Red Mage thread

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Originally Posted by Maero

The question is also what position will it be in?
Will they make it to outshine blm and smn or something in between.
If it has not much utility, what will they do?
Rydia actually makes good points and i would hope they have some sort of haste ability since chaining combos and the like

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Likely Caster LB and Caster spot in raid balanced parties. It could have melee LB and compete utility/slot-wise with melee DPS, and i would like for it to, but I don't think that's very likely. Its not hard to outshine BLM/SMN in utility given that what they offer mostly defensive (E4E, Virus/Supervirus, Apoc, Raise, weak Physick) benefits but what is most attractive are offensive benefits. There some skill changing and new skills coming, so comparing utility right now vs utility at level 70 might (hopefully) be different.

Haste is a sticky issue. AST has Arrow card and no one really likes it except for BLM due to it accelerating resource depletion and BLM having infinite resources. Self speed buffs are a bit different since MNK and NIN TP costs take into account that they have a Haste effect most of the time. Adding on top of that is still a problem. There are plenty of other options for RDM utility though.

RDM should absolutely have healing skills. Sure White Magic has also usually included some damage dealing, but the RDM has black magic and weapons for that. The benefit of RDM's white magic has been healing/buffing. It wouldn't feel right to me if RDM wasn't chucking a heal occasionally.
Of course pure heal GCD skills on a DPS character are pretty much wasted unless you make it such that their DPS does not suffer for it. So make them oGCD or some kind of oGCD buff that adds healing effects while you still do damage or whatever implementation that doesn't get in the way of DPS. Doesn't have to be more than a couple skills, just make them fairly useful generally and/or clutch.
(The healing magic problem is the main reason I thought RDM would make a neat tank, White Magic = damage reduction CDs and a panic heals button. Oh Well!)

Outside of that? Well RDM should really not have "high level" magic spells on their own. I think the sort of theme should be combining their weaker magic and physical prowess in fun ways to do damage. It'd be fun, for example, if they had fire 1, blizzard 1, aero 1, and cure 1 but had combos and things so end up working very differently than the BLM/WHM versions.
And Dual Cast has to be important to them somehow.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

Clemency is saved from being utterly useless simply because the class that has it is usually in the position of taking massive amounts of damage. Clemency is still completely unnecessary most of the time provided that the healer knows what they are doing, but it's not a total trash skill. Generally speaking, though, it tends to be better that the PLD continue to attack rather than stop to self-heal.

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In the case of PLD, this is because the PLD is busy tanking. A DPS with clemency would have more opportunities to use it (though, as I've said, you'd need to tie it to some mechanic to limit/control its use).

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True hybrids don't work in this game. Your opinion is your own, of course, and valid as far as that goes, but there's nothing in this particular game thus far that supports a true hybrid class being successful unless you want to consider SCH one.

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I'm not sure where you get that I'm asking for a "true" hybrid. I know well enough that it wouldn't work in this game. My argument was that you can't base utility on whether it's used all the time. I could take it a step further and say that at that point it's no longer utility, but a rotational ability.

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I've already covered how an oGCD action that happens to heal someone wouldn't be horrible (even if it most likely wouldn't be very useful), but I wouldn't want to see actions like that become the focus or theme of a DPS Job, because no one needs a healing DPS. That's more or less my point.

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Now I'm convinced you're not understanding the other side of this conversation. No one is asking for a healing DPS. What is being asked for is some limited utility that involves healing. Firstly because it fits the concept of the job (RDM being a combination of swordplay, white magic and black magic) and second because it could prove useful in cases where things start to go badly but at a notable cost to the RDM.

