RDM's support role

[Ophannus]

I know RDM is supposed to be a jack of all trades but can SE change certain spells to be single cast so they're actually not completely worthless outside of soloing? Sometimes it's hard to find a BRD or WHM and the small party might need barfire and the RDM doesn't have or can't use /WHM or /SCH due to the fight requiring something like stun. It would be nice if we can cast our barspells on another player and make use out of our high enhancing skill. Otherwise our enhancing is very selfish and only really helps us as it doesn't enhance Haste or Refresh(Our most desired enfeebles)

On the note of Haste and Refresh and Cure IV, all of those spells are our MOST useful and at 99, a BLM/48RDM can haste and cure IV just as good as a 99RDM can. RDM can of course cast Refresh II, which anyone /RDM cannot, but it's not much of a help since most mages now sub RDM for a full strength Convert and their own Refresh.(RDMs use to keep an entire party's MP full back at 75 with just Refresh 1, which means Refresh II is not that big of a deal and nobody misses it. In other words it's a novelty.

Can RDMs have Haste II as a unique spell that WHMs dont get? WHM specializes in Healing Magic yet Devs give them many good enhancing and enfeebling spells as well. If you include a Haste II make it RDM only please.

It's infuriating that many jobs can sub RDM and benefit FULLY from Convert, Refresh and Haste. Infact there are very few spells that jobs who sub RDM don't get full power out of(mainly enspells and barspells). A RDM cannot use Accession on their Haste, Enspell IIs. RDM cannot use Afflatus Misery or Afflatus Solace. Yet both SCH and WHM sub RDM and have a fully powered Convert and their Refresh and Haste spells are just as strong as RDM main. RDM's enfeebles are slightly stronger than WHM and BLM's Paralyze and Slow but it's ridiculous that we need MERIT abilities to have spells that should have been level 60 spells.

The equivalent analogy would be if hypothetically SCH RDM and PLD all had Cure 5 and the only healing spells WHM had over those jobs was Cure VI but it's a spell unlocked with merit points. RDM has 5 unique enfeebling spells and we're the enfeebling specialist. Gravity, Paralyze II and Slow II, Dia III, Blind II. WHM has dozens of unique spells that only they can cast AND many RDM spells or AoE versions of RDM spells. The fact that they get Addle but RDM can't get Cure V is absurd. Why does WHM get high level enfeebling and they are as Camate said "Healing Specialists" but RDMs cannot get Cure V? Camate said giving RDM Cure V would threaten WHM's role as a healer, but doesn't giving WHM a high level enfeeble threaten RDM's role as enfeebling specialist when infact we have >>VERY<<< actual enfeebles that no other job can use(and Gravity doesn't count because 95% of NMs and HNMs are COMPLETELY immune to Gravity's effects).

In conclusion, the fact that RDM's new enfeebling spell is Gravity II and it also doesn't land on any creatures that also resist Gravity 1 is ridiculous. Even when Gravity II isn't resisted, the movement speed is the same reduction as Gravity 1 it seems and the -Evasion is nice except most jobs rely on accuracy boosts from jobs like BRD/COR/SMN/WHM than RDM especially since Accuracy Boosting spells are never resisted, but Gravity is difficult to land on most NMs(random duration too, and the -evasion is unknown and probably a low number(Gravity 1 is -10 evasion, so gravity 2 is probably something low like -15 or -20, negligible compared to accuracy boosts of brd/cor/whm spells)

If we can't have Cure V, that's fine, but give us targetted Stoneskin spells, targetted Phalanx spells that are stronger than Phalanx 1(/SCH or /SMN can Phalanxga) a stronger haste spell and some better enfeebles. Maybe spells that increase the threshold which mobs can use TP attacks so TP moves may require 120% TP or 150% TP instead of the usual 100%, or spells that reduce the mob's Store TP or Critical Hit Evasion or Magic Defense. Since SCH specializes in Regen spells now, maybe you can give RDM's higher tiers of Poison after all of these years.

RDMs would love to have their hands on Poison III, Poison IV and Poison V. BLMs get tons of strong and powerful spells like Meteor and Comet, why can't RDM have amazingly destructive enfeebling magic? Or will our level 75 merit spells be the end-all-be-all. No other mage job DEPENDS on their merit spells. WHMs now a days dont depend much on merit abilities and BLMs now have stronger spells than Ancient Magic II yet RDM are stuck with their Paralyze 2 and Slow 2 options which are marginally stronger than the lower level versions. BRD's Carnage Elegy is already leagues stronger than Slow II and that song doesn't require merit points to use...

[saevel]

What it really boils down to is SE deliberately locked out the level 40 abilities of /WHM, /NIN and limited accession of /SCH while allowing anyone to get everything from /RDM at full power. Come 99, nearly everything from RDM will be accessible to every other job as /RDM. SE has done an incredibly poor job of adding anything to RDM since 2005. The best we've got is Dia III, then Refresh II, otherwise everyone else either gets better or the same.

[Aleste]

On the note of Haste and Refresh and Cure IV, all of those spells are our MOST useful and at 99, a BLM/48RDM can haste and cure IV just as good as a 99RDM can.

15% casting time reduction (difference in fastcast 3 and 5)
Effective double duration haste spells
Freedom of subjob

Can RDMs have Haste II as a unique spell that WHMs dont get? WHM specializes in Healing Magic yet Devs give them many good enhancing and enfeebling spells as well. If you include a Haste II make it RDM only please.

