The Problem with Red Mage . . .

[saevel]

I would think Brutal & Moon would beat crit earrings myself. The dagger isn't to good cause it lowers DPS to much to be worth using for WS alone.

They do. Moon is basically crit hit+ and Brutal increase's chance for DA on first two hits. Str Sword is your best off hand for it unless your at capped attack.

RDM's DEX gear is ~blah~, it's not bad but it really does need more. RDM should of been on Toci's / Athos but Tanaka in his infinite wisdom things RDM is "a very powerful job" and put it the gear set that is completely useless to RDM. Not much we can do about it for now, once gear is released SE is incredibly resistant to changing it. Their releasing new Morrigans gear and that's what I'll be looking forward to. Though honestly, Mercy Stroke should be pretty good with some of the Dux+1 we can get. 3.0 fTP with two hits, 60% STR and 40% damage boost to go with it's extremely nice DPS and enspell effects.

[ManaKing]

They do. Moon is basically crit hit+ and Brutal increase's chance for DA on first two hits. Str Sword is your best off hand for it unless your at capped attack.

RDM's DEX gear is ~blah~, it's not bad but it really does need more. RDM should of been on Toci's / Athos but Tanaka in his infinite wisdom things RDM is "a very powerful job" and put it the gear set that is completely useless to RDM. Not much we can do about it for now, once gear is released SE is incredibly resistant to changing it. Their releasing new Morrigans gear and that's what I'll be looking forward to. Though honestly, Mercy Stroke should be pretty good with some of the Dux+1 we can get. 3.0 fTP with two hits, 60% STR and 40% damage boost to go with it's extremely nice DPS and enspell effects.

Mandau would be an amazing offhand if you could get the +Attack off it as well. Double Relics would have made RDM pretty reasonable.

Well the gear we were put on isn't really useless to RDM either. Heka's is amazing for healing as RDM, Rubeus legs are good for low acc situations and the best WS piece for KoR & Req, Rubeus hands are better than our AF3 hands for Enfeebling if only by a little and only without Sabo. There are a few pieces we did get worth using, but overall its the fact that we didn't get any melee gear during what I would say was a gear goldenage for most jobs seeing as the gear gotten from it is so good it will be in use for a very, very, long time.

We have good gear if you don't want RDM to be a real DD. If you're diehard for RDMs utility to be damage, then SE didn't give you what you wanted.

[Demon6324236]

We have good gear if you don't want RDM to be a real DD. If you're diehard for RDMs utility to be damage, then SE didn't give you what you wanted.

I should have said it differently I suppose. Look at every set of gear, I mean Perle/Pink/Teal, AF3, Fazheluo/Mextli/Anhur, Mekira/Toci's/Heka's, Ogier/Athos/Rubeus, Phorcys/Thaumas/Nares. This is what I meant by our abundance of mage gear, on each of these sets we get the mage gear set, never any melee in any of it, not even our final JSE/Artifact Set. I myself find it somewhat weird that in the end SE gave BLU a good mix it seemed, their AF got some melee, and some mage, stats, they got Pink, and Teal as well. I don't recall if they got any more mage gear in the sets after that point, but I cant help but wonder why we cant be put on a good light DD set from an event to make up for the loss of AF3 which we got pure mage gear for. AF3 gear is great for haste in the places it gives on jobs, and those pieces are likely to stay competitive for a long time, where as RDM will never have access to that kind of resource because we never get the Light DD sets.

[ManaKing]

I should have said it differently I suppose. Look at every set of gear, I mean Perle/Pink/Teal, AF3, Fazheluo/Mextli/Anhur, Mekira/Toci's/Heka's, Ogier/Athos/Rubeus, Phorcys/Thaumas/Nares. This is what I meant by our abundance of mage gear, on each of these sets we get the mage gear set, never any melee in any of it, not even our final JSE/Artifact Set. I myself find it somewhat weird that in the end SE gave BLU a good mix it seemed, their AF got some melee, and some mage, stats, they got Pink, and Teal as well. I don't recall if they got any more mage gear in the sets after that point, but I cant help but wonder why we cant be put on a good light DD set from an event to make up for the loss of AF3 which we got pure mage gear for. AF3 gear is great for haste in the places it gives on jobs, and those pieces are likely to stay competitive for a long time, where as RDM will never have access to that kind of resource because we never get the Light DD sets.

IDK, maybe because they finally gave us a good WS based off mage stats? You're turning into a broken record. Wait for new gear patiently, or don't, but saying we don't have enough DEX gear and crit support for CDC again really isn't changing anything.

[Demon6324236]

IDK, maybe because they finally gave us a good WS based off mage stats? You're turning into a broken record. Wait for new gear patiently, or don't, but saying we don't have enough DEX gear and crit support for CDC again really isn't changing anything.

WSs are pointless without the TP to use them. To TP we need TP gear. We are constantly left out of the Light DD sets of which are built very well for just such TPing. Also as you point out alot we don't get the 1 trait that would make all of our mage gear give us the TP to use. This is where my problem stems from so far as many gear sets. As for the DEX gear & crit situation, notice I am simply pointing it out in other posts, not trying to say we need more and they need to give us more, but rather that it is the cause of CDC falling behind others. I ask you, could you honestly tell me Req would be very good for RDM if we had access to Athos?

