On Red Mage melee...

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Originally Posted by Mageoholic

LOL and my AF weapon is a sword not a staff what the hell is your point.

On the topic of our AF3+2 set, it gives a direct boost to our melee by reducing casting loads. This combined with the increased Fast Cast rate gives you about a 5% damage increase. Not bad for gear you use to macro on a cast.

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Oh hey, 5% damage increase. I wonder where that number came from. Care to provide ... anything to back that number up? Like, anything quantifiable? As in, things you can actually measure from which to draw that 5% number?

Oh yeah, I forgot, you disagree with me so you're obviously an "xbox nub" and an "Abysgimp". I'm not taking anyone's side here. I'm on my side. And on my side, you're full of it. Want to come in here and rant about how fast cast gives you some immeasurable amount of extra time to swing your sword? Save it. We have enough people arguing over subjective, qualitative bullshit in here already.

If you have the free time between casting to hit the engage button, cast more because you're being a lazy "Abysgimp".

Fast Cast is not qualative? I am sorry what?

50% fast cast reduces cast time by 28.6% (over 30% fast cast)

(example Slow II 3 second cast, base fast cast = 30%, 3*.7 = 2.1, Wchap/Dtabby = 50% 3*.5 = 1.5, dif = 1.5/2.1 = .714 (28.6) )

This is true for every 3 second cast we use, on our selves or on our allies.

AFv3 increases the composure effect by 35% for all buffs, which is 35% less time having to cycle, and equates to a 35% increase in melee time.

28.6+35% = 63.6% increase to overall melee time per enhancing spell we cast
28.6% increase to melee uptime per enfeebling spells

with 6 hastes alone it is a 3.8% increase to melee uptime.
with 6 refreshes it is a 3.8% increase to melee uptime
with all 12 it is a 7.62% increase to melee uptime.

This applies to nuking damage as well. Fast Cast and AFv3 are a direct damage increase to RDM schools of damage.

This is for swaping into 5 pieces of mage gear btw. which was my point that our AF sets have all enhanced our melee, even though they had primarily mage stats.

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Originally Posted by TybudX

You'll notice nobody on that forum made any preposterous claims about RDM melee's greatness. No ridiculous assumptions about what RDM is designed to do, not a single mention of lolFencer (it's just a name, folks), nothing. Just some random *** saying Haste isn't good for RDM DoT and somebody else complaining about Empyreans and relic hat being too hard. If you want to be taken seriously... yeah. Not pointing at you in particular, but anybody who has read this thread knows who the *** are.

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My point was that a civil discussion on RDM melee has taken place, without the constant nagging and horse-blinders bickering about the why's and why nots. Sure, maybe the advice wasn't so great, but at least they could just discuss a play style without turning it into a 5 thread, 500 page war.

Someone simply said "I like playing this way(lol), what gear would you guys suggest?" and instead of jumping on their high-horses, preaching and shouting about how X job should be played, they *gasp* answered the question and offered suggestions. Imagine that for a second. They even cleared the air right away about how "sub optimal" it is, but at least respected someone's chosen play style.

If you're casting 6 refreshes there's other problems that need to be addressed before you're thinking about meleeing.

it is an example to show that you save 63% on every buff you cast. I didn't expect there to be 6 refreshes. So lets say you cast 12 spells every 60 seconds. That is a 7.62% increase to time spent meleeing than it is if you don't gear swap. On a lighter spell casting say 6 spells every 60 seconds you see a 3.8% increase to melee.

Essentially the more you cast the larger % you gain over not swapping into fast cast afv3 set up. Even though your larger total melee time drops.

All it is is a comparison between using Fast Cast and AF3 and not, to provide a bonus to your melee (or nuking). This is gear that has no melee stats giving a 63% (for buffs) and 28.6% (non buffs) increased melee time per spell. Anyone who does not think Fast Cast and AF3+2 set bonus and gear bonus do not provide a direct increase to damage output (be it melee or nuking) is an idiot, plain and simple.

I don't see it as a direct boost since I'm not required to melee or nuke to benefit from the bonus, but that's just how I look at it.

Nevermind on the whole FFXIAH civil melee discussion. A new thread popped up and it's proving to be just as troll-filled and abrasive as the ones we have here.

Thats probably because outside of the RDM melee fanatics, Everyone feels the same way about RDM melee.

My opinion? Already voiced in these threads.

Edit: Also LOL at the idea of going to FFXIAH for civil FFXI Discussion, thats like going to 4Chan expecting intellectual civil conversation.

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

Thats probably because outside of the RDM melee fanatics, Everyone feels the same way about RDM melee.

My opinion? Already voiced in these threads.

Edit: Also LOL at the idea of going to FFXIAH for civil FFXI Discussion, thats like going to 4Chan expecting intellectual civil conversation.

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Yeah, I know. It does happen sometimes. Personally, I'm waiting until after the update to start a new melee thread devoted to just "talking shop", but that depends entirely on what in all happens with the update. Otherwise, we're just going to continue the same song and dance the past 5 related threads are enduring now.

