[Pipe Dream] Revamping Red Mage Merits

I know we've mentioned that merits for our job are lackluster, to say the least in several threads on these boards. We haven't exactly put suggestions together on what we'd like to see replace our rather lackluster merits, so I figured we might give this a try here instead of trying to do a general "how'd you like your job's merits revamped?" thread.

The rules are simple.

- We're a melee mage, and as such merits for each category should be split as close to as even between stuff that favors the caster RDM and stuff that favors the melee RDM.
- We're getting rid of elemental accuracy merits and instead get two tiers of the job trait Magic Accuracy Bonus, which would give +10 M.Acc per tier at lv40 and lv80.
- Our current merit spells will become learnable scroll spells (at 5/5 potency), entirely opening up category II merits for job abilities and some such.

My contributions:

Category 1:

Convert Recast (Stays the same)
Job Trait: Magic Fencer - While under the effect of enspells, you gain 2/4/6/8/10% Double Attack rating and 1/2/3/4/5% Haste rating.
Job Trait: Elemental Chains - Casting an elemental spell reduces the cast time of the next tier up of that spell by 10/20/30/40/50%. (factored before Fast Cast) Example: Assuming the baseline cast time of Fire IV is 8 seconds, the RDM would cast Fire III, receive the Elemental Chains buff. At 5/5, it would reduce the cast time of Fire IV to 4 seconds, and fast cast would then be factored based on that temporary 4 second cast time.
Job Trait: Triage - Your healing spells have a bonus Regen effect for 10/20/30/40/50% of the amount cured for 12 seconds. Example: You cast a 1000 hp Cure IV, triage kicks in and places a regen effect on the target that heals up to an additional 500 HP over 12 seconds.

Category 2:

Job Ability: Spellblade (5:00 cooldown) - Instantly cast an elemental spell. Requires melee range and sword or dagger equipped in the mainhand. Each point increases spell potency by 20% and reduces the cooldown by 30 seconds.
Job Ability: Combined Magic (5:00 Cooldown) - If the next spell has a -ga version of it, it will cast the -ga version at 400/375/350/325/300% of the MP cost.
Job Ability: Renew (2:00 Cooldown) - Resets the duration of all buffs on the target. Additional merits decrease the cooldown by 12 seconds per merit.
Job Ability: Synchronicity (5:00 Cooldown) - Synchronizes you with one party member, copying any buff you receive to that party member. Duration of 2 hours. Effects with potency variances are copied at 5/10/15/20/25% potency (Enspells, Temper, Phalanx, Stoneskin, etc). Requires you to be within 10 yalms of the Sync target. Buff durations enhanced through Composure and gear ARE transferred to the Sync target. Spell effects reset by Renew also affect the Sync target. Cancelling Synchronicity removes all buffs from the Sync target.

Example: I'm front-lining and decide to buddy up with a SAM. So I use Synchronicity on him, which gives me and the SAM the buff Synchronized. I then proceed to cast Protect and Shell on myself. Synchronized allows that SAM to receive Protect and Shell at the same time I receive the effects, so long as he and I are within 10 yalms of each other. I cast Haste on myself and he receives Haste at the increased duration thanks to Composure. I cast Temper, and that SAM only receives up to 25% of the DA gained from Temper. So if I received 20% DA from Temper, that SAM would at most receive 5% DA. If I happen to have put points into Renew, buff durations would be reset on the SAM just like they would on me. If he cancels Synchronized, the SAM loses all the buffs that were copied over to him. I only lose Synchronized.

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And so we go from no-brainers to real choices that are dependent on our individual play styles. The guys that like to cast have options, the guys that like to melee have options. I'm iffy on Renew, as in this context it would be a JA that can be used on yourself and on others. As far as I can see, RDM would benefit the most from this JA, but there may be room to abuse; enough for me to consider changing it to self-only.

I know with this suggestion, it may suck to have to change merits if you end up having to use RDM for something else, but I think the idea behind our merits should be to support our play-styles instead of giving us the illusion of choice, which is what those elemental accuracy merits were.

Please feel free to add or post your own ideas for RDM merits. In my opinion, it's one of those parts of the job that is in dire need of attention.

