6.41+/7.0 — SE, if you won't buff RDM damage, at least improve usability and utility

[Eorzean_username]

Note for Mobile users:

BBCode formatting breaks in several ways on the Mobile version of these Forums.

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In the spirit of Mr. Yoshida, all I can say is:

"Unfortunately, nothing can be done about this. Please understand".

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Feel free to skip to whatever interests you:

Endwalker / 6.41+ / Current issues

Post 1 — Premise of this thread

Post 2 — "High-value" 6.41+ adjustments

Post 3 — "Why not?" 6.41+ adjustments

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7.0+ / Future directions and changes

Post 4 — Considering what to do in 7.0

Post 5 — Example 7.0 additions / adjustments

Post 6 — Considering the future of the Balance Gauge

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Section 1 — Premise of this post

Current problem

As of patch 6.41, Red Mage's rotation requires non-trivially more effort to perform than its nearest Role analogue, Summoner, especially in content with high complexity or movement pressures.

However, Red Mage does not reward that increased complexity and challenge with increased damage output compared to Summoner.

In fact, in practice, Red Mage on average seems to provide slightly-weaker numerical performance compared to Summoner — thus making Red Mage both more difficult and less effective than Summoner.

Even if you remove Summoner from consideration, Red Mage is basically being tuned to deal damage roughly in line with a Ranged Physical DPS, despite having significantly more movement and positioning constraints.

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Furthermore, whether or not Red Mage compensates for this, in practice, by providing sufficient non-damaging benefits or utility, both on its own and when compared to Summoner, is highly-debatable, especially in content where frequent or closely-spaced Raises may not meaningfully improve success rates over what "Raising power" is already available "baseline" (via Healers), or can be provided by Summoner.

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Additionally, because Red Mage lacks a tool like Radiant Aegis, Red Mage is flatly more vulnerable to unavoidable damage than Summoner, especially when attempting content closer to the edge of its minimum gearing and balance.

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All of these issues taken together seem to provide evidence of an objective design imbalance affecting Red Mage.

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Issues with some proposed responses to this problem

Some proposed solutions that I've seen suggested regarding this imbalance involve one or more of the following points:

a) Directly buffing Red Mage damage output
b) Increasing the difficulty and complexity of playing Summoner
c) Reducing the damage output of Summoner

However, I believe that all three of these points are unrealistic in the current design environment.

I believe that "b" and "c" are unrealistic...

...because XIV's developers have, to this point, shown seemingly no concern whatsoever about Summoner's current design state, as well as no inclination whatsoever to make adjustments to EW Summoner's fundamental design.

Such extensive changes are also unlikely to occur at this point in an expansion cycle, especially when SMN's "participation numbers" are consistently sky-high.

Additionally, XIV's developers have increasingly shown a firm resistance to reducing the damage of overperforming Jobs, and instead shown a preference for simply increasing the performance of underperforming Jobs (in what has become an endless "power creep").

Taken all-together, I believe that it is unrealistic to expect any significant changes to be made to Summoner at this time, and that any solutions to the current imbalance must therefore target Red Mage directly.

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I believe that "a" is unrealistic...

...because, for better or worse, XIV's developers — as expressed through multiple statements over time by, for example, producer Yoshida — seem to strongly-believe the following two points:

1. Red Mage is highly mobile and not difficult to play.
2. Red Mage's support capabilities, in particular its free-form Raising, mean that improving its damage further will make it too strong.

Please remember that the degree of factual validity in either of these statements is largely-irrelevant, because what actually matters is merely that the individuals who control XIV's design believe that these statements are true, and have not been persuaded otherwise, even over long periods of time.

Additionally, with regard to point "2" specifically, I also strongly-suspect that the following can be assumed true:

• Arguing for SE to remove Raise support capabilities from Red Mage before 7.0 (if ever) is extremely-unlikely to succeed.
• Arguing for SE to stop "taxing" Raise support — especially in the middle of an expansion — is extremely-unlikely to succeed.

I say this based on two points:

i) The developers's consistently-unconcerned — or even admiring — attitude about Red Mage's "Raising power".

ii) The assumption that the developers are well-aware of the significant backlash that the broader XIV community would likely unleash if Red Mage's imbalanced Raising capability was abruptly curtailed, as — in the eyes of the game's broader population — this has become an iconic feature of the Red Mage Job.

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Considering more pragmatic responses

Given all of the above, I believe that Red Mage has only two practical pathways available, at least in the immediate future:

A. Do nothing, and continue to accept its current situation of questionable balance and Role-parity, in exchange for the Job remaining mechanically-unchanged.

B. Adjust Red Mage to be more comfortable and forgiving to play, and to makes its party contribution more consistently-useful — bringing its usability and utility in-line with other Jobs that are tuned to similar levels of DPS performance.

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As such, to summarise, the premise of this post is:

• It seems unrealistic to expect changes to Summoner's rotational functionality or design.

• It seems unrealistic to expect changes to Summoner's damage output.

• It seems unrealistic to expect the removal of "Raise tax" from Red Mage.

• It seems unrealistic to expect dramatic improvements to Red Mage's personal or total damage contribution.

• The most plausible-seeming change is for Red Mage damage output to remain roughly static, while gameplay factors that currently make Red Mage's rotation significantly more burdensome and/or difficult to execute compared to Summoner are adjusted, softened, or reduced.

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I believe that this is a reasonable direction to pursue.

There is already precedent for past iterations of Red Mage being designed and perceived as a modest-damage, high-utility, highly-forgiving and accessible Caster — in fact, such an identity was (perhaps ironically, now) originally one of the major "points of excitement" about Red Mage when it first released in Stormblood.

And, in terms of developer attention and acceptance, I also believe that this is the most plausible way of achieving parity for Red Mage in the "Caster (that is not Black Mage)" party Role, in the current state of FFXIV and its prevailing design philosophies.

[Eorzean_username]

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Section 2 — Proposed "high-value" adjustments

"High-value" in this context means that I think that these adjustments would have a significant effect on factors such as:

• Increasing the usability of Red Mage (relative to Summoner)
• Increasing Red Mage's potential utility value to a party (relative to Summoner)
• Easing the burden of playing Red Mage in a broad selection of content types (relative to Summoner)
• Increasing Red Mage's ability to perform strongly in a wide variety of content types, and in the hands of a wide variety of player skill levels (relative to Summoner)
• ...etc.

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2-1. Improve personal defensive capability

Reasoning:

Due to a combination of lower HP, lower Physical Defense, and lack of personal defensive tools, Red Mage is currently amongst the most vulnerable Jobs in difficult content, adding the threat of higher KO liability on top of Red Mage's other current issues.

In such context, it is inappropriate to consider Vercure a defensive tool, because Vercure demands that Red Mage sacrifice a GCD (and significant MP) in order to accomplish self-survival efforts that other Jobs can achieve in an OGCD weave.

Proposed adjustments:

MODIFIED — (Summoner) Radiant Aegis

• Removed.

MODIFIED — (Black Mage) Manaward

• Removed.

NEW — Manaward

• Category: Role Action
• Jobs: BLM, SMN, RDM
• Type: Ability (OGCD)
• Effect: Creates a barrier around self that absorbs damage totaling 30% of your maximum HP.
• Duration: 20s
• Maximum charges: 2
• Cooldown per charge: 60s

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2-2. Improve defensive party support

Reasoning:

While other DPS defensive utility such as Addle and Feint have been adjusted to apply at least partially to all types of mitigatable damage, Magick Barrier only applies to Magic damage.

In contrast, Summoner provides universally-applicable healing support during Phoenix phases, and Ranged Physical Tactician variants provide universally-applicable damage reduction.

If Red Mage will continue to have its damage output tuned to be in-line with both Summoner and Ranged Physical DPS, then I think that it is fair to make Magick Barrier more universal in applicability.

Proposed adjustments

Magick Barrier

• In addition to its preexisting effects, now also creates a barrier around self and all nearby party members that absorbs damage totaling 10% of each target's maximum HP.

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2-3. Streamline the "filler" portion of the rotation

Reasoning:

Jolt is an underwhelming button that has become increasingly "tacked-on" and vestigial with each expansion iteration of Red Mage.

Locking the "true" filler Spells behind procs adds awkward constraints to the rotational flow — having to Jolt feels like running over a pothole while driving a Ferrari — and also punishes the player for trying to tactically "sit" on a proc.

eg: If you have 0 procs, and trigger 1 proc, then you are "forced" to simply consume the proc, because an unnecessary Jolt is the worse option.

In a Jolt-less system, you could choose whether to eat the proc immediately, or hold it temporarily (to adjust Mana more to your liking, etc).

Having 2 equal fillers available to choose from at all times would allow the Balance Gauge to be managed more consistently and intuitively, whereas still retaining some incentive for choosing one filler over the other would preserve the feel of moment-to-moment decision-making in the Red Mage filler cycle.

Proposed adjustments

Jolt
Jolt 2

• Removed.

Verfire

• No longer requires "Verfire Ready" to execute.