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Originally Posted by Rayik

Nevermind on the whole FFXIAH civil melee discussion. A new thread popped up and it's proving to be just as troll-filled and abrasive as the ones we have here.

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It probably didn't help that they posted that one in General rather than the RDM subforum.

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Someone simply said "I like playing this way(lol), what gear would you guys suggest?" and instead of jumping on their high-horses, preaching and shouting about how X job should be played, they *gasp* answered the question and offered suggestions. Imagine that for a second.

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You're missing the part where most 'melee RDMs' don't just ask for advice, they make long-winded and erroneous claims about how the job does function, in it's current state, and they rightfully get corrected. It's not the 'other side's' fault that RDM doesn't come anywhere close to 80% of a melee job, especially while casting any kind of spells, no matter how light the load. It's not the 'other side's' fault that RDM is an incredibly powerful mage job, regardless of what certain people want for the job. And it sure as hell isn't their fault that Temper 'sucks'. It doesn't suck. It's just going to take a whole lot more than a DA spell to turn a job that has nothing going for it as a melee (save an Empyrean) into a real melee job. Sixty levels worth of stuff. You know, like what actual melee jobs got.

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Originally Posted by TybudX

You're missing the part where most 'melee RDMs' don't just ask for advice, they make long-winded and erroneous claims about how the job does function, in it's current state, and they rightfully get corrected. It's not the 'other side's' fault that RDM doesn't come anywhere close to 80% of a melee job, especially while casting any kind of spells, no matter how light the load. It's not the 'other side's' fault that RDM is an incredibly powerful mage job, regardless of what certain people want for the job. And it sure as hell isn't their fault that Temper 'sucks'. It doesn't suck. It's just going to take a whole lot more than a DA spell to turn a job that has nothing going for it as a melee (save an Empyrean) into a real melee job. Sixty levels worth of stuff. You know, like what actual melee jobs got.

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In turn, you're missing the part where nobody asked for a holier-than-thou explanation of why RDM melee is so bad. Spare me the boring rhetoric. This thread was completely civil until people decided to barge in on their high horses to enlighten everyone on why using a sword is so wrong and shouldn't be done.

This thread was never about civil discourse and the discussion of improvements to the existing Red Mage. Duelle wrote the OP, and he's the most zealous fanatic in here. I'm sorry if it's difficult to actually see what he's saying as abrasive or ignorant just because he writes decently well, but he was the first person in here to call for substantial magic nerfs and an end to the modern Red Mage.

The guy has Charisma, but what he's saying is nothing short of directly antagonistic towards magical Red Mages. The rhetoric perpetuated by Saevel certainly doesn't help matters either (eg, "All real, career mages think like I do. If you disagree, you're a loser Abyssea gimp scrub who doesn't know crap about the job").

The only reason this thread looked remotely civil early on is because everyone posting in it was just sitting around tooting their own horns. I doubt they all even read each others posts for comprehension (derp, like that ever happens on the internet anyways amirite?). It's very easy to be "civil" in an environment like that.

@Mageaholic: The ironic point which you seemed to completely miss was that if you're saving time on casting one thing, you should be utilizing that extra time casting MORE things instead of melee'ing. AF3v2 offers a 0% increase in melee uptime for optimally performing Red Mages. Ideally, all of that time you save on buff timers is being utilized in far more effective ways than swinging a sword.

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Originally Posted by Greatguardian

The guy has Charisma, but what he's saying is nothing short of directly antagonistic towards magical Red Mages.

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I don't understand where you get that idea. I see one post where he states that people need to weened off of Refresh and Haste, and another admitting that a Red Mage has other options to benefit a party other than meleeing. In fact, I see more information provided from Seriha and Duelle on exactly why Red Mage melee is impractical than I do from all the detractors combined. If you skim the first 25 pages I'm sure you'll find it to be quite fair.

It's actually funny when you think about it. Every single time somebody comes in with a parse or anecdote claiming it's why RDM melee is bad and shouldn't be done, it shows precisely why it needs a buff.

From... Duelle's... posts. You know, actually reading them throughout the entire thread and not just the beginning.

The man legitimately believes that Red Mage needs to be nuked and reworked from the ground up in order to be something that he likes more. Barring that, he's called for all of the following at various points:

-Drastic reduction in Red Mage's spell library
-Nerf to Red Mage casting range (5')
-Stance system that would only allow players to cast defensive spells during melee mode (Stoneskin, blink, etc)
-Nerfing of Haste/Refresh and other buffs to Self-only targeting

Duelle doesn't talk about buffing Red Mage melee. He talks about nerfing Red Mage magic and giving Red Mages no option but to pick up a sword in order to be half-functional.

Does this happen on post 1? Nah. But it certainly surfaces quickly enough.

As I said earlier, it's easy to be "civil" when everyone agrees with one another. That's not civility though, that's convenience. Blaming the Magical Red Mages for the flaming in this thread is ignorant at best. Pretty much every one of us posting in here with the exception of Shiyo has contributed more solid information and unbiased suggestions for buffing Melee in an unobtrusive way than 12 of the average 10-post "I liek swords" posters here combined.

