What is RDM all about?

[cidbahamut]

Lol there isn't a justifiable reason to play RDM. It's either fun for you, or it's not. I will remind everyone that this is a game.

That doesn't really excuse making certain game pieces absolutely inferior in all circumstances. It can still be a game while maintaining game balance. The fact that it hasn't just means there's been some very poor game design choices made. No reason we can't expect Red Mage to be useful as well as fun.

[saevel]

Lol there isn't a justifiable reason to play RDM. It's either fun for you, or it's not. I will remind everyone that this is a game.

Be careful your speaking blasphemy! They'll send ninja assassins to kidnap you while you sleep to prevent you from spreading that message.

After tall, this isn't a game, it's about being perfect at everything <.<

[Neisan_Quetz]

Would like to have cake and eat it too, I do have fun on it, I just can't justify going as it.

[saevel]

Attempt at a retort and Ad hominem personal attacks

I've been doing RDM for a very long time in just about every role and configuration possible. You obviously haven't. Your also going back and forth on your words like you did in the other thread, guess you can't keep an argument straight now. You mention "crowd control" then ask why would a BLM sleepga II in dynamis, that alone speaks volumes about your lack of knowledge. Your just trying to be insulting and petty now and are no longer worth debating with, So I'll cut this argument off.

RDM is extremely versatile, this versatility lends itself to many roles and functions. Due to SE's implementation of game mechanics this leaves us as second or third best at pretty much everything. Having a skill rating of "A+" does not make you a specialist in it, SE may change that but currently "enfeebling" isn't a specialty nor a serious function during big boss fights. Hell half the members of this thread are screaming for Cure V and to make RDM as a "viable healer" and we have C- healing magic, so that tells you how important the skill system is to determine what your functions should be. Due to every other class having better versions of what we possess, and ourselves having native access to Cure IV, haste a large supply of MP, other players decided the best place to stick a RDM was on Cure IV / Haste / Refresh / Erase / -na spam duty. That seemed a good way to exploit all the FC and MP a RDM has access to. At 75 this play style was mind numbing and boring, the forums were littered with old RDM's complaining of feeling burnt out of the same cycles. Dia III was a shining nugget of awesome in an otherwise bland set of merits, but one enfeebling spell does not a specialty make.

Now flash forward to 95, absolutely nothing has changed except Cure IV no longer is enough to full fill that ancient role of "cure b****" or "refresh w****". And shells have seen this and labeled RDM as "useless". Goes to show everyone exactly what groups thought of all those "awesome" abilities people like to claim they had.

[ManaKing]

That doesn't really excuse making certain game pieces absolutely inferior in all circumstances. It can still be a game while maintaining game balance. The fact that it hasn't just means there's been some very poor game design choices made. No reason we can't expect Red Mage to be useful as well as fun.

I'm all for it. I think almost everyone on the RDM forums is. I just don't understand why people have to insult each other and try to start arguments over who is more right about how RDM SHOULD be played.

Most the reason I came back to playing was that the game relaxed some. People can think outside the JP box and actually enjoy themselves by trying things out again because the game has more wiggle room. Some job combinations are a bad idea, but there are plenty of job combinations that are just slightly less good than the BEST and RIGHT way to play a job.

RDM with Sanguine Blade is fun to play, but blatantly worse than /NIN for DPS. That doesn't mean I don't play /DRK or /PLD when I want. They are both fun, and they feel more like how I would actually want RDM to play. The only think stopping me is that my damage takes a big hit. Dual Wield is blatantly the gold standard for 1H weapons and good Shields are for PLDs only. RDM is behind the curve because of the nature of the game's evolution, the only thing that is a major failing in RDM's DPS implementation is that Enspell 2s are viciously inadequate for any type of RDM, much less single wield RDMs.

[cidbahamut]

I've been doing RDM for a very long time in just about every role and configuration possible. You obviously haven't. Your also going back and forth on your words like you did in the other thread, guess you can't keep an argument straight now. You mention "crowd control" then ask why would a BLM sleepga II in dynamis, that alone speaks volumes about your lack of knowledge. Your just trying to be insulting and petty now and are no longer worth debating with, So I'll cut this argument off.

