RDM tanking(post your comments and thoughts on it here)

[AyinDygra]

I specifically noted that it "started" as a new job class, but that it really is more of an addition to Red Mage. (and it's not really all that much of an addition, in the grand scheme of things) It's mostly an extension of existing Red Mage abilities and Spell lines.

edit:

but when I reviewed the job, I realized "this isn't a new job, it's Red Mage in a tanking position."

Would they both welcome this new twist on the job?

There is enough to this job to make it unique in FFXI, but Red Mage almost fits the description already with its selection of En-spells and in the past, Red Mage has shown its potential as a tank job, which is where I think it should be when it's on the front lines (sadly, most of its enmity tools were cut away, possibly intentionally, but likely just a side effect of helping other mages since they generated so much enmity).

To create the "Mystic Knight" side of Red Mage, add:

This is what we end up with:
Back Lines Red Mage:
Front Lines Red Mage:

If this sounds too much like a new job... and you want to step this far onto Red Mage's toes, taking over En-spell mastery and curing and nuking... go ahead and make Mystic Knight!

[Yandaime]

If anyone remembers the studies done by Kanican when RDM tanking was first discovered, you'll see that when you break down FFXI's Enmity system, CE (Cumulative Enmity) from spells and damage, greatly outweighs VE (Volatile Enmity) from JAs. Before the nerf, several spells that RDM were able to use all had, CE values of 50-100 each, so by simply casting Bind and Dispel back to back repeatedly, RDM was able to generate CE at a staggeringly high rate causing it to completely fold any Tanking counterpart at pulling and keeping hate. Because of this, and RDM's natural ability to survive and its superior shadow casting ability (At that time) RDM was easily the most powerful tanking class vs any NM that needed shadow tanking. I'm sure some of you might remember that with a RDM tanking, BLMs and DDs were more free to let loose than they could ever be with a PLD or NIN tanking. It was simply too hard to take hate from a RDM.

I wanted to remind everyone of this because this is why SE killed RDM tanking. Having a Mage Class, that is naturally self-sufficient, able to hold and keep better hate on major fights, is ground breaking. And for that very same reason, SE will probably not allow RDM to tank like that again. Just a heads up. It took them 2 years before they finally put their foot down on RDM tanking but they did, and they had Chuck Norris do the stomping. RDM tanking is done, for good reason lol

[Seriha]

I feel like it was more of a stab at NIN/DRK than RDM/NIN, really.

[Yandaime]

Meh, I don't see why SE would find any fault in NIN tanking is the only reason I don't want to accept that. NIN/DRK was very good at pulling and holding hate, but their main CE tools were Bind and Stun and MP was a constant problem for NIN/DRK. They were better at holding hate than a PLD and Arguably on the same Level as DRK tanking? But RDM tanking trumped them. Probably the most notorious cases were RDM tanking vs JoL and getting CE so high that it took the DRK in my LS 1 BloodWeapon + Souleater + K Club and 3 consecutive Curebomb K Clubs to finally pull hate. And RDM tank used to stand-tank Kirin instead of kiting. Alot of people like to say it was done to nerf DRK/NIN but the evidence points to them stopping RDM tanking, when they killed the CE values, they did it for ALL spells we use except Cure 4... Our Bar-Spells, Dispel, Sleeps, nothing worked anymore after that and all of these are spells that NIN cant use with DRK sub.
I'm confident SE did that to stop RDM tanking, don't get me wrong I loved being a RDM tank but it was wrong on so many levels... A RDM *Shouldnt* be a better tank than a NIN or PLD and PLDs and NINs got hit in the cross-fire cuz at that time, /DRK and /RDM were viable subs for them

[saevel]

The single issue with RDM "tanking" was it took awhile to build up hate. PLD's and even NIN's had spells / abilities with a high VE value. And while CE and VE are equally valuable, VE wears so fast as to be impossible to maintain, but you tend to get more of it at once. RDM sucks as a sole tank, but absolutely shines when your dual tanking. PLD/NIN + RDM/NIN was the crazy good combo, the PLD would sentinel and blast their hate through the roof, then the RDM would slowly build it and eventually overtake the PLD. Typically took 5min for this to happen, by myself the mob would be chasing the WHM's or the BLM's before I had a chance to build super hate.

So while RDM tanking as awesome, it did have it's limits.

[SpankWustler]

The single issue with RDM "tanking" was it took awhile to build up haste. PLD's and even NIN's had spells / abilities with a high VE value. And while CE and VE are equally valuable, VE wears so fast as to be impossible to maintain, but you tend to get more of it at once. RDM sucks as a sole tank, but absolutely shines when your dual tanking. PLD/NIN + RDM/NIN was the crazy good combo, the PLD would sentinel and blast their hate through the roof, then the RDM would slowly build it and eventually overtake the PLD. Typically took 5min for this to happen, by myself the mob would be chasing the WHM's or the BLM's before I had a chance to build super hate.

So while RDM tanking as awesome, it did have it's limits.

All of this, and additionally, Red Mage tanking went downhill even faster than Paladin tanking once engaging the monster entered the equation. I don't understand why something honestly situational was considered overpowered by the development team.

Tanking seems to be an aspect of the game which the development team takes a large, albeit bizarrely expressed, interest in. If a spell's enmity generation is taken advantage of by people on large, that spell is changed as soon as they can figure out how to untangle their own spaghetti code and change it.

I don't know if I should be hopeful or fearful that they would ever pay so much attention to all elements of FFXI.

[Mageoholic]

The single issue with RDM "tanking" was it took awhile to build up hate.

False. RDM capped hate faster then both PLD and NIN. At the time RDM was the single best tank in the game. This is why it was nerfed because it was being used on everything. 3 minutes and you were capped on CE and VE, and nothing was taking it off. If you wanted DD to be able to start right away you had a THF SATA you and then go sit in his corner out of the ally to watch.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Nin/drk had access to stun/blind/sleep etc., Not sure what Nins you had that were taking significantly longer.

*3 minutes of dealing little damage to the mob