[DEV 1135] RDM 2 HOUR

[Tamarsamar]

Not to mention that trying to compare our new 2-hour to Chainspell will always leave you disappointed. Anything less than triple potency is worthless compared to Chainspell? Dude, almost every other 2-hour is worthless compared to Chainspell. Even with the new 2-hours (which, not that that's saying a whole lot unless you're a DRK or SMN), it's still one of the best, if not the best 2-hour in the game.

And you want another 2-hour at that level of quality?

My complaint isn't that our new 2-hour is worse than Chainspell; that's to be expected. My complaint is that our new 2-hour is just plain bad, to the point of being borderline unusable, even without taking Chainspell into account.

Just make it Enhancing Magic Soul Voice, for goodness sake: 3:00 duration, double-potency spells. While additional spell duration would be nice (particularly if it stacked with Composure), I don't think that there would be a whole lot of room to complain about it with those specifications.

[Sunrider]

I'll concede something more like an Enhancing version of Soul Voice is more reasonable.

Although, simply dismissing a request for drastic improvement on the grounds that "nothing's as good as Chainspell" is is self-limiting. Every job deserves to be able to say "holy ****, this is as good as Chainspell/Soul Voice/whatever." The devs are basically asking us to what we want before they go back to the drawing board, we can't let them go back to it with mediocre crap.

But hey, like I said: disagree or don't, jump in that thread and chime in.

[Ophannus]

Takes me like 20-30 seconds to fully buff myself and that's if I'm casting crap like Aquaveil, Barspells and stuff. Invest in a capped fast cast precast set. Can get off Haste/Temper/Stoneskin/Phalanx/Enspell/Gain-stat/Refresh II/Protect/Shell in like 20 seconds maximum. The new 2hr needs to have a 'Diffusion' effect where all of our enhancing become AoE as well.

[Demon6324236]

The new 2hr needs to have a 'Diffusion' effect where all of our enhancing become AoE as well.

No, we don't need AoE. We just need powerful buffs for ourselves, that last a very long time, thats it. SE has made it clear time and time again we should not expect any AoE spells of any kind, Diaga seems to be a fluke at best. Our best bet on a great new 2-hour is similar to Chainspell.

Chainspell was a short duration effect that allowed us great power in magic, only 1 of the 2 sides of the coin RDM is meant to be. As such this one should be just the opposite. This ability should flush out alot of melee power, the side we currently do not flush out. Not only that, but 1 of the best uses for Chainspell, was to use it for a way of enfeebling a monster. For instance, you could hold a mob with Chainspell-Utsusemi, or lock their movement/actions with Chainspell-Stun. This ability is much more focused on Enhancing Magic, arguably the other primary magic of RDM, and for this reason, we should see a massive buff to our current powerful buffs, such as Temper and Gain spells. The majority of buffs in a RDM's arsenal is for melee. Temper, Phalanx, Haste, Gain-STR/DEX, Enspells, these are all powerful melee tools, and while we can buff our magic, it is never as powerful as our melee buffs are.

Honestly now that I think of it. For awhile we have been asking for Brave & Faith. This ability is meant to buff our Enhancing Magic abilities, I would like to see Brave & Faith implemented as spells in much the same way as Embrava & Kaustra were. Brave being an Attack/Accuracy/Critical Hit Rate/Damage+25~50% spell, and Faith being the same, but for magic equivalents. It would not be the exact same as in previous FF games, but would bring a high level of power to players much like Embrava does. The problem with these types of spells becomes apparent when you weigh the ideals of RDM, against the use of these ability. If it is single target, many will rage & complain, it will be seen as stupid because it is only for RDM and people believe RDM is worthless past its mage abilities. However if it is AoE, it goes against what SE seems to have as a goal or vision for RDM, and thus is also unlikely.

In all I myself do not think we need our buffs to be AoE, I would rather them just be powerful and very long lasting. This 2-hour needs to be something good for us on the front lines, or to put us on the front lines, and 1 of the only ways to do that is single target, double potency, double duration, with 3 minutes to cast whatever we want.

As for having a decked out Pre-cast set. I can not stand the idea of changing from my Fast Cast set to my Enhancing Magic set for that, as most spells cast to fast, especially with that, for me to make sure I always get full potency, unless you use 3rd party tools. Even with Windower you would need to have a macro for each Enhancing Magic spell to really do that I think. So it should not be required by any means for you to get out all buffs needed. But to each their own.

