Red Mage: Potential adjustments

[Shurrikhan]

I kind of wish RDM was a bit more 50/50 between magic and swordplay, but it'd likely make it impossible to work in a lot of trial and raid mechanics where you need to either be melee or ranged to bait mechanics and stuff.

Exactly! RDM is already too tied to melee as it is, and encounter design has to literally be wrapped around it. When you get a fight where it doesn't fit, it feels awful. Making RDM MORE melee would only make those fights awful. Further, RDM doesn't want to be in a position where it's competing for a melee slot, that isn't good for us. Being a caster and being balanced around being that caster slot is a good place for us to be.

So, just some quick food for thought:

Those constraints have far less to do with the portion of swordplay than the bankability of sword skills. The reason RDM has such constrained melee play is that it only has 2-4 GCDs of bankability on an effectively single 4.2-GCD attack (the first two sword skills are 3/5ths GCDs), with thereby massive punishment for starts that cannot complete.

Change that and you could have far smoother, less constrained melee play even if 2/3s of your GCDs were melee, as one could effectively have Bard-like mobility with only a modicum of forethought in balancing out swings vs. casts.

That's not to say I want that much melee, only that, again, the portion is mostly irrelevant. Personally, I just want RDM's sword to feel like a feature, rather than a liability -- a way to improve uptime rather than limit it.

[Grimoire-M]

So, just some quick food for thought:

Those constraints have far less to do with the portion of swordplay than the bankability of sword skills. The reason RDM has such constrained melee play is that it only has 2-4 GCDs of bankability on an effectively single 4.2-GCD attack (the first two sword skills are 3/5ths GCDs), with thereby massive punishment for starts that cannot complete.

Change that and you could have far smoother, less constrained melee play even if 2/3s of your GCDs were melee, as one could effectively have Bard-like mobility with only a modicum of forethought in balancing out swings vs. casts.

That's not to say I want that much melee, only that, again, the portion is mostly irrelevant. Personally, I just want RDM's sword to feel like a feature, rather than a liability -- a way to improve uptime rather than limit it.

There are a few ways to do that:
1) Reduce the cost of melee combo to give more leniency in mana. This is the easiest but also increases the number of melee combos you have access to per fight. Has potential conflict with Manafication. Likely would lead to a melee nerf.
2) Provide a ranged alternative to the start of the melee combo at a slight DPS loss. This is more difficult as it would have to be balanced around those 4 GCDs of leniency.
3) Adjust mana generation to be overall less than current iterations, limiting the potential number of melee combos and therefore conflicts.
4) Shift the melee combo’s purpose to a gauge dump by nerfing the DPS it provides to match that of Red Mage’s GCD filler. Probably the worst but most effective option. Needs another layer to Mana generation and spending to justify its existence.
5) Increase the current Mana cap. Easiest and most boring solution. Affects manafication but otherwise doesn’t conflict with anything.

The fifth is likely the best option of the bunch as it allows more focus on other Red Mage problems, like the lack of lossless mid-fight movement options relative to the other two casters and a slight bump to the complexity of their filler GCDs. Ideally I’d like the damage on Displacement and Lunge moved off of both with Engagement getting removed entirely. Maybe have Contre Sixte and Flèche build up towards a new ability to replace it.

I also still would like to see Chainspell implemented as a cooldown, but it’s partially because it solves RDM’s opener issue as well as acts as an extended movement cooldown, if given charges. It could reduce the cast time of all damage spells by 5s and it’d work perfectly, Dualcast works as intended already with Swiftcast.

[Shurrikhan]

Sorry, Grimoire, I lost my previous post due to some sort of "thread ticket"(?) error, so I'm going to skip past my 1-5 comments this time and go straight to what, consequently, I'd be looking for.

Personally, I'd set the goals... something(?) like this...:

• Slightly accelerate the first melee combo only, likely by reducing the melee combo cost and then reducing the MP rewarded by Verholy, Verflare, and Scorch.
• If possible, try to either standardize or ramp up Enchanted skills' MP costs, such as all to 20 or 25, or the combo to 15-20-25 or 20-25-30. Standardization makes it more intuitive, while ramping costs helps with leveraging partial combos (below).
• Find a way to leverage partial combos. For instance, perhaps Enchanted skills could proc Dual-Cast or even Chain-Cast. Perhaps have this be how Verholy/Verflare and later Scorch are made instant-casts. Additionally, we can find ways to decrease the ppgcd costs of said partial combos through potency adjustments on the combo skills themselves.
• Redesign AoE slightly for greater available nuance and, ideally, intermixing with sword skills. If we wanted to go really crazy with this, we could even have Moulinet get a combo of its own and for the two to both progress one another (such that you could ST->AoE->ST->Flare/Holy->Scorch).

