[Job Adjustmentｓ Manifesto] RDM

[Quetzacoatl]

Also, looks like we may be pushed down the Refresh tier list yet again as the Corsair job post made today pretty much inferred that Evokers roll was going to get a boost. Unless we are in for some major buffing Cor/Rdm just joined the ranks of buffing supermen that are looking to completely blow Rdm out of the water by 99.

RDM with Refresh 2 and AF3+2 pants and COR's Evoker's > COR/RDM with Evoker's and Refresh 1. Don't kid yourself.

[Supersun]

You don't ever just invite a Red Mage just for enfeebles. You also invite it for the buffs they use

You mean Refresh and Haste? Because besides Phalanx II there not exactly many other buffs that Rdm can cast on other people.

Oh wait, one of those is subbable by 99 and the other one is inferior to every other form of refresh due to it not stacking with Refresh.

RDM with Refresh 2 and AF3+2 pants and COR's Evoker's > COR/RDM with Evoker's and Refresh 1. Don't kid yourself.

Considering I expect Evokers roll to likely be buffed to 5~7 MP tick... Cor/Rdm 8~10 > Rdm 7

[noodles355]

Awww, sorry you're so offended.

But let me put it flatly for you.

Is Warrior Defined by Warrior's Charge?

Is Dancer Defined by Saber Dance?

Or lets go over to the Mage Side...

Burst II, Freeze II?

Martyr?

Burst II and Freeze II were 50% of the nukes you cast on most things (Thunder IV and Blizzard IV being the other 50%).
Saber Dance? meh. Fan Dance? Dnc can only solo half the stuff it does because of Fan Dance.
What about Drg? The only justification for them in an event ally is their Merit ability: Angon.
Outside of Treasure Hunter, Thief has Feint. That's it's use.

I don't deny that our merit spells should be scrolls. Of course they should. What I take issue with is you're attempt to say "Rdm sucks and has nothing worthwhile QQ" which is bullshit because of the aforementioned spells. And guess what? The same argument is true of Dragoon. For an alliance at an event, they only thing they can contribute that others cant is their merit ability: Angon.

[Economizer]

I'd comment on everything, but as this is a lengthy comment already, I did my best to shorten it. I'm apparently not good at doing that. Sorry for jumbling quotes up a bit, was trying to do my best to flow my thoughts into a coherent, readable form.

Potential homogenization between SCH and RDM is very real come 99 without SE throwing in some major monkey wrenches.

I've been very forward looking with my assessments, and this is a big reason why I asked the questions I did. Although it seems that some Red Mages and Scholars do not see things this way. I would partially attribute this to play style.

And the exact same people here were up in arms about it happening at level 80, then at level 85, then at level 90. Except something happened, SE actually started giving the jobs radically different spells and abilities (Libra come to mind? What about Saboteur? Or Addle? Or Adloquium?)

This is what I'd also attribute to Red Mages and Scholars not seeing themselves as carbon copies. I hope this trend continues.

As for the Sword thing, no it doesn't matter as long as what we're talking about is casting here. If you want to include it as a distinction between the two jobs, go ahead. I'll even back you up on it. RDM can cap Haste. SCH cannot. RDM has access to powerful critical hit WSs. SCH does not. RDM has a job ability that improves accuracy. SCH does not. RDM has a wide variety of gear to choose.

I hope this differentiation continues. Scholar should continue to have to sub jobs that have more melee training then them in order to get access to weapon skills. Unlike Red Mage or White Mage, Scholar is more of a back line only job, whereas Red Mage and White Mage occasionally have to jump into the fray to deliver buffs, tend to wounds, or just plain mop up mobs.

If SE wants to throw out some nuke/enfeeble hybrids like Impact (just much more MP economical x.x), they're free to.

This is definitely a direction I hope SE takes. For Scholar, Helixes, and for Red Mage perhaps some new form of spell. Also, I'd like to see enhancing magic that helps these roles, perhaps the new enspells can do more then reduce magic evasion or whatever stat it was by a "whole" ten points. The mechanics are already there, like how T2 enspells affect some magic related stat, or how Sambas produce a debuff. Being able to land enfeebles easier, and do slightly more damage with nukes without just having to rely on an magic staffs would be a nice playstyle to explore for Red Mage, and fit a buffing role in a party.

If Haste can ever be AoE'd, for the small cost of 96s of strats, a SCH would be able to Haste 6 people for 6 minutes (something where, individually, we need a bunch of equipment to approach). Hell, they'd be able to do it cross-party once Haste goes off recast, too.

If Haste Cycles are a defining characteristic of Red Mage that would actually impede our popularity and desirability at 99 if other mages were to gain access to them, something is epic-tier wrong with the world.

For the time being, Haste is a major part of what Red Mage is, although not a unique one, but Red Mage is the best at Hasting the most people currently. While I'm not sure that giving Accession Haste to Scholar would stop them from trying to get Cure V, I do know it would have a major impact on the game. Thank goodness that SE isn't ever going to do this. Also, if your a Scholar that thinks this is a good idea in our current game environment, for the love of all things remotely sane, never produce any game.

