upcoming rdm changes?

[Gruntler]

Since some are complaining about AoE (why?)

Regarding Moulinet costs, specifically now vs SB.

Under this, with 30 moulinet mana, you could do 3 moulies in burst with 3 impacts.

This would change the combo from 1000 in 7.5 seconds, to 1350 in 12 seconds.

This gives us 333.3 PPGPT (potency per gcd per target) for the current combo, and 281.25 for your suggestion. The regular combo itself is 170 PPGPT, which means we're comparing 163.3 additional PPGPT over 7.5 seconds vs 111.25 additional over 12 seconds, or 490 extra potency vs 534. This -seems- like a gain at first glance.

However, that 490 is done faster, which means that you're back to your resource gain sooner. How much is 40 mana worth? 40 mana buys you 1.5 seconds of 200 potency, or, more accurately, 40 mana buys you additional potency over your combo for 1.5 seconds. But your combo generats mana, so... we need to figure this out algebraicly. Your combo does 340 PPT in 5 seconds, or 68 PPSPT. Ench Mou, on the other hand is 133.3 DPTPS. So, 40 mana buys you 1.5 seconds of 65.3 PPSPT; this basically comes out to a single point of mana = 2.45 Potency per Target in AoE.

Your normal AoE generates 13 mana in 5 seconds, or 2.6 mana per second, which normalizes to 6.37 damage per second per target.

So, we can add that onto the original combo's missing time to get a -real- value of its damage:

6.37*4.5=28.7 PPT.

That makes our final comparison of the two aoe schemes 518 vs 534 over the period of time of that AoE, or 16 potency per target.

Now, bear in mind what you're giving up for that: You can't use Ench Moulies between burst windows as often. (That includes the tactic of banking it, spending down to the comfy manafication number, then doing the biggest burst you can.) This reduces the value of mana in your bread and butter combo by 1/3. Each GCD provided aproximately 16 Potency per Cast in value from the mana gain, so reducing that by 1/3 means a loss of aproximately 5.3 effective potency per spell cast. This means that you've lost your 16 potency of AoE gains from your burst after only 3 casts.

This would mean that for AoE, your regime is a -BIG- nerf to RDM's AoE, all for the 'feeling' of doing more, to fix a problem that doesn't actually exist.

The trait you suggest, is not one I'd stick on Moulinet; it's one I'd put on Acceleration, so that it becomes a useful cooldown between bosses. But I think we both agree: RDM AoE is not at all a problem and people just need to actually just use it.

[Archwizard]

Changes I can absolutely see:

- Embolden gets its damage boost normalized OR made universal, if not both.
- Slight upward shift in B/W Mana economy
- Potency fluff
- Some small (though appreciated), unexpected adjustment to our single-target rotation, akin to the Acceleration change. Possibly even a rework to Acceleration already.

Changes I'd LIKE to see, but are probably too highly specific to realistically expect:

- E. Moulinet trait to reduce the CD of Contre Sixte if it hits multiple targets.
- Fleche and Contre Sixte generate Mana and/or MP
- Either movement skill damage and Engagement removed, or Engagement changed into a PBAoE skill
- Impact scales Mana gain with number of targets hit
- Reduced GCD on E. Redoublement and Verfloly
- Verraise on a charge system shared with a massive damage CD, for dynamic "damage vs utility" skill gauge

Changes I highly doubt:

- AoE/Cleaving Verfinishers.
- Engagement normalizing with Displacement.
- More button mergers.
- New spells.

[Mansion]

What if :

Scatter was back to a short cast and came with a new trait forcing the next Dualcast to be AoE versions, essentially "upgrading" VerThunder to VerThunder II and VerAero to VerAero II after Scatter, and tweak the mana and potencies around.
Then return Impact to an upgrade to Jolt II under the effect of the old Impactful. (I will yell about that until 6.0, my apologies in advance)

The CD reduction on Contre de Sixte after an Enchanted Moulinet would be nice too...

Yet I'm wondering why they mentioned RDM specifically in the latest LL actually. It's on the lower side yes, but it's not as low as it was before 5.1. And I kind of think MCH/DNC/BRD are in a more "vulnerable" spot currently...

[Cled-cat]

I’d love to see VerFlood and VerFreeze added as AoE finishers after using 3 En.Moulinets respectively, both with additional affects. They should somehow add the mana balancing into their AoE rotation too to reward you for managing it efficiently, just like with the single target rotation. They’d have to add some different proc effects and make it more similar to the single target rotation but it would be much more engaging than the current lacklustre AoE RDM has. Maybe add VerStone 2 and VerFire 2 as AoE procs to allign it more with the single target rotation, and change Impact to be like Jolt 2 as the dualcast opener like it was before. Then once the AoE finishers are ready they can replace VerAero 2 with VerFlood and VerThunder 2 with VerFreeze.

[Archwizard]

Yet I'm wondering why they mentioned RDM specifically in the latest LL actually. It's on the lower side yes, but it's not as low as it was before 5.1. And I kind of think MCH/DNC/BRD are in a more "vulnerable" spot currently...

They seemed particularly excited about what they were doing with RDM, implying adjustments that are more mechanical than broadly numeric. There's nothing to say they won't change the Ranged Phys jobs too, but that could just be an indicator they won't receive as much playstyle-alteration.

If I were an optimist, I would think they took a look at how they conservatively added rather dull skills with ShB without particularly expanding the playstyle -- including two traits that are just bland numeric adjustments, two new skills that we're meant to avoid as much as possible, and an extra Finisher as a reward for what we already do -- and decided to toss in a new skill or two to expand the playstyle, like some proc or maybe the popular suggestion of Ice and Water magic.

And if I were more of a cynic, probably the long-expected nerf to Verraise instead, maybe with some new VFX to soften the blow.

