Like the previous in the series, i love this game, i play it all the time. Im just throwing up some game design suggestions its a topic i find incredibly interesting and i like talking shop and nuts and bolts.
How would i change RDM, well im going to be honest one single ability on RDM spurred my decision and inspired me to start this series in general .... Composure ... yep as someone who loves the idea of a melee mixing magic and steel i Absolutely love Composure. ive seen a lot of threads, about how to bring rdm back to the front lines. and i think fundamentally we need to address rdm coming back into a lot of roles ... it tends to get relegated to debuffer only especially in end game content. I want to Change all That.
so first lets break down what roles rdm can fill ::
Tank ? technically can but i suggest you secretly use a fake character and ask a VD group if you can tank ambuscade on RDM .... see how it goes.
Damage dealer - its gotten better but really low strength and attack is a problem.
Magic damage dealer - Its pretty hard to get good nuking gear, and even if you do generally you are on par with a GEO in good gear and that GEO brings a lot more to the table.
Healer - Yikes sub scholar is your best bet and those pages DO NOT come fast enough. too many debuffs for a rdm to realistically heal much of anything.
Debuffer - Generally what the public will "allow" you to do on rdm.
On tank im not really sure this was an intended roll SE seems to have done everything they can to stamp this out, due to rdm being able to solo old endgame mobs and it making them mad.
I think on tank your main limit is equipment ... if SE wants rdm to be a viable tank its as simple as making DT - and DT- II available to them and some stoneskin and blink enhancing gear maybe. i think composure as a stance already covers what you need for this outside the gear ... rdm has lots of fastcast and can cast inbetween attacks alot ... they just take way too much damage trying to get their spells off.
now unlike many of my others i want to actually fuse damage dealer and magic damage dealer .... i think rdm should be a one then the other tempo'd damage dealer.
when in composure i think rdm should get a stack of instant cast from opening or closing a skill chain, and receive tp for magic bursting a SC while engaged. this further enhances inundation. the main problem you have here is damage over time rdm autos are low compared to other dd's blue stands out as a similar mix it up job but their damage per hit and per ws is way higher ... and they enjoy greater flexibility as well.
Blue is already strong ... so i think the problem lays in job traits ... rdm needs stronger ones so that skill chaining and MBing keeps them on par but slightly behind other dd's instead of like half the damage .... they cant have as much damage as a main line dd because they still have all those support features .... but no one really complains about blue having it all and eating other peoples cake too ... SO IDK. maybe a REMA level Giants Bracers could mix up the str to enough to help.
Moving on to healer ... Yikes .. the content is what killed this ... rdm has no native way to deal with space herpes flying everywhere and they have no inherent AOE heal ... worse off they get kicked in the shins on regen ....i think honestly rdm should have the strongest regen spell even if they don't have all the tools scholar has to enhance it. With composure it would go a long way to help them ... also for crying out loud let Accession work on any buff and manifestation work on any debuff ... it is beyond frustrating on rdm to have to spam refresh II and III and haste 2 everywhere when geo or bard can just slam their face on the keyboard with their finger in their nose for the same effect. shouldnt have to sub whm or sch to buff a party or heal and if you want to buff more than 2 times it shouldn't take minutes to achieve .... to be perfectly honest im reminded of DAOC (Dark age of Camelot) where you could use CONC on buff centric classes to just slot buff auras on yourself so you didn't have to cast them .... the best solution i have is a stance called ::
Mirror Image :: when in this stance the rdm creates duplicates of themself whenever you cast a healing or enhancing spell that can target another player the mirror forms will cast on a different ally (cure spells go to lowest HP, debuff removal goes to closest allied targets, haste goes to non RA classes, flurry to RA classes) to target ... this would however if it was a stance lockout Composure and making you have to spam buffs everywhere all day albeit a little faster to spam them.
