Red Mage Melee Ideas

[Chuk]

Hello once more, today is a busy day with this being my 3rd post today alone! Well the subject of Redmage melee has been debated for a long long time. You always get two groups that say the same things. Group A says "RDM iz mage, u cast rfrsh nao". Group B says "I can swing a sword! Lemme at em!" In my eyes, both sides are right.

So where does that leave us? Split in the middle. But thats the thing, redmage makes quite the useful job! The problem is the skills and spell available to them dont work well with each other. And thats why im about to propose the following...............

New job abilities (because you know, RDM only still has about 4, including two hour)

First off, Fencer. Yeah thats right, RDM SHOULD NATURALLY HAVE FENCER. But not just 1 rank of it, no no no no........ they need at least 3 ranks of it. Maybe more. Critical attacks are just that important to making a redmage more than a lolswordsman.

Next would be a jobtrait that works with En-spells. I would figure casting an En-spell on self would create a DMG bonus to the RDM based on enhancing magic skill. Yeah thats right, instead of just getting that smidge of damage from magic, this should be a physical bonus to the weapon in your main hand. En-2 spells should have a GROWING damage bonus based on how far along the elemental damage bonus is. This would add some pep to damage.

Finally i would think a set of job abilities that actually have to deal with swinging your sword and casting are in order. Something along the lines of formless strikes. But for weapon skills. Like so.

A: Job ability: Piercing Blows: Next weapon skill performed by the user deals non-elemental damage instead of physical damage (only works with physical weapon skills, sorry sanguine blade) Recast: 2 minutes
B: Job Ability: Arcanic Assault: For duration, increase users attack by reducing users magic attack bonus completely. Recast: 5 minutes Duration: 1 minute (maybe 2, idea is like berserk)

So far thats about it. There are probably more ideas I am thinking, but these would have direct impact on Red Mages and would make them considerable damage dealers. Somewhere.

~Chuk

[Lilia]

New (good) things for RDM ? LOL

[cidbahamut]

The discussion you are looking for is here: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...Red-Mage-melee...

Enjoy.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

The simplest solution for this which I'll keep saying is in Faith and Brave.

Scroll of Faith
RDM 99
Teaches the white magic Faith. Increases Magic Attack Bonus and Accuracy, and adds "Refresh" effect.

Scroll of Brave
RDM 99
Teaches the white magic Brave. Increases Attack and Accuracy, and adds "Regen" effect.

Can make them self-target if they must that overwrites each other so only one can be up. Refresh would be 3/tic Regen 10/tic

[Demon6324236]

The simplest solution for this which I'll keep saying is in Faith and Brave.

Scroll of Faith
RDM 99
Teaches the white magic Faith. Increases Magic Attack Bonus and Accuracy, and adds "Refresh" effect.

Scroll of Brave
RDM 99
Teaches the white magic Brave. Increases Attack and Accuracy, and adds "Regen" effect.

Can make them self-target if they must that overwrites each other so only one can be up. Refresh would be 3/tic Regen 10/tic

Agree with everything except the last part, make it scale, then it should be good. Refresh 1/100 Skill & Regen 1/40 Skill please. Probably should make the other effects scale in percents as well, for instance 1/25 Skill = 1%, so Brave with 500 Enhancing Magic skill becomes +20% Attack/Accuracy, same with MAB/MAcc. Just my opinion on it.

[Sunrider]

Brave and Faith are spiffy and would make nice adds, but I'd like for RDM's melee solutions not to be boiled down to the next new spell of the week we'd have to wait until our last ten levels to see.

There's so much, stylistically and functionally, that RDM has to draw from, that it boggles me it hasn't happened yet. For a hybrid job, our first real physical Trait doesn't appear until level 87 and we didn't see an Ability that addressed physical powers until a few years ago. Obviously, S-E is bound and determined not to share Fencer with... the magical fencer, but there is a light and fast magical attacker just waiting to be utilized. At higher levels accuracy isn't so much the issue it was in years past, but it might not hurt to acquire an Acc Bonus trait or two starting from the mid-game. And it would hardly threaten dedicated melees to have access to maybe Double or even Triple Attack. After all, THF has the latter, and no one would mistake them for being a "top" DD.

I have a powerful belief RDM could make it's mark by better utilizing--no--exploiting the hell out of En-spells. Start by beefing up the the damage breakpoints between skill levels for tier 1, and move on to giving tier two the same formula as tier one. Another idea would be to apply M. Atk to En-spells (allowing Enhancing Skill and Magic Attack to do for RDM what STR and Attack do for melees), and we even come ready-made with M. Atk Bonus traits. From there, allow tier 2 En-spells to proc on the off-hand. The worst that happens is that it caps out at max damage potential a little faster. Reconcile any accuracy needs with En-spells, granting a native Acc bonus to any weapon with an En-spell effect; just think of what this could mean for Accession and party play.

I envision a means perhaps converting physical damage completely into magical, perhaps with a third En-spell tier, or a couple of JAs, maybe one converting physical DPS to magical (with En-spells active, element appropriate), and another converting additional En-spell damage to physical DPS (again, with En-spells active, obviously).

Maybe a magical damage version of MNK's Counter trait or Counterstance: perhaps successfully dodged an/or parried attacks occasionally result in a returned attack, magic damage.

And finally... give us some of the Ex Weapon Skills, specifically Sanguine Blade. It's an insult that we don't get it natively.

[Demon6324236]

By level 99 I think RDM should have DW2, Attack Bonus 2, Accuracy Bonus 2~3, with that we should be ok, Brave & Faith should be high end level spells where our abilities become a choice, one or the other. Up until then it should be periodic trait levels between what I listed. And please, don't do what was done with THF with RDM's DW, I think that was a little stupid. The job has no Dual Wield until 83, at which point it finally gets tier 1, but tier 2 is only 7 levels later, and following that is tier 3 only another 8 levels after.

[Plasticleg]

Best way to unlock RDM melee potential:

1) Zone into MogHouse.
2) Select Job Change.
3) Select any other job.
4) Melee!

[Crimson_Slasher]

Shouldnt a solution fix the problem that its offered to you know, solve? You cant solve a overweight problem by reading about geography. Tailor the solution to solve the problem. If you are overweight eat better and exercise, dont do something completely unrelated and claim that it is a solution.

If you want to contribute, it helps if, you know, start by being constructive.

Ill just give you a few minutes to let that sink in.

As for melee fixes from me, i like -how- we melee now, just not -how well- we melee now. Stronger enspells are nice i agree, but another simple option is to copy a few jobs, like Ninja. How about a store TP spell? Just brainstorming.

[Sunrider]

If it's a spell for TP, it would be both simple and elegant to merely give us Regain. It doesn't have to be Embrava-level craziness, but something similar to Regen or Refresh.

Though personally, I don't think it'd be a crime to get an Auto-Regain trait, maybe around level 40.