Cure V

[FrankReynolds]

I tried to come up with a clever retort, but all your post does is illustrate for everyone that you really have nothing worthwhile to say, since you can't be bothered listening to everything presented on both sides of any given issue.

Here, I'll post that for you since I think the ignore function is a crappy cop out for lack of moderation.

[Hyrist]

Actually, it's the reverse, Cid. When was the last time you contributed ANYTHING to a conversation besides an insult? At the very least I provide my viewpoint in full, and also offer concessions, solutions to the debate, rather than just make assumptions on other people based off of a total lack of reading comprehension.

Also, more added to the Blist. Good job.

@Neisan_Quetz

You're assuming that I propose to do NOTHING with RDM curing. Which is a false assumption, as illustrated by the threat I posted. The idea is to keep the curing ability of one specific job limited without increasing the whole. Addressing the curing problem by giving better cures for all, and giving RDM better potency against enemy attacks, damage PREVENTION > Damage Restoration, but still improving restoration without improving spike healing.

Take a look at the idea.

[Hyrist]

For a more in-depth reply:

1. Yes cureskin matters because you do not need to cure any amount of Hp to even have it up, that's free 400 HP right there. And why do I care about support on lower tier NMs? Being inferior at curing lower and higher tier NMs does not make you more wanted in a party setting, especially when the majority of your buffs are self target. You could bring an inferior job to cure those if you want and guess what, Whm is still better support (even if it means /thf for TH and bringing a better DD) than Rdm and Sch on those mobs unless you're supertanking fodder and having Phalanx drop the hits to single digit damage/0. Even there guess what, being able to drop SS on someone at will is still sufficient enough for rounding up fodder mobs.

Keeping the topic on lower tier NMs? This is where RDM's secondaries, such as melee and nuking, should come into play stronger than they currently do. With my proposal, bringing a RDM and another Hybrid would fill 3 roles with 2 jobs, giving more job options to said NM than just DD + WHM. But the idea is to play at the core functions of RDM, Enhancing and Enfeebeling, rather than just giving them Cure V, which does nothing for anyone else nor for the suffering role of RDM. They just get pinned into a WHM -1 role.

2. I said I was against further melee adjustments because Rdm melee is fine where it is post Temper. The only mage job clearly above Rdm in melee right now is Blu and that's a hybrid. Neither job is viable meleeing on harder content.

Again, 'the game only revolves around HNMs!' is bull. But I won't argue the issue about Melee until the WS adjustments come through the pipeline. I'm happy about Temper and Gain STR right now, but it still doesn't regard the fundamental flaws with Sword as a weapon class. That has little to do with RDM specifically as much as RDM BLU PLD which I view all 3 need to have their primary weapon be a bit more powerful than it is.

As far as BLU and HNMs goes. Blu Mage still has access to a wide variety of spells that make it useful in HNM content. As does RDM in terms of being a support job. The fact that they step back during HNM content does not bother me, but the case should not be so for RDM and lesser NMs.

Supporting the party includes healing... There's options for DD/Tank jobs (although one is clearly ahead on harder content), at least 2 options for support jobs (although Brd is still in the lead for pure support Cor is getting better and Smn is used for niche situations/paired with Brd for damage mitigation and support), there's at least 2 hybrid jobs. There's only one job that can effectively heal on not fodder. That is bad design.

Agreed, I'm not debating that. I'm debating that Cure V, (read: easily repeatable, near-0 consequence burst healing), is toxic for the game design, worse than leaving the game as it is. There are issues with Dancer and Blue Mage that could both be addressed to help the curing problem on their end too that can all help be addressed as a whole.

But no, I agree healing improvements are needed. But they're needed across the board, by appealing to what makes each job unique in the utility department, not just "hurr Cure V or nothing, hurr" So I came up with the question "Why isn't there any support spells specifically for healing?" That would be more up SCH and RDM's alley than just giving them Cure V.

3. Your healing over time is Regen 2 with Emp+2 set bonus, enjoy it. Whm and Rdm will never share a pt at non HNM events outside of the Whm needing refresh II (which whm doesn't need at non hnm events, and even there can suffice without it if you brought decent support, which for some reason you haven't), can you figure out why yet? Whm is the better healer, sufficient enfeebler, better enhancer, only the worst nuker since SE nerfed Holy and hadn't given them any higher light damage magic until now. Rdm is the job getting bumped, not Whm.

