On Red Mage melee...

[Greatguardian]

Is it even worth worrying about hybrid pieces when it's not impossible to fit PDT/MDT/TP/WS/Idle/Mage-Nuke/Mage-Enfeebling/HMP sets with 9 Staves and 2 swords within the 80 slot limit? =/

The easiest way to condense your gear needs down is to get better gear, as it means you'll need fewer pieces to reach the same/higher stats. I don't ever bother melee'ing with my RDM personally, but I took a few minutes to try and come up with an example Inventory that fit pretty much everything you'd need in it. It's not the absolute ideal, but it's extremely solid and sits at 79/80 Inventory with Shihei included.

Almace
DA+ Khanda
+2 Water staff
+2 Ice staff
+2 Wind staff
+2 Light staff
+2 Fire staff
+2 Thunder staff
Terra's staff
+2 Earth Staff
Pluto's Staff
Vallus Grip
Raptor Strap +1
Tiphia Sting
Witchstone
Duelist's Chapeau
Warlock's Chapeau +1
Walahra Turban
Estoqueur's Chappel +2
Darksteel Cap +1
Maat's Cap
Artemis' Medal
Orochi Nodowa
WS Gorget
Twilight Torque
Novio Earring
Suppanomimi
Hecate's Earring
Brutal Earring
Loquacious Earring
Antivenom Earring
Merman's Earring
Warlock's Tabard +1
Duelist's Tabard
Goliard Saio
Augur's Jaseran
Estoqueur's Sayon +2
Teal Saio
Coral Scale Mail +1
Antares Harness
Darksteel Harness +1
Dusk Gloves +1
Estoqueur's Gantherots +2
Serpentes Cuffs
Eradico Mitts
Darksteel Mittens +1
Warlock Gloves +1
Dark Ring AUG 6/6
Dark Ring AUG 6/6
INT+ Ring
INT+ Ring
MND+ Ring
MND+ Ring
Minerva's Ring
Rajas Ring
Hoard Ring
DEX+ Ring
Atheling Mantle
Lamia Mantle +1
Umbra Cape
Aslan Cape
Gleeman's Cape
Goading Belt
Witch Sash
Cuchulain's Belt
Sagacity Lappas
Estoqueuer's Fuseau +2
Nashira Seraweels
Tumbler Trunks
Crimson Cuisses
Darksteel Subligar +1
Refresh Subligar
Dusk Ledelsens +1
Estoqueur's Houseaux +2
Duelist's Boots
Serpentes Sabots
Darksteel Leggings +1
Lithe Boots
Shihei

A lot of jobs can do a lot of things, not just RDM. Trying to advocate god-mode Hybrid gear is just silly when the job is already incredibly powerful. As with any job, when you go out to do something you generally have to pick and choose what gear sets you bring based on what you will be doing (easiest example, old-school PLDs had to put away a lot of other gear in order to carry Fire/Earth/Ice Kits for applicable fights). If you want to do everything at the exact same time, well, yes you're going to run into inventory issues. That's not a problem limited to RDM, and it's not one that it's at all possible for the game to fix (PS2 RAM limitations).

Either way, RDM doesn't "need" 120 slots to have melee gear and acceptable mage gear. Personally, I think it's folly for RDMs to stock up on 80 slots worth of melee gear and completely ignore, or use completely sub-par casting gear to make up for it. RDM can do a lot of things well, and yes one of them is Melee, but it can be a massive inconvenience to the group when a Mage class refuses to cast spells. It's important to remember that melee is an addition to Enfeebling, Buffing, Healing, and Nuking; not a replacement.

[Seriha]

And with the above you're then constantly ferrying seals and other items to the side inventories while most other classes can get along just fine hovering around 60 slots. The listed also isn't much of a Convert of hMP set, which while not really needed in Abyssea, could be a requirement once newer content is added outside of it. You're also absent stuff like Dark magic to make Drain/Aspir count, and as with the old days of HNMs, RDMs would need more MACC/Elemental skill to help land something reliably on a tough mob over more of a potency set like listed. Similar could apply to enfeebling where some MND might have to be swapped out to help something land. I don't think there's much -enmity to speak of, either, as if you are expecting a RDM to main heal for long durations, you'll want that with Cure IV as your best option.

So, while you might be okay with playing hack and slash at job facets, this panders back to people just favoring the specialists instead. It's very much all or nothing for RDM and currently there's very little incentive to seek the all.

[Greatguardian]

There is not a single job in this game which can get by with 60 inventory slots and not be horribly gimp/lazy. Truth.

