A Possible Final Gift for the FFXIV Fans

What if... Red Mage Tank?

Awhile ago I was think of starting something called "The Think Tank" where I would make classes as tanks. But I am unsure about how long I will be staying in this game. Anyways, I wrote this up in boredom while waiting for Gathering Red Scripts. Hope ya'll enjoy it :P

The Think Tank: Red Mage

First, I want everyone to know that I never played RDM in FFXI, but I know how much FF players would love to see the class in the game, so I took some time to create a viable (and hopefully balanced, lol) tank class. Also, this is going off of the assumption that VIT is calculated into tank attack instead of STR. Without further ado, I introduce, my Red Mage tank!

So, a couple of this I looked for and kept in mind while doing this:
1. Distinct red mage themes
2. Distinct fencing themes
3. 1 Major tanking CD
4. 2 medium tanking CD
5. 3 minor tanking CD
6. Multiple combo paths

Gameplay style: The RDM is a melee oriented tanking class that uses a Rapier MH and a Buckler OH. Both Rapier and Buckler would be very similar to the stat weights found on PLD. Except with RDM their shield only block magical damage. The armor they use is the same armor that tanks use.

The RDM also utilizes a combo system called "Elemental Convergence". Once hitting 10 stacks, their comboed abilities will place a debuff called "Elemental Shift" that lasts for 20 seconds. Once the debuff reaches 5 stacks, the target receives a debuff called "Elemental Displacement" that lowers all elemental resistances by 25% for 20 seconds.

Also, their comboed skills deal moderate damage when NOT comboed, but have a cast time associated with them. When paired with Straight Thrust or Split Cast they do not have a cast time. Also, their skills use TP when comboed, but MP when not comboed.

Skills:
Level 1: Straight Thrust - Delivers an attack potency of 150
Level 2: Parade - for 3 seconds, all physical attacks miss, 90 second CD
Level 4: Break - Delivers an attack potency of 175, cast time 2.5 seconds; Additional Effect: increased enmity; Combo Action: Coupe, Combo potency 210 and instant cast.
Level 6: Poison - Damage over time with potency of 35 for 15 seconds
Level 8: Guardia - Store up to 10% of healing done to the player. After effect wears off, the healing is slowly dissipated back to the player in the form of a regen.
Level 10: Coupe - Delivers an attack potency of 120, Additional Effect: Silence, 15 sec CD
Level 12: Tornado - Delivers an attack with a potency of 75 in a designated area over 5 seconds as Wind based damage
Level 15: Silhouette Lunge - Delivers a ranged attack with a potency of 120.Additional Effect: Increased Enmity
Level 18: Split Cast - Delivers an attack with a potency of 175, 2.5 second cast, Combo action: 215 potency attack, Combo Effect: increase elemental damage by 25% for 18 seconds
Level 22: Elemental Overdrive - Increase all magical output by 25%
Level 24: Mind Manipulation - controls enemy for a short second, placing yourself at the top of the enmity list after the 3 seconds.
Level 26: Break II - Delivers an attack potency of 200, cast time 2.5 seconds; Additional Effect: increased enmity; Combo Action: Break, Combo potency 275 and instant cast.
Level 30: Riporto - Takes a defensive stance, if Physical attack, counters with 250 physcial attack and adds Pacifys for 5 seconds, if magical attack, counters with a 250 potency magical attack and silences for 5 seconds. Effects last 10 seconds. Only activated when successfully dodging an attack while using Parade, 60 sec CD
Level 34: Lightning - Delivers an attack with a potency of 210, 2.5 second cast, Combo action: Split Cast, 225 potency attack, Combo Effect: attacks with a damage over time potency of 35 for 21 seconds
Level 38: Reflect - Reduces all incoming skills by 90% (this is including healing from other players), reflects 25% of initial damage back to attacker, and cannot incur any buffs or debuffs. Buffs and Debuffs placed on before cast will remain with initial effects.
Level 42: Ice - Delivers an attack with a potency of 235, 2.5 second cast, Combo action: Split Cast, 275 potency attack, Combo Effect: Damage dealt lowered by 20% for 6 seconds
Level 45: Composure - All comboed spells no longer need a Straight Thrust or Split Cast to comob, Split Cast buff is activated for the duration of the buff, lasts 20 seconds, 120 sec CD
Level 48: Rassemblement: Prevents any form of knockback, stun, silence, bind, or heavy effect. Lasts 10 seconds, 120 second CD
Level 50: Haste - Increase Parties Skill Speed and Spell Speed by 50% for 20 seconds, 180 second CD