WHM gains Haste before redmage by 8 levels, if anything they'd get the single target version first. Hell, they should also get an AOE version...

It's infuriating that many jobs can sub RDM and benefit FULLY from Convert, Refresh

This seems pretty unfair; numerous jobs have had their core job abilities locked out, and their spells reduced in potency. I never understood why SE never tweaked it, even remotely.

A RDM cannot use Accession on their Haste, Enspell IIs.

As a scholar job ability, it seems only fair that they can only AOE spells that they learn natively.

The equivalent analogy would be if hypothetically SCH RDM and PLD all had Cure 5 and the only healing spells WHM had over those jobs was Cure VI but it's a spell unlocked with merit points.

I'd still be happy, cure VI is a rediculous spell whose use is primarily limited inside abyssea. Outside its efficiency pales in comparison to even cure 3. Any good whitemage worth their salt will be using cure V, so that is a terrible analogy. Perhaps if you changed to to cure4 for everyone and cure 5 as a merit, but then all whitemages would run round with 5/5 cure V and 5/5 ShellraV...

WHM has dozens of unique spells that only they can cast AND many RDM spells or AoE versions of RDM spells.

Magic spells were split so that red mages focused on single-target magic, while white mages excelled in AoE magic.

RDM = single target, WHM = AOE. Excluding the single target/aoe versions, whitemage only has a small selection of unique enhancing magic... auspice and the teleport spells.

The fact that they get Addle but RDM can't get Cure V is absurd. Why does WHM get high level enfeebling and they are as Camate said "Healing Specialists" but RDMs cannot get Cure V?

Most whitemages I speak to don't even know that they can cast it, let alone are ever in the situation where they have to cast it. Take it away for all I care if it'll squash that petty arguement.




I will however admit that RDM is in a pretty sorry state at the minute (which should be fixed by adding in half the enfeebles that lurk in the .dats, and removing complete immunity from all mobs).

[Shadax]

Not to mention Abyssea has marginalized RDM even further, considering Refresh is rendered virtually obsolete by the proper atmas. Also, it used to be that RDM was the best solo/farming job because it offered no down time, but now I can farm faster on my BST than I can on RDM with the powerful new pets, huge boosts to biscuits, dawn mulsum and all the enhancements from FoV/GoV in most farming areas.

There should be a job trait at say level 50 that allows RDM's to cast self-targeting-only enhancement spells on party members. I think Saboteur should be a job trait as well. It's kind of ridiculous that BLM's and WHM's get job traits that grant constant fast cast on certain spells on top of any other fast cast they get from /RDM. An ability that grants a bonus to one enfeebling spell every five minutes when that's the RDM's most important role in the party, is not very fair in my opinion.

[Chimerawizard]

2nd that rdm has been neglected since 75. I would suggest completely redo'ing the t2 rdm merit category and giving scrolls with the spells. Aside from the idea, i think the devs should come up with what to put in their place.

Make enfeebles stick on more mobs. i feel like generally mobs are immune to at least a couple enfeebles. Add STOP as a spell (that sticks on HNM type mobs) 5~20 second duration. things from previous FFs come to mind now, MINI, FROG. doom would be bad for rdm since drk and blm don't have yet, same for death and zombie.

Make rdm's single target enhancing magic cast-able on any target. probably through a level 50 job trait or something so /rdm can't get the benefit. that should not overpower rdm's benefits. Include spikes spells and t1&2 en- spells with the trait as a small buff to counter the lack of anything rdm got comparatively.

Give rdm some holy magic natively. Should have never been removed in the first place.

Fix Blink: Make blink 100% activation rate, AoE only takes one shadow, and make blink's shaddow count be =Enhancing magic/100
@75 its still 2, @95 cap skill + gear its 4.
Reasoning: Utsusemi creates clones, IE multiple you's simultaneously getting hit by AoE. Blink makes you dissapear for a moment, IE you aren't there to get hit multiple times.
to balance it since /nin can use utsusemi: as well. double cast and recast timers.

[Lilia]

... stop (~terror) for blu next update
...doom ...blu
...death for smn next update

rdm can only have gravity 2

[rufuslupus]

you gotta pitch this stuff better guys.

did you know poison 3 increases the rdm and sch party relationship? unlike some of the rdms who still cry about sch making them obsolete, rdm and sch make a great dot tag team duo.

and to further rdm relations with all the jobs why not aso give rdm "go" that does not make party members attack faster like haste, but instead makes the rates of their traits like conserve mp, conserve tp, and double attack happen 15% more often.

and also "stop" which increases the duration of party members job abilities by 15%. (course all this stuff is single target only)

[Neisan_Quetz]

Being able to give Temper to others would work nicely for that but...

[Kristal]

Gravity I/II should be changed so that immunity to movement speed reduction does not affect the evasion down effect.
Both effects land: The monster is affected by Gravity.
Movement Speed Down lands: The monster is affected by Movement Speed Down.
Evasion Down lands: The monster is affected by Evasion Down.
Neither lands: The monster resists Gravity.

That allows Gravity to affect NMs that aren't immune to wind-based enfeebles.

Silence should get a similar treatment. No outright immunity, but an increase in casting time. It can still be resisted outright (say, by wind elementals), just not because the NM must be protected against those bullying RDMs!

[cidbahamut]

Silence should get a similar treatment. No outright immunity, but an increase in casting time.

What would be the point of Addle then?