[Job Adjustmentｓ Manifesto] RDM

[Economizer]

Okay, first off, please don't take my "reply" so personally. I was talking very generally about a comment you made compounded by the fact that nobody had said anything about dagger. It wasn't an insult, and it wasn't a jab at you, just an observation about what I've seen in a thread of over a hundred posts.

Now, the most effective Red Mages I know have to resort to a combination of Swords and Daggers. I think this fits highly with the fencer role, although I guess unless Red Mage has a way to do serious damage without an Empyrean while using a Sword in their main hand it doesn't count as having it?

I agree that it is a problem that Red Mage does not get access to the Magian Daggers, considering that they have equal combat skills in both Sword and Dagger. But ignoring these, Red Mage does get access to the most highly damaging daggers outside of a THF or a DNC. They aren't all easy to get however.

Mandau, Twilight Knife, Clement Skean, which all have high DPS are all accessible to Red Mage. Below that Verus Knife and a Blau. That said, your Magic Attack Bonus trait is going to have more impact on damage then the actual damage rating of the blade, since you will be relying on Aeolian Edge.

On soloing in Abyssea, I wasn't referring to killing NMs, which was very clear in my post. I was talking about farming KI and pops from chests. With tools like Phalanx and Ice Spikes keeping you alive, and nukes to get azure lights, a Red Mage is the job most capable of using Aeolian Edge to do this. Blue Mage might get Azure faster, but you will certainly get Amber lights faster. Perhaps this isn't soloing a zone boss, but a Red Mage is still more likely to do that then a Black Mage, White Mage, Bard, or Scholar.

Again, please don't take my posts personally. I'm not trying to insult your honor or whatever.

Good luck getting your Almace so you can fulfill your vision of Red Mage!

[Rayik]

Okay, first off, please don't take my "reply" so personally. I was talking very generally about a comment you made compounded by the fact that nobody had said anything about dagger. It wasn't an insult, and it wasn't a jab at you, just an observation about what I've seen in a thread of over a hundred posts.

Now, the most effective Red Mages I know have to resort to a combination of Swords and Daggers. I think this fits highly with the fencer role, although I guess unless Red Mage has a way to do serious damage without an Empyrean while using a Sword in their main hand it doesn't count as having it?

I agree that it is a problem that Red Mage does not get access to the Magian Daggers, considering that they have equal combat skills in both Sword and Dagger. But ignoring these, Red Mage does get access to the most highly damaging daggers outside of a THF or a DNC. They aren't all easy to get however.

Mandau, Twilight Knife, Clement Skean, which all have high DPS are all accessible to Red Mage. Below that Verus Knife and a Blau. That said, your Magic Attack Bonus trait is going to have more impact on damage then the actual damage rating of the blade, since you will be relying on Aeolian Edge.

On soloing in Abyssea, I wasn't referring to killing NMs, which was very clear in my post. I was talking about farming KI and pops from chests. With tools like Phalanx and Ice Spikes keeping you alive, and nukes to get azure lights, a Red Mage is the job most capable of using Aeolian Edge to do this. Blue Mage might get Azure faster, but you will certainly get Amber lights faster. Perhaps this isn't soloing a zone boss, but a Red Mage is still more likely to do that then a Black Mage, White Mage, Bard, or Scholar.

Again, please don't take my posts personally. I'm not trying to insult your honor or whatever.

Good luck getting your Almace so you can fulfill your vision of Red Mage!

You pretty much zeroed in on me, question my abilities or how much I even care about the play style I am advocating. So yeah, I responded in kind. You even brought me up in a second post ("some players who don't even think RDM have a magical WS harharhar). So, there's that too. People won't take posts so personal if you don't go out of your way with paragraph after paragraph trying to point out shortcomings with a heavy hand of snark.

My only major complaint really, is that our best WS's are not on the weapon that is specified as our signature weapon. If we're supposed to be a dagger-style job like THF or DNC, then fine, let RDM build Magian weapons to enhance that. But we can't. I'm fine with using daggers, if I can make a Magian dagger, or at least build an Empy/Relic/Mythic dagger for the job. Seriously, what sense does this make?

EDIT: Admittedly, I didn't know about RDM and Mandau. I'm so glad one of the few daggers that we CAN use is one we can run right out and grab. Also, on Abyssea, I wasn't talking about NM's either. I was talking about farming chests and KI/PI's.

[Rayik]

On topic, as not to completely turn this thread into the melee thread again, I would like to see our enfeebling updated to where our enfeebles aren't completely useless on NM's, to the point where we have to resort to pretend-WHM status to be of any use to the party. It's been said before, but I don't think it can really be said enough; don't paint us as these uber-powerful enfeeblers, then make 90% of meaningful content immune to exactly what we're supposed to specialize in. I swear sometimes RDM is just SE's little *whipping boy job.


*I realize some other jobs have gotten the shaft from SE a lot more than RDM lately, but most of the time they aren't being shut out of doing exactly what they were advertised to do in the first place... "Here! Swing a sword and cast spells! Oh wait, no. Don't do that anymore. Here! enfeeble enemies! Render powerful NM's impotent with your enfeebling magic! No, nope, wait, can't let you do that either. Actually, here. Just cure and buff. There ya go."

