Suggestion for: RDM improvements

[JohnnyDevo]

Moulinet on 2 targets for 5 gcds= 2000 potency
Melee combo on a single target for the same amount of gcds = 2270 potency

I just wanted to go a bit more into detail.

This is correct, but for the wrong reasons. First and foremost, moulinet gcds are all 1.5, whereas melee combo gcds are 1.5, 1.5, 2.2, 2.5, and 2.5. Second, 5 moulinet costs 200 mana, but a single melee combo costs only 125, since two of the skills refund 21 and 14 mana respectively.

To find the most correct way to do it, you have to calculate the pps gained from doing the alternative action over your normal spell rotation, multiply that pps gain by the duration, and divide that number by the mana spent, and you arrive at "extra potency gained per point of mana spent".

For your baseline, in this case, it's what you do against 2 targets. Jolt II is 250 potency, higher than verthunder/veraero's potency of 240 against 2 targets, so you use that. And, of course, you use impact at 220*2 = 440 potency. 250 + 440 / 5 = 138 potency per second.

An encanted moulinet does 400 potency over 1.5 seconds for a PPS of 266.6666(repeating). Subtract your 138 potency per second of the baseline, get 128.6666(repeating) PPS gained. Multiply that by the 1.5 seconds duration and you arrive at 193 potency gained. Divide that by 40 mana spent and you get 4.825 potency gained per mana spent.

A melee combo puts out 2270 potency in 10.2 seconds, for a PPS of ~222.549. Subtract your 138 pps and you arrive at ~84.549. Multiply by the duration again and you get 862.4 potency gained, and divide by the 125 potency spent and you arrive at a hefty 6.8992. Almost 43% better of a use for your mana. So yeah it's better to use melee combo over moulinet at 2 targets.

For those curious, at 3 targets, the gains come out to 7.35 potency per mana for moulinet, and a stark 1.5136 potency per mana gained for the melee combo. It's an interesting contrast. At 2 targets, melee combo is far stronger. at 3 targets, moulinet is far stronger.

[Duelle]

Manafication now gives a flat 40/40 Mana, while Enhanced Manafication increases this to 50/50 Mana.

This would help a bit since current manafication use hinges on having 40/40 or thereabouts to get a melee combo out. This would facilitate getting two melee combos back to back, which is a step forward.

Jolt II and Scatter now give 4/4 Mana; Impact gives 2/2 Mana per target struck, up to 5 targets; Scorch now gives 10/10 Mana.

I like these.

Since several good ideas have already been mentioned, I don't have much to offer aside from:

- Jolt II, Impact, and Scorch have a chance to grant Enchanted Blade (35%, 35%, 100%, respectively). Enchanted Blade is a stacking buff that caps at 3 stacks and allows free use of an Enhanced Weaponskill of your choice per stack. The idea is for spell spam to give additional opportunities to use the sword within the current design beyond just hitting 80/80. The only concern would be just how much this would increase RDM's DPS output.

The ideal scenarios I was thinking of are being in the stretch between 30-80 mana and getting 3 stacks spamming spells to allow for a melee combo, and using partial stacks (one or two stacks) to initiate a melee combo and ending up with a good chunk of mana instead of being empty or near empty.

- Engagement's damage buffed to match Displacement's. I don't see the point in punishing the player for not jumping away and/or being in situations where they can't jump away.

Okay, yikes. Spellblade's a separate job, Red Mage is a caster DPS, and the "more melee, more white magic" thing will make us more of a disjointed mess, not somehow cause a wave-function collapse into a perfect rendition of the job that will make everyone happy.

Adding more melee wouldn't necessarily make the job disjointed, as doing so necessitates mechanics to make everything work.

As for playerbase happiness, it'd be foolhardy to think a change of that level would make everyone happy. The people that wanted the sword to play a bigger role would likely be happy. The ones that wanted to play a caster that didn't have BLM's or SMN's extra mechanics, on the other hand, would not.

