What is RDM all about?

[Convictions]

Hi, I'm pretty new to FFXI, decided to give it a shot after trying Final Fantasy 14 (boy oh boy).
Anyways, I love the game, but the biggest issue I am having is attempting to pick a Job I'd like to stick with. I've asked people in-game and they all just say "Level them all", though I'd really like to just stick with one and one only.
I like the look of Red Mages so far, I am enjoying it (with my limited amount of spells, I must admit) and the fact they seem to be Swordspells in my eyes; but what are they really all about? What am I to expect come end game? Will I get to swing my sword at stuff while supporting party members with heals and buffs, and also Enfeebling the enemy till it's useless, or something else less.. imaginative?

Thank you all in advanced. :D

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Currently, as it stands:

RDM is useless in 90% of endgame content, and average in the remaining 10.

Also No, you will not get to swing your sword unless your soloing.

(I don't agree with this, it's just how it is currently.)

[Convictions]

Currently, as it stands:

RDM is useless in 90% of endgame content, and average in the remaining 10.

Also No, you will not get to swing your sword unless your soloing.

(I don't agree with this, it's just how it is currently.)

Oh, I see. Well, that's definately a hitch in my plans. What is their purpose in endgame content, then? Just healing or?

[cidbahamut]

Oh, I see. Well, that's definately a hitch in my plans. What is their purpose in endgame content, then? Just healing or?

Being a sub-par mage in general. Nuke some, heal some, buff some, lament the fact that enfeebling has been horribly mishandled by SE, cry yourself to sleep in a corner. Or maybe that's just me and my cynicism.

[Convictions]

Being a sub-par mage in general. Nuke some, heal some, buff some, lament the fact that enfeebling has been horribly mishandled by SE, cry yourself to sleep in a corner. Or maybe that's just me and my cynicism.

I see, well.. thank you. I guess I'll have to spend some time trying to think of something else to play as.

[Greatguardian]

If you like the idea of a spellsword, try Blue Mage. That's basically what most people expected/hoped for Red Mage to be.

Red Mage favors its magical side far more than its extremely underdeveloped melee side. The job's greatest strength is easily its self-sustainability. Red Mage does not really fill any niche in Endgame right now, but it's a fairly powerful solo job when geared properly. Though, to be honest, it's probably a lot easier and a lot cheaper to solo things on Dancer now.

Essentially, it's a job in limbo. If you like being a self-sustainable pure-mage, it's definitely worth a whirl. If you like swinging swords while casting spells, you're really much better off with BLU.

[Doombringer]

at this point, controversy.. it is about controversy......

the perception of rdm has changed dramatically for.. as long as i've been playing anyway. at first it was very general. the problem there being that in a min/max mentality, a generalist is "useless" and pretty much out of favor.

so it got tweaked. and for a while, it was a more support oriented generalist. refresh alone made the job incredibly useful for quite a while, you keep the pt going, and piss on any fires that arose. plus back then the fights lasted long enough that enfeebling every mob was actually both practical and helpful. so you'd maintain a refresh cycle, usually share a haste cycle with the whm, enfeeble, and maybe sleep links/extra pulls or add some light dmg.

then the game around rdm changed, as opposed to rdm changing. xp mobs got weaker, kills got faster, everybody and there brother started subbing nin, and rdm pretty much replaced whm for a while. (since you didn't need a whole whm, you may as well take JUST the rdm and bring an extra DD) i honestly found it quite boring, but rdm was the only job in the game with access to cure4, haste, and refresh at the same time, so it worked.

but then when the lvl cap changed the atmosphere changed with it. anybody can /rdm for refresh and convert. there's very little reason to bring an rdm for refresh haste and cure, when a whm/rdm can bring his own refresh haste and better cure.

now you'd think rdm could fall back on one of it's older pillars, enfeebling, crowd control, or melee. but those sort of fell apart while we weren't looking.

rdm isn't as good at crowd control relatively speaking, when you consider whm has sleep, and blm is very popular nowadays as a proc job. basically if you NEED a whm, and you REALLY WANT a blm.. (both for other reasons) you have enough sleep/bind/break to keep the horde at bay. you just don't need to add an rdm.

enfeebling took a serious hit in that many abyssea nms have straight immunities to the spells we have, not to mention that trends have shifted slightly. tanks just seem better able to handle a mobs tp phase dmg, meanwhile nm's have gotten stronger and stronger tp moves. so the relative threat has shifted away from the tp phase, which spells like slow, paralyze, and to a lesser extent blind could significantly mitigate... and towards the actual ws's, wich rdm can't do jack all about. not to mention that, again.. with the proliferation of whm and blm nowadays.. most of the enfeebles are covered. and since they've ALREADY lost a lot of there luster, you're not gonna bring an entire extra job for the difference between slow and slow2.

as for melee.. i don't even wanna get into it.. it's not really a valid endgame tactic. rdm was never a GOOD melee. i'm considered a hardcore melee rdm myself and that was never WHAT i did.. it was just sort of something i did IN ADDITION. and it's been on a steady downhill slide from "sidebar" to "thing that gets you laughed off the internet"


oh, and i wasn't joking about controversy:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/15642-Cure-V

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/13790-Temper-info

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/294-On-Red-Mage-melee

edit: ew.. that turned into a wall of text.. sorry everybody..

[Lilia]

so bad is the meleeside not, you can melee or tank high nms in party, but .... 99% ppl want that. I find my rdm can tank better as my blu. the prob with rdm melee/tank is only a handfull good pl can do that, the other rdm play magestyle or/and hate melee site. I think 75% rdm play mage - so is not surprised other jobs dont know what rdm can.

But the others have right... for the mom you dont need rdm in endgame....

And now when i see the pup update.... i think pup is much better as rdm >.< stoneskin, haste, phalanxspell,,,,, for the pup.

[Greatguardian]

I dislike using the term controversy here.

That's like calling Evolution a "controversy" because certain factions refuse to believe that it exists.

[Lilia]

But good post doom :)

[cidbahamut]

so bad is the meleeside not, you can melee or tank high nms in party, but .... 99% ppl want that. I find my rdm can tank better as my blu. the prob with rdm melee/tank is only a handfull good pl can do that, the other rdm play magestyle or/and hate melee site. I think 75% rdm play mage - so is not surprised other jobs dont know what rdm can.

But the others have right... for the mom you dont need rdm in endgame....

And now when i see the pup update.... i think pup is much better as rdm >.< stoneskin, haste, phalanxspell,,,,, for the pup.

http://www.mandypatinkin.net/PB/sminigo1.jpeg

[Lilia]

Who is that? >.<


lol

[Greatguardian]

His name is Inigo Montoya. You killed his father. Prepare to die.

[saevel]

RDM is in a weird place right now. Well actually it's been in a weird place since 2004. It's not the best at anything, the job concept is you want one part WAR, one part WHM, and one part BLM and cram them together. What you get is a job that is capable of multiple roles but not the absolute best at any of those roles. Of course MMO's are about stat whoring and min/maxing, or at least there is a small yet vocal minority of the game who preach this as gospel. Previously the min/maxers figured that you could take a single RDM, couple them with a single BRD and throw in four melee's to get the maximum damage output and thus XP while having the minimum support requirements. RDM became this zombie healer that wasn't particularly good, but had the MP stamina and was "good enough" to get by with. Since the level cap has been raised, without Cure V we can't solo heal a group and the min/maxers see absolutely no reason to bring a second job that can cast "cure".

That pretty much outlines whats going on. RDM can deal damage but it requires lots of dedicated gear and swaps and more then good dose of common sense and judgement. The hybrid style of play has been discouraged so fervently since 2004/2005 that there never was a good guide written on it. And that's a different discussion all together.

Anyhow, play the job your most comfortable with. Contrary to the barking, RDM is not useless at "end game", far from it. "End game" now actually consists most of VWNMs and Abyssea. Abyssea being whittled down to four ~ six "useful" jobs total and VWNM's being fun yet unrewarding. In both events I tend to be ridiculously busy and constantly changing tactics / roles. It's not easy and it's not cheap but it's hella fun.

[Ophannus]

RDM historically is not supposed to be the best at anything, but SE gave us the highest enfeebling/enhancing skill in the game. The problem is we're not even the best enhancer, we're actually the worst. And we are the best enfeebler except we aren't; at least only if a job as a whole can be defined as 'the best' solely by their merit abilities. Unlike WHM which gets the best cure spells without merits, RDM only gets the best enfeebles through merits which means all the other enfeebles are whored out to WHM and BLM and SCH. The only enfeeble RDM gets that no other job has is Gravity, which incidentally 90% of NMs are immune to. No other job relies so hard on merits as RDM does. It would be like if all mages had Cure IV and Cure V was a WHM merit spell that was only a little stronger than Cure IV.

[Psxpert2011]

PLAY THE WAY YOU WANT!

Don't shy yourself from other jobs either because their abilities and traits can benefit Red Mage if you're using 'em for subs.

Remember, Rdm is half mage and half fighter, that's why most people would say "level all of your jobs".

It takes skill to be a good rdm, not just time. Take time to explore the world, make friends, learn how they would play and learn the job but play your own way.

People don't make the rules, there's only deductions of what works the best. Through trial and error, battles can be won soloing or within a party.

Most people you dictate how you should play probably don't enjoy to die hence they hate failing a lot. Part of a good win is failing first than learning from your errors. When you go back, you decide how many times you want to repay that monster and pound it! (hehehe)

Goodluck, enjoy and have fun!

[Convictions]

Thanks everyone. I had to ask simply because this is my first time playing Final Fantasy XI and I wanted to get the most out of the game, and that includes end-game content which I am very keen to experience. I just don't want to be turned away from such oppourtunities simply because of my Job.

I must admit, trying to pick a job out of the amount there are is like trying to decide a life-changing decision hahaha. I still have no idea what to pick.

[Solonuke]

When it comes to meleeing during endgame, I think the biggest problem is not that your damage isn't worth it but the fact that 90% of the monsters in this game screams "don't tp this!". After meleeing quite a few Isgebinds with my LS I thought meleeing didn't seem bad. You won't be taking much damage from AoEs as RDMs gets access to stoneskin, shell and magic defense bonus traits. When it comes to resisting enfeebles, it helps out capping the magic skill while using enspells that reduces the monster's resistance to a specific element and use death blossom for reduced magic evasion. Capping enhancing now helps out on temper and gain-spells which helps out while meleeing.

RDM melee is probably the most discussed thing about this game and the discussion has been going on ever since the game was released. 9 years of whether or not a RDM should use its sword or not somehow sounds really funny to me.

[Crimson_Slasher]

Ophannus, Not to pick a fight but i have something interesting about history in Final Fantasy now. As of recent i began playing back through FF3 and ive found some interesting things. Now to be clear, this may be the third game in final fantasy, but this game marks the return of the classes formerly seen in FF1, a sort of "Second coming" of RDM/WHM/WAR/MNK/THF/BLM jobs, and due to the class change system, no character is set in stone, as well as many other classes. However upon starting a new file, ive noticed, that in this second incarnation that a lot of jobs have changed sharply from what we saw in FF1. In this game, i found a warrior very impotent for damage (by design) as well as a redmage able to match/surpass them (with help of gear availible to both). Now when it comes to endgame in FF3, from my research, most of those jobs, excluding RDM arent recomended, because there is a direct improved version of each (Viking/DRK/DRG over war, Devout over whm, Magus over Blm, Black Belt over mnk, and Nin over Thf) But baring onion-knight (who is a pseudo-all job) there is nothing that rdm moves into, and as that game is nearly all dependant on gear with only a little initial value factored in, rdm does quite well. In fact, rdm has access to some of the most broken gear and is very endgame worthy where DRK and WAR struggle to even cope with endgame, granted this is a far older game, and is highly limited, but it truely shows potential when my RDM has been very powerful and useful from square one, all the way to the 3rd crystal (and set of job unlocks.) So just my two cents. Course if we were to take a page from the O-Knight for ffxi's adjustments to rdm, we could see what a real broken job could be heh.

Just a bit since a lot keep coming back to rdm in history and nobody can decide if it was good or passable melee in old games. In FF1, passable, FF3, very good at endgame, FF5, dont recall, thats next on my list. FFTA/A2, very good/passable.

