On Red Mage melee...

[Seyrena]

As a longtime Red Mage before I quit back in '09, I can say I have no problem dishing out some heals, refresh, and haste while I melee. The trick is to stay ahead of the game, keep on your toes.

The best part is, many parties didn't give half a rat's behind if I melee'd as long as I kept the buffs on.

[Eeek]

As a longtime Red Mage before I quit back in '09, I can say I have no problem dishing out some heals, refresh, and haste while I melee. The trick is to stay ahead of the game, keep on your toes.

The best part is, many parties didn't give half a rat's behind if I melee'd as long as I kept the buffs on.

As a LS leader, DD, and BRD, I very much did care if my RDMs meleed instead of used their staves and used proper gear to land strong debuffs and proper-potency cures. If I wanted a DD in that spot, I'd have asked someone to gear up an actual DD job.

I don't mind RDM meleeing when it comes to soloing, duoing, or during little ventures that don't matter. I encourage my WHM and RDM friends to melee all the time when it's fine to do so. While farming KIs last night, I was perfectly fine with my BLM friend spending time meleeing and capping off his staff skill.

[ManaKing]

It's the inequality of /DNC and /NIN that annoys me most. You get dual wield and subtle blow. Both of which are desirable to the current state of RDM because that means you can look at haste gear as a viable alternative to your class actually having real melee damage. You use Enspell I if you have a bunch of enhancing damage gear that you can macro in. You might use enspell 2 if you are /DNC and you want your haste samba or /NIN and use an off hand like the Twilight Dagger.

Either way your objective is to attack as fast as your can. Essentially you are trying to keep up with the rest of the DPS in the game by playing the same game they do. You look at BLU mage and you say, they are a fighter mage and they can keep up, why can't I? BLU uses physical nukes that scale off physical stats. You have magical nukes that scale off magic stats and enspells that scale off almost nothing substantial for late game purposes. On top of that since /NIN and /DNC don't contribute anything to your WS selection, you feel like BLU took all your cool Sword WSs. You still have most of the Dagger WSs in the game, and to be honest Eviseration and Aeolian Edge are both above average WSs. You won't ever get all the good WS in the game because you decided to play like a DPS THF or MNK instead of a Mage or a Fighter. You will deal more DPS, but you won't get the same overall damage as another melee class because you don't get any JAs or WSs that will put you in the same class as them.

Now look at WAR, DRK, PLD, and BLU. They give you the WSs you want, but you don't see anything else that you really want compared to Dual Wield and Subtle Blow. PLD offers almost nothing since you won't be able to tank now, which i personally can't care about since we don't get Scale Mail anymore. RDM/BLU is nice for solo because phallanx + cocoon just really isn't fair, but it's still not something I would play in a serious party. WAR actually looks good on paper, but it fails in execution because it never gets you the same DPS and double attack doesn't work with Enspell 2s. Fencer is nice, but it still doesn't make up for not having dual wield, nor does it answer the question, "Why does the Fencer Class not get the Fencer Job Trait?" DRK is what i personally play and it still isn't as good as /NIN. It is a lot more fun. You get a lot of useful magic, WSs, and JAs. But it still doesn't deal more melee DPS than /NIN.

RDM doesn't currently have any tools that allow it to keep up with other melee. Our best option is to play a generic DD, with no defining class characteristic, that looks nothing like the Iconic RDM that we all know and love. Who can seriously DD in their AF 3+2? No one. The majority of the new gear we have been given is mostly mage gear which does nothing for our melee side. We haven't gotten Scale Mail since Crimson Scale Mail and we have been excluded from almost every new melee set as well. Our new growth from 75+ is a joke, our Enspells don't deal enough damage or have a desired effect, and our importance is poorly defined. The class is not what it was when we started out and I hope that makes everyone else that are on these forums angry as well.

The thing that makes it worse is that they gave us the Almace. The Almace looks amazing, has an amazing WS, gives you +15 to DEX, and hits like a truck. If they had given us another Murgleis type sword then we could have been somewhat content to use our melee presence as a way to enhance our magical damage and assist other mages in the party. But they didn't; they just rolled us in with the other sword users and gave us a toy we just have to go play with.

Since 75, we have been treated only as a mage. We are an inferior mage to every mage in the game and especially now that SCH is in the game. Our job mostly functions as a way for other Jobs to get Convert and Refresh by subbing us. We have 9 more levels till 99. We don't know what is coming. If it is more of the same treatment that we have received since 75, then we are screwed.

[ManaKing]

As a LS leader, DD, and BRD, I very much did care if my RDMs meleed instead of used their staves and used proper gear to land strong debuffs and proper-potency cures. If I wanted a DD in that spot, I'd have asked someone to gear up an actual DD job.

I don't mind RDM meleeing when it comes to soloing, duoing, or during little ventures that don't matter. I encourage my WHM and RDM friends to melee all the time when it's fine to do so. While farming KIs last night, I was perfectly fine with my BLM friend spending time meleeing and capping off his staff skill.

Wow, so generous.

[Eeek]

Wow, so generous.

Hey, I'm not going to undermine LS events and LS goals for some halfwit who doesn't know when to put away their sword or club and get down to business. This is doubly true in somewhat-lowman to actually-lowman settings.

Most reasonable RDMs and WHMs know when it is and isn't appropriate to melee.

[Duelle]

As a longtime Red Mage before I quit back in '09, I can say I have no problem dishing out some heals, refresh, and haste while I melee. The trick is to stay ahead of the game, keep on your toes.

The best part is, many parties didn't give half a rat's behind if I melee'd as long as I kept the buffs on.

The problem is that the buffs shouldn't be what we are valued for in a party. Hence the suggestions to put more emphasis on melee. Not to mention we need to deal with potential redundancy when having more than one RDM in the party.

[ManaKing]

Hey, I'm not going to undermine LS events and LS goals for some halfwit who doesn't know when to put away their sword or club and get down to business. This is doubly true in somewhat-lowman to actually-lowman settings.

Most reasonable RDMs and WHMs know when it is and isn't appropriate to melee.

I'm glad your LS events are more important than my class getting a fair share of the fun of this game.

Please just keep using us for what is useful to you. We certainly didn't want to enjoy this game too.

[Eeek]

I'm glad your LS events are more important than my class getting a fair share of the fun of this game.

Please just keep using us for what is useful to you. We certainly didn't want to enjoy this game too.

You're free to do what you want solo or with your friends.

Also, your 'I'm going to do only what's fun without regard to anyone else!' attitude won't fly in the real world.

EDIT: You gotta face facts at some point: RDM is a strong mage but truly terrible melee DD. Only SCH and BLM are worse at meleeing. It could be worse though - RDM could be in the same boat of relative uselessness as SCH.

[Neisan_Quetz]

*SCH, BLM, and SMN are worse at meleeing minimum.

[Supersun]

*SCH, BLM, and SMN are worse at meleeing minimum.

Depends if you count the avatar's PBs or not.

Because Garuda's Claws are scary lol