FFXI Job Direction?? Dev Team, Please Respond.

[Eeek]

So it gets to continue being a heal bot, buff bot and mezzer instead of a Red Mage. How sad.

It's not SE's fault that you, and most other RDMs on the RDM forum, are incapable of recognizing and utilizing RDM's strengths. To boil RDM down to a cure/buff bot is an insultingly facile strawman argument that insults the intelligence of most competent players and subsequently reduces any credibility you may or may not have had among rational posters.

On that note, I don't hear much, if any, complaining from RDMs with the drive and willingness to go out and properly equip their RDM for meleeing. You can rightly point out that it's difficult to properly gear a RDM for meleeing, but anyone with well-geared DD jobs will just scoff at that idea. It takes time to properly gear a melee? Nowai!

Get back to me when you have (and can prove it) a 90Almace with a proper offhand (OA2-4 sword? Joyeuse? I don't know RDM's best offhand weapon), a capped haste TP set, a Ceremonial Dagger TP set, multiple WS sets, PDT gear, MDT gear, gearsets for defensive buffs and utsusemi casts, and gearsets to fulfill RDM's more magey duties. Oh, and don't forget top-of-the-line DD Atma, but that's not the hard part (although important nonetheless).

I'd have no problem with that guy/gal meleeing. They're doinitrite, and most importantly, likely have the common sense to differentiate between the time to melee and the time to mage.

I want to hear complains from well-geared melee RDMs, not the scrubs who think a sword and and maybe a few pieces of melee gear make a melee RDM. No, Enspells do not close that gap. But 99% of the time, it's the woefully ignorant who slap on a Joyeuse and engage in full mage gear.

Sadly, these are the RDMs that everyone sees trying to DD. It's why DD RDM has such bad rap.

See also: THF, DNC, BLU, PUP, BST, PLD.

[Malamasala]

SMN is in a great place right now to be perfectly honest, it's just that SMNs all whine because they want to be broken like they were in past FF games, which really doesn't fit into an MMO.

I think you got that backwards. What SMN does, is exactly like in past FFs. We just deal damage. What we complain about is that all other parts of the job is not working. I can't debuff, because it isn't worthwhile. I can't buff, because they are all useless. I can't heal, because the recast is too long. I can't give out refresh, because I need to assault my pet to build TP for nukes. And spirits are not even worth mentioning.

What we whine and complain about is that we want these new things to work. Spirits that never existed before would have been nice... if they worked. Wards is a new and fresh thing... which serves no point. We got utility rages, that share our DD pact timer so they can't be used. For every thing new to FFXI Summoner, something prevents it from being used.

Now Earthen Armor paired with Scherzo makes it so you really don't have to worry about being one shot by particularly bad TP moves, which is nice considering mobs are growing stronger and stronger outside abyssea.

While it is nice, my Earthen Armors have never saved anyone. Either it is on, and they never get any high damage TP move, or it wears off and they get hit right after. And it can't be denied that spending 120 MP over and over again on something that "may" help is a complete disaster in game design. You could as well make RR last 5 minutes, and have all mages constantly re-applying RR "incase I die".

I'd agree with you if SE changed Earthen Armor to 15 min duration. Until then you are just sponging MP while playing the lottery that your tank should end up 1-shot suddenly. I might be insane, but I don't think it should cost you 2000 MP to save a tank from death. Look at BRD, it pays ZERO MP for the same thing, which is vastly superior in support.

You can play classic SMN just fine though, because if all you do is 70BP it over and over, the blood boon and elemental siphon will let you keep going far longer than any other BLM. But I doubt anyone has complained about the damage output of SMN. It is everything else, spirits, wards, low level rage pacts, perpetuation, mana cede, etc. that needs adjustments. Paying 100 MP for 100 more damage is just ridiculous. I'm not touching mana cede unless I'm in Abyssea these days.

[Alhanelem]

the Hastega was inferior

the Hastega was inferior, but now it's superior. Hastes everyone at once for the same effect as the haste spell, and it lasts longer.

SYNTAX ERROR: Avatar Favors + Offensive Bloodpacts, does not compute.

The effect of avatar's favor on blood pacts, especially physical ones, is very minor. They are still completely useable.

