[Job Adjustmentｓ Manifesto] RDM

[SpankWustler]

Unless most posted information on the effects of the Estoqueur stuff is wrong, yeah, it's multiplicative. So...

Scholar can double the duration of buffs using a stratagem.

Red Mage can very nearly double the duration of buffs by being properly dressed for the occasion.

So, if somebody at SE fell into a pile of heroin and stumbled out feeling joyful enough to allow Haste to work with Ascension, it would be a pretty even break. This line of discussion seems kind of pointless, though, given that most people don't leave their piles of heroin laying around to be tripped over.

As for spell division, I've come to assume Scholar will get the weirder, more situational stuff while Red Mage will get bread and butter spells.

[Economizer]

I forgot about the bonus on the boots, which is why I had the odd number of 1.65. Thanks for the correction.

While this certainly changes much of what I said (it only gives SCH a slight edge in this case), I still doubt SE will allow Haste to Ascension. Or if they do, it will be the second before they announce Haste II.

[Raksha]

What I meant was what if compsure alone increased buff duration on others, with gear just enhancing that further.

That would put a composured Haste far above a perpetuanced one, and means RDM could just use one strat to make it AoE, but SCH would still need two (accession + perpetuance).

What are the other suggestions for getting rid of haste cycles? Hastega? (For RDM only? What about SCH/RDM? Are we doomed to Haste Cycles now? WHM/SCH too?)

[Supersun]

The ideal solution really is to AoE, but I can somewhat understand if the Dev team wants a challenge to find another way without breaking thematic lore.

From there they can either continue to increase the duration and decrease the casting time like what WoW did with Plds where their 5 min buffs that they were expected to keep on 40 people eventually became 15 min buffs that buffed 40 people in a matter of like 6 clicks.

Other then that if they pulled it off right they could also pretty much give out haste to jobs like they did sneak and invisible. I mean if every DD had haste that they could cast on themselves it wouldn't be as necessary to dedicate hastes to just one job. I mean this is an extreme example but if content encouraged lots of players and each alliance had plenty of hastes then it wouldn't be as burdensome.

They would have to implement this properly though as even with haste being more common there are still more incentives for certain jobs to cast haste over other people for efficiencies sake. They would need to make incentives for people to spread out the hastes instead of bunching them on as few people as possible.

[Duelle]

From there they can either continue to increase the duration and decrease the casting time like what WoW did with Plds where their 5 min buffs that they were expected to keep on 40 people eventually became 15 min buffs that buffed 40 people in a matter of like 6 clicks.

The balancing factor there is the need for reagents to use the "greater" versions of the buffs (though yeah, if refresh and haste cycles don't bore you to tears, try buffing a 40-man raid in vanilla every 5 minutes with single target buffs...).

Not to mention the buffs were designed in a way that raids were encouraged to bring more than one pally (WotLK had a standard 25-man raid bring at least two, three if you didn't have a druid for Mark of the Wild, and four if you had a Pally tank due to Blessing of Sanctuary being unique to them). Admittedly, it'd be a nice mechanic, but I don't think FFXI supports class stacking in large group situations. At least, not the type that would allow the mechanic to work without making things "too easy" (this is me trying to think like the developers). If you buffed a Warrior with Greater Blessing of Might, every warrior in that raid would also receive the buff, and it was instant cast. In contrast, here we have a bunch of BLMs that would benefit from only Refresh II, which has a cast time, and if we're in a BLM party, we don't have much else to do aside from toss cures. Not to mention you need just one RDM for that, who can also haste whatever melee are present. There's not much encouragement to have more than one in an alliance.

Granted, this is the kind of thing I'd like to see done with RDM buffs. Make them trivial to cast and maintain so that the player can focus on more important things in battle (like dealing damage or healing). I just don't think the game would support them as such (at least for the class as a whole).

[georgcantor316]

Just want to point out that your avg. good sch is going to have their af3 hands so the buff duration increase is 2.5x not just 2.0x for sch.

[Greatguardian]

I'm really so lost in this conversation.

1) How did Scholar become relevant to Red Mage in the first place? We've been going back and forth on it for a few pages, but pretty much the only thing the jobs have in common at all is access to both black and white magic.

2) Since when are Haste cycles a big deal / bad? 9 minute duration Haste on self and 6 minute duration Haste on others is nothing to scoff at, and is a reprieve specific to Red Mage (unless a Sch is burning all their strats on Hastes).

Weren't we talking about job adjustments that are actually relevant to Red Mage?

[Supersun]

Well discussion is hard since we don't exactly know where content is headed.

If we continue on with events where you are trying to bring as few people as possible/designed only for a few people. Then it's not a problem

If content is headed for events where you are encouraged to bring tons of people and the events aren't too specific on what jobs to bring and attempt to encourage diversity it isn't s problem either.

But if content devolves back into the 18 man zerg fights we had at 75 then it's a BIG problem.

I admit that it would be better if they just designed content that was better, but we don't know the future.

If content devolves back into 18 man zerg fights haste cycles are and issue and saying that Scholar and Red Mage play completely different isn't that accurate (if they even get invited at all).

[Greatguardian]

Wait, what? How in the world are Haste Cycles actually an issue? And are you insinuating that Red Mages don't get invited (or don't get invited for zerg fights)?

[saevel]

Problem with "haste cycles" and "refresh cycles" is that the spells casting animation is to damn long and the recasts are punishingly long. It simply takes up too much time to cycles those spells on a bunch of people, further complicating the process is that it required you to do them over and over and over and over again until your head explodes or you get so burnt out that you refuse to play the job. SE took a big step by releasing a bunch of +duration gear, but it's only scratching the surface of the problem and requires too much gear for your average player. ~ALL~ buffs should be multi-targetable (AOE) no questions asked, period end of story, no arguments accepted. Any other system and you turned the RDM into a buff-bot which is something every serious (didn't level it to get into a HNM shell) RDM hates.

In fact you can pretty much divide the serious RDM's from the non-serious ones by the tone of their arguments. The serious ones want changes made to get RDM away from the haste / refresh / cure robot job it's become, they want more enfeebles more enhancements and more melee capability, yes all three. The ones just using it to get gear want as little changed as possible other then to add Cure V, they use the job exclusively to get gear for their other jobs, the jobs they like, and any positive changes to RDM could possible jeopardize their positions. I view them no better as those naked BRD's whoring merits.

Anyhow, since I got my stage II Almace I've found that I tend to go RDM/DRK to most non-abyssea events (I'm BLU inside abyssea) because we need someone to stun dangerous stuff. My typical routine is Dia III -> Slow II then engage and beat the sh!t out of the mob while spot curing and keeping Refresh II on the WHM (and Slow II / Dia III / Paralyze on the NM). Recent changes to DRK have made this a nice setup, LR is 3min now and SE is only 8% HP per swing for 5% damage, I've been loving me some LRSE CDC's. Enspell II's are pretty decent when single wielding, and I need to do more testing, I think SE might of ninjad the mag.acc calcs on them without telling anyone. Potency cap is still on hit though.