How can SE make the Redmage frontline job?

[ManaKing]

I'm not sure why you guys keep pointing to the holy trinity of tank, DD, and healer because that isn't the model for this game. What role does a SMN, BRD, COR, and to my knowledge a RDM fit into? They are buff/debuffers. Where is that in your holy trinity? I would honestly like an answer because that is generally what I play.

The model for this game is the original 6 classes you are allowed to play, or at least it was. WAR, MNK, THF, RDM, BLM, and WHM are a well balanced party. The WAR will tank and DD, the MNK and THF will DD and move the hate around when needed, the BLM will burst, the WHM will heal and AOE buff, and the RDM will do buffing/debuff to relieve the MP burden from the BLM and WHM and do anything they can to assist them and will melee so that they contribute more. The party will have little to no downtime and will be able to take on almost any threat the game can throw at 6 people without them needing a specialized team to deal with it.

The way I see my role in a party as a RDM is that I am everyone's best friend. I debuff mobs. I buff allies. I back up heal. If I'm doing all that, I don't have the the MP to do anything else besides magic burst. Because I have Fast Cast and Convert, I have the time to do decent melee damage in between spell casts and I don't have to sit.

Situation I'm addressing

There are situations where I am not going to as effective. When mobs are immune to debuffs or they die too fast for it to matter, i become significantly less effective. Enfeebles are cheap and effective. I also cast them faster than anyone in the game, so I'm saving another mage casting time by doing it. Not casting enfeebles doesn't mean I have a ton of MP just sitting around to drop nukes. I'll run out of MP and I won't be back up healing.

The alternative that I would be asking for is to be able to make up for my lack of utility with increased melee damage. It is already MP efficient to cast an enspell and melee mobs. That is the solution I am looking for to fix the lack of growth that RDM has experienced 75+ in it's melee. The current Enspells are not good enough to support RDM being an actual class when our only A rank skill is taken away from us. We need damage that is at least in the same ball park of a DD to function in an environment that deems enfeebling magic ineffective.

The argument that everyone will play RDM is utter garbage. Enfeebles don't stack. Buffs don't stack. Healing does. Nuking does. Melee does. Any DD can /WHM or /DNC and get the same utility that a RDM has with healing, but even with a /DD a RDM can't out damage an equally geared DD. So long as your tank is doing their job, more damage is still going to be more damage.

Enspells don't stack with other job abilities, nor do they stack with weapon skills, nor with other additional affects such as sambas or even criticals since they don't alter your base damage. A DD/DD generally has their original classes's strengths multiplied by their sub jobs. A DRG/SAM has store TP for their jumps and has Hasso for their auto attacks and TP build. Any DD can /WAR for Berserk and Warcry and get double attacks and an attack bonus. The only thing that makes enspell I do more damage, that comes from another job, is dual wield from /NIN. It decreases the weapon delay, which in turn lowers your TP growth. Hasso, does not. Nothing makes Enspell IIs do more damage except for more haste. Not even double attacks or multi hit weapons.

Having proficient enspells also requires you to have your enhancing magic leveled to be qualitatively effective. If you burn a RDM, you will spend almost as much time skilling your RDM as it would have taken to level it. A bunch of bandwagon RDMs aren't going to just show up overnight because they can't.

Solution

I'm personally hoping for Enspell 3s starting at level 75. Main hand only. Larger damage cap and an accuracy/m.acc bonus so that we can get by with Bs in sword and dagger as well as a C in elemental.

Other solutions are to ease the restrictions on current enspell IIs. Being able to apply other on hit affects, apply to multihits, or applying to multihit weapons skills would have a significant affect on the amount of DPS we could do with enspell IIs without letting it grow like a DDs. The developers wouldn't have to come up with new spells or abilities, they would just have to rewrite previous game mechanics.

I'm not a fan of us getting fixed by getting additional WSs. Every melee RDM would be /NIN and use enspell Is with dual wield. It would be the most efficient class combination. There would be no character diversity and no choices to be made. Enspell IIs would still be lack luster and shouldn't have been put in the game. If you want better WSs then /WAR, /DRK, /PLD, or /BLU. It's already there for you. You have to make the choice. You can either dual wield like a damage specialist or you can use WSs like a damage specialist, but you can't do both because you aren't a damage specialist.

I'm not a fan of RDMs have the same max damage potential as an actual specialist. If you have taken the time to track down a bunch of good gear, have your merits invested wisely, and have a sub job that is appropriate for melee, I want RDMs to be welcome on the front line because they can do enough damage to be appreciated there.