[cidbahamut]

Even ignoring new spells, we've still got a situation where Saboteur is problematic in how it doesn't guarantee an Enfeeble will land. That's fine, but how about at least making it so Saboteur doesn't get consumed until an Enfeeble is successfully landed?

I am so onboard for this. It has been pissing me off no end this week as every time I Saboteur something it gets resisted. Elemental seal doesn't even help, it seems like some NMs have a floored land-rate no matter how much Magic Accuracy you're stacking. They're not immune, they just resist everything except for that one time the enfeeble will land just to prove the NM isn't outright immune. Saboteur getting burned on a resist every single time just gets old fast and I would love to see that change.

[Rayik]

I am so onboard for this. It has been pissing me off no end this week as every time I Saboteur something it gets resisted. Elemental seal doesn't even help, it seems like some NMs have a floored land-rate no matter how much Magic Accuracy you're stacking. They're not immune, they just resist everything except for that one time the enfeeble will land just to prove the NM isn't outright immune. Saboteur getting burned on a resist every single time just gets old fast and I would love to see that change.

I agree with this in full. If the JA doesn't help in actually landing the spell, then they need to lower the recast of it. It makes us look silly when we Saboteur a spell and it still misses.

[SpankWustler]

It has been pissing me off no end this week as every time I Saboteur something it gets resisted. Elemental seal doesn't even help, it seems like some NMs have a floored land-rate no matter how much Magic Accuracy you're stacking. They're not immune, they just resist everything except for that one time the enfeeble will land just to prove the NM isn't outright immune. Saboteur getting burned on a resist every single time just gets old fast and I would love to see that change.

This +1. If Saboteur also having Elemental Seal-like effect would be seen as redundant or or just be ineffectual, at least the recast of the ability could be drastically lowered.

A change to how some things have a vendetta against enfeebles would be nice, too. A monster should either be easy to enfeeble, difficult to enfeeble, or flatly immune. There's no reason for anything to resist 95% of the time (regardless of equipment and stuffs) just so you'll be forced to try over and over again.

[Supersun]

Will Massacre Elegy be added?

We have plans to. However, when considering the stats, we are planning to make it so this isn’t a song that can be used by just anyone.

Even though from the context of the conversation this probably means that Massacre Elegy is going to be on the 95 G Horn this pretty much stomps on Rdm being the best enfeebler. Doesn't matter how good Slow II is when Slow caps at 100% and massacre elegy is just that.

All that leaves us with is Paralyze II and crowd control spells. One of which is pretty much impossible to stick on anything worth while and the others are impossible to stick on anything worth while.

Is SE's vision for Rdm being the king of crowd control in a game where the norm is only fighting one monster at a time?

[Ketaru]

They're not immune, they just resist everything except for that one time the enfeeble will land just to prove the NM isn't outright immune.

That reminds me. A very, very long time ago, I once Silenced Hakutaku.

[Economizer]

All that leaves us with is Paralyze II and crowd control spells. One of which is pretty much impossible to stick on anything worth while and the others are impossible to stick on anything worth while.

Is SE's vision for Rdm being the king of crowd control in a game where the norm is only fighting one monster at a time?

If by crowd control spells you mean a crowd of thirty easy prey mobs attacking you, then yes, Red Mage is arguably the best, as it has Phalanx and Ice Spikes, in addition to some other tools.

But if you mean being able to Sleep and Break mobs, Scholar is better, since they can bust out a ton of strats and AOE their spells.

If it wasn't for Abyssea, Scholar would be the most popular mage job in most situations, as it has nukes almost as good as Black Mage, curing second only to White Mage, can keep itself fueled with MP, can sub Red Mage for most of its unique(ish) spells (and will eventually get Haste this way), can AOE most buffs, has a unique line of buffs and debuffs, minor enmity control, and more, with clear news of even more power in coming updates that is second only the Black Mage's.

Things would be much, much simpler for Red Mage if there was no Scholar to contend with to be honest. Having to deal with a swiss army knife job that performs better then you at pretty much every class role you have is a nightmare.

[Greatguardian]

Scholar suffers from some massive fundamental drawbacks in its strategem/Arts system that will always prevent it from being anything but second class. While they can excel when given a specific role for a fight, they will always be worse at that specific role than a more specialized class (With the exception of base crowd control, though Blue Mage is pretty boss at this too). Switching between Dark Arts and Light Arts on the fly is an absolute nightmare, and Scholar suffers severe penalties when attempting to be spontaneous and react to developments immediately. Scholar also suffered from a severe lack of fundamental spells, which the Devs have only recently started to remedy (sup Stoneskin/Blink).

Red Mage's strength, and a big part of why it is significantly stronger than Scholar in any practical situation, is its ability to cast any spell at any time and switch back and forth between offense and defense in a matter of seconds rather than minutes. Red Mage also has significant advantages over Scholar in terms of equipment availability that really serve to put it ahead in any head to head comparison.