Red Mages for native duel wield

[ManaKing]

I want DW, be it normal DW, or my RDM DW Idea from before. The job really needs a melee buff, so it can really be a Jack of all Trades, for now it lacks the melee for that title, and is simply an alternative SCH which is weaker than the original in 95% of cases.

As /NIN or /DNC, you are at least close to a jack of a DD. You can use enspells, additional affects, temper, and gain spells to make up some of your damage gap between you and a real DD, but you're never going to actually get there because SE decided that it would be improper to make us an actual substitute DD. I'm still of the mindset that RDM needs adjustments to it's enspells to make up a larger portion of the difference between you and a DD because then you are DDing like a RDM again instead of like any other DD. When we ask for native dual wield, we are all basically asking to be able to dual wield and have /WAR because that is the game right now. But as soon as we are as good as another DD by playing the same game and the same rules that they do, we win and thus we lose. We would be overpowered and we would be better than other jobs not only by potency but diversity.

We are allowed to get a lot of nice things that we can freely switch between (not do at the same time because you can only do one thing at a time) because we are designed to have some shortcomings compared to other jobs. I'll agree that we don't seem to get as many good things as we did previously, but you can have dual wield. You just have to pick a subjob that supports that decision. The problem I still have is that IF you don't dual wield, you are completely ineffective from a DPS standpoint. You are completely insignificant and extremely below average. In the current climate of capped haste, obvious gaps between 1h and 2h, and ridiculous amounts of dual wield being available to native dual wield jobs, we are lagging behind considerably if we don't have at least some dual wield.

Doing /WAR, currently, does nothing except give you access to red procs in aby. It adds nothing to your character outside of superfluous procs. Sanguine Blade is cool but post healing skill adjustments you really shouldn't need it. I save time getting red procs just to notice how slowly I kill things because I'm no longer a pseudo DPS.

Further, as /PLD you aren't a jack of tanking because PLD isn't the King of tanking anymore. WARs and MNKs in aby were considered 'tanks' because they gained extra benefits from being the focus of a mobs attentions. PLDs didn't get this kind of consideration and thus were not tanks in aby, which is completely absurd because they are THE tanking specialist. RDMs weren't considered at all in aby and thus were terrible. This kind of oversight is toxic to our community because it allows a game with 20 (soon to be 22) jobs to be redundant instead of diversified and flexible. People like their jobs, obviously, because RDMs still exist regardless of their complete lack of importance from any standpoint in the game at all. SE needs to look at their discarded jobs and start doing very intensive maintenance on them. The fixes that they do need to be both relevant to the identity of the job as well as the current and future climate of the game. This is imperative to keeping a larger population for their game and for us to play with in their game.

PLD and RDM could be fixed if they would fix sword and shield. Neither having access to Fencer natively if affable at best and SEs continued stance of Excalibur and other additional affects interacting poorly with Enspells is deplorable because it does nothing but punish both jobs after they are already out of favor and severely behind in use. Super tanking being your only use in end game is extremely insulting because it is the lowest level of interaction with the mob. The current slogan for PLD should be, just cure yourself, because that's all you'll ever do. While they are changing the Enmity system to be less damage friendly, it still doesn't change the fact that PLD and RDM are both pathetic DPS without dual wield and that seems very out of place from the rest of the game.

Would it really be so bad to make PLDs and RDMs be good at 1v1 combat with a sword and shield? It's not like PvP is coming back, I'm well aware of how powerful both jobs are in PvP, but most of us don't spend any time in any given week PvP because there are no actual rewards to gain or meaningful bragging rights to be won. If you made shield mastery good for both jobs they could be sent out on all floors on NNI because they wouldn't lose potency if they were fighting a mob that would only be hitting them. That means you could actually bring a tank to NNI. Any boss that we could keep hate on, we would be a valuable asset to our party, because both jobs take less damage than most jobs in the game. PLD could be a main tank and RDM can be a back up tank. I've held most mobs in aby on my RDM when I was back lining it and my a party wipes. It's not hard for us to do. Super tank or not, RDM performs well as an emergency tank or an add tank and it always has and always will. But that simply isn't good enough because that function excludes us and PLDs from regular party setups.

RDMs other grievance is their equipment selection. I have both a Nusku's and a patentia sash and my RDM can't use either even though a BLM can. We only have access to dual wield on our body if we use our expansion body which is a terrible decision. We don't have the ability to use an Almace because we aren't on Hecatomb's regardless that it's a harness set and BRD is on it. We don't need to be on medium DDs sets, we just need to be on pieces that would have made sense for us to be on to begin with. We lack access to the useful pieces that aren't directly categorized as Heavy DD, Medium DD, and Mage. The is a severe lack of scale mail in the game and while I am grateful for the Dux as a PDT set there is nothing scale mail that you could TP in save an Augmented Crimson Scale Mail Body, which is neither readily available nor easily augmented to a competent piece since wyrmal abjurations are pricey. I used to wear all scale mail when I leveled RDM, it's ridiculous that we aren't on things like, Grandoyne's Mail from meebles. The Ace's Mail set is also pretty suspect. Hey look guys, premium quality scale mail, not for RDM.

