How can SE make the Redmage frontline job?

[Dale]

to be honest, if you arent healing when youre on rdm youre most likely doing it wrong. rdm is actually amazing when played correctly. i do tojils brd rdm sam, ill play two of them and ill grab a friend who has bard or a good sam, and ill play the other two. i mean speaking from a strictly efficiency based standpoint, rdm offers a wide variety of roles (and by extension more advanced discretionary roles, like being the semi-main healer as well as stunner for tojil. (as well as maintaining hastesII, dia3, ect. can only cast 1 spell between each stun in the case of tojil, so its definately important the bard has curing sets at an acceptable level as well)

i mean to say that you arent willing to do what a party may need (main healing for example), then you are just simply missing the point. when it comes down to being efficient in anything, you obviously wouldnt begin by saying you arent ok with doing anything but what YOU believe you have to do to be efficient. i mean, in order to to get better at being efficient you have to adapt, and without that crucial element of general survival intact, youre sure to fall behind and never come to appreciate the full potential the job has to offer. this applies for solo and party play, actually.

so, elqplau, tldr; basically you shouldnt knock things people expect out of you simply because you dont agree with whats being requested due to some archaic arbitrary mindset of long ago.

I agree up to a point. It's true a Red Mage is very versatile and should use that to their advantage to help out the party where needed. But parties should also recognize that not all Red Mages play the same and not automatically view them as primary healers if that's not how their character is built.

There needs to be some give and take on both ends I believe. I'm with you that that Red Mages make for excellent healers though.

[saevel]

to be honest, if you arent healing when youre on rdm youre most likely doing it wrong. rdm is actually amazing when played correctly. i do tojils brd rdm sam, ill play two of them and ill grab a friend who has bard or a good sam, and ill play the other two. i mean speaking from a strictly efficiency based standpoint, rdm offers a wide variety of roles (and by extension more advanced discretionary roles, like being the semi-main healer as well as stunner for tojil. (as well as maintaining hastesII, dia3, ect. can only cast 1 spell between each stun in the case of tojil, so its definately important the bard has curing sets at an acceptable level as well)

i mean to say that you arent willing to do what a party may need (main healing for example), then you are just simply missing the point. when it comes down to being efficient in anything, you obviously wouldnt begin by saying you arent ok with doing anything but what YOU believe you have to do to be efficient. i mean, in order to to get better at being efficient you have to adapt, and without that crucial element of general survival intact, youre sure to fall behind and never come to appreciate the full potential the job has to offer. this applies for solo and party play, actually.

so, elqplau, tldr; basically you shouldnt knock things people expect out of you simply because you dont agree with whats being requested due to some archaic arbitrary mindset of long ago.

RDM can heal perfectly fine when it's just one or two melee jobs that need it, where RDM breaks down is with three or more. The absolute best healing spell in the game is Curaga III, followed shortly by Curaga IV. Both of those spells allow the healer to rapidly heal the front line folks to full. After you cast any spell there is a 3s global lockout where you can't take another action, if your limited to single target cures then it becomes very dangerous to have a RDM healer because they simply can not cure fast enough to keep all three alive. Also /SCH doesn't give you stona, so in any situation where you might need to counter petrify your stuck with /WHM and no light arts (which is godly for RDM). This is where a SCH/RDM main healer would actually be better, they can get all the status removals while also getting much better regen's and most of the same support functions that RDM brings.

[elqplau]

RDM is on a lot of H2H weapons, Bows and Staves... As well as Possesses a native Divine skill, yet no native divine magic. Does that mean they should be Monk/Ranjer hybrids and have access to Banish I-IV?

Kk im a 99RDM im here to tell u my staff skill is capped.... @151 the only way i can now skill up my 'native' divine skill is if i sub whm... i nolonger get skill ups from dia as i once did ...so fighting with a 151capped staff skill ....ru ok? RDM role at the start of this game was with sword/sheid/magic..... not hiding behind every1 else with a useless staff...now as others have stated we who at one time where the starter pld's are < and not wanted for nething but a sub job .....not to bad i gueese but from a starter job to nothing? Sorry but i dont have to like it ir agree with it... ive been a solo player sence the nurf...just my opion

[Dale]

Red Mage can already play frontline.

Sub BLU and team phalanx up with cocoon and spam sanguine blade. It's pretty durable. I'm sure /warrior would probably work too. So I'd say Red Mage already has the tools to be an effective front line fighter.

