Thread: 6.0 Red Mage speculation

RDM is really fun right now and I would love to see it stay mostly the same. On my wishlist for new skills in Endwalker is upgrades to both Acceleration and Embolden thru traits. Acceleration could function like Ninja Kassatsu increasing the potency of our spells and changing them into more powerful versions. We would use it the same way but get more damage and flashy animations to punctuate our rotation without adding buttons.

I would love to see Embolden get extended to a 25 second duration with damage drop off every 5 seconds and two additional effects:
-Reduce the mana cost of Enchanted weapon skills by half. (Allowing us to do the melee combo twice in a row before running dry.)
-Guarantee that Ver Holy and Ver Flare always have 100% proc rates for Ver Stone and Ver Fire

The idea with this would be that Embolden would allow us to use both VerHoly and Verflare in succession to gain both the procs with a new skill that replaces Scorch when both procs are present. Lets call it Scorch 2 since Im lame on 120 second cooldown just like Embolden. So the melee combo stays the same and mana generation rate too but we get to do a longer combo with a new more powerful Scorch and no extra buttons.

I would like Enchanted Moulinete to consume all Mana when used so we stop spamming it and get a bigger animation when our mana bar is completely full. Something flashy that lingers and feels impactful cause it loses it's bite when you see it used repeatedly.

Everything else I want has been mentioned already.

Personally i would like something fresh. RDM is fun but they are playing very safe with it since its release barely adding anything interesting and focusing on fixing issues camouflaged as "new skills/traits" instead of fixing them mid expansion and adding new things for the next expansion, instead of 1-2 while the rest being fixes. And no adding a proper AOE rotation werent new skills but more about fixing a mediocre AOE rotation that also got fixed on most of the jobs

Im already dreading another finisher for Moulinet, trait for Embolden to affect all damage and a pat in the back and "wait for the next expansion" mostly

Is it bad that I don't want any new buttons (unless AoE is consolidated and Veraero-II and Verthunder-II both removed), and instead just want the existing kit to work more interestingly and cohesively?...

I guess if I could point out some general trajectories...

• I want some, even if very situational, reason to use a shortened melee combo, such as by having enchanted melee skills proc Dualcast and the MP costs standardize to 25 (instead of 30/25/25), or even ascend at 20/25/30, and the ppgcd cost of a shortened combo decreasing. Such would also help its place in the leveling experience.
  
  
• I'd like to see the melee combo be more flexibly timeable, whether that be in saving Verholy/Verflare as 10- or 15-second procs, or even having the enchanted weapon skills feed into each other (that effect fading linearly over 10 seconds or so) but not necessarily require that they be cast consecutively.
  
  
• If the above two points didn't make this obvious already, I want to feel like my sword affords me unique opportunities, rather than solely the weakness of a backloaded, inflexible melee-range burst period.
  
  
• Some reason to hardcast Veraero and Verthunder on occasion--sparingly, but not solely as locked behind CDs.
  
  
• AoE given more nuance, ideally through use of Scatter and/or Impact as (a) dynamic skill(s).
  
  
• Less dependence on perfect MP balance without devaluing MP management, such as by giving reason to perhaps favor one side or the other.
  
  
• Perhaps some actual impact from the elements themselves and more deliberate pathing around those factors, rather than merely reacting to procs.
  
  
• Nitpick, but... Verflare should really be Verfoul, if it's supposed to be iconic of pure Black Magic, opposite Verholy. Those would then intersect in the Red Magic of Scorch (which is not quite a traditional Fire spell).

Being fine is not an excuse for not evolving at all and focusing only on what it already has, since it WILL fall behind

When RDM was released the mobility of dual cast was awesome, now RDM is ironically the most inmobile of the mages since he lacks tools to reliable atack while moving outside of blade atacks (not counting OGCDs) and are situational at best considering our only no cast ranged atack drain our resource bar and that not always you can be on melee to move and atack while dodging. Basically RDM is mobile for 1 gcd after every hard cast.

Plus RDM magic blade combo started cool, but has became extremely restrictive to the point is a huge loss if its interrupted somewhat

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Is it bad that I don't want any new buttons ... ?

