[Job Adjustmentｓ Manifesto] RDM [Archive]

Felren

07-16-2011, 02:10 AM

The enfeebling thing on HNM is a good start..... Landing enfeebs on higher end mobs in abyssea and such is just too hard right now, which is why you just see most groups going with Rdm, and healing through the damage with a Whm or two.

Rdm has been fairly neglected on Enhancing though honestly... I first think Phalanx II should be pulled freakin out of Rdm's merits and just put in as a high end spell. The spell is weak until you max out its merits, and when you do you lower your enfeebling potential.

Refresh II is nice, not being able to make it AoE with /sch kind of dumbfounds me though. If any job should get a Haste II it should be red mage at this point.

" Support specialists who excel at transforming their allies from mere mortals into demigods with their enhancements, while rendering once-formidable enemies impotent with enfeebling magic."

This doesn't add up with what Rdm has been given AT ALL. Starting with the bar spells Rdm has had alot of self-cast buffs that whm has an AoE version of. You can work around this by subbing whm as Rdm for bar resistance spells. You can also work around it by using Accession with a bar spell as well as /sch.

However now we have a new set of spells, the Gains and Boosts. White mage gets Boosts, which increase a single stat based on your enhancing magic in an AoE around the white mage. Red mage gets the Gains, which increase a single stat based on your enhancing magic on YOURSELF ONLY. Note, a lot of these self buffs can be gotten around by using Accession.......however..... Accession doesn't work with Gain spells. As is, this is a very solo/self cast buff for red mage, even though they're talking about red mage turning allies into "demigods" with their enhancing magic. This is something that needs to be looked at hard if Red mage is supposed to be a group enhancer and not a self enhancer.

Being able to even single target it cast it on another party/allaince member would be better than this self-only crap, but as is it is only useful for the Rdm his/herself.

I could see red mage living without Cure V if 1. Enfeebling would actually land ~80+% of the time with capped enfeeb + a decent enfeeb set 2. There were more enhancing spells that red mage had that white mage didn't. Without these two though, rdm just doesn't bring enough to the plate, and really needs to be able to cure harder as a support than as is right now.

Merton9999

07-16-2011, 02:50 AM

I agree with the ridiculousness of their vision statement. It's indefensible.

/SCH doesn't solve any cycle buff problem, except Phalanx. It's incompatible with Haste and Refresh II, and if you're doing enspellga that was was never cycled anyway. Currently there is no spell that SCH main can't access through main or support job that can be accessioned. Others are exempt too, but right now there is no spell that works this way. Unless at least this restriction is removed, any new RDM buff will suffer the same fate. I can't see that happening though - as a SCH it would make no sense to me for another job to be able to AOE a buff that I can't even cast.

I'm still voting for no new party enhancements for RDM. I'd rather have new enfeebles that are RDM-exclusive, useful to parties and not worthless on mobs that matter. Traits, abilities and reworking of enfeebles to make the current ones more useful would be welcome too.

Rayik

07-16-2011, 03:02 AM

Hyrist

07-16-2011, 03:07 AM

SE's current focus is on a HNM-centric endgame.

But even what they described as far as our enhancing goes is laughable right now. If anyone gets vastly improved by our enhancing spells, it's us: Because everything we have with the exception of a few spells are self target.

Now, if they tie this enhancing thing with our front line usage, that'll be interesting. But until the full details of what they plan on doing are laid out in the open, they pretty much just fed us an outright lie.

Merton9999

07-16-2011, 03:39 AM

Is it just me, or does SE take whatever the fans suggest, and do the opposite? Oooh RDM's are awesome at enhancing their allies; yeah, WHEN THEY SUB WHM. *rolls eyes*.

We've been clamoring for more effectiveness in melee (Just give us a magic elemental WS for F's sakes!!!!) and instead we're getting shoved to the back line permanently.

Welcome back, wanna-be whm's.

My thoughts exactly. This mainfesto is aggravating me more than any other job adjustment announcement, frankly. They state that player feedback is encouraged yet for all the jobs I care about (and others it seems) there's not a single upcoming ability example that comes close to what the majority of people on the English boards are asking for.

When is the "just kidding" announcement coming?

Hyrist

07-16-2011, 04:25 AM

My thoughts exactly. This mainfesto is aggravating me more than any other job adjustment announcement, frankly. They state that player feedback is encouraged yet for all the jobs I care about (and others it seems) there's not a single upcoming ability example that comes close to what the majority of people on the English boards are asking for.

Don't think it's limited to just the EN boards. There's been melee mentions and debates on the German and JP boards as well. Perhaps not as active as the EN boards but it's there.

Supersun

07-16-2011, 04:42 AM

Did anyone else catch these little gems at the bottom

Extras

Additional Planned Adjustments
Weapon skill refinements
Adjustments to enfeebling magic
Revisions to job-specific merit point enhancement attributes.

Hyrist

07-16-2011, 05:16 AM

Yeah lets hope that helps things a bit with RDM overall.

It says 'Revisions'... which really makes me hope they're changing things over to normal spells with Potency Merits in corresponding categories. Cause that will REALLY help with me switching around some merits to accommodate for that.

Also note the WS refinements too, that may apply to us still.

Also, I failed to comment on it but.

I do believe the appropriate term for a Wannabe-WHM is a Pink Mage.

Airget

07-16-2011, 07:19 AM

All of the job adjustments sounded pretty boring to me. For a "manifesto" that's supposedly targetted to a 99-mindset rather than 75, it still seems like simple little 75 tweaks.

My suspicion with new enfeebles is that they'll be designed like Addle - you can't silence any NM that matters, so add a spell that's 1/10 of silence's purpose.

And the worst part is that any enfeeble we get will probably go to WHM or BLM too. The most confusing part is that SCH is supposedly getting a spell to reduce enemy TP, which of course would have been ideal for RDM (and I believe requested here in numerous places, and nowhere on the SCH board), but is instead going to a job that has zero native enfeebles except addendum: black dispel and break.

Honestly I don't want any more party enhancing spells for RDM. Cycling buffs was old in 2005, to have to do it with more would be terrible. Unless it replaces Haste entirely or we get Hastega, then no thanks.

I agree about the melee and wanting my sword to be more useful. Lots of good ideas have been mentioned on this board. I hope they are paying attention to peoples' ideas here like the thread claimed.

I"m thinking the reason behind SE giving the TP enfeeble move to SCH is because for the most part they do lack a good sense of unique magic abilities. The helixes aren't as good as they could be and then we have weather spells. The only other unique spell is klimaform however all jobs can use that now. We recently got the regain enhancement spell so what would go better hand in hand with that then an enfeebling TP move. Well we also the Enmity controlling moves so I think the point SE is trying to make for SCH is they are a magic class that can control the strategy of players and mobs. The idea behind enmity control is "easier hate control" or the ability to attack harder without fear of grabbing hate.

The regain spell allows one to WS faster kinda so it only seems logical for SCH to get the enfeebling version.

Also keep in mind RDM has tier 2 enfeebles so the real point is RDM is an enfeebling class that focuses on targeting a mob through status ailments, enmity control and TP control wouldn't be considered status ailments.

When it comes to status ailments it is very possible that maybe they could see amnesia or higher tiered enfeebles like mute that mobs would be unable to na with ease. Or perhaps even a different elemental tier of enfeebles that do the same enfeeble as other spells but since they are on a different elemental alignment they are easier to land on mobs that would normally be hard to land on.

I would also think that melee is the last thing SE is considering for mage jobs atm, it's better to focus on enhancing their magic capabilities then once they have that figured out they can decide how to make them more melee friendly. It's very possible that whatever the "dungeon crawler" concept is, it'll be a concept that would most likely encourage all party members to melee in the fight.

Duelle

07-16-2011, 07:27 AM

Don't think it's limited to just the EN boards. There's been melee mentions and debates on the German and JP boards as well. Perhaps not as active as the EN boards but it's there.This. I was following the naguri aka madoushi threads for a whole, and a lot of the suggestions are similar to what we've been seeing in our side (enspells based on enfeebles, boosted damage on enspells, more melee gear, more WS access).

saevel

07-16-2011, 08:05 AM

Well I've always maintained that it's fairly easy to "fix" the melee aspect of RDM. Doesn't really require anything *new*, although that might be nice. Just fix the WS distribution, fix Enspell 1 / 2 scaling and fix the gear distribution such that RDM is actually on the 80+ melee pieces. That alone would do worlds for RDM. Then you could do the little enhancements like Tier III enspells, or enfeebling enspells and various JA's. New stuff is nice, but if the core aspects of the job are flawed, then no amount of frosting will fix it.

Hyrist

07-16-2011, 08:32 AM

Cid, please cut that out. You can express the fact that you'd rather have them focus on mage stats than melee in a more constructive manner. Keep the trolling and insults out of the official boards.

I would also think that melee is the last thing SE is considering for mage jobs atm, it's better to focus on enhancing their magic capabilities then once they have that figured out they can decide how to make them more melee friendly. It's very possible that whatever the "dungeon crawler" concept is, it'll be a concept that would most likely encourage all party members to melee in the fight.

For Red Mage, these aren't mutually exclusive. Buffs that we have to give other melee jobs a boost also assist our own performance as well. It's not outrageous to take that a step further and provide a utility that makes our meleeing a useful tool for the party as well.

This way our tool-set synergies with itself. The buffs we give to help DD jobs to a better job at dealing damage can, at the same time, help us do a better job at maintaining said melee utility, which in turn helps the party more.

cidbahamut

07-16-2011, 08:43 AM

So you'd prefer I keep the unbridled rage to alla, got it.

Expand on the class's strengths, not its weaknesses.

Supersun

07-16-2011, 08:56 AM

So you'd prefer I keep the unbridled rage to alla, got it.

Expand on the class's strengths, not its weaknesses.

I'd rather prefer you find an anger management counselor if you really are experiencing unbridled rage from discussion about a video game.

If you would of actually read what we've discussed about instead of just assuming that we were aiming to be the #1 DD you would of noticed that nearly ALL of us supported that Rdm moving in the enfeebling direction was one of the few options it could actually move in without homogenizing the class.

The only thing that doesn't make sense is the "turning our allies into demi-gods" part since we haven't exactly received a super useful enhancing spell that we could actually cast on other players since lvl 48...

Maybe that will change, but I don't see them riding themselves of the self-casting enhancing spell mantra so easily. If anything this might be some hope for the fabled aura spells we've always discussed in the past.

But either way we'll have to wait for lvl 95 to actually see which way they are going with this.

(also by your logic of expanding only on a class strengths and not its weaknesses then Ranger shouldn't be slated to receive all the help with enmity control and should just do even more damage and reach the hate cap even further screwing the party over)

Deadvinta

07-16-2011, 08:57 AM

But melee was supposed to be one of Red Mage's strengths. Weaving spells through the strength of your sword, instead of standing in the back and chanting.

I'd like to meet the person who decided Bard should get Red Mage's Fencer trait.

Neisan_Quetz

07-16-2011, 08:58 AM

Melee was never a Red Mage's strengths, it was an extra. Could it be better? Yes. Is the job suffering because of it? No.

Red Mage doesn't need Fencer, stop harping about it.

Lilia

07-16-2011, 08:58 AM

rdm strength is party buffs, better as whm,brd,smn,cor,blu....lol

cant say more rdm is the jack of all..., is the blu now :(

Neisan_Quetz

07-16-2011, 09:00 AM

BLU can't keep a single buff up fulltime with just diffusion.

Lilia

07-16-2011, 09:04 AM

stoneskinga?

Supersun

07-16-2011, 09:08 AM

cidbahamut

07-16-2011, 09:09 AM

stoneskinga?

Doesn't that cap at 200 damage? Not all that great, plus it's got pretty nasty cooldown iirc.

Hyrist

07-16-2011, 09:21 AM

Melee was never a Red Mage's strengths, it was an extra. Could it be better? Yes. Is the job suffering because of it? No.

Red Mage doesn't need Fencer, stop harping about it.

It is harming a good portion of the enjoyment of the job, yes. It also is harming the job in the fashion that it's failing to live up to its selling points.

I agree about fencer though.

Honestly, the best job to single-wield has it subbable at 90 anyways. It's not all that wonderful of an ability. People are wanting it because of the name, not what it can do.

And Cid, it's for your own good. Unbridled rage here will get you banned quickly. As far as our strengths go. They don't work together as well as they could, and there is a standing desire to be in the front lines more. So if melee is adapted into what is strong about our job, it'll no longer serve as a weakness, and address the other issue that is some of our gear weapon/gear availability, verses the practicability of getting it.

I'll reiterate this again, things like Sagasinger, Chimeric Flueret, Almace. These should not be simply toys for the RDM. They should help fulfill a purpose. Especially for some pieces that require the effort they do to obtain.

Lilia

07-16-2011, 09:24 AM

dont know a cap, was 200 but not more, is blu skill now, ~ skill*0.66~

and for me i can say i not rly want more buff spell, i will not end as a brd or cor

cidbahamut

07-16-2011, 09:28 AM

You're far too hung up on the image of the job rather than the reality of the job.

Why do things like Sagasinger and Almacehave to be anything more than toys? Claustrum's nothing more than a toy but you don't see Black Mage's screaming bloody murder over it.

Supersun

07-16-2011, 09:40 AM

You've never seen a thread asking for mage relics to actually be useful?

Duelle

07-16-2011, 10:07 AM

Why do things like Sagasinger and Almace have to be anything more than toys? Claustrum's nothing more than a toy but you don't see Black Mage's screaming bloody murder over it.Black mages also have a history of blowing stuff up through pure magic. Apples and oranges, really.

You've never seen a thread asking for mage relics to actually be useful?This, too.

Eeek

07-16-2011, 10:05 PM

I believe I speak for nearly everyone though when I say that single target party buffs are just not fun.

Any sort of party enhancement spells should find another way to spread themselves then having to sit there and manually click every single person in your party with every single buff.

If I wanted to perform mundane repetitive tasks more often I'd just go ask for more hours at my job where I actually get payed for it.

There's really no fun in subjugating people to do the types of tasks that machines were built for.

(also, fencer would be nice for AE cleaving with /sch. Situational, sure, but still has a use)

Level.

A different.

Job.

Your moogle has 19 other jobs to choose from. Cycling buffs is a simply fact of life for every mage in FFXI. Even BLMs, at least the ones who aren't loling over getting 2-shotted all the time, have to routinely cycle their defensive buffs.

And besides, it's a little odd to complain about repetitive tasks in an MMO.

Hyrist

07-16-2011, 11:42 PM

There's a difference in volume and task relations there, Eek.

Leveling a job isn't fixing a flawed game/job design, it's avoiding it.

Honestly though, I don't think the teidum would be so bad if there was more to buff with, or if the duration increases were across the board without need for full AF3+2.

If they're going to do it right, and turn RDM into a buffer/debuffer class of the caliber they're claiming, we're going to need more buff variety, and better buffs in general. It's just insulting the way they described this job when it falls SO far short of the mark, and their track record for giving Red Mages new spells and abilities is razor thin.

Covenant

07-17-2011, 12:07 AM

What are the "numbers"? Is my general themes for all "Manifesto" SE threads.

Even before Scholar came on the scene, if felt it was important to get RDM off the enhancing cycles(haste and refresh). I prayed for hastaga and refreshaga. Then Scholar with accession came on the scene and I cried foul. But with the additions of composure and /sch accession some of the imbalance was redressed. However, moving forward I'd like SE to expand RDM/scholar Accession capabilities to include Haste, Haste II, Gain types, and Enspells II's. Keeping these RDM exclusive accession would make RDM shine again even if we couldn't swing out swords. Just being able to accession Haste or creating a "Hastaga" would free RDM enough so that we could swing more, conserving MP for Increased hea,ing and nuking.

Finally, "instant-cast" job ability on our next spell...or, close to it. Even if 10 min timer would be cool to have. This would add another option other than /sch and darks arts parsimony?

Deadvinta

07-17-2011, 01:15 AM

I'd be one hundred percent OK with SE taking away our buffing role and giving it to Scholar. Then we can focus on being a swordplay and enfeebling class. A saboteur.

Duelle

07-17-2011, 06:57 AM

I'd be one hundred percent OK with SE taking away our buffing role and giving it to Scholar. Then we can focus on being a swordplay and enfeebling class. A saboteur.I could live with this. I do wonder how the naysayers would react to this, though.

cidbahamut

07-17-2011, 07:45 AM

I could live with this. I do wonder how the naysayers would react to this, though.

The level of profanity would make sailors blush.

Greatguardian

07-17-2011, 08:06 AM

Honestly though, I don't think the tedium would be so bad if there was more to buff with, or if the duration increases were across the board without need for full AF3+2.

That's just the thing, though. What is so wrong with simply getting full AF3+2 to increase buff duration? Job fixes and enhancements don't have to be universal. There has to be a legitimate difference an awesome, well geared RDM and a full AF1 RDM that doesn't use macros.

People realized in late 2009 that Paladin really wasn't as durable as people made it out to be. In fact, other jobs like SAM, NIN, DRK, and MNK were able to take even less damage than Paladin while dealing more! So what did SE do? They added Ochain, a god-tier Shield on the casual-friendly Empyrean path, which easily made Paladin the most durable job in the game. Does that mean that SE needs to add even more global durability boosts to Paladin? No way. There is absolutely no reason that every single person who goes into their mog house and tells their moogle to change them to Paladin should be entitled to being indestructible.

Likewise, there is absolutely no reason that every single person who goes into their mog house and tells their moogle to change them to Red Mage should be entitled to having significantly relieved buffing rotations. You earn that extra time by putting the effort into gearing your job well.

Does this mean it becomes significantly harder to melee or keep up all of your buffs when you're not geared well enough to reduce your buffing time commitment? Sure. Hell, does it turn around and make melee completely nonviable in some situations? Sure. Is that a fault of the job or the Developers? Nah. AF3+2 is casual content. Empyreans are casual content. There's really no reason that everyone can't complete at least one set.

Therein lies the difference in perspective between some of the camps, though. The question becomes, should a job be good naked and better with gear, or bad naked and good with gear? Anyone without good gear, without gil, without any drive, or resources, or friends, or knowledge about the game, and/or desire to learn about the game is going to pick the former. Anyone with good gear, with gil, with drive, with resources, with friends, with knowledge about the game, and/or with the desire to learn about the game is going to pick the latter.

SE chose for us, though. They picked the latter. The Developers are far less forgiving than even the most "elitist" players. If X job is useless for an event, the Devs will say "Well go change your damn job". If Y job is unable to do something without nice gear, the Devs will say "Well go get nice gear". And frankly, I'm fine with that. FFXI is not, and has never been, a casual game.

Supersun

07-17-2011, 08:22 AM

Cycling buffs is a simply fact of life for every mage in FFXI.

You misunderstand what I mean by cycling buffs. I don't mean pressing macros 2-9 so I can buff myself every 9+ minutes

What I mean is Haste, Refresh, Other Spell, Haste, Refresh, Other Spell, ect... aka, the TouA merit party where 1/2 of your time is spent cycling 3 different spells because SE didn't think it was a design flaw to create single target buffs that were expected to be kept on 6 people that only lasted 3 minutes.

Edit for GG: It'd just be better if the cycles were relieved for both the person with and without gear while the person with the gear has more powerful buffs instead of the static crap we've been dealing with.

Greatguardian

07-17-2011, 08:29 AM

Stuff's easier when you have nice gear. Conversely, stuff's harder when you don't. Fact of life.

Supersun

07-17-2011, 08:37 AM

Stuff's easier when you have nice gear. Conversely, stuff's harder when you don't. Fact of life.

Except in a TouA merit party where a naked Rdm could essentially perform the same job as a fully geared Rdm?

Because pre abyssea we neither got duration OR potency to our buffs.

Greatguardian

07-17-2011, 08:43 AM

Because Convert gear, Conserve MP gear, Haste gear, Refresh gear, and Cure Potency gear meant absolutely nothing in a ToAU merit?

Could people skate by without gear? They could try. But that's not because they were performing better. They simply had different standards, and different criteria for success. Considering some people are attempting to argue in other threads here that it was mathematically impossible for any Red Mage to ... do their job, essentially, I dare say there's absolutely no way a RDM could perform adequately to some standards without gear.

Supersun

07-17-2011, 08:55 AM

Except in a TouA merit party where a naked Rdm could essentially perform the same job as a fully geared Rdm?.

Obviously they performed better, but when compared to other jobs like DD jobs where the difference between a good DD and a bad DD is night and day...yeah, Rdm was certainly nothing special to speak about.

The only thing that really mattered was MP, refresh, and a cure staff. The difference between an AH level Rdm and a fully pimped one in a colibri meritpo party was virtually unnoticeable.

The only things you could really do to make meriting easier was have refresh gear.

Neisan_Quetz

07-17-2011, 08:57 AM

EDIT: Answered yourself. Actually, how was that any different from Brd?

Greatguardian

07-17-2011, 09:03 AM

Okay, so let's assume then that Red Mage had a free pass on gear acquisition in the pass compared to other jobs. Does that somehow mean that Red Mage is entitled to a free pass forever?

You've already said it yourself, the difference between crap gear and good gear is night and day on most other jobs. I have absolutely no issue applying this to Red Mage now.

Supersun

07-17-2011, 09:04 AM

EDIT: Answered yourself. Actually, how was that any different from Brd?

At least their skill determines the potency of their spells. There are still bards to this day doing dyna sandy for that hat.

Okay, so let's assume then that Red Mage had a free pass on gear acquisition in the pass compared to other jobs. Does that somehow mean that Red Mage is entitled to a free pass forever?

You've already said it yourself, the difference between crap gear and good gear is night and day on most other jobs. I have absolutely no issue applying this to Red Mage now.

I don't either, but buff durations shouldn't be the difference between a good red mage and a bad one.

How about the potency of the buff itself?

I mean what if instead someone only got the full 15% haste from the spell if they had a full set of enhancing gear and the spell itself innately lasted 5 minutes.

Progress!

Greatguardian

07-17-2011, 09:25 AM

I'd be fine with that. I'd also be a lot more selective when dealing with Red Mages. I wonder how they'd take it.

wildsprite

07-17-2011, 10:21 AM

perhaps I'm alone in this but I look at the RDM section in that manifesto and still think RDM is getting screwed over yet again, giving us the ability to hit harder and while wielding a weapon would be nice, not screwing over our enmity would be nice, I know many of you wont agree with me but all I can say is
thanks a lot SE, you basically made RDM pretty much suck in parties and it doesn't look like its gonna get any better

RDM used to be a viable tank so if need be they could tank while the main tank was down, not anymore, RDM is an okay healer, but I didnt level RDM to main heal and I refuse to do it, I didnt level RDM to be a buff whore or a refresh whore, I leveled RDM because of how it WAS, and the devs have basically screwed that....to be honest, their vision of how they want RDM to be leaves nothing but a sour taste in my mouth, so in closing I say only this

thanks for nothing SE

Neisan_Quetz

07-17-2011, 10:26 AM

Rdm tanking was only good on mobs you couldn't melee on in the first place, if your tank (which I assume was meleeing) went down and you need the Rdm to a) be subbing Nin and b) backup tank you had other problems.
If it was a mob you couldn't melee, the (pre nerf) Rdm was the better tank in the first place. And the sub would be another Rdm/anyone else.

Doombringer

07-17-2011, 10:53 AM

Duelle

07-17-2011, 08:17 PM

Daniel

07-17-2011, 11:49 PM

i want a job trait that turns buffs cast on a red mage into an aura effect for nearby party members.
cuts down on cycling, and could even promote frontlining.
overpowered? yup. but if buffing's gonna be my niche' i expect to be great at it.

that is actually one of the best ideas I have ever herd, mind you it won't take us to front line in current situations seeing as its usually 1-2 mele on the mob to avoid TP spam.

Aequis

07-19-2011, 02:32 AM

As I said in my post on the main manifesto discussion, I was confused as to why exactly we were being referred to as "Support specialists who excel at transforming their allies from mere mortals into demigods with their enhancements". Corsair, Bard, Summoner and even White mage have more enhancing capability than we do, so this statement shows just how little SE understand their own game and how distant they are from the playerbase.

