To the devs!

[saevel]

Can't really disagree with you there. I can apologize to you if you want tyrantsyn. I didn't mean to specifically offend you.

I just don't need to hear about how amazing a worthless set bonus is again. It was all things they could have just put on the job and used our set bonus for something useful.

They make tweaks and changes all the time. Is it really so hard to comprehend that just changing Composure to do that naturally wouldn't be unbalanced at all?

'Oh well shield bash and weapon bash are more interesting when you can use them more often. Lets just code that in really quick. Making composure apply to other targets normal? Well where could we possibly find the code to do that so we could do it quick? *Looks at set bonus for AF3*'

Well this is SE's attitude towards RDM in general. They really hate the job and have no plans for it, they only throw us a bone every now and then to keep up appearances. To make RDM functional would require PUP level reworks, and right now SE doesn't have the development staff. They don't want to make minor changes without first making the major changes, they can't make major changes while their creating new VWNM and other content. So instead of a steadily improving situation, we're stuck with a dead broken job. Gravity II being a cut & paste of Gravity I pretty much proves this.

[cidbahamut]

I just don't need to hear about how amazing a worthless set bonus is again. It was all things they could have just put on the job and used our set bonus for something useful.

They make tweaks and changes all the time. Is it really so hard to comprehend that just changing Composure to do that naturally wouldn't be unbalanced at all?

Of course they should have made Composure extend duration on others naturally. That doesn't change the fact that our set bonus is useful though, that just means SE makes terrible design choices.

[tyrantsyn]

Can't really disagree with you there. I can apologize to you if you want tyrantsyn. I didn't mean to specifically offend you.

I just don't need to hear about how amazing a worthless set bonus is again. It was all things they could have just put on the job and used our set bonus for something useful.

They make tweaks and changes all the time. Is it really so hard to comprehend that just changing Composure to do that naturally wouldn't be unbalanced at all?

'Oh well shield bash and weapon bash are more interesting when you can use them more often. Lets just code that in really quick. Making composure apply to other targets normal? Well where could we possibly find the code to do that so we could do it quick? *Looks at set bonus for AF3*'

You can just refer to me as Ty everyone does. I really think what this whole dispute comes down to is personal feeling's on the set bonus. For me I'd prefer that my buff's stay up longer than the actual guy i'm looking after. Mostly because it keeps me focus on the fight and less on keeping myself tip top. The transfer of duration to other ppl are nice. But things like stoneskin, aquaveil, wouldn't gain much from duration buff so keeping this type of spell up longer would not have much of a point. And just add's something to my list of thing's to keep me busy. I see where you and Saevel feel it pointless because of the lack of transfer~able buff's we have. But I think what we need to do is talk to SE about getting more spells that transfer the effect and gear that help's extend the value of the set bonus. It would also be nice if they included some enhancing magic skill on these piece's but I won't hold my breath. "IF" the gain line spell's became single targeted, we'd have a huge new tool in our box of trick's to share. From my experience, I rarely see a boost spell from a WHM when i'm on WAR. And it kind of puzzle's me. I'm sure a RDM wouldn't share this problem, and would be one of the first thing's he did when passing out buff's.

[Economizer]

From my experience, I rarely see a boost spell from a WHM when i'm on WAR. And it kind of puzzle's me.

The duration on the Gain/Boost lines is terrible (but not as bad as Auspice), unaffected by skill, and self-targeting with a long enough casting time that either people will run off, or you are fighting a mob that likes to spam physical damage AoEs that tend to kill.

I could write a lengthy, compelling and beautiful rant about this, but basically, it comes down to the two cases you'd be casting this spell in. For weaker mobs, gathering a group, making sure they don't run off while you're casting, and keeping a buff up that hardly gets any appreciation or makes a large difference isn't any fun. For harder stuff, I'm busy doing stuff like keeping people alive or buffing them with stuff that actually makes a significant impact on the fight, and even when I do manage to find the time for it I don't find the risk of having to spend the rest of the fight dealing with weakened timers for a moderate three minute stat boost that might not even hit everyone in the party is very compelling.

