How can SE make the Redmage frontline job?

[Neisan_Quetz]

One question. What makes RDM more qualified to melee or be in the front lines than WHM or BRD? Sure SE calls RDM a hybrid but ignoring what SE says or RDM's past history in other FF games, what does RDM have that makes us potentially a front line job? B sword/Dagger skill? BRD has B skill in dagger too, whm has B in club but they don't complain about meleeing. RDM has enspells? Ok WHM has enlight with Auspice and BRD has minuets but they don't melee. The only melee mage in this game is BLU. RDM's specialty is a debuff/enhancing job that happens to get cure spells and nukes and a stunted rate. SE could have just given us debuffs and buffs only and made that our sole concentration. The cures and nukes we have are bare minimum meant to support main healers and main nukers. Leave the top tier nukes and heals to SCH and WHM since they're backline. I feel the only job qualified to get cure 5 next patch is SCH because they sacrifice melee ability for heightened magic whereas we technically have both. SCH has crap for melee capability so if anything they're more likely to get Cure 5 than us I feel only becuase they're a backline job.

Meleeing is a means to an end and RDM currently has none. BLU melees for TP to self SC. PLD melees to keep hate. RDM CAN melee but on major things we're talking about crappy damage. We can sub NIN but we lose Vorpal blade and have no native crit ws ourselves. The only way I see RDM being marketable as a DD is if they have Almace and a good DEX set, especially next Genkai which will probably have Gain-DEX. I've seen well equipped RDMs deal upwards of 2-3k Chant Du Cygnes in and outside Abyssea, really Almace is the way to go or at least the Badelaire+2.

Except RDM was touted as a meleeing mage before BLU existed in FFXI (mostly used by the community as an extra healer due to convert/refresh, before both rdm was virtually useless as far as players were concerned and some people just melee'd Rdm/war...). As it stands inside or outside Abyssea Rdm isn't that useful for Healing, Nuking (debateable, use to be better than Blm due to amount of nukes but Blm has Celerity now, outside Sch is better), or Buffing (Whm is a far better enhancer than Rdm, Sch/Rdm will be as well with haste at 99, why do people keep saying we are good buffers when we're not really good buffers), That leaves debuffs and Melee/Go solo/lowman. At 99 we will have all of 3 unique debuffs (4 if you merit Blind 2) unless SE changes things, if you can't see why this is a problem idk what to say.

[Carth]

One could argue the "Balance" you request could be achieved via your subjob choice.
No, read that again. It is in fact true.

RedMAGES are only really lopsided as a MAGE because YOU chose a MAGE sub. Everything you're asking for here could be attained by subbing War, Dark, or even Nin.

Do you think we're idiots or something? There has been massive experimentation with all DD subs for years, even /PLD. /WAR gives strong DOT from Berserk and Aggressor, /DRK gives strong weapon skill damage with LR and SoulEater, /NIN gives... hell, just about everything except a strong WS (and Sanguine Blade is a strong WS. A lot of RDMs would be satisfied if this were native to the job).

One could argue (very accurately) what you guys ask for is for your job to be Blu. At which point I would say, just level Blu. It literally does EVERYTHING a Rdm typically wants Rdm to be when they aren't satisfied with how Rdm is.

I'll respect this portion of the post, but it's actually inaccurate in some way. The fundamental difference is that BLU is invited, most of the time, to deal damage. We don't want that. We just simply want our weakest side of the spectrum (Melee) to be given a boost to warrant the option of entering the party with the build of a DD. Ideally, we'd be fine if cast nukes (which was the intent, and is why we have fast cast), but it takes a toll on our MP (outside Abyssea), and such MP is more valued to cure members of the party and at times yourself. Also, no one skillchains systematically anymore so magic bursting is hardly an option.

The idea is to support the party with all options, which means to help the party do their respective jobs. We help the WHMs cure, help the BLMs nuke, and help the DDs kill the mob faster. If WHMs don't need help, we gear more for nuking and DD. If nuking is somehow not a viable option (Colibri for example), we gear more strongly for melee DD and use our MP to heal. If Melee isn't an option? We go backline.

If the Rdm was a melee as well as healer, nuker and enfeebler, why invite anything else? Because everything else is still better? Then you're with the same problem before, no change.

This is actually not a problem at all.

