Suggestion for: RDM improvements

[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.

[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.