How would you design Red Mage in FFXIV?

[randomrope]

With skills that combo together far faster than they should and pump out a moderate amount of damage while applying no notable buffs or debuffs of any sort. In the way that you would barely resemble anything you once thought was a redmage. Because the game is dps onry

[Duelle]

Fixed your fancy word for you.

Noted, and thanks. >.>;

The thing with SMN now is the way it feels and the appearances of the pets ("summons"). The gameplay in general seems okay. At least, this is what I got from various threads.

You missed the posts saying XI's summoner was better because of utility or more commands for the summons, ignoring that summoner had horrible scaling, was hampered by blood pact timers (even after it was split into rage and ward) and most of the utility XI's avatars had would be overpowered or underpowered in the current game. XI's summoner had too many eggs in one basket and had game balance stacked against them. Some people never wisened up to that fact.

While I never played RDM (I don't like the archetype), I hope it will meet most people's expectations. I find it rather peculiar one would "happily sit though the loads of people crying about.." etc.

I said this for two reasons. Firstly because some people here can't appreciate that XIV's summoner was a change for the better and that their pining for FFXI isn't going to help them in any case. Secondly because I predict that if FFXIV's RDM were anything even removely close to the stuff suggested by Ramsey, Swords, Marta, myself, etc, there will be people wishing they could spam buffs and heals (pining for the bad old days), not unlike said individuals that complained about XIV's summoner.

[eodharbinger]

Just posting my support of a RDM or buff/ debugging class for FFXIV in 2014! .

[eodharbinger]

Just posting my support of a RDM or buff/ debugging class for FFXIV in 2014! .

Debuffing not debugging lol

[Duelle]

Going with the "RDM not having enspells" thing, here's an alpha version of a concept I cooked up.

Fencer

Abilities
01 Quick Thrust - Delivers an attack with a potency of 120.
02 Principle of Defense - Increases your parry rate by 50% and your evasion by 5% for 20 seconds. 90 second cooldown.
04 Stocatta - Delivers an attack with a potency of 100. Combo => Quick Thrust: 200 Potency
06 Hamstring - Delivers an attack with a potency of X. Decreases target's movement speed by 20% for X seconds.
08 Circle Slash - Delivers an attack with a potency of 100 to all enemies around you. 3-yalm range.
10 Riposte - Delivers an attack with a potency of 150. Can only be used after parrying an attack.
12 Keen Eye - Increases the critial hit chance of the next two attacks by 100/50%. 90 second recast.
15 Froissement - Delivers an attack with a potency of 80. Inflicts target with Pacification for 3 seconds. 45 second cooldown.
18 Temper - Increases your skill speed by 50% for 10 seconds. 3-minute cooldown.
22 Breaking Thrust - Delivers an attack with a potency of 80. Combo => Quick Thrust: 150 potency. Reduces target's resistance to your attacks by 10% for 12 seconds.
26 Sanguine Pin - Delivers an attack with a potency of 100. Combo => Stocatta: 200 potency. Recover TP and MP over 12 seconds.
30 Pommel Strike - Delivers an attack with a potency of 50. Inflicts target with Silence for 1 second. 45 second cooldown.
34 Double - Doubles the potency, cost and cooldown of the next spell or weapon skill.
38 Coup de grace - Delivers an attack with a potency of 250. Can only be used while target is below 20% HP.
42 Arcing Slash - Delivers an attack with a potency of 80 to your target and two additional enemies. Combo => Circle Slash: 110 potency.
46 Graze - Reduces damage taken by the next attack by 60%. 3 minute cooldown.
50 Death Blossom - Delivers an attack with a potency of 100. Combo => Stocatta: 260 potency. Decreases target's resistance to magic by 10% for 20 seconds.

