even if I did I would be discussing it in a BLM thread, not a RDM thread.

I simply said they're not mechanics for RDM.

End of discussion.

[CorbinDallas]

I never said they needed changing. I never even implied they needed changing. I don't believe they need changing in any manner you're implying, and even if I did I would be discussing it in a BLM thread, not a RDM thread.

I simply said they're not mechanics for RDM.

End of discussion.

You literally said so in the last post I quoted, which you've conveniently edited. Don't lie.

[Archwizard]

You literally said so in the last post I quoted, which you've conveniently edited. Don't lie.

Luckily you've quoted that bit then, haven't you? And I can clearly read nothing of the sort from the section you quoted.

"I didn't enjoy the gameplay loop, so I switched" =/= "The gameplay loop is broken and needs to change."

You, sir, are reading into things so you can toss your elitism around. "Fixing" BLM wasn't even the subject of discussion, I brought BLM up to compare the two.

[CorbinDallas]

Luckily you've quoted that bit then, haven't you? And I can clearly read nothing of the sort from the section you quoted.

You, sir, are reading into things so you can toss your elitism around. "Fixing" BLM wasn't even the subject of discussion, I brought BLM up to compare the two.

You would have a point if this was BLM discussion and I was saying that was an aspect of BLM that needed to change.

There you go.