[Supersun]

This is actually why I propose that Rdm should get a strong elemental weapon skill because it will actually help wean us from relying on /nin. Like Seriah mentioned in response to the post about quickening a strong double attack would help pull us away from using the Joyeuse, but when I did the math in my head I reached one big roadblock. It wasn't from the additional +30% Dot that stacks with enspells, but that in combination with an automatic +1 fTP to every physical weapon skill made it really hard to justify any small amount of double attack from /war beating /nins to dual wield. I mean +1 fTP is unheard of for a weaponskill, you would require more then 50% TA just to beat that for the WS alone. But that's only with physical weaponskills. Elemental weaponskills on the other hand do NOT have their fTP affected by additional attacks by the offhand or the main hand. If your primary weaponskill is an elemental weapon skill then the only benefit /nin gives you is the +30% DoT from melee strikes, and that makes it a lot less mandatory. For example Scholar starts becoming a more realistic sub while meleeing since their storm spells in combination with an obi automatically gives your WS a +10% damage bonus. If the weapon skill has it's damage vary by TP then /war also becomes a powerful sub, not only because of the +10% increased weapon skill frequency from Double Attack, but also from Fencer's TP Bonus that it grants (assuming we don't get that natively which would be silly...since we are fencers >.>).

That isn't to say that an Elemental Weaponskill doesn't have its problems. If you thought Rdms reliance on the Joyeuse was bad before wait until people realize that our new elemental weaponskill does NOT depend on the base damage of your weapon unlike a physical weapon skill. OaX will become even more popular then they are now which isn't necessarily a bad thing since enspells tend to benefit from OaX weapons. That's not to say that this issue can't be fixed though. Like I mentioned if the weapon skill is designed to favor /war because of the TP bonus then the +100 TP bonus sword also becomes another viable option. In addition if instead the WS is more designed like Sanquine Blade then an +Int and +MATK sword also becomes useful, not just by boosting WS numbers but by also functioning as a hybrid weapon. Then there's also the gambler's sword, the lowers magic defense sword. The additional effect may not be up all the time but when it is it wil by far outperform any other option in terms of pure WS damage, it won't be as viable for fights under 30secs-1min since it takes time and chance to proc the additional effect, but for those fights that do last that long that's also another option.

[Duelle]

I'm not sure why you guys keep pointing to the holy trinity of tank, DD, and healer because that isn't the model for this game. What role does a SMN, BRD, COR, and to my knowledge a RDM fit into? They are buff/debuffers. Where is that in your holy trinity? I would honestly like an answer because that is generally what I play.

SMN would have been a decent DD if the class had not been 1) bogged down by a myriad of limitations and restrictions outside of Astral Flow and 2) people hadn't been so stupidly desperate to cause SMN/WHM to become the "accepted" set up for that job.

COR is the DD built around a buffing system. Something I've been asking the developers to make since I saw this game had a Bard class. Yes, there are players that semi-ruined that by playing COR/WHM with a staff strapped to their back, but SMN already explains why that happened.

RDM, we all know where that job stands.

(WARNING: personal bias detected) BRD is what I call the class you should never aim to implement unless you design them in a way that will cause a reasonable amount of people to play it. This game proves that hypothesis well, as BRD is a class that heavily affects group dynamics (even moreso once Ballad was introduced and made even worse when people figured out what March does to performance) while being stupidly rare amongst the players.

Three of those are outliers to the trinity. One was trash for a long time with a workable gimmick every two hours, one screwed up party dynamics due to being so rare, and I will dare say the other one took the screw because they were the next best thing and eventually were forced to fill the gap not commonly filled by the rare class with buffs. Yes, I speak of SMN, BRD and RDM in that order. I understand some people like to play support, but one must also be aware of what that does to party mechanics. BRD and RDM were also the only two ways people could recover MP for a long time before COR joined that party. In short, one thing led to another.

and the RDM will do buffing/debuff to relieve the MP burden from the BLM and WHM and do anything they can to assist them and will melee so that they contribute more.

Actually, enfeebling was not on RDM's plate until the revamp of the class where we lost marksmanship skill and flash.

This is actually why I propose that Rdm should get a strong elemental weapon skill because it will actually help wean us from relying on /nin.

That still means that NIN and DNC curbstomps sword and board in overall DPS. Most if not all one-handers have sadly become dependent on dual wield. Would probably not be the case if DW only added attack rounds without increasing weapon skill frequency, but that's mere conjecture.

