Ow, that hurt, stung. I'm gonna go home and cry now.
Seriously though, you're making baseless assumptions. Even the BG forums believe RDM needs an update, now that's something to think about.
Mostly because HNMs are a thing of the past. The point stands. I was giving examples of how RDM has been consistently doing things other jobs have been unable to do for years. That is still the case. If you have some other magical reason you have neglected to mention, despite all your posts, then now is the time to give it.
Here's how you can make melee a frontline job without any help from SE!
/pcmd leave
/equip meleeset
/engage mob
Admittedly a good answer, but not quite what I was looking for. The answer to what I was looking for is "It's solo". Soloing is often the brunt of the update naysayers when in fact plenty of jobs can solo as well, especially in this era of Abyssea. Soloing NMs is not unique to RDM.
To drive my point home however, no one, at least the people I've known for years, is asking for RDM to be overpowered. We can replace WHM, but we'll never be as good as WHM. We can replace BLM, but we'll never be as good as BLM. We however cannot replace a DD because they're just leagues better than us (theoretically. Gear can make lopsided arguments in terms of practicality). We're still good tanks vs low-man stuff, but the -Enmity healing will make it weaker.
The issue isn't that we can't melee (in fact we can). It's that the mage side is aggressively lop-sided compared to the melee side.
If we were called Spellswords, I would take your side, but we are Redmages. I figure that is the reasoning behind our design.
If I were to augment a RDM's melee skills though, I would have given us the highest parry in the game, being that we are made out to be Fencers. Probably would have dropped our shield skill completely too. In previous iterations they often show RDMs with staffs, so I would have given us a D skill there (as opposed to nothing). The FFXI makeup of a RDM is a little off from their previous iterations, but altogether similar. No RDM has ever been an amazing melee since FF1, when you could use some of the strongest weapons in the game. I would like to see a return of dual cast though, as that is a uniquely RDM talent, introduced in FF5.
Oh snap, the "mage" line. Someone tell BLUs to go home.
Not really. Design philosophies shifted throughout the life of FFXI. If you look at the pre-TAU classes, they're all designed in a very open way. Even stat alocations for certain gear like AF reflect this. It's after TAU came out that the devs started saying "Ok, this is a new class, and we want it to do this, this and this, but not that or the other thing", and the class' design reflects it very well, from BLU all the way to SCH. PUP has been the outlier this whole time, getting an insane amount of developer attention despite being quite capable in terms of design, concept and what it brings to the table.
It breaks even, actually. The most popular depiction of RDM I've seen to date, however, matches how I look at the class: a fencer with a rapier in one hand and magical energy glowing from the other. A testimony to our being right on the line that separates melee from mage.In previous iterations they often show RDMs with staffs, so I would have given us a D skill there (as opposed to nothing). The FFXI makeup of a RDM is a little off from their previous iterations, but altogether similar. No RDM has ever been an amazing melee since FF1, when you could use some of the strongest weapons in the game. I would like to see a return of dual cast though, as that is a uniquely RDM talent, introduced in FF5.
Carth puts it well in saying our mage side far outweights the melee side at the moment, which is why I say what I say. To add, it is the fate of generalist classes in MMOs as a whole when left as they are. Yes, this thing RDM went through since the day Refresh was introduced HAS happened before.
* The sad thing is that FFXIV turned RDM into a turret, and people think that's what it's supposed to be. It's supposed to combine sword and magic into something more, not spend the bulk of gameplay spamming spells and jump into melee for only 3 GCDs before scurrying back to the back line.
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