Thats not a problem with healing. Thats a problem with RDM's core support functions, damage prevention, damage augmentation, and the like. In lower NM situations, there should be little difficulty or healing load needed with a RDM on board. And you can have your WHM or whatever you choose for your healer. Red Mage should be more about how to alter the situation, instead of being a WHM -1. Not to say it shouldn't be sufficient to heal at all, but it's strengths should come from its core functions FIRST, offensively and defensively. If it's sufficient on it's own as a healer, it should be because it's reducing the mob's offensive effectiveness and increasing the party's defensive/restorative effectiveness to the point where it's lower end cures can handle the strain.

[Neisan_Quetz]

1. Nuking fodders while being able to heal doesn't mean crap when a Sch or Blm can heal just as well as you can on fodder and nuke harder than you can. Whm meleeing fodder makes them even better at mp regeneration through Mystic Boon while still being able to deal damage, and Holy is faster casting then all of Rdm's nukes (probably the reason it was initially nerfed). It's pretty clear who's leading the race.

2. Heavy strike being nerfed tells you blu doesn't have a wide variety of spells viable on Harder content when they're married to /thf for physical spells. For healing and nuking and Spot tanking, they're still better than Rdm (better enmity generation for spot tanking). They lose in the buffing department, and is a wash in debuffing depending on what lands or not (and they're debuffs are at min equal to whm/sch or better than ours in the case of Auroral Drape - especially since it's two effects and even if one is resisted the other can still land).

3. Once again you completely ignore Whm is an acceptable healer enfeebler and melee on fodder without being tied to a specific subjob, and doesn't have mp concerns. Whm at 95 has 7 mp/tick refresh in gear, that's better than a pimped Rdm with refresh spell at 75 pre Wotg final reward.

[Hyrist]

You're arguing in circles again. If you'd bother to read my post I've already addressed all of this.

1. Nuking fodders while being able to heal doesn't mean crap when a Sch or Blm can heal just as well as you can on fodder and nuke harder than you can. Whm meleeing fodder makes them even better at mp regeneration through Mystic Boon while still being able to deal damage, and Holy is faster casting then all of Rdm's nukes (probably the reason it was initially nerfed). It's pretty clear who's leading the race.

Already stated RDM's melee functions need to be higher on fodder/low NMs
Issues with WHM meleeing as well as they do have more to do with the weakness of Sword (already talked about that.)
MP restoration between RDM and WHM is moot on low content. RDM still beats WHM outside abyssea in MP restoration, unless the WHM intends on Meleeing in full refresh build. RDM's convert is native.

And of course, you've completely ignored the other thread.

2. Heavy strike being nerfed tells you blu doesn't have a wide variety of spells viable on Harder content when they're married to /thf for physical spells. For healing and nuking and Spot tanking, they're still better than Rdm (better enmity generation for spot tanking). They lose in the buffing department, and is a wash in debuffing depending on what lands or not (and they're debuffs are at min equal to whm/sch or better than ours in the case of Auroral Drape - especially since it's two effects and even if one is resisted the other can still land).

Enfeebeling, even as it stands, isn't a wash. Dia III alone is irresistable and whatever other buffs that land do actually have an impact. Regardless, this isn't an issue with healing. This is an issue with RDM's core mechanics. Your argument should be that RDM's debuffs need to be more effective, not that they they should get Cure V because they're NOT effective.

3. Once again you completely ignore Whm is an acceptable healer enfeebler and melee on fodder without being tied to a specific subjob, and doesn't have mp concerns. Whm at 95 has 7 mp/tick refresh in gear, that's better than a pimped Rdm with refresh spell at 75 pre Wotg final reward.

Whm is tied, however, to gear, so having 7mp/tic in gear means nothing if you're trying to melee. RDM gets 7mp per tic through spell (with +2 pants), which makes your claim that WHM gets better refresh than RDM outside of WOTG moot. (WOTG reward doesn't function while engaged to begin with.)

And passable en-feebler on fodder is also incorrect on any fodder with 400 Defense or above.

