RDM's support role

[Ophannus]

I know RDM is supposed to be a jack of all trades but can SE change certain spells to be single cast so they're actually not completely worthless outside of soloing? Sometimes it's hard to find a BRD or WHM and the small party might need barfire and the RDM doesn't have or can't use /WHM or /SCH due to the fight requiring something like stun. It would be nice if we can cast our barspells on another player and make use out of our high enhancing skill. Otherwise our enhancing is very selfish and only really helps us as it doesn't enhance Haste or Refresh(Our most desired enfeebles)

On the note of Haste and Refresh and Cure IV, all of those spells are our MOST useful and at 99, a BLM/48RDM can haste and cure IV just as good as a 99RDM can. RDM can of course cast Refresh II, which anyone /RDM cannot, but it's not much of a help since most mages now sub RDM for a full strength Convert and their own Refresh.(RDMs use to keep an entire party's MP full back at 75 with just Refresh 1, which means Refresh II is not that big of a deal and nobody misses it. In other words it's a novelty.

Can RDMs have Haste II as a unique spell that WHMs dont get? WHM specializes in Healing Magic yet Devs give them many good enhancing and enfeebling spells as well. If you include a Haste II make it RDM only please.

It's infuriating that many jobs can sub RDM and benefit FULLY from Convert, Refresh and Haste. Infact there are very few spells that jobs who sub RDM don't get full power out of(mainly enspells and barspells). A RDM cannot use Accession on their Haste, Enspell IIs. RDM cannot use Afflatus Misery or Afflatus Solace. Yet both SCH and WHM sub RDM and have a fully powered Convert and their Refresh and Haste spells are just as strong as RDM main. RDM's enfeebles are slightly stronger than WHM and BLM's Paralyze and Slow but it's ridiculous that we need MERIT abilities to have spells that should have been level 60 spells.

The equivalent analogy would be if hypothetically SCH RDM and PLD all had Cure 5 and the only healing spells WHM had over those jobs was Cure VI but it's a spell unlocked with merit points. RDM has 5 unique enfeebling spells and we're the enfeebling specialist. Gravity, Paralyze II and Slow II, Dia III, Blind II. WHM has dozens of unique spells that only they can cast AND many RDM spells or AoE versions of RDM spells. The fact that they get Addle but RDM can't get Cure V is absurd. Why does WHM get high level enfeebling and they are as Camate said "Healing Specialists" but RDMs cannot get Cure V? Camate said giving RDM Cure V would threaten WHM's role as a healer, but doesn't giving WHM a high level enfeeble threaten RDM's role as enfeebling specialist when infact we have >>VERY<<< actual enfeebles that no other job can use(and Gravity doesn't count because 95% of NMs and HNMs are COMPLETELY immune to Gravity's effects).

In conclusion, the fact that RDM's new enfeebling spell is Gravity II and it also doesn't land on any creatures that also resist Gravity 1 is ridiculous. Even when Gravity II isn't resisted, the movement speed is the same reduction as Gravity 1 it seems and the -Evasion is nice except most jobs rely on accuracy boosts from jobs like BRD/COR/SMN/WHM than RDM especially since Accuracy Boosting spells are never resisted, but Gravity is difficult to land on most NMs(random duration too, and the -evasion is unknown and probably a low number(Gravity 1 is -10 evasion, so gravity 2 is probably something low like -15 or -20, negligible compared to accuracy boosts of brd/cor/whm spells)

If we can't have Cure V, that's fine, but give us targetted Stoneskin spells, targetted Phalanx spells that are stronger than Phalanx 1(/SCH or /SMN can Phalanxga) a stronger haste spell and some better enfeebles. Maybe spells that increase the threshold which mobs can use TP attacks so TP moves may require 120% TP or 150% TP instead of the usual 100%, or spells that reduce the mob's Store TP or Critical Hit Evasion or Magic Defense. Since SCH specializes in Regen spells now, maybe you can give RDM's higher tiers of Poison after all of these years.