[Gruntler]

[*]Redesign AoE slightly for greater available nuance and, ideally, intermixing with sword skills. If we wanted to go really crazy with this, we could even have Moulinet get a combo of its own and for the two to both progress one another (such that you could ST->AoE->ST->Flare/Holy->Scorch).[/LIST]

I too like abilities that exist to handle content that doesn't exist.

We don't have the button room to add combo bits to the AoE to satisfy people for whom 6 buttons isn't enough. So what are we giving up for this?

And why would single-target/I need AoE but only for this one gcd/back to single target be a needed burst phase in any content in this game, and if that content were to exist, how is that problem not solved by 'Contre Sixte exists, is more flexible, and does a better job'? (This goes for people who want 'an AoE Finisher' after the single target combo, seriously what situation is this remotely useable?)

[Shurrikhan]

We don't have the button room to add combo bits to the AoE to satisfy people for whom 6 buttons isn't enough. So what are we giving up for this?

You realize RDM already has among the lower button counts, right? And, we definitely have the room for even the most button-anxious players... if we just didn't go out of way to waste it.

We've already consolidated Verflare, Verholy, and Scorch, but there's zero reason for the melee chain itself to take up separate keys. That's a further 2 saved right there.
There is zero reason to have Veraero II and Verthunder II when you could accomplish more nuance with, say, just having Scatter duplicate the last cast at 50% AoE damage atop a base potency. That's another 2 buttons saved, and more nuance available atop a unique focus-target capacity.
Further, if, as above, we had ways to leverage partial combos, there'd be no need for Reprise as a mere combo-delaying skill. That's a fifth button.

But let's just stick with the 4 for now. That gives us plenty of room. Heck, even with just the melee combo consolidated, we'd still have the fewest required buttons of any job, iirc.

And why would single-target/I need AoE but only for this one gcd/back to single target be a needed burst phase in any content in this game

Virtually nothing is technically "needed". Being able to charge your melee combo off Moulinet would just means that you're no longer screwed out of Verflare/Verholy if you happen to need burst AoE damage instead of ST damage. It's an AoE and fluidity buff; plain and simple.

and if that content were to exist, how is that problem not solved by 'Contre Sixte exists, is more flexible, and does a better job'?

I wasn't aware that Contre Sixte dealt 600-800 AoE potency and was bankable, rather than a CD that almost always ought to be used on refresh.

(This goes for people who want 'an AoE Finisher' after the single target combo, seriously what situation is this remotely useable?)

Usually, the request is merely that Verflare, Verholy, and Scorch deal 50% of their damage as AoE, but okay... It would usable any time you can combo ~1.8 GCDs before adds are gathered. Given that it often takes ~1.8 GCDs for adds to be tightly gathered around a longer-term or focus target, that's pretty often. Like, literally any dungeon pull with a higher HP mob near its end. Rather than ripping threat off the tank mid-gather, you dive the far target and charge back-to-back heavy AoEs.

[Gruntler]

but there's zero reason for the melee chain itself to take up separate keys.

So you want to remove the melee combo buttons to add a melee combo button to a place where it matters less? That makes no sense.

no need for Reprise

....reprise's job is more for movement when you can't stutterstep.

But let's.... .

But what is the gain? You make raids worse for raiders, and you make dungeons worse for dungeon-grinders, by moving complexity from where complexity is rewarded, to where complexity is not desired.

It's an AoE and fluidity buff; plain and simple.[/B]

There's no need for this 'fluidity.' The content where you'd use this does not exist.

I wasn't aware that Contre Sixte dealt 600-800 AoE potenc

In AoE situations the gcd you use Contre Sixte in does, in fact, do 620-867 potency per 2.5 seconds. RDM is better AoE than a summoner, in 2021. If you hypothetically needed to hold on to it for a couple seconds for a sudden AoE pack it would kill, you'd hold on to it--or just let someone else do it.

Usually, the request is merely that Verflare, Verholy, and Scorch deal 50% of their damage as AoE

Useless. There's no use for this except in two-enemy packs. Only one exists in expert roulette right now, and none in anything harder.