[Supersun]

I know Dual Wield does somewhat increase weapon skill frequency from the reduced delay, but it shouldn't be ANYWHERE near what war can do with an elemental WS. First off +10% DA already guarantees a +10% WS frequency. In addition if you are using a OaX weapon /war will also pull ahead even more due to the fact that ONLY the OaX is swinging as opposed to your main hand that generally slows down your TP build with /nin in exchange for better stats, WS, and DoT. Now I'm not saying that /nin and /dnc aren't worthless or anything, surely Joy + Oa4 would be a powerful dual wield but I don't think it would curb /war as bad as you think it would, especially with a DA spell or something.

(obviously replace OaX with DA weapons inside abyssea for /war)

[Duelle]

I know Dual Wield does somewhat increase weapon skill frequency from the reduced delay, but it shouldn't be ANYWHERE near what /war can do with an elemental WS.

This would be interesting to test out.

First off +10% DA already guarantees a +10% WS frequency. In addition if you are using a OaX weapon /war will also pull ahead even more due to the fact that ONLY the OaX is swinging as opposed to your main hand that generally slows down your TP build with /nin in exchange for better stats, WS, and DoT. Now I'm not saying that /nin and /dnc aren't worthless or anything, surely Joy + Oa4 would be a powerful dual wield but I don't think it would curb /war as bad as you think it would, especially with a DA spell or something.

Wouldn't this mean that you'd need a considerable amount of DA through gear and the suggested spell to reach something comparable to main-handing Almace and offhanding Joyeuse/Khanda?

The problem though is that multi-hitters are there only to assist with TP build-up. That's where the higher frequency of WS comes into play. I guess a DA Khanda having higher base damage would make up for it, but I guess we'd need someone to crunch some numbers. Not that we have the mentioned DA spell to help create concrete results.

[Supersun]

That's the point though. The damage of an elemental weapon skill is COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT from the base damage of a weapon. A lvl 1 bronze sword will do as much as Excalibur. And if that is the case why wouldn't you just SINGLE WIELD an OaX? No need for a non OaXing mainhand to slow you down.

If this is the case unless you have 2 OaXes to dual wield I can't see /nin coming anywhere close to /war for WS frequency and damage. Even the DoT increase from /nin is pretty much matched by Berserk.

[Seriha]

The problem though is that multi-hitters are there only to assist with TP build-up. That's where the higher frequency of WS comes into play. I guess a DA Khanda having higher base damage would make up for it, but I guess we'd need someone to crunch some numbers. Not that we have the mentioned DA spell to help create concrete results.

I'll try, but I can't promise I'll do this right. We'll assume 100 attack rounds while using the listed damage of a weapon.

Joyeuse D35 (40% DA to itself): 140 attacks for 3400.
DA 10% Khanda +2 D55 (Add another 18% through /WAR and Brutal/Atheling): 128 attacks for 7040.
Joyeuse D35 (40% + 28%): 168 attacks for 5880.
DA 10% Khanda +2 D55 (+28% with the above and the theorized Quck): 138 attacks for 7590.
Joyeuse D35 (40% + 38%): 178 attacks for 6230.

Of course, I don't know if the DA would interact as a straight addition to Joyeuse's 40%, but the above was assumed calculating 68% on the second version and 78% on the third.

In terms of delay, with no /NIN, the Joyeuse would finish its attacks in 23300D, or 388.33 seconds. The Khanda would need 25200D or 420 seconds. Since the Joyeuse is roughly 8% faster, we could add that amount of damage to all versions bumping them up to 3672, 6350.4, and 6728.4 respectively in the same span it'd take the Khanda to finish.

Assuming no caps with DA% or errors in the interaction, the fact Joyeuse is within 18% in the best cases is a bit disheartening, as this basically lessens every other sword in both damage output and TP gain. Almace could still be run at 28% single-handing with Quick in play, and it would win on neutral targets (7808). Jumping from /WAR to /NIN would basically keep the same DA rate if using the +2 with it, making it something like "7808 + 6490 = 14298" versus +2/Joy "6490 + 5530 = 12020" or Almace/Joy "6588 + 5180 = 11768". The delay for 100 attack rounds in all 3 combos would be 360, 360, and 336 per round respectively with DWIII's 25% reduction. Overall, the first two would need 600 seconds to do their thing to the last's 560.

