On Red Mage melee...

[Tamarsamar]

honestly I would like to see more tanking gear for RDM, I dont like how SE has basically screwed the ability for the RDM to keep hate, it makes it harder to kita certain mobs as well, cmon SE let us have better gear to tank with, RDM is a fully capable tank job if they can keep hate from the mobs

This also.

Shame that, in between mediocre generation of damage, healing, and raw enmity, we couldn't make a mob try to kill us even if our lives depended on it.

That Black Magic Enfeeble enmity nerf was all kinds of uncalled for. I'd make a thread on it, but I'm starting to wonder if anybody actually does care about tanking any more (because if they don't, such a thread would be mostly moot) . . .

[wildsprite]

I dont honestly see why, I mean in a party situation if the tank is getting pounded by too much at once we used to be able to take a mob or 2 off em till they were ready for it, I used to do that a lot if we got links, I got called a crazy Mithra RDM who was Incredibly Tough because I kept fighting a mob when the rest of my party zoned, they came back and I was just there slowly beating the mob, they all thought it was great

[wildsprite]

so anyway, I just got my RDM to 90 not long ago, what is the best melee gear avail for that level? suggestions?

[wildsprite]

This also.

Shame that, in between mediocre generation of damage, healing, and raw enmity, we couldn't make a mob try to kill us even if our lives depended on it.

That Black Magic Enfeeble enmity nerf was all kinds of uncalled for. I'd make a thread on it, but I'm starting to wonder if anybody actually does care about tanking any more (because if they don't, such a thread would be mostly moot) . . .

I do care, I used to admire my ex roommate and her ability to tank, I still want to be able to tank

[Aliekber]

It would be nice if melee were an option without having to get Badelaire+2/Almace, but I don't really see it changing this late in the game. I'd love to be proven wrong, though.

[Duelle]

Aren't you guys like one of the most versatile jobs in the entire game already?

If you get this, I want my war to tank at 95% the efficiency of a nin or pld

It'd be true if we were used in different ways while partying. That isn't really the case because our melee and nukes never matched the amount of benefit a party gets from having us heal and buff others. That's largely where the problem comes from and why all the melee frustration for RDM exists. The fact that we are melee-themed yet can't melee at all due to how our mechanics have affected others' expectations of us never really helped.

On the topic of tanking, tanking as a whole would require a bigger amount of changes to be made viable again for RDM. We don't have a way to constantly generate emnity, which is what needs to be looked at without reverting the emnity nerf for enfeebles. Someone should probably make a thread on RDM tanking, though. I'd like to stick to the OP topic as much as we can.

[rog]

It would be nice if melee were an option without having to get Badelaire+2/Almace, but I don't really see it changing this late in the game. I'd love to be proven wrong, though.

Depends on what you want to accomplish. You can melee just fine with evis. Obviously it's not up their with the empyrean, but it's still acceptable. If acceptable is good enough for you, then there's no problem.

[Duelle]

Merits are more of an illusion of choice. For a lot of jobs, there's simply stuff that's good and stuff that isn't. While this philosophy really wouldn't change even if all spells and abilities were naturally progressed, if we had a generic Slow potency+, for example, it could make both the T1 and T2 versions better if for whatever reason you're being more frugal about your MP or alternating between timers due to fast kills or even resists.

Personally, merits as a whole were poorly-thought out for RDM and BLM (to a degree). They introduced things like fire magic accuracy yet no one bothers with that because everyone knows Ice accuracy gets more bang for your buck due to Blizzard always being our highest tier nuke and paralyze and bind benefiting from that merit. Were it not for the fact that touching merits in any way would force people to remerit, I'd be all for condensing some of those things and tossing in something a little better.

[wildsprite]

I started a RDM tanking thread, please post any future comments about RDM tanking there

[Aliekber]

Depends on what you want to accomplish. You can melee just fine with evis. Obviously it's not up their with the empyrean, but it's still acceptable. If acceptable is good enough for you, then there's no problem.

Well, I meant without the playerbase at large blowing a gasket over it. If the WoE changes they're supposedly implementing turn out to be any good, I'll likely build a Badelaire +2 as-is (I do have every job that can use it, after all), but I can guarantee you people will still complain if I use it on RDM (but would be fine with me standing there doing literally nothing).