On Red Mage melee...

[Karbuncle]

Outside of those your performance pretty much depended on your weapon and Rdm usually had access to some of the strongest swords.

RDM can still wield the strongest swords in FFXI, but exactly like past games, other jobs do it better.

The issue is now...every weapon can get their own joyeuse now while swords WSs are still as crappy as ever. I mean out of all the primary WSs that a DD job is expected to use as their primary DD WS Vorpal Blade is probably the second worst WS in the game only trailing behind Blade Jin, but ninjas have dual wield up their *** to compensate.

Just on the topic of personal Joyeuses, the Oa2x Weapons through magian trials are incredibly poor, Most of them are outparsed in all fields by simple non-magian weaponry, Only one i can think of thats actually decent is the Polearm.

One part of Rdms current DD woes is that swords are just TERRIBLE.

Then if an improvement to the Weapon Catagory swords is all you want, I don't think there'd be as much resistance. Because that would benefit multiple jobs.

If you're saying RDM with swords are terrible, I cannot agree, They are good melee on weaker enemies, and come up short on stronger ones, which i'm sure is what was intended, and why they have strong Enfeebling/Enhancing magic (Well, Strong-ish, This should really be improved)

Daggers and Clubs which in other final fantasies would get stomped by swords are stomping sword in return. Yes, Almace helps some, but it would be VERY bad game design if at 99 everyone is STILL using an Almace(85) given that they've proven...easier to get then expected.

I'd be willing to bet my character a top-geared sword WAR with Ridill would kick the sh*t out of a THF or a WHM in terms of DD on anything relevant.

Swords are weaker, But they're not that weak. so its not Swords that are the inherent problem, its RDM and its like of DD capabilities. It has Enspells, and a Modest Combat rating in sword/dagger, But it was never meant to use them on powerful content (Which is even why they did not get any exclusive weaponskills for Sword).

In my eyes, RDM was suppose to be a mage with combat prowess, a game where the original design was all jobs in a party would melee (hence Hammers, and High-D Staves), the game changed, and they decided to keep RDM where it was in prowess.

Again, Wanting RDM melee to be better is something everyone here has the right ot ask for, Only 1 stipulation if you want public support.

1) it cannot nerf any aspect of current RDM, at this point you'd be forcing your point of view on others and that is a no no

[Qkan]

I'm not going to read 118 pages of RDMs whining that they cannot melee well enough. All I've got to say is that for a job with so much functionality and so many abilities that allows/allowed them to become one of the strongest jobs in the game for a very long time... You should probably go talk to some other jobs that have virtually zero party support or have mediocre roles that some times made it so they were never invited or were never invited to parties pre-Abyssea.

Like DRG. Like BST. Like SCH. DNC. PLD. SMN. And even WHM. And these are just jobs off the top of my head. Yes, some of these had roles in HNM, just like RDMs refresh role here and where melee on ANY job is stupid, these jobs were always skipped until there was no other person to fill that spot and even then it was a rarity. Mind you, I'm not accounting for times when a job was the "flavor of the month" or through all the expansions where some jobs went from super-bad to "it'll do, go ahead and invite them then let's kill Colibri" (hi2u DRG).

RDM is a job that allowed people to solo things that were probably not solo'able otherwise. Okay, so they didn't hit it with a sword doing loads of damage, but that's besides the point. Wise use of spells, items, SJ abilities and spells, and gear allowed RDM to become an extremely versatile job. In short, I have zero sympathy for RDMs "demanding" a boost in their abilities when they're already an extremely potent job when played to it's fullest.


TL;DR: You all sound like whiny babies that don't know how to play RDM properly. If you want melee, go level a job that melees. RDM isn't one of them.

[Hyrist]

What would make RDM melee good? What boosts would be worthwhile?

I'm going to sit and thow this back at you. Because this is the topic for discussion since the beginning, and instead of contributing your idea as to what would, you've been trying to knock down everyone elses.

So, honestly, think on it a while please, and think of a way you beleive would boost the party enough to make it worth while, and express the situatons you beleive this ability you create would be useful for.

I've posted several. I still beleive the Hesitation status effect idea I had earlier was a good way to address TP moves and RDM in the front lines at the same time. But, like our other debuffs, it won't be all that critical for faster paced fights that we're often allowed to melee in, even though it extents the possbility of the fights we would be allowed in, by giving RDM a utility that wasn't just straight damage.

That was taking the enfeeble approach, however. There might be an enhancing aproach (or a hybrid of both.) that could work. But for those who are disagreeing, or are worried about the risks of damage to our mage side, what we would like is the differing viewpoint being used to fuel ideas that would assist the martial aspects without damaging the backline role capibility. What is it, you think would work and for what?

[Karbuncle]

I'm going to sit and thow this back at you. Because this is the topic for discussion since the beginning, and instead of contributing your idea as to what would, you've been trying to knock down everyone elses.

