How i would change RDM if i could.

[Delgear]

Like the previous in the series, i love this game, i play it all the time. Im just throwing up some game design suggestions its a topic i find incredibly interesting and i like talking shop and nuts and bolts.

How would i change RDM, well im going to be honest one single ability on RDM spurred my decision and inspired me to start this series in general .... Composure ... yep as someone who loves the idea of a melee mixing magic and steel i Absolutely love Composure. ive seen a lot of threads, about how to bring rdm back to the front lines. and i think fundamentally we need to address rdm coming back into a lot of roles ... it tends to get relegated to debuffer only especially in end game content. I want to Change all That.

so first lets break down what roles rdm can fill ::

Tank ? technically can but i suggest you secretly use a fake character and ask a VD group if you can tank ambuscade on RDM .... see how it goes.

Damage dealer - its gotten better but really low strength and attack is a problem.

Magic damage dealer - Its pretty hard to get good nuking gear, and even if you do generally you are on par with a GEO in good gear and that GEO brings a lot more to the table.

Healer - Yikes sub scholar is your best bet and those pages DO NOT come fast enough. too many debuffs for a rdm to realistically heal much of anything.

Debuffer - Generally what the public will "allow" you to do on rdm.

On tank im not really sure this was an intended roll SE seems to have done everything they can to stamp this out, due to rdm being able to solo old endgame mobs and it making them mad.

I think on tank your main limit is equipment ... if SE wants rdm to be a viable tank its as simple as making DT - and DT- II available to them and some stoneskin and blink enhancing gear maybe. i think composure as a stance already covers what you need for this outside the gear ... rdm has lots of fastcast and can cast inbetween attacks alot ... they just take way too much damage trying to get their spells off.

now unlike many of my others i want to actually fuse damage dealer and magic damage dealer .... i think rdm should be a one then the other tempo'd damage dealer.
when in composure i think rdm should get a stack of instant cast from opening or closing a skill chain, and receive tp for magic bursting a SC while engaged. this further enhances inundation. the main problem you have here is damage over time rdm autos are low compared to other dd's blue stands out as a similar mix it up job but their damage per hit and per ws is way higher ... and they enjoy greater flexibility as well.
Blue is already strong ... so i think the problem lays in job traits ... rdm needs stronger ones so that skill chaining and MBing keeps them on par but slightly behind other dd's instead of like half the damage .... they cant have as much damage as a main line dd because they still have all those support features .... but no one really complains about blue having it all and eating other peoples cake too ... SO IDK. maybe a REMA level Giants Bracers could mix up the str to enough to help.

Moving on to healer ... Yikes .. the content is what killed this ... rdm has no native way to deal with space herpes flying everywhere and they have no inherent AOE heal ... worse off they get kicked in the shins on regen ....i think honestly rdm should have the strongest regen spell even if they don't have all the tools scholar has to enhance it. With composure it would go a long way to help them ... also for crying out loud let Accession work on any buff and manifestation work on any debuff ... it is beyond frustrating on rdm to have to spam refresh II and III and haste 2 everywhere when geo or bard can just slam their face on the keyboard with their finger in their nose for the same effect. shouldnt have to sub whm or sch to buff a party or heal and if you want to buff more than 2 times it shouldn't take minutes to achieve .... to be perfectly honest im reminded of DAOC (Dark age of Camelot) where you could use CONC on buff centric classes to just slot buff auras on yourself so you didn't have to cast them .... the best solution i have is a stance called ::

Mirror Image :: when in this stance the rdm creates duplicates of themself whenever you cast a healing or enhancing spell that can target another player the mirror forms will cast on a different ally (cure spells go to lowest HP, debuff removal goes to closest allied targets, haste goes to non RA classes, flurry to RA classes) to target ... this would however if it was a stance lockout Composure and making you have to spam buffs everywhere all day albeit a little faster to spam them.

Ultimately the biggest problem RDM faces is action economy ... they have to do so many more steps than many of the other classes that share roles with them that despite them being the "fast casters" they wind up being incredibly slower now that everyone has FC cap ... as rdm needs to access aoe spreading abilities from sub scholar to even compete in a group environment as a support. scholar gets more pages and faster and has better native spells, and whm has big curaga bombs so has a lot less need for the accession pages until its debuff removal time and yagrush makes that a snap.

I honestly think if RDM has any chance to compete as a hybrid middle class they need to seriously make better action economy .... like making composure keep buffs and turn them into aura effects at a MAX MP cost equal to the buffs casting cost that last until composure wears off or you zone.

It would also be nice if the big dots from scholar were more effective when subbed so RDM could also MB them for big damage if they had good gear. and of coarse more pages from SCH sub plz every job that subs it needs more pages.