What would you want out of rdm melee gear?

[tyrantsyn]

Lot's of discussion on what ppl would like to see out of rdm melee. JT, JA, spell's but nothing on gear. So I thought I'd throw this thread up and see what ppl thought. And maybe give the Dev's some idea's to what the passionate rdm melee'r was looking for.

Personally I'd like to see some more feather in the hat, swash buckler type style's brought to the table. Buffs on the gear to enspell's, spikes, phalnax, stone skin, etc along with str, dex , att, acc mods.

But hey there's lot's of styles and and gear type's out there rdm can get away with.

[Hyrist]

Honestly, we've been seeing a lot of Accuracy + Haste Gear, but there are a couple things about these pieces that don't exactly sit well with me.

First and foremost, the currently prominent complaint I hear is that "RDM's don't do enough damage to justify the TP feed (on mobs that 'matter')"

Considering that the bulk of that problem actually lies more with the issue of Sword damage and Weapon Skills (not including CDC) there's not much we can do gear wise in this department.

The Red Mage specific problems (ignoring the typical inventory issues) lie primarily with the lack of Subtle Blow and Attack paired together on available gear.

I'd rather see more Haste + Subtle Blow/Attack paired together than Haste + Accuracy, as we have +15 on Composure, as well as a wide array of accuracy enhancing accessories if needs be. So, keeping haste values about the same, I'd like to see those stats more.

Again, this is ignoring the requests for more Hybrid orientated gear, which still stands as pretty prominent.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Something like calm trousers without the -acc and something like mextli harness, new haste head with some combination of haste (at least +7) and acc/atk/SB.

[Swords]

Hybrid gear wouldn't be so bad to be honest IF they wouldn't half-ass the stats. I mean Morrigan's Robe was perhaps the best attempt at it by giving us a good combination of mage and melee stats, however it still fell short because of the average to low stats in each category. Sadly with space limitations, hybrid gear would likely be our best bet but it would have to be some spectacular gear to offset some of the core pieces we currently use.

[Hyrist]

While I support getting hybrid gear to help giving people a choice what to pic gradually, I may not use much of it.

Approaching melee appropriately should take effort, and should require enough gear to make you hesitate before going out to do it, making you wonder "Am I going to sit back and maximize my nuking game today, or should I pack on the melee gear and help out in the front."

There's really no feasible way to carry it all in your active inventory without taking a substantial bite somewhere, but with Mog Satchel and Mog Sack, we should be ok managing in and out of that, as I do so pretty frequently.

I'd rather not half-strength on ALL stats, but having the option to pick and choose where I draw the line and go with Hybrid pieces would be ok.

[tyrantsyn]

The idea of this gear wouldn't to be so much is to put us on the front line's with war, drk, sam, etc but to give us more or less the option and the ability to do decent damage when we melee. Like when farming or small party situation. When in full party's or alliance I have to agree the best place for us is our mage position's, not on the front lines. RDM can really save the day in that role, when things go bad.

Think of it this way, when your out meleeing in what ever fashion. What would make it more enjoyable to have. Bonuses to dual wield from /nin, more enspell damage from gear, More points towards stoneskin to keep it up longer?

[Hyrist]

Nothing short of full strength gear will do, honestly.

'Farming' Now equates to going into Dynamis or Limbus for currency to sell. You can melee killing weak mobs outside these stages in Mage gear for all that it matters then.

Equipment wise, if you're going to Melee with any level of seriousness on RDM, then you need to take some time to get TP and WS set.

Which is why I lean a bit more towards gear that would serve multiple mage roles, and gear that would serve multiple melee roles.

For instance, pairing together Cure Potency and Magic Attack bonus together so it covers both nuking and curing roles. Some of our WS sets already use pieces we could normally TP in so that helps on that department, but our mage side seems a good bit more fragmented.

[Yandaime]

In order to make RDM good with Swords other than Almace, SE would need to do nothing short of Either:

* Enhance Death Blossom to make it a decently powered WS
* Grant us Access to Vorpal Blade (not likely to happen)
* Grant us Access to Hecatomb Gear (Also not likely to happen.. Wish you could Augment a Job onto it...)

We can still do decently well with Evisceration but with our lack of DD gear we have to focus primarily on Attack before we can even worry about Critical Hit Rate (Outside Abby) or Anything else about Evisceration.

RDM gets a great deal of Ranged Accuracy/Attack gear which makes Sidewinder a very solid WS for us but there are two severe drawbacks:
* Our bows havent been updated since Failnaught
* Kraken Club is required for best results

Alot of people are quick to shun RDM meleeing but the truth is, the capability for us to do real world damage is there. The problem is that We need an Almace to be Decent, and we need an Almace + Kraken Club to excel... That is a very steep requirement but if you want to be a comparable melee with RDM, that's your only option lol. For that much work? I'd rather just use my WAR lol.

And lets face it, even if we were only using a Twilight Knife + Joyeuse and doing 2k Eviscerations in Abyssea at best, that's borderline *Decent Damage*, were still better than 1/2 the DDs that somehow make it into the parties anyway xD I mean honestly, its SAD seeing this huge wash of wasted souls that keep getting invited. I'm surprised RDMs haven't started lashing out at them, we all have a DD job or 2 (or 4) leveled, could simply replace the weaklings and do the Meleeing ourselves, hell that way, no one would have to heal us, we can do it ourselves (or more than likely never even get hit)

[Seriha]

I look to these (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Bale_Sollerets_%2B2) as a good start on hybrid gear, and feel SE should mirror similar for RDM. They're not a TP piece by any means, but work well as a nuking and WS piece. Meanwhile, the TP phase gear should emphasize Haste, ACC, MND, and perhaps some finer attention toward Enspell damage or augmentations (Subtle Blow possibly being among them). In effect, the possibility of going from 20 visible equipment slots if attempting to truly hybrid to 10 would be a godsend. We've seen some mixed accessories, too, but they're presently falling behind their dedicated counterparts for no reason other than SE feels they should.

[Economizer]

There are a lot of things you can do for melee mage gear in general, but I'm going to suggest just one for now. Now, there should be other pieces of gear, as this suggestion promotes a very unique playstyle Red Mages have used before, but since it is so very different from other playstyles, it not only isn't for everyone, but it isn't the only thing melee oriented mages should get.

Something that converts the weapon's damage done into enspell damage, or reduces attack incredibly in return for a moderate boost to enspell damage. The idea here is to get zero damage from actual melee hits and get all the damage from enspell sources - which eliminates TP feed.

You used to somewhat be able to do this via the Beestinger and Hornetneedle, but there isn't a lot of gear that specifically is made for this. Gear that gives a large plus to accuracy and haste and large minuses to attack would work with this well.

