How can SE make the Redmage frontline job?

[Rayik]

No, it's called being a realist. Close minded is refusing to see a truth because it doesn't coincide with your established thought on a subject. If one medicine doesn't cure you, and a Doctor tells you that it's because frog piss doesn't actually reduce swelling, but there are numerous working options you could choose from, the Doctor isn't being close minded. I am getting really tired of being told I can't see or understand what people are telling me when they themselves are just projecting their own problems onto me.

You are close minded. You want RDM to be something it isn't. You want to drastically change the job. The job changes described already exist in other jobs. If those things are important to you, then play those jobs, quit trying to hammer this screw in.

I can see both side of you guys' arguments, but if RDM were absolutely not meant to be melee, then why on earth do we have a B rating in swords and daggers, have trial swords, and access to a plethora of melee gear? If melee is "something the job isn't", then please explain this to me. Explain to me why we have a job ability, Composure, which gives +10 Accuracy to melee.

If we were having this discussion in the SMN or SCH forums you'd be winning. But this isn't SMN, SCH, or even BLM. This is RDM, what was at least at some point, intended to be a melee spellcaster.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

I can see both side of you guys' arguments, but if RDM were absolutely not meant to be melee, then why on earth do we have a B rating in swords and daggers, have trial swords, and access to a plethora of melee gear? If melee is "something the job isn't", then please explain this to me. Explain to me why we have a job ability, Composure, which gives +10 Accuracy to melee.

If we were having this discussion in the SMN or SCH forums you'd be winning. But this isn't SMN, SCH, or even BLM. This is RDM, what was at least at some point, intended to be a melee spellcaster.

Quoted for truth, though the blind will still not see it.

And in the past, I've even said I'd give up on the melee crusade if SE really took the enfeebling ball and ran with it, but they haven't. Lately we've been seeing all these juicy little stats wiggling their way into the game that we could manipulate, but all we got to speak of was Addle. I don't hate the spell, but it's as useful as Silence on a melee mob.

And that WHM are getting in the next cap, so we once more have no enfeebles to be the "enfeebling" job.

As it stands RDM is in no shape or form unique, not even a little. RDM is a failure of a job that if they really have no interest of fixing, they should just remove.

If you really want to see how RDM should have been look to what they've made BLU recently. I mean BLU's can do anything and everything better than RDM, balanced I think not.

Better Healer's
Better DD's
Better Enfeebler's
Better Enhancer's
Better Nuker's

Sorry, if people think that's balanced a wall is waiting for your head to be slammed into, I get RDM is Jack of all traits, master of none.. But RDM isn't even average in any field let alone capable in them.

And this is the reason why, come next update, unless drastic change comes I will not be levelling RDM further.

[Bigboy]

I can see both side of you guys' arguments, but if RDM were absolutely not meant to be melee, then why on earth do we have a B rating in swords and daggers, have trial swords, and access to a plethora of melee gear? If melee is "something the job isn't", then please explain this to me. Explain to me why we have a job ability, Composure, which gives +10 Accuracy to melee.

If we were having this discussion in the SMN or SCH forums you'd be winning. But this isn't SMN, SCH, or even BLM. This is RDM, what was at least at some point, intended to be a melee spellcaster.

WHM have always had Hexa and a B+ skill in club. Clearly they were always meant to be superior DPS. Now the reason this argument doesn't even come up in the other job boards you mentioned is because they all realize what they are good at. RDM have always had this deficiency. People have been trying to say it should be "Fixed" and SE tosses you a bone every now and then for melee, but the truth is, they only think you should melee when solo. Composure kind of highlights this. Increased recasts don't matter out of party, but if you are trying to heal, or stun, or keep a bunch of mobs slept, having all your recasts increased by 25% really sucks.

When we were given the option to melee, it was never intended to be great. It was intended to be an alternative to sleep nuking. RDM in FFXI is kinda viewed like a secret agent(Do the AF). Physically capable, but not a soldier.

Every single argument that they intended to make RDM a front line fighter are BS. The most obvious reason is because after 8 years, it still isn't.

[Duelle]

When we were given the option to melee, it was never intended to be great. It was intended to be an alternative to sleep nuking. RDM in FFXI is kinda viewed like a secret agent(Do the AF). Physically capable, but not a soldier.

I'm surprised you thought to bring up Rainemard. Rainemard was a guy that stuck his nose where it didn't belong and got him quartered and stuffed in a box. That AF quest line was less about Red Mage and more about Rainemard.

Since you brought up the super RDM (he doesn't spam cures, haste and refresh in campaign, by the way), there's a thread on the JP forums about how they want RDM to be more like Rainemard instead of, well, you know. So you could say part of the melee camp wants notable damage boosts to enspells.

And there is another fault of SE's, RDM has no native staff skill, they should therefore not wear Staves, but SE made the best magical damage/accuracy weapons a staff.

Staves being a generic mage weapon is fine. The problem is more the fact that your spells are barely passable without them at certain levels, not to mention how magic accuracy is calculated overall. Hybrids tend to suffer because having two very different accuracy stats to take into account leads to watered down itemization or design-inherent gimpness.

Since someone decided to mention our meritable enfeebles as evidence to why we aren't meant to melee, I thought of something. If SE removed Blind II, Para II, Dia III, Bio III, and Phalanx II from meritable abilities, gave those to us baseline (quested like the teleport scrolls would be nice...) and (personal fantasy alert) condensed the poorly-thought out elemental affinities and filled those empty slots with new merits, would anyone here throw a fit? >.>

[Rayik]

WHM have always had Hexa and a B+ skill in club. Clearly they were always meant to be superior DPS.

