How to fix SE's spell list problem and RDM at the same time.

[Manakurei]

Hello there I have a idea that would fix RDM and add more room to create more spells. By simply allowing all enhancement magic to scale off of the enhancement magic skill, you could efficiently get rid of all the different tiers of enhancement, spells and make RDM more useful at the same time. For example instead of having Protect I-V we would only need 1 tier of Protect, since our enhancement skill increases as we level, so would the strength of the Protect spell, assuming the player takes the time to cap out their magic skill. By having all enhancement scale off the enhancement, magic skill, and getting rid of all the different tiers of enhancement magic, this could potentially make RDM the best buffer in the game even with Regen, and give the devs more room to create new spells.

Okay now lets talk about En Spell II, with this new formula we will only need 1 tier of en spells. This is my suggestion for our en-spells. Keep our Tier 1 en-spell but increase dmg scaling, but also instead of having en-spells lower the enemies defense against opposing element, have our en-spell's increase our magical accuracy, and magical attack with all spells associated with the element of the en spell. also have this increase scale with Enhancement, and allow the elemental dmg to proc with double attack, and dual wield but not receive other on hit effects. For example if RDM cast En-Blizzard, it will increase the magical accuracy, and magical attack of all their ice elemental spells. Now here comes the fun part changing some of RDM's job traits.

Replace all RDM magical attack bonus traits with Enhancement bonus. What enhancement bonus should do is increase how much our enhancement spells scale with every enhancement magical skill level.

Replace all RDM magical defense bonus traits with enhanced fencer job trait. What enhanced fencer job trait should do is increase melee attack, and accuracy when a en spell is active.

Replace Shield Mastery trait with En-spell mastery. En-spell Mastery should allow our En spells to magic burst, and En-spell mastery II at 97 should increase the dmg of our en spells magic burst, also I would like to note this should not stack with our regular magic burst job trait.

RDM's don't need new spells we need our spells to scale so our B+ enhancement skill, and A+ enfeeblement skill actually matters.

Also this is perfectly fair and balanced since we can only buff one person at a time unless we sub SCH.

[Ophannus]

I have a better idea. How about remove all the single target Bar spells from the game and just give us AoE Bar spells. That already clears up about 15ish slots. Also remove Gain-CHR.

[Sunrider]

I respectfully disagree, I'm very fond of my self-target Bar spells, and WHM already makes good use of the AoE versions (though I would like to see a good reason to use Gain-CHR).

And your plan doesn't exactly pan out. A couple of our spell lines (En-spells, Bar spells, Gain spells, etc), already base their potency off Enhancing skill; potency break points still exist in parallel with higher spell tiers. I suppose its possible to rewrite the formulas to simply tier up the the next spell level when reaching a predetermined skill level, though there are some issues that are raised.

The first is the function of some spells, specifically En-spells. Tier 1 proc on every hit and simply do damage. Tier 2 proc only on the first hit, and do increasing damage as well as reduce the target's elemental resistance. Some players wouldn't appreciate losing the effect of the tier 1 En-spells just because they skilled up.

The second is that this would would effectively get rid of higher tiers, and higher tier scrolls by extension. There are players that care a lot whether they get new shiny toys as they level up, and I'm sure there's someone out there that cares whether higher level scrolls disappear from the game.

[Ophannus]

I respectfully disagree, I'm very fond of my self-target Bar spells, and WHM already makes good use of the AoE versions

This is why we can't have nice things.

Don't you realize that if they replaced our self-target barspells with AoE ones it would open up like 16 slots for cool spells like Sabre/Brave/Faith/Plague/Blink II/Haste II/whathaveyou but it's totally fine if you'd rather have a crappier version of a spell that only WHM gets which only benefits you and nobody else and is basically worthless in a group situation.

[Sunrider]

This is why we can't have nice things.

Don't you realize that if they replaced our self-target barspells with AoE ones it would open up like 16 slots for cool spells like Sabre/Brave/Faith/Plague/Blink II/Haste II/whathaveyou but it's totally fine if you'd rather have a crappier version of a spell that only WHM gets which only benefits you and nobody else and is basically worthless in a group situation.
Your statement assumes RDM is only useful to a party if they're buffing someone else. I tend to think that there are other means of group contribution, such as not dying, or not being a burden on the healer's MP, or being well-equipped to address any surprises.

RDM's self-oriented capabilities address all of the above, without specifically copying the powers and/or roles of other classes (taking your example, WHM's area Bar spells).