[cidbahamut]

Thanks everyone. I had to ask simply because this is my first time playing Final Fantasy XI and I wanted to get the most out of the game, and that includes end-game content which I am very keen to experience. I just don't want to be turned away from such oppourtunities simply because of my Job.

I must admit, trying to pick a job out of the amount there are is like trying to decide a life-changing decision hahaha. I still have no idea what to pick.

The best advice I can give you then, is to level a job you enjoy. Find a job that's fun and run with it. If you find a job you love to play you'll do better with it than any flavor-of-the-month job people tell you to pick. When you love a job you're less likely to half-ass it. A well geared and well played job will always have a niche in end game. The worst thing you can do is level a job that's good in the meta-game, but one that you don't enjoy. You'll end up half-assing it, and good end game shells will call you out on it and you'll be sad.

TL;DR: Find a job you enjoy. Level it and don't look back.

[Nezha]

If I could convence you of playing any job it would be Puppetmaster. I have played all 20 jobs and I must say it has the most "depth" of all the jobs in my opinion. That being said it is NOT an easy job to play and requires you to know the mechanics of Overload/Burden/Automaton A.I. (how your Automaton thinks so to speak)/as well as the strengths and weakness of each pet and the master himself to perform optimally, but after the new PUPdate it will be relatively "easier" and more enjoyable to play than ever. It is a very cool job that draws its strength through versatility and in my opinion is as strong as the Master is creative! I don't know how much you know about the Puppetmaster, but most people think it is weak because they failed at it themselves, but I promise, once you do learn it, you can solo Monsters that alliances fall before! Too bad your not on Fenrir :/, but if you ever do come, you've got a friend!

~Nezha (PUP from day one till the end of FFXI)

[Felren]

Rdm is a great job adept at enfeebling monsters. Paralyze II/Slow II/blind II on a monster inhibits it to a fair degree.

However, high end NMs are completely immune to usually 1-3 of these important enfeebles, and extremely resistant to the rest to the degree that red mage's niche is not used. This is why rdm sucks, because SE made them useless on most monsters.

[autobot]

I would say your best bet is to try them all, at least to 50. You can solo all jobs now (yes some are easier than others) if you need to.

Playing all jobs not only gives you all available sub jobs but it also teaches you about the other jobs so when you party with them you will know what they can and cant do. A good example of this is THF. Anyone who plays thf knows how frustrating it can be to try to get off a sneak attack without the person moving and ruining it. Someone who has played THF knows whats going on and can help the THF in your party get his sneak attack off without moving out the way at the last second.

And by the time you hit 50 you have seen a lot of the world, gained a great deal of experience playing the game and know if the job is right for you.

I personally started off playing whm, then moved to smn, and found my favorite job in dnc. Still I have leveled each job and found things i like/dislike. If you want to find the job that's good for you just start with a job, play it and if you like it great, if not pick something else until you do. Don't be afraid to level something you would like to do based off other peoples opinions. It might also be a good idea to check out the job list here http://ffxi.gamerescape.com/wiki/Category:Jobs read what the jobs do, look at their spells/abilities and see if anything interests you.

[lllen]

I agree with Autobot. In todays world of FFXI doing and trying all jobs to 50 is not a bad idea, plus you will have alot of available subs...lol.

I started 4.5 years ago as a RDM, it was my main job, but I used a sword/dagger and by lvl 30 started Nin and had 2 swords/daggers. It was a time when RDM's were cure haste refresh whores, so I kept my dd side in Campaign starting at 60. But I was due for a big wake up call at my lvl break....Had to fight Maat and didn't know how to do it magically, had a lot to learn fast and of course RDM is the hardest of the Maat fights.

I have since opened all jobs, some great, some good, some ok, a couple are still lvl 5. Rdm is still the love of my life, but it remains in the MH with full Af3, some +2 stuff. Whm and Blm both now 95 people love them, Nin and Thf I live on them when not in party. Blu is a great job also, magical and dd all in one, getting the spells was fun, also something to do back when no one wanted us. Now we can proc and we can get into parties in abyssea. I have 91 Rdm (last of the list to lvl up), 95 Blm, Whm, Blu, Thf, Nin, Sam, working on Mnk, Bst, War.

Just remember, combat and magic must be capped, you can lvl faster now but learn the job, learn to use your abilities and stay as capped as you can....one day my Parry will be capped (I keep telling myself it will happen).


p.s. don't judge a job by its lower levels, I swore I would never take nin past 37...omg I love it now. In fact I said not past 37 about a lot of my lvl 95 jobs. By 50, you will have gotten a taste of that which is yet to come.

[saevel]

When it comes to meleeing during endgame, I think the biggest problem is not that your damage isn't worth it but the fact that 90% of the monsters in this game screams "don't tp this!". After meleeing quite a few Isgebinds with my LS I thought meleeing didn't seem bad. You won't be taking much damage from AoEs as RDMs gets access to stoneskin, shell and magic defense bonus traits. When it comes to resisting enfeebles, it helps out capping the magic skill while using enspells that reduces the monster's resistance to a specific element and use death blossom for reduced magic evasion. Capping enhancing now helps out on temper and gain-spells which helps out while meleeing.

RDM melee is probably the most discussed thing about this game and the discussion has been going on ever since the game was released. 9 years of whether or not a RDM should use its sword or not somehow sounds really funny to me.

Not arguing but we've already found out that the "TP Feed" argument is no longer valid on big NM class monsters. Turns out that after seeing a bunch of DNC and MNK's running around soloing things SE just said "screw it" and gave all the new NM's the ability to do a special move without TP. That or they have 40+ TP/tick regain. There was a time when we kited Kaggan around for a few min and with nobody hitting him and no damage being done he was spamming TP moves (jumping mostly as I never stayed in range, but occasionally the aoe mucus move). SE really has thrown out all semblance of balance on NMs and just plain cheats now.

[Greatguardian]

Honestly, OP, I think trying all jobs to level 50 is a TERRIBLE idea. I'll explain why without taking up an entire page and making you read through a bunch of crap.

Simply: Jobs do NOT play anywhere remotely similar to the same way at level 50 as they do at level 95 and in Endgame. Period. Gaining experience in EXP amounts to knowing how to EXP really well. It doesn't amount to being able to perform the functions that jobs perform in Endgame well, because Endgame and EXP are not even remotely similar.

The best advice I can give you is to tell us what sort of job you want to play in Endgame, and then we can give you a better idea of what job you may want to try out. "EVERYONE IS GOOD AT EVERYTHING AND EVERYTHING IS GOOD AND YOU CAN'T TELL ME HOW TO PLAY" is just outdated tripe that doesn't actually do you any good. If you want to play a certain way and be effective at doing something in actual Endgame content, I can give you a decent recommendation of what job may be the best way of accomplishing that. Regardless, it's probably not Red Mage either way.

[Greatguardian]

The best part of it all, really, is even if you pick a job and end up not liking it, leveling a second job becomes extraordinarily easy.

[Ophannus]

Red Mage was terribad in FF1. My Monk and Warrior do like 3x more damage than it and my RDM has Masamune. My RDM hits for like 300-500 and my WAR and MNK hit for like 1700. In FF3 RDM is crap too, its stat gain sucks and it only learns like up to level 4 magic. Any melee outdamages it because their weapon selection sucks badly(in the original, I know nothing of how they rebalanced it in the DS version. In FF5 RDM was actually awesome until the middle of the game when Blue Mage, Geomancer and Summoner rock it death. RDM's only good feature is Double Cast which is a half decent sub ability(but Blue Magic is far superior because White Wind> Cure IIx2)

[saevel]

Red Mage was terribad in FF1. My Monk and Warrior do like 3x more damage than it and my RDM has Masamune. My RDM hits for like 300-500 and my WAR and MNK hit for like 1700. In FF3 RDM is crap too, its stat gain sucks and it only learns like up to level 4 magic. Any melee outdamages it because their weapon selection sucks badly(in the original, I know nothing of how they rebalanced it in the DS version. In FF5 RDM was actually awesome until the middle of the game when Blue Mage, Geomancer and Summoner rock it death. RDM's only good feature is Double Cast which is a half decent sub ability(but Blue Magic is far superior because White Wind> Cure IIx2)


Umm which versions of FF are you talking about, because that is NOT what I've experienced the past few months (I'm replaying the older ones right now). FF1 on PSX / GBA got a HUGE re-balance, their on all the good gear now. RDM gets Defender / Sun Sword and it's own special Deathbringer sword. With Masamune he'll do more then the Excal fighter. What your talking about, that 300~500 vs 1700 is an unbuffed RDM vs a Temper Hasted Monk. In the NES version the damage calculations favored MNK heavily, they basically got 2x the hits of everyone else and 4x once hasted. In the GBA remake they severely nerfed MNK and made magic resistance a much bigger part of the game (it's a hidden stat). MNK is still good but it's no where near as godly as it was before. They also buffed THF/NIN big time, it's basically as strong as a Fighter but with less defense but faster agility and more evasion. They redid the magic system to a MP based system instead of magic level points, thus RDM can easily nuke or heal along with meleeing although it's lack of aoe cures makes it a really bad idea to main heal on late game boss fights. Basically your going to have RDM or BLM in the third party slot, BLM having bigger nukes but RDM being able to melee and cure along with nuking and haste / temper casting (absolute MUST for late game boss fights).


FF3 again is different from NES vs DS. In NES each job upgraded to another job with ALL melee jobs "upgrading" to Ninja at the very end, all mage jobs upgraded with RDM's being to the "Sage" (able to cast all magic but limited points). RDM was a good melee in the beginning but later you swapped it out for a dedicated caster or melee. Infact the jobs you used changed as the game went on because it forced to do this you via gear acquisition. In the DS remake they threw all that out the window, Ninja was nerfed gearly, it's basically just an upgrade to Thief. RDM got buffed like crazy and put on most of the late game gear, including Excal and other super swords. RDM's stat gain was buffed and no longer resembles the Black Mage. Red Mage's "special" card item is the Crimson Vest which gives +10 to all stats, combined with the Excal and Ultima Blade the Red Mage can get +30 to all it's stats. They also redid the job level system, JL isn't only used for determining the number of fights your "weakened" its used to calculate your damage, accuracy, evasion and critical hit rate.

FF5 (what I'm playing now) is pretty much the same story, SE redid the game and buffed the previously neglected jobs like RDM / Bard / Dancer / Geomancer and such. RDM's stats resemble a Black / White Mage unless your equip a melee orientated alternate option like DW / 2H / Focus / ect. The system is now that your main job will gain the status bonus associated with that sub ability provided its not bigger then the main jobs current stat bonus. RDM being -STR and +INT means that it naturaly starts with lower STR and greater INT then that character would have, but if the melee secondary has +STR then it ignores the -STR on RDM and replaces it with the subs bonus. So if I put DW or 2H and use Enhancers (best sword until you go into the post-game areas) then the Red Mage gets really good melee options. Although the lack of L4/L5 magic means it's casting becomes severely limited late game. And honestly, late game FFV is about boosting Freelancer and Mine out the wazo. No job compares to what those two jobs become. BLU's white wind requires the BLU be at high hitpoints, otherwise it's just an expensive cura. Later on the boss's will hit you with MT damage attacks for 1~2K and put everyone into low HP. Curaga becomes vastly more effective for healing everyone. Because of this RDM really just becomes another WHM / BLM later on, it can equip both the sage staff (+50% holy damage) and Magus rod (+50% fire/ice/lightening/wind/poison damage) but not the rune bell (+50% to all except water).

Overall in every FF game Red Mage becomes a strong starting / mid game character but weaker in late game but then super again (except FFV) in post-game events. It's primary strength being that it's flexible and able to melee dungeon monsters and heal / support during mega boss fights.

[Greatguardian]

And here we demonstrate yet another one of Red Mage's biggest forum weaknesses. People like to relate FFXI online mechanics to Old FF single player mechanics and get huffy when the jobs don't play the same way.

If I hear "But Red Mage could do XXX in FF# so it should do it here" one more time, I'm going to slap a ho.