RDMs would love to have their hands on Poison III, Poison IV and Poison V. BLMs get tons of strong and powerful spells like Meteor and Comet, why can't RDM have amazingly destructive enfeebling magic? Or will our level 75 merit spells be the end-all-be-all. No other mage job DEPENDS on their merit spells. WHMs now a days dont depend much on merit abilities and BLMs now have stronger spells than Ancient Magic II yet RDM are stuck with their Paralyze 2 and Slow 2 options which are marginally stronger than the lower level versions. BRD's Carnage Elegy is already leagues stronger than Slow II and that song doesn't require merit points to use...

[saevel]

What it really boils down to is SE deliberately locked out the level 40 abilities of /WHM, /NIN and limited accession of /SCH while allowing anyone to get everything from /RDM at full power. Come 99, nearly everything from RDM will be accessible to every other job as /RDM. SE has done an incredibly poor job of adding anything to RDM since 2005. The best we've got is Dia III, then Refresh II, otherwise everyone else either gets better or the same.

[Aleste]

On the note of Haste and Refresh and Cure IV, all of those spells are our MOST useful and at 99, a BLM/48RDM can haste and cure IV just as good as a 99RDM can.

15% casting time reduction (difference in fastcast 3 and 5)
Effective double duration haste spells
Freedom of subjob


Can RDMs have Haste II as a unique spell that WHMs dont get? WHM specializes in Healing Magic yet Devs give them many good enhancing and enfeebling spells as well. If you include a Haste II make it RDM only please.

WHM gains Haste before redmage by 8 levels, if anything they'd get the single target version first. Hell, they should also get an AOE version...


It's infuriating that many jobs can sub RDM and benefit FULLY from Convert, Refresh

This seems pretty unfair; numerous jobs have had their core job abilities locked out, and their spells reduced in potency. I never understood why SE never tweaked it, even remotely.


A RDM cannot use Accession on their Haste, Enspell IIs.

As a scholar job ability, it seems only fair that they can only AOE spells that they learn natively.


The equivalent analogy would be if hypothetically SCH RDM and PLD all had Cure 5 and the only healing spells WHM had over those jobs was Cure VI but it's a spell unlocked with merit points.

I'd still be happy, cure VI is a rediculous spell whose use is primarily limited inside abyssea. Outside its efficiency pales in comparison to even cure 3. Any good whitemage worth their salt will be using cure V, so that is a terrible analogy. Perhaps if you changed to to cure4 for everyone and cure 5 as a merit, but then all whitemages would run round with 5/5 cure V and 5/5 ShellraV...


WHM has dozens of unique spells that only they can cast AND many RDM spells or AoE versions of RDM spells.


Magic spells were split so that red mages focused on single-target magic, while white mages excelled in AoE magic.

RDM = single target, WHM = AOE. Excluding the single target/aoe versions, whitemage only has a small selection of unique enhancing magic... auspice and the teleport spells.


The fact that they get Addle but RDM can't get Cure V is absurd. Why does WHM get high level enfeebling and they are as Camate said "Healing Specialists" but RDMs cannot get Cure V?

Most whitemages I speak to don't even know that they can cast it, let alone are ever in the situation where they have to cast it. Take it away for all I care if it'll squash that petty arguement.




I will however admit that RDM is in a pretty sorry state at the minute (which should be fixed by adding in half the enfeebles that lurk in the .dats, and removing complete immunity from all mobs).

[Shadax]

Not to mention Abyssea has marginalized RDM even further, considering Refresh is rendered virtually obsolete by the proper atmas. Also, it used to be that RDM was the best solo/farming job because it offered no down time, but now I can farm faster on my BST than I can on RDM with the powerful new pets, huge boosts to biscuits, dawn mulsum and all the enhancements from FoV/GoV in most farming areas.

There should be a job trait at say level 50 that allows RDM's to cast self-targeting-only enhancement spells on party members. I think Saboteur should be a job trait as well. It's kind of ridiculous that BLM's and WHM's get job traits that grant constant fast cast on certain spells on top of any other fast cast they get from /RDM. An ability that grants a bonus to one enfeebling spell every five minutes when that's the RDM's most important role in the party, is not very fair in my opinion.

[Chimerawizard]

2nd that rdm has been neglected since 75. I would suggest completely redo'ing the t2 rdm merit category and giving scrolls with the spells. Aside from the idea, i think the devs should come up with what to put in their place.

