Red Mage: Potential adjustments

[Archwizard]

I've suggested this before, but all they really need to do is change the Dualcast effect.

There are several alternatives.

For instance, putting Verraise on a charge system. One instant rez every minute or two, with a spare charge at the start of the fight. It stays just slightly ahead of Swiftcast-Rezzes while still limiting the utilitarian aspect enough to justify severely reducing the Raise Tax.
You could also take it a step further and have Verraise share a cooldown/charges with a damage ability, like a strong Black Magic; one where if you spent all the charges on damage then you could match Summoner's potency, at the cost of losing all of your rezzes for the fight.
"But wouldn't everyone just pop them all on damage at the start of a fight and never touch Raise?" Eh, maybe, but you could also include a component like "damage increases as the target's health diminishes" so you're encouraged not to.

Just an idea of course. As you suggested, limiting the cast time with Dualcast instead of removing it would still mean each cast would justify its own damage loss, so that's another functional way to reduce it (though you would admittedly feel much worse when actually deploying it).

Verraise actually has a 10s cast time

True, but on the other hand, there's no reason for it to have a 10 sec cast time in the first place. They could just reduce it to 8 sec to standardize it with other rezzes and his suggestion would still work.

[ZaqueXIII]

As someone only recently truly getting into red mage I figure I'll throw my hat into the ring.

I don't know that I support having another job gauge tacked onto the red mage especially one that would more or less function like bards Apex arrow since that is effectively used at 80-100 gauge instead of the 20 gauge required for it.

For what its worth I too would like to see more restorative white magic abilities added, however I dont find it necessary to throw in a tacky potency increase version of vercure as vercure is already VERy strong considering that red mage is a DPS.

As mentioned with Ancient magic mastery, adding procs to the AOE combo would be a fun addition. I also wish there was An AOE blade combo that Maybe immediately went into scorch or perhaps it would go to Impact (still lvl 66 but maybe a bit of a damage buff) and then scorch and I would like to see Verflare, Verholy and/or Scorch all have a similar AOE style to FOUL from BLM since it works as an effective buster even in the absence of Xenoglossy.

Also as it is I think Dual cast is the best designed part of the job and would hate to see it affected, I would rather they just keeping pushing the Raise MP cost higher than make it so we have to spend swiftcast on it like summoner.

Thats said I appreciate how the Devs addressed what was a miserable AOE set pre Shadowbringers and made it feel more attentive, And I like the slow escalation of the melee combo burst. The Shadowbringers changes show that the Devs are considering how best to express the red mage's power and identity and hopefully as they get more time to put into it we can see the fruits of their labor and it can start to flourish and feel as well designed as Dragoon or Black Mage.

[ICountFrom0]

In RDM's case, just to pick at a few plausible (but not strictly "necessary") openings: expanding Moulinet into a combo (or pseudo-combo), dual-Mana procs or oGCDs to accelerate the main combo without imbalance, or virtually any spell that could fit into our Shortcast-Longcast casting model. All that without having to add a second gauge (and we're one of the few jobs that doesn't have one, or any timers like DoTs or sustained buffs).

Two traits, "lingering winds" and "lingering thunder"

Lingering wind leaves a DOT on the ground where you cast verareo 2
Lingering Thunder leaves a DOT on the targets of Verthunder 2


The Aoe's need a tiny bit of spice, maybe this?

[*]Ancient Magic Mastery basically analagous to Lance Mastery so we can do Enchanted Combo > Verflare > Verholy+ > Scorch, or E.Combo > Verholy > Verflare+ > Scorch. This alone would put us 9~12 mana ahead of where we would be after each of our current combos (21 mana gained, minus the cost of an extra GCD during which we would have cast another spell anyway), plus guarantee both procs.[*]A trait that replaces Veraero II and Verthunder II with Verwater and Verblizzard. For example, casting Veraero II could have a 50% chance to upgrade your next Veraero II to Verwater, dealing higher damage and generating 2 extra mana.[*]A mastery trait that upgrades the single target spells to tier III versions for additional damage.

What if the upgrades only happened while the bar was above 50% So we'd have to pick, do we use the combo NOW, or get a hit or two more in, specially if the upgraded spells have useful bonuses....

[Shurrikhan]

Two traits, "lingering winds" and "lingering thunder"

Lingering wind leaves a DOT on the ground where you cast verareo 2
Lingering Thunder leaves a DOT on the targets of Verthunder 2

Visually, I'd probably love it (save for fps drops and/or AoE indicators being cloaked by their VFX).

As a tank, or when working with a tank who won't work around them, though... I'd probably hate it just as much as Shadowflare, Flaming Arrow, or the like.

