Issues enjoying RDM

[JunseiKei]

[snip] RDM, on the other hand, feels a little....lackluster in comparison, considering. [snip] I'm not sure if I'm alone in this; it was honestly a little demoralizing to look at my upcoming skills from 70 onward and realize that I wouldn't really be playing the class any differently than I was in Stormblood until the very end, and that it'd only add an extra attack to the chain, at that. Anyone else feel the same way?

Personally, I think RDM's rotation is fine. SMN is complex, BLM is high skill ceiling not because of rotation (RDM surprisingly beats BLM on that front), but because of movement. Yes, it hasn't changed much. Not a lot of classes actually get their rotations changed. MNK, DRG, WHM, BRD, BLM* have basically been identical (* BLM's order of skills has changed, but if you played BLM in HW, SH BLM will still make a lot of sense).

If anything needs to be changed about RDM, it's their potencies. Verraise is not a utility. With as much as this game's mindset is DPS above all else, having to sacrifice a GCD to raise and lose a potential potency of 580 is not a gain. It's always a loss for the RDM. Their burst is outside of raid buffs, their embolden doesn't line up for them to benefit from either and it decays while other buffs do not while providing something more enticing. If the FFXIV team really wants to push Verraise as a utility, make it an oGCD CD that can be woven between casts. Embolden could use a buff - not much - maybe just a flat increase instead of this decay or lasts longer. Or, add a self-buff of white and black mana generation is increased; mainly to help RDM's opener line up with the rest of the party wide buffs going out.

Also, Reprise is RDM's Scath. You use it when you don't have procs, can't get a cast off, and can burn some white and black mana for some sort of additional DPS instead of having absolutely none.