Traits
08 Enhanced Dexterity (Fencer) - Increases DEX by 2.
14 Mastery of Defense - Increases Principle of Defense's parry increase to 60% and evasion increase to 10%.
16 Enhanced Dexterity II (Fencer) - Increases DEX by 4.
20 Versatility - Increases magic potency by 10% of your physical attack.
24 Enhanced Dexterity III (Fencer) - Increases DEX by 6.
28 Keener Eye - Keen eye now increases the crit chance of the next three attacks by 100/75/50%.
32 Enhanced Hamstring - Hamstring now decreases enemy movement speed by 40%.
36 Enhanced Temper - Increases Temper's duration to 20 seconds.
40 Versatility II - Increases magic potency by an additional 10% of your physical attack.
44 Enhanced Sanguine Pin - Increases the duration of SP's TP/MP regen to 21 seconds.
50 Tactical Fencing - Reduces the cooldown of Froissement and Pommel Strike to 30 seconds.

Notes:
- As is always the case, potencies, durations and cooldowns are negotiable.
- In keeping within the theme of Marta's challenge, I decided to make Fencer just that. A melee fighter that uses a rapier to get the job done.
- This was done more through guessing what the devs are going to do with NIN and any future jobs, so this version of Fencer is basically going to turn into RDM at lv30. Versatility plays into this as well.
- Hamstring should have a cooldown or a large TP cost to balance it out. Not sure which way to go with it.
- I thought about giving Breaking Thrust a positional requirement (flank). Still a possibility.
- Froissement and Pommel Strike allow FNC to interrupt both types of attacks, giving it near-double effectiveness.
- Temper, Keen Eye and Double are direct DPS boosts. I'm iffy on giving FNC three cooldowns out of fear it might become too strong, though.

-----

Red Mage

Support Classes: THM (Thunder, Surecast, Swiftcast, Sleep), CNJ (Cure, Stoneskin, Protect, Raise)

Mechanics: The RDM crystal gives Stocatta and Death Blossom a 20% chance to give you the buff "Battle Cast". Battle Cast enhances the next spell cast by you. If the spell is native to RDM (Burn, Frost, Shock, Chant) the spell's attributes and effect change. If the spell is cross-classed on to RDM (Thunder, Cure, Stoneskin, Protect, Raise), the spell becomes instant-cast.

Burn, Frost and Shock are instant-cast and require melee range to be used outside of Battle Cast procs. Battle Cast Burn deals fire damage for 170 potency to your target. Battle Cast Frost causes the RDM to hurl an ice lance at an enemy up to 15 yalms away for 150 potency. Battle Cast Shock deals lightning damage for 120 potency to all enemies within 3 yalms. Battle Cast Chant sacrifices 10% of your total HP to heal and becomes instant cast.

Abilities

30 Burn - Deals fire damage with a potency of 50. Damage over time (30 potency, 18 seconds).
35 Frost - Deals ice damage with a potency of 50. Slows target for 20 seconds.
40 Shock - Deals lightning damage with a potency of 50. Stuns target for 3 seconds.
45 Chant - Sacrifice 5% of total HP to heal an ally for twice the amount sacrificed. 4 second cast time. Spell cannot be used if below 20% max HP.
50 Phalanx - Reduces damage taken by target by 25% for 10 seconds. 5-minute cooldown.

Notes:
- The idea behind Battle Cast is that it gives the RDM use of their spells while allowing them to weave spells into an attack rotation.
- There may be some concerns on how strong this version of RDM would be, as it is a job that can stun, interrupt, snare, heal and reduce damage taken on top of dealing damage.
- The combat model seems a bit off because it is reliant on Battle Cast procs, though I like to think of this as a balancing factor for RDM's damage output.
- Battle Cast Frost would be RDM's sole native long range attack, which would give it a shot at dealing damage to far away targets.
- Phalanx is basically a better version of Testudo on a longer cooldown, but that is an appropriate interpretation. It's more a utility cooldown but can also be used on yourself, unlike Testudo.
- RDM's offhealing is in a bit of an odd spot, as Chant is reliant on your total HP (which would get weaker as you keep casting it) while Cure would still be far behind what a WHM or SCH would be able to provide. It's really more for those dire moments where people are taking too much damage or if a healer lags. The numbers would most likely have to be tuned somewhere in there.