The damage this would cause to the game, however, is it would become a 'false choice.' Players would opt into using single target damage because 'Verholy/Verflare/Scorch are my AoE' which will make your dungeon experience worse overall.

~1.8 GCDs

You lose 150 AoE damage from the resources you piss away.

That's the problem--you'd have RDMs giving up 1220 AoE damage in 10 seconds to do 650 because 'finishers feel cooler.' Traps are bad.

We'd be better off with a different concept.

Introduce a second resource, which would be built by the use of Moulinets, and the ogcd attacks. Gather enough, and you'd be able to use one spell--that spell would be a big blap that would have potency sufficient for both aoe and single target situations. It would also consume Verstone/Verfire Ready for a bit of extra damage and balance guage--this would make it a tool for not only being a cool blast, but also a lossless way to clear procs going into melee so that we never need to overright procs again.

That one button would actually solve problems that exist, while adding gameplay, rather than tricking players into bad gameplay to solve encounters which don't meaningfully exist.

[Shurrikhan]

Introduce a second resource, which would be built by the use of Moulinets, and the ogcd attacks. Gather enough, and you'd be able to use one spell--that spell would be a big blap that would have potency sufficient for both aoe and single target situations. It would also consume Verstone/Verfire Ready for a bit of extra damage and balance guage--this would make it a tool for not only being a cool blast, but also a lossless way to clear procs going into melee so that we never need to overright procs again.

That one button would actually solve problems that exist, while adding gameplay, rather than tricking players into bad gameplay to solve encounters which don't meaningfully exist.

Removing the need to manage what might otherwise become waste for a "big blap" that is only charged by doing what you would have done anyways is "adding gameplay"? I mean if it's as bankable as Foul, then maybe, but all it takes is being stuck with tuning similar to Apex Arrow (the closest equivalent to that charged-up secondary resource) and its window of optimal use will be very small indeed.

But what is the gain? You make raids worse for raiders, and you make dungeons worse for dungeon-grinders, by moving complexity from where complexity is rewarded, to where complexity is not desired.

...How the hell is hitting Riposte, Zwerchhau, and Redoublement via separate buttons "rewarded complexity"? It's literally bloat, so long as they've no separate actions to be performed. And where's the consensus that RDM AoE is perfectly engaging and satisfactory and certainly could not fit the slightest bit more nuance?

So you want to remove the melee combo buttons to add a melee combo button to a place where it matters less? That makes no sense.

No. I haven't added a single button. What are you on about? There's a button for melee single target (Ri->Zw->Re) and a button for melee AoE (Moulinet). That's it. I'm just saying that if 21 buttons makes so terrifying large a toolkit, it can easily be shrunk to 17 with zero loss in depth.

Useless. There's no use for this except in two-enemy packs.

You've literally just stated a use, nevermind that delaying a melee cycle, desyncing from raid buffs, can have potency consequences of its own. Not to mention the tremendous amount of potency you've left out of the equation. (See below.)

Also, it's three targets. It comes out ahead at three targets. Single-target damage is still adding to total damage. When there are targets enough for the difference in AoE damage to eclipse the difference in single-target damage beyond said AoE, the pure AoE option comes out ahead; short of that, it falls behind.

You lose 150 AoE damage from the resources you piss away.

In 4.1 GCDs you will have done 2280 ST potency, 650 AoE potency, generated 35 Mana, and forced a proc.

Having spent the same 80 gauge on 4 casts of Moulinet would, indeed, have done 800 AoE potency, but also have generated no Mana or procs.

That would indeed be 150 AoE more per gauge expenditure, but at the cost of nearly 2 Moulinets further Mana generation and another 1480 potency to the primary target. At 3 more targets, even accounting for time spendable elsewhere, the melee combo comes out ahead.

That's the problem--you'd have RDMs giving up 1220 AoE damage in 10 seconds to do 650 because 'finishers feel cooler.'

Alright, let's review.

10 seconds. The melee combo takes 10.2 at 0 SpS. The closest pure AoE use of that time is 11 seconds for Moulinet x4 and 2 standard AoE GCDs. Let's adjust for those slight differences in frame later.
The melee combo, again, would deal 650n + 1630 potency while generating 35 Mana and a proc. The pure AoE play would deal 1140n potency while generating 10 Mana. That is a difference of 490n potency.

