On Red Mage melee...

[Supersun]

I wouldn't consider CDC the norm and the twilight knife kills your enspells for that hit which for TPing at least is hard to justify an additional 7 weapon damage for 20-30 enspell damage.

[Protey]

your enspell overwrites the additional effect of twilight knife (if you don't care about getting additional hp/mp/tp from hits). and not to mention the 3% quad attack, it's not a lot, but it is extra damage.

[Supersun]

your enspell overwrites the additional effect of twilight knife (if you don't care about getting additional hp/mp/tp from hits). and not to mention the 3% quad attack, it's not a lot, but it is extra damage.

Do they? I wouldn't know myself since I don't have one (have a CDC sword myself), but the wiki at least says that the additional effect overwrites enspells (not that I put a lot of faith in the wiki now days, but still XD)

[Protey]

yea i have both CDC sword and twilight knife. the main page is incorrect about enspells (as someone also mentioned on the talk page)

[Protey]

there, fixed the main page

[Duelle]

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).

To give a more direct response, the idea is decent (I'd call it Bravazzo instead of Engarde, though), but our job is not one that would greatly benefit from a true blue shape-shifting mechanic (which is what your suggestion adds up to). "Nerfing" healing and nukes by increasing cast times or increasing MP costs would probably be better. I'd lean more towards higher MP cost just in case an extra cure would come in handy, while at the same time preventing people forcing the RDM to suddenly focus on healing while in the front (meaning the RDM would have to cancel Bravazzo and run to the back to actually start heals and support).

Nukes, on the other hand, would become inconvenient to cast due to higher costs, but I can bring in a suggestion I once made that would probably cover that piece of the puzzle:

Botta Majica- Instant. 1 minute cooldown.
Instantly casts one elemental spell through the equipped weapon in the main hand. Accuracy is determined by mainhand weapon skill. TP bonus to spell damage. Spells cast through Botta Majica count as a magic burst. Requires Bravazzo.

MP costs of spells cast through BM would be the baseline costs, provided Bravazzo's downside would be to increase MP costs on heals and nukes. This would make it the preferred way to land spells on enemies with hard-casting nukes as a secondary but less efficient option.

[Luces]

I think that if we are masters of fencing, then we should be able to dual wield. If red mage had dual wield besides going /nin or /dnc, we could choose other subjobs that could enable us to WS selection.

It would also be cool if RDM had a way of casting -aga version of buffs, in a way similar to sch, then we could be front of the line, and still buff and enfeeble. Boom, I've solve the problem on how to fix RDM.

I have a Khanda+2 OA2-4, and i am working on another at the moment. Outside of Abyssea when i am in yellow hp, i equip the fencers earring [ latent effect: +5 enspell dmg under 100tp] and get atleast +100 additional damage on top of my initial attack as RDM/DNC. When i have two* i'll have the potential of doing +200Add.dmg, on top of an initial, lets say, 200-400 dmg for a total of ~600 dmg. No atma, and depending on the mob.

I think Red Mage should get gear that adds damage to en spell, similar to how the fencer earring works, except without the latent effect. Would even be cool to get a trial weapon that added +25Add.dmg to your enspell.

if lets say you brake the average and do 4 attacks per round using that khandi+2 off hand, with capped enhancing magic(including merits/gear/day or weather) is 28 damage per hit so 112(132 with ring, + hollow earring, 144) damage extra per round. Now fencing ring that you use, your hp has to be less then 75%, if your in abyssea fighting nm's you are risking major trouble just for an extra 20 damage per round. Outside if you aren't tanking and the mob doesn't aoe the ring is fine then, but just means your gunna be pausing your tp build for even longer to cure yourself carefully to the right amount of hp. If you could use 2 Khandi's(rare so not possible) that would still be only 224 damage per round(264 with ring, + hollow earring 288)) and that's assuming every round you get the max 8 hits. The fact would be your base damage of the weapon on both hands would be 25 vs 54 from other weapons so all your damage is coming from purely enspells. Since you would only be spamming savage blade or death blossom(you would also be overgoing 100tp everytime aswell and neither of those ws damage increases with tp making many attacks wasted) /nin, compared to someone using evisceration, vorpal blade, CDC, sanguine, or AE you damage falls even further behind due to the ridiculous low base damage weapon and no real adequate ws. Further this by a rdm with proper double atk gear using real sword/daggers will push them even further ahead and you behind since OAx2-4 reduces the impact of double atk substantially. Put this all in abyssea and you couldn't dream to compare with anyone else.