Make enfeebles stick on more mobs. i feel like generally mobs are immune to at least a couple enfeebles. Add STOP as a spell (that sticks on HNM type mobs) 5~20 second duration. things from previous FFs come to mind now, MINI, FROG. doom would be bad for rdm since drk and blm don't have yet, same for death and zombie.

Make rdm's single target enhancing magic cast-able on any target. probably through a level 50 job trait or something so /rdm can't get the benefit. that should not overpower rdm's benefits. Include spikes spells and t1&2 en- spells with the trait as a small buff to counter the lack of anything rdm got comparatively.

Give rdm some holy magic natively. Should have never been removed in the first place.

Fix Blink: Make blink 100% activation rate, AoE only takes one shadow, and make blink's shaddow count be =Enhancing magic/100
@75 its still 2, @95 cap skill + gear its 4.
Reasoning: Utsusemi creates clones, IE multiple you's simultaneously getting hit by AoE. Blink makes you dissapear for a moment, IE you aren't there to get hit multiple times.
to balance it since /nin can use utsusemi: as well. double cast and recast timers.

[Lilia]

... stop (~terror) for blu next update
...doom ...blu
...death for smn next update

rdm can only have gravity 2

[rufuslupus]

you gotta pitch this stuff better guys.

did you know poison 3 increases the rdm and sch party relationship? unlike some of the rdms who still cry about sch making them obsolete, rdm and sch make a great dot tag team duo.

and to further rdm relations with all the jobs why not aso give rdm "go" that does not make party members attack faster like haste, but instead makes the rates of their traits like conserve mp, conserve tp, and double attack happen 15% more often.

and also "stop" which increases the duration of party members job abilities by 15%. (course all this stuff is single target only)

[Neisan_Quetz]

Being able to give Temper to others would work nicely for that but...

[Kristal]

Gravity I/II should be changed so that immunity to movement speed reduction does not affect the evasion down effect.
Both effects land: The monster is affected by Gravity.
Movement Speed Down lands: The monster is affected by Movement Speed Down.
Evasion Down lands: The monster is affected by Evasion Down.
Neither lands: The monster resists Gravity.

That allows Gravity to affect NMs that aren't immune to wind-based enfeebles.

Silence should get a similar treatment. No outright immunity, but an increase in casting time. It can still be resisted outright (say, by wind elementals), just not because the NM must be protected against those bullying RDMs!

[cidbahamut]

Silence should get a similar treatment. No outright immunity, but an increase in casting time.

What would be the point of Addle then?

[Neisan_Quetz]

Addle was added because SE was scared of mobs not being able to cast, or something.

[SpankWustler]

Addle was added because SE was scared of mobs not being able to cast, or something.

And Pining Nocturne doesn't stack with Addle because the Development Bros were scared of monsters spending too much time casting.

They really should make up their minds!

[saevel]

RDM's "support" role is.... drum roll please...

Cure IV

Cure IV

Haste

Cure IV

Cure IV

Refresh

Haste

Cure IV

Cure IV

And just keep repeating it until the sun burns out or your head explodes.

[Ophannus]

Funny because a BRD/RDM or BLM/RDM can do all of those spells and more.

In a few days BRD/SMN is gonna be the ultimate buffer cuz BRD/SMN can March and Hastega with /SMN48...

[saevel]

Funny because a BRD/RDM or BLM/RDM can do all of those spells and more.

In a few days BRD/SMN is gonna be the ultimate buffer cuz BRD/SMN can March and Hastega with /SMN48...

And now you see why RDM's are complaining in general. Everything under "support" is below 48RDM. "Enfeebles" are complete BS right now.

[Jandel]

Does support means debuffing the mob?

If this is so... why my WHM (leeched in aby) is better at enfeebling than my RDM (which is my main job)?

I'm confused... I understand why you don't want to give Cure V to RDMs. I don't understand your planning for this job. And Gravity II looks really like a wide, enormous trollface.

On a side note: I always thought RDM is the selfish mage, because apart form Refresh, his other buffs are self-target only.

[Raxiaz]

Barspells (and their respective Barspellra counterparts) shouldn't be self-target only.

