A "gear" based Berserk

[Hyrist]

Well, to be frank. Unless Swords themselves are balanced correctly against other weapons, there's simply no point in NOT being 100% of a Sword user.

PLD uses Swords for Hate, so damage output is more of a secondary use. But even then they note how they're not dealing as much as they feel they should.

And while BLU does well with damage, this is more attributed to their spells assisting their swords than any seriously comparable output on the swords themselves before Almace.

If they raise the effectiveness of the Weapon Catagory (IE, improve Sword Weaponskills by a substantial amount.) then I can see RDM being a fair chunk behind in the deal. But as it stands there's absolutely no reason for it.

[Greatguardian]

Rdm was never 80% of anything. That bullshit number was disproved so many bloody times, it's not even funny to see it cited any more. When you compare a good Red Mage to a really, really terrible Samurai, of course the numbers are going to be inflated. Read through the RdMelee thread to find a much more recent parse with ALL data included, where Almace RDM with minimal casting load (self haste and enspells only) parsed about 40%~ of Verethragna MNK.

Red Mage during ToAU?

100% Best Healer and Enhancer in the game (Lasted until Scars of Abyssea)
100% Best Soloist in the game (Still true)
100% Best Nuker over Time in the game (Lasted until Scars of Abyssea and lv85 Blm adjustments, elemental celerity, etc)
40%~ DD potential compared to any DD worth a damn (Hasn't moved)

Red Mage doesn't need to be as awesome at healing as White Mage is [now], it just needs a unique role to fill. MP enhancement has become commonplace, and Rdm's unique enfeebles are useless when monsters are immune to them. I'd like an Enfeebling adjustment more than anything else. I'd like Magic Accuracy+ to be added to Saboteur, as well as additional dMND tiers for existing Enfeebles. This whole "Herp I'm immune to all ur magickz" thing needs to go, too. Making monsters have a high Magic Evasion is one thing, making them flat out immune is another.

[Hyrist]

where Almace RDM with minimal casting load (self haste and enspells only) parsed about 40%~ of Verethragna MNK.

Incorrect, Doombriner was also refreshing the BLU (whom he was outdamaging) and assisting in curing, though minimally. Re-read the testimony, and the parse.

[Seriha]

If you want to be 100% comparable, then SE will need to put a check in place, likely something like Arts that switches between our mage and melee roles. However you would be back a week later complaining your Cures to a 20% hit so your melee could take a 20% increase.

I'm not saying 100%, but that 80% of the old days didn't exactly get us anywhere. Performance loss enters the picture the moment you lock in the main slots to keep TP. Nowadays that means losing out on a bunch of cure and nuke potency. The act of merely stopping to cast also hurts the physical side, so we fall behind there, too.

Besides, how do you propose a RDM do it all for long periods of time? If you're in melee gear, at best you're getting 7 MP Refresh for yourself. A Cure IV is 88 MP, a nice chunk of tics to keep up with if trying to heal actively. You aren't nuking too often, either, especially with them costing even more MP. The actual "balances" are already there, SE just needs to equalize performances in a good way so picking one style isn't such a facepalm inducing endeavor and you're not going to get that by agreeing to be third-rate.

[Hyrist]

Right, being capable to focus one role 'decently' does nothing for a job that, by default must multitask. It's why we run into such gear issues no matter what style of RDM you choose.

Anyways, I'm back to 'wait and see' mode, as I fiddle with car troubles and my schedule. With WS adjustments coming down the pipeline being potentially game changing I'm content to figure out what SE is going to be doing to help RDM become a better enfeebeler. Cause if there was only 2 departments I wanted to work well on my RDM, it'd be Melee (through self-enhancing) and Enfeeblement.

[Swords]

Well, to be frank. Unless Swords themselves are balanced correctly against other weapons, there's simply no point in NOT being 100% of a Sword user.

PLD uses Swords for Hate, so damage output is more of a secondary use. But even then they note how they're not dealing as much as they feel they should.

And while BLU does well with damage, this is more attributed to their spells assisting their swords than any seriously comparable output on the swords themselves before Almace.

This is partially due to the base damage of 1h and 2h weapons are growing significantly apart. Even comparing relics side by side Excalibur only got 20 more DMG by the 95 trial, while Gungnir got +47 more damage, and a Apocalypse recieves +41 DMG. I can agree to the fact 2h weapons need to be more damaging to offset their delay, but I think SE overlooked an unintended side-effect to the level cap and didn't compensate for the difference appropriately.

Bringing this up did point out another potential bonus, that I didn't think about when writing in my original post. I intended the JA bonus to take into account for everything the player was wearing which means base damage of the weapon would be included, and therein would perhaps be the most significant boost overall for any melee damage.

[Greatguardian]

Incorrect, Doombriner was also refreshing the BLU (whom he was outdamaging) and assisting in curing, though minimally. Re-read the testimony, and the parse.

o okay. 2 Refreshes, 1 Haste, 1 Enspell, and minimal occasional cures with a White Mage and a Bard there.

The point was that casting load was minimal.

[saevel]

Actually if you want to compare. Once you factor in fSTR swords are one of the highest DPS weapons in the game, only thing higher is H2H and some Daggers (Mandau, ect..). I know you guys look at swords and see 57~60 ish damage vs a GAXE / PLM's 120+ but please remember the delay of the weapons involved and how fSTR dramatically favors low D / low delay weapons.

A D57 Sword (Almace @85) has a fSTR cap of +14 or 56 more STR then the monster has VIT So actual D value is 71 with a delay of 224 for 19.01 DPS.

A D122 Great Axe (Ukon @85) has a fSTR cap of 21 or 84 more STR then the monster has VIT. Actual D value is 143 with a delay of 482 for 17.8 DPS.

Though Ukon has 2.1 times the base DMG of Almace and 2.15 times the delay, it only gets 1.5 times the fSTR bonus and that bonus requires 27 more STR (honestly 17 after the +10 from the weapon).

Onto this we can add another 42.8% increase via DWIII + Suppa, although it must share this increase with your off hand weapon. Thankfully mine is also D57 Delay 230 so it's fairly uniform.

This bonus is applied to each strike, so while the 2H gets one +21 fSTR per 482 delay swing, I'm getting two +14 fSTR's from both of my 454 delay (318 after DW, 159 per hand) swords. Pretty much 3.03 times faster then the GAXE, so 42 for Swords in the same time period the GAXE is getting +21. And they have to work harder (not that difficult for a WAR considering their gear selection).

[Shiyo]

100% Best Nuker over Time in the game (Lasted until Scars of Abyssea and lv85 Blm adjustments, elemental celerity, etc)

Incorrect, SCH was and still is.

[Neisan_Quetz]

SCH was more mp efficient then Blm (for single target nukes) but unless I'm mistaken pre level cap rise and other adjustments Rdm was able to keep up in damage through nuking more often, unless the target was resistant to magic.