[Ophannus]

I;d even rate Mystic Knight more useful than RDM. Giving a Mystic Knight Double-Cast obliterates RDM completely.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

And here we demonstrate yet another one of Red Mage's biggest forum weaknesses. People like to relate FFXI online mechanics to Old FF single player mechanics and get huffy when the jobs don't play the same way.

If I hear "But Red Mage could do XXX in FF# so it should do it here" one more time, I'm going to slap a ho.

In fairness, if they didn't want people to do that they'd have done like FFXIV and not added the actual jobs names in it (not including that they're now)

[cidbahamut]

In fairness, if they didn't want people to do that they'd have done like FFXIV and not added the actual jobs names in it (not including that they're now)

Bullshit.

Look at Summoner. Now look at Rydia. Now look at Summoner again. Sadly Summoner is not Rydia.

[Greatguardian]

In fairness, if they didn't want people to do that they'd have done like FFXIV and not added the actual jobs names in it (not including that they're now)

Or maybe they just overestimated their playerbase when making the game.

The reason they changed names for XIV in the first place was likely because of all the crap they had to put up with in XI, since players seemed functionally incapable of telling the difference between offline and online games and completely independent titles in the same "series".

This is also fairly well represented by the absolutely massive player misunderstanding of the Job system. The Devs never wanted people to pick "Main" jobs. It's fairly obvious, when looking at game content and the Dev's actions over the past 8 years, that they didn't want people to try and push their "Favorite" job into a situation where it's useless or wasteful. When a situation calls for NIN NIN BLM, they expect players to go to their Mog House and change to NIN NIN BLM.

People who understand that this is "An MMORPG that uses the name Final Fantasy and happens to share somewhat familiar class names" and not "The eleventh Final Fantasy game which derives its elements from the previous ten" are at a significant advantage over their peers.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

This is also fairly well represented by the absolutely massive player misunderstanding of the Job system. The Devs never wanted people to pick "Main" jobs. It's fairly obvious, when looking at game content and the Dev's actions over the past 8 years, that they didn't want people to try and push their "Favorite" job into a situation where it's useless or wasteful. When a situation calls for NIN NIN BLM, they expect players to go to their Mog House and change to NIN NIN BLM.

Which goes out the window when they handle the game like they have FFXI.

Make a game with 20 Jobs - check
Ability to change equipment for every action - check
Make content that requires you to constantly change jobs - check
Give a ridiculously limited amount of storage space to do all of this - check

[Neisan_Quetz]

Ps2 Limitations.

Also they've been alleviating storage concerns quite a bit lately, with Porter moogles and allowing you to mail some r/ex items to mules.

[Greatguardian]

Ps2 Limitations.

Also they've been alleviating storage concerns quite a bit lately, with Porter moogles and allowing you to mail some r/ex items to mules.

This ^. The PS2 can't hold more than 160 items in RAM at the same time, effectively limiting player inventory to 80 slots per "Unit".

For some reason, the Devs also seemed to vastly underestimate how much effort players would put into their gear swaps. When you look at test server videos or dev videos, you see the test characters sitting around in atrocious gear and barely blinking at all.

In general, you essentially had a team that was unprepared to deal with the realities of an MMORPG. A lot of "Early" MMOs had similar problems as well. Was it Ultima Online where one of the Devs logged into his character on a world to give an interview and forgot to turn Invincibility on, only to be repeatedly MPK'd by the playerbase?

[Daniel_Hatcher]

This ^. The PS2 can't hold more than 160 items in RAM at the same time, effectively limiting player inventory to 80 slots per "Unit".

For some reason, the Devs also seemed to vastly underestimate how much effort players would put into their gear swaps. When you look at test server videos or dev videos, you see the test characters sitting around in atrocious gear and barely blinking at all.

In general, you essentially had a team that was unprepared to deal with the realities of an MMORPG. A lot of "Early" MMOs had similar problems as well. Was it Ultima Online where one of the Devs logged into his character on a world to give an interview and forgot to turn Invincibility on, only to be repeatedly MPK'd by the playerbase?

I don't doubt that PS2 Limitations are the issue, but they must have figured out to some degree if they added 20 jobs there'd be issues.

Lets look at it realistically, even if you only have one set for every job in you'd just be under the cap on items (not including Satchel) surely someone at SE would have seen that beforehand and figured out a method to counteract this.

Also the limitations only go so far as an excuse, they can add more an more sections like Satchel, Safe and so on when they run out. Where they fail is by NOT allowing you to macro from any of these sections.


Ps2 Limitations.

Also they've been alleviating storage concerns quite a bit lately, with Porter moogles and allowing you to mail some r/ex items to mules.

Porter moogles are fine but rather limiting, and with the new Relic+2 equipment coming will most likely not be storable. mailing r/ex items to separate characters are good but I hate paying more money to store items on another character and having to jump back and forth to get gear.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Well for me I use it for r/ex pieces I can't stand tossing but still won't be using anytime soon/at all, like Widowmaker.

I'll make a judgment on Relic+2 after augments are revealed, I can't see more than a few pieces being useful still.

[saevel]

I;d even rate Mystic Knight more useful than RDM. Giving a Mystic Knight Double-Cast obliterates RDM completely.

Oh... now you've proven you've never actually played this game for any length of time. Mystic Knight is one of the strongest class's in the game, SpellBlade can do things no other job can especially if it's paired with Rapid Shot. RS is 4x attacks but at 1/2 attack power, the attacks will have 100% accuracy. SB allows to you attribute an element to your attacks ~and~ adds the base spell power to your attack power. When combined the SP addition is after the 1/2 of RS but before the 2x bonus for elemental weakness. Basically you can do 9999 x 4 in one attack round. When equiped on Free Lancer you can do 9999 x 8 in one attack round. This strategy is critical to beating Omega and Omega MK2 as both iterations have 90% physical evasion and 90% magic evasion along with permanent shell, protect and reflect. It actually works on many super boss's. Flare SB is the exception as it adds a flat +50 AP after the 1/2 RS reduction and makes your weapon non-elemental type.

And why the hell would you put DC onto a Mystic Knight? You put DC onto a BLM or WHM or better yet, onto your Mime who is White Lance DC or White Black DC.

Anywho I'm not trying to compare FFXI to previous FF's, just correcting some of the misunderstandings, or downright lies, of the RDM history in previous games. FFXI is a completely different beast, you can play yourself but you can't play the other five people in your party.

[Crimson_Slasher]

Or maybe they just overestimated their playerbase when making the game.

The reason they changed names for XIV in the first place was likely because of all the crap they had to put up with in XI, since players seemed functionally incapable of telling the difference between offline and online games and completely independent titles in the same "series".

This is also fairly well represented by the absolutely massive player misunderstanding of the Job system. The Devs never wanted people to pick "Main" jobs. It's fairly obvious, when looking at game content and the Dev's actions over the past 8 years, that they didn't want people to try and push their "Favorite" job into a situation where it's useless or wasteful. When a situation calls for NIN NIN BLM, they expect players to go to their Mog House and change to NIN NIN BLM.

People who understand that this is "An MMORPG that uses the name Final Fantasy and happens to share somewhat familiar class names" and not "The eleventh Final Fantasy game which derives its elements from the previous ten" are at a significant advantage over their peers.

That last statement was just plain ignorant. It very much is the eleventh final fantasy which derives its elements from the others. A white mage is a healer, it wasnt morphed into some abomination. Black mages didnt become melees, monks arent slinging magic, summoners dont enfeeble the monsters only. This game was strongly molded on concepts of old, from airships and chocobos and ferrys used to travel, down to the monsters we love to hate. If the game shared very little with other games, id support that statement, but the game was an experiment at taking the games of old and evolving them into something for online mmo fame. There are far more things this game has in common with older final fantasy games than with just about any other mmo. Most statements you make actually have some merit, and make sense, even if i dissagree, but its not "somewhat familiar class names" its identical class names, and the classes look and behave majorly like they did ancestorally. And hell even if rdm wasnt good at X in old games, or if it indeed was, that doesnt stop players from wanting things to be improved in the current game.

And thats what this forum is for, to let our thoughts be shared and heard. If they dont want to hear them, they wont, but im going to be frank here. We have seen if they like an idea, they will just do it even if most people want it or not. We as players should remind them of the game's roots, and should point out glaring flaws. That said, i am sorry to have attacked you for this, because nothing comes of that, but i just couldnt help but show where i felt you were ignoring too much of the final fantasy fandom that many of us enjoy, we play ffxi to enjoy the game and feel that nostalgia. /end-rant

[Seriha]

If the evolution of remade games and RDM is any indication, it seems SE certainly has a history of dropping the ball with first iterations. Either way, forsaking the franchise roots would basically turn the game into a random generic fantasy MMO instead of an FF title. At which point, it's a matter of thematic evolution and some being okay with discarding and recreating concepts. The latter is a dangerous philosophy to adopt.

[Greatguardian]

I'm not sure you understand how limiting it is to be tied down to previous iterations of games in the creative process. FFXI, just like FFXIV succeeding it, tried very hard to "Be its own game". It is not just "The Eleventh Final Fantasy", it is "Final Fantasy XI, the MMO".

Do you have any idea how demoralizing it is to go into a project with a grand vision, only to have that vision scorned because it was different from some other guy's vision 10 years ago? The Final Fantasy series has never been a cohesive, sequential unit. Final Fantasy XI shared its title with its predecessors, nothing more. In-game terminology was designed in such a way that it would be familiar to fans of the series, but that did not mean that the game was designed to be similar to previous iterations of the franchise.

What Red Mage or Warrior or Time mage was able to do in FFMCLVIII doesn't mean jack shit in the context of FFXI. Each game is its own entity. If you want a CloneMO, go use RPGmaker or something and build your own.

[Seriha]

I'm sure the guys who played baseball back in the day would be appalled by its evolution.

Unfortunately, you're okay with not wanting to play baseball as long as there's a game and feel compelled to shove that point down the throats of others. Your "limitations" while honoring those roots are only as small as your imagination. Fortunately, video games aren't so grounded in rules like reality.

Or maybe I should be calling this Spunkwustler? Then again, I need to remember I'm talking to the guy who'd be okay with Monks being married to ranged weapons if it somehow meant they did more damage than with their fists.

[saevel]

That last statement was just plain ignorant. It very much is the eleventh final fantasy which derives its elements from the others. A white mage is a healer, it wasnt morphed into some abomination. Black mages didnt become melees, monks arent slinging magic, summoners dont enfeeble the monsters only. This game was strongly molded on concepts of old, from airships and chocobos and ferrys used to travel, down to the monsters we love to hate. If the game shared very little with other games, id support that statement, but the game was an experiment at taking the games of old and evolving them into something for online mmo fame. There are far more things this game has in common with older final fantasy games than with just about any other mmo. Most statements you make actually have some merit, and make sense, even if i dissagree, but its not "somewhat familiar class names" its identical class names, and the classes look and behave majorly like they did ancestorally. And hell even if rdm wasnt good at X in old games, or if it indeed was, that doesnt stop players from wanting things to be improved in the current game.

And thats what this forum is for, to let our thoughts be shared and heard. If they dont want to hear them, they wont, but im going to be frank here. We have seen if they like an idea, they will just do it even if most people want it or not. We as players should remind them of the game's roots, and should point out glaring flaws. That said, i am sorry to have attacked you for this, because nothing comes of that, but i just couldnt help but show where i felt you were ignoring too much of the final fantasy fandom that many of us enjoy, we play ffxi to enjoy the game and feel that nostalgia. /end-rant

+1,

This pretty much. FFXI wouldn't be called "Final Fantasy" without the job system from FFI / III / V / Tactics and sorta-kinda X-2. The job system is what defined game mechanics of Final Fantasy, its the whole reason FFI was able to save SquareSoft and prevent them from going into bankruptcy. People like GG and co don't even know why it was called "Final Fantasy". At the time Square had released several failed games for the Japanese Famicon and was pretty much out of money. As a last ditch effort they decided to make a Role Playing Game, something they were originally hesitant about due to Enix's crushing market share / popularity with Dragon Quest. So in the end they said "screw it" and decided that instead of a pre-made generic fantasy RPG they would instead put ~YOU~ the player as the main character and have you decide the main characters of the story and their unique jobs. They created six different class's yet only four party slots, thus guaranteeing that you'd want to reply it again with a different setup for a different experience. It was named Final Fantasy because it would be their final game and would be a fantasy RPG. It was a smash success and saved the company from default, its sequels are some of the highest selling fantasy RPG's every made. They were so successful that they eventually bought out their main competitor, Enix, and became Square Enix. The six original jobs were Fighter (Warrior), Monk, Thief, Red Mage, White Mage, Black Mage.

