RDM 7.4 changes and job identity

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Originally Posted by RaionKansen

You really shouldn't call people white knights just because they know what they're talking about. Again, you haven't even engaged with the high end content this expansion.

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And? Do I need to be a high end raider to understand that this change is uneccessary and removes from the job identity? Alas I have a job and I don’t have time and the will to high end raid.
I never stated i was a high end raider, so no need to call me out.
But I can say I played red mage since launch and it’s probably what keeps me in xiv . I did clear an ultimate with it. The moments I could not melee burst I liked to find ways around it, I like to time my windows and find ways to solve problems. If I have to think about this change it would solve a lot of problems but would require less thinking, just my fingers doing rotations non stop.

If you like optimization it’s ok, if you like these changes for high end content that’s ok: you do you

It’s still a fact that it’s less fun and characteristic and less of a challenge to play. It’s a dumbed down version of rdm and it’s a hit to job identity. That’s the whole thread argument. Don’t care about optimization if it’s not fun to play.
Don’t need to be a world first to see it.

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Originally Posted by Connor

As a (ex)Bard, its nice to see we’re not the only job in the game whose players will completely cannibalise its own design in some sad, misguided attempt to improve its dps output (let’s be real who actually cares about dps output if they’re all going to be practically 2D in design complexity / effort). Wonder how long it’ll be before they remove Dualcast because ‘it causes undue stress that there’s a minor variation in how this caster uses spells compared to the other two’.

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The more likely possibility is that they just change the cast times so it doesn't matter if you Jolt > Verthunder/Veraero or Verthunder/Veraero > Jolt (same with the AOE versions). Or maybe they make it so White/Black balance doesn't matter anymore, you can fill up Black first, and White fills up the same instead of being reduced. (You still need both filled enough to use magic sword attacks though.)

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Originally Posted by Milkbeard

*rolls eyes*




Thank you for understanding. It’s best to just use the ignore function; calling out posters on their incoherence or lies is simply adding gasoline to the fire. They offer nothing useful, seeking only to name-call, rage-bait, and attack the Devs. It’s sad that the most frequent posters are often the same people who are at war with learning. Its' always the same personality, just copied on to another face.

If you try to discuss a specific mechanic, specific encounter, or specific content, their behavior is predictable: they name-call, deflect to PvP, or hallucinate lists of things red mage has lost. It’s a cookie-cutter excuse to apply terms like "class homogeneity" to Red Mage, when it has never applied to Red Mage. I mean at this point I've read them and know what they're about. They claim to play RDM "stationary" now, probably dropping DPS because they never learned to play it, then retreat to echo chambers for social reinforcement.

I don’t give extra credence to experienced players opinions just for the sake of it—I am one, and we all still make mistakes. However, if posters won't accept basic job knowledge during a discussion, they aren't worth anyone's time.

I check in every few months to show that people who actually play the game do not agree with this incoherence. If you want the range restored, great. If you want to discuss the kit, I’m game. But if you call the kit useless, I’ll gladly educate you. A range change doesn't mean the RDM kit or its unique playstyle is suddenly worth crapping on.

In regards to identity
Mobility: Objectively unique and satisfying. Acceleration is boss and the mobility sword combo is fun

Burst: Controlled and in the hands of the player, not on rails.

resource accumulating and spending: Zero jobs are like it; Reaper is the closest in resource spending, but still miles away.

RDM perfectly fulfills the lore of weaving White and Black mana into Red Magic. We have the best balance of swordplay and magic in the game. The job doesn’t need a gutting or a rework—just minor animation and range tweaks. RDM remains the gold standard for design.

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I agree with what you say in some ways but you are now missing the point of this thread: we are not saying that rdm is unplayable, just less fun and a bit watered down, and that’s concerning looking at 8.0. That’s it. It’s a thread about job identity and fun and how they could’ve fixed the problem in way better ways than this half assed update.

Tldr; this update is useful? Probably. Was it necessary? No. Was it well executed? No

Godspeed to you and your amazing class knowledge. I just feel dumb as hell knowing I’m waving a sword at nothing for the sake of numbers.

