On Red Mage melee...

[Supersun]

(I would break the hell out of that WS, making Wildfire look like a joke)

[Hyrist]

Personally I find the likelihood of us getting a second Weapon Skill custom tailored to our job is low, or highly distant. It would also likely be restricted to high level, which would not regard some of the concerns of some players stating we need a stronger early game WS presence.

Honestly to regard that issue I would like to see the Ex restrictions removed, entirely. The older style job specific WSes don't make any sense to remain restricted in today's game.

In the end our physical WS game isn't all that bad (aside from our Atk deficiency) We just don't have any access to the good ones natively. We either need a specific weapon (with CDC) or a specific subjob, to unlock any ones that have impact. And that seems rather odd considering our nuking game is still decent regardless of subjob. I don't understand why we're still restricted to quested/equipped WSes for decent damage or have a strict subjob choice if we want good WSes. Having them is not going to make us dominate.

[ManaKing]

I'd still like to see a null-elemental WS that changes its element and skillchain properties based on your current enspell. Ideally it should do more than Sanguine Blade since it wouldn't have the curative property attached and it would allow us to adapt the element to the mob in question since, unlike SB, you wouldn't be stuck with a shitty darkness WS on darkness resistant mobs. We could then do an atma build like RR/Beyond/MM and still be generally proficient with an ice WS that could ideally break 2500 with an okay gear set. No, it's not Ukko's or Smite, but I don't think 40% or more of a scrub mob's HP is anything to scoff at. Plus it'd be amber over ruby, since people still have their ruby phobia.

Doing 2k+ with Evisceration isn't hard right now, but i do like the idea of an Enspell dependent WS. It could be disastrous, or maybe we would get some job identity out of it.

Couple problems I see with that idea:


2. Magic WSes, I don't belive, are subject to DA/TA, Crit, etc. Chances that help other classes push incredibly high spikes.

3. Resists. Without an appropriate skillset to use as a base accuracy comparison on elemental WSes, they tend to suck in general. Sure, with Atmas we could push those numbers high enough to be decent in Abyssea. But outside ,we're just going to lose out on the same root problems we have with WSes before.

Now granted, Elemental WSes would save us a bunch on gear swaps, as we could simply use our casting/Nuking gear to WS. But unless the tripping points are addressed, it'd wind up being a half-effort WS that's not all that much better than Sanguine Blade outside Abyssea, which isn't that impressive at all.

2. You can't get SA/TA, but you do get MAB applied to good elemental WSs.

3. Elemetal WSs almost never miss, but they do get resisted.

(because if i recall, Inside Abyssea Wildfire is only"good" when you stack MAB/FireMab Atmas, if a RDM did this, they'd severely nerf their Melee-TP Damage phase, Which is not a good trade off. If you're going to advocate RDM melee in abyssea, at least do it right and put on the DD Atmas, any combo of VV, RR, GH, Omni and Apoc. Stacking MAB atmas just for your WS, on a job that would be meleeing for TP, would not be a great idea.)

What if your enspell damage was affected by your MAB?

If you knew what mobs you were hunting, you could use elemental MAB ATMAs to boost your enspell damage (DPS) and your WS damage (Burst).

You get to melee and you get to do it like a Mage instead of like a THF. So you equip Mage Atmas and get to Melee with them too.

I personally want this to be the direction that RDM goes. Your magic makes up the difference in melee combat, not your brute strength or your lack of weapon proficiency. You still aren't going to out DPS a DD or out Burst a BLM, but you might get close enough that people would take you seriously.

[Hyrist]

Sorry, let me clarify. I mean Double-Attack, Tripple Attack. Which would really be a good boon to attack boosts.

As far as "never miss" some of the levels of resist we get might as well make the things miss.

It's just too much that could mess up.

[ManaKing]

Sorry, let me clarify. I mean Double-Attack, Tripple Attack. Which would really be a good boon to attack boosts.

As far as "never miss" some of the levels of resist we get might as well make the things miss.

It's just too much that could mess up.

I don't disagree with this and yes, elemental WS are very much about gear.

BUT I wouldn't be against it if gearing for magic affects our future enspell damage.

If you are using this correctly, you should be using an element that the mobs are weak to. So long as the base damage is high, everything should be fine. It won't matter if you get occasional resists because you would be wearing mage gear.

