[Job Adjustmentｓ Manifesto] RDM

[Seriha]

While I noted earlier I'm okay with pet buffs, one job looking for fixes through another is probably not the best way to go about it. As is, settling for something can be very dangerous, a recipe for stagnation in a genre where classes should always be undergoing steady growth to remain fresh and useful with bug fixes on top. Pet jobs also need to be wary of the line of control in their pet, its power, and how close one person could potentially be to 2 party members, one disposable with little penalty to the master (In FFXI's case, waiting on a timer and/or some gil). I can't say I sympathize with BSTs stuck in the Charm days. Charm is arguably one of the most broken abilities in the game. Not only does it have the potential to disable a monster, but you can make that monster turn around and beat on crap for you. Prior to the new jugs, BST mains were also cranky about how anyone could sub BST and be just as good, if not better than them... RDM being one of the notorious examples cited since mischarms could be slept/bound while primary targets can be enfeebled down to further the longevity of your pet. And if a camp had no local mobs for the BST to charm? Well, there goes their desirability in a group. I know some still wanna froth over the MPK patch and loss of zookeeping, but even without despawning, mobs slowly pathing back at a snail's pace was always pretty stupid, both as a risk to people randomly passing through and just in general.

On a simpler level, pet jobs should just have some tiered traits that passively transfer a percentage of active buffs onto the pet. BST could be most proficient, PUP next, then SMN and DRG. Maybe at 90 or something it could be 100% of what the BST has to the pet, though just thinking of Nazuna in a high haste situation with berserk up could be scary, as BSTs aren't exactly slouches in a good DD build, either.

[saevel]

Enhancing magic skill is a requirement for any attempt at serious melee, period. It's what we do and hopefully SE realizes this and utilizes enhancing magic for any new buffs.

And buffing BST pets ... wtfo. That's for the BST discussion not the RDM one, take it over there.

Most of RDM specific gear has mixed stats on it, the lv 50 JSE body for example (RDM/BLU), the wise gear (acc and m.acc) and such. The problem is that SE watered them down to the point of them being nearly useless and RDM just used other alternatives. SE never expected us to gear switch as much as we do, and it took them 7+ years to realize this. That is why your Emp armor has such bad a$$ casting stats on it. Having full +2 it's used in my "enhance other" macros, my nuking macros and my enfeebling macros (combined with other gear) and my "magic WS" macro that I use for A.Edge and S.Blade. It's also why we should be getting S.Blade natively, it would be leveraging our class's strengths into a melee aspect.

Which leads to the suggestion of giving RDM an ability that changes all it's melee damage into magic type damage, kind of like a permanent formless strikes (turn on / off as a JA). On monsters that take reduced physical damage but full magic damage this would give us an edge on. FS Ability + Enspell + Magic WS basically means we're dealing magic type damage through melee stats. And interesting twist and definitely within the theme of the job.

Also guys don't forget, we're getting Gain-DEX and Gain-STR very soon. With my current setup I can get +17 stat on myself, with the expected 6 skill per level increase of the upcoming cap that would be 54 skill (assuming no other gear chances) from 90 to 99, so +22 by the time we're 99, assuming no other changes. That is nice no matter how you cut it, hopefully SE will do the same for other stats and we can stack them (Gain-Atk + Gain-DEX and so forth).

[Duelle]

Doesn't it make sense that we rally for some form of a melee buff to enhance our weakness to amplify our greatest strength of being a generalist?

Except we go back to the point where generalist design doesn't work in MMORPGs. Multi-classing (AKA the subjob system) and gear were supposed to help alleviate that, but it's not been enough due to many reasons already covered.

It looks like some of them are still perfectly happy with being the job that mindlessly throws NPCs at mobs, even as the rest of the playerbase can see the gaping holes and shortcomings of it. It got a pretty big boost with the introduction of Abyssea, but in the end, the boost only makes it so even the most undergeared player can do modest damage.

Our pets don't receive buffs from other players aside from COR (which has all kinds of limitations on its own that spellcasters don't have). And we have a lot of potential flexibility that goes wasted by an ability system that takes all the worst points of PUP and SMN with none of the advantages. It has no interactivity with other jobs aside from being a low maintenance damage dealer. But at least we can solo Cerberus in exchange for a Fort Knox worth of fodder and food. And that's all that matters, right?!

So I guess complacency and fear of change is not unique to the RDM forums. Color me surprised. Not kidding, either.

[Supersun]

Except we go back to the point where generalist design doesn't work in MMORPGs.

Generalists work when in numbers they put the specialist to shame, but actually striking a balance between a generalist and a specialist is a near impossible task that realistically has to rely more on how content is developed then how the jobs are balanced themselves.

[Duelle]

Generalists work when in numbers they put the specialist to shame, but actually striking a balance between a generalist and a specialist is a near impossible task that realistically has to rely more on how content is developed then how the jobs are balanced themselves.

There's a reason I mentioned multi-classing and gear. The generalist is very dependent on mechanics within and outside the class to work properly (if it is possible at all). Yes, this includes the TP system, how job abilities are assign/designed, how multi-hitters affect that part of the game, relative strength of mobs, general expected tactics, and encounter mechanics and so on.

[Ketaru]

And buffing BST pets ... wtfo. That's for the BST discussion not the RDM one, take it over there.

If the people in charge want to think the job will become overpowered if they give it a lot of buffs that makes them even more independent than they are now, fine, I'll let them think that.