[Economizer]

Dude, almost every other 2-hour is worthless compared to Chainspell.

I wouldn't say Chainspell is the best 2hour currently in the game by far (SCH, SMN, BRD, WAR, SAM, MNK and arguably a few others come to mind), but as a White Mage, I'd take Chainspell over Benediction any day. I'll save the Benediction rant for another more relevant thread, but the point is that Chainspell, while not the best 2hour in the game, is still a pretty darn good one like you say.

And you want another 2-hour at that level of quality?

Considering that Chainspell isn't the best nor the worst 2hour, but still very useful in very specific situations, why, yes, I'd say Red Mage could use another of its quality.

Whatever they do with this new 2hour, it should be good out of the box, many of the new 2hours are, such as Summoner's (aka Chainpact), or Samurai's (aka Perfect Defense Dodge Counter) or Bard's (aka Shattersoul Rock & Roll), even situationally compared to the current powerful 2hours those jobs have.

[Demon6324236]

Whatever they do with this new 2hour, it should be good out of the box, many of the new 2hours are, such as Summoner's (aka Chainpact), or Samurai's (aka Perfect Defense Dodge Counter) or Bard's (aka Shattersoul Rock & Roll), even situationally compared to the current powerful 2hours those jobs have.

SAM's is more Perfect Defense Dodge Impetus but yeah, just sayin~!

[tyrantsyn]

Woah~ cowboy, lets try getting double potency now, along with double duration, and leave some growth room with the merits, SE may take overboard things and ignore them, which that seems a lil... high, even if it would be amazing.

I feel the same way about asking for to much, anything we ask for has to be feasible and within the realm of reason. Most of us who have been a round for a while have a good understanding about how the Dev's think for the most part. So we as a group really need to do all we can to promote this to them in the right way. With Double potency on this ability it becomes a worth wild addition to the RDM arsenal of trick's. With less, it just become's like another piece of gear with a low % increases to potency. And with that I'd rather just have it on another piece of gear.

Also, I'd like to take a paragraph to say that this thread isn't just for the idea's surrounding the Dev's suggested new 2 hour ability for RDM. If you think you have another idea for a RDM 2 hour post here. If you have a different opinion or something more you'd like to see for the 2 hour suggest it. Nothing has really been said about the ability pass what it is. So please take some time add something to the thread or just "like" the idea's that appeal/work for you.

[tyrantsyn]

Takes me like 20-30 seconds to fully buff myself and that's if I'm casting crap like Aquaveil, Barspells and stuff. Invest in a capped fast cast precast set. Can get off Haste/Temper/Stoneskin/Phalanx/Enspell/Gain-stat/Refresh II/Protect/Shell in like 20 seconds maximum. The new 2hr needs to have a 'Diffusion' effect where all of our enhancing become AoE as well.

You sir are some kind of sorcerer

There's no way one could fire off that many buff's that quick with out chain spell.

[Sunrider]

I feel the same way about asking for to much, anything we ask for has to be feasible and within the realm of reason. Most of us who have been a round for a while have a good understanding about how the Dev's think for the most part. So we as a group really need to do all we can to promote this to them in the right way. With Double potency on this ability it becomes a worth wild addition to the RDM arsenal of trick's. With less, it just become's like another piece of gear with a low % increases to potency. And with that I'd rather just have it on another piece of gear.

This is the first time the dev team has openly admitted that maybe they don't have any ideas and are actually open to suggestions.

They're going to adjust for the sake of "balance" no matter what we ask them for--it's not our responsibility to adjust our ideas for them, nor do we even owe them that. Trying to is like an abused housewife tiptoeing around to avoid her spouse's tantrums.

Frankly, I don't think a 2-3 minute 2h offering triple potency enhancing spells is at all unreasonable. If you're desperate to justify the merits, they could extend the duration of the 2h from one minute to three minutes, which could turn out well worth the effort. What is unreasonable is the 2h as it currently exists, and the fact that it doesn't even cover all Enhancing magic.

But that said, a simple self-cast version of Soul Voice is certainly not bad either.

[tyrantsyn]

Trust me, nothing would put a bigger smile on my face than to have access to triple potency enhancing magic for 3 minute's.
That would be a truly awesome 2 hour.

edit: And considering some of the buff's we've seen from atma and atmacite not that far fetch either. But I'd be fine with double if it appeases the balance.