On Red Mage melee...

[Rayik]

If my group has a dedicated healer, I'll toss some nukes to keep busy (and a little residual skill up is always nice). It's just that I play with RL friends and family, and more often than not I'm main healing on RDM with them. I get to melee RDM with my wife when we duo, but that's the only time outside of solo.

As an aside, I do incorporate nukes into my melee, usually at the start of the fight instead of just DoT pulling. I get around 900-1k on Blizz IV depending on the mob, which is around what my WS's do, so it's like a free WS. It's mostly when I'm soloing magian trials, which is why my skill is decent but not capped.

I should get around to working on my nuking more, but currently I'm gearing for 5 jobs, and nuking just isn't a priority.

[Greatguardian]

Cid pretty much handled everything I was going to say. Red Mage is a fairly prolific nuker when geared properly. Personally, I keep multiple sets around for nuking, some for full potency on trash that I know my Macc will be capped on, some for full Accuracy and skill to avoid resists, and a hybrid set for low-tier NMs that I want to be a bit more cautious with.

There was a time, in between the 80 and 85 caps (Post-Visions, Pre-Scars) where Red Mage was the single most powerful nuker in the entire game. The only thing that really changed this was the introduction of Elemental Celerity to Black Mage and the multiple casting and recast time buffs they were given on AF3+2 with Scars release.

As for occupying oneself, there are a million buffs that Red Mage can and should have on itself pretty much fulltime. If the monster you're fighting is completely immune to enfeebles, make sure to keep Dia 3 up at the least. If you're fighting an NM, nuke it. If you're fighting trash mobs, pull more and Sleep/Enfeeble them so that they're ready to go when the current mob is dead. If someone else is pulling, sleep/enfeeble everything they bring in or pull with them if they're too slow.

Red mage has the ability to do just about anything, so it's really only a matter of identifying what you can do to increase the group's efficiency in any given situation. It's never always the same thing. Frankly, if you're fighting a larger NM with both a WHM and a RDM and the RDM really has nothing else to do since it's completely immune to Enfeebles and the White Mage is handling Cures/Hastes, you're better off running to another part of the zone and solo'ing a Timed/T1 NM that the group needs while everyone else is fighting the big guy.

Before Mnk+WHMMule and the advent of Razed Ruins, RDM was able to solo almost everything in Abyssea and still has the potential to do so when under skilled hands. If you don't know how to pin properly, I would attempt to learn by practicing on low tier things like T2 outside VNMs. I would also work on identifying good pin locations in any area where you think you'd be solo'ing. Considering Red Mage is easily the most self-sufficient job in the game, there really is always something more you can do with it.

[Supersun]

It's not that Rdm is terrible at nuking as much as it is that nuking is terrible outside of abyssea.

Certainly T4 nukes are a big step up from T3 nukes, but even then elemental magic is pretty much the most inefficient source of MP to damage in the game.

Unless I have more MP then I know what to do with I can't generally ever justify nuking outside of abyssea especially when as long as I'm not a danger with my TP feed my meleeing will do around the same if not more for an even petter price, free.

People say that melee is something that only helps on things that don't matter, but there's an event being adjusted in the next update where it matters quite a bit, WoE.

Pulling and nuking in WoE...isn't the best use of your time and unless you need to enfeeble a monster to survive you are just going to be lowering your overall points (taking damage is pretty much the best way to earn points, or at least it is at the moment).

That and meleeing also is a great source of points once you've capped curing (which you likely will on yourself already from converting).

[Greatguardian]

The benefit of nuking is that you can do it without having to be within reach of the monster. If you are within melee range anyways and the monster is nowhere near dangerous, then yes, nuking is a terrible source of damage. If you are very specifically trying to stay out of the danger zone, then melee is completely out of the question regardless and Nuking + DoT is significantly stronger than DoTs alone.

I don't really like comparing the lolCampaign/WoE point systems to standard gameplay so I'll just give you that one, acknowledging that you can't really apply that to anywhere outside of those systems.

[Supersun]

I will admit that Campaign/WoE is a different game in of itself. Though if any future systems are developed where minions need to be dispatched in order to reach the main baddie (dungeon crawl perhaps?) then melee will always shine in those situations.

(Excluding random maps and random monster placement like Nyzul where efficient reconnaissance and pulling is pretty much the king)

[TRiPP]

I read up to page eight, then skipped to the end, so if I missed several ideas and what have yous. My apologies.

