RDM Skill idea: VerWard to Mirror VerCure and adding Mana Gain with Acceleration Use

[Zyneste]

FFXIV's RDM to me will always be about its melee aspect, its balancing of mana and its support qualities. Something that has started to bug me recently has been our lack of a DPS neutral option for healing/shielding ourselves and our lack of black magic influence in our kit. VerCure and VerRaise show a bias towards white magic. I was thinking we could fix both issues if we take inspiration from DNC and WHM for a DPS rebate type of solution on a cool down.

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VerCure

2 Second Cast Time. 2.5 second recast. Heal potency of 350. While under the effect of Acceleration, grants 7 white mana and doubles the potency of your next Spell.

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VerWard

2 Second Cast time. 2.5 second recast. Places a barrier totaling 10% of the target's HP. Duration 30 seconds. While under the effect of Acceleration, grants 7 Black mana and doubles the potency of your next Spell.

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I think with the addition of these changes would see allot of small flavor and game-play enhancements. Acceleration would feel much more impactful, giving you a choice every-time you use it. It would even work its way into our optimal rotation when procs aren't going our way and acceleration comes up while having 0 procs. AOE wise it would be like a second swiftcast for Impact every 35 seconds.


Potency Math for how it would be balanced within the rotation. Remember too, that this can only happen once every 35 seconds under the effect of acceleration.

Acceleration -> Jolt II -> VerAero/VerThunder. {[~20 potency + 3 Mana] + [250 + 6 mana] } ~= 270 + 9 mana = 351 assuming mana is about ~9 potency.

Acceleration -> VerCure/VerWard -> VerAero/VerThunder = 310 + 7 mana = 373 assuming mana is about ~9 potency

Acceleration -> VerStone/VerFire -> VerA/T. {[~20 potency + 3 Mana] + [270 + 9 mana] } ~= 290 + 12 mana = 398 assuming mana is about ~9 potency


Accel + Jolt II < Accel + VerCure/VerWard < Accel + Verstone/Verfire

There are just lots of little things I like about this. Having an answer for VerCure in terms of Balance. Rewarded use of support. DPS Neutral Self Survival skill. DPS Rebate. Reopeners would feel really nice. AOE gets Accel use. Acceleration becomes more valuable.

*Also, I recognize that our current issue is having low DPS, which can be adjusted with Potency and Embolden tweaking, this is just a separate thought for the flavor/game-play of RDM and not about correcting the imbalance of the current meta.

[Duelle]

While I can appreciate the direction you're trying to take with this, I'm not comfortable with essentially forcing a RDM to cast Vercure/Verward every 35s (because as you illustrated, that gets you the best return sans procs).

Utility is supposed to be used when necessary, whereas your suggestion aims to make it part of the rotation. I'd probably just have Acceleration generate mana over 12s or something if we want it to help with mana generation.

[Zyneste]

While I can appreciate the direction you're trying to take with this, I'm not comfortable with essentially forcing a RDM to cast Vercure/Verward every 35s (because as you illustrated, that gets you the best return sans procs).

Utility is supposed to be used when necessary, whereas your suggestion aims to make it part of the rotation. I'd probably just have Acceleration generate mana over 12s or something if we want it to help with mana generation.

I actually illustrated that you wouldn't do it on cool down. You would only do it if you have 0 procs and would be forced to jolt Ii. Only then would you use it. If you happen to have a proc when accel comes off cool down, nothing changes in our use of acceleration.

Potencies can be adjusted to make it truly dps nuetral, such as making it 5 mana instead of 7. In which case they would be within 3 potency.

[Katie_Kitty]

While I can appreciate the direction you're trying to take with this, I'm not comfortable with essentially forcing a RDM to cast Vercure/Verward every 35s (because as you illustrated, that gets you the best return sans procs).

Utility is supposed to be used when necessary, whereas your suggestion aims to make it part of the rotation. I'd probably just have Acceleration generate mana over 12s or something if we want it to help with mana generation.

As long as it doesn't actively hurt our DPS, I'm actually okay with something along the lines of what's proposed here. You could actually argue this would be a better option than using jolt when acceleration is up strictly on the basis of potency. There's nothing inherently wrong with having support as part of our standard rotation.

[Duelle]

As long as it doesn't actively hurt our DPS, I'm actually okay with something along the lines of what's proposed here. You could actually argue this would be a better option than using jolt when acceleration is up strictly on the basis of potency. There's nothing inherently wrong with having support as part of our standard rotation.

My concern is two-fold. One being that as I said, utility is there to be used when necessary rather than as a part of the rotation. Two being that this sort of thing might contribute to the mindset that RDM's DPS shouldn't get buffed because every 35 seconds someone in the raid is getting healed or someone is getting a barrier. And they'd be right.

Also, bear in mind that utility is supposed to have an opportunity cost, whereas the OP's suggestion attempts to negate that.

[AvenoMatt]

I wouldn't mind VerWard or having both it and VerCure generate mana. It would make the moments using them feel better since you are still building your resource that said I agree, it shouldn't work with Acceleration by doubling the potency since it would force it into the rotation.

[Zyneste]

Also, bear in mind that utility is supposed to have an opportunity cost, whereas the OP's suggestion attempts to negate that.

