What if : Rdm was fundementaly difrent

This is a What If thread on Rdm on changes / visions of Rdm we have

It's theoretical thread so no Ps2 limits or any of that aply here, we are going by the if we could would it work.


Ill Start of with my own idea i resently had on a total change of how rdm work that might be cool.


Rdm has allways been said to be a mix off War/Whm/Blm but master off none
But what if that wasnt true.

What if Rdm unlike all other jobs, could be even more defined by Sub job choice and gear.

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To explain the idea:

At level 40 Rdm Gets a new trait active only on rdm main Called Sub Job enhancment
what it would do is give the rdm a difrent Sub job scaling then other job's,
At level 40 u would normaly have level 20 SJ as long as it's levled that high, but with this trait active instead of 1/2 level u get 2/3 level of main job on SJ, making the level 40 have SJ of level 26 ( all the .1 .3 etc levels are taken out so u do not get level 26,6 but clean level 26)

This would let the Red mage Get access to far more trait's magic and ability's then u normaly get making the choice of Sub job more defining onwhat king of red mage u are.

For instance Rdm/whm 99/66 would have acces to all of whm spells up to 66 allowing it to focus on healing since that is what u are chosing as focus.

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This brings me to the second Part wich is Gear defining the Red Mage.

What if AF 1/2/3 Was changed compleetly and remade for this new rdmm, Each Focusing on a difrent SJ aspect and further giving rdm ability to enhance and focus on one type style with a swap of gear,

The change would be a complete rewrite on current stats and adding a new set bonus to each AF set, one for each AF defining a special Style of the War/Whm/Blm style allowing rdm with a gear swap to come closer to each of the 3 job's but with it's own strenghts.

The 3 set's would have 1 focused on Enspell/Haste/DA/Tp/acc and with SJ bonus effect if u chose War/Drk/Nin/Blu
The bonus is a set bonus requiring at least 2 pieces to activate and add's something from the SJ choice, Choice of war could add Shield skill boost turning ur shield skill from F to C and Sword to A- skill.
Having a Drk SJ would give u Dark magic skill A- and Sword A-
Etc

The healer/enhancing set would Focus on stats that boost mnd/healing/Enhancing/Regen/divine /Refresh/Mdb
The SJ set Bonus would come from Whm/Sch/Dnc/Pld
Example of Bonus : Whm SJ would give Healing magic A- Enhancing magic A-
Sch SJ would give Staff Skill F and nothing more because book give B all over.
Pld SJ would give Shield A- Divine B+


The Elemental mage/Debuff set would focus on fast Cast/Int/Mab/enfeebling/Mac/Refresh
The SJ set bonus would come from Blm/Sch/nin/Blu
Example of bonus : Blm Sj would give Staff skill C Elemental Skill A-
Sch Sj would give Staff skill F and nothing more because book give B all over.
Blu Sj would give Blue Magic skill E and Sword A-

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That brings me to the third part witch would be Rdm only ability of SJ swap on the run.
It swaps ur SJ but ur limited to choosing one of the AF set's SJ jobs of Blm/Sch/whm/drk/pld/blu/nin/war/dnc and has an initla recast timer of 5 min but can be merited down.
Changing SJ with this ability does not reset hp/mp but u r left with what u had.
This would allow for SJ swap with gear swap on the fly adding to versability.

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That brings me to the fourth part wich is merit change.

This is a big swap out.

Most of curent merits get removed, spell's go on scrolls

Group one all are removed but Convert Recast.
Added instead are
Magic Accuracy : first tier adds +4 , the rest of the meritts adds +2 for evry meritt

As for the rest of group 1 we steal 1 from each job Rdm is a mix of
From War : Double attack rate merit
From whm : Bar spell effect merit
From Blm : Magic Potency Merit ( this one is for all element, Blm should get same)