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Originally Posted by Azurarok

Do we mean 6.1 pvp RDM or 7.1? Admittedly I hadn't touched PvP much at all in 7.x but I can't say I'm a fan of being turned into a Rose mage, whether it plays better or not.

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6.x was more fun for me personally but i don’t dislike 7.x. I agree with the rose mage theme, don’t dig it either too much but I like the fact that we go in melee a lot and still can shoot spells from a safe distance. It’s a nice go in - melee -go out explode combo that feels right given the job (and weapon: that’s how you do a rapier fight, quick attacks and if it’s not enough retreat to estimate and plan)

I still dont understand what's the issue with the job identity, verraise is still there and unchanged the job identity is there and untouched. RDM just got a QoL so it can be played at all outside of prog / zombie-ing :shrugers:

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

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.

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Just needed to jump in and give this post some major kudos.

We already did have a "ranged melee attack" that could/should have been buffed to work within Manafication and essentially replace the melee combo when you couldn't get into melee range to perform it. As said in the quoted post, keep it below melee combo potency so that you're still heavily encouraged to do your proper melee combo when you can but you'd at least have a solid enough option to fall back on when you couldn't. Job done.

I do agree with the opinion that some people have that the job as it stands today is not all that different from how it was before the patch, and that, yes, you can "just do it in melee range if you really want." The real problem is what this change will mean for the future of the job. Right now we're actually in an awkward place with the melee combo sometimes being able to be done at range and some times not, and where you can now perform some/most of your burst at range but not all of it (assuming you do use corps and engage for potency)... and we all know that SE doesn't like awkwardness and doesn't seem to embrace any sort of player side decision making or job friction. So while the job may still be "fine" right now, I have a really hard time believing it will stay "fine." I can very easily see the RDM 8.0 changes being "do all of your stuff at any range just like any other ranged class" based almost entirely on this one change and their history of how they make changes, and I just don't see that as a good thing.

Why should anyone require high end content knowledge when this discussion has basically gone

1) people discussing why they don’t like this change because it affects the identity of the job

2) someone randomly brings up savage optimisation that has near nothing to do with the point of how this is an identity problem and says “don’t pretend like the job is unplayable argue grown up points like wanting melee range back………which is exactly what the discussion was already about

Nobody is arguing the class is unplayable in savage. People are saying “this class is a melee ranged hybrid, don’t make me do less melee for the sake of encounter design”

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Originally Posted by StriderShinryu

Just needed to jump in and give this post some major kudos.

We already did have a "ranged melee attack" that could/should have been buffed to work within Manafication and essentially replace the melee combo when you couldn't get into melee range to perform it. As said in the quoted post, keep it below melee combo potency so that you're still heavily encouraged to do your proper melee combo when you can but you'd at least have a solid enough option to fall back on when you couldn't. Job done.

I do agree with the opinion that some people have that the job as it stands today is not all that different from how it was before the patch, and that, yes, you can "just do it in melee range if you really want." The real problem is what this change will mean for the future of the job. Right now we're actually in an awkward place with the melee combo sometimes being able to be done at range and some times not, and where you can now perform some/most of your burst at range but not all of it (assuming you do use corps and engage for potency)... and we all know that SE doesn't like awkwardness and doesn't seem to embrace any sort of player side decision making or job friction. So while the job may still be "fine" right now, I have a really hard time believing it will stay "fine." I can very easily see the RDM 8.0 changes being "do all of your stuff at any range just like any other ranged class" based almost entirely on this one change and their history of how they make changes, and I just don't see that as a good thing.