Verstone

• No longer requires "Verstone Ready" to execute

Verthunder
Verthunder 3

• No longer has a chance to become "Verfire Ready".
• Now has a 50% chance of becoming "Fire Attuned".
  • Duration: 30s
• Fire Attuned effect: Increases potency of Verfire by 40.

Veraero
Veraero 3

• No longer has a chance to become "Verstone Ready".
• Now has a 50% chance of becoming "Earth Attuned".
  • Duration: 30s
• Earth Attuned effect: Increases potency of Verstone by 40.

Verflare

• No longer has a chance to become "Verfire Ready".
• Now has a 20% chance of becoming "Fire Attuned".
• Chance to become "Fire Attuned" increases to 100% if White Mana is higher than Black Mana at time of execution.

Verholy

• No longer has a chance to become "Verstone Ready".
• Now has a 20% chance of becoming "Earth Attuned".
• Chance to become "Earth Attuned" increases to 100% if Black Mana is higher than White Mana at time of execution.

Acceleration

• No longer guarantees the trigger of "Verfire Ready" or "Verstone Ready".
• Now guarantees the trigger of "Fire Attuned" or "Earth Attuned".
• Other effects unchanged.

Scorch

• Removed functionality — "Jolt II and Impact are changed to Scorch upon landing Verflare or Verholy as a combo action."
• New functionality — "Verthunder, Veraero, Verthunder 2, Veraero 2, Verthunder 3, and Veraero 3 are changed to Scorch upon landing Verflare or Verholy as a combo action."

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2-4. Increase flexibility and consistency of OGCD usage

Reasoning:

Currently, to avoid clipping its GCD, Red Mage must fight against its natural Dualcast rhythm when trying to keep its potent OGCDs cooling, in order to avoid drifting these actions, and causing either potential lost usages, or pushing an OGCD action outside of crucial party-buff windows.

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Red Mage is also pressured to naturally-desynchronize itself from party-buff windows to avoid wasting usages of Manafication, due to its 110s cooldown. This clashes with FFXIV's current design fixation on powerful, coordinated 120s burst windows.

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The odd cooldowns on Red Mage OGCDs currently make them awkward and inconsistent to fit into major burst windows.

While, in a more neutral environment, this could be argued as giving the Job gameplay space for fine-tuned optimisation, in the current XIV game design, it is essentially little more than a punishing outlier.

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Red Mage currently benefits less from its own party buff than other players do, which feels bizarre.

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Easing all of these various constraints would increase both Red Mage's overall ease-of-use, as well as its ability to contribute to overall damage in party content.

Proposed adjustments

Embolden

• Now increases all damage dealt by the Red Mage that activates Embolden (up from only Magical damage dealt by the Red Mage).

Corps-a-corps

• Recharge time is now 30s.
• Potency adjusted if necessary.

Engagement
Displacement

• Recharge time is now 30s.
• Potency adjusted if necessary.

Fleche

• Now has 2 charges.
• Recharge time is now 30s.
• Potency adjusted if necessary.

Contre Sixte

• Now has 2 charges.
• Recharge time is now 30s.
• Potency adjusted if necessary.

Manafication

• Now has 2 charges.
• Recharge time remains 110s.

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2-5a. Ease mobility and casting constraints

Reasoning:

Despite originally appearing to be one of the most movement-forgiving Spellcasting Jobs, at this point in XIV's design, Red Mage has lost much of its mobility advantages relative to other Jobs — including, under many circumstances, even the infamous Black Mage.

This has arisen as a combination of three major factors:

1. At this point, all other relevant XIV Spellcasters have had their casting burden significantly-eased:

• Healers have all been given 1.50s offensive casts
• Summoner has nearly nothing to cast, and when it does, Ruin 3 has arbitrarily been reduced to a 1.50s cast anyway.
  • Sustained movement windows also do not seriously-threaten Ruby Rite nor Slipstream, because such limited casting windows can simply be rearranged, delayed with Ruin 3 or Ruin 4, or Swiftcasted — all without any cascading penalty or consequence to any other aspect of the Summoner rotation whatsoever.
• Black Mage has cumulatively gained significant amounts of situationally-targetable movement flexibility and solutions, especially when used by a skilled and experienced BLM player.

Meanwhile, Red Mage's filler remains at the longer 2.0s cast time, while also lacking consequence-free tools for stretching out its Dualcast windows, even in skilled hands.

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2. Red Mage's extremely-rigid rhythm of "cast" and "instant" is often not nearly as useful or powerful as it seems to be at first glance.

Instead, Dualcast often ends up being a distinctly-inferior solution compared to the increased slidecasting windows provided by 1.50s casts, or Black Mage's hypothetical ability to line up large numbers of back-to-back instant casts at exactly the time when such tools are actually needed for a prolonged mechanic period.

In contrast, Red Mage's Dualcast accomplishes nothing meaningful the vast majority of the time (ie, whenever the RDM is uncontrollably triggering Dualcast while not under movement pressure), and then often proves insufficient when the Red Mage actually needs mobility.

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3. Acceleration (and Swiftcast) is entangled with either compensating or causing OGCD-drift issues for Red Mage, due to additional "off-rhythm" instant casts causing desynchronisations between the Dualcast rhythm and the cooldowns of offensive OGCDs.

Thus, even considering Acceleration, Red Mage's ostensible mobility tools are both more constrained and less useful than other Spellcasters.

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Taken all together, I believe that these issues contribute to Red Mage being inappropriately-convoluted to manage in difficult or complex content, or any broader content with prolonged movement demands.

Reducing the cast time of Red Mage's "fillers" would thus both improve Red Mage's flexibility in situations of high, sustained movement, as well as make the timing of weaving Red Mage OGCD damage and utility actions more flexible and forgiving.

Proposed adjustments

Verfire
Verstone
Verthunder 2
Veraero 2

• Base casting times reduced from 2.00s to 1.50s.
• Base recast times remain unchanged at 2.50s.

Verthunder 3
Veraero 3
Impact
Vercure
Verraise

• Base cast times and recast times remain unchanged.

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2-5b. Consideration — "Fast Cast"

Addendum to:

Easing mobility and casting constraints

Explanation:

One of Red Mage's iconic features in Final Fantasy XI was the "Fast Cast" Job Trait, which allowed Red Mages to innately have shorter Cast times than other Jobs.

Therefore, it might be more "flavorful" to grant the cast-time reductions to Red Mage as an "earned bonus", rather than simply lowering the cast times via a direct change to the base actions.

Example:

Fast Cast I

• Action type: Trait
• Level: 50
• Effect: Reduces Spell cast times by 10%.
• ※Does not affect Spell recast times.

Fast Cast II

• Action type: Trait
• Level: 60
• Effect: Reduces Spell cast times by 15%.
• ※Does not affect Spell recast times.

Fast Cast III

• Action type: Trait
• Level: 70
• Effect: Reduces Spell cast times by 25%.
• ※Does not affect Spell recast times.

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Considerations

This would still accomplish the goal of bringing the "filler hardcast" cast times down to 1.50s with 2.50s recast.

However, it would also more broadly affect the cast times (but remember, not the recast times) of other Spells, such as:

• Verthunder/Veraero (5.0s → 3.75s)
• Vercure (2.0s → 1.50s)
• Verraise (10.0s → 7.50s)
• Other assorted Spells, such as those found in Exploratory Zones

Whether this would simply become a Red Mage "perk" and "flavor" element, or instead be an actual balancing problem, is up for debate — I only place it here for consideration, rather than overt advocation.

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2-6. Soften the penalties for using Reprise

Reasoning:

Reprise held a comfortable place as a consolation-prize and/or optimisation tool in Shadowbringers, but in in Endwalker Reprise has much fewer opportunities to be used effectively and, frankly, has been turned into somewhat of a "trap" for inexperienced players.

This is due to a combination of factors:

a) Reprise, due to being designated a Weaponskill, is not affected by Spell Speed.

b) Reprise's Recast Time was increased from 2.2s to 2.5s, thus increasing its potential opportunity-cost, and making it potentially more disruptive to use (especially spontaneously).

c) Both "filler-Spell Mana gains" and "Enchanted Combo Mana costs" were reduced in 6.00, which has had the cascading effect of causing Reprise's Mana opportunity-cost to become, proportionally, far more severe than in ShB.

d) Reprise does not just consume Mana — it is even further-negative than its superficial cost, because it also does not generate Mana. This causes Reprise to derange Mana generation each usage, increasing its actual opportunity-cost even higher in most(?) cases.

e) Reprise does not generate Dualcast, and therefore disrupts the the Dualcast rhythm, which can have cascading consequences for rotational alignment and OGCD drift. (However, this can hypothetically work just as often to "realign" rather than "dealign", so it is a potentially "neutral" quality)

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I believe that, if looking towards a goal of making Red Mage more "user-friendly" and in-line with other DPS Jobs that deal similar damage, it is reasonable to make Reprise more forgiving to use, while still keeping Reprise "non-optimal".

Also, similar to shifting Samurai positional failures from deranging resources to simply blunting potencies, adjusting where the burden of Reprise's costs fall would make Reprise less disruptive to staying aligned with burst windows.