If there is a uniquely Red Mage melee style, I would think it would be related to this.

[Mirage]

And lets face it, even if we were only using a Twilight Knife + Joyeuse and doing 2k Eviscerations in Abyssea at best, that's borderline *Decent Damage*, were still better than 1/2 the DDs that somehow make it into the parties anyway xD I mean honestly, its SAD seeing this huge wash of wasted souls that keep getting invited. I'm surprised RDMs haven't started lashing out at them, we all have a DD job or 2 (or 4) leveled, could simply replace the weaklings and do the Meleeing ourselves, hell that way, no one would have to heal us, we can do it ourselves (or more than likely never even get hit)

Yeah, I hate it when people below level 90 try to get stronger too.

[Yandaime]

thats my fault, Mirage I failed to Clarify. I meant Lv.90 DDs that seemed to not even have Raised Ruins or basic Atmas, wearing not even Perle sets but random stuff from Auction House. Saw a SAM the other day with a Hagun and I still respect Hagun but.. he was wearing 1 AGI ring and a Tiger Ring... I wouldn't pick on a lower level DD, that's just silly, Just wish some of these guys would try harder is all, put on some Perle Armor or something lol cuz I hate it when out of the whole alliance, only 4 or 6 people are doing any actual work and when those guys get the merits they want and leave, the whole party falls out.

But its situations like these that allow a RDM to start DDing if he wanted to, given the circumstances, I dont think many people would object if they saw you doing decent damage. :p

[Ophannus]

I wanna see a cheap/easy to acquire set with similar stats to Perle that focuses on +Att +Acc and +Haste with each giving a cumulative set effect of enhancing enspell damage. So each piece adds 2-3 dmg to enspells. It wouldn't be better than individual pieces (Zelus/Goliard Sao/Tumbler Trunks) but as a set it would be better than average like Perle(Which as a set isn't half bad compared to pre 80 gear like Homam/Askar/Aurum)

[Shiyo]

Giving RDM a self-cast spell that makes their attacks have 100% subtle blow, and another self-cast buff that gives them 80%+ PDT/MDT is the only way to make RDM melee useful(by useful I mean pretend to be useful and not hurt your entire alliance by meleeing things) outside of solo.

So..

I want the devs to not spend time on melee gear and instead focus on aspects that will make the job desirable and useful outside of solo situations.

Or they can just slap RDM onto gear that thf/dnc/blu/cor/etc can use, easy fix.

[tyrantsyn]

Something that converts the weapon's damage done into enspell damage, or reduces attack incredibly in return for a moderate boost to enspell damage. The idea here is to get zero damage from actual melee hits and get all the damage from enspell sources - which eliminates TP feed.




I like this idea, a magic base subtle blow threw decrease weapon damage and increased enspell damage. Would it work well on gear, or a JT. Or maybe both?

[Hyrist]

Giving RDM a self-cast spell that makes their attacks have 100% subtle blow, and another self-cast buff that gives them 80%+ PDT/MDT is the only way to make RDM melee useful(by useful I mean pretend to be useful and not hurt your entire alliance by meleeing things) outside of solo.

So..

I want the devs to not spend time on melee gear and instead focus on aspects that will make the job desirable and useful outside of solo situations.

Or they can just slap RDM onto gear that thf/dnc/blu/cor/etc can use, easy fix.

Ok, there's going to be a reality check here.

A good deal (if not everything) you said there is outright false.

First off, RDM's front line practice on endgame level mobs is currently in practice. If you want to refer to someone who actually does it, speak to savelle, to see hows and whens to his contributions there, I'll stick to things I can address personally.

In my opinion, the only thing RDM ability/spell wise RDM needs to offset the 'Yer feeding the mob TPz!" argument (which is BS in zergs and in any situation in which your group's curing power could be considered overkill.) Is a native spell that either lessens TP gain, prevents tp moves from happening, or dampens the effect of TP attacks so they are not as brutally dangerous. It's gaping hole in our native spell list that we currently use stun to substitute for. Once it's there, literally no one has a valid argument why there shouldn't be more melee on the monsters in general.

In regards to the Damage the Red Mage itself receives, it being weak is a complete misnomer. Red Mage is capable of capping both PDT -% with the right combination of gear, as well as a decent amount of -MDT % as well. Top this off with the Native Magic Defense Bonus, Native Phalanx, Barspells, Stoneskin, and Cures; Red Mage, in fact, is more resilient than Dancer and Ninja when it comes to situations in which they have no choice but to take damage.

It was one of the first two jobs to sucessfully solo Divine Might for that reason. Also remember, Red Mages tanking HNMs as well as certain bosses (Limbus in particular) was a reality before Magic Enmity was nerfed.


But more upsetting then any of these is this false creation of an imperative that Red Mage is in a desperate need to be more useful in endgame for fear of loosing invites.

For no other reasons than an enhanced duration Haste, Refresh II, and the CURRENT state of our Tier II enfeebles on the monsters, our slot in anything outside Abyssea is secure. The full package of what we offer, right now often makes us a boon if not an outright necessity for Voidwatch alone (even if it is in mule form on the weaker ones). And we are still useful in any event outside Abyssea even with the annoyance of enemy immunities to our status effects.

Additionally, the concept of being 'invited' alone is both aged and flawed logic. Given the state of the game as it exists 'blind invites' to endgame events is something more or less done for Abyssea alone. Anything outside it is done among friends or within linkshell. And situations in which you are not accepted into said linkshells or asked on a different job with friends is not due to the lack of usefulness of Red Mage outside of Abyssea, but most likely due to the fact that the role for the job is already filled (likely by one or more other Red Mages.)

The fact that Red Mages are not the prima donna of invites into random groups is not indicative of the job's loss of usefulness so much as the change in the game's very group dynamic. The only thing SE would need to do to secure RDM's invite in abyssea is to make our Merit Spells and/or Death Blossom proc.

I am more than supportive of further developments and changes to Red Mage to make it's Enfeebeling and Enhancing Magic more useful to the group. But this attitude that assisting it's martial aspects are somehow impeding the development of its magical aspects to the point of being harmful to the job as a whole is just a false front to try to enforce an ideal on players who enjoy differing aspects of the job.

Furthermore it has nothing to do with the topic at hand, which is to discuss desires for those who do want additional martial support in gear.

So really the only thing of actual substance to the discussion you said was:


Or they can just slap RDM onto gear that thf/dnc/blu/cor/etc can use, easy fix.

I personally would not mind being slapped on some pink gear and have a wider library of strictly melee gear for us to use, so I'd be in support of this 'easy fix' so long as the gear was substantially helpful (Working for multiple roles rather than one specific task.)