-

More to Red Mage, something I see a lot of is complaining about Red Mage melee - some people focus on it, some people like it, and some people are militantly against it (I know I'm stating the obvious, but bare with me). This clearly causes much contention for Red Mage discussion, but I think that people agreeing on things gets faster responses from SE then constantly arguing. Obviously, Red Mage and parties that invite them benefit greatly from increased enfeebling prowess, and I think that's part of the reason it has so little contention compared to other things Red Mage does.

On Enhancing Magic, I think it would benefit agreement levels if there was currently more focus towards general improvements to it that would benefit all users of Enhancing Magic (much like there is towards the healing side) such as asking for certain spells to be improved in either potency or duration based on the amount of Enhancing Magic skill one has, rather then asking for changes for new and controversial things. More importantly, I think it would be more likely to be implemented, since they would be changes to things that have been in place for longer - community reps have commented that the dev team likes to have some time to analyze the effects of newer changes in play before doing further adjustments when possible, and thus in the short term it will be harder to change newer changes.

Although it might be more useful to produce a new topic that is more generalized to this end, here is a thread that has this dev response reguarding Enhancing Magic skill and very loosely, improvements to it.

However, in the meantime, based on the current cap when reaching level 99, we would like to get a wide variety of feedback.

When giving feedback, please have discussions separating them into elements such as the below:

• How to consider the cap itself in the future
• Exploration of other growth methods once the cap is reached
• Ideas and concepts of abilities/equipment with caps

Also relevant for any Red Mages looking to make suggestions about the changes to Healing Magic and Healing Magic Skill, here is a thread about discussion regarding SE's plans for changing the way Healing Magic works.

[ManaKing]

You can just refer to me as Ty everyone does. I really think what this whole dispute comes down to is personal feeling's on the set bonus. For me I'd prefer that my buff's stay up longer than the actual guy i'm looking after. Mostly because it keeps me focus on the fight and less on keeping myself tip top. The transfer of duration to other ppl are nice. But things like stoneskin, aquaveil, wouldn't gain much from duration buff so keeping this type of spell up longer would not have much of a point. And just add's something to my list of thing's to keep me busy. I see where you and Saevel feel it pointless because of the lack of transfer~able buff's we have. But I think what we need to do is talk to SE about getting more spells that transfer the effect and gear that help's extend the value of the set bonus. It would also be nice if they included some enhancing magic skill on these piece's but I won't hold my breath. "IF" the gain line spell's became single targeted, we'd have a huge new tool in our box of trick's to share. From my experience, I rarely see a boost spell from a WHM when i'm on WAR. And it kind of puzzle's me. I'm sure a RDM wouldn't share this problem, and would be one of the first thing's he did when passing out buff's.

I would have to agree with pretty much everything you said Ty. I have no problem buffing except RDM has a problem with buffs. I have my Relic +2 Body and Hands, but there is no way another party member is going to see those numbers + my set bonus EVEN if I could give them something qualitative from Enhancing.

[tyrantsyn]

I would have to agree with pretty much everything you said Ty. I have no problem buffing except RDM has a problem with buffs. I have my Relic +2 Body and Hands, but there is no way another party member is going to see those numbers + my set bonus EVEN if I could give them something qualitative from Enhancing.

Like I said, we need gear that gives enhancing skill and duration bonuses together like the Estoqueur's cape. And spell's that are worth transferring to other's on top of that. I would hope that if the Dev's are reading this they take note. It would go a long way to helping the RDM community be happy in the field of enhancing.

Edit: For all that gear we already have with the E. Skill bonuses included but no way to transfer the effect do to the lack of gear. Maybe a JT can be added or a merit effect to transfer extra duration to spells when casted to other's.

[Mageoholic]

Its a good thing that all of our buffs we cast on ourselves are triple in duration with Composure then otherwise it would really suck to sacrifice potency for a duration bonus we get natively. Seriously dude our set bonus rocks, it is one of the better ones out there. You probably just don't like it because it doesn't have melee stats, yet indirectly gives a 40% increase to melee up time.

