The Melee Mage

[Economizer]

Rubeus spats are indeed nice. I didn't know about them, actually, because I dislike VW and don't plan on investing any significant amount of time into it. Would be nice if they could add some AHable gear (crafted, perhaps?!) that was going in the same direction as those.

Yeah, I wish I had the spats too, but they're a "Very Rare" drop from Kalasutrax, which doesn't have any pulse body armor on it to lure people in.

When it comes to damage output, sure, I wouldn't exactly mind whm getting close to other non-twohander DD jobs, but I think it's easier to make SE listen if you try to meet them at the middle. I don't think it's fair to let whm deal more damage than for example dnc though, considering whms are better healer than them. At the most, they should be right behind them.

I'm not trying to say White Mage should automatically be equal with other 1h damage dealers, just that it shouldn't be automatically dismissed. Dancer for example can do quite a bit of damage, but they can heal without impacting their damage too heavily, whereas to heal and buff as a White Mage you generally are favored to drop the majority of what little damage they can do. Another factor would be difficulty of getting to the point where you're on equal footing - it might be far easier to deal damage as one job, but another job might have a higher skill/gear ceiling that allows it to match others, such as by losing the ability to do one thing to do others like many of the incredibly powerful stanced jobs in the game.

I just want SE to think about this stuff like they did when they introduced melee mage specific items in the past. I may or maynot have a flawed strategy for doing so, but I think that my method of detailing my understanding of the game will sway SE to think about these things and bring things more in line to what the game's flavor should be. It certainly shouldn't hurt to have people with differing opinions working towards that same goal with different strategies.

I will agree to this just as soon as you agree to Dark Knight being able to give up their DD capabilities and be able to heal as well as a White Mage.

Dark Knight has pretty amazing self recovery options for a heavy damage dealer, and I wholly support more magic usage options for Dark Knight, however I doubt the same trades will be possible as with a White Mage.

Removing all DD capability is really, really hard to do. But I think you'll find that dropping all ability to heal is comparatively simple, so this isn't some 1:1 comparison that can be made to make a quick soundbite jab of a point. Additionally you have other stuff like being able to tank that also comes into consideration when just focusing on singular things.

Damage dealing and healing are also not something that gets a good comparison either because of the different ways they work. With healing, you only ever need as much to survive the fight, but with damage dealing you can always use more as long as you can survive. Because of this key difference, healing will always be covered with "good enough" which means that being the best healer isn't remotely anywhere nearly as important as being the best damage dealer.

So it gets difficult to have the same comparison. And really, will White Mage ever be able to trade off absolutely all of its healing ability, or even will they want to make a complete tradeoff? Maybe not, but a kneejerk reaction against mage melee options being useful doesn't help anyone.

Maybe afflatus misery should just get a buff that would give us 10% JA haste, and boost light elemental attack spells by a decent amount. How about light-only MAB values equal to what blm gets?

There are a lot of cool things Afflatus Misery could do in order to catch up with Solace (which for the most part feels good for what it is supposed to do).

I'd pick 10% JA Haste any day of the week (I wonder if /NIN + Suppanomimi + Haste + gear + 10% JA would count as hitting the 80% delay reduction cap) for the job ability. But there are tons of other stuff this could do as well. Some of it should be an automatic improvement, maybe as levels get higher via job traits or comboing with job abilities, and some of it should be gear related.

When framed by a request like that, it is hard to come up with anything that would match, but given how useful Solace is not just at healing, but self-survivability, such a boost even sounds fair (the only way I feel remotely guilty going along with the suggestion is that I'd feel Red Mage should get some way to get JA Haste from Composure or something as well), even if it wasn't something I would have thought of myself.

Personally I was thinking of suggesting stuff along the lines of making the White Mage able to tank damage from area effects more readily (because Misery tends to lend towards AoE cures rather then single target ones) although this might be better suited by a piece of gear that provides melee and tankish style stats.

Another thought towards buffing Misery would be more Job Abilities or Spells comboing with it then before; for example, if you remove an ailment with Divine Caress from yourself, everyone in range would gain the effect of Divine Caress.

Something else that might be interesting would be a way to have weakness removed when you Reraise with Misery up in very specific conditions, such as if the hit did more damage then you have max HP, or maybe with a piece of gear that has charges of Reraise that work in conjunction with Misery.

The thing is, there are a bunch of different directions SE could go with Misery that would be good, so there are many possibilities.

[Mathieu]

Dark Knight has pretty amazing self recovery options for a heavy damage dealer, and I wholly support more magic usage options for Dark Knight, however I doubt the same trades will be possible as with a White Mage.

Removing all DD capability is really, really hard to do. But I think you'll find that dropping all ability to heal is comparatively simple, so this isn't some 1:1 comparison that can be made to make a quick soundbite jab of a point. Additionally you have other stuff like being able to tank that also comes into consideration when just focusing on singular things.