This thread was resolved ages ago. Red Mage melee will never be viable in a group setting on anything difficult ever. RdMelees want random buffs to their melee powers because they find it fun? Mages don't care, as long as the Devs realize that they still have to make stuff for us, too. Bam, done.

This thread only really exists now for random "Hey we have a forum? Let me post my inane and impossibly overpowered ideas on how to be GOD MODE at melee in this thread" posts, and peacock strutting between people who can't seem to decide whether Red Mage Melee is good right now or not, or even whether they're overworked running buff cycles or just have all the time in the world to melee.

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Originally Posted by Greatguardian

Nerf to Red Mage casting range (5')

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I really hope nobody actually suggested this. There is a huge difference between encouraging a Red Mage to melee and gimping everything about it. This "suggestion" definitely would cross that line.

Increasing spell accuracy while meleeing a mob would be a better suggestion, but reducing casting ranges is probably one of the stupidest things I've heard today.

It's been suggested.

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Originally Posted by Greatguardian

From... Duelle's... posts. You know, actually reading them throughout the entire thread and not just the beginning.

The man legitimately believes that Red Mage needs to be nuked and reworked from the ground up in order to be something that he likes more. Barring that, he's called for all of the following at various points:

-Drastic reduction in Red Mage's spell library
-Nerf to Red Mage casting range (5')
-Stance system that would only allow players to cast defensive spells during melee mode (Stoneskin, blink, etc)
-Nerfing of Haste/Refresh and other buffs to Self-only targeting

Duelle doesn't talk about buffing Red Mage melee. He talks about nerfing Red Mage magic and giving Red Mages no option but to pick up a sword in order to be half-functional.

Does this happen on post 1? Nah. But it certainly surfaces quickly enough.

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I want to take your word for it, I really do. This thread is just too big to search down a handful of specific posts and quote them for accuracy. There's just no sense in painting someone to be like Joseph Stalin just because they said a few radical hypotheticals to make sword desirable.

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As I said earlier, it's easy to be "civil" when everyone agrees with one another. That's not civility though, that's convenience. Blaming the Magical Red Mages for the flaming in this thread is ignorant at best. Pretty much every one of us posting in here with the exception of Shiyo has contributed more solid information and unbiased suggestions for buffing Melee in an unobtrusive way than 12 of the average 10-post "I liek swords" posters here combined.

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Alright, I admit it's not fair to blame the mage-only RDMs. However, everything was hunky-dory until somebody tried to suggest that melee is stupid and that everyone that wanted to was stupid.

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This thread was resolved ages ago. Red Mage melee will never be viable in a group setting on anything difficult ever.

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Not as the game stands currently, but if Square Enix decided to make it work tomorrow then that's their call. Player speculation is not a valid authority on the matter.

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RdMelees want random buffs to their melee powers because they find it fun? Mages don't care, as long as the Devs realize that they still have to make stuff for us, too. Bam, done.

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That's what the New Thread button is for. Also the topic Karbuncle(I think) created for ideas for magical buffs.

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This thread only really exists now for random "Hey we have a forum? Let me post my inane and impossibly overpowered ideas on how to be GOD MODE at melee in this thread" posts, and peacock strutting between people who can't seem to decide whether Red Mage Melee is good right now or not, or even whether they're overworked running buff cycles or just have all the time in the world to melee.

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In all honesty, this thread should have been locked a long time ago. There are still a few quality ideas that can be cleaned up and posted in a brand new thread, but it'd only be a matter of time before that one gets dragged down by detractors.

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Originally Posted by Stylin

SCH has a Great Axe skill?



I want to take your word for it, I really do. This thread is just too big to search down a handful of specific posts and quote them for accuracy. There's just no sense in painting someone to be like Joseph Stalin just because they said a few radical hypotheticals to make sword desirable.

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You should just read the whole thread, then. I'm not being facetious, I'm just being straight with you. I've read the whole thing, and participated in it for a very long time. It's all well and good to hear talk of "Revitalizing Red Mage melee", but when you get down to the specifics he paints a very unfriendly picture. He likes to reference how WoW supposedly reworked some class from the ground up to make it work the way he/others wanted it to, though I wouldn't know much about that. His endgame has pretty much always been scrapping current Red Mage and turning it into Blue Mage with a better hat and brokenly good abilities.

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Originally Posted by Stylin

Alright, I admit it's not fair to blame the mage-only RDMs. However, everything was hunky-dory until somebody tried to suggest that melee is stupid and that everyone that wanted to was stupid.

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Well, melee'ing is stupid on a lot of things and a lot of melee-centric Red Mages are stupid. A lot of people in general are stupid though, so really it's not a surprise. The biggest issue is the difference between what certain people want, and what certain people believe is already the case.

Here are the facts:
1) Red Mage melee is absolutely not viable on anything stronger than T level outside Abyssea (or on hard things inside)
2) Red Mage already functions decently as a melee on things that are weaker than EM level
3) Red Mage has never come close to performing as well as a dedicated DD in the melee department at the level cap. We are talking less than half the power of a "real" DD job, even with practically no casting being done.
4) Magic will almost universally be a better use of a Red Mage's time on anything stronger than EM, no matter how much they buff Melee.

