RDM Scortch

[Archwizard]

Damage on bosses is not more important than damage on trash packs. Everything in the dungeon needs to die (unless it can be skipped, but opportunities like that are rare) for the dungeon to be complete, so it's actually more efficient to save mana at the end of a boss in order to Moulinet the trash mobs more, since you generate the same amount of mana either way and Moulinet gets more damage out of whatever mana you generate.

Dungeons begin with trash packs and end with a boss, so shifting the save periods onto bosses is clearly a loss. And generally, the boss is the one that has phases that need to be burst through. Doesn't matter how the trash dies as long as it's dead, that's why it's called trash. If trash packs mattered just as much as dungeon bosses (and this is ignoring trials and overworld content as major offsets), every job would have an AoE rotation as extensive as their single-target's.
But it's not, because trash packs are literally filler content.
Even the concept of "potency per mana" can only go so far, since obviously any AoE is going to be stronger on 12 targets than it is on 3, it really becomes a matter of most efficiently eliminating how many AoE casts you get -- and tanks do love to make big pulls don't they?

At any rate, we're getting away from the main point here: behaviorally, the use of Moulinet is not of equal value to us as the use of the single-target combo is, particularly because the latter gives us access to Verfinishers to refund that Mana, not to mention being applicable to more scenarios -- and I already explained why balancing that with an AoE Verfinisher probably wouldn't work too well.

Unless of course we went against my better judgement concerning AoE Verfinishers and decided to kill two birds with one stone, making just one AoE Verfinisher based around "balance" or Red magic or whatever to satisfy both your cravings, since it fits the AoE design better and so we don't have to balance it against the other two in single target at all. Speaking of which:

My earlier post suggests a scenario that allows a third finisher to exist without rendering the existing two obsolete. Remember that overuse of those mana tools is a potency loss, and at some point the loss is so big that it's better to just use a normal finisher.

No, your earlier post describes how to get away with balancing a third Verfinisher to be "slightly" stronger than the other two, without stating what the point is in having three -- especially since you clearly wish there was only the one. You haven't touched at all on the purpose of the existing two in a world with a focus on a better Verfinisher.

And before you imply anything to do with "consolation prizes", I remind you that performance isn't balanced around "consolations", it's downtuned to contour around the peaks; just look at the healer treatment for ShB. We'll be expected to land that new skill every time (or at least kick ourselves if we can't, rather than ooh and ahh at the times we get it), because again, there is no such thing as a "bonus reward" in theorycraft.
At any rate, the erasure of our Verfinishers' 20% proc chance effects and the mixed-at-best reception for Engagement shows what RDMs think about "consolations".

Your argument relies both on players intentionally working to balance their Mana while explaining that it's a loss for them to use the tools to actually do so. At best you're arguing for a system that rewards luck as much as (if not more than) risk and intent. At worst, ludicrous amounts of math that the player won't ever be able to intuit, since there's no way to tell when it becomes a bigger loss to hit Reprise and try again (especially amongst other casts to expend any remaining procs) versus giving up and hitting Verflhoarley.

If RDM is supposed to be so simple we don't even have a DoT, why on Hydaelyn would we want to bother with that much spurious math?

I'll admit I was being facetious with the last remark quoted, though only because I thought the question was also facetious.

Clearly tones of acerbic wit don't translate well over the internet.

I hope it's more than clear by now that my quoted remark was quite serious.