To try to ignore those past success's would be ignorant at best, down right dishonest at worst. Just because you have players only playing one member of a group does not invalidate the job system nor the concepts of those jobs. If your thinking this then go back to playing WoW, DAOC, or one of the many MANY fantasy MMO's in the marketplace.

Seriha's right, we don't have Black Mages wielding great axe's and wearing heavy armor. We don't have White Mages wielding swords nor spamming Flare / elemental nukes. We don't have thief's calling pets. Each job has both a theme and a concept, most of them work pretty well, some of them SE messed up during the execution phase (Summoner big time).

[cidbahamut]

They were so successful that they eventually bought out their main competitor, Enix, and became Square Enix.
Wrong. Squaresoft was financially in hole after blowing all their money on Spirits Within and the merge with Enix saved them. Square most definitely did not buy Enix out.

[Crimson_Slasher]

Wikipedia:

The company has made two forays into the film industry. The first, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001), was produced by Square subsidiary Square Pictures prior to the merger (Square Pictures is now a consolidated subsidiary of Square Enix).[46] Its box-office failure caused Enix to delay the merger, which was already considered before the creation of the film, for fear of associating itself with a company that loses money.[47] In 2005, Square Enix released Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, a CGI-animation movie based on the PlayStation game Final Fantasy VII, set two years after the events of the game.

Take from that what you will.

[saevel]

Wrong. Squaresoft was financially in hole after blowing all their money on Spirits Within and the merge with Enix saved them. Square most definitely did not buy Enix out.

Umm ... WTF over?

You realize that Squaresoft was worth many times more then Enix right? And that Enix had been barely floating for years prior to the merger.

And WTH is this crap about "losing all their money...", SWI was SE testing / showcasing new CGI technology. They didn't actually intend to make much money on that movie. FFVII AC on the other hand was intended to make money, and it did. Squaresoft has been swimming in cash for years now, they've several extremely successful IP's with the biggest being the Final Fantasy series. They also have Seiken Densetsu (Secret of Mana) and the Crono series along with various other minor productions. These guys rarely lose money with a RPG, which is why FFXIV was such a shocker to their management.

It's just mind boggling that people thought of Enix as the bigger of the two. Their Dragon Quest series was in decline and the only big seller was the monster raising spin off they did, it cached in on the whole pokemon craze. Enix's biggest issue was that it was mostly a Japanese only company, very few of it's titles were released overseas and usually not for a year+ and often to luke warm reception. Merging with Squaresoft allowed them to rebrand their IP's and successfully market them to international audiences. Dragon Quest IX is a perfect example of this, it's Enix's old DQ line but anyone playing it can easily spot the Squaresoft influence. In the end Squaresoft bought out Enix and merged with them rather then make them a subsidiary.

[cidbahamut]

Umm ... WTF over?

You realize that Squaresoft was worth many times more then Enix right? And that Enix had been barely floating for years prior to the merger.

And WTH is this crap about "losing all their money...", SWI was SE testing / showcasing new CGI technology. They didn't actually intend to make much money on that movie.

The way I've always heard it was that the engine for Spirits Within cost them a fortune and when the movie tanked they came dangerously close to bankruptcy. If you've got some reading material to the contrary I'd be glad to take a look.

[saevel]

You do realize that Enix was on the verge of going bankrupt in 2001 right?


Merger with Square

In June 2001, Enix expressed interest in partnering with both Square and Namco in online ventures to deal with mounting development costs.[11] That same month, Enix invested in the company Game Arts, acquiring ¥99.2 million worth of stock shares in order to publish the latter's Grandia series.[12] Despite Enix's marketing of Dragon Quest VII in 1999, the game was delayed numerous times and not released until 2000. As a result the game didn't (as had been expected) contribute to the fiscal year 1999, cutting the company's previous profit-to-sales ratio in half and causing its stock value to drop by 40% in early 2000.[5][13] Enix was further hurt by a delay of Dragon Quest Monsters 2 in Japan in 2001, dropping its first-half 2001 fiscal year profit by 89.71%.[14]

Enix's competitor Square also suffered financially in 2001, mainly from the box office failure of its feature film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. This made Enix hesitant to join with the company.[15] However, it was announced on November 26, 2002 that the two companies would merge the following year in order to mutually decrease development costs and to compete with foreign developers.[16] The merge was delayed until April 1 2003, when the new merged entity Square Enix came into being.[1] The merger between Enix and Square had apparently been considered since at least 2000.[15]

They screwed up DQ VII and Monsters II and had little cash on hand and interest was puttering out on it's products. Enix also doesn't have an internal development study, they hold IP only and instead hire out to outside development studios to make their products. DQ was actually made by Chunsoft.

Squaresoft has it's own development studio's and prefers to keep everything in-house. So even though SWI was a commercial failure (technical success though) it didn't put a ding into their cash reserves nor did it effect the market value of their various products. Squaresoft could of walked away from Enix and still kept on producing Final Fantasys, Mana's and just about anything else they wanted. Enix on the other hand was looking to insolvency if they couldn't produce a successful product soon. Without the merger Enix would of either went under, or split its video game division off (it's Manga division makes a decent profit).

About SWI

Square Pictures rendered the film using some of the most advanced processing capabilities available for film animating at the time. A render farm consisting of 960 workstations was tasked with rendering each of the film's 141,964 frames. It took a staff of 200 and some four years to complete the film. Square intended to make the character of Aki Ross into the world's first photorealistic computer-animated actress, with plans for appearances in multiple films in different roles.

The Spirits Within debuted to mixed critical reception, but was widely praised for the realism of the computer-animated characters. Due to rising costs, the film greatly exceeded its original budget towards the end of production, reaching a final cost of US$137 million, of which it made back only $85 million at the box office. The film is blamed for the demise of Square Pictures,[2] and has been called a box office bomb.[3]

Horrible idea for a video game company to make a movie on it's own, technology wise they had it down pact, but story and script was pretty bad. It was a techno demo that never should of made it to a movie.

[Arcon]

That last statement was just plain ignorant. It very much is the eleventh final fantasy which derives its elements from the others.

This statement is completely ignorant of the actual problem that's being addressed here. It's about which elements are being derived from previous Final Fantasy games. Are the games all the same, just because most of them have Shiva, Ifrit, Chocobos, Airships and Cid? Those elements are all added for nostalgia's sake, as a nod to previous titles (as indicated by the fact that they look/behave differently every time). Same goes for job names. But those are not gameplay elements, SE needed six different classes, so they took one of the few FF games that actually had classes to borrow their names from, that's all there is to it. Again, even they behave differently, which they had to, because online games have inherently different mechanics to implement than offline games. Sure there are still similarities, but that's coincidental. Are you saying DNC is based on WoW priests, because both have the ability to heal a player? There are certain mechanics they just have to implement, if a coincidental similarity arises you can't go around and start making up relations where there are none.

And the funny thing is, even if there were similarities at some point during the design, it's still not the same. You can't make all offline content work in this environment. SE knew that too, they still know it and make the jobs with massively multiplayer content in mind (even when they screw up), not with the roots of their jobs. Do you think any ability at all makes the devs wonder "How was this used in some old game?" instead of "How could this be used now?"? If you do, you're insulting SE by accusing them of shitty game design.


FFXI wouldn't be called "Final Fantasy" without the job system from FFI / III / V / Tactics and sorta-kinda X-2.

Yes, it would. And it doesn't have the job system from any of those. What other "similarities" did you find? That you can increase your character's strengths from getting experience by defeating monsters? Guess it's been stealing from every other RPG in existance then? You do realize that Final Fantasy games strive to be as different as they can from previous games? SE takes this principle to all extremes, even removing good features in upcoming games, just because they want something different (see the Auction House in XIV). Honestly, I'm thinking they're running out of ideas. They even wanted something different than "levels", so they removed them in X and had a different system in place. For XIV, they tried "two different kinds of levels" and hence the physical level was born. SE's compulsive obsession with inventing new gameplay elements should be a major clue that any game mechanic resembling older games in the series is purely coincidental, disregarding the nods to older lore content, as I mentioned before.

[saevel]

The way I've always heard it was that the engine for Spirits Within cost them a fortune and when the movie tanked they came dangerously close to bankruptcy. If you've got some reading material to the contrary I'd be glad to take a look.

Tanked? SE has tons of cash on hand. Square Pictures made the movie, SP was a wholly earned subsidiary of Squaresoft, basically a company specifically made to produce this movie. When the movie lost money (137 mil cost, 85 mil return on investment) Square-soft decided that going into movies on their own was a bad idea and canned the subsidiary company. Square themselves were no where near financial trouble, they could of just made another CT or Xenogears and made money. The cost overruns were due to rendering technology at that time not being advanced enough to actually make this movie. Square had been used to making short FMV's for games and underestimated the amount of CPU work required to render a full production movie. They had all of zero experience doing actual movies and made mistakes. Modern render farms are powerful enough to produce full length movies using Squaresoft's photo-realistic technology, hence FFVII AC took less time then SWI.

[saevel]

This statement is completely ignorant of the actual problem that's being addressed here. It's about which elements are being derived from previous Final Fantasy games. Are the games all the same, just because most of them have Shiva, Ifrit, Chocobos, Airships and Cid? Those elements are all added for nostalgia's sake, as a nod to previous titles (as indicated by the fact that they look/behave differently every time). Same goes for job names. But those are not gameplay elements, SE needed six different classes, so they took one of the few FF games that actually had classes to borrow their names from, that's all there is to it. Again, even they behave differently, which they had to, because online games have inherently different mechanics to implement than offline games. Sure there are still similarities, but that's coincidental. Are you saying DNC is based on WoW priests, because both have the ability to heal a player? There are certain mechanics they just have to implement, if a coincidental similarity arises you can't go around and start making up relations where there are none.

And the funny thing is, even if there were similarities at some point during the design, it's still not the same. You can't make all offline content work in this environment. SE knew that too, they still know it and make the jobs with massively multiplayer content in mind (even when they screw up), not with the roots of their jobs. Do you think any ability at all makes the devs wonder "How was this used in some old game?" instead of "How could this be used now?"? If you do, you're insulting SE by accusing them of shitty game design.



Yes, it would. And it doesn't have the job system from any of those. What other "similarities" did you find? That you can increase your character's strengths from getting experience by defeating monsters? Guess it's been stealing from every other RPG in existance then? You do realize that Final Fantasy games strive to be as different as they can from previous games? SE takes this principle to all extremes, even removing good features in upcoming games, just because they want something different (see the Auction House in XIV). Honestly, I'm thinking they're running out of ideas. They even wanted something different than "levels", so they removed them in X and had a different system in place. For XIV, they tried "two different kinds of levels" and hence the physical level was born. SE's compulsive obsession with inventing new gameplay elements should be a major clue that any game mechanic resembling older games in the series is purely coincidental, disregarding the nods to older lore content, as I mentioned before.

Depends on the Final Fantasy. FF I / III / V / Tactics / X-2 (if we can call that a FF) / Tactics Advanced / Tactics A-2 / FFXI all pull from the same Job system. The names and core concepts of these jobs are pretty much the same from each game to the next.

Fighter / Warrior -> Use's various weapons to physically attack monsters and protect their friends (Guard / Provoke)
Knight / Paladin -> Fighter who can use Holy magic, Knight Swords and heavy armor.
Thief -> evasion and fast fighter who use's knifes and short swords, can steal items from the enemies
Monk -> fighter that fights with their bare fists, has high attack but low defense and lacks in equipment
White Mage -> Caster who specializes in casting white magic which is restorative and defensive in nature
Black Mage -> Caster who specializes in casting black magic which is destructive and offensive in nature
Red Mage -> Fighter / Caster who has no specialization, can cast both black and white magic and can wield swords, daggers and wear medium armor. Doesn't get access to the most powerful magic nor weapons and armor.

