Inquiry to the Devs

[Devrom]

Someone's stuck in 2005, it'd seem.

eh? so you want to melee voidwatch, new bcnms and possibly ks99s (unless you do it with so many people that it wouldnt matter) on rdm and expect that your group will be ok with it? it doesn't have anything to do with being stuck in 2005 or whatever. also, playing the way i mentioned is more like 2003-2010 lol. even thieves were told not to melee at all since the damage wasnt making up for the TP feed unless the pt had more than enough healing etc. to begin with, i didn't even say you shouldnt melee pre cap increase stuff at all so please no "stuck in XXXX" comments... now that you can melee fafnir or whatever in low men fights doesn't mean you should be DDing whenever you feel like in new end game outside abyssea.

[Carth]

lets be honest with ourselves. most of us didnt even care that much about our DD potential pre-abyssea and recent major updates.

You couldn't be even farther from the truth.

[Devrom]

You couldn't be even farther from the truth.

well, maybe i should have written "that" in bold or capitals to emphasize now please ask yourself, would it be reasonable for rdm to be a match to real DDs? Red "Mage", remember? if you are gonna argue about the hybrid aspects of rdm, compare its melee potential to blu's overpowered spike damage spells, not main DDs. it is a matter of being too weak compared to the other hybrid job, not DDs being a lot more stronger compared to rdm.

[Carth]

The ironic part is no one is asking for that.

As for the mage line:

Oh snap, the "mage" line. Someone tell BLUs to go home.

[Seriha]

eh? so you want to melee voidwatch, new bcnms and possibly ks99s (unless you do it with so many people that it wouldnt matter) on rdm and expect that your group will be ok with it? it doesn't have anything to do with being stuck in 2005 or whatever. also, playing the way i mentioned is more like 2003-2010 lol. even thieves were told not to melee at all since the damage wasnt making up for the TP feed unless the pt had more than enough healing etc. to begin with, i didn't even say you shouldnt melee pre cap increase stuff at all so please no "stuck in XXXX" comments... now that you can melee fafnir or whatever in low men fights doesn't mean you should be DDing whenever you feel like in new end game outside abyssea.

We'd like the option to if prepared, not the door automatically slammed in our face due to game mechanics and sustained ignorance of RDM's martial aspects over the years by the devs. The whole "Shut up and stay in the back!" spiel is exactly the mentality I attacked as it's an arrogant pigeon-holing of the job showing no respect toward its theme and concept. You even went so far as to throwing in the "peace offering" of meleeing old stuff a lot of people probably don't care about anymore like we'd be fighting Fafnirs or doing KS99s every day for hours on end. No, we'd actually like the option to be more than blue moon situational and NOT just a solo toy.

As of now, there's little reason to be a RDM. Stepping out of Abyssea isn't going to change that. Melee is only one aspect of RDM's woes, but simply, it is currently its most inadequate and has been for quite some time.

[Eeek]

You couldn't be even farther from the truth.

It's all anecdotal, but I, and most the people I know, don't care about their RDM's melee capabilities. If we want to DD, we instead play our real DD jobs. When I play RDM, I'm either the main healer or playing as a supplemental mage to flesh out the backline. And my BLM's enfeebles, despite all the gear I carry for it, don't even approach the potency of my RDM's enfeebles (or curing and buffing capacity, for that matter).

I don't have the time or inclination to swap out half my active inventory (75/80 on RDM) in order to melee. When free time presents itself, I'd much rather nuke. The mage responsibilities I look to fill in party play would never allow me the time to melee to 100%TP, much less weaponskill. Besides, a not-insignificant amount of my BLM's nuking gear is equippable by RDM. I don't need a sword or dagger to pump out a decent amount of damage when the opportunities present themselves.

Of course, this is just my outlook on RDM. I aim to play it like a mage.

[Carth]

Of course, this is just my outlook on RDM. I aim to play it like a mage.

More power to you, and I personally don't really care, but it's a very large fact that RDM Melee has been an argument ever since 2004 and continues to be like that today. Only difference between then and now is that the general community is a lot smarter than before and Refresh/Convert is no longer unique to RDM.

