The Problem with Red Mage . . .

[Tamarsamar]

Everybody agrees that Red Mage as a job could use some improvements.

Unfortunately, that's the only thing that everybody agrees on.

"Give us more meaning to our signature weaponry!", cries the melee crowd. "No, don't waste your time with updates that are worthless to us!", objects the magic crowd.

"Give us Cure V, Hastega, Refreshga, Phalanxga!" suggests the magic crowd. "This job's identity should not be 'Pink Mage'!" protests the melee crowd.

Further complicating things is that not only do not all Red Mages fit neatly into either crowd, but even within each crowd there are factions, and factions within those factions, and so on ad infinitum. Therefore, it becomes exceedingly difficult for anybody, be it the community or development, to come to a consensus on what can be done to "fix" Red Mage; only the vague statement that it needs to be fixed, or at best, a couple of nifty toy suggestions for that particular person's style of playing Red Mage.

If nothing else, can we at least all agree that Red Mage should remain a flexible job with no singular "correct" style to play it, and then work from there?

[saevel]

Your argument is one of false dichotomy. It is not mage OR melee, it's both. A Red Mage without melee capability is called a Scholar. If you don't believe me go check their spell lists, everything *mage* RDM can do a SCH can do better.

I've made several posts about this, basically boils down to "fix all the above" as Red Mage should function as a party support, as magic damage or as a melee job. It shouldn't be the best in any of those categories, otherwise it would be broken. Problem now is that it's so bad in all those categories that there is absolutely no reason to ever bring a RDM to anything. A result of SE over-buffing SCH and BLU while ignoring RDM.

[Demon6324236]

Your argument is one of false dichotomy. It is not mage OR melee, it's both. A Red Mage without melee capability is called a Scholar. If you don't believe me go check their spell lists, everything *mage* RDM can do a SCH can do better.

I've made several posts about this, basically boils down to "fix all the above" as Red Mage should function as a party support, as magic damage or as a melee job. It shouldn't be the best in any of those categories, otherwise it would be broken. Problem now is that it's so bad in all those categories that there is absolutely no reason to ever bring a RDM to anything. A result of SE over-buffing SCH and BLU while ignoring RDM.

Completely correct. People in both the melee & magic sides of RDM think it can only do 1 for some reason when the job is meant to do both things. The problem is simply that SE fails to give RDM both sides of it, for instance the Teal & Pink gear, BLU was on both because it is melee & it is mage, however RDM was left on Teal alone where as it should have been on both as well. The same goes to alot of other gear of the same nature. Something that does seem like a step in the right direction is Temper & Gain-STR/DEX however if you look at RDM traits and abilities we are still restricted to mage powers only. RDM should have more power on its magic side, that I will agreed on quite a bit as our nukes are quite bad due to the loss of extra tiers of MAB and no use for T5 spells. Cures we can do well, but we have no powerful regen or native buffs to our cures like SCH or WHM do, honestly I think in curing RDM does just fine, but there is room for improvement. Melee we have no traits, at most we have Shield Mastery which has only come in the past few levels and is more a defensive tool than a melee tool. Both things should be improved because RDM is not only melee or only mage, it is both in 1, we just argue within ourselves which doesn't help SE make the right choices, partly why our Emp gear ended up as purely mage gear I think.

[Sunrider]

I've never met a pro-melee RDM that thinks only of RDM as a melee. They've simply spent the majority of their energy trying to get others to respect RDM's melee potential. There's not often much point in discussing the magical aspect since, as Demonnumbers pointed out, S-E has gone out of it's way to take care of the job's magical powers, disproportionately, even.

And frankly, party support really doesn't need to much more. Dedicated support classes have AoE for mass enhancing, RDM's tools pick up whoever's been missed (such as pullers, add groups, etc). We've routinely witnessed the general player base's keenness to force the classes into a solely support role, adding AoE powers will almost assuredly cement that position, in addition to stepping on the toes of support classes which are already kind of niche (yet exist seemingly for the sake of adding new classes). The image of the class can determine it's fate even more than it's functions, as WAR taught us well before CoP.