Ultimately the biggest problem RDM faces is action economy ... they have to do so many more steps than many of the other classes that share roles with them that despite them being the "fast casters" they wind up being incredibly slower now that everyone has FC cap ... as rdm needs to access aoe spreading abilities from sub scholar to even compete in a group environment as a support. scholar gets more pages and faster and has better native spells, and whm has big curaga bombs so has a lot less need for the accession pages until its debuff removal time and yagrush makes that a snap.
I honestly think if RDM has any chance to compete as a hybrid middle class they need to seriously make better action economy .... like making composure keep buffs and turn them into aura effects at a MAX MP cost equal to the buffs casting cost that last until composure wears off or you zone.
It would also be nice if the big dots from scholar were more effective when subbed so RDM could also MB them for big damage if they had good gear. and of coarse more pages from SCH sub plz every job that subs it needs more pages.
How i would change RDM if i could.
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08-03-2019, 10:46 AMDelgearHow i would change RDM if i could.
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08-06-2019, 11:45 PMZekander
I also enjoy filling many different roles on RDM, but your perspective seems a little out of date.
Frist off, it's pretty clear that SE does not want RDM anywhere near a tanking role ever again. They specifically made RUN for the purpose after all, and i'm fairly okay with that, RDM never really had great tanking tools to begin with, it was just it's durability against magic that got exploited, and i'm happy to utilize that durability for other roles. Being one of the few people still standing after a Ninja explodes in Dynamis is a great benefit for a support role.
Also, while I fully agree that RDM needs help in the attack area with regards to melee, the changes to composure along with the addition of the weapon Crocea Mors, turns RDM pretty effectively into a kind of magic monk, with auto attack damage in excess of 1k per swing on main hand when enspell damage is added. Admittedly this has some drawbacks on boss monsters that significantly reduce magic damage. So something to help with enspell damage on bosses would be very helpful, it could be something as simple as more gear combining both physical and magical accuracy, which seems to be the way they are going already. That being said, I would still like to see RDM get some kind of physical attack bonus to help with WS damage. 16k Sanguine blade is great but once again it falls off sharply on bosses and even then 16k is nothing compared to properly buffed physical WS. Saber spell please.
As far as nuking goes, RDM already has access to almost the best nuking gear you can get, the job simply lacks enough traits and abilities to back it up. Not really sure how to fix that as nuking in general has pretty much fallen out of favor, so it's really a problem for all nuking jobs at this point.
Healing... I don't think anything can really make RDM a healer again at this point. Even SCH can't really keep up. Pretty much WHM only again and even then a lot of content pushes most WHMs to their limit, to the point where most people simply prefer bots to any human player...
Debuffing I think is better then what a lot of people give it credit for. At this point Distract is just as good if not better then the accuracy buffs that other jobs can give, the only problem is the time it takes to stick it on everything. A simple fix here would be to just make it aoe, Distractga III, done. Dia almost works for attack, but the problem is that Dia III is not appreciably better then Dia II which all jobs can get through a subjob. Other debuffs are situational at best but still can be used to some advantage.
One thing you didn't address is a buffing role, which I think is probably RDMs biggest hurdle for access to content. A lot of things RDM could potentially do are simply filled by other jobs that are buffers rather then debuffers. RDM is great for crowd control, even though we only get sleepga I from BLM sub, our enfeebling duration augments mean it lasts even longer then sleepga II, not to mention our magic accuracy guarantees it hardly ever fails. There are tons of uses for crowd control across a variety of events. The problem is that the slot universally goes to BRD because they can sleepga plus give out insane buffs. If RDM could get a few more buffs to stay competitive that would make them much more desirable for other support roles as well. Some suggestions for this would be things like simply allowing Haste II alone to hit the magic haste cap, since BRD can already do this with just 2 of their 4-5 songs. Removing the limitations on Inundation would be a significant damage buff as well even though that's still a debuff. I'm hesitant to give away too many of our self buffs, like Temper, as that would marginalize our own melee capability, but RDM does need a few more buffing options simply due to the mechanical limitations of debuffs in general. -
08-07-2019, 08:29 AMDuelleTanking is in a weird spot because heals can't be used to generate aggro (the Tranquil Heart trait). You need hate tools (enfeeble hate generation was nerfed), so you'd likely rely on whatever subjob you use. Gear selection to my knowledge is not stellar either.Quote:
Originally Posted by Delgear
Agree.Quote:
Damage dealer - its gotten better but really low strength and attack is a problem.
