[dev1102] So what is the Ultimate Spell for RDM?

[Duelle]

RDM has the unfortunate position of being the only job that can be subbed while retaining almost 100% of it's capabilities AND have unique features given to other jobs (Phalanx, Addle) or being rendered impotent by game design (merits, enfeebling).

Other jobs have run into similar issues, but SE stepped up to ensure uniqueness for the job by limiting subjob or making a job excel at something.

The reason I don't bark up the uniqueness tree is because RDM at the core is supposed to be a hybrid. Again, this goes to the whole bit about it being a job that borrows things and uses them in their own way. The best example I can think of is that a BLM would use Fire to outright burn something down to ashes. A RDM may end up using Fire to inflict just enough pain over a period of time to hinder their enemy in some way. It's the same spell, but used differently to meet each job's needs. BLM as the ranged nuker, RDM as the melee mage. That is where the differentiation should come in. Enfeebling, as I mentioned in my previous post, is a small facet that has been thrusted to the front in a desperate attempt to take a shortcut to fixing the job and giving it a purpose.

RDM could have had potential as a job that reduces damage taken by the party. If SE had let WHM focus on healing instead of giving them things like AoE Bar spells and Protectra/Shellra and Sancrocity.

Sorry, but that harms WHM by taking away things that make sense for a healer/support (which is what WHM is) and harms RDM by burdening it with something that has absolutely nothing to do with Red Magery or magic fencing in the case of the melee camp. That does little for us other than take us back to where we were at lv75, which I certainly don't want.

Not to mention with hybrids you can no longer afford to shove a singular role down the player's throat and expect them to like it. Hybrids are and have always been about choices. Developers have just been lazier in the past because they knew some players would be desperate enough to take the bad end of the deal if it meant an easier time finding a group and "importance" in endgame. And that's not only here, but in several of the MMOs that came out around the time FFXI did. Going back to something I said long ago, RDM's woes are not unique to this game.