RDM Scortch

[Rongway]

Since we can spam 2 spells in one GCD, or 1.1 GCD's

It's still 2 spells per 2 GCDs.

[ADVSS]

It's still 2 spells per 2 GCDs.

And 4 per 2 GCD. Now we're talking Dot's. I thought I had terrible ping, but if you're only getting 2 spells off every 2 GCD, maybe you should look into a dot oriented job.


Edit: 3 per 2 it seems. Over time it would get incrementally more. This doesnt really change why we need to become more 3.0 DRG like than we already are - watching for verfire or verstone to proc, now we need to check out heavy thrust/disembowel too?

You might as well give the "depth and complexity" argument up. Look what happened to our friends, the Scholars this expansion

Im on the camp that giving a dot, cause everyone else has one or two dots, is just silly. Lets be RDM and not everyone else.

[Rongway]

And 4 per 2 GCD. Now we're talking Dot's. I thought I had terrible ping, but if you're only getting 2 spells off every 2 GCD, maybe you should look into a dot oriented job.


Edit: 3 per 2 it seems.

No. It's two spells, two GCDs. The first spell happens at the end of the first GCD, the second spell happens at the beginning of the second GCD, then you can't cast another spell until the second GCD is over. Two spells, two GCDs.

RDM does not have, and never had, the ability to cast two spells in one GCD. Each spell takes up a whole GCD.

[Burningskull]

I've never liked DoTs. I would rather do one spell that does it's full damage rather than use another spell that takes 6 more spells in total time to do it's full potency even if it's slightly stronger than the spell that does it's full damage. I think not having a DoT adds to RDMs simplicity which was SE's intent for the job. I don't think it'll ever have a DoT and honestly I wouldn't want it to. Matter of fact I would probably flat out refuse to use it.

[Singularity]

The value of a proc is not simply the mana gained from the Verstone/Verfire. Since the spells are GCD, casting one means pushing out another spell that could have been cast in that GCD, almost certainly a Jolt. Since you're sacrificing a spell that gives 6 mana for one that gives 9, the value of the proc is actually only +3.

I agree that we wouldn't want the best finisher to be so good that it makes it worth overcapping or ignoring procs. There should be situations where Verholy/Verflare are correct, thus creating gameplay by allowing the player a situation to evaluate and a decision to make. I put in some rough numbers, but those could easily be tweaked to produce the desired effect.

Changing the phrasing on Verholy/Verflare doesn't quite achieve the same effect. The proposed Scorch gives the player an extra, harder situation to aim for (with a higher reward for hitting it). Changing the existing finishers would simply remove the need to set up unequal mana, so you'd actually have fewer things to take into consideration during gameplay. "I don't need to worry if my mana is equal or not" isn't the same as "I want to set up my mana to be equal".

[Archwizard]

I agree that we wouldn't want the best finisher to be so good that it makes it worth overcapping or ignoring procs. There should be situations where Verholy/Verflare are correct, thus creating gameplay by allowing the player a situation to evaluate and a decision to make. I put in some rough numbers, but those could easily be tweaked to produce the desired effect.

Alright, let's say we play it your way.

Scorch: Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 580.
Additional Effect: Increases both White Mana and Black Mana by 9
Additional Effect: Become both Verfire Ready and Verstone Ready if Black Mana is exactly equal to White Mana at time of execution.
Can only be executed after landing Enchanted Redoublement.

Tada, a version that is by that standard exactly equal to the other Verfinishers.
We finally have a third finisher that's not worth "overcapping or ignoring procs" while leaving value for the other two buttons.

1) How do you intend to uptune this to "reward a harder situation" and make it worthwhile without turning it into the "lazy option" for, frankly, the types of players who macro their rotation or refuse to cast DoTs?
2) Mechanically, what's the upshot to our gameplay of having three buttons for the same task, outside of satisfying this compulsory sense of "immediate balance"?

[Singularity]

(apologies if this thread has somewhat derailed, I didn't intend to elaborate on this idea so much)

Firstly, the last part needs to be slightly reworded:
Additional Effect: Become both Verstone Ready and Verfire Ready.
* Jolt II is changed to Scorch upon landing Enchanted Redoublement as a combo action while Black Mana and White Mana are equal.

So, it's not that you only get the procs if your mana is equal, it's that you can only use the spell at all if your mana is equal.

As for how to balance it to be better than the current finishers (but not always), I would consider that the disadvantages this spell has are that it is likely to take longer to set up since you need to tune your mana more precisely, and that the easiest way to equal your mana is to hit 100/100 so you might lose some mana overcapping. Theorycrafters tell us that a point of mana is worth 4.5 potency (this number will need to be adjusted for new skill changes, but this is just an example - there will always be some potency value for a point of mana).