Again, none of these are issues with healing, but issues with RDM's core mechanics. Giving them a better cure won't solve this problem so much as slap an aids covered bandaid on it.

[Motenten]

I agree with Hyrist that I would very much like to see some diversity in the means of countering the threat amongst other jobs. I never held much hope for it due to my disappointment in SE's development for many years, but the new devs make it seem like they might actually consider such ideas, so I'll proceed with a little hope.

So, my long post on the subject:

Arguments for Cure V -- some means of curing substantial amounts of damage in a reasonable amount of time. Why is it necessary? Because mobs can do a substantial amount of damage in a short period of time. For sustainability, you need to be able to counter that.

Whm counters the threat by having massive amounts of cure power at its command. It doesn't matter what the mob throws at you, the whm can patch you up, including mass curagas for multiple people.

Rdm doesn't have that raw cure power available to it. While I think the cure formulas should be slightly adjusted (as mentioned in previous posts), rdm's core has always focused on the enfeebling side. Why throw out mass curagas to heal a half dozen people of horrendous damage when you can instead prevent that damage from ever happening in the first place? Cut off the source of the damage and there's no need to scramble around healing afterwards.


Let's add a slight aside for context:

Methods of damage mitigation can first be split into two camps: effects on the source (eg: paralyze, bio), and effects on the target (eg: protect, phalanx). From there we can further diversify. Including various sources for the buffs and debuffs, covering enfeebling and enhancing, but skipping the obvious healing (remove debuffs from players):

Source
- Prevent action entirely: paralyze, intimidate, silence (magical), stun
- Mitigate power of action (physical): bio, bio II, bio III, Tidal Roar
- Mitigate power of action (magical): addle
- Reduce frequency of actions (melee): slow, slow II
- Reduce frequency of actions (TP moves): slow, slow II, auspice, inhibit TP, drain TP, lower TP (plague)
- Reduce frequency of actions (magical): slow, slow II, addle
- Reduce base stats used to do damage: Absorb- spells, elemental debuffs

Target
- Prevent attack from landing: utsusemi, blink, aerial armor
- Mitigate power of action (physical): protect 1/2/3/4/5, shining ruby, sentinel
- Mitigate power of action (magical): shell 1/2/3/4/5, shining ruby, sacrosanctity
- Reduce damage taken: stoneskin, cureskin, phalanx, earthen ward
- High end damage mitigation: scherzo, migawari, earthen armor
- Increased spell resistance (magic): bar- spells



On the target side, damage mitigation is usually done either as a ratio (defense) or a fixed value (phalanx, stoneskin). Stoneskin is ablative, so can have a moderately high value; it will eventually wear off. Phalanx is static and persistant, so has a low cap to keep it from being overpowering. Defense quickly reaches a usability limit because of the problems with the att/def calculations. The other option that most resort to is complete nullification of damage with Utsusemi or Seigan/Third Eye.

All of that caters to the whm mindset -- mitigate the damage that occurred, and patch up anything left over.

Rdm is more of an 'offensive' mage -- one based on action rather than reaction (not to be confused with doing damage vs reducing/curing damage). Yet its means of controlling the threat are actually somewhat limited.

Solo against a single target, rdm is formidable; with all the tools it has (bind, gravity, sleep, para, slow, addle, stoneskin, phalanx, cures, etc), rdm is pretty much in complete control of the fight. However as the need for a larger group grows, adding in tanks and DDs and buffers and such, the ability of the rdm to control the fight dwindles to prevent the rdm from being an overpowering element in the fight.

Regardless, though, they should be considered as powerful in their own right as a whm is in theirs. The problem is the nature of how damage is distributed.

Rdm works very well at reducing the damage a mob can do to a single target. Paralyze and slow and addle help reduce the frequency and severity of melee and single-target spell attacks. However players have already found a superior solution to most of those: Utsusemi (and, to an extent, Seigan/Third Eye).

The combination of the limitations on rdm's power to keep them from becoming overpowered early in the game's development with the ability to negate single-target attacks means that most of rdm's benefit is completely wasted.

Rdm's other weakness is an inability to do much about large AOE attacks. Paralyze and Slow only slow such moves down by reducing the amount of TP the mob gets. Only Addle really helps, by reducing magic accuracy on AOE spells, with Blind as a distant also-ran, given the accuracy bonus all TP moves supposedly get. The one supplemenatary way of controlling that is by subbing drk or blm for Stun (especially when combined with Chainspell).

