RDM Scortch

[Archwizard]

E. Moulinet is more potency per mana than the melee combo at 3+ targets, so in an instance like a dungeon where your resources are maintained throughout, it's actually most efficient to use it as much as possible provided the packs are big enough.

To be perfectly clear, I'm not suggesting abandoning E. Moulinet altogether. By all means use it on 3+ targets, but ultimately the greater cost of completing the entire melee combo versus the time it takes to build up your standalone cleave attack means you're better off saving Mana around trash packs till you're around 80-90ish of each type and just using Moulinet once or twice each time you get into that range, shaving off the top top stay below cap rather than spending it all at once, so that you still have some Mana left over when you go into your next boss fight. In theory it's roughly the same amount of Mana being gained and spent either way, it just gives you an earlier burst phase for boss fights.
Same way we'll probably end up using Reprise when we want to mulligan our Mana near cap or not waste anything on our Manafication.

Everything you said above is fine as an opinion, though I disagree with the part about taking a step backward. We, in general, don't try to balance our mana from 50 to 68. There's nothing in our kit at those levels that's affected by it so we don't actually care at all beyond needing to get it above 80/80. "I don't care what my mana levels are relative to each other" is not the same thing as "I want my mana levels to be balanced".

Except prior to level 68, that exact same amount of disinterest kept us from going "I'll just spend another couple GCDs imbalancing my Mana" in situations where you ended up incidentally even or pushed too close to cap.

Fact is, best case scenario, Verholy and Verflare remain relevant in the presence of a "Balance" Verfinisher only because they're mathematically equal, such that the existence of all three reinstates the mindset of not caring what Mana levels are like and just hitting the appropriate button when your Mana's at least 80/80.

Worst case, you win, the Balance Verfinisher is "better" -- so the two we had are no longer relevant because even in the absence of a mana cap, between Acceleration, Reprise and the disuse of our biggest imbalancers, we have enough tools to retune our Mana should we so choose. The existing Verfinishers become dead weight skills, which means we've completely lost two advancements that could have gone anywhere else, and behaviorally we do a complete 180 as soon as we get the new skill.
Y'know how people are saying in the BLM threads to remove Fire 2 and Blizzard 2 because nobody uses them after level 50? That's what'd happen to our Verfinishers. Except in BLM's case they were part of the progressive iteration that just became obsolete, while your goal is not simple obsolescence but for even the behavior caused by Verholy and Verflare to be erased.

You've yet to say anything about why we should continue to hold, much less use, Verholy and Verflare in such a case. Because as discussed --

So, you want a reason to never cast Verholy/Verflare ever again.

Yes, that is the point.

There are a lot of ideas for ways to spend that slot that add to our kit rather than actively subtract from it as a third Verfinisher would. I can only hope the devs choose those instead.