On Red Mage melee...

[Seriha]

I'm sure WARs would love it if they could get Berserk II, because it's not fair everyone 30+ can sub them and it be just as effective. Hint: There's more to the healing game than simply a cure tier. So, let all these /WHMs stealing our jerbs march in without their hMP gear, enfeebles, fast cast, and an actual MP pool and can actually do things without atma holding them up.

As for Hyrist, if I'm not mistaken, a fair chunk of his RDM experience comes through duoing with his DNC friend/girlfriend/wife or whatever. I wouldn't call a consistent duo or mini-static your typical RDM environment, nor does it readily subject you to the demands and horrors of the PUG experience. I don't miss breaking my back at 75 for my LS pretending to be a WHM in RDM's clothing, and I am opposed to those days returning. Regardless of then and now, the freedom to play how we wish doesn't exist in a truly compromising manner. There's a preferred side with all its "rules" and expectations. Meanwhile, a third of the job collects dust, okayed only when we're solo (and thus not "wasting" the time of our rule-setters) or doing things that don't matter. To be blunt, anything we do in game should matter, as it otherwise implies a lack of purpose.

[Hyrist]

You are Mistaken.

Ex Fiancee was a WHM, I barely played with her due to the job dynamics that kept WHM and RDM seperate from each other.

My current friend I play with is a Dancer, who I do Duo with currently.

Neither of these make the majority of my playtime.

I'd like it if you'd quit dismissing me based off of false presumptions. Even while I was not playing, I was following the RDM dynamic very closely. It's nothing less than an obsession.

[Hyrist]

As an additional note, you're taking what I say out of the context of the posts. To go back two posts now, what I meant when I said that taking the front or back line shouldn't matter, is that each aspect of Red Mage should come with a viable, acknowledgment benefit. To the point where, for some odd reason, you're stuck with two Red Mages in the group, having them preform with one in the back line, and one in the front, would not be met with horrible redundancy.

[ManaKing]

As a personal note to ManaKing.

As Seriha can attest to this, I've been playing Red Mage a very, very long time. It is my only passion in FFXI and truly the only job I'll ever invest in. (I'll put it this way. FFXIV won't hold a candle with me until they implement the job in there, I'm that attached/obsessed.)

As far as the long posts, you're going to have to get used to them. A 35 page argument on Red Mage front line is nothing compared to the years of debate and analysis that has been done on this subject. The condition of the job as it is now is just re-stirring a very old pot.

That said, breaking apart the subject matter into separate threads would be helpful keeping my post size smaller.

Welcome aboard and thank you. I don't expect you to post smaller responses because I asked you, I'm just saying it is easier to respond to specific ideas when they are bite sized instead of an entire page.

[Seriha]

The same redundancy pretty much exists with WHM, which was partly why we got stuck shouldering EXP parties in the ToAU days. And really, unless SE did something god awful like make the Haste spell stackable up to magic cap from different people, there's nothing that can really change existing redundancies between RDMs without adding new and unique things. If the back-liner wanted to Haste, Refresh, use our current enfeebles, and main heal? More power to 'em. Meanwhile, the new stuff most definitely needs the melee slant, and whatever it is needs to justify the "risk" of the RDM being up front to both themselves and the party. Anything short of that will change nothing and may as well be another Shield Mastery update.

In short, we have to offer good damage, stronger utility (be it buffs or debuffs), or some combination of the two. And allowing any of that to be done from afar pretty much defeats the purpose, as it's back to slapping the staves to our backs and playing back-line mage.

As for how you play, it doesn't change my implied point, and that's how a RDM can't put their flag up with a DD sub explaining that they're only interested in meleeing in a search comment only to either never receive an invite or get harassed into trying to be a healer. People being desperate for support is one thing, but our martial side simply isn't even a consideration to the general populace, and for mathematically backed reasons that all tie to into equipment and (fixable) game mechanics. While we're not exactly apart on the want for each side to have its purpose, I'm of the mind that our mage end is pretty much set (short of SE going full-tilt on the enfeebler aspect, but that can also include melee integration). On the other, seeing people like RCD babble about how RDM melee is fine while he runs around with underleveled subs and bad math dumps isn't helping, nor do people who live in these magical worlds where community perceptions and stereotypes seemingly don't apply. In effect, if you can't PUG without getting your ass reamed by all the naysayers, it's not enough.