However, for those who are discussing more Mage/Melee hybrid pieces, rather than more general Melee/WS use pieces. I'd like to see more of a line of a Scale Mail set built for RDM/DRK/BLU that runs the same lines as what Seriha is describing. I think gear more along that vein might be more realistic to actually being implemented as it pulls out three jobs that share a currently underused armor type and would benefit from both melee and mage stats on one set of gear.

But citing AF3+2 as a good "Start" might set unrealistic expectations unless you are aiming for this gear to drop from Voidwatch or some other high endgame event, which would kind of set some conflicts there on whether the pieces were 'worthwhile', compared to the typical min/max forte that players of that sort of game type would be drawn to.

That said I'd have no problem it being a battlefield or Seal/Crest NM battle drop.

[Economizer]

I like this idea, a magic base subtle blow threw decrease weapon damage and increased enspell damage. Would it work well on gear, or a JT. Or maybe both?

I don't see SE giving Red Mage a job trait for this, but it would be an interesting spell or job trait if it reduced attack greatly in return for a boost to enspell damage.

That said, gear would fit this well, but it would take a lot of work to get a perfect set - if you are doing even one point of damage with the weapon itself, you just fed the mob TP - which defeats the entire purpose.

The easiest way to do this is to use very low damage weapons along side gear that reduces attack, but as a Red Mage's base STR and attack get higher, it gets harder to pull this off even with a weapon that does low damage.

[Crimson_Slasher]

I personally would like to see some higher ws mod based gear to come, now with heavy and light DD jobs pushing +10 or higher str, and attack climbing into the 25-30 range, it is a must have for more slots for us.

[saevel]

Hyrist don't bother, he's trolling you. Just add him to your ignore list and you never gotta worry about him again. He's just another Cid / Shiyo.

Gear wise we just need to be added on everything that has BLU/DNC/NIN on it period, end of story. We should of been on Aura and teal (BLU was for crying out loud). We should of been on Alcides, Mexel, and other assorted gears. We should of been on that +crit / +DEX harness from Turil. Instead we shafted and stuck on gear that is weaker then what we already have, or within 1%. The other day I was looking over my set for ways to stack more attack and you know what jumped out ... the AJ. That's right the fcking AJ from WAY WAY WAY back turns out to be one of our better pieces due to us not getting much better. That dusk is still our "best" TP gears is sad, we finally get "haste" legs and they turn up with -8 accuracy, thought thankfully +small DA/TA. That DEX+6 is the best WS piece I can find is incredibly sad.

[tyrantsyn]

I don't see SE giving Red Mage a job trait for this, but it would be an interesting spell or job trait if it reduced attack greatly in return for a boost to enspell damage.

That said, gear would fit this well, but it would take a lot of work to get a perfect set - if you are doing even one point of damage with the weapon itself, you just fed the mob TP - which defeats the entire purpose.

The easiest way to do this is to use very low damage weapons along side gear that reduces attack, but as a Red Mage's base STR and attack get higher, it gets harder to pull this off even with a weapon that does low damage.

Perhaps take the physical damage out completely and make it all enspell damage? Additional piece's of armor could upgrade the damage, or maybe perhaps have it occ do enspells damage only. I wouldn't mind having to make a build that required me to seek out different piece's of gear to increase the proc rate or the damage. That's half the fun.

[Mirage]

Super Spellblade
Sword
DMG 54
Enspell damage +250%
Enhancing magic +15
Latent effect: Attack -80% (Active when under the effect of enspell, not including weaponskills)
RDM90

Would something like this be worth using? I have no idea, i'm no RDM, just throwing out ideas. Hopefully, the attack penalty would lower damage to 0 most of the time (excluding the occasional crit, I guess) on most things that are strong enough for tp feed to be an issue, while the enspell damage would still get through.

[Economizer]

Perhaps take the physical damage out completely and make it all enspell damage?

Ultimately, a big issue with it is that SE considers subtle blow effects to be very powerful. But since the Red Mage doesn't get to weapon skill either, perhaps this will be okay? I really don't know - SE might not have intended the play style in the first place, and it isn't one I've seen very often at all, just one that is very interesting in my opinion.

Considering that this is Red Mage and not Dancer, I hope that if SE does this in a non-gear form, they make it a spell.

SE could make it very easy if they wanted to, and release a dagger that has a zero damage rating and a buff to enspell damage, alongside 150 delay and perhaps even double attack rate plus. Ultimately, super low delay is going to be one of the major selling points of making a build to match this style, along side Haste and Enhancing Magic.

Of course, a good Red Mage melee set should have Haste capped with as much Enhancing Magic stacked as possible for enspells, assuming you aren't ignoring them. I think that even if you don't go all out enspell, focusing on enspells to make up for any damage gap between Red Mage and another job (that you don't make up for with Dia and nukes) will be key.

While mages in general that enjoy melee (none of us should be held back) would benefit in a set that helps melee stats at a higher level then 70-75, Red Mage would benefit from a set that gives both Haste and Enhancing, so perhaps Enhancing Magic gains on pieces with Haste could be part of a mythical all mage set, for assisting Red Mages in particular?

[Economizer]

Again, this is an incredibly alternate playstyle vs. what happens most of the time, so anything with this should be taken with a grain of Rock Salt. It is by no means the only suggestion, nor should it be the only style a Red Mage uses, but I would definitely like to see it as an option.


Super Spellblade
Sword
DMG 54
Enspell damage +250%
Enhancing magic +15
Latent effect: Attack -80% (Active when under the effect of enspell, not including weaponskills)
RDM90

Would something like this be worth using? I have no idea, i'm no RDM, just throwing out ideas. Hopefully, the attack penalty would lower damage to 0 most of the time (excluding the occasional crit, I guess) on most things that are strong enough for tp feed to be an issue, while the enspell damage would still get through.

The damage rating on the sword is probably too high to get a low enough mark, and you have no mention to delay, but considering the huge buff to damage, perhaps this is intentional. Assuming about 400 Enhancing Magic skill with a tier 2 enspell (which for some stupid reason don't work on multihit) can go up to 50 damage, and with a buff of 250% enspell damage, 125 damage (tier ones get about half this). Swords, while generally the thing many melee Red Mages cling to (I disagree, I think Sword and Dagger should be used equally), generally have a higher delay then a dagger, which is a huge factor if you are only relying on enspell damage.

Would the attack minus be applied before or after other gear? If it was applied afterwords, assuming you had something like 400 attack before the reduction, that would take you to about 80. Taking that further, you could probably knock off 60 or so points from it, if the percentage is applied first. I'm not sure if this would overcome the damage rating of the weapon though.

Something else I forgot to point out is that enspell damage does not cause any enmity to my knowledge, another powerful factor which may cause SE's ire.

