So now what?

[Zekander]

Now that SMN finally has Hastega II (along with a slew of other moderately useful buffs) is RDM still needed for anything?

As far as I can tell, without Haste II, RDM only uses now are as a sub par stun gun (when you can't find a SCH), Flurry II in RNG parties (though it is often more effective to simply add another RNG), and for debuffs (which have always had dubious utility).

I haven't noticed it yet, but it seems obvious that people will start preferring SMN over RDM for buffing parties, especially considering that a well geared SMN can easily deal more damage then a RDM can in addition to buffing the party.

So what happens now? Is there anything we can do to ensure RDM stays a viable party member, or do we just let it slide into solo obscurity?

[Tennotsukai]

I'm betting that SE will come out with new spells and abilities for rdm via jp's. Their way of fixing jobs.

[Zekander]

Any ideas on what those spells and/or abilities could be? ^^

[Jile]

A diffusion-style one minute /JA would be a nice start, PhalanxII-ga / HasteII-ga in effect would be nice.

[Zekander]

SE seems pretty adamant about not giving RDM aoe capabilities, so while it would be nice, it's highly unlikely.

Honestly I don't know what would make RDM desirable in parties. Some new, unique enfeebles would be nice, but enfeebles are rarely useful enough to warrant a party slot.

Personally I would like to see some more melee capability, but again, that's not gonna help us get into parties.

[Shirai]

Changing Temper so that it can be casted on party members would already be a great help... ಠ_ಠ

[dasva]

Giving us debuffs that are anywhere near as powerful as pretty much every other job that has debuffs would also help... especially considering how our sp2 only helps us land a debuff.

Changing all of our self only buffs into either AoE or party buffs would help too considering almost all of our self only buffs can be AoEd by someone else

Maybe some item(s) that vastly increase potency of buffs/debuffs similar to brd or geo or even cor has now

[Olor]

A diffusion-style one minute /JA would be a nice start, PhalanxII-ga / HasteII-ga in effect would be nice.

RDM can have diffusion when blus get composure. Also Diffusion is on a 10 minute timer

[Protey]

Now that SMN finally has Hastega II (along with a slew of other moderately useful buffs) is RDM still needed for anything?

As far as I can tell, without Haste II, RDM only uses now are as a sub par stun gun (when you can't find a SCH), Flurry II in RNG parties (though it is often more effective to simply add another RNG), and for debuffs (which have always had dubious utility).

I haven't noticed it yet, but it seems obvious that people will start preferring SMN over RDM for buffing parties, especially considering that a well geared SMN can easily deal more damage then a RDM can in addition to buffing the party.

So what happens now? Is there anything we can do to ensure RDM stays a viable party member, or do we just let it slide into solo obscurity?

wow, so much doom and gloom. smn still doesn't catch up to what rdm can do. smn hastega2 is for same party only, most people don't want to swap out their whm or cor (hate it when mob is unhittable because hate went onto cor when he dropped) to get that smn in every few minutes. RDM can buff outside of party (not refresh/regen, but the other buffs yes). I'd like to see a smn get hate and tank Podarge when the PLD dies. I'd like to see the smn make it so the melee don't have to put on accuracy gear during Wopket's flash move.

Now i'm not going to downplay smn, they are the best zerg job there is (unless the mob lives longer than smn 1 hour, then sam will catch up). and yes smn has some nifty tricks like being able to get rid of adds real easy. they also have some decent debuffs/buffs. however... having to swap them in all the time is really annoying and most people won't want to do that, not when you can have the outside rdm cast haste2 on you.


edit: and don't downplay how much damage a rdm can do. i do around the same as a mnk in delve (10-14% of wopket for instance).

[kylani]

wow, so much doom and gloom. smn still doesn't catch up to what rdm can do. smn hastega2 is for same party only, most people don't want to swap out their whm or cor (hate it when mob is unhittable because hate went onto cor when he dropped) to get that smn in every few minutes. RDM can buff outside of party (not refresh/regen, but the other buffs yes). I'd like to see a smn get hate and tank Podarge when the PLD dies. I'd like to see the smn make it so the melee don't have to put on accuracy gear during Wopket's flash move.

Now i'm not going to downplay smn, they are the best zerg job there is (unless the mob lives longer than smn 1 hour, then sam will catch up). and yes smn has some nifty tricks like being able to get rid of adds real easy. they also have some decent debuffs/buffs. however... having to swap them in all the time is really annoying and most people won't want to do that, not when you can have the outside rdm cast haste2 on you.


edit: and don't downplay how much damage a rdm can do. i do around the same as a mnk in delve (10-14% of wopket for instance).

I love FFXI, but when the fact that RDM can haste outside of a party while another job has to buff then swap out, makes me all kinds of sad/disappointed in the game.