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Originally Posted by Stylin

Not as the game stands currently, but if Square Enix decided to make it work tomorrow then that's their call. Player speculation is not a valid authority on the matter.

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This is a fallacy that I see on these forums a lot. Devs aren't magic. They don't, and probably straight up can't, rewrite or modify the engine that the game is running on right now and the developer toolkit that they are using to mold it. The developers work within the confines of the game as it is right now, not just because they want to, but because they have to. They cannot simply flip a switch and allow players to fly. They can't just make Red Mages gods, either.

What tools do they have to work with? Combat skills, Job Abilities, Job Traits, Weapon Skills, and Spells. What combination of any of these would make Melee *more prominent than casting* on anything HNM-level? None, save turning Red Mage into Primeval Brew.

Can they buff melee? Sure. Can they ever realistically buff it to the point where it is favorable over casting on hard targets? No. Why? Because the intrinsic benefits of back-line magery are vastly superior to whatever DPS Red Mage Melee can bring to the table.

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Originally Posted by Stylin

That's what the New Thread button is for. Also the topic Karbuncle(I think) created for ideas for magical buffs.

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You're missing the point. It's not about wanting to field suggestions for magical buffs. It's simply a note that every time the Devs spend time sitting around and tweaking swords, that's time they're not spending working on fixes to Red Mage's magical aspect. Do any of us mind a melee buff here or there? Naw. But do we think this needs to be the Developers focus for the next 9 levels? Hell no. Red Mage is a solid job but it could definitely use some tweaking, and frankly we will never consider Melee as anything but a toy. Does it bother me if you like your toy and think it's fun? Nah, go play with it, I don't mind. But I would definitely be upset if the Devs spent all their time tweaking that toy and none on the aspect of Red Mage that people actually use in serious play. Does that make sense?

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Originally Posted by Stylin

In all honesty, this thread should have been locked a long time ago. There are still a few quality ideas that can be cleaned up and posted in a brand new thread, but it'd only be a matter of time before that one gets dragged down by detractors.

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This thread will just be remade if it's locked. It already has a billion iterations everywhere considering no one bothers posting in this subforum unless it's about melee. That's not to say the majority of forum-goers like melee. It's just that quite a few people are turned off by what more typical/moderate Red Mages would consider fanaticism. Most magical Red Mages just don't have the patience to deal with the melee crowd. They don't exactly have a sterling reputation.

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Originally Posted by Greatguardian

You should just read the whole thread, then. I'm not being facetious, I'm just being straight with you. I've read the whole thing, and participated in it for a very long time. It's all well and good to hear talk of "Revitalizing Red Mage melee", but when you get down to the specifics he paints a very unfriendly picture. He likes to reference how WoW supposedly reworked some class from the ground up to make it work the way he/others wanted it to, though I wouldn't know much about that. His endgame has pretty much always been scrapping current Red Mage and turning it into Blue Mage with a better hat and brokenly good abilities.

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I'm in the process of rereading this entire thread, and as of page 67 I'm STILL not seeing this "call for a drastic change to the class". I see a few stance ideas and the suggestion that Red Mage should be retooled from the ground up, but nothing as severe as you make it out to be.

Keep in mind that I don't like the idea of rebuilding Red Mage from the ground up, so this isn't an issue of me just conveniently overlooking it.

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Well, melee'ing is stupid on a lot of things and a lot of melee-centric Red Mages are stupid. A lot of people in general are stupid though, so really it's not a surprise. The biggest issue is the difference between what certain people want, and what certain people believe is already the case.

Here are the facts:
1) Red Mage melee is absolutely not viable on anything stronger than T level outside Abyssea (or on hard things inside)
2) Red Mage already functions decently as a melee on things that are weaker than EM level
3) Red Mage has never come close to performing as well as a dedicated DD in the melee department at the level cap. We are talking less than half the power of a "real" DD job, even with practically no casting being done.
4) Magic will almost universally be a better use of a Red Mage's time on anything stronger than EM, no matter how much they buff Melee.

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Those first three points were established in the first few pages of this very thread by melee supporters.

#4 is just being stubborn. If you want to talk fallacy you should re-evaluate that absolutist mind-set. You don't need to rewrite the game engine to make swords more worth-while.

The only thing I will admit sword being worthless for is HNM and that's only because it's a bad idea for pretty much everyone to be hitting them at all.

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You're missing the point. It's not about wanting to field suggestions for magical buffs. It's simply a note that every time the Devs spend time sitting around and tweaking swords, that's time they're not spending working on fixes to Red Mage's magical aspect. Do any of us mind a melee buff here or there? Naw. But do we think this needs to be the Developers focus for the next 9 levels? Hell no. Red Mage is a solid job but it could definitely use some tweaking, and frankly we will never consider Melee as anything but a toy. Does it bother me if you like your toy and think it's fun? Nah, go play with it, I don't mind. But I would definitely be upset if the Devs spent all their time tweaking that toy and none on the aspect of Red Mage that people actually use in serious play. Does that make sense?