RDMs need a full-time trait to increase their enfeebling potential. Saboteur is weak at once every 5 minutes.

Silence's hypothesized effect to slow casting time on partial resists could stack with Addle to make the mob have a really long cast time for some spells. I like that.

Gravity II does seem like an enormous trollface. The method Kristal proposed is a good fix.

"Zombie" mentioned before would be kind of cool actually. Casting it on normal mobs to make them have undead properties would be nifty - especially since then the occasional accidental mob-cure will have a beneficial effect instead of no effect! Though I think that would be more of a DRK or BLM thing, still, it is as useful as Addle, which would be the WHM counterpart. And what's funny is all the jobs would rarely cast these spells. :)

Right now it's not even worth enfeebling monsters, and it may not be the spells themselves. The monsters people normally fight either die so fast that enfeebling is a waste of MP, or they're so ridiculously strong in the first place that even if Paralyze did land it would proc maybe once before it wore off.

RDM doesn't need a reworking: the enfeebling system itself does.
o and Haste II yesprz. even if it were only 5% more it would be the bomb diggity for RDM to have, to truly fit that "support" role you want them to excel so well at.

SE says they want RDMs to be better at enfeebling. They give us (so far):
* Addle (useful in only certain situations and even then has little to no noticeable effect)
* Gravity II (decent, I suppose it's good to have 2 gravity recasts now instead of 1 :P )
* Break (nvm, maybe this is supposed to be Addle's counterpart? Though in all honesty it's like an extra stun/sleep spell, so it's not bad to have).
* Saboteur (5 min recast and little extra benefit for that cost compared to the other mages' niches).

3 new spells? 2 of which are given to other jobs? and a rather dull job ability as icing on the cake it seems. Perhaps Spontaneity could tie in with enfeebling enhancements but really.

RDM needs some lovin'.

[saevel]

Well Paralyze II is awesome on things that don't have built-in potency reduction. Earlier I was consistently soloing VT~IT tigers for my drops. Slow II + Paralyze II + Dia III and I just owned them on RDM/NIN. Sab + Para II just rapes a monsters attack rounds.

That being said ... all current NM's are pretty much resistant to paralize. Either it lands and never procs (potency reduction) or it'll never land (straight resistance). It's pretty much useless on big stuff, as is all our enfeebles in general. Grav II is -40 evasion, that's +40 acc to everyone in the alliance, a great thing to stack with Dia III. Except due to it's movement speed effect, SE has made ALL current NM's resistant to Gravity. So again, an enfeebled that's useless on big fights.

[Patrik]

sometime i feel like SE view on rdm is "whelp, it was overpowered for years so... now it will be worthless for years! :D" :/ but honestly, if we are supposed to be focused on single target buffs, fine. BUT let us single target OTHER people x.x its like we are built to only play by ourselves now, and kill mobs ourselves... very... slowly... i don't care if we don't get cure V, i'm just pissed that SE said rdms will be changed more into the master of debuffs and single target buffs. so they give us 2 more debuffs, one of which they give to whm as well, the other can't land on most worthwhile mobs like every other enfeeb (which makes no sense, if we can only land debuffs on weak mobs then we don't NEED to debuff those mobs). and their answer to our buffing mastery, give us new buffs that we can only use on ourselves, and give whm the same buffs that they can AoE... essentially giving us dumbed down leftovers...

bah, ok /rageoff. just getting frustrated that my favorite job for 7+ years is now the most looked down on job out there x.x

[saevel]

sometime i feel like SE view on rdm is "whelp, it was overpowered for years so... now it will be worthless for years! :D" :/ but honestly, if we are supposed to be focused on single target buffs, fine. BUT let us single target OTHER people x.x its like we are built to only play by ourselves now, and kill mobs ourselves... very... slowly... i don't care if we don't get cure V, i'm just pissed that SE said rdms will be changed more into the master of debuffs and single target buffs. so they give us 2 more debuffs, one of which they give to whm as well, the other can't land on most worthwhile mobs like every other enfeeb (which makes no sense, if we can only land debuffs on weak mobs then we don't NEED to debuff those mobs). and their answer to our buffing mastery, give us new buffs that we can only use on ourselves, and give whm the same buffs that they can AoE... essentially giving us dumbed down leftovers...

bah, ok /rageoff. just getting frustrated that my favorite job for 7+ years is now the most looked down on job out there x.x

Spoken as someone on the receiving end. You do ~not~ want this. Single target "other" people turns our days into this

Haste
Buff 1
Buff 2
Haste
Buff 1
Buff 2
Haste
Buff 1
Buff 2
Haste

And you keep doing it until the sun explodes or you become mentally exhausted.

