The Problem with Red Mage . . .

[Ophannus]

RDM is restricted to cloth armor and scale armor whereas BLU gets most cloth armor but also rogue armor(encompasses light armor for THF/MNK/DNC/COR/BRD/NIN). So BLU can use things like Ocelomeh/Toci's/Homam/Thaumas and RDM cannot. The tradeoff is that RDM can use Rubeus(meh), Anhur, Hyskos, Nares

[Demon6324236]

For the most part, you are mistaken. It's not your buffs or spells that we don't get that we're complaining about; it's your insane gear availability over us.

(Also, I remember you from the old HSSS podcast; I enjoyed your narrative!)

This is completely true, for me at least. It isn't so much the buffs, or spells, or anything of the sort that has ever bothered me. My problem will always be the gear options, ever since I saw that Emp gear for RDM was limited to 100% mage stats, I knew it was going to be bad, but I didn't honestly expect it like this. RDM is on some non-All Jobs haste gear, but limited outside of the occasional "mage" gear piece with haste on it like Shedir body or Rubeus Spats it seems. Where as BLU is not the same, it gets access to a wide range of gear, for all types of things, such as Toci's, Athos, and with Neo-Limbus gear. Were RDM open to the same gear as a BLU is I would be perfectly happy where RDM would stand with melee. As I have said before, I would trade my Zelus in for a Oce. Headpiece +1 any day!

[ManaKing]

RDM has good gear for melee. It's just all a pain in the ass to get. Not as much Double, Triple, or Quad as I would like, but Temper is good enough for me. 0% Crit support for CDC, which is why Req is better on RDM.

[Demon6324236]

RDM has good gear for melee. It's just all a pain in the ass to get.

Thats... mostly true. "Good" is somewhat incorrect in my opinion, it would be closer to say decent, or ok, not good. BLU is good on it, its not Heavy DD level by far, but it has alot of Attack, Acc, STR, DEX, and other stats that can really help out. On RDM you cant really say the same, 1 main set you see this in is...

the closest you can come to this combo as RDM is basically...


Looking at them side by side you get...

BLU|RDM
DEF
92|87
STR
13|0
DEX
26|0
Haste
7|8
Attack
10|24
Accuracy
10|10
Regen
2|0
Double Attack
3|0
Triple Attack
3|0
Store TP
0|4

Looking at all of that, BLU seems to be better with everything except Attack, which is offset by the STR the BLU would get with their gear, and Haste, which is minor given that BLU gets access to...

Where as RDM's closest equal is

Thats not to say RDM can not get a belt with 7%, there is always Phos, but that still lacks the +2% Double Attack, and Phos+1 may have 8%, but that is currently somewhat unrealistic, and accessible by BLU all the same.

As I said, RDM gear is "decent" but not "good" thats why I ask for improvement. You are right, Temper is good, great even, but its still enough to make up for the lack of gear RDM is given in my opinion, seeing as BLU is put on so much gear, while RDM is left so far behind on it.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

RDM is restricted to cloth armor and scale armor whereas BLU gets most cloth armor but also rogue armor(encompasses light armor for THF/MNK/DNC/COR/BRD/NIN). So BLU can use things like Ocelomeh/Toci's/Homam/Thaumas and RDM cannot. The tradeoff is that RDM can use Rubeus(meh), Anhur, Hyskos, Nares

It's more a case of: RDM get's shoved on what they think is meh enough to do so, with a random good piece in there.

Armour RDM had in the past, they haven't really got past 99, except a random piece here and there. Even pieces where they take RDM's Chapeau, and then make sure they're not on it.

[tyrantsyn]

Very frustrating to see a gear type that RDM could wear but has been left absent on. The whole athos set really cause's the head to tilt and the expression of WTF to come out. When did it become an issue to wear a doublet set on RDM?!?!?!

[ManaKing]

http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/265028

I understand that other jobs get better, but the point is you would do well with a set like that.

http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/270187

Oh looks full haste in 40%~ PDT.

We have gearing options. It's just that when we do gear for ANYTHING, there are still 2~5 gear sets that we also have to work on. That's why RDM doesn't have bad gear, they just don't have an easy time acquiring it all. Not enough low hanging fruit for 3 jobs worth of gear.

I get that what we have isn't as good as a full DD AND we have to make other sets up to par to be good, but it keeps me busy. It's not like other jobs don't have to gear to the teeth, but the difference is they probably only have to gear 2~3 sets to be effective at the entirety of their job. Our job covers more ground than that.

We could sit here and debate back and forth how bad we have it, or we could appreciate that at least we have more melee options than we did at 85 and 90. Because our options then sucked. Like hard. Zelus Tiara or go home. No thanks.

I'm hoping for some really good toys out of salvage. I know that is just hoping, but Morrigan's set was good back in the day. If they mess that up, I'll probably be pretty angry for a bit.

TL;DR If you don't like collecting a ton of gear, are you sure you really want to be a RDM?

[Demon6324236]

Collecting a ton of gear isnt the problem, its seeing that BLU is on more gear and RDM gets left out of alot of gear. I would spam Pil all day for a Toci's if RDM could use it, otherwise I dont care about it, I might actually try for Athos gear at that point as well. I mean really in the end, I could even use the pink body as its better than Antares Harness, and thats a lv78 body.

I wont argue we have it bad, in some spots I still think we do, however as I said, I think were decent on gear but not good. We get left out of alot of WS gear like Oce or Toci's that beat what we have now, and get left out of alot of haste gear, or DA/TA/QA gear that BLU has, those lower our overall effectivness in the end and limit our choices. Last thing I want to say though is just a little nod to your full haste in 40% PDT, you can do better than that with RDM still, you can get 47% PDT with capped haste and almost cap MDT on the side.

[ManaKing]

Point being that Athos and Toci's aren't for RDM. We aren't setup for being good at Crit WS. They aren't going to put us on Athos because we can't spare the inventory. I used to carry around an Almace and an A. Harness. It was inventory -1 gear. You don't have to carry around a bunch of fail DEX gear that is going to clog your inventory because you only use it for WS. CDC is junk on RDM outside of Aby and it always will be.

RDM has all the WS gear they need to put out good WS numbers with Requiescat. Furthermore, we are the best at it. It's a multi-hit WS with a 100% MND modifier. If you're a RDM and you don't use Req already, you need to start. Req was specifically made for us by SE. No one else comes close to us on it because of what we can wear, which is absurd amounts of MND gear. It is 5 hits, with off hand means you have 6 and you can have 2 potential extra swings which are provided by Temper. That's an 8 hit WS waiting to happen, and it happens all the time for me. Wear a Soil Gorget and Belt and jam on as much MND gear as you can find and go to town. It's that simple.

If you still love your Almace, please play PLD or BLU if you want to be good with it. You will do much better with it than you will on RDM. SE has no interest in making an Almace RDM the best RDM can be. You use an Excalibur, just like in every other FF game.

If you prefer daggers, go for it. It's a different setup entirely.

And if you want to use CDC go for it too, but don't expect SE to support it, because they clearly don't. The best you're going to do is spend all of your expansion gear on WS pieces for RDM and waste more inventory space on WS. I get that CDC could be better than Req if we had the gear, but they clearly aren't giving it to us and they did give us a more than viable alternative that saves us a ton of inventory space.

TL;DR You get to hit things with Galaxies. It's a no-brainer.

[Tamarsamar]

If I had to, I could forgive Toci's.

Athos's, however, is completely unacceptable, no matter how you slice it.