FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Will Red Mage be just like astrologian? A fusion between SMN & Blm.

Is there a reason why it couldn't be an all around class? And when it's time to queue up we'd have to pick a role like with WoW.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Well, we do have to keep the 18-ability limit for abilities gained through leveling. Also the fact that every melee needs to have combos (as opposed to Rets which had only Crusader Strike/Divine Storm/Exorcism and Shaman with Lava Lash/Stormstrike/Maelstrom Weapon procs).

Off-heals are a given on RDM; it is, after all, the original hybrid of the FF series and there's ways to implement heals into the job without making it overpowered. Make the heals inconvenient to cast and present risk to the RDM and you'd force them to make a decision. If you tie it to a proc (see my suggestion in my sig), even better because then you're including the choice between dealing magic damage or using the proc to heal someone.

If you're thinking of stuff like Seal of Light/Judgment of Light (which healed party members that attacked the mob with the debuff), the old blessings (Protection, Sacrifice, Sanctuary) or even really crazy stuff like Divine Intervention, I'll admit that's going a bit too far.

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There's a lot that can be done with 18 abilities when you don't waste them on redundancies, though. I doubt that will be our real problem. That said, there's also no hard rule that every melee must have combos. It's merely precedent.

Agreed on the last bit; I wouldn't want their healing opportunities to be free--that would either be overpowered or would sap from either their dps or pseudo-tanking capabilities. Healing should be a choice, not a freebie, but it should be there, and it should be potent, sometimes even more useful than the pure damage (e.g. proc) usage. I don't necessarily think they have to be especially inconvenient, but they should come at a similar worth (taking into account the average potency of a heal vs. a similar cost attack) of dps cost.

Similarly, kind of like if Ninja was a heavy TP-burner but could Goad itself (wherein its TP-longevity is then above average instead of a bit below), I'd imagine RDM would likely use a few of its potentially 'support' tools typically on itself, though generally giving more raid dps contribution using them on a buffed ally or a party member in need (boosting that party-awareness/synergy that feels so good on classes like this), and others would share cooldowns with or just be the 'on-ally' side of normally 'on-enemy' offensive abilities. All a matter of choice, so that no particular capacity suffers. Its general output should only be so far behind pure-DPS classes as to compensate for the typical raid dps bonuses that it would then gain by using its personal 'support' moves on others.

Separately though, I'd just hope that they'd have the potential potency to heal an expert roulette or whatnot, if they so desired (albeit with rather different dynamics from your typical Cleric Stance-ing healer), and quite likely tank those decently as well (I mean, I can do that much just fine on a Dragoon or Monk already, so a hybrid who could sacrifice dps for additional enmity and mitigation certainly ought to be thus able). It's for reasons like that though that I'd really like to see some manner of role-specific Proving Grounds / SSS, etc., in XIV, rather than just dummy-killing for every role. Upon passing said healer/tank-check SSSs, the RDM could then queue for those roles.

FFXI is the worst exemple at take in matter of balance and jobs...
that said, maybe they will go in the road of a caster melee dps... simpler and yoshida did hint that he was wanting this.

I could see it working as a melee DPS that has stances (Enspells) that like brd lowers their dps and drains their mp but gives their attacks different debuffs. Like Paralyze

Same goes for if they were to get any buffs. I could see them taking part of FFXI Geomancer where the buff is an aura. it can also drain their MP and lower their dps in return for some type of support buff.

This way RDM is considered a support DPS just like BRD and MCH and gets "White and Black" type magic

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

There's a lot that can be done with 18 abilities when you don't waste them on redundancies, though. I doubt that will be our real problem. That said, there's also no hard rule that every melee must have combos. It's merely precedent.

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Thing is that without some sort of melee/combo system, you create the problem that ruined ret in Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria: people who NEVER used the utility skills complaining that they're not pushing enough buttons to deal damage. I'm all for a simple melee system as long as it has gaps for the utility to actually be used, but I fear history would repeat itself.