Even in your "shitty" use of EMP+2, you have a 30% increase to spell durations, drop the head for fast cast and get a 15% increase to durations, for a total of 45% duration increase. You lose 10% fast cast but can get 2% of that back from a Proflix Ring for a net gain of about 3% time gained for doing other shit. This is a 3% increase to nuking damage, a 3% increase to melee damage and a 3% increase to healing output.

And still about a 25% increase from what we had before.

[Crimson_Slasher]

I still stand by rdm getting boost spells over gain spells, and getting aoe bar spells. It wont make the game rip apart at the seams, and it will cut waste from the overall game. Id be for all buffs, except maybe something insanely powerful, being granted aoe. I mean it isnt like the vast majority of nms these days dont break the old rules of the game, and i think streamlining things is a must. Not to mention, for that new event coming up (the name eludes me) where killspeed is very important, spending time casting 4-6x the spells would waste too much time for me, when i could just simply say "you wanting gain dex, get over here, gain str over there....Okay buffs up, go!". Just my 2 cents, get to cutting waste and streamlining everything! Any and all jobs!

[Mageoholic]

No but it reduces the usefulness of gain spells being single target. A WAR might benefit from STR where a COR would benefit AGI, a BLM INT a WHM MND. so on and so forth. Our gain spells should be single target, not self target. It is an additional benefit to everyone, players are not going to individually crowd the WHM for Boost XXX and a WHM shouldn't be expected to run around giving Boost XXX to those that want the differing variations.

A single target spell accomplishes this (see BRDs issues and resulting Pianissimo.)

as for bar spells. Fuck em, a WHM can already to them better, and have to merit for them to be great (one of the few good WHM merits). If AoE barspells are that big of a must you are likely coming as /WHM or /SCH anyway, so either provide them then at the same potency as our single target, (aoe WHM) or burn a charge to make RDM native spell AoE (.SCH).

Barspells and Gain spells should be single target castable however.

The only 2 spells that should be AoE'd are haste and refresh, only because SCH can access them now through their primary sub RDM (and Haste /WHM), and AoEing them requires RDM or WHM to /SCH. As Tanaka would say BALANCE!!!.

As for time wasted, even if we gained temper and gain spells, and even bar spells single target, we are looking at still a solid increase to time spent doing secondary actions. As I outlined above.

[Crimson_Slasher]

I dont totally disagree with you that single target gains have merit, but in all the voidwatch ive been in, on any job, ive always been in fairly limited party, with either DDs, or mages. Im not expected to give boost spells as whm either, but if the nm is procced, i can run forward for 10 seconds to boost str, and the DDs seem to appreciate it. Ive yet to have a Thf, or a Nin, Or a Rng for that matter in any of those go "No dont give me strength, i want agi/dex!" because most of the time they wont get any of those gains/boosts as is, its just a nice bonus i can provide, and if im in the mage party (once i get it) i can pass around INT, as im less likely to be with other whms. If i were on rdm, it would be even easier, because the whm and the melee would likely be separate most the fight (to avoid things like MPK when hate is pulled) so i dont personally see much chance to actually need a particular single buff.

Also hate to nitpick it but your last statement made me scratch my head. I mean, i know what you are tryin to say, but the way its read is "Casting more buffs gives you more time to do other things than cast those buffs!" which doesnt even make sense to me. How can spending more time casting more buffs give me more time to not be buffing? Like i said, i get what you mean, that with our set bonus we wouldnt need to cast them as often, but still needing to cast them more than one time creates wasted time in my book. Theres few (if any!) situation where me casting just a single buff one time to affect most/all of my party would take more time than casting the same buff 3+ times across the whole party.

I see what you're looking at, but i respectfully dissagree, and being able to cast buffs on more people will always create more "downtime" to perform other tasks. Id rather not have both a cluttered enfeebling, and enhancing schedule at the same time for example, so being able to get my buffs down, and focus enfeebling, heals, nukes, and melee as well as reapply debuffs as needed means less micromanagement on an already busy schedule!

And most of all, it wouldnt really hurt the solo functions i do either. If theres nobody else to get casted on, then the spells are as good as single target anyway!