The Melee Mage

[Tile]

Whm, Blm, Rdm, Brd, Smn, Sch
Can we get some gear for mages that like to DD up on the front lines? On sch I love tossing out buffs and attacking with my staff. I'm sure other people do as well. There is nothing wrong with a mage in a low man group getting up in ther with their staff or club. Not every mage likes to engage and attack the enemy, but some of us do. I know some mages that put 5/5 into Shattersoul.

Here is what I want.
Double, Triple, Quadruple attack, Haste and Weapon skill damage. doesn't need to be game breaking. But just alittle for us Mages that like to be up in the front with everyone else.

unless all the Wars and Monks are afraid the Mage is going to out Damage them.

[Reiterpallasch]

Suddenly, red mages. Red mages everywhere.

[Tamarsamar]

Suddenly, red mages. Red mages everywhere.

Noes, inb4'd! D:

By the way, there already exists the kind of gear that the OP is looking for. Off the top of my head, there's the Kthonios Mask and the Rubeus Spats.

However, as a Red Mage, I just want to mention how insulted I am personally whenever we get front line equipment grouped together with BLM, BRD, SMN, SCH, and (to a lesser extent) WHM and not BLU, because it's as if to imply that our front line capabilities are supposed to be on par with BLM, BRD, SMN, SCH, WHM . . . and not BLU.

Personally, I think that, by design, we ought to be on a level better than that. We're not supposed to be as good at Magic as, say, BLM, SMN, SCH, and WHM (and BRD is in its own spoony category of support role job that gets Mage gear, and Byakko's Haidate), so how come we're not considered better melee fighters to compensate?

My 2 gil.

[Demon6324236]

Noes, inb4'd! D:

By the way, there already exists the kind of gear that the OP is looking for. Off the top of my head, there's the Kthonios Mask and the Rubeus Spats.

However, as a Red Mage, I just want to mention how insulted I am personally whenever we get front line equipment grouped together with BLM, BRD, SMN, SCH, and (to a lesser extent) WHM and not BLU, because it's as if to imply that our front line capabilities are supposed to be on par with BLM, BRD, SMN, SCH, WHM . . . and not BLU.

Personally, I think that, by design, we ought to be on a level better than that. We're not supposed to be as good at Magic as, say, BLM, SMN, SCH, and WHM (and BRD is in its own spoony category of support role job that gets Mage gear, and Byakko's Haidate), so how come we're not considered better melee fighters to compensate?

My 2 gil.

Well RDM has been getting alot of things for Haste as of late, WHM has alot of haste things as well, BLM & SCH have a hard time with TP gear sets, I made one for SCH but it is not easy, very specific gear needed unless you want to do Legion and get some of that augmented gear. The rest of what you said I completely agree with however, RDM should be in the same class as BLU when it comes to melee mages, especially with the inclusion of Temper and Gain spells, +25 of a WS mod & +20% Double Attack make RDM stand out from WHM/BLM/SCH and move closer to BLU in terms of melee power.

[Economizer]

However, as a Red Mage, I just want to mention how insulted I am personally whenever we get front line equipment grouped together with BLM, BRD, SMN, SCH, and (to a lesser extent) WHM and not BLU, because it's as if to imply that our front line capabilities are supposed to be on par with BLM, BRD, SMN, SCH, WHM . . . and not BLU.

White Mage has weapons that are purely designed for melee as a weapon class just like Red Mage does, and at lower levels they were included on more light melee gear like Red Mage did.

Being insulted by the Rubeus Spats isn't really right, because Red Mage should get access to both mage gear and light melee gear. What a Red Mage should be insulted by is that there isn't as much new high level melee gear that is either Red Mage exclusive, light melee with Red Mage on it, or even just certain subcategories of gear that Red Mage is traditionally on.

Red Mage has gotten some nice bones thrown, like the easier to get Brisk Mask, or placed on gear like the Brego Gloves, or the Dux Scale Mail Set. White Mage is roughly in the same boat, with sidegrade level gear like the Iuvenalis Mittens. What both jobs need is more stuff like the Dusk Set, the Ogre Set, the Assault Jerkin, the Blessed Set, Holy Breastplate, and Reverend Mail.

What is nice about Red Mage is the varied access to gear that allows more roles to be carried out more easily, but of course, it would always be nice to see an exclusive set, or maybe a set made for either Sword users (PLD, BLU, RDM), or one handed melee casters (BRD, BLU, PLD, RDM, WHM), or melee white magic users (PLD, RDM, WHM) or some combo not listed here.

What would also help Red Mage a huge amount would be higher tiers of Dia, or even a attack boost skill, job trait, or even gear that has a large latent (such as gear that gives a percentage attack boost as long as enspells are up).

Personally, I'd prefer higher tiers of Dia with a Red Mage merit revamp that boosts it instead of granting the spell - Dia III can go to RDM at 61, with the spell going to WHM before 99, and then Red Mage can get Dia IV at 76~81, and Dia V at 99. Assuming the spells go up 5% per tier (with merits possibly boosting this 5% more, or increasing duration or DoTs damage), this would give Red Mage a 25%~30% attack boost to all party members, with a 10~15% advantage over White Mage and a 15%~20% bonus over subjob users of the spell tiers. Alternatively, White Mage and Red Mage could get gear that boosts Dia effectiveness, with it giving a larger boost for merits in Dia.

SE has been recently reluctant to give higher tiers of Dia out to Red Mage though (despite it being Red Mage's most powerful enfeeble) so something else might be more likely unfortunately.

[Meyi]

I really enjoy meleeing as my BLM in Campaign. There's already some okay melee gear, but I would happily welcome more.

[SpankWustler]

I really enjoy meleeing as my BLM in Campaign. There's already some okay melee gear, but I would happily welcome more.

I think the mention of Campaign brings up a really good point.

There are certain situations nowadays when hitting things on a mage job is actually the best thing to do in that situation on a mage job, like Campaigning for Void Dust or duoing certain types of monsters in Dynamis.

So, even though I'm as dispassionate about hitting things with my thing as White Mage as can be, I'd be happy to have more options for those times when I end up engaging stuff for the greater good of dork-kind. In the case of some equipment slots for Scholar, Summoner, and Black Mage, I imagine they'd be happy to have any option for these times.

[Meyi]

I'd also like to see some Fast Cast gear. It seems when I do melee, I spend about 80% of my time buffing and rebuffing. I wouldn't mind if the Fast Cast gear had a latent effect: when weapon is drawn to prevent it from being used during normal situations.

[0nionKn1ght]

I think I melee'd pretty much every exp mob I fought in a party on my SMN, while main healing and using avatars (pre attack/defence separated pacts) to keep buffs up. My staff skill was always capped quickly and I was actually doing quite considerable (obviously not in line with a DD but enough to make a difference) damage to the targets, and when possible, using the club weaponskills to recover small pinches of mana every few seconds.

It doesn't need to be much, but now that we barely need to rest at all, would be nice to have an option to bash things over the head more.

[Luvbunny]

Options is always good, so that mages can melee too on situations where it is fine to do just that. For a game that touts the flexibility of support jobs, FFXI has been terrible at promoting this idea and love to put the jobs in their respective corners. And when rdms of the yesteryear started to post their accomplishment on youtube, SE decided its time to put the nerf bat on the job resulting to the feeble status of RDM nowadays. WE WANT OPTIONS!!