WHM tends to be more useful if you're main healing. /SCH seems to help for off-healing. Also, if you're healing you're probably not debuffing stuff as frequently.Quote:
Healer - Yikes sub scholar is your best bet and those pages DO NOT come fast enough. too many debuffs for a rdm to realistically heal much of anything.
So if I'm understanding your suggestion, the RDM uses a weaponskill and gains a buff that allows the next spell to be cast instantly. On a concept level I really like this idea. That said, I can't think of a way to implement it, since this is the type of thing that gets relegated to a job ability (see: Chain Affinity, Burst Affinity, Immanence). This game isn't very big on procs/reactive mechanics, though it would definitely help RDM gameplay in the front lines.Quote:
Now unlike others, I want to actually fuse damage dealer and magic damage dealer. I think RDM should be a "one then the other" damage dealer.
When in composure I think RDM should get a stack of instant cast from opening or closing a skill chain
As much as I would want this as well, the existence of Occult Acumen on gear (even if it's RNG) makes this unlikely to happen.Quote:
and receive TP for magic bursting a SC while engaged.
Part of the issue here is gear. There's a lot of gear that BLU has access to that RDM doesn't. The Adhemar and Herculean sets come to mind along with older mainstay pieces like Epona's Ring, and addressing this would help a bit in closing the gap. This is evident when we note that our best TP sets are largely comprised of Ambuscade gear/Alluvion Skirmish with RNG augments, way behind what other jobs get.Quote:
the main problem you have here is damage over time. RDM autos are low compared to other dd's. BLU stands out as a similar mix it up job, but their damage per hit and per ws is way higher ... and they enjoy greater flexibility as well.
I wouldn't go so far as Regen V. Regen III would be nice. Regen IV appreciate but could prove to be too much seeing that Composure's duration boost affects Regen spells.Quote:
rdm has no native way to deal with space herpes flying everywhere and they have no inherent AOE heal ... worse off they get kicked in the shins on regen ....i think honestly rdm should have the strongest regen spell even if they don't have all the tools scholar has to enhance it.
I have issues with this idea, though I'll simply say you're asking for a lot of AI work. Considering modern devs don't even like the idea of smart heals, something as complex as this is unlikely for consideration.Quote:
Mirror Image :: when in this stance the rdm creates duplicates of themself whenever you cast a healing or enhancing spell that can target another player the mirror forms will cast on a different ally (cure spells go to lowest HP, debuff removal goes to closest allied targets, haste goes to non RA classes, flurry to RA classes) to target ... this would however if it was a stance lockout Composure and making you have to spam buffs everywhere all day albeit a little faster to spam them.
Crocea Mors is a long and distant dream to a lot of people, though. I look at it the way I saw REMA weapons pre-abyssea; something I know is in the game that I'll never have.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zekander
That and unshackling RDM from /NIN when in melee would be a huge help. I've had LS members sometimes wonder why RDM wasn't given native dual wield like THF was, and have come to realize being able to sub DRK or WAR would definitely help the physical side of RDM's DPS potential.Quote:
That being said, I would still like to see RDM get some kind of physical attack bonus to help with WS damage. 16k Sanguine blade is great but once again it falls off sharply on bosses and even then 16k is nothing compared to properly buffed physical WS. Saber spell please.
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08-07-2019, 06:30 PMSeriha
First off, it's nice to finally see the merit spells got the scroll treatment. That's been one of my forever requests from ages ago. Though, the new categories can be a harder choice, with the pure caster sorts likely wanting nothing to do with the Accuracy and Enspell ones. Those that do have a harder choice to make.
I still stand behind the belief that RDM should get its own unique type of DW that's limited to Sword main-hand and Dagger off-hand, further then able to use WS from either weapon type. Basically as good as /NIN would be adequate, for the obvious reason of opening up melee sub options a bit more with /WAR for damage or even /DRK for its own damage perks and some added spell utility via Drain/Aspir/Stun.