Since AOE attacks naturally damage multiple people, and rdm has no curagas (or at best Curaga II if subbing /whm), there is a strong desire for another cure spell that can be used in conjunction with Cure IV to patch people up after such an attack. The real issue is that they shouldn't even be trying to patch people up after the fact; they should have prevented that attack in the first place, or mitigated it to a level that it is not a major concern.


Threats:
- Melee hits
- Physical TP moves (single target)
- Phsyical TP moves (AOE)
- Magical TP moves (single target)
- Magical TP moves (AOE)
- Spells (single target)
- Spells (AOE)


Rdm should have means of preventing or mitigating these threats.

Melee - Fairly well covered with slow and paralyze, with a small nod towards blind, though I'd say the potency is weaker than it could be. Players make up for it by using Utsusemi, but it would be preferable to say, "We've got a rdm; come /war."

Spells and magical TP moves: Addle helps some, though again the potency could be better.

TP moves - Pretty much nothing, unless you sub an appropriate job for Stun.

Options/suggestions:

1) Make Blind II powerful against TP moves (perhaps removing their innate accuracy bonus), but ineffective against melee attacks; Blind 1 should have its potency increased substantially, but not have any special effect on TP moves.

2) Plague - significant TP drain effect on the target. Can be complemented with /drk's Absorb-TP, though rdm's poor Dark Magic skill probably makes that an ineffective option (can Dark Magic skill be bumped up to maybe a C?).

3) A suggestion I've read regarding possible merits (not sure if it was in this thread or not) was to add "potency" merits for rdm, per element. Not MAB potency like blm, but +effect potency -- higher paralyze proc rate, higher slow, greater magic accuracy loss on addle, etc. On the other hand, restricting it per element seems to be too much over-specialization. Probably two merits: Tier 1 enfeeble potency (eg: Slow, Paralyze, Blind, etc) and Tier 2 enfeeble potency (Slow II, Paralyze II, Blind II, etc).

4) One easily noted option available: A Source-version counterpart to things like Scherzo and Sacrosanctity, but applying only to physical TP moves. Something like, if damage is going to do more than 75% of a target's HP, reduce damage by half (including for all other targets, if AOE). Would obviously have to tweak the numbers a bit for balance, but is easy enough as a general idea.

5) An idea that's probably more appropriate to sch: mass "physical" shadows -- a swarm of 'fake' bodies that act as extra distribution for -ga spells, since the damage per person is reduced based on the number of people/mobs hit. They don't affect normal physical hits like Utsusemi, though.

6) Confusion. Only a vague idea in my mind, but... A spell to cause the mob to target someone other than the person currently at the top of their enmity list (perhaps the #2). A fast spell (perhaps as fast as stun) that has a short duration (~10-15 seconds?) that can be used to temporarily give someone some relief, or act similar to thf's using Collaborator on mages when the mages pull hate. Does not change anyone's enmity, but does give people a window to use more specific hate-control measures. Also gives a window for curing someone at low health with some Cure IVs when you don't have a Cure V available.

7) A magical intimidate spell/effect that lowers the chance to use a TP move. We know that mobs that are at less than 300 TP have a "chance" to use a TP move every time they take or do damage. This would be a spell to lower the chance of the mob making that decision (until it reaches 300 TP anyway). May also increase the threshold for using a TP move when the mob is under 25% HP (eg: instead of using a TP move as soon as it gets 100 TP, it may wait til 125 TP).


All of that, I think, would go a long way towards re-energizing rdm's role as an enfeebler, and reducing the apparent need for another high-potency cure spell (Cure V).




And my condolences to Camate if he does actually take the time to translate all this.

[Swords]

1. Nuking fodders while being able to heal doesn't mean crap when a Sch or Blm can heal just as well as you can on fodder and nuke harder than you can. Whm meleeing fodder makes them even better at mp regeneration through Mystic Boon while still being able to deal damage, and Holy is faster casting then all of Rdm's nukes (probably the reason it was initially nerfed). It's pretty clear who's leading the race.

