Why are we advertized as fighter-mages when White Mages can out-do us?

[Hyrist]

That's understandable, but it shoulden't be a comarison issue. Red Mage should be more offensively capable in BOTH departments, not just one. White Mage has superior support and healing capibilities than Red Mage, even though Red Mage is the one commonly deferred to for Haste.

Truth of the matter, before Abyssea, Red Mage could handle the support/healer role better as a single unit, than White Mage, but even that was situational.

Now, White Mage can do both healing, and Support better than Red Mage, both individually and as a single, whole role, as WHM simply has more to offer to the table, even with extended buff duration and superior refresh. And that's going to get even more of a gap once WHM gets Boost STR and Boost DEX.

So Superior Healing, Superior Support AND Superior Melee, just because we can nuke and enfeeble better?

Nah-uh, not ok with me.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

I was implying that perhaps the reason why white-mages are more melee capable is because they lack any other form of offense.

Red-mages, while not having the same caliber of melee capability, have more offensive spells in their arsenal to compensate for it.

Perhaps, but it's still not logical. WHM is a job based entirely on party support whether it be Healing or Enhancing always has been, always will be.

Whereas RDM on every other game was based on the offensive with the ability to ease the load for the WHM, though in reality you'd have a WHM or RDM not both on older games.

So putting WHM better melee than RDM is just illogical.

[Hyrist]

Whereas RDM on every other game was based on the offensive with the ability to ease the load for the WHM, though in reality you'd have a WHM or RDM not both on older games.

Says you.

War, RDM, WHM, BLM. Absolute Faceroll FF1

[Aleste]

Truth of the matter, before Abyssea, Red Mage could handle the support/healer role better as a single unit, than White Mage, but even that was situational.

Now, White Mage can do both healing, and Support better than Red Mage, both individually and as a single, whole role, as WHM simply has more to offer to the table, even with extended buff duration and superior refresh.

Abyssea, enough said. There's little need for buffs inside with the exception of haste/shell/barelement, and when paired with the massively increased max HP and damage recieved, it's no wonder why the job with Cure 5/6 is seen as more useful.

Although, in all seriousness, phalanx2/debuffs/refresh2 are particularly useful outside abyssea; our linkshell makes a habit of bringing a RDM to every voidwatch because of the utility they bring.

Superior healing and superior support I can understand of the primary healing/buffing job. Although 1 decent weapon-skill does not a DD make.

[Hyrist]

Superior healing and superior support I can understand of the primary healing/buffing job. Although 1 decent weapon-skill does not a DD make.

But it is enough to outdistance the Game Designer Declared "Fighter Mage", with the gear that is available to both.

Not. Kosher.

As far as the mentions of Phalanx 2 and Refresh 2.

I personally do not like the impact Atmas have on the average caster's habits. There used to be pride in being able to preserve your MP pool and stretch out what you got to be most efficent.

Now... not so much, at all. Refresh II is a plasebo to the real problem of casters not remembering how to function outside Abby.

Phalanx 2 really only has the duration going for it, and, IMO, isn't worth the merits compared to some of the other spells you could be getting/maxing. Great if you've got multiple RDM's that have Slow/Para fully covered though.

[Seriha]

You don't really need more than one good WS to open yourself up to the DD game. More opens up flexibility when it comes to SCs or defense properties on higher level mobs, yes, but otherwise people will settle what does the most damage, be it your only WS or one of a dozen.

As is, on neutral mobs, Hexa has a higher potential than Evisceration. Part of it is WHM getting D60+ clubs, the WS itself having more hits, and for a while there, RDM's post-75 dagger selection had dried up a good bit. Both jobs get Haste. Both can cap Haste from gear, with WHM having an easier time of it. Both tend to suffer juggling the ACC/ATK/Haste act on harder prey, though. I try not to look at things from the "Abyssea is forever!" mindset, but suddenly dropping atmas doesn't change any of the preceding comparisons. I might have been okay with the, "Well, RDMs have better nukes..." logic if nuking outside Abyssea didn't drop off like a rock in terms of longevity and efficiency compared to melee, but it doesn't. Eventually we'd run out of MP, even with a fully merited Convert and Refresh II if you're dropping a Blizz 4 every time you can. Hell, this was part of why BLMs were shunned from EXP groups in the old days.

Either way, I've never been fine with the idea that we need CDC to match or exceed Hexa. Just looking at the Census, there aren't even 3k CDC-capable weapons in circulation, which if you want to assume a 250k population, isn't a terribly high percentage. Yes, it's the second easiest path after GKT/Gun/GS, but at an average of maybe 180 per server, it's hardly indicative of everyone having one. WoE still sucks, too. Nobody will argue CDC is nice to have, but good freakin' luck convincing people to pander to a melee RDM or even a PLD. You've got better luck on this as a BLU solely due to the exclusivity of grellow procs, and the job itself might arguably be the best suited for the weapon with native DW, DA, and other buffs.

[Swords]

Says you.

War, RDM, WHM, BLM. Absolute Faceroll FF1

Actually MNK in FF1 outclassed every melee job in damage after the first 7-8levels. A few level 50 Blackbelts with haste on can easily finish off Chaos within a few turns. (I'm speaking from the NES version not the remakes.)

Anyways bantering aside, there is lots of gear RDM can use that put out the numbers. Just not everyone is willing to work for it. Prior to the 2h update back at 75 even reaching 750 attack was feasible (with food and self-buffs) which was almost unheard of even in the melee classes. You just have to be willing to put the effort to get what you need, be willing to swap out accuracy/atk/STR gear as needed, and go all out falling back when necessary for mp or supporting your party when you/they need it.

On a side note, for the love of altana focus on STR/Atk/Acc over Enhancing/En-spell gear. You can put out much higher DoT with melee no matter how much Enhancing/En-spells you try to rack up. En-spells are supposed to be there to support your damage not be your main source of damage.

[Raxiaz]

En-spells are good though for low-dmg daggers when you don't wanna give a mob TP. Very rare situations for that though, IIRC.

[Swords]

True, I'm not discounting situations where it might be useful, but in an ideal setting where you are meleeing for damage your goal should be the same as other DD's trying to out damage each other, even if its not possible it should be the focus.

[Dale]

Too many people complain about White Mages outdoing us Red Mages in the healing department now, but quite frankly, that is how things should be.

How things shouldn't be, however, is that White Mages can also out-do us in the physical damage department. Now, I can understand when people warn to be cautious with the updates to give Red Mages more front-line prowess so that we don't end up out-stripping the usefulness of specialist jobs, but when we're not even easily out-doing White Mages, who aren't even front-line specialists . . . when we are at best the fifth-worst physical job in the game . . . then something drastic needs to be done.

The devs have been giving us subtle clues that they want us to use our Swords (the most recent example coming to mind is the use of a Red Mage to showcase the abilities of the Sagasinger); I say drop the subtlety and let it stand out so blatantly that even others would no longer argue against a Red Mage's spot on the front lines!

I tend to agree with you. I haven't been overly impressed with Red Mage melee. They are missing too many key elements, like an effective weapon skill forcing them to sub a melee based job which ends up weakening their support ability, which is really what the job excels at in my mind, so it's counter-productive to try and attempt a decent melee build.

If you want to be a fighter/mage i'd go blue. If you want to play a support role then I'd go Red Mage. They are the the best support job in the game.

I think what would go a long way to fixing the problem is giving Red Mage access to counter spells such as paralyna and erase. Doing so would enable them to have more leeway in choice of subs and then I could see the job successfully pulling off a fighter/mage style of play.