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No, it doesn't make sense at all, primarily because SE is more than one person. Assuming we can only get a buff to melee or magic is just silly and unfounded.

So again, if you want adjustments to the magical aspects feel free to make a new thread. The thread dedicated to melee adjustments is not the place for it.

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This thread will just be remade if it's locked. It already has a billion iterations everywhere considering no one bothers posting in this subforum unless it's about melee. That's not to say the majority of forum-goers like melee. It's just that quite a few people are turned off by what more typical/moderate Red Mages would consider fanaticism. Most magical Red Mages just don't have the patience to deal with the melee crowd. They don't exactly have a sterling reputation.

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I don't see what that has to do with anything.

Perhaps for your own sanity, Sty, I'd propose a greater consideration on whether or not you wish to further the current conversation.

It's no secret both sides are sick of each other, and it's hard to perceive any genuine civility when indirect insults get thrown around in hopes of avoiding moderation. Yeah, some of us "stupid melee RDMs" notice those things. And while I won't agree with Due on all things, GG's attempt to vilify him is but another example of the perpetual rancor.

At its simplest, the presentation hinged on how Blizzard attempted to handle similar hybrid issues in WoW, namely how Paladins were often stuck healing and supporting in raids instead of being a more traditionally viewed tank class or holy damage dealer of sorts. While conceptual problems can be shared between the two games, both are built on different foundations. To that end, one thing that worked there might be outright impossible here. Blizzard also arguably has the means to totally revamp a class should they so choose, too.

Naturally, honing in on range variance and possible spell library restrictions would set off giant, buzzing alarms for those content with the now, but ultimately they'd rather froth at the proposition instead of understanding an interest in balance depending on how the finalized styles came to be. Conceptually, that level of detail was never reached, but the vaguest of suppositions certainly left their negative mark. He and I have had conversations of the notion in private, and while I urged him not to suggest what inevitably was, namely for this very reason, I can at least respect trying to bring something to the table other than, "Fixing RDM melee is impossible so SE shouldn't try!"

Nowadays, some might liken the idea to SCH's Arts and Addenda then bemoan how a loss of "access to everything" would utterly destroy the class, but it's just a blanket fear of change. Done right, I have no doubt a revamp could work, but I can't expect it, nor would I champion it over building upon what's currently present in the game and SE's track record of sluggishness. Given the list of points I brought up very early in the thread, I'd hope it would support that claim. And while it's fun to theorycraft on new things from time to time, there is no pursuit of God Mode from the people genuinely interested in solving this problem. Maybe a joke here and there to ruffle the opposition's feathers, but that God Mode notion is pretty much more mudslinging to sully the cause, too.

Regardless, you won't be changing their minds just as they can't change mine or others for melee improvements. It's all in SE's court after we've screamed in their back yard. Temper aside, I can't quite say they're listening to us yet. The big picture still needs to unravel with possible skill and WS adjustments, then whatever they have in mind for enfeebles and resistance issues.

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Originally Posted by Greatguardian

Here are the facts:
3) Red Mage has never come close to performing as well as a dedicated DD in the melee department at the level cap. We are talking less than half the power of a "real" DD job, even with practically no casting being done.

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Didn't Doom already disprove this? With hard numbers? The rest of your "facts" are spot on though.

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Originally Posted by Greatguardian

This is a fallacy that I see on these forums a lot. Devs aren't magic. They don't, and probably straight up can't, rewrite or modify the engine that the game is running on right now and the developer toolkit that they are using to mold it. The developers work within the confines of the game as it is right now, not just because they want to, but because they have to. They cannot simply flip a switch and allow players to fly. They can't just make Red Mages gods, either.

What tools do they have to work with? Combat skills, Job Abilities, Job Traits, Weapon Skills, and Spells. What combination of any of these would make Melee *more prominent than casting* on anything HNM-level? None, save turning Red Mage into Primeval Brew.

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Why does it always go back to HNM's? Aren't these the same NM's that not even actual DD's are even melee'ing on due to tp feed? There's a bigger game out there than just HNM's, and by being a versatile hybrid we can use magic in situations where melee is not viable. We're not asking for RDM's to be "gods", we're not asking to melee 100% of the time, on 100% of the game's content. If that's what you really think, you have seriously misread a majority of the debate. We're not all Duelle. I like Duelle, but I don't agree with his approach. I think you are unfairly exaggerating this entire topic.

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Originally Posted by Greatguardian

Can they buff melee? Sure. Can they ever realistically buff it to the point where it is favorable over casting on hard targets? No. Why? Because the intrinsic benefits of back-line magery are vastly superior to whatever DPS Red Mage Melee can bring to the table.

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Missing the point of RDM melee entirely. Not sure of you realize this, but by auto-attacking a mob, you don't have to actively attack something in lieu of spellcasting; the attacks come on their own, in between spells. Fast Cast, a native trait that RDM excels in even without gear, does wonders for this. Unless you are running some script/app whatever that has you absolutely casting a spells every single millisecond of the game. RDM melee damage is supplemental; it's like an extra DoT, that just happens to feed mad tp to the mob. This is not practical in the current phase of the game, and we are all aware.