[Neisan_Quetz]

It's minor on physical bloodpacts because Avatar Attack is either very high or capped with only 1-2 pieces of gear, possibly 3 with Favor up, -20 MAB is horrible for damage, especially for damage that's stuck on a 45 second timer at best.

[Alhanelem]

No, its just a few points of physical attack doesn't matter much at all, while a few points of MAB does matter measurably.

[Malacite]

Well, for starters they could maybe allow Avatar's favor to work on the freaking avatars themselves and not just the PT. Removing the 15% damage penalty would be nice too, since they're gimp enough as it is (I still think that was an unnecessary and back-handed drawback they put into that ability)

And BPs DO suck for damage, even the 70's unless you're inside abyssea and even then it's irrelevant - The whole big draw to them prior was because you could deal 1k+ damage to things like Kirin and not eat dirt because of it. Well, Abyssea kinda throws the whole notion of consequences out the window for the most part. Between Infinite-MP WHM's with Cure 6 and obscenely powerful weaponskills like Ukon's Fury, there's not much point to having a SMN around for damage.

And lord knows as others have pointed out, it's not good for much else anymore. Just about every buff a SMN can provide, other jobs can as well and in some cases they do it better. The only real reason to have a SMN around right now is for Voidwatch, and even that is totally random as it gives you absolutely no clue what pacts to use, and with a 1 minute timer it can get rather hectic.


A good start for fixing SMN would be something that players have been asking for since the game came first came out, which is individual timers for each blood pact.

[Seriha]

I want to hear complains from well-geared melee RDMs, not the scrubs who think a sword and and maybe a few pieces of melee gear make a melee RDM. No, Enspells do not close that gap. But 99% of the time, it's the woefully ignorant who slap on a Joyeuse and engage in full mage gear.

You're looking at one, not that I trust you to really care to. Prior to the cap increases, I pretty much had all there was to offer for the job, and in terms of the melee game, that hasn't changed all that much. I've also got plenty of other dedicated DDs leveled and have no difficulty distinguishing the strengths between the jobs, nor will I sit here and demand someone have a level 90 Empyrean just to enter the conversation. Like it or not, there are levels before that. Like it or not, setting atma to devote yourself to melee will be depriving you of the more mage-y atmas that, even now, can't guarantee a RDM a spot in a party if a leader has a choice over a WHM or BLM. And we all know the moment a RDM starts slacking at their "mage duties," you and everyone else so vehemently against the notion will throw some form of hissyfit by picking a fight, kicking them, and/or taking some kind of screenshot and running off to BG with it like it makes you a pro. So, if you wanna tell people to stop talking strawman, than stop talking like every RDM is meleeing in full errant and that Abyssea is forever.

[Duelle]

It's not SE's fault that you, and most other RDMs on the RDM forum, are incapable of recognizing and utilizing RDM's strengths. To boil RDM down to a cure/buff bot is an insultingly facile strawman argument that insults the intelligence of most competent players and subsequently reduces any credibility you may or may not have had among rational posters.

Because that's not been the general way our job has been looked at since people started needing refresh and became desperate for heals, right?

And if you want to talk about insulting, selling the class as a magic swordsman only to find yourself buff and heal-botting in the content that matters is much more insulting, and even borders on bait-and-switch. Where're our combat proficiencies, which are part of the Red Mage concept? Oh right, they took the back burner in design when they decided to give us enfeebles and refresh. And when enfeebles stopped mattering, what took over? That's right, cure-botting, hasting and spamming refresh. Why? Because the DPS generated by RDM is a far cry from what is expected in the front lines (even moreso in a world where WS spam is king and sword happens to have weaker WS selection, further aggravated by the native lack of Vorpal Blade), and our "utility' never has and never will be a selling point or justification for that in front line context. It's been tried before, and it has failed.

On that note, I don't hear much, if any, complaining from RDMs with the drive and willingness to go out and properly equip their RDM for meleeing. You can rightly point out that it's difficult to properly gear a RDM for meleeing, but anyone with well-geared DD jobs will just scoff at that idea.

