Red mage 7.0 Wishlist

[Rongway]

Are you comfortable with the current status quo of the red mage glamour scene? lol

I don't know if we can really get what I want out of glamour without some sweeping changes to the system (universal all-role glamours excluding AF -or- all main stats collapsed to a single stat so gear can be redistributed by aesthetic rather than forcing all casters to wear robes, but that's a discussion for a different forum) but keeping it within the constraints of the current system, RDM could do with more roguey/scoundrely gear options (the debonair kind, not the skulking in back alleys kind). It's kinda weird for people to be performing flying lunges and backflips in mage robes.

[Milkbeard]

I don't know if we can really get what I want out of glamour without some sweeping changes to the system (universal all-role glamours excluding AF -or- all main stats collapsed to a single stat so gear can be redistributed by aesthetic rather than forcing all casters to wear robes, but that's a discussion for a different forum) but keeping it within the constraints of the current system, RDM could do with more roguey/scoundrely gear options (the debonair kind, not the skulking in back alleys kind). It's kinda weird for people to be performing flying lunges and backflips in mage robes.

I agree completely. Part of me wants access to bard items (for the hats dang it) but like you said, that would require an overhaul of the glamour system in general. Back flips in robes feels wrong though and I feel like they need to do something about it.

[SaberMaxwell]

My core wish is to maintain RDM's current gameplay flow. Honestly I wouldn't mind too bad if we maintained EW RDM, or got ShB potency Reprise for RDM.

Casters *should* have these mobility difficulties, they're the spine of the gameplay loop imo. And yes, Red Mage does have significant mobility challenges, anyone who's played the job in savage or ultimate could attest to that. Summoner being the outlier that it is is the issue imo.

[Milkbeard]

My core wish is to maintain RDM's current gameplay flow. Honestly I wouldn't mind too bad if we maintained EW RDM, or got ShB potency Reprise for RDM.

Casters *should* have these mobility difficulties, they're the spine of the gameplay loop imo. And yes, Red Mage does have significant mobility challenges, anyone who's played the job in savage or ultimate could attest to that. Summoner being the outlier that it is is the issue imo.

I have seen this sentiment before, that mobility difficulties are part of the classes identity. That it could be a skill issue on behalf of the user. Now something we do know for sure though is that groups that bring a red mage into content such as the ultimates are currently seeing more phases and encountering longer clear times because they are bringing red mages. The damage variance is quite large and the job must be played at it's upper 90s percentile to compete with some classes' average dps output. Do you think the class should have mobility issues as well as lower average dps? Or do you think a higher damage output would be appropriate if it is to maintain it's current low mobility.

Most importantly
This is about forming a wishlist for devs to see. What changes or additions do you think could be made in 7.0 to either remedy or maintain your level of fun playing this job. There will no doubt be changes to the job but what kinds would you think would be most fun. If I were to think from your perspective based on your message, it might be most fun to have the job receive traits that upgrade animations and potency but maintain everything that was established this expansion with it's current rotation, leaving everything intact as is.

[Connor]

Now red mage does have a defensive buff in magick barrier and an offensive buff in embolden that makes the enemy take more damage already. Building upon your idea more, would you like to see those two moves condensed into one button, or perhaps both are provided for a longer duration and it shifts between the two based on preference or mana balance?

The shifting thing was just off of my head based on how it works in PvP, but as others have said it would then fall into the ‘use damage buff every time’ so it probably wouldn’t actually work. Similarly with the effect I basically just copied the PvP version, but I wouldn’t mind what kind of ‘debuff’ it provided as long as it was fun/interesting to use. I think a ‘Verreprise’ (aoe damage dealt reduction) would be pretty cool, and would synergise well with Magick Barrier.

Maybe instead of abilities they could work as actual spells?

Like ‘Frazzle’ (Verfrazzle? Lol) as a debuff spell that increases damage taken / reduces attack speed / whatever the effect was, and a ‘white magic parallel’ like ‘Verprotect’ that reduces damage taken for the target. They could act as long casts that increase their respective mana, so you could slot them in the place of Verfire / Verstone for a drop in attack potency but increased utility. Then they could make them interact with Acceleration too in some way, plus being made instant cast from it; again there’d a decision between acceleration and Veraero/Verthunder and the utility spells. It also means they don’t fall into the hole of competing for resources in a way that limits how/when they can be used.

That’s just my idea. It’s probably literally impossible game design / too supportive / ultimate balance-breaking, but it’s what I’d like to see lol.

