Cure V

[Hyrist]

Colibri aren't necessairly the best refrence for damage these days, but I'll bite and say I haven't kept close track. I'd like to see more current results for damage compared to hexa though.

I do, however, find it very had to believe that a 30/50 1 hit is going to be comparable to a 6 hit crit based 20/20. (Of course , keeping the conversation of Abyssea, in which MP regen as a whole is moot and Hexa would dwarf Boon.) Sounds to me like the person pushing the numbers on Boon had a tough time pushing Hexa.

But I digress. I think Sword Deserves a better, non-weapon specific WS along the lines of Hexa. CDC is awesome, mind you, but that like saying Glory Slash and Uriel Blade are awesome. There's really no innate sword WS that displays mastery of the sword at all, in my opinion, just ones that places emphasis on the power of the sword wielded.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Meh, they did at least buff Vorpal at the minimum... but if they're serious about giving Rdm better melee prowess then exclusive WS access should be a given. Of course, not a priority imo.

[Motenten]

For example, I believe the magical and physical reduction debuffs should be compiled into one, flash like debuff.

I kept rdm's as physical-only since whm just got Sacrosanctity which, combined with their barspells and AF3 set augment bonus, makes it pretty clear that whm is the leader in preventing magical damage.

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.

This, I feel, would be overpowered. It's like taking mnk's Perfect Counter (given the short duration), use the (vastly stronger) weapon the mob is using instead of the player's own weapon, and affect TP moves as well as melee strikes. And since it's a spell on the mob, it won't matter that the mnk himself is being targetted, or anyone else.

[Neisan_Quetz]

The only way I can think of that working is by allowing TP moves to occasionally fail (highly unlikely), or take longer to ready (possible?) and removing the damage to self part. Leave Slow for normal attacks and have paralyze affect NMs, even at a lowered rate if SE is that worried about Rdm's para locking NMs (I'll take some para over complete resists...).

[cidbahamut]

Coming out of a night of Voidwatch, I feel like this entire discussion is completely disconnected from the reality of how the game functions.

[Neisan_Quetz]

It's okay though, soon every DD job will have the viability of Pup, and all not Whm mages will be relegated to proc/stun mules. Then we can all be useless together before moving over to Failteen as part of SE's giant ploy to improve falling sales by alienating the playerbase.

/sarcasm

[Hyrist]

I kept rdm's as physical-only since whm just got Sacrosanctity which, combined with their barspells and AF3 set augment bonus, makes it pretty clear that whm is the leader in preventing magical damage.

I don't believe Damage prevention should be separated among job lines. But rather, like a lot of things, a shared utility that gets stronger as players with similar and interlocking skills work together. (Defense Down + Saboteur Dia III + Light Shot as an offensive example.)

And while WHM might lead currently in preventing magical damage, magic damage TP moves is still a glaringly powerful. No harm in giving RDM some additional tools to assist the ones WHM has.

[confusion], I feel, would be overpowered. It's like taking mnk's Perfect Counter (given the short duration), use the (vastly stronger) weapon the mob is using instead of the player's own weapon, and affect TP moves as well as melee strikes. And since it's a spell on the mob, it won't matter that the mnk himself is being targetted, or anyone else.[/QUOTE]

The only way I can think of that working is by allowing TP moves to occasionally fail (highly unlikely), or take longer to ready (possible?) and removing the damage to self part. Leave Slow for normal attacks and have paralyze affect NMs, even at a lowered rate if SE is that worried about Rdm's para locking NMs (I'll take some para over complete resists...).

For confusion, Neisan's idea is a possibility, both of them actually. Dealing damage to themselves I can see where the implementation could be overpowered, keeping the base damage where it was. Though I was more of the mind that the return damage would have a much lesser effect when self-inflicted. The move only doing a minor percentage of the damage it would have done to the player to itself.

As far as the 'takes TP moves longer to use.' I was actually pushing such a status effect into a melee-orientated debuff to offset TP feed arguments before Temper came out. I can see something similar still working in the form of a spell, and would work quite well with stun, flash, or other preventative or reduction based spells. Although, I would still like to see our own stun/flash based enfeeble of high potency, short duration designed to counter TP moves.

[Hyrist]

Different subject, different post.

Meh, they did at least buff Vorpal at the minimum... but if they're serious about giving Rdm better melee prowess then exclusive WS access should be a given. Of course, not a priority imo.