1630/490 = 3.33. Until 4 targets struck, even ignoring the added mana generation, the melee combo would come out ahead. And that's before we even standardize them to 10 seconds, whereby the actual ppgcd of the pure AoE option is only 93% of what's listed, relative to the melee combo, which would place it nearer a breakpoint of 3.6 targets.

Yes, that means that common "50%" suggestion is overpowered, at least relative to the current Moulinet values (which are themselves rather pathetic, as they deal less than 40 ppgcd over a standard AoE gcd when accounting for their own opportunity costs in mana otherwise generated for their own use). But it's absurd to say a use case is necessarily limited to 2 targets, let alone impossible.

In AoE situations the gcd you use Contre Sixte in does, in fact, do 620-867 potency per 2.5 seconds.

"In", not "per". You've an average of 170n ppgcd (120->220) and 3-5 Mana/gcd, which amounts to 7-11 additional potential potency via potential Moulinet use charged. You can add CS's 400 potency to any one of those GCDs, not to each.

That still, however, will not get you to 867 even for the single GCD unless multiplying it per Maim and Mend II (which would be utterly pointless, as we're comparing these potencies only others also on RDM), or raid buffs, which will be variable among CS casts. So I'm not sure what mathematical hoops you've leapt through to arrive at 867 sharp.

But, fair enough: Under Brotherhood, Lord of Crowns, Embolden, Chain Stratagem, Battle Voice, and benefiting from your Dance Partner's Standard Finish, and multiplying for Maim and Mend II, you'd manage 975-1180 effective potency in a single AoE GCD if having added Contra Sixte. Which, sure, sound high until you realize BLM can there do 930 off a mere Foul, which is available more frequently than even the traited Contra Sixte and is far more bankable. Provided sufficiently low ping and SpS, meanwhile, a Summoner can actually fit 1370 effective AoE potency into a GCD under those same conditions. For all any of that matters.

[Kalaam]

Not everyone only does raids.
We'd ALSO like raids to have adds sometimes so AoEs become more useful.

Dungeons are a big part of the experience, AoEs are needed and the RDM ones should be improved so they allow a full interraction with its core mechanics.

[Duelle]

Looking at the OP, I can sort of see what you're trying to do, though I'm not seeing the "why" for it. Is the goal to just make the melee combo more powerful (the only reason why one would change Fleche to turn each combo hit into a multi-hit skill)? Saying "change how the melee combo behaves" is too vague for me.

Also, I advise against adding more resource bars as I think having to manage two bars is enough as is. If you want to turn Fleche into a cooldown, I'd suggest making it melee Acceleration: pop buff, get 3 stacks that affect each combo hit. That said, I think it's something that could be implemented as a new skill, though mechanically it doesn't make much sense to me to create a cooldown that only interacts with the spender phase.

I don't see much of a point to your suggested change for Contre aside from making the melee swings have a greater effect range and deal AoE damage. The AoE part is already covered by Moulinet, and the effect range isn't much of a factor since the places where AoE damage is prominent (AKA dungeons and some 25-man raids) you basically stand behind a target and spam away. It'd be a different story if this game's encounter design had several fights where melee can't do anything and only ranged can attack a boss.

Feel free to ignore this next part:

I would probably grab your idea and mold it into a cooldown that breaks the monotony of spellspam by allowing use of the enchanted melee combo without having 80/80 mana and/or consuming mana. Here's a free example:

84 Ensorcell - Allows the execution of three enchanted weaponskills regardless of current mana accumulated. Mana is not consumed while this effect is active. Duration: 15s. Cooldown: 150s.

This would allow a free melee combo, would allow 3 free uses of Moulinet, and could be inserted anywhere. Could use it at the start to do the combo and generate some mana without having to burn Acceleration + Manafication at the start of a fight. Could use it midfight if you're about halfway on each bar to deal some burst damage and not lose out on resource generation, or could be used right after a melee combo, then followed up with Manafication if available for even more damage. That said, it also punishes the careless since Reprise would also consume Ensorcell charges.

The fact is Red Mage is tuned around it’s mana generation mechanic and if that core proves too restrictive in its current iteration to manipulate then yes it does need to be reworked. Not on the level that Summoner or other job reworks have gotten, but enough that it can fit more actions or cooldowns into its core rotation.

I'm glad people are noticing how restrictive the current design is.

