dev1024 - healing magic

[TRiPP]

@saevel I keep hearing "Pink mage." To be honest, so what? It just makes the rest of your party survive should I say when it lacks a white mage. However, I doubt that it would staple you to the back support should we say, they improved our meleeing quite a bit, at least if anything noticeable. However, as it stands our meleeing is a joke. So why not be efficient at something at least? Or do we not want to be efficient at anything? Is that the case? Our enfeebling is a joke in most cases, our elemental is a joke in most cases, and our healing as well. Our enhancing well, that's just lol to begin with. Unless Phalanx gets a total fix of making it a percentage instead of direct damage. It's rather lol. White Mage has a strangle hold on Barspells. As it occasionally nullifies damage. So what do we have? If nothing spectacular if that nothing at all?

I understand all the rage about meleeing, but to be honest unless they improve several things on that note for Red Mage, I see as being useless in the long run. Temper may increase double attack, but unless if it's something noticeable and it adds the trait to jobs that don't have it. It'll still make you as useless as we are. So, the choice is well not really yours, nor mine, except for SE's. If they want to kill off Red Mages because we can't get anything useful to even make our job unique, then what's the point? There isn't. In b4 "We'll give you something awesome, but... we're also going to give it to White Mage. K?"
Convert was our thing, now everyone can utilize it, Refresh was our thing now everyone can utilize it. Addle was ours to begin with, now White Mage gets it? Really? Inb4 "WELL WE SAW IT WHEN WE WERE DATA MINING." I could care less. What your data mining has seen. Point is, Red Mage needs things to make it stand out and as does Scholar, something that's for those jobs and not whored out to White Mage or every other Mage job.

The options for Melee Rage Mage are simple, allow us to merit Fast Cast and Composure. Composure could grant us high tiered Weapon Skills, as well as accuracy, haste and subtle blow. (Each merit would increase/add a certain percentage.)
Make enhancing mean a damn thing again, change the direct damage from Phalanx to percentage negated. Make enhancing make En-spells become decent. We're hitting the 95-99 marker. We should at least if anything in the minimal be able to make en-spells STICK out.

As for the guy who came up with Pink Mage, that's a fairly creative nickname for a Red Mage who can heal. However, it's either Pink mage or retard with a stick. Your choice. I don't see people calling Dark Knight with Monk sub jobs Dark Monks. Or Warriors known as Wank because Retaliation is a form of counterstance. (Either way you look at it, it is a form of countering.) Tell you what, we can revisit the Meleeing and front line when Red Mage gets a spell for Subtle blow and a native Vorpal Blade and anything else that comes with that territory. In b4 sub warrior lololol. You would have to be rather MP efficient. On top of that why the hell should we have to sub warrior to use something that should natively be ours?

Whatever you can point out that we as Red Mage's have for us, there's always someone, somewhere out there that can debunk it. It's just that simple.

[Ahrana]

Honestly pink mage has been around since 2004, although back then it was a rdm/whm. Specifically, a redmage who focused on enfeebling, healing, and curing status over nuking with /blm.

To be fair though it's been a pretty elastic term over the years.

[Stylin]

I don't even understand what the fuss about Addle is. The spell isn't exactly a game changer.

[Zatias]

RDM is supposed to enfeeble more than nuke. Not a very strong point XD

[TRiPP]

Red Mage our forte was enfeebling, most NM resist our crap or outright immune to our enfeebles. Blind? can't use that, it's ineffective, Slow? Can't do that either it's immune. Paralyze? Immune. Oh but it casts magic, let's cast Addle. <_>; Even if it doesn't really do much difference except just slow the mob's casting enough to be interruptable in *some* cases. Then again, some NMs just have that whole "Hay guyz, I didn't use chainspell but I'm going to fast cast left and right just bcuz i can lulz arent u jelouz."

[saevel]

Honestly pink mage has been around since 2004, although back then it was a rdm/whm. Specifically, a redmage who focused on enfeebling, healing, and curing status over nuking with /blm.

To be fair though it's been a pretty elastic term over the years.

Except RDM never "Enfeebled" even then. It was
Haste
Refresh
Cure IV
Haste
Refresh
Cure IV
Haste
Refresh
CureIV
Haste
Refresh
CureIV
Haste
Refresh
CureIV

Haste
Refresh
CureIV

Haste
Refresh
CureIV

Haste
Refresh
CureIV

Haste
Refresh
CureIV


And that about summed up RDM as the rest of the world saw them. Trying to do ANYTHING outside that got you yelled at. Throw out a nuke and the PT leader yells that you should use that MP to cure him, pull out a sword and you get booted and ridiculed. Enfeebles .... nobody cared, ever.

Stop trying to put it out like RDM used to play as some sort of hybrid, that is not what happened. We were WHM-2 because a group couldn't get a WHM. Then later once ToAU came out and it was melee friendly, we were used as WHM-2 because the group didn't need a WHM and figured with convert, refresh, haste and Cure IV they could pack more DD power and just use us as healer alone.

At NO point in time prior to abyssea was RDM ever looked at as a nuker, enfeebler, or anything outside of a Haste / Refresh / Cure robot. Want to know why RDM isn't popular inside abyssea, it's not that we don't have things to offer, its that the groups can't put us in as a WHM-2 for Haste / Refresh / Cure V support. This is solely due to Cure IV not being strong enough to main heal on. The moment RDM can cast Cure V, you'll be thrown back in as a WHM-2 main healer and never allowed to leave. But all of you asking for Cure V already know this, and you have no intentions of actually playing the job. Instead you want it so that you can use someone else's RDM to main heal your group when you can't find a WHM. Or you'll use it to get yourselves into abyssea groups to get the +1/+2 items for your BST, BLU, DRK, PUP, SMN or other job that wouldn't normally get picked.

This is from someone who's been playing this job since before we got Refresh, Convert, Gravity, Dispel or Phalanx.

[Salvation]

I suppose the obvious solution here is to give RDM and SCH access to Cure V while under the effects of visitant status. Seeing as the majority of the complaints tend to focus on healing inside Abyssea this solution should make everyone happy.

[SpankWustler]

Say sch and Rdm got cure 5. What would be the reason to bring a whm?

Nobody else answered this seriously because it might as well be "Magnets! How do they work?!" but I guess I will.

A 300-400 HP stoneskin effect from Cure V and Cure VI, the ability to cast Cure V and Cure VI back to back when things are really bad, the strongest Shell effect in the game often supplemented by the strongest appropriate bar-spell, slightly superior status effect removal, vastly superior AoE cures when such a thing is applicable, Auspice in some situations, Esuna in some situations, Sacrifice in some situations, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting.

Please stop using a merit party in 2006 to gauge how jobs work across all of FFXI in 2011.

[DebbieGibson]

What is this BS about rdm not being unique? Abyssea has royally fucked up people's ideas about this game. Back at 75, having 330+ enfeebling skill was enough to be unique.

[Duelle]

Except RDM never "Enfeebled" even then.

Haste
Refresh
CureIV

And that about summed up RDM as the rest of the world saw them. Trying to do ANYTHING outside that got you yelled at. Throw out a nuke and the PT leader yells that you should use that MP to cure him, pull out a sword and you get booted and ridiculed. Enfeebles .... nobody cared, ever.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who still remembers this. Was beginning to wonder if certain people around here were being selectively amnesiac or whether they really forgot what RDM play was like back then. The WHM-2 bit is spot on, too. It was used to fill the gap left in the pool of healers, and once endurance entered the game in the way of Refresh and Convert, it was bye-bye WHM for a notable span of time.