I dunno. I think that RDM is in a pretty safe spot and doesn't have any glaring mechanical flaws to elicit the level of adjustments NIN and SAM got, and while it didn't really receive any game-changers this expansion like a lot of other jobs did, I'm not sure if that's ever been a strong enough standalone motive for the devs before (though I suppose that depends on how you view the BRD changes). We can't really predict changes without knowing the devs' motivations.

[Silverquick]

I too am curious as to what they have in mind if they are talking about a "mechanical" adjustment.

Honestly an adjustment to Embolden, though nice... and making it across the board would be something that would seriously benefit a group more than RDM itself.

One thing I notice with RDM is how fast the runs are when you have a ton of melees in with you, especially with as often as it gets used.

[Mansion]

Snip

Indeed, I remember our long creations and discussions about RDM pre-Shadowbringers and there were some great ideas there! But I would keep my expectations "low" and try not to give too much meaning in that... perhaps there will be number tweaks again and they'll call it a day.

I too think RDM is in a good spot overall, except for Ultimate where the lower number of RDM clears makes it hard to get a better idea (and its poor 2 target dmg output compared to SMN), I don't expect RDM to be higher than say NIN and MCH, unless they bring something entirely new in RDM's rotation that makes it "harder" to play at its full potential.

[Wayfinder3]

Yet I'm wondering why they mentioned RDM specifically in the latest LL actually. It's on the lower side yes, but it's not as low as it was before 5.1. And I kind of think MCH/DNC/BRD are in a more "vulnerable" spot currently...

This is kinda layered so forgive me if miss something but RDM is definitely in arguably the worst position amongst all jobs with MCH probably being the closest to it. The reason why ranged are better off as a role is because all 5 roles bring a passive 1% to dissuade groups from double/triple dipping into the same role. Thus the rdps ranged bring as a role is more than what RDM can compensate for when compared to SMN and BLM. RDM is also solidly weaker than SMN and BLM which leaves it in a position where it’s very difficult to justify having one. Most top end groups will tell you that RDM is just not needed because defensive utility does have a diminishing returns and eventually groups should ask themselves, how much damage is worth safety. SMN has weaker defensives than RDM but so much more damage that there is no reason to ever choose RDM over it besides personal preference which isn’t good from a balancing standpoint. This is a case where the 2 jobs are too similar to each other.

Ranged however are largely fine as a role right now with MCH being a little sketch but ultimately RDM is truly the only problem child

[Duelle]

Under this, with 30 moulinet mana, you could do 3 moulies in burst with 3 impacts.

This would change the combo from 1000 in 7.5 seconds, to 1350 in 12 seconds.

Well, shit, I forgot to include the GCD reduction. Made the correction to my suggestion.

Going by the numbers quoted, you're looking at 1000 potency in 7.5s vs 1350 potency in 9s (as Enchanted Moulinet and Sudden Impact would both have a 1.5s GCD). The resource build phases being expecting the RDM to build 100/100 to spend it over 5 (1.5s) GCDs vs expecting the RDM to build to 90/90 to spend it over 6 (1.5s) GCDs. As I don't have the formulas you're using (nor am I good with numbers), so I'll leave the number crunching to you to see if that makes a difference. I do appreciate the feedback.

The trait you suggest is not one I'd stick on Moulinet; it's one I'd put on Acceleration, so that it becomes a useful cooldown between bosses.

This is a fair point, though if I were to do anything to Acceleration so that it interacts with Impact, it would be to have it increase Impact's mana generated instead of damage.

[Gruntler]

I do appreciate the feedback.

I think it's spinning plates tho--there's no value to the change, it doesn't fix a problem:

RDM has good gamefeel right now, has opportunities to excel. It has GOOD movement abilities that let it keep damage going, and it has an answer to its 'can't displacement here' problem. It doesn't need a new rotation! RDM gamefeel is the best it's ever been!

People are not using it, because:

1- it's key worth (raise utility) is not good enough to justify the damage loss; Some data centers have NO RDM clears in Ultimate!
2- Embolden's worth has too much variance based on comp.

Thus they'll solve two problems. Potency boost, and Embolden homogeny (which we've asked for since the start).

No one will mind RDM getting a bit more oomph (we don't need to be top dps, that's not what we're asking for, we're asking to be -competitive- and worth taking to prog) and maybe then RDM will go back to being the popular job it once was!

But you won't fix RDM by breaking what is not needing to be broken. You don't need to fuck up it's AoE (just swap Impact Verthundaero 2 that'll get RDM in groups right?) you don't need to make its finishers AoE for no reason,

And im gonna be honest, some people here don't know RDM numbers; like how Verstone->Verthunder is 130 potency/second while Enchanted Reprise is 136 pps, but Reprise is 'bad' and so people aren't using it as much as they should because it isn't 'flashy' despite how REALLY GOOD IT IS as movement and mana fixing in the kit!

- Reduced GCD on E. Redoublement and Verfloly

You need the time after E. Redoub to Displacement out and you want weaving time for doubles in your kit the rest of the time. As well, this makes spell speed worse for us than it already is.

They should somehow add the mana balancing into their AoE rotation too to reward you for managing it efficiently

Do you even AoE on RDM? Our mana generation is [3/3]/[0/7]/[3/3]/[7/0] which means we -always- generate 13/13 on every quad which means that our mana doesn't become unbalanced. Further, we don't have room on our bars to add any procs--our bars are the fullest of the casters right now, which is why stuff like Scorch and Verfloly have been moved to other buttons. This doesn't change the fact that changing our AoE won't solve a problem--RDM AoE is good right now. Dungeons MELT. Our problem is more difficult, single target, content, where our damage is not enough to justify our damage utility, to a point where people stop taking us, and RDM stopped being played.