To be honest, I am a true support Red mage and an enfeebler. Have been for seven years or so since I started playing FFXI and it was my first Lv.75 job. To all of you that enjoy melée or tanking, all power to you and continue to push our job to its limits. That's one of our strengths; the flexibility. SE does continue to confuse us by doing such things as showing off the Sagasinger with a Red mage.

What I personally would ask for though, are more enfeebling and enhancing spells. Addle will no longer be exclusive at Lv.96, as White mages will be able to use it then. What most of us don't want is to just get recycled stuff from other jobs - we want our sense of identity back, and for Corsair, Bard, /rdm and Scholar (especially bloody Scholars) to stop being gifted things that were once our forté.

I had an idea similar to the one mentioned about aurae, but it would work like Avatar's Favour. The issue I think the original poster of the idea didn't realise is that, if you want to be freed from the backline, having a Refresh aura for example, isn't going to let you do that. It's going to have to be some other effect like a mini Fast Cast aura, spell interruption rate or any number of other crazy things you could imagine. This would put us back into Abyssea parties, and would also give us something new that other jobs don't have (yet).

SE have already used this same code with items like Mextli Harness (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Mextli_Harness) and the "Sphere" system. Depending on what your role and your playstyle are, there could be a few different aura spells. We have the fortitude to stand frontline - even temporarily - and give a Paladin their aura, for example.

Doombringer

07-19-2011, 03:24 AM

well, the way i look at it.. we have more melee related buffs than mage. so i'd see an rdm aura'ing haste, phalanx, enspell, and gain-str or dex. then maybe regen2, refresh2 (in case you have any blu pld or drk around, but mainly cuz you'd be casting it on yourself anyway, so... free refresh aura) and a bar or 2 if needed.

i know that sounds like a lot but considering we're using composure, and we'd only have to cast on ourselves anyway, it's not a particularly heavy load.

then all any mages really need from you is refresh2, and that's assuming the aura range is to short for them to safely be within it.

sure it hasn't completely eliminated cycling, but it has SEVERELY cut it down.

wildsprite

07-19-2011, 03:44 AM

What can we say? RDM dared to be versatile and it got hit with the nerf bat because of it. Wish they had build on RDM tanking rather than eradicate it, if only for the sake of those who enjoyed it. Besides, more tanks around is never a bad thing.

exactly, more tanks around is never a bad thing

Seriha

07-19-2011, 07:28 AM

I had an idea similar to the one mentioned about aurae, but it would work like Avatar's Favour. The issue I think the original poster of the idea didn't realise is that, if you want to be freed from the backline, having a Refresh aura for example, isn't going to let you do that. It's going to have to be some other effect like a mini Fast Cast aura, spell interruption rate or any number of other crazy things you could imagine. This would put us back into Abyssea parties, and would also give us something new that other jobs don't have (yet).

Yeah, an aura alone is not a solution. A nicety in cutting cycle blah, yes, but from the support perspective, it basically translates to saving X amount of MP by merely changing where you stand.

As is, my take on it was that the aura range would pretty short, like 5 yalms in any direction, for a total of 10 from the farthest points. Short of huge mobs, this would be more than enough space to his everyone else swinging with Haste, Refresh, Phalanx, Regen, and an Enspell. However, "melee" is a still missing ingredient in this, to which some have felt TP should be a cost in perpetuation (1-3 per tick), while I look at at it more as possibly using TP to further buff the buffs, so maybe 20% from the Haste spell is possible, Phalanx could get another 10 -DT or even straight up -DT%, and so on. The concept could also apply to debuffs and nukes, basically giving us a potential stance system where you could be playing more defensively while offering your offense, or going all out to further cripple a mob and do a bit more damage.

cidbahamut

07-19-2011, 12:32 PM

Swords

07-20-2011, 05:51 AM

Well there would have to be some sacrifice or drawback, and really there is not anything you can do with RDM that does not step on someones toes in terms of mechanics or gameplay.

Seriha

07-20-2011, 11:31 AM

Aura is actually pretty terrible from a support perspective, because if I'm filling a support role I want to be out of AoE range, and I somehow don't see them giving us an aura that hits players beyond spellcasting range.

Then you just cast from range if that's the concern. Overall, the idea offers some MP savings, gained timed to swing without relying on a full set of gear, and the ability to plant buffs on others we either can't or would need a specialized sub for. Distance is, and has been an advantage for a long time. It technically doesn't need "more" to maintain an advantage.

cidbahamut

07-20-2011, 11:42 AM

Then you just cast from range if that's the concern.

So basically this will never be useful on anything that matters then.

Supersun

07-20-2011, 11:49 AM

Well they sure aren't going to be giving us hastega. Besides, something like this is more naturally aimed for monsters where enfeebles aren't as needed.

Seriha

07-21-2011, 01:24 AM

So basically this will never be useful on anything that matters then.

By all means ignore the perks with consideration of current spells and mechanics, but as a piece of an overall greater update? Yeah, get out from under that bridge.

Hyrist

07-21-2011, 02:13 AM

Necroquote:

That's just the thing, though. What is so wrong with simply getting full AF3+2 to increase buff duration? Job fixes and enhancements don't have to be universal. There has to be a legitimate difference an awesome, well geared RDM and a full AF1 RDM that doesn't use macros.

Nothing wrong in getting it, it just defeats the purpose of scaling.

You mentioned Blink Tanking Vs Paladin and used Ochain as a refrence on making them an awesome tank.

But you forgot the unilateral adjustments to Paladin to Sentinel, Rampart, and all the other tweaks and toys they've given to Paladin in hopes to close the gap verses evasion/blink tanking. O-Chain may seal the deal for many, but it wasn't the grand total of what they gave PLD.

RDM, however, has been in a drought of buffs to their primary role. With the only thing before the level cap increase we received was Composure, which assisted ourselves great but did nothing else for the party. And EnII, which was too little, too late for melee debates, as the only level range EnII's are actually effective is 51-70, before the bottom drops out beneath it due to horrible mechanics.

Saboteur was nice, except that it doesn't work on NMs the way it should, and most NMs are still near fully or fully immune to the debuffs Saboteur would matter on. Refresh II, however, is expendable. If anything all I've seen between Refresh II and Abyssea is that players are unlearning how to control their MP expenses. Not that I don't mind the extra MP to give away, but it's no game changer.

No there really needs to be a reworking of Red Mage to make it into the image they're advertising now. I don't care so much about the Melee aspect as much as I do about the general functionality of the job. Melee can be (and likely will be unavoidable to be) included in this aspect, especially for use in low-man content, where I believe it should be applied. But that can be a part of a more global revamp for a job that just seems to be given the scraps at this point.

Urteil

07-22-2011, 07:07 PM

I like what they had to say about enfbling magic. Like a lot of other jobs, even with capped skill it's useless without expensive / time consuming gear.

They did not mention enhancing magic, however. I'd like to see more than Refresh2 for RDM's exclusive buffs.

Also, where's the mele? I want my sword to be more useful. :mad:

I'd like mine to be useful too.

Camate

08-09-2011, 06:50 AM

Greetings red mages!

Thanks for all of your feedback and sorry to keep you waiting! Here are a handful of responses we got from the development team in regards to your questions and requests.

Do you have any plans to enhance the viability of our sword-wielding proficiency?

As was stated in the preface of the job adjustments concept, the core concept of these adjustments is to make each job useful in HNM fights as well as other battle-related content. That said, we mentioned that the job adjustments will focus on party structuring, but that doesn’t mean that we will not be looking into the sword-wielding proficiency of red mages. We are actually planning adjustments to red mage’s proficiencies in the upcoming version update.

Make it possible to add enfeebling effects to En-spells.

We have no plans for this at the moment. When looking at the current system, where enfeebles take place using magic and En-spells increase damage, we’re pretty satisfied with the current separation of the two.

Add higher tier En-spells.

Planning to add these during the next version update. However, this isn’t going to be the tier-III version, we are thinking about a different type of En-spell.

Add an ability that enhances the effect of En-spells.

We would like to look into perhaps having this take place through merit points.

Make it possible for red mage to use Enlight and Endark.

Enlight and Endark are special magic spells for paladin and dark knight respectively and we have no plans to add them to red mage at this time.

Get rid of the 100% enfeeble resists on some monsters.

In regards to monsters that are completely resistant to certain spells, there is a high possibility that we won’t make any significant changes. However, there aren’t really too many of these monsters, so in regards to adjustments making it possible to land enfeebling magic easier, we feel it would be better for red mage’s to experience this effect on a larger amount of monsters.

Add new enhancing magic.

Since enhancing magic is an area that red mages excel at, we would like to add something. We have been receiving a lot of ideas for enhancing magic and we will be keeping them in mind when exploring this subject.

Will red mage be able to the use the higher tier Gravity?

We are planning to make this spell a red mage-specific spell, but are continuing to evaluate it.

Allow red mages to use one-hand sword weapon skills that can only be used by certain jobs and support jobs. We also want staff weapon skills.

We will be looking into both of these along with the weapon skills revamp.

Give red mage the “Fencer” job trait!

We looked into this, however, if we were to add this it wouldn’t be a job trait. The possibility is pretty high that it would be in the form of equipment that a red mage could wear.

MarkovChain

08-09-2011, 07:50 AM

Except that the mobs that are immune are precisely those "hnms" and the others generally don't resist at all because the magic evasion of mobs is not balanced (it's either too high or too low). So there won't be changes in the usefulness of RDM against hnms : either refresh whore or bust. Honestly don't bother with enspell type stuff that will be most likely useless. I remember tier II enspell, they give ~ -10 magic evasion, that's quite useless tbh (subbing nin and using ninjustsu is better..).

Patrik

08-09-2011, 07:55 AM

Septimus

08-09-2011, 07:59 AM

Planning to add these during the next version update. However, this isn’t going to be the tier-III version, we are thinking about a different type of En-spell.

We would like to look into perhaps having this take place through merit points.

Before anyone asks about adding en-spell III, perhaps en-spell IIs should be improved. What is the purpose to the tier II en-spells charging up? (Did someone watch too much DBZ before this was implemented?) Why only have it proc on the first hit? There aren't that many Kraken Club RDMs out there to justify punishing dual wielders, double-attack builds, and Joyeuses.

And if there is a merit for improving en-spell potency, every other RDM merit would have to be awful to even consider upgrading it. "No, sorry, I don't have Slow III, Paralyze III, or Dia IV; I maxed out en-spell potency instead." Unless we are going to be able to cap the entire group of merits which would be awesome and would never happen.

In regards to monsters that are completely resistant to certain spells, there is a high possibility that we won’t make any significant changes. However, there aren’t really too many of these monsters, so in regards to adjustments making it possible to land enfeebling magic easier, we feel it would be better for red mage’s to experience this effect on a larger amount of monsters.

We are planning to make this spell a red mage-specific spell, but are continuing to evaluate it.

Nearly every monster that matters is immune to at least one enfeeble. (And most more than that.) For example, you cannot land Gravity on any NM in Abyssea as far as I can tell, and I cannot think of a single casting NM in Abyssea that can be silenced.

This problem goes all the way back to Sky where no matter how well-geared you were you could not consistently land enfeebles on the Shijin, even with Elemental Seal. (Not sure how thing are now that we are past level 75.) Each one of the Jailers was immune to certain enfeebles, maybe my memory is faulty after all of these years, but I seem to remember a disproportionate number of them being immune to Paralyze II. This has been the main problem with Red Mage since I got to level 75 back before CoP- the job's only real function is Refresh, Haste, and back-up cures in nearly every important fight since our A+ skill spells are a coin flip at best in most of them.

Neisan_Quetz

08-09-2011, 08:01 AM

Gain-Chr is to increase Circle Blade damage.

No, Really.

Can we get some clarification on the immunity to enfeebles answer? Do they mean monsters resistant to all enfeebles? Otherwise as it stands most of our enfeebles are useless on the majority on HNMs and making Rdm viable for a party play on HNMs won't happen as long as the skill they claim we are the best at is mostly useless on stronger NMs.

You can gravity Cep/Cirein, but it's a Oberon NM. There are easy NMs, and then there are Oberon NMs.

Patrik

08-09-2011, 08:07 AM

as far as all the enfeeb discussion goes, i agree it really has to be changed. personally in abyssea i can land any debuff on anything (that isn't immune of course) and it is pretty helpful. I can cripple a Durinn so it doesn't do crap all fight. but thats because of the god knows how much magic ACC+ i get from atmas as well as huge int and mnd. I'd imagine once 95/99 hits there will be a new big form of end game. I mean abyssea will always be there, and i doubt it will ever stop being the main form of exping, but gear-wise its only to 90.

So once people are forced to leave abyssea to get up to date gear from newer events (like voidwatch) they will have to get used to not being demi-gods anymore, and our enfeebs need to actually be POSSIBLE to stick on all the new NMs. You can't expect us to be enfeebl masters if you're just gonna make every HNM immune to it cause your afraid the spells you gave us will be too much

Aliekber

08-09-2011, 08:11 AM

Planning to add these during the next version update. However, this isn’t going to be the tier-III version, we are thinking about a different type of En-spell.

Interesting. I wonder what this means, since they already said they want to keep Enspells and Enfeebling separate.

Merton9999

08-09-2011, 09:09 AM

There is an enspell-looking spell in the .dats labeled "stri", not sure what it would do. It's just a single spell though, not a line of them.

Blech. Mostly discouraging stuff here. The last thing I want on RDM is more party enhancement spells, especially single target ones. And enspell effects through merits? If the new merits are the same trade-off concept I can't imagine I'd choose enspell effect over other options.

Kaisha

08-09-2011, 09:33 AM

All I could ask for is for our Saboteur job ability to add a good boost to magic accuracy when it comes to casting enfeebling magic.

I don't like the idea of having to rely on either BLM subjob for elemental seal every 10 minutes to guarantee it lands, or spamming the spell over and over until it does land because the saboteured enfeeble resisted when it comes to HNMs.

Raksha

08-09-2011, 09:43 AM

There is an enspell-looking spell in the .dats labeled "stri", not sure what it would do. It's just a single spell though, not a line of them.

I always figured that "stri" stood for "Scholar Tabula Rasa [something]". You sure its an enspell and not brave/merton?

Luvbunny

08-09-2011, 09:59 AM

So I guess nothing really changed by much, and RDM pretty much got shafted once again, and again, and again. I am just baffled by some of the decisions that the SE team made. Give RDMs more SPECIFIC spells that actually works and useful instead of a little bit of this and a little bit of that crap.

Ketaru

08-09-2011, 10:05 AM

Protey

08-09-2011, 10:31 AM

Cause otherwise, why exactly do we have Gain-CHR? >.>

/bst yo (extra words for word count limit)

Supersun

08-09-2011, 11:48 AM

yay info ^^ thanks Camate. just a thought on enhancing magic, at the very least it would be nice if we could single target anyone in pt with the Gain- spells. Whm will still be able to AoE it, and we can single target people to give them extra boost of stats that whm can't. Cause otherwise, why exactly do we have Gain-CHR? >.>

No thank you

I have nothing against giving buffs to other people but the LAST thing we need is another spell we have to cycle.

It won't be just one person. It'll be the entire party expecting you to cast gain Str or whatever on them.

Seriously, can we kill these single target party cycles already? They serve no point other than to kill your brain cells for a job that used to be one of the most active and exciting jobs in the game.

---

In regards to our enfeebling, I've mentioned this before but we REALLY need some form of enfeeble to curb monster TP attacks. I mean it seems like there's 2 types of monsters, NMs that Slow and Paralyze would be nice on but are pretty much immune to one or the other if not both, and monsters like Shinryu where it's easily to land them but they don't do a **** thing.

Paralyze and Slow only really affect a monsters normal melee attacks, but those really aren't the threatening part of a fight. The TP attacks are, and currently even ninja the DDing/tanking job of death atm can enfeeble better then a Red Mage in that regard.

Hyrist

08-09-2011, 11:56 AM

Thanks Camate for relaying the response. Please let the developers know that we appreciate the answers and to please continue providing ongoing feedback for us. The more open means of communication is greatly encouraged.

Greetings red mages!

As was stated in the preface of the job adjustments concept, the core concept of these adjustments is to make each job useful in HNM fights as well as other battle-related content. That said, we mentioned that the job adjustments will focus on party structuring, but that doesn’t mean that we will not be looking into the sword-wielding proficiency of red mages. We are actually planning adjustments to red mage’s proficiencies in the upcoming version update.
This is much the answer I expected, and thank you for the reply. It is a deep concern for certain circles within the Red Mage Community that this aspect of the job has been somewhat neglected. We're thankful to hear that the Development Team are keeping an eye out for one of the selling points of the job.

As far as the specific adjustments, I speculate that we're included in the weapon skill adjustments and perhaps we shall be given a boost to our Sword and possibly Dagger Skill Rating as well.

This being said are there any plans in increasing the damage yeild/effect of Death Blossom, or perhaps a higher potency of the effect?

We have no plans for this at the moment. When looking at the current system, where enfeebles take place using magic and En-spells increase damage, we’re pretty satisfied with the current separation of the two.

I notice that enhancing effects, such as increased attack, critical hit chance/damage, and other such effects that could increase the performance of the Red Mage has not been disqualified by this statement.

Planning to add these during the next version update. However, this isn’t going to be the tier-III version, we are thinking about a different type of En-spell.

I'm looking forward to the mechanics seen in this. A question in relation: Is it possible for Enspell effects (Particuarly the new type of enspell) To assist in any bearing as to the damage output of Weapon Skills?

We would like to look into perhaps having this take place through merit points.
With the increase of various different kind of Merits accessible in the merit points system, can we expect that individual job categories will also receive an increase in maximum point allotment, like we have seen with Combat and Magic skills?

Enlight and Endark are special magic spells for paladin and dark knight respectively and we have no plans to add them to red mage at this time.

You'll find no quarrel with me here with that one. I'm in complete agreement.

In regards to monsters that are completely resistant to certain spells, there is a high possibility that we won’t make any significant changes. However, there aren’t really too many of these monsters, so in regards to adjustments making it possible to land enfeebling magic easier, we feel it would be better for red mage’s to experience this effect on a larger amount of monsters.

I'll take this in translation that monsters that are 'highly resistant' to status effects will become more susceptible to them in the future.

In reply, the developers stated that they were planning on creating more Debuffs for Red Mages to utilize. Understanding that the update premise is to create a more unique role for Red Mages during HNM and Battle content, can it be a safe assumption that these new debuffs will be more effective against these particular monsters than our current line of enfeebles are now in terms of resistance?

Since enhancing magic is an area that red mages excel at, we would like to add something. We have been receiving a lot of ideas for enhancing magic and we will be keeping them in mind when exploring this subject.

A common complaint about Red Mages is the taxing load of having to cast spells on each member of the party individually and repeatedly. Are there any plans to help further elevate the taxing experience that single target enhancing magic spells can create, in light of receiving more enhancing magic spells?

We are planning to make this spell a red mage-specific spell, but are continuing to evaluate it.

We look forward to hearing more about what the development team decides. Please keep us informed.

We will be looking into both of these along with the weapon skills revamp.

We looked into this, however, if we were to add this it wouldn’t be a job trait. The possibility is pretty high that it would be in the form of equipment that a red mage could wear.

With this in mind, can we come to expect that the available high-performance melee enhancing equipment available to Red Mage will be increased as more gear becomes available. There has been quite a large amount of improvement for many jobs in this regard, however. Red Mage has been mostly regulated to wearing level 75 gear when it comes to wearing melee gear.

Also, there seems to be a very small amount of equipment that can enhance the damage of our Enspells, can we see the possibility of more gear, or even augmented gear, that would assist in this?

Again, thank you very much for the feedback and your time.

Merton9999

08-09-2011, 12:50 PM

I always figured that "stri" stood for "Scholar Tabula Rasa [something]". You sure its an enspell and not brave/merton?

That acronym would certainly make sense, but...

Brave is listed separately from stri. In the video, stri has the spell effect on the raised hand area, like enspells. The one marked with Brave is a more general buff animation covering the whole character, along the lines of barspells. I don't see anything called Merton or that looks like it could be it, but the stri video certainly wouldn't fit a mega helix.

Raksha

08-09-2011, 02:06 PM

That acronym would certainly make sense, but...

Brave is listed separately from stri. In the video, stri has the spell effect on the raised hand area, like enspells. The one marked with Brave is a more general buff animation covering the whole character, along the lines of barspells. I don't see anything called Merton or that looks like it could be it, but the stri video certainly wouldn't fit a mega helix.

Got a link to this video? The only one I found didn't have labels on any of the animations.

idx1

08-09-2011, 02:14 PM

Give Reds the ability to grant physical and/or magical shield effect that doesn't stack with each other and lasts for 5 seconds with a high mp cost - to help negate severely damaging TP moves to a tank or himself.
Not so OP because timing and player skill is crucial.

The only way enspells are gonna be better at this point is if Reds have an ability to increase the potency or duration of a particular de-buff associated with an en-spell element. For example Slow II or Paralyze II staying 'sticked' with Enstone or EnBlizzard, aside from that lolrdmmeleestopitgtfokthx.

What of the issue of Red's barspells? Is it the Dev's vision to see a Red barelement himself and his party wipes from an elemental explosion and the only one left standing is a Red? So that he can chainspell raise everybody just so that they can get mpk-ed again and see how useless it was inviting a Red for party support?

I don't know what other Enfeebling spells are in the works but I'm certain it won't be anything nearly as effective as an exclusive RDM stun effect spell based off Enfeebling magic.

I'd be all for just deleting the job if it wasn't for the fact that it's a good sub.

Deadvinta

08-09-2011, 03:48 PM

We looked into this, however, if we were to add this it wouldn’t be a job trait. The possibility is pretty high that it would be in the form of equipment that a red mage could wear.

Seriously? That's stupid. Do the SE developers realize that BARD has the fencer trait, with absolutely no need for it? Red Mages need the trait more than they do, even if we only get tier one, and there are already swords and other gear that have better priority for melee over whatever you'll be adding with a fencer effect. Get your heads out of your asses and give us Fencer, damnit.

idx1

08-09-2011, 03:54 PM

It's more convenient for Reds as players to lug around an extra set of gear that give fencer trait rather than coding that in.
Just see it as the overall effort going towards RDM.

I'd be overjoyed if they'd just give me the option of transferring my Red levels to another job.

A good Red is dependent on gear swaps so they probably figured, 'they're used to it, so why not'.

Duelle

08-09-2011, 04:50 PM

Seriously? That's stupid. Do the SE developers realize that BARD has the fencer trait, with absolutely no need for it? Red Mages need the trait more than they do, even if we only get tier one, and there are already swords and other gear that have better priority for melee over whatever you'll be adding with a fencer effect. Get your heads out of your asses and give us Fencer, damnit.While I question how useful Fencer would actually be (in the world where dual wield stomps single wield), I agree with this sentiment. You're tossing in fixes through gear. Which means they don't shake or otherwise affect class identity and instead lean more toward the territory of "toys".

As was stated in the preface of the job adjustments concept, the core concept of these adjustments is to make each job useful in HNM fights as well as other battle-related content. That said, we mentioned that the job adjustments will focus on party structuring, but that doesn’t mean that we will not be looking into the sword-wielding proficiency of red mages. We are actually planning adjustments to red mage’s proficiencies in the upcoming version update.The way you word this worries me.

cidbahamut

08-09-2011, 10:53 PM

Daniel

08-09-2011, 10:59 PM

Hyrist

08-10-2011, 02:24 AM

Am I the only one that was disappointed that not a single thing was mentioned in regards to cure V or even the aura affect on our enhancement spells? These two things alone will decide if its time to hang up the Chapeau for good or not... Yet all they talked about was enfeebles and mele... honestly rdm mele is a dead concept, you want to mele like a mele, level a mele job.

If it was a dead concept, so many players wouldn't be so loud about it. It's one of the few things that define this job as it's archetype away from the now many other mage job archetypes available in the game. And while I completely agree that for HNM fights our primary source of contribution should be magical, those improvements should not come at the full neglect of our martial status. As the level cap goes up, there's going to continually be more content Red Mage is going to pull their blades out for, as the wealth of content for this game just gets richer. (Till we hit PS2 limit.)

Cure V, and the concerns about it have been addressed through Scholar update patch notes: They're trying to avoid the same bread and butter cure power and give alternatives. We're probably more likely to see Regen III on our list than Cure V if that is their approach. If the lack of Cure V makes you want to hang up your hat, continue to play WHM.