The sets I listed are the gear sets of which are used alot because they are some of the best pieces of gear in the game, above all others, and yet RDM has gotten no access to them. Ignoring CDC, just simply in terms of gear it puts us outside of that grade of gear which scars RDM's ability to melee in the long run, because while jobs like BLU will always have Thaumas, Oce/Toci's, and Athos to fall back on, RDM doesn't have the same kind of gear, if we only get half decent things in the future, we already only got half decent things in the past, so we are kinda screwed. And as for it not changing anything, the only way to make sure SE knows we do not like things about what they give us, is to point it out every 5 minutes.

[ManaKing]

I ask you, could you honestly tell me Req would be very good for RDM if we had access to Athos?

Yes. It deals NonElemental Damage. It does well against targets that most WS do poorly against. If you have the gorget and belt and tp bonus from Moonshade, then you have a 6-8 hit WS that deals solid damage to anything in the game. It's only weakness is extremely high defense mobs...darn it's not wildfire.

We didn't get a good MAB elemental WS, which still stings and does suck. But for not getting that, we sure did get something that doesn't suck.

The TP gain is still an issue and I think would be easily remedied by generous amount of AO and an offhand that steals TP and sets up better TP builds....like an Ephemeron. Pop Spontaneity, Cast Impact, WS. Convert? Yes/No?

[Afania]

I should have said it differently I suppose. Look at every set of gear, I mean Perle/Pink/Teal, AF3, Fazheluo/Mextli/Anhur, Mekira/Toci's/Heka's, Ogier/Athos/Rubeus, Phorcys/Thaumas/Nares. This is what I meant by our abundance of mage gear, on each of these sets we get the mage gear set, never any melee in any of it, not even our final JSE/Artifact Set. I myself find it somewhat weird that in the end SE gave BLU a good mix it seemed, their AF got some melee, and some mage, stats, they got Pink, and Teal as well. I don't recall if they got any more mage gear in the sets after that point, but I cant help but wonder why we cant be put on a good light DD set from an event to make up for the loss of AF3 which we got pure mage gear for. AF3 gear is great for haste in the places it gives on jobs, and those pieces are likely to stay competitive for a long time, where as RDM will never have access to that kind of resource because we never get the Light DD sets.

BLU doesn't get all the mage gears in this game though, some mage gear is still usable by RDM but not BLU. BLU also can't use magian staff but RDM can use both staff and sword.

[Demon6324236]

BLU doesn't get all the mage gears in this game though, some mage gear is still usable by RDM but not BLU. BLU also can't use magian staff but RDM can use both staff and sword.

Perle/Pink/Teal
AF3
Fazheluo/Mextli/Anhur
Mekira/Toci's/Heka's
Ogier/Athos/Rubeus
Phorcys/Thaumas/Nares

From the list, 2 things I know for sure they got, Pink & AF3. Even these 2 sets alone give BLU something.

Looking at Pink, a Double Attack body, which is actually not a bad TP body were RDM able to use it, its not Kudzu nor Shedir, but then again its only 5000 Cruor and beats out alot of bodies RDM has, I myself currently use Antares Harness for lack of something better, but I would use pink if given the option. The rest of Pink are decent Haste pieces, nothing big enough to be worth it once you are well geared, but something.

Looking at AF3+2.

"Accuracy+12 Sword skill +7 Haste+6%" this is great, better than anything RDM gets ahold of for TPing as a head piece, Accuracy, some Attack from skill, and a massive Haste boost, RDM will never get this in their AF.

"Accuracy+12 Haste+3%" A Haste body with some nice Acc at the same time, something we never really see as RDM.

These legs are not only good for CDC, they have 4% Haste, the most Haste that would be available for RDM were they given the exact same gear.

Now I'm not saying give RDM the exact same gear, and this may be argued as relatively pointless by some people, but myself I think of this gear as something they can use. RDM has no access to this, we have no good gear of the past to rely on when going into the future, so if we get bad gear, or only halfway decent gear, while everyone else is getting Thaumas 2.0 we will be easily left behind. So far we have very basic builds for TP it seems, our Haste gear is kinda dumbed down when you think about the fact any good RDM TP build seems to need either a Haste body with half mage stats on it, or a Zelus, to cap Haste. Were some of our AF3 given Haste, or we were given some of the other Light DD sets, this may not be the case. And I know BLU didn't get alot of mage sets, but thing about it, we didn't get any of the melee sets, so it is lopsided no matter how you look at it.

As I said, I take what we have had recently as a golden-age of gear, as most of this gear we have now will be very hard for SE to beat, look at Neo-Limbus/Odin for example, where to my knowledge most gear was ignored because it wasn't good enough for the effort. If I'm wrong, please correct me, but if thats the case, then we may have gotten all of the most important gear, and now RDM will have to scrap for the failed attempts to usurp that amazing gear, like Shedir. Not that those pieces of gear are bad, but when it comes down to it, which would you rather...

This...

or this?

And I think we all know the answer to that.