On Red Mage melee...

[Duelle]

In short, we dont want you disrupting our pro-melee discussion with your anti-melee sentiments, GET OUT.

Seconded.

Everyone else in the overall community, forum posters or not, recognize that RDM enjoyed its status an exceptionally powerful mage over the years - so powerful that even SE hesitated to tweak it much as the level cap rose past 75 (and even nerfed Saboteur).

Refusing to nerf oversights does not a powerful class make. Inflated value through refresh does not a powerful class make. We've already gone over this, yet you don't seem to get it.

I wonder if all the "PRo-RDM Melee" People know that FFXI RDM is the exact potency of Melee as all other FF RDMs?

That being, terrible,

You mean the games where a melee model involved basically hitting Attack whenever your turn came up? And somehow that didn't make a good transition into the MMO context? Color me surprised (/sarcasm). I've also gone over this, but let me state it again: certain concepts and parts of design do not translate well in MMO terms. In the case of RDM, you have a sword&magic hybrid whose melee model in past FFs was basically...hitting Attack when their turn came up. In those cases you have to give the melee aspect some depth. Hence this thread.

Presenting points that have already been argued against and debunked earlier in this thread do not make you any more correct that previously. Presenting things in an arrogant manner as if the melee camp were a bunch of ignorant peasants is both insulting and trolling. Now stop it and get out of our thread.

[Aurara]

So you don't want to have the other side of the argument so that yours is the only one heard by the devs? I'll pass on letting the only voices that are heard are those of the melee RDM crowd who have most likely never done any sort of endgame(i.e kings, toau kings, wyrms).

[Seriha]

RDM needs a Unique niche to fill, RDM needs a unique aspect, Melee will not be it. So stop forcing it. Enjoy your Melee for what it is, a fun tool for low-level content or messing around.

See, here's where I'm running into a snag. It's okay for RDM's magic to escalate beyond mediocrity, but not for martial aspects? This can't help but remind me of all the hypocrisy floating around whose basis is rooted in efficiency. Were things the other way around, with RDM a good melee and sub-par mage, would you be arguing against magic buffs? I mean, there are other jobs out there that would do them better. Visit the moogle! Don't waste precious dev attention on something that'd be a toy in the end.

There's a reason where, time and again, I've said RDM's current position and community perception is a sort of chicken and egg scenario. What the community has used the job for has been a result of long untouched problems. Support jobs, in general, are in short supply, so some were just able to capitalize on that shortage to ride the gravy train to their goals. We had Cure IV and Haste, same as WHMs, which was often good enough for older content. Like it or not, Refresh and Convert weren't meant solely for backline play, but they wound up helping it. Snowball those facts against old-time EXP habits chasing ITs, where come 50+, you need a few more levels on the mob, that's when RDM's martial inefficiencies started to add up (Lesser skills, lacking WS, fewer gear options). It's a giant, "No-freaking-duh!" that what eventually rose from that was a WHM-wannabe since it's almost our nature as players to try and find ways to make something work just so a job isn't wasted. Just look to all the other loljob enthusiasts. Even our curative game could be different if healing skill played a greater role in potential, much like how ACC/ATK does for melee. It's this same "grace" by SE that had SMNs scraping by in the past dishing out Cure IIIs simply because they had an MP pool.

All this happened in a time where Abyssea didn't exist, let alone level syncs, colibri, or even CoP. You could spend hours, even days LFG. The levels were long, the EXP trickled in slow. You basically did what you had to if you want to crawl toward 75. And while those days are long behind us, they did their damage in shaping conceptions that have no doubt manifested here in some fashion. It is known that SE's initial incarnation of RDM had issues that they later tweaked. This came before our NA PC launch, so very few of us will actually have first-hand experience. Some are sitting here saying SE pretty much got it right and to call it a day. Others disagree. We know they have a history of job and balance blunders, but somehow RDM is immune to those. Some say the needed attention can't be done, that it would be overpowered. Again, disagreement. Enter consideration of faith to the concept. At what point does a Red Mage stop being a Red Mage based on its evolution in the MMO field? Some fear this reality, others opt to remain ignorant for utility's sake.

In the end, I believe that what SE proposed in the vision can be achieved with a martial twist. I know it's unpopular to some, and those some will gleefully parade around behind my back rationalizing my position that I enjoy being an underdog, am seeking e-fame, or whatever issue-clouding jargon they'll spin in personal attacks to hope I, and others like me, would back down. Yet, here we are, still being "idiots" you feel entitled to "educate" while wielding the patience of a toddler. Perhaps it is your goal to simply get this thread locked, to try and brush the argument under the rug like others who've come before. It'll never go away, though, not until SE does what they need to. And if that thought makes your blood boil a little, just take a breath and relax. Believe it or not, a RDM swinging a sword in a party will not destroy FFXI.

[Karbuncle]

Presenting points that have already been argued against and debunked earlier in this thread do not make you any more correct that previously. Presenting things in an arrogant manner as if the melee camp were a bunch of ignorant peasants is both insulting and trolling. Now stop it and get out of our thread.