Then later,
Summoner -> Calls forth summons to fight for them.
Bard -> sings songs that benefit party members and hinder the opponents.
Blue Mage -> Fighter / Caster who learns magic from monsters and wields swords and medium armor.

And these are from I / III / V. You have many others, time mage, samuria, ninja, dragoon, berserker, geomancer, dancer, mystic knight, dark knight, then green mage, fencer, and all those GBA/A2 tactics jobs. Not all games had the same jobs but common reoccurring themes could be found, specifically in the first six jobs (Fighter / Thief / Monk / White Mage / Black Mage / Red Mage). Seeing as Red Mage happens to be one of the first six jobs ever made, has largely remained untouched throughout the series and this being a Red Mage forum, it's very relevant to discuss the job's origins and design. Now if we were talking Scholar, a job that has never existed before XI (Sage doesn't count), then it would be pointless referencing past games as it didn't exist.

[Moonracer]

Now if we were talking Scholar, a job that has never existed before XI (Sage doesn't count), then it would be pointless referencing past games as it didn't exist.

Actually....the closest to Scholar i have seen is Arithmetic. Thinking on the purposes of both being tacticians, this would seem to make the most sense. they just changed the way it works from the original tactics.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Sch tentatively has roots with Geomancer, but I would say that very loosely with how their weather spells work.

[Moonracer]

Sch tentatively has roots with Geomancer, but I would say that very loosely with how their weather spells work.

Lol true, I had completely forgotten about Geomancer. Perhaps SE just made SCH an amalgamation of several other jobs.

[tyrantsyn]

RDM in the past was simply defines as a war/whm/blm with very little difference in spells and abilities between the 3, Along comes FFXI, and RDM starts out with a basic spell list base off this idea. Down the line SE decided to give RDM a little of it's own originality and started adding in different spells and abilities to give RDM it's own place in the lines of the party. Making it incredibly enjoyable to play and rewarding.

Problem is the player base figure out how to use the job to conquer tasks suited for party's and alliances. And due to this the job was consider unbalanced and over powered. This situation wasn't help when the player base also discovered that they could actual tank large groups of mobs, or even more dangerous nm with little to no support. Due to this kind of thing when level cap increase came along, the player base was told that RDM was all ready pretty powerful and that SE was going to be mindful of what they did next with them.

So now were up to almost the last level increase. And the player base is divided all over the place about how they feel there favorite job has been handle. Some of our best qualities have seen increase "enfeebling and enhancing" and there has been some strides in our melee half as well. Problem is the utility of our job has diminish. Our enfeebles don't land on higher end VNMs, NMs even when they supposedly weak to the base element. And we've seen very little of transfer~able enhancing magic to other players. On top if that, several types of gear that normally RDM would have access to due to it's type "scale, doublet, Jerkin" RDM has been left completely off of. And has left some of the player base going wtf?

Now i'm not the type of guy who complains about something before it's finished. Even when I eat, I wait until I've finish my whole meal before I tell some one what I thought of it. And that's kind of the approach I've taken with this job class since the first update. It's hard to say whether or not the job will ever live up to the player base expectations. For those that have them. Perhaps when the new merits categories come along the player base will be please. But honestly I just don't see that.

There's been a lot of great ideas thrown around the RDM forums. New spell's, adjusted spell ideas, JA, JT, and gear directions. Sadly we've seen little to none unique enfeebles "addle & break" And some decent to good enhancing magic that we pretty much have to keep to ourselves. We've seen no new tiers to our better enfeebles, and only a upgraded refresh II to speak of for enhancing magic. It's kind of sad in the end, there's so many direction you could go with the enfeebling magic, and yet it feels so untapped and nerfed these days. And if most of these new enhancing spells RDM pick up where accession~able, the jobs viability would feel a lot stronger. I'm not quite sure what to think when the player base gets a spell like temper and yet we can't do anything but cast it on ourselves. And we aren't even that viable on the front line due to gear. It's just perplexing.

Dev team please, gives us some kind of idea where RDM is going.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

I'm not quite sure what to think when the player base gets a spell like temper and yet we can't do anything but cast it on ourselves. And we aren't even that viable on the front line due to gear. It's just perplexing.

They're holding out for:

Scroll of Temperga
WHM 99
Grants the ability to occasionally attack twice to all party members within an area of effect.

[tyrantsyn]

They're holding out for:

Scroll of Temperga
WHM 99
Grants the ability to occasionally attack twice to all party members within an area of effect.

lol, awesome.

[Crimson_Slasher]

As a note, scholar existed in ff3, it was crap, and it was used primarily for the Hein fight in the desert to dispel his elemental barrier.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

As a note, scholar existed in ff3, it was crap, and it was used primarily for the Hein fight in the desert to dispel his elemental barrier.

Not too fond of SCH in this game either, all they did was give it everything that should have gone to either RDM WHM or BLM, Same with DNC really. They only added them so they could release another EP.

[saevel]

As a note, scholar existed in ff3, it was crap, and it was used primarily for the Hein fight in the desert to dispel his elemental barrier.

The Scholar job in FFIII is not the one in FFXI, they don't even share the same equipment style. FFIII's Scholar equipped books but couldn't cast any magic, all they could do is read the enemies weakness.

Scholar is FFXI is a completely new job, it just happens to share the same name.

[Greatguardian]

The Scholar job in FFIII is not the one in FFXI.

Apply this to every god damn job in XI and we can end this thread.

[Crimson_Slasher]

Actually in FF3 sch can cast up to lv 3 magic, but i agree, it also had an item potency boost (50%? Or double, dont recall.) But it still was a double-sided mage i think, unless it was just lv 3 white magic

[Seriha]

SCH wound up mish-mashing Geomancer and Sage, really. Not exactly the end of the world unless someone out there was really craving an axe-wielding nuker (Though I guess that'd make Farsha more appealing?). Actual Geomancer mechanics would be a nightmare in FFXI as they'd then have to go through and map all standing areas with location mechanic, and frankly, how often are you going to find water-based mobs in a lightning-friendly environment?

Far as RDM goes in its multiple iterations, it's 1 part Warrior, 1 part White Mage, 1 part Black Mage. Anything built on that is gravy like enhancing and enfeebling (You know, SE starting to be imaginative 'n all...). Take away the melee and you get Sage or XI's SCH. Take away the Black Mage and you get Paladin. Take away the White Mage and you get Dark Knight. It's a job meant to work hand-in-hand with all of those parts. I used the baseball analogy because its core concept of a ball being pitched to a batter who tries to hit it and thus round the bases without striking/tagged out is what makes it baseball. It then proceeds to vary in the speed and type of pitching, distance between bases, and how big the field is. When you start changing stuff to be more broad like "guy with a stick hits something" then you start stepping into hockey, polo, tennis, lacrosse, and whatever variant most definitely not baseball.

Unfortunately, FFXI hasn't been very friendly toward RDM's hybrid needs, and applying that word doesn't mean it can't carry its own specialty in the process. And to imply it can't be done is again folly and demonstrative of your own lacking imagination.

[Cowardlybabooon]

Doomguardian said it all on the first page. Nothing else to be said lol.

[Glamdring]

one ray of hope if you still want to rdm, the new end-game content is moving away from aby, rdm may gain relevance again as it comes out. Refresh 2 is awesome when there is no atma, etc. on the table, other stuff is the same. current design hints seem to be that you'll level in aby (and maybe skill), but do your new (90+) end-game elsewhere, seemingly voidwatch and WoE if they keep expanding those. if relic armor +2 happens dynamis may turn into something big again. Note, this is all an "if"; it's possible rdm may turn back into as strong a role as it was in the bird-camp meripo days or may stay as excluded as it is now in todays bandwagon environment, can't really say. The only thing certain, some job will gain ascendancy, other jobs will be marginalized. It's just the way things have worked since the game was made.

[saevel]

Actually in FF3 sch can cast up to lv 3 magic, but i agree, it also had an item potency boost (50%? Or double, dont recall.) But it still was a double-sided mage i think, unless it was just lv 3 white magic

No item potency boost that I can remember, I think your thinking of chemist. SCH only had Peep for checking stats until the remake, then SE gave them up to level 3 magic. As I never used the job much I completely forgot they remade them with a little magic. Still SCH in the older games was a throwaway job used for a specific story event, in FFXI it's master of both Black and White magic and use's abilities to modify and change those magic. In AD&D we called it metamagic. Of course SE has to be a prick and lock a bunch of spells out of being accessionable. ALL enhancing magic should be accessionable no matter what.

Honestly RDM is in a good position, it just needs a couple of mechanical fix's to work. Put it on the light melee gear again (DNC / BLU / NIN stuff), unlock the EX WS's, stop making NM's resistant / immune to enfeebles, change tier 2 merits into "enhances" categories and release them as lv 75 venderable scrolls. Now create Tier III's of the current enfeebles and create stat specific reduction enfeebles. *Bam* job fixed. SE has just pretty much stated it has no intention of allowing SCH or RDM to main heal, SCH got the super regen idea I had wanted for RDM so obviously SE isn't going in that direction for us. Not much else we can do, SE doesn't want us as party support then we won't be party support.

[Solonuke]

A scholar from FF3 in this game would be a scholar that wielded a book and a shield that knew only to cast cure II and stone II with an ability that checks a monster's weakness every 30th second.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Apply this to every god damn job in XI

and you'll be lying.

[Greatguardian]

and you'll be lying.

Hurr my White Mage uses Cure spells, obviously it is the same White Mage that appeared in Final Fantasy I and should have the same spells, mechanics, and playstyle.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Hurr my White Mage uses Cure spells, obviously it is the same White Mage that appeared in Final Fantasy I and should have the same spells, mechanics, and playstyle.

*Facepalm*

[Kitkat]

Interesting how this evolved from "what is rdm all about" to "what rdm should be all about based on past iterations."

I could say what rdm used to be all about, but after 75 cap raise it all changed. Now people are doing what ever they can to keep rdm afloat in some way given what SE has done by introducing enfeeble immunities en-mass, while introducing spell lines that only augment the rdm attributes and functions. The few spells they allowed rdm to have as a new enfeeble, they then slapped over to whm, blm, or even drk to use thus once again putting it off on the sidelines.

As other say, this pretty much translates to "Rdm is in a weird spot of no endgame utility" and it is mainly due to SE this time rather than the play-style of the player base. The only A+ Skill rdm has is kicked in the face due to coded immunities or constantly sees new spells being passed off to other jobs that have better utility. The ability to buff is better left to cor, whm, brd, or Sch....because of better utility reasons also. DD is lack luster in comparison to real DD jobs in both Melee or magical venues. So, with a job that once had significant endgame utility, rdm has now become the oddman out only called on if the more useful job isn't an option.

As for the side discussion of what rdm is vs what rdm was, both side have substantial merit in their arguments. Yes this is a later iteration of a franchise, but it is also the first one of the franchise that became an MMO. For the most part, it is vastly based off the past iterations of which the job class originated from, but rebalanced with the MMO mechanics in mind which are constantly under development and balancing. Unfortunately, rdm at this time is in the need for some sort of balancing to bring it back to life, but I don't expect to see this until sometime after lvl 99 cap and tier 3 merit groups are added.

[tyrantsyn]

As other say, this pretty much translates to "Rdm is in a weird spot of no endgame utility" and it is mainly due to SE this time rather than the play-style of the player base. The only A+ Skill rdm has is kicked in the face due to coded immunities or constantly sees new spells being passed off to other jobs that have better utility. The ability to buff is better left to cor, whm, brd, or Sch....because of better utility reasons also. DD is lack luster in comparison to real DD jobs in both Melee or magical venues. So, with a job that once had significant endgame utility, rdm has now become the oddman out only called on if the more useful job isn't an option.


I can't agree with you more here, RDM is suppose to be a number enfeebler in the game/or even one of the best. But in endgame content it's almost a useless skill. Case and point Celaeno in Dandruf wadi appears to be a wind base mob which I had absolutely no luck landing a paralyze spell on. Paralyze isn't some ground breaking spell. Yet even with Saboteur up I was resisted. I can appericate that at the beginning of the cap increase SE already felt RDM was too over powered. But they've basically held back so much from it at this point that it can't even hold its ground any more in it's A+ skill. I agree that I think were see improves in the new merit categories. But I think this is something that needs to be addressed now. I have a lot of time invested in this job class. And i'm not happy with how this aspect of the job has been held back.

