>>502665547You're completely right about it losing its identity, previously RDM was a very sorry excuse for a melee with caster sustainability that needed to get in at great risk to itself in exchange for very oppressive 1v1 damage. This meant it was played as like a pseudo assassin, but also a team supporter with Barrier and Resolution. It could rat in the backline and pick off anyone low on HP/MP, or harass the BLM or WHM really well, and was probably the best 1v1 dueling class not named MNK.
But nuRDM is like...it does literally everything really well, but the things that defined it before (The melee combo into Verflare) are much more muted in favor of Forte > Thorns > Prefulgence. The melee is still great, piercing guard is SEX and totally flips the counterplay to RDM, which was just sitting in guard. I honestly think if all they did to RDM was
>add Forte (just forte)>add guard pierce>make Manaficiation's buff and Dualcast last 15s over 10It would be perfect, because those are all RDM really needed.
If I were to nerf it...hmm. I think the kit overall is fine, it just needs the numbers flipped around some and for Thorns to go from a stun to a bind. I don't know if I can give you exact numbers because I'm still in the headspace of old PvP, but if I were to rework nuRDM I'd simply lower the sustain so its still vulnerable, reduce its effectiveness at long range and make it so the melee combo is the actual sauce the class has, not resolving Prefulgence into LB halfway across the map.
Maybe all it would take is swapping Scorch and Prefulgence around, the big issue I have is that RDM doesn't need to get in anymore to deal huge DPS. If RDM could merely apply a DoT at range, and then do it's melee combo to get the huge AoE damage + heal attack, that would probably be ideal. As it is now, the melee is better for shredding someone through Guard than what it was originally designed for as a prerequisite to your biggest damage output, which is why it doesnt feel as fun.