So If Sch is the job that can Heal/Nuke/and Enhance better then us (I'd give enhancing to them, they get mot of our enhancing spells with sub, plus more, like storm spells, and by 99 it'll be undebatable once they can /Rdm and get haste unless something else changes) where does that exactly leave us if we can't melee. The worthless enfeebling mage that is essentially only invited to Refresh II whore? We discuss ways to let Rdm melee because SE clearly DOESN'T have a direction for Rdm otherwise. I mean Shield Mastery?

I still see that as a troll update.

What makes it even worse is those 3 jobs have better DD equipment than even RDM who is supposed to be able to wear Cloth and Light Armour (of which we have not really gotten since lvl. 50)

Eh, we can make due with what we have. It's post 75 where things really started to trinkle down, though thankfully they released the cap off of enhancing magics, so our enspells (our main source of damage) is still viable. To be frank if Enspell IIs were calculated on cast, and worked on multiple hits, even if they didn't apply for the off-hand, they'd replace Tier I enspells without much debate.

And keep in mind, the idea is that our big damage comes from nukes.

Not a jack of all trades anymore, give it up. Wanna be front line job level nin or mnk. Our mele is good enough to let us solo quickly with good multi-hit weapons, but they are never going to make us competitive with real DD. If they did what would be the point in playing anything else.

I'm not sure why people continue to bring up this point.

[Duelle]

I'm not sure why people continue to bring up this point.

It's typical of the "let's not make a hybrid acceptable in <insert role here>" crowd. I used to see that all the time in another game. And the answer was always the same: "People will play what they like. Those who like to tank or heal will still do so. So what's the big deal?"

[Seriha]

Frankly, I don't care if a BRD or WHM melees, either. Long as people are living and things aren't being overly taxed for the party, swing away if you're geared for it. That said, and I think where people get hung up on this at times, the "why" on why giving RDM more melee prowess despite its other quirks actually lies in the differentiation between other jobs. Sword and Dagger are only two of numerous weapon categories, which you can then further break down into weapon skills and skillchain possibilities. Jobs like SAM ooze STP to crank out the x-hit builds so they can WS more. DRKs get all their ATK and Crit bonuses to make each count all the much more. THFs up the damage efficiency of daggers with their JAs on top of various hate manipulation methods. Are these gross simplifications? Sure. It's a start, though, on why you can still pick up other jobs and have your perks.

Meanwhile, it's not too hard to actually look at RDM's stats and pick up the lopsidedness toward the mage end.

Mage Traits and Abilities:
Fast Cast V
Magic Attack Bonus III
Magic Burst Bonus
Clear Mind III
Chainspell
Convert
Saboteur
Refresh
Haste
Single Target Cures
Up to Tier IV Single Target Nukes (Incomplete at present, obviously)
9 Single Target Debuffs of varying tiers (Dia, Bio, Slow, Paralyze, Blind, Bind, Gravity, Addle, Sleep) and Diaga

Melee Traits and Abilities:
B Sword (EX restricted) and Dagger skill (No DE or SB)
Shield Mastery
Composure
Enspells

It's a big freakin "duh!" that the job has leaned toward the mage-y aspects. 2 of the melee "perks" didn't even exist until recently, and we all know how laughable Shield Mastery actually is as a melee buff as a job who will probably never have hate for long durations if meleeing against other competent players. I can't even bring myself to lump the T2 Enspells into things with their current broken state, either. We've all been there, done that, about how RDM's fallen off the face of the earth when it comes to daggers despite the peculiar degree of native access to most of its WS.

In its best TP gear, the job faces an ACC and ATK deficiency compared to others on top of its native shortcomings. There's no DA, TA, STP, ACC Bonus, ATK Bonus, Crit Rate Boosts, Counters, Berserk, Meditate, Samba, or whatever else that collectively gives other jobs their edge before even accounting their sub. Simply casting is very much detrimental to the concept of melee, and compared to BLU, RDM's speed and MP efficiency is rather lacking here. Simply telling people to migrate to BLU is not a fix for RDM, nor does it really address the looming issue of a 99 SCH/RDM basically being everything a RDM is today, but with T5 nukes and whatever other goodies SE gives them from 91-99.