Nonetheless, there's always been the perpetual problem of casting interrupting melee, and if you are being expected to buff others, the cycle will lead to some significant DPS downtime. Frankly, I've always wanted some means to extend buff durations relative to a specific action, like using a WS or opening a SC adding on to remaining timers for all party members you've cast on depending on the tier. Alternatively, I'm also for the old idea of RDM taking on an MP DoT to instead passive reflect their own buffs onto nearby allies, excluding things like Stoneskin, Blink, and Aquaveil due to their variable status nature. This would regain time by not having to buff everyone else, while also opening the door to other uncommon buffs you'd otherwise need /SCH to share or simply couldn't (winkwinkTemper). I still also want a Dummy spell that would block full buff wipes and be consumed in its stead.
Gear is also still an issue, even if it's better than it was in days of yore. As Due mentioned, the CM sword isn't exactly something you can expect every RDM to have or to be able to get, and likely let alone coax people to help you get it because lolmelee stigma. At the very least, it'd be nice for a weaker version to pop up somewhere in the game that maybe has 50-75% the potency. Something else to help here would also be a tiered trait that converts a portion of offensive magic stats to additional melee stats. This would allow various caster pieces to double as TP or WS items, particularly if a given slot is lacking. The added MACC on the caster gear would also help Enspells to land better on the harder opponents, but there's sadly not much that can be done about MDB here hard cutting output since MATK has never affected Enspells at all.
I'd also say there's something to be said about hybrid-friendly food. Long as resists or whiffs can be minimized with a decent gear investment, I'd say it's okay to not hit as hard as the true damage dealers. It just still can't be so far behind that people would never accept the class in the role. And like others, I don't think we should ever be tanks, and more spitefully, main healers. I'm chill with the debuffer role, albeit more unique spells or JAs here would help and not just higher tiers of things others could use passably. Would also welcome an enfeebling equivalent of Occult Accumen. -
08-14-2019, 09:54 PMDelgear
No i play rdm in all endgame content currently my outlook isn't old at all.
in any serious group in Dynamis D, Omen, or even Vagary RDM is more or less relegated to a debuff bot and dispel bot ... only a few buffs are useful as most others are overwritten by "real casters" like scholar or whm ....
The 100% biggest problem on RDM is action economy, you have to perform so many actions all the time you cant really do anything else ... debuffs even with the best gear last barely long enough for you to get through a rotation, buffs even with extended duration on party members just still dont last long enough.
I think every class should be stretched to function in every role it makes sense for them to be stretched into .... Every server .... every day is a giant jumble of people sitting around until a paladin/RUN and whm arrive ... then content can actually be cleared and done.
Its rediculious .... we need more healthy healers and tanks for the health of the game .... if way more jobs could conceivably and healthily tank, content could be approached on many more job combinations .... we would have more players too as less players would encounter the "99 Stigma" of sorry man your job is useless because it isn't paladin run or whm.
Its foolish to not want rdm to be able to main heal .... just because they can doesnt mean you have to ... thats the point of having diversity of choice. you are basically saying because you would prefer to not heal on rdm everyone should not be allowed to heal on rdm. I dont want to heal on rdm, i would love to melee and have it feel powerful and impactful ... definitely not top dd levels ... cause you got buffs and debuffs .... but im also aware enough to know that lots of people like the job for other reasons and want to use it that way ... so why not try to accommodate as many players as possible.
I'm trying my best to come at it from a "Whats best for the game" angle .... and new fresh and interesting ways to play jobs and opening up the utility of each individual job so people have a much easier time just "enjoying content" on whatever job they enjoy is a much healthier way to go. -
08-15-2019, 05:08 AMSeriha
Here's the thing, more tanks and healers aren't just going to magically appear because you give the various classes some new abilities to facilitate that. It's a mentality that some people have, while others don't. Those that like to tank will likely already have PLD, RUN, and NIN leveled. They may have even dabbled in WAR and MNK when they had their moment. Some do it for easy invites, sure. Some like being in "control" of the encounter, so they take up the mantle. And short of magically inheriting tank gear from previous investments, they're also likely to want to use those over RDM or whatever until they do get the alternative stuff farmed.
