On Red Mage melee...

[Hyrist]

Those who look at Enspell II's as a failure were not paying attention to the target levels they were to be applied at: Namely levels 51-70. (@ 75 camp we were doing upwards of 80% of Damage dealers, fully built.) It did exactly as it was designed to do: Ease the use of front lining in low levels.

The gripe is that it did absolutely nothing more, and the fact that it does not factor Enhancing Skill on cast makes it pitiful as a substitute to Enspell Is even when wanting to gain the effect of Sambas while dual wielding.

But between it, and Composure, the only reasons not to melee in that level range was simply the lack of available healers.

When abyssea came out, it rendered the entire situation moot anyways, and without any real post 70s utilities, the spell is viewed as a total failure.

But no, Enspell IIs are a product of discussions on how to make lower level Red Mages catch up during the 50-70 level gap where our performance dipped so considerably that it lead to the staff stigma. But as usual, too little, too late for SE.

What needs to be done now is a more permanent solution. The most persistantly annoying argument against Red Mages in the front line is that our 'damage does not justify the TP we give the monster'. Which makes two base assumptions:

1) Red Mage is meleeing on monsters with horrendous enough TP attacks to warrant such an arguments.
2) Red Mages want to/should deal as much damage as dedicated DDs.

Both are utterly false, but any tactics situations in which these arguments get addressed by pro-melee enthusiasts, they instantly get told that they are not valid off the grounds that "Well that situation doesn't matter." or "X job can do that better." as if we WANT to play X job or find it remotely enjoyable.

Which really does narrow down our solutions to one: Have Red Mage deal negative TP gain to the monsters in question. At that point, a Red Mage can do Lulzy damage, and it would not matter. The fact that someone is both Tping free of additional risk, as well as lowering the risk for those around them, would widely broaden Red Mage's acceptability in the front lines.

There will still be monsters that may be too risky to be in the front lines with, but it would address all of the major cruxes that make this job broken due to social stigmas against it. (False Advertising of job role, Unfair Competition/Priority on Trophy gear such as relic/empyrean weapons, melee gear, Fitting the front line support caster role.)

The more I hear arguments against RDM Front Lining, the more I believe this is the number one solution.

@Aurara

A lot of what RDM brings to a fight is placebo, as far as mage gear goes. If something as simple as say, your nuking gear, was set aside in a fight you knew you were going to be frontlining more and nuking less, it could be put in your satchel and you'd have enough from for MBD/PDT gear.

That said, Red Mage has the most native tools to reduce damage, and can sub for the best. As far as magical damge goes. We're Tied with Scholar for the highest Enhancing Skill in the game, and our Bar spells are nothing to scoff at. When I have them up, I typically will survive an attack that will wipe a group.

Combined with Stoneskin, Phalanx, native MDB, and our ability to cure ourselves to save the WHM the trouble, we're just as durable if not more so than most the melee's out there.

A better argument would be NMs with nasty status effects (Seps for example.) Those would be the kinds we'd avoid, and probably still have to avoid if we were to get an update.