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Agreed on the last bit; I wouldn't want their healing opportunities to be free--that would either be overpowered or would sap from either their dps or pseudo-tanking capabilities. Healing should be a choice, not a freebie, but it should be there, and it should be potent, sometimes even more useful than the pure damage (e.g. proc) usage. I don't necessarily think they have to be especially inconvenient, but they should come at a similar worth (taking into account the average potency of a heal vs. a similar cost attack) of dps cost.

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If the off-heals are convenient to use, they become something lazy groups (specially with how people tend to play healers here)/min-maxers will count on. Having played a ret, my off-heals from Art of War procs were nice in clutch situations but I was never expected to devote non-Exorcism procs on heals. It was just something that was an option to me if I was still waiting on Exo's cooldown and the situation called for it. The fact that it was an option yet not expected of me at all was part of why I loved how WotLK's ret played; it meant I could focus on my role (DPS) without worrying about my utility hindering it.

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I'd imagine RDM would likely use a few of its potentially 'support' tools typically on itself, though generally giving more raid dps contribution using them on a buffed ally or a party member in need (boosting that party-awareness/synergy that feels so good on classes like this), and others would share cooldowns with or just be the 'on-ally' side of normally 'on-enemy' offensive abilities.

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I'd rather go the road of full group buffs (a la Battle Litany) or something the RDM would also directly benefit from (see: Enfeeble in my suggestion). Saving someone from a high damage attack (Phalanx) would make sense, but I'm hesitant to go beyond that.

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All a matter of choice, so that no particular capacity suffers. Its general output should only be so far behind pure-DPS classes as to compensate for the typical raid dps bonuses that it would then gain by using its personal 'support' moves on others.

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That still leaves the question of how much that difference would be. I'd be okay with it being equal to NIN in terms of damage, but I'm not going to cosign kicking RDM down the pit MCH and BRD have been thrown into.

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Originally Posted by Terribad

Is there a reason why it couldn't be an all around class? And when it's time to queue up we'd have to pick a role like with WoW.

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Then why bother leveling anything else up?

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Originally Posted by Terribad

Is there a reason why it couldn't be an all around class? And when it's time to queue up we'd have to pick a role like with WoW.

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Because that would quite possibly require completely overhauling the Duty Finder. At the very least, it would require some changes as currently your role is 100% locked to the class you queue on. Not to mention "jack of all trades" classes can certainly do a lot, but they typically can't do any of it as well as classes that specialize in a single role. Their skill base is broad but shallow. If built that way, RDM wouldn't be as good at tanking as a "real tank" or as good at healing as a "real healer" and probably not even as good at dps as a "real dps." With the way people tend to play in endgame (i.e. minmaxing) this would mean RDM would be subpar in every category and wouldn't be wanted at all for raids, so the only place you'd see them at all is casual content. You'd probably even see instances of people kicking them from dungeons simply for their choice of class (it happened with PLD and AST before their buffs, albeit infrequently). On the other hand, if they were built to be as good at those multiple roles as specialist classes you'd see not only a lot of rage from the community (and rightfully so, as no single class should be as good at three different roles as classes that specialize in one of those roles) but a lot of people bandwagoning to the class.

Red Mage could be a jack of all dps: caster, support dps and melee. Just have a stance for each and require the player to be out of combat to change stances just like AST. Give the class some base abilities and some abilities that change based on the currently chosen stance. Support stance would offer a long duration resource refresh and lower dps, melee stance would offer high single target dps and caster stance would offer high aoe. To further enhance their hybrid properties the Red Mage could have a 5 minute cooldown, 15-20 second duration ability which allows them to temporarily swap stances to cover a different aspect of the dps role. This could be the flavour / defining ability of a RDM while other dps jobs bring something else to the table like physical debuffs (MNK, NIN, DRG), a party crit buff (DRG), threat transfer (NIN), resurrection (SMN) or magic resistance debuff (BRD).

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Originally Posted by CGMidlander

Then why bother leveling anything else up?