I'd personally still want the job to focus on DPS and would expect the bulk of the skills to be meant for that. If you need examples of what I was hoping to see with RDM, I'll point to WoW's enhancement shaman and retribution paladin, since those are actual "hybrids" that focus on DPS but have utility built into them; both fight in melee range (hint hint, SE), both can spot heal but quickly consume resources when doing so (which means you're likely not using heals but are there if shit hits the fan), both have some form of party/raid buffs, and the latter has the equivalent of Benediction but better and a cooldown that makes one party member immune to physical damage.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

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By this point I'm getting the idea that we don't actually disagree on much of anything. I'm just emphasizing the risk of having healing-type utility as a DPS Job gimmick because a lot of people in various sections of the forums seem to be excited about the possibility of RDM having healing, and game designers everywhere seem to balance the scales in ways that don't actually mesh with player needs. I wouldn't want to see "RDM has slightly lower DPS than X Job because it has the ability to clutch heal/mitigate damage/what-have-you" since the actual demand for additional healing and mitigation outside of the healing and tank roles, respectively, is basically nil.

So, I'm a little confused by people saying RDM will have black/white magic since according to the slide they provided they've stated red magic is a hybrid of black and white magic... yet everyone is so focused on what healing spells RDM will get?

What we might be more likely to see are things like low oGCD abilities that help buff healing (think something like Mantra) and a buff/debuff to help DPS casters (similar to something like Foe's Requiem maybe?). I don't expect to see a piercing resistance debuff, though. If I remember correctly, there was an interview where Yoshi-P was asked if RDM would deal physical damage, and Yoshi-P started to explain but stopped himself because he didn't want to give anything away. If we do get one, then we're looking at DRG Disembowel being overwritten like with what happens to WAR Storm's Eye/NIN Dancing Edge and DRK Delirium/MNK Dragon Kick.

The skills used in the video to me ring of something like the MCH Wildfire. Cast "Chainspell" for X amount of seconds Y% of damage done to target is compiled and dealt at the end of the duration. Rushing in would allow the RDM to apply DoT(s) or a debuff, or get close to aide the party with a utility ability, and then jumping back out would re-position them to return to their red magic rotation. The positionals would be important because if you're too far from the main body of your party, they can't benefit from your utility, and if you're too close you're likely to eat more damage.

While the traditional RDM has been the jack of all trade, utilizing both white and black magic, it's been stated before that the FFXIV RDM would be different from previous installments (could be mis-remembering this and I don't remember when/where the statement was made). The hybridization of white/black could purely be lore related, and we will see the faintest of traces of white magic in the elements used for spells, or how a RDM might augment potency of party abilities/skills.

...Thoughts? Need someone to double check I'm not using crazy logic here.

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Originally Posted by Apeiron

So, I'm a little confused by...

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It only takes 1 spell to have utilty healing. Casters have one now from either being ACN or from cross class, its just failed to scale with what ilvl does to our max hp. So it wouldn't even need to be a native red magic spell per se. So long as there was a way to leverage the stat that powers it, or said spell's very poor scaling was fixed in either the 4.0 battle skill review/purge or cross role skill system re-org.

Because its a dps, its worth discussing dps healing capabilities. RDM should have something. Everyone else but MCN does, and looks like they'll fix that too in 4.0.

Utility sort of determines how desirable a dps job is in raid settings. There are other, more important utilities than weak self or off healing from a dps, but a lot of people are looking for the familiar traces of actual RDM that will make it through into XIV RDM. Swords, check. Its a dps so offensive/debuff (black magic), check. Healing/buffing (white magic), ????? Just talking about what might be acceptable and still balanced with the other dps jobs.


The skills in the video looked more like /battlestance, Chainspell, attack spell A, attack spell B, oGCD lunge, Weaponskill A, oGCD backflip slash, spell finisher A, /victorypose. Maybe a spell/melee combo that works like mudras resulting in different finishing effects depending on what you put into it. Probably not rotationally accurate though. Just some skills with animations that were ready to show off.

Sharing piercing debuff wouldn't be bad. We wouldn't go out of our way to apply it with a DRG in party. Its desirable for any party with a brd or mcn, so any 8 man raid group would want either a rdm or a drg, if they both had it. DRG has a monopoly on it right now. RDM could be fine without it though. It might in fact do all magical damage or mostly magical damage.

I'm really leaning on RDM being like Casters in many ways, and NIN.