No, RDM's rotation is great, and it's at the limit of button comfort. If we get any new actions, they need to upgrade existing actions by trait or by proc.

I'd like to see the melee combo be more flexibly timeable, whether that be in saving Verholy/Verflare as 10- or 15-second procs

Verfinishers are already available for 15s. You just can't do anything else until you cast one. What would you rather be able to do in the meantime? If you want to squeeze in a Dualcast between Redoublement and a Verfinisher, then the Verfinishers will need to be made into their own buttons again, and I'm 100% against that.

Even if we could spare the buttons, one of the few real player skill elements of RDM is making sure your mana is good in the one or two Dualcasts before a melee combo. If you allow another Dualcast between Redoublement and Verfinisher to fix a pre-imbalance or an underproc, it significantly reduces the player skill required to play what is already one of the easiest jobs in the game.

or even having the enchanted weapon skills feed into each other (that effect fading linearly over 10 seconds or so) but not necessarily require that they be cast consecutively.

This one could be fine depending on implementation. Allowing high level RDMs to

E.Riposte[Dualcast] > Verslowspell > E.Zwerchhau[Dualcast] > Verslowspell > E.Redoublement > Verfinisher

would be a slight DPS increase without breaking anything--roughly 60p over 2.5s, the difference between a Verfastspell and the Verslowspell that would be replacing it. However, it would overwrite procs frequently so you would want to prioritize starting the combo with no procs when possible.

Less dependence on perfect MP balance without devaluing MP management, such as by giving reason to perhaps favor one side or the other.

I dislike imbalance ideas, but at the very least, the combo outlined above would allow you to correct a near-imbalance in the middle of executing a combo, which could potentially be interesting. For example,

80|59 : E.Riposte
50|29 : Verthunder
50|40 : E.Zwerchhau
25|15 : Verthunder
25|26 : E.Redoublement
00|01 : Verholy
21|01 : Scorch
28|08

Or even

100|82 : E.Riposte
70|52 : Verthunder
70|63 : E.Zwerchhau
45|38 : Veraero
56|38 : E.Redoublement
31|13 : Verflare
31|34 : Scorch
38|41 : Verfire
38|50 : Veraero
49|50 : Manafication
98|100 : E.Riposte
68|70 : Veraero
79|70 : E.Zwerchhau
54|45 : Veraero
65|45 : E.Redoublement
40|20 : Verflare
40|41 : Scorch
47|48

I think we should avoid outright imbalance mechanics, though.

Nitpick, but... Verflare should really be Verfoul

But RDMs don't speak Enochian...

Originally Posted by Bhearil

RDM is ironically the most inmobile of the mages

Basically RDM is mobile for 1 gcd after every hard cast.

Depending on spell speed, BLM has unrestricted movement for 17s-20s of every minute through two Sharpcasts, a Triple Cast, a Swiftcast, and two Xenoglossies. RDM has unrestricted movement for minimally 30s of every minute through Dualcasts.

Originally Posted by Rongway

Verfinishers are already available for 15s.

You're describing a combo. Every combo allowance is available for 15 seconds after its prerequisite cast and is negated if one uses any other combat action. I am explicitly asking it not to be a combo, and instead be a saveable proc in the same vein as Verfire and Verstone activations, even if that proc duration may be reduced to a mere 10 seconds in compensation. (Tbf, part of that is also just because I'd really like to attach an AoE element to Verflare, Verholy, and Scorch; making those bankable would allow for some killer on-add-spawn burst.)

Originally Posted by Rongway

If you allow another Dualcast between Redoublement and Verfinisher to fix a pre-imbalance or an underproc, it significantly reduces the player skill required to play what is already one of the easiest jobs in the game.

That is a very real concern for me, but I'd rather add new means of engagement to replace that particular contributor than necessarily fetter RDM to the rigidities that come with any single current means of difficulty. In this particular case, I'd be unwilling to sacrifice that difficulty unless there were some meaningful elemental interplay or the like to replace it, but at the same time, I want RDM to actually feel like it's actively doing RDM things more than just in the 2-6 GCDs before its melee combo and its quick reminder as to whether to hit Verflare or Verholy at that combo's end, which will likely require at least imagining RDM without that particular fetter.