[tyrantsyn]

See my thought is that physical damage would be converted straight into enspell damage, meaning no tp gain. As this could be very broken on the fact that no tp would be gain either from the attacks for the player. For instance:

Tyrantsyn hit's "insertmobhere" for 120 fire damage

I know there's a lot of math that goes into hit calculations here. But maybe this would be a great way to change the math around. For instance maybe with this type of system we could base it off our mnd and int instead of our str, att? Kind of like the Oracle job was in FF tactic's, where it's att was base of it magical att stat. Could turn a lot of gear we already have into melee gold?

[Mirage]

Stuff
Sorry, my bad, I forgot to add a delay. Anyway, I didn't really think about when this attack penalty would come into effect, and I am of course also open to changes to my idea, I did not make it with the intention to be set in stone, considering I am not 100% knowledgeable about all the game mechanics.

The intention with the weapon is in either case for it to be possible, if you really tried, to get your regular melee attacks to hit for 0 "pretty often", perhaps not all the time, to reduce TP feed by a lot. Of course, this would also lead to your own tp gain being pretty slow. I gave the weapon a reasonable dmg rating for it to be viable to actually do a WS whenever you managed to get 100 TP. I'm sure it would be fine to lower the DMG to like something in the 40s.

Now that I think about it, an interesting side effect of this very slow tp gain, and therefore very low percentage of damage coming from WSes, is that the RDM wouldn't mind having to swap to a staff in the middle of battle in order to cast certain spells. They would lose some tp each time they did it, sure, but it wouldn't matter as much as it does if you get a very large amount of your damage from WSes.

As for delay, I don't know, let's make it 220-240ish?

[Seriha]

I'd suggest it best to avoid trying to convert physical damage to magical. I wasn't a fan of the Ceremonial Dagger exploit from back in the day, and giving an "always on" equivalent just recreates that 0 TP feed environment that I doubt SE would be keen on. Additionally, us giving 0 TP means we would get 0 TP, and therefore no WS or /DNC thingies if that's your sub.

So, while I'm for fighting the TP feed issue, that just isn't the solution. Meanwhile, if you really want to give Enspells a bump, aside from the obvious issue with T2s, is to somehow include the weapon's damage rating into the additional effect. So, if SE finally did fix T2s and you could creep up to like +45 a swing, a D57 sword could add another 57 to that. Step outside of Abyssea where our ATK deficiencies and such are more of a reality on harder prey, and suddenly a +102 is a bit more of an equalizer. Our general WS will still be comparatively weaker, but on mobs of higher physical DEF, we might actually be situationally appropriate if resists aren't an issue.

[Economizer]

Mirage, I definitely like your thoughts about it, don't worry about the examples you put forth being perfect.

I understand the idea that sometimes you'd hit for a non-zero amount of damage, and I like your thoughts behind making that possible, for various balance reasons.


Now that I think about it, an interesting side effect of this very slow tp gain, and therefore very low percentage of damage coming from WSes, is that the RDM wouldn't mind having to swap to a staff in the middle of battle in order to cast certain spells. They would lose some tp each time they did it, sure, but it wouldn't matter as much as it does if you get a very large amount of your damage from WSes.

This is yet another factor to add in addition to enmity less, TP feed free attacks. You have very little reason not to switch to another weapon if you need to enfeeble or nuke. That itself is a very powerful force. While I still have hopes that SE will make some sort of elemental shields that mimic the elemental staves in some way, being able to switch to a straight up staff is very enticing.

This play style definitely fits Red Mage very, very well, and is very unique. Even if it doesn't output a ton of damage, you could definitely use it to augment the damage of someone else smacking a mob.

For anyone who might not like this play style, I just want it to be an option, not the only solution. Giving Red Mage better access to subtle blow abilities and armor would be an important factor too, as would making it so you could deal more damage hitting with a weapon in general so you can justify TP feed.

[geekgirl101]

If anything I'd like to see gear that would improve RDMs specifically to a point where meleeing an easy prey target doesn't take 20x longer that the RDM has to rely on nuking all their mana away and barely get away from a battle. Some ideas would include enspells ignore a certain % of magic resistance unless the target is completely immune to magic, and either a weapon or a peice or armor that inflicts a mini-auspice effect on the mob so that RDMs aren't constantly TP-feeding while they're fighting hard to bring it down. Standard boosts such as accuracy, spell interruption down, haste, attack, dagger/sword skill, and enspell enhancement boosts are also not to be snorted at.

While not gear-related I'd like also to see boosts in RDM weapon skills. We're hardly a "jack of all trades" when our own weapon skills are super weak that even a WHM can massively out-damage an RDM with their unique club weapon skills.

[Seriha]

I'm sorry, but if you're taking 20x longer to melee down an EP target over nuking, you need some better gear. Nuking is probably the absolute worst way to kill individual EPs, especially outside of Abyssea.

[Rayik]

Seriously agreed with Seriha. I can do as much damage as my best nukes with 2 procs of double and/or triple attack in Abyssea. I can nuke something for maybe 1k-ish damage, or swing 5 times dual-wielding for 150-250 damage each in a few seconds, with WS's doing well over twice what a nuke would do(Evisc, etc). Even outside Abyssea, I only nuke to pull the mob if I just want a little extra damage. To each their own though, my nuking ain't that great.

If your melee'ing takes 20x longer than your nuking, then you're not even trying to gear for melee in the first place. Setting yourself up to fail will yield expected results.

[Neisan_Quetz]

That's... pretty bad nukes if you mean inside... But yea you shouldn't take -that- long to melee something down compared to nuking.

[Rayik]

As for the topic at hand, I've seen that we're getting some new Haste pieces, so getting to Haste cap(or at least really close) is a lot more attainable. I'd like to see some Subtle Blow so that our TP feed isn't so severe, otherwise some decent melee stats, something like a newer high level version of Dusk, since Dusk gloves give Haste and Attack+. More gear that enhances RDM specific stuff would be nice, like Enhancing enspell damage, enhances buff duration(besides AF3), etc.

In my opinion, making any decent hybrid gear is asking a lot, too much even(Ogre Ledelsens anyone?). I've had greater success in this game gearing specifically for what I'm doing, and swapping accordingly, rather than try to have some kind of catch-all fulltime gear. If you're melee'ing, get some melee gear on.

[Rayik]

That's... pretty bad nukes if you mean inside... But yea you shouldn't take -that- long to melee something down compared to nuking.

I'm gimp, I have nothing to hide. I've never really had a reason to nuke; I've spent most of my time in game with my wife, who is a good BLM and nukes the pants off of anything we're fighting. I'm usually on RDM for support. I got my Elemental Magic up to 290-ish, but my nukes still pale to my melee. I posted my lulzy nuking set in one of these 10 melee threads around here somewhere.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Might've been iceday but 3k on Blizz 4 shouldn't be hard on fodder trash, but going from 4-3 then waiting on recast, it's better to just melee, yes.

