[Job Adjustmentｓ Manifesto] RDM

[Economizer]

We've been clamoring for more effectiveness in melee (Just give us a magic elemental WS for F's sakes!!!!) and instead we're getting shoved to the back line permanently.

I looked through this entire thread and not a single person corrected this. Red Mage not only has a magic elemental WS, they have access to the best magic elemental WS, and on top of that, they (ignoring sub) arguably have the best stats for this WS.

Aeolian Edge is incredibly powerful, and hardly affected by damage rating of your dagger if at all. That said, Red Mage gets access to the best daggers available, although you may have to stick to a Blau for a while until you can acquire one of the slightly harder to get ones.

In addition to providing Red Mage with solid weapon skills, daggers attack more often (great for enspells) and have the same amount of skill as Red Mage has with a Sword, unlike other classes that may end up resorting to a Dagger to augment damage.

In addition, you can solo farm in Abyssea like no other job can, since you can Phalanx yourself, cure yourself, and even get a combination of Azure and Amber lights. How's that for melee? Maybe you won't be able to solo the NMs, but taking on thirty easy prey mobs at once seems pretty bad ass to me.

Perhaps this isn't what people mean by melee (is a non-empyrean sword really necessary to qualify as RDM melee?) but it is very powerful. Red Mage always has and always will have some sharp tricks up its sleeve, and a feather in its hat, for those who can earn it. The lack of a correction on this matter over ten pages of text makes me wonder though... for a traditionally backline job to melee, you have to want it, and not knowing your abilities shows a distinct lack of care.

[Supersun]

Edit: Bah, my bad on the double post

Red Mage not only has a magic elemental WS, they have access to the best magic elemental WS

We have access to Wildfire?

Joking aside it would be slightly easier to justify the use of Aeolian Edge if we had access to the TotM daggers. Sure, we can AE decently with the martial knife but our melee DoT then becomes worse then a KClubbing Ranger and the Ranger will feed less TP too.



That was sarcasm though not that far off from the truth

[Economizer]

I certainly think that Red Mage should have the ToM Daggers, even if they are excluded from the Empyrean Dagger for whatever odd balance reason. That said, I've seen a Paladin pull 1200+ damage Aeolian Edges using Ultimate/Beyond/Gales and a level 12 knife (he also capped shield doing this). Red Mage doesn't even have to sub a job for access to the weapon skill so the choices are open (although main handing a Twilight Knife and off-handing a Joyeuse or a magian multihitter sword certainly sounds like a solid alternative to a Martial Knife).

Assuming SE gives RDM Staff skill, subbing WHM for Cataclysm may be viable too (ever think you'd see the day where you'd sub WHM for more DD power?). That said, I'm envious of Red Mage, as they can do a powerful AOE WS while offhanding a trial weapon when they work on their multihitters, working on a multihitter as a White Mage takes a lot more relying on others or a lot more time whacking things.

[Rayik]

I looked through this entire thread and not a single person corrected this. Red Mage not only has a magic elemental WS, they have access to the best magic elemental WS, and on top of that, they (ignoring sub) arguably have the best stats for this WS.

Aeolian Edge is incredibly powerful, and hardly affected by damage rating of your dagger if at all. That said, Red Mage gets access to the best daggers available, although you may have to stick to a Blau for a while until you can acquire one of the slightly harder to get ones.

You're joking, right? Ok, let's recap. RDM's advertised "signature weapon" is a sword; evidenced by not only previous games, but many references in FFXI itself, not the least including our Relic, Mythic, and Empyrean/Magian Trial weapons are SWORDS. So yeah, it should make perfect sense our best Weapon Skills are on DAGGER.

And access to the best "daggers available?" Magian trials say hi. Twilight is a tough dagger, but you can't proc the added effects with any enspell active. Blau Dolch was awesome at 75. The only real alternative is the highest level one on the AH(I can never remember it's name, Ughdott or something). Seriously, we had to resort to using daggers, for most of us it wasn't a favorable choice. Sure, they swing faster, but my Magian swords do a lot more damage per swing than my Blau, but without a favorable sword ws, that extra damage doesn't matter as much.

In addition, you can solo farm in Abyssea like no other job can, since you can Phalanx yourself, cure yourself, and even get a combination of Azure and Amber lights. How's that for melee? Maybe you won't be able to solo the NMs, but taking on thirty easy prey mobs at once seems pretty bad ass to me.

BLU gets CW, and Vorpal Blade, in addition to a number of Curing, Damage reducing, etc spells. If RDM can solo in Aby "like no other job can" then by all means, enlighten me.

Perhaps this isn't what people mean by melee (is a non-empyrean sword really necessary to qualify as RDM melee?) but it is very powerful. Red Mage always has and always will have some sharp tricks up its sleeve, and a feather in its hat, for those who can earn it. The lack of a correction on this matter over ten pages of text makes me wonder though... for a traditionally backline job to melee, you have to want it, and not knowing your abilities shows a distinct lack of care.

Not knowing my abilities? This coming from the guy that thinks RDM's get the best daggers? THF and DNC would like a word with you about that. Hell, RDM can't even use a Yahtagan.

I'm working on getting an Almace. I've made a "checklist" of gear I need to make RDM melee viable for my personal play style. I only use a dagger currently because I don't have an Almace. I prefer swords, and if RDM had a ws that was half as decent as Evisceration, I'd drop my daggers in a heartbeat.

EDIT: I haven't been on these boards in about a week or so, so sorry for necro'ing this old post.