The fact the playerbase limits the roles that a player can fill isn't somehow a reflection of how useful RDM or SCH can actually be. That's just for the purpose of easy categorization. Like I said, SCH is hurting right now primarily because we're actively trying to reduce the amount of people that have claim on lotting loot. That is totally different with the latest addition to the game, Voidwatch, where your chance at goodies won't be better just because you fight with less people and, in fact, alliance play is strongly encouraged.

Would half the complains from Scholar or Red Mage be on the forums if Voidwatch, not Abyssea was the main focus currently?

If your alliance has a primary healer and a primary nuker and has key support covered, and you've got a spot left and aren't sure whether you want additional healing or additional nuking, there is absolutely no reason SCH cannot take up that spot and grease the wheels even further by using their spells to make the other mages more efficient, which is really the purpose of enmity and weather spells, as well as supplement healing and nuking. I don't know about anybody else, but I never really believed the best way to play SCH was to decide, ahead of time, whether you wanted to imitate WHM or BLM today.

As for the criticism that SCH cannot react as immediately to a sudden situation, I for one have never had a problem where I wasn't able to save somebody from something just because of ability spam. Enlightenment is always readily available. And if you're having more emergencies than you can handle in 3 minutes and 45 seconds, I would think that's a bigger problem with the group than with the SCH.

This sums up a lot of my thoughts about the way Scholar works or should work. Wasn't a Scholar a supportive mage in the lore? It makes things favorable to the party, then proceeds to add extra magical damage or healing as the situation needs it. As a side thought, what would happen if Scholar could occasionally donate a particular stratagem effect to a party member?

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For the direction I'd most like to see Red Mage go, is in addition to becoming a better buffer and enfeebler, Red Mage should be able to use these roles together. Wasn't the point of the Red Mage the fact that it can put both White and Black magic together into a combat role, like with enspells? I think there is a new set of hybrid magic that Red Mage could definitely be the unique source of.

[Raksha]

For the time being, Haste is a major part of what Red Mage is, although not a unique one, but Red Mage is the best at Hasting the most people currently. While I'm not sure that giving Accession Haste to Scholar would stop them from trying to get Cure V, I do know it would have a major impact on the game. Thank goodness that SE isn't ever going to do this. Also, if your a Scholar that thinks this is a good idea in our current game environment, for the love of all things remotely sane, never produce any game.

Would you feel the same way if haste was party only, and composure increased the duration on everyone?

I levelled RDM to 75 and I hate haste cycles as much as the next guy, but once /RDM gives haste I'm afraid I'll be stuck hasting all the time again.

The answer IMO is to make an AoE'able haste that is less insane. One person being able to Haste an entire alliance is pretty crazy.

[Economizer]

On everyone's haste suggestions ever:

The best solution would be a way to punch people through the Internet that ask for Haste and aren't the tank, but I'm trying to think of a realistic answer.

I remember leveling with random people in Abyssea when leveling Summoner and having them ask for Haste. No thank you, I'm not going to work harder then everyone in the party to swap avatars constantly, and I'm not going to main Garuda, because I want to use a different summon so I can get skillups faster. Sometimes I wish there was a way to make people forget you have Haste with casual content because they all think they are entitled to lazily auto-attack and WS mobs while mage jobs work their ass off to make them slightly more efficient on a mob that you don't really need to be super efficient on. Yes, there is content where everyone should ideally be Hasted, but sheesh.

Would you feel the same way if haste was party only, and somehow composure increased the duration on everyone?

Composure does increase duration if you have AF3+2 and the cape on, to about 1.65 of duration. This is not close enough to Scholar's double duration stratagem if Scholar could Accession it (since they can't, it costs an arm and a leg in strats to do it otherwise).

Making Haste party only to convenience SCH and /SCH doesn't sound like a good solution. It breaks current setups where people Haste cross party. Party target Hastaga would be a better solution, but Red Mage has a distinct lack of aga spells. Even doing something the devs would probably never do, like programming Haste to only target party if you use Ascension would still considerably favor Scholars. Two strats so you don't have to cast Haste for six minutes? You still have 5.5 strats to work with. There aren't a lot of solutions that are better then the status quo, sadly. Balance is hard.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Because I'm not always coming /Sch or feeling like using a strat for it, at least for me. And in the future I probably will be doing Salvage runs, assuming I'm still playing after the payment issues.

[cidbahamut]

Fair enough.

[Neisan_Quetz]

I simply don't see the JT being useful outside of solo as things currently stand. It's not as if we get useful shields bar Genbu's - or are tanking with said shield(s) - so as far as I'm concerned Fencer is superfluous at best.

[Quetzacoatl]

I simply don't see the JT being useful outside of solo as things currently stand. It's not as if we get useful shields bar Genbu's - or are tanking with said shield(s) - so as far as I'm concerned Fencer is superfluous at best.

You could say the same for BRD, as well.

Just sounds like a slap in the face.