[Job Adjustmentｓ Manifesto] RDM

[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)?

[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).

[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.

[Supersun]

If SE ever bumps Rdm's Dark skill up from whatever abyss it currently is to something respectable that can actually make the rest of the spells gained from /drk beside stun land able I would be going Rdm/Drk a LOT more.

[Duelle]

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.

The problem is that SE's design for RDM has been trailing along that line of buffbot since the days of TAU. The fact the melee camp and the haters of the cycles were stifled by an overly zealous bunch of people who saw RDM as easy street leveling and merits did nothing to help our cause. I even remember during an interview or QA around the time TAU was announced, I think it was Matsui who said "RDM would still have plenty of casting to do". I knew it translated to keeping the cycles intact to create busy work for us, and could do little to stop it since at the time SE's developers did not have much of a communication venue with the players.

On a concept level, buffing should have nothing to do with RDM, firstly because the job inherently has access to "weaker" magic than WHM and BLM due to being versatile in magic and the ways of the sword. Secondly, weaker magic means the aspects of the job need to combine in some way to make up for what the job lacks compared to everyone else.

Granted, buffing is odd in this game seeing that it is limited to only a few classes. THAT in itself is the source of a slew of problems for not only our class, but having an effect on party dynamics. The enfeebling niche also opened another can of worms, which like a lot of other things did nothing to help our cause.

[Economizer]

Problem with "haste cycles" and "refresh cycles" is that the spells casting animation is to damn long and the recasts are punishingly long.

If the recast of Haste was really short, I don't think anyone capable of casting the spell would be talking about this. You have to wear a lot of Haste or Fast Cast gear to make Haste cycling remotely bearable.

In fact you can pretty much divide the serious RDM's from the non-serious ones

I think that judging people based on how serious you think they are is a bad model for how to play the game or talk to people about the game. I have enough issues with people on the forums who think stupid stuff like "their job should have all the procs without having to sacrifice their favorite subjob" or "their job should have no down sides, but other jobs should keep theirs" or "lol, balance is for other classes" without having to deal with things like "who is a good player" or "who is actually serious about job x".

[cidbahamut]

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.

Sweeping generalizations are bad bro. You don't have to be a melee enthusiast to be serious about the job.