[Economizer]

Okay, first off, please don't take my "reply" so personally. I was talking very generally about a comment you made compounded by the fact that nobody had said anything about dagger. It wasn't an insult, and it wasn't a jab at you, just an observation about what I've seen in a thread of over a hundred posts.

Now, the most effective Red Mages I know have to resort to a combination of Swords and Daggers. I think this fits highly with the fencer role, although I guess unless Red Mage has a way to do serious damage without an Empyrean while using a Sword in their main hand it doesn't count as having it?

I agree that it is a problem that Red Mage does not get access to the Magian Daggers, considering that they have equal combat skills in both Sword and Dagger. But ignoring these, Red Mage does get access to the most highly damaging daggers outside of a THF or a DNC. They aren't all easy to get however.

Mandau, Twilight Knife, Clement Skean, which all have high DPS are all accessible to Red Mage. Below that Verus Knife and a Blau. That said, your Magic Attack Bonus trait is going to have more impact on damage then the actual damage rating of the blade, since you will be relying on Aeolian Edge.

On soloing in Abyssea, I wasn't referring to killing NMs, which was very clear in my post. I was talking about farming KI and pops from chests. With tools like Phalanx and Ice Spikes keeping you alive, and nukes to get azure lights, a Red Mage is the job most capable of using Aeolian Edge to do this. Blue Mage might get Azure faster, but you will certainly get Amber lights faster. Perhaps this isn't soloing a zone boss, but a Red Mage is still more likely to do that then a Black Mage, White Mage, Bard, or Scholar.

Again, please don't take my posts personally. I'm not trying to insult your honor or whatever.

Good luck getting your Almace so you can fulfill your vision of Red Mage!

[Rayik]

Okay, first off, please don't take my "reply" so personally. I was talking very generally about a comment you made compounded by the fact that nobody had said anything about dagger. It wasn't an insult, and it wasn't a jab at you, just an observation about what I've seen in a thread of over a hundred posts.

Now, the most effective Red Mages I know have to resort to a combination of Swords and Daggers. I think this fits highly with the fencer role, although I guess unless Red Mage has a way to do serious damage without an Empyrean while using a Sword in their main hand it doesn't count as having it?

I agree that it is a problem that Red Mage does not get access to the Magian Daggers, considering that they have equal combat skills in both Sword and Dagger. But ignoring these, Red Mage does get access to the most highly damaging daggers outside of a THF or a DNC. They aren't all easy to get however.

Mandau, Twilight Knife, Clement Skean, which all have high DPS are all accessible to Red Mage. Below that Verus Knife and a Blau. That said, your Magic Attack Bonus trait is going to have more impact on damage then the actual damage rating of the blade, since you will be relying on Aeolian Edge.

On soloing in Abyssea, I wasn't referring to killing NMs, which was very clear in my post. I was talking about farming KI and pops from chests. With tools like Phalanx and Ice Spikes keeping you alive, and nukes to get azure lights, a Red Mage is the job most capable of using Aeolian Edge to do this. Blue Mage might get Azure faster, but you will certainly get Amber lights faster. Perhaps this isn't soloing a zone boss, but a Red Mage is still more likely to do that then a Black Mage, White Mage, Bard, or Scholar.

Again, please don't take my posts personally. I'm not trying to insult your honor or whatever.

Good luck getting your Almace so you can fulfill your vision of Red Mage!

You pretty much zeroed in on me, question my abilities or how much I even care about the play style I am advocating. So yeah, I responded in kind. You even brought me up in a second post ("some players who don't even think RDM have a magical WS harharhar). So, there's that too. People won't take posts so personal if you don't go out of your way with paragraph after paragraph trying to point out shortcomings with a heavy hand of snark.

My only major complaint really, is that our best WS's are not on the weapon that is specified as our signature weapon. If we're supposed to be a dagger-style job like THF or DNC, then fine, let RDM build Magian weapons to enhance that. But we can't. I'm fine with using daggers, if I can make a Magian dagger, or at least build an Empy/Relic/Mythic dagger for the job. Seriously, what sense does this make?

EDIT: Admittedly, I didn't know about RDM and Mandau. I'm so glad one of the few daggers that we CAN use is one we can run right out and grab. Also, on Abyssea, I wasn't talking about NM's either. I was talking about farming chests and KI/PI's.

[Hyrist]

SE's current focus is on a HNM-centric endgame.

But even what they described as far as our enhancing goes is laughable right now. If anyone gets vastly improved by our enhancing spells, it's us: Because everything we have with the exception of a few spells are self target.

Now, if they tie this enhancing thing with our front line usage, that'll be interesting. But until the full details of what they plan on doing are laid out in the open, they pretty much just fed us an outright lie.

[Hyrist]

My thoughts exactly. This mainfesto is aggravating me more than any other job adjustment announcement, frankly. They state that player feedback is encouraged yet for all the jobs I care about (and others it seems) there's not a single upcoming ability example that comes close to what the majority of people on the English boards are asking for.

Don't think it's limited to just the EN boards. There's been melee mentions and debates on the German and JP boards as well. Perhaps not as active as the EN boards but it's there.

[Duelle]

Don't think it's limited to just the EN boards. There's been melee mentions and debates on the German and JP boards as well. Perhaps not as active as the EN boards but it's there.

This. I was following the naguri aka madoushi threads for a whole, and a lot of the suggestions are similar to what we've been seeing in our side (enspells based on enfeebles, boosted damage on enspells, more melee gear, more WS access).

[Supersun]

Did anyone else catch these little gems at the bottom

Extras

Additional Planned Adjustments
Weapon skill refinements
Adjustments to enfeebling magic
Revisions to job-specific merit point enhancement attributes.