No, they really don't. Dragoon hands down is vastly superior to Dark Knight in that regard. Paladin can get pretty decent damage when equipped properly. Obviously, they can't match a Dark Knight going full out, but a Dark Knight going full out has no where near the capabilities needed to keep themselves healed against anything meaningful, even with real armor equipped. Samurai can do a whole lot with Dancer subbed. Ninja is intended to avoid damage in the first place, which trumps self healing. The only heavier melee classes Dark Knight truly beats are Warrior and Beastmaster.

The trade off is much, much easier for Dark Knight than White Mage. All you have to do to mess up Dark Knight damage is force their weapon option to something they have poor skill and equipment access. With White Mage, there really isn't anything to nerf, in the grand scheme of things skills and Mind don't make a whole lot of difference and virtually all of their job abilities and healing related traits were not originally part of the class and White Mage could heal just fine. Outside, "You can never, ever cast healing spells" there is nothing that can be done to prevent White Mage from being at least a solid healer. On the other hand, Dark Knight damage is really easy to nerf.

Dark Knights really can't "tank" outside situations consisting of "every melee class can tank by subbing Warrior for Provoke." They have heavy armor, yes, but that's it. No matter how you equip and play them, virtually every job (depending on the level range and situation) can easily out tank Dark Knight.

Damage dealing and healing are also not something that gets a good comparison either because of the different ways they work. With healing, you only ever need as much to survive the fight, but with damage dealing you can always use more as long as you can survive. Because of this key difference, healing will always be covered with "good enough" which means that being the best healer isn't remotely anywhere nearly as important as being the best damage dealer.

So it gets difficult to have the same comparison. And really, will White Mage ever be able to trade off absolutely all of its healing ability, or even will they want to make a complete tradeoff? Maybe not, but a kneejerk reaction against mage melee options being useful doesn't help anyone.

It goes both ways. A bad damage dealer isn't usually a huge drain on a party compared to a bad healer that gets people killed. The difference between the "best damage dealer" and a "good damage dealer" is also pretty razor thin, unless you are also factoring in comparing someone with decent equipment versus someone that also has the ideal gear swap for every single situation they ever come across.

Also, I wasn't saying "Melee Mage" is bad. I was criticizing your idea that there should ever be a circumstance where White Mage can do something that would allow them to directly compete with actual DD classes in terms of damage, giving up something or not. If you don't allow other classes to do that, it is just going to lead to worse and worse imbalance. If you want proof of this, look at WoW Priests, who can do exactly what you are suggesting (trade healing abilities for better damage). They are ridiculously powerful in every situation the game throws at you while other classes actually struggle and doing things they are supposed to be good at. They don't even need to change equipment or even their talents to do this. White Mage damage isn't even that bad in situations where they should be meleeing, if equipped properly with already existing gear. They have a weak spot at early levels due to the better types of clubs not having lower level versions, but beyond that, they have much better melee abilities then people give them credit for because the standard people seem to go by is trying to whack enemies with wands in mage gear. They aren't on true DD level, but in terms of what they can do by themselves when played properly, they are pretty good.

[Economizer]

I really hate discussions like these that crop up whenever someone tries to talk about stuff like improving melee mage options, and they often just seem to shutdown the discussion by making people upset or take the time away from discussing constructive changes by instead arguing over philosophy.

I'd much prefer to discuss ways jobs like Red Mage and White Mage can have useful melee options then squabble over whether or not mages should actually have useful options.

If you still want to read a rebuttal to your points, I won't take that away with a false high ground, but if you aren't reading to understand but to argue, don't waste my time by reading it.

No, they really don't.

Yes, they do. Bloody Bolts, Drain, Drain II, Dread Spikes, Absorb-TP, Absorb-STR, other spells, job abilities, traits, and weapons. They're not the best, which I never claimed, but they are amazing. Again, I would support expanding Dark Knight's ability to use magic to support themselves, in addition to other means, however if you want to discuss at length about how you'd like to buff Dark Knight, please find another more appropriate thread.

Samurai can do a whole lot with Dancer subbed.

Dark Knight can do a whole lot with Red Mage or Scholar subbed.

but a Dark Knight going full out

This wasn't about going full out, this was about trading the ability to do some roles as well as for others.

The trade off is much, much easier for Dark Knight than White Mage. All you have to do to mess up Dark Knight damage is force their weapon option to something they have poor skill and equipment access.

Still doing damage. I'd ask you to name one resource used to heal in this game that can't also be used to deal damage, but there literally aren't any. HP allows you to do damage, TP is primarily used to do damage, MP is used to do damage, Items are used to do damage. It would take far more work to accomplish "no damage" then it would be to nullify the White Mage's healing ability down to job abilities that take longer then ten minutes to cooldown.

