[Job Adjustmentｓ Manifesto] RDM

[Supersun]

Maybe Red Mages don't merit everything the same way, but I'd kill for just one of Dia III, Paralyze II, or Slow II as a White Mage. But those are not spells White Mage gets to even have a shot at, because Red Mage is the proper enfeebler.

Would you trade Cure 5 for them though? You'd be silly if you would considering that they are only marginally better then the T1 enfeebles (10% at best) and Cure 5 is well...Cure 5. It's pretty hard to debate inviting a Rdm JUST for their enfeebles when that's essentially the trade you are making by not inviting another Whm...not like that many things at the moment need more then one Whm anyway.

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Why are people assuming that Enspell damage related merits would be in our group 2 merits. They seem like something that would be added to the group 1 merits which besides convert recast isn't exactly the most stellar category in the world.

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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.

[Economizer]

Would you trade Cure 5 for them though? You'd be silly if you would considering that they are only marginally better then the T1 enfeebles (10% at best) and Cure 5 is well...Cure 5. It's pretty hard to debate inviting a Rdm JUST for their enfeebles when that's essentially the trade you are making by not inviting another Whm...not like that many things at the moment need more then one Whm anyway.

You don't ever just invite a Red Mage just for enfeebles. You also invite it for the buffs they use, and depending on how good the Red Mage is at handling these, extra magical and melee damage.

Would I trade Cure V for these enfeebles as a White Mage? No, I wouldn't, because if White Mage didn't have Cure V, there would be very little reason to have one. If either SCH or RDM were to get it, they'd pretty much dominate WHM in most aspects because they have superior MP longevity and they perform other roles like crowd control and buffs better.

Both camps act as if they aren't useful at all without the spell, but they ignore the problem that currently plagues the White Mage class, the prospect that at any moment, the masses will have their way, and White Mage will be useless outside of being needed for certain procs in Abyssea.

Anyone who says that superior cure potency gear or Cure VI would prevent any job with a better mana pool from being a better healer really doesn't understand how White Mage functions. They also could use a history lesson in FFXI, namely the ToAU era.

Maybe there is something seriously wrong with White Mage being the only job with Cure V, but at this point in time, White Mage doesn't have much else going for it. A bit of a metaphor, I'd still invite a Red Mage to a party even if the job couldn't cure at all. I couldn't say the same for White Mage.

[cidbahamut]

ITT: Cureskin doesn't exist.

[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.

[SpankWustler]

True enough, Doom. The joke kind of died half-way through my post, but I wasn't done making my point so I opted to drag it's rotting carcass along with me. Maybe that wasn't the soundest decision.

I still think "SpankWustler" is a perfectly goofy word, though. "The SpankWustler" sounds like a Doctor Seuss book about an awkward, fuzzy, little creature with one tremendous hand.

Would I trade Cure V for these enfeebles as a White Mage? No, I wouldn't, because if White Mage didn't have Cure V, there would be very little reason to have one. If either SCH or RDM were to get it, they'd pretty much dominate WHM in most aspects because they have superior MP longevity and they perform other roles like crowd control and buffs better.

Assuming you play White Mage completely naked and with no job abilities; this is a serious concern. Otherwise, it's more of an irrational fear born of a time when people fought pink birds and White Mage had a little over half the resources it has currently.

A 35% Cure-Skin with a cap of 400 is extremely helpful against challenging monsters, and a properly be-pantsed White Mage's cures are extremely MP efficient compared to any other job.

As for MP longevity, unless you need or want Stun you're probably subbing SpankWustler or Scholar. So White Mage generally has some form of MP restoration along with it's far, far more efficient cures.

Yeah, giving more jobs access to cure V might inspire a few folks to bring along a Spankwustler mule to heal themselves on easy content instead of a White Mage mule, but I don't see it affecting White Mage much otherwise. Particularly not on things like Voidwatch that actually offer vaguely hard monsters.

As somebody who is on White Mage 90% of the time, I could care less about having a iron-fisted monopoly on healing. It would make my rolls of fat undulate with joy if a buddy who so desired could heal in Abyssea on SpankWustler or Scholar, so I could at least find out if my new macros for Blue Mage or Corsair even work.

Although, maybe the disparity will sort itself out once Abyssea is just another event instead of the primary event. Our HP outside isn't that much higher now, and it won't be that much higher at 99.

Too-Long-Did-Not-Read-Version: No, other jobs getting Cure V wouldn't have a meaningful, negative impact on White Mage. It's a far more fleshed-out job now than it was five years ago.

In other news, I'd choke a kitten to cast Dia III. While it's only a 5% increase over Dia II, it's a 15% increase over some butt-brained Black Mage's Bio II. I know that's not a good reason, but overwriting that dreadful spell would feel so good.