You can have my Phalanx2 merits when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

I know we've mentioned that merits for our job are lackluster, to say the least in several threads on these boards. We haven't exactly put suggestions together on what we'd like to see replace our rather lackluster merits, so I figured we might give this a try here instead of trying to do a general "how'd you like your job's merits revamped?" thread.

The rules are simple.

- We're a melee mage, and as such merits for each category should be split as close to as even between stuff that favors the caster RDM and stuff that favors the melee RDM.
- We're getting rid of elemental accuracy merits and instead get two tiers of the job trait Magic Accuracy, which would give +10 M.Acc per tier at lv40 and lv80.
- Our current merit spells will become learnable scroll spells (at 5/5 potency), entirely opening up category II merits for job abilities and some such.

My contributions:

Category 1:

Convert Recast (Stays the same)
Job Trait: Magic Fencer - While under the effect of enspells, you gain 2/4/6/8/10% Double Attack rating and 1/2/3/4/5% Haste rating.
Job Trait: Elemental Chains - Casting an elemental spell reduces the cast time of the next tier up of that spell by 10/20/30/40/50%. (factored before Fast Cast)
Job Trait: Triage - Your healing spells have a bonus Regen effect for 10/20/30/40/50% of the amount cured.

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Convert: Ok, has worked for a long time, see no reason to change that.
Magic Fencer: Love it, but doubt we would get Double Attack from Enspells when we just got that as its own spell, haste however might happen, would be more likely to get % of enspell damage or some such then DA I think.
Elemental Chains: Nice, would have to work your way up the spell list which might be annoying, would be faster to just cast my T4 nuke and move on but wouldn't be bad either.
Triage: O_O; umm~ how long does this 5/5 merited 300+ regen last might I ask? SCH can hit 69 regen with Regen V but umm~ 50% of my cure 4 is... more than 300 hp, so yeah~ maybe like 2-10% but 10-50 would be 1-2 ticks... at most... Not a bad idea to have something like that though it might be a lil breaking.

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Category 2:

Job Ability: Spellblade (5:00 cooldown) - Instantly cast an elemental spell. Requires melee range and sword or dagger equipped. Each point increases spell potency by 20% and reduces the cooldown by 30 seconds.
Job Ability: Combined Magic (5:00 Cooldown) - If the next spell has a -ga version of it, it will cast the -ga version at 400% of the MP cost. Note: Not sure how merit points would affect this one.
Job Ability: Renew (2:00 Cooldown) - Resets the duration of all buffs on the target. Additional merits decrease the cooldown by 12 seconds per merit.
Job Ability: <Vacant: Feel free to suggest something for the caster side>

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Spellblade: Looks nice but our new JA already does something very much the same other than the range, which kind of weapon we must have, and spell type limit. However I would like to say the sword/dagger requirement would not matter, if a RDM is using a staff there is no reason not to slip on sword or dagger then change back if you truly want to cast the spell instantly, though the fact you would lose the potency of the staff, could go either way on that but don't think its something that would happen.
Combined Magic: Sounds good, I think merits would lower MP cost, for instance 1 merit you simply get the ability, for each merit there after you lose 50% of the cost up, so 5/5 would cost you 200% of the normal cost, maybe 25% down, to end at 300%, either way sounds good to me other than would probably annoy alot of BLMs that we get T3 ga spells.
Renew: Would love Renew, would make RDM melee much more fast paced, I hate the fact that every 15 or so minutes I have to stop, but on enhancing magic gear, use my 10+ buffs (which takes 2 minutes) and then change back to melee to fight again, would be more than 1.2-2 minutes in recast probably though, seeing as if were soloing we could make no buff ever wear off, but then again if its longer it would ruin the ability to use it on others which as you said, could be abused. I think it would be a great merit for RDM though seeing as it would give us the ability to have our buffs last on ourselves or a few others without having to recycle through them all again before moving on to something more important.