If it wasn't meant as an absolute tradeoff, then White Mage already has to cut their healing quite a bit to do damage.

With White Mage, there really isn't anything to nerf, in the grand scheme of things skills and Mind don't make a whole lot of difference

I'm going to tell you to learn about the way something in the game functions. This isn't intended as an insult, but when one party clearly doesn't understand how something functions by saying something that is the opposite of how it works, the only way to rebut is to explain how something works or to assume the other person isn't taking the debate seriously. BGwiki is a better teacher in this case.

Learn how the cure spell formula currently functions.

If the cure spell formula worked in the way you describe, then Cure IV, which is sufficiently enough to heal in most situations for main job healers would be sufficient enough for any job /RDM or /WHM, and thus every job would have a significant amount of healing power like Red Mage does.

Outside, "You can never, ever cast healing spells" there is nothing that can be done to prevent White Mage from being at least a solid healer.

Learn how playing a healer works. Also refer to the cure spell formula again.

Even small things like having no gear that boost cures makes a significant amount of change.

But yes, if you wanted to make a complete trade of White Mage's healing ability for absolute damage, you'd probably have some sort of silence-like effect in conjunction with increased damage ability, or have the extra damage they do hurt their MP pool or healing ability.

Dark Knights really can't "tank" outside situations consisting of "every melee class can tank by subbing Warrior for Provoke."

Learn how enmity currently functions. Learn how tanking currently functions.

Additionally, it would help to find better healers for the Dark Knight. If the Dark Knight cannot keep aggro off of the healer for some reason without subbing Warrior, consider finding a better Dark Knight too.

It goes both ways. A bad damage dealer isn't usually a huge drain on a party compared to a bad healer that gets people killed.

Learn how TP currently functions.

They have a weak spot at early levels due to the better types of clubs not having lower level versions, but beyond that, they have much better melee abilities then people give them credit for because the standard people seem to go by is trying to whack enemies with wands in mage gear. They aren't on true DD level, but in terms of what they can do by themselves when played properly, they are pretty good.

Do any of the melee WHM in this thread look like the kind to use a wand and then cry about their damage?

I was criticizing your idea that there should ever be a circumstance where White Mage can do something that would allow them to directly compete with actual DD classes in terms of damage, giving up something or not.

Kneejerk reaction without sufficient rational thought. The example you give isn't an absolute trade. The best argument you gave for any of your thoughts were when you were talking about the trade offs not being possible, but those weren't sufficient reasoning, since they attack the possibility of the tradeoff rather then it happening.

Even assuming a complete tradeoff is impossibility, that doesn't eliminate the concept, just the amount that it can be executed.

[Mirage]

Well as far as I'm concerned, there is no harm in making any mage decent at meleeing versus non-high level NMs. Who cares if a whm can bash exp mobs' faces in at 98% the speed of a ninja? As long as a whm can't do the same against a legion or VW NM, it doesn't matter.

And considering WHM's lack of A skill in club, low DD stats and limited access to physically strong subjobs (can't get DW without losing Berserk, for example), I don't think that would ever be a problem. Even if you gave whm access to 50% of all the best real DD gear, it'd fall significantly behind on content that is actually hard.

Soo, just give that to us already!

-edit-
As for giving up healing power in favor of damage, what would make more sense than revamping the Banish and Holy spells to actually deal enough damage for it to be worth the MP it costs? Using strong light elemental nukes would eat up the same MP pool that lets us heal. If I just spent 8-900 MP on nukes, there's no way the party can rely on me for cures anymore when fighting significantly tough mobs (unless I'm in abyssea, but who cares about balance in abyssea?). For even more balance, require Afflatus Misery to be in effect for these to be strong enough to almost compete with a blm or sch.

[Asymptotic]

I do just fine.

[Mirage]

But would you mind doing even finer?

[Dekar]

I'm all for mages getting more armors to play around with in the front lines!

[Nawesemo]

Ewe.... And splatter mob guttzzz alll over my staves.... No beuno.

[wildsprite]

you know, I'll never understand why there always has to be someone against mages having good melee gear, those of us who actually know the jobs know they weren't built for full time melee, other than RDM which was a really good tank before SE nerfed it.....

[Demon6324236]

you know, I'll never understand why there always has to be someone against mages having good melee gear, those of us who actually know the jobs know they weren't built for full time melee, other than RDM which was a really good tank before SE nerfed it.....

Not sure that someone here has said much of anything pointing to that, but I think when people do its because they think that somehow it would be threatening to their style of play, the same way as I think RDM getting staff skill would be threatening to my style of playing my RDM with an Almace (and soon to be Excalibur) in my hands 90% of the time.