I can't imagine anyone who's ever done cycles would ever want that again. It was the single greatest issue with RDM, the the most hated and what drove the majority of career RDM's to find other jobs. We don't mind supporting other party members, we're team players and all. It's the way SE implements it that makes it a disaster in the waiting. If we're going to buff players then it NEEDS to be aoe or effect a large group simultaneously.

It took us the better part of seven years to get away from buff cycles, and only through SE's utter incompetence. Under no circumstance do you want to be the RDM responsible for dispensing those "buffs", its one of the absolute worst things you can do to someone. The only thing worse is to force a SMN/WHM to main heal with Cure III.

[Patrik]

yea i'll admit to that being... annoying. of course i've had more parties than i can remember of spamming refresh and haste for hours. i guess what just mainly bothered me was the fact that SE gave us a direction they wanted to push us towards, and now its like they just gave up/don't care about what they said anymore. though i care about having real debuffs more than anything...

[Economizer]

Barspells (and their respective Barspellra counterparts) shouldn't be self-target only.

SE said this:



Make it so enhancing magic AoE effects take place centered on the person targeted.

Since AoE effects are strong, the idea is that you are taking a risk by the effect being centered on the caster. Curega is an exception to this, but it is balanced through a high amount of enmity.


Gravity II does seem like an enormous trollface. The method Kristal proposed is a good fix.

She isn't the only one that suggested it. Everyone pretty much has. In fact, I think SE mentioned something about it, but I can't really find that right now.


"Zombie" mentioned before would be kind of cool actually. Casting it on normal mobs to make them have undead properties would be nifty - especially since then the occasional accidental mob-cure will have a beneficial effect instead of no effect! Though I think that would be more of a DRK or BLM thing, still, it is as useful as Addle, which would be the WHM counterpart. And what's funny is all the jobs would rarely cast these spells. :)

If RDM/DRK/BLM got it, it would be okay, but if it is Dark Magic, then Red Mage really should have theirs buffed in skill. The E in Divine makes sense since RDM has no native spells, but the E in Dark Magic doesn't make sense as long as Bio III is a Dark Magic spell... Having at least a C would be nice.



Saboteur (5 min recast and little extra benefit for that cost compared to the other mages' niches).

Saboteur should really give an accuracy buff if it is to stay at five minutes. Having a enfeeble under a five minute job ability get resisted feels terrible.


Perhaps Spontaneity could tie in with enfeebling enhancements but really.

Spontaneity is fine. It fits more with Red Mage's whole "Fast Cast" deal, and is the counterpart to Black Mage's mini-2hour.

-

On buffs in general, I absolutely under no circumstances want to see Temper become a targetable buff - it was mean and should stay a buff for Red Mage melee, not something Red Mage has to cast on others and watch in misery as they aren't allowed to melee... on the other hand, if a Red Mage under Composure were to have a very, very small aura effect with it when the Red Mage has their weapon drawn...

I know SE said aura effects weren't something they want to give players as much because they have no way of having mobs counter them, but if they are things monsters don't debuff against, then what is the problem? Refresh, Temper, Phalanx, Barspells, Spikes - none of these have a spell that counters them and having a (very small) aura on Red Mage would encourage people to allow Red Mages what SE has wanted for years, while still putting the Red Mage at the risk that SE seems to love for any benefit.

[saevel]

yea i'll admit to that being... annoying. of course i've had more parties than i can remember of spamming refresh and haste for hours. i guess what just mainly bothered me was the fact that SE gave us a direction they wanted to push us towards, and now its like they just gave up/don't care about what they said anymore. though i care about having real debuffs more than anything...


SE never gave us a "direction" for single target buff cycles, that was 100% purely the player community. It's an old story that not may newer players know about.