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And so we go from no-brainers to real choices that are dependent on our individual play styles. The guys that like to cast have options, the guys that like to melee have options. I'm iffy on Renew, as in this context it would be a JA that can be used on yourself and on others. As far as I can see, RDM would benefit the most from this JA, but there may be room to abuse; enough for me to consider changing it to self-only.

I know with this suggestion, it may suck to have to change merits if you end up having to use RDM for something else, but I think the idea behind our merits should be to support our play-styles instead of giving us the illusion of choice, which is what those elemental accuracy merits were.

Please feel free to add or post your own ideas for RDM merits. In my opinion, it's one of those parts of the job that is in dire need of attention.

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I agree RDM merits right now are poor, accuracy merits are poor for RDM same as the spells, the spells were nice when we were lv75 but now not so much. Would be nice to see something other than those especially when now they seem like a massive waste with everythings resistance/immunity to enfeebling. Also I do think we should have them to help us make RDM how we want to play it, if I want to melee I think I should have more melee based merits too, where as all they gave us was magic same as our "AF3" set which was pure mage gear, nothing of melee in the least bit which annoyed me greatly.

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Originally Posted by Esvedium

You can have my Phalanx2 merits when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

- Our current merit spells will become learnable scroll spells (at 5/5 potency), entirely opening up category II merits for job abilities and some such.

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There you are, honestly would make me happy that way, as of now I feel like I should unmerit my Phalanx II for the reason it almost never sees use outside of when I get to help my ls FC KIs or I do my occational FC for money, in which case Im a Phalanx whore anyways and I might as well /SCH and just use Phalanx I for that. But either way, that was added for the reason you mentioned Im sure.

Category One
Augments "Composure" - Increases duration of enhancing magic on party members by 10% per merit upto a maximum of 50%.

Convert Recast (you all know this)

Enspell effect - Increases enspell damage by 5 per merit upto a maximum of +25

Fastcast Effect - Increases Fast Cast by 2% per merit upto a maximum of +10% Fast Cast.

Refresh Effect - Increases Refresh Effect and Duration

• Adds +1 MP per every two merits and a 20 second duration increase.

Phalanx Effect - Increases Phalanx Effect and Duration

• Adds +3 Damage reduction per merit level upto a maximum of +15

Augments Enfeebling Magic - Enfeebling magic occassionally activates with 100% accuracy and augmented bonus's.

• +10% accuracy per level upto a maximum of +50% chance. Spells are randomly augmented as such.
  • Slow - Occasionally grants a temporary STOP (like Terror)
  • Paralyze - Occassionally grants a temporary Amnesia.
  • ETC

Enhances "Composure" Effect - Increases melee accuracy and adds a Haste effect.

• Adds 3 Accuracy per merit level upto +15 and 2% JA Haste upto +10% Haste Effect.

Category Two
Renew - (JA) Restarts all active spell duration timers. (Recast: 3.00) - Additional merits increase duration by 10 seconds per merit.

Runic Blade (JA) - Absorbs the next spell into the blade for later use (Recast 5:00 - Additional merits increases damage by an additional 10%.

• Absorb the next spell cast by the enemy into your sword which then can be expelled in one of the following:
  • MP Recovery (Converts DMG that would have been delt ignoring any reduction items or traits into MP. (DMG / 12)
  • Magical Potency (Doubles the damage/potency dealt by the next spell) (works for Enfeebles as well)
  • Enspell Damage (Enspell damage is improved temporarily bdoubling damage until the Temper charge is consumed)

Temper II (Spell) - Grants the ability to occassionally double attack. (Party Targetable) - Additional merits increase potency.

Faith (JA) (Duration 1 minute - Recast 3 minutes) - Increases magic Accuracy and Potency - Additional merits increase magic accuracy by +3 and MAB by +2 per merit.

• Base stats: Magic Accuracy +10 Magic Attack Bonus +10 (Can not be used with Bravery and shares a Recast Timer)

Bravery (JA) (Duration 1 minute - Recast 3 minutes) - Increases Accuracy and Attack - Additional merits increase accuracy by +3 and Attack by 2% per merit.

• Base stats: Accuracy +10 Attack +10% (Can not be used with Faith and shares a Recast timer)

Previous spells will become Scrolls.