I did read some of the ideas, and I thought some were great, and some others well, not so much. However. I would like to think fixing the situation with Red Mage and meleeing would be as simple as making us our own class*.
I agree the gear is in question sometimes harder to gather than most gears for DD. Without Subtle blow on some certain mobs it could be disastrous. (So on top of needing haste gear, we would also need subtle blow.) Great, there's a couple of rings out there and a small amount of gear that may allow you to use Subtle blow, but not haste and subtle blow at the same time. HOWEVER, my thoughts are this. Red Mage's ARE the red headed step child of the classes, we're disliked for one reason or another, or simply just scoffed at. (lolrdmnukes/lolrdmmelee.) However, my suggestion to SE is this:

If you want to fix Red Mage's problems it's simple, no really it is.
First off; remove spells from being meritted, make them buyable. (Not something extremely retardedly priced mind you.)
Give us a TRAIT that ENHANCES enfeebles. So we're not stuck having to choose what kind of Red Mage we want to be. (Having to choose between fully meritting Phalanx II, Slow II, Paralyze II, Bio III, Dia III is a headache on it's own.) Sure, some say that you should have Phalanx II fully merited. Great for you. However, when it comes to enfeebles, you want your stuff to be more potent. Even then it's useless because it doesn't proc as much or it just outright gets resisted. (We're suppose to be great at Enfeebling* and enhancing*.)

Something else... With merits allow us to merit into Fast Cast and Composure. In b4 "Oh noez dat wouldz make RDM overpowerz lulz." It wouldn't. Then by the logic of those who say that it would make Red Mage over powered, then should we strip Triple attack, Double Attack and Store TP from Thief, Warrior and Samurai? Cause that makes them over powered. Don't like it? Shame, so why assume the same for us. As for meriting Composure. It's simple. Each merit would increase accuracy and damage as well as Subtle Blow by a certain percentage. (Not stating any accuracy and damage percentage. Use your assumptions and imaginations.) On top of that allow Composure to let us Red Mages use later tiered Weapon Skills. (Vorpal Blade, etc.) Possibly including Dagger as well.

Agreed on giving Red Mage fencer, in fact it should of been given that from the get go. Instead it's given to Warrior (great axe anyone?) and other jobs and what have you. Despite Red Mage being a true fencer more so than any of the jobs.

I'd like to think that Red Mage has a decent amount of potential however, it seems that it's wasted on the player base and the developers as to what Red Mage should really be like.

*class. We all know it, every mage out there has almost everything we have. Only thing Red Mage has over them is Gravity and Refresh II. Big Whoop. Fast cast? So does everyone else now, if not there's gear for it, or atmas. (Even outside of Abyssea. Gear.) Just seems like we're just a birth of ideas SE had while drunk one night. "Yeah, let's make Red Mage be able to do all this stuff, but uh, uh let's uh remove most melee capabilities, most healing capabilities and most elemental capabilities, yeah and and we'll uh give it fast cast but not make it merit-able." "Great idea Steve, it's pure gold. However, I think I'd like the name 'Retard with a stick' but, uh. I think that's not very politically correct is it?'" I imagine that's how the conversation went.

*Enhancing/Enfeebling. What's the point in giving us any? If you're going to give it to us to make us unique then give it off to another job? Here's looking at you Regen family, better Protect V and Shell V for WHM? These are enhancing, not healing. While the Regen family DOES heal, it is considered Enhancing, otherwise change it to healing and get it over and done with.
Enfeebling? Addle was the only thing I could see being different from Red Mage and any of the other mages. Dispel WAS one of them but since they also handed that to Scholar. All that's left is to hand Dispel and Gravity out to every job out there like it was candy.

So, if people want to complain about Red Mage overstepping it's boundaries, take a gander at all the other jobs that have taken over RDM's turf. Then tell me if it's justified or not to ask for a little something once in a while.

[Shiyo]

I wish this post would be deleted so RDM would get buffs in areas it actually needs them in.

[Duelle]

I wish this post would be deleted so RDM would get buffs in areas it actually needs them in.

The day RDM loses sword proficiency, dagger proficiency, access to anything that is not caster gear, and stops being depicted as a guy with a sword in one hand and magic in the other, I will. Until then, this thread stays.

[Shiyo]

You will never do 10% of the damage of a real DD, sorry