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Because it's fun? Everything except class/job quest lines in this game can be done as one job anyway so that's all it boils down to.

If I think about RDM, i imagine a hybrid of mage and melee, not a mage with a pet

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Originally Posted by CGMidlander

Then why bother leveling anything else up?

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You leveled more than just a tank and arcanist, it would seem. Heck, if Titan egi were stronger and DF-role-permissible, would that mean that every player would just level Arcanist and call it a day?

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Thing is that without some sort of melee/combo system, you create the problem that ruined ret in Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria: people who NEVER used the utility skills complaining that they're not pushing enough buttons to deal damage. I'm all for a simple melee system as long as it has gaps for the utility to actually be used, but I fear history would repeat itself.

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But, they have the same number of buttons in Legion and Warlords as they did then... The only real change that's occurred since Wrath were WoG and the shift to a (basically) Arms 6s window playstyle in Legion, with less downtime but fewer button-choices. ...though if they weren't filling empty GCDs with utility that comes basically free to Ret, well then... that's like people saying NIN is dull because they don't know how to use Trick Attack... Moreover, combos don't add choice. Splits/junctions, where you finally have REAL access to those abilities, do. The rest is prep-GCDs. If mere button-presses were all would take to satisfy those players, bully for them -- they can take their spammed abilities, duplicate them twice under new icons, and now on each triple use they could press 1, then 2, then 3. Done. They now have combos, effectively.

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If the off-heals are convenient to use, they become something lazy groups (specially with how people tend to play healers here)/min-maxers will count on. Having played a ret, my off-heals from Art of War procs were nice in clutch situations but I was never expected to devote non-Exorcism procs on heals. It was just something that was an option to me if I was still waiting on Exo's cooldown and the situation called for it. The fact that it was an option yet not expected of me at all was part of why I loved how WotLK's ret played; it meant I could focus on my role (DPS) without worrying about my utility hindering it.

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At the same time though, those heals for were actually free for you as filler GCDs when AAs hadn't yet procced Exo's reset and nothing else was up. Imagine if Word of Glory were your only heal choice instead, conflicting with TV/FV dps. That's still convenient, but its costly, too. Or if you never had filler/wait GCDs. Convenience being merely a correlative concern, that's still a dps loss... (Personally, doing WoD challenge dungeons I found AoW FoLs damn near relied on. Not to mention BoF, etc... So I'm not actually sure it's the best example.)

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I'd rather go the road of full group buffs (a la Battle Litany) or something the RDM would also directly benefit from (see: Enfeeble in my suggestion). Saving someone from a high damage attack (Phalanx) would make sense, but I'm hesitant to go beyond that.

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I just think that would be a depressingly stale way to go about things. At that point you might as well be no more than a +2% stat bonus at all times for being present in the party. Where that bonus can be diminished by unsynced CDs... But, I'm just of the opinion that CDs used on CD, with no other considerations being worthwhile, are more passive than they are abilities.

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That still leaves the question of how much that difference would be. I'd be okay with it being equal to NIN in terms of damage, but I'm not going to cosign kicking RDM down the pit MCH and BRD have been thrown into.

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NIN-level DPS but sub-NIN raid dps contribution (unless all its transferred/support buffs end up being each available at the perfect times for party synergy) or similar raid dps&healing/mitigation contribution is how I've always imagined RDM. Any further utility/support should detract from its dps, but it shouldn't have to pay any more than that just because it is equipped with the *option* to support/heal/pseudo-tank.
(Honestly I don't think MCH and BRD should have been thrown into so deep the well, either. The penalties on the support moves themselves should have been mostly enough; as they're not going to be automatically taken more than once per party, I don't see the harm in them dealing more equal dps. Though, honestly their combined value is really quite high, especially situationally, so I don't exactly feel sorry for any good MCH/BRD, either. Just, by principle, I don't think the dummy-dps gap should have been quite as large as it is... Though, again, as always, the deciding factor to me is the attractiveness of the job compared to its alternatives, not necessarily any one part of it.)