On Red Mage melee...

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Wow, stupid fingers tonight. >.<

[Trangnai]

I Disagree with allowing us to dual wield, we are a jack of all trades, if they give us every thing we need then we would just be a melee job that casts spells :P. Yes, it would allow us other sub job options, but honestly i feel needing the sub job to allow us additional melee support is something that should be. However our own lack of melee support is the issue. We should have a little bit of everything. the issue is most of our abilities are only for magic purposes. Hence why i believe we should get unique melee boosts, our own set of JA/JTs that take advantage of what rdm melee already has going for it.

After looking through Update History. I noticed that rdm had its skill rank in its weapons increased at curtain times as well as curtain skills removed (Marksmanship) assuming these increases were a full rank it seen one dagger skill increase and 2 sword skill increases making it C dagger and D Sword Initially, This explains the lack of Weapon Skills for sword, Due to most initial jobs having the WSes it is missing had B- or higher. It should be noted that only 2 jobs currently do not fit that criteria now, rdm and cor. Its possible SE missed this when increasing skill levels. As they slowly worked there way to making rdm the sword wielder it is now. Its most notable that SE originaly intended them to be a dagger user, hence why we start the game with a dagger.

[Varchesis]

a big (about 100%) boost to en-spell damage or en-spell cap would be perfect, since it would enable us to do more damage in a way that is specific to our job, and has its quirks, advantages, and even specific gear (Enhancing Sword +1 <Can I have it?>).

and it wouldn't be too much of a change in game mechanics or existing gear requirements. in fact something that could probably be changed and tested for any of the future minor upgrades.

maybe tier III en-spells?

HAHAHAHAHA!!!! since replaying some of the older FF games I stopped to think "why the heck doesn't En- spells crack with major damage and cost a lot more to cast like this?"


When I first read about En - II spells I got worked up and then when I saw the result the balloon popped right in my face.
Imagine seeing +100 per hit from Enfire with Joyeuse for example. I would love to see that for 250MP or more. Sure this would totally rebalance the way the game is played.
In FFXI, RDM has always been a defensive melee at best. So sad... my first 75 and I never want to play it now that BLU is around.

Who else has been told to come as w/e job you want to an event you show up RDM/NIN and then everyone says "man, you need to /WHM for more healing support!" Screw that!

Oh snap! maybe PLD can hold hate with no /WAR... /stagger... lol no one can imagine that!

Crank up En- spells like the old days!!
Crank up En- spells like the old days!!
Crank up En- spells like the old days!!

[Seriha]

Honestly, if we're gonna prattle about native dual-wield, I'd ask for a variant befitting the whole fencing image. One where you can only equip a sword in the main-hand with a dagger in the off-hand. The perk? You can use WS from both weapon types. Any other weapon combo wouldn't work without the dual wield trait, though.

[Trangnai]

Honestly, if we're gonna prattle about native dual-wield, I'd ask for a variant befitting the whole fencing image. One where you can only equip a sword in the main-hand with a dagger in the off-hand. The perk? You can use WS from both weapon types. Any other weapon combo wouldn't work without the dual wield trait, though.

Interesting Idea, I like it, seems to complex to be implemented though sadly. not to mention SE would probably think its broken and wouldn't do it anyway. Also, the views when i clicked this thread this time was 3.333. just saying lol.

[Duelle]

Honestly, if we're gonna prattle about native dual-wield, I'd ask for a variant befitting the whole fencing image. One where you can only equip a sword in the main-hand with a dagger in the off-hand. The perk? You can use WS from both weapon types. Any other weapon combo wouldn't work without the dual wield trait, though.

This certainly seems doable. Modern fencing is all about using a weapon in one hand with the other arm being used more for balance. Fencing during the era where duels were common included schools that taught use of a rapier, main gauche and cape (all at the same time). Definitely something to look into, provided the devs have any interest in helping the job become more like an actual fencer. I'll help with the in-game wording.

Escrime: Allows user to equip a dagger in the off-hand while equipping a sword in the main hand. Allows access to weapon skills for both weapons.

Just to tickle the imagination, should this be tiered and/or reduce weapon delay at all? I'd probably make it three tiers that give 8% delay reduction per tier (at max level this would be considerably behind Dual Wield, as DW5 is 35% reduction before gear, whereas Escrime III would give a total of 24% reduction but would be balanced out by the extra WS...kinda).