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Originally Posted by Demon6324236

Magic Fencer: Love it, but doubt we would get Double Attack from Enspells when we just got that as its own spell, haste however might happen, would be more likely to get % of enspell damage or some such then DA I think.

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I think it was Neisan who made a comment about Temper's DA not being enough. I kept that comment in consideration when devicing Magic Fencer. Certainly better than fiddling with Temper, IMO.

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Elemental Chains: Nice, would have to work your way up the spell list which might be annoying, would be faster to just cast my T4 nuke and move on but wouldn't be bad either.

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The idea behind this is actually more like regardless of the tier you use, the buff you still apply. If you cast a tier III nuke, then you'd get the buff reducing the cast time of the tier IV by the alloted percentage.

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Triage: O_O; umm~ how long does this 5/5 merited 300+ regen last might I ask? SCH can hit 69 regen with Regen V but umm~ 50% of my cure 4 is... more than 300 hp, so yeah~ maybe like 2-10% but 10-50 would be 1-2 ticks... at most... Not a bad idea to have something like that though it might be a lil breaking.

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Actually, that was supposed to be up to half of the cure cast over X amount of seconds. I figured 12 secods would be safe. Like if you cast one of those mythical 1000 HP Cure IV's, your target recovers up to an additional 500 HP over 12 seconds.

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Spellblade: Looks nice but our new JA already does something very much the same other than the range, which kind of weapon we must have, and spell type limit. However I would like to say the sword/dagger requirement would not matter, if a RDM is using a staff there is no reason not to slip on sword or dagger then change back if you truly want to cast the spell instantly, though the fact you would lose the potency of the staff, could go either way on that but don't think its something that would happen.

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Aside from the loss of the potency staff, do keep in mind that it requires melee range. Casters generally don't come into melee range unless they're going to cast a Bar spell, really. That aside, this is more to solve a problem RDM has when front-lining: lack of burst damage outside of WS when standing in the front lines. The melee RDM looks pathetic if they stand next to a BLU that can toss heals and then toss a 1000+ damage spell while meleeing. And no, our buffs will never make up for that.

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Combined Magic: Sounds good, I think merits would lower MP cost, for instance 1 merit you simply get the ability, for each merit there after you lose 50% of the cost up, so 5/5 would cost you 200% of the normal cost, maybe 25% down, to end at 300%, either way sounds good to me other than would probably annoy alot of BLMs that we get T3 ga spells.

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I'm sure they'll get over it when they realize that the -ga spell is only once every 5 minutes. The concept is that to replicate the effect of a -ga spell, the RDM has to really strain themselves, hence the increased MP cost and 5:00 recast. I do agree that merits reducing the total MP cost to 300% at 5/5 definitely has potential.

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Enhances "Composure" Effect - Increases melee accuracy and adds a Haste effect.
•Adds 3 Accuracy per merit level upto +15 and 2% JA Haste upto +10% Haste Effect.

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Something so obvious, and yet I forgot about that. Good idea!

I'm not sure if that was pre or post buff... 5% was definitely piss poor, the new 20% with a decent enhancing set is much more welcome. An attack boost would also be welcome, or native Dual Wield (if you're talking strictly from the point of a meleeing buff).

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Originally Posted by Neisan_Quetz

I'm not sure if that was pre or post buff... 5% was definitely piss poor, the new 20% with a decent enhancing set is much more welcome. An attack boost would also be welcome, or native Dual Wield (if you're talking strictly from the point of a meleeing buff).

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I could have sworn it was after it was discovered that Temper was 20% DA, but oh well.

I guess an Attack Boost would be nice, though to my knowledge it's not exactly easy to get great amounts of double attack on RDM between Temper and Gear. I can't even begin to imagine how to implement some form of Dual Wield without tying it to Composure.

Note: Updated the OP with a final category 2 merit, Synchronicity.

If it came down to new merit~able spell's, I'd rather have it be original spell and not higher tier version of older spell's. Like para, slow, phalanx, blind etc. I like Faith and Bravery idea's from D-H. And another 4 original spell's would set the job up right. As for the current one's like we've been all saying for year's now. They just need to be put on scroll's and learn the old fashion way.