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Originally Posted by Madrone

It only takes 1 spell to have utilty healing. Casters have one now from either being ACN or from cross class, its just failed to scale with what ilvl does to our max hp. So it wouldn't even need to be a native red magic spell per se. So long as there was a way to leverage the stat that powers it, or said spell's very poor scaling was fixed in either the 4.0 battle skill review/purge or cross role skill system re-org.

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Ah, alright. They way I was reading some of the posts made it sound as if players were expecting a unique RDM healing spell that scaled well, and that the RDM would be expected to use (if somewhat reluctantly as is the case with some abilities/skills -- e.g. Feint, etc.) on other players.

I'd define scaling well in this context more like physick cast with 1/2 the mnd of a healer instead of like 1/7 that casters have now. So like in a level 60 context a heal that does 2000. It'd be weak, but a lot more functional than Physick is now for casters. I really wouldn't hope for anything much stronger than that for a dps. It could be native, but its also just a good opportunity to fix cross classed Cure/Physick, because they're getting worse as max hp increase.

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Originally Posted by NoctisShiva

it'll be the lolgoon of 4.0 :D already read people calling him lolmage or Re(tar)dmage for that subject :D

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I vote for Deadmage (or DedMage) :)

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

"RDM has slightly lower DPS than X Job because it has the ability to clutch heal/mitigate damage/what-have-you".

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Rend Mind. Dismantle. Dragon Kick. Virus. E4E. One thing that these all have in common is the fact that they all mitigate damage. 2 of these are available to healers as well, however, it still remains that MCH, with Dis/RM and a clutch Virus or lucky E4E proc can come from jobs that aren't involved with tanking/healing. This argument is not only moot, it's completely dead in the water out the starting gate. There's dps jobs with mitigation skills, and their dps hardly suffers for it.

Apocatastasis. Nobody really gets their dps penalized except for the aoe tp/mp recovery from ranged support. NIN has a ton of utility. DRG has less but what it has is highly desirable in the max dps meta. Casters and MNK don't offer much, defensive benefits and a lot of them redundant with healer/tank utilities.

@Cynfael about Clemency... isn't it better to cast on a party member that's in trouble? It heals them and you. A lot of threat too I'd think, being a 1200 potency heal on them and 600 potency heal on you?

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Originally Posted by Madrone

@Cynfael about Clemency... isn't it better to cast on a party member that's in trouble? It heals them and you. A lot of threat too I'd think, being a 1200 potency heal on them and 600 potency heal on you?

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The thing is that no one should want the PLD to play healer unless the actual healer is dead or incapacitated, so no, I don't think this function of Clemency has value except as an emergency tool.

I don't mean to knock emergency skills all the time, but it's frustrating if something like Clemency is presented as an example of successful healing skill hybridization. I have less enthusiasm for abilities that you rarely want to touch unless things go to shit, especially in this case where the healer role already has no issues meeting healing requirements with time and resources to spare.

Looks to me like RDM will be the first Job to have both a gap closer (like Plunge) and a distance maker (like Repelling Strike). I think that's what's being described as "high speed positioning". Not so much positioning at flanks or rears, but more a rapid switch between being in melee range and safe spell range.

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Originally Posted by Yhximott

Looks to me like RDM will be the first Job to have both a gap closer (like Plunge) and a distance maker (like Repelling Strike). I think that's what's being described as "high speed positioning". Not so much positioning at flanks or rears, but more a rapid switch between being in melee range and safe spell range.

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DRG says hi.

I agree - maybe it can be some magical Dragoon-like class! But im very excited about it :)

Yeah DRG's 2 jumps that move them and 1 jump back all have pretty hefty cooldowns, like 60s, 3m, and 3m. I think the expectation is RDM would be able to jump in and out a lot more frequently as a rotationally driven kind of thing. But 30s or less timers on those moves... or cooldown reset functions for them could easily be wrong too. Gotta wait and see.

It does look like with Double Cast RDM is tossing up Dia (DEF down) and that other one that THM used in 1.0 that gives MDEF down followed by that thrust that maybe gives a Piercing Damage debuff.

