On the Topic of RDM Magics

[Aliekber]

I don't want to get lost in neverneverland where the penultimate obscenely overpowered Mage class of FFXI suddenly needs Aura buffs and Ultima. We're not that poorly off. Small, unique tweaks and abilities that enhance what already makes us good would be ideal.

Well, they did nerf RDM soloing and RDM tanking pretty badly (both were very liked by me), so forgive me if I'm a little sore at the idea that RDM shouldn't get anything awesome, since we've had awesome things taken away.

They've said in the Manifesto that they want RDMs to be "Support specialists who excel at transforming their allies from mere mortals into demigods with their enhancements, while rendering once-formidable enemies impotent with enfeebling magic", so I'm running along those lines. Yeah, a full compliment of Aura buffs could be overpowered, and their manifesto vision is a bit of an exaggeration, but cutting out Haste cycles with HasteSphere (or making Haste and Refresh II Accessionable) would make the job less of a grind to play in large groups, and is pretty much a convenience boost. It's not going to lead to RDM Tank 2.0, or more bind-kite/pinning solos--the fear of which, let's be honest, is what really stops the devs from giving RDM more. They seem to like the duration enhancements angle, so taking that to its conclusion would be a great alternative (the cycle you run once every 7-10 minutes is much less of an annoyance than the one that starts 40 seconds after it ends).

At any rate, I don't think the job needs to be made more powerful as much as it needs to be made less of a chore. I like being a support, but Haste/Refresh cycles really suck. They're not even a little fun in the way that COR rolls are, with its blackjack-esque minigame. Single-target spells meant to be cast on everyone in succession is a stupid mechanic meant to eat up your time/make you constantly concentrate (it's less fun that spot-curing, which at least is reactive and takes a small amount of skill), and is a relic of Zilart-era design. If what I really wanted was to run a cycle, I'd get a second job flipping burgers and at least get paid for it.

Other thoughts:

- There seems to be a bit of schadenfreude from other mage job mains, who like to see RDMs not get what they want after years of being neglected themselves. Everyone can get cool buffs--no, really! It wouldn't be the end of the world.

- Camate has said in the past not to hold back and refrain from posting job suggestions just because they're overpowered, so that's what I did. Who knows, maybe something useful will come of it.

[Ketaru]

I thought I'd see who would entertain this idea after casually mentioning it one of the melee threads. But would anybody care to see spells that enhance player pets? I'm not going to lie and say I don't have a vested interest in such a thing happening, since one of my main jobs is a pet job, and one that most power players view as inefficient at that (BST).

But SE did say they are pushing to give all jobs endgame relevance. What better way to start than to end this nonsense of how pet jobs don't get the full benefits of enhancers? And what better way to push RDM in the Enhancer direction than to start making it so the job can work together with all types of jobs?

Maybe spells that grant -PDT% to pets? Or increase pet MAB? Or heaven forbid. Cure pets. Finally give some weight to the idea of sending disposable NPCs rather than living breathing players to their deaths that they can come back virtually unweakened from.

EDIT: Thought I'd throw out some ideas I thought about while trying to get some sleep. In general, I'm not a fan of posting concrete ideas because the only consistent thing about updates is that they're never as good or as bad as you think they are. But here goes:

Animist
Decreases the amount of damage taken by a target player's pet and enhances all restorative effects on their pet.

Ogre's Command
Increase's the Attack and attack speed of a target player's pet.

Medium
Confers Stoneskin and Blink effects unto a player's pet and increases the pet's Magic Attack Bonus.

[cidbahamut]

We already have access to Break...

[Rayik]

We already have access to Break...

We do, and it sucks. Not even worth casting on fodder. Almost anything worthwhile I cast it on turns out to be flat out immune, or it wears off instantly. I've had better success with Sleep than this spell. And yes, capped and merited Enfeebling skill with M.Acc gear and atmas.

I wish SE would reevaluate NM's immunity to the bulk of what our specialty is supposed to be. Players are duoing zone bosses with very little difficulty, so why purposely keep giving NM's these broken mechanics? The "challenge" of most NM's is laughable at this point, so why keep shutting us out of contributing to the fight? If something simply requires an obscene amount of M.Acc, then that's fine; at least it's attainable. But every NM being immune to everything but slow/para/blind is really aggravating, and some NM's are even immune/highly resistant to those.

For as much as SE supposedly doesn't want RDM's to wind up as healbots again, they sure have a funny way of showing it.

[Supersun]

I worded what I meant poorly. Like I said, if we had single target versions of all of the sphere spells there wouldn't be a problem. If the mechanic itself shouldn't anchor Rdm to the back. SE so far has been pretty careful adding things that are equally useful to the front and the back (Ie. Gain spells). Really despite all of our melee ideas I know that they are likely going to continue this trend spell-wise with maybe the exception of Enspell T3s (which is why imo Enspell T3s needs to be beast).

