Red Mage could use some help.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jandor

Healers would benefit from 5% magic vuln too, and maybe tanks (not sure on how big a chunk of PLD/DRK damage is magic.)

RDM with piercing debuff would just let you swap DRG out for it if you wanted to run a caster comp without nerfing your BRD/MCH, it wouldn't stack with Dragoons debuff and therefore wouldn't make physical ranged anymore wanted than they already are.

I agree that RDM should be altered a bit more to raise the skill ceiling, but realistically any sort of redesign that in-depth isn't going to happen until 5.0. Was just trying to think of some changes that could be done in 5 minutes (;)) that could shake things up for RDM and the meta raid comp.

Healers don't always DPS, especially in harder content - their DPS output is always the lowest of the group. Tanks are primarily physical DPS. Sure, there's the odd skill here and there from other classes that does magical, but it still doesn't immediately mean that magic vuln is good - just look at SMN and contagion.

Even if RDM had the piercing debuff, you'll still want to bring a DRG for speedkills - because it provides more utility and more raw DPS. Furthermore, you will still want to take MNK/NIN/BRD or even MCH instead of the MNK depending on the fight. The piercing debuff problem is has a few issues - one, only DRG has it (which can be solved). Two, there's no choice to buff other damage types (e.g. magical) so you can't adjust based on composition and three, the damage types are not balanced between the group equally.