This would allow less-optimised players to react more fluidly to mechanics as Red Mage without hemorrhaging Melee Combos, while still incentivising more-optimised players to continue to find ways to avoid resorting to Reprise (but also being "punished" less if they do).

Proposed adjustments

Enchanted Reprise

• Enchanted Reprise is now a Spell.
• —————
• The conversion of "Reprise" to "Enchanted Reprise" now requires at least 10 Black and 10 White Mana to be present in the Balance Gauge.
• —————
• Enchanted Reprise no longer consumes Black or White Mana when used.
• —————
• Enchanted Reprise now generates 5 Black Mana, if White Mana is higher than Black Mana at time of execution.
• Enchanted Reprise now generates 5 White Mana, if Black Mana is higher than White Mana at time of execution.
• Enchanted Reprise now randomly generates either 5 Black Mana or 5 White Mana, if Black Mana is equal to White Mana at time of execution.
• —————
• Enchanted Reprise potency reduced to 300.

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2-7. Extend the range of Enchanted Melee Combo

Reasoning:

Red Mage sometimes must risk executing its Enchanted Melee Combo — which is both its primary sustained mobility tool and its primary damage tool — at potentially-inopportune or difficult times.

For example:

• Intruding upon sensitive Tank and Melee DPS positioning
• Exposing the Red Mage or Party to additional danger from having an extra player in Melee range
• Exposing the Red Mage to danger from trying to "greed" Melee GCDs during inopportune moments

Moderately-extending the range at which Red Mage can execute its Enchanted Melee Combo would — like the change that extended the range on Samurai Iaijutsu — make it more forgiving for Red Mages to manage such concerns.

If considering a design goal of increasing "usability" parity between Red Mage and similarly-damaging DPS Jobs, then — due to the centrality of the Enchanted Melee Combo to the entire functionality of Red Mage as a Job — I think that this may be an appropriate adjustment to make.

This would also better-define Red Mage as a Job that fits "somewhere between" full Melee and full Ranged, especially since the original Stormblood "vision" of dashing and backflipping has not realistically worked out when dealing with actual party-positioning needs and expectations, the shape of encounter mechanics and environments, and the realistic consequences of attaching Potency to mobility tools.

Proposed adjustments

Enchanted Riposte
Enchanted Zwerchhau
Enchanted Redoublement

• Maximum range increased to 6 yalms (up from 3 yalms).

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2-8. Remove the restrictions on Dualcast usage

Reasoning:

Mr. Yoshida has stated in a Q&A session that Red Mage would be "too mobile" if it could carry Dualcast through its Enchanted Melee Combo, or combine Dualcast with Sprint.

(Source: iluna minori, #translations-and-liveletters, "Final Fantasy XIV" Discord server)

キャスターとしてのジョブバランスを考慮した場合、WSなどを使った時に維持できるようになると機動性が高くなってしまいます。不便さは理解できますが、どうかご理解いただきたい。

When we're thinking of Casters in terms of Job balance, if we allow the Dualcast buff to be maintained when using Weaponskills and etc, it will cause your mobility to shoot up really high. We do understand this can be an inconvenience, but we hope you can understand why.

...I would like to respectfully disagree with this justification.

Firstly, please consider that the entire Job called, "Endwalker Summoner", currently exists — which also currently does equal or more damage than Red Mage.

(Actually, if we're considering damage contribution, you might as well consider Dancer, Bard, and Machinist, as well)

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Secondly, please consider that Endwalker extended Combos for Melee DPS to 30 seconds — allowing them to carry combos over prolonged periods of time, including over prolonged burst windows.

Though not exactly the same mechanical situation, extending a similar "courtesy" to Dualcast seems reasonable to me, at this point.

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Third, all things considered about the current state of the game, I am extraordinarily-sceptical that allowing Red Mage to carry a Dualcast over its burst window would somehow, of all things, be the straw that suddenly breaks FFXIV's Job balance.

I also feel that, all things considered about the current state of the game, the developers's priorities regarding this concern are somewhat-severely misplaced.

Proposed adjustments

Dualcast

• Duration increased to 30s (up from 15s).
• —————
• Removed functionality — "Grants the effect of Dualcast upon casting any spell with a cast time. While under the effect of Dualcast, your next spell will require no time to cast. Effect is canceled upon execution of any action other than an ability. Auto-attacks do not cancel effect."
• —————
• New functionality — "Grants the effect of Dualcast upon casting any Spell with a cast time. While under the effect of Dualcast, your next Spell will require no time to cast. Dualcast will not be canceled or consumed by actions that do not have a cast time."

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[Eorzean_username]

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Section 3 — "Why not?" / "minor or neutral-value" adjustments

This section contains adjustments related to aspects of Red Mage gameplay that I do not think are significant factors currently affecting performance or usability, but could nonetheless potentially be positive changes for overall QOL or functionality — if we're already opening up and tinkering with Red Mage anyway.

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3-1. Consolidate the Enchanted Melee Combo

Reasoning:

At this point in FFXIV development, I think that it is becoming clear that Red Mage is unlikely to see any additions to the Weaponskill portion of its Enchanted Combos — neither branching, nor additional steps after Redoublement.

Therefore, I think that the design value of continuing to spread the Enchanted Melee Combo over 3 separate keys has diminished significantly.

Consolidating the Enchanted Melee Combo in a manner similar to Gunbreaker's Gnashing Fang would make it easier to keybind Red Mage, and also (hypothetically) open hotbar space for additional unique actions.

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It is true that minor optimisations such as double or even triple Zwerchhau would be removed by this change, but I also frankly must state that I do not find this concern particularly-significant in the larger design picture, and also that such methods of gaining Mana Stacks could be argued to be a degenerative gameplay outcome anyway.

Proposed adjustments

Balance Gauge

• Now unlocks at Level 30.

Enchanted Melee Combo

• Entire combo now becomes available at Level 30.

Riposte

• Level: 30 (up from 1).
• —————
• Upon successful execution, now automatically becomes Zwerchhau.
• —————
• Action now upgraded to Enchanted Riposte if both Black Mana and White Mana are at 50 or more. (up from 20 or more)

Zwerchhau

• Level: 30 (down from 35).
• —————
• Upon successful execution, now automatically becomes Redoublement.
• —————
• Action now upgraded to Enchanted Zwerchhau after successful execution of Enchanted Riposte.
• —————
• New restriction — ※This action cannot be assigned to a hotbar.

Redoublement

• Level: 30 (down from 50).
• —————
• Action now upgraded to Enchanted Redoublement after successful execution of Enchanted Zwerchhau.
• —————
• New restriction — ※This action cannot be assigned to a hotbar.

Enchanted Riposte

• Balance Gauge Cost is now 50 Black Mana.
• Balance Gauge Cost is now 50 White Mana.
• —————
• Upon successful execution, now automatically becomes Enchanted Zwerchhau.

Enchanted Zwerchhau

• No longer costs Balance Gauge.
• —————
• Upon successful execution, now automatically becomes Enchanted Redoublement.

Enchanted Redoublement

• No longer costs Balance Gauge.

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3-2. Shorten the recast time of Enchanted Redoublement

Reasoning:

Currently, Red Mage's Enchanted Melee Combo stretches over 5.20 seconds, causing its alignment with 60 second loops, and the 2.5s GCD "blocks" that FFXIV rotations are multiplied by, to be slightly-imperfect.

This is an extraordinarily-trivial issue in nearly every situation, and it is also not strictly-negative: Redoublement at 2.20s recast allows certain GCD speeds (such as 2.48) to open space for the extra 0.2s to naturally "fit", and Redoublement at 2.20s recast also makes it more safe/comfortable to try to double-weave OGCDs after activating Redoublement.

However, if the developers want to "clean up" small rough edges on Red Mage, then adjusting down the recast of Redoublement would allow Red Mage — when operating at base Spell Speed — to fit more perfectly into the 2.5s-GCD rhythm / 60s loop-blocks that FFXIV is fundamentally based around.

For that reason, I think this would be a preferable adjustment, considering that Red Mage's design would have to fundamentally change in far more drastic ways for Red Mage to ever begin seriously-valuing Spell Speed — thus, I think that there is no real "loss" from allowing Red Mage to have a slightly-cleaner rotational loop at 2.50s GCD.

Proposed adjustments

Enchanted Redoublement

• Recast time is now 2.0s (down from 2.2s).

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3-3. Put more limits on the usage of Verraise

Reasoning:

Red Mage's ability to "freely" Raise (within the limits of the GCD and MP supply) is considered one of Red Mage's most distinct and potent capabilities.

However, this Raising capability also leads to XIV's developers being — likely excessively — reluctant to allow Red Mage to be "powerful" in any other ways, viewing Red Mage's Raising "power" as one of its core features and "values".

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Additionally, for Red Mages who do not enjoy the gameplay of being a "paramedic" (because they did not choose a Healer Job) and would prefer to simply focus on doing their role as DPS, being under pressure to constantly interrupt their rotation and Raise in various types of content can potentially feel disruptive and annoying.

