On Red Mage melee...

[Merton9999]

What of you combined the Spellblade concept with the ever-popular suggestion:

Runic
One minute cooldown
Absorbs the next elemental magic spell cast by the mob, or the Red Mage or another party member, provided the spell was cast on or by the opponent to which the Red mage is engaged, and provided the element of the spell matches the current enspell element in effect on the Red Mage. The MP cost of the spell is used in conjunction with the weapon's attack power (and possibly other modifiers) to enhance the enspell damage for the remaining duration of the enspell.

The goal with the damage calculation would be ideally to double the damage possible through just the straight nuke damage, as enmity free enspell DOT. To reach this, you'd have to gear for accuracy and haste, your weapon attack power would matter, and you'd need to minimize cycle spells.

I agree with Seriha that minimizing cycling is an ideal way to bring RDMs to the front, but with the current direction of multi-purpose jobs the idea has been to require a stance to be chosen so that you can't be great at multiple things at once. BLU can be a good main healer but not if they're a great DD. Same with SCH. Good players can toggle well, but that would be the challenge here too.

Or, you could go the route mentioned above of making the next successful hit a spike damage loaded with the damage of the absorbed spell, modified by TP and other factors so the ideal again is spell damage x1.5-2 depending on your gear and skills.

Or! Let's say the default behavior of Runic is to enhance the enspell damage per strike for no extra enmity. But you could get an additional JA a couple levels later, "Runic Seal" that allowed you to channel the remaining power of the absorbed spell into additional weapon skill damage. That way if you reached a point where you need to stop meleeing to cure, enhance, enfeeble, you could still make use of the rest of the nuking power and your TP and gain enmity by using a magic infused WS. Ideally this would do less damage than if you were able to melee out the rest of the absorbed spell duration.

One neat thing about this would be the potential for another member to offer more damage to Runic. For example, through higher tier nukes or AM from BLM, SCH, SMN. The RDM could of course use Runic when soloing to enhance their own enspell via Tier IV's.

I also like that this could be used as a pseudo stun, but only for a single element family of spells you'd have to plan for in advance. It also minimizes the use of Runic as both a stun and melee damage enhancer because chances are you won't be meleeing against a mob with an enspell matching the element they like to cast.

My favorite thing is it would be awesome to randomly steal another party member's spell for my own damage by throwing up Runic while they're casting

[Duelle]

What of you combined the Spellblade concept with the ever-popular suggestion:

Runic
One minute cooldown
Absorbs the next elemental magic spell cast by the mob, or the Red Mage or another party member, provided the spell was cast on or by the opponent to which the Red mage is engaged, and provided the element of the spell matches the current enspell element in effect on the Red Mage. The MP cost of the spell is used in conjunction with the weapon's attack power (and possibly other modifiers) to enhance the enspell damage for the remaining duration of the enspell.

The goal with the damage calculation would be ideally to double the damage possible through just the straight nuke damage, as enmity free enspell DOT. To reach this, you'd have to gear for accuracy and haste, your weapon attack power would matter, and you'd need to minimize cycle spells.

Whoa, that's what, three birds in one stone? I like it!

I agree with Seriha that minimizing cycling is an ideal way to bring RDMs to the front, but with the current direction of multi-purpose jobs the idea has been to require a stance to be chosen so that you can't be great at multiple things at once. BLU can be a good main healer but not if they're a great DD. Same with SCH. Good players can toggle well, but that would be the challenge here too.

Another one of my crazy ideas:

Fencer's Oath: The melee-oriented stance. Encouraging skill with weapons and mixing magic power with swordmanship to create a frontline fighter capable of dealing some damage and having access to useful enfeebling magic, while keeping some semblance of support through back-up cures. The stance obviously focuses on standing in the front lines, while allowing the RDM to cripple their enemies in a way that is beneficial to those in the front line. While in this mode, Magic Attack Bonus does not affect any elemental spells. Grants access to Vorpal Blade and Sanguine Blade. Buff durations on self are quadrupled (Reraise and Utsusemi are unnaffected by this). Casting range is cut down to 10 yalms.

Sage's Vow: The caster-oriented stance. Placing greater emphasis on magic of all types, and thus granting access to a larger array of spells. This stance somewhat mirrors how RDM is currently played; it focuses on pure spell-casting while giving the RDM its known kiting tools to use where necessary. It also has access to powerful support magic for use in groups and increased buff duration for all party members as a baseline bonus.

A rough idea of how I would do it. I know you mentioned switching being a good thing, but in fear of being told "do your damage thing then get the hell in the back and start healing and casting refresh", I'd put a 1-minute debuff attached to switching stances. And yes, Readiness and Spellblade were conceived with these stances in mind. There are a couple of of additional mods per stance, such as traits, additional abilities and spells available, too.