The fact that you are trying to defend the use of Sleepga II in Dynamis speaks volumes.

[CapriciousOne]

Hi, I'm pretty new to FFXI, decided to give it a shot after trying Final Fantasy 14 (boy oh boy).
Anyways, I love the game, but the biggest issue I am having is attempting to pick a Job I'd like to stick with. I've asked people in-game and they all just say "Level them all", though I'd really like to just stick with one and one only.
I like the look of Red Mages so far, I am enjoying it (with my limited amount of spells, I must admit) and the fact they seem to be Swordspells in my eyes; but what are they really all about? What am I to expect come end game? Will I get to swing my sword at stuff while supporting party members with heals and buffs, and also Enfeebling the enemy till it's useless, or something else less.. imaginative?

Thank you all in advanced.

Well despite some of the good and also rather horrible advice i imagine is in this thread, there seem to be one question you have failed to answer or mention: "What is your play style?" You can really give accurate advice on what job to pick if you dont have and tell us what is play style.

Some questions to answer are:
1. Do you prefer to be active or passive in the party (attacker or suppport basically)
2. How comfortable are you with taking damage? Love taking the punishment or try to avoid it any cost or dont mind the damage to a certain point?
3. (Attacker) How do you like attack fast or slow? (faster weapons like swords, daggers, axes and clubs usually deal less damage but have more opportunites at hitting the mob because of its speed while slower weapons like great swords/katanas/axes, staves, and hand 2 hand requires 2 hands to swing and thus take longer but usually deal more damage than the faster weapons on a swing by swing basis.
4. How do you like to attack (magically or phsyically or both)
5.(Support) How do you like to support healing, enhancing(making party stronger), enfeebling(crippling mobs)?
6. What is more important to you speed or sense of accomplishment or both? (partying or soloing or both)

All of these questions would be a good starting point to figure out exactly which jobs you would actually want to play consistently. The advice of playing all jobs to 50 is a good one despite the fact that you only intend to use maybe one or two and there is a good reason. With the way the game adds the abilitly to use other jobs you have leveled abilities, traits, and spells to aid you in your adventures. By trying out multipe jobs you get to see what traits, abilities, and spells they have at thier disposal and learn how they can aid your primary jobs to accomplish tasks you may have some difficulty with but dont feel you need a party to complete. In other words those other jobs you level can helps sure up what you feel are the weaknesses of your favorite jobs.

Unfortunately this will only help you as far as soloing because endgame is far less flexible in what they will allow and are capable or willing to manage otherwise. Ultimately in my opinion RDM is about leveraging your skills to get stuff done as opposed to being a one trick pony specialist that complete owns a particular style or skill but is lacking in other areas. Some people will disagree with this but please feel free to use your own mind and formulate your own opinion. Since RDM isnt the best at anything as far as i'm concern they certaintly not the worse at anything either but that depends on your own tolerance level and patience more than anything. RDM from what i've seen doesnt get to utilize all of it skill set in end game because of particular standards and cookie cutter playerbase dynamics so if you want to fully utilize all your skills you may want to level an ADDITIONAL JOB just for that else you will be frustrated as RDM. Aside from playerbase viewpoints and issues there has been sort of a water down effect of RDM because of chants and moans of RDM being too powerful some time ago and as a result alot of the things that made unique and good and a favorite in endgame is now kind of rendering them almost extinct now beyond healing.

Overall RDM is great job if you like being self sufficient and not heavily reliant on ther people for getting stuff done like myself but if your end goal is to be heavily active in end game type content you may be better served by leveling up other jobs these days. As far as spells go getting those arent that big of an issue if you know what mobs to kill for them, where they are, and are patient as most can be gotten as drops from regular monsters and some can even be bought from NPC if you not as patient. As a last result you can also buy them off the Auction house but many are severely overpriced after a certain job level. Hell some of those same spells are bought from a NPC then sold on the AH for 2 and 3x the price from the NPC so please shop around before buying and save yourself some gil.