Now, to placate balance whores, I'm actually okay with RDM lacking melee traits. However, this compromise is only okay if they get spells to emulate the effects. Would a self-cast 3m 10% ATK boost break the game? That'd be around 40 ATK outside of Abyssea. How about a DA% spell that scales based on your Enhancing Magic? We otherwise have to sub WAR while BLU has no such limitation as our fellow melee mages. Plus it'd be nice to move on past Joyeuse. There have been plenty of other ideas in the past, but the key lies into basically integrating RDM's future martial prowess into self-MP expenditures so it CAN'T be superman for long durations.

As is, there are various little annoying things that RDMs have wanted for years, but later showed up on other jobs. Diffusion/Accession was an AoE buff option that could've greatly increased our potential swing time, but instead went to BLU and SCH. Chain Affinity allowed for self-SCing, while now SCHs can pop a Stratagem to make a spell emulate a T1 WS. Damn near all of the freakin' DNC steps and flourishes would've made nice quick MP-lite abilities to throw down to both debuff and enhance, but frick all if you find a DNC that actually cares about that and just wants to herpderp Haste Samba and Saber Dance into eternity. It's almost like every good idea RDMs have clamored for have actually hit the game, just not the RDM's benefit. It's tiring. It's frustrating. It's bad enough SE gives us the trollface.jpg, but hell if I'll sit back and let fellow players perpetuate the WHM-wannabe role or prattle on about how we're just fine in everything, but somehow overpowered.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

One question. What makes RDM more qualified to melee or be in the front lines than WHM or BRD? Sure SE calls RDM a hybrid but ignoring what SE says or RDM's past history in other FF games, what does RDM have that makes us potentially a front line job? B sword/Dagger skill? BRD has B skill in dagger too, whm has B in club but they don't complain about meleeing. RDM has enspells? Ok WHM has enlight with Auspice and BRD has minuets but they don't melee. The only melee mage in this game is BLU. RDM's specialty is a debuff/enhancing job that happens to get cure spells and nukes and a stunted rate. SE could have just given us debuffs and buffs only and made that our sole concentration. The cures and nukes we have are bare minimum meant to support main healers and main nukers. Leave the top tier nukes and heals to SCH and WHM since they're backline. I feel the only job qualified to get cure 5 next patch is SCH because they sacrifice melee ability for heightened magic whereas we technically have both. SCH has crap for melee capability so if anything they're more likely to get Cure 5 than us I feel only becuase they're a backline job.

Meleeing is a means to an end and RDM currently has none. BLU melees for TP to self SC. PLD melees to keep hate. RDM CAN melee but on major things we're talking about crappy damage. We can sub NIN but we lose Vorpal blade and have no native crit ws ourselves. The only way I see RDM being marketable as a DD is if they have Almace and a good DEX set, especially next Genkai which will probably have Gain-DEX. I've seen well equipped RDMs deal upwards of 2-3k Chant Du Cygnes in and outside Abyssea, really Almace is the way to go or at least the Badelaire+2.

Completely wrong, even attempting to make out RDM is not a melee mage is rather dumb.

[Tamarsamar]

i dunno man, i've been meleeing on rdm since this game came out and i can honestly say it's gotten steadily worse as time went by. (and that's WITH war/drk/nin/blu/pld for subs)

for a long time i felt like all i was really missing was a good ws when subbing nin or something to do with my left hand when subbing not nin, and that was "close enough" for me to be satisfied. sure i had hauberk envy, along with several other things, but i never expected to be "as good" just "within striking distance"

but the "rules" have kept changing and changing. and rdm has been drifting further and further from the job i was sold on all those years ago.

toa was when it really got bad. before that rdm melee was a debate. there might be one a-hole in a pt that would flip out but there'd be one or 2 others that saw things my way. plus back then ppl would invite an rdm AND a whm to the SAME pt.. i know, insane right?

if i wanted to be a whm i'd have chosen whm. i'll cure you if you're bleeding, i like having that in my back pocket JiC, but i refuse to sit in the corner and spam cure4 upon cure4 into infinity.

then spampage pts happened and my old friends "the whm" and "the tank" were gone, and i'm expected to solo heal 3-4 spamming dd's? pass, i was already 75 at this point, so i just solo'd most of my merits.

