To the devs!

[Neisan_Quetz]

I think everyone can agree all of our T2 spells need to be reworked for increased potency, need to land on Notorious monsters, and something should be done about Addle (and most likely Slow/Para as well)...

[Mageoholic]

Not sure what you're trying to accomplish by championing enfeebling skill much. WHM, BLM, and SCH aren't THAT far behind, especially with Arts bonuses in play.

No they are not that far behind, but RDM isn't that far behind BLM or WHM in terms of healing or nuking either. SCH doesn't have any of the native spells a RDM does (enhancing or enfeebling) and requires RDM to gain those spells at one time. The only thing that separates WHM and BLM nuking and healing is that they have tiers of spells RDM's does not. They also have traits and abilities that support their healing and nuking roles. RDM has perks to buffing and debuffing (composure and Sab).

If Skill played a larger role it would allow a RDM to gear skill of which they can push higher than WHM or BLM or SCH. Meaning that their spells (T1's) would always be more accurate, more potent, and longer lasting. This is before even taking into account that we have higher tiers of Dia, Bio, Paralyze, Gravity, Refresh, Slow, Blind, Phalanx. Some of these have issues (namely gravity, phalanx, blind, para). But RDM is in the same position as a WHM or BLM, however unlike WHM's Cure 5 our spells don't reflect of proficiency because they don't work. Unlike a BLM's Thunder 5 our spells don't reflect our proficiency because our spells don't work.

It's not good because you're adding a possible 10 spells to cycle, for basically an added minute of additional casting and waiting on the GCD before even factoring actual recast timers.

Really did you math that out all by yourself? with both temper and gain being added you gain 3seconds (both drop under the 3 second casting lock with just base fast cast.) this is 30 seconds gained buffing. At the same time these spells gain 45% duration (just from gear) which means you only cast them once every 5 minutes. In the end you have an increase to about 20% of time spent casting. (essentially doubling the current 30 seconds of a 5 man haste/refresh cycle) this is still a 40% increase over previous casting cycle times from the old 75 cap, which saw us spending nearly a third of our time cycling buffs. 1 minute/3 minutes.

If enhancing magic skill also increased duration of spells as well as potency on spells it does not (such as haste) RDM would have less than 20% time buffing and debuffing, with more than 80% of their time spend doing other things. By allowing enhancing magic skill to factor in on duration (for all jobs with it) it is a direct buff to casting time reduction. Even adding on an additional 30 seconds for potentially 10 more buffs gives us 4 minutes every buff cycle to do what ever the fuck we want.

Thats why I champion enfeebling magic and enhancing magic changes, because it benefits the group, and that will get us the invites. The changes are a direct buff to every job in the game that casts these spells, and a larger buff to RDM because it natively out skills other jobs. If a RDM can provide spells that work, better than other jobs, while at the same time as bringing the ability to perform tasks like other jobs, it will have a place again in group play, doing the same shit it did at 75 cap. Enhancing and Enfeebling, and support healing, nuking, and melee.

I get you love your melee, but how you can not see changing the way our support side works doesn't benefit melee is baffling to me. Not to mention, isn't it hard to melee when you don't get invited to groups? I don't think you are selfish, I just think you either misunderstand what the issue with RDM is, or don't understand how the game functions. I am sure its not the latter because we have had back and forths for years so Im going to assume the former. Ill give you a hint, RDM's current issues have nothing to do with melee, nuking or healing, none of those impact our invite rate.


Just to note the 60 seconds of casting time is not assuming haste/refresh/a gain spell/temper on 5 targets, a total of 12 seconds casting spent over 4 buffs per party member. It assumes the obvious reality you will likely not ever have to buff all 4 spells at the same time, realistically the most you will have to do is 3 Haste/Gain/Temper, Refresh/Gain/Haste. For a total of 45 seconds spent casting every 5 minutes. for buffing, with 5 enfeebles @ 3 seconds each bring you to total 60 seconds of casting time.

Due to enfeebles likely having to be recast at least once this gives you about 1:07 of total casting time spent, over 5 minutes. that is 3:53 seconds of melee or an average of 89 attack rounds. Or 12 Blizzard 4's, or 11 Thunder 4's, or 58 cue 4's.





Also recast has no impact whatsoever on cycle times, unless you stand there doing nothing at all for 10 seconds waiting on a buff to cool down.

[Seriha]

I get you love your melee, but how you can not see changing the way our support side works doesn't benefit melee is baffling to me.