Right now my mindset is "while you're there..." as they are revising Weapon Skills. With Magian Weapons, heck, even as early as the first Relics, they've always acknowledge that RDM's primary 'weapon' is Sword (Sword and Dagger pre Mythics.) PLD and RDM were essentially it for sword before BLU unless you wanted to count Ridill use before the 2H update. And now all 3 of them seem rather lacking before CDC (Vorpal Blade still falls behind Rampage, let alone Evisceration, Dancing Edge, Hexa Strike, etc.)

While they are working on adjustments I hope they can put sword itself into good standing among other weapons, and RDM should be included in that IMO, priority or no. It saves the melee-enthusiasts any conflict in asking for a seperate update just to pull RDM's own WSes back to par (partly by giving them the EX ones), when it can be done now while they're re-balancing the entire set. Do it while it's convenient to.

Honestly, giving Red Mage respectable melee damage isn't going to change its HNM role, which I think is what most hardcore endgame players are worried most about. No one bats an eye at a RDM meleeing fodder in an Abyssea alliance, or small-time events, and weaker NMs are usually done amongst friends or solo anyways. And I've got no issues putting my sword aside when it's time to pop a boss mob.

Now if you were to ask me to make a decision between RDM's enhancing/enfeebling game and improving their melee, I'd lean towards enhancing/enfeebling. But I don't believe such a decision has to be made, nor do I think that they're actually exclusive of each other, though, SE seems to have made it that way with Temper this time around.

But I've always viewed RDM as a control class, something that pro-actively molds the situation to the preference of the players. I've always believed Melee had a place in that, albeit limited to lesser targets. (Melee Fodder, Magic Bosses) But like my opinion on healing, it should take a lesser role to our core concept, which is enfeebling/enhancing. (That does not mean I believe RDM should be a cycle-bot, however. There is still some hard work that needs to be done in regards to how our buffs assist in a group setting, IMO.)

[Arcalimo]

To people that says that rdm dont need cure V... stop a few and think before say something please..
Just imagine a Blm99/rdm49 (refresh, haste, cure III, cure IV, convert, paralyze, blind, slow, sleep/II, sleepga/II, break/ga, stun, Tier V nukes, Meteor, Comet), is that a blm? i see it more like a Rdm+3 if SE continues going in the same way they're going.
Blms will have the same healing tools than rdm (but lolregen2), and at the same time will be the best nuker, and nearly the best enfeebler because enfeebles that matter won't land on enemies that matter anything, besides that para1 is nearly the same as para2 (everytime i cast it @90 on my whm or blm makes my rdm cry in a corner <.<) blind1 > lolblind2, and slow2 doesn't really make a big difference over slow1. (Don't say that rdm has more enf. skill because i have yet to see a mob where i can land something on rdm and not on whm or blm).

Rdm was meant to be good at healing and at nuking, but not the better on anything, that's okay.
Nuke wise we are ok, but healing wise we should be better than blms, smns, schs, pups, insertanyjob with /whm or /rdm.(Could add blu to that list too, but i think is ok that they should be in of the top of healers, but that should be by their main job blue magic healing spells, still, blus having the same healing tools that a rdm with just /rdm or /whm is bad).
Enfeebling wise, we need better enfeebles that really make a difference over tier 1 enfeebles and actually make them to work on worthwhile stuff, not just on shit that is dead before the enfeeble goes off...
And melee wise, instead of losing time adding crappy stuff, start adding us on some wothwhile melee gear...

Adding cure V to Rdm's wouln't unbalance the game at all, and it's indeed a need.
Plus we have already seen spells not being as effective when used as main job than as support job (aka. utsu: ni), removing the emnity effect would be too much imo, could bring back rdm tank tho lol. but removing the vit modifier or adding a cap to don't make it as strong as casting it as whm main is enough, whm would remain as top healer (not only because of cure v,vi, but because of solace and their ability to remove negative status quicker), and at the same time would make rdm superior at healing than other /rdm jobs, as it should be.

off topic but, about the "new type of healing magic" i think it should go to sch instead, even if they remain with cure IV, if the enhanced effect of regen effect that light arts will give is strong enough (something like a helix cure to make them as effective as a rdm but w/o being a copy) it would fit their role pretty well imo, with cure IV, sometimes rapturable, to support that regen/helix magic.

[FrankReynolds]

A couple thoughts:
Adding Cure V to Red Mage will not make White Mage any less desired / useful.

Adding Cure V to Red Mage requires almost 0 programming /effort, and would therefor not impact the Development teams ability to continue work on fixing Red Mage's other issues.