[saevel]

Actually ... RDM's "end game" value in the past was .... drum roll please ...

Cure IV
Erase
-na
Haste
Refresh

With the situational use of our trademark Chain Spell Stun during zergs.

Enfeebles were a joke at 75, nearly every HNM was super resistant if not flatly immune. The ones they did land on had built in potency reduction. RDM was used' as a miniature white mage that could also nuke, haste, self-refresh and had lots of MP. Since they've bluntly said their not giving us Cure V we can rule out the miniature White Mage use which leaves players in an unfamiliar position. When a job was abused and pigeon holed as a WHM-1 for so long that people actually began to think that is what it was designed for, what do you do when it's no longer viable in that use? We've always had alternate functions, but so few people properly explored them that their considered fringe only.

[Greatguardian]

You either had a leadership that woefully underutilized your Red Mage at 75, or you were so terrible that they felt they could not fully utilize your Red Mage at 75. Either way, that is an absolutely pathetic synopsis of Red Mage's Endgame role.

[Seriha]

Interesting how this evolved from "what is rdm all about" to "what rdm should be all about based on past iterations."It's hardly a new argument, though. The only thing that's really changed are the ideas that have come along with people hoping to make things better. Some of it's been inspired by things added to the game elsewhere. Others are just people genuinely being creative. Perhaps to our benefit, we're lacking the "RDM stole WHM's job!" stigma that was present back in the day and often used to refute improvements to RDM itself, but there are also people not interested in seeing history repeat itself.

[Kitkat]

Actually ... RDM's "end game" value in the past was .... drum roll please ...

Cure IV
Erase
-na
Haste
Refresh

With the situational use of our trademark Chain Spell Stun during zergs.

Enfeebles were a joke at 75, nearly every HNM was super resistant if not flatly immune. The ones they did land on had built in potency reduction. RDM was used' as a miniature white mage that could also nuke, haste, self-refresh and had lots of MP. Since they've bluntly said their not giving us Cure V we can rule out the miniature White Mage use which leaves players in an unfamiliar position. When a job was abused and pigeon holed as a WHM-1 for so long that people actually began to think that is what it was designed for, what do you do when it's no longer viable in that use? We've always had alternate functions, but so few people properly explored them that their considered fringe only.

Can't say I ever saw my rdm this under utilized when it came to anything endgame; Dynamis, limbus, kings, KS99, salvage, and Ein usually resulted in needing to be crowd control/debuffer/buffer/healer/nuker and being half-arsed at it usually resulted in needless deaths or longer than required fights.


It's hardly a new argument, though. The only thing that's really changed are the ideas that have come along with people hoping to make things better. Some of it's been inspired by things added to the game elsewhere. Others are just people genuinely being creative. Perhaps to our benefit, we're lacking the "RDM stole WHM's job!" stigma that was present back in the day and often used to refute improvements to RDM itself, but there are also people not interested in seeing history repeat itself.

Well, not saying it is a bad thing necessarily so much as pointing out that it mutated from a topic where the OP just wanted to know what is expected of the job, to what the job needs/should be. Already plenty of topics filled with that already.

[saevel]

Can't say I ever saw my rdm this under utilized when it came to anything endgame; Dynamis, limbus, kings, KS99, salvage, and Ein usually resulted in needing to be crowd control/debuffer/buffer/healer/nuker and being half-arsed at it usually resulted in needless deaths or longer than required fights.



Well, not saying it is a bad thing necessarily so much as pointing out that it mutated from a topic where the OP just wanted to know what is expected of the job, to what the job needs/should be. Already plenty of topics filled with that already.

Your trying to cheer lead, doesn't work too well. Crowd control is a joke..
RDM/BLM: casts Sleepga ..., YAY!!
BLM: casts Sleepge II <.<
RDM/BLM: .... /cry

Debuff .... wtf over? We've gone through this a thousand times now, enfeebleing didn't mean anything at "end game" back in 75 after 2006. All the HNM's were either super resistant or had direct potency reductions, it was part of SE's master plan to refuse RDM the ability to solo anything. Your greatest hope was Slow and Dia.

Salvage ... yeah ... naked for most of the run except a light staff doing cure IV -> cure IV -> Haste -> Cure IV on the monks.

Ein ... same as Dyna except things don't sleep long and build resistance fast. Ein was just a colibri merit PT zerg fest with us doing the exact same things, Cure IV -> Haste -> Cure IV -> Cure IV -> repeat.

So .. yeah .. that's about the sum of "end game". There is a reason RDM earned the nickname "Pink mage". The most you could hope for was post-WoTG RDM/SCH in DA mode for decent nukes. Tier III was still weak compared to IV's but you could chain them together. You suffered mostly from accuracy due to a C in elemental magic, /SCH helped that a bit.

So please continue insulting me like you actually know what your doing.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Dynamis: Blms used Sleepga II except for emergency? Blm wasn't even needed for killing statues unless you did timed nuke strategy.

To most of them and by most you mean grav/bind/para... Odin is the only NM I can think of offhand who resisted Slow II on a regular. Blind was essentially useless but kept landing on a surprising number of NMs for me...


Salvage: Stopped reading after you only used mnks.

[Greatguardian]

Using Sleepga II in Dynamis was borderline retarded. Synchronizing the point at which a set of monsters is going to wake up is nothing short of masochistic. Good shells have been using Sleepga 1 + Sleep II/Repose to stagger wake timers for years, son.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Using Sleepga II in Dynamis was borderline retarded. Synchronizing the point at which a set of monsters is going to wake up is nothing short of masochistic. Good shells have been using Sleepga 1 + Sleep II/Repose to stagger wake timers for years, son.

Or you could just time it properly and sleep again the moment they wake up, but hey, too each their own.

[ManaKing]

To answer the question, RDM is about Nostalgia and Style.

If you want to be able to do some of everything, then it is a fine job. If you want to be good at anything, because your job is actually suited to it, then it is probably a poor choice. The point of RDM is to have fun, because it's not setup to actually do anything well compared to what other jobs can do.

I play RDM because it has a pimp hat and enspells. The job is fun to play and if you find people that appreciate that you are a person and decent at low man content, then you can have even more fun. Another part of the fun, is seeing how people react to RDM and another is seeing what SE will put out for it in the near future.

[Kitkat]

Your trying to cheer lead, doesn't work too well. Crowd control is a joke..
RDM/BLM: casts Sleepga ..., YAY!!
BLM: casts Sleepge II <.<
RDM/BLM: .... /cry


Wow, you would sleep something with sleepga II? That is probably the most asnine thing I ever heard of, second most is a rdm/blm in dyn. 9/10 times you'd be rdm/whm, the other 1/10 rdm/drk. If you were in one of those shells where there was one tank and full on zerg that one mob....that is just plain stupid. A 4-pt team could clear city zones stupid easy with 2 tank pt's and at least 3-4 blm decently geared, 2-3 well geared. I don't know what to tell you, been doing dyn since it was introduced and there was always a very noticeable difference between a rdm that just cured and a rdm that buffed/debuffed/cured.


Debuff .... wtf over? We've gone through this a thousand times now, enfeebleing didn't mean anything at "end game" back in 75 after 2006. All the HNM's were either super resistant or had direct potency reductions, it was part of SE's master plan to refuse RDM the ability to solo anything. Your greatest hope was Slow and Dia.

Yeah, I guess that is why most endgame shells required that a rdm merit a specific way to fill specific debuff duties. Not sure what kind of shell you were in if this was a valid excuse for not doing your job.


Salvage ... yeah ... naked for most of the run except a light staff doing cure IV -> cure IV -> Haste -> Cure IV on the monks.

If you were naked most the run except for a light staff....this was your ls telling you "you suck so we give other jobs your cells" or you were running with way too many people. I can't recall even one run where I was naked or that my key attributes weren't unlocked.


Ein ... same as Dyna except things don't sleep long and build resistance fast. Ein was just a colibri merit PT zerg fest with us doing the exact same things, Cure IV -> Haste -> Cure IV -> Cure IV -> repeat.

Sounds pretty lazy to me....


So .. yeah .. that's about the sum of "end game". There is a reason RDM earned the nickname "Pink mage". The most you could hope for was post-WoTG RDM/SCH in DA mode for decent nukes. Tier III was still weak compared to IV's but you could chain them together. You suffered mostly from accuracy due to a C in elemental magic, /SCH helped that a bit.

So please continue insulting me like you actually know what your doing.

Sounds to me like the only one insulting you...is you. Seriously, if this is all you ever did...you must have been a horrible rdm to have cause it sounds to me like no one trusted you to be competent enough to be more than some cure/haste/refresh slave.

[Afania]

This is also fairly well represented by the absolutely massive player misunderstanding of the Job system. The Devs never wanted people to pick "Main" jobs. It's fairly obvious, when looking at game content and the Dev's actions over the past 8 years, that they didn't want people to try and push their "Favorite" job into a situation where it's useless or wasteful. When a situation calls for NIN NIN BLM, they expect players to go to their Mog House and change to NIN NIN BLM.


I disagree with you on that part, IMO the main purpose of job change is to discover the possibility of overcoming the challenges by coming up with different strategies. And job change is necessary to plan different strategy. If the situations calls for NIN NIN BLM, and all players go change to NIN NIN BLM, then they will never come up with anything new, when there are possbilities to win even more easily and faster with other job setup.

And that's what's fun about this game. Try to win the fight with different setup, different strat. That's what's so fun about FF series since FF3, when you can job change or change different pt setup to try different strategies.

If the situations calls for NIN NIN BLM, I don't believe you can't win with other setup like DNC BLU DRK or RDM THF SCH etc.
And that's what's job change is about, it encourages players to try different setup other than standard setup, to push the potential of this job further.

I remember when ACP fight was just out it was pretty challenging at lv 75, and it is a fight that can be won with many different setup. You can use PLD for tank, you can use BLU for tank(quite possibly RDM too), you can use RNG or SMN or COR or BLU for DD, you can use RDM or BLM or DRK or even SCH/DRK for stun. I had great fun with it when I tried for clear and play with different setup, it felt just like old FF games. This applies to almost every other mission BC that was challenging too, all sorts of setup was used, with different strategies.

At least not until proc system introduced, I believe FFXI was a game like this. Then SE made lol proc system which totally killed the main purpose of trying new things and discovering the possibilities. But when this game was made, there were no proc system, it's new, and you shouldn't say FFXI is made to be played with specific setup just because there's lol proc system.

[hideka]

Hi, I'm pretty new to FFXI, decided to give it a shot after trying Final Fantasy 14 (boy oh boy).
Anyways, I love the game, but the biggest issue I am having is attempting to pick a Job I'd like to stick with. I've asked people in-game and they all just say "Level them all", though I'd really like to just stick with one and one only.
I like the look of Red Mages so far, I am enjoying it (with my limited amount of spells, I must admit) and the fact they seem to be Swordspells in my eyes; but what are they really all about? What am I to expect come end game? Will I get to swing my sword at stuff while supporting party members with heals and buffs, and also Enfeebling the enemy till it's useless, or something else less.. imaginative?

Thank you all in advanced. :D

in all abyssea related situations redmage can melee DD just fine, dont let anyone ever tell you diffrently. when i can drop a 3.5k-4k sanguine blade or a 2-3k vorpal blade with war sub, or even go so far as to get an almace and spam chant du cygne for 4k a piece. RDM can get a base 26 % double attack once they learn temper, and still hit the 26% Haste cap, not to mention they can haste themselves, and their enspells are freaking boss once capped enhancing as long as you use the proper element for the monster. with spontaneity you can litteraly Close or open a SC, and single or double magic burst that SC using a T4 spell. if your opening you can WS > start cast > 2nd person WS's > SC animation > spell MB's > Spontaneity > MB a second spell

rdm by far is not a bad job for meleeing or damage dealing. im not kidding when i say sanguine blade on a good redmage can let them solo indefinately. getting a 800-2k heal every time you WS is boss.

[Neisan_Quetz]

So basically, you can be a -1 Blu in abyssea, gotcha.

