Inquiry to the Devs

[Tamarsamar]

I'd hold on the whole "END OF DAYS!" aspect of Tranquil Heart until we see what it does. For all we know, we'll only get level 1. That might be -5 Enmity for cures. Okay, so you change your gear some so you'll have more +Enmity on. Done. Now, the Black Magic aspect was pretty stupid, especially if you consider people /RDM or /DRK getting full enmity for debuffs they very rarely landed, if ever. Ideally they could've made it so you only got full enmity if it landed, but then that's also a bit of a tank nerf since you'd have to wait until stuff wore off to try again.

You're joking, right?

Even with Cures, we couldn't keep hate if our lives depended on it, anyway. Tranquil Heart is much less the "END OF DAYS" as it is the cockroach that spits on the former location of a civilization that has already been leveled with an atomic bomb. Since it literally serves no purpose but spite, we're naturally going to get as many levels of it as they can fit.

Not to mention, have you *tried* gearing for Enmity+ on Red Mage? Are you aware of how absurdly little gear we have for it? I mean, you would've thought that S-E would've added more gear with Magical bonuses on it that came with Enmity+ as a "downside" . . . but the only place that really happens is in mediocre Einherjar equipment with PDT+% on it as well.

[Seriha]

With a lot of tanking being damage-based these days, we're screwed without CDC even if cures are are normal or debuffs were as they used to be. Good luck convincing DDs to /THF to TA on you, too.

Personally, tanking for an alliance was never a role I was particularly interested in as it meant yet another gear set and of course fighting with PLDs and NINs for the spot back in the day. I don't really miss the days of "Gimme a little bit of time to build hate" either, and have plenty of horror stories seeing rival shells take forever and a day to kill crap with RDM tanks. To me, not being able to tank HNMs is like not having Cure V, you might be able to manage under the proper conditions, but it shouldn't be expected. Still wanna tank EXP or the odd quest/mission fight? Go for it. Like it or not, the whole "No Effect" side of enmity gain was pretty much an exploit, though.

[Carth]

Personally, tanking for an alliance was never a role I was particularly interested in as it meant yet another gear set and of course fighting with PLDs and NINs for the spot back in the day.

No different than fighting with the WHMs and SCHs today.

Like it or not, the whole "No Effect" side of enmity gain was pretty much an exploit, though.

"Exploit" is often an overused term that tell others that it's a bad thing. Everyone using Utsusemi as /nin is an exploit, as well as using capped evasion and +evasion gear to solo NMs is also an exploit. As far as I know, RDMs who wanted to tank HNMs needed awesome gear, shell out large amounts of money, and needed to prove themselves worthy of the task. If anything, abusing CE gains through enfeebling spells was the least exploitable out of anything, and even so, that doesn't mean it was bad.

[Devrom]

Because Red Mage being weaker at melee then White Mage and soon to be Bard makes a lot of sense as well.

hexa strike outside abyssea is nothing special, you know that, right?

[Supersun]

It's still a stronger WS then most. It's certainly better then Evisceration. The only reason Whm wasn't exactly a large DD threat before abyssea was simply because they had accuracy issues and that virtually NONE of their gear had accuracy. Certainly outside of abyssea they won't have RR I doubt that they will still have the same accuracy issues they had at 75 just from the fact that they have a crap ton more club skill now due to the increased level cap.

[Devrom]

This is a stock response. I've heard it enough to know you have nothing better to actually say. Hybrids have multiple roles, and they should be viable if you really want to use them to their fullest. RDM is far from this because the only real benefit a RDM brings is extra cures and refresh. Enfeebles have not made or broken a group's ability to clear a boss fight. Our nukes are second-rate. Our melee is a joke. I don't know about you, but we're way past the point where we should shut up and heal. Melee should be more than just a solo toy.

i have given you all kinds of responses. read a bit more instead of nitpicking. the only real benefit a RDM brings is extra cures and refresh? please... enfeebles do make fights a lot more easier overall; safer, faster, call it whatever you like depending on the fight but not useless or i would say you are just clueless. Our nukes are second-grade because the "jack of all trades" thing you and others have been advocating dictates that rdm wouldn't be first-grade in anything. our melee is weak but not a joke unless you dont give a shit to try and get better. about shuting up and healing, i have never said that. i am not even carrying my staves anymore except a few things lol though that is about to change with the next update. TP and WS sets take more than enough space.