The anti-melee side seems to think that we magically stop casting spells the moment we step up and swing. Casting spells does slow down the rate of our melee attacks, but they're still there. A clever rdm can even time their spells to coincide with their attacks better. Mindblowing concept, I know.

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Originally Posted by Greatguardian

You're missing the point. It's not about wanting to field suggestions for magical buffs. It's simply a note that every time the Devs spend time sitting around and tweaking swords, that's time they're not spending working on fixes to Red Mage's magical aspect. Do any of us mind a melee buff here or there? Naw. But do we think this needs to be the Developers focus for the next 9 levels? Hell no. Red Mage is a solid job but it could definitely use some tweaking, and frankly we will never consider Melee as anything but a toy. Does it bother me if you like your toy and think it's fun? Nah, go play with it, I don't mind. But I would definitely be upset if the Devs spent all their time tweaking that toy and none on the aspect of Red Mage that people actually use in serious play. Does that make sense?

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Speaking of fallacies... The Devs are already working on the mage-side of RDM. They have been for a long time, and when 99 rolls around, RDM will be an even more powerful mage than before. What is OMG SO TERRIBLE about that fact that the Dev's are FINALLY paying some attention to a broken, unbalanced piece of the game? RDM melee has been there since day 1. It's been mistreated and ignored for a long, long time, maybe they're trying to set the record straight? Is it really so impossible to imagine that the Dev's could possible be looking into multiple aspects of a job simultaneously? They've already said they are working on enfeebles and enhancements. There are still several levels to go. Seriously, let us have our melee update for once, for crying out loud. It's not like the job is finished after this update; the game will continue to get updates even after lvl 99 is reached. Chill.

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Originally Posted by Greatguardian

This thread will just be remade if it's locked. It already has a billion iterations everywhere considering no one bothers posting in this subforum unless it's about melee. That's not to say the majority of forum-goers like melee. It's just that quite a few people are turned off by what more typical/moderate Red Mages would consider fanaticism. Most magical Red Mages just don't have the patience to deal with the melee crowd. They don't exactly have a sterling reputation.

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I've said before, I respect your skills and knowledge on the job. But really, you have been one of the loudest, most arrogant and condescending anti-melee voices on this entire forum. Whenever someone even mentioned how to possibly make melee viable, you came in on your high horse stomping and shouting down anyone who disagreed with you. If another thread gets made, you'd likely run in and crap all over it too. You have had a very heavy hand in turning this thread into a warzone, instead of simply letting those "few" of us who enjoy melee, ya know, actually have a discussion about melee. The fact that even SE sees a need to at least make some kind of adjustment in melee's favor just isn't even enough for you. You have to have the job your way or else. It seems impossible to you that you are somehow not a doctrined, deputized official SE authority on the job, and that other people may play the job differently than you.

I honestly think RDM melee could have been more viable before now, if players were allowed to actually discuss the obstacles we face, without getting shouted down and suppressed every time we bring it up. If we could find the reasons exactly why it doesn't work without having to defend ourselves from getting trolled every other post, we probably could have found a better resolution to the entire situation a long time ago.

i think the only thing Doom proved was a Great Geared Empyrean RDM can out DD Full AF1 pick up noobs.

He didn't even scratch the potential of the real DD in the party.

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

i think the only thing Doom proved was a Great Geared Empyrean RDM can out DD Full AF1 pick up noobs.

He didn't even scratch the potential of the real DD in the party.

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Is that so terrible, though? I think had he successfully out-damaged a true DD, there would have been more of an issue. He still dished out pretty nice numbers, and in the long run, it was more damage than he would have done sitting on the backline. RDM melee isn't about replacing any specialist DD, it's to add extra support damage, at least in my opinion.

To the person who said rdm cant be made to do heavy damage through JA/JT/Stat/Spell methods, i can just spell out an idea based upon my rdm to show thats a load of crap, ill even post a reasonable one.

Ethreal Charged (Ether is the potion for MP, this is a JA, with a 3-5 min duration, and recast)
-Upon strike, adds % of current MP to Enspell damage.

