We finally get more Weaponskills!

[Zekander]

You're late to the party Dale, the update was almost three weeks ago, and they gave RDM all of the currently available sword weaponskills. Including Sanguine Blade, which in my opinion was the only really useful WS at this point. We already had native access to the two strongest WS, Savage Blade and CDC, so these additions in no way increased RDMs DPS.

No one has ever asked for RDM to be on par with Samurai for damage. No one even asked for access to these weaponskills. The most I have seen anyone ask for is to give RDM an A- sword skill, that would give us an additional 19 Attack and Accuracy, and nothing else, hardly game breaking. Just about every RDM on these forums agrees that RDM should not be a preeminent DD, all they want is to be able to leverage all their capabilities in party play, and not be looked down upon for doing so.

[Dale]

You're late to the party Dale, the update was almost three weeks ago, and they gave RDM all of the currently available sword weaponskills. Including Sanguine Blade, which in my opinion was the only really useful WS at this point. We already had native access to the two strongest WS, Savage Blade and CDC, so these additions in no way increased RDMs DPS.

No one has ever asked for RDM to be on par with Samurai for damage. No one even asked for access to these weaponskills. The most I have seen anyone ask for is to give RDM an A- sword skill, that would give us an additional 19 Attack and Accuracy, and nothing else, hardly game breaking. Just about every RDM on these forums agrees that RDM should not be a preeminent DD, all they want is to be able to leverage all their capabilities in party play, and not be looked down upon for doing so.

It seems I am. I still stand by my post and think it was a mistake to give Sanguine Blade to Red Mages. It was a nice benefit to subbing /war or /blue and I think it should have stayed that way.

Red Mages already had an effective array of spells that made them efficient at melee (Phalanx, Haste 2, Temper, Distract etc.). They already had access to the best damage dealing sword skills as you pointed out. If people are not happy with the current state of Red Mage melee then I don't know what on earth would satisfy them if not to make them equal to Samurais.

The biggest factor against Red Mage melee is not a lack in dps or some incapability to melee. Bumping their sword skill up to an A would change nothing in this regard.

What makes Red Mage melee unacceptable to many parties is everyone and their mother players a damage dealing melee class. So when they are lucky enough to get a mage - they would prefer them to backline and focus on other more-needed duties. Also: many enemies have very nasty AoE's which takes time to recover from. That's time a Red Mage melee has to spend on their self instead of other party members which can become a drag on their ability to effectively support. Or they burden another member with the task.

The best solution to your problem is to build a balanced group to where a Red mage does not have to leverage all their capabilities and can focus more on melee. What you describe - buffing this job to where it can effectively Melee/Enfeeble/Enhance/Heal/Nuke - basically do everything it is capable of competitively in all party situations - would turn this job into a monster with near god-like status.

I don't think that's what this what this job was intended to be. I believe it was intended to be a versatile job that can adapt to different party situations and provide support where it is needed. This idea that's it's suppose to be a super mage than can do everything all at once just isn't realistic and would be near impossible to achieve in this game's current design without grossly over-powering what is already a very powerful job.