The old and repeated "mage" argument. Nice try there, though as Seriha put so well, "better tell them BLUs to go home, too".

actually that wasn't uncommon not to bring BLUs to endgame stuff lol. lets see...tiamat, khimaira, ixion and yilbegan? and you happen to know that BLUs used to be Cannonball bots in those fights, right? khimaira stuff are almost only trophies even when it was first released, tiamat is for people who didnt have blm or smn but blu, fought for gil with a shitty drop rate, ixion is a bit guaranteed gil and that is it and yilbegan is not even worth the effort with shit drop rates and not even appealing drops considering the effort. not even considering the fact that your group have to claim all these for you to spam cannonball and afk inbetween. who cares if they can spam some spells to kill an xp mob faster than an actual DD? even the vast majority of BG (as most people here calls "the home of elitist pricks") agrees that BLU can't be considered as a real DD, especially the people who are into all kinds of number crunching and parse digging, not useless discussions.

i look at this way; rdm: more mage less DD, blu: less mage more DD and you know what? it makes sense. yes, it has "mage" in its name but it had to be the opposite of the first hybrid job not to be a copy of it. would you be happy to see a new job after 3 years only to see that it was just a copy?

there is no difference between saying that cor should be competing with rng in DD and rdm should be kicking ass with their swords. "hey! pirates use guns so why the low skill?!1!?1". it is all about specialty. pirates are not supposed to be that accurate with guns in the first place just like how fencers are not supposed be kicking ass up and down with their pointy sticks.

the point is rdm was created as a fencer playing with magic in mind and so it needs some touch to make it so. the actual point of the thread isn't "rdm sucks on melee, give us this, give us that so we can go pew pew" but it is getting derailed to exactly that. being a part of this, although apparently i am the person here who looks at the matter in a different way, i am sorry OP. i am out.

-end of transmission-

[Duelle]

i have given you all kinds of responses. read a bit more instead of nitpicking. the only real benefit a RDM brings is extra cures and refresh? please... enfeebles do make fights a lot more easier overall; safer, faster, call it whatever you like depending on the fight but not useless or i would say you are just clueless. Our nukes are second-grade because the "jack of all trades" thing you and others have been advocating dictates that rdm wouldn't be first-grade in anything. our melee is weak but not a joke unless you dont give a shit to try and get better. about shuting up and healing, i have never said that. i am not even carrying my staves anymore except a few things lol though that is about to change with the next update. TP and WS sets take more than enough space.

Looks like my words stung. Either way, enfeebling has always been a crutch of sorts in terms of role. The primary benefit of our class sadly IS heals and refresh because:

a) the developers were short-sighted enough to create one real healing archetype, causing the populace to be desperate enough to use anyone with an MP bar and heals to cover the healing role (again, this is the game that created SMN/WHM) and

b) MP regeneration mid-combat being a rarity in the span from 41-75 combined with people's desire to squeeze the highest exp/hour, which in effect means never resting or resting as little as possible, combined with the fact that the premium class for this (Bard) was stupidly rare because people who genuinely like support for the sake of supporting itself are far outnumbered by people who like to tank and deal damage, leading everyone to go to the next best thing (AKA the poor sods who rolled RDM not knowing what was coming to them).

That's the beginning and the end of it. What you're doing is trying to sadly justify something that from a class design perspective should simply be a minor facet of the class instead of how we're perceived as a whole, or not exist at all. It's no different than the guys that tried to justify Summoner turning into /WHM because "well, at least I'm powerful when I use astral flow", whereas anyone who actually looked at that damn class and its relation to other elements in the game (including the partying that FFXI was built upon) quickly realized it was a broken job with a ton of incomplete ideas.

The fact that no one outside of PLD and SMN has passive MP regeneration created the demand for refresh, which by extension increased the demand for RDM. Desperation for healers also greatly played a part in this.

actually that wasn't uncommon not to bring BLUs to endgame stuff lol. lets see...tiamat, khimaira, ixion and yilbegan? and you happen to know that BLUs used to be Cannonball bots in those fights, right?

Indeed. They inherited the spots MNKs used to get to spam Chi Blast. Don't know what that has to do with anything, as you went for the overused "mage" argument.

i look at this way; rdm: more mage less DD, blu: less mage more DD and you know what? it makes sense. yes, it has "mage" in its name but it had to be the opposite of the first hybrid job not to be a copy of it. would you be happy to see a new job after 3 years only to see that it was just a copy?