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Thanks for the kudos, 'finding solutions to SE-made problems' is a side hobby of sorts, though I mostly think about Healers

The bolded part is worth a second look, because thinking about it, this change actually presents a new problem: Casual players might run into the problem of 'they can sometimes use the Melee combo from range, and sometimes not, and identify that as 'feeling unintuitive to play around''. Rather than how it used to be, where it made sense that 'Melee attack is Melee range', we now have 'Melee attack is Melee range, but Ranged range when under the effect of a certain CD', and the feedback SE might get is that the varying range is just unintuitive to play around, resulting in them making the 'forced to be Melee range' combo, Ranged range too for consistency

Imagine you start a Melee combo at 28s of Manafication (so 2s are left), you'd have 2 hits (28s, 29.5s) that are Ranged range, and then you're suddenly forced to be Melee distance again for the last hit (as it'd be at 31s, beyond the duration of Manafication). If you don't happen to have Corps ready (eg, you just used both charges back to back in your burst window), you're gonna have to waddle up to the boss to get that last hit, and you can't even Accel/Swift a filler GCD on the way as it'd break the combo. The mental image is funny, but it's a problem that didn't need to exist (eg by doing the Reprise change I previously mentioned)

Ideally, it's just slippery slope fallacy speaking, but with SE, it's unfortunately a non-zero chance that they might actually do that

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Originally Posted by Milkbeard

I check in every few months to show that people who actually play the game do not agree with this incoherence. If you want the range restored, great. If you want to discuss the kit, I’m game. But if you call the kit useless, I’ll gladly educate you. A range change doesn't mean the RDM kit or its unique playstyle is suddenly worth crapping on.

In regards to identity
Mobility: Objectively unique and satisfying. Acceleration is boss and the mobility sword combo is fun

Burst: Controlled and in the hands of the player, not on rails.

resource accumulating and spending: Zero jobs are like it; Reaper is the closest in resource spending, but still miles away.

RDM perfectly fulfills the lore of weaving White and Black mana into Red Magic. We have the best balance of swordplay and magic in the game. The job doesn’t need a gutting or a rework—just minor animation and range tweaks. RDM remains the gold standard for design.

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Good thing I'm complaining specifically about the extended range on the Melee combo feeling like an unnecessary change, that impacts (ha) the Job Identity, and not complaining about the kit. I like Verraise and Magick Barrier as actions, I think they're cool additional utilities. I disagree that they're big enough in their impact to warrant the lower-DPS that the nonBLM Casters all 'enjoy', I think that the 'tax', if there is one at all, should be more like 2% rather than the 6ish% we saw last raid tier. Thinking back to Week 1 M8S and how the group I ran with had a stacked PCT who was gear-fed by a static that later imploded, I have no idea how we'd have cleared with a SMN/RDM, for example, the DPS check seemed designed around the assumption that everyone would just look at the 7.2 BLM changes and say 'oh BLM easier to handle now guess I'll play it because it's more damage than PCT again'

In regards to Identity:

Mobility: Unique is one way to put it, but it is objectively the least mobile of the four Casters now, even with Dualcast procs. Acceleration is cool, and I have no idea what you mean by 'mobility sword combo' except 'the combo that isn't in raidbuffs and can be kinda moved around in the non-burst section of the rotation'

Burst: In the hands of the player, as in, the player has to press the Embolden button, sure. Embolden, however, should be pressed as soon as it is up, aligned with everyone else's 2min button, unless the whole party has agreed on some other plan, whether holding every buff for X GCDs to better align with mechanics (without losing a use), or staggering the raidbuffs on purpose for the sake of meeting DPS checks in multiple phases (eg desynching Embolden from others in TOP P3/P4 to meet both checks, knowing that the downtimes in P5 will realign things). It is very much 'on rails' (source, The Balance), which, once again, speaks to the point of 'the 2min meta looms its shadow over everything', and that includes RDM

Resources: Agreed, zero jobs are like RDM. That's one thing it has going for it, that it has the thus-far unique gameplay of filling two different gauges concurrently, while trying to keep them relatively equal

I don't know who you're addressing with 'the job doesn't need a gutting/rework', but I hope it is not me, because I'm not asking for it to get a gutting or a rework. If anything, JP asking for the Melee combo to be executable from range, turning it from the Ranged-Melee hybrid it had been for 6 years, to be more Ranged and less Melee, qualifies as a rework in my eyes. A minor one, admittedly, but I'd place it in the same camp as 5.1 NIN changing Ninjutsu from OGCD to GCD, and that was referred to as a 'rework' by SE themselves. I'm also not sure I'd call RDM the 'gold standard' for design, but considering how little RDM's core gameplay loop had changed since its inception 6 years ago, the assertion that 'it has stood the test of time' is one that everyone can agree with, I'd think

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Originally Posted by Milkbeard

People who are new to Red Mage or following "new-gen" takes are claiming the job is rigid. RDM is not locked to a 2-minute meta. We have the active choice to either Mana Rush or Align.