Red Mage is one of the most popular mains in the game, it's healthy for the community that it shaves off a few people to other jobs they enjoy more.

As far as the Aura type buffs, that's a valid question, IMO, and it wasn't addressed. I'd like to see what their response to that is.

The way you word this worries me.

Why should it?

It exactly follows the "Melee Fodder, Magic Bosses" approach that has been the Red Mages staple since people played it. I've said so many times before Dulle, but your approach to the job is too extreme. The job needs to be tweaked, not re-written. More important than the Melee aspect of the job is to improve the use and effectiveness of our buff/debuff game, then our Melee side can either tie into that, or be given a general performance buff to compensate for the separation.

If I'm to gander a speculation as to what was said. Essentially they like the fact that our debuffing concepts and our melee concepts are kept separate roles. Essentially, that when we are put in situations in which our debuffs are not effective because the monster is dieing too fast, that's when we're pulling out our swords. And the situation between when you melee, and when you focus primarily on debuffing, is a gradient as opposed to a checklist. The longer the fight, the less our melee becomes effective and the more effective our debuffs become. (Buffing being universal between these)

I can live with that.

However. That means I want more effectiveness in both melee and debuff aspects for their intended areas. (HNMs need to be more susceptible to debuffs and have a wider array of debuffs to inflict them with, and RDM's melee performance should be more influential on lesser monster. Either by a straight performance boost, or a means of assisting the party's damage better.) So far, SE's shown that that's about what they're doing, but in their usual "This is way too vague for you to start harping on us about the specifics until the patch is out." deal.

I'm interested in seeing where SE goes with this, and am glad that the 'stri' file was actually for Red Mages. Looking forward to seeing the job adjustment details.

cidbahamut

08-10-2011, 02:47 AM

If it was a dead concept, so many players wouldn't be so loud about it.
Yes they would.

Cure V, and the concerns about it have been addressed through Scholar update patch notes: They're trying to avoid the same bread and butter cure power and give alternatives. We're probably more likely to see Regen III on our list than Cure V if that is their approach. If the lack of Cure V makes you want to hang up your hat, continue to play WHM.

Regens don't cut it when the going gets rough, and I think we both know that. We can argue the effects Cure V will have on job balance until the cows come home, but if you think getting Regen III is going to do anything for our healing game you are sadly mistaken.

Zirael

08-10-2011, 03:05 AM

When I've read Dev comments, this was how, more less, it was translated into in my mind. Consider it me reading what has been said between lines, or the smallprint:

Greetings red mages!

Thanks for all of your feedback and sorry to keep you waiting! Here are a handful of responses we got from the development team in regards to your questions and requests.

Do you have any plans to enhance the viability of our sword-wielding proficiency?
As was stated in the preface of the job adjustments concept, the core concept of these adjustments is to make each job useful in HNM fights as well as other battle-related content. That said, we mentioned that the job adjustments will focus on party structuring, but that doesn’t mean that we will not be looking into the sword-wielding proficiency of red mages. We are actually planning adjustments to red mage’s proficiencies in the upcoming version update.
You will not be allowed to tank any HNM, if you try it using some nifty trick, we’ll cripple you even more, so don’t even think about it. Refresh/Haste/Gain-STR or GTHO.

Make it possible to add enfeebling effects to En-spells.
We have no plans for this at the moment. When looking at the current system, where enfeebles take place using magic and En-spells increase damage, we’re pretty satisfied with the current separation of the two.
En-spells are already awesome (and remember to use En- II for that extra Mag. Evasion- bonus we gave you awhile ago!). They are great asset to any RDM (and their party) meeling in the front lines of current end game content… Oh, wait…

Add higher tier En-spells.
Planning to add these during the next version update. However, this isn’t going to be the tier-III version, we are thinking about a different type of En-spell.
We were thinking on how to make T3 en-spells suck more than T2, but couldn’t come out with any nice ideas, so you’re not getting any. How about en-poison or en-virus for extraawesome damage?

Add an ability that enhances the effect of En-spells.
We would like to look into perhaps having this take place through merit points.
Spend 5 merit upgrades to buff your enspells by +5 damage. Hell, spend 10 for +10! Bargain!!

Make it possible for red mage to use Enlight and Endark.
Enlight and Endark are special magic spells for paladin and dark knight respectively and we have no plans to add them to red mage at this time.
*This one sounds fair enough to me. Bit sad it’s DRK and PLD, that got something actually nice out of this deal tho.

Get rid of the 100% enfeeble resists on some monsters.
In regards to monsters that are completely resistant to certain spells, there is a high possibility that we won’t make any significant changes. However, there aren’t really too many of these monsters, so in regards to adjustments making it possible to land enfeebling magic easier, we feel it would be better for red mage’s to experience this effect on a larger amount of monsters.
You can already enfeeble almost any NM/content no one cares about anymore, so why complain?
Yes, we’ve put slow/paralyze/gravity/silence in this game, but we don’t want them to be used to win battles for any content lv70+. You should’ve gotten the hint when we added Greater Colibri, yo!

Add new enhancing magic.
Since enhancing magic is an area that red mages excel at, we would like to add something. We have been receiving a lot of ideas for enhancing magic and we will be keeping them in mind when exploring this subject.
Gain-STR to cycle through all DDs in your party, Gain-INT when in mage party, make them all demi-gods! Hell, how about cycling these two on everyone in the alliance? We might add Gain-ATK, just don’t Accession it, that wouldn’t keep you busy enough, yo!

Will red mage be able to the use the higher tier Gravity?
We are planning to make this spell a red mage-specific spell, but are continuing to evaluate it.
Gravity II, resisted by anything tagged as Notorious Monster. Modus Veritas’s little brother!

Allow red mages to use one-hand sword weapon skills that can only be used by certain jobs and support jobs. We also want staff weapon skills.
We will be looking into both of these along with the weapon skills revamp.
Suuure, use any weapon/WS you want, just stay out of any end-game tanking. There’s a lot of fun to be had in Campaign Battles, look forward to it.

Give red mage the “Fencer” job trait!
We looked into this, however, if we were to add this it wouldn’t be a job trait. The possibility is pretty high that it would be in the form of equipment that a red mage could wear.
We will add a lv80 sword and call it a day, job well done! It’ll pair up nicely with that Shield Mastery+1 shield you got like 30 levels ago.

Ophannus

08-10-2011, 03:30 AM

RDMs are getting Cure 5 next patch. Keep in mind RDM learns cures before SCH does, and the level cap is only going up to 95 next patch. The SCH update notes indicated that they won't be getting Cure 5(for now), meaning not 91-94, but remember RDM learns Cure IV before 50 while PLD/SCH learns Cure 5 at lvl 55 which is above G1 level cap. So most likely we will be getting Cure 5.

Duelle

08-10-2011, 04:41 AM

It exactly follows the "Melee Fodder, Magic Bosses" approach that has been the Red Mages staple since people played it. I've said so many times before Duelle, but your approach to the job is too extreme.Zirael's mind translation covers why nicely:
You will not be allowed to tank any HNM, if you try it using some nifty trick, we’ll cripple you even more, so don’t even think about it. Refresh/Haste/Gain-STR or GTHO.Toss in "you also will never swing a sword at anything half meaningful outside of soloing/campaign" and you get how I interpreted that post.

CapriciousOne

08-10-2011, 05:09 AM

I agree that their vision of this job and the reality of it is a big gaping hole between the two. For one it never made any since to me that spells like Haste dont have an aga version of it. As a matter of fact if RDM best magical is skill is Enfeebling magic why doesn all those spells have an AoE version of them that is RDM only? Same with Enhancing magic as well. I can understand a WHM having aga Cures but with the way people insist on making RDM nothing but a wimpy nurse(which is why i rarely ever party unless I'm really bored/impatient) then the least they could do is give enhancing AoE enhancing spells (Haste, Phalanx, Enspells, Regen, Refresh) to make life easier and they should be EXCLUSIVE to RDM if they ever do that but I would die holding my breath waiting on remove head from rear and wise up. If they did that I might even actually consider being a nurse more often especially if they took it one step further and allowed the effect of composure to be expanded to the party the ease the casting load since the spells would last longer.

As far as melee go I dont know what the big issus is with it beyond maybe more powerful weaponskills. I personally think the real issue is that the weapons base damage just flat out is garbage in comparison to say the two-handed great weapons. To be fair however I am lazy and dont have any of those weapons everybody makes a big deal about like Joy toy and what not nor have I done any of the quested weapon skill stuff either but as far as regular mob go i haven't had to many problems dispatching mobs until i've gotten with in 5 levels of my actual job level (85-90) then I start to wish I was doing more damage.

Personally as far as RDM melee goes and acutally all jobs I would like all jobs where their strongest weapons are one-handed all recieve Dual-wield. More specifically like NIN will most likely get a dual-wield 6 when all the caps are finally complete and that is fine but for other jobs the max DW trait acquired by the MAIN jobshould be as follows:

A Skill - Dual Wield 5 at max but at least Dual Wield 4
B Skill - Dual wield 4 at max but at least Dual Wield 3

This is regardless of the + and minuses in skill and would allow all jobs to contribute the physical demise of a mob. The DoT of spell cant compare to the Dot done by the physical weapon unless SE factors in more of your actual skill into the damage calculations which i seriously doubt they ever will. I guess I just hate knowing there is a weapon that isnt drawn and doing any physical damage to a mob even if it is just a little bit. In addition this will allow for more flexibilty in sub job choices for those who want to dual wield and not have to worry about losing the abiltiy to dual wield. Those who still Sword and board it can still continue to do so but at least u will have the OPTION of switching without losing the benefits of the sub job of our choice like the very popular RDM/BLM and RDM/WHM combo.

(Sigh) Then again give people unrestricted choices isnt exactly SE strongsuit now is it? One can only hope they will someday make a liar our of me.

Seriha

08-10-2011, 05:18 AM

I feel like the hinting toward WS restrictions is probably the melee camp's biggest hope out of all of this. While another core argument remains in gear selection, I'm comfortable in saying that releasing appropriate gear shouldn't really be worthy of an update note, as such specifics have never really happened before. Just do it without locking them behind Voidwatch, WoE, or other such insufferable NMs nobody wants to fight JUST for a melee RDM and we'd be pleased.

Otherwise indifferent on our new "enspell" and would still like to see T2s fixed to be on-cast instead of on-strike. The whole enhancing/enfeebling concept still seems to be a bit of a head scratcher without more info, though, especially when you start comparing us to other jobs.

Ketaru

08-10-2011, 05:35 AM

Toss in "you also will never swing a sword at anything half meaningful outside of soloing/campaign" and you get how I interpreted that post.

You know what? For the life of me, I will never understand why people like you think this is so shameful. If you like to do it, there is finally a place in the game that rewards you for doing so. If you don't like the way EXP parties bar you from doing it, you've got some place you can now. And you can still be part of the player community in doing so now that participation in Campaign has actually risen, as well as giving a modestly good amount of EXP now. And bonus, it is relevant again now that you can use Allied Notes to purchase items for Voidwatch.

You keep resisting Campaign as an option, yet you've already forgotten there was a time when Campaign was the most relevant system in the game. It was during the event's heyday that RDM got Composure and Enspell IIs (granted, the Enspell IIs ended up being a huge flop and Composure has received mixed opinions). People formed 3 hour long lines waiting for an opportunity to do the Campaign-enabled battles like Fiat Lux. Just this past weekend, I waited for 2 1/2 hours for a chance to do Plucking Wings. So I just don't get why you keep belittling it as if it's nonsense.

Hell, maybe what people shouldn't be asking for is a melee buff, but new events added to the game that cater to more free playstyles. You want to melee higher tier NMs like Rani or Shinryu? Well, short of Primeval Brew, it just ain't gonna happen. I keep saying that the game design as it exists now doesn't require RDM to receive a melee buff.

Maybe people should just let go of all their hang ups and stop letting other people dictate how they play their game. Short of a nerf, what is anybody going to do about it if RDM does/doesn't get a melee buff? Quit the job? Frontline and backline advocates don't have to answer that question cause you all know you're not going to do it.

Supersun

08-10-2011, 05:43 AM

Am I the only one that was disappointed that not a single thing was mentioned in regards to cure V or even the aura affect on our enhancement spells? These two things alone will decide if its time to hang up the Chapeau for good or not... Yet all they talked about was enfeebles and mele... honestly rdm mele is a dead concept, you want to mele like a mele, level a mele job.

Make it possible to use Cure V.

In regards to support capability, we’re thinking more in the direction of adjustments that will differ from white mage.

Instead of just simply adding a high-tier Cure, we’re looking into making it so scholars can raise their performance further by enhancing the effects of stratagem use and regen-type magic. However, this doesn’t mean that we won’t be adding a high-tier Cure later down the line.

Add sphere-type spells.

For sphere effects, there would be no way of handling the opposite enfeebling effects, such as Slow versus Haste effects. This makes it an extremely powerful spell, so from a balance perspective it will not be easy to do.

I suspected these were pointed at as as much at Rdm as they were at Sch. (especially since they mentioned Gravity II which they then said was Rdm specific).

---

I also agree that I hope that instead of getting Cure 5 we get a more unique style of cure.

Adding Cure 5, regardless of balance implications, will do more to destroy the identity between mage jobs then any other single spell.

There are lots of unexplored alternatives to curing and I would be disappointing if SE decides to take the lazy way out and just stick the Cure 5 bandage on the job.

Don't get me wrong, we need some form of curative assistance since Blu can heal better then Rdm atm, but Cure 5 is like trying to remove a splinter with a chainsaw.

I feel that by adding Cure 5 it will have balance implications for the maximum power of enfeebles we will be given later on.

If we can heal almost as well as a Whm they aren't going to let us 'enfeeble like a Rdm' as well.

---

Some might say that Cure 5 is the only alternative to safely keep a tank at full HP after a dangerous TP attack.

First off there are plenty of other ways to protect a tank from a follow-up after a dangerous TP attack other than Cure 5.

Second, should Rdm be able to do this by himself? Rdm isn't a Whm. Rdm isn't a healing specialist. I'm not saying Whm should be the only option, but Rdm shouldn't be Whm lite.

Rdm is a hybrid and if Rdm has enough healing power to primary heal entire alliances from these Super HNMs with deadly TP attacks and dangerous follow ups then frankly...the games too easy and/or there's not enough difference between Rdm and the specialist.

I don't believe Whm should be the only option, but frankly Scholar should be the second choice. Yes, Rdm gets cure spells a few levels earlier then Scholar, but Ranger also gets more accuracy bonus then any other job so clearly they are supposed to melee. I don't want to base a jobs entire performance off one little thematic snippet.

If you really want to debate thematics Rdm gets less cure potency gear then summoner, a job without a native healing skill. I mean realistically the most a Rdm is going to have is around ~30% with 3 pieces of gear. You know...I'd have to check it but even Pld might get more PC gear then Rdm.

Can you honestly say a Rdm should be out healing a Sch with Light Arts and addendum White?

---

Also, is it possible to separate the evasion down effect and the slows movement speed from Gravity II. I know there are plenty of monsters that it might be nice to actually have that evasion down effect from gravity except that the monsters immune to it because SE is to afraid of a kite solo.

I'd almost prefer Gravity II was just a more powerful evasion down effect without the movement speed reduction so it's actually useable on things where we need it instead of it just being the an extra safety net when Sleep, Sleep II, Bind, Break, and Gravity are all resisted on monsters that are easy enough to cap accuracy anyway.

Unless the devs actually feel like making this Gravity actually useful on tougher things...that would be welcome as well.

Zirael

08-10-2011, 05:49 AM

You know what? For the life of me, I will never understand why people like you think this is so shameful. If you like to do it, there is finally a place in the game that rewards you for doing so. If you don't like the way EXP parties bar you from doing it, you've got some place you can now. And you can still be part of the player community in doing so now that participation in Campaign has actually risen, as well as giving a modestly good amount of EXP now. And bonus, it is relevant again now that you can use Allied Notes to purchase items for Voidwatch.

You keep resisting Campaign as an option, yet you've already forgotten there was a time when Campaign was the most relevant system in the game. It was during the event's heyday that RDM got Composure and Enspell IIs (granted, the Enspell IIs ended up being a huge flop and Composure has received mixed opinions). People formed 3 hour long lines waiting for an opportunity to do the Campaign-enabled battles like Fiat Lux. Just this past weekend, I waited for 2 1/2 hours for a chance to do Plucking Wings. So I just don't get why you keep belittling it as if it's nonsense.

Hell, maybe what people shouldn't be asking for is a melee buff, but new events added to the game that cater to more free playstyles. You want to melee higher tier NMs like Rani or Shinryu? Well, short of Primeval Brew, it just ain't gonna happen. I keep saying that the game design as it exists now doesn't require RDM to receive a melee buff.

Maybe people should just let go of all their hang ups and stop letting other people dictate how they play their game. Short of a nerf, what is anybody going to do about it if RDM does/doesn't get a melee buff? Quit the job? Frontline and backline advocates don't have to answer that question cause you all know you're not going to do it.

We were capable of meeling some endgame content in the past (Jailer of Love tanking and whatever not) but our balls were basically cut off, because we were putting PLD's flawed job design to shame. So in like 2 version updates RDM got kicked out from that niche we had back into Haste/Refresh bi*ch.
That leaves some sour aftertaste in mouth. Sure, we still live on, but can't hit on all the cute girls (HNMs) around anymore, because, what's the point?

cidbahamut

08-10-2011, 06:02 AM

Some might say that Cure 5 is the only alternative to safely keep a tank at full HP after a dangerous TP attack.

First off there are plenty of other ways to protect a tank from a follow-up after a dangerous TP attack other than Cure 5.

I'm genuinely curious to hear what these "plenty of other ways" are, and Cure IV doesn't count.

Second, should Rdm be able to do this by himself? Rdm isn't a Whm. Rdm isn't a healing specialist. I'm not saying Whm should be the only option, but Rdm shouldn't be Whm lite.

No, RDM isn't a WHM, but it should be "good enough" so that it can fill in when the white mage is either face-down in the dirt or not online. WHM is in no danger of having its crown of Best Healer taken away, but I think we can all agree that we'd like to hurl a few rocks to knock off the one that reads Only Healer.

Rdm is a hybrid and if Rdm has enough healing power to primary heal entire alliances from these Super HNMs with deadly TP attacks and dangerous follow ups then frankly...the games too easy and/or there's not enough difference between Rdm and the specialist.

HNMs...with one healer. Hyperbole perhaps?

Can you honestly say a Rdm should be out healing a Sch with Light Arts and addendum White?

Actually I'd just ask why the Red Mage isn't using Light Arts and Addendum: White, but that's just me.

cidbahamut

08-10-2011, 06:05 AM

We were capable of meeling some endgame content in the past (Jailer of Love tanking and whatever not) but our balls were basically cut off, because we were putting PLD's flawed job design to shame. So in like 2 version updates RDM got kicked out from that niche we had back into Haste/Refresh bi*ch.
That leaves some sour aftertaste in mouth. Sure, we still live on, but can't hit on all the cute girls (HNMs) around anymore, because, what's the point?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the point of using Red Mage on JoL to be able to tank without engaging? I never got to see it in action myself, but that's how I'd always heard it explained.

Neisan_Quetz

08-10-2011, 06:17 AM

If your tank was engaged to a NM there was no point in having a Rdm tank. Unless your other tank was a bad Pld, I guess. Even then Pld still has higher skill than Rdm and access to better gear and same weapons.

Seriha

08-10-2011, 06:18 AM

You know what? For the life of me, I will never understand why people like you think this is so shameful.
Maybe people should just let go of all their hang ups and stop letting other people dictate how they play their game.Is it hard to grasp that people want to play with others, not just with other people coincidentally around? Sure, Campaign got an EXP buff recently (offensive battles still blow if no mobs are around, though), but once you're capped off on your merits, rank, and such, then what? It is unfortunately old content with little incentive going for it, and as an individual, your contributions don't really translate to much. Especially when the crux of Campaign progress tends to fall in those 10-12 hours prior to tally where a lot of people reading this are probably asleep or close to it.

I've said it before, but being shuffled aside to solo old/weak content is an insulting way of saying, "You don't matter." It's not hard to figure out why such opinions have been formed, as we've argued the cons time and again, but if you want to argue such a dismissive play style boasts a meaningful longevity to any player... well, let's just say I'll argue against it and leave it at that. Nobody likes being excluded, and the unfortunate root of that problem in FFXI tends to lie in a lack of use. Sure, some will gobble up being pure mage just so they don't feel time spent leveling wasn't wasted or use it as an easy street to other-job loot, but the importance of RDM's conceptual package can not ignore its martial side like it has up until this point. Even the "Melee fodder, magic bosses" line is a farce if all you do or are expected to do is fight "bosses" with the job (Which is basically Voidwatch since you can't interact with outside mobs during a fight). Or in Abyssea's case, the inconvenience of making others wait to shift atmas around after farming pops.

Neisan_Quetz

08-10-2011, 06:19 AM

Your melee on stronger mobs doesn't matter.

Duelle

08-10-2011, 06:38 AM

You know what? For the life of me, I will never understand why people like you think this is so shameful.Magic Fencer =/= buff bot. That's for starters. We've had this conversation before, though, so I won't do a rerun of that discussion.

I've said it before, but being shuffled aside to solo old/weak content is an insulting way of saying, "You don't matter." It's not hard to figure out why such opinions have been formed, as we've argued the cons time and again, but if you want to argue such a dismissive play style boasts a meaningful longevity to any player... well, let's just say I'll argue against it and leave it at that. Nobody likes being excluded, and the unfortunate root of that problem in FFXI tends to lie in a lack of use. Sure, some will gobble up being pure mage just so they don't feel time spent leveling wasn't wasted or use it as an easy street to other-job loot, but the importance of RDM's conceptual package can not ignore its martial side like it has up until this point. Even the "Melee fodder, magic bosses" line is a farce if all you do or are expected to do is fight "bosses" with the job (Which is basically Voidwatch since you can't interact with outside mobs during a fight). Or in Abyssea's case, the inconvenience of making others wait to shift atmas around after farming pops.Well said.

Zirael

08-10-2011, 06:40 AM

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the point of using Red Mage on JoL to be able to tank without engaging? I never got to see it in action myself, but that's how I'd always heard it explained.

You are right, I was talking about RDM being a tank, not meeling HNMs to death in particular.

cidbahamut

08-10-2011, 06:50 AM

Is it hard to grasp that people want to play with others, not just with other people coincidentally around?

Do what Hyrist did for years and run with a group who's willing to accommodate your non-standard style of play.

Sure, some will gobble up being pure mage just so they don't feel time spent leveling wasn't wasted or use it as an easy street to other-job loot

Or because they genuinely enjoyed the mage side of it. You keep leaving that part out and I wish you wouldn't.

Ketaru

08-10-2011, 07:00 AM

I've said it before, but being shuffled aside to solo old/weak content is an insulting way of saying, "You don't matter."

I fail to see why anybody in this game should think their opinion matters more than anybody else's. A certain subset of people are looking at this DEV announcement and looking at it as if it's some moral failing on those for frontline and a losing battle for those of backline. In the end, this is what they have decided is to be. And so I go back to my last question? Is anybody going to quit over it? Probably not.

Wanting to play with others is all well and good, but whose approval are you looking for really? Your friends that will probably let you do whatever you want anyway so long as you can prove you're not idiotic about it? Pickup parties- the groups in this game that prove time and time again to be of questionable quality? Power players that have always systematically excluded certain jobs? Forget the last group. They're the ones that put jobs like SAM on a pedestal for years, then quickly relegated it to loluselessinabyssea status as soon as it proved to not be optimal. They're not going to stand up for any job on principal alone, which is what the melee-update-for-RDM advocates are all about.

In fact, treating RDM as any other meleer, it's really no different from what's going on right now where we've got a tank/DD on the target and nothing else. Just a bunch of DRGs and DRKs standing around because they're just another unit feeding the mob TP and another unit that needs to be healed. The fact that damage dealer jobs aren't even allowed to perform their main function in an optimal setting should tell you that the current game design has bigger problems that RDM not being allowed to melee is only a small part of.