Whatever S-E's issues with spell limitations, simply removing spells from the game can't be the only fix and, in itself, is a short-sighted one.

[Demon6324236]

May not be the only fix, but it is surely a simple one.

[Sunrider]

May not be the only fix, but it is surely a simple one.
Simple maybe, but inelegant, and still avoids the looming issue of spell list limitations.

There'll still be the shortage of space and when the time comes when the devs want to introduce new spells (or the players want to see new spells), I'm sure the players will become bored of deleting spells just to make room for new ones. It's an issue they're going to have to address, best to simply tackle it at the mechanical level rather than dancing around it.

[Demon6324236]

While I agree with you, its just hard to believe right now that they would actually do something complex enough to fix the base problem when they dance around so many other problems in this game. Then again I am currently not particularly happy with SE, as you can see in my thread (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/27718-Unaugmented-AF2-2-Storage) over in General Discussion (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/forums/86-General-Discussion) so my ideas on it may be skewed.

[saevel]

Holy ....


HOW can you desire a single target SELF ONLY spell over an multiple target Area Of Effect spell that does the exact same buff? I like adding 150 Magic Evasion to myself, I would absolutely LOVE to be able to add that to everyone in my party. I like adding 25 of any single stat (usually STR or INT) to myself, I would LOVE to be able to do that to everyone in my party. Protect / Shell is really just an annoyance more then anything else. What SE should of done is revamp the entire line and make Pro / Shell AoE if targeted on yourself and single target if on someone else. Then give WHM Shell / Protect effect merits such that they could add 10~25~40% effectiveness to their own spells. They can already do that with barspell effects.

See just saved a ton of spell ID's while maintaining class separation and not overpowering any single class.

[Manakurei]

I respectfully disagree, I'm very fond of my self-target Bar spells, and WHM already makes good use of the AoE versions (though I would like to see a good reason to use Gain-CHR).

And your plan doesn't exactly pan out. A couple of our spell lines (En-spells, Bar spells, Gain spells, etc), already base their potency off Enhancing skill; potency break points still exist in parallel with higher spell tiers. I suppose its possible to rewrite the formulas to simply tier up the the next spell level when reaching a predetermined skill level, though there are some issues that are raised.

The first is the function of some spells, specifically En-spells. Tier 1 proc on every hit and simply do damage. Tier 2 proc only on the first hit, and do increasing damage as well as reduce the target's elemental resistance. Some players wouldn't appreciate losing the effect of the tier 1 En-spells just because they skilled up.

The second is that this would would effectively get rid of higher tiers, and higher tier scrolls by extension. There are players that care a lot whether they get new shiny toys as they level up, and I'm sure there's someone out there that cares whether higher level scrolls disappear from the game.

In my post I said get rid of the Tier II en-spells, nowhere did I mention in my post that Tier 1 en spells should turn into our current tier II en spells once they skill up.

As for everyone else I'm disappointed, here I was excited I finally got replies to my thread and all you are talking about are AOE bar spells...but oh well at least we are discussing potential solutions for SE's spell list problem and RDM's current state, lets hope a dev takes a look in this thread.

Anyways we need Gain CHR for the same reason we need CHR on our Warlock's tabard, +10 Parry skill on our Warlock's Gloves, and +10 Shield skill on our Warlock boots, we need it simply for the sake of completion. If they want to they could make the strength of our enhancement skills scale with CHR as well as enhancement skill, I don't care as long as they scale with something. I can't be the only one that finds it wrong that a level 48 casting haste is just as efficient as a level 99 casting haste?

[Demon6324236]

That, or that a 0 Enhancing Magic Haste is the same as a 500 Enhancing Magic Haste. Either way I think most/all spells should scale.

[ManaKing]

IF enfeebling and enhancing magic made sense, this would make sense.

BUT SE's stance on enhancing and enfeebling as never made sense.

I'm more willing to wait to see if they will actually do what they said they are going to do, which is increase the amount of spells and job abilities. I see this as the more complete fix because it will allow them to make future judgments independent of unattractive limitations.

Afterwards, they can either continue to pretend RDM is fine or they could actually give us some new toys.

[Mirage]

That, or that a 0 Enhancing Magic Haste is the same as a 500 Enhancing Magic Haste. Either way I think most/all spells should scale.

Haste already does scale, though, but like that. +15% haste on a lv99 player is a bigger increase in damage output than +15% haste on a level 50 player. Having the potency increase as well would mean the spell double-scales :p. As in, it wouldn't be a linear increase in power, but an exponential increase in power as you leveled up.

