On Red Mage melee...

[Greatguardian]

Derp? I already answered your question. If a group only expects a Red Mage to Haste/Cure/Refresh, then either the group is made up of terrible players, or the group knows that the Red Mage is a terrible player who would be unable to do more than that anyways. Only terrible, terrible Red Mages are limited to Haste/Refresh/Cures.

Honestly, I see absolutely no reason to start nerfing Red Mage's spell selection just so that people have a "reason" to melee. What you're asking for is an excuse. "Sorry guys, I can't use the enfeeble you want unless I'm hitting it with a sword ^_^". That, or the enfeeble granted by melee'ing is useless, in which case it does nothing for you. Do you see the dilemma here?

Would I mind having a "Boost attack/acc" and "Boost Mag Acc/Mag Attack" stance option? Naw. But messing with spell selection is just asking for trouble.

[Duelle]

Honestly, I see absolutely no reason to start nerfing Red Mage's spell selection just so that people have a "reason" to melee. What you're asking for is an excuse.

Which goes in accordance of finding a place for melee and placing emphasis on chosen roles. And I wouldn't call it so much an excuse but more a means through which melee is not overshadowed or entirely trumped by the RDM's other faculties. Currently, casting overshadows and carries more benefits than melee. I aim to correct that while preventing redundancy between a caster RDM and melee RDM.

"Sorry guys, I can't use the enfeeble you want unless I'm hitting it with a sword". That, or the enfeeble granted by melee'ing is useless, in which case it does nothing for you. Do you see the dilemma here?

You're creating a dilemma before looking at the elements in their entirety. There's a reason I mentioned spells relevant to their role. Are there survival wildcards like Blink and Stoneskin? Sure. I also have no idea what to do with them in the context of rearranging spells and could use the input to flesh the idea out. I guess I'll post how I would redistribute spells at some point. Admitedly, the melee stance is the one that would see more restrictions.

Would I mind having a "Boost attack/acc" and "Boost Mag Acc/Mag Attack" stance option? Naw.

I wouldn't either. The so-called balance mongers then come in and tell us we're OP and are asking to make every class obsolete and how we killed their dog and stole their girl. In a way, my idea came about because of their invasions of RDM melee threads (and their equivalents in the WoW boards pre-WotLK). As I said, there's more to it. I'm open for discussion on what's been laid out so far, though.

[cidbahamut]

So basically you want to tie all our spells up and create the problem Scholar already has? No thanks, that's more of a kick in the nuts to SpankWustler than a buff/correction/whatever-you're-calling-it to melee capabilities.

Aside from en-spells there isn't anything in our spell book that doesn't work just as well or better from the back-line. Any new spells you introduce for this stance-spellbook idea of yours would also likely work better in the back-line provided you don't tie it to sword strikes, which is as GG said: an excuse to melee.

[Duelle]

So basically you want to tie all our spells up and create the problem Scholar already has? No thanks, that's more of a kick in the nuts to SpankWustler than a buff/correction/whatever-you're-calling-it to melee capabilities.

Not all, but some. And rather than leaving things open-ended, you remove things from the equation. As I mentioned, the alternative would have having each stance affect spells differently to create role emphasis through game mechanics. We don't have that at the moment. You can't tell me it wouldn't work, as I've seen it succeed and make all camps happy. Granted, it required specs to truly come to fruition, but I believe that element is not necessary to reach the goal. What we need more of is also one camp to stop trying to put down or halt the other. And if you don't agree with our ideas, then start posting your own. I'm interested to hear how you would fix us.

Aside from en-spells there isn't anything in our spell book that doesn't work just as well or better from the back-line.

Which, as I've mentioned is a problem for casters in general. RDM just happens to be hit hard because it's concept and archetype deal with more than just magic.

Any new spells you introduce for this stance-spellbook idea of yours would also likely work better in the back-line provided you don't tie it to sword strikes

Firstly, the idea is not so much about the spellbook (again, I haven't talked about what I believe should be split), but more modes for the class. Considering I'd reduce casting range for enfeebles and nukes to about 5 yalms when in melee mode, you're not gonna run into that scenario where your melee-stance spells are going to be cast from a distance. Curing I'd make more inconvenient so that it is truly used in emergencies, whereas buffing would just be changed to self-cast Refresh and Haste (with a JA later on to cut on the amount of times one has to rebuff when in melee), limiting your buffing or others to Protect and Shell.

As far as the "excuse" to melee, you do realize in order to wield our swords we are going to need some sort of design and mechanic change, right? Several of us here have that in mind and know it all too well. We need something to make melee a part of Red Mage play. My approach just happens to involve other adjustments because I tend to keep the balance mongers in mind. I know what their lot is like, and I hate their complaining about as much as I hate the BS the naysayers spout.

So, again, what are your suggestions to fix RDM melee?