[ManaKing]

'ProMelee' RDMs still use magic. I'm 'ProMelee' because I think we should hit stuff with an Excalibur and cure moderately. Nuke when appropriate. Enfeeble where applicable. Anyone who still actually plays RDM pretty much plays the same. Otherwise they pick a job that is better at what part of RDM they like playing better like SCH or BLU.

The only reason why RDM fight about this stuff is all of our skills are just low enough that we want buffs for them. We all have absolutely no faith that SE will give us enough buffs to make all of our skills good enough, so we say nasty things to solidify how we want RDM to be enhanced. Example... Temper and Spontaneity both came out around the same time. Temper is awesome if you like melee. Spontaneity is meh meh for anyone that really wanted more mage prowess. Result...All RDMs unhappy that our mage side got shafted. How about that new enfeebling system?

Solution. Give us real buffs. Temper is good. Melee is ok~ish now. You still have to put in a lot of work. Cure potency is adequate. Nuking and enfeebling still looks shitty. If you want to make RDMs happier, work on nuking and enfeebling. If you want to make RDMs really happy, then give us toys that buff multiple aspects at the same time. Occult Accumen. Enspells that give elemental affinity. No one is going to complain about these kinds of buffs. Let Dia and Bio 3 stack? RDM ONRY!!!

[Demon6324236]

At the same time, would it kill them to give us at least some job traits for melee? I mean seriously if you look down our current list we have...

Magic Attack Bonus I~III
Magic Defense Bonus I~III
Fast Cast I~V
Clear Mind I~III
Shield Mastery I~II
Resist Petrify I~II
Magic Burst Bonus I~III
Tranquil Heart

But thats kinda sad when you look at a job meant to be a fighter and a mage in one, because there is only 1 slightly fighter like trait in the list, and its defensive, not to mention we first get it at level 87! I think we should get some melee traits as well...

Attack Bonus I~II(We need Dual Wield subjobs for us to do good damage, which leaves us without the ability to sub jobs with this trait, a loss in attack that hurts RDM quite badly)
Accuracy Bonus I~II(We have lower accuracy than our BLU counterpart, even with Composure, we have no access to traits as a BLU does)
Dual Wield I~III(Every single handed job in the game has access to Dual Wield in some way except PLD, even BLU, through use of spells giving traits, with this we would not need to really ask for Attack Bonus because we may not need a certain sub for DW in the first place)
Fencer I~II(RDM does not always sub a DW sub, there can be many reasons why, but if a RDM is without an offhand blade for some reason, this would give it a nice boost to its damage to attempt to make up some of the loss)
Defense Bonus I~II(There was a time when RDM was a tank beside NIN & PLD, with Runic we are losing any chance at ever reclaiming that role, however we still can tank at times, and a Defense Bonus fits with spells like Phalanx, which are meant to make RDM a more durable mage than the rest of the line up)
Occult Acumen I~IV(RDM is one of the only jobs in the game who could use this trait in an effective manner while keeping up its damage, it is all around build well for RDM, however given to jobs of which almost never see its use put into action)

Of this list the only trait I see that may be over powered for RDM is the request of DW I~III for RDM, this perhaps should be only II, however I think it should go no lower. Even THF & BLU have access to DW III in the end, and they started to gain the traits at level 83(THF) & 80(BLU), so RDM could easily get access to these traits to fit in with the others. In either case however, it is somewhat pathetic that RDM has gone 99 levels as a hybrid melee mage, but SE never saw fit to give it a single melee, or attack relevant trait the entire time.

[ManaKing]

They gave us Composure, Enspells, and Phallanx instead of accuracy bonus, attack bonus, and defense bonus. Occult Acumen is what I want. It makes sense.

[Demon6324236]

I agree but you cant honestly tell me a job meant to do both melee & magic should have 0 melee traits or abilities.

[Koren]

Gain spells, Temper, Enspells, Haste, Dia, Gravity. All spells capable of assisting with melee damage, so you can't claim that RDM has nothing to help their melee side.

Edit:
That's not to say RDM shouldn't receive something. I can agree some improved gear selection such as the gear BLU is on is reasonable as well as the addition of Sword WS.

[saevel]

"Melee" side is a matter of WS selection and gear options. Fix those and we're set.

"Mage" side is about SE removing the stick from their arse and letting us aoe buffs.

There is more to then that obviously, but those are the two biggest ones.