There's a big difference between having a B rating in club with one decent ws, and having swords and daggers at just as high of a rating, with having access to melee-specific gear like Dusk, Scorpion's Harness, Brisk Mask, Tumbler Trunks, Rager's Ledelsen's, etc. Gee, why isn't WHM on that gear?

I see RDM's melee potential as something SE thought was a great idea 8 years ago, and pretty much forgot about, sort of like DRK's Elemental Magic; it's actually a higher rating than even SCH, but you don't see DRK's casting Fire III... All we're saying is to go back and do what RDM was made to do in the first place. Seriously, the RDM is a Fencer(Duelist, Estoquer, look them up), why the hell do other jobs get the Fencer ability and not the fencer job?

Have MAcc be derived from a percentage of total melee Acc while in melee and you wouldn't need to worry about MAcc when front-lining. Could probably do something similar for nukes, but I haven't putzed around with the idea enough.

I made a pair of Magian trial swords, M.Acc +15, MP +75 and MAB +10, INT +9 which are pretty close to at least NQ staff bonuses, but the biggest problem being the loss of subjob spells when subbing something to dual-wield with. If there's already someone else healing in the party, and my spells are landing okay, I can whip out my other MAB sword for a total of MAB +20, INT +18 on top of DMG 53 blades. But again, this is only when I'm not playing as WHM -1. Fortunately, I play with RL friends and family who don't buy into job pigeon-holing politics.

[Bigboy]

Here's the thing that really cements the argument for not having RDM melee. If you are meleeing, you are not using your ACC/Potency staves. You are casting with a deficiency. You can always switch into a staff to cast whatever it is you need to cast, but you will wipe your TP in the process. If you wait til you are ready to WS so you can use your TP, you aren't fulfilling a useful role in the party. This is neglecting at best 50% of your responsibilities. In most cases, it is ignoring 100% of the reason you are even in the party. If you are being responsible with your casting, then you will constantly be dropping you TP and do horrible damage. If you think the only spells you are expected to cast are haste and refresh you are a horrible RDM, but keeping a cycle up would cause you to not be swinging for an unacceptable amount of the fight for a melee.

[Rayik]

Here's the thing that really cements the argument for not having RDM melee. If you are meleeing, you are not using your ACC/Potency staves. You are casting with a deficiency. You can always switch into a staff to cast whatever it is you need to cast, but you will wipe your TP in the process. If you wait til you are ready to WS so you can use your TP, you aren't fulfilling a useful role in the party. This is neglecting at best 50% of your responsibilities. In most cases, it is ignoring 100% of the reason you are even in the party. If you are being responsible with your casting, then you will constantly be dropping you TP and do horrible damage. If you think the only spells you are expected to cast are haste and refresh you are a horrible RDM, but keeping a cycle up would cause you to not be swinging for an unacceptable amount of the fight for a melee.

The magian trial swords help with this a little bit, but then there's the thing of casing spells taking time away from melee, and vice versa. I have M.Acc and MAB swords, which cover he potency of my spells nicely, but just casting a spell means not swinging. Just helps reduce the TP loss.

[Supersun]

Here's the thing that really cements the argument for not having RDM melee. If you are meleeing, you are not using your ACC/Potency staves.

You are aware that those staves in NO way affect the potency of our enfeebles. All the staves do is make our enfeebles more accurate.

And really, if the enfeeble can actually land assuming the monster is not immune, a Rdm can probably land it virtually naked.

Even if for some reason you need additional accuracy to land a spell. It'll be just as effective to just swap some Mnd gear for Macc since you are probably casting in a near full potency set anyway, and unless losing an additional 2% on your slow is the difference between a clean utsu cast and an interrupt there should really be no practical difference between the 2.

So can we get over the 2004 argument that we rely on staves because last I checked I haven't actually "needed" a staff to land anything that I was going to melee on since like Robber Crabs in my 50s.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

You are aware that those staves in NO way affect the potency of our enfeebles. All the staves do is make our enfeebles more accurate.

And really, if the enfeeble can actually land assuming the monster is not immune, a Rdm can probably land it virtually naked.

Even if for some reason you need additional accuracy to land a spell. It'll be just as effective to just swap some Mnd gear for Macc since you are probably casting in a near full potency set anyway, and unless losing an additional 2% on your slow is the difference between a clean utsu cast and an interrupt there should really be no practical difference between the 2.

So can we get over the 2004 argument that we rely on staves because last I checked I haven't actually "needed" a staff to land anything that I was going to melee on since like Robber Crabs in my 50s.

And there is another fault of SE's, RDM has no native staff skill, they should therefore not wear Staves, but SE made the best magical damage/accuracy weapons a staff.

[Seriha]

And in the past, I've even said I'd give up on the melee crusade if SE really took the enfeebling ball and ran with it, but they haven't. Lately we've been seeing all these juicy little stats wiggling their way into the game that we could manipulate, but all we got to speak of was Addle. I don't hate the spell, but it's as useful as Silence on a melee mob.

Something like Inhibit-Earth that'd lower a mob's Earth Attack and Defense would be peachy (and obviously spread to each element), for example. An enfeeble that messes with the fTP of mob WS is also an option. I don't really expect Amnesia, but temporarily blocking a random TP move or causing it to work against the mob could also be handy.



Anyway, I say someone's mind closed on this matter as they're basically arguing against the job concept if they're totally against melee. Dig a bit on POL, you'll see SE say that RDM's utilize their swords and magic to do their thing, and I wager that fuels Duelle's "Bait and Switch" argument. As a generalist, it's implied we can do anything passably. Realistically, we're never asked by others to dabble in that everything for reasons we've beaten to death in this thread and others, which lends itself to the thinking it's not actually passable. You can tell me to play another job, I can say I've been playing SCH since before its implementation. That's the problem. When an aspect of a job can only see the light of day when you're solo, there's a good chance it wasn't built right.