TL;DR
Make these changes for RDM and PLD:

• Enspells in general + with additional affects
• Shield Master = Retort, not useless
• Where is my Fencer at for sword and shield jobs?
• Give RDM gear so that it can play a jack instead of an 8 or a deuce in some cases. Back up tanking and DPSing should be relevant and supported by having competent pieces and game mechanics.

[Reaper]

DW III + Suppa offers a 42.8% DPS bonus along with an extra hit during WS over single wielding.

Now sit down and get that through your head for a moment. 42.8% melee damage increase.

when i read this, a lil voice in the back of my head said "the devs are gonna nerf dw" >.>

[saevel]

when i read this, a lil voice in the back of my head said "the devs are gonna nerf dw" >.>

THF, DNC and NIN's all have much higher DW then that and their still quite a ways behind 2H DD in damage potential. That's how power most 2H DD have become, mostly from a combination of JA, JT and gear options.

[Demonte]

ok new on this forum but have a question... i just used same account for xbox for pc but expandsions not installed on it.... how do it retreive

[Ramaza]

THF, DNC and NIN's all have much higher DW then that and their still quite a ways behind 2H DD in damage potential. That's how power most 2H DD have become, mostly from a combination of JA, JT and gear options.

I wanna believe that the 1-handed update will bridge some kind of a gap; or at least make them competitive, but I just can't commit to that yet lol. It's a shame too cause most of my favorite jobs these days (BST, RDM, NIN etc) are all 1 handed jobs.

I'd honestly like to see all jobs that use 1-handed weapons get dual~wield in some level or form in the long run.

[saevel]

I wanna believe that the 1-handed update will bridge some kind of a gap; or at least make them competitive, but I just can't commit to that yet lol. It's a shame too cause most of my favorite jobs these days (BST, RDM, NIN etc) are all 1 handed jobs.

I'd honestly like to see all jobs that use 1-handed weapons get dual~wield in some level or form in the long run.

All the update is doing is giving 1H the same attack ratio cap as 2H which is an increase from 2.0 to 2.25. This is only important in big zerg fights where your being super buffed by a COR and two BRDs, otherwise you'll rarely actually hit that cap. A monster with 400 defense would need 900 attack to cap @2.25, that's an EP to a 99 player. Anything higher requires more attack though defense down effects do become extremely potent at that level.

Honestly the big difference between 1H and 2H is the gear, 2H just gets so much more raw +attack and +STR along with native access to +attack JA's. That's without going near the insanely powerful JA haste effects they also get to go with all that. 1H could have a chance but only if SE allows the upcoming modification to LR to apply to them, which it appears their not doing.

Now after all this you get to see that Sword + Board is at the very bottom of the damage scale, so far down that it's simply not worth using. You sacrifice too many damage for nearly nothing in return, only PLD's get anything meaningful and even then it's still not worth giving them a slot.

[Ramaza]

All the update is doing is giving 1H the same attack ratio cap as 2H which is an increase from 2.0 to 2.25. This is only important in big zerg fights where your being super buffed by a COR and two BRDs, otherwise you'll rarely actually hit that cap. A monster with 400 defense would need 900 attack to cap @2.25, that's an EP to a 99 player. Anything higher requires more attack though defense down effects do become extremely potent at that level.

Honestly the big difference between 1H and 2H is the gear, 2H just gets so much more raw +attack and +STR along with native access to +attack JA's. That's without going near the insanely powerful JA haste effects they also get to go with all that. 1H could have a chance but only if SE allows the upcoming modification to LR to apply to them, which it appears their not doing.

Now after all this you get to see that Sword + Board is at the very bottom of the damage scale, so far down that it's simply not worth using. You sacrifice too many damage for nearly nothing in return, only PLD's get anything meaningful and even then it's still not worth giving them a slot.

I know. I'm just willing to take any buff they throw out at this point. We're already at the bottom. There's nowhere to go but up at this point. I'm skeptical about this new expac offering the gear to further bridge the gap, but we'll see what happens.

[Demon6324236]

I know. I'm just willing to take any buff they throw out at this point. We're already at the bottom. There's nowhere to go but up at this point. I'm skeptical about this new expac offering the gear to further bridge the gap, but we'll see what happens.

Well in reality they can fix RDM if they simply give it the good light DD gear that comes with the expansion rather than leaving it out once again. Then RDM could actually melee and support at the same time and be much more useful, especially since it seems like something that might actually be nice in the new expansion areas.

[ManaKing]

I still want scale mail instead of light DD. Obviously, you could put the same stats on both pieces, but scale mail usually focuses on higher defense and sometimes attack/STR, where as light DD is usually DEX/AGI and we only need one of those 2. I'll happily take STR and Def, especially with what's coming up for the expansion.

I agree that scale is light armor but armor is not what light DDs wear.

[Demon6324236]

The problem with scale mail is its not TP gear, which is what we lack more than anything. I understand the idea of wanting that kind of gear, its good, but we need TP gear too, and right now our TP gear is what leaves our DD power behind by much to far.