[FioryGriever]

Meh i know how great the potential /nin is n all but i never really played it, just wasnt my style. untill lvl cap raise i usually stuck w/ /pld /drk, but now w/ lvl cap ive pretty well chucked /pld .. and cuz they removed our tank ability. /drk i get all the abs stat spells minus ACC. working on emp weapon for some CDC, abs TP, CDC fun~ not to mention rdm can survive using last resort + souleater, and w/ /drk sub u gain access to sanguine blade (/shakes fist @ SE for not giving rdm native access) 1.4k ish on SB after a LR+SE CDC would be pretty fun id imagine~ and you still get access to stun, weapon bash for emergency stun, drain and aspir (b4 ppl talk down rdm's dark magic skill, its a non issue... gear up properly like for any other rdm magics!) this play style would benefit more from fencer, wouldnt hurt to have more hybrid shields, or str8 up dmg shields for rdm. only thing more would be to fix our skill in sword, shield, parry (spose dagger too for ppl who still like dagger, but SE is leaning on sword for rdm), ive posted some other ideas thatd augment rdm's frontline needs w/o breaking it, and really arent all that unreasonable.

~* Fiory Janus Griever *~

[Seriha]

This certainly seems doable. Modern fencing is all about using a weapon in one hand with the other arm being used more for balance. Fencing during the era where duels were common included schools that taught use of a rapier, main gauche and cape (all at the same time). Definitely something to look into, provided the devs have any interest in helping the job become more like an actual fencer. I'll help with the in-game wording.

Escrime: Allows user to equip a dagger in the off-hand while equipping a sword in the main hand. Allows access to weapon skills for both weapons.

Just to tickle the imagination, should this be tiered and/or reduce weapon delay at all? I'd probably make it three tiers that give 8% delay reduction per tier (at max level this would be considerably behind Dual Wield, as DW5 is 35% reduction before gear, whereas Escrime III would give a total of 24% reduction but would be balanced out by the extra WS...kinda).

I'd just make it a 15% reduction in delay. Nothing fancy. No real need to tier it. The ability to use Evisceration with a high-damage sword would go a long way in helping the conflict between our weapon selection and WS choices. I thought about refining the weapon types down to rapiers/stilettos for the combo, but that would basically eliminate the magian swords from use and our daggers are still meh.

[Satyr]

I figured I might chime in with an idea:
How about a JA that is similar to composure and addendum.

Engarde: 30min duration 5 min recast
Enhances accuracy, attack, and non-direct spell damage, but Elemental and Healing magic become unavailable.
Also enhances ability to wield Swords.

Explained: It would greatly increase accuracy and attack. The enhances non-direct spell damage means that it would boost en-spell damage and damage from DOTs (Dia, Bio, Poison). Enfeebling and enhancing magic are unaffected so you can still enfeeble and buff. The trade off is that you cannot nuke, and your only HP recovery spell would be Regen since it counts as enhancing. Enhances ability to wield swords means that it would unlock sword WS that are not normally available to RDM (Specifically: Red Lotus Blade, Seraph Blade, Vorpal Blade, Sanguine Blade. Excluding Swift Blade because you cannot unlock it even if you sub PLD.)

This would give RDM the ability to put out some respectful melee with the trade off being that they lose the ability to heal or nuke. It also plays to the idea of the RDM as the jack of all trades able to literally fill any role, yet not be the optimal job for filling said role (other than enfeeb).

[Supersun]

but...then we aren't versatile anymore.

I mean if we can't back-up cure or nuke when needed while meleeing that defeats the entire point of being a Red Mage.

Also I do like the idea where if a sword is equipped we can equip a dagger in the offhand. We would definitely need the ability to access the daggers WSs otherwise that would really defeat the purpose and I mean if Rangers can access weapon skills from 2 weapons at the same time I'm sure it's not terribly broken to access sword and dagger WSs at the same time. The only thing is I'm not sure if they could actually calculate WS damage with the offhand weapon meaning if they can't then we are doing our eviscerations with a sword...That could be an issue. It might just be easier to not limit which weapon is in which hand but still keep the requirement that it can only be done with a sword/dagger combo.