[Zekander]

The only problem I have with RDM healing is that we are restricted to the same spells as any other job subbing either WHM or RDM (i.e. Cure IV). However, I do understand that giving RDM even Cure V, would make us competitive (over-competitive?) with WHM again. That doesn't seem like something SE wants, though I'm not sure why, given the current state of WHM (which I also play) it doesn't seem like giving RDM (and SCH) Cure V would make much difference. It's hard to compete with near instant cures and a nigh unlimited MP pool. I can see that RDM would have fast cures too, but spamming Cure V would deplete our MP pool pretty quick, SCH (with Cure V) would probably be a more competitive healer (though I don't have any first hand experience with the job).

[saevel]

The only problem I have with RDM healing is that we are restricted to the same spells as any other job subbing either WHM or RDM (i.e. Cure IV). However, I do understand that giving RDM even Cure V, would make us competitive (over-competitive?) with WHM again. That doesn't seem like something SE wants, though I'm not sure why, given the current state of WHM (which I also play) it doesn't seem like giving RDM (and SCH) Cure V would make much difference. It's hard to compete with near instant cures and a nigh unlimited MP pool. I can see that RDM would have fast cures too, but spamming Cure V would deplete our MP pool pretty quick, SCH (with Cure V) would probably be a more competitive healer (though I don't have any first hand experience with the job).

No, Cure V has absolutely nothing to do with why RDM isn't a primary healer, it's the lack of Curaga III / IV. Cure IV is the best heal in the game, you can easily get 850 with it and a good set will push you past 900. With RDM it will have a really low cast / recast. Cure III will do 400~500 on it's own and RDM can get 5+ minutes on it's party buffs along with a stupid amount of MP recovery without external support. RDM has everything it needs to support a single or possible two melee's, but anymore and game mechanics prevent you from healing faster.

[Dale]

No, Cure V has absolutely nothing to do with why RDM isn't a primary healer, it's the lack of Curaga III / IV. Cure IV is the best heal in the game, you can easily get 850 with it and a good set will push you past 900. With RDM it will have a really low cast / recast. Cure III will do 400~500 on it's own and RDM can get 5+ minutes on it's party buffs along with a stupid amount of MP recovery without external support. RDM has everything it needs to support a single or possible two melee's, but anymore and game mechanics prevent you from healing faster.

Yeah I agree. It's our lack of a strong area heal that holds us back and allows the White Mage to surpass us. But considering White Mage is suppose to be the best healer in the game - I can understand it and live with it.

[Zekander]

Saying Cure IV is the best heal in the game is an obvious exaggeration, but I understand your point. Like I said, my biggest problem is that any job can gain access to it. So RDM healing really is nothing special, a BRD can heal almost as well (high refresh, same gear options, etc. though obviously their cures would be slightly slower). We seem to agree that giving RDM (and SCH) access to Cure V would change nothing, so it seems like a reasonable thing to ask for. However, none of this is relevant to the topic of this thread, how can SE make RDM a frontline job?

Personally, I would like to see a powerful debuff attached to our en-spells (perhaps in the form of a tier III en-spell). Tier II en-spells could be fixed, but their debuff only affects mage jobs, it would be nice to see a set with a melee friendly debuff (perhaps def/eva down, or maybe something more unique like DT+).

[Kuroganashi]

RDM can do Front line as long as they don't "SUCK"

in other words............. Keep PT Alive (HEAL) , ENFEEBLE enemy , Buff PT , Dispell enemy , Nuke Enemy.

Keep all those up + DD

I myself and several other RDM in my LS manage to do that (you won't have a SINGLE Second to Rest , however that is what RDM is all about........ ^^ Have fun)

[Dale]

RDM can do Front line as long as they don't "SUCK"

in other words............. Keep PT Alive (HEAL) , ENFEEBLE enemy , Buff PT , Dispell enemy , Nuke Enemy.

Keep all those up + DD

I myself and several other RDM in my LS manage to do that (you won't have a SINGLE Second to Rest , however that is what RDM is all about........ ^^ Have fun)

I guess it depends what you mean when you say front line. If you mean that to be tanking - then I think that complicates our ability to use all our resources. But I do think we can make decent make-shift tanks.

If you mean it to say melee then I concur. I think the job already has all the tools it needs to melee and function as an effective support job at the same time. So I think SE has done a really good job at re-tooling this class into being an actual fighter/mage.