RDM 7.4 changes and job identity

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

I'm gonna be perfectly honest... using Verraise as an excuse that raise casters can't be buffed into more competitive damage numbers is such a cop-out considering one of the highest damage jobs at the time was Summoner in Stormblood and probably also Shadowbringers, while retaining access to Resurrection.

Raise as a caster action is genuinely overtaxed. No, Red Mage does not need to be Black Mage levels of damage, but it could most certainly be higher.

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I mean I somewhat agree, if RDM is too close to PCT/BLM to does frankly become a must pick inside of prog which i'd be cautious about

I just want to see RDM get more utility based on their white magic side; As Red mage should be about balancing white magic, black magic and melee but right now it's literally just red partical attacks with roses and thorns with a small side of offensive white and black magic, it's sword is just a cosmetic at this point... it's main purpose being a job you take because of veraise rather then because its a strong job.

My Ideal RDM mixes the elements of those three core fundamentals (white, black magic + sword play), with a strong utility that isn't just "I rez better then healers"

Would be cool if SE let RDM's Melee phase remain as it was, and buffed the damage of the Job such that the Melee constraint had a proper payoff (eg, if BLM is '100%' and SMN/PCT are around 93-94%, RDM damage would be around 97-98%). Incentivizing players to take it in a Melee slot rather than a Caster slot (though it'd be able to function in the Caster slot via using a slightly tweaked Enchanted Reprise in place of the Melee Combo).

For example:
Enchanted Reprise

Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 420.
Balance Gauge Cost: 5 Black Mana
Balance Gauge Cost: 5 White Mana

Additional Effect: Consumes a stack of Swordplay if available.
Consuming a stack of Swordplay reduces the recast timer to 1.5s,
negates the Black and White Mana costs, and grants a Mana Stack.

You'd still want to Melee combo if possible, as it'd be more damage overall compared to 3x Reprise, but this would give a way to do the 'burst' from range.

Then, increase the damage of the Melee combo, to increase RDM's damage when it's able to be in the Melee position in raid strategies.


And if people want to run 2 Melees, a RDM in the Caster slot and also have the RDM use the Melee combo for more damage (akin to having 3 Melees in the fight), that would still work fine because we can already do 2 Melee + BLM. And we don't need to worry about 2 Melee, BLM, RDM, because that means no Phys Ranged and losing the 1% bonus should (if SE has any maths skill about them) make the comp 'not worth it'

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

If I made it so all melee skills could hit from a 20 yalm radius would it not affect melee job fantasy simply because you could still stand in melee range and do melee attacks?

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Endwalker moment

I think they're terrified of melees losing a slot. MCH isn't allowed to have good numbers for the same reason, and I'm wondering if they wouldn't have nerfed PCT so quickly if it didn't result in 2 caster comps in FRU.

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Originally Posted by Azurarok

I think they're terrified of melees losing a slot. MCH isn't allowed to have good numbers for the same reason, and I'm wondering if they wouldn't have nerfed PCT so quickly if it didn't result in 2 caster comps in FRU.

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FFXIV has become the virtual manifestation of that meme where the mom holds one kid up while the other is like, drowning. Naturally, the drowning ones are caster / phys ranged (especially phys ranged lol)

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Originally Posted by Connor

FFXIV has become the virtual manifestation of that meme where the mom holds one kid up while the other is like, drowning. Naturally, the drowning ones are caster / phys ranged (especially phys ranged lol)

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Phys ranged and healers rotting on the bottom of the pool. One is the skeleton, another is the rotting chair.

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Originally Posted by ElysiumDragon

It's because a sizable chunk of the Forums Userbase sees obnoxious pain points as 'job identity' , and y'know, not literally every other aspect of the job.

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Firstly, a lot of people complaining absolutely despise the 2 min burst window.

Secondly, you say that, but if you look at Black Mage, what exactly is its identity now? Flare go boom? It's not really the "true" caster with all the triple cast procs (as fun as it is), when you combine that with the significant shortening of its cast time. Without the Timers there's no emphasis on execution--another big element of BLM's identity: damage feeling earned. The Fire and Ice elements aren't enough when you're basically almost never in ice nor want to be.

I'm sure more experienced players for other jobs can explain the other ones.

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Originally Posted by Azurarok

I think they're terrified of melees losing a slot. MCH isn't allowed to have good numbers for the same reason, and I'm wondering if they wouldn't have nerfed PCT so quickly if it didn't result in 2 caster comps in FRU.

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Which is extremely funny, considering their past-stated philosophy of "you should be able to clear any content with any combo of jobs in a standard 2T/2H/4DPS comp"... and aside from very few fringe cases, the philosophy is already true! I was in a static for LHW and a bit of CW tiers, and we had extremely off-meta compositions for our DPS - it varied for both tiers but the one consistency was that we only had a single actual melee - the other melee spot was taken up by RDM. We never had a problem in terms of DPS output once people had the mechanics down and weren't dying, so the argument of "we have to lobotomize RDM so people don't feel like they have to let it in as a 'fake' melee" is BS, especially considering that yes as many other people have already pointed out, a core component of RDM's whole thing is being "the melee caster".