Back in 2002 prior to Zilart and the NA release. RDM didn't have refresh, gravity, phalanx or dispel. Dia was also divine magic, this is why we have divine magic skill yet no spells. RDM was pretty much WAR + WHM with a sprinkling of BLM tossed in. The JP players really thought the job sucked and no one knew what to do with it. SE eventually steped in and changed Dia to Enfeebling magic, raise RDM's enfeebling from B to A+, created Dispel / Gravity, added Phalanx and then added Refresh. They were wanting to make RDM a self buffing enfeebling specialist. The player community looked at it sideways but then say that refresh was 3mp/tick. Back then parties lived on MP, ~EVERYTHING~ was about how long your MP supply could last. So RDM getting a 3mp/tick MP buff meant they could keep the healer's MP and Black mages MP going longer and thus RDM competed with the BRD for the "refresher" slot. This was before we discovered the awesomeness of Haste and TP spam. Then Zilart happened with NA's being introduced to the game (the JP's were pissed) and the rest is history. RDM's were invited to cast refresh on the healer and black mage, and maybe even the paladin or second black mage. This earned RDM's the "refresh whore" nickname, and refresh spell became known as "mage crack". This continued until shortly before ToAU when "Spampage" parties started becoming more common and Haste was discovered to scale exponentially, and so RDM went from "Refresh whore" to "Haste whore". If the melee's all had /NIN and we had a BRD for additional refresh, it was found that a single RDM could get enough refresh that they could spam Cure IV on the four WAR's (later four melees) and not run out of MP. And thus is born the dreaded "support role" of RDM.

It was purely created from the player base finding out how to best abuse a RDM's unique combination of buffs and healing magic coupled with Convert. It never had anything to do with enfeebles, nor some special RDM magic. Only brute spamming of cures on a bunch of WAR/NIN's as they killed deco's in sky. And later on a bunch of melee's against little pink birds in ToAU.

Frankly I ~NEVER~ want to go back to that time. I pretty much gave up on RDM and went back to my first love (SAM) back then, as did every other RDM I knew of. What you ended up with was a bunch of people who leveled RDM for the sole purpose of getting merits and "end game" gear.

[ManaKing]

RDM isn't a support. That would imply it was anything. Anyone who plays RDM can tell you what an incomplete job it is.

SE has some real work ahead of it if it wants to make RDM anything but generally inferior. They won't do it. They just though that Gravity II and Requiescat were appropriate to get RDM from 95-99. Where is all the enfeebling magic re-balances we were told were coming? I guess that got lost in all the actual 'balance' they are doing. Since RDM isn't an actual job it won't be included until way past the point that it will be useful, if at all ever.

Look at the track record of RDM improvements. They are massively behind the rest of the game. I don't know if SE hates RDM, the JPs hate RDM, or who it is, but someone hates RDM, and because of that, you, a RDM get to wait.....forever.....for nothing to happen.

Any response to the future of RDM we have gotten on the RDM forums was given grudgingly (after we post 100s of pages of fighting on the forums as a way to quiet the bickering that ensues) or was posted in SCH forums and they didn't even include a post about things we have blatantly been taking about for as long as the forums have been open. We have never gotten anything except, no RDM won't ever get to do anything new and we have no intention of telling you what we are doing.....because they aren't going to do anything.

[saevel]

There is a functional role for RDM now, it requires an insane amount of gear and concentration, and honestly it's usefulness is doubtful, but it does exist.

SE seriously needs to add more stuff to RDM. First and foremost is more enfeebles, and not gimmicky ones like Break / Gravity / Bind / Silence that will just be nerfed into uselessness. Real enfeebles that reduce the monsters stats in some way, our 2nd best enfeeble (possibly best depending) shouldn't be coming from an "any mage" body piece. Inflicting minus's to various monster stats is a must.

Also need native access to all the sword WS and more self buffs that alter our own stats. The Gain line was a good start, that it wasn't boost was sad but ohh well. Next is for stuff that adds MAB / FC / Cure Pot / Attack / Accuracy / Magic Accuracy and so forth. We should be capable of altering our stats to fit the situation as needed.