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Originally Posted by tyrantsyn

If it came down to new merit~able spell's, I'd rather have it be original spell and not higher tier version of older spell's. Like para, slow, phalanx, blind etc. I like Faith and Bravery idea's from D-H. And another 4 original spell's would set the job up right. As for the current one's like we've been all saying for year's now. They just need to be put on scroll's and learn the old fashion way.

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The problem I have with meritable spells is that it works for certain jobs, but RDM being a hybrid happens to not be one of them. It simply doesn't fit given the dual nature of the job.

It works well for SMN because you can kinda of show which Avatar you lean toward or preffer. It kind of works for BLM because of elemental alignments and whatnot...until you realize almost every BLM goes 5/5 Elemental Seal Recast and either 5/5 Ice Potency or 5/5 Lightning Potency to compliment 5/5 Freeze II or 5/5 Burst II because that gets you the most bang for your buck when it comes to merits (which means Flood II, Flare II, Quake II and Tornado II are wastes of space, as are Fire Potency, Water Potency, Wind Potency, and Earth Potency). They had the right ideas, but the system they built the merits on top of was not a good system.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

The problem I have with meritable spells is that it works for certain jobs, but RDM being a hybrid happens to not be one of them. It simply doesn't fit given the dual nature of the job.

It works well for SMN because you can kinda of show which Avatar you lean toward or preffer. It kind of works for BLM because of elemental alignments and whatnot...until you realize almost every BLM goes 5/5 Elemental Seal Recast and either 5/5 Ice Potency or 5/5 Lightning Potency to compliment 5/5 Freeze II or 5/5 Burst II because that gets you the most bang for your buck when it comes to merits (which means Flood II, Flare II, Quake II and Tornado II are wastes of space, as are Fire Potency, Water Potency, Wind Potency, and Earth Potency). They had the right ideas, but the system they built the merits on top of was not a good system.

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Nothing is written in stone. And there really isn't any reason why we couldn't have both spell's and merit-able melee trait's/abilities added in. But you lost me on the whole merit~able spell not working for RDM. The current spell's don't work, but something original and native to just RDM could bring out some shine to the job. And if done right, could bring some use to the job in party/alliance situation's.

No spell should be meritable, instead you should have meritable enhancements to those spells.

Make Slow II a scroll, the spell would have the same potency as 1 merit upgrade. Change Slow II merits into "Enhances Slow" with each enhancement giving +3 mag.acc +3% potency. Thus you will always have all your spells, but merits would enhance them further and the enhancements would apply to all spells of that family. SE could then create Slow III / Paralyze III and so forth, the merit enhancements would still apply to them.

Phalanx II could turn into a scroll with a 3 min duration (standard for all RDM buffs), then turn the merit into "Enhanced buff potency" that would increase the potency of enhancing skill based buffs (Enspell / Phalanx / Stoneskin / ect..) by various amounts. This way you would still have Phalanx II as a spell, but also have a method to raise the potency on all your variable enhancing magic spells (not Haste / Refresh / Regen).

WHM and BLM should get the same treatment.

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Originally Posted by saevel

No spell should be meritable, instead you should have meritable enhancements to those spells.

Make Slow II a scroll, the spell would have the same potency as 1 merit upgrade. Change Slow II merits into "Enhances Slow" with each enhancement giving +3 mag.acc +3% potency. Thus you will always have all your spells, but merits would enhance them further and the enhancements would apply to all spells of that family. SE could then create Slow III / Paralyze III and so forth, the merit enhancements would still apply to them.

Phalanx II could turn into a scroll with a 3 min duration (standard for all RDM buffs), then turn the merit into "Enhanced buff potency" that would increase the potency of enhancing skill based buffs (Enspell / Phalanx / Stoneskin / ect..) by various amounts. This way you would still have Phalanx II as a spell, but also have a method to raise the potency on all your variable enhancing magic spells (not Haste / Refresh / Regen).

WHM and BLM should get the same treatment.