What if the upgrades only happened while the bar was above 50% So we'd have to pick, do we use the combo NOW, or get a hit or two more in, specially if the upgraded spells have useful bonuses....

I'm a little confused by this. The bar already has to be over 80% to reach Enchanted Redoublement, and thereby the second Holy/Flare as procced by the first in Rongway's Lance Mastery idea.

That does give some food for thought, though. For instance, what if your gauge were less of a "under 80 / 80+" yes/no determiner for whether it's worth starting your combo, and instead simply made that combo stronger (or, at least until a particular cap)?

For instance, what if each Enchanted melee skill consumed up to 25% of your current Mana for added potency and simply rolled over ~half its potency onto your next action? It'd require less bar-watching, as it'd no longer waste 4/5s of the values possible for your gauge (anything under 80|80), but it would have more timing complexity possible, and might even cycle between weak and strong combos (where you put in minimal Mana but still draw out Verflare/Verholy's burst Mana to bounce back or quite nearly max out gauge to get the highest possible potencies from Flare/Holy itself) to optimize those timings.

[ICountFrom0]

I'm a little confused by this. The bar already has to be over 80% to reach Enchanted Redoublement, and thereby the second Holy/Flare as procced by the first in Rongway's Lance Mastery idea.

Taking the original idea and running with it.

What if Aero and Thunder gained in potency with bar height. That's what I was getting at.

If the math was done right, they'd work it out so that you didn't trigger the big burst until you had a bonus to trigger it in, because the damage at 100 would be just good enough to keep it full.

[Shurrikhan]

Taking the original idea and running with it.

What if Aero and Thunder gained in potency with bar height. That's what I was getting at.

If the math was done right, they'd work it out so that you didn't trigger the big burst until you had a bonus to trigger it in, because the damage at 100 would be just good enough to keep it full.

I can only really see that going either of two ways, though: either the bonus is so great that you forgo melee combos (very, very unlikely), or it really just slightly decreases the ppm penalty of overcapping while also making RDM prefer to burn Mana nearer to 100|100 (which in turn makes RDM feel that little bit more sluggish / slow to see its burst potential, and susceptible to conflicting priorities in maxing raid CD windows vs. maximizing its own throughput, neither of which feels particularly good).

I guess I just wonder why you'd most want this, not to say it's a bad idea. Ultimately, it'd be little different from just base tuning on Aero/Thunder, except in that it gains some cool factor in exchange for further back-loading its dps (likely in conflict with raid CD windows). Now, that already seems an even trade to me, and the backloading could be compensated for elsewhere, but I'm just curious what most appeals to you in the concept.

[Eliadil]

*snip*

So, while the changes are "interesting", there are multiple questions that needs to be adressed. The first one is "does Red Mage needs to have his offensive kit reworked" ? Like, does the current gameplay/rotation of red mage feels bad ? Does his burst (since it seems that's what you're adressing) is bad or feels bad ?

The second one is "does this benefit Red Mage in any way for high end content, or simply for any kind of content" ? Is this a major improvement for savage raiding ? For EX trials ? For dungeon ? In what way ? More aoe potential (let's not forget that red mage has seen tremendous buffs to its aoe rotation) ? Is it an actual dps gain or a nerf ?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all in for changes that are well thought and decent, but only when they are... Needed. Currently, I fail to see in what way those changes would benefit RDM in any way/change his playstyle to make him better.

[Jirah]

Imagine wanting more from your job and people spit in your face saying “it’s Gud the way it is”

[Ramura_Sono]

Imagine wanting more from your job and people spit in your face saying “it’s Gud the way it is”

People have been saying that to monk players for the past 6 years.

[Eliadil]

Imagine wanting more from your job and people spit in your face saying “it’s Gud the way it is”

Peoples aren't exactly saying "it's gud the way it is", it's more "if it ain't broken don't fix it".

RDM can indeed use some new tools, for sure, and could entirely use some more "complexity" added to its kit. But the changes proposed by the OP are just imo only here to remove something from RDM's kit while adding something that is not necessary at all in terms of gameplay.

To describe it a bit better, imagine if I just said "let's remove the aoe dot from mch and the crossbow in overheat. But when in overheat, make it so all of your attacks have a slight aoe effect".
Sure it's a change. But does it benefits machinist ? Not really. And that's what peoples are trying to say, even though not with much dexterity, about the changes proposed by OP.

Red Mage can use improvement. But these are definitely not what could be needed to make the job more "interesting" and "usefull", especially if it involves removing the only two damaging oGCD of the job.