[Rayik]

That's just one of the things I love about being a RDM though; we have the variety to choose which works better for our preference. For my play style, I like beating the mob down and buffing while my wife nukes it from orbit. It's worked out well for us and we enjoy it. Others can do the opposite and see good results(I wouldn't tank with the BLM though, lol).

[tyrantsyn]

If anything I'd like to see gear that would improve RDMs specifically to a point where meleeing an easy prey target doesn't take 20x longer that the RDM has to rely on nuking all their mana away and barely get away from a battle.

I understand what your saying here, even well gear out, some melee fights really feel they draw out longer than they should. RDM could really value from a peice of gear with STR and ATT stats on it. And a native weapon skill that can actual output damage. Tho with a good nuke set and /war /pld /drk sanguine blade outputs good damage. And i've hit decent to easy prey mobs for close to 1k out side of abyssea.

[Rayik]

I've gotten Savage Blade over 1k many times outside of Abyssea, but it was definitely the exception, and not the rule. Usually hovers around 400-700 dmg.

With the mods on it the way they are, I really feel like it should do a lot more damage than it does. RDM has access to lots of MND gear(Ogre Leds. +1; 12 ATT and 5 MND) and a good amount of STR(Alky's bracer's are great) for it, but it just does crap for damage no matter how I gear it.

[tyrantsyn]

I've gotten Savage Blade over 1k many times outside of Abyssea, but it was definitely the exception, and not the rule. Usually hovers around 400-700 dmg.

With the mods on it the way they are, I really feel like it should do a lot more damage than it does. RDM has access to lots of MND gear(Ogre Leds. +1; 12 ATT and 5 MND) and a good amount of STR(Alky's bracer's are great) for it, but it just does crap for damage no matter how I gear it.

Same here, and the thing is most of the gear you mention is old school vintage and makes us look like crap. Be nice to have a set that look's rdm'ish and gives us the stats we desire. Something we could share between us and blu would be great.

[Shiyo]

Warriors autoattack for 400-700 outside abyssea.

I also blizz4 for 2.8k-3k inside while not needing to have a completely worthless sub, so you're doing something horribly wrong(which was pretty obvious just by saying you were playing RDM inside abyssea but w/e)

[tyrantsyn]

Warriors autoattack for 400-700 outside abyssea.

I also blizz4 for 2.8k-3k inside while not needing to have a completely worthless sub, so you're doing something horribly wrong(which was pretty obvious just by saying you were playing RDM inside abyssea but w/e)

Well war's crit hit for about that much, and it sounds like you have some fine gear and atma hitting those numbers. Not quite sure what that has to do with the subject but thanx for sharing.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Anyone can make a half decent set just from Totm staff and gear gotten inside abyssea (and easy to get pieces outside/AH) to get decent numbers on Blizz 4. Hadal Satiator isn't hard (I'll give you Ultima if you never did limbus but seriously).

War isn't critting for 3k without ODD last I checked...

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Anyone can make a half decent set just from Totm staff and gear gotten inside abyssea (and easy to get pieces outside/AH) to get decent numbers on Blizz 4. Hadal Satiator isn't hard (I'll give you Ultima if you never did limbus but seriously).

War isn't critting for 3k without ODD last I checked...

Even Ultima is a joke now, the only damaging move is completely annuled by a NIN tank and Migawari.

---

As a side note: I can hit for 100+ (without enspells) on RDM outside of Abyssea, it means crap the monsters are at most Easy Prey but normally TWTB.

Put any of those DD's up against the only hard content outside now (Voidwatch) and they get no where near those numbers.

[tyrantsyn]

War isn't critting for 3k without ODD last I checked...

Actual was talking about war crit hitting between 400 to 700 outside abyssea

[Neisan_Quetz]

It's not that Ultima is hard but if you never did limbus before you'll have to build a pop from scratch and due to time constraints that will take 2 weeks min I think? Not a lot of time but I can understand someone new not having ultima kill.

[Shiyo]

My friend ukko fury's T4 VW mobs for 2-3k. Averages 2.2kish. Have fun with your 400-700 damage savage blades LOL

My character is less than 6 months old and my mule is like 4 months old, both have ultima and omega kills. No excuse, limbus is a joke.

[Pelican]

Your ignorance Shiyo is outstanding. I for one use excalibur to melee and have no problem on things like neo-dynamis NM's keeping up my weaponskill damage with that of a THF using SA rudra, now add in my additional effect that procs 1-2 times per ws and suddenly my 800-1300 knights of round combined with the effect are doing 1200-2100 (and this is /nin) in the current equipment constraints of RDM melee/ws gear makes rdm melee more than viable.

Back on topic

I personally being an excally user prefer to avoid enspells as they prevent activation of my relic damage proc (though if SE changes this it would be great).

I would prefer to see more i the way of Weaponskill gear combining both STR and attack (or dex for your magian users) as that is what I find I am most lacking compairitively to other light melee jobs (including blu), also more subtle blow to counter the whole OMG YOUR FEEDING IT TP would be nice but I would prefer something similar to nin in terms of a spell based subtle blow. As for TP gear I would love to retire certain things like nashira manteel for my TP set maybe get some real TP gear with att/subtle blow. I am happy we got added to Calmacec Trousers and hopefully SE keeps heading in this direction in terms of regearing the rdm melee.

[Swords]

My friend ukko fury's T4 VW mobs for 2-3k. Averages 2.2kish. Have fun with your 400-700 damage savage blades LOL

My character is less than 6 months old and my mule is like 4 months old, both have ultima and omega kills. No excuse, limbus is a joke.

What..? If your going to bash a job on a comparison, you need to at least pit both against each other on the same level. Pitting WAR's best WS against a substandard RDM WS is like gloating about doing 10k to a level 2 mob, it's not an impressive nor valid comparison. Comparing Ukko's to Chant or Steel Cyclone to Savage Blade would at least yield a respectable argument.

And to be fair I have seen some impressive 1.5-3k Savage Blades by various jobs back at 75, sure they received full buffs prior but it's not like all the jobs were not already getting them as it was.

[tyrantsyn]

Maybe beating a dead horse here "and considering or current skill in it" I would still like to see something done in parrying. Maybe a set of gear that allow's us to push it up a to a "C" or a "B". I know at current levels this would be a ton of points going onto a piece of gear or a set. Another idea maybe would be to attach stat onto a weapon that allows parrying to come up to current skill level of that weapon type.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Maybe beating a dead horse here "and considering or current skill in it" I would still like to see something done in parrying. Maybe a set of gear that allow's us to push it up a to a "C" or a "B". I know at current levels this would be a ton of points going onto a piece of gear or a set. Another idea maybe would be to attach stat onto a weapon that allows parrying to come up to current skill level of that weapon type.