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Furthermore, because Verraise occupies a Dualcast slot but does not generate Mana, its usage can derange burst-timing alignments. This additional nuisance penalty on top of Verraise's other costs and losses is probably an unnecessary irritant.

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Clamping down on Verraise usage would also bring Red Mage's Raise contribution more in-line with Summoner, and thus allow the two Jobs to more reasonably be tuned against each other in the SE developers's perceived reality where "can Raise a lot" is a significant balance consideration.

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However, making any changes to Verraise is guaranteed to be explosively-controversial and polarising across the broader XIV playerbase, so I am not outright-advocating this idea, but rather just (once again) putting it out for discussion and feedback.

Possible adjustments

Possibility A

• Verraise can still be affected by Dualcast.
• Verraise MP cost unchanged.
• Verraise cooldown increased to 60s (up from None).
• Verraise now generates 5 Black Mana and 5 White Mana.

Possibility B

• Verraise can still be affected by Dualcast.
• Verraise MP cost increased to 7200 MP.
• Verraise remains without cooldown.
• Verraise now generates 5 Black Mana and 5 White Mana.

Possibility C

• Dualcast now only affects Red Mage offensive Spells.
  • Vercure can no longer consume Dualcast.
  • Verraise can no longer consume Dualcast.
• Verraise MP cost unchanged.
• Verraise remains without cooldown.
• Verraise now generates 5 Black Mana and 5 White Mana.

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[Eorzean_username]

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Section 4 — Considering Red Mage design goals in 7.0

The previous 3 sections are about examining Red Mage's current situation in the Endwalker gameplay environment, and ways that Red Mage could be adjusted in that context.

This section will attempt to expand upon those ideas in order to consider where Red Mage's development could go from here, and what sort of additions could be considered for Red Mage in 7.00.

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4-1. Stop overloading the Enchanted Combo

Reasoning:

After 3 expansions of capstone-ing Red Mage with yet another addition tacked on to the end of the Enchanted Combo, I think that this portion of Red Mage gameplay is now on the edge of crossing the line from "cool" to "comical" in terms of how much Potency and mechanical emphasis keeps getting piled onto this single chain of events.

I think Red Mage design should start looking elsewhere for ways to expand its gameplay by level 100.

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4-2. Add more conceptual and gameplay "texture" to the Filler portion of the rotation

Reasoning:

For 3 straight expansions, the Red Mage single-target "filler" rotation has seen no serious additions (and has actually been eroded-away somewhat).

That said, I do not personally miss "Impact procs", nor do I think "Jolt" is a valuable portion of the Red Mage design — I think that the real core of the Filler window has basically always been juggling Verfire, Verstone, Verthunder, and Veraero.

I think that ripping-out Jolt and replacing it with something more interesting, and/or adding more unique GCDs in general to the "filler" between Enchanted Combos, would be a positive change for Red Mage's overall "play-feel".

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4-3. Add in missing Elements

Reasoning:

Black Mages use Ice and White Mages use(d?) Water.

Therefore, if looking to spice up the Red Mage "filler" loop, I think that a good direction to explore is adding Ice and Water into the Ver-system, completing Red Mage's access to the six Elements.

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4-4. Redesign the counterintuitive Red Mage AOE system

Reasoning:

Red Mage players are conditioned by the single-target rotation to consider Thunder and Aero the Dualcast "finishers".

In my opinion, the Red Mage AOE system needlessly and confusingly turns this upside-down, randomly turning Verthunder 2 and Veraero 2 into fillers.

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Conceptually, I feel that this doesn't even make sense, because Verthunder and Veraero are big, slow hits since they represent condensing the BLM and WHM damage-over-time effects (Thunder and Aero) into instantaneous damage via Red Magic acceleration.

Therefore, since "Thunder 4" and "Aero 3" (rip) are also DOT effects, I think that the Red Mage AOE versions of Thunder and Aero should also be big, slow AOE hits like the single-target Verthunder and Veraero.

———————————

Furthermore, in the interest of capturing the longstanding Final Fantasy "Black Magic / White Magic" concept of Red Mage more fully, I think that the AOE rotation should be fully fleshed-out with equivalents of Verfire and Verstone, as well — essentially bringing the Single-Target and AOE rotations into rough functional parity.

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4-5. Stop vacillating and just fully-commit to Red Mage as a "Support DPS" Job

Reasoning:

Red Mage has continually oscillated back-and-forth since Stormblood between being tuned low, and tuned "competitively", depending on what the "soup du jour" is regarding the XIV developers's attitude about Caster balance and Red Mage's "utility" value.

Historically, players pushed back against this, arguing that Red Mage should be tuned like a Caster DPS, and not penalised for utility skills that they don't even care about having.

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However, with the changes made to Summoner in Endwalker, I believe that the XIV developers have abandoned their idea that Casters should be a "high-damage, high-burst, challenging ranged DPS" — none of these distinctions make sense anymore in the contemporary XIV system:

• Everyone(?) has "high burst damage".

• Casters are no longer required to be "high-damage" (relative to the rest of their competition).

• Casters are no longer required to... er, cast... or be "challenging" in general (and, honestly, Stormblood Red Mage was already defying these ideas to begin with).

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...But to be honest, I think that this is actually "fine".

Rather than trying to make everyone compete with Yoshida's pet Black Mage — which seems like a doomed errand from the word "go" — I think that the developers should stop messing around, and hard-commit in the opposite direction:

Just embrace Red Mage as a low-personal damage, high-utility DPS, similar to Dancer.

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By removing the disconnect between Red Mage expectations vs. reality, it would allow Red Mage to finally just be balanced as a Support DPS, removing the perpetual tensions about its "utility taxes" by just intentionally baking them into the Job.

The goal would be to firmly and "officially" separate Summoner and Red Mage from Black Mage, just like Machinist is firmly-separated from Bard and Dancer.

However, unlike the current situation in 6.xx, this should be done with the explicit expectation of also giving Red Mage proper and sufficient tools to justify this kind of categorisation and personal-damage tuning.

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As well, I think that this honestly better-fits Red Mage's historical role and character in Final Fantasy games anyway, including XIV's MMORPG predecessor, Final Fantasy XI.

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[Eorzean_username]

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Section 5 — Example 7.0 additions and adjustments

This section will attempt to give examples of the sorts of changes that 7.0 could implement in order to meet the goals and proposals outlined in Section 4.

Note regarding design assumptions:

Because it is impossible to predict exactly what SE will do to the overall XIV combat system in 7.0+, these example actions — and their functions — should be taken explicitly as just that, examples, and not exact or immutable ideas.

eg: Say SE hypothetically destroys the "2-minute meta" and also merges SkS/SpS into a universal Haste stat that reduces the recast times of all actions.

Obviously, that would dramatically-change how action-design could be approached; would make Haste a possible party buff type; etc etc... and the effects of these example actions would need to be explored and adjusted accordingly.

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However, for now, these example actions are designed based on a working assumption that the 6.xx status-quo continues unchanged in 7.0, since there is no other concrete reference-frame to work from.

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5-1a. Vercure, Verraise, and Veresuna

Goal:

Stop vacillating about Red Mage's design, and just double-down on Red Mage's identity as a Support DPS.

Reasoning for the chosen actions:

It feels awkward and bizarre that Red Mage just arbitrarily gains Vercure and Verraise at extremely-late levels, when — oh look — Arcanist/Summoner gets its Raise and Heal from practically the moment it pops into existence.

As well, if Red Mage is going to have lossy White Magic Support tools, stop being weird, and just give it Esuna to "complete the set".

Example additions and adjustments

MODIFIED — Vercure

• Level: 8 (down from 54)

MODIFIED — Verraise

• Level: 12 (down from 64)

NEW — Veresuna

• Level: 14
• —————
• Type: Spell (GCD)
• —————
• Range: 30 yalms
• —————
• Cast: 2.0s
• Recast: 2.5s
• —————
• Effect: Removes a single detrimental effect from target.

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5-1b. Magick Barrier

Goal:

Stop vacillating about Red Mage's design, and just double-down on Red Mage's identity as a Support DPS.

Reasoning for the chosen actions:

If Red Mage is going to do Support DPS damage, then fluff-up Magick Barrier in a similar way as Addle was fluffed in Endwalker, becoming Red Mage's "Tactician".

Example additions and adjustments

NEW — Magick Barrier Mastery

• Level: 96
• Type: Trait
• Effect: Magick Barrier now also reduces Physical damage taken by self and nearby party members by 5%.

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5-1c. Black Pledge and White Pledge

Goal:

Stop vacillating about Red Mage's design, and just double-down on Red Mage's identity as a Support DPS.

Reasoning for the chosen actions:

Extend a "partner" mechanic onto Red Mage, further-cementing its identity as a "Support DPS".

Design the mechanic to respect Red Mage's core theming of balancing Black and White Magic.