[Duelle]

There is two facts that need to be acknowledged about Red Mage.

1. It is a Generalist, period. There is no changing this without cutting out half of it's spell library and abilities.

False. Adjustments in potency, resources consumed and such can be the pivot points of the class depending on what you want to do. The goal there is to keep your utility intact while still being proficient at the role you, the player, has chosen. Cures being more expensive or more inconvenient to cast outside of mechanics that allow you to do so, nukes costing more and/or having shorter cast ranges and so on.

2. It HAS a Specialist Function 2 actually.: Enfeebling and Enhancing. But they both have problems right now.

Enfeebling:
In the rapid increase in melee performance that has done nothing but climb over the years, enfeebling has become less and less of a prominent role. This is a flaw in the game's design, not with the design of Red Mage as a class. If we are going to be important, for a large group role, there needs to be a reason why enfeebles are useful.

It's not necessary to make enfeebles super important. A part of what we bring to the table, sure. The whole bag, no.

Additionally
- Boss Monsters need to be more vulnerable to enfeebles in general.

Yes and no. More enfeebles working on a boss is fine, provided enfeebling as a whole gets a facelift to make it part of the front or back line roles without being an entire role in and of itself.

Enhancing:

Enhancing, should be our secondary role, but has become our primary due to how efficiently monsters are slain. However, as it stands, what we offer as enhancers is outdone by every other existing support class out there. As much as Seriha comments about Red Mages not having infinite MP pools outside of Abyssea, this is in complete ignorance of the fact that evey other MP pool of every other mage class nearly doubled when Convert became available via subjob. Additionally, Refresh is such a readily available commodity with the advent of Refresh being subable , and Red Mage gaining Refresh II, that a Red Mage's own 'support' role has become unneeded.

Before we even touch the Melee aspect, this issue needs to be regarded. NOT by simply adjusting Red Mage, though some issues can be addressed this way (debuff-ga spells would solve debuffing multiple cannon-fodder issue. This should not be tied to a particular subjob either). The large group gameplay mechanic needs to change.

The support role again should be a minor facet of Red Mage, not the whole by which our party value is measured. As I've constantly said, I wouldn't mind if Refresh was an effect that affected the whole group that procced after using my suggested JA, Spellblade. That makes refresh a tertiary, thus minor, aspect of the class. It also kills the stupid busy work approach SE took when they gave RDM refresh and haste.

As much as people believe the common wisdom that Red Mage should cycle in the front line. It's simply not how it operates in practice. Ask members that have doing it for getting close to a decade now such as myself, Zafire, Starfox, and a plethora of others who have been doggedly sticking to this sort of function on Red Mage since our first days in Vana'Diel. As Seriha has been so keen to point out, our own MP pools are not limited, and casting time HARMS our general output. But if there is to be any encouragement made to Red Mage front lines, it MUST be done on the premise that doing so limits our other functions of support. Or else any change is going to fall flat under the argument "You' still need to refresh!"

This I can agree with. This is why I've sided with the stances approach over all else. And why I'm so in support of mechanics that focus on front-lining while slightly (relative term, but I for one would not miss buff cycling and always being on cure duty) hindering support.

[ManaKing]

I'll say it right now, any debate that is hinged of RDMs amazing soloing potential is absolute garbage. Just because we can do it naturally as a main doesn't mean that it is any amazing feat that should limit our development. /NIN and /DNC are both extremely potent and extremely effective for soloing on almost every single job in the game. Just because we don't need them isn't a reason we should be neglected and passed over, consistently.

What NIN, DNC, or THF main has any trouble doing anything that a RDM does currently in solo play?

[Duelle]

So long as Red Knight is available, i don't really care if Pink mage is as well.

But they need to come out at the same time. We don't need anymore precedent tell us how to play our job.

Erm...huh? Did I miss something here? 0.o

[Supersun]

Who opened up the can of expired debates. Time to post the cliff notes I guess.