False. An AH DRK, SAM, WAR, THF, BLU and NIN will blow an AH RDM out of the water. Where there are gear options for those jobs, we have to go to much greater lengths to actually get gear that starts making up for our lacking melee. And I say that as a guy who has played DRK and SAM. Made even worse by the easy to obtain gear that was tossed around like candy that lacked RDM in the list of jobs that could use it.

Get back to me when you have (and can prove it) a 90Almace with a proper offhand (OA2-4 sword? Joyeuse? I don't know RDM's best offhand weapon), a capped haste TP set, a Ceremonial Dagger TP set, multiple WS sets, PDT gear, MDT gear, gearsets for defensive buffs and utsusemi casts, and gearsets to fulfill RDM's more magey duties. Oh, and don't forget top-of-the-line DD Atma, but that's not the hard part (although important nonetheless).

Which has to do exactly with what? Almace is a fix through gear, and thus null and void in the context of melee. And not having it doesn't disqualify me from critiquing the job's lacking design, since unlike you I keep concept and practice in mind, not just practice for the sake of efficacy.

If you want to see why I say what I say, go do some reading on this class (skip down to endgame expectations if you don't feel like reading the lore and the other bits on it). Try to not be biased and limited to "i h8tz tiz gam3" and "tiz iz diffrnt!1one!!", because all it does is prove you to be even more close-minded than I originally thought. That class has gone through the same hoops RDM is currently going through. All of it, from the lolmelee crap to the arguments between the front line and back line camps, and even including little self-important trolls like you looking down on the melee camp. Despite being designed with the exact same openness and utility of RDM, that class can front line, tank and heal based on what the player wants to do because the developers eventually pulled their heads out of their collective rears and made it happen.

I don't care how the devs accomplish it (since I do know certain aspects of XI are very limited due to the engine), but those kind of options are what I want to see open up to Red Mage. Not Magic Burst bonuses that are several years too late, not fixes through gear, not troll-face-implemented Shield Mastery, and certainly no purely healer-oriented traits. The option to front-line and be viable, the option to back-line heal and maybe even just focus on nukes, with all being acceptable in group content. Not your worth in a party being measured entirely from buff cycles and cures.

I'll even encourage anyone who feels their job is pigeon-holed to speak up as well, since I do feel for the NINs that don't like tanking and SMNs who have been all-around terrible for a good number of years.

[Greatguardian]

I'll bet an AH RDM can cure better than an AH PLD. Ugh. I'm so frustrated. PLD was billed as a Swordsman with Healing magic, but no one lets me main heal in parties. Why does everyone expect PLD to be on the front line? What's the point of even giving them access to Apollo's Staff if they're not going to Cure? It's downright insulting, SE!

Protip: Red Mage is easily one of the single most powerful stand-alone jobs in the entire game. Players who are good enough to play it effectively while melee'ing appropriately already do so and no one with a brain complains.

Here's the thing, though. Good RDMs also know when to chuck the sword and throw on the staff. There is no "Always Wearing A Sword" approach to a job like RDM that will ever be successful. Staves enhance spells. Swords enhance frontline damage. When your duties are limited to Restorative/Buff duties, you aren't losing much by equipping a sword (CdC will outweigh the benefit you get from Cure Potency+, and you're able to use RR/Apoc/MM without much of a loss). When your duties include Enfeebles on resistant NMs, any sort of Nukes, Movement/Kiting, or the versatility granted by being able to change your Main/Sub slots, you wear a bloody staff/wand/whatnot and use Mage atmas.

RDM is one of the most inventory and macro-heavy jobs in the game to do well. But I tell you what, the fact that not everyone with level 90, 10,000 gil and a pulse can a be sooper dooper awesome magic swordsman is not a problem with the Red Mage job. It is a problem with shitty players who only have level 90, 10,000 gil, and a pulse.

When an ideal RDM is able to function as billed, the job itself is perfectly fine. If you're not ideal? Work hard and become ideal.

Inb4 someone tells me you can't fit enough gear into 80 slots to play melee RDM effectively again, despite already having shown a hypothetical 72-77 slot Inventory that covers everything you'd need out at any given time in the RDM subforum.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Not gonna lie though, I sure as hell wouldn't mind an update to melee proficiency (Why even add Enspell 2 SE) and/or or at least Cure V, but Rdm doesn't 'need' it.