Example additions and adjustments

NEW — Black Pledge

• Level: 60
• —————
• Type: Ability
• —————
• Cooldown: 3.0s
• —————
• Effect: Grants you Black Pledge, and designates a party member as your Black Bond.
  • ※You may only form a Black Bond with one target at a time.
  • —————
  • ※Black Pledge cannot be canceled while in combat.
  • —————
  • ※If your Black Bond is KO'd, Black Pledge will automatically select another Bond target from available party members, preferring DPS when possible.
  • —————
  • ※Black Bond will automatically be reapplied to your original Bond when they are revived and no longer suffering from a resurrection penalty.
• —————
• Every time you generate Black Mana, all damage caused by you and your Black Bond is increased by 5%.
  • Duration: 30s
  • This effect does not stack.
• —————
• Every time you gain Dualcast, the damage and critical strike chance of your Black Bond's next action is increased by an additional 5%.
  • Duration: 30s
  • This effect can stack up to 3 times.
  • Each damaging action consumes 1 stack.
  • This effect cannot be gained when not in combat.
• —————
• While Black Pledge is active, your Balance Gauge will be imbalanced to Black.
  • If you also have a White Pledge active, this penalty is negated.

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NEW — White Pledge

• Level: 60
• —————
• Type: Ability
• —————
• Cooldown: 3.0s
• —————
• Effect: Grants you White Pledge, and designates a party member as your White Bond.
  • ※You may only form a White Bond with one target at a time.
  • —————
  • ※White Pledge cannot be canceled while in combat.
  • —————
  • ※If your White Bond is KO'd, White Pledge will automatically select another Bond target from available party members, preferring Healers when possible.
  • —————
  • ※White Bond will automatically be reapplied to your original Bond when they are revived. It will not wait for resurrection penalties to expire.
• —————
• Every time you generate White Mana, all healing caused by you and your White Bond is increased by 10%.
  • Duration: 30s
  • This effect does not stack.
• —————
• Every time you gain Dualcast, your White Bond regains 2.0% of their maximum MP.
• —————
• While White Pledge is active, your Balance Gauge will be imbalanced to White.
  • If you also have a Black Pledge active, this penalty is negated.

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5-1d. Frazzle and Embolden

Goal:

Stop vacillating about Red Mage's design, and just double-down on Red Mage's identity as a Support DPS.

Reasoning for the chosen actions:

In both Final Fantasy XI and current FFXIV PvP, "Frazzle" has been a Red Mage action used to increased a target's vulnerability to damage.

Example additions and adjustments

MODIFIED — Embolden

• No longer increases damage done by self and nearby party members.
• Now increases critical hit rate and direct hit rate of nearby party members by 5%.
  • Duration: 20s
  • Self, and the party member designated as your Black Bond, will have critical hit rate and direct hit rate increased by 15% instead.

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NEW — Frazzle

• Level: 98
• —————
• Type: Ability (OGCD)
• —————
• Range: 25 yalms
• Radius: 5 yalms (target-centered)
• —————
• Cooldown: 120s
• —————
• Effect: Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it.
  • Potency: 300
    • Potency of this action is increased by 20 for every 10 Black Mana in the Balance Gauge at time of activation, up to a maximum of 100 increased Potency.
    • —————
    • Potency of this action is increased by 20 for every 10 White Mana in the Balance Gauge at time of activation, up to a maximum of 100 increased Potency.
      • These modifiers stack.
    • —————
    • This action neither consumes nor generates Black or White Mana.
• —————
• Additional effect: Increases damage taken by affected targets by 1%.
  • Duration: 20s
  • Damage taken by targets is increased by an additional 1% for every 10 Black Mana in the Balance Gauge at time of activation, up to a maximum of 6% increased damage taken.
• —————
• Additional effect: Reduces all damage caused by affected targets by 1%.
  • Duration: 20s
  • Damage caused by targets is reduced by an additional 1% for every 10 White Mana in the Balance Gauge at time of activation, up to a maximum of 6% reduced damage caused.

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5-2a. Verfire 2, Verstone 2, Verthunder 4 and Veraero 4

Goal:

Redesign the counterintuitive Red Mage AOE system.

Reasoning for the chosen actions:

Verthunder 2 and Veraero 2 are already perfectly-good actions in terms of visuals and concepts, so I think that there is no need to "reinvent the wheel" here, rather than simply adjusting the design to make more sense.

I think that it would be both more fun and more "fitting" if Red Mage's entire AOE rotation involved the full spectrum of Black/White Elemental spells, just like its Single-Target rotation.

Example additions and adjustments

MODIFIED — Scatter
MODIFIED — Impact

• Removed.
• Traits which previously affected Scatter or Impact now affect Verthunder 2 and Veraero 2.

MODIFIED — Red Magic Mastery 2

• Level: 82
• Type: Trait
• —————
• Effect: In addition to preexisting effects, now also upgrades Verthunder 2 to Verthunder 4 and Veraero 2 to Veraero 4.

MODIFIED — Verthunder 2
NEW — Verthunder 4

• Level: 12 (down from 18)
• —————
• Type: Spell (GCD)
• —————
• Range: 25 yalms
• Radius: 5 yalms (target-centered)
• —————
• Cast: 5.0s (up from 2.0s)
• Recast: 2.5s
• —————
• Effect: Deals Lightning damage to target and all enemies nearby it.
  • Potency:
    • 150 (level 12)
    • 170 (level 66, "Scatter Mastery" which would be renamed)
    • 190 (level 82, Red Magic Mastery 2 / Verthunder 4)
• —————
• Additional effect: Increases Black Mana by 6. (down from 7)
• —————
• Additional effect: 50% chance of becoming Fire Attuned.

MODIFIED — Veraero 2
NEW — Veraero 4

• Level: 15 (down from 22)
• —————
• Type: Spell (GCD)
• —————
• Range: 25 yalms
• Radius: 5 yalms (target-centered)
• —————
• Cast: 5.0s (up from 2.0s)
• Recast: 2.5s
• —————
• Effect: Deals Wind damage to target and all enemies nearby it.
  • Potency:
    • 150 (level 15)
    • 170 (level 66, "Scatter Mastery" which would be renamed)
    • 190 (level 82, Red Magic Mastery 2 / Veraero 4)
• —————
• Additional effect: Increases White Mana by 6. (down from 7)
• —————
• Additional effect: 50% chance of becoming Earth Attuned.

NEW — Verfire 2

• Level: 18
• —————
• Type: Spell (GCD)
• —————
• Range: 25 yalms
• Radius: 5 yalms (target-centered)
• —————
• Cast: 1.5s
• Recast: 2.5s
• —————
• Effect: Deals Fire damage to target and all enemies nearby it.
  • Potency [Fire Attuned potency]
    • 100 [140] (level 18)
    • 120 [160] (level 74, Red Magic Mastery 1)
    • 140 [180] (level 84, Red Magic Mastery 3)
• —————
• Additional effect: Increases Black Mana by 5.

NEW — Verstone 2

• Level: 22
• —————
• Type: Spell (GCD)
• —————
• Range: 25 yalms
• Radius: 5 yalms (target-centered)
• —————
• Cast: 1.5s
• Recast: 2.5s
• —————
• Effect: Deals Earth damage to target and all enemies nearby it.
  • Potency [Earth Attuned potency]
    • 100 [140] (level 22)
    • 120 [160] (level 74, Red Magic Mastery 1)
    • 140 [180] (level 84, Red Magic Mastery 3)
• —————
• Additional effect: Increases White Mana by 5.

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5-2b. Moulinet combo

Addendum to:

Redesign the counterintuitive Red Mage AOE system

Reasoning for the chosen actions:

Compared to the flashy and "flavorful" Single-Target Enchanted Weaponskill Combo, "Moulinet spam" is noticeably-underwhelming in both visuals and playfeel.

Changing Moulinet into being part of a 3-action combo, like Dragoon's "Doom Spike" chain, might make Red Mage AOE feel more fun to execute.

Example:

NEW — Enchanted Prise-de-fer

• Type: Weaponskill
• —————
• Cast time: Instant
• Recast time: 1.50s
• —————
• Range: 0 yalms (player-centered)
• Radius: 6 yalms
• AOE shape: Circle
• —————
• Potency: 130 (AOE)
• —————
• Balance Gauge Cost: 50 Black Mana
• Balance Gauge Cost: 50 White Mana
• —————
• ※Upon successful execution, automatically becomes Enchanted Moulinet.

MODIFIED — Enchanted Moulinet

• Type: Weaponskill
• —————
• Cast time: Instant
• Recast time: 1.50s
• —————
• Range: 8 yalms
• Radius: 8 yalms
• AOE shape: Cone
• —————
• Potency: 160 (AOE)
• —————
• Balance Gauge Cost: None
• —————
• ※ Upon successful execution, automatically becomes Enchanted Patinando.

NEW — Enchanted Patinando

• Type: Weaponskill
• —————
• Cast time: Instant
• Recast time: 2.00s
• —————
• Range: 12 yalms
• Width: 6 yalms
• AOE shape: Line
• —————
• Potency: 240 (AOE)
• Additional effect: Slide forward up to 12 yalms towards target.
• —————
• Balance Gauge Cost: None

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5-2c. Fleche, Corps-a-corps, Engagement/Displacement

Addendum to:

Redesign the counterintuitive Red Mage AOE system

Reasoning for the chosen actions:

Red Mage has a lot of single-target OGCD "spam" that is largely "fluff" in AOE situations.