That said, wanting to make adjustments to the base gameplay is easier said than done because of the rules in place for how the job plays. The mana bars limit what you can do because if anything you insert doesn't contribute to them in some way, that's lost DPS potential in the long run. Anything you add also cannot interfere with Dualcast because that is a key part of how RDM generates resources. Add that the toggle between regular weaponskills and enchanted weaponskills is automated instead of something the player has control over. This is why I push more for procs and oGCD skills since they're the only things that play within all those rules. I'm not opposed to having to make major changes, but I think the devs are afraid (and rightfully so) of another bowmage scenario.

I absolutely don't want any additional melee single target actions; we're already fighting for melee spots in some fights and it would only be a detriment if our rotation to require more melee time.

I take umbrage with this because I doubt parties are really trying to weigh a RDM vs a NIN, DRG or SAM. Also, almost every fight in this game has people stack directly behind the boss outside of having to handle mechanics, so more often than not RDMs are already standing within sword range of the kill target.

"Give RDM a DoT"
Adding a DoT just to add a DoT doesn't add anything of value to our Dualcast/ManaManagement mechanics.

If we have to make it a spell on the GCD, give it a 5s cast time and pair it with Jolt/Verfire/Verstone. Caveats here are that it'd need a decent duration to not be intrusive (30-50s duration?) and be either magic Higanbana (AKA a decent chunk of DPS) or generate mana.

"Give RDM a DoT with Mana ticks."
That makes Mana calculations unwieldy and inconsistent.

This isn't as big an issue, as it depends on how much mana is being generated per tick. 2/2 mana per tick sounds about right to me. Increase the amount to something like 5/5 per tick if you want to do something like an oGCD DoT with a 15s duration. There have been situations where a DoT generating mana per tick would have saved me one or two spells worth of time to hit 80/80, so I'm not opposed to a DoT that serves such a purpose.

With a Mana over time effect, two RDMs who do the exact same sequence of actions but just 0.1s apart can end up with different amounts of Mana, which would make such a Mana over time effect a bad design choice.

The only time this would matter/be noticed is in 25-man raids and stuff like level cap dungeons and expert roulette. Story mode raids care more about actually killing the boss than how much DPS people are dealing, and I doubt statics doing EX/Savage/Ultimate are running multiple RDMs.

"RDM is a caster. Give them less melee."
Red Mage is a fighter mage. Sword use is a deeply ingrained feature of Red Mage history.

Despite being a melee proponent, I'll say that those asking for this aren't completely in the wrong. FFXIV's implementation of RDM has reduced the sword to "glowy stick you swing 3 times per 18 GCDs". I've argued in the past that the melee combo is so tacked on that you could replace it with a combo of three ranged spells and you'd see little difference in the gameplay (aside from making Corps and Displacement moot). I don't celebrate that, and instead see it as a problem that needs to be addressed.

[Shurrikhan]

This isn't as big an issue, as it depends on how much mana is being generated per tick. 2/2 mana per tick sounds about right to me. Increase the amount to something like 5/5 per tick if you want to do something like an oGCD DoT with a 15s duration. There have been situations where a DoT generating mana per tick would have saved me one or two spells worth of time to hit 80/80, so I'm not opposed to a DoT that serves such a purpose.

Still, though, I have to wonder at the point of having a DoT on RDM.

At its most fundamental point of departure, a periodic effect is (1) a soft CD or (2) a means of banking (resource generation afforded through typical play).

Maintained DoTs are skills which outperform direct damage skills after n GCD. Especially when, say, uniquely instant-cast among a particular toolkit, that then gives a level of frequency by which one can use an instant cast against a given target (and increases mobility with target count, up to the point where multi-DoTing is eclipsed by AoE casts, assuming said AoEs are also casted), but doesn't outright prevent otherwise potency-wasteful casts for mobility. In practice, they can therefore function in a surprising clever way so long as some situational advantage is tied to them.

Meanwhile, in the case of Mana generation per tick, one can readily imagine that you might put out a situational (at least, if rapidly-ticking) DoT before you'd otherwise overcap in order to allow for, say, 5 back-to-back Enchanted Moulinet casts.

But if the DoT doesn't have some further allowance, such as the aforementioned mobility-on-soft-CD or opportunities for extended burst/spending, it becomes mere maintenance, and I have to wonder... why we'd necessarily want that. Much like Lead Shot on HW MCH, it just seems like something that'd delay more iconic and engaging gameplay through an incohesive element.