There's no reality where a caster with hardly any access to survival tools is better off with more attacks that restrict them to a 3 yard range of the target,

If your concern is damage taken (I don't see why else you'd mention survival tools), bosses don't have much in terms of unavoidable damage that is exclusive to specific ranges (i.e unavoidable damage that hits only the melee or unavoidable damage that hits only the ranged). Unless melee are standing in the fire in EX and Savage fights because of DPS uptime and it hasn't been brought to my attention.

and heaven help you if they add positionals like a true melee without True North.

I don't see a scenario where giving a front-lining RDM positionals would make sense. Specially if you make the combo rotation involve both sword skills and magic. An argument could be made for multiple melee combos (which would make it easier to justify positionals), but there's the risk of button bloat given the limited number of skills per job the developers use as a rule when designing things.

[Duskane]

i think all the melee/sword skills we have now are mostly fine
its a good balance just gotta give reprise a better purpose than verscathe

i dont see RDM getting more emphasis on melee outside of a melee aoe combo
please dont

[Archwizard]

- Jolt II, Impact, and Scorch have a chance to grant Enchanted Blade (35%, 35%, 100%, respectively). Enchanted Blade is a stacking buff that caps at 3 stacks and allows free use of an Enhanced Weaponskill of your choice per stack. The idea is for spell spam to give additional opportunities to use the sword within the current design beyond just hitting 80/80. The only concern would be just how much this would increase RDM's DPS output.

I like the idea of this "stackable free weaponskills" trait and I could absolutely see them adding something like that in a future expansion, possibly even next, in lieu of adding more weaponskills while still increasing melee uptime.
Though I have a few concerns with the stated implementation:

1) Having it proc from Jolt is possibly a bad idea, largely because the goal of the current rotation is to minimize Jolt as much as possible. Since the goal of any job is min-maxing, increasing the value of Jolt means minimizing the value of Verfire/stone, which could lead to ignoring their procs.
2) "Weaponskills" is a broad definition, which includes Reprise. Attempting to stock several charges could also limit our mobility in an effort to avoid spending them on Reprise by accident.
3) Increasing access to Weaponskills without increasing access to our gap-closer at the same time could be painful.

- Engagement's damage buffed to match Displacement's. I don't see the point in punishing the player for not jumping away and/or being in situations where they can't jump away.

... but then you run into the alternative scenario where nobody ever uses Displacement as an intended punctuation on our melee periods -- which is to say, nobody ever uses Displacement, period, instead just standing in melee and popping Engagement on CD.

Other melee stuff

See my previous post.

[Duelle]

1) Having it proc from Jolt is possibly a bad idea, largely because the goal of the current rotation is to minimize Jolt as much as possible. Since the goal of any job is min-maxing, increasing the value of Jolt means minimizing the value of Verfire/stone, which could lead to ignoring their procs.

I added Jolt for thematic purposes. If spells are going to proc this effect, then it makes sense for it to involve the job's "red magic". Jolt still sees use in situations where you get no Verstone/Verfire procs and have Acceleration on cooldown, though I guess the proc chance could be adjusted (increased to minimize the use of Jolt). An alternative would be to tie Acceleration to it (Veraero/Verthunder cast while under the effect of Acceleration grant Enchanted Blade), though I'm not a fan of this since instead of receiving the effect through regular gameplay you're getting one from the burst phase (which can be interrupted if you get a boss that becomes untargetable) and one from an ability on a 35s cooldown.

2) "Weaponskills" is a broad definition, which includes Reprise. Attempting to stock several charges could also limit our mobility in an effort to avoid spending them on Reprise by accident.

This is a fair point. I was thinking of just letting it work with Reprise too, though the mana saved is not worth spending the proc. The effect is really meant for Riposte/Zwerchau/Redoublement and Moullinet.

... but then you run into the alternative scenario where nobody ever uses Displacement as an intended punctuation on our melee periods -- which is to say, nobody ever uses Displacement, period, instead just standing in melee and popping Engagement on CD.

In situations where you need to get away and it's off cooldown, you are definitely going to use Displacement. The rest of the time, you're right that Engagement would be used on cooldown. Given my opinion on the forced positioning thing (read: it's stupid as hellreally tacky in a poor attempt to look cool), I'm not really bothered by this outcome.