I think it was suggested before that Composure could be used like a SCH's arts to up our combat skills.

High parrying would at least fit a supposed Fencer.

[Raksha]

It's not that Ultima is hard but if you never did limbus before you'll have to build a pop from scratch and due to time constraints that will take 2 weeks min I think? Not a lot of time but I can understand someone new not having ultima kill.

Not exactly true depending on how many people you have.

You can probably duo/trio every zone and just have one guy join each party to lot the chips.

With enough people you could do it all in one day.

[Swords]

Depends on the zone, certain ones are hard to get around even at 90 with just a handful of people. Two examples that come to mind is the zone that has different types of melee/magic immunity on different floors, and another that has 3 gigas NM's have a similar setting.

[Hyrist]

Depends on the zone, certain ones are hard to get around even at 90 with just a handful of people. Two examples that come to mind is the zone that has different types of melee/magic immunity on different floors, and another that has 3 gigas NM's have a similar setting.

Got past that particular one with a RDM and a DNC no problem. Enspells are fun.

[Shiyo]

Depends on the zone, certain ones are hard to get around even at 90 with just a handful of people. Two examples that come to mind is the zone that has different types of melee/magic immunity on different floors, and another that has 3 gigas NM's have a similar setting.

Duo + dual boxed omega/ultima and all zones to get the pop sets. No problems at all....

[Doombringer]

you can't use aby numbers as a benchmark for new gear anyway. performance in aby is more about atma than anything. you can do 4k bliz4, or you can do 4k cdc, but you can't do both, since you can't wear 6 atmas.

i'd almost bet you could nuke harder NAKED with atmas, than you could ws fully clothed with no atmas.

but back on topic, i dunno that rdm even needs it's own new melee gear, just put us back on the sets we used to be able to wear. doublets, pink gear. it's not great but it's an easily attainable starting point. harnes', alcides. at least some of the +1 pieces would make solid cdc gear. stuff like that. there's a lot of gear already in game that would help, and you could make a solid argument for giving it to us. even the add on expansion pieces. why can't rdm wear the midweight pieces? like blu dnc and cor..?

then.. if i'm really reaching.. lokis body? twilight sash? (why NOT twilight sash?)


of course, if they wanted to add a respectable rdm melee jse set, and make it look like blood mail, that'd be awesome. i'd be more interested in physical stats than enspell at the expense of physical damage. the way i look at it, the old ceremonial dagger trick was uselessly weak in any group, and an overpowering exploit solo. it's good for nothing but being abused. even if you supercharge it, the loss of ws dmg would need you to CRAZY supercharge it. so it ends up normal in pts and laughably op solo.

EDIT: also, if you wanna hit for zero RELIABLY it has to be done on the damage side of the equation. the attack function has a random +0 to +.5 added to it AFTER it factors in your attack vs the mobs def, you could be hundreds of att under the floor and you'd still hit for SOME dmg sometimes unless your damage function hits 0. (and hitting for even 1 point gives the mob full tp so... yah) the damage function has no random factor, so if you hit for 0 because of that, you will always hit for 0. (this is only possible with 1 dmg weapons, because of the way the str function floors relative to weapon class.)

[Economizer]

then.. if i'm really reaching.. lokis body? twilight sash? (why NOT twilight sash?)

I'm guessing the reason for this is because Red Mage gets put on the same haste belts as Paladin gets put on. It is pretty stupid, but at least next update Red Mage is getting access to another solid haste belt.


if you wanna hit for zero RELIABLY

Maybe the solution to this is that Red Mages shouldn't be hitting for zero too reliably if they want to do this, so there still is the risk of some, but greatly reduced, TP feed. It is hard to say, but who knows what we will see if we do get a positive in-game response to this suggestion? On the bright side, if there is TP feed with a Dagger, Aeolian Edge is barely, if at all, changed by a high or low damage dagger in the main hand.

[CapriciousOne]

Super Spellblade
Sword
DMG 54
Enspell damage +250%
Enhancing magic +15
Latent effect: Attack -80% (Active when under the effect of enspell, not including weaponskills)
RDM90

Would something like this be worth using? I have no idea, i'm no RDM, just throwing out ideas. Hopefully, the attack penalty would lower damage to 0 most of the time (excluding the occasional crit, I guess) on most things that are strong enough for tp feed to be an issue, while the enspell damage would still get through.

I really dont understand what all the crying about tp is for because when you weigh the dps it all averages out about the same with only a slight difference because of the delays. From the looks of it the added enspell damage would only bring the enspell damage up to the original base damage of the sword before the 80% attack reduction takes effect.

This would have no use for me and I wouldnt buy it myself but to each his own I suppose. Here I thought the thread was gear that improves melee ability but this would effectively have you dealing 0 physical damage when attack is reduced and compared to the mobs defense which would defeat the whole purpose of meleeing I always use tier 1 enspells to ADD to the base damage of both swords since i use /dnc and use the tp gain to throw out an extra heal by waltzes. I often cycle cure 3 and 4 with curing waltz 2 and 3 so tp build helps alot but still not as effective as the curaga series of spells but helps immensely. Then again I am from the school of hit hard + hit often = fast kill and anybody with a weapon and the appropriate skill /job level should be attacking period so I'm sure plenty of people have a lot to say otherwise.

[CapriciousOne]

If anything I'd like to see gear that would improve RDMs specifically to a point where meleeing an easy prey target doesn't take 20x longer that the RDM has to rely on nuking all their mana away and barely get away from a battle. Some ideas would include enspells ignore a certain % of magic resistance unless the target is completely immune to magic, and either a weapon or a peice or armor that inflicts a mini-auspice effect on the mob so that RDMs aren't constantly TP-feeding while they're fighting hard to bring it down. Standard boosts such as accuracy, spell interruption down, haste, attack, dagger/sword skill, and enspell enhancement boosts are also not to be snorted at.


Well the questions that come to mind here are as follows:
1. If u want to kill mobs by nuke only why the hell are you RDM anyway when BLM gets all the magic attack damage boosting elemental spell damage in the first place?
2. What is your current combat skill level with your current weapon? If you are using a club or staff to primarily damage mobs physically then here in is you problem because both of those are significantly lower than sword or dagger combat skill and skill level with said weapon is major factor in calculation melee accuracy. (so is the mobs evasion as well)
3. Are you enfeebling the mobs at all? (silence, paralyze, slow, dia, bio, blind, etc) or only nuking?
4. Are you even buffed with the highest level of spells possible (PROTECT/SHELL 4/5, PHALANX 1/2 at least)?
5. What kind of armor are you using like Bronze Armor?