That's why I suggested, in the interest of job balance, that maybe some enhancements can come in the form of enhancements provided by other jobs, to encourage cooperation between players. RDM seems like as good a choice as any for this.

But I suppose that is to be expected from you, since all you think Enhancing magic ought to be good for is melee.

[Rayik]

I'll agree that reworking EX weaponskills would be a nice buff to RDM melee. It won't change how RDM gets used, but it'll be a nice boost for those who dabble in melee.

Job exclusive gear? You mean like War Hose? As for Composure, that was as much a mage buff as it was a melee buff. If they could pull off more stuff like that I might be able to get behind it.



Similarly, just because it's in the game doesn't mean it's worthwhile.

The last thing we want is to have Red Mage's mage side neglected just so we can get a Tactical Parry update.

Unfortunately, I agree with this. Once in a great while an awesome update for a job comes along(Last Resort fix for DRK was amazing) but more often than not, we(all jobs in general) get something lame like Tactical Parry, or that game-breaking JT where we get 2 TP for casting a spell with a 5 second or more casting time, Occult Accumen or something? Composure was nice because it did benefit both melee and spellcasting. More of this would be great, but unlikely at this point.

Gear-wise, much of the AF1 set benefited both melee and casting, with buffs to Parrying, Shield Skill, Evasion, nice DEX bonuses, as well as Enfeebling, Enhancing, Elemental, etc. But, in hindsight, some of the other gear I was referring to, such as Ogre Ledelsens +1 appear to have a whopping one other job tag on it (BST). Even the Wise set, while still being terrible, at least added Accuracy and such. EVen beyond this, RDM was added to a lot of nice new gear in the past year, which we've gone over multiple times in this thread already(Atheling Mantle, Calmecac Trousers, ALMACE, etc).

If SE supposedly has absolutely no intentions for RDM to melee, then why did the job get added to those? Why do we get Almace, instead of a club or staff?

Other job forums have been getting comments from the actual Devs regarding future updates and intended direction, with as heated as these threads are getting in the RDM forum, it' be nice if maybe we could get something "official" stated regarding the future of RDM other than our lolEnhancing?

EDIT: Found the official response from the Devs several pages back. I'm slipping in my old age, that one got right by me. If all we get(for melee) is an adjustment to our WS's, I'm honestly fine with that. Give RDM a sword WS worth a damn that doesn't require an Empy and I will gladly tip my hat, bow out of these threads, and not bother anyone anymore. Though, I may start a few threads out of sheer glee, discussing melee gear and such. ^^

[Supersun]

If the people in charge want to think the job will become overpowered if they give it a lot of buffs that makes them even more independent than they are now, fine, I'll let them think that.

That's why I suggested, in the interest of job balance, that maybe some enhancements can come in the form of enhancements provided by other jobs, to encourage cooperation between players. RDM seems like as good a choice as any for this.

But I suppose that is to be expected from you, since all you think Enhancing magic ought to be good for is melee.

To be fair he does have a point. You aren't as much asking for Red Mage to get pet buffs as you are for Pet jobs to get more pet buffs in general. There's nothing about Rdm in particular that screams that we should get new pet buffs exclusively (and if anything I'd think Bards would be the best candidate for them).

Asking for more pet specific buffs is better suited for a pet job forum and would probably reach SE's ears a lot easier then posting your ideas here.

Not that I think adding more pet exclusive buffs is that great of an idea anyway. I mean do we really need any more of them when the current existing ones aren't even used?

What really needs to be looked at is how when buffs start entering the picture that only half of a pet jobs damage is increased while every other job skyrockets ahead.

I can understand SE's concerns with buffing pet jobs. I mean pet jobs would clobber dedicated DDs if both the master and the pet received the full power of every buff the master received in high buff situations.

I think the real issue lies in the attack speed of pets compared to fully buffed players. It's not as much all buffs as it is Haste. Players suddenly gain a +500% damage increase with 80% haste while pets still stay the same.

One solution might be to add a job trait that transfers a portion of the masters delay reduction to the pet as well. Not the full amount necessarily since a 80% hasted sheep would pretty much murder everything that lives and breaths while being disposable.

Either way what pet jobs really are asking for is for their pets to scale in power along with players so that Bsts have more of a place in high buff scenarios. I don't think pet exclusive buffs are the best way to accomplish this though and other alternatives should be considerded.

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it' be nice if maybe we could get something "official" stated regarding the future of RDM other than our lolEnhancing?

Doesn't really matter to me since I'll take what they say with a gain of salt until I actually see them follow through myself.

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Edit: Can we stop treating that triangle at the bottom of everyone's post like a ratedown button. We do NOT need to start a post banning gang war between the pro and anti melee crowd as all it's going to accomplish is essentially erasing this thread.

[Neisan_Quetz]

BLU with an Almace says hi? Considering they're only geared for Frontline and not anything else.

Except for the part they have to set their spells, they get penalized for having to change spells, and their magical nukes have long casting and recast times? In fact with or without Almace Blu is better off meleeing for most of their damage than casting spells on harder mobs due to their physical spells scaling horribly on anything without paper thin defense. They are not equal.

And I forgot the part where most of them have retarded range.

[Heabea]

i think with SCH's ability to use most of RDM's single target spells and cast them on the entire party it would be nice if RDM got enspells3, stoneskin2, phalanx3, blink2, aquaveil2 etc. It sucks for a RDM to have to burn merits into phalanx2 and see a SCH just phalanx-aga for a better effect. Either make SCH the ultimate buffer and give RDM a whack of debuffs, or vice-versa