Choosing to rush depends entirely on your group's projected clear time. For example, with a clear time of 7:30, it is objectively better to use Manafication on cooldown, which desyncs it from the 2-minute cycle. Even in a "Triple Melee" reopener, the first combo isn’t even under Embolden. Please be careful with what you say when jumping into RDM discussions if your only perspective is how the job fits into a standardized meta. Remember: Embolden is for the group; your resources are for the encounter.

You should take the time to understand the complexity you’re missing: learn the difference between mana rushing, standard alignment, and hybrid play during Ultimate phases. "2-minute meta" is just a buzzword for our class—it’s simply when your group needs embolden and that isn't strictly locked to 2 mins either. If you’re complaining about the 2-minute meta, you’re really just complaining about doing a double-melee combo. If you don't like that, you haven’t liked the job for five years and should have switched by now.
https://i.imgur.com/REJmesX.png

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No, this wasn't directed at you. However I am appreciating how you are addressing it because you took time research. I don't really want to go through and quote some of the misinformed, kit ragging comments that have gathered in this thread though.

Regarding TOP and Embolden: While selfishly desyncing Embolden can be optimal in specific meta scenarios, it is generally a risky move for rDPS that requires research. We 100% agree :cool:

I want focus on Manafication and how mana rushing counters the generic arguments that red mage gameplay is centered around the 2 min windows, or embolden for that matter. :eek:

The design of manaifciation is brilliant. It accommodates both strict alignment and on-CD usage, allowing different approaches to produce equally competitive parses depending on fight length and comp. One cannot claim RDM is locked into a 2-minute cycle when its most powerful CD manaifcation is most optimally used off CD leading to being outside of the 2 min window. This is what I meant by burst control. Without Embolden, the 2-minute meta arguments for RDM collapses entirely because emboldens your only move truly locked to the 2 minute cycle. You want at least 3 parts of the sword combo and your oGCDs under embolden, but you literally are just doing your rotation, you can choose to always align manaificaiton, or mana rush, when playing this job and do literally just as well in any content. You can just forget to press manaification for 10 seconds with zero punishment, especially if the content you're doing has no clear time or an unsure clear time because of prog.

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Originally Posted by RaionKansen

Again, you haven't even engaged with the high end content this expansion.

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If people aren't allowed to have an opinion just because they don't engage with hard content then this game is truly done for.
We can then form a council of top raiders and delete anything that isn't savage upwards.
It's why we got the 2min meta in the first place.

The whole "running to tomestones as soon as someone has an opinion on job design" is why people loose their respect for raiders and I personally include myself in the later even if only in a more casual way nowadays aka not doing raids on content.
Fact is, and I think both sides could agree to this, that those changes don't just effect savage raiding but also content below it and despite what some like to think, that content also matters. Problem is though that the devs seemingly have abandoned all form of finding a balance.

Last but not least, just because someone doesn't do high end raiding does not mean they have no idea of their main job. Some simply don't have an interest but would be able to raid.
I have seen enough legend titles fail at simple dungeon mechanics and first time raiders who let those legends look like amateurs.

What I do agree though is that the term white knight is thrown around way too often here.

The changes have been done because of savage and for people who think being in melee range was job identity that is a problem.
I have really no idea why people bring up savage optimization in a thread about job identity.
No one disagrees that the job is easier to handle now and better in some fights, they are annoyed that yet another job got part of it's identity sanded away for the sake of fight design or that they actually liked planning around that thing in the past just like BLM mains liked working around the timer.

Are people unable to accept that players exist who want to have fun with a job in every content instead of only a percentile even if that is fun in itself?

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Just FYI, this was more a general post and not at you specifically, just using this part of your post.