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I agree, with the way the spell's are currently set up they suck. The idea to be able to apply a bonus to the spell after it's base stats would be a step in the right direction. But were still dealing with SE ideal's of enfeebling magic cause's game balance to explode and I'm not so convince that applying bonuses to enfeeble's would jive with there way of thinking. It's a really nice idea tho. And would push RDM into it's master en feebler role.

Edit: In super wonderful land, it would be nice if we could just merit enfeebling magic over all. While individual spell's are great, being able to apply a bonus of 3% potency and Macc to spell like Bind and Gravity on top of slow and para would be super sweet. Instead of just marrying us to the one spell.

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Originally Posted by tyrantsyn

Nothing is written in stone. And there really isn't any reason why we couldn't have both spell's and merit-able melee trait's/abilities added in.

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As I see it, it's firslty because of limited space. Secondly because you can't take the same approach to BLM merits and expect it to work for RDM. It simply doesn't. Thirdly it's because our job borrows things from other jobs, so unique has no real place in it and instead merits should focus on application of what we borrow and support of our individual playstyles. My suggestions keep all of this in mind because I know there are guys who wish to get casting boosts, just like I would want additional melee boosts.

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But you lost me on the whole meritable spell not working for RDM.

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The idea was that other players were supposed to say "gasp, that Red Mage merited blind II. We could call him a specialist in Blind!". Instead it's "put points in Slow II, Para II, Dia or Bio III, and Phalanx II or GTFO".

To close, spells in merit categories supports caster RDM and ignores the melee camp. I'll never get behind that type of design.

Eh, Blind was just useless on stronger mobs and not really needed on weaker ones. -accuracy from blind would need to be increased drastically, similar to Blind from Wyrms, or maybe half that.

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Originally Posted by Neisan_Quetz

Eh, Blind was just useless on stronger mobs and not really needed on weaker ones. -accuracy from blind would need to be increased drastically, similar to Blind from Wyrms, or maybe half that.

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What I was getting at is that people were supposed to ooh and ahh at the merit choices, but instead said choices were ignored and only the best of the best was picked. Or, in the case of RDM and BLM, the best bang for your buck.

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Originally Posted by Daniel_Hatcher

Category One
Augments "Composure" - Increases duration of enhancing magic on party members by 10% per merit upto a maximum of 50%.

Convert Recast (you all know this)

Enspell effect - Increases enspell damage by 5 per merit upto a maximum of +25

Fastcast Effect - Increases Fast Cast by 2% per merit upto a maximum of +10% Fast Cast.

Refresh Effect - Increases Refresh Effect and Duration

• Adds +1 MP per every two merits and a 20 second duration increase.

Phalanx Effect - Increases Phalanx Effect and Duration

• Adds +3 Damage reduction per merit level upto a maximum of +15

Augments Enfeebling Magic - Enfeebling magic occassionally activates with 100% accuracy and augmented bonus's.

• +10% accuracy per level upto a maximum of +50% chance. Spells are randomly augmented as such.
  • Slow - Occasionally grants a temporary STOP (like Terror)
  • Paralyze - Occassionally grants a temporary Amnesia.
  • ETC

Enhances "Composure" Effect - Increases melee accuracy and adds a Haste effect.

• Adds 3 Accuracy per merit level upto +15 and 2% JA Haste upto +10% Haste Effect.

Category Two
Renew - (JA) Restarts all active spell duration timers. (Recast: 3.00) - Additional merits increase duration by 10 seconds per merit.

Runic Blade (JA) - Absorbs the next spell into the blade for later use (Recast 5:00 - Additional merits increases damage by an additional 10%.

• Absorb the next spell cast by the enemy into your sword which then can be expelled in one of the following:
  • MP Recovery (Converts DMG that would have been delt ignoring any reduction items or traits into MP. (DMG / 12)
  • Magical Potency (Doubles the damage/potency dealt by the next spell) (works for Enfeebles as well)
  • Enspell Damage (Enspell damage is improved temporarily bdoubling damage until the Temper charge is consumed)

Temper II (Spell) - Grants the ability to occassionally double attack. (Party Targetable) - Additional merits increase potency.

