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

So, I was listening to Mr. Happy talk about the history of Red mage and how the devs were hinting at the job being in the game. He was also talking about how the class was a original made to be a all-a-round class being able to tank, heal, and dps. At this point the likelihood of Red mage being anything other than a dps is very slim, and after his video it hit me. What if Red mage is just like Astrologian, but with Smn and blm. It kinda works imo. the job can have the single target skills of Blm while have the AoE skills of a Smn, but of course not being overly strong in both areas compared to the original jobs. However, where the job will shine the most is with it's utilities, and I will even go so as to say the job will have its own rez ability. But what do y'all think?

With the history of the job, I can see it working out effectively as a healer. They're supposed to be a fusion of White Mage and Black mage with some support spells mixed in, and since healers DPSing is sort of a staple, making them healers would cover both of those bases.. So they'll probably end up like astrologian, but with different kinds of support so that the AST doesn't feel obsolete.

When I think of Red Mage I think of Black Mage, White Mage, and a bit of tankiness. Not that poor excuse for a Summoner that resides in this game.

Historically, they have been a jack of all trades, master of none type of deal. In eleven, they were more of a support-ish class; they moved between parties casting En-"element" which gave them, essentially, shields.

I could see them being something similar to the machinists/bards, but unfortunately that would cause a bit of in balance between party comps (having three melee is a thing, although not really the meta). If they go the route of XI, they could make them either healers or tanks.

In reality, I think they would be most welcomed in terms of healers. In particular, a healer to take the place of SCHs in raid (because lets be real, raid groups always have SCHs).

Will that happen? We shall see. But most want the traditional RDM route, which is DPS, which I can understand.

I'd imagine they'd go the tank route for RDM if they want to keep all the original aspects of it intact as much as possible. A fencer-tank that uses black magey skills to build hate and white magey skills for mitigation and healing.

This fulfills all three of the usual RDM criteria and still works within FFXIV's structured party setup.

Apparently the majority of those remembering RDM are remembering only 2/3rds of the actual class. Yes, there's White Magic. Yes, there's Black Magic. BUT there's also a sword (and shield, depending the iteration). In any FF, aside from possibly XI, that had RDM you could stack the entire party as RDM and have it be viable for the game, but that's also considering the games were single player.

Tank RDM: To me, a Tank RDM would actually be more along the lines of V's Mystic Knight. The ones able to cast En-spells. IF RDM is a mage-like tank(from Velox's idea) then I'd expect their cast timers AND their recast timers to be extremely low, ie 2s at MOST. We see how badly PLD gets affected by the inability to block/parry while casting, so to make using Magic viable as a main tank the cast times would need to be extremely low.

Healer RDM: Personally I'd see this as another slap in the face like what XI's RDM was shoehorned into being. I'm not talking about the solo playstyle of the class, I'm talking about being reduced to a Refresh/Haste bot. The thought of a Healer RDM disgusts me so much that I can't even think of a way to make it viable AND keep to the roots of the class. The sword would get put away, which has always been part of the iconic RDM(alongside the pimphat).

DPS RDM: A DPS RDM is the only "true to roots" RDM that seems viable to me. You can keep the standard 2.5s spell times, you can keep the 2.5s skill times with ease. Mix the use of a skill and a spell, give them "Heal" as their healing spell(oh look, SMN/ACN have a 400pot Physick as DPS), give them a rez. Give RDM's stance dance an INT/STR or INT/DEX swap. Their specific gear should have DEX/STR, VIT, and INT, but possibly sacrifice a secondary stat for the additional primary stat.

TL;DR: My opinion: Tank with low recasts, Healer is an abomination, and DPS is true. Keep the sword and pimp hat.

A tank or a (NIN-like) DPS with mutually exclusive defensive/offensive/(personal mitigation/enmity) support would be my best bet. I'd personally prefer the latter, as the idea of trying to deflect dullahan swings with what amounts to a toothpick seems... odd... to me, and a DPS role just seems closer to its roots and potential. Sadly, I doubt SE will really be able to milk its potential outside of whatever cash they assume they could make off on-the-fence subscriptions weeded in through combat robes and red hats, or at best to fill a slot remaining in the then-current line-up more than the job's own boots. Our current designs and meta are rather... simplistically rigid.

For what I keep hearing Red Mage is essentially a "jack of all trade" class. So my question is, why not letting it be the first class/job/whatever to be a multi-role one?

They could tank but due to their lack of buffs they could work like a offtank. We still need a good counterpart of the warrior, which is STILL the best Offtank of the entire game: why not letting RDM be one?

They could dps by using "whatever spells" they will get, but thanks to a specific stance these spells could also get aggro for when they tank or heal the group when they on healing role.

They could heal by using both spells and melee attacks: this could be like also a way to recharge their mana/do dps to the group. More (but weak) dps, more (but weak) heals, more (but weak) mana, (I dunno, anything works as long as it's not another copy of SCH and WHM)

I dunno, the possibilities are there, and while I never played XI I just thought that we could get one job split into 3 roles. But if it's gonna be another dps then I'll probably skip it.

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Originally Posted by Nicolepwned

In eleven, they were more of a support-ish class; they moved between parties casting En-"element" which gave them, essentially, shields.

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Unless this was changed/added after I quit around Abyssea I think you're not remembering it properly. RDM was a support class, true, but it was able to fill both a healer and caster role. En- spells were all personal sword buffs that gave their auto-attacks added damage of whatever spell was cast. Their most notable contribution was their ability to use Refresh and enfeeble the enemies (Slow, Para, DoTs, etc). I don't ever recall a RDM bouncing between parties, that was typically BRD as their songs had a fairly decent duration to them so they could afford that luxury. A RDM had to fit their refresh and haste cycles into their standard healing/debuffing duties.

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Originally Posted by Voltyblast

For what I keep hearing Red Mage is essentially a "jack of all trade" class. So my question is, why not letting it be the first class/job/whatever to be a multi-role one?

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That creates balance issues. And composition issues. Better to not go down that route at all.

That said, AST's design is not something I would want for RDM (what you're talking is about modes or stances that determined damage output) because it puts players in a weird position. Not to mention that the reason AST has those stances (nevermind the problem I have with that job on a fundamental level) is because it needs to be a sort of partner to the other healer. You don't have that type of requirement for DPS, so that wouldn't make much sense. Not mentioning that a good caveat to RDM gameplay would be limited AoE.

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Originally Posted by Nicolepwned

In eleven, they were more of a support-ish class; they moved between parties casting En-"element" which gave them, essentially, shields.

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Not really, since Enspells were self-only. Of course, using enspells and meleeing at all was discouraged because the value of having a RDM in party was to cast cure, use Refresh to restore MP of other casters and keep haste on the melee. Enfeebling where it fit but even that took a backseat to the unholy triumvirate of cure/refresh/haste.

You're probably thinking of Barspells, but RDM's versions of Barspells were also self-only. Only WHM had the party versions. RDM was designed to be self sufficient but the other combat systems in FFXI never really played to that at all. At least not in a balanced way.