Group 2 Has all the spells removed and tuned to scrolls

Enfeebling Potency : start at 4+ first merrit then boost by 2+ evry merit
Temper Effect : start +2% then goes +2,+1,+1,+1 for rest of merits
All for one Recast : ( will be explained later, Ability) reduces 1min evry merit to total of 5 min of the 10 min timer
One for All recast : (will be explained later,Ability) Reduces 1 min evry merit to total of 5 min of the 10 min timer
Enhancing Potency : Starts with a +5 then adds +3,+3,+2,+2 for total of +15 potency
Refresh/regen Potency : each merit adds +2,+1,+1,+1,+1 to refresh and +5,+3,+3,+2,+2 to regen for total of +6 to refresh and +15 on regen spell's


Now for the Big change : Rdm Job merits gets special 3 sets from witch u can choose witch is active.
So u can have 3 changable sets of 2 group 1 and 2 group merrits set in, that can be swapped when ur not in level sync or combat adding more switchability to rdm.

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And that brings me to part 5, new ability's for rdm

Ill start explaining the 2 from merrit group 1 first

All for one ( taken from musketeer theme ) Takes all posetive buff's in 30"Aoe range from Party/alliance members and sticks em on u, for the easy run in hit fast.
The ability cost u 1/8 of ur mp instant in use.
The ability share's timer with one for all ability

One For all ( Also from musketeers ) Gives all Buffs on u to party/alliance members in 40" Aoe Range ( does not give ability's like compsure or favors) wether its ur own enhanced superior buff's or songs or dice or smn buff's as long as they are on u as u use the ability they become as if recently cast on all that recive it
The ability cost 1/3 of ur mana pool, cannot be used if below

Then there's the new Trait from gear:

Manaeater : like souleater but instead of HP it eats 1% mp for enspell hit or spikes activated, it can be further boosted with more of same trait then it gains 0,5% more mp drain for each added trait.

Manaeater Doubles enspell and spikes effect evry 5 mp eaten so if u have 1000mp and just 1 manaeater trait u get 3x the dmg out of enspell and spike.
This makes it posible to boost the dmg effect 2 ways, 1 get bigger mana pool, 2 get more traits.

Manaeater Would be on all Af set's but have Difrent augements making use of it for specific purpose of set.

Elemental cast and debuff set would have trait that allows manaeater to triger on element cast and debuff's by taking 2x mana cost of spell, each trait would further increase effect.
Debuff spells get a chance to break through imunity's, further enhanced if used with sabatour.

Healing set Would have it Double mana cost on enhancing for double effect
Healing would get a 1,5x manacost for 1,5x boost in amount healed

Anyways i hope the hide boxes helped make the wall more readable.

Tell me what u think or post ur own What if on Rdm as u see it.

I think I'd quit Red Mage. It'd also be unbalanced as all get out.

I myself would love many of those changes as a few of them i already mentioned like the accuracy and potency merits. I doubt we see it though because people will whine the job is overpowered YET AGAIN. Still I would love it and would make my soloing experience far better as I would be even less dependent on the bs playerbase RDM party dynamic, but they are insistent on making you dependent on others it seems.

Some of these ideas are good the rest are a little over-powered.

Also I don't think we'll see any Temper potency until tier 3 due to the level we learn Temper, and the current merits are for 75.

Personally:

1. Our Enhancing should have been A- at the minimum the moment SCH came out.

2. I like the "One for All" JA, but it'd need a better name. Also reduced to 1/4 your MP.

3. Enhancing Potency would be argued it's over powered. Doing it 1% per trait wouldn't remove the complaints but wouldn't warrant a gimp after it.

4. I'd also like "Augments Composure" as a merit. 20% for first merit, 10% for any additional ones. That'd be like what 110% the Duration without the eAF+2 boots or cape (My math sucks to work it out with the boots and cape)?

(They could do it just Enhancing Magic Duration but they probably wouldn't as it'd work for the RDM too)

Like i said before, id like to see a self-contained buff-up-fighter. Some arguments are "well if rdm was only a DD then where is the party support?" But that can be said for all DD jobs, yet some (Like rng with its new Decoy/bounty shot and shadowbind, blu's diffusion/diamond hide.) do offer party utility, but little, while offering more in the way of direct damage.

