[Job Adjustmentｓ Manifesto] RDM

[cidbahamut]

For the love of God Hyrist, shut up about ye olde FF1. That antiquated image has absolutely no bearing on FFXI.

SpankWustler in FFXI is a mage. Deal with it.

This brings the same two questions to the Mage Side of Red Mage, as is presented to the Melee Side.

Why do you play Red Mage as a backline caster?
Would those reasons not be better suited by another job.

It bloody well would not.

[CapriciousOne]

I agree I prefer to be on the front line hacking and slashing as a RDM instead of on the backline curing. When i'm curing I feel like I'm not real contributing to the game especially when a WHM can clearly heal more mp at once and on multiple people. I never mind assisting a WHM keeping them refreshed and throwing in cures when overtaxed, I dont feel its my role to heal the whole party. I personally dont see the point of a partying if all i'm going to do is be on the back line healing gaining experience for practically nothing and still have most of my combat and magic skills falling behind in the process. I guess maybe I'm crazy for thinking that partying is supposed to allow me to improve everything in one fell swoop.

In any case because of the way this job is treated in parties I just accepted that there are just some parts of the game and missions and quests I will NEVER complete because of the attitudes toward the job and will complete all that I can solo or in small parties and say the hell with the rest and just quit afterward. I leveled RDM as a HYBRID MELEE job with the emphasis on melee where I can use magic as NEEDED. It is fine if one wants to neglect a huge part of a job but to fit in but I REFUSE TO DO SO and people act like something is wrong with me for doing so. Just becase my strongs weapon is only a B doesnt make me useless as I can still hit consistently and often as long as my skill is allowed to increase to what my acutal job level but that cant be done IN THE BACK and people complain and kick me out when I go to the FRONT, so why bother helping them at all I say? I'm not saying melee RDM is better than complete mage RDM (though it is and I dont see how they accomplish anything witout a party around but I digress) I dont knock anybody for how they play the game instead I try find a way to make it work. A skilled player can play any job in any fashion whether it is designed to be that way or not. Unskilled players cry and complain if things arent done a CERTAIN way despite there being more than one way to do things and still being successful. If it work for you stick with it and have fun until it no longer does I say.

Only other solution is for RDM that have a problem with the way things are just band together and abandon the others, LOL

[Hyrist]

What, by virtue of the almighty cure?

When you look at the mage duities that exist, that are PURELY RDM duties. What you are left with are Haste, Refresh, and a handful of spells only available through meriting. WHM WILL have Addle, BLM DOES have Break. Currently Scholar brings far more utility tools to the table, and will have the inclusion of Haste in the final level cap rise, subbing our job.

So that leaves chainspell stun, which isn't even a valid tactic in most endgame content anymore.

So yes, the question is presented: Why Red Mage? That's just a valid question for the Back Line as it is the Front.

And honestly, how many people have hung up the hat and leveled other jobs during this time, because of the exact problems I've listed above? The job needs further definition. SE's answer to that, may not be what some of the previous base wants.

That was the grand total of my post, which you only skimmed.

[noodles355]

Yet, on the same notion, the job's archtype has it functioning as both, and yet you choose to ignore that concept when you approach the job as a 'pure mage'.

Why should I care what the job's original concept was? This is how I like playing it, and luckilly, how most other people like me to play it.

That's all there is to it. I am not going to stand in your way of saying "we want the melee side buffed". That's fine, do what you want. But suggesting that everyone wants the melee side buffed, or that anyone who doesn't is lieing to themselves or admitting defeat or something is just wrong. Simple as.

Why do you play Red Mage as a backline caster?

I wanted a backline mage job. I didn't want to purely be a healer. I didn't want to purely be a nuker. I didn't want to be purely a buffer. That leaves me with Rdm and Sch. I chose Rdm because at the time Rdm was more popular and also I thought they looked cooler.

Would those reasons not be better suited by another job.

If I was used as a dedicated healer or nuker, then yes. But 90% of the time I'm not. I'm there as support, and another job couldn't do it better because another job can't land enfeebles with the same accuracy or potency that I can.

When you look at the mage duities that exist, that are PURELY RDM duties. What you are left with are Haste, Refresh, and a handful of spells only available through meriting. WHM WILL have Addle, BLM DOES have Break.

I love how you can just dismiss Dia3, slow2 and Paralyze2 like that. The only other job that can cast a Slow effect stronger than ours is Brd, and guess what? they stack. We have the most potent paralyze. Guess what else? Dia3 is 15% Defence down that is up all the time, and that stacks with JA defence-down effects like Angon. No other job can do these. They are significant spells, and the fact that you just dismissed them so easilly without even acknowlegeing them as "a few merit spells" is completely idiotic.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Whm will be getting Addle. Blm has Break. We get both if you haven't realized. Aside from SE needing to come true on their vision of adjusting Enfeebling/Enhancing Magic I feel Red Mage magic is at an acceptable level for being a not main healer.

[Hyrist]

I love how you can just dismiss Dia3, slow2 and Paralyze2 like that. The only other job that can cast a Slow effect stronger than ours is Brd, and guess what? they stack. We have the most potent paralyze. Guess what else? Dia3 is 15% Defence down that is up all the time, and that stacks with JA defence-down effects like Angon. No other job can do these. They are significant spells, and the fact that you just dismissed them so easilly without even acknowlegeing them as "a few merit spells" is completely idiotic.

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?

No. These are not job defining traits, merely accents, bonuses to what they already preform. For a Red Mage, they're our bread and butter, piratically a necessity to be considered worth ANYTHING outside what someone else could do by simply equipping Red Mage as a subjob.

That's why they're dismissible. You're basically requiring the class to go through an additional 3 levels of work PER SPELL to contribute anything unique to an event. That's Post 75, only IF your spells land land reliably (on monsters with ridiculous levels of resistance, mind you), and only IF you're stacked to hell on dMND for everything but Dia and Bio, and guess what, you can only be fully adequate at two of those spells, and that's not even thinking of Phalanx 2.

If you're not insulted by this, I say you should be. Again, using merits as an excuse for being a definition for a job is a poor excuse to justify a broken design.

So yes, I dismiss the merits on the grounds that these spells rightly should be scrolls instead of merits. You can't depend on a Red Mage to have these spells to the appropriate merit levels, or have them at all in some cases, where with a Black Mage, they don't have to pick and choose what Tier V scrolls to get. Our Merits have turned from crutch to a liability to the development of our job class and if you don't see that, you're flat out blind.

Which is ironic because your typical Red Mage won't even have Blind II merited.

[Defiledsickness]

have you ever heard of gear swapping? its not that hard i even did it in a lazy way.

i just made 3 macro's to cover my entire gear and based each set of 3 on a function i need to perform. i have a set for healing, a set for enfeebling, i tweaked mnd-based enfeebling, a set for enhancing, a tweaked mnd-based enhancing, and a nuking set.

nuking and curing are my primary sets, then when i get a resist i just change to enfeebling. of course you should change for enhancing but if i know im not going to get hit then i only cast prot/shell anyways.

-yanno blind doesnt land on every mob right? same with paralyze. the base spells can be pushed far enough that you dont need to 5/5 any of them. i unlocked everything for Viodwatch triggers, except phalanx2. just /sch and phalanx1 or let your pld phalanx himself.

[cidbahamut]

Why would you merit Phalanx II? Are you doing Salvage runs or something?

[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.