If mobility is a concern, I'd suggest separating Engagement's cooldown from Displacement in exchange for reducing or removing the latter's damage component. At least for the way I play RDM it'd be really convenient, since I'd have 3 oGCD skills to use between Dualcasted GCDs (Fleche, Contre, Engagement) and can leap away from an enemy in times of need.

[Archwizard]

I added Jolt for thematic purposes. If spells are going to proc this effect, then it makes sense for it to involve the job's "red magic".

And thematically I understand and don't disagree. Theme, however, shouldn't overtake balance or practicality in terms of a job's mechanical design.
If you increased the proc rate to be substantially procced by Jolt, it wouldn't mean people using Jolt less to achieve the number of procs you intend per fight, it would mean people actively attempting to use Jolt more to game it and squeeze out the maximum number of procs. Remember, much like any other proc, the proc rate of the effect off Jolt is a factor in the effective increase to the potency of Jolt -- and the proc is worth the maximum value you can get out of it, which is equal to 30/30 Mana.

Just to give you an idea of the potency of this proc: to make it net neutral with Jolt II as-now, you'd have to remove Jolt's base Mana return completely, make EB a 10% proc chance or less, and reduce Jolt's potency by a fraction of the damage of the entire melee combo (since the first hit doesn't exist in a vacuum, being both the most expensive hurdle and weakest single swing) which I don't want to calculate right now.

An alternative would be to tie Acceleration to it (Veraero/Verthunder cast while under the effect of Acceleration grant Enchanted Blade), though I'm not a fan of this since instead of receiving the effect through regular gameplay you're getting one from the burst phase (which can be interrupted if you get a boss that becomes untargetable) and one from an ability on a 35s cooldown.

Especially since that would absolutely jump the gun. The only reason you wouldn't get one or more Accelerations per melee phase as now, is because the stacking of procs would mean achieving the melee phase multiple times between Accelerations. The frequency would at least mean you would effectively be permanently locked into using your melee combo at 50/50 Mana or less.
I'm sure you'd be pleasantly satisfied but that is a grandiose increase in frequency and damage that would absolutely be offset by a damage cut, unless dealt to us a future expansion.

... alternately, however, you could have Manafication just give 3 stacks outright and cut out its innate mana gain entirely at the cost of just not including the proc by any other means. 3 free Moulinets or a full melee combo every 2 minutes, would make aligning your burst phase significantly easier. Probably too strong since you could effectively ignore Mana altogether when it comes up, but eh.

In situations where you need to get away and it's off cooldown, you are definitely going to use Displacement.

Situations which exist at a very specific intersection of CD timing and boss attack patterns, particularly if that same CD is being pressed on-cooldown with Engagement.

If mobility is a concern, I'd suggest separating Engagement's cooldown from Displacement in exchange for reducing or removing the latter's damage component.

Mobility isn't my concern, my concern is that would negate the entire point of having Engagement, as an alternative means to inflict damage via Displacement's CD. If they remove the damage from Displacement, the only reason for Engagement to exist is oGCD damage specifically in the melee phase, at which point they may as well add its damage into Corps-a-corps or an actual melee skill since we barely have time to use oGCDs in melee.

At least for the way I play RDM it'd be really convenient, since I'd have 3 oGCD skills to use between Dualcasted GCDs (Fleche, Contre, Engagement)

... The way I play RDM I already have 4. Fleche, Contre, Acceleration and Swiftcast.

Entirely ignoring Corps-a-corps, which would fulfill the same role as Engagement at point-blank.

[Duelle]

Just to give you an idea of the potency of this proc: to make it net neutral with Jolt II as-now, you'd have to remove Jolt's base Mana return completely, make EB a 10% proc chance or less, and reduce Jolt's potency by a fraction of the damage of the entire melee combo (since the first hit doesn't exist in a vacuum, being both the most expensive hurdle and weakest single swing) which I don't want to calculate right now.

Reducing Jolt's chances to proc this could make the procs become incidental of spell spam instead of spamming spells to get the proc. 10% sounds really low to me (especially since, as you said, the gameplay emphasizes using Jolt as little as possible), though if that's what'll take to prevent people focusing on Jolt to game the system, so be it.

... alternately, however, you could have Manafication just give 3 stacks outright and cut out its innate mana gain entirely at the cost of just not including the proc by any other means.

