Ok I generally don't post here, but there is a lot of misinformation in this thread (this might get lengthy).

1. Gear
Yes it is true that our gear is becoming suspect.

However even still we have a TP set that can surpass the required 26% Haste for cap, the single most important stat for any DD in a TP set.

While said gear does not have very high attack or STR associated with it, RDM has access to Enspells, capable of reaching 30 damage/hit (via gear hollow/fencer,+skill, and base skill + 8/8 merits). Or about 60 with enspell's If SW. These enspells equate to having berserk on full time.

However they do not stack with weaponskills, and weaponskill gearing is where we kind of hurt, we have loads of attack gear, but sacrifice a lot of Stat gear and most importantly ACC. (as our best WS's are multihit, other than Sang and AE) with the exception of Sanguine and AE RDM gearing options are limited for WS's. (Inside Abyssea this doesn't apply really thanks to Cbuffs and Atma's).

2. Lack of weaponskills.

False RDM is privileged with 4 great weaponskills natively

Native
Evisceration- Probably the best non CDC damage weaponskill, and the go to weaponskill for most dagger wielding jobs. Great in abyssea, solid outside of abyssea.

CDC- Obviously great, the best sword WS in the game currently.

Death Blossom- Great Multihit sword WS, with a benefit to casting via the magic evade down bonus, excellent for use as /Mage applying extra damage between casting duties.

AE- A great AoE WS's that is directly boosted by our mage stats, RDM is the best in the game with this WS.

4 very strong and useful WS's all available natively, and all used very effectively, coincidently the listed WS's are also used by the other dagger and sword jobs.

3.

Our AF3+2 is clearly designed for mage use.

Smartass counter claim: Our AF weapon was a Sword, what is your point.

Seriously though, while it is very mage heavy, it directly benefits our melee side via increased durations of enhancing magic on others. This equates to a larger % of time spent on the mob. Coincidently the fast cast tier up also contributed to this factor, all told we spend about 50% less time casting compared to where RDM did previously as a result of these benefits, that is 50% more melee uptime per spell cast. (ie. a buff cyclle of 6 hastes would be in the ball park of a 3% damage increase from increased melee time.)

RDM is neither a great nor a poor DD, it does pretty well in some areas and is weaker in others, anyhow, back to your pissing match of who understands more about RDM.

(these forums are so sad.)