Quote Originally Posted by Fynlar View Post
I'm not saying that over a long enough period of time, RDM couldn't possibly drain out their MP (again, barring when they die or have to res bot). I'm just saying that there aren't really any fights like that in the game, so it doesn't really matter. The vast majority of fights in the game either aren't that long or don't have 100% uptime (allowing for MP recovery). Usually both.
Actually bottoming out to zero MP doesn't have to be a remotely common occurrence in actual play for this to still be a design flaw that needed to be fixed. Just seeing that your MP is dropping like a rock and thinking, if this WERE a long fight, I'd really be screwed, isn't fun or engaging or challenging. It just sucks. There's no upside.

BLM goes through their MP like popcorn, and seeing your MP bar hit zero several times during a fight is expected, and that's FINE, because that's part of how the class is designed, with the whole fire/ice thing, and Flare taking all your MP. You're not "losing" your MP, you're spending it as part of your rotation, and then if you continue to perform properly, you get it back and can go right back to EXPLOSIONS within moments.

With RDM, your MP is going down simply by... playing your class correctly and doing your proper rotation? Even if you're not super likely to actually hit rock bottom, just knowing that by maximizing uptime, you're burning through your MP super fast even WITH Lucid use, and there's nothing you can do about it short of holding your DPS, no class gimmick that goes along with using your MP or way to recover, just kinda sucks. That's why it needed to be changed.

Re: "proving" Lucid's intended design one way or the other - no one here actually KNOWS the minds of the devs with any certainty, of course, but we can use a little common sense. They lowered RDM's MP costs across the board. Why would they do that instead of just saying "working as intended, please use Lucid more" if they DIDN'T intend Lucid to be something with a bit more flexibility, something you can effectively use at certain MP thresholds or hold as a contingency for untimely deaths? If they wanted us to just DEAL with RDM's MP burn by mashing Lucid whenever it's up and basically keeping it on constant CD, they wouldn't have made this change. They would have told us to suck it up.