Twilight knife originally did override enspells when it first came out they edited it to not.
I have been reading in this thread people who have been saying rdm has access to good mellee gear ummmm, have you ever built a rdm gear set and looked at the gear any other job has access to?(rhetorical question the answer is no) even brd can build a better tp/CDC set then rdm can, and it doesn't even have to bust its ass for gear(well brd uses daggers so, rng has better gear access still, and whm even more so as far as tping goes). If you want capped gear haste you have 1 choice for head, 1 choice for body(golaird, pure mage), 1(2 if you count hq vs nq)pair of hands(dusk), feet(see previous), Goading belt, king arthoros's belt, or AV's belt(goading being the only realistic belt for majority of players), and the legs are the only 2 choice piece, non of the haste pieces we have access to (except ASA legs) give any type of real bonus to dd(dusk hands and feet have all of like +4 atk so no that does not count). If you have every really tried to build a real rdm melee set your going out of the way for rare armor that really just can't compare to the armor other jobs have access to and the ease at which they get it. Most the gear also has no use except for this specific thing for rdm(unless you have war, or drg lvled aswell then Zelus has another use, haste belts are more important for other jobs so those those should be crossing over form your other jobs to rdm not from). Good luck telling your ls that your rdm(Almace or not) needs a zelas tiara over a warrior. That is actually the reason rdm fell behind in the DD department when TAoU came out and all this new holy crap dd gear came out rdm wasn't on but very very few pieces(but blu was on every single piece and even added to existing gear that looked like it had been made for rdm, but rdm can't use them). Until then rdm was very easily able to keep up with dd as it had access to comparable dd gear, with the release of blu mage SE basically forgot rdm could use weapons. When the lvl cap raised above 75 rdm could begin to wear actual nuking gear vs having to stack elemental magic skill + and this made nuking more a of a viable option for rdm, more so then the addition of T4. Only real new gear we got(outside of empy) was Zelas(which is what makes us finally able to reach haste cap),twighlight knife(which depending on your set up, like mine, can be completely worthless and just a trophy item) and chimaric flueret(which is an amazing sword). They had to stick us on the TotM swords because its our main weapon, Honestly I was amazed that they even remembered that. Also rdm and blu are the only Jobs with magic who don't get the magic damage to tp trait, which rdm should get it at the same lvl as drk. Blu mage should not get this trait as their spells are actually worth the time to cast(because you aren't gaining tp during this time), and mp use because the actually do damage and serve a purpose(Though with T4 access and real nuking gear(damage + not skill +) this has made nuking a more viable option), they also can bet set to use tp to further increase their damage.
Outside of haste while rdm may now have acess to some deceant DA gear my thf still has more da then rdm try's to reach(bar the combo of chimaric + double atk khandi) and 30% triple atk(with 5/5 set bonus) and my thfs not really even trying for the double atk part is just kinda a nice bonus.

I have put far more work into my rdm gear and its actually the most space consuming job since majority of its gear does not cross over due to the "best" gear we have access to being outdated and weak. I can put 10 hours into rdm gear for a 1% improvement(most of which would be hunting/farming for lvl 75 gear) or I could put 10 hours into any other jobs gear and get a 10%+ improvement.

If anyone remembers what rdm was like back in the NA release it was epic I won the Itour back in 05 against all the prince's(first na group to do it, possibly even first group of people to actually do it according to the ffxi developers at the event), and that was after a couple, but not all, of the early rdm mellee nerfs the commentator of the fights was bitching about me melleeing but I did my job perfect including perfectly timed chainspell raise/nuke and my knowledge of how to mellee on rdm allowed me to beat every other person play as rdm I went up against that day at the event. If I could find the vid, the commentator actually eats his own words. So yes I do know how rdm has progressed overtime.

[Swords]

I'd really have to agree with you on the point that RDM has really gotten the shaft on alot of newer melee gear. Specifically I remember that they purposely excluded RDM from wearing any of the VNM sets specifically for fear of overpowering RDM when VNM was first introduced. What's even more perplexing however they've more or less excluded RDM from future releases of gear that they normally had access too like Doublets and Harness armors.

I know SE has claimed in the past they are trying to increase RDM's melee capacity so they can do more frontline work, but it's awfully counter-productive to nix RDM on any melee orientated gear updates and lock them into a spell orientated setup.

[Doombringer]

remember when an aj used to be more than novelty gear? now rank it among rdms melee bodies.. where is it.. 3rd place at the lowest? yah... just an example of how our available gear is laughably behind the times. it makes me not want to play ffxi anymore. rdm is no longer the job that was sold to me all those years ago.

i'm hoping the inevitable emp armor+3 remedies this.

[Seriha]

I can't see SE doing a 180 on the Empyrean set. I held out for some modest hope that the Composure set augment would've meant Haste and other melee perks, but so far it just seems like it's the duration bonus to others. Yay, but at the same time, boo.

If they somehow came to this design choice seeing how RDMs play, then it's unfortunate they've overlooked the whys of how that playstyle came to be, and instead all I can do is point them back to my earlier long posts about the cumulative issues against RDM melee.