A melee update is an improvement on the job (so long as its not a nerf...it shocks me that some of you would even ask for this) that people should just accept gracefully. Yes, even the backline-only people. It's not like that side of things has been ignored seeing as the Job Manifesto explicitly states future updates are going to be in the Enhancer/Enfeebler direction. But it's naive to even ask for a melee update so strong that people will ask RDMs to melee higher tier NMs when not even the more traditional melee jobs are not allowed to do it.

Seriha

08-10-2011, 07:10 AM

Sorry, but I'll see WHMs with an identity crisis when applied to most practical applications of the "mage" RDM. You can try to argue until you're blue in the face about how every RDM solos hard crap or that it's also practical, but it's not. It's a job I've seen plenty get burnt out on or outright try to avoid playing doing old endgame where all that was demanded of them were cures, refresh, haste, and maybe the occasional chainspell stun.

Hyrist

08-10-2011, 08:51 AM

A melee update is an improvement on the job (so long as its not a nerf...it shocks me that some of you would even ask for this) that people should just accept gracefully. Yes, even the backline-only people. It's not like that side of things has been ignored seeing as the Job Manifesto explicitly states future updates are going to be in the Enhancer/Enfeebler direction. But it's naive to even ask for a melee update so strong that people will ask RDMs to melee higher tier NMs when not even the more traditional melee jobs are not allowed to do it.

And that's really that point right there. That other Melee Jobs do not melee on the monster.

Now if Red Mage gained a utility that would allow for this, then I'd be in support of encouraging Red Mage more in the front lines, because it would help other Melees do their job better.

However, I'm more in support of just expanding the horizons of what they can melee on acceptably, through performance increases and utility. I'm not expecting to Melee High Tier NMs, and if players are wanting to do that then they're best fitting with a group which will allow for that playstyle.

However, I'm not expecting a class-rewrite to accommodate desires of bringing Red Mage to the front lines on HNMs. As far as creating a new unique role for Red Mages for HNMs, there should be no issues really in giving Red Mage better spells that assist with this.

The "Anything That matters" Argument is really false. Because honestly, every fight matters, no matter the difficulty or 'tier'. Every battle usually has a purpose behind it, even if it is just personal enjoyment. My only request is that melee is elevated beyond the simple 'toy' phase to be more acceptable in events that contain a good deal of cannon fodder. Battlefield content like Walk of Echoes, Dynamis, or any other new or current updates they wish to add.

Through, right now. the biggest challenge in the game for me, is getting into it.

*grumblebillingwithclicktobuygrubmle*

Economizer

08-10-2011, 08:56 AM

We've been clamoring for more effectiveness in melee (Just give us a magic elemental WS for F's sakes!!!!) and instead we're getting shoved to the back line permanently.

I looked through this entire thread and not a single person corrected this. Red Mage not only has a magic elemental WS, they have access to the best magic elemental WS, and on top of that, they (ignoring sub) arguably have the best stats for this WS.

Aeolian Edge is incredibly powerful, and hardly affected by damage rating of your dagger if at all. That said, Red Mage gets access to the best daggers available, although you may have to stick to a Blau for a while until you can acquire one of the slightly harder to get ones.

In addition to providing Red Mage with solid weapon skills, daggers attack more often (great for enspells) and have the same amount of skill as Red Mage has with a Sword, unlike other classes that may end up resorting to a Dagger to augment damage.

In addition, you can solo farm in Abyssea like no other job can, since you can Phalanx yourself, cure yourself, and even get a combination of Azure and Amber lights. How's that for melee? Maybe you won't be able to solo the NMs, but taking on thirty easy prey mobs at once seems pretty bad ass to me.

Perhaps this isn't what people mean by melee (is a non-empyrean sword really necessary to qualify as RDM melee?) but it is very powerful. Red Mage always has and always will have some sharp tricks up its sleeve, and a feather in its hat, for those who can earn it. The lack of a correction on this matter over ten pages of text makes me wonder though... for a traditionally backline job to melee, you have to want it, and not knowing your abilities shows a distinct lack of care.

Supersun

08-10-2011, 08:57 AM

I'm genuinely curious to hear what these "plenty of other ways" are, and Cure IV doesn't count.

I know I've made a post about this in the past and that was only scratching the surface of possibilities (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/263-Cure-V-Raise-II-Where?p=14300&viewfull=1#post14300)

Actually I'd just ask why the Red Mage isn't using Light Arts and Addendum: White, but that's just me.

Though this may be a slight assumption, but if you are saying that a Rdm with Light Arts and Add White should heal better then a Sch then are you saying the reverse is true as well?

A Rdm can't nuke as well as a Sch using Dark Arts and Add Black. It'd be weird if they couldn't considering that they aren't able to be as flexible when switching between light and dark.

What makes healing the exception on Rdm? Why should a job that has to limit his spell selection to cure, not be as efficient as the job that has everything at the same time?

Certainly the aesthetic that Red Mage gets cures a few levels earlier then Sch shouldn't be the entire basis of your argument.

Supersun

08-10-2011, 09:15 AM

Edit: Bah, my bad on the double post

Red Mage not only has a magic elemental WS, they have access to the best magic elemental WS

We have access to Wildfire?

Joking aside it would be slightly easier to justify the use of Aeolian Edge if we had access to the TotM daggers. Sure, we can AE decently with the martial knife but our melee DoT then becomes worse then a KClubbing Ranger and the Ranger will feed less TP too.

That was sarcasm though not that far off from the truth

Seriha

08-10-2011, 09:27 AM

AE loses a lot of steam if you're not fighting 2+ mobs, either. Seeing how with the proper atmas I can crank Sanguine Blade up to 3k+ on mobs that won't resist, I'd rather be using that for one-on-one fights. Would just be nice if we didn't have to have a specific sub for it.

Economizer

08-10-2011, 09:33 AM

I certainly think that Red Mage should have the ToM Daggers, even if they are excluded from the Empyrean Dagger for whatever odd balance reason. That said, I've seen a Paladin pull 1200+ damage Aeolian Edges using Ultimate/Beyond/Gales and a level 12 knife (he also capped shield doing this). Red Mage doesn't even have to sub a job for access to the weapon skill so the choices are open (although main handing a Twilight Knife and off-handing a Joyeuse or a magian multihitter sword certainly sounds like a solid alternative to a Martial Knife).

Assuming SE gives RDM Staff skill, subbing WHM for Cataclysm may be viable too (ever think you'd see the day where you'd sub WHM for more DD power?). That said, I'm envious of Red Mage, as they can do a powerful AOE WS while offhanding a trial weapon when they work on their multihitters, working on a multihitter as a White Mage takes a lot more relying on others or a lot more time whacking things.

Seriha

08-10-2011, 09:45 AM

Heh, at least WHM/NIN can main-hand a damaging weapon. Working on my 2-4x scythe was utter hell on DRK since not far into it its delegated to a D40ish weapon that off the bat tends to put you against mobs level 65+ outside of Abyssea. Got more tolerable once it could actually mult-hit, but before then... ugh.

Economizer

08-10-2011, 09:51 AM

Why Scythe? Most Dark Knights I've seen go for the Great Sword (Which shares a surprising amount of trials with the multihitter Club) for whatever reason, I figure its so they can also use the weapon on Paladin.

Seriha

08-10-2011, 09:57 AM

I had a few reasons. Skill up weapon for later dates, possible SEBW zerging, and as the main weapon for a good atma/gear build for Infernal Scythe, Endark is also boosted to 70+ a whack, too. WSing and having enough TP to WS again after 1 round isn't impossible, either. Sure, a near-guaranteed 2k+ WS might not be the epeen of other crit-fueled ventures, but the speed you can crank them out counts. Herc Slash is the better WS, sure, and I wouldn't be surprised if those people also had PLD on the side, but I haven't jumped toward that trial if only because I'm not looking forward to mass amounts of gnats and ladybugs. Someday. Maybe. x.x

Economizer

08-10-2011, 10:05 AM

I'm not looking forward to mass amounts of gnats and ladybugs.

I don't know what the NM stage for that weapon is like, but killing Stray Mary x3 was harder then fighting the gnats and ladybugs. If you can get a friend to help, you can do them in Abyssea, but I did both outside. On Ladybugs, I teamed up with a Dark Knight with the Great Sword for much of it, and on Gnats, I worked with some LS members doing random vermin trials or just plain helping. The Gnats were worse, but not too bad. I'm currently working on Qiqirn, which I currently deem worse then Gnats. Because Gnats just try to kill you. Qiqirn run.

Seriha

08-10-2011, 10:30 AM

Heh, true enough. My luck with chancing upon random people working on the same trials was never that great, though.

noodles355

08-10-2011, 11:17 AM

Actually I'd just ask why the Red Mage isn't using Light Arts and Addendum: White, but that's just me.Because my party will have a whm do the main curing duty, and I'm there as a support. So I would rather be /blm for Stun and Elemental Seal.

Sure, some will gobble up being pure mage just so they don't feel time spent leveling wasn't wastedActually Seriha, I leveled Rdm as a mage job, and I enjoy playing Rdm as a mage job. As mentioned above, you seem to ignore that some people actually enjoy the mage side more and would be happy being a pure mage.

Hyrist

08-10-2011, 12:03 PM

Actually Seriha, I leveled Rdm as a mage job, and I enjoy playing Rdm as a mage job. As mentioned above, you seem to ignore that some people actually enjoy the mage side more and would be happy being a pure mage.

Yet, on the same notion, the job's archtype has it functioning as both, and yet you choose to ignore that concept when you approach the job as a 'pure mage'.

I mean, fine, Red Mages in their previous iterations could equip staves/wands and other mage types if that's the way you wanted to play it.

But back in those days Red Mage was out-shined by other more dedicated casters, even Scholar, who worked in different schools of magic just like Red Mage did. The melee aspect was what kept it unique in this case (though the double-cast concept also assisted this when it was added on later.)

There's no reason why either of these aspects should be neglected. Though, honestly, the steriotypes go into both directions.

I've no problem with a SUPPORT caster Red Mage. I've a problem with the job getting pigeon holed into a psudo WHM role. That's not what it's there for, sorry. If you want to give it some healing capacity so it can split the healing duties with some other job that's present and go sans WHM, that's fine, but to try to make it a solo healer, I've got a problem with that.

What Seriha puts to light is the fact that many Red Mages who did like the Mage aspects of the job leveling up, did not do so with a unique concept of the job in mind. Rather, they preformed very much like White Mages with a superior MP endurance and Refresh.

This brings the same two questions to the Mage Side of Red Mage, as is presented to the Melee Side.

Why do you play Red Mage as a backline caster?
Would those reasons not be better suited by another job.

In the case of those who chose RDM as a support caster, right now, Scholar fills that role better. Granted, scholar can be a specialist if it chooses to be, but that only influences the fact that it would be more desirable all around. Where as Red Mage really... has Refresh II, and Chainspell to its credit. The rest are just out-shined or, in a sorry state of affairs, like our enfeebles. Not enough of it melds into a solid role anymore and Red Mages are simply accepted because they are more available.

But the point of them being populated this much, was really contributed to Refresh whoring in the early days, and the psudo-WHM with the super MP pool in the ToAU era.

Back Line Red Mages have no set 'role' so much as they have two single target buffs to cycle, and then make like they're not actually useless and toss a cure in case the WHM is sleeping on the job or overtaxed. Sure, you can 'find things to do' to help contribute to the party more in that timeframe, but as the levels rise, the key reasons you're invited for, refresh and haste, become less important for you specifically to do, as Refresh I is already accessible Subjob wise, not to mention the massive amounts of MP restoration in the game now, and Haste is accessible /whm now, and will be /rdm at 99 cap.

So both of these aspects, Mage and Melee, need to be looked at and updated. And while there is a community that enjoys being back line on Red Mage, they may have to deal with the idea that the job as it may become in the future, won't necessarily be what they want it to be (For example, a capable solo healer.) In the same vein front line Red Mages have to coke down that they might not get as far or the specific role they want for their melee duties (I.E. Tanking.)

So all Red Mages, regardless of the camp they are on, are really going to have to re-evaluate what their image for the job is, and, instead of arguing at each other to say why their particular vision is wrong, instead try to focus on what feedback they should give to SE as to what updates they would want to see, to assist their particular vision for Red Mage, within SE's manifesto.

cidbahamut

08-10-2011, 01:31 PM

I know I've made a post about this in the past and that was only scratching the surface of possibilities (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/263-Cure-V-Raise-II-Where?p=14300&viewfull=1#post14300)

Ah, so you were talking about the theoretical rather than what's actually on the table now. I notice about half of your solutions are just Regen under different names, and the other half appear to be things that White Mages already do.

Though this may be a slight assumption, but if you are saying that a Rdm with Light Arts and Add White should heal better then a Sch then are you saying the reverse is true as well?

A Rdm can't nuke as well as a Sch using Dark Arts and Add Black. It'd be weird if they couldn't considering that they aren't able to be as flexible when switching between light and dark.

What makes healing the exception on Rdm? Why should a job that has to limit his spell selection to cure, not be as efficient as the job that has everything at the same time?

Certainly the aesthetic that Red Mage gets cures a few levels earlier then Sch shouldn't be the entire basis of your argument.

Who said anything about healing better than Scholar? Not me. To clarify, I am of the opinion that Scholar and Red Mage should be approximately even when it comes to filling the role of Healer when there is no White Mage available. We can bicker about the specifics of how that is accomplished, but they should both be acceptable alternatives, unlike now where they aren't even alternatives because there is only one acceptable healer for the curent metagame.

cidbahamut

08-10-2011, 01:45 PM

For the love of God Hyrist, shut up about ye olde FF1. That antiquated image has absolutely no bearing on FFXI.

SpankWustler in FFXI is a mage. Deal with it.

This brings the same two questions to the Mage Side of Red Mage, as is presented to the Melee Side.

Why do you play Red Mage as a backline caster?
Would those reasons not be better suited by another job.

It bloody well would not.

CapriciousOne

08-10-2011, 08:09 PM

I agree I prefer to be on the front line hacking and slashing as a RDM instead of on the backline curing. When i'm curing I feel like I'm not real contributing to the game especially when a WHM can clearly heal more mp at once and on multiple people. I never mind assisting a WHM keeping them refreshed and throwing in cures when overtaxed, I dont feel its my role to heal the whole party. I personally dont see the point of a partying if all i'm going to do is be on the back line healing gaining experience for practically nothing and still have most of my combat and magic skills falling behind in the process. I guess maybe I'm crazy for thinking that partying is supposed to allow me to improve everything in one fell swoop.

In any case because of the way this job is treated in parties I just accepted that there are just some parts of the game and missions and quests I will NEVER complete because of the attitudes toward the job and will complete all that I can solo or in small parties and say the hell with the rest and just quit afterward. I leveled RDM as a HYBRID MELEE job with the emphasis on melee where I can use magic as NEEDED. It is fine if one wants to neglect a huge part of a job but to fit in but I REFUSE TO DO SO and people act like something is wrong with me for doing so. Just becase my strongs weapon is only a B doesnt make me useless as I can still hit consistently and often as long as my skill is allowed to increase to what my acutal job level but that cant be done IN THE BACK and people complain and kick me out when I go to the FRONT, so why bother helping them at all I say? I'm not saying melee RDM is better than complete mage RDM (though it is and I dont see how they accomplish anything witout a party around but I digress) I dont knock anybody for how they play the game instead I try find a way to make it work. A skilled player can play any job in any fashion whether it is designed to be that way or not. Unskilled players cry and complain if things arent done a CERTAIN way despite there being more than one way to do things and still being successful. If it work for you stick with it and have fun until it no longer does I say.

Only other solution is for RDM that have a problem with the way things are just band together and abandon the others, LOL

Hyrist

08-10-2011, 08:21 PM

What, by virtue of the almighty cure?

When you look at the mage duities that exist, that are PURELY RDM duties. What you are left with are Haste, Refresh, and a handful of spells only available through meriting. WHM WILL have Addle, BLM DOES have Break. Currently Scholar brings far more utility tools to the table, and will have the inclusion of Haste in the final level cap rise, subbing our job.

So that leaves chainspell stun, which isn't even a valid tactic in most endgame content anymore.

So yes, the question is presented: Why Red Mage? That's just a valid question for the Back Line as it is the Front.

And honestly, how many people have hung up the hat and leveled other jobs during this time, because of the exact problems I've listed above? The job needs further definition. SE's answer to that, may not be what some of the previous base wants.

That was the grand total of my post, which you only skimmed.

noodles355

08-10-2011, 09:13 PM

Yet, on the same notion, the job's archtype has it functioning as both, and yet you choose to ignore that concept when you approach the job as a 'pure mage'.Why should I care what the job's original concept was? This is how I like playing it, and luckilly, how most other people like me to play it.

That's all there is to it. I am not going to stand in your way of saying "we want the melee side buffed". That's fine, do what you want. But suggesting that everyone wants the melee side buffed, or that anyone who doesn't is lieing to themselves or admitting defeat or something is just wrong. Simple as.

Why do you play Red Mage as a backline caster?
I wanted a backline mage job. I didn't want to purely be a healer. I didn't want to purely be a nuker. I didn't want to be purely a buffer. That leaves me with Rdm and Sch. I chose Rdm because at the time Rdm was more popular and also I thought they looked cooler.
Would those reasons not be better suited by another job.If I was used as a dedicated healer or nuker, then yes. But 90% of the time I'm not. I'm there as support, and another job couldn't do it better because another job can't land enfeebles with the same accuracy or potency that I can.

When you look at the mage duities that exist, that are PURELY RDM duties. What you are left with are Haste, Refresh, and a handful of spells only available through meriting. WHM WILL have Addle, BLM DOES have Break.I love how you can just dismiss Dia3, slow2 and Paralyze2 like that. The only other job that can cast a Slow effect stronger than ours is Brd, and guess what? they stack. We have the most potent paralyze. Guess what else? Dia3 is 15% Defence down that is up all the time, and that stacks with JA defence-down effects like Angon. No other job can do these. They are significant spells, and the fact that you just dismissed them so easilly without even acknowlegeing them as "a few merit spells" is completely idiotic.

Neisan_Quetz

08-10-2011, 11:12 PM

Whm will be getting Addle. Blm has Break. We get both if you haven't realized. Aside from SE needing to come true on their vision of adjusting Enfeebling/Enhancing Magic I feel Red Mage magic is at an acceptable level for being a not main healer.

Hyrist

08-10-2011, 11:50 PM

I love how you can just dismiss Dia3, slow2 and Paralyze2 like that. The only other job that can cast a Slow effect stronger than ours is Brd, and guess what? they stack. We have the most potent paralyze. Guess what else? Dia3 is 15% Defence down that is up all the time, and that stacks with JA defence-down effects like Angon. No other job can do these. They are significant spells, and the fact that you just dismissed them so easilly without even acknowlegeing them as "a few merit spells" is completely idiotic.

Awww, sorry you're so offended.

But let me put it flatly for you.

Is Warrior Defined by Warrior's Charge?

Is Dancer Defined by Saber Dance?

Or lets go over to the Mage Side...

Burst II, Freeze II?

Martyr?

No. These are not job defining traits, merely accents, bonuses to what they already preform. For a Red Mage, they're our bread and butter, piratically a necessity to be considered worth ANYTHING outside what someone else could do by simply equipping Red Mage as a subjob.

That's why they're dismissible. You're basically requiring the class to go through an additional 3 levels of work PER SPELL to contribute anything unique to an event. That's Post 75, only IF your spells land land reliably (on monsters with ridiculous levels of resistance, mind you), and only IF you're stacked to hell on dMND for everything but Dia and Bio, and guess what, you can only be fully adequate at two of those spells, and that's not even thinking of Phalanx 2.

If you're not insulted by this, I say you should be. Again, using merits as an excuse for being a definition for a job is a poor excuse to justify a broken design.

So yes, I dismiss the merits on the grounds that these spells rightly should be scrolls instead of merits. You can't depend on a Red Mage to have these spells to the appropriate merit levels, or have them at all in some cases, where with a Black Mage, they don't have to pick and choose what Tier V scrolls to get. Our Merits have turned from crutch to a liability to the development of our job class and if you don't see that, you're flat out blind.

Which is ironic because your typical Red Mage won't even have Blind II merited.

Defiledsickness

08-11-2011, 12:34 AM

have you ever heard of gear swapping? its not that hard i even did it in a lazy way.

i just made 3 macro's to cover my entire gear and based each set of 3 on a function i need to perform. i have a set for healing, a set for enfeebling, i tweaked mnd-based enfeebling, a set for enhancing, a tweaked mnd-based enhancing, and a nuking set.

nuking and curing are my primary sets, then when i get a resist i just change to enfeebling. of course you should change for enhancing but if i know im not going to get hit then i only cast prot/shell anyways.

-yanno blind doesnt land on every mob right? same with paralyze. the base spells can be pushed far enough that you dont need to 5/5 any of them. i unlocked everything for Viodwatch triggers, except phalanx2. just /sch and phalanx1 or let your pld phalanx himself.

cidbahamut

08-11-2011, 12:39 AM

Why would you merit Phalanx II? Are you doing Salvage runs or something?

Neisan_Quetz

08-11-2011, 01:09 AM

Because I'm not always coming /Sch or feeling like using a strat for it, at least for me. And in the future I probably will be doing Salvage runs, assuming I'm still playing after the payment issues.

cidbahamut

08-11-2011, 02:19 AM

Fair enough.

Quetzacoatl

08-11-2011, 03:08 AM

Give red mage the “Fencer” job trait!

We looked into this, however, if we were to add this it wouldn’t be a job trait. The possibility is pretty high that it would be in the form of equipment that a red mage could wear.

Are you kidding me?! Why not give us RDM Job Trait?! It seems silly to give it to RDM via gear that, depending on where the trait is added, may never be used in favor of Haste Gear...

You're killin' me, man. KILLIN' ME!

Neisan_Quetz

08-11-2011, 03:19 AM

I simply don't see the JT being useful outside of solo as things currently stand. It's not as if we get useful shields bar Genbu's - or are tanking with said shield(s) - so as far as I'm concerned Fencer is superfluous at best.

Manque

08-11-2011, 03:23 AM

-----------

Quetzacoatl

08-11-2011, 05:03 AM

Ketaru

08-11-2011, 05:18 AM

You could say the same for BRD, as well.

Job traits have largely been hit or miss (mostly miss) for jobs ever since level 80. It's almost a lost cause to expect any particular job trait. If you're really serious about melee, it might be time to stop asking for things just to be consistent with a perceived job image, and start asking for things that are actually consistent with what the job has now.

If you want to frontline, you treat yourself like a 1hand weapon user like THFs or BSTs or NINs and you duel wield. Why not start suggesting something like:

Elemental Force JT
Increases Sword Enhancement magic damage and raises Magic Accuracy for the corresponding Sword Enhancement magic element.

There, a job trait consistent with inherent aspects of XI RDM, an existing archetype (http://dragonquest.wikia.com/wiki/Armamentalist) in Square Enix's JRPG series (we want them to put their foot down and just stick to a direction with the job already, but SE themselves are slow to let go of their "magical swordsman" image), and it serves both a frontline and backline purpose.

How about we start seeing things like that instead of traits most of us won't even have value for? But I know some of you won't like my idea because now you'll just have to start cycling Enspells to raise your magic accuracy for individual spells...Some of you have even asked for nerfs to our magical side of things.

saevel

08-11-2011, 05:34 AM

I couldn't care less about Fencer.

Making new enspells sound good, hopefully they fix the old ones too.

If they allow us access to more WS's that alone will fix lots.

New enfeebles that actually matter, I seriously want these.

We'll see how they go about this. Knowing SE they could screw it up badly, really badly. But their actually taking feedback and communicating now, so there is a chance whatever they implement won't be broke.

Greatguardian

08-11-2011, 07:07 AM

ITT: Red Mage is a bad mage that isn't unique or user-friendly, that can and should be simply replaced by any of the myriad other mage jobs for whatever content they are doing.

ITT: Red Mage's magical aspect is a haste/buff bot with no personality or activity.

ITT: Scholar is a better mage than Red Mage.

ITT: Red Mage is only powerful during solos, which also don't count because they're cheesy.

ITT: Final Fantasy 1 epitomizes Red Mage. Oh wait. Didn't Red Mage melee suck in FF1? I guess this one was actually pretty spot on.

Seriously, all I'm getting from a lot of posters here is that they plain aren't good at Magical Red Mage. Not to worry. Most people aren't.

