Great write up! Thanks for sharing. I do think your new gauge is interesting, and while I understand it can be worrying for people that like RDM as the simple straightforward job it is, I'm all for real complexity added in RDM. What we got with Manafication CD reduced and Reprise / engagement feels lackluster to my conception of making the job getting a higher skill ceiling.


I like what you did except one thing which already came up here before 5.0 when we were speculating : AoE. I kept my position on this, we don't really need more just for flavour because what we had / have did/does the job. A few tweaks here and there sure, perhaps have better mana gains from verThunder/Aero 2 and Impact/Scatter, and something to make Moulinet-chaining feel better.
But in the end, AoE is so underwhelming in this game I don't really see the point of adding more, because trash mobs will always be trash mobs. If we had actual gameplay tied to mob packs in FFXIV, then perhaps I'd be all in for a proper AoE rotation and resources. But in the current design I don't see the point. Perhaps we could have an upgrade at level X to VerAero II and VerThunder II for potency and even animations (if people want VerBlizzard and VerWater so much).