[hideka]

and theres nothing wrong with that. rdm was never meant to be the best at anything, outside of enfeebling. personaly i feel that SE really needs to work on that field to make enfeebles that are RDM exclusive to really bolster their usefulness and make them desired more at end game.

[Neisan_Quetz]

There's also no reason to do anything in abyssea on Rdm unless you seriously leveled no other jobs, or only leveled Rdm and Pup but I digress.

[Greatguardian]

I'd like to see a 4k average CDC on RDM, personally. None of the Almaces I know average that high on BLU or PLD, unless we're talking Detectors or something.

Though I'd be more interested in seeing a place where damage dealing is useful in Abyssea. Those Dragoons sure are popular these days.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Thanks for reminding me Rdm isn't averaging 4k on CDC, it's closer to 3.6k with good gear on fodder inside, this is without stalwart's though.

EDIT: Fixed target, 4k at 95 with 90 Almace with stalwart's on fodder mobs.

[Crimson_Slasher]

Im interested in hearing the atmas/gear used for sanguine blade, because id love to see those sorta numbers, at best i average 1550ish on rdm. But odds are its the two atmas im eyeing and dont have. Also amount of TP used at time of ws.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Amount of TP doesn't matter, it only affects Hp drain percentage.

I smell WS dmg sword and cosmos/ultimate while meleeing though.

[Greatguardian]

Amount of TP doesn't matter, it only affects Hp drain percentage.

I smell WS dmg sword and cosmos/ultimate while meleeing though.

That's pretty much the only way to hit those kinds of numbers on Sanguine, yeah. It completely trashes your TP phase damage though, so you end up doing a lot less than using a real setup and Vorpal Blade. Of course, RDM has to sub not-NIN-or-DNC to use Vorpal Blade, so you're looking at neither an offhand hit nor stat buff from an offhand Magian. That's not to mention the egregious loss of TP-phase damage (again) when single-wielding. WS damage isn't everything.

Rdm/Nin with an Almace can be decent (though averaging 4k is still bullcrap unless fodder+temps), but RDM melee without Almace is just kinda sad. Again, this is in Abyssea too, where Damage is pretty useless. If people cared about Damage, Dragoon would be king of Abyssea.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Some people really need to stop pretending like this game is a job... Seriously!

Yes, in hard battles you need to be efficient so may need to change job, but seriously Abyssea is easier than a RDM soloing Genbu at 75. Heck even a MeleeSMN can solo NM's in Abyssea without calling a summon.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Inb4 Dallas but no seriously I still see idiots wiping, so it's not -that- easy. Can I go Rdm/nin to Isgebind? Yes. Can I do more than twice as much damage and bring more procs on War/ still do more damage and unique grellow on Blu? Yes. Why would I bother going Rdm then?


Unless you count Oberon NMs as 'soloing'. There are easy NMs, and then there are Oberon NMs.

[ManaKing]

I'm just going to point out that being the best at anything was never what RDM was about. I still play RDM because it is fun. If the devs want to make it more fun by leveling the playing field, then so be it.

BLU is cool and other jobs that are not RDM are cool, but they aren't when you want to play RDM. And RDM is pretty much what I come to play about 60% of the time, because I want to have to good time.

[Neisan_Quetz]

I'm finding less and less reasons to go Rdm honestly. Only need to level Blm or Sch then I won't be able to justify it past Merit spells :/

[ManaKing]

Lol there isn't a justifiable reason to play RDM. It's either fun for you, or it's not. I will remind everyone that this is a game.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Inb4 Dallas but no seriously I still see idiots wiping, so it's not -that- easy. Can I go Rdm/nin to Isgebind? Yes. Can I do more than twice as much damage and bring more procs on War/ still do more damage and unique grellow on Blu? Yes. Why would I bother going Rdm then?


Unless you count Oberon NMs as 'soloing'. There are easy NMs, and then there are Oberon NMs.

Wipes can still happen on lvl. 75 content if you mess up. Doesn't mean it's hard.

I'm not telling you to go RDM. I'm saying people should have that choice if they want too, it's a game that is best done efficiently but should NOT loose the fact you're meant to have fun on it. When that happens and it becomes a job/chore is when it's time to quit.

If a job isn't fun for you, or you personally have no reason to play it. Move on, store your gear and say Good Bye!

[cidbahamut]

Lol there isn't a justifiable reason to play RDM. It's either fun for you, or it's not. I will remind everyone that this is a game.

That doesn't really excuse making certain game pieces absolutely inferior in all circumstances. It can still be a game while maintaining game balance. The fact that it hasn't just means there's been some very poor game design choices made. No reason we can't expect Red Mage to be useful as well as fun.

[saevel]

Lol there isn't a justifiable reason to play RDM. It's either fun for you, or it's not. I will remind everyone that this is a game.

Be careful your speaking blasphemy! They'll send ninja assassins to kidnap you while you sleep to prevent you from spreading that message.

After tall, this isn't a game, it's about being perfect at everything <.<

[Neisan_Quetz]

Would like to have cake and eat it too, I do have fun on it, I just can't justify going as it.

[saevel]

Attempt at a retort and Ad hominem personal attacks

I've been doing RDM for a very long time in just about every role and configuration possible. You obviously haven't. Your also going back and forth on your words like you did in the other thread, guess you can't keep an argument straight now. You mention "crowd control" then ask why would a BLM sleepga II in dynamis, that alone speaks volumes about your lack of knowledge. Your just trying to be insulting and petty now and are no longer worth debating with, So I'll cut this argument off.

RDM is extremely versatile, this versatility lends itself to many roles and functions. Due to SE's implementation of game mechanics this leaves us as second or third best at pretty much everything. Having a skill rating of "A+" does not make you a specialist in it, SE may change that but currently "enfeebling" isn't a specialty nor a serious function during big boss fights. Hell half the members of this thread are screaming for Cure V and to make RDM as a "viable healer" and we have C- healing magic, so that tells you how important the skill system is to determine what your functions should be. Due to every other class having better versions of what we possess, and ourselves having native access to Cure IV, haste a large supply of MP, other players decided the best place to stick a RDM was on Cure IV / Haste / Refresh / Erase / -na spam duty. That seemed a good way to exploit all the FC and MP a RDM has access to. At 75 this play style was mind numbing and boring, the forums were littered with old RDM's complaining of feeling burnt out of the same cycles. Dia III was a shining nugget of awesome in an otherwise bland set of merits, but one enfeebling spell does not a specialty make.

Now flash forward to 95, absolutely nothing has changed except Cure IV no longer is enough to full fill that ancient role of "cure b****" or "refresh w****". And shells have seen this and labeled RDM as "useless". Goes to show everyone exactly what groups thought of all those "awesome" abilities people like to claim they had.

[ManaKing]

That doesn't really excuse making certain game pieces absolutely inferior in all circumstances. It can still be a game while maintaining game balance. The fact that it hasn't just means there's been some very poor game design choices made. No reason we can't expect Red Mage to be useful as well as fun.

I'm all for it. I think almost everyone on the RDM forums is. I just don't understand why people have to insult each other and try to start arguments over who is more right about how RDM SHOULD be played.

Most the reason I came back to playing was that the game relaxed some. People can think outside the JP box and actually enjoy themselves by trying things out again because the game has more wiggle room. Some job combinations are a bad idea, but there are plenty of job combinations that are just slightly less good than the BEST and RIGHT way to play a job.

RDM with Sanguine Blade is fun to play, but blatantly worse than /NIN for DPS. That doesn't mean I don't play /DRK or /PLD when I want. They are both fun, and they feel more like how I would actually want RDM to play. The only think stopping me is that my damage takes a big hit. Dual Wield is blatantly the gold standard for 1H weapons and good Shields are for PLDs only. RDM is behind the curve because of the nature of the game's evolution, the only thing that is a major failing in RDM's DPS implementation is that Enspell 2s are viciously inadequate for any type of RDM, much less single wield RDMs.

[cidbahamut]

I've been doing RDM for a very long time in just about every role and configuration possible. You obviously haven't. Your also going back and forth on your words like you did in the other thread, guess you can't keep an argument straight now. You mention "crowd control" then ask why would a BLM sleepga II in dynamis, that alone speaks volumes about your lack of knowledge. Your just trying to be insulting and petty now and are no longer worth debating with, So I'll cut this argument off.
The fact that you are trying to defend the use of Sleepga II in Dynamis speaks volumes.

[CapriciousOne]

Hi, I'm pretty new to FFXI, decided to give it a shot after trying Final Fantasy 14 (boy oh boy).
Anyways, I love the game, but the biggest issue I am having is attempting to pick a Job I'd like to stick with. I've asked people in-game and they all just say "Level them all", though I'd really like to just stick with one and one only.
I like the look of Red Mages so far, I am enjoying it (with my limited amount of spells, I must admit) and the fact they seem to be Swordspells in my eyes; but what are they really all about? What am I to expect come end game? Will I get to swing my sword at stuff while supporting party members with heals and buffs, and also Enfeebling the enemy till it's useless, or something else less.. imaginative?

Thank you all in advanced. :D

Well despite some of the good and also rather horrible advice i imagine is in this thread, there seem to be one question you have failed to answer or mention: "What is your play style?" You can really give accurate advice on what job to pick if you dont have and tell us what is play style.

Some questions to answer are:
1. Do you prefer to be active or passive in the party (attacker or suppport basically)
2. How comfortable are you with taking damage? Love taking the punishment or try to avoid it any cost or dont mind the damage to a certain point?
3. (Attacker) How do you like attack fast or slow? (faster weapons like swords, daggers, axes and clubs usually deal less damage but have more opportunites at hitting the mob because of its speed while slower weapons like great swords/katanas/axes, staves, and hand 2 hand requires 2 hands to swing and thus take longer but usually deal more damage than the faster weapons on a swing by swing basis.
4. How do you like to attack (magically or phsyically or both)
5.(Support) How do you like to support healing, enhancing(making party stronger), enfeebling(crippling mobs)?
6. What is more important to you speed or sense of accomplishment or both? (partying or soloing or both)

All of these questions would be a good starting point to figure out exactly which jobs you would actually want to play consistently. The advice of playing all jobs to 50 is a good one despite the fact that you only intend to use maybe one or two and there is a good reason. With the way the game adds the abilitly to use other jobs you have leveled abilities, traits, and spells to aid you in your adventures. By trying out multipe jobs you get to see what traits, abilities, and spells they have at thier disposal and learn how they can aid your primary jobs to accomplish tasks you may have some difficulty with but dont feel you need a party to complete. In other words those other jobs you level can helps sure up what you feel are the weaknesses of your favorite jobs.

Unfortunately this will only help you as far as soloing because endgame is far less flexible in what they will allow and are capable or willing to manage otherwise. Ultimately in my opinion RDM is about leveraging your skills to get stuff done as opposed to being a one trick pony specialist that complete owns a particular style or skill but is lacking in other areas. Some people will disagree with this but please feel free to use your own mind and formulate your own opinion. Since RDM isnt the best at anything as far as i'm concern they certaintly not the worse at anything either but that depends on your own tolerance level and patience more than anything. RDM from what i've seen doesnt get to utilize all of it skill set in end game because of particular standards and cookie cutter playerbase dynamics so if you want to fully utilize all your skills you may want to level an ADDITIONAL JOB just for that else you will be frustrated as RDM. Aside from playerbase viewpoints and issues there has been sort of a water down effect of RDM because of chants and moans of RDM being too powerful some time ago and as a result alot of the things that made unique and good and a favorite in endgame is now kind of rendering them almost extinct now beyond healing.

Overall RDM is great job if you like being self sufficient and not heavily reliant on ther people for getting stuff done like myself but if your end goal is to be heavily active in end game type content you may be better served by leveling up other jobs these days. As far as spells go getting those arent that big of an issue if you know what mobs to kill for them, where they are, and are patient as most can be gotten as drops from regular monsters and some can even be bought from NPC if you not as patient. As a last result you can also buy them off the Auction house but many are severely overpriced after a certain job level. Hell some of those same spells are bought from a NPC then sold on the AH for 2 and 3x the price from the NPC so please shop around before buying and save yourself some gil.