If we keep the +11/+11, then the extra 4 mana generated alone makes this spell worth 18 more potency than a Verholy/Verflare, but we can do more still. In the media tour build, the existing finishers have 600 potency. Let's say we set Scorch at 640 (so 58 total potency more including the mana gain).
We end up with a situation where Scorch is better than Verholy/Verflare, unless you are losing 13 or more mana overcapping just to set up Scorch (less if you have a proc that would get overwritten too) or using a Verholy/Verflare would allow you to get your combo off quicker, thus either landing the combo under buffs that more than compensate for the potency loss (Trick Attack for example) or catching the target before it dies or leaves the field or does a mechanic that you really needed to get the damage in before (exploding adds for example).

What this does to our gameplay is give us an extra, higher target to aim for, and thus more advanced situation evaluation and decision-making, which is the core of RDM gameplay design.

[Archwizard]

So here's my take: we don't need to be rewarded for balance. In fact, we actively shouldn't be rewarded for it.

Thanks to that lovely Mana cap we have, we can at any time choose to balance our Mana. But we're designed that we never should by this method, to make it painfully clear that capping is bad for our DPS, and more than just "slightly". Arguably it could be considered harder to imbalance Mana without wasting active procs, especially as you get close to the Mana cap; this commonality is a large part of what makes the addition of Reprise so functional, to give us more breathing room to set up our Mana before hitting cap.
The current Verfinishers, sloppy though they may seem, accomplish in their requirement for imbalance a simple incentive not to cap your Mana -- but by the current design, the existence of a skill that can be executed and rewards you for capping out or just spamming Jolt to keep balance should be treated as a consolation for failing to execute other skills.

As we've already seen with attitudes around Engagement, "consolation" skills are not appreciated, and are treated more as a waste of design space that serve to bandaid other inherent problems within a kit.
And to say a "balance" Verfinisher should be stronger is like giving us Engagement and then making it stronger than Displacement.

If the design swerve we were served by the Verfinishers was to go out of our way to imbalance Mana, to turn back around and compel us to rebalance our Mana like we all were doing from 50 to 68 is a step backward for our gameplay, dumbing it down to an earlier state rather than building upon it.

But most importantly, and I cannot stress this enough, having 3 spells designed to accomplish one task -- regardless of how they're tuned -- is just too many freaking finishers. It's not about split-second decisions, it's about really asking to spend design resources and limited advancements on a spell that either invalidates existing spells or accomplishes a task they could with smaller adjustments, so you can glance at your Mana, go "oh I'm already 80/8X", and play whack-a-mole based on the value of X, now with 10% more laziness and a third hammering arm.
Two Verfinishers already gets weird looks for have two spells that are just the same description, but they get a pass specifically because of the intent of the Balance gauge as something that represents the volatility of two opposing forces, always in flux, never to be perfectly balanced but simply to be kept in check.
Three is just freaking ridiculous.

[PatronasCharm]

So here's my take: we don't need to be rewarded for balance. In fact, we actively shouldn't be rewarded for it.

Thanks to that lovely Mana cap we have, we can at any time choose to balance our Mana. But we're designed that we never should by this method, to make it painfully clear that capping is bad for our DPS, and more than just "slightly". Arguably it could be considered harder to imbalance Mana without wasting active procs, especially as you get close to the Mana cap; this commonality is a large part of what makes the addition of Reprise so functional, to give us more breathing room to set up our Mana before hitting cap.
The current Verfinishers, sloppy though they may seem, accomplish in their requirement for imbalance a simple incentive not to cap your Mana -- but by the current design, the existence of a skill that can be executed and rewards you for capping out or just spamming Jolt to keep balance should be treated as a consolation for failing to execute other skills.

As we've already seen with attitudes around Engagement, "consolation" skills are not appreciated, and are treated more as a waste of design space that serve to bandaid other inherent problems within a kit.
And to say a "balance" Verfinisher should be stronger is like giving us Engagement and then making it stronger than Displacement.

If the design swerve we were served by the Verfinishers was to go out of our way to imbalance Mana, to turn back around and compel us to rebalance our Mana like we all were doing from 50 to 68 is a step backward for our gameplay, dumbing it down to an earlier state rather than building upon it.