We are going to need more then just a small minor tweak to stop our white magic side being almost entirely subbable at 99. Where if Sch and Blm sub Rdm the only thing we can really bring to the table are T2 enspells and enfeebles. Where Brd/Rdm pretty much stomps our supporting ability.

I think you slightly overestimate our current power. Sure we are durable job that can solo well (though I don't think we can necessarily call ourselves the uncontested best soloer anymore), but our situations in parties is not looking so bright. Refresh II isn't enough of a niche to earn us a place by itself considering there are jobs that are much better at it and the matter is only going to get worse and worse as the few remaining things that people are going to invite us into a party for are mostly going to be all subbable by 99.

A 10% better slow over a white mage isn't going to cut it. All of your suggested spells will only enhance our soloing at best. SE is really going to need to run with the enfeebling ball if they want to keep Rdm viable, and like mentioned before a way to mitigate TP attacks is the first thing that needs to be addressed.

That TP move addle idea seems to be pretty popular though. The only problem I see with that is either that new NMs would almost have to be factory made immune to stun or the TP delay wouldn't ever be anything significant.

Even with monsters being immune to stun though it's still a powerful ability. SE can go a bit crazier with their TP attacks knowing that as long as a the TP move addle is up and it adds enough of a delay that players can survive. As long as players are paying attention a spell like this could give players just enough time to gear swap into PDT or MDT gear. That by itself is more powerful then any other spell they can likely add for us to deal with TP attacks, it lets SE go a bit crazier with their TP attacks with that expectation in mind, and, given your connection isn't terrible, adds a new dimension of skill where if you die it's likely because you weren't paying attention and didn't switch your gear.

Also, we have Break though I'm pretty sure I know what you meant.

Edit: I am in agreement wit the cycle elimination. Like I've said before. cycling one spell over and over isn't a fun mechanic. I mean if WoW got rid of Plds cycles within like its first expansion you know there's a problem with the mechanic.

Besides, like mentioned, don't hold something back because you think it's overpowered. An idea itself can't be overpowered and can be worked around to be balanced.

[Seriha]

And not to sound like a douche or anything but theres a 50 some odd page RDM melee thread you can discuss it there. I'd rather not have this thread degenerate to bickering like that thread has.

While I'll say the following and pretty much leave it at that, the melee side does have a legitimate concern in that if being pure caster is too good, then yes, it is the melee death knell. I'm sure there are some sitting there reading this maliciously craving for that just to shut us up, watch us squirm, or whatever, but we've been teetering on that for a long time.




Overall, you should know I'm for longer, potentially better buffs. I feel like Saboteur should function more like Nightengale/Troubador in that for 1m after being used, any enfeeble cast will get the boosted effect instead of being a one-shot. Future debuffs could also come in layering effects, or even current ones tweaked as such so multiple RDMs could buff up and sustain an enfeeble on a given mob much like DNC Steps.

Just gonna copy/paste my old post from the new enfeebling magic thread that came up a while back. Some are pretty basic. Some, maybe not.

(Wind : Black Magic) Confuse: Target temporarily loses access to some spells and TP maneuvers.
INT check determines how many of each are blocked. Lasts up to 3 minutes.

(Water : White Magic) Inhibit: Reduces the power of a target's TP maneuvers and increases their ready time. TP gain is also lessened.
10-25% reductions for power and time based on a MND check. -Store TP and Subtle Blow+ for players would also vary. Lasts up to 3 minutes.

(Fire : Black Magic) Muddle: Reduces the target's Magic Attack and INT.
Variable between 10-30 MATK and 15-30 INT based on INT check. Lasts up to 3 minutes.

(Thunder : White Magic) Shatter: Reduces the target's Magic Defense and MND.
Variable between 10-30 MDEF and 15-30 MND based on MND check. Lasts up to 3 minutes.

(Dark : Black Magic) Spellbind: Reduces target's Magic Evasion and Magic Accuracy.
Variable between 15-30 based on INT checks. Lasts up to 3 minutes.

(Light : Black Magic) Regress: Reduces the target's level.
How many levels will depend on the INT difference, but this would mainly reduce all stats by the amount the players might gain through their own leveling and possibly weakening the strength of job traits if, say, the level down would take a mob from Evasion Bonus IV to III. EXP gain or skill up checks would stay at the mob's default level. Does not wear if landed, but can not be overwritten, either.