Ultimately, RDM has historically faced resistance toward buffs in certain directions because people always had that "But then they would be OP!" or "No one would invite anything but RDMs!" mentality. Given the mention of action economy, I think we could agree you can't be a tank, DPS, and main healer all at the same time, but you can also bet people would both try and expect it, resulting in a severe frustration among RDMs when they can't do it. This hearkens back to the "Just solo it!" craze of yesteryear where people would gleefully not help RDMs get things because they cheese Utsusemi, DoTs, and the occasional nuke. I don't want to see that happen again, even if current content is more generally regulated to prevent that between timers or "arena" sizes/lack of pinning obstructions. Not that this would stop people willing to position/speed hack, but that's another matter.
Stance systems have somewhat been the approach to countering the too much in all directions approach, but if we're, say, trying to facilitate the healer aspect, what would you do to make us more than just a WHM or SCH clone? WHM definitely has AoE and spike cures covered. SCH has Regens and decent spike potential, with AoE via stratagem use. Where would RDM sit without making it the defacto reason for getting an invite? You could say a stance should kill the melee and black magic side, fine, but would debuffs get caught in the fray here, too? After all, if they could take a WHM's place, but then have even better debuffs on top, is it balanced? And then just swap their stance and into a different gear set to pop a good nuke if they're able?
I think the goal should be to better organically weave the job's abilities together instead of shooting for a singular slot in the trinity against the expense of all others. But in chasing that, you also need a unique identity where people would think it's nice to have and neither mandatory nor too insufficient to get an invite. -
08-22-2019, 02:53 PMDuelleExcept it's not a real choice. Red Mage is currently a go to healer because a) the only real healer job in this game is WHM, and b) not everyone plays WHM. The culture of "if you have cures, you're healing" mentality has not really died in this game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Delgear
I agree that the game needs more options for tanking and healing, but jobs are not boiled down into strict roles here because of how stuff is designed (on both a job and content level). With the skeleton crew currently running FFXI, we're long past the point where major changes in job and content design are feasible to make that happen. -
09-12-2019, 11:28 AMDelgear
They just reworked whm ? it can be done its more a matter of making each job fun and flexible has never been a focus. They just sort of pick favorites you are "allowed to play." and then through design tell us how we are going to play them or else .... the game was far more flexible and free form back when we had less jobs and we stopped making only one combination possible for every encounter in the game ....
Its the reason we have a skeleton crew is because players that want to play their job aren't listened to .... making sure all jobs can approach and play in content is what should be considered good customer service.
RDM is absolutely NOT a go to healer almost every end game piece of content has way too much status removal for that ... and despite rdm having "Fast cast" as its go to thing that separates it out ... whm actually casts faster in most situations as rdm is almost certainly midcast to keep buffs up when the situation changes, and secondly they generally have to activate another ability before casting and get animation locked .... it takes longer for most spells for you to use the ability that allows instant cast and then cast than it does to just cast the darn spell ....
Technically if you read the writing on the wall RDM is pretty much exclusively a debuffer .... and to be quite honest most teams if the few exclusive rdm debuffs arent required are going to take a scholar because that scholar can drop super long top tier regen, drop super strong top tier DoT's, debuff and cleanse most debuffs more efficiently.
You need so many stats to catch up in melee, nuking, healing, and some of those things as far as being comparable even considering you bring other odd stuff to the table are too far for anything but the absolute best gear for rdm (T3relic,emperian,etc.) Generally speaking you cant land debuffs in Omen until you are done with it and Dynamis D, you still even with the tippy toppest gear cant land debuffs in dynamis D half the time. your other stats are even lower ... theres stuff even with the best gear you don't even have a decent hit % on ... let alone att/str vs Pdiff ratio ....