Traits:
Level 6: Enhanced VIT - Increase VIT by 2
Level 8: Enhanced Parade - Parade now dodges magical attacks
Level 15: Enhanced VIT II - Increase VIT by 4
Level 18: Enhanced Poison - Poison now lasts for 28 seconds
Level 22: Enhanced VIT III - Increase VIT by 6
Level 27: Enhanced Tornado - Now pulls lesser enemies towards you
Level 33: Enhanced Elemental Overdrive - Magical damage increased to 60%
Level 39: Enhanced Riporto - Extends Parade by 3 seconds
Level 41: Enhanced Reflect - Now reflects healing back to the raid party, and 100% self-healing
Level 44: Enhanced Haste - Skill TP and MP usage is cut by 50% for the duration of the buff
Level 47: Enhanced Guardia - Stored healing is increased to 30%

RDM Job Skills:
Level 30: Opposition - Damage decreased by 20%, Enmity increased, increase MP by 30%, 30% of damage taken is reflected to MP pool. Once MP pool is depleted all damage is directed back to HP. MP regen effects affect MP pool. Elemental Convergence. Increases chance to hit by 5%. Grants stacks of Elemental Convergence stacking up to 10 Stacks can be used for RDM specific skills. Each stack grants 1% to magical reduction
Level 35: Feint - Only usable under Opposition, uses 5 stacks, reduces damage by 12.5%, stack-able for 4 seconds stacks up to 2 times, when stacked the duration adds another 4 seconds, and overlapping 12.5% DR.
Level 40: Mental Conversion -Only usable under Opposition, use 10 stacks of Convergence to replenish 30% of maximum MP.
Level 45: Tactical Training - Only usable under Opposition, use 10 stacks of Convergence to replenish 30% of maximum TP.
Level 50: Double Cast - Only usable under Opposition, use 10 stacks of conversion to cast any two spells back to back. If the second spell is casted while the first spell is still in effect, the duration will be increased. (For example, if you cast Reflect twice, the duration will just be doubled.)
Level 52: Phalanx - Only usable under Opposition, increase HP restoration from all sources by 10%, all damage received during buff returns 10% health (if hit for 1000, you are auto-healed for 100). If dropped below 10% health, Phalanx is cancelled.
Level 54: Blaze Spikes - Delivers an attack potency of 50 fire damage to all enemies attacking the player
Level 56: Expulsion - Only usable under Opposition, uses 10 stacks of Convergence to reduce elemental defenses by 35% for 15 seconds, 45 sec CD
Level 58: Disengage / Reengage - Cancels any binding effect, and quickly jump backwards 10 yalms. If pressed again within 2.5 seconds, the player will jump back to start position.
Level 60: X-Magic - Only usable under Opposition, uses 10 stacks of Convergence, puts Opposition on CD for 20 seconds, and drains all MP. Gains access to Comet. Tornado changes to Comet. Comet: Deliver an attack potency of 300 on initial hit in a large 20 yalm area, impact zone is super heated and any enemies caught inside the area area bound and take damage over time as a potency of 35, impact zone lasts for 9 seconds.

Well, hope you guys enjoyed the read ^_^

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Originally Posted by xvshanevx

Level 35: Feint - Only usable under Opposition, uses 5 stacks, reduces damage by 12.5%, stackable for 4 seconds stacks up to 2 times, when stacked the duration adds another 4 seconds.

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Just gonna point out that LNC already haves dibs on Feint (the name)

I like the idea of red mages all together, but I would rather see them as dps, blue mage as tank though would make me really happy. Having a way to take a spell from mobs or bosses that you are fighting and use it against them.

short answer: No
long answer: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!
we need a sword/rapier wielding magic melee DPS >_>

i don't think we really need another tank right now, the 3 actual tank cover most of the tank basic possibility. one resilient (paladin), one more offensive (warrior) and one middle ground (dark knight)

This was a great well thought out way to do RDM. I enjoyed the read Shanemon.

I played rdm in ff11it was actually set up as an off tank if u sub war, but players regulated it as a healer (its worst skill) due to fastcast, chain spell, and convert. That and refresh.

What you pretty much described was the paper version of rune knight inn ff11.