[CapriciousOne]

It is amazing how off track this thread and many others get and have gotten but it is of no suprise. I just hope the OP feels he got his question answered satisfactorily. In any case I just wanted to say or rather ask this one question to any and everybody in here:

Why does it seem everybody keeps making the comment "RDM is mean to be fun" as if it isnt a serious or decent job or rather every other job is to be played seriously or is BORING? I mean maybe I am crazy but I thought the entire point of life, games and everything else was to have fun and playing any job, be it RDM, WHM, or even BRD, was to play it because it suits your personal play style and assists you in getting through the game and that was fun no matter what your job.

Is it just me that notices that or what ? I'm just saying.

[saevel]

It is amazing how off track this thread and many others get and have gotten but it is of no suprise. I just hope the OP feels he got his question answered satisfactorily. In any case I just wanted to say or rather ask this one question to any and everybody in here:

Why does it seem everybody keeps making the comment "RDM is mean to be fun" as if it isnt a serious or decent job or rather every other job is to be played seriously or is BORING? I mean maybe I am crazy but I thought the entire point of life, games and everything else was to have fun and playing any job, be it RDM, WHM, or even BRD, was to play it because it suits your personal play style and assists you in getting through the game and that was fun no matter what your job.

Is it just me that notices that or what ? I'm just saying.

It needs to be mentioned every now and then because there are people who attach some sort of emotional status or social status to how others see their "in game" character. To them it's not a game, it's a second life. Once they get to that point they start calling other people names and "your playing the game wrong" starts to set it. Every MMO has this group of players and most tend to ignore them, for some reason FFXI has attracted more then it's fair share, possibly due to the natural tendency of casual gamers to go find easier games to play. /shrugs

[Kitkat]

It is amazing how off track this thread and many others get and have gotten but it is of no suprise. I just hope the OP feels he got his question answered satisfactorily. In any case I just wanted to say or rather ask this one question to any and everybody in here:

Why does it seem everybody keeps making the comment "RDM is mean to be fun" as if it isnt a serious or decent job or rather every other job is to be played seriously or is BORING? I mean maybe I am crazy but I thought the entire point of life, games and everything else was to have fun and playing any job, be it RDM, WHM, or even BRD, was to play it because it suits your personal play style and assists you in getting through the game and that was fun no matter what your job.

Is it just me that notices that or what ? I'm just saying.

One of the primary reasons someone says "Xjob is meant to be fun" is usually because it doesn't matter how the collective wants to utilize the job, the individual just wants to do whatever they want with it. These people usually bring up the argument "It's an MMO not real life" or "I pay for the account so I should be able to do what I want" without realizing that what they want out of the job doesn't necessarily fit the groups needs and in some cases even hurts the group. It is an MMO, not do whatever you want play ground. If you can't collectively add something to the group your spot is better off going to someone who can offer more.

In the case of rdm, they can't cure well enough without running into hate issues (even in all of the -enmity/potency available), their A+ Enfeebling status has been reduced to nearly useless in newer content due to immunities even with rdm being the only job that gets higher tier enfeebles, and their melee is lacking next to a real DD anywhere from 15-20% difference. Any of these reasons a rdm could use are squashed for group activities because they can just fill it with a better suited job.

That being said, no one is saying don't have fun on the job you play, just know when what you want to do with the job fits what is going on. If you're invited to fit a certain position and you start doing something else other than that, expect to hear about it...or in some extreme cases be kicked from the group for it. The "meant to have fun" mentality doesn't mix with the "I only get x amount of time per day/week to play and want to get x objective done in that limited amount of time" mentality. Both are seen as "fun" to different people, but clash with one another.

This is why people argue about what a job does, or how it is useless, because the job was invited to fit x-role for what is happening, or it offers nothing the collective needs over something else. If you're looking for a job that you want to have fun on when with friends or small group (3-4 people) activities then rdm is fine, but if you are looking for a job that is "fun" in larger activities...you're better off leveling a non-hybrid job that fits as close to what aspect you find "fun" rather than making up excuses while playing a hybrid and trying to perform a primary's role.