Not that Spankwustler's merits, Category I and II, aren't a little lackluster otherwise. That's the case with a lot of jobs. Fortunately, that sounds like something the current development team really wants to work on.

[Ketaru]

Er, sorry, I just noticed this, but as far as I can tell, SE has fairly solidly put their foot down and said that Red Mage is an Enhancing and Enfeebling mage. The only reason they bring up melee at all is because so many people here post about it, and even then they clearly stated that they were looking to improve Red Mage's HNM-level party/group play and focus on its Enhancing and Enfeebling prowess.

It's a niche group of players who are keeping the "Magical Swordsman" archetype alive, that and a 10-year-old character blurb on a website that likely hasn't seen any updates to the old job sections in ... well, 10 years. Everyone else, SE included, is perfectly content with Red Mage as a Buff/Debuff master with a broad range of spells across both the light and dark spectrum.

Said niche group of players have been around just as long as this game has so you might also want to get used to the unpleasant reality that you share the exact same game with them. For a minority, they are extremely vocal and the ones that are vocal will get their voices heard. That is the entire point of having an Official forum.

People who post here for our magical side of things only do so only as a reaction to the people who want to push us to the front. Is wanting a melee update really so terrible? Would it be a problem to at least ask for a cost-of-living-adjustment sort of update? We did, after all, always used to have a wide range of gear selection to choose from. Did that gear selection really have to shrink after Abyssea? Is the fact that people stay so mum about our casting testament to our proficiency as a mage being A-OK? Maybe "perfectly content" is what's the problem here.

BLU got a spell that allows them to temporarily increase the Attack and Magic Attack Bonus. Where are the requests for a similar spell that allows us to raise the Accuracy and Magic Accuracy of a fellow player? Why don't we take a cue from Abyssea and ask how a spell that raises Critical Hit Damage might work? Or hell, why don't take SE's intent on giving more jobs endgame roles the whole way and get some spells that directly enhance a player's pets? We ought to be expanding the amount of jobs we can work well with instead of this systematic nonsense of excluding pet jobs simply because they don't get the full benefit of player enhancements.

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?

[Greatguardian]

You seem to have missed the point. You specifically talked about SE themselves putting their foot down.

I'm telling you that they already have, multiple times. It's not my fault people are shoving their heads in the sand about it.

[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

[Ketaru]

You seem to have missed the point. You specifically talked about SE themselves putting their foot down.

I'm telling you that they already have, multiple times. It's not my fault people are shoving their heads in the sand about it.

Apparently not, seeing as they've decided to entertain the notion of a melee adjustment, instead of simply ignoring it. It's easy really. Quote the question, then give this very polite response:

"At this time, we have no plans for adjusting Red Mage's Sword proficiency."

That isn't what was said. In fact, the very opposite was said. It actually took up the majority of Camate's response and it wasn't said in vague possibilities of "maybe in the future". Seemed to me like there actually definitive expectations for the next version update.

I would love to know how some of my ideas for party enhancement spells would work. I think it's a long time coming that we finally see something that makes us work alongside pet jobs, in fact. And all I got was Gravity II.

[Greatguardian]

The viability of Cor/Rdm in general is going to depend a lot on how consistent Wildfire continues to act outside Abyssea. It's highly unlikely that a Cor/Rdm will be able to keep up a high-maintenance Refresh cycle as well. Refresh itself is only 110 MP for the caster, meaning that over the duration of the spell, the Corsair will only be able to consistently Refresh 3 other people.

No good Corsair will ever have Evoker's roll on them for more than 20-50 seconds, ever, so you can't count on that as a source of self Refresh. While it may look decent on paper, Cor/Rdm is never going to be able to fulltime Refresh spell on any full caster party without seriously gimping themselves in some form or another (Be it fulltiming Evoker's on themselves, or Resting, or whatnot).

Edit: Welcome to the Official Forums. They're looking into WS adjustments across the board, for every job. If Red Mage gets Vorpal Blade out of it, more power to them. If not, whatever. That does not mean they are looking into RDM-specific melee adjustments. It simply means that the melee crowd may be getting a bone when the Dev team completes their game-wide revamp of all sub-75 Weaponskills and their accessibility.

The Devs have stated quite clearly that they are looking into improving the group aspect of Red Mage, which consists of its Buffing and Debuffing prowess. That's an incredibly polite way of saying "No". I'm sorry if you just don't see that, or want to look for things that just aren't there. Who knows, you may get lucky. For those of us who understand the delicacy with which news like this has to be handed to people like those who post on this subforum, the message is abundantly clear.