Camate's Manifesto response looks pretty solid, and put things a lot more delicately than I would've. I'm looking foward to Gravity II and group-oriented magical buffs.

Seriha

08-11-2011, 07:55 AM

I'm still wondering about this glorious party play style that seemingly doesn't involve casting buffs or cures, because we know you're not meleeing.

Greatguardian

08-11-2011, 11:00 AM

Doesn't involve buffing or curing? Absolutely not.

Limited to Haste/Cure/Refresh botting? Hardly.

Personally, I find it amazing that people can both complain about the monotony of Red Mage magical play while at the same time complaining that they're doing too much. Casting basic party buffs is such an easy task that every single good mage I know doesn't even think about it any more. It's better to apply the brainpower to the magical play that matters. If you can't find something to do between Hastes, you're not looking hard enough.

Quetzacoatl

08-11-2011, 12:03 PM

Job traits have largely been hit or miss (mostly miss) for jobs ever since level 80. It's almost a lost cause to expect any particular job trait. If you're really serious about melee, it might be time to stop asking for things just to be consistent with a perceived job image, and start asking for things that are actually consistent with what the job has now.

If you want to frontline, you treat yourself like a 1hand weapon user like THFs or BSTs or NINs and you duel wield. Why not start suggesting something like:

Elemental Force JT
Increases Sword Enhancement magic damage and raises Magic Accuracy for the corresponding Sword Enhancement magic element.

There, a job trait consistent with inherent aspects of XI RDM, an existing archetype (http://dragonquest.wikia.com/wiki/Armamentalist) in Square Enix's JRPG series (we want them to put their foot down and just stick to a direction with the job already, but SE themselves are slow to let go of their "magical swordsman" image), and it serves both a frontline and backline purpose.

How about we start seeing things like that instead of traits most of us won't even have value for? But I know some of you won't like my idea because now you'll just have to start cycling Enspells to raise your magic accuracy for individual spells...Some of you have even asked for nerfs to our magical side of things.

Eh, thought it was just worth a shot, y'know?

Greatguardian

08-11-2011, 12:12 PM

we want them to put their foot down and just stick to a direction with the job already, but SE themselves are slow to let go of their "magical swordsman" image

Er, sorry, I just noticed this, but as far as I can tell, SE has fairly solidly put their foot down and said that Red Mage is an Enhancing and Enfeebling mage. The only reason they bring up melee at all is because so many people here post about it, and even then they clearly stated that they were looking to improve Red Mage's HNM-level party/group play and focus on its Enhancing and Enfeebling prowess.

It's a niche group of players who are keeping the "Magical Swordsman" archetype alive, that and a 10-year-old character blurb on a website that likely hasn't seen any updates to the old job sections in ... well, 10 years. Everyone else, SE included, is perfectly content with Red Mage as a Buff/Debuff master with a broad range of spells across both the light and dark spectrum.

SpankWustler

08-11-2011, 12:12 PM

I'm still wondering about this glorious party play style that seemingly doesn't involve casting buffs or cures, because we know you're not meleeing.

Any party play style that didn't involve casting Haste here and there or the odd Cure IV would be a pretty awful play style. They're not there for decoration, they're in the spell list so they can be cast when needed.

Also, a party play style that consists only of casting cures and buffs would get old after a bit, wouldn't it? I guess that's why spells like Dia III, Blizzard IV, and whatnot are also available to SpankWustler. Actually, I think it could out-damage Black Mage and Scholar over time for a brief time between updates/level-cap increases. Between levels 85 and 90, maybe?

New enhancing and enfeebling magic would definitely make SpankWustler more interesting to play, but even at this very moment, you have options other than being a pure healer or scampering up to a monster to flip it's Frankenfurters.

I don't understand why so many SpankWustlers who want to flip Frankenfurters think the only other option is to cast the same three spells over and over. It's not. You have many things you can cast at things.

Along those lines, more things to cast at things would certainly liven the job up a bit. Since that's exactly what SE seems inclined to add to the job, given what's been said so far, I choose to be optimistic for the future of SpankWustler.

It doesn't sound like the ability to flip Frankenfurters is being completely ignored, either. Maybe the new en-spell will be more helpful than the tier II line, which was basically "Additional Effect: Drop the Frankenfurter on a profoundly unclean floor, hope nobody notices, and put it back on the griddle quickly and covertly."

So don't worry, some poor dude at SE definitely knows you guys and your perceived need to flip Frankenfurters exists.

Quetzacoatl

08-11-2011, 01:28 PM

Just did a Translation with Google Chrome of this post from the JP forums:

こんにちは。

先日、回避ダウン効果の魔法として上位のグラビデを検討しているという回答をしましたが、更なる検討の結果、上位のグラビデは赤魔道士専用の魔法になり、サポートジョブ赤魔道士の場合も含め、他のジョブでは使用できないものになりそうという方向性になりました。

グラビデの上位版に期待していた皆さんには残念なお知らせで、本当にごめんなさい。

類似効果の学者用新魔法を用意したりする予定は……という点についてですが、せっかく新しい魔法を追加するのであれば学者特有のものにしたいということで、学者には別途専用の魔法（例えばTPスリップとか）を検討しているとのことです。こちらについては今後またご紹介できればと思います。

Into this:

Hello. Recently, I have the answer that you are considering a higher Gravity down to avoid a magical effect, the results of further study, the higher will be the magic of Gravity only Red Mage, Red Mage support job even if included in other jobs that direction now likely to be unavailable. I expected everyone to know superset of Gravity is unfortunate, really sorry. New plans or to provide for scholars of magic effects ... but for similar terms, are unique in that we want to scholars if you add a new spell much trouble, only to scholars of magic separately (eg Toka Slip TP) that is considering that. For here I hope to introduce in the future.

Basically, Gravity 2 will be RDM only. Thanks SE! :)

Oh, and sorry, SCHs. :(

Raksha

08-11-2011, 02:09 PM

Just did a Translation with Google Chrome of this post from the JP forums:

Into this:

Basically, Gravity 2 will be RDM only. Thanks SE! :)

Oh, and sorry, SCHs. :(

Yeah I didn't imagine SCH was gonna get Gravity II at all, and for damn sure not above RDM.

No apologies necessary.

Quetzacoatl

08-11-2011, 02:13 PM

Yeah I didn't imagine SCH was gonna get Gravity II at all, and for damn sure not above RDM.

No apologies necessary.

You, ma'am, are a lady (or gentleman depending!) and a SCH. :P

Although, I am expecting a wave of posts consisting of "YOU LIED TO US!!1!!!!1!" coming from other users. That'll be lovely.

Raksha

08-11-2011, 02:43 PM

You, ma'am, are a lady (or gentleman depending!) and a SCH. :P

Although, I am expecting a wave of posts consisting of "YOU LIED TO US!!1!!!!1!" coming from other users. That'll be lovely.

Potential ToAU spoilers:

http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/9907/ffxi20110807204636.png

Would've been better if I could've actually solo'd him on SCH ;_;

Economizer

08-11-2011, 02:48 PM

Martyr?

No. These are not job defining traits, merely accents, bonuses to what they already preform. For a Red Mage, they're our bread and butter, piratically a necessity to be considered worth ANYTHING outside what someone else could do by simply equipping Red Mage as a subjob.

If you are going to choose the bad merits (I don't know about the others, but I don't know a White Mage that fully merits Martyr, and only a handful that merit it once) that don't define a class for some of these examples, you point won't be proven well. A White Mage is defined by having Shellra V fully merited. I don't respect White Mages that have had time to merit that don't choose to merit Shellra V 5/5.

Sure, some merits are debatable in how much they contribute to what a job is, but how many Dancers do you know that don't merit Reverse Flourish to full? Certain merits are part of what a job is, and saying that a job doesn't need its merits (which are easy to get anyways) to function at peak efficiency is a bit of a joke.

Maybe Red Mages don't merit everything the same way, but I'd kill for just one of Dia III, Paralyze II, or Slow II as a White Mage. But those are not spells White Mage gets to even have a shot at, because Red Mage is the proper enfeebler.

-

On Red Mage melee, I've seen Red Mages melee things in ways that spit on the image this thread keeps trying to push toward the devs. Red Mage's biggest strength is survivability, and whittling down opponents, but these days Red Mage is also pushing out bigger and bigger damage numbers too. But even then, there is a lot of buffing/debuffing done to make fights go smoothly. I'm sorry if you can't just melee a mob and expect it to auto-attack and win like a WAR or a MNK fighting something, but this is the nature of what Red Mage is. You have to use all your job's roles to the fullest in order to solo, especially if you want to solo things that shouldn't be solo'd, like mythical Red Mages in the days of yore.

There are legit complains about Red Mage melee, but given some of the comments (like saying Red Mage hasn't been given a magical WS) suggest to me that many Red Mages in here might expect to equip their nuking gear, a sword, and be able to outdamage a Warrior. It takes a lot of work and specialized gear to be a proper melee if you are a Red Mage. There is some good news for Red Mage however, as it has some very nice toys available for this purpose, like an Atheling Mantle.

Kristal

08-11-2011, 05:00 PM

Add higher tier En-spells.
Planning to add these during the next version update. However, this isn’t going to be the tier-III version, we are thinking about a different type of En-spell.

Add an ability that enhances the effect of En-spells.
We would like to look into perhaps having this take place through merit points.

Something I'd like to see is both tiers of enspell stacking(as in, both being active) if they are the same element. For instance, Enfire II and Enfire. Enfire II would affect the first hit, and Enfire any additional hits granted by dual wield, Double/Triple/Quadruple Attack or Occasionally Attacks x Times. Currently, this will work for any other non-enspell added effect, but not for tier I enspells. For instance, Twilight Knife with Enfire II active will deal additional fire damage on the first hit, and it's own added effects on any other hits. The same goes with Samba effects, a RDM/DNC will deal additional fire damage on the first hit, while Drain Samba will proc on the remaining hits.

Another thing I've been thinking about, is an ability similar to MNK's Formless Strikes for RDM. All melee hits become non-elemental magical hits, with a notable difference: an active enspell II will change the element of the regular hit to match the enspell II effect. Attack and Accuracy would be replaced by Magic Attack and Magic Accuracy, which would go well with the Empyrean armor set.

Doombringer

08-11-2011, 07:03 PM

dude... give it up.. the spankwustler thing wasn't that funny, EVER.. and you're just makin' it sad...

Duelle

08-11-2011, 07:12 PM

Red Mage's biggest strength is survivability, and whittling down opponents, but these days Red Mage is also pushing out bigger and bigger damage numbers too. But even then, there is a lot of buffing/debuffing done to make fights go smoothly. I'm sorry if you can't just melee a mob and expect it to auto-attack and win like a WAR or a MNK fighting something, but this is the nature of what Red Mage is. You have to use all your job's roles to the fullest in order to solo, especially if you want to solo things that shouldn't be solo'd, like mythical Red Mages in the days of yore.You're speaking of solo play, whereas the melee camp's gripes are in the context of party play and the lack of acceptance due to factors already covered in several other threads.

There are legit complains about Red Mage melee, but given some of the comments (like saying Red Mage hasn't been given a magical WS) suggest to me that many Red Mages in here might expect to equip their nuking gear, a sword, and be able to outdamage a Warrior.Why would you present a false premise like that? You wear melee gear to front-line. It's pretty obvious. The melee gear isn't enough, though. This has also been discussed.

Supersun

08-11-2011, 08:02 PM

Maybe Red Mages don't merit everything the same way, but I'd kill for just one of Dia III, Paralyze II, or Slow II as a White Mage. But those are not spells White Mage gets to even have a shot at, because Red Mage is the proper enfeebler.

Would you trade Cure 5 for them though? You'd be silly if you would considering that they are only marginally better then the T1 enfeebles (10% at best) and Cure 5 is well...Cure 5. It's pretty hard to debate inviting a Rdm JUST for their enfeebles when that's essentially the trade you are making by not inviting another Whm...not like that many things at the moment need more then one Whm anyway.

---

Why are people assuming that Enspell damage related merits would be in our group 2 merits. They seem like something that would be added to the group 1 merits which besides convert recast isn't exactly the most stellar category in the world.

---

Also, looks like we may be pushed down the Refresh tier list yet again as the Corsair job post made today pretty much inferred that Evokers roll was going to get a boost. Unless we are in for some major buffing Cor/Rdm just joined the ranks of buffing supermen that are looking to completely blow Rdm out of the water by 99.

Economizer

08-11-2011, 11:38 PM

Would you trade Cure 5 for them though? You'd be silly if you would considering that they are only marginally better then the T1 enfeebles (10% at best) and Cure 5 is well...Cure 5. It's pretty hard to debate inviting a Rdm JUST for their enfeebles when that's essentially the trade you are making by not inviting another Whm...not like that many things at the moment need more then one Whm anyway.

You don't ever just invite a Red Mage just for enfeebles. You also invite it for the buffs they use, and depending on how good the Red Mage is at handling these, extra magical and melee damage.

Would I trade Cure V for these enfeebles as a White Mage? No, I wouldn't, because if White Mage didn't have Cure V, there would be very little reason to have one. If either SCH or RDM were to get it, they'd pretty much dominate WHM in most aspects because they have superior MP longevity and they perform other roles like crowd control and buffs better.

Both camps act as if they aren't useful at all without the spell, but they ignore the problem that currently plagues the White Mage class, the prospect that at any moment, the masses will have their way, and White Mage will be useless outside of being needed for certain procs in Abyssea.

Anyone who says that superior cure potency gear or Cure VI would prevent any job with a better mana pool from being a better healer really doesn't understand how White Mage functions. They also could use a history lesson in FFXI, namely the ToAU era.

Maybe there is something seriously wrong with White Mage being the only job with Cure V, but at this point in time, White Mage doesn't have much else going for it. A bit of a metaphor, I'd still invite a Red Mage to a party even if the job couldn't cure at all. I couldn't say the same for White Mage.

cidbahamut

08-11-2011, 11:58 PM

ITT: Cureskin doesn't exist.

Quetzacoatl

08-12-2011, 01:23 AM

Also, looks like we may be pushed down the Refresh tier list yet again as the Corsair job post made today pretty much inferred that Evokers roll was going to get a boost. Unless we are in for some major buffing Cor/Rdm just joined the ranks of buffing supermen that are looking to completely blow Rdm out of the water by 99.
RDM with Refresh 2 and AF3+2 pants and COR's Evoker's > COR/RDM with Evoker's and Refresh 1. Don't kid yourself.

SpankWustler

08-12-2011, 03:11 AM

True enough, Doom. The joke kind of died half-way through my post, but I wasn't done making my point so I opted to drag it's rotting carcass along with me. Maybe that wasn't the soundest decision.

I still think "SpankWustler" is a perfectly goofy word, though. "The SpankWustler" sounds like a Doctor Seuss book about an awkward, fuzzy, little creature with one tremendous hand.

Would I trade Cure V for these enfeebles as a White Mage? No, I wouldn't, because if White Mage didn't have Cure V, there would be very little reason to have one. If either SCH or RDM were to get it, they'd pretty much dominate WHM in most aspects because they have superior MP longevity and they perform other roles like crowd control and buffs better.

Assuming you play White Mage completely naked and with no job abilities; this is a serious concern. Otherwise, it's more of an irrational fear born of a time when people fought pink birds and White Mage had a little over half the resources it has currently.

A 35% Cure-Skin with a cap of 400 is extremely helpful against challenging monsters, and a properly be-pantsed White Mage's cures are extremely MP efficient compared to any other job.

As for MP longevity, unless you need or want Stun you're probably subbing SpankWustler or Scholar. So White Mage generally has some form of MP restoration along with it's far, far more efficient cures.

Yeah, giving more jobs access to cure V might inspire a few folks to bring along a Spankwustler mule to heal themselves on easy content instead of a White Mage mule, but I don't see it affecting White Mage much otherwise. Particularly not on things like Voidwatch that actually offer vaguely hard monsters.

As somebody who is on White Mage 90% of the time, I could care less about having a iron-fisted monopoly on healing. It would make my rolls of fat undulate with joy if a buddy who so desired could heal in Abyssea on SpankWustler or Scholar, so I could at least find out if my new macros for Blue Mage or Corsair even work.

Although, maybe the disparity will sort itself out once Abyssea is just another event instead of the primary event. Our HP outside isn't that much higher now, and it won't be that much higher at 99.

Too-Long-Did-Not-Read-Version: No, other jobs getting Cure V wouldn't have a meaningful, negative impact on White Mage. It's a far more fleshed-out job now than it was five years ago.

In other news, I'd choke a kitten to cast Dia III. While it's only a 5% increase over Dia II, it's a 15% increase over some butt-brained Black Mage's Bio II. I know that's not a good reason, but overwriting that dreadful spell would feel so good.

Not that Spankwustler's merits, Category I and II, aren't a little lackluster otherwise. That's the case with a lot of jobs. Fortunately, that sounds like something the current development team really wants to work on.

Ketaru

08-12-2011, 05:19 AM

Er, sorry, I just noticed this, but as far as I can tell, SE has fairly solidly put their foot down and said that Red Mage is an Enhancing and Enfeebling mage. The only reason they bring up melee at all is because so many people here post about it, and even then they clearly stated that they were looking to improve Red Mage's HNM-level party/group play and focus on its Enhancing and Enfeebling prowess.

It's a niche group of players who are keeping the "Magical Swordsman" archetype alive, that and a 10-year-old character blurb on a website that likely hasn't seen any updates to the old job sections in ... well, 10 years. Everyone else, SE included, is perfectly content with Red Mage as a Buff/Debuff master with a broad range of spells across both the light and dark spectrum.

Said niche group of players have been around just as long as this game has so you might also want to get used to the unpleasant reality that you share the exact same game with them. For a minority, they are extremely vocal and the ones that are vocal will get their voices heard. That is the entire point of having an Official forum.

People who post here for our magical side of things only do so only as a reaction to the people who want to push us to the front. Is wanting a melee update really so terrible? Would it be a problem to at least ask for a cost-of-living-adjustment sort of update? We did, after all, always used to have a wide range of gear selection to choose from. Did that gear selection really have to shrink after Abyssea? Is the fact that people stay so mum about our casting testament to our proficiency as a mage being A-OK? Maybe "perfectly content" is what's the problem here.

BLU got a spell that allows them to temporarily increase the Attack and Magic Attack Bonus. Where are the requests for a similar spell that allows us to raise the Accuracy and Magic Accuracy of a fellow player? Why don't we take a cue from Abyssea and ask how a spell that raises Critical Hit Damage might work? Or hell, why don't take SE's intent on giving more jobs endgame roles the whole way and get some spells that directly enhance a player's pets? We ought to be expanding the amount of jobs we can work well with instead of this systematic nonsense of excluding pet jobs simply because they don't get the full benefit of player enhancements.

Even ignoring new spells, we've still got a situation where Saboteur is problematic in how it doesn't guarantee an Enfeeble will land. That's fine, but how about at least making it so Saboteur doesn't get consumed until an Enfeeble is successfully landed?

Greatguardian

08-12-2011, 05:25 AM

Supersun

08-12-2011, 05:32 AM

You don't ever just invite a Red Mage just for enfeebles. You also invite it for the buffs they use

You mean Refresh and Haste? Because besides Phalanx II there not exactly many other buffs that Rdm can cast on other people.

Oh wait, one of those is subbable by 99 and the other one is inferior to every other form of refresh due to it not stacking with Refresh.

RDM with Refresh 2 and AF3+2 pants and COR's Evoker's > COR/RDM with Evoker's and Refresh 1. Don't kid yourself.

Considering I expect Evokers roll to likely be buffed to 5~7 MP tick... Cor/Rdm 8~10 > Rdm 7

Ketaru

08-12-2011, 05:37 AM

You seem to have missed the point. You specifically talked about SE themselves putting their foot down.

I'm telling you that they already have, multiple times. It's not my fault people are shoving their heads in the sand about it.

Apparently not, seeing as they've decided to entertain the notion of a melee adjustment, instead of simply ignoring it. It's easy really. Quote the question, then give this very polite response:

"At this time, we have no plans for adjusting Red Mage's Sword proficiency."

That isn't what was said. In fact, the very opposite was said. It actually took up the majority of Camate's response and it wasn't said in vague possibilities of "maybe in the future". Seemed to me like there actually definitive expectations for the next version update.

I would love to know how some of my ideas for party enhancement spells would work. I think it's a long time coming that we finally see something that makes us work alongside pet jobs, in fact. And all I got was Gravity II.

Greatguardian

08-12-2011, 05:40 AM

The viability of Cor/Rdm in general is going to depend a lot on how consistent Wildfire continues to act outside Abyssea. It's highly unlikely that a Cor/Rdm will be able to keep up a high-maintenance Refresh cycle as well. Refresh itself is only 110 MP for the caster, meaning that over the duration of the spell, the Corsair will only be able to consistently Refresh 3 other people.

No good Corsair will ever have Evoker's roll on them for more than 20-50 seconds, ever, so you can't count on that as a source of self Refresh. While it may look decent on paper, Cor/Rdm is never going to be able to fulltime Refresh spell on any full caster party without seriously gimping themselves in some form or another (Be it fulltiming Evoker's on themselves, or Resting, or whatnot).

Edit: Welcome to the Official Forums. They're looking into WS adjustments across the board, for every job. If Red Mage gets Vorpal Blade out of it, more power to them. If not, whatever. That does not mean they are looking into RDM-specific melee adjustments. It simply means that the melee crowd may be getting a bone when the Dev team completes their game-wide revamp of all sub-75 Weaponskills and their accessibility.

The Devs have stated quite clearly that they are looking into improving the group aspect of Red Mage, which consists of its Buffing and Debuffing prowess. That's an incredibly polite way of saying "No". I'm sorry if you just don't see that, or want to look for things that just aren't there. Who knows, you may get lucky. For those of us who understand the delicacy with which news like this has to be handed to people like those who post on this subforum, the message is abundantly clear.

Supersun

08-12-2011, 05:52 AM

With the exception of a nuking party when do you need to actually refresh 5-6 people in the actual party? Are you like only using Blus and Drks because most DDs and support jobs don't really need the refresh?

And if you do I'd be surprised if there wasn't at least one other person in that party with /Rdm who could split it with you or take the load for himself if would be better for you to Wildfire spam when you aren't rolling.

Greatguardian

08-12-2011, 06:03 AM

If we're talking about Refreshing your singular healer, I'm sure that would work out fine. I was simply pointing out the very real shortcomings of expecting Cor/Rdm to be able to Refresh people. They can do it, they just can't Refresh more than 3 at the absolute most.

It's also possible, depending on the exact adjustments to Evoker's Roll, that SMN/COR will be back on top in the group Refresh game. Diabolos's Favor plus subbed Evoker's isn't half bad, considering it rounds up rather than floors for whatever reason (Buff potency = COR level / Buff Receiver level, or 50% for fully leveled SJ rounded up for Evoker's). I'm not sure I'd ever sub COR on Red Mage though, so I'm not sure where the discussion even spawned from. Did they mean RDM + COR > COR/RDM? Two people are always better than one, etc.

Duelle

08-12-2011, 06:16 AM

Would I trade Cure V for these enfeebles as a White Mage? No, I wouldn't, because if White Mage didn't have Cure V, there would be very little reason to have one. If either SCH or RDM were to get it, they'd pretty much dominate WHM in most aspects because they have superior MP longevity and they perform other roles like crowd control and buffs better.

Both camps act as if they aren't useful at all without the spell, but they ignore the problem that currently plagues the White Mage class, the prospect that at any moment, the masses will have their way, and White Mage will be useless outside of being needed for certain procs in Abyssea.The answer there would be to refine RDM's roles, create an alternate spell for healing for RDM and SCH, and give WHM additional and class-inherent (because almost everything that contributes to MP efficacy on WHM comes from gear that enters the game very late in the leveling process) MP efficacy. Seeing that Refresh I and II are the most un-RDM things to ever exist, I wouldn't mind giving those to WHM as well. The only thing you'd be missing is convert, which is fixed at 80 when you sub RDM.

A bit of a metaphor, I'd still invite a Red Mage to a party even if the job couldn't cure at all. I couldn't say the same for White Mage.Well, both jobs are kind of different. One is a healer, the other is a guy with white magic, black magic, and a sword in hand.