Not exactly my cup of tea but yeah, Fencer as a melee combatant and RDM mechanics and spells placed on top of that.

[Nerzhul921]

RDM would be a DPS job most deff. The secondary class needed would be THM for the magic aspect while the healing would come from the Fencer and RDM being able to take a few of the spells from CNJ. To keep with the feel of them being a jack of all trades they could take the spells from both THM and CNJ but only up to lvl 2. Their strikes could be enchanted with elemental damage to apply a small increase in potency. "But what about making sure RDM actually CAN use magic effectively!? :O" you may ask. Well, CNJ has Cleric Stance which swaps the INT and MND stat while giving a small percentile increase to attack spells and a larger debuff to healing spells. Why not give RDM 2 stances that swap their primary stat with either INT or MND with similar percentile effects?

[Quinlan]

I'd really like to see the Red Mage as a tank, one that uses parry, dodge, and magic absorbs. Using thinner swords than Paladin (rapiers but also longswords that are thin and "elven like" as well as sabers, etc.

Their "Red Magic" I'd like to see Auras. You click and it channels White Magic for 10s or 30s then it channels Black Magic for the same time doing the opposite. For instance, the Damage Aura: for 10s the Red Mage draws on Black Magic giving the enemy a penalty to defense/armor, then for another 10s that turns into White magic and gives the same to the party but as a bonus.

There could be a Damage reduction/vulnerability one, a Healing/Damage one, a Haste/Slow one, etc. I like the idea of having them use White/Black magic to create opposite effects Those Auras would be their Job abilities whereas their base class provided their tanky stuff. We need less DPS classes and more Tanky ones.

[Morningstar1337]

It would be a mix of Spell Fencer and Red Mage. Utilizing a Raiper and a Glyph (off hand thing so that paladins don;t get a monopoly on battle offhand). And will utilize Spells of every element as well as healing spells. But they will be one spell each element and have of medium potency. To compensate they can use a new skill to aspect their sword with those spells, (but since elemental resistances are nonexistent, the augmented attack will have other effectsm rnaged form potency boost, to DoT, to decreasing ementy)

[Reiji_Soma]

Not sure how old these posts are, but I'd like to weigh in. I haven't played all that long but as a veteran to Final Fantasy as a series, I'd place Red Mage in the Tank category for XIV. Now I know a lot of players out there are "No it needs to be DPS" or "Refresh + Haste onry plz thx die." But have you all looked at Dark Knight? it had never been a tank before XIV, and what about White Mage? Since when has the class ever started with Stone? and for what reason did WHM start off as a Conjurer? isn't that more on the Summoner line? Also Ninja is DPS and not a Tank like in XI. I guess what I'm getting at is that you kinda have to throw what you know the jobs of the more traditional Final Fantasy out the window when it comes to FFXIV.

As it is now and what I have seen, FFXIV is a rather simple game in the terms of difficulty and I have yet to see a need for crowd control, although I have seen one mage sleep a mob. Anyways, I feel like I'm trailing off subject...

1/2

[Reiji_Soma]

Rapier as weapons, Round/Bucklers for tradition. Give it skills that buff it as it goes. Two Refresh skills, one for self, one for others, like the TP Rouge gets and the TP Lancer gets. I also feel that its white and black magic should be mainly cross-classed, but that's just me. as far as the En-Sword goes, RDM never had it before XI and it really didn't do much for them then. it's really not needed. From what I've gathered, element in general is rather ignored in FFXIV as it is. Ninja's cast Raiton on thunder elements all the time and do normal damage. But anyway, before I start talking about how I'd like to see Thief come into play as a secondary Rouge choice because I actually don't have much of a fondness on how they did Ninjutsu, I'll just end here. So end notes, I vote for Tank, FFXIV is rather broken in terms of job classes (and other things), Where's Thief at? and have a nice day. Final Fantasy Rocks!!

... except Spirits Within, that movie sucked...

2/2