At that point you're trading one effect for something similar instead of adding a new piece to RDM's gameplay. I would like to see something like Enchanted Blade join the other things in RDM's kit, not replace one of them.

Mobility isn't my concern, my concern is that would negate the entire point of having Engagement, as an alternative means to inflict damage via Displacement's CD. If they remove the damage from Displacement, the only reason for Engagement to exist is oGCD damage specifically in the melee phase, at which point they may as well add its damage into Corps-a-corps or an actual melee skill since we barely have time to use oGCDs in melee.

Most fights I've been part of involve people stacking behind the boss for one reason or another, so I've been getting a lot of use out of Engagement (much to my own surprise). En-Combo => oGCD => Verflare/Verholy => oGCD => Scorch => oGCD => Spellspam. Assuming the cooldowns align, those oGCDs are Fleche, Contre and Engagement. Throw in Acceleration on the second or third slot if available and if one of the others is on cooldown (otherwise use on Dualcast oGCDs when missing one or both "Verspell Ready" buffs).

... The way I play RDM I already have 4. Fleche, Contre, Acceleration and Swiftcast.

How silly of me. Let me clarify: damaging oGCDs.

Entirely ignoring Corps-a-corps, which would fulfill the same role as Engagement at point-blank.

I'm not keen on that for the same reason I wasn't a fan of DRGs using Leg Sweep or BRDs using Blunt Arrow on cooldown during ARR and Heavensward: it's a waste of utility on top of teaching very poor habits to the player.

[wereotter]

Couple things I've noticed and think need to be improved, changes in bold

Manafication: Increase intelligence by 5%. Duration 12s

I've noticed that buff from manafication never fails to fall off within one second of casting Scorch. This buff should last at least until we can cast our strongest spell. Additionally this buff should apply to any skill we perform making it so that if can now also buff Fleche and Contre Sixte.

Jolt 2 : Deal unaspected damage with a potency of 270

In cases where you're especially unlucky on Verfire and Verstone procs you suffer a 20 potency loss on every hard cast spell. This will help to even out the damage output of the job.

Corps-a-Corps : Additional effect, increase strength by 4000. Duration 10s

This would make auto attacks while performing a melee combo on par with physical melee jobs.

Engagement : Delivers an attack with a potency of 200

There's no reason that in situations where you have to stay in melee range due to platform sizes or game mechanics that you should be penalized on damage output.

Enchanted Reprise : Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 270. Balance Gauge cost 3 Black Mana, 3 White Mana.

Honestly, not sure if this is the best fix for the skill, but Red Mage is desperately lacking in long-term movement abilities when compared to the other two casters. Actual movement phases, red mage has dual cast and swiftcast, and then nothing. As it is now, using the skill is a DPS loss, so it's better to not do any damage for the rest of the movement phase than to burn your mana on this skill. Increasing its potency and decreasing its gauge cost might make this a viable movement skill. OR if the damage potency to Jolt II is also implemented, the damage potency can remain at 250 and just eliminate the gauge cost entirely.

[CroszArcenciel]

Right now, the Devs kept on saying that the problem is the Utility of the Verraise and VerCure. Might I suggest that they just make Verraise and VerCure different:

Verraise - 360s CD. Resurection, resurrected player will have full HP and will not have a weakness. Instant Cast.
VerCure - 180s CD. Full HP heal ( Yes its a Bene ).

If they did it like that, would it reduce the utility by a lot? This way Verraise and Vercure will only be used on absolutely important moments.
Will these changes be enough for the Devs to buff the damage of the RDM?

[Kabooa]

Right now, the Devs kept on saying that the problem is the Utility of the Verraise and VerCure. Might I suggest that they just make Verraise and VerCure different:

Verraise - 360s CD. Resurection, resurrected player will have full HP and will not have a weakness. Instant Cast.
VerCure - 180s CD. Full HP heal ( Yes its a Bene ).

If they did it like that, would it reduce the utility by a lot? This way Verraise and Vercure will only be used on absolutely important moments.
Will these changes be enough for the Devs to buff the damage of the RDM?

Giving Bene would justify dunking them more, not bringing them up.