Faith (JA) (Duration 1 minute - Recast 3 minutes) - Increases magic Accuracy and Potency - Additional merits increase magic accuracy by +3 and MAB by +2 per merit.

• Base stats: Magic Accuracy +10 Magic Attack Bonus +10 (Can not be used with Bravery and shares a Recast Timer)

Bravery (JA) (Duration 1 minute - Recast 3 minutes) - Increases Accuracy and Attack - Additional merits increase accuracy by +3 and Attack by 2% per merit.

• Base stats: Accuracy +10 Attack +10% (Can not be used with Faith and shares a Recast timer)

Previous spells will become Scrolls.

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I like category 1 but category 2 no thanks.

These two are better suited for category 2.

• Phalanx Effect, (replaces Phalanx II)

• Augments Enfeebling Magic

Too much stuff in category 1, Frankly category 2 is a mess IMHO.

Runic Blade would be better off as a trait that enhances magic potency and magic accuracy with a sword or dagger equiped. The main issue I have with RDM enfeebling etc is the mage needs silly staves. If the dagger/swords we use could be enhanced by a trait to make them as good or better on main hand no one would be forced to use staves on RDM again. The problem is all the accuracy and potancy lost if we equip a sword or dagger.

Come on SE there needs to be a low level trait that makes it worth equipping swords or daggers on a red mage over staves or wands. We're kinda gimping ourselves in the mage part if we have a sword or dagger equipped. Likewise, equipping a staff makes melee compatibilities garbage.

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Originally Posted by saevel

No spell should be meritable, instead you should have meritable enhancements to those spells.

Make Slow II a scroll, the spell would have the same potency as 1 merit upgrade. Change Slow II merits into "Enhances Slow" with each enhancement giving +3 mag.acc +3% potency. Thus you will always have all your spells, but merits would enhance them further and the enhancements would apply to all spells of that family. SE could then create Slow III / Paralyze III and so forth, the merit enhancements would still apply to them.

Phalanx II could turn into a scroll with a 3 min duration (standard for all RDM buffs), then turn the merit into "Enhanced buff potency" that would increase the potency of enhancing skill based buffs (Enspell / Phalanx / Stoneskin / ect..) by various amounts. This way you would still have Phalanx II as a spell, but also have a method to raise the potency on all your variable enhancing magic spells (not Haste / Refresh / Regen).

WHM and BLM should get the same treatment.

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I agree with 10000%

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Originally Posted by Sarick

Runic Blade would be better off as a trait that enhances magic potency and magic accuracy with a sword or dagger equipped. The main issue I have with RDM enfeebling etc is the mage needs silly staves. If the dagger/swords we use could be enhanced by a trait to make them as good or better on main hand no one would be forced to use staves on RDM again. The problem is all the accuracy and potancy lost if we equip a sword or dagger.

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I whole-heartedly agree here. This should have really been implemented when the level cap was first raised, if only to save the people who toiled away at the magian staves the time they spent. Wouldn't really be detrimental to me, as I suffer from staff allergy.

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Come on SE there needs to be a level 50 trait that makes it worth equipping swords or daggers on a red mage over staves or wands. We're kinda gimping ourselves in the mage part if we have a sword or dagger equipped. Likewise, equipping a staff makes melee compatibilities garbage.

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Edited and bolded for emphasis. Well, as a baseline trait. Doesn't really fit as a merit.

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Originally Posted by Esvedium

You can have my Phalanx2 merits when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.

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phalanx II is horrible >_> if your in a situation to phalanx II someone you should be /scholar, and if your /scholar you should be AOEing Phalanx 1.

Or I could not waste strategems on Phalanx. That being said needing at least 4 merits for the spell to be effective is annoying as all heck. More merits or the spell's base damage reduction should be changed.

I came up with 2 more merits they could add.

Luck:Gives Treasure Hunter effect. Duration 1 minute. Recast 5 minutes. Self cast only. Spell adds Treasure Hunter effect to the player, effect is equal to 1 for every 200 enhancing magic skill, every additional merit lowers this by 25, meaning 175 per TH level with 2 merits, 150 with 3 merits, 125 with 4, and 100 enhancing magic skill per TH level with 5 merits.