then the 2hander update happens and suddenly everybody without a 2handed weapon is gimp? guess who doesn't have a 2handed weapon? rdm... but then to make it even worse, they give thf dnc and blu duel wield, AND give warrior, bst and BARD fencer. leaving rdm at the very bottom melee tier, stuck using 1handed weapons without any type of native job trait to buff them. skill/trait wise rdm is now at about pld and whm lvl. oh but wait. pld and whm get there good ws' natively, so they can sub whatever they need to.

you could say rdm has evisceration natively, except rdm has exactly TWO daggers above lvl 75! what weapons do we get? swords.. what sword ws' do we get? death blossom.... yah.. death blossom is rdms best ws without subbing war/pld/blu/drk, or holding an almace. (blu... why blu? wtf?! that's just an insult.)

and while THIS has been happening, rdm's normal melee gear has gotten worse and worse relative to any respected dd, hell even next to a thf, a dancer, or even a bard...

lets just say that over the years i've been spending more and more time on my pld or warrior, as opposed to my rdm. my first 75 and the job i still consider my main, because i can't stand playing it in the state it's in. who knows, maybe once i finish my almace i'll get some of that spark back. but even if it ends up being everything i dream it will be, that still won't solve the problem with the job.


TL;DR? i don't expect rdm to be as good a tank or melee as a real tank or melee, but i also feel that it deserves to be close enough to warrant consideration, as opposed to ridicule. i am SO tired of watching rdm go steadily down the same boring, and imo, WRONG path. i refuse to play WHM-1

THIS.

White Mages should out-heal us. They should not out-damage us! I don't care if we do less damage than half the jobs in the game, but when the only job we can almost maybe reliably out-damage is freaking Bard, then something's horribly screwed up.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Think you mean Blm Sch and Smn, Brd still has better WS gear than we do, and is on magian trials for dagger so access to both of the best daggers in the game (although Rudra's is quite weak if it doesn't crit iirc). Yeah it's probably that bad unless you have CDC.

[Tamarsamar]

Think you mean Blm Sch and Smn, Brd still has better WS gear than we do, and is on magian trials for dagger so access to both of the best daggers in the game (although Rudra's is quite weak if it doesn't crit iirc). Yeah it's probably that bad unless you have CDC.

Seriously?

And BLM, SCH, and SMN have mean Magical/Pet damage, so they also out-damage us in their own ways, as well.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Well was referring to melee wise, read your post wrong and thought it said Brd outmelee'd us.

[Bigboy]

So we should forget we're melee mages and just settle for playing BLM -1? I think not. Our swords are there for a reason, soloing and decoration are not it.
BLU wears pointy shoes and uses scimitars. I see no pimp hat or rapier on them. Next.
Sleep and crowd control is more BLM territory. Healing has been WHM territory, the TAU merit parties of 4 DD, RDM healer and bard puller notwithstanding. Our sole value since CoP has been refresh, haste and heals. At the cost of our class becoming something rather unpleasant. I'm surprised you're trying to blame us for getting sick of it, really.
I'm starting to get annoyed of this same tired attempt of an argument. To put it simply, it is quite possible and plausiuble to make a hybrid melee-capable in a way that balance is maintained and said melee role is widely accepted by other players. The scenario as it stands is not:

Party Leader: Ok so you're on RDM/<melee sub>.
RDM: Yeah, I'm geared for melee.
Party Leader: OK, I'll start looking for a healer.

And instead is:

Party Leader: You're on RDM/<melee sub>
RDM: Yeah, I'm geared for melee.
Party Leader: ROFL rdm isnt a dd. heal or gtfo.

Again, I wouldn't be a strong proponent of changes to make it happen had I not seen it work before. I know it can be done, and it's more a matter of the developers putting in the time to make it reality.
I'll ask that you please stop accusing the melee camp of something we're NOT asking for. I know those outside the class or the bandwagon jumpers that signed up for the quick invites and gravy train to 75 and merits are happy with RDM spamming cures and refresh, but some of us have wanted more out of this job for years.
Considering BLU as per FFXI was pulled out of the developers' collective arses, RDM has been the melee mage since FF1.

We're also way past the point where you can design classes to have singular purposes. Mezzing (AKA enfeebling) is too small a role to encompass a whole class. It worked in everquest because at the time the raids were of enough size where you could get away with it, but now it simply won't work (not to mention it'd make a class completely dull). It also does not comply with the trinity of tank, healer and dps.

When stuff like this gets said, it makes me image a BLM insisting on meleeing with a scythe.