It's obviously been an attempt to placate the melee enthusiasts. There's a reason some of us speculate that SE tried to use BLU as their excuse to not fix RDM. Problem is, people get tired of imitations and by this point can openly state they want the genuine article. Hence the point behind the RDM melee discussions.

there is no difference between saying that cor should be competing with rng in DD and rdm should be kicking ass with their swords. "hey! pirates use guns so why the low skill?!1!?1". it is all about specialty. pirates are not supposed to be that accurate with guns in the first place just like how fencers are not supposed be kicking ass up and down with their pointy sticks.

Believe it or not, COR has a huge amount of leeway given how it was designed. Not to mention the fact that it is a ranged class changes things considerably, as the checks and balances on a ranged class are different from how you balance a melee class. There's also the fact that the sweet spot of hexaguns is different from what the other guns have. COR is pretty good from that stanpoint, and chances are we'd see more of them were it not for the fact that SE still has it in their heads to make the good bullets stupidly expensive/rare or not worth the trouble getting. It's part of why some people play COR with /WHM and using only Quickshot.

the point is rdm was created as a fencer playing with magic in mind and so it needs some touch to make it so. the actual point of the thread isn't "rdm sucks on melee, give us this, give us that so we can go pew pew" but it is getting derailed to exactly that. being a part of this, although apparently i am the person here who looks at the matter in a different way, i am sorry OP. i am out.

It's a lingering issue that is connected to the OP. The OP wants the devs to state their intended direction with RDM. I want to hear it as well, because as I said earlier in this thread, it'll hopefully put some of the issues to rest. If Mr. "I made abyssea but I also made the failure that is chocobo raising" came in here tomorrow and told me, "Sorry, Duelle, but Red Mage is intended to spam cures and refresh, with some enfeebles to make it look like you have something else of worth to bring to a group", I'd thank him for the response and move on. In my case, it'd let me bury the hatchet and spend my time elsewhere.

[Duelle]

"Exploit" is often an overused term that tell others that it's a bad thing. Everyone using Utsusemi as /nin is an exploit, as well as using capped evasion and +evasion gear to solo NMs is also an exploit. As far as I know, RDMs who wanted to tank HNMs needed awesome gear, shell out large amounts of money, and needed to prove themselves worthy of the task. If anything, abusing CE gains through enfeebling spells was the least exploitable out of anything, and even so, that doesn't mean it was bad.

Wouldn't it have been better to give RDM the means to actually (if only passably) tank instead of having to abuse CE from enfeebles to get the job done? Not to mention the gear you speak of, to my recollection, included a set to become completely immune to spell interrupts. Which was probably an oversight by the devs just like the old haste cap and the old TP floor.

[Carth]

Wouldn't it have been better to give RDM the means to actually (if only passably) tank instead of having to abuse CE from enfeebles to get the job done? Not to mention the gear you speak of, to my recollection, included a set to become completely immune to spell interrupts. Which was probably an oversight by the devs just like the old haste cap and the old TP floor.

Of course it would've. And more specifically you needed -Spell Interruption, Fast Cast/Haste set, -PDT and -MDT for magic-spamming mobs (which is where RDM tanking shined the most).

RDM tanking anything at all probably wasn't part of Square's ambitions post RotZ where they made PLD, but neither was NIN tanking, or any DDs going /NIN to negate any and all damage, or even RDMs abusing DoT kiting to kill HNMs and Gods. Fact is, Square gives the players the tools needed to play the game and the playerbase uses them to every advantage, and Square either gives the stamp of approval or vetoes it. If Square doesn't kill it, who's to say they're wrong?

My point is calling something an exploit doesn't make it bad. Since Square bluntly killed RDM tanking they obviously didn't want it. I'm still baffled as to why it took them five years to do it though.

[Seriha]

It arguably didn't pick up until you started seeing NIN/DRKs floating around, who in part shared some of RDM's hate-gaining tools. If RDMs didn't pick up on this and add things like their -interrupt sets, innate stoneskin/phalanx, and an easier time of capping recasts, it's possible the nerf may have never happened since the NIN/DRKs were at least reliant on an outside source of Refresh, and thus more vulnerable to things that could mess with your MP.

In general, I'm not against the concept of RDM tanking, I'd just like it to be done right. Exploit, loophole, oversight, whatever you wanna call it, the "No Effect" might not have been bad, but it wasn't good game design, either. Instead, consider what would make RDM a unique tank, as for now, we're basically and always have been a pseudo-PLD in this regard.