I know many would say this is unbalanced, but when you think about it many jobs have TH now, even though this may be a bit to much for RDM, maybe start at 200 and lower by 10 or start at 250 and lower by 25 still. Either way many jobs have or are getting TH, such as BST having TH gear on the way, and possibly adding TH gear for other pet jobs as well, if this is the case I don't think it is totally unreasonable to ask that RDM may be allowed some as well, along with the fact that luck is a spell seen in other Final Fantasys, of which some had a luck stat that was effected where as FFXI doesn't, which is why I present Treasure Hunter as the effect, alternatively it could be a critical hit rate up effect as well.



En-guard:Adds an additional effect to attacks with an En-spell active. Meaning that when you use En-spells they have additional effects much like spikes do when the user is damaged. Fire=Addle Ice=Para Earth=Slow Water=Poison Wind=Silence Lightning=Stun. These would start with a 2% rate of effect with an additional 2% per merit. Meaning a capped rate of 10%.

I say 2-10% because if it was any higher then a RDM (like myself with capped haste gear, haste casted upon themself, and Haste Samba, if you are subbing DNC as I do, you have 45% haste not counting Dual Wield gear & double attack) with En1-spells active would have the ability to use these effects with a much to high rate. However if it were low such as 1-5% RDMs without proper melee builds would have to low of a rate for it to even be worth meriting. Also the name comes from the fact you protect yourself with your enspells additional effects, even though I'm sure there is a better name as my names for things always sound stupid.



I also wouldn't mind a Haste II, with 20-30% haste, 2.4% (so that its progression is 2/5/7/10) per merit, which would set it apart from normal haste massively, however it also might give the target to much haste with only 1 spell, then again Embrava exists and... yeah... well just a thought, maybe make it 15-25%. Haste II doesn't seem as likely as whatelse I have said due to the fact it would give to much haste especially stacked with Embrava, you cap magic haste I'm sure (not sure magic haste has a cap) and with how easy it is to cap gear haste, 25%+15-30%=at least 40 which we have now, Embrava is about 30, so it comes out to 70 with haste 2 even at 25% haste you would have yourself a nice 80% which is max possible -delay. Either way, way off track, thats my ideas, let me know why they don't work and would break the game. ^_^

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Originally Posted by Sarick

I like category 1 but category 2 no thanks.

These two are better suited for category 2.

• Phalanx Effect, (replaces Phalanx II)

• Augments Enfeebling Magic

Too much stuff in category 1, Frankly category 2 is a mess IMHO.

Runic Blade would be better off as a trait that enhances magic potency and magic accuracy with a sword or dagger equiped. The main issue I have with RDM enfeebling etc is the mage needs silly staves. If the dagger/swords we use could be enhanced by a trait to make them as good or better on main hand no one would be forced to use staves on RDM again. The problem is all the accuracy and potancy lost if we equip a sword or dagger.

Come on SE there needs to be a low level trait that makes it worth equipping swords or daggers on a red mage over staves or wands. We're kinda gimping ourselves in the mage part if we have a sword or dagger equipped. Likewise, equipping a staff makes melee compatibilities garbage.

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Fair enough.

Was trying to do them the way SE originally planned, buffs that you choose based on your style of play, so went half Melee, half mage.

With Category 2 being new spells/JA's.

Would be better of doing what you suggested for Runic Blade as a new trait with a different title, even MAgic Fencer suits it more.

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Originally Posted by hideka

phalanx II is horrible >_> if your in a situation to phalanx II someone you should be /scholar, and if your /scholar you should be AOEing Phalanx 1.

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Depends. When I melee I buddy up with one front liner and follow them around, buffing them as I see fit. Phalanx II has its uses in such situations. If neither of us are taking enough or any damage I just don't bother and focus on keeping enspell/haste/temper up.

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Originally Posted by Daniel_Hatcher

Was trying to do them the way SE originally planned, buffs that you choose based on your style of play, so went half Melee, half mage.

With Category 2 being new spells/JA's.

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Difference is that you put actual effort in presenting choices instead of a no-brainer merit and a bunch of fluff. =P