Curing
No way around it. We do need some sort of cure buff. When nearly 6-7 other jobs can heal better then you inside of abyssea and by 99 unless something is done those job will be able to cure better then us outside abyssea as well something needs to be done.

That being said, like Seriha mentioned Cure 5 is just lazy. We are already facing a major homogenization of all the mages at 99 and adding Cure 5 to Red Mage isn't going to help the issue.

The ideal solution in my opinion would be to create another type of cure that we could spam when Cure 4's recast is down. From there create some sort of powerful enfeebling effect that would protect whoever is getting curbed long enough for you to spam your cures to recover him back to full.

Keep in mind this alternate cure spell doesn't need to be a spike cure like all our current cures. There are plenty of other ways to create a healing spell.

There are some other good ideas out there as well with other ways to fix Rdm healing without tagging on a 5.

Enhancing
Red Mage is a terrible enhancer. Look at your spell list. Now how many enhancing spells do you have that you can actually cast on other people natively? Pretty much it sums down to Protect, Shell, Haste, Refresh, and Phalanx. Now look at how many Whm or Sch can cast on othher people...yeah it's a lot more.

The only reason we were ever considered good enhancers was because we were the only job with the big 4. Haste, Refresh, Convert, and Cure 4. By 99 all of those will be available to /rdm.

Really, the only thing we will have left byh 99 is Refresh II which is VASTLY inferior to other forms of refresh due to it not stacking with mages Refresh 1 from /rdm.

Interestingly enough they seem to have passed the enhancing role to Scholar instead. I mean look how many new enhancing spells they can AoE to the party (ignore the fact that they all suck. Only a matter of time before they get a good one).

Back line
This may be blunt but honestly it's how the game is evolving.

If you play Red Mage solely to backline for any other primary reason except to be an enfeebler it's time to switch jobs.

Every other possible back line role that Rdm has a chance of growing into has been taken by another role INCLUDING the role of a back line generalist (Scholar).

Enfeebling is the only niche left to Red Mage. Healing, Buffing, Nuking, and every in between is better performed by other jobs.

And even still unless SE does some drastic changes I don't even see much of a future for enfeebling. All enfeebling is just a means to an end. Ultimately you are just trying to keep your party alive long enough to kill the monster (and proc in the process). The issue is that enfeebling atm is by far a vastly inferior way of damage mitigation compared to other methods.

Like you mentioned a lot would be fixed by adding some decent way to actually inhibit TP attacks, but as it stands now all enfeebles do is cause your Mnk to counter less and if you really need enfeebles the 5% difference between a Rdms enfeebles and a Whms enfeebles is not worth the difference in healing power by a long shot.

Rdm really only has 2 directions to grow in as a role. An enfeebler or a melee generalist. Luckily these 2 aren't exclusive. Enfeebling by nature tends not to take a long time leaving the rest of the time to be a melee generalist.

As for specific ideas. We've already posted a ton in whatever melee threads have cropped up on these forums. But as it stands atm as the 3rd or 4th worst melee job in the game (even behind Brd and Whm) there's certainly plenty of leeway to grow.

[Duelle]

And even still unless SE does some drastic changes I don't even see much of a future for enfeebling. All enfeebling is just a means to an end. Ultimately you are just trying to keep your party alive long enough to kill the monster (and proc in the process). The issue is that enfeebling atm is by far a vastly inferior way of damage mitigation compared to other methods.

That is more due to the nature of Final Fantasy debuffs. Paralyze from a comparative perspective is pretty OP by MMO standards. Slow should be much more potent and much more noticable, and probably would be if bosses in XI had actual mechanics and environmental hazards to deal with instead of just knowing when to attack and healing the damage the boss deals. The same applies to Blind, Dia and the elemental resistance debuffs from stuff like Enspell IIs. Bio is more hampered by values being so small (the 5 and 10% AP reductions would be much more visual with bigger HP pools and damage values).

The other side of that problem is that the game has too many options for entirely or mostly avoiding damage taken. Utsusemi and evasion stacking being the culprits. Enfeebling as a whole most likely needs a facelift and needs some streamlining as well.