[Devrom]

The ironic part is no one is asking for that.

in fact, they are. go read a few pages of that topic about rdm meleeing. you can see many examples of stronger enspells, stronger DD gears, stronger WSs, insta-cast nukes while using enspells under some made up condition and more or even things like "give us this and that but make them spend TP". they ask to be a good DD while sucking as a mage. you know, the melee stance thing. someone suggested that magic attack should have an impact on enspell damage so we can stack up on matt gear and go pew pew? then where did your haste, acc and att go? there are many contradicting ideas. rdm is not even that bad of a DD in itself solo. also, gear options for rdm is not that bad either. walahra turban, nq dusks, goading belt, goliard body, asa pants for 3% haste = 22% if you get a chance of getting zelus and buying hq dusk feet, your haste caps. other than that, you can use the best TP back out there and it is a 100% drop from an easy NM then rajas, brutal, suppa.... your gear options are fine although i accept the fact it can be hard to get goliard body and nashira legs if you cant use asa legs for rdm. but know what?

there is also this big limiting factor we call... inventory space! personally i am carrying gear for enfeebles, nukes, TP, WS and idle sets and with all this stuff filling up my inventory, i dont have any space to carry staves, healing, conserve mp and spell interruption pieces. is this a sacrifice i am actually willing to make to DD more? no but i have to. by making these sacrifices, i am becoming less and less effective of a mage and that will hurt outside abyssea unless i am solo poking some random mob or xxx nm. for this reason, people are asking for stuff like "magic attack should effect attack rating, enspell damage" etc. so they can just melee with their nuke set or whatever but then you would just be a mage nuking in front lines. difference? you take bunch of damage and feed TP, debuffed and thus cost more and more mp and time for your group.

[Duelle]

lets be honest with ourselves. most of us didnt even care that much about our DD potential pre-abyssea and recent major updates.

Wrong. Discussion on melee has gone on for years. Yes, you had the bandwagon jumpers who were happy for the fast invites, but the melee camp has always existed and trying to push for melee adjustments. The benefit of having these forums is that at least our complains and discussions are taking place right at their doorstep, whereas before it was just the fansites where the community reps could conveniently ignore our discussion threads.

for all these years, SE has been modifying the jobs according to the intentions of the player base, like how they thought of war as a main tank, pld and nin as support jobs etc at first. just look at those jobs now (inb4 lolpld).

Admitedly, it would have taken more work to redesign WAR or nerf all the things players were abusing at the time (Utsusemi amongst them) that screwed with party dynamics. Not much of an excuse, though.

outside abyssea, rdm is simply far more useful than any other caster in most situations no matter how you look at it and you can't say it didn't make you happy that everyone used to look for a rdm before anything else.

It never made me happy because it was not the magic swordsman I had signed up to play more than 7 years ago. Also, everyone needed RDM because you only have two (three witrh COR) ways to regenerate MP before all that +refresh gear comes into play. BRD happened to be stupidly rare, so people always went for the next best thing.

if they make rdm a better DD, they would nerf the mage aspects and then people would bitch about that. you can never make everyone happy with the changes.

Stances could very easily fix this and make both camps happy.

abyssea shouldnt be the norm to decide if rdm needs to be a better DD since that thing is simply broken.

What abyssea did is bring to light all the shortcomings of RDM as a class. Yes, it was meant to be FFXI's last hurrah, but it did that as well. And instead of fixing things so that RDM can finally be a true working class (not a replacement for a WHM or a BRD), we seem to be going back to more of the same.

rdm is not even that bad of a DD in itself solo.

Repeat after me: Solo is irrelevant in a game built from the ground up on partying.

[Swords]

I think its just we've all heard the feed TP arguement every time the word melee and RDM are used in the same sentence. I know there are situations you just outright shouldn't, and those are the ones no one will be meleeing on anyways. But in this day and age with X-hit weapons and DA/TA traits/atmas/gear, having just 2-3 melee on a mob makes the TP arguement almost entirely moot.