Now lets look at my melee rdm, im rocking nearly 700MP in my tp build and ws build, at 1% i gain 7% enspell damage, at 5% 35 enspell damage, at 10% 70 enspell damage, at 15% 105 enspell damage. And this doesnt contribute to the base enspell damage. Now what makes this balanced? Any casting while slowing our swings takes away from our damage overheads, but thankfully our refresh spell makes up for this by ticking back that mp rather proficiently, and you can bet, that percent based damage is right up square's alley. It still doesnt even touch drk's soul eater for damage, but conversely can be kept up longer. And if there were gear to add percentages to this (preferably in the neck, ring, or earing slots) we start to see some sharp numbers, even at 20% where we are adding a bonus 140 damage before the native 20ish enspell damage, then tack on whatever damage you hit atop that. Get a +2 Khanda 2-4 hitter, and either a joytoy, or a 2-3 Khanda +1 and you now have a 2-7 hitting rdm landing 163 damage overhead per strike, and my rdm has 24% haste gear, goading or a v-belt would push that more. So with one JA, set to 10%-20%, my attack rounds land...lets say 15 base damage, 21 enspell damage, and we will use the 15%'s 105 damage, so per attack im landing 141 damage x2-7, at the low end, 282, at the upper end, 987 per attack round. And a delay of... 163.68 with dual wield III, suppa, 24% haste, and haste spell, which means that with haste samba (merited) id be 1%~ from haste cap (though that wouldnt work upon reflection as enspells do not stack with sambas...), and my damage overtime would be crazy, and seeing as they can use the soul eater code as a base, removing the hp(mp) consumption, and making it check current mp, it can simplify how quickly this ability could be developed.

Edit: I forgot to add this MP is based roughly on mine outside of abyssea. So this would scale sharply in abyssea, especially with a refresh atma, or MP*+% atmas.

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Originally Posted by Rayik

Is that so terrible, though? I think had he successfully out-damaged a true DD, there would have been more of an issue. He still dished out pretty nice numbers, and in the long run, it was more damage than he would have done sitting on the backline. RDM melee isn't about replacing any specialist DD, it's to add extra support damage, at least in my opinion.

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Not saying it was terrible, Just saying it really proved nothing that we didn't already know, RDM is a competently mediocre DD who with the right gear can outperform absolutely terrible players.

I don't mind the whole RDM melee debate personally, and while i wont recite my entire feelings (dig em up!), I feel the discussion isn't too horrible.

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

i think the only thing Doom proved was a Great Geared Empyrean RDM can out DD Full AF1 pick up noobs.

He didn't even scratch the potential of the real DD in the party.

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Considering I was part of that debate and I pointed out some VERY inconsistent numbers (600 average CDC is BS) I feel pretty qualified in saying that the WAR in that PT wasn't a crappy DD. The MNK who was in the thread even corrected me when I told him (on purpose) that they had picked out some lol AH WAR to play the part of the dudd. That WAR was well geared, he just wasn't super geared like the MNK was. Also I believe from looking over the numbers that the MNK was ridding CS full time and doing everything possible to full time tank, this inflated his numbers to unrealistic portions. Throwing another identical MNK into that group would not of yielded such large amounts of DPS.

Doom did about right considering he was playing a worst case scenario (high def / VIT monsters with heavy magic resistance and -mdt). He kept up with the non-emp but well geared / played WAR, and the BLU was just afk constantly. Give the WAR an Ukon and he would of pulled ahead by a good chunk, but that's to be expected considering WAR is a pure DD class.

At 75 it was 80% of a "Pure DD", this was me vs myself (SAM / WAR vs RDM) at the same camp over a period of time, I'm an extremely aggressive DD and keep on-top of all my JA's and gear swaps. Since then the "Pure DDs" have gotten a ton of new gear and buffs, their Emp armor is awesome, RDM has gotten shafted in melee gear, thankfully our Emp armor is made of win but not really for melee. If we had Sang Blade natively our Emp armor would make a perfect WS macro set. Due to all this, "Pure DDs" have pulled ahead even further, we're possibly 50~70% of a "Pure DD" now, with the situation heavily depending on weapon selection. SE just needs to add us on all the DNC/THF/NIN/BLU type gear they keep making, thankfully next update it looks like we're on much of it. Give us Sword EX weapon skills and it would even things out for the non-Emp crowd (CDC really is a zero to hero type of change).

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

Not saying it was terrible, Just saying it really proved nothing that we didn't already know, RDM is a competently mediocre DD who with the right gear can outperform absolutely terrible players.

I don't mind the whole RDM melee debate personally, and while i wont recite my entire feelings (dig em up!), I feel the discussion isn't too horrible.

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Right on, but I'm just saying given all our spells and abilities we have at our disposal, even while melee'ing, we shouldn't be dealing top tier damage. That'd be beyond broken. We have other spells beside the obvious melee buffs that help us in melee as well, and happen to help the rest of the party; our basic enfeebles such as Paralyze, Blind, etc are just more tools in the toolkit that make the mob easier to kill. Period. I'm perfectly fine doing mediocre damage if I can effectively cripple the mob simultaneously. That's what separates us from standard DD's like WAR and SAM. That's why we'll never(and should never) be dealing damage on par with those jobs.

That War was terrible or at least playing the part of a terrible one.

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Originally Posted by Neisan_Quetz

That War was terrible or at least playing the part of a terrible one.

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And by what logic do you use to base this conclusion on? That he was dealing similar damage to an Emp RDM?

I've already gone over their parse data with a fine toothed comb, the WAR wasn't terrible, merely not an Emp WAR.

I smelled something wasn't quite right, I don't trust parses done by of RDM's who are not themselves a RDM, they usually have ulterior motives and tend to set the RDM up to fail. I played along and dealt out the whole "WAR must of been terrible" argument, the MNK took the bait and responded. The WAR wasn't terrible it turns out, the BLU was. The MNK was an outstandingly geared Emp monk who was CS tanking and also was parsing himself. He also pulled the dirty trick of "turned off the parse when someone (most likely him) died".