Ketaru

08-12-2011, 06:52 AM

The Devs have stated quite clearly that they are looking into improving the group aspect of Red Mage, which consists of its Buffing and Debuffing prowess. That's an incredibly polite way of saying "No". I'm sorry if you just don't see that, or want to look for things that just aren't there. Who knows, you may get lucky.

I don't know what kind of update it is you think I actually want. The only thing I can give you is that I intend to use it, whatever form it may take.

SpankWustler

08-12-2011, 07:15 AM

Seeing that Refresh I and II are the most un-RDM things to ever exist

Something that some guy from SE said a couple of weeks ago:

"Support specialists who excel at transforming their allies from mere mortals into demigods with their enhancements, while rendering once-formidable enemies impotent with enfeebling magic.

We want to see red mages play a more vital role in HNM battles by making enfeebling magic more effective against high-level notorious monsters and their legendary levels of resistance as well as allowing them to better contribute to party member enhancement."

My apologies to you and your Frankenfurter-Flipper's Sharpened Spatula, but the dudes at SE seem to have other ideas and they're the ones who will be fine-tuning SpankWustler.

Not being sarcastic. Well, not with the "Sorry" part, anyway.

I get that you're not happy with not being able to hit things with things while wearing a red thing on your thing, but that's not the direction things are going in this game.

Yeah, the idea of a spellsword or whatnot is a common concept in fantasy works and fantasy RPGs in particular. It's just that a dude in blue pants fills that role in FFXI rather than a dude in red pants, as was the case in some previous Square games.

Sorry you got a raw deal in that Red Mage isn't what you expected, but keep in mind lots of people enjoy SpankWustler as-is and apparently the development team is among those people.

Greatguardian

08-12-2011, 07:15 AM

I don't know what kind of update it is you think I actually want. The only thing I can give you is that I intend to use it, whatever form it may take.

I think you're under the impression that it matters to me one way or another what people want.

I addressed one single point, an important one for sure, but that point and that alone. I could care less what sort of update you want for Red Mage, or what other people want for it. You, and quite frankly some others as well, have simply asked that SE make a statement one way or another on what they want for Red Mage; Be it a pure Mage, or a Hybrid when they already have.

They have, straight up, said that Red Mage is a Mage class with specializations in Enhancing and Enfeebling. They have, straight up, said that they are not looking to improve Red Mage's swordplay, but those who are really into that sort of thing will probably benefit from the game-wide rework of pre-75 WS anyways.

I don't particularly care if you like it or not. But asking SE to put their foot down is ridiculous when they've made it abundantly clear that they absolutely do not want to make any sort of drastic adjustment to Red Mage's melee proficiency, and feel that they contribute much more to a group as a pure Caster.

Neisan_Quetz

08-12-2011, 07:40 AM

In other news, I'd choke a kitten to cast Dia III. While it's only a 5% increase over Dia II, it's a 15% increase over some butt-brained Black Mage's Bio II. I know that's not a good reason, but overwriting that dreadful spell would feel so good.

Not that Spankwustler's merits, Category I and II, aren't a little lackluster otherwise. That's the case with a lot of jobs. Fortunately, that sounds like something the current development team really wants to work on.

I never get tired of overwriting Bio 2 - and then rage as another Rdm casts Bio 3 over me.

As for the Cor argument - I have no problem with Cor being considered more viable (because Cor really needs the buffs) as long as SE delivers. Come on SE, deliver.

Economizer

08-12-2011, 07:49 AM

The answer there would be to refine RDM's roles, create an alternate spell for healing for RDM and SCH, and give WHM additional and class-inherent (because almost everything that contributes to MP efficacy on WHM comes from gear that enters the game very late in the leveling process) MP efficacy. Seeing that Refresh I and II are the most un-RDM things to ever exist, I wouldn't mind giving those to WHM as well. The only thing you'd be missing is convert, which is fixed at 80 when you sub RDM.

As much as White Mage would love Refresh II, it isn't the way the game is or should be. It has and always will be Red Mage's thing. I'll use some colorful language to illustrate. Red Mage wears a red hat with a feather in it that is very iconic of what its job is. Red Mage is the pimp of magic. If you want to be pimped up, you should have a Red Mage in your party too.

That said, I can understand where the feeling about Red Mage being a poor enhancer may be coming from. Red Mage can't exactly cast its most powerful buffs on allies. Two-three buffs does not a buffer make.

On more efficient cures, perhaps a spell that targets monsters and allies. On foes, it would be enfeebling magic, and set a debuff. When that foe attacks your ally, you then cast the spell on your friend, which in turn, cures them for a portion of the attack.

This might not be workable or balanced, but the example fits Red Mage in my opinion, because the concept of "Red Magic" in this game was that Red Mage, by knowing both White and Black magics, could combine the two, most notably into enspells. Because Red Mage knows both equally well, they understand how to fuse the two in harmony. This is the romance of a Red Mage, something bookish fools like Scholars could never understand, despite their bookish knowledge of bigger elemental damage spells, or debuff removal.

SpankWustler

08-12-2011, 08:01 AM

I never get tired of overwriting Bio 2 - and then rage as another Rdm casts Bio 3 over me.

As for the Cor argument - I have no problem with Cor being considered more viable (because Cor really needs the buffs) as long as SE delivers. Come on SE, deliver.

Bio III - Strong enough to use while spending 2 hours soloing an NM because you have no idea how to cast Elemental Magic, but subtle enough to enrage countless melee and one other caster in just 1.5 seconds. The perfect spell.

Corsair definitely could use...something. Most of it's unique buffs from rolls (which never held a candle to a decent March for a competent melee) are all over equipment now, and the relatively new "Haste" roll is too weird to be universally useful. Between that and stacks of Oberon's Bullets existing only in the hearts and minds of dreaming children, I'm barely on the job at all.

It seems like the last job anyone should worry about taking their favorite job's role, as things stand.

Rayik

08-12-2011, 09:04 PM

I looked through this entire thread and not a single person corrected this. Red Mage not only has a magic elemental WS, they have access to the best magic elemental WS, and on top of that, they (ignoring sub) arguably have the best stats for this WS.

Aeolian Edge is incredibly powerful, and hardly affected by damage rating of your dagger if at all. That said, Red Mage gets access to the best daggers available, although you may have to stick to a Blau for a while until you can acquire one of the slightly harder to get ones.

You're joking, right? Ok, let's recap. RDM's advertised "signature weapon" is a sword; evidenced by not only previous games, but many references in FFXI itself, not the least including our Relic, Mythic, and Empyrean/Magian Trial weapons are SWORDS. So yeah, it should make perfect sense our best Weapon Skills are on DAGGER.

And access to the best "daggers available?" Magian trials say hi. Twilight is a tough dagger, but you can't proc the added effects with any enspell active. Blau Dolch was awesome at 75. The only real alternative is the highest level one on the AH(I can never remember it's name, Ughdott or something). Seriously, we had to resort to using daggers, for most of us it wasn't a favorable choice. Sure, they swing faster, but my Magian swords do a lot more damage per swing than my Blau, but without a favorable sword ws, that extra damage doesn't matter as much.

In addition, you can solo farm in Abyssea like no other job can, since you can Phalanx yourself, cure yourself, and even get a combination of Azure and Amber lights. How's that for melee? Maybe you won't be able to solo the NMs, but taking on thirty easy prey mobs at once seems pretty bad ass to me.

BLU gets CW, and Vorpal Blade, in addition to a number of Curing, Damage reducing, etc spells. If RDM can solo in Aby "like no other job can" then by all means, enlighten me.

Perhaps this isn't what people mean by melee (is a non-empyrean sword really necessary to qualify as RDM melee?) but it is very powerful. Red Mage always has and always will have some sharp tricks up its sleeve, and a feather in its hat, for those who can earn it. The lack of a correction on this matter over ten pages of text makes me wonder though... for a traditionally backline job to melee, you have to want it, and not knowing your abilities shows a distinct lack of care.

Not knowing my abilities? This coming from the guy that thinks RDM's get the best daggers? THF and DNC would like a word with you about that. Hell, RDM can't even use a Yahtagan.

I'm working on getting an Almace. I've made a "checklist" of gear I need to make RDM melee viable for my personal play style. I only use a dagger currently because I don't have an Almace. I prefer swords, and if RDM had a ws that was half as decent as Evisceration, I'd drop my daggers in a heartbeat.

EDIT: I haven't been on these boards in about a week or so, so sorry for necro'ing this old post.

Economizer

08-12-2011, 09:34 PM

Rayik

08-12-2011, 10:04 PM

Okay, first off, please don't take my "reply" so personally. I was talking very generally about a comment you made compounded by the fact that nobody had said anything about dagger. It wasn't an insult, and it wasn't a jab at you, just an observation about what I've seen in a thread of over a hundred posts.

Now, the most effective Red Mages I know have to resort to a combination of Swords and Daggers. I think this fits highly with the fencer role, although I guess unless Red Mage has a way to do serious damage without an Empyrean while using a Sword in their main hand it doesn't count as having it?

I agree that it is a problem that Red Mage does not get access to the Magian Daggers, considering that they have equal combat skills in both Sword and Dagger. But ignoring these, Red Mage does get access to the most highly damaging daggers outside of a THF or a DNC. They aren't all easy to get however.

Mandau, Twilight Knife, Clement Skean, which all have high DPS are all accessible to Red Mage. Below that Verus Knife and a Blau. That said, your Magic Attack Bonus trait is going to have more impact on damage then the actual damage rating of the blade, since you will be relying on Aeolian Edge.

On soloing in Abyssea, I wasn't referring to killing NMs, which was very clear in my post. I was talking about farming KI and pops from chests. With tools like Phalanx and Ice Spikes keeping you alive, and nukes to get azure lights, a Red Mage is the job most capable of using Aeolian Edge to do this. Blue Mage might get Azure faster, but you will certainly get Amber lights faster. Perhaps this isn't soloing a zone boss, but a Red Mage is still more likely to do that then a Black Mage, White Mage, Bard, or Scholar.

Again, please don't take my posts personally. I'm not trying to insult your honor or whatever.

Good luck getting your Almace so you can fulfill your vision of Red Mage!

You pretty much zeroed in on me, question my abilities or how much I even care about the play style I am advocating. So yeah, I responded in kind. You even brought me up in a second post ("some players who don't even think RDM have a magical WS harharhar). So, there's that too. People won't take posts so personal if you don't go out of your way with paragraph after paragraph trying to point out shortcomings with a heavy hand of snark.

My only major complaint really, is that our best WS's are not on the weapon that is specified as our signature weapon. If we're supposed to be a dagger-style job like THF or DNC, then fine, let RDM build Magian weapons to enhance that. But we can't. I'm fine with using daggers, if I can make a Magian dagger, or at least build an Empy/Relic/Mythic dagger for the job. Seriously, what sense does this make?

EDIT: Admittedly, I didn't know about RDM and Mandau. I'm so glad one of the few daggers that we CAN use is one we can run right out and grab. Also, on Abyssea, I wasn't talking about NM's either. I was talking about farming chests and KI/PI's.

Rayik

08-12-2011, 10:14 PM

On topic, as not to completely turn this thread into the melee thread again, I would like to see our enfeebling updated to where our enfeebles aren't completely useless on NM's, to the point where we have to resort to pretend-WHM status to be of any use to the party. It's been said before, but I don't think it can really be said enough; don't paint us as these uber-powerful enfeeblers, then make 90% of meaningful content immune to exactly what we're supposed to specialize in. I swear sometimes RDM is just SE's little *whipping boy job.

*I realize some other jobs have gotten the shaft from SE a lot more than RDM lately, but most of the time they aren't being shut out of doing exactly what they were advertised to do in the first place... "Here! Swing a sword and cast spells! Oh wait, no. Don't do that anymore. Here! enfeeble enemies! Render powerful NM's impotent with your enfeebling magic! No, nope, wait, can't let you do that either. Actually, here. Just cure and buff. There ya go."

cidbahamut

08-12-2011, 10:47 PM

Even ignoring new spells, we've still got a situation where Saboteur is problematic in how it doesn't guarantee an Enfeeble will land. That's fine, but how about at least making it so Saboteur doesn't get consumed until an Enfeeble is successfully landed?
I am so onboard for this. It has been pissing me off no end this week as every time I Saboteur something it gets resisted. Elemental seal doesn't even help, it seems like some NMs have a floored land-rate no matter how much Magic Accuracy you're stacking. They're not immune, they just resist everything except for that one time the enfeeble will land just to prove the NM isn't outright immune. Saboteur getting burned on a resist every single time just gets old fast and I would love to see that change.

Rayik

08-12-2011, 10:58 PM

I am so onboard for this. It has been pissing me off no end this week as every time I Saboteur something it gets resisted. Elemental seal doesn't even help, it seems like some NMs have a floored land-rate no matter how much Magic Accuracy you're stacking. They're not immune, they just resist everything except for that one time the enfeeble will land just to prove the NM isn't outright immune. Saboteur getting burned on a resist every single time just gets old fast and I would love to see that change.

I agree with this in full. If the JA doesn't help in actually landing the spell, then they need to lower the recast of it. It makes us look silly when we Saboteur a spell and it still misses.

SpankWustler

08-13-2011, 03:45 AM

It has been pissing me off no end this week as every time I Saboteur something it gets resisted. Elemental seal doesn't even help, it seems like some NMs have a floored land-rate no matter how much Magic Accuracy you're stacking. They're not immune, they just resist everything except for that one time the enfeeble will land just to prove the NM isn't outright immune. Saboteur getting burned on a resist every single time just gets old fast and I would love to see that change.

This +1. If Saboteur also having Elemental Seal-like effect would be seen as redundant or or just be ineffectual, at least the recast of the ability could be drastically lowered.

A change to how some things have a vendetta against enfeebles would be nice, too. A monster should either be easy to enfeeble, difficult to enfeeble, or flatly immune. There's no reason for anything to resist 95% of the time (regardless of equipment and stuffs) just so you'll be forced to try over and over again.

Supersun

08-13-2011, 05:10 AM

Will Massacre Elegy be added?

We have plans to. However, when considering the stats, we are planning to make it so this isn’t a song that can be used by just anyone.

Even though from the context of the conversation this probably means that Massacre Elegy is going to be on the 95 G Horn this pretty much stomps on Rdm being the best enfeebler. Doesn't matter how good Slow II is when Slow caps at 100% and massacre elegy is just that.

All that leaves us with is Paralyze II and crowd control spells. One of which is pretty much impossible to stick on anything worth while and the others are impossible to stick on anything worth while.

Is SE's vision for Rdm being the king of crowd control in a game where the norm is only fighting one monster at a time?

Ketaru

08-13-2011, 05:44 AM

They're not immune, they just resist everything except for that one time the enfeeble will land just to prove the NM isn't outright immune.

That reminds me. A very, very long time ago, I once Silenced Hakutaku.

Economizer

08-13-2011, 06:23 AM

All that leaves us with is Paralyze II and crowd control spells. One of which is pretty much impossible to stick on anything worth while and the others are impossible to stick on anything worth while.

Is SE's vision for Rdm being the king of crowd control in a game where the norm is only fighting one monster at a time?

If by crowd control spells you mean a crowd of thirty easy prey mobs attacking you, then yes, Red Mage is arguably the best, as it has Phalanx and Ice Spikes, in addition to some other tools.

But if you mean being able to Sleep and Break mobs, Scholar is better, since they can bust out a ton of strats and AOE their spells.

If it wasn't for Abyssea, Scholar would be the most popular mage job in most situations, as it has nukes almost as good as Black Mage, curing second only to White Mage, can keep itself fueled with MP, can sub Red Mage for most of its unique(ish) spells (and will eventually get Haste this way), can AOE most buffs, has a unique line of buffs and debuffs, minor enmity control, and more, with clear news of even more power in coming updates that is second only the Black Mage's.

Things would be much, much simpler for Red Mage if there was no Scholar to contend with to be honest. Having to deal with a swiss army knife job that performs better then you at pretty much every class role you have is a nightmare.

Greatguardian

08-13-2011, 06:35 AM

Scholar suffers from some massive fundamental drawbacks in its strategem/Arts system that will always prevent it from being anything but second class. While they can excel when given a specific role for a fight, they will always be worse at that specific role than a more specialized class (With the exception of base crowd control, though Blue Mage is pretty boss at this too). Switching between Dark Arts and Light Arts on the fly is an absolute nightmare, and Scholar suffers severe penalties when attempting to be spontaneous and react to developments immediately. Scholar also suffered from a severe lack of fundamental spells, which the Devs have only recently started to remedy (sup Stoneskin/Blink).

Red Mage's strength, and a big part of why it is significantly stronger than Scholar in any practical situation, is its ability to cast any spell at any time and switch back and forth between offense and defense in a matter of seconds rather than minutes. Red Mage also has significant advantages over Scholar in terms of equipment availability that really serve to put it ahead in any head to head comparison.

SpankWustler

08-13-2011, 01:18 PM

It's important to remember that applying one or more stratagems significantly slows down the coming spell. While not relevant for a planned AoE sleep/gravity or an Ebullience-ificated nuke, but it's a very important thing to consider when looking at most of what Scholar casts in Light Arts or an emergency crowd-control spell.

Switching Arts and using the corresponding Addendum isn't an instant affair, either. It's just one or two extra seconds and one Strategem charge, but that can be an eternity or one charge too many in some situations.

Also, saying a job is second in curing to White Mage is like saying Mars is the second most livable planet in our solar system. The statement is true, but good luck building a mountain retreat on Olympus Mons. Scholar and Red Mage are on pretty even keel as far as healing goes, with Scholar's only palpable advantage being native status cures rather than status cures from a support job. If that's even an advantage.

Economizer

08-13-2011, 09:39 PM

I regularly sub Scholar, so I'm aware of the timing that is involved with Arts/Strats. It punishes you if you aren't aware of what's going on in a fight, and destroys you if you get caught with the wrong arts out if you get hit with Amnesia. But I think the timing is manageable even if you want to throw down a nuke while main curing (Impact under Dark Arts on a White Mage? lololol). That said, I'd rather have a Red Mage on Stun duty then any other job, reflexes are certainly part of the job's strengths.

Scholar and Red Mage are on pretty even keel as far as healing goes, with Scholar's only palpable advantage being native status cures rather than status cures from a support job. If that's even an advantage.

Penury, Celerity, Accession, Rapture. Mainly Rapture, 50-60% more potency every minute or so (assuming your not burning strats on other stuff)? B+ Healing Magic, more of a factor if SE actually makes Healing Magic useful. If you sub Red Mage you can also Phalanx your party without a single merit.

A better argument would have been to argue that Blue Mage is a better healer then Scholar, but even then they'll be subbing Scholar for peak efficiency, if they a dedicated healer.

Raksha

08-13-2011, 11:01 PM

Penury, Celerity, Accession, Rapture. Mainly Rapture, 50-60% more potency every minute or so (assuming your not burning strats on other stuff)? B+ Healing Magic, more of a factor if SE actually makes Healing Magic useful. If you sub Red Mage you can also Phalanx your party without a single merit.

Do you use Divine seal every 10 minutes? If so, do you use it for cures or for status effects?

Using stratagems for rapture isn't the best way to main heal. If you're spam healing a single tank chances are your stratagems aren't going to last long enough. If you are healing an entire party with accession, you're going to run out of mp (or if you stack penury you'll run out of charges). Dark Arts stratagems are generally a lot more useful than light arts strats. Light arts strats are nice, but they aren't game-breaking.

Economizer

08-14-2011, 12:01 AM

Do you use Divine seal every 10 minutes? If so, do you use it for cures or for status effects?

Honestly, since Divine Seal is on a ten minute timer, I avoid using it outside of Campaign Battle Accession cures. Actually, this statement isn't exactly true, since I use Devotion as often as possible. Divine Seal isn't exactly something reliable to depend on.

Using stratagems for rapture isn't the best way to main heal. If you're spam healing a single tank chances are your stratagems aren't going to last long enough. If you are healing an entire party with accession, you're going to run out of mp (or if you stack penury you'll run out of charges). Dark Arts stratagems are generally a lot more useful than light arts strats. Light arts strats are nice, but they aren't game-breaking.

They certainly aren't game breaking, and they aren't something you should be relying on all the time, but they do give Scholar the edge over other non-WHM healers. I'm not trying to say otherwise.

I definitely notice that when Black Mages talk about Scholars, they definitely mention stratagems often, notably the ones you can't just sub for. I don't hear the discussion about Light Arts strats as often. Perhaps this is due to the nature of the way the player base sometimes utilizes nukes, as some players heavily rely on spike damage tier V spells over all else, whereas healers often are expected to constantly spam heals.

In my opinion, constantly having to spam heals often comes down from poor damage mitigation, non-tank jobs taking hate, and other factors that usually indicate a poor group makeup that the devs didn't necessarily design healing jobs around (opinions are subject to change with more information, and are not valid in the state of Maryland). But much of the healing in this game these days seems to spamming heals, which certainly favors a play-style that can't rely occasional on job ability boosts.

Again, perhaps there are issues with stuff like not giving certain jobs certain spells or abilities, but balance is a hard job, especially when dealing with balancing multiple classes performing multiple roles vs. so called specialist classes. Further, how much of this is Abyssea rewarding those specialists and how much of this is actual game issues?

Last, as a few questions, how satisfied are you with Scholar in relation to Black Mage? To Red Mage? And to Red Mages, how satisfied are you in relation to these two classes? If Scholars are happy with their position compared to Black Mage, what lessons about balance can we learn from that? And if they aren't, what would make them happy? And so on, with other classes?

Raksha

08-14-2011, 12:13 AM

Ketaru

08-14-2011, 02:18 AM

Last, as a few questions, how satisfied are you with Scholar in relation to Black Mage? To Red Mage? And to Red Mages, how satisfied are you in relation to these two classes? If Scholars are happy with their position compared to Black Mage, what lessons about balance can we learn from that? And if they aren't, what would make them happy? And so on, with other classes?

I know I'm somewhat ignoring your real question, but as somebody who has both RDM and SCH leveled as main jobs, I really grow tired of the use and abuse of SCH as a scapegoat for what backline RDM should be on this forum. It's as if people look at a Cliff Notes description of SCH, see that it casts both White and Black magic, and immediately assume the jobs are the same (I anticipate a certain poster is going to bring up "that whole swords thing" to differentiate the two jobs, to which I'll say sure, go ahead and include it if you are serious enough to gear for it).

It's just more "Dey tewk our jerbs" hysteria that BLMs, then WHMs, were showing ever since SCH was introduced. RDM is just the latest to hop on board the wagon.

Anybody else that actually plays the two jobs know that they play fundamentally different, even as they sub each other. SCH is being pushed towards its own brand of support further away from the other mage jobs: weather, -helix, enmity manipulation and measuring, Regain. Unfortunately, as things are now, they are not support spells that are seen as of value by the playerbase. Mostly because a job that is designed to supplement the other mages really has no business in a game that has moved from Alliance fights to one of how to take as few people as possible

Greatguardian

08-14-2011, 02:34 AM

Personally I don't see Scholar as any form of "threat" to the other pure mage classes. SpankWustler hit the nail on the head with a lot of Scholar's major issues. Subbing SCH on a pure mage class is fundamentally different from Scholar Main. Red Mage on its own has a significantly broader spell selection available to them without having to resort to White/Black Addenda.

Scholar can't cast Sleep II without Add:Black until the 95 cap increase (unless /BLM). Scholar can't cast any of their T4 OR T5 nukes without Add:Black. Scholar can't cast any -Na spells without Add:White. All of the Reraises and Raise II are both locked into Add: White as well. Scholar also has D-rated skill across the board unless they're under the effect of a corresponding Arts. Red Mage caps are simply boosted by Arts, they don't rely on them.

Red Mage can nuke in Light Arts and Cure in Dark Arts if they have to while just sacrificing a bit of MP. Scholar can't even nuke in Light Arts at all. You really have to play Scholar, or see Scholar played actively, to understand how very real and very limiting those stances are to the class.

cidbahamut

08-14-2011, 02:39 AM

Ketaru and GG have laid it out more eloquently than I could, but the long and short of it is that Scholar and Red Mage do not offer the same utility and are not interchangeable. I don't feel Scholar is stepping on Red Mage's toes or vice versa.

