How can SE make the Redmage frontline job?

[Seriha]

It'd be a start, but hardly a solution to our collective ills (The Unlucky Seven of 1) Lack of Hybrid Gear, and/or active inventory space. 2) Lack of Hybrid Foods. 3) Casting burden. 4) Role Identity. 5) Lack of native melee traits. 6) Poor native weaponskill selection. 7) Bugs or unwanted "features".).

[Rayik]

Actually... Yes. I can get behind this. I feel like that alone would mix things up a bit without breaking things.

I know I come off as a little smug, but really, that's what I feel is missing for the most part when it comes to rdm melee. I hear CDC is great, but we should NOT have to do an Empyrean weapon trial to function normally, to just do what we should be able to in the first place. It's like telling BLM's they need an Empyrean just to Nuke.

And another thing, why the hell don't rdm get access to Magian daggers?

[Bigboy]

Now I SWEAR I said just getting Sanguine Blade natively would satisfy a lot of people.

I stopped reading your posts when it became obvious you weren't reading anyone else's. This one was a 1 liner though, so I read it before realizing it was you.

[Bigboy]

Put simply, people want efficiency. People want the path of least resistance that leads to the most plentiful results. RDM melee is the hardest aspect of the job to gear, and relative to nuking as a damage source, is basically inferior. Our buff side is grossly overstated. What most mean to say is Utsusemi makes us "gods" at times, which last I checked is a NIN ability. Our debuffs really aren't all that when they can land, and we all know WHM can brute force their way through a fight even without casting their T1 versions of Slow and Para (And to the Efficiency Police, enfeebling is A Bad Thing(tm) since the MNK can't counter as often!).

Back in the day, I used to say something like RDM is 1/9 WAR, 5/9 WHM, and 3/9 BLM. Nowadays, you could drop a point off WHM and add it to BLM, if only because of T4 nukes. We've obviously gotten no new cures or meaningful party buffs. Still, I'd like this ratio to eventually become more of 1/3rd each, but I'm not so dense as it to limit it purely to damage. Melee and Support aren't mutually exclusive roles. Would you let a RDM melee if it meant they could cast a 20% Haste instead of 15%? How about a 45% Slow instead of 35%? That's just the beginning kiddies, and it doesn't even demand 4k+ WS to work.

If your debuffs aren't impressive, you either suck, or are really hard to impress. My para II will leave a mob doing NOTHING for 10 seconds at a time, and sometimes longer. I don't have to explain maxed slow and blind as well, I assume.

As for meleeing being a component to your buffs and debuffs... The job is called Dancer. Go ahead and play that if it is the playstyle you are looking for out of your RDM.

[Carth]

I stopped reading your posts when it became obvious you weren't reading anyone else's. This one was a 1 liner though, so I read it before realizing it was you.

Aw come on, I thought we were friends.

We're actually on the same page for a lot of stuff.

[Seriha]

Let's not pretend that using Slow and Para is nothing compared to the T2s. Other jobs can cast them, and a 3 minute ability does not a master Enfeebler make. Did you know RDM has 22 potential debuffs to BLU's 62? Somethin' fishy there.

As for meleeing being a component to your buffs and debuffs... The job is called Dancer. Go ahead and play that if it is the playstyle you are looking for out of your RDM.

You probably ignored my earlier commentary about ideas RDMs proposed years ago actually hitting the game, but not for RDM (Accession/Diffusion/Steps). As is, RDMs and DNCs working together is pretty much impossible for the RDM (Samba/Enspell conflict). Simply telling someone to play another job is being the poster child of closed-minded. Believe it or not, it's possible for RDM to put its own unique spin to things. As is, BLU is a melee mage specializing in spike damage. RDM could be the DoT cousin. We're close, but still need some nudges.

[Bigboy]

Here's the thing that really cements the argument for not having RDM melee. If you are meleeing, you are not using your ACC/Potency staves. You are casting with a deficiency. You can always switch into a staff to cast whatever it is you need to cast, but you will wipe your TP in the process. If you wait til you are ready to WS so you can use your TP, you aren't fulfilling a useful role in the party. This is neglecting at best 50% of your responsibilities. In most cases, it is ignoring 100% of the reason you are even in the party. If you are being responsible with your casting, then you will constantly be dropping you TP and do horrible damage. If you think the only spells you are expected to cast are haste and refresh you are a horrible RDM, but keeping a cycle up would cause you to not be swinging for an unacceptable amount of the fight for a melee.

[Bigboy]

Simply telling someone to play another job is being the poster child of closed-minded.

No, it's called being a realist. Close minded is refusing to see a truth because it doesn't coincide with your established thought on a subject. If one medicine doesn't cure you, and a Doctor tells you that it's because frog piss doesn't actually reduce swelling, but there are numerous working options you could choose from, the Doctor isn't being close minded. I am getting really tired of being told I can't see or understand what people are telling me when they themselves are just projecting their own problems onto me.

You are close minded. You want RDM to be something it isn't. You want to drastically change the job. The job changes described already exist in other jobs. If those things are important to you, then play those jobs, quit trying to hammer this screw in.

[Rayik]

Here's the thing that really cements the argument for not having RDM melee. If you are meleeing, you are not using your ACC/Potency staves. You are casting with a deficiency. You can always switch into a staff to cast whatever it is you need to cast, but you will wipe your TP in the process. If you wait til you are ready to WS so you can use your TP, you aren't fulfilling a useful role in the party. This is neglecting at best 50% of your responsibilities. In most cases, it is ignoring 100% of the reason you are even in the party. If you are being responsible with your casting, then you will constantly be dropping you TP and do horrible damage. If you think the only spells you are expected to cast are haste and refresh you are a horrible RDM, but keeping a cycle up would cause you to not be swinging for an unacceptable amount of the fight for a melee.

The magian trial swords help with this a little bit, but then there's the thing of casing spells taking time away from melee, and vice versa. I have M.Acc and MAB swords, which cover he potency of my spells nicely, but just casting a spell means not swinging. Just helps reduce the TP loss.

[Rayik]

No, it's called being a realist. Close minded is refusing to see a truth because it doesn't coincide with your established thought on a subject. If one medicine doesn't cure you, and a Doctor tells you that it's because frog piss doesn't actually reduce swelling, but there are numerous working options you could choose from, the Doctor isn't being close minded. I am getting really tired of being told I can't see or understand what people are telling me when they themselves are just projecting their own problems onto me.

You are close minded. You want RDM to be something it isn't. You want to drastically change the job. The job changes described already exist in other jobs. If those things are important to you, then play those jobs, quit trying to hammer this screw in.

I can see both side of you guys' arguments, but if RDM were absolutely not meant to be melee, then why on earth do we have a B rating in swords and daggers, have trial swords, and access to a plethora of melee gear? If melee is "something the job isn't", then please explain this to me. Explain to me why we have a job ability, Composure, which gives +10 Accuracy to melee.

If we were having this discussion in the SMN or SCH forums you'd be winning. But this isn't SMN, SCH, or even BLM. This is RDM, what was at least at some point, intended to be a melee spellcaster.