So the white magic side of RDM could just be related to the buff/debuff side (Enfire, Dia etc) instead of a hybrid healing type.

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Originally Posted by mosaicex

DRG says hi.

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DRG can only escape and reduce enmity though, not damage, which is why I mentioned Repelling Strike rather than Elusive Jump. It's this set of in-and-out positioning that i think will be their "positional" characteristic.

My hope is that they'll cast spells from afar to "en" their weapon with stacks of damage boosts or effects that will debuff the enemy on contact, rush in, smash the target with a ton of damage or debuffs, then dash out to start charging again

AGAIN, DRG has two jumps that are gap closers that do dps as oGCD's. We are just saying....I personally agree with you, Yhximott and anyone else that mentioned, these movement based skills on RDM as seen in the small trailer we got will probably be the core of its gameplay. So being up much more often makes sense. Then again, just like DRG which is renowned for it's Jump throughout the series, maybe it won't.

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Originally Posted by Apeiron

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No, I think they were expecting something more akin to Light of the Protector from WoW.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=184092/...-the-protector

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Calls down the Light to heal you for 30% of your missing health. 15 second cooldown.

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I'm so happy I loved RDM in FF11 can't wait for June.

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

No, I think they were expecting something more akin to Light of the Protector from WoW.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=184092/...-the-protector

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More like Flash of Light or Healing Surge. Expensive to cast and have an opportunity cost (ret paladins can cast 3 or 4 before going OOM and it's not very powerful when compared to what a healer can do; enhance shaman have to sacrifice their unique resource in order to insta-cast it, which is better spent on their DPS skills).

What about debuffers? There aren't a lot of them, depending on how you count tools like Heavy Thrust, Dragon Kick et alia. Virus, Super Virus... they're all so short-lived -

The haste problems would be a total non-issue if SE tied in TP reduction in accordance to skill speed on gear / speed bonuses from abilities. As it is, they have to keep on adjusting TP costs of various abilities every now and then, and it makes the Arrow card kind of crappy for non-BLMs.

Just noticed Krill has the red mage aether crystal on her jackets as a clasp or something, does anyone know what this could mean?

Lets look at the video once more.
The player casts a few spells at range, then rushes into melee performing an attack, followed by an execute at range.

Reminds me vaguely of WoW's DK from WoTLK. Why?
You'll be applying different spells for their effects, self buff or target debuff;
Diving into melee to use abilities which modify damage based on which effects are on your self or on your target;
Followed by a very high damage execute, at time based resolution or health percentage.

Leaning more to FFXIV mechanics already in the game, it may end up where what spells you cast will give you a certain series of buffs which modify your melee abilities / ranged executes.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

More like Flash of Light or Healing Surge. Expensive to cast and have an opportunity cost (ret paladins can cast 3 or 4 before going OOM and it's not very powerful when compared to what a healer can do; enhance shaman have to sacrifice their unique resource in order to insta-cast it, which is better spent on their DPS skills).

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This. I'd hope for either an ability that scales well but comes with resource cost or something akin to a Sheath of Light & Art of War era Flash of Light on a Retribution Paladin. I'd like it to be about as good as our dps time/resources spent when the healers and/or tanks really know how to make a lot out of it, but should otherwise be situational.

I wonder if the high-speed positioning will mean players mark their starting spot before closing in and hopping back. Perhaps it will be similar to Ley Lines, a mark that persists for a length of time before it naturally disappears and you have to lay down a fresh one.
I wouldn't like just to jump back randomly to where my character's back is directed to. As a DRG I hate that elusive jump sometimes sends me off platforms ;x

I also don't see RDM getting access to healing white magic from the get go. I can see heals being the last stage of any combos, probably be a mild AoE before jumping away again. Although even an AoE heal I would rather trade for an AoE regen, so it can time in with any rotations. Would be nice if we can set the magicked crystal like a turret and have it spam mild AoE heals while we melee but its a caster not support.