Proposing more time to swing, by default, is not a direct melee benefit. We've been there. People will instead insist you cure, nuke, debuff, or rest more because there is little tangible benefit to RDM's martial capacity in a party setting, let alone on more difficult content. "Melee fodder, Magic bosses" does not work as a philosophy in current endgame where our bosses just poof from the ether with no fodder involved.

It's why I've been wanting to tie a utility angle into it, but I'm not ignorant of the more specific issues to why RDM melee as a sole task has been scorned over time. You've paraded that DDs can't swap a weapon to nuke or dump a cure, but those aren't as big a perk as you make them out to be. MP is still finite in traditional Vana'diel. Not curing with an Arka IV on is 24% potency lost. Not nuking in a staff is +6 potency lost. Swapping to either is TP lost, and thus less WS frequency, thus lesser physical DoT, thus falling behind the big boys. This is one of those things I was trying to address in one of my recent posts, the cataclysmic dwarfing of backline over frontline. And this is before we even talk about the problems with enfeebling.

I've bantered on the melee issue before and all those points pretty much still stand if we want to do more than just auto-attack and WS effectively. So, I'll say it as I have before, I want gear I've chased to mean something for more than just playing alone or with old content. Damage is still important, even with a stronger utility aspect. For what we know now, buffs to healing and enfeebling are in the works. How they actually translate to gameplay is another matter. Neither collectively scream RDM, though, but that's part of the job's problem, it needs to be more than just parts of its sum.

[ManaKing]

You know, ignoring people sounds more and more appealing as time goes on Saeval. It certainly would save me time reading walls of text based on personal ideologies instead of how the game actually works.

[Mageoholic]

You've paraded that DDs can't swap a weapon to nuke or dump a cure, but those aren't as big a perk as you make them out to be. MP is still finite in traditional Vana'diel. Not curing with an Arka IV on is 24% potency lost. Not nuking in a staff is +6 potency lost. Swapping to either is TP lost, and thus less WS frequency, thus lesser physical DoT, thus falling behind the big boys.

We shouldn't be contesting with the big boys. It was fun back in the day to eek out parses that showed RDM in the 75%+ range beating the faces of little colibri, or mamool ja. It was fun. But the point is we have no business being mentioned in the same sentance as WAR, MNK, SAM, DRK, DRG when it comes to DD. Regardless of spells requiring the use of staves and ruining our TP generation, it still does not change the fact that at any given time we can swap into a different gear set and supply something completely different if the group needs it. The big boys can't do that.

Hum and haw about that as much as you like, its a fact, you may never have to change gear one fight, and another you might have to do it for every action you take. Call it the price of being able to do everything in the game decently. Only way that this will change is if SE restricts parts of the job while we are doing other things, kind of like SCH "setting" ourselves, which would imo turn RDM into a pretty unexciting job.

Want to be a big DD that can put up flashy numbers all the time, go level one, want to be a bad ass nuker who can hit 3K level one, want to be a wicked healer that can keep people alive through the toughest mobs level one, want to dabble in all 3 level RDM. Its not a hard concept.

[Seriha]

Want people to never invite you because others do the three better? Level RDM.

Which kinda brings us back full circle to you thinking all I care about is damage.

[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]

We shouldn't be contesting with the big boys. It was fun back in the day to eek out parses that showed RDM in the 75%+ range beating the faces of little colibri, or mamool ja. It was fun. But the point is we have no business being mentioned in the same sentance as WAR, MNK, SAM, DRK, DRG when it comes to DD. Regardless of spells requiring the use of staves and ruining our TP generation, it still does not change the fact that at any given time we can swap into a different gear set and supply something completely different if the group needs it. The big boys can't do that.

Hum and haw about that as much as you like, its a fact, you may never have to change gear one fight, and another you might have to do it for every action you take. Call it the price of being able to do everything in the game decently. Only way that this will change is if SE restricts parts of the job while we are doing other things, kind of like SCH "setting" ourselves, which would imo turn RDM into a pretty unexciting job.

Want to be a big DD that can put up flashy numbers all the time, go level one, want to be a bad ass nuker who can hit 3K level one, want to be a wicked healer that can keep people alive through the toughest mobs level one, want to dabble in all 3 level RDM. Its not a hard concept.

Big boys huh? That's the technical term for a job that isn't broken. Wow I never knew.

You know what is a hard concept. A job not having anything desirable to a party. But hey apparently we are decent at everything so I guess that is why the RDM forums are always so silent with content RDMs.

If you aren't here to make RDM a 'Big Boy' at something, you really should just stop posting.

[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.