This is easily the most well thought out RDM-Tank post I've read. I have my own thoughts on the subject.

First to note, which is going under the assumption that the next set of classes for 4.0 are Samurai, Red Mage, and Blue Mage, and in the state of the game right now, is that the game is long overdue for both a Caster DPS, and a STR-based melee DPS. I stick to my guns that as of right now, this game does not need another full healer class, and I hope that they choose to omit adding a 4th healer for 4.0. (With the way this game handles healing classes, there's really not much left you can add to a healer that won't just feel like a WHM or SCH with a new gimmick.)

So I'm thinking 4.0 should add a tank, melee DPS, and caster DPS as it's additions to the game. But to go deeper, I feel that we should add...

1. A tanking class that hold a candle to the OT niche that WAR has nested itself in. This way you would be given the option of PLD or DRK as your main tank choices, and then have WAR and the new class as your OT. Personally I feel that Samurai would fit this perfectly, but there's a lot of demand for Samurai to be a DPS due to the lack of actual swords. (Then again, keep in mind that this expansion it was Dark Knight vs Samurai over who to be the tank class, so they could easily stick with their original idea for it.)

2. A melee oriented DPS that can bring in the same amount of quality of life team buffs that Ninja offers. (Lets face it, everyone and their dog brings a NIN if they follow proper party composition for progression.) This is the role I feel better suits Red Mage in both flavor and play style. Making it STR-based would be to just simply even out the accessory distribution among DPS (3 STR, 3 DEX, 3 INT if they also add a caster.)

3. And finally, a caster. Because it'll be almost 4 years by the time 4.0 comes out since they would have added a caster DPS into the game. As much as I loved XI Blue Mage, I think this best suits it in it's transition to XIV.

There's some swapping you could do, like BLU-Tank, SAM - STR DPS, RDM INT-DPS.

But yeah, good read and neat ideas!

I think come 4.0 they will have to hybridize the "holy trinity" a bit, so that support and damage are separate things. I really wish we could eliminate the "holy trinity" altogether but that's probably not going to happen.

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Originally Posted by Stormfur

I think come 4.0 they will have to hybridize the "holy trinity" a bit, so that support and damage are separate things. I really wish we could eliminate the "holy trinity" altogether but that's probably not going to happen.

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Not sure if we can expect a break from the mold in 4.0. I do however think that by 5.0 it would be fitting to expand content to 5 and 10 man, to accommodate full support roles and to freshen up party play all together. There's only so much left you can add with the current system before you're just retreading old ground.

Hell MCH and BRD are barely different from each other and AST is already a homogenized Frankenstein of WHM or SCH depending on the sect you choose.

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Originally Posted by hagare

short answer: No
long answer: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!
we need a sword/rapier wielding magic melee DPS >_>

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You mean like how we needed a greatsword wielding DD?

After having thougth about it, I really get the feeling that SAM and RDM will be coming in 4.0, and both in the role of Support DPS. RDM just feels like it would fit as a support type class, and with WM/GB they could add a mage mode which you turn from stabbing to casting. They could offer something similar to BRD's Foe Req.

SAM however, while I fully understand the push for tank or solid DPS, would make an interesting Support DPS. Before we get into the romance of the samurai as a swordsman, remember that they are often seen as leaders/generals. Putting SAM in with the standard support abilities in the form of Kiai's, debuff's inlcuding the slashing debuff as sword techniques, and keeping them always mobile would completely shake them up from what most people would expect.

As it stands right now, I really do not want to see another tank or healer introduced in 4.0. I'd rather see them get those two roles solid over 3/4.0 before new ones, ideally BLU and DNC, come in to be the new guys.

But more on topic, while it was a good read OP, I'm still incredibly bias to BLU as a tank over RDM

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Originally Posted by Azazua_azura

I played rdm in ff11it was actually set up as an off tank if u sub war, but players regulated it as a healer (its worst skill) due to fastcast, chain spell, and convert. That and refresh.

What you pretty much described was the paper version of rune knight inn ff11.

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Yeah, that was my thought upon reading this. Rune Knight turned out to be a surprisingly strong tank for certain fights against heavily magic based mobs, but it was added too late in the life of XI to become very well known.

Also, no job should ever have an ability named "Phlug." I laughed every time I saw it.