Our personal DPS will always be the lowest amongst the casters. If a Verward/Vercure can save a healer GCD, we aren't really losing any rdps, except from an fflogs stand point.
Second wind has no opportunity cost except the cool down and the OGCD weave used. Same for any number of defensive cool downs. If you compare it directly to manaward, its opportunity cost is that it's much weaker. 10% compared to 30% for the rdm itself, but can be used 3 times per Manaward cool down.



These also have a cool down. Using them with acceleration everytime would also be a dps loss, outside of AOE, their use is situational. Assuming we would still have raise, wed already be taxed for its use, if a compromise isn't made. I doubt wed be taxed farther than dualcast VerRaise, even after/if the raise tax is lessened on us in 5.1.

I wouldn't mind VerWard or having both it and VerCure generate mana. It would make the moments using them feel better since you are still building your resource that said I agree, it shouldn't work with Acceleration by doubling the potency since it would force it into the rotation.

They're tied to acceleration to prevent spamming during downtime, needlessly wasting MP or unbalancing mana. Getting mana back just isn't enough, wed need something to offset the damage lost or its no different than our current vercure use. Almost never, outside of proc generation during downtime. Never for support or survival.

[Wayfinder3]

If Verraise and Vercure are going to stay then they should be changed to mitigate losses

Vercure can function exactly the same except it gives you a 100% guaranteed Verstone Proc.
Verraise should do the same with Fire procs and could possibly double the potency of the next Spell expended by Dualcast. This way, Verraise is at least not a dps loss and neither stops the rotation flow. Vercure would also be even better during downtime as you have the chance to get 2 procs once the boss reappears.

My personal problem with your idea of verward(aside from the uninspired name and manaward isn’t even a spell so it wouldn’t get the “ver” prefix) is that it’s a GCD and 2nd, RDM needs more party wide utility. Ver”Medica(2)” as an OGCD is a wonderful idea here because RDMs Kit is too far in the worst case scenario. Good defensive cooldowns on dps should aim to support the raid prior to someone’s death while not costing the dps damage. Mantra, Addle, Troubador are all perfect examples of this. RDM is currently paying for worst case scenario utility and as a result, it’s entire usefulness is front loaded in the idea that your run might wipe. It’s the worst job in the game until your run needs to be salvaged in which case. It’s broken.

The jobs value swings way too far into uselessness or brokenness and there is no inbetween. RDM as a result pays for the brokenness of its kit and the practicality of it gets completely ignored. This is the fundamental reason why RDM struggles in this game

[Zyneste]

If Verraise and Vercure are going to stay then they should be changed to mitigate losses

Vercure can function exactly the same except it gives you a 100% guaranteed Verstone Proc.
Verraise should do the same with Fire procs and could possibly double the potency of the next Spell expended by Dualcast. This way, Verraise is at least not a dps loss and neither stops the rotation flow. Vercure would also be even better during downtime as you have the chance to get 2 procs once the boss reappears.

My personal problem with your idea of verward(aside from the uninspired name and manaward isn’t even a spell so it wouldn’t get the “ver” prefix) is that it’s a GCD and 2nd, RDM needs more party wide utility. Ver”Medica(2)” as an OGCD is a wonderful idea here because RDMs Kit is too far in the worst case scenario. Good defensive cooldowns on dps should aim to support the raid prior to someone’s death while not costing the dps damage. Mantra, Addle, Troubador are all perfect examples of this. RDM is currently paying for worst case scenario utility and as a result, it’s entire usefulness is front loaded in the idea that your run might wipe. It’s the worst job in the game until your run needs to be salvaged in which case. It’s broken.

The jobs value swings way too far into uselessness or brokenness and there is no inbetween. RDM as a result pays for the brokenness of its kit and the practicality of it gets completely ignored. This is the fundamental reason why RDM struggles in this game

If VerCure gave you a Verstone Proc, the "potency" of Vercure would be about ~47 potency, compared to jolt II at ~305. Its just not enough. You would also always be lopsided to white in those cases. You are still down at least 6 mana from the cast, pushing back your melee combo alignment within the encounter. It fixes nothing.

You see im the opposite here. Party wide defensive utility is a slippery slope. If one job of the role brings it, every job of the role needs to bring an answer to it. See Shake it off/DV/DMissionary/HoL and Trouba/Samba/Tactician. Mantra slipped through the cracks there, but Its definitely not the norm. Minor Single Target utility, like WP and Curing Waltz are fine. Would I take an OGCD Heal of any kind? Of course! But I don't think that giving us more White Magic is going to keep us balanced with our Black magic Aspect. We literally have nothing aside from role skills that we borrow/share with BLM compared to Vercure and VerRaise that we share with White Magic.

[Archwizard]

So on the one-hand, I love the idea of having a Black magic utility spell to oppose Vercure and I've been hoping for one forever.

On the other hand... would this consume Acceleration? Because if so that means you can't use Acceleration for it's intended purpose to influence procs, meaning you'll always come up at a Mana loss even compared to Jolt II. And if not, I worry about potential exploitation of the effect for non-proc skills to extend the duration, like doubling the potency of Verstone/Verfire before doubling the potency of Veraero/Verthunder, and about the increased MP cost.
Or about newer players just popping Acceleration and doing a quick rotation of Ward > Cure x2 > Ward on the tank. (Remembering that the skill simply says "double potency" and doesn't specify for damage.)

Plus having all of our personal survival skills on a cast time would be kinda painful, since we have no oGCD protection like Manaward or Titan-Egi.