Its not debunked, You just found a good enough answer to convince yourself and moved on.

In past Final Fantasy's, RDM was a Mediocre DD, It was a mage that had the capability to wield swords, something other mages did not have, It was not an expert in them either.

In FFXI, they are the same. They are Capable mages with the ability to wield combative weaponry adequately.

You can justify your want for melee prowess however you see fit, But in other peoples eyes, and apparently SE's, They done the RDM justice to their previous titles, a good mage with the Ability to wield a sword.

You can continue asking for as many boosts as you want, You have the right to want improvements to your job, I'm just pointing out you've debunked nothing, You've provided an answer good enough for yourself and other RDM melee enthusiasts.

Again, Suggest to your hearts content, But as far as i can tell, not a single useful piece of information or a single suggestion has come of this thread since the first 20 pages, at this point its just mindless bickering.

[Supersun]

The difference was that swords were actually GOOD in those games and that 99% of what you could do as a melee entirely depended on what weapons you could equip.

In those games a sword stomped weapons like daggers and clubs pretty hard for the most part and endgame swords were pretty much the best weapons in the game.

Sure there were a few melee "Job Traits" like dual wield and two hand, but it was easy enough passing those to Rdm since every job was able to use 1-2 special abilities from other classes in FFV at least.

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

In XI up until the level cap increase swords actually had a similar issue. Swords as a weapon had to be held back quite a bit because swords had and still do have some of the most overpowered weapons this game has ever seen aka the Joyeuse and the Ridill.

Those weapons were pretty much what made sword good before the level cap increase. They were pretty much the reason Sword's strongest WS was restricted to Vorpal Blade because anything stronger would have pretty much guaranteed swords dominance from the joyeuse and the ridill (pre-2 hand update).

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.

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

[Duelle]

Its not debunked, You just found a good enough answer to convince yourself and moved on.

In past Final Fantasy's, RDM was a Mediocre DD, It was a mage that had the capability to wield swords, something other mages did not have, It was not an expert in them either.

Nor was RDM a master of magic. Hence the sword&magic hybrid.

If you want to go into specifics, RDM was a generalist, and as such mediocre at everything. That didn't fly and will never fly in the MMO context because generalists tend to suffer horrible fates in being excluded from meaningful content or relegated to a function that was both menial and ridiculously far away from what the players wanted out of the class when they rolled it. Since the generalist approach doesn't translate well into MMOs, pieces of the hybrid have to be adjusted to make it work.

Again, Suggest to your hearts content, But as far as i can tell, not a single useful piece of information or a single suggestion has come of this thread since the first 20 pages, at this point its just mindless bickering.

We're not the ones instigating the bickering. If you want to help get this thread back on course, join us in asking the trolls to leave our thread alone and bother someone else. We could then get back to discussing ideas.

Also, what Seriha said, a thousand times over.

[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.

[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

[Karbuncle]

Nor was RDM a master of magic. Hence the sword&magic hybrid.

They are that in FFXI. But more powerful in magic than melee. Your(well maybe not yours, but someone) answer is possibly nerfing Magic to make their melee more appealing (I vaguely recall "Make it to RDM can only buff themselves")

RDM is good with a sword, however you're prowess ends when the mob reaches HNM status, Which is where your magic is suppose to take over. You have your Melee for weaker mobs, and your magic for tough mobs. any RDM should know this, and it makes perfect sense, They aren't called "Red Melee", they're called "Red Mage".

If you want to go into specifics, RDM was a generalist, and as such mediocre at everything. That didn't fly and will never fly in the MMO context because generalists tend to suffer horrible fates in being excluded from meaningful content or relegated to a function that was both menial and ridiculously far away from what the players wanted out of the class when they rolled it. Since the generalist approach doesn't translate well into MMOs, pieces of the hybrid have to be adjusted to make it work.

THey did this, By giving RDM its unique niche, Enhancing and Enfeebling better than other jobs. What needs to be done is to power up its enhancing and Enfeebling Capabilities. Swords don't need to be left in the dust (RDM still has access to a lot of Melee gear and Almace/Excalibur), But at the same time i redirect you to my above statement, as a Hybrid job they are adept at melee, and Excellent at Magic. Knowing which situation calls for which is the Hallmark of a good RDM.

You're free to ask for Melee capabilities, just so long as they don't nerf Magic capabilities, Because you wouldn't be helping RDM, you'd be condemning it and everyone who plays it as a mage.

We're not the ones instigating the bickering. If you want to help get this thread back on course, join us in asking the trolls to leave our thread alone and bother someone else. We could then get back to discussing ideas.

Frankly, You're arguing and instigating back, and in some cases, with a far harsher and irritated tone. We're adults "THEY STARTED IT" isn't working. You're just as guilty for continuing it.

Also, what Seriha said, a thousand times over.

Kay. Again i say though, Maybe seri mentioned it in this post, but I haven't seen a single good suggestion come out of this thread in dozens of pages.

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

[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?