RDM is great

[Ransu]

Weird, I actually hate the way RDM plays now. I feel like the change to acceleration was entirely unncessary and I'm at the point where I'm going to just take it off my bar because it's useless to me. It's just a glorified Swiftcast that only works on 3 abilities that you were already only instacasting with dualcast anyway, compound that with the decreased mana generation from all abilties across the board and now we have a hellishly slow ramp-up because we're at the mercy of RNG for Verfire/Verstone procs. I have no idea what the rationale behind it was because the last thing RDM needs is more instacasts when you're already instacasting at least half the time.

The ramp up time is practically the same as before...

[SlickPaws]

The ramp up time is practically the same as before...

With regard to the amount of mana you need to generate, you're correct. However, because we had Acceleration to decrease ramp-up time because it gave us three guaranteed procs, the ramp up before the changes was significantly faster despite the mana proportions being the same. As it stands, with Acceleration in its base form from level 50 - level 88, you're only guaranteed one proc every 60s and only if you use it in place of Jolt to instacast something you were already going to instacast with dualcast anyway. Having 50/50 combos instead of 80/80 combos is moot because of all of this your ramp-up is slower. Even at 88+, you can only guarantee yourself two procs, making this new version of Acceleration 33% weaker than its previous incarnation. A 50% chance to proc is all fine and well until it actually become important and that's precisely when it'll fail you - it's just Sod's Law - having something to alleviate that was a lot better than not having it. RDM was in a good place and has been for the last two expansions, this change makes absolutely no sense to me. To top all of that off, because the RNG is now more prominent because it can't simply be bypassed by using a key ability as part of your rotation, we now have more unpredictable mana generation which changes the class fundamentally from one that can do a rotation to one that must now rely on priority assuming that one or more of your procs didn't go off and now you're left with unbalanced mana or less mana overall than you were planning for - which in turn causes a delay in your melee burst phase and that'll impact the whole fight from that point onwards.

[Rongway]

and only if you use it in place of Jolt to instacast something you were already going to instacast with dualcast anyway.

That's exactly what it's for though? Anything that lets you skip jolt is a damage gain.

[SlickPaws]

That's exactly what it's for though? Anything that lets you skip jolt is a damage gain.

Yes, I know that's exactly what it's for which is why I mentioned it. I'm not just blanket complaining about an ability I don't know how to use, and your comment does nothing to address anything I've actually said.. But by all means, cherry-pick a comprehensive comment for the one thing you think you can dispute, that's definitely the best way to conduct a discourse. My greater point here is that the change seems wholly unnecessary and overall harmful to the class' rotation and playability in general and nobody can actually explain the logic behind the decision as they see it.

To put it more simply - Would you rather have 1/2 procs of your 50% proc abilities, or would you have 3? If you're cool with the former, then more power to you, play how you want to play but I'd much rather have the 3 procs and the certainty that comes from knowing your mana will be where you need it to be and abilities will be proc'ing more frequently. If the logic is 'skipping jolt is good' then my counter is that we were already doing that by replacing it with Verfire/Verstone *and* gaining more mana overall as a direct result. The rotation just felt a hell of a lot smoother to me with old Acceleration, now it feels awkward.

[Rongway]

But by all means, cherry-pick a comprehensive comment for the one thing you think you can dispute, that's definitely the best way to conduct a discourse.

That one point demonstrates that you don't understand how to RDM. You call it useless and say you're not even going to put it on your bar. You would ignore its obvious benefits as a better swiftcast because why? If your conclusion is that you don't need it on your bar, I can't take anything you say about what would be better for red mage seriously.

[SlickPaws]

That one point demonstrates that you don't understand how to RDM. You call it useless and say you're not even going to put it on your bar. You would ignore its obvious benefits as a better swiftcast because why? If your conclusion is that you don't need it on your bar, I can't take anything you say about what would be better for red mage seriously.

I have demonstrated a working knowledge of the class and pointed out the correct time to use it, and you've somehow taken that as me not understanding what's going on? That makes even less sense than the change to the ability. The point about it being useless was hyperbolic, but the fact of the matter is that Acceleration is less useful and reliable than it used to be in its previous form - which, if you actually read anything you'd see that I also demonstrated a few comments ago. If this is the caliber of discourse that goes on in here, then I think I'm wasting my time in even seeking anyone else's opinion. You've offered no insight of your own and thrown shade where it wasn't warranted. I think this is the part where you throw up a /vpose and act like you're the superior player, because I'm done here.

[Gruntler]

To put it more simply - Would you rather have 1/2 procs of your 50% proc abilities, or would you have 3?

Guaranteeing a proc is a gain of 10 potency and half a mana. 10. That's it. It's literally just 10 potency.

Getting a swiftcast, alone, without considering mana gains, is a gain of 30 potency, and a full man.

So let's do the math.

Old Acceleration: 3x[0.5, 10]=[1.5, 30] as well as drifting issues if you had procjam going into melee phase.

New Acceleration: [0.5, 10]+[1, 30]=[1.5, 40]+ better utility + charge system makes drifting much less likely.

3 charges of accel existed to do one thing, make your melee guaranteed at a specific time in your opener. Now that the manafication change made melee guaranteed whenever you want, acceleration no longer needed that use case, and thus it needed a new use case to reflect the new RDM's changes, one that happens to help RDM with it's biggest weakness: Pantokrator-like mechanics.

The new acceleration is better in every way.