On Red Mage melee...

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Back before abyssea when RDM was the most common healer, this was not acceptable. RDM is NOT a front-liner as you claim it to be, it is a MAGE, yes it can melee, but if you only "DD" RDM, you're playing it wrong and giving RDMs out there a terrible name.

Red Mage is a Melee Mage, Front lining with backup utility was a real RDM, the FFXI RDM though however is completely different to the actual RDM job in the FF Series.

[Seriha]

Oh snap, the mage card. BLUs go home, yo!

[Hyrist]

And you claim to not be 'against' anything. Sure.

Again, this is why I usually don't bother responding to you people at length. There is nothing short but total elitism in your tone, words, and excuses.

Your first mistake was making the implication that you, an individual, can speak for the majority of players as to the 'role of our job' Cycling buffs isn't it, I'll tell you that right now. That is a role that can be filled by anyone /whm right now and /rdm at 99. Whatever possesses you to believe that Red Mage will be able to hold onto that horribly pathetic excuse for a player role as the levels continue to incline. Bard, Corsair, and Scholar can all preform that duty better than we can currently EVEN WITH the buff duration extension.


Let me break this down easily for you Aurara:

1. Nobody here is happy about Red Mage's current performance in the front lines.

2. Nobody here expects Red Mage to preform the exact same duities in the front lines as in the back, however...

3. Everybody here expects Red Mage to function as a support job, regardless of the front or back line position.

It's not about the RDM just doing damage. It's about what we can do while we are in the front lines. We would like to be able to do MORE. Not in terms of damage, that's what other players seem to want to have us do. What we want, is a utility: Something to make us more useful by being in the front lines: To the point where it's ok for a RDM to be in the front, casting a situational amount of support spells while preforming other front line utilities.

We collectively, as Red Mages, want to get to the point where doing as described above can be done without argument.

You say it's impossible, we disagree and we have plenty of ideas on how it could work. Whether or not it's acceptable by the playerbase, isn't up to just you.

Nor isn't going away. This is called "The Eternal Debate" for a reason. Short of removing Sword and Dagger skill from Red Mage all together, you will never, ever, get us to stop pushing, to stop trying. It is a selling point of the job class and honestly, it is also our biggest challenge. And if Career RDMs love anything, it's a challenge.

It is in your best interest to stop thinking about 'can't' and start thinking about 'how'. Because you're never going to be without the RDM front-line supporters. SE has made sure of that as it keeps advertising RDM in the front lines. (The prize accomplishment items for RDM are swords and daggers, not staves, they keep showing RDM featured with swords/etc.)

Paired off by the fact that giving us a functional utility in the front lines would be the most assured way to give RDM some powerful identity back, there really isn't a reason why NOT to boost the performance.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Drop the previous Rdm argument first though, it isn't a RPG, it's a MMO, so it goes both ways. The battle system/casting sytem doesn't support being able to effectively do what you could in a single player as it does in the current MMO of FFXI.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Drop the previous Rdm argument first though, it isn't a RPG, it's a MMO, so it goes both ways. The battle system/casting sytem doesn't support being able to effectively do what you could in a single player as it does in the current MMO of FFXI.

... you serious?

Melee capability isn't possible in an MMO now?

Fast Cast to 50% was originally added for RDM as they couldn't add doublecast but at least it sort of equaled the same (even if every mage now has it in some form), it's not too much to ask the melee be adjusted a little so it's actually capable, that or remove Swords and Daggers and just give us staff skill and call us SCH v. Inferior.

[Neisan_Quetz]

I didn't say it wasn't capable, I said it's not going to be as effective.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

I didn't say it wasn't capable, I said it's not going to be as effective.

They are paid to think, if the developers can't think how to do so, even if they did it via RDM's enspells then they shouldn't be a game developer.

Honestly though, do you think it acceptable for RDM to be inferior to WHM where melee damage is concerned despite it being the Melee mage and WHM not?

[Hyrist]

It does go both ways, however.

Every MMO version of FF job class is built off of the basis of what it was in previous iterations, down to blink tanking.

What the problem is Red Mage is the focal point of where these two genres (RPG, MMO) Clash, and it classes very hard.

It's not so much about bad class design. Yes, Red Mage needs improvements in the front line. But the main issue is role redundancy. "No Red Mage and White Mage together in a party." Is the elitist mentality that just does not let Red Mage's iconic role fit in. Which, if the game keeps itself mostly casual, is fine. But if we're going to switch the game tone back to "OMG WE NEED 18 PEOPLE TO DO ANYTHING IMPORTANT" the job's going to die a very painful death. And it's already doing so.

Theres a support divide between front and back line roles. Back Line role you're basically functioning like a Scholar should, with more emphasis on cyling buffs and laying down enfeebles.