SpankWustler

08-14-2011, 07:14 AM

I definitely notice that when Black Mages talk about Scholars, they definitely mention stratagems often, notably the ones you can't just sub for. I don't hear the discussion about Light Arts strats as often. Perhaps this is due to the nature of the way the player base sometimes utilizes nukes, as some players heavily rely on spike damage tier V spells over all else, whereas healers often are expected to constantly spam heals.

Giving up a second or so to gain more power or efficiency is definitely a good deal for most Black Magic. Using Rapture before a cure, on the other hand, makes that cure come out far more slowly. Too slowly, in many cases. That's a big part of what I was getting at when I mentioned the time required to use a stratagem. Yeah, it's another choice, but rarely the right choice.

Using stratagems for AoE status cures is more useful, but that's also something Red Mage or White Mage can do through Scholar sub. Which is a good thing, since it really improved the tedious part of playing White Mage and I assume it does the same for Red Mage.

To be really brief, the main thing Scholar and Red Mage have in common is that most people who play either job would be happy to see more unique and useful spells. The former needs something a bit more potent than 1 TP a tick regain and mediocre Helix damage, and the latter hasn't gotten anything new in forever and a day because it's generally so good at filling it's niche.

Seriha

08-14-2011, 08:09 AM

Potential homogenization between SCH and RDM is very real come 99 without SE throwing in some major monkey wrenches. That's a problem, and one Ketaru tried to skirt around mentioning the sword thing as a diversifier like it shouldn't matter. What gets me is how some are talking about how either job is constantly hopping back and forth between roles when ideally one should be solidified before you even leave the mog house. Sure, accidents can happen where suddenly if I was originally at a fight on SCH to play pseudo-BLM I need to hop into Add: White to cover for a weakened WHM, but that's not really a scenario you should be hoping for and using it as "But...!" to determine who's better at any given moment. As is, both RDM and SCH suffer from being the "not WHM" of the healing jobs, and while some want to stomp up and down over how both need Cure V, I really hope that's a route SE doesn't take, and not just because I'm averse to Pink Magery. Rather, it strikes me more as a lack of creativity and coming up with alternative methods to either cure people or mitigate damage.

As for RDM's "black magic" side, if someone said we wouldn't have gotten T4s with the cap increases, I wouldn't have grumbled. With that, SCH could've stayed T4 with Helix IIs popping up. That hasn't matched the reality of things, but I'm otherwise okay with leaving our nukes as is once we get Thunder IV. If SE wants to throw out some nuke/enfeeble hybrids like Impact (just much more MP economical x.x), they're free to. I'd still like to see SCH get better Helix spells and perhaps T2 Storms for double weather. From the RDM perspective, I'm jealous of SCH's duration doubling strat. If Haste can ever be AoE'd, for the small cost of 96s of strats, a SCH would be able to Haste 6 people for 6 minutes (something where, individually, we need a bunch of equipment to approach). Hell, they'd be able to do it cross-party once Haste goes off recast, too. And for all we know, the new "merits" could let them bolster that effect even further.

Either way, while Arts/Strat limitations can be a factor, I still stand behind the fact your role should be better pegged before heading out. In the off chance you might want to be a nuking SCH, though status cures will help, giving up some FC/MATK from /RDM to go /WHM might be in order. That way you can stay in Add: Black, only having to deal with slightly higher MP costs and (re)cast times for those things. Asking a SCH or RDM to deliberately spread themselves thin is just asking for disaster, especially if dealing with PUGs. Both deserve more to shake them from being a WHM or BLM -1, though.

Greatguardian

08-14-2011, 08:24 AM

Red Mage living up to its maximum magical potential is not a matter of being spread thin. It's a matter of being a half decent Red Mage.

I know my role every single time I leave my MH on RDM. It's to be everything, and be damn good at all of it at the exact same time. Except melee DD, I have my Verethragna Mnk for that.

Supersun

08-14-2011, 08:33 AM

...and tank

:(

Ketaru

08-14-2011, 01:22 PM

Potential homogenization between SCH and RDM is very real come 99 without SE throwing in some major monkey wrenches. That's a problem, and one Ketaru tried to skirt around mentioning the sword thing as a diversifier like it shouldn't matter.

And the exact same people here were up in arms about it happening at level 80, then at level 85, then at level 90. Except something happened, SE actually started giving the jobs radically different spells and abilities (Libra come to mind? What about Saboteur? Or Addle? Or Adloquium?)

As for the Sword thing, no it doesn't matter as long as what we're talking about is casting here. If you want to include it as a distinction between the two jobs, go ahead. I'll even back you up on it. RDM can cap Haste. SCH cannot. RDM has access to powerful critical hit WSs. SCH does not. RDM has a job ability that improves accuracy. SCH does not. RDM has a wide variety of gear to choose.

That last point is a very important distinction between the two jobs since, as a SCH yourself apparently, you ought to be more than well aware of the glaring omissions in the gear that SCH does not have access to compared to RDM...or any other job in the game for that matter. We all know this piece (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Eradico_Mitts) right? Even BRD can use it!

Either way, while Arts/Strat limitations can be a factor, I still stand behind the fact your role should be better pegged before heading out.

The fact the playerbase limits the roles that a player can fill isn't somehow a reflection of how useful RDM or SCH can actually be. That's just for the purpose of easy categorization. Like I said, SCH is hurting right now primarily because we're actively trying to reduce the amount of people that have claim on lotting loot. That is totally different with the latest addition to the game, Voidwatch, where your chance at goodies won't be better just because you fight with less people and, in fact, alliance play is strongly encouraged.

If your alliance has a primary healer and a primary nuker and has key support covered, and you've got a spot left and aren't sure whether you want additional healing or additional nuking, there is absolutely no reason SCH cannot take up that spot and grease the wheels even further by using their spells to make the other mages more efficient, which is really the purpose of enmity and weather spells, as well as supplement healing and nuking. I don't know about anybody else, but I never really believed the best way to play SCH was to decide, ahead of time, whether you wanted to imitate WHM or BLM today.

As for the criticism that SCH cannot react as immediately to a sudden situation, I for one have never had a problem where I wasn't able to save somebody from something just because of ability spam. Enlightenment is always readily available. And if you're having more emergencies than you can handle in 3 minutes and 45 seconds, I would think that's a bigger problem with the group than with the SCH.

EDIT: On the subject of roles to fill, you want my honest opinion that I know some posters for exclusively the mage side of things may not agree on? I think RDM is perfectly serviceable as a frontline unit as it is now and any update to our melee shouldn't be looked upon as some moral failing of the community and of SE. There are situations where you would want another frontliner. You'll deal damage to be sure- whether it's worthwhile damage or not is entirely up to the group you're running with. You can be a co-tank. Maybe nuking the particular mob you're on would be highly inappropriate. And with that, you still have not suddenly lost your ability to cast your enfeebles, Haste, Refresh, Phalanx II, or Cures.

My feeling however is that, 95% of the time, we do not run into such situations where we need to fill that particular blend of roles (in fact, I'd venture to guess that, 95% of the time, we're in situations where we want to minimize the amount of people on the mob these days) And unless you know you're going into it ahead of time, you're not going to be prepared for it when it happens. And, by the time you recognize that you're in such a situation, it's probably too late; you're already subbing mage and have staffs. Maybe you ought to curse our inability to swap from /WHM to /NIN out in the field?

Supersun

08-14-2011, 02:54 PM

And the exact same people here were up in arms about it happening at level 80, then at level 85, then at level 90.

99 is the big one. Other jobs getting Cure IV and Haste from Rdm sub is quite a big power-up.

99 changes the name of the game from only a handful of jobs being capable of maintaining a haste cycle to EVERY job being able to do it if absolutely necessary as long as they have /rdm.

Greatguardian

08-14-2011, 03:07 PM

If Haste Cycles are a defining characteristic of Red Mage that would actually impede our popularity and desirability at 99 if other mages were to gain access to them, something is epic-tier wrong with the world.

noodles355

08-14-2011, 03:13 PM

Awww, sorry you're so offended.

But let me put it flatly for you.

Is Warrior Defined by Warrior's Charge?

Is Dancer Defined by Saber Dance?

Or lets go over to the Mage Side...

Burst II, Freeze II?

Martyr?
Burst II and Freeze II were 50% of the nukes you cast on most things (Thunder IV and Blizzard IV being the other 50%).
Saber Dance? meh. Fan Dance? Dnc can only solo half the stuff it does because of Fan Dance.
What about Drg? The only justification for them in an event ally is their Merit ability: Angon.
Outside of Treasure Hunter, Thief has Feint. That's it's use.

I don't deny that our merit spells should be scrolls. Of course they should. What I take issue with is you're attempt to say "Rdm sucks and has nothing worthwhile QQ" which is bullshit because of the aforementioned spells. And guess what? The same argument is true of Dragoon. For an alliance at an event, they only thing they can contribute that others cant is their merit ability: Angon.

Economizer

08-14-2011, 07:13 PM

I'd comment on everything, but as this is a lengthy comment already, I did my best to shorten it. I'm apparently not good at doing that. Sorry for jumbling quotes up a bit, was trying to do my best to flow my thoughts into a coherent, readable form.

Potential homogenization between SCH and RDM is very real come 99 without SE throwing in some major monkey wrenches.

I've been very forward looking with my assessments, and this is a big reason why I asked the questions I did. Although it seems that some Red Mages and Scholars do not see things this way. I would partially attribute this to play style.

And the exact same people here were up in arms about it happening at level 80, then at level 85, then at level 90. Except something happened, SE actually started giving the jobs radically different spells and abilities (Libra come to mind? What about Saboteur? Or Addle? Or Adloquium?)

This is what I'd also attribute to Red Mages and Scholars not seeing themselves as carbon copies. I hope this trend continues.

As for the Sword thing, no it doesn't matter as long as what we're talking about is casting here. If you want to include it as a distinction between the two jobs, go ahead. I'll even back you up on it. RDM can cap Haste. SCH cannot. RDM has access to powerful critical hit WSs. SCH does not. RDM has a job ability that improves accuracy. SCH does not. RDM has a wide variety of gear to choose.

I hope this differentiation continues. Scholar should continue to have to sub jobs that have more melee training then them in order to get access to weapon skills. Unlike Red Mage or White Mage, Scholar is more of a back line only job, whereas Red Mage and White Mage occasionally have to jump into the fray to deliver buffs, tend to wounds, or just plain mop up mobs.

If SE wants to throw out some nuke/enfeeble hybrids like Impact (just much more MP economical x.x), they're free to.

This is definitely a direction I hope SE takes. For Scholar, Helixes, and for Red Mage perhaps some new form of spell. Also, I'd like to see enhancing magic that helps these roles, perhaps the new enspells can do more then reduce magic evasion or whatever stat it was by a "whole" ten points. The mechanics are already there, like how T2 enspells affect some magic related stat, or how Sambas produce a debuff. Being able to land enfeebles easier, and do slightly more damage with nukes without just having to rely on an magic staffs would be a nice playstyle to explore for Red Mage, and fit a buffing role in a party.

If Haste can ever be AoE'd, for the small cost of 96s of strats, a SCH would be able to Haste 6 people for 6 minutes (something where, individually, we need a bunch of equipment to approach). Hell, they'd be able to do it cross-party once Haste goes off recast, too.

If Haste Cycles are a defining characteristic of Red Mage that would actually impede our popularity and desirability at 99 if other mages were to gain access to them, something is epic-tier wrong with the world.

For the time being, Haste is a major part of what Red Mage is, although not a unique one, but Red Mage is the best at Hasting the most people currently. While I'm not sure that giving Accession Haste to Scholar would stop them from trying to get Cure V, I do know it would have a major impact on the game. Thank goodness that SE isn't ever going to do this. Also, if your a Scholar that thinks this is a good idea in our current game environment, for the love of all things remotely sane, never produce any game.

The fact the playerbase limits the roles that a player can fill isn't somehow a reflection of how useful RDM or SCH can actually be. That's just for the purpose of easy categorization. Like I said, SCH is hurting right now primarily because we're actively trying to reduce the amount of people that have claim on lotting loot. That is totally different with the latest addition to the game, Voidwatch, where your chance at goodies won't be better just because you fight with less people and, in fact, alliance play is strongly encouraged.

Would half the complains from Scholar or Red Mage be on the forums if Voidwatch, not Abyssea was the main focus currently?

If your alliance has a primary healer and a primary nuker and has key support covered, and you've got a spot left and aren't sure whether you want additional healing or additional nuking, there is absolutely no reason SCH cannot take up that spot and grease the wheels even further by using their spells to make the other mages more efficient, which is really the purpose of enmity and weather spells, as well as supplement healing and nuking. I don't know about anybody else, but I never really believed the best way to play SCH was to decide, ahead of time, whether you wanted to imitate WHM or BLM today.

As for the criticism that SCH cannot react as immediately to a sudden situation, I for one have never had a problem where I wasn't able to save somebody from something just because of ability spam. Enlightenment is always readily available. And if you're having more emergencies than you can handle in 3 minutes and 45 seconds, I would think that's a bigger problem with the group than with the SCH.

This sums up a lot of my thoughts about the way Scholar works or should work. Wasn't a Scholar a supportive mage in the lore? It makes things favorable to the party, then proceeds to add extra magical damage or healing as the situation needs it. As a side thought, what would happen if Scholar could occasionally donate a particular stratagem effect to a party member?

-

For the direction I'd most like to see Red Mage go, is in addition to becoming a better buffer and enfeebler, Red Mage should be able to use these roles together. Wasn't the point of the Red Mage the fact that it can put both White and Black magic together into a combat role, like with enspells? I think there is a new set of hybrid magic that Red Mage could definitely be the unique source of.

Covenant

08-14-2011, 07:54 PM

What would people do if "Haste" stop existing from today on? Haste whether a song or single cast has made players into zombie's. Go to bard forum...what do they want? The next haste song, scholar? haste AoE, RDM haste II?, summoner hastagaII?...blah, blah blah.

Unfortunately, SE keeps slapping this unto everything. Yes, I enjoy it as much as the next person, but its time to start thinking outside of the box. I want redmage and other jobs to have multi-buff and multi-debuff spells, even if it's at the same potency level. Imagine a spell that gives haste/refresh, or haste/phalanx in one shot. Or, how about my "murk" debuff that gives gravity/blind/slow?

Supersun

08-14-2011, 08:08 PM

RDM haste II

I think I'm missing these topics where Rdms are begging for haste II.

cidbahamut

08-14-2011, 11:03 PM

Ketaru

08-15-2011, 12:18 AM

This sums up a lot of my thoughts about the way Scholar works or should work. Wasn't a Scholar a supportive mage in the lore? It makes things favorable to the party, then proceeds to add extra magical damage or healing as the situation needs it.

Traditionally, there...is no real definitive image of what Scholar is. As it is, it's a very uncommon available class in Final Fantasy.

Just browsing a Final Fantasy wikia for a bit, it looks like the III DS version is as close to the XI version as any, with the ability to cast a variety of both white and black magic. It looks like all they did was determine enemy weaknesses in the original III. A running theme of the job though is it determines enemy weaknesses and scans enemies.

In IV: The After Years, they knew Gil Toss.

The Scholar that I'm most familiar with, aside from the XI one, is the one from Tactics A2, which actually specialized in dealing attacks that potentially dealt damage to all units in the field, including your own, and one you had to actually build teams and gear sets around to capitalize on. They also had the ability to scan enemies and tell you what kind of items can be stolen from a given enemy.

My impression of the XI Scholar is that it's a combination job of previous ones like Geomancer and Oracle/Sage/Lunarian/Seer or whatever else the extreme magic specialist of the game happens to be called this time.

Economizer

08-15-2011, 12:49 AM

By lore I meant FFXI store line stuff. I may be mistaken.

I should probably be more clear by what I mean by supportive, what I meant was Scholar does stuff like Geomancer type buffs, and more importantly, is able to switch between damage and healing to assist in these functions, ideally in a group that has both of these roles mostly covered already.

Raksha

08-15-2011, 01:10 AM

For the time being, Haste is a major part of what Red Mage is, although not a unique one, but Red Mage is the best at Hasting the most people currently. While I'm not sure that giving Accession Haste to Scholar would stop them from trying to get Cure V, I do know it would have a major impact on the game. Thank goodness that SE isn't ever going to do this. Also, if your a Scholar that thinks this is a good idea in our current game environment, for the love of all things remotely sane, never produce any game.

Would you feel the same way if haste was party only, and composure increased the duration on everyone?

I levelled RDM to 75 and I hate haste cycles as much as the next guy, but once /RDM gives haste I'm afraid I'll be stuck hasting all the time again.

The answer IMO is to make an AoE'able haste that is less insane. One person being able to Haste an entire alliance is pretty crazy.

Greatguardian

08-15-2011, 01:20 AM

I would scream if Haste was made party-only at this stage of the game. No, thank you.

Composure does increase buff duration on everyone when you cast in AF3+2 set, though.

Edit: That's part of what floors me about buffing complaints, really. 5/5 AF3+2 plus AF3 cape is basically double duration on all buffs cast on others with Composure active =/

Economizer

08-15-2011, 01:55 AM

On everyone's haste suggestions ever:

The best solution would be a way to punch people through the Internet that ask for Haste and aren't the tank, but I'm trying to think of a realistic answer.

I remember leveling with random people in Abyssea when leveling Summoner and having them ask for Haste. No thank you, I'm not going to work harder then everyone in the party to swap avatars constantly, and I'm not going to main Garuda, because I want to use a different summon so I can get skillups faster. Sometimes I wish there was a way to make people forget you have Haste with casual content because they all think they are entitled to lazily auto-attack and WS mobs while mage jobs work their ass off to make them slightly more efficient on a mob that you don't really need to be super efficient on. Yes, there is content where everyone should ideally be Hasted, but sheesh.

Would you feel the same way if haste was party only, and somehow composure increased the duration on everyone?

Composure does increase duration if you have AF3+2 and the cape on, to about 1.65 of duration. This is not close enough to Scholar's double duration stratagem if Scholar could Accession it (since they can't, it costs an arm and a leg in strats to do it otherwise).

Making Haste party only to convenience SCH and /SCH doesn't sound like a good solution. It breaks current setups where people Haste cross party. Party target Hastaga would be a better solution, but Red Mage has a distinct lack of aga spells. Even doing something the devs would probably never do, like programming Haste to only target party if you use Ascension would still considerably favor Scholars. Two strats so you don't have to cast Haste for six minutes? You still have 5.5 strats to work with. There aren't a lot of solutions that are better then the status quo, sadly. Balance is hard.

Greatguardian

08-15-2011, 02:09 AM

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Enhancing magic duration effects on AF3+2 feet, AF3 cape, and Af3 set are multiplicative, which makes it 1.5 x 1.2 x 1.1 = 1.98, not 1.65?

Honestly, Haste is so far and away from a big deal to me that I'd be wondering why the melees don't have it in the first place that they'd need to whine for it. It's second nature at this point that everyone can and should be hasted at all times =/

SpankWustler

08-15-2011, 02:50 AM

Unless most posted information on the effects of the Estoqueur stuff is wrong, yeah, it's multiplicative. So...

Scholar can double the duration of buffs using a stratagem.

Red Mage can very nearly double the duration of buffs by being properly dressed for the occasion.

So, if somebody at SE fell into a pile of heroin and stumbled out feeling joyful enough to allow Haste to work with Ascension, it would be a pretty even break. This line of discussion seems kind of pointless, though, given that most people don't leave their piles of heroin laying around to be tripped over.

As for spell division, I've come to assume Scholar will get the weirder, more situational stuff while Red Mage will get bread and butter spells.

Economizer

08-15-2011, 04:06 AM

I forgot about the bonus on the boots, which is why I had the odd number of 1.65. Thanks for the correction.

While this certainly changes much of what I said (it only gives SCH a slight edge in this case), I still doubt SE will allow Haste to Ascension. Or if they do, it will be the second before they announce Haste II.

Raksha

08-15-2011, 06:34 AM

What I meant was what if compsure alone increased buff duration on others, with gear just enhancing that further.

That would put a composured Haste far above a perpetuanced one, and means RDM could just use one strat to make it AoE, but SCH would still need two (accession + perpetuance).

What are the other suggestions for getting rid of haste cycles? Hastega? (For RDM only? What about SCH/RDM? Are we doomed to Haste Cycles now? WHM/SCH too?)

Supersun

08-15-2011, 07:40 AM

The ideal solution really is to AoE, but I can somewhat understand if the Dev team wants a challenge to find another way without breaking thematic lore.

From there they can either continue to increase the duration and decrease the casting time like what WoW did with Plds where their 5 min buffs that they were expected to keep on 40 people eventually became 15 min buffs that buffed 40 people in a matter of like 6 clicks.

Other then that if they pulled it off right they could also pretty much give out haste to jobs like they did sneak and invisible. I mean if every DD had haste that they could cast on themselves it wouldn't be as necessary to dedicate hastes to just one job. I mean this is an extreme example but if content encouraged lots of players and each alliance had plenty of hastes then it wouldn't be as burdensome.

They would have to implement this properly though as even with haste being more common there are still more incentives for certain jobs to cast haste over other people for efficiencies sake. They would need to make incentives for people to spread out the hastes instead of bunching them on as few people as possible.

georgcantor316

08-15-2011, 07:43 AM

Just want to point out that your avg. good sch is going to have their af3 hands so the buff duration increase is 2.5x not just 2.0x for sch.

Greatguardian

08-15-2011, 08:00 AM

I'm really so lost in this conversation.

1) How did Scholar become relevant to Red Mage in the first place? We've been going back and forth on it for a few pages, but pretty much the only thing the jobs have in common at all is access to both black and white magic.

2) Since when are Haste cycles a big deal / bad? 9 minute duration Haste on self and 6 minute duration Haste on others is nothing to scoff at, and is a reprieve specific to Red Mage (unless a Sch is burning all their strats on Hastes).

Weren't we talking about job adjustments that are actually relevant to Red Mage?

Supersun

08-15-2011, 08:51 AM

Well discussion is hard since we don't exactly know where content is headed.

If we continue on with events where you are trying to bring as few people as possible/designed only for a few people. Then it's not a problem

If content is headed for events where you are encouraged to bring tons of people and the events aren't too specific on what jobs to bring and attempt to encourage diversity it isn't s problem either.

But if content devolves back into the 18 man zerg fights we had at 75 then it's a BIG problem.

I admit that it would be better if they just designed content that was better, but we don't know the future.

If content devolves back into 18 man zerg fights haste cycles are and issue and saying that Scholar and Red Mage play completely different isn't that accurate (if they even get invited at all).

Greatguardian

08-15-2011, 09:07 AM

Wait, what? How in the world are Haste Cycles actually an issue? And are you insinuating that Red Mages don't get invited (or don't get invited for zerg fights)?

Duelle

08-15-2011, 09:32 AM

From there they can either continue to increase the duration and decrease the casting time like what WoW did with Plds where their 5 min buffs that they were expected to keep on 40 people eventually became 15 min buffs that buffed 40 people in a matter of like 6 clicks.The balancing factor there is the need for reagents to use the "greater" versions of the buffs (though yeah, if refresh and haste cycles don't bore you to tears, try buffing a 40-man raid in vanilla every 5 minutes with single target buffs...).

Not to mention the buffs were designed in a way that raids were encouraged to bring more than one pally (WotLK had a standard 25-man raid bring at least two, three if you didn't have a druid for Mark of the Wild, and four if you had a Pally tank due to Blessing of Sanctuary being unique to them). Admittedly, it'd be a nice mechanic, but I don't think FFXI supports class stacking in large group situations. At least, not the type that would allow the mechanic to work without making things "too easy" (this is me trying to think like the developers). If you buffed a Warrior with Greater Blessing of Might, every warrior in that raid would also receive the buff, and it was instant cast. In contrast, here we have a bunch of BLMs that would benefit from only Refresh II, which has a cast time, and if we're in a BLM party, we don't have much else to do aside from toss cures. Not to mention you need just one RDM for that, who can also haste whatever melee are present. There's not much encouragement to have more than one in an alliance.