So, honestly, think on it a while please, and think of a way you beleive would boost the party enough to make it worth while, and express the situatons you beleive this ability you create would be useful for.

I've posted several. I still beleive the Hesitation status effect idea I had earlier was a good way to address TP moves and RDM in the front lines at the same time. But, like our other debuffs, it won't be all that critical for faster paced fights that we're often allowed to melee in, even though it extents the possbility of the fights we would be allowed in, by giving RDM a utility that wasn't just straight damage.

That was taking the enfeeble approach, however. There might be an enhancing aproach (or a hybrid of both.) that could work. But for those who are disagreeing, or are worried about the risks of damage to our mage side, what we would like is the differing viewpoint being used to fuel ideas that would assist the martial aspects without damaging the backline role capibility. What is it, you think would work and for what?

Seriously? I suggested MULTIPLE Improvements to Melee RDM early in this thread. Your ignorance insults me.

Go look for yourself and come back when you've educated yourself on just how much i contributed to the actual early PRODUCTIVE parts of this thread. The only suggestions I've shot down are the ones that would hinder the Mage aspect of the job.

I was suggesting buffs in this thread before you knew the Official forums existed. (Exaggeration, I know).

[Hyrist]

Sorry, it was a generalization. I did not mean you specifically, but "You" as a representation of the anti-melee sentement.

Shoulden't have quoted you on that one.

But as you said, "I haven't seen one good idea." Is kind of insulting as well, as it either uplifts you above all others in the regards of this, or it insults even your own ideas on this topic.

Don't pose the question that we at a community have been suppling answers to this entire time.

[Karbuncle]

Probably for the best, I've been trying to find/Quote my posts to bring them up here... But i can't find them.

Sorry, it was a generalization. I did not mean you specifically, but "You" as a representation of the anti-melee sentement.

Shoulden't have quoted you on that one.

But as you said, "I haven't seen one good idea." Is kind of insulting as well, as it either uplifts you above all others in the regards of this, or it insults even your own ideas on this topic.

Don't pose the question that we at a community have been suppling answers to this entire time.

"I haven't seen one good idea" since page ~20 or so is what i said. After that it just became people bickering and angry whining.

I acknowledge a few good ideas came from the beginning of this thread, My comment (maybe i didn't repeat it >.O) was only directed at the recent pages of this thread, which are simply mindless bickering.

If you want to get the Discussion back on topic, Honest to god, Block-list people ruining it and start brain-storming between yourselves!

I'll still try to find my original ideas.

[Hyrist]

It would be good if we collected the pile of suggestions and just had a place to list them, and sift through them.

I mean there have been several, and we've discussed the ones we've like and dislikes, but never really gone and put them all together.

But here's a question for you in a more general sense. Do you support more damage increases (including gear), or some sort of utility? We kind of put these into those sort of catagories.

While I'm REALLY big in the utility camp, I've been eyeing what SE said about WS changs down the line. If we could get native elemental Weaponskills that could actually DO a fair bit of damage, I think that might calm down a bit of the uproar.

I'm trying to nudge the borders of what's viewed as 'acceptable' as far as RDM's melee mob range goes. I don't beleive it should be comparable to that of a simple 'mage who melees' as it was arctypically a hybrid job. I've no problem defaulting to magic in situations that calls for us going out of melee range at all, because of the All-range aspects of the job. I don't mind support at all, I enjoy it. But I do mind the current overall lack of usefullness for our frontlines.

Their either should be more to it than what we have, or the performance of it should be high enough to be, well, lets go ahead and say the MOST acceptable mage below BLU by a fair margin.

[Karbuncle]

(didn't you make that post in another thread? Search posts that you have made by clicking your name)

I tried that it only goes as far back as like ~200 posts, and i have thousands ;;

Edit: The problem with a Pure-DD aspect of RDm in terms of Swords is that, It would have to stand up to SAM or WAR to be considered worthwhile. While some may argue (it has value like haste/etc) It would just be another cookie-cutter melee.

If RDM was to get a melee buff, I'd like it to augment their Mage aspect as well, something that powers both aspects of the job. Like Enspell III that grant some unique buff Aura or debuff to the enemy.

RDM, if receiving a Melee buff, it should focus on as you say, Utility gains, I don't want it to be simply a Pure Damage buff, because if it wasn't good enough it simply would not help. You'd end up like THF's.

[Hyrist]

RDM, if receiving a Melee buff, it should focus on as you say, Utility gains, I don't want it to be simply a Pure Damage buff, because if it wasn't good enough it simply would not help. You'd end up like THF's.

The difference, sadly, is that we'd still offer more to the party than THF due to our mage side still being pretty capable even in the front lines. And I don't wanna knock THF down (Even though I think that job SORELY needs some help.)

So you would have them on the buff aspect. How specifically?

(I'm headded home from work, will continue this post/discussion when I return)

[Supersun]

Thief needs a DD buff in general >.>