FFXI Job Direction?? Dev Team, Please Respond.

[Seriha]

I'd chalk it up more to a shortage of healers and making a last resort more tolerable with it, but the overall lack of interest in people playing support roles isn't a unique thing to FFXI. It is, nonetheless, a route people can come to socially exploit if they find the right suckers, as RDMs didn't really endgame for RDM gear. There was far too little of that to be had from Kings, Sky, or Sea and the continued trend of slow or stagnant growth with the cap increases are a big part of our issue. Regardless, melee and support aren't mutually exclusive terms.

But as I said before on the RDM board, if you're more keen on mage updates, make a thread devoted to that instead of pissing in the cheerios of the melee camp and trying to banish us off into solo land or some niche scenario where you expect melee RDMs, that you frown upon, will magically have an Almace whose sole purpose is for stronger melee. Then again, they'd have be giving up MM/Beyond/Ultimate if you want them being anything of a decent nuker alongside the melee. Being super all at once, which seems to be this nagging fear people have, isn't possible with MP constraints. And if you weren't running out of MP curing and nuking often without MM on, I'll just say you weren't being aggressive enough. It's not hard to run out just spamming Blizzard III and IV when timers are up, as was what I pretty much did when working on my Ice staff in the various Abyssea zones with 16/tic over your 7. Sure, meds can prolong things a bit, but they're never a guarantee. And again, all of this goes out the window once we exit Abyssea.

[Greatguardian]

A WoE sword is arguably less work than a single TotM staff. There is absolutely no excuse not to have Chant du Cygne for anyone who is even half serious about wanting to pursue melee options on RDM. Period.

Thank you for reaffirming my point about mutually antagonistic and mutually appreciative roles, though. Healing/Buffing and DD'ing? Appreciative. Nuking and DD'ing? Antagonistic. A good RDM, whose primary party role is Healing, will likely do more damage by adding Melee/CdC than adding Nukes. Especially if there is a Bard or a Dancer in the party. Haste is a pretty cool guy and doesn't afraid of anything.

[Supersun]

And I believe players did this because RDM frankly isn't very good at melee but is a very good mage.

Catch 22

SCH's functional limitations by arts and charges are the limiting factor which pulls it back from 'overpowered' territory. It's not as speedy and flexible as RDM and needs much more forethought.

What limiting factor? The 2-3 second JA delay from switching to one art to another and possibly popping the addendum?

The recast on Light Arts ad Dark Arts is one minute. If you need to switch from your current Dark Arts, to Light Arts, then back to Dark Arts, then back to Light Arts again in under a minute that's not a problem with the job's flexibility but something else.

Likewise Sch gets a stratagem every 48 seconds and can hold up to 5 at the same time. They have a toolbox of JAs for their spells that they can use more often then a Thf uses Sneak Attack.

Sch should focus on Nuking and Crowd Control...isn't that just Black Mage -1 because I thought that was Black Mages role. You also neglected the fact that Scholars have a White Magic side. Should they just never use that in any situation that matters since they don't have a specialized role for their Light Arts?

You say that Rdm should be an enhancer, but how can you honestly say that is the direction Rdm is heading? If any Sch is heading in that direction. More then HALF of Schs new spells since 75+ have been Enhancing spells (well, same with Rdm but self targeting spells don't do a whole lot of good with as an "enhancer"). That and pretty much anything Rdm gets that is enhancing Whm also gets but is also AoE.

I'm not exactly making a baseless claim that Red Mage really only has 2 directions it can travel as a job without homogenizing it. It can really only travel in an enfeebling route and a melee generalist route. This wouldn't be a problem if SE didn't make a conceptually superior Red Mage with stances minus the melee. You may not like stances, but that's no reason to hold Red Mage back as a Sch -1 for the rest of the game.

A WoE sword is arguably less work than a single TotM staff. There is absolutely no excuse not to have Chant du Cygne for anyone who is even half serious about wanting to pursue melee options on RDM. Period.

I disagree by a LONG shot. A TotM staff is stupidly easy to get on Red Mage between partying for staff kills inside of abyssea or just meleeing things down to low HP outside of abyssea then landing a killing shot. The last few trials tend to take a little time, but it's nothing difficult and progress does get made.

WoE is one of the biggest luck crapfests in this game and as it stands atm if you don't have a pet job you likely won't get invited unless you static with a few friends in flux 2 or try and solo for coins in flux 3 which is painfully slow.

There's a reason people joke about how getting an Emp is easier then an WoE (especially for the benefit gained)

[Greatguardian]

Getting an Emp is tons easier than a WoE for someone with a mule, with a high level of game skill, or with friends who are solid at the game and can keep a schedule.

Getting a WoE is possible, over time, for anyone. That's why it is absolutely a reasonable requirement. If a RDM isn't using Chant du Cygne, what the hell are they melee'ing with anyways? Death Blossom (which can arguably take longer to get if you don't have Nyzul complete)? Fast Blade? They're definitely not getting Vorpal Blade with a mage or Nin sub, and Rdm/War is total crap.

Edit: Dare I even suggest Sanguine Blade? =/ I don't even want to think about that.

[Sparthos]

Catch 22



What limiting factor? The 2-3 second JA delay from switching to one art to another and possibly popping the addendum?

The recast on Light Arts ad Dark Arts is one minute. If you need to switch from your current Dark Arts, to Light Arts, then back to Dark Arts, then back to Light Arts again in under a minute that's not a problem with the job's flexibility but something else.

The limiting factor involves almost always being in Add: Black/White for the specialized spells.

If you're on SCH, you're likely /RDM which means choosing your role beforehand. If you choose to nuke, you'll be in Add: Black which means you're locked out of status cures and RR. If you choose to heal then obviously you can't access Sleep II or your high tier nukes. Switching repeatedly wastes stratagems.

A WoE sword is arguably less work than a single TotM staff. There is absolutely no excuse not to have Chant du Cygne for anyone who is even half serious about wanting to pursue melee options on RDM. Period.

There's no way a WoE is less work than a TOTM staff unless we're talking Fire/Light here. You could finish Wind or Ice in a day given you put in the hours.

WoE unless you have a group clearing chambers comes down to alot of luck or sheer grindage as you solo mobs one by one for coins. Even for the casual player, I think you'd make better headwind doing PUG Briareus/Sobek at this point.

But you are correct, any "serious" RDM melee should have (or be working on) CDC at this point. Death Blossom and Vorpal just don't compare.

[Seriha]

Edit: Dare I even suggest Sanguine Blade? =/ I don't even want to think about that.

With a proper atma build, consistently breaking 2k on RDM isn't out of the question. Main issue is said build doesn't involve RR and, of course, giving up the DW and survivability perks of /NIN. But for fodder mobs, you wouldn't even need shadows since you can just SB the HP lost back, as I tend to do on BLU with an atma build not built for SB.

[Dallas]

Next up is staff, your last resort as a Summoner... and that sucks terribly as well.

Staff doesn't suck, it's just that SE gave all the "doesn't suck" to WHM and left the jobs that can use it out in the cold. The "fix" will allow SMN to melee in the best melee subjob (/SAM) without giving up the best melee WS (Cataclysm on /WHM).