I actually did include a fairly solid MND build in there, as well as plenty of Macc for most targets. Yes, I did leave out Dark Skill and Elemental Skill gear, but I can't think of a target worth RDMelee'ing that RDM has Elemental Acc issues on. Enmity- was left out as pretty much anyone who's dealing damage, RDM included, is going to cap Enmity at some point anyways. If a RDM is sticking to a heal/buff-only role for a fight, it would take a *ton* of healing for them to reach the TE cap while the DDs should be there within 60 seconds. I'm not really sure of any fight that takes long enough right now for it to matter. The longest I've ever seen even the strongest Heroes NMs take with 1-DD is 10 minutes (bar Rani, which is just kinda dumb to do with a Rdm healer).

But yes, you are constantly ferrying seals over. The same applies to food, and toolbags, and other consumables. That's what I do on all of my jobs already =/. I never said the above was ideal (in fact I did say the opposite), but it is a solid TP set, a solid WS set, capped PDT/MDT, access to every Refresh piece RDM has, a not-suck HMP set, a solid Nuke set, and a solid MNDfeeble set with every stave in 78 slots+Shihei. I'm not advocating using a copy-pasta-onry of my random example set, but it's there to show that it's definitely possible to play RDM in multiple roles effectively with an 80-slot limitation.

[Doombringer]

to be fair, staffs and swords don't need to be in the inventory at the same time. same goes for say, a hardcore PDT set. if your in a group with solid dd's how often does it really come up? there's a lot of situational gear that is situational enough that it can reside in the mog satchel until you need it.

i get by on 70~ inv on rdm, not counting food/tools. this varies a bit depending on what my group is fighting and what i'm doing. 8 staves and 2 grips vs. some combination of 2 weapons/weapon and shield. if i'm duel wielding why do i need my af boots and my shield torque in my inventory? why can't they sit in the satchel with the shield?


not to say that i don't think rdm needs some kind of buff, just that i think a lot of the inventory pains are self inflicted.

course it might be easier on me, i still only have 3 90's

[Seriha]

Ultimately, it's part of a complication where if you're presented with a sudden need shift. Sure, if you're in a party where a WHM's around, you can probably get away without the cure gear, but if said WHM has to leave, you might be presented with the choice of having to go change your sub, juggle gear around, etc..

Overall, I'm someone currently sitting on 9 level 90 jobs with some others still sitting at 75. Some of RDM's magey gear may piggyback over to BLM, SCH, or WHM, just as some of the melee stuff could work for WAR, DRK, etc., but when I'm sitting around arguing for hybrid gear, I'm not exclusively pining for it for RDM, either. More inventory space can help everyone, both out in the field and generally managing things back in your MH.

[Greatguardian]

The problem with Hybrid gear is that it's always going to be weaker than Specialized gear. If Hybrid gear is weaker, you're intentionally gimping yourself in some manner in order to conserve inventory.

As Doom mentioned, Mog Sacks and Satchels are wonderful tools for in-field paradigm shifts. You can relegate MDT gear to your Sack if you aren't fighting anything that casts Magic. You can store Staves if you're going to be melee'ing. If you need to switch to a casting role, you can bring out your Staves and store some of your WS gear and swords. Anything that's not covered in an 80-slot-catch-all set can be placed in your Sack/Satchel and moved in/out as you do different things.

I feel your pain when it comes to inventory clutter, but it's really not that impossible to work with right now. Even if it was, Hybrid gear is not a viable solution. If anything, additions to the Armor Storage systems would provide a much greater benefit.

[Seriha]

Storage isn't quite the issue, just active space. And as I mentioned earlier, if you're going to run under the assumption that hybrid gear should never match two or more specialized pieces, then of course it's basically gimping yourself. If people are fully swapping anyway, why does it actually matter if the gear is one slot or two plus? Because then you're basically treading into the territory that someone having more active inventory space is a balance issue, while a lesser issue would be those interested in diversifying would only need to go for one piece for their catch-all needs instead of two or more. Even if it means cutting out only 5 visible equipment slots, it'd be a win. Accessories tend to be the more universal pieces, anyway.

[Greatguardian]

FFXI has never been a game to cater to making Hybrid pieces as strong as 2 Specialized pieces. See: Hale Ring.

If the Devs went that route? Sure. That'd be pretty boss. Do I think it's likely enough to even consider in the realm of possibility? Nupe.

[Seriha]

And they were never gonna increase the level cap. Past != Future.

[Supersun]

Obviously it's because 2 pieces of gear takes longer to get then 1.