[Milkbeard]

The shifting thing was just off of my head based on how it works in PvP, but as others have said it would then fall into the ‘use damage buff every time’ so it probably wouldn’t actually work. Similarly with the effect I basically just copied the PvP version, but I wouldn’t mind what kind of ‘debuff’ it provided as long as it was fun/interesting to use. I think a ‘Verreprise’ (aoe damage dealt reduction) would be pretty cool, and would synergise well with Magick Barrier.

Maybe instead of abilities they could work as actual spells?

Like ‘Frazzle’ (Verfrazzle? Lol) as a debuff spell that increases damage taken / reduces attack speed / whatever the effect was, and a ‘white magic parallel’ like ‘Verprotect’ that reduces damage taken for the target. They could act as long casts that increase their respective mana, so you could slot them in the place of Verfire / Verstone for a drop in attack potency but increased utility. Then they could make them interact with Acceleration too in some way, plus being made instant cast from it; again there’d a decision between acceleration and Veraero/Verthunder and the utility spells. It also means they don’t fall into the hole of competing for resources in a way that limits how/when they can be used.

That’s just my idea. It’s probably literally impossible game design / too supportive / ultimate balance-breaking, but it’s what I’d like to see lol.

I like these ideas. I wouldn't worry too much about the balancing or game design perspective. Balancing the game is the developers job, not any single one of us on the forums (although many may feel the opposite) are responsible for making this stuff actually work within the game's overall design. I like creativity. I do personally believe that any give-and-take rotation changes should be met with a ton of developer testing and supervision. If they do implement any changes that make red mages have to actively choose between supporting, or dpsing, it need to be done with great care.

[Shurrikhan]

Honestly, I feel like the levelcap experience is... fine, and would tend to be more worried by the prospect of changes than hopeful about them -- especially if short of a larger, in-depth, well-contextualized rework to make Black and White Mana not just different names for the same thing, etc.

For the leveling experience, though, and just the sake of iconics... I'd like to address RDM's "Chekov's Gun" issue a bit; our sword should be like something we can leverage, rather than merely a constraint we have to deal with. (No, I do not care whether it has been a wastefully bladed wand in previous iterations, too; that would have been wastefully dumb then, too.)

• Nothing should cancel Dualcast. It can be consumed, and that's it.
• Non-enchanted melee damage should be decent enough to act as a means of delaying macrorotation without any huge potency loss, giving that option pre-Reprise. (It should be buffed each time our spells and combos are.)
• Enchanted melee actions should outright grant Dualcast.
• The B/W-MP costs for Riposte, Zwerchhau, and Redoublement should scale with their potencies, such as at 10|20|30 B/W Mana across the three skills.
• MP generation should be increased by ~14-20%. Between this and the change above, this keeps Moulinet's rate of Flare/Holy combos on par with single-target.

Atop a tiny bit of QoL:

• Have Jolt replace Verfire and Verstone when those procs are not available.
• Jolt, Verfire, and Verstone cast times reduced to 2 seconds (recast remains unchanged). This gives a tiny bit more movement potential per cast-pair and avoids the animation clipping jank.
• Veraero and Verthunder cast times reduced to 3.5 seconds. (This just means one needn't begin precasting quite so soon, as is handy for dungeons.)
• If Impact is not on one's hotbar, it will replace Veraero II and Verthunder II during Dualcast/Swiftcast.
• Disengagement (and all other backsteps) now use pathing detection to "snap" their distance travelled up to 10% further or 25% shorter in order to reach (or remain within) pathable area. I.e., it now takes 33% more distance [1/.75] to actually be forced to backflip off an arena.

And a tiny bit of unbloating and further polish, given all the above:

• Reprisal is now a variant of Riposte, automatically used in place of Riposte if out of range but dealing 30 potency less. It likewise generates Dualcast and preps a combo for Zwerchhau. This saves a button.
• Disengagement and Corps-a-corps now share 3 15s charges. Corps-a-Corps's movement lock from its gap-closing has been significantly shortened and Corps-a-corps now increases the potency of your next weaponskill within 10 seconds by 40 and causes your next Disengagement within 10 seconds to increase the damage of your next spell by 10%.
• Engagement has been removed, now that it is no longer necessary, due to Disengagement being more safe and technically avoidable regardless (via charges shared with CaC). This, too, saves a button.

Edit: If I wanted to be a bit more ambitious, though, I'd probably also...