I ask all these because unless dealing with a nm nuking always felt longer than meleeing to me because of casting animations, recast, mp pool limitations and waiting on refresh ii/drain samba to heal my mp pool.

[CapriciousOne]

As far as physical armor I would love to see pieces of armor that:

1. Higher baseline DEF values on each pieces of generic armor and doesnt need to be obtained via dynamis/abyssea/or any of that new bs. At level 90+ total armor defense should have been past like 225 by now and at or well past 250 by level 99 (This is the total defense of the 5 base peices of an armor set (head, body, hands, feet, and legs only)

2. Increase the duration and magnitude of phalanx 1 and 2 even further.

3. Higher level hand piece that increases enspell damage by using a higher percentage of enhancing skill in the formula. For instance I think only like 10% of your enhancing skill is used at current. Would love to see that percentage increase to like 20 and even 30 % of your enhancing magic. So for an enhancing skill of say 300 your enspells I would do about 15 dmg per sword or enspell II would do 30. With these enhancements a boost to 20% of enhancing magic skill would deal about 30/sword for enspell I or 60 dmg for enspell II or a boost to 30% would do 45dmg for enspell I and 90 for Enspell II respectively if it landed. That should quiet all the crybabies about feeding tp/dmg bs and give me what I and others want as well.

4. Woud like to see the same enhancements made for the barspells as well, boosting the resistance to elements across the board. I would even be content to let whm share in on the fun but of course they wouldn't get the most powerful ones. This would basically help me the RDM against BLM NM that have all the magic attack bonuses and nuke me to hell because shell V still kind of blows when BLM has like tier V spells and all the magic attack traits that basically doubles the damage of all elemental spells when added.

5. Since it isnt effected by Composure in the least bit but would be nice if a body piece or two doubled the duration of all protects/shells. Like one body piece of one set would increase the duration or duration and potency by 50% and the second tier by a full +100% which would basically be double.

6 Head pieces that increase the proc rate and duration of enfeebles even further since I love my Paralyze 2/Blind 2 macro and merits are so limited so I cant merit them to max along with my phalanx 2.

I dont mind duking it out blow for blow with any monster but running around like a chump, sleep nuking resting annoys the hell out of me being the "Jack of all Trades, but master of none". Switching to staff and losing all my hard earn tp is complete bull too since I like to use "Spirits Within" and often use my finishing moves from dancer to regive me more tp soon after using it. Yes I am aware of the other WS that may do more damage but not really into being bothered with all that right now and the RDM bs that goes on in game these days. I may be reaching but you never know unless you ask for it but I doubt I ever see this or any of it. These are just things I always thought would be cool since RDM is my primary job. With the exception of teh first one

[saevel]

For instance I think only like 10% of your enhancing skill is used at current.

Huh this doesn't make any sense.

Like all things in FFXI, there are math formula's they use to determine rate.

ROUNDDOWN(Enhancing Skill * 5 / 100) + 5

So for 421 enhancing skill you get,
(421 * 5)/100 = 21.05 +5 = 26.05, floored to 26 damage per swing.

Enspell II is just enspell 1 forumula x 2 for max. Unfortunately Enspell II recalculated each time you swing, thus you end up with a max equal to your enhancing magic during swing not cast, which for most of us tends to be far below our enhancing magic macro.

[tyrantsyn]

2. Increase the duration and magnitude of phalanx 1 and 2 even further.

I don't know about duration, between current gear and composer Phalanx has a pretty mean duration as it is. Tho I wouldn't mind getting a added buff to the current damage reduction. Kind of like all the gear with enhanced stoneskin buff's.

[Crimson_Slasher]

Just to re-voice my opinion, because it is the bane of all melee arguments, we need gear to directly enhance our damage, preferably weaponskills, as its clear, no other job will care if we output double their DOT on the tp phase, if our weaponskills just dont cut it on the ws phase, it would take easily the DOT power of 3-4 heavy DD jobs to make it matter and unless we are to be the polar opposite of blu (who deals melee damage via spells) where we do magic damage damage via our autoattacks, or some hundred fisting monster job, we need a little more bite to our ws, bar empyrean weapon/ws. No matter what it always comes down to people saying WHM can hexastrike harder, brd can evisceration harder (with the right gear), and so-forth.

[Yandaime]

I still think its hilarious that a BRD can put on Hecatomb Gear and *THROW DOWN* if it wanted to and make up for any lacking of natural talent with Singing Abilities xD. Actually, WHM can do it too altho not as bad as BRD can. Could you imagine a little quire boy giving your DD a run for its money? Think I might risk leveling the slave job just for the chance to piss some DDs off now... xD Anyone been in an old ToAU DD burn in Bhaflau Thickets with a 3 BRD-DD Burn? They really do kick ass. I've also heard of 3 WHM-DD 2 BRD 1 RDM/WHM-Healer doing some serious xp back then too, would probably own shop in Abyssea.. (who wants to bet money the RDM was super upset?)

Sorry for the Derail but yea...
BRD Melee > WHM Melee > RDM Melee... Its so wrong but so funny as the same time.

[Hyrist]

Problem with that argument, even though I fully support better WS gear, is that we have absolutely no clue what WS adjustments Sword and Dagger are getting.

Once we know where Weapon Skills are headed, we'd have a better idea what gear to request to better it. Honestly, having BNS on Weapon skills most people won't care who melees until we get to the really hard mobs, but even then, people would just either TP on other mobs and go in to WS (taking advantage of whatever regain abilities DNC and COR have in this respect.)

If SE globally makes Skill Chains and Weapon Skills better a whole lot of the anti melee debates in general will die off.

[Crimson_Slasher]

I am glad brd has the option, this is a game where all jobs are/were ment to melee, and well...skillchain...but yeah i feel all jobs should have some sort of direct damage contribution in ffxi, whm clearly has weak nuking power, but passable melee, as does brd, rdm does outside of abyssea, but in those terms, its drk, point for point that is the best analog, outside, hits okay versus the other jobs, but inside due to lack of high-tier daggers(axes for drk) and lack of crit ws for main weapons it leaves some to be desired, and i have to try it, but i bet my ws gear with vorpal blade (and some DA only gear/atmas to see what dual wield damage would yield) would put us closer to brd, id also like to see a companion buff (or possibly accent) to temper, possibly granting an attack, or acc, or haste buff when under the effect of composure.

[Hyrist]

I'm of the mind that at 99 Temper as it is right now is designed to give us 15% Double Attack, which is fine by me.

Pair that off with higher WS numbers and better gear, and the possibility of meriting up Temper Rate and/or Enspell damage and I'd be in a comfortable place with it, so long as the limitations on Meriting would allow me to keep the things I currently have mage-wise.