So really that parse was crap from the get out and the reason I tell people to ignore the "percent of total damage done" part of parses, it's meaningless. Instead look at the min / max / average damage per hit, average WS damage, melee accuracy, cure amount, damage taken and so forth.

* 12% haste in TP set
* V bhuj
* fulltime what looks to be Spiral Ring
* Aesir Ear pendant
* Ares Cuirass
*Pole Grip and maining RR

That war was terrible.

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Originally Posted by saevel

So really that parse was crap from the get out and the reason I tell people to ignore the "percent of total damage done" part of parses, it's meaningless. Instead look at the min / max / average damage per hit, average WS damage, melee accuracy, cure amount, damage taken and so forth.

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Percentage of damage done won't tell you much if you have a Red Mage casting Dia III on a mob, hasting other people, or opening skillchains for other party members. All that extra damage is caused by the Red Mage.

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Originally Posted by saevel

I smelled something wasn't quite right, I don't trust parses done by of RDM's who are not themselves a RDM, they usually have ulterior motives and tend to set the RDM up to fail. I played along and dealt out the whole "WAR must of been terrible" argument, the MNK took the bait and responded. The WAR wasn't terrible it turns out, the BLU was. The MNK was an outstandingly geared Emp monk who was CS tanking and also was parsing himself. He also pulled the dirty trick of "turned off the parse when someone (most likely him) died".

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The Warrior was mediocre at best, and the Blue Mage was there for decorative purposes at best. The Blue Mage was actually so awful that some people thought there might be an error somewhere because of his low accuracy and other numbers, until things were examined.

I'd say that Doom performed very well, and it goes to show that effort and intelligent equipment are more important than many things. I hope to see something similar after Temper is out.

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Originally Posted by saevel

Instead look at the min / max / average damage per hit, average WS damage, melee accuracy, cure amount, damage taken and so forth.

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When you can escape the grips of your crippling paranoia, you post some intelligent things. Actual performance is equally important to performance compared to the worst Blue Mage to ever be Blue on a Mage, or compared to a well-equipped Monk for that matter. I think a lot of folks already know this, but it bears repeating.

If there was any issue with the parse, honestly, it was that everyone but Gokku and Doombringer weren't so hot. The Warrior and the Blue Mage provided less than stellar damage, and Doombringer had to take over Hastes and help with Cures for a bit for some reason which I'm sure detracted from the result.

I think it was cool of Doom to help out with that stuff even knowing it would have a negative effect on his damage while being parsed, but yeah.

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Originally Posted by Neisan_Quetz

* 12% haste in TP set
* V bhuj
* fulltime what looks to be Spiral Ring
* Aesir Ear pendant
* Ares Cuirass
*Pole Grip and maining RR

That war was terrible.

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You do realize that's average right?

Jesus are we back to the days of "everyone must have a relic or their gimp"?

Seriously RDM TP gear, with the exception of a few pieces is on the same level of what you just quoted. The fact that he had a V bhuj and an Ares Cuirass places him slightly above the average.

Learn what 50% means, its not 1%, 5%, 10% or 20%, its 50% and thus average. If you line up 100 random WAR's and do a gear check, what level will 50% of them be at, that level is thus "average" not the two to five who are extremely well geared.

Because capping haste is hard for WAR, right?

If you line up 100 random Warriors, most of them will be terrible gimps with no idea of how to gear themselves, but I don't see how that's really relevant to anything other than a discussion of how ignorant the playerbase may or may not be.

lol @ 12% Haste being average.

it doesn't help a debate to exaggerate. Average is 25%/26%(shown) Haste in gear. Anything below that is tard-tier for a DD (especially a WAR...)

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

lol @ 12% Haste being average.

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I have 19% Haste on White Mage with easy to get gear (the single hardest piece to get was a Swift Belt) for my melee set.

While I wouldn't tell the Warrior with 12% Haste gear anything about it (especially if we weren't having any trouble killing the mob), I wouldn't think that was average Warrior performance either, unless the WAR had some sort of insane setup that made it out damage a Ninja with capped delay reduction with only 12% Haste.

12% haste is pretty bad, honestly. You can get 13% for next to nothing, just Wally turban, NQ dusk hands and feet, Headlong belt. WAR gets crazy amounts of haste gear. My WAR is nothing special, and I have more haste gear than I know what to do with.

23% Haste is probably more average for almost all jobs.

12% haste is terrible because you get 14% from full perle, and 18% with just that and a swift belt. Because of that alone, I would call a war with less than 18% terrible (and a fucking retard, if he's level 78 or more), 20-21% average, and 25% good.

If you can't get past 18% on war, I would suggest you TPed in full perle anyway, cause that will give you the same haste, and probably better overall stats than using stuff like turboturban and dusk. I think it's actually a bit ridiculous to see someone gearing to get the same haste as full perle gives you by using other pieces, instead of just using that set.