[Supersun]

I really don't like the idea of stances myself. I feel the conflict with the nature of Red Mage. Gaining something at the loss of something else isn't what Red Mage has represented in the past. Not to mention that stances are hardly necessary at this point. I mean for your melee stance why not just give us those WS natively? That sure isn't going to break the job and that's already the majority of that stance besides the 4x buff thing (which between composure and EAF cape + feet doesn't really need to be increased that much more for just our self).

I think the real bread winner is going to be an idea that enhances both the back line and the front line in a simple yet effective way. I randomly came up with an idea yesterday from the synthesis of a pieces of other suggestions put together. Once again this tends to play with the idea of an elemental WS, but could be just as easily modified to work for a physical was well.

JA - Spirit Release - 0:15 cooldown
Releases energy stored from a portion of your MP spent.

The general idea is that there have always been complaints that time spent casting is not time spent meleeing. Ideas such as swinging while you are casting have been proposed, but I was thinking if there were any other ways to make up melee from your casting. Then I realized that Occult Acumen was somewhat of an attempt at this, but imo it's too restrictive working only for elemental and dark magic and having the MP spent converted to TP isn't necessarily the best use. SO I came up with this idea instead.

The MP you spend is added to an invisible "Sublimation like pool" and whenever you use the JA above it spends that pool to enhance your next WS, nuke, or cure. Not 1:1 obviously, but I was thinking that it enhances your WS/spell by +20% of the "MP pool spent." So for example if you spend 100 MP and you used the JA it would enhance your next WS, nuke, or cure by +5%. This would obviously need some sort of cap and I was thinking about 1000 MP in the pool or +50% WS/nuke/cure potential. Of course the numbers are arbitrary if used would likely be changed, but the concept is the important thing.

Obviously there are some issues with this and this change alone won't really do all that much unless accompanied by other things (such as non 75 melee gear), but this might be one way that the front line as well as the back line might receive an added boost.

[Duelle]

I really don't like the idea of stances myself. I feel the conflict with the nature of Red Mage. Gaining something at the loss of something else isn't what Red Mage has represented in the past. Not to mention that stances are hardly necessary at this point. I mean for your melee stance why not just give us those WS natively? That sure isn't going to break the job and that's already the majority of that stance besides the 4x buff thing (which between composure and EAF cape + feet doesn't really need to be increased that much more for just our self).

From experience, buff duration is still a bit on the short side. That and I'm nowhere near AF3 cape and feet to benefit from that. Admittedly, I do think from the baseline point of view, but that's largely because I've never believed in fixes or notable changes in class mechanics through gear.

Aside from that, the reason why I proposed a melee stance is because (this being just opinion) even with weapon skills the shadow of "support" still lingers over you. Not to mention that my idea also had Job traits available only in that stance, mainly Accuracy Bonus, Crippler (enfeebling accuracy is derived from melee accuracy), Arcane Combat (elemental magic accuracy for nukes and Spellblade is derived from melee accuracy), and Magic Fencer (TP Bonus for spells cast through Spellblade, and I'm considering adding that suggestion to give it a damage bonus to enspells). Also, I'd toss in enfeebles that are fitting for close-quarter combat.

On the caster side, I was thinking of additional tiers of MAB and MDB, Cure V or my own spin on helping RDM heals, the job trait Triage (which adds 25-50% bonus heal to Cure spells over 15 seconds). A couple of extra enfeebles that fit the theme of a ranged caster as well.

I guess my mindset here is that you wouldn't be able to give RDM all that without some mechanic to keep both sides separate. Under normal game design gear could be the segregating factor, but gear-swapping mid-combat is possible in FFXI.

[Seriha]

I'll just reiterate I'm not keen on penalizing stances, either. We saw it with Hasso/Seigan because, let's face it, SE didn't SAM/NINs rocking the world. SCH's are a bit more sensible, since it is what lets them better encroach on BLM while at the same time not being as potent as WHM and so on the other way around. WHM's stances carry no penalty at all. I just feel one style should favor offense, both physically and magically (better debuffs and nukes), while the other would emphasize defense (better buffs, cures, etc.). Keeping yourself backline wouldn't reap the direct benefits of those, but being in the back also arguably brings more safety. Those who put themselves at risk of a mob's AoE's and Auras deserve to get more out of the deal.

[Supersun]

Stances aren't necessarily a bad idea in of themselves since like sch the drawback of one stance is usually enough to justify the near specialist power of that stance. I just don't feel that is "Red Mage" though. I more feel we should be generalists with a niche. (and by niche I don't mean a specialized role. I more mean specialized benefits that synergize well with others that along with our generalist abilities justify a spot. Dia III is a niche. It's a powerful def down effect that synergizes well with mostly everyone (if only attack mattered for heavy DDs now >.>))

[Duelle]

Stances aren't necessarily a bad idea in of themselves since like sch the drawback of one stance is usually enough to justify the near specialist power of that stance. I just don't feel that is "Red Mage" though. I more feel we should be generalists with a niche. (and by niche I don't mean a specialized role. I more mean specialized benefits that synergize well with others that along with our generalist abilities justify a spot. Dia III is a niche. It's a powerful def down effect that synergizes well with mostly everyone (if only attack mattered for heavy DDs now >.>))

The only other way I can think of creating some semblance of balance is through gear, but as I've mentioned, that approach is moot in a game where gear-swapping is the norm. Gear is usually a decent factor for this sort of thing, but alas it simply would not work here.