Expanding the functionality of these actions might make Red Mage AOE more fun to execute.

Example:

MODIFIED — Fleche

• Now deals damage to all targets in a line between self and target.
• —————
• Range: 25 yalms
• Width: 10 yalms
• AOE shape: Line

MODIFIED — Corps-a-corps

• Now deals damage to all targets in a line between self and target.
• —————
• Range: 25 yalms
• Width: 6 yalms
• AOE shape: Line

MODIFIED — Engagement
MODIFIED — Displacement

• Now deals damage to target and all enemies nearby it.
• —————
• Range: 3 yalms
• Radius: 6 yalms
• AOE shape: Circle (target-centered)

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5-2d. Alternative design direction — Corps-a-corps, Displacement, Engagement

General commentary about:

Whether movement tools should have Potency attached.

Explanation:

As a tangent from the possibility of involving Red Mage movement tools in the Job's AOE damage, there is the alternative possibility of simply stripping all damage entirely from the Red Mage movement actions.

This would instead repurpose Corps-a-corps as a Monk "Thunderclap" analogue, and Displacement as a Dragoon "Elusive Jump" analogue.

In this possibility, Red Mage would then be free to use its movement tools exactly where and when it wants to and needs them, or otherwise hold them indefinitely, without worrying about harming its DPS output.

This might, ironically, actually end up causing Red Mage to use such tools significantly more freely than it previously has, and for significantly more actual utility moments, rather than just semi-mindlessly burst-dumping them on a fixed schedule in a majority of situations.

Alternative example:

(Alternative) MODIFIED — Corps-a-corps
(Alternative) MODIFIED — Displacement

• These actions now share a 30s cooldown and 4 charges.
• —————
• Potencies removed. These actions no longer deal any damage.
• —————
• Displacement no longer requires a target.
• —————
• Actions otherwise unchanged.

(Alternative) MODIFIED — Engagement

• Removed.

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5-3a. Verfreeze and Verflood

Goal:

Add more interest and texture to the "Filler" portion of the rotation.

Reasoning for the chosen actions:

Fills in Red Mage's "missing" Elements.

Ice represents Black Magic and Mhach; Water represents White Magic (Fluid Aura, Divine Benison, Aquaveil) and Amdapor (and/or the Sixth Calamity, depending on how you interpret Fifth Era lore about magic usage).

Example additions

NEW — Magi Magicks Mastery

• Level: 96
• Type: Trait
• —————
• Effect: Consuming the effect of Fire Attuned has a 50% chance to grant you the effect of Black Magic Attuned.
  • Duration: 30s
  • Effect: Upgrades Verthunder 3 and Verthunder 4 to Verfreeze.
• —————
• Effect: Consuming the effect of Earth Attuned has a 50% chance to grant you the effect of White Magic Attuned.
  • Duration: 30s
  • Effect: Upgrades Veraero 3 and Veraero 4 to Verflood.

NEW — Verfreeze

• Level: 96
• —————
• Type: Spell (GCD)
• —————
• Range: 25 yalms
• Radius: 5 yalms (target-centered)
• —————
• Cast time: 5.0s
• Recast time: 2.5s
• —————
• Effect: Deals Ice damage to target and all enemies nearby it.
  • Primary target Potency: 450
  • Additional targets Potency: 270
• —————
• Additional effect: Restores 3.0% of maximum MP to self and all party members within 5 yalms of you.
• —————
• Additional effect: Increases Black Mana by 10.
• —————
• Additional effect: 50% chance of becoming Fire Attuned.

NEW — Verflood

• Level: 96
• —————
• Type: Spell (GCD)
• —————
• Range: 25 yalms
• Radius: 5 yalms (target-centered)
• —————
• Cast time: 5.0s
• Recast time: 2.5s
• —————
• Effect: Deals Water damage to target and all enemies nearby it.
  • Primary target Potency: 450
  • Additional targets Potency: 270
• —————
• Additional effect: Restores HP to self and all party members within 5 yalms of you.
  • Cure potency: 200
• —————
• Additional effect: Increases White Mana by 10.
• —————
• Additional effect: 50% chance of becoming Earth Attuned.

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5-3b. Enfeeble, Verbio, and Verdia

Goal:

Add more interest and texture to the "Filler" portion of the rotation.

Reasoning for the chosen actions:

Red Mage was traditionally a "Party Support" in Final Fantasy XI, tasked with buffing allies and debuffing ("enfeebling") enemies, in addition to damage and healing.

"Bio" and "Dia" were some of the key debuffs that Red Mage used for this role in FFXI, and they also fit the "Black / White" theme of XIV's Red Mage.

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It's true that "Bio" is in the Arcanist toolset in XIV, but "Bio" has traditionally been a Black Magic spell in the Final Fantasy series, and Bio was also the "Darkness damage-over-time effect" in both FFXI and FFXIV 1.0.

As well, the FF series seems to be lacking any other iconic "Darkness DOT" to match Dia for Light.

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If this traumatises the Lore department too much, you can always wiggle your fingers and say,

Oh, well actually, the Mhachi first learned Bio from Voidsent, and then the Nymians encountered it during the War, and copied and adapted Bio into an Arcanometric version, after which it eventually fell out of favor amongst the Mhachi compared to more immediately-destructive magicks.

Example additions

NEW — Enfeeble

• Level: 62
• —————
• Type: Spell (GCD)
• —————
• Cast time: 5.0s
• Recast time: 2.5s
• —————
• Cooldown: 30s
• —————
• Range: 25 yalms
• Radius: 5 yalms (target-centered)
• AOE shape: Circular
• —————
• Effect: Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it.
  • Potency: 150
• —————
• Additional effect: Unaspected damage over time.
  • Potency: 25
  • —————
  • Duration: 30s
  • —————
  • Additional effect: 20% chance after each tick to generate 1 Black Mana.
  • Additional effect: 20% chance after each tick to generate 1 White Mana.
  • —————
  • ※Black Mana tick cannot be generated if it would cause the gap between Black and White Mana to become larger than 25.
  • ※White Mana tick cannot be generated if it would cause the gap between Black and White Mana to become larger than 25.
  • —————
  • Damage over time effect cannot be stacked with that of Verbio nor Verdia.
• —————
• Additional effect: Afflicts targets with Pacify.
  • Duration: 5s
• Additional effect: Afflicts targets with Silence
  • Duration: 5s
• —————
• Additional effect: Increases Black Mana by 10.
• Additional effect: Increases White Mana by 10.
• —————
• Balance Gauge Cost: 5 Black Mana
• Balance Gauge Cost: 5 White Mana

——————————————

NEW — Enfeeblement Mastery

• Level: 94
• Type: Trait
• —————
• Effect:
  • Enfeeble's cooldown is reduced to 15 seconds.
  • Enfeeble gains a second charge.
  • —————
  • Enfeeble changes to Verbio when Black Mana is higher than White Mana.
  • Enfeeble changes to Verdia when White Mana is higher than Black Mana.
  • —————
  • Your first Enfeeble, Verbio, or Verdia cast after entering combat always casts instantly.
    • Exiting combat resets this effect.

——————————————

NEW — Verbio

• Level: 94
• —————
• Type: Spell (GCD)
• —————
• Range: 25 yalms
• Radius: 5 yalms (target-centered)
• AOE shape: Circular
• —————
• Cast: 5.0s
• Recast: 2.5s
• —————
• Effect: Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it.
  • Potency: 200
• —————
• Additional effect: Unaspected damage over time
  • Potency: 50
  • Duration: 30s
  • Additional effect: 50% chance after each tick to generate 1 Black Mana.
  • ※Black Mana tick cannot be generated if it would cause the gap between Black and White Mana to become larger than 25.
• —————
• Additional effect: Always triggers Dualcast if Verbio strikes a target afflicted with Verdia or Enfeeble.
• —————
• Additional effect: Afflicts targets with Pacify.
  • Duration: 10s
• —————
• Additional effect: Increases White Mana by 15.
• —————
• Balance Gauge Cost: 10 Black Mana
• Balance Gauge Cost: zero White Mana

——————————————

NEW — Verdia

• Level: 94
• —————
• Type: Spell (GCD)
• —————
• Range: 25 yalms
• Radius: 5 yalms (target-centered)
• AOE shape: Circular
• —————
• Cast: 5.0s
• Recast: 2.5s
• —————
• Effect: Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it.
  • Potency: 200
• —————
• Additional effect: Unaspected damage over time
  • Potency: 50
  • Duration: 30s
  • Additional Effect: 50% chance after each tick to generate 1 White Mana.
  • ※White Mana tick cannot be generated if it would cause the gap between Black and White Mana to become larger than 25.
• —————
• Additional effect: Always triggers Dualcast if Verdia strikes a target afflicted with Verbio or Enfeeble.
• —————
• Additional effect: Afflicts targets with Silence.
  • Duration: 10s
• —————
• Additional effect: Increases Black Mana by 15.
• —————
• Balance Gauge Cost: zero Black Mana
• Balance Gauge Cost: 10 White Mana

————————————————————————————

5-3c. Dancing Blade and Enchanted Rapier

Addendum to:

Enfeeble / Verbio / Verdia

Explanation:

It is possible that adding additional damage-over-time effects to a target would be deemed an unacceptable design direction in the current state of FFXIV.