Personally though im the sort that wants to see all jobs having two ways of operating. Making it so if situations change, X job can change to better provide support instead of just sit there watching, but again, SE will always make a mob too dangerous to fight head on (xibalba has a doom aura for example) or at all in some cases. I do like what we have now but i agree, if fundamentally different id like to see it more buff up, debuff and attack! Though i wouldnt mind seeing some other things like a def-down aura, they dont want us to have auras to prevent debuffs, but why not auras to create debuffs! Though thats a bit recycled i guess...

I guess they could bring in some sorta geomancy sorta content, i had thought it as a direct job introduction, but my idea was taking a page from dnc, making a job that uses tp in less than 100% incriments to inflict magical, elemental damage, not ultra-potently, but enough to work, could then fling 2-3 tp-based nukes, then follow with a ws for example. But the disadvantage of this i see is people would want to make rdm use daggers almost full-time. Still could be interesting. But i dont see it happening.

If Red Mage was fundamentally different then it wouldn't be called Red Mage.

Not sure if its fundamentally different but things i would change up with RDM is:

1. A- enhancing skill
2. A- sword skill with same ws's as blu
3. Give all enfeebs/enhancing magic to rdm first
4. ALL aoe enfeebs/enhancing forms rdm only, add more enhancing ga's like haste, stoneskin and phalanx
5. Make Dia divine again, using the same mechanics as bio for the dot, and having it more of a WHM spell

Reasoning:
1. By SE's own words, "Since enhancing magic is an area that red mages excel at," and the fact both whm and blm have an A+ and A- magic skills for their specialties, it would make sence to clearly define rdm's mage roles into Enfeebling/Enchancing categories, while WHM stays Healing/Divine, and BLM Elemental/Dark roles.

2. As for the melee side of it and comparing us closely to BLU, I dont see how rdm with A- skill and the ws's would make us overpowered. Stat/Gear/Trait wise BLU's still have the better melee mage. Doing this would allow RDM to front line w/o all the bickering that comes from the anti RDM-Melee side of the fence and should squash the whole melee debate, those that want to can and those that don't want to don't have to. And it would allow us to be positioned for other party functions (see reasoning 4.)

3. It makes sense that blms get nukes and dark magic and whm cures/divine before rdm but never understood how we are the enfeebler/enhancer class getting them behind these jobs. Again this is done to clearly define our mage role.

4. OK, So if WHM's A+ Healing magic gets the aoes, and BLM A+ Elemental magic gets the aoes, why is it that RDM doesn't naturally get any AOE past diaga (refer to point 5). All aoe enfeebs and enhancing should be RDM only spells this would include the ra's, boosts and spells like sleepga/breakga. This would keep continuity and give RDM more of a specific mage role, and like brd who is also used for crowd control with songs RDM would also be the go to job for mob enfeebling. Some may argue that RDM naturally having sleepga would be OP but how is that different than BLM having it who then can AGA/JA nuke that group of mobs and kill it alot faster than rdm could ever possibly dream of. As for the ra's this sorta goes with the point 2, if rdm is more front line this would allow them to keep up the ra's/boosts w/o risking the whm who in the past had to always run in to do this. As for enhancing, like enfeebling, RDM should be getting a larger variety of AOE spells such as stoneskin, haste and what not again this gives RDM more of the focus of the Enfeeb/Enhancer magic job and this also can be useful while a rdm is front line.

Point 4 gives RDM more of a party specific role in game and allows BLM and WHM to focus on their specialty roles of nuking/healing. And both these jobs can still accomplish alot of these aoe's by subbing rdm (like rdm does now while subbing either WHM or BLM) or by subbing /sch and using strategems.

5. Dia and Bio are polar opposites and originally dia was Divine; it was changed because SE wanted RDM to start off with it, with point 3 and RDM getting Enfeebs before the other 2 starting mage jobs RDM could start with poison or something other than dia. Also remove dia/bio t3 merit spells and diaga from RDM and give them to the right jobs. This has never fit continuity and now is the time to fix it.

You do realize Dia is currently the best enfeeble in the game? You'd be throwing it away for some situationaly useful spells based on mechanics designed by people who made sneak attack work from the front.

The rest of what you wrote is ok, keep Dia an enfeebling spell and give us Dia IV.