Either way, the proposed combos all throughout this basically crap heavily on anything where Joyeuse, a DA%, or Almace isn't involved. 2 STR Shamshirs might sound good on a hit-for-hit basis, but your TP gain will suffer with only 8% DA. Going for something like INT/MATK swords may give your nukes a bit more oomph, but your martial side falls behind yet more. Part of this is due to our WS restrictions, yes, but this is either a case of Joyeuse being too good or new options not being good enough or as readily accessible. Add cast times slowing our DPS and it's just an uphill battle, of which RDM's arguably needed the multi-hit weaponry to get around the cast times and still be a decent contributor of damage.

[Darka]

Not gonna take part in the melee RDM debate, since I think it's ridiculous but;

I'll try, but I can't promise I'll do this right. We'll assume 100 attack rounds while using the listed damage of a weapon.

Joyeuse D35 (40% DA to itself): 140 attacks for 3400.
DA 10% Khanda +2 D55 (Add another 18% through /WAR and Brutal/Atheling): 128 attacks for 7040.
Joyeuse D35 (40% + 28%): 168 attacks for 5880.
DA 10% Khanda +2 D55 (+28% with the above and the theorized Quck): 138 attacks for 7590.
Joyeuse D35 (40% + 38%): 178 attacks for 6230.

^Numbers are off. Short story is RDM isn't going to be capping pdif, but for argument sake I'll assume it is. Along with fSTR.

Thats 35D and an fSTR cap of 11. So 46*2.0 pdif is 92 dmg/hit excluding crits. So 92*100 is a total of 9200 from melee DoT. Throw in 18% DA, an extra 18 rounds, 10856 DMG.
82% of the time DA won't trigger, giving an extra 40% DA from OAT on remaining hits. So an extra 32 rounds. 32*92 is 2944DMG. 13800 DMG total.

Khanda, 14STR, 55D. so 69*2.0 = 138 DMG/hit. 13800 DMG naturally. 13800*1.18 is 16284. So a 15% difference in melee numbers alone.

Now factor delay. We'll throw the parse up to around 20 minutes, (1200 seconds.)

4.2 seconds per hit for Khanda = 285 swings(excluding DA)
3.73 seconds per hit for Joyeuse = 321 swings (excluding DA/Xproc)

Total DMG including proc

Joyeuse = 44436 DMG
Khanda = 46368 DMG

4.1% difference. The gap will close further and pull in favor of Joyeuse the longer you fight.

Of course there's the fact you won't cap fSTR/attack, and an STR sword pulls miles ahead of both. Typically OaX variants are pretty weak comparably to regular weapons.

DW does increase WS frequency, and will be better than /WAR unless you're hitting for 0, and even then, close.

I may have calculated something wrong, but I doubt differences would be that high.

Edit: Also, /WAR offers nothing for Magic WS unless you're in dire need of the attack to not hit for 0, so you actually get TP. DW will increase WS frequency a lot more. (Even if something like STR is a mod, it'll lose to WS frequency, DW in high increments > DA).

[Swords]

This would be interesting to test out.
Wouldn't this mean that you'd need a considerable amount of DA through gear and the suggested spell to reach something comparable to main-handing Almace and offhanding Joyeuse/Khanda?

The problem though is that multi-hitters are there only to assist with TP build-up. That's where the higher frequency of WS comes into play. I guess a DA Khanda having higher base damage would make up for it, but I guess we'd need someone to crunch some numbers. Not that we have the mentioned DA spell to help create concrete results.

The power of the weapon often has alot less to do with Magic based WS's than physical, which is why people have been asking for RDM to natively have the powerful Sword WS's.

I've been fiddling with Cataclysm and Retribution with my Celeritas Pole on MNK lately while building up Amber light in abyssea, obviously my MNK isnt equipped to do heavy magic damage (even with beyond and ultimate I capped out at 1.2k with a 750 Average) so my Retributions always did more. However, in a similar scenario I was using staff against Amphitrite, because h2h can't use magic WS when he swaps modes. I had roughly similar results at first, but when I had brewed my Retributions capped out about 4k dmg and my Cataclysims jumped to roughly 20k.

[Seriha]

^Numbers are off.

Yeah, I avoided pDif and all that just going purely by the weapon's listed damage. Maybe a bad habit mine from back in the day where I told myself if I wasn't doing at least my weapon's D per hit, the party was over-hunting. Abyssea and all its buffs favors every melee in general, but once we step outside, it's pretty much back to the old problems where our ATK/STR can be more of a liability.