Your number 1 pretty much addressed to 95% of the reasons RDM is broken, but putting us back into a position to just cure as a WHM-1 wouldn't address a damn thing if everything else about RDM would be flawed. Even if the ToAU parties never came back (which is specifically why SE has been dancing around the issue so cautiously) that's all we would be fit for, as underutilized mage with broken enfeebling/enhancing system, poor melee support, with severe subjob dependency where we have to work twice as hard as any job to be half as good as any job with ONE or TWO worthwhile spells to assist the party with. Least back then when RDM was pigeonholed to just spamming cures/haste on the group we still had the ability to stand out in our core talents.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Changed my mind after reading Kine's post, but to answer Hyrist:

Whm isn't going to care about meleeing in refresh gear on fodder mobs when they can refill their mp bar with Boon... I don't know how you can't get this, it's the same thing for Smn meleeing on fodder, They aren't wearing refresh/perp gear while meleeing why? their WS takes care of MP.


Kine pretty much said anything I wished to say and then some, but from SE's response to Sams about being able to stop TP moves, their response was it would make the game too easy to mitigate TP moves - and then create monsters with unnamed AoE TP moves as regular attacks negating the usefulness of Slow and Paralyze (assuming paralyze even landed). A natural method to mitigate the damage would be very welcome if SE is dead set against giving Rdm and Sch the spells ever - Although it's starting to get pretty clear in my mind SE doesn't even care about buffing jobs anymore, they're just going to hand out nerfs so everyone can suck together.

[Hyrist]

Whm isn't going to care about meleeing in refresh gear on fodder mobs when they can refill their mp bar with Boon... I don't know how you can't get this, it's the same thing for Smn meleeing on fodder, They aren't wearing refresh/perp gear while meleeing why? their WS takes care of MP.

At the cost of their damage output, unfortunately.

Just like with RDM, with WHM, you can't have it both ways. If you're going to try to keep up with the curing load, you're going to have to make some pretty powerful sacrifices in damage, I'd argue more-so on WHM's end, who has to use Mystic Boon instead of the WS that basically makes their entire Melee argument.

RDM's melee on the other hand is mostly segregated from it's mage performance, which is both a curse and a benefit at the same time. We can swap out for our casts and we can carry our other mage duities relying mostly on just normal refresh and Convert, provided the duties are not at all heavy. Which is where our enfeebling should come into play. On fodder? Not so much, enfeebling itself isn't all that potent on targets that die quickly, which is why I agree our HoT game should be better than what it is. Spike Healing, however, should be more about prevention.

Rdm doesn't have that raw cure power available to it. While I think the cure formulas should be slightly adjusted (as mentioned in previous posts), rdm's core has always focused on the enfeebling side. Why throw out mass curagas to heal a half dozen people of horrendous damage when you can instead prevent that damage from ever happening in the first place? Cut off the source of the damage and there's no need to scramble around healing afterwards.

I made a suggestion of my own to help cures become more potent globally and to up the ante on support casting in general. It always stuck me as odd that the only 'mage support' spell Red Mage is able to distribute is Refresh. And providing a more potent HoT, along with more active damage reduction (I do like your ideas.) But I do believe there is a bit much in your suggestions to address the issue, just like perhaps my debuffing suggestions have a bit lenient.

For example, I believe the magical and physical reduction debuffs should be compiled into one, flash like debuff. This will make it reliant on the RDM's timing and attentiveness to reduce the named TP moves that can be so devastating.

And perhaps an ability to address the unnamed ones.

My revised idea of confusion was to be an ability that randomly causes any attack by the opponent, including TP moves, to occasionally target themselves. This could be modified as an idea that forces it to inflict damage upon itself once or for a very short period of time, but the general idea of the concept is causing the monster to inflict damage upon itself as part of the debuff's effect, and that infliction can become a TP move.

But my primary concern really is TP move attacks as far as our debuffing field. As far as healing itself, I did make a line of suggestions on another thread.

[Neisan_Quetz]

The only huge sacrifice is with Hverg since it deals 0 damage, Boon on fodder mobs even at 75 did respectable damage, seen pics of 900+ vs. libri. curing load versus fodder mobs while being able to keep up mp with Boon isn't as debilitating as you're making it out to be.