Because, a lot of the problems about RDM melee stem from the exact same problems Swords as a weapon class have, and if that's adjusted to be comparable, then we improve with that. Factor in the use of Gain STR or Gain DEX and the impact of that on our WS/TP equipment, which will hopefully improve as the levels go up, and I don't see us being in a bad position, Melee wise.

[tyrantsyn]

Here's another thought, A set of gear or piece's that allows you to have multiple gain spells up at a time.

[Hyrist]

I'd rather that just as a job adjustment. We're only able to cast them on ourselves so why not allow us to have two on? Like STR and DEX or INT and MIND?

[tyrantsyn]

I'd rather that just as a job adjustment. We're only able to cast them on ourselves so why not allow us to have two on? Like STR and DEX or INT and MIND?

I thought the same, but it's a gear thread so just sticking to topic.

[Hyrist]

Well, gear wise in that department I'd rather have something like "Augments Enhancing Magic." An litterally have it be that general.

And what it does is modify the equation for our enhancing spells up so that it takes less Enhancing Skill gear to gain more potency, or adds a flat amount of potency to all spells.

With Enspells, Temper, And Gain spells that'd transfer back into our melee performance in spades. And if it was more general to add potency to our spells, could work with Refresh and Haste as well for others.

[Seriha]

I don't think you'll ever see multiple Gain spells active since it'll likely mean WHMs can do Boosts, too. WHMs aren't exactly slouches one Enhancing magic these days, and I doubt SE would be keen on basically 20+ all stats for everyone outside of Abyssea.

As far as our damage split in the TP/WS department goes, I'd actually like to see our TP phase get the biggest attention. Part of it is a gear problem, yes, as us going balls out Haste usually means lacking ATK/ACC. Part of it is a mechanics problem, like T2 enspells or the poor aging of enspells in general. And if they tweaked Death Blossom's added effect to be worth a damn, it might be worth something as a utility WS while those more concerned with damage can go for CDC. Either way, better the TP phase gets, the less ground the "TP Feed" detractors have to stand on.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

I don't think you'll ever see multiple Gain spells active since it'll likely mean WHMs can do Boosts, too. WHMs aren't exactly slouches one Enhancing magic these days, and I doubt SE would be keen on basically 20+ all stats for everyone outside of Abyssea.

Further reason RDM needs Enhancing Skill upped, it's insulting to have to cap it to B+ while WHM just uses /SCH all the time.

PS. I know RDM can /SCH but it's not the point.

[Crimson_Slasher]

Again maybe utilize Composure for part of that, maybe raise the cap of enhancing while under composure to A- or even...A+
?! Could be done via a trait, merit, or a piece of gear that "Enhances" composure rather than augments it. Though i would strongly rather see it in trait/native/merit form as to not tie me to a piece of gear.

[tyrantsyn]

Well, gear wise in that department I'd rather have something like "Augments Enhancing Magic." An litterally have it be that general.

And what it does is modify the equation for our enhancing spells up so that it takes less Enhancing Skill gear to gain more potency, or adds a flat amount of potency to all spells.

With Enspells, Temper, And Gain spells that'd transfer back into our melee performance in spades. And if it was more general to add potency to our spells, could work with Refresh and Haste as well for others.

Interesting thought, would also mean we'd have more potent Protect and Shell spells as well? That would be pretty cool and would go along with that broken line of turning mere mortals into demi gods. Of course this would mean were better at something than another job and we all know how SE hates that idea when it comes to rdm.

[tyrantsyn]

Again maybe utilize Composure for part of that, maybe raise the cap of enhancing while under composure to A- or even...A+
?! Could be done via a trait, merit, or a piece of gear that "Enhances" composure rather than augments it. Though i would strongly rather see it in trait/native/merit form as to not tie me to a piece of gear.

I could see something like this as a possible merited ability.

[saevel]

Again maybe utilize Composure for part of that, maybe raise the cap of enhancing while under composure to A- or even...A+
?! Could be done via a trait, merit, or a piece of gear that "Enhances" composure rather than augments it. Though i would strongly rather see it in trait/native/merit form as to not tie me to a piece of gear.

Definitely make Composure raise it to A status, or possible just a +20 (the difference between B+ and A+) to enhancing magic?

I'm all for making more things related to Enhancing Magic. It's one of the few area's that we really excel in (self buffs). I've said it before, SE could do SOOOO much with RDM by utilizing self-cast buffs that alter our stats and job performance.

[Economizer]

Definitely make Composure raise it to A status, or possible just a +20 (the difference between B+ and A+) to enhancing magic?

While I see no problem with White Mages using Light Arts to boost to B+ rank, I definitely agree that Red Mage should get a boost with Composure, since this would be another melee/buffing boost with Composure. I don't like the thought of it boosting up in ranks, but I do like a straight buff. Even more impressive then a straight buff (like +20 to +30) would be either a level adjusted buff (like +1 skill per two levels) or a gear multiplier (like 1.5x skill on gear and merits you have).

Composure is definitely something setup to boost melee (with the accuracy boost, and less time spend casting buffs) and enhancing (with the duration buff), so boosting Enhancing Magic with it just makes sense.

[Seriha]

I actually wouldn't mind if a T3 Composure merit upped all combat and magic skills by +5 per level, assuming they stick with the 5 levels per selection deal.

Anyway, the Enhancing skill "difference" between RDM and WHM doesn't bother me all that much. Rather, it's how we're tied to an entire gear set just to make some of our buffs stand out more, and solely in duration. I know I've argued against Haste II as a spell because it'd basically solidify the buffbot role, but I'm not against some kind of melee integration that'd somehow boost our current Haste spell. Some would assuredly whine the backline should be able to do it, but part of the melee dilemma is there's little incentive to do so.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

While I see no problem with White Mages using Light Arts to boost to B+ rank, I definitely agree that Red Mage should get a boost with Composure, since this would be another melee/buffing boost with Composure. I don't like the thought of it boosting up in ranks, but I do like a straight buff. Even more impressive then a straight buff (like +20 to +30) would be either a level adjusted buff (like +1 skill per two levels) or a gear multiplier (like 1.5x skill on gear and merits you have).

Composure is definitely something setup to boost melee (with the accuracy boost, and less time spend casting buffs) and enhancing (with the duration buff), so boosting Enhancing Magic with it just makes sense.

I have an issue with it capping to the same level as RDM, as opposed to just raising WHM's stats.

[tyrantsyn]

It's been a while so I thought i'd offer some thing new to discuss here.

What do you guys think of a piece of gear that would augment chainspell? Perhaps something that would increase the duration, super charge our refresh, or even cutt mp cost in half while casting? This idea my work better as a new merit category, but you would think after 99 level's maybe we could get a upgrade or some type of improvement. Since i went off topic a bit forgive me. Just didn't feel the need to start a new thread.