I'm just making this thread for my own personal assessment on each update for RDM, to kinda give a look at what's worthy of note for us each update and such as well as general feedback on it all.
Obviously anyone else can feel free to chime in, but this thread is more for assessing what's done every update. This thread is not meant for discussing the issues plaguing RDM as a whole, but only if it has/has not been addressed by the update itself.
All of that said, this recent update had a lot of good for RDM.
A
This body is not only our new best Accuracy body for TPing, and a good TP body at that, but it's amazing for Enfeebling and beats out our RF1+1 body in every way that matters.
B
These are just TP feet, but they are amazing at what they do. They have 15 Acc, high stat spam, some nice Haste with Store TP, and to top it off some much needed PDT.
C
The last thing to talk about really in this update that comes to mind is kind of annoying to me, because it once again shows extreme favortism to WHM's melee aspect while also showing RDM's melee side is largely ignored.
What do I mean? Well, throughout the past we've always seen WHM only pieces that had a large boost to melee stats such as the old Haste in high amounts that Blessed gear provided. What happened to RDM? Well, it got the same gear every other job did be it mage or light DD, never anything special to cater to that aspect of the job really.
So, once again WHM gets something amazing for melee while RDM doesn't, and it's so very annoying.
This is our new JSE weapon. Look great? That's because it is great, it's wonderful. I was very excited to see this sword originally because wow, it's actually a sword with 'Sword Enhancement Spell Damage +' on it that will actually be useful! Not only that but the boost to Phalanx means this blade has a use outside of meleeing even, and specifically makes RDM as a job, better. Now, compared to some other swords such as one I'll have a picture of in a bit, it's actually weaker, and probably not optimum for anything melee, but it's not a bad sword in the end by any means.
Enter, the WHM Club...
27 Accuracy, for a job whose weapon has an A+ rank where as our's sits at B, while ours has none. 15 Atk, a stat both jobs could use but again skill plays a large part in our lack there of and in the end it's a vital stat for our best WS, one which causes our attack starved issues to become even worse! Last but not least this weapon has a grand 4% Double Attack.
I know this caters to a group of WHMs who melee, I have no issue with that and hell, I even support WHM meleeing because I do no different with RDM. But in the end this is an issue for RDM overall which seems to be brought to my attention through this update because once again, it happens.
Now the last thing I want to bring up is the other sword that beats it and kind of defeats the point of using it for melee.
This sword has better DMG, lower delay, and some much needed Accuracy on it before you augment it. With augments that cost around the same amount as our JSE sword you can get an extra 7STR/10Atk/3DMG, or 7DEX/10Acc/3DMG. Either path puts this at 135 DMG, a full 11 more than our JSE, while also giving Atk or Acc we do need.
I'm not sure why it's so hard to cater to RDM's who melee like they do for WHM and why they can't just make our weapons good or give us some specific gear too. This update, this sword, exemplifies one of the problems with RDM meleeing and that's the fact SE just doesn't give us the gear we need. They're getting better, but this is still an example of us getting left behind when it comes to vital stats, and WHM's failure to be stuck as we are. I'm not saying stop giving WHM these pieces that cater to their melee aspects, I'm saying start giving RDM some love too, we need it desperately.
That's basically everything RDM related this update, eagerly awaiting May & Wardrobe!