I would not hold your breath on RDM being a DPS/TANK, if SE decided to put this Job/Class into the game I fear the threads that will come out on the forum:-

"RIP RDM"
"you broke RDM"

need i continue

RDM on ffxi was know to be "Jack of all Trades, master of enfeebling"
sadly on FFXIV, enfeebling are next to useless unless there is some big changes to FFXIV
and whatever changes SE decides to make to RDM to make it fit in it will not be right by the community.

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Originally Posted by Rhaja

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Out of the usual suspects for classes coming in 4.0, Samurai is the only job I feel that fits the tank mold without really bending the flavor of the class to fit the role. I mean at the end of the day I would be happy for either Samurai or Blue Mage to be thrusted into the tank role as tanking is my career role. BLU would require a lot of work to fit it into the tank role vs Samurai. Not to mention Samurai STILL has the momentum of already being planned to be a tank in 3.0 development.

I completely agree with the little need to add another full healer class to the cast, but I still stand that this game needs at least one more tank class for player options when it comes to Off-Tanking. Neither DRK nor PLD can hold a candle to just how well a WAR plays in the OT role, and another tank that can fit that role would be a welcome addition to adding more options in party composition for both other players AND career OTs that have been playing WAR all this time.

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Originally Posted by Ageofwar

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I think by this point the general community will need to get over the fact that not every job has to be like its XI counterpart. In reality, all the class really needs to do is just make a class that fits the flavor.

When someone mentions Red Mage as a concept, most people's mind would race to the image of someone who fights with both martial prowess and magical spells. As long as whatever concept they come up with for Red Mage includes both stabbing people really hard and shooting some sort of magic, I feel that would be faithful enough to the concept.

This is why I feel that turning Red Mage into the same bizarre Melee/support kit role that Ninja currently dominates in party composition would be both faithful to the flavor of Red Mage as an overall concept from Final Fantasy as a franchise and also beneficial to the game itself by offering parties more options as to how you build your composition. Hell, throw it in as a melee/caster and give it the magical LB and you can open up your 2nd dedicated melee slot back up for DRG/MNK again.

It would be far better characterization than how they handled Dark Knight. Even though I absolutely love the class, it's playstyle, and the kit it brings to overall party play. You could have just called what we have as Dark Knight a Mystic Knight and it would still continue to fit both the overall flavor given by the in-game universe, and gameplay.

Yes! This is the tank that I want! <3 Only gripe is that Parade sounds hilariously overpowered for pretty much any physical tank buster, but nonetheless a very enjoyable read!

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Originally Posted by HorseBoots

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for the record I'm not some RDM Tank/DPS hater (getting a general feel for what I have posted here and in other RDM threads), its just with every new overpowered RDM job suggestion thread i read on a dally bases, I fear that the community will feel rather kicked in the nuts if SE comes out with a Healer/Support style of Class(Job)

On FFXI i started the game on the RDM job loved it as a DPS role but I got quickly shoehorned into a Healer role which is when I gave up on the job and never leveled it past lvl 75 instead taking up SAM,BLU and DRK.

I definitely agree with you that the community needs to get over they fact that Job in FFXIV will not have the same feel as there FFXI counterpart, the most noticeable ones being Dark Knight and Summoner.

loved the FFXIV version of SMN being a DPS instead of healer/support as for Dark Knight I'm still on the fence about it not being a DPS, I will have to see when I get it to 60

While I don't want to get into the whole 'who for what role' debate (but just to chime in; Samurai as lancer tank, Red Mage as gladiator support DD and yes, both as second Jobs. Screw this Extra Job nonsense) what, exactly, do you mean with, "Final Gift"? Is your opinion of the game really so low that you see it dead not long after 4.0?

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Originally Posted by HorseBoots

Not sure if we can expect a break from the mold in 4.0. I do however think that by 5.0 it would be fitting to expand content to 5 and 10 man, to accommodate full support roles and to freshen up party play all together. There's only so much left you can add with the current system before you're just retreading old ground.

Hell MCH and BRD are barely different from each other and AST is already a homogenized Frankenstein of WHM or SCH depending on the sect you choose.

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by 5.0 the game probably would be f2p if not shut down if they keep this kind of contents cause everybody would stop playing. My bet? 5.0 we'll be farming Tomestone of Cryptolus to get our Cryptolus gear, weekly.

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Originally Posted by Gilraen

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I'm thinking the title should have read "A Possible Final Gift for the FFXI Fans"