We would be able to use this in our AF3 and actually be taken seriously. Make the bonus stats INT and MND.

GOD I WANT TO MELEE IN MY AF3 SO BADLY!!!!


ALSO can we get an enfeeble that lowers magical evasion?

[Hyrist]

I would be against it.

There's nothing in the magical stats that enhances our physical traits. Mag.Atk. Bonus vs haste, accuracy, etc? The melee stats are going to win every time. Only way I'd conceed to that is if it comes accompanied with a LARGE wash of gear that mixes melee stats and magic stats, and that's highly unlikely, and even if they did, Enspell Damage + would be a far greater asset.

[ManaKing]

Composure gives +ACC and there is plenty of +ACC gear.

Giving us a way to gear for a good elemental WS and improved enspell damage at the same time is a step towards not having to compete with melee stats. They can have their game of physical stats + Haste and we can have our game of magical stats.

The end result is more Enspell damage. I want Enspell damage to go up, as well.

Look at our AF3. It stresses Mage skills as usual. So why not work with what we have already and get what we actually want? You can't have sword and sorcery without the sorcery.

*Adding a new idea*

[Supersun]

While DA, TA, crits, ect... may add occasional spikes to physical WS you have to realize that there are other factors that can just as easily cause a physical WS to spike lower then normal such as missing, getting unlucky on RNG for pDif, ect...

The thing about elemental WSs is that they are VERY consistent. The only thing that can really hamper their damage is a resist, and even then if it's a WS that can change its element by your current enspell then resists are kept at a minimum.

Even if we ever go against a magical resistant monster we can always just switch back to our physical WS, but at the same time this is a luxury most melee won't have that when fighting a physical resistant monster we have our elemental WSs.

Really, while DA and TA can increase the damage of a physical WS by a large amount a small amount of the time, MAB on a magical WS increases the damage by a large amount 100% of the time.

And the most important thing is that with an elemental WS we will actually get updated gear. Physical WS gear is rare for Rdm. Nuking gear is a dime a dozen.

I mean it really wouldn't be that hard to balance a good Elemental WS for Rdm due to their consistency. It would be real easy for them to test a damage they find reasonable for Rdm and then bump it up a bit from the chance of resist and Physicals possibilities to spike.

We could make a balanced elemental WS for for us much better then nearly any physical WS could.

Like I mentioned before I did 1.1k with AW earlier on /sch and the thing is I'm missing some really important pieces for my WS set. I'm missing about ~15 MAB and +TP bonus +25.

And really the only thing that make it nonviable atm is you have to use a martial knife which eats your DoT which this issue disappears if we get a seord WS due to the fact we get TotM swords.

Adding some form of native Rdm dual wield or *gasp* fencer will only make the prospect of an elemental WS and the ability to use /sch even better.

[ManaKing]

Here is the next step for making our mage gear into something useful.

JOB TRAIT

lvl 50+

When RDM has an Enspell active, they gain Equipment Haste = 1/2* of their Fast Cast value. *adjustable*

------

If you want to gear for /NIN or /DNC there is a huge chunk of equipment haste you don't have to track down. You can gear for damage now.

If you want to gear for /WAR, DRK, PLD, BLU you get access to Sanguine blade and you can stack Mage stats to get the most out of both your enspells, sanguine blade, and Seriha's new enspell dependant WS.

If you want to /MAGE you just got even more recast from that equipment haste. You will be able to spam more spells, so long as your MP holds out.

There are benefits across the board. Every kind of RDM can benefit.

Adding some form of native Rdm dual wield or *gasp* fencer will only make the prospect of an elemental WS and the ability to use /sch even better.

EXACTLY. If we could get some kind of innate TP bonus, such as Fencer, we could be elemental WS specialist. Sword and Sorcery.


Lol, I could get some use out of my Murgleis and we would still use an Almace when we need Physical damage.

[Neisan_Quetz]

JA haste makes more sense imo, tying it to equip haste is unnecessary. Seriha's idea of JA haste attached to Composure is the one I favor the most, even if SE never does it.

I don't see Elemental WS being a solution, unless something has a ridiculous amount of PDT/defense physical weaponskills are usually the better option. Of course SE's idea of 'balance' is to give the elemental dagger WS with no magian daggers and magian swords without the elemental sword WS...