But most importantly, and I cannot stress this enough, having 3 spells designed to accomplish one task -- regardless of how they're tuned -- is just too many freaking finishers. It's not about split-second decisions, it's about really asking to spend design resources and limited advancements on a spell that either invalidates existing spells or accomplishes a task they could with smaller adjustments, so you can glance at your Mana, go "oh I'm already 80/8X", and play whack-a-mole based on the value of X, now with 10% more laziness and a third hammering arm.
Two Verfinishers already gets weird looks for have two spells that are just the same description, but they get a pass specifically because of the intent of the Balance gauge as something that represents the volatility of two opposing forces, always in flux, never to be perfectly balanced but simply to be kept in check.
Three is just freaking ridiculous.

So they could add a third and fourth finisher, I say make AoE ones.

Verfreeze:

• Deals ice damage to a target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 290 for the first enemy, 15% less for the second, 30% less for the third, 45% less for the fourth, 60% less for the fifth, and 70% less for all remaining enemies.
• Black Mana by 21
• Additional Effect: 20% chance of becoming Verfire Ready

Verflood:

• Deals water damage to a target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 290 for the first enemy, 15% less for the second, 30% less for the third, 45% less for the fourth, 60% less for the fifth, and 70% less for all remaining enemies.
• White Mana by 21
• Additional Effect: 20% chance of becoming Verstone Ready

They could either A, have it tied in with the three-fold combo, but do:

Riposte >> Zwerchhau >> Moulinet >> Veraero II / Verthunder II become Verflood / Verfreeze

Or x3 Moulinets = Finisher

Or seeing the AoE Rotation is inverse, maybe

Moulinet >> Zwerchhau >> Riposte...

Idk, be pretty cool.

And it wouldn't really affect the general playstyle, just add another layer of AoE. Since they already tacked on a Finisher >> Scorch

Even, making Impact II be that initial Top off to Verfreeze / Verflood

Impact II:

Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 420 for the first enemy, 15% less for the second, 30% less for the third, 45% less for the fourth, 60% less for the fifth, and 70% less for all remaining enemies.
White and Black Mana by 8

[Archwizard]

So they could add a third and fourth finisher, I say make AoE ones.

Verfreeze:

• Deals ice damage to a target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 290 for the first enemy, 15% less for the second, 30% less for the third, 45% less for the fourth, 60% less for the fifth, and 70% less for all remaining enemies.
• Black Mana by 21
• Additional Effect: 20% chance of becoming Verfire Ready

Verflood:

• Deals water damage to a target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 290 for the first enemy, 15% less for the second, 30% less for the third, 45% less for the fourth, 60% less for the fifth, and 70% less for all remaining enemies.
• White Mana by 21
• Additional Effect: 20% chance of becoming Verstone Ready

They could either A, have it tied in with the three-fold combo, but do:

Riposte >> Zwerchhau >> Moulinet >> Veraero II / Verthunder II become Verflood / Verfreeze

Or x3 Moulinets = Finisher

Or seeing the AoE Rotation is inverse, maybe

Moulinet >> Zwerchhau >> Riposte...

Idk, be pretty cool.

And it wouldn't really affect the general playstyle, just add another layer of AoE. Since they already tacked on a Finisher >> Scorch

Even, making Impact II be that initial Top off to Verfreeze / Verflood

Impact II:

Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 420 for the first enemy, 15% less for the second, 30% less for the third, 45% less for the fourth, 60% less for the fifth, and 70% less for all remaining enemies.
White and Black Mana by 8

Two things.

1) Due to the nature of our AoE rotation, imbalancing is actually less likely there; we have no AoE procs (with the removal of Enhanced Scatter) and our only "imbalancing" method in ShB is through shortcasts, which makes it a very predictable rotation. Giving two AoE Verfinishers for this would be redundant, since assuming you start at 0, your Mana is only imbalanced for the single GCD after every other shortcast. Even the act of giving us procs for Verstone and Verfire is somewhat moot in AoE, since we would ignore them in any 3+ target scenario.

2) There's little value in expanding on our existing AoE rotation, largely due to the infrequency of its use on bosses. It's more efficient for us to use our AoE rotation to slowly build up the Mana gauge on trash packs, and use Moulinet conservatively to minimize Mana loss. Moulinet's purpose isn't to give us an AoE reflection of our single-target melee combo -- its intent, like Reprise, is to give us a snap means to dump Mana to prevent from overcapping. The grand call before ShB for us to have more AoE tools was because our rotation was limited to ~7 Scatter casts to the Moulinet and a 45-sec CD; now we have 5 AoE tools of frequent use, which is already on par with BLM and more than SMN.
You could arguably get just as much mileage out of just having Moulinet reduce the CD of Contre Sixte as you would get out of even one AoE Verfinisher.