Anyway, I wouldn't mind if more spells scaled with magic skills. Typically, I guess spells that currently have multiple tiers where each tier grants an absolute stat increase could be reworked to be a single spell with varying potency. However, spells that grant buffs as percentages of the target's stats do not require this, and could just be left as they are.

However, that also means protect and shell would be treated differently, as they function in entirely different ways. While protect is a static boost to your defence value, shell functions as a -MDT% value. Shell 1 on a level 99 fighting lv99 stuff makes an extremely bigger difference than Protect 1 on a lv99 fighting lv99 stuff. While shell 1 would still shave off ~9.4% of incoming magic damage, protect 1 would probably not even be noticable even with a parser.

I think perhaps the best solution is to keep both those spells tiered like they are now, and instead spend resources on figuring out a way to increase the maximum number of spells in the game by 50-100%.

[Lilia]

Barspell and ga-barspell is NOT the same!

-single target Barspells will always overwrite AoE version regardless of potency-

I hate it when i have cast a 165 barelement spell on me or others with /whm and then come a whm or smn/brd /whm and cast the same spell with maybe 50-90.....
or when i want ice for para and the whm cast thunder.....

I dont think others want a rdm only for ga version, thats more for whm.

Thank you SE for rdm barelement spells :)

[Demon6324236]

Honestly they should make a trait for RDM that does not allow other player's spells to overwrite our own. Its annoying to melee as a RDM who is doing good numbers, then you have someone else cast Haste on you, so your 12 minute Haste is replaced with a small 3 minute Haste.

[ManaKing]

Man I hope they don't take the time to implement that. There is like 100 other things more relevant to RDM or this game.

[Demon6324236]

Depends, I really only suggest it as a solution to the problem of the spell list. Remove our single targets while giving us that, and we have more room for spells while no one can complain about losing their Bar/Gain thanks to some WHM.

[SpankWustler]

I can not believe some people actively want worse spells not to be replaced by better ones.

White Mage's role wouldn't even be diminished by the addition. White Mage has insanely powerful bar-element spells thanks to merits and job-specific equipment that provide bonuses unmatched by the benefits of any amount of Enhancing Magic skill, and Boost-Stuff spells are generally a tertiary function.

[Winrie]

Honestly I think SE should give RDM a list of their own unique spells that are unusable by RDM sub or any other jobs, other jobs get a lot of useful unique spells not useable by others that make them important role why not RDM, we can even go as far as to call this red magic. Base it's power or accuracy on particular other skills. Such as offensive red magic being based on elemental skill, support style red magic based on enhancing and healing magic and so forth. To me RDM focus should be on unique party buffs that are usable, maybe allowing some to be used as aoe with accession or some other ja. Perhaps some unique nukes that apply status down style effects and dots, they don't have to hit retarded hard like Blm but they should be decent and have worthwhile effects. As for the spell list, well that's something they should prioritize fixing and asap. That's just an idea I had on my mind, making RDM usable and unique among other jobs is something I think needs to happen.

[Rieul]

The main problem I see is: Who's gonna give me a refund on all the time and gil invested completing my spell list for RDM?
Unless you can get over that, don't you dare take anything away.

[Demon6324236]

There was no refund when we lost Flash... Either way, we should not lose spells at all, we simply need to gain alot more unique spells. RDM is the only job in the game that I can think of with literally only 2 or 3 unique things about it, SCH has more unique spells than we do and its a powerful job anyways, were weaker on the magic side in every way and yet we still lack a unique aspect to give us a purpose like it has. When you step back and look, we have En-spells, which were going to lose as being unique when Rune comes out, we have Gravity... seriouslly all I can think of off the top of my head that RDM has to itself.

[saevel]

There was no refund when we lost Flash... Either way, we should not lose spells at all, we simply need to gain alot more unique spells. RDM is the only job in the game that I can think of with literally only 2 or 3 unique things about it, SCH has more unique spells than we do and its a powerful job anyways, were weaker on the magic side in every way and yet we still lack a unique aspect to give us a purpose like it has. When you step back and look, we have En-spells, which were going to lose as being unique when Rune comes out, we have Gravity... seriouslly all I can think of off the top of my head that RDM has to itself.


No RDM in the history of FFXI ever learned Flash, ever. The adjustment to flash was before the original level cap was raised over 50 during the JP only time.