Granted, this is the kind of thing I'd like to see done with RDM buffs. Make them trivial to cast and maintain so that the player can focus on more important things in battle (like dealing damage or healing). I just don't think the game would support them as such (at least for the class as a whole).

saevel

08-15-2011, 07:02 PM

Problem with "haste cycles" and "refresh cycles" is that the spells casting animation is to damn long and the recasts are punishingly long. It simply takes up too much time to cycles those spells on a bunch of people, further complicating the process is that it required you to do them over and over and over and over again until your head explodes or you get so burnt out that you refuse to play the job. SE took a big step by releasing a bunch of +duration gear, but it's only scratching the surface of the problem and requires too much gear for your average player. ~ALL~ buffs should be multi-targetable (AOE) no questions asked, period end of story, no arguments accepted. Any other system and you turned the RDM into a buff-bot which is something every serious (didn't level it to get into a HNM shell) RDM hates.

In fact you can pretty much divide the serious RDM's from the non-serious ones by the tone of their arguments. The serious ones want changes made to get RDM away from the haste / refresh / cure robot job it's become, they want more enfeebles more enhancements and more melee capability, yes all three. The ones just using it to get gear want as little changed as possible other then to add Cure V, they use the job exclusively to get gear for their other jobs, the jobs they like, and any positive changes to RDM could possible jeopardize their positions. I view them no better as those naked BRD's whoring merits.

Anyhow, since I got my stage II Almace I've found that I tend to go RDM/DRK to most non-abyssea events (I'm BLU inside abyssea) because we need someone to stun dangerous stuff. My typical routine is Dia III -> Slow II then engage and beat the sh!t out of the mob while spot curing and keeping Refresh II on the WHM (and Slow II / Dia III / Paralyze on the NM). Recent changes to DRK have made this a nice setup, LR is 3min now and SE is only 8% HP per swing for 5% damage, I've been loving me some LRSE CDC's. Enspell II's are pretty decent when single wielding, and I need to do more testing, I think SE might of ninjad the mag.acc calcs on them without telling anyone. Potency cap is still on hit though.

Supersun

08-15-2011, 07:23 PM

If SE ever bumps Rdm's Dark skill up from whatever abyss it currently is to something respectable that can actually make the rest of the spells gained from /drk beside stun land able I would be going Rdm/Drk a LOT more.

Duelle

08-15-2011, 07:28 PM

Problem with "haste cycles" and "refresh cycles" is that the spells casting animation is to damn long and the recasts are punishingly long. It simply takes up too much time to cycles those spells on a bunch of people, further complicating the process is that it required you to do them over and over and over and over again until your head explodes or you get so burnt out that you refuse to play the job. SE took a big step by releasing a bunch of +duration gear, but it's only scratching the surface of the problem and requires too much gear for your average player. ~ALL~ buffs should be multi-targetable (AOE) no questions asked, period end of story, no arguments accepted. Any other system and you turned the RDM into a buff-bot which is something every serious (didn't level it to get into a HNM shell) RDM hates.The problem is that SE's design for RDM has been trailing along that line of buffbot since the days of TAU. The fact the melee camp and the haters of the cycles were stifled by an overly zealous bunch of people who saw RDM as easy street leveling and merits did nothing to help our cause. I even remember during an interview or QA around the time TAU was announced, I think it was Matsui who said "RDM would still have plenty of casting to do". I knew it translated to keeping the cycles intact to create busy work for us, and could do little to stop it since at the time SE's developers did not have much of a communication venue with the players.

On a concept level, buffing should have nothing to do with RDM, firstly because the job inherently has access to "weaker" magic than WHM and BLM due to being versatile in magic and the ways of the sword. Secondly, weaker magic means the aspects of the job need to combine in some way to make up for what the job lacks compared to everyone else.

Granted, buffing is odd in this game seeing that it is limited to only a few classes. THAT in itself is the source of a slew of problems for not only our class, but having an effect on party dynamics. The enfeebling niche also opened another can of worms, which like a lot of other things did nothing to help our cause.

Economizer

08-15-2011, 07:55 PM

Problem with "haste cycles" and "refresh cycles" is that the spells casting animation is to damn long and the recasts are punishingly long.

If the recast of Haste was really short, I don't think anyone capable of casting the spell would be talking about this. You have to wear a lot of Haste or Fast Cast gear to make Haste cycling remotely bearable.

In fact you can pretty much divide the serious RDM's from the non-serious ones

I think that judging people based on how serious you think they are is a bad model for how to play the game or talk to people about the game. I have enough issues with people on the forums who think stupid stuff like "their job should have all the procs without having to sacrifice their favorite subjob" or "their job should have no down sides, but other jobs should keep theirs" or "lol, balance is for other classes" without having to deal with things like "who is a good player" or "who is actually serious about job x".

cidbahamut

08-15-2011, 10:39 PM

In fact you can pretty much divide the serious RDM's from the non-serious ones by the tone of their arguments. The serious ones want changes made to get RDM away from the haste / refresh / cure robot job it's become, they want more enfeebles more enhancements and more melee capability, yes all three. The ones just using it to get gear want as little changed as possible other then to add Cure V, they use the job exclusively to get gear for their other jobs, the jobs they like, and any positive changes to RDM could possible jeopardize their positions. I view them no better as those naked BRD's whoring merits.
Sweeping generalizations are bad bro. You don't have to be a melee enthusiast to be serious about the job.

SpankWustler

08-16-2011, 01:35 AM

There's actually a grain of discussion in all the chaff about job concepts and people being "serious" this time. Huzzah for improvement!

How would you guys who vehemently hate casting Haste feel about the spell if it had the same casting time as Cure III and a ten second base recast?

Neisan_Quetz

08-16-2011, 02:07 AM

Well assuming it did have Cure 3's casting time it'd only lop off .5 seconds base casting time from Haste's, which is impossible for Rdm anyway. I really don't see how you're taking a long time to cast Haste... cutting the recast done would be nice, yes, but I'm expecting either cast or recast will be cut with the new JA we should be getting. Probably not worth using on haste depending on recast on the JA but whatevs.

All I saw when I read 'serious Rdms want all buffs' is everything I've read anywhere else saying 'I want my job to be good in nearly every situation'. Suck it up it ain't happening.

Greatguardian

08-16-2011, 02:33 AM

Sweeping generalizations are bad bro. You don't have to be a melee enthusiast to be serious about the job.

^.

I could care less about Haste Cycles because, frankly, they don't bother me or inhibit my other spellcasting in the slightest. This is especially true with the 2x duration the AF3 set offers. People burn out on jobs because they get bored. There is nothing boring about Red Mage if you're serious and/or half decent about/at it.

This entire line of discussion is boring because it panders to the lowest common denominator. Good Red Mages don't need to be "forced" or "obligated" to Haste/Refresh everyone, nor does it inhibit them in the slightest. You can cast other spells in between Hastes while the recast is down, you know.

SpankWustler

08-16-2011, 03:59 AM

This entire line of discussion is boring because it panders to the lowest common denominator. Good Red Mages don't need to be "forced" or "obligated" to Haste/Refresh everyone, nor does it inhibit them in the slightest. You can cast other spells in between Hastes while the recast is down, you know.

Dude, this is a job adjustment thread. Whatever expectations you have will never be met.

I'm just glad people have stopped running around naked, bodies painted with whatever they could find in the pantry, screaming "We're magic swordsmen!" over and over.

Now, folks are dressed up for a discussion over a meal...and...rubbing the pot roast on their cummerbunds and screaming "We're magic swordsmen!" every ten minutes or so.

I've lowered my standards to the point that anything other than "I want to do something this job doesn't do and never will." or "I want to do this job naked. Totally naked. Forever." is a valid point of discussion.

Greatguardian

08-16-2011, 04:16 AM

I've lowered my standards to the point that anything other than "I want to do something this job doesn't do and never will." or "I want to do this job naked. Totally naked. Forever." is a valid point of discussion.

:(

I don't mind points of discussion revolving around those that are less-than-awesomely geared, or experienced. I don't mind the assumption that not all Red Mages are willing to obtain full AF3+2 and other gear in a timely fashion. But holy crap, griping about Haste cycles reeks of nothing but lazy, with or without the awesome AF3+2 set bonus that makes it even easier.

SpankWustler

08-16-2011, 05:10 AM

Holy crap, griping about Haste cycles reeks of nothing but lazy, with or without the awesome AF3+2 set bonus that makes it even easier.

I agree 100%. I'm just glad an enhancing spell cast on other characters is being talked about at all, I guess?

I've never had any issues with Haste cycles on White Mage, and it's even easier and more thoughtless on Red Mage. It confuses me to the point of curiosity when people complain about it.

Seriha

08-16-2011, 09:41 AM

There's a shock. Meme and Meme Generator being all buddy buddy.

Prior to Composure, you could've been in a situation where you'd need to haste your whole party. 6 people, 3 minutes per, 20 times an hour for 120 casts with variable amounts of Refresh wiggled in between. Figure each cast sucks up 4-5 seconds in actual casting and global cooldown with the spell itself hovering between 13-15s recast depending on gear. My usual routine was Haste, two spells, Haste again, two spells, repeat. If you're expected to be your group's primary healer, and this happens, Abyssea or not, cycle times become a risk for the party as HP levels can drop dangerously low while you're mid-cast. It's not uncommon for cycles to get delayed or people forgotten about when you're presented with a sudden gear shift that leaves you dumping 2-3 Cure IVs on a person and possible status cures on top, or someone dies because you literally can't react. Sure, you're keeping nice and busy, maybe even reveling in the challenge, but if you've never been in a situation where someone doesn't get pissy when their buffs are down for more than 5s or grumble about how they could do a better job, you need to leave the mog house more.

This gets even more fun when you start fighting mobs with dispels, TP moves, or auras that overwrite buffs. It's SE's way of saying, "You thought you were done cycling? Think again! Muwahaha!" Can't forget those that love to run or get knocked out of your casting range, too. And simply because of gear potential, RDM will remain the preferred haste bitch over WHM since it leaves the WHM with more MP and time to focus on other things. Just because you might have no problem with that doesn't mean it isn't a problem, nor does it mean those who do have a problem with it are looking at it like another major tsunami just hit Japan. Cycles just aren't fun, and last I checked, this is a game and not an assembly line.

Greatguardian

08-16-2011, 09:50 AM

If you're insinuating that I'm using a sock account, I take that sort of thing very seriously and am not amused in the slightest.

Each account I own is on Cerberus server with me, and this is the only one I use to post with on the Official Forums. I don't even know anyone from Phoenix. I'd imagine someone just liked the name or thought it was funny.

Seriha

08-16-2011, 10:47 AM

Not sock, but the core purpose behind the name and your antagonistic intention behind it and a number of threads being tagged with it since. It'd be like me jumping onto a Christian forum with the handle AntiChrist666 to babble about how there's only one way to be a good Christian.

Besides, it's not like there isn't this other forum you frequent where your post was highlighted with the applause of "omg bestest post evar!" and the like, further building on the reply I made to you earlier this morning on how "we" aren't going to sit back and take the inane, gross stereotyping despite how "cool" it might be to ruffle the feathers of the pro-melee crowd.

Greatguardian

08-16-2011, 10:56 AM

I made one post with a very specific purpose. Separating the archetype in other media from the character class in this game. If other people like the name, like the message, or just plain like me, that's cool with me. I'm glad people like the ways in which I express ideas.

The SpankWustler analogy has nothing to do with "ruffling feathers" or antagonism. It has to do with pointing out a very real fallacy in the way people perceive the Red Mage job. If the job was named something completely different, but had the exact same traits, gear, and spells, a good chunk of this argument would no longer exist.

Neisan_Quetz

08-16-2011, 10:59 AM

What in the fuck does conversation about a job on a MMO have to do with religion, seriously. insert srsbusyness quote of your choice here.

Greatguardian

08-16-2011, 11:22 AM

What in the fuck does conversation about a job on a MMO have to do with religion, seriously. insert srsbusyness quote of your choice here.

Not sure if serious. Are you talking about antagonism? As in antagonizing? Being antagonistic? Silly.

Neisan_Quetz

08-16-2011, 11:37 AM

It'd be like me jumping onto a Christian forum with the handle AntiChrist666 to babble about how there's only one way to be a good Christian.

Is what I'm referring to.

Seriha

08-16-2011, 11:46 AM

Neisan_Quetz

08-16-2011, 11:55 AM

No, I'm sorry, it isn't close to the same thing, you are not that special, nor is your viewpoint.

And your melee still doesn't matter on stronger NMs.

Greatguardian

08-16-2011, 12:03 PM

I'm sorry that I enjoy Final Fantasy XI and Red Mage for what they are and not what their names represent?

SpankWustler

08-16-2011, 12:10 PM

Seriha

08-16-2011, 12:41 PM

.I'm actually totally fine with what you just said. If all complaints about buff cycles were phrased like this rather than wrapped in a bunch of stuff about job lore, I think people would be more sympathetic.

It's not a new argument by an means, though. I know I've been personally clamoring for the alleviation of cycles for a good number of years prior to these boards' inception, and while we've received it to some degree, I'll just say I'm not happy it's largely reliant on gear that not every RDM will have or could enjoy during the leveling process to set the foundation for eventual endgame play.

The lore aspect might be more of a convenience gimmick, but it's not as if there haven't been people pointing out the statistical shortcomings, either for or against. I don't believe "magic swordsman" and "demi-god buffer" are mutually exclusive entities and feel they both could work if only SE would try. Even as a pure caster, though, SE hasn't been trying too hard with RDM in creating a unique entity. Whether or not we actually achieve that come 99 remains to be seen, but the immediate known future of a few Gain spells and Thunder IV does not paint a pretty picture. And if their pending merit adjustments somehow makes all spells/JAs scroll or level learned, things would turn a bit for the better. I'll believe it when it happens, though, if it ever does.

SpankWustler

08-16-2011, 12:41 PM

You seriously can't not be realizing it's antagonistic. The whole crux of your SporkWasher "argument" relies on creating a situation that doesn't exist just so you can try to justify your view on RDM. If you want to take a crap all over the Final Fantasy franchise and the things about it that draw people, we can't really stop you. Just don't be surprised if people don't agree and call you out on your verbal diarrhea.

I just don't get the emotional attachment to a certain job doing a certain thing. Especially when it's never been, throughout the whole life of FFXI, very good at that thing. Five games preceding XI didn't even have playable Red Mages in them, even the ones that more or less had jobs, and neither did Tactics. Final Fantasy XI was their first move back to the job system in a while, so is it really that shocking that some jobs changed?

FFXI itself has existed for a long time, and seen many changes of the staff working on it, so the vision for the job even within this game has probably changed a few times. The current vision seems more concrete than previous ones, as well as being something that will work well in the context of FFXI, so I'm cool with it.

I'm trying hard not to make a snide comment because you seem earnestly worked up, so I'll just say, I truly do not understand the source of your discontent.

Edit:

Even as a pure caster, though, SE hasn't been trying too hard with RDM in creating a unique entity. Whether or not we actually achieve that come 99 remains to be seen, but the immediate known future of a few Gain spells and Thunder IV does not paint a pretty picture. And if their pending merit adjustments somehow makes all spells/JAs scroll or level learned, things would turn a bit for the better. I'll believe it when it happens, though, if it ever does.

Given some of the recent announcements, I choose to be optimistic. Red Mage stands to remain functional in a way some jobs may not, but still, I can definitely sympathize with people who want something new to do. White Mage has evolved a great deal over the course of FFXI, and that's definitely kept the job much more fun for me over the years.

Seriha

08-16-2011, 12:56 PM

I'm trying hard not to make a snide comment because you seem earnestly worked up, so I'll just say, I truly do not understand the source of your discontent.Many years of ego clashing. I might not resort to the Tybud level of profanity requiring deliberate moderation intervention, but if people on one side can get pissed, just don't be surprised if some on the other have. I'd like to think I'm open to good arguments of opposition, but when the best that's produced is the RDM becoming a risk/liability when we're simultaneously trying to propose ideas to counter those points, it gets tiresome. It all boils down to numbers, and were the situation reversed with RDM's melee being awesome and their magic being utterly craptastic, I doubt my thoughts on theme sanity would waver very much without knowing more specifics on the situation. Hell, that situation pretty much exists with DRK, and I am for SE giving their magic side attention to help steer them from being the WAR with Stun others seem to be content with. Whether or not they'll do a good job on that, though, I dunno. I've kept my head out of there because one "war front" is enough.

cidbahamut

08-16-2011, 01:26 PM

You can keep pushing your ideal until the day the servers shut down but that isn't going to change the fact that it won't make it into the metagame unless Red Mage is reworked from the ground up into something radically different from what it is now.

You're fighting a battle that cannot be won without destroying the class we all know and love, and that would be an incredibly hollow victory.

Seriha

08-16-2011, 01:30 PM

Curious how I'd destroy RDM without taking away from it.

But as you can see, Spanky, stuff like that.

SpankWustler

08-16-2011, 01:36 PM

That's basically what I'm curious about.

I don't understand why it's so important that Red Mage remain "Red Mage" or Dark Knight remain "Dark Knight", as long as they remain effective and unique jobs and people enjoy playing them. Especially given how many melee or hybrids who melee cropped up with each expansion, the development team focusing on Red Mage as a caster in FFXI seems like a good call to me.

Ketaru

08-16-2011, 01:51 PM

Hell, that situation pretty much exists with DRK, and I am for SE giving their magic side attention to help steer them from being the WAR with Stun others seem to be content with. Whether or not they'll do a good job on that, though, I dunno. I've kept my head out of there because one "war front" is enough.

DRKs ask for help on their damage dealing side and ignore their magic side because they know that is what the rest of the playerbase-that-is-not-DRK wants out of the job. Else they face the bleak prospects of being one of the those jobs not invited to events. As the game exists now, there just isn't a whole lot of use for DRK being able to be a better caster while ignoring their ability to do damage.

Perhaps you might get what you want if they were to make radical changes in the the effect of new events that catered to that kind of playstyle. The dungeon crawling idea might be a start. Assault was kind of a start, until Salvage was introduced and Nyzul Isle was tweaked. MMM never took off the ground, in my opinion.

I, for one, would like the day to come where you have a 15 person alliance and every person in that alliance comes as a different job with a very different purpose. But I have every bit of confidence that such a utopian day will never come. And so people will continue to ask for what will make their jobs more competitive in the current climate.

For example, earlier in the thread, I suggested the idea of adding spells to RDM that will allow us to enhance the efficiency of pet jobs. Now, the general idea behind what I want is not bad and I know it. But my suspicion is, secretly, others don't want that because pet jobs are not desired, and therefore are not invited to events, and therefore those spells will be "useless". They're going to ask for spells that will allow us to enhance WARs and PLDs and WHMs.

Going off on a tangent for a bit, unfortunately, as a BST myself, I realize that if RDM gets spells like that, it'll only further widen the gap. So in the interest of 2 of my favorite jobs together, I almost do not want new enhancing magic unless we were to get a broad ability to enhance certain jobs in their entirety.

Seriha

08-16-2011, 01:51 PM

Well, for me and others, the sentiment has been about before these expansions with all those new jobs hit, some with ideas we'd been wanting for RDM. Some might be okay with cutting their losses and migrating to BLU or whatever, but ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away, nor does it mean those alternatives are what we'd been looking for out of RDM.

I can get the situation not being a problem for those who opted to make due with what the class had been given and shared with other jobs, but shutting down growth even though others view it as problematic is a sticking point, especially when some want to run around spewing the jack of all trades line. You can be optimistic about the 91-99 game. I've got the history of the game prior to that telling me not to be. Why? Well, best some can surmise is that SE is afraid of RDM, but not for the right reasons.

Greatguardian

08-16-2011, 02:35 PM

You're still assuming that Magical Red Mages have to "make due" without their Melee aspect. We don't. Magical Red Mage is an extremely powerful class, and choosing to pursue and enhance its stronger, more versatile side is hardly an act of consolation.

It's not a matter of shutting down growth, it's a matter of wanting to direct that growth towards further enhancing the already powerful and useful aspect of Red Mage rather than directing it at the underused and underpowered aspect in the hopes that it might someday be decent enough for those that won't let it go.

SpankWustler

08-16-2011, 02:55 PM

You can be optimistic about the 91-99 game. I've got the history of the game prior to that telling me not to be.

I can wrap my head around this part. It surprised me that no aspect of Red Mage was fleshed out when the ability to be a great (if very situational) disengaged tank was severely diminished, and the job has gotten very little of use compared to the growth of other mages until very recently. That seems to be changing, currently, but a lot is unknown.

I can understand the development team being more focused on jobs that can't fill their niche very well, or jobs that tripped, fell, and died at the starting line like Puppetmaster and Scholar. I also get that having an unchanging spell and job ability list for years and years isn't exactly fun.

Even the tier II merits, while useful, were basically more of the same. Composure and Tier II En-spells were pretty pointless at the time they were added. Not that Red Mage was alone in this particular boat, lots of jobs didn't change much, but it does seem like a pretty dull cruise. Even when a job operates smoothly, new toys that actually see some use are nice.

After that, though, things get foggy. It's not easy to logically connect the feeling of "I just went through my millionth buff cycle and cast my millionth Blizzard spell, and it feels just like the third one. Oh, except I used a slightly better Slow spell." with the thought of "I shall follow in the steps of my forefathers who hit things with swords while wearing red pants by hitting a thing with a sword while wearing red pants. It is a proud tradition."

If hitting more things with more swords is the direction some people want the job to go, okay. The only reason you need to suggest a change to a job you play is because you'd enjoy it. I disagree with that direction being worthwhile for Red Mage, obviously, but please don't let that stop you.

The idea of hitting more things with more swords being the direction the job should go because of what the job was in single-player games a decade ago, however, confounds me.

Seriha

08-16-2011, 03:35 PM

Which is also why I like to point out that, for as a company people love to criticize for all its flaws, the implication they got RDM "right" after its initial "major adjustment" before most of us even played the game is confounding in its own way. Their original thoughts might have worked for the 50 cap, but as jobs grew, our skill ratings fell behind, others got better gear and WS, and RDM basically got very little over this span is something we'd been trying to point out way, way, way back when. In contrast, a Haste naked is as potent as a Haste fully decked out. Same with Refresh until +2 legs. Cure Potency gear was more on the rare side until Abyssea. I call it "making due" because those have been what people historically sought of RDMs throughout this game's lifespan if not BECAUSE SE dropped the ball, got lazy, was angry a RDM soloed something, felt other jobs were more deserving of attention, or whatever. They messed up with the job once. Some of us feel they didn't get it right even after all that.

Overall, you're talking to someone who thinks SE's been way too timid about their job adjustments. More than 1-4 jobs could see meaningful attention in any given update. I don't believe that giving RDM attention today means PUPs would never get any, though some seem content with the inverse since a RDM ate their baby at some point in their FFXI career. We can't totally ignore how the old days worked, archaic in their time sinks and plethora of still-broken or uninspiring events. There's still the simple language barrier. Would the RDM of today be the one we have now if SE was more open 8+ years ago? I'd like to hope not, but, well, it's time to chip away at that handicap.

Quetzacoatl

08-16-2011, 04:04 PM

No, I'm sorry, it isn't close to the same thing, you are not that special, nor is your viewpoint.

And your melee still doesn't matter on stronger NMs.

I wanna build an almace for my RDM and BLU :<

Duelle

08-16-2011, 05:43 PM

DRKs ask for help on their damage dealing side and ignore their magic side because they know that is what the rest of the playerbase-that-is-not-DRK wants out of the job. Else they face the bleak prospects of being one of the those jobs not invited to events. As the game exists now, there just isn't a whole lot of use for DRK being able to be a better caster while ignoring their ability to do damage.The reason behind this is more the fact that (much like RDM's issue with spells and enfeebles), the developers insisted on having certain jobs share things down to the mechanics themselves. The terrible idea was not to give DRK black magic, but to give DRK black magic as it works for BLM. It'd be another story if DRK had their own cast times for their spells, their own stat scaling (nevermind the gear-swapping nightmare), and own utility outside of absorbs. The alternative would have been to take the Gaffgarion approach and just focus entirely on instant on-use drains and balance the job's damage around those.

For example, earlier in the thread, I suggested the idea of adding spells to RDM that will allow us to enhance the efficiency of pet jobs.I'd be asking for current buffs (and cures, for that matter) to affect pets, with scaling changes if needed. Then again, I'm of the opinion the whole pet:stat thing on gear was just aimed to create a timesink for pet jobs.