————————————

If so, repackage Enfeeble as "Dancing Blade".

• "Dancing Blade" functions exactly the same as Enfeeble in terms of numbers.

• However, rather than applying a DOT to a target, Dancing Blade instead summons an Enchanted Rapier to float in the air and fight at the Red Mage's side, similar to Living Shadow or Queen Automaton.

• The Dancing's Blades attacks take the place of DOT ticks, but otherwise, Dancing Blade has the same effects as Enfeeble.

• Enfeeble's initial AOE damage is replaced by a spinning Moulinet when the Enchanted Rapier first spirals into existence at the target's location, and what would have been subsequent dot ticks on all affected targets are replaced by additional Moulinets from the Enchanted Rapier every 3 seconds .

• Auto-attack animations from the Enchanted Rapier in-between these AOE attacks deal barely any damage, and are basically for visual flavor.

————————————

• Likewise, Verbio is replaced by "Blackened Blade", which creates a shadowy, Black Magic-infused Rapier.

• Verdia is replaced by "Whitened Blade", which creates a shining, White Magic-infused Rapier.

• Like Verbio and Verdia, both the Black Enchanted Rapier and White Enchanted Rapier can be active simultaneously.

• Again, all numbers and effects are otherwise the same.

————————————————————————————

5-4a. Chainspell and Verultima

Goal:

Do not overload the Enchanted Combo with yet another Red Mage expansion-capstone action.

Reasoning for the chosen actions:

Red Mage is still lacking a potent, flashy, "power cooldown" that creates a period of distinct gameplay separate from the standard rotation, such as Enshroud, Requiescat, Inner Release, (pre-EW) Summon Bahamut, etc.

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This is not inherently a "problem" — many other Jobs do not have a distinct "mini-phase", and instead just align and empower their cooldowns inside a personal damage buff, or etc.

Also, to some degree, the Enchanted Melee Combo and subsequent "Finisher Spell Combo" currently serve a similar function — creating a distinct, flashy, high-damage "mini-phase".

Thus, it could be argued that "Manafication" is a "flashy power cooldown" by-proxy.

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However, all Manafication really does is refill your Gauge and let you launch another of the same sequences that you already launch as part of your normal rotation.

Thus, I think Manafication is more analogous to Machinist's Barrel Stabilizer.

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I think that adding a true "mini-phase" like Enshroud — ie, an experience that's distinct in concept and feel from the rest of Red Mage's rotation — would give Red Mage some new "texture" and "spice" to liven up the basic formula that Red Mage gameplay has been following since Stormblood.

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Due to how potent and iconic the "Chainspell" action was for Red Mages in Final Fantasy XI, I believe that Chainspell makes for an obvious candidate when looking to flesh out Red Mage's toolkit further with a new burst cooldown.

Example additions

NEW — Dualcast Mastery

• Level: 92
• Type: Trait
• Effect: Allows Dualcast to accumulate a second stack, rather than being overwritten.

——————————————

NEW — Chainspell

• Level: 92
• —————
• Type: Ability (OGCD)
• —————
• Cooldown: 120s
• —————
• Balance Gauge Cost: 50 Black Mana
• Balance Gauge Cost: 50 White Mana
• —————
• Effect: Instantly grants Dualcast.
• —————
• Additional effect: Grants the Red Mage 5 stacks of the enhancement "Chainspell".
  • Duration: 15s
  • —————
  • Chainspell Effect: While at least 1 stack of Chainspell remains, the recast time of all Red Mage Spells is reduced to 1.50 seconds.
  • —————
  • Additional effects:
    • While at least 1 stack of Chainspell remains, all offensive Spells grant Dualcast, regardless of cast time.
    • —————
    • While at least 1 stack of Chainspell remains, Potency of all elementally-aspected damage caused by the Red Mage is increased by 100%.
      • If someone invents a cursed rotation that pushes Verflare into Chainspell, Verflare's damage type will be changed to "Unaspected".
    • —————
    • While at least 1 stack of Chainspell remains, Black and White Mana generated by elementally-aspected Spells is increased by 100%.
    • —————
    • While at least 1 stack of Chainspell remains, Verthunder 3, Verthunder 4, and Verfreeze will grant you the effect of "Black Magic Attuned" when they would otherwise have granted you the effect of "Fire Attuned".
    • —————
    • While at least 1 stack of Chainspell remains, Veraero 3, Veraero 4, and Verflood will grant you the effect of "White Magic Attuned" when they would otherwise have granted you the effect of "Earth Attuned".
    • —————
    • Activation of any Red Mage Spell consumes 1 stack of Chainspell.

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NEW — Ancient Magick Mastery

• Level: 100
• Type: Trait
• Effect: Upon consuming all stacks of Chainspell, immediately grants the effect "Verultima Ready".
  • Duration: 30s

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NEW — Verultima

• Level: 100
• —————
• Type: Spell (GCD)
• —————
• Cast time: 30.0 seconds (not a typo)
• Recast time: 2.5 seconds
• —————
• Range: 0 yalms (player-centered)
• Radius: 10 yalms (player-centered)
• AOE shape: Circular
• —————
• Effect: Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 999 to all nearby enemies.
• —————
• Additional effect: Increases both Black and White Mana by 30.
• —————
• Additional effect: Upon successful execution of Verultima, grants the effect of "Devastation".
  • Duration: 30s
  • Effect: Increases the Mana generation of your next Scorch by 500% (five-hundred percent).
  • —————
  • Additional effect: Upon successful consumption of the "Devastation" effect, grants the effect of "Intention".
    • Duration: 30s
    • Effect: Increases the Mana generation of your next Resolution by 500% (five-hundred percent).
• —————
• Can only be executed while under the effect of Verultima Ready.

————————————————————————————

5-4b. Acceleration, Scatter, and Impact

Addendum to:

Chainspell and Verultima

Explanation:

Some players have expressed frustration with Job rotations changing dramatically, or feeling "full of holes", at lower Sync levels.

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If this is a concern for Chainspell and its Verultima finisher, then I propose redesigning Acceleration to make it a "baby Chainspell" (ie, weaker, with fewer bonuses), and upgrading Acceleration to Chainspell at Level 92.

————————————

Likewise, in case some users might mourn the unique animations of Scatter and Impact, I propose repurposing them as the "finisher" for Acceleration/Chainspell before Level 100, with Scatter upgrading to Impact at some point along the way.

————————————————————————————

[Eorzean_username]

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Section 6 — Considering other uses and future developments for the Balance Gauge

Commentary and considerations about:

Increasing Balance Gauge generation, and the purpose of the Balance Gauge in future Red Mage design and development.

————————————————

Potential issues under consideration:

Many of the example changes in Section 5 would significantly-increase the generation rate of Balance Gauge resources.

I do not personally view this as a problem, because I think that if a Gauge is going to exist, the player might as well be encouraged to regularly interact with it and think about it, rather than use it as basically just a cooldown disguised as a mechanic.

In fact, given the transition into a new expansion, it would hypothetically be possible to intentionally-increase average Balance Gauge generation even higher than what these proposed changes would cause (by tweaking the amounts provided by any given individual action).

——————————

However, if Red Mage Mana generation were ever to significantly-increase without additional "Gauge sinks" being added, then the number of Enchanted Combos being delivered would soon begin to overwhelm the entirety of the rest of the Red Mage rotation, due to the lengthiness that the Enchanted Combo has grown to.

——————————

Given the above concerns, I will highlight the possibility of making significant changes to the way that the Red Mage toolkit interacts with the Balance Gauge.

Due to the cascading consequences that tinkering with this would cause, I am going to present ideas in broad strokes, rather than attempt to produce concrete numbers, potencies, etc.

————————————————

Potential developments to consider:

(Future possibilities) Enchanted Combo

(Future possibilities) Enchanted Riposte
(Future possibilities) Enchanted Prise-de-fer

• These combo initiator actions now have a 40s cooldown and 3 charges.
• These combo initiator actions now share a cooldown.
• —————
• Commentary: If Red Mage Gauge generation is ever to be increased, then this change would be necessary to "clamp off" the temptation to degenerate the Red Mage rotation into simply funneling all Gauge into the powerful Enchanted Combos non-stop.

——————————

(Future possibilities) Fleche and Contre Sixte

(Future possibilities) Fleche
(Future possibilities) Contre Sixte

• These actions no longer have a cooldown.
• These actions are now tuned such that Fleche is the single-target choice, and Contre Sixte is the AOE choice.
• —————
• These actions now require and consume 15 Black Mana and 15 White Mana.
• Potencies adjusted as necessary.
• —————
• Commentary: This change would allow Red Mage to both fine-tune and bleed-off Mana in ways that it has never had before, at the cost of complicating the rotation and removing the "Press button when it lights up" gameplay that Red Mage OGCDs have traditionally enjoyed.