The lack of restrictions is what feeds the "RDM shouldn't get A or B because they're overpowered and can already out-survive everything" sentiments. I'd love to be able to shut them up once and for all. Then again, so long as the class is adept at the sword and has access to white and black magic, it doesn't stop being a Red Mage to me.

[Supersun]

Those sentiments are wrong. I mean we are at a point where our soloability primarily comes from terrain abuse. You can't blame a job for being able to solo a lot JUST because it abuses the terrain and other then that it's really only Utsusemi + Fast Cast (and slow if applicable) that makes us durable past that. If our survivability is really an issue (which it's not since we can't hold hate worth **** anyway) wouldn't the next logical step then be to wean us off a /nin for DD? Certainly they can make something else more viable without overpowering the job.

[Duelle]

Those sentiments are wrong. I mean we are at a point where our soloability primarily comes from terrain abuse. You can't blame a job for being able to solo a lot JUST because it abuses the terrain and other then that it's really only Utsusemi + Fast Cast (and slow if applicable) that makes us durable past that.

The thing is that we have people that still claim we're broken and want to be Superman. This is partly because of the community, but also partly because the developers did not handle RDM properly from the start. If it had been me in charge, I would have nerfed Bind, Gravity, Utsusemi (by making Ninjutsu not be affected by Fast Cast) AND fixed the terrain errors not even within an hour after the first Avesta solo video came out. It's just common sense. Leaving crap like that slide is what created the generally negative image we have. So people's rationale is "you can solo Genbu and Ash Dragon, so it's ok for you to be my refresh whore when joining my party". It would be akin to the devs leaving Reckoning Bomb in WoW alone instead of nerfing it within hours of it being discovered.

wouldn't the next logical step then be to wean us off a /nin for DD?

This is where I can only say that a melee RDM single wielding would have to match the DPS of any member of the /NIN club to be acceptable. And it requires changes that are basically a crap shoot. That still does not remove our perceived "support" aspects from the equation when front-lining, either.

[Supersun]

The thing is that we have people that still claim we're broken and want to be Superman.

There are also people that claim that Puppetmaster is lol. Doesn't make them right. And wouldn't it be silly to not buff something just because some players with no real experience with the job and are either blind or jealous say it's broken? I guarantee you there are plenty of career white mages out there that would rather see the job rot for all they care because they seem to think that we personally were the ones that made Red Mage the way it was in ToA. The point is that why does a flawed perception matter? People have already tried to debate it but they all fail when asked "Name something that you would bring a Red Mage over any other job."

This is where I can only say that a melee RDM single wielding would have to match the DPS of any member of the /NIN club to be acceptable. And it requires changes that are basically a crap shoot.

Though /nin is daunting with it's ~40% melee (and enspell) DoT increase, +10% increase in WS frequency, and +20% WS damage increase it certainly isn't impossible to make something more powerful in a practical matter. Here are just some random ideas off the top of my head.

1) Give us Greatsword. It certainly isn't unprecedented and GS is horribly underused as it is. I'm not actually sure whether it would be more powerful then DW Swords or not, but Rdm/Sam with a GS would certainly have some level of power (though the recast penalty would suck XD)

2) Give us some form of native Dual Wield. Something else that isn't necessarily unprecedented. If we innately have that +20% WS damage from the offhand then /war becomes a lot more viable especially since /war then also adds the EX WS as well. /nin would still win in the DOT aspect but /war would do a bit more WS damage.

3) A strong elemental WS + Fencer/Magic Fencer. Already talked a bit about this one, but it's a similar solution as the previous one. Since elemental WSs aren't affected by additional hits the +20% WS damage doesn't matter and /war closes the gap quite a bit between the rest of /nin.

4) Give shields some offensive potential. I mean it wasn't uncommon for shields to be used to strike an enemy yet in XI all we have that reflect this is Shield Bash. There are certainly ways they could improve shields whether it's just shields with better offensive stats or some JAs/JTs that allow the shield to do additional damage like kick attacks or something.

I mean when Thf got DW 1 before the lvl 90 cap Thf/War actually did more damage then /nin. It really wasn't until 90 that nin pulled ahead again, and I'll admit that+~40% DoT increase certainly is quite a bit, but if SE fixed 2h weapons (albeit in a stupid way imo) they can certainly do it again if needed. I mean if needed they could just make fencer a stupidly powerful JT.