RDM Engagement/Displacement/Corps-a-Corps in END

[DrakeWurrum]

With Engagement and Displacement being changed to share the same potency, (and also with the melee combo only needing 50 of the Black/White mana), I had a thought...

Maybe Displacement shouldn't have a potency, or a shared cooldown with Engagement anymore? Couldn't it just function exclusively as a mobility tool now?

My personal opinion on Displacement, and RDM in general, is that it should function the other way around. Instead of an RDM staying at range until they use their melee combo and then leaping in...
RDM should stay in melee, but can leap out when needed for mechanics.

A more interesting design, (again, my opinion), would be to have Engagement and Corps-a-Corps share a cooldown instead, with Engagement being the higher potency...
But if you use Displacement first, it provides a combo potency boost to Corps-a-Corps.

Not much higher. Just enough to make up for the fact that you're not casting OR using melee attacks while you leap out and then back in. (So that you can use Displacement to avoid mechanics without being punished for it, and also rewarding you for staying in melee successfully as a caster DPS)

Wouldn't that make RDM have a better aesthetic feel? Maybe that's just me. Either way, I'm looking forward to how END changes RDM!

[MellowMink]

I would like it to still do damage so that I can mix it into my damage rotation. Bard currently has an ability that moves you slightly backward but does no damage, so it's never on my hot-bars as a result.

[Rolder50]

I would like it to still do damage so that I can mix it into my damage rotation. Bard currently has an ability that moves you slightly backward but does no damage, so it's never on my hot-bars as a result.

So a skill needs to be damage for it to have a hotbar spot? That seems a little backwards, especially if you can use mobility to reduce downtime or get out of mechanics...

[ForteNightshade]

I would like it to still do damage so that I can mix it into my damage rotation. Bard currently has an ability that moves you slightly backward but does no damage, so it's never on my hot-bars as a result.

Bard is a terrible example though because it has entirely free mobility. Therefore, it never needs Repelling Shot. Red Mage, being a Caster, can actually benefit from a movement tool after creating a weave space. Making said movement tool deal damage is counterintuitive because you'll simply want to dump all your charges under raid buffs unless you know you'll need it for x spot and y time.

A better example would be Elusive Jump on Dragoon, which sees plenty of use despite it offering no potency. That's why I find it useful because it'll always be available when and if I need it.

[Claire_Pendragon]

Honestly the "jumping in and out" to maximize DPS always felt like it shoulda been on DRG, not RDM. I do enjoy trying to find a way to use it, so as to not fall off the arena, but just feels so weird on RDM.

[Mortex]

The problem is for that too work they would actually have to rework red mage a meele caster. But that would actually be really cool idea and the possibilities they could do for that are a lot.

[Kaedys]

To be honest, I'd much rather they remove the damage from most movement abilities. Certain ones make sense (most of the Dragoon jumps, except probably their leap-back), but most of them, having them attached to damage means they 1) have to have higher CDs, 2) often have resource costs (SAM, WAR (though that's being removed), etc), and 3) they get used up during combat purely for damage, and thus are not available for use as movement abilities.

It just seems incredibly silly to have these abilities that ostensibly exist to grant mobility in combat, but in practice are just weak oGCD nukes that have the annoying side effect of moving you around when used. The fact that the RDM opener involves burning both Engagement and Displacement, for their damage, before using Manafication and its reset, is just absurd. These abilities should be available for use as mobility buttons, not just a weird form of oGCD damaging ability with side effects.

Thing is, not a single one of the movement abilities does any form of respectable damage, with the sole exception of the Dragoon jumps. All of the rest are 100 or 150 potency. So why do they do damage at all? That just encourages their use as damage buttons rather than mobility buttons. My ideal state would be for every single one of these, across all jobs, to have its damage removed (and that potency shifted into another ability, as necessary for balance), any resource cost removed, all of them given either a rather short CD (10-20s) or a charge system, and their CDs as a whole to be tuned around their expected usage as pure mobility button.

[DrakeWurrum]

I can see why you'd want that, but that also sounds terribly boring in terms of class design. Complexity in what my abilities do adds a little extra fun for me.

At least with what I suggest for RDM - (Corps-a-Corps and Engagement sharing a CD and both doing damage, with the former doing *more* if you first also use the leap back) means that Displacement can be used exclusively for mobility, and Corps-a-Corps can be seen as an aggressive "I'm charging into melee!" move... and if you don't want to move at all, then you have Engagement and you keep moving as normal.

The way it's currently gonna be with END is basically... you either smack em with Engagement, or you do the leap back with Displacement, and then using Corps-a-Corps is a totally free non-damaging action? Similar in result, but (to me) it's weird in execution.

The problem is for that too work they would actually have to rework red mage a meele caster. But that would actually be really cool idea and the possibilities they could do for that are a lot.

The few RDM players I've been talking with about END (plus RDM is my caster DPS of choice as well), have told me they plan to basically stay in melee anyways. Even NOW, I basically just sit in melee unless there's a specific mechanics reason not to.

[Kaedys]

The way it's currently gonna be with END is basically... you either smack em with Engagement, or you do the leap back with Displacement, and then using Corps-a-Corps is a totally free non-damaging action? Similar in result, but (to me) it's weird in execution.

Eh? Corps-a-corps is keeping its damage in EW. What changed is just that Engagement is no longer a DPS loss over Displacement. Which then begs the question why they even have damage on them. They're not used as movement abilities currently, they're used as oGCD attacks that have a side effect of annoyingly moving you around.

Frankly, your version, where the optimal damage is Displacement -> Corps-a-corps would be absolutely terrible from a gameplay perspective. It'd be absolutely mandatory to use that combo except where it would literally kill you, with the exception of the opener, since Displacement doesn't play nicely with double-weaving. I'd much rather my mobility abilities be available for usage for mobility purposes, rather than being weird oGCD attacks that happen to have potentially undesirable movement attached to them, but which must be used on CD for their damage despite that. Can you imagine if Between the Leylines dealt damage or provided a buff? If Shukuchi dealt damage? It's not a fun or engaging mechanic to use your movement abilities purely for their damage, imo. They are mobility buttons, it defeats the point of having them if they are just used on CD for their damage instead.

If we need another oGCD attack, then just give us another oGCD attack. Maybe something like Continuation for our melee attacks would be kinda neat. Say, an oGCD attack that's usable immediately after each of our 3 Enchanted melee attacks (and an AoE one usable after Enchanted Moulinet), so the melee combo would be Riposte -> new oGCD -> Zwerchhau -> new oGCD -> Redoublement -> new oGCD -> Verflare/Verholy -> Scorch -> Resolution. That gives us a similar gameplay to weaving Engagement and Corp-a-corps during our melee combo, without requiring our mobility buttons to serve double-duty (and in the process, actually not serve their purpose as mobility buttons better than half the time). Frankly, Engagement could already serve that purpose. It has the animation for it, and in a world where Corps-a-corps and Displacement lack damage, Engagement otherwise has no need to exist. So make it a melee oGCD specifically for weaving during our melee combo.

[Archwizard]

I was hoping we'd see Displacement reworked so that if you used it within, say, 15-20 sec after a Corps-a-Corps, you'd instead flip back to the same place you last Corps'd from, so Engagement could be safely pruned. A suggestion that was bashed because "wHaT If tHaT SpOt'S NoT SaFe aNyMoRe?"

... aaand then they added pretty much that exact ability to Reaper.

Wouldn't even matter to me whether it did damage if they just made that tweak. Now that they both have charges (separate at that), you could even save an extra button by having Corps become Displacement every other use.