——————————

(Future possibilities) Fleche/Contre Sixte — Proc

• Fleche now has a 50% chance to increase the potency of the next Contre Sixte by enough to make Contre Sixte a superior choice, even on a single-target.
• Contre Sixte now has a 50% chance to increase the potency of the next Fleche by enough to make Fleche a superior choice, even on a 3+ targets.
• —————
• Commentary: This would preempt concerns about boredom from spamming just one OGCD dump in single-target situations (aka, "Shinten Syndrome").

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(Future possibilities) Fleche/Contre Sixte — Alternative design

• Tune Fleche and Contre Sixte to both be AOE spells (as proposed earlier in section 5-2c; Fleche linear, Contre Sixte circular).
• Tune Fleche and Contre Sixte to be identical potency, baseline.
• Add the Fleche/Contre Sixte proc system proposed above.
• —————
• Commentary: This would make Fleche and Contre Sixte two baseline-equal choices that Red Mage naturally "alternates" between, which would fit the rest of Red Mage's overall gameplay theme of "balancing between two options".

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(Future possibilities) Corps-a-corps and Displacement

(Future possibilities) Corps-a-corps
(Future possibilities) Displacement

• These actions no longer have a cooldown.
• —————
• These actions now require and consume 5 Black Mana and 5 White Mana.
• —————
• These actions are now tuned such that they are DPS-neutral in terms of Potency-per-Mana compared to Fleche/Contre Sixte, but are lower Potency-per-Action — ie, the same as Samurai Gyoten/Yaten vs. Shinten.

(Future possibilities) Engagement

• Rendered superfluous by this system.
• Removed.

Commentary — Potentially putting movement tools on Balance Gauge:

In general, I feel that tacking Gauge costs onto movement tools is not a particularly-productive design decision, overall.

If a costly movement tool is absolutely-needed to survive, or avoid dropping an entire GCD, or etc, then the Gauge cost will basically be ignored, due to mechanical priority and simple cost-vs-benefit calculations.

Whereas, if a costly movement tool is not absolutely-needed, then the cost will be avoided as much as possible — rendering the actions basically "duds" from a QOL perspective.

—————

However, in this case, the goal would be to use a hypothetical new, broader Balance Mana system to peel-back from Red Mage's longstanding obligation to spam its movement tools semi-mindlessly — which I feel runs counter to the original design vision for the Job.

Allowing Corps-a-corps and Displacement to perform a Gyoten/Yaten-like function of either managed movement, or fine-tuning/dumping Gauge, might be interesting, while also mostly-freeing the actions to be held and used when actually needed.

—————

All that said, I personally think that the design gains are dubious of doing this vs. simply removing the Potencies from Red Mage movement tools (which would accomplish similar "use only if needed" outcomes) or just leaving them alone / as-is.

But in the interest of offering a fair overview of design possibilities, I'm putting this "Gauge-tied movement" idea out here.

_____

[Raikai]

I didn't read it fully yet (will do later when I have more time), but props to the effort of putting this up!

One point in particular... The raise. I honestly think that they should just implode this aspect of SMN and RDM to get rid of this endless balancing problem they make around damage versus that utility in specific.

Removing, though, would not be the best course of action because it subtracts fun elements of the job (that obviously have some unfun implications). Instead I think that there should be a rez available to everyone. Let it be a common "Phoenix Down" role action or just a consumable that you can buy anywhere, with a cooldown and a cast time.

What this achieves? It makes RDM and SMN's raise more like a job perk rather than an identity staple, that is more pronounced for RDM, because of the dualcast.

Also, more directly into the points of the OP - I agree with most things - and three of them are most glaring to me:

a) Jolt feels off, now more than ever. First off, the number of times you even actually cast Jolt are really very few, between all procs and accelerations. It starts to feel like bloat at this rate.

b) The AoE portion being reverse never made any sense to me. Not just that, but the 20/20 mana cost of E. Moulinet doesn't match Manafication. You know, Alisaie actually has an interesting AoE combo animation with roses, that resembles Resolution somehow that I thought it would be incorporated into the Endwalker AoE combo, either as a stage or as a finisher.

c) I strongly agree, not just in RDM's case, but anywhere that movement actions should not have damage components. It justs makes the utility portion unreliable when you have to add to your damage quota. Displacement not requiring a target is something I always wanted, due to the potential tactical usage that it might have, and even skill cap, because it would require enough awareness and reflexes to turn against the place you'd want to backflip to.

[Kabooa]

I'd be pretty careful about the phrase "Improve usability".

[Renathras]

So, still reading, but a few thoughts that I agree/disagree with:

Agree with the proposal the AOE rotation needs to be reversed. I've been saying this since Veraero/thunder 2 were added that it's backwards.

Agree Reprise needs to be changed, though I'm not sure I agree with your proposal. I'd settle for taking it back to the ShB recast and to giving it a 1/1 or 2/2 or 3/3 mana cost. It's old cost was 5/5 vs a melee combo of 80/80. Using the equation 5/80 = X/50, you get 5 * 50 / 80 = 3.125, meaning at most it should cost around 3/3. I also disagree with turning it into a Spell and would rather RDM get a trait that converts Spell Speed into an equal amount of Skill Speed. This is Red Mage, we're talking about. It's supposed to be a hyrbid Fighter/White Mage/Black Mage. For this reason I also oppose raising all the melee skills to 30. There is some flavor in having the ability to use melee attacks at lower levels, even if the Job doesn't start at them.

I also oppose the proposed changes to Raise. The Devs just need to do what you said in 4-5 and stop being noncommital about it. Raise is the single thing the Job is most known for, and why so many people have picked up the Job (that and a simple rotation and Vercure). If you start ripping out those elements, you are appealing to the people who like playing a hard casting Job (like BLM) but not the people that have picked up RDM because they DON'T want that and already see BLM there and have chosen not to pick it up.

If anything, I'd make Vercure and Verraise available at earlier levels, since they're so iconic, and while maybe not Raise, Vercure should generate White Mana. It's far more iconic of a White Mage spell than Stone or Aero are. Indeed, even in FFXIV, it's the second spell in the game you get (the first you actually learn, since you start with Stone), and the only reason you start with Stone is so you don't have to auto-attack your way through your first level.

.

People already pick RDM to play a hybrid Support/Healer/DPSer, and that's what it's always been in other FF games as well, even being a semi-competent healer in FFXI. At the time it was introduced (SB), had they given it Vermedica and some kind of oGCD spot cure, they could have introduced it as a Healer Job (since at the time, Healer Jobs largely worked as Healer/DPS hybrids anyway). I'm not saying to go Healer with it, but it's clear a lot of players in FFXIV want a supporty Job to play, and RDM is probably one of the best cases for it.

I also would like to see the other elements, but my proposal would be to use them for AOE. Blizzard and Water could be their AOE spell line, though I'd honestly pick Water and Aero or Water and Thunder for that. (Water spells in FF games are OFTEN already AOE, like in FF9, and Aero spells are...uncommon; Fire, Ice, Thunder spells are common and generally single target - but I'm fine bending the rules here to keep the Umbral/Astral split, so Water and Thunder makes sense).

I also happen to like Jolt and Impact. Though...I also do dislike Fire/Stone being random, so if removing Jolt made them not random, I suppose I'd be neutral on such a change. The thing is, Acceleration and the shortened combo (guaranteed Stone/Fire proc if you're keeping your mana imbalanced right) means there are relatively fewer Jolts than ever before, so it does kind of beg the question as to why it's still there.

Embolden should effect all damage on the RDM. It does for everyone else and it's not like there's a lot of non-magical damage RDM even uses; just auto-attacks and the extremely uncommon un-enchanted melee strikes (Enchanted are magic as are Fleche and Contre Sixte).

I do agree that continuing to add singers onto the burst combo is very quickly going to drift into the realm of absurd.

I'm not sure about putting all the mana cost on the first strike of the combo, since that could be really punishing if something bad happens after the first strike that causes you to not be able to execute the combo. Right now, you suffer a hit and just have to recover, but this would be even more punishing, I think.

[Rongway]

Embolden should effect all damage on the RDM. It does for everyone else and it's not like there's a lot of non-magical damage RDM even uses; just auto-attacks and the extremely uncommon un-enchanted melee strikes (Enchanted are magic as are Fleche and Contre Sixte).

Fleche, Contre-Sixte, Corps-a-corps, Displacement, and Engagement are all physical.


If Embolden affected all damage, it would increase the potency of the RDM opener by a whole 72p, and non-opener bursts by no more than that.
(360 + 460 + 130 + 130 + 180 +180) * 0.05 = 72

Even just increasing the potency of all five of those attacks by 10p would increase RDM output by more than we'd get from expanding Embolden to affect them.

I'm not sure about putting all the mana cost on the first strike of the combo, since that could be really punishing if something bad happens after the first strike that causes you to not be able to execute the combo. Right now, you suffer a hit and just have to recover, but this would be even more punishing, I think.

Agree. The melee combo should not have its entire cost deducted as soon as the combo starts. The current implementation allows for flexibility and recovery.