• Remove Jolt/Scatter as Mana generators and instead turn them into more interesting spenders, with our finisher combos being based instead on B/W Mana spent, rather than necessarily a trio of certain consecutive actions.
• Make our weaponskills, too, able to generate mana, and allow them to build up granular buffs based on potency dealt, such as pairs of any among Critical Chance, Critical Bonus, Determination, with the type of buff determined by the element of the most recent spell cast before them.
• Have our ST spells would gain some splash damage (e.g., 30 or 50%, and our AoE spells would gain some priority damage (30% additional potency split over all targets hit), and have those "AoE" spells would switch from yet another Thunder/Wind set to Freeze (Ice) and Flood (Water), giving us access to all 6 elements. (Fire/Stone procs would affect the spells cast after them, as to synergize with both "ST" and "AoE" lines, and all elements would technically be used for categories of situations, though in differing combos and ratios.)

[SaberMaxwell]

I have seen this sentiment before, that mobility difficulties are part of the classes identity.

Sorry, I didn't mean to cause a misunderstanding. I don't think mobility issues are a part of Red Mage identity, I believe they should be core to the identities of the entire caster subrole. How the individual jobs approach these challenges is how they will be defined. For instance, Red Mage approaches it through management of its dualcast windows, and these can be managed through use of swift/accel/melee, all of which change your casting rhythm by one "beat" as it were.

Regarding caster balance, I am frequently criticized for my desire for RDM to shed the useless support abilities so it can punch in a similar weight to its peers. RDM doesn't need to do as much damage as BLM ofc but the gulf between the two shouldn't be so wide imo. I could probably write a whole master's thesis on my opinions about caster balance although this is a wishlist thread.

And returning to that topic, I'm not so sure I have any major additions I'd want for Red Mage, besides bringing E. Reprise back to what it was in Shadowbringers--a tool not just for movement (it ain't even that rn to be fair but follow me)--but also to optimize mana usage.

Or, off the wall, maybe an ability that in one gcd just cannons your mana at the enemy, variable potency based on how much you have, to add a sort of execution ability. I wouldn't mind that so much.

[Milkbeard]

Or, off the wall, maybe an ability that in one gcd just cannons your mana at the enemy, variable potency based on how much you have, to add a sort of execution ability. I wouldn't mind that so much.

A full resource dump. Other classes have similar things and I kind of like the idea of this being adopted by red mage. Black mage can end a line early with an early despair which is optimal for bosses that are dying or transitioning soon. Summoner can fast forward through their summons. It kind of only makes sense that red mage have access to a full on resource dump as well, although they'd have to make it quite worth it because red mages have no way of currently generating resource outside of up time except for manaifcation. I like this idea though.

[jdgev]

Regarding adding the PVP toggle ability into PVE, I see no problem why it wouldn't work. All they need to do is something like this:

Black Mana Toggle - Spells deal 25% more damage, while support is 25% less effective. Spells cast generate more Black Mana and hasten the cast time of the next spell by X%.
White Mana Toggle - Spells deal 25% less damage, while support is 25% more effective. Spells cast generate more White Mana, and heal the user for X% of the damage.

Yes you will default to Black when you want to do more damage, and you will go White when you want to support. What's the problem? Don't tell me all you do in the game as a red mage is to dps lol. That's why I added the generate more white/black mana anyways because, in raids (doesn't matter anywhere else), after a big burst phase where you are generating way higher black mana, you will go white to generate white to compensate, while also boosting your support abilities.

Then, all they need to do is add more support to RDM. Give them a targeted "Protect" shield and give them a weak AOE heal and buff Vercure a little bit by making it generate White mana.

Finally, make Enchanted Reprise worth using and voila, no more mobility issues.

Idk seems good enough for me, but I'm not one of those b*tching about needing 1% more damage and removing support for it lol...

PS: Problem isn't that support is useless if you can even consider that (meaning raids only, support is useful for 99% of the content in the game duh). Problem is raid encounters are too scripted and it's way too easy to plan support. Make new fights more random, with no certain timeline for boss abilities, and hectic so that support users can shine. I understand this is harder because of the 2 min window now, but it's not impossible at all. Just make mechanics last so that there always will be an option for a 2 min window in some way or another, or pick and choose which mechanics can appear at certain points of the fight to ensure there is a window. But fights just following an easy to read script makes support less valuable. Sadly, I don't see them going this route... but I'm just describing what I think would be ideal. I still think RDM needs more support than it has to become the true hybrid dps job it's suppose to be. Which is exactly what is in PVP.

PSS: There are probably better ideas than this for the toggle. This was just a quick idea, but I'm sure the toggle mechanic would work in PVE too. They just need to get creative.