Front lines, it's more about filling gaps, and being a generalist. You're looking for opportunities to enhance damage, and laying on the enfeebles thickly, picking a partner to give the extra duration buffs to. But it really varies depending on the situation and the moment.(In Dynamis, for me, it's about procs, side tanking, etc) And it's more fun that way.

And honestly, a lot of the arguments about RDM front-lining is more of a question of where and when. Outside difficult NMs, it really does not matter if they do or they don't. People switch tones on their argument that 'X job plays that better' which is a moot argument if that job is not available or someone doesn't care to play it.

[Aurara]

And you claim to not be 'against' anything. Sure.

Again, this is why I usually don't bother responding to you people at length. There is nothing short but total elitism in your tone, words, and excuses.

See, here you go again, assuming things about me..I'm TRYING to understand your point of view, instead of screaming at me maybe you should understand mine.

Your first mistake was making the implication that you, an individual, can speak for the majority of players as to the 'role of our job' Cycling buffs isn't it, I'll tell you that right now. That is a role that can be filled by anyone /whm right now and /rdm at 99. Whatever possesses you to believe that Red Mage will be able to hold onto that horribly pathetic excuse for a player role as the levels continue to incline. Bard, Corsair, and Scholar can all preform that duty better than we can currently EVEN WITH the buff duration extension.

I never stated that I spoke for the majority, because I don't. I'm positive SE will give RDM some awesome spells/JA to make them wanted more 95+ i mean for Voidwatch they're already wanted more. BRD SCH COR WHM can't do it as well as you claim they will be able to, they don't get the same boost to length timer that rdm does, and they lack Refresh II, something that in itself is amazing. You are being pessimistic about RDM.

Let me break this down easily for you Aurara:

1. Nobody here is happy about Red Mage's current performance in the front lines.

Why should they? It's terrible, on weaker mobs it isnt as noticeable, but as the mobs get higher lvl, it begins to show.

2. Nobody here expects Red Mage to preform the exact same duities in the front lines as in the back, however...

Tell this to the people who refuse to haste/refresh/cure/buff/debuff mobs cause they're too busy meleeing to care.

3. Everybody here expects Red Mage to function as a support job, regardless of the front or back line position.

This IS RDM's job, meleeing is not, I've already explained why I'm not doing it again.

It's not about the RDM just doing damage. It's about what we can do while we are in the front lines. We would like to be able to do MORE. Not in terms of damage, that's what other players seem to want to have us do. What we want, is a utility: Something to make us more useful by being in the front lines: To the point where it's ok for a RDM to be in the front, casting a situational amount of support spells while preforming other front line utilities.

You ignore the fact that 99.99% of people wouldnt be able to perform the duties of a RDM and would only do "DD" RDM, wouldn't get invites because they sucked, and then would come here and cry for more broken buffs to melee rdm.

We collectively, as Red Mages, want to get to the point where doing as described above can be done without argument.

Not possible, in order to make rdm viable on frontlines would have to make it broken.

You say it's impossible, we disagree and we have plenty of ideas on how it could work. Whether or not it's acceptable by the playerbase, isn't up to just you.

Your "ideas" are completely broken, and the same could be said to you about your ideas, it isnt up to you either.

Nor isn't going away. This is called "The Eternal Debate" for a reason. Short of removing Sword and Dagger skill from Red Mage all together, you will never, ever, get us to stop pushing, to stop trying. It is a selling point of the job class and honestly, it is also our biggest challenge. And if Career RDMs love anything, it's a challenge.

So because I dont like melee rdm/disagree with it I'm not a "career" rdm? Please, I'm not asking you to stop asking I'm asking you to be logical about what you want, and to think about the longterm effects/how it would impact the balance of the game.

It is in your best interest to stop thinking about 'can't' and start thinking about 'how'. Because you're never going to be without the RDM front-line supporters. SE has made sure of that as it keeps advertising RDM in the front lines. (The prize accomplishment items for RDM are swords and daggers, not staves, they keep showing RDM featured with swords/etc.)

Because swords are feature of RDM, and have always been. This is like saying "war's af1 weapon is an axe, WAR should ONLY use axes!" It doesn't hold water because WAR w/axes is terrible.

Paired off by the fact that giving us a functional utility in the front lines would be the most assured way to give RDM some powerful identity back, there really isn't a reason why NOT to boost the performance.

This it assuming it will, and it's not safe to assume anything.

[Razushu]

They are paid to think, if the developers can't think how to do so, even if they did it via RDM's enspells then they shouldn't be a game developer.

Honestly though, do you think it acceptable for RDM to be inferior to WHM where melee damage is concerned despite it being the Melee mage and WHM not?

I never noticed a RDM melee doing anything but nice Light DD damage while having it's mage abilities still at the ready if they're a good player.

WHM in 11 seems to have passed through D&D on it's way to get here and was designed to have a healthy melee side to it too