[TybudX]

You say you don't want to nerf RDM casting:

Not all

but before the sentence is through:

but some

followed by this tripe:

I'd reduce casting range for enfeebles and nukes to about 5 yalms when in melee mode

Curing I'd make more inconvenient so that it is truly used in emergencies, whereas buffing would just be changed to self-cast Refresh and Haste

As far as the "excuse" to melee... we are going to need some sort of design and mechanic change

Your solution is to gimp the living hell out of RDM so that it's less useful than BST of SMN?
Lets give RDM a stance that makes them a second rate DD PLD.

So, again, what are your suggestions to fix RDM melee?

There is nothing wrong with RDM melee. It's good against trash mobs. It sucks against harder mobs. You want to have a stance that makes your melee better against harder mobs while nerfing your magic? It's called /change job. If you don't need RDM magic play a real DD. If all you care about is role playing, find a role playing LS.

Now, quit playing dallas in the RDM forums.

[cidbahamut]

And if you don't agree with our ideas, then start posting your own. I'm interested to hear how you would fix us.

The thing is, SpankWustler doesn't need fixing.

[Greatguardian]

You say you don't want to nerf RDM casting:



but before the sentence is through:



followed by this tripe:







Your solution is to gimp the living hell out of RDM so that it's less useful than BST of SMN?
Lets give RDM a stance that makes them a second rate DD PLD.



There is nothing wrong with RDM melee. It's good against trash mobs. It sucks against harder mobs. You want to have a stance that makes your melee better against harder mobs while nerfing your magic? It's called /change job. If you don't need RDM magic play a real DD. If all you care about is role playing, find a role playing LS.

Now, quit playing dallas in the RDM forums.

I could man-hug you, no homo. This in a nutshell is everything that is wrong with Duelle's stance argument. You (Duelle) are not buffing melee, you are nerfing magic and requiring melee'ing to do what we already do now. For crying out loud, you bring up Blink and Stoneskin as if they should only be available in your melee stance. That is bloody horrible.

There is a very clear bloody reason that Red Mage is ten times the mage Scholar will ever be, despite having a weaker spell selection and fewer actively contributing magical JAs. Not sure what it is? Let me spell it out for you:

Red Mage is extremely powerful because it has access to every single one of its spells at maximum potency at all times.

Undermine that and you undermine what makes Red Mage good. So seriously, don't you or anyone else dare complain about us "haters" coming in and "trolling" you guys while you're tossing around "harmless ideas" that "simply augment Melee without hurting Magic". You admit straight up that you absolutely refuse to believe that there is any way to make Red Mage's melee aspect good enough for you without fundamentally nerfing Red Mage's magical prowess.

If you won't be content with anything less than a nerf, then shove off. No one wants to hear it. I don't care how you justify it to yourself. Real Red Mages aren't going to sit idly by while you destroy our class.

[Duelle]

Undermine that and you undermine what makes Red Mage good. So seriously, don't you or anyone else dare complain about us "haters" coming in and "trolling" you guys while you're tossing around "harmless ideas" that "simply augment Melee without hurting Magic". You admit straight up that you absolutely refuse to believe that there is any way to make Red Mage's melee aspect good enough for you without fundamentally nerfing Red Mage's magical prowess.

Then it falls on you to convince me otherwise. Start posting your ideas on how to fix RDM melee if you're so convinced the current design can work in making both camps happy. We're all ears.

[Rayik]

As much of a complete and utter geek as I am, there is a massive difference between players who look at a job's name/archetype and demand that whatever it happens to be now conform to that preconception, and players who look at what a job actually is and think about how to make it better at what it does.

Funny, one group is almost always more successful than the other, both in-game and in the idea market. I wonder why that is.

The job is sold as a Magic Swordsman. I want to use magic AND my sword, and you make it out that this is asking too much? Go to www.finalfantasyxi.com, click on "Your Characters", and scroll down to the Red Mage job description. All we're asking for is to actually do what the job does that we signed up for.

Again, I'm asking you, how do YOU know that your biased perspective on the job is the "correct" one? The job is a hybrid; it'd be different if we were arguing against a WHM curing or a BLM nuking, but we're not. You're more than happy to pigeon-hole a hybrid into a single role, and you don't see the problem?

It's not like we're asking to nuke on DRK, we're just asking that an existing facet of the job be brought up to a playable level. Your precious "only stand in the back and cast spells" play style is not in any danger, so what do you honestly care? Why does it bother you that there could be a possibility of the job doing what is was intended to do?

If I wanted to be a SCH, I'd just be a SCH.

[Rayik]

Funny, I was under the impression that there was some sort of Administration that handled the distribution of Food and Drugs that ensured that consumers were not suffering from legitimate physical and medical consequences by ingesting products that were not what they described.

I bet that totally applies to concepts in an intellectual property distributed over a video game medium.

Oh right.

It doesn't.

Elvaan are stronger than Humes. I demand that all Elvaan be changed to be lanky tree-huggers with powerful magics and absolutely zero physical prowess. Why? Because creative license is a travesty. Anything that differs from Dungeons and Dragons, Tolkein, and FF1 character archetypes must be wrong.

Not sure what edition you're referring to, but even in D&D elves are just as strong as human, they just take a hit to their Constitution. Besides, "Elvaan" are not "Elves", but "Red Mages" are still "Red Mages".