[CapriciousOne]

It is amazing how off track this thread and many others get and have gotten but it is of no suprise. I just hope the OP feels he got his question answered satisfactorily. In any case I just wanted to say or rather ask this one question to any and everybody in here:

Why does it seem everybody keeps making the comment "RDM is mean to be fun" as if it isnt a serious or decent job or rather every other job is to be played seriously or is BORING? I mean maybe I am crazy but I thought the entire point of life, games and everything else was to have fun and playing any job, be it RDM, WHM, or even BRD, was to play it because it suits your personal play style and assists you in getting through the game and that was fun no matter what your job.

Is it just me that notices that or what ? I'm just saying.

[saevel]

It is amazing how off track this thread and many others get and have gotten but it is of no suprise. I just hope the OP feels he got his question answered satisfactorily. In any case I just wanted to say or rather ask this one question to any and everybody in here:

Why does it seem everybody keeps making the comment "RDM is mean to be fun" as if it isnt a serious or decent job or rather every other job is to be played seriously or is BORING? I mean maybe I am crazy but I thought the entire point of life, games and everything else was to have fun and playing any job, be it RDM, WHM, or even BRD, was to play it because it suits your personal play style and assists you in getting through the game and that was fun no matter what your job.

Is it just me that notices that or what ? I'm just saying.

It needs to be mentioned every now and then because there are people who attach some sort of emotional status or social status to how others see their "in game" character. To them it's not a game, it's a second life. Once they get to that point they start calling other people names and "your playing the game wrong" starts to set it. Every MMO has this group of players and most tend to ignore them, for some reason FFXI has attracted more then it's fair share, possibly due to the natural tendency of casual gamers to go find easier games to play. /shrugs

[Kitkat]

It is amazing how off track this thread and many others get and have gotten but it is of no suprise. I just hope the OP feels he got his question answered satisfactorily. In any case I just wanted to say or rather ask this one question to any and everybody in here:

Why does it seem everybody keeps making the comment "RDM is mean to be fun" as if it isnt a serious or decent job or rather every other job is to be played seriously or is BORING? I mean maybe I am crazy but I thought the entire point of life, games and everything else was to have fun and playing any job, be it RDM, WHM, or even BRD, was to play it because it suits your personal play style and assists you in getting through the game and that was fun no matter what your job.

Is it just me that notices that or what ? I'm just saying.

One of the primary reasons someone says "Xjob is meant to be fun" is usually because it doesn't matter how the collective wants to utilize the job, the individual just wants to do whatever they want with it. These people usually bring up the argument "It's an MMO not real life" or "I pay for the account so I should be able to do what I want" without realizing that what they want out of the job doesn't necessarily fit the groups needs and in some cases even hurts the group. It is an MMO, not do whatever you want play ground. If you can't collectively add something to the group your spot is better off going to someone who can offer more.

In the case of rdm, they can't cure well enough without running into hate issues (even in all of the -enmity/potency available), their A+ Enfeebling status has been reduced to nearly useless in newer content due to immunities even with rdm being the only job that gets higher tier enfeebles, and their melee is lacking next to a real DD anywhere from 15-20% difference. Any of these reasons a rdm could use are squashed for group activities because they can just fill it with a better suited job.

That being said, no one is saying don't have fun on the job you play, just know when what you want to do with the job fits what is going on. If you're invited to fit a certain position and you start doing something else other than that, expect to hear about it...or in some extreme cases be kicked from the group for it. The "meant to have fun" mentality doesn't mix with the "I only get x amount of time per day/week to play and want to get x objective done in that limited amount of time" mentality. Both are seen as "fun" to different people, but clash with one another.

This is why people argue about what a job does, or how it is useless, because the job was invited to fit x-role for what is happening, or it offers nothing the collective needs over something else. If you're looking for a job that you want to have fun on when with friends or small group (3-4 people) activities then rdm is fine, but if you are looking for a job that is "fun" in larger activities...you're better off leveling a non-hybrid job that fits as close to what aspect you find "fun" rather than making up excuses while playing a hybrid and trying to perform a primary's role.

[Trangnai]

I think people forget what rdm's role in EG is, Support, you're not going to be able to replace anything in true EG you need the best of every role you have, this means you want a whm main healing regardless hence why even in the ToAU era where rdm was considred healing king. in EG events I still saw whms. rdm has always been used for being a refresh support for jobs with MP. To which the job has received a buff to, still making us the best at this role. We also have some of the most useful enfeebles being Bio and Dia III through merits. as well as other merit enfeebles and standard enfeebles, we also have the highest enfeebling skill in the game. we may not have any token spells in that department outside of merits but we are more likely to get that para or slow to stick then a whm, thought whms mnd may make it more potent. it has to land first. As for healing, yeah we can't fill the main heal role, but we are still a great support healer. Is Cure IV is enough to make my tank live another 1-2 hits till whm can finish getting Cure V or VI off? In most yes, not all, but most.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

I think people forget what rdm's role in EG is, Support, you're not going to be able to replace anything in true EG you need the best of every role you have, this means you want a whm main healing regardless hence why even in the ToAU era where rdm was considred healing king. in EG events I still saw whms. rdm has always been used for being a refresh support for jobs with MP. To which the job has received a buff to, still making us the best at this role. We also have some of the most useful enfeebles being Bio and Dia III through merits. as well as other merit enfeebles and standard enfeebles, we also have the highest enfeebling skill in the game. we may not have any token spells in that department outside of merits but we are more likely to get that para or slow to stick then a whm, thought whms mnd may make it more potent. it has to land first. As for healing, yeah we can't fill the main heal role, but we are still a great support healer. Is Cure IV is enough to make my tank live another 1-2 hits till whm can finish getting Cure V or VI off? In most yes, not all, but most.

BRD is the best at Refresh, you're better of getting a BRD/RDM for Refresh or BRD/WHM and basically be the same as RDM main.

[Trangnai]

Well, while you are correct that doesn't make my post moot. The primary spell that rdm was used for in its support role got a buff, still allowing it to be a valid choice, especially in conditions where you need the extra refresh or extra of any role rdm can do. Ether way you see it we are still a support role job, a job ment for filling a gap and thats honestly what rdm always was.

Do I think SE has been screwing us over in pretty much everything? Of course, most if not all buffs to rdm sense the cap increase have been minor and we havent received any big refinements like other jobs. There afraid to give anything to rdm due to the fact that they think it would make rdm OP, in fact, there so afraid of making rdm OP that they failed to notice that every other job in the game besides a select few are well... OP.

Rather then deciding what new spells to give blu, or new JAs for war and mnk, or weather the level cap should be 99 or 100. they should probably consider how to level jobs like rdm with other jobs in the game, Considering the increased versatility of sub jobs in the current game it is in fact widening support role jobs gaps instead of closing them, making the job less required.

[ManaKing]

Well, while you are correct that doesn't make my post moot. The primary spell that rdm was used for in its support role got a buff, still allowing it to be a valid choice, especially in conditions where you need the extra refresh or extra of any role rdm can do. Ether way you see it we are still a support role job, a job ment for filling a gap and thats honestly what rdm always was.


That's how I've always seen it. I just don't always sit in the back row.

[CapriciousOne]

One of the primary reasons someone says "Xjob is meant to be fun" is usually because it doesn't matter how the collective wants to utilize the job, the individual just wants to do whatever they want with it. These people usually bring up the argument "It's an MMO not real life" or "I pay for the account so I should be able to do what I want" without realizing that what they want out of the job doesn't necessarily fit the groups needs and in some cases even hurts the group. 1. It is an MMO, not do whatever you want play ground. 2. If you can't collectively add something to the group your spot is better off going to someone who can offer more.

3. In the case of rdm, they can't cure well enough without running into hate issues (even in all of the -enmity/potency available), their A+ Enfeebling status has been reduced to nearly useless in newer content due to immunities even with rdm being the only job that gets higher tier enfeebles, and their melee is lacking next to a real DD anywhere from 15-20% difference. Any of these reasons a rdm could use are squashed for group activities because they can just fill it with a better suited job.

That being said, no one is saying don't have fun on the job you play, just know when what you want to do with the job fits what is going on. If you're invited to fit a certain position and you start doing something else other than that, expect to hear about it...or in some extreme cases be kicked from the group for it. The "meant to have fun" mentality doesn't mix with the 4. "I only get x amount of time per day/week to play and want to get x objective done in that limited amount of time" mentality. Both are seen as "fun" to different people, but clash with one another.

This is why people argue about what a job does, or how it is useless, because the job was invited to fit x-role for what is happening, or it offers nothing the collective needs over something else. If you're looking for a job that you want to have fun on when with friends or small group (3-4 people) activities then rdm is fine, but 5. if you are looking for a job that is "fun" in larger activities...you're better off leveling a non-hybrid job that fits as close to what aspect you find "fun" rather than making up excuses while playing a hybrid and trying to perform a primary's role.

1. What is this JAIL games are made to be enjoyed in more than one way. In fact for the most part everything in life is that way as well but we have the OPTION of enjoying it any ONE way we like.

2. Well that is probably my biggest problem in that most jobs in my opinion have MORE than ONE thing to OFFER to the "collective" group even if thy not the best at it. RDM especially has more to offer to the group by it self than a few other jobs combined which leads me to

3. Despite this very limitation of RDM, still ppl call on it to perform duties better served by other jobs with greater ease and even less strain. I mean I agree while RDM damage output may be 20% lower, for me that doesnt justify completely not meleeing but to each his own I suppose. The way I look at it is for every 6 ppl in a party with 1 RDM if 5 DD are consitently dealing 100dmg each I dont see why even with 20% damage reduction that my rdm cant deal his 80 damage to add to the kill. I dont care how you look at it 580 damage from 6 ppl is still better than 5 ppl doing 500 max/attack round. In any case whether its 5 or 4 or 3 ppl the fact is that all jobs can contribute to the party in more than one way even if the alternate way isnt as good but additional help is still additional help. Sure my RDM cant nuke as well as a BLM but if a mob is weak to wind magic and the BLM is dealing like 600 for Aero IV why a RDM cant through out an Aero IV for about 400 additional damage without all the crying. I guess I just always feel like I can do more than just sit and cure and wait to cure again and dont need all the bitching for it.


4. Well I generally play the game for fun and the challenge of trying to solo as many things as I can. I understand there are times where time is of the essence, but let's get real. If everytime you have time to play you are always in a hurry, than maybe one need to consider rescheduling to play another time or focus on less time sensitive stuff until you have more time to contribute. If anything I hate is a rush job because that is where most mistakes are made and I die because that often leads to poor planningy and strategizing. In any case, I still dont think it my or anybody elses problem that a person doesnt have the time, maybe they should consider playing on weekends or playing a less time-consuming game. Simply put nobody cares about your(not specifically you) time management issues but that is the luxury of MMO getting to find like minded ppl to enjoy the game.

5.See that statement alone sounds like someboy that doesnt really fully utilize RDM because I for one enjoy ALL aspects of RDM and no other job really allows me to enjoy all aspects AT ONCE and as the battle SEES FIT. No RDM should have to be limited to any one aspect. To enjoy the thrills of nuking I would have to lose the ability to melee and buff as well as consistenly heal instead of relying on Drain spells and there recase timers. To enjoy more healing potency I as a WHM I would also have to lose some more damage output as well as targeted elemental nuking. RDM in short is a balanced job and I guess it just frustrates me how just because it doesnt specialize it is pigeon hold as weak yet the very role it is then ask to play is better served by WHM. I guess I am rambling now but that is the biggest plight of some RDM why should any of us have to go through another like 2-4million experience point just to level up another job to the same level of our RDM just to do an event on a job we probably wont even use outside the event?

All in all I just one of those ppl that look at a person and their job combo I always ask how can I utilize them as is instead of trying to form their opinions for them. I'm more of that "well of you going to do X then you probably should invest in Y or get Z etc" instead of "your job sucks at this so i'm going to make you do this which you suck even more at than another job instead" LOL. I always try to adjust to the situation and make the party enjoyable for most if not all in it and not just what I want for me. I'm just not selfish like that even if I have to pick a lower level mob to make it happen or just schedule stuff when most people are able to come on and just have another run managed by another shell member for people that miss it.

So many solutions but whatever.

[saevel]

Just remember, haters gonna hate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTWLNjxOdNc

Just smile and wave