However I think the main focus will be buff type whm spells like bravery and faith or even oil even though that is green magic (to increase damage output due to having abilities not as potent as blm or whm) and debuff type blm spells like syphon (to ensure all RDM take a break from chain nuking and go and melee otherwise they cant recover their mp)

Hmmmm...
Set up a bunch of buffs for your melee abilities.
Dash in to do a melee combo which recovers MP.
Jump back to unleash a chainspell depending on what buffs/combos were used, consuming massive MP.
Rinse and repeat.

Does that sound like something that might not be the worst idea ever?

Just a little visual note, it seems from the video like the "jump in" skill has the RDM reeling him/herself in with a magic rope or something. Explains how a mage makes monk-like dashes.

I loved my RDM in FFXI, Can't wait to get it here. hopefully the add Blue Mage soon too.

There seem to be a lot of "anti heal spell" people in here for rdm. I feel that a heal, like clemency, as an "oh shit" button wouldn't be terrible, I mean smn has a rez... So calm your tits ppl. I personally feel that ripping mantra and second wind from monk and slapping them on rdm with different names and animations would be an amazing idea, shit look at Ast and whm... Seriously almost identical tool kit. I understand that rdm will be dps, and full hybrid is out of the question, but some helpful support utilities would make rdm feel like it's at least trying to "use white magic" (also I am super stoked to see rdm use stone, aero and water without the mp restraint of a whm).

On the other hand, we need to remember this game is multi platform as well, and rdm is supposed to be a fast paced job, so having a single target heal and scrolling through the party will severely drop dps, especially from those on console. So I suppose the mantra/second wind combo would really work the best. It'd be cool if rdm got like a baby indominobility heal(instantly are heal) but I feel like that borders on the realm of op/hybrid instead of support.

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Originally Posted by Haxaan

I mean smn has a rez...

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Arcanist has rez. SMN just happen to be there on top of it.

How about a small curaga for party members around you after you do a certain combo? Kinda make RDM like DNC in FFXI.

they could just make rdm healing like battle priest even though that kinda far fetch from the lore

something like healing by damaging enemy or put a ward on enemy and heal whoever hit it

It would be interesting to see Red Mage be able to stick debuffs on bosses that they would otherwise shrug off (Slow, Heavy, etc.). That would certainly be useful in certain fights.

While I would love a Clemency, AND battle rez equivalent, I would like to mention the clemncy MUST have a cast time, that cant be shortened outside of swiftcast, as the cast time/GCD usage needs to be what hinders their DPS, to deter them in harder content. (Only using it in solo/light parties)

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Originally Posted by Claire_Pendragon

While I would love a Clemency, AND battle rez equivalent, I would like to mention the clemncy MUST have a cast time, that cant be shortened outside of swiftcast, as the cast time/GCD usage needs to be what hinders their DPS, to deter them in harder content. (Only using it in solo/light parties)

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yeah i dont expect too much utility for RDM being a DPS, I think it should cover the basics since red magic apparently is a mix of white and black, according to the lore for this iteration. That being said, id be totally satisfied if it were given some utilities in that veign, just not enough to overshadow healers at all.

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Originally Posted by ADVSS

yeah i dont expect too much utility for RDM being a DPS, I think it should cover the basics since red magic apparently is a mix of white and black, according to the lore for this iteration. That being said, id be totally satisfied if it were given some utilities in that veign, just not enough to overshadow healers at all.

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In this iteration, "White Magic" Also encompasses Stone, Aero, and Water.
So technically, if it had no support, no buffs, no heals, and just elemental attack magic, it would still be able to be half white magic. :/

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Originally Posted by Claire_Pendragon

In this iteration, "White Magic" Also encompasses Stone, Aero, and Water.
So technically, if it had no support, no buffs, no heals, and just elemental attack magic, it would still be able to be half white magic. :/

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Yes, it could mean how they pull in elemental aether and then transform it through an umbral.astral type, or pretty much anything at this time. But I feel like theyll add some restorative properties to a redmage, every DPS like was stated before, has its utilities, like rez, phusik, etc. So we will have to see...2 more days we may know more