(Wind : White Magic) Panic: Target is compelled to run around in a panicked state while losing stamina.
Target will run around randomly in a 15 yalm radius at varying speeds from the point they're inflicted with the spell, losing 1% HP for every tick they're running. They will not attack or cast in this state, but taking damage from anything other than the spell's effect will bring them back to their senses. Can last up to 60 seconds.

(Earth : Black Magic) Bog: Target is knocked back with slight earth damage and their movement speed and evasion is encumbered.
Distance knocked back can be 5-20 yalms. Movement speed reduction can be 10-30% and Evasion -10-20. Damage should be somewhere between Stone II and III. Additional effects can last up to 45 seconds.

(Light : White Magic) Emanate: MP costs of spells cast by the target is distributed to party members and further deducted from the target's MP pool.
For example, if a mob casts a 300 MP spell, a percentage of 10-50% of that cost would be given variably to each party member in range (~15 yalms) resulting in a 180-900 MP loss for a party of 6 on top of the 300 spent to cast the spell. Lasts 2 minutes or 10% of the mob's Max MP.

(Dark : Black Magic) Pain: Physical damage done is reflected upon the target while reducing its ATK by that amount.
INT-based spell that reflects 10-25% of damage a mob does in attack back to it. If a hit does 300 damage, its next swing will be performed with -300 ATK, changing to -150 for the next round if that's how much it did as a result of that, and so on for the duration of the effect, up to 3 minutes.

(Non-Elemental : Black Magic) Ensanguine: Inflicts a powerful DoT that slows a mob's attack speed the lower its HP gets.
Thinking roughly 20-30 a tick with the slow effect being 1/3 the percentage of HP lost. So, a mob with 30% HP left would have a 23% slow. This would stack with other slow sources like Slow II and Elegy. Spell would last up to 120 seconds.



I'll stop for now. Things like Plague are also a bit of a given.

[Hyrist]

While I'll say the following and pretty much leave it at that, the melee side does have a legitimate concern in that if being pure caster is too good, then yes, it is the melee death knell. I'm sure there are some sitting there reading this maliciously craving for that just to shut us up, watch us squirm, or whatever, but we've been teetering on that for a long time.

First is that pretty much kills any future hope for Rdm melee as any mage aura spells pretty much anchor us within the aura surrounding the mages.

I disagree with these sentiments.

To be frank, our performance is rather independent of the buffs we would place on any mages. And, as the track record shows with AF3+2s and composure, any streamlining to our casting ability is a benefit to us in the front lines.

We aren't required to be in the back lines to soak up an aura we give them, we have our own versions or Refresh II, etc that we can cast on our selves for longer duration. If anything, an aura independent of casting on ourselves makes it easier for us to front line, and maintain front line buffs, as all we need to do is Aura a Melee with the buff, and soak it up ourselves to keep and eye on it running, or simply to spare us casting it on ourselves.

But I am also keeping in mind that this is done in tandem with separate Melee buffs that would stand on their own merits. Again this was a focus for our mage aspects, which I believe need a serious streamlining, particularly in situations in which the monster dies too quickly to make the constant application of debuffs to be cost effective.

For higher NM struggles, they've already told us we're receiving new debuffs and better resistance checks. I'm awaiting more information on that before I comment further.

[Neisan_Quetz]

It wears quickly if the mob is getting hit, while only useful on most fodder mobs (it actually lands on some RotZ Nms, I haven't seen it land on any other Nms but haven't really tried) it certainly doesn't wear instantly.

Agreed on the second points but SE did say they were looking into it, going back to old areas and finding shit is flat out immune is aggravating. I've had better luck enfeebling Zone bosses than in Wotg...

[Rayik]

It wears quickly if the mob is getting hit, while only useful on most fodder mobs (it actually lands on some RotZ Nms, I haven't seen it land on any other Nms but haven't really tried) it certainly doesn't wear instantly.

Agreed on the second points but SE did say they were looking into it, going back to old areas and finding shit is flat out immune is aggravating. I've had better luck enfeebling Zone bosses than in Wotg...

Didn't know about it wearing if it's getting hit. That makes sense, as I'm usually in a party with DD's attacking what I cast it on. But, this being the case, what's the point of the spell then? Cast Break and then run away? It's the same effect as Sleep. I know when a mob casts break on me, it takes it's sweet time wearing off, even as the mob pummels me.

[cidbahamut]

Break is more like an earth-based sleep than it is a petrify effect. It's what you use on undead or when all your other crowd control timers are down.

If it had the same potency as it does for mobs I think we'd see hordes of Red Mages running Break cycles on anything that wasn't outright immune to it, so it kind of makes sense in that regard. Doesn't change the fact that it's still dumb how NMs are immune to everything other than Blind/Paralyze/Slow.