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

If I made it so all melee skills could hit from a 20 yalm radius would it not affect melee job fantasy simply because you could still stand in melee range and do melee attacks?

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Reductio ad absurdum is used when you know that you have no valid argument to make or can't refute the point you don't like. We're talking one melee combo that can only be used at range once every few minutes, not every melee skill ever.

Though, ironically, the answer to your question is still "correct, it would not affect my individual job fantasy" as long as the game didn't either prevent said skills from being used in melee range or make it practically impossible to do so.

For example, there are already people who don't like what they flying has "done" to the game...so they just don't fly. And they're welcome to do that. It only becomes an issue when certain parts of the land become designed to require flying that the concept fails.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

Reductio ad absurdum is used when you know that you have no valid argument to make or can't refute the point you don't like. We're talking one melee combo that can only be used at range once every few minutes, not every melee skill ever.

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The point they're making absolutely is a valid argument. We saw how clownshoes it was that we could hit bosses from miles away in EW due to their hitboxes being so much larger than their models implied. Worst offender was P7S, where you had to actively TRY to be out of range as a Melee, because 85% of the arena was 'the boss's targetting circle'. It also has knockon effects on other aspects of game design, such as making certain Actions irrelevant, or disrupting game balance. Melee would not be able to justify their extra potency over PhysRanged or Casters if they had 20y range on attacks. Winged Glide, Thunderclap, Slither, the gapclosers on the Melee, would lose relevance because you don't care about getting back to the boss fast due to the extra range on the attacks. Piercing Talon, Throwing Dagger, etc, all become exceptionally pointless because instead of using these filler actions while disengaged, you'd continue your regular rotation. Some attacks on Melee are circles around the player, such as MNK's Elixir Burst and Rising Phoenix Blitzes, and would need to be reworked to accomodate such a range increase. The challenge of Deep Dungeons as a Melee, where your pull options can be limited (the longest range option to pull a mob as a MNK is sometimes Feint!), would be completely changed.

As for 'one melee combo that can only be used at range once every few minutes'. First of all, 'every few minutes' is doing heavy lifting, it's once per 2min. Secondly, it's the opposite from what you say, isn't it? Manafication is what enables the range, not the Swordplay stacks, so you can, as far as I understand it, do 3 back-to-back Melee combos from long range, leaving just one Melee combo per 2min loop where you're forced into Melee range, before needing to hold off on using them to pool up resources for the next 2min window

So the 'Melee-Caster hybrid, Jack of all Trades' identity of RDM is now reduced to '3 GCDs in Melee range, and the rest you can stand anywhere'.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

Though, ironically, the answer to your question is still "correct, it would not affect my individual job fantasy" as long as the game didn't either prevent said skills from being used in melee range or make it practically impossible to do so.

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Positionals would make it more annoying (but not impossible) to play the Job optimally at such a range

Thinking about it, one Melee skill COULD be made 20y and it'd be an actual improvement to the game: Holmgang. If you have a target, but aren't within 6y (its current range), the game prioritizes 'you're out of range' over 'oh you want to use your invuln, presumably to survive something fatal'. People get around this sometimes by making a macro that says '/ac "Holmgang" <me>' to force the game to try to selftarget the action. I don't think there's any sane player who would try to argue that 'dying because Holmgang thought you wanted to Bind the enemy, not stay alive', is an important piece of the game, especially after Living Dead got a 'QOL adjustment' (aka it isn't reliant on the Healer anymore), and Superbolide got a 'QOL adjustment' (aka an early Benediction is only half wasted instead of fully wasted now)

I stated this in another thread but I found it more relevant to share it on this one.

Personally, I have found all the new changes to be good.

I believe there was a bit of a hit to "class identity" that people are struggling with. For example, the three-GCD sword combo becoming ranged while under the two-minute Manafication burst could probably benefit from a different animation; this would better convey that the attacks are now ranged rather than melee. I also believe that Manafication having a damage buff was never ideal because it was often misaligned and didn't fall under Embolden when manarushing. This change to Manafication had deeper mechanics in mind that most people are only viewing at a surface level.

I do not personally believe that the "fun" of Red Mage was stealing a melee player's position during certain content. When they design bosses, they have balanced party compositions in mind. A Red Mage delaying a sword combo during a two-minute burst—just to wait their turn to get three GCDs on the boss—isn't what made this class fun. It was only three GCDs (six for an actual burst if stored up) in a combo that is already far more ranged than melee to begin with.

Only ragging on a job's changes without appreciating the good is how you get them to pull the plug entirely. We know what that looks like because it has happened to other jobs. We need to rinse off some of this negativity and show that we aren't just crybabies. You might hate that it’s ranged now, but you should look at how these changes affect RDM in a gameplay sense, not just how it looks. You are literally being a melee outside of 2 min burst windows for that mobility sword combo, and you still have to use your gap closer, the identity and fun aren't dead. RED MAGE IS STILL FUN :0

These changes were good, just please reinforce our class identity in 8.0! If you want red mage to be a melee or worthy of taking a melee spot during mechanics then that is fine. Just know it has never been a melee so what you believe to have lost or want changed is something that has never existed on this job class to begin with.