Clarification on RDM stuff

A few questions about RDM that I would like have answered as I start my first static for level 70 content (haven't been at endgame since ARR 2.3)

1 . RDM has bad damage

I am confused about this. I typically see do insane damage, even if it is not super consistent. I have also out DPS'd other players during pre 70 content, so what is the change that happens at 70 that makes RDM damage so low?

2 . RDM offers little to no utility and is thus not a desired class

I am confused about this as well. I know healers heal, tanks tank, and DDs deal damage, but I think embolden is pretty decent for the party and vercure is incredibly useful in certain situations, albeit rare and not necessary all the time. I can see how for people who have things on farm can view it as a wasted ability slot, but for people just getting into the upper echelons, this has to be useful, right? Also, verraise is self explanitory.

3 . RDM is useless after "progression"

Why is this a popular opinion? Am I to understand that I should have a melee class ready to switch over to once I finish progression as RDM in order to kill faster? I am not opposed to it, and my group is not even asking that I do this, but I do want to be prepared for such an event should it arise.


Lastly, a question about the "rotation"

so far I understand it as using jolt as the "floor" to start ur casting spree into verthunder/aero into verfire/verstone. The 3rd spell will be a short spell, and go into a dual cast of either veraero/thunder. If that 3rd spell doesnt proc a verstone/verfire, is that when you use Impact? So far, since ive unlocked it, those are the only times when I use it. I may be doing it wrong, but i know for sure (hopefully!) that you dont want to dual cast it, as it has a short cast time.

Thank you,

Z

Edit: Added the 4th question.

1. RDM damage isn't low, but it's not super great either. It's decent. But they have other tools that make them useful as well. Biggest flaw is their AoE damage is severely lacking and/or takes a long time to build up (getting Enhanced Moulinet takes a while)

2. RDM has insane utility, they get a useable Cure spell as a DPS and they have an instant Raise. Embolden is super nice, too.

3. "Useless" is hyperbole. It may not be "optimal", but people who strive for speed runs or whatever will always pick the most specialized/optimal DPS jobs. That doesn't mean the remainders are "worthless". Also, obviously not every job can be tweaked to be "optimal" because it depends on the party composition and the parameters of the battle itself.

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

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Thanks for the input. I feel like with the AoE ability, the damage is 'good' but super repetitive.

RDM scales badly at 70. You'll end up doing the lowest damage, though not by much and only against equally skilled players. RDM has utility, though it's mostly prog utility. Vercure shouldn't ever be used if you instead can be dpsing. Verraise is more useful and can see use much more, easily saving a group from a mistake. But at the highest tier it's all useless as no one should be messing up. Embolden is always good, but other class have better dps buffs so it's not particularly craved. No class is ever useless.

Impact is being used properly afaik. It's also good to never let an Impact fall off, or at least that's what I'm told, but I let it fall anyway bc I am bad.

1) Compared to other classes, they do

2) Embolden is pretty weak dps utility wise compared to the kits of Bard/Dragoon/Ninja and Machinist

3) Because outside of progression, the raise utility should not be needed, so you are better off switching to another class for more damage.

1. What content are you doing? What sort of players are you playing with? By all metrics, Red Mages do some of the lowest dps when compared to practically every other job when played at a high level.

2. Embolden isn't as good as you think it is. BRD has 3 buffs that are of an equal to or greater Raid DPS contribution. Dragoons have two that are equal to or greater. Ninjas and Machinists each have one that is up to three times more powerful excluding damage mitigation and threat tools. All of which do much more damage than a Red Mage.

3. The greatest asset a RDM provides is it's ability to chain raise a party. Assuming you've gotten to the point where no raises are needed, the RDM desirability plummets like a rock. Obviously, if a player is a good Red Mage and a mediocre anything else, it's probably better for them to play a Red Mage; however, that RDM ought to consider expanding their horizons and try new jobs.

Your rotation priority ought to be Dualcast Proc Thunder/Aero > Stone/Fire > Impact > Swiftcast + Thunder/Aero > Jolt. The whole gameplay loop for RDM is to cast Jolt as little as possible and only use it as an activator for Dualcast or Impact and rely on procs to start your dualcast chains. More of this is found here.

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3) Because outside of progression, the raise utility should not be needed, so you are better off switching to another class for more damage.

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Less than 5% of the population clears Savage difficulty content. So just because it's only good for progression doesn't mean it's not a worthwhile skill in general. Utility is utility. Playing devil's advocate, damage buff skills are also a "utility" in that although it helps you clear -faster- it's not "necessary" to use in order to beat the encounter. Speed running is a small niche of the community.

Just adding my 2 cents regarding "you should never use vercure".

Vercure as well as verrais are emergency spells.
You ideally do not want to use them, but if the situation occurs you should. Basically, whenever you know (or have a very strong feeling about it) that you will die because healers won't be able to top u in time. In other words, vercure should be used to save your life (or someone else) but never to help healers.

It is your duty to recognize when the situation is dire and your healer can't keep people alive (whether it's their fault or not)
For instance, I recently did Shinryu and in p3 the healer forgot to move during freeze thunder combo, when the head came down he was freshly rez zed and obviously oom. The red mage tossed a few vercure to help on the dragon head.
Did it lower its dps? Absolutely.
Was it a Desirable situation? Obviously not
Would have we wiped without his intervention? Well, we'll never know but it would have been a very close call.

So just be smart about it

Vercure is actually a good thing to use during phase transitions.

It absolutely isn't your duty to start full time healing if you are in a dire situation in high end content because chances are its a wipe anyway. Your job is to do DPS, not heal.

RDM has always been my fav class since FFXI. Despite what people think, RDM is a jack of ALL trades. An RDM is meant to be able to do everything, heal, attack, whatever. The damage XIV RDMs have are on par with a Ninja, Sams and Monks still out power them but up with a Ninja and your about the same.
As many have said however, even with the ability to double heal and quick revive over and over, RDMs were always more a support healer then a full on healer. Anyone expecting us to be a main healer is an idiot.

Over all RDMs are perfect for people who what to be able to play any style they want, attacker, support healer, whatever RDM gives people that option.

As a RDM raider, I hope I can answer all these questions.

1) At higher levels of optimization, RDM holds a firm "last place" in damage output. Even behind bard. There's evidence in the logs to support this. The main reason for the popular opinion of "insane damage" is actually quite a simple one: RDM has probably the lowest "skill floor" of any dps class. The amount of effort needed to unlock, say, 50% of another class might be enough to unlock 70% of RDM's potential. At lower levels, RDM already has 300 potency spells, which makes it stomp on low level content. But again, in terms of personal damage + raid damage, RDM is dead last.

2) Vercure and verraise ARE very good. But the nature of that utility ends up creating a unique situation. In learning a fight, a red mage is invaluable. In farming a fight, a red mage is bottom of the barrel. The way me and a lot of red mages see it, if we're talking about balancing a class, it should be balanced around the level of play where the balance actually matters; and in the higher levels of play, you're ideally not even gonna use vercure or verraise once. This means these abilities, essentially, do not exist as utility. When you take those away, you're left with embolden. And embolden only affects physical damage and has a decay that diminishes its usefulness.

3) "useless" is a strong word. But, as I spoke of above, in the higher tiers of play during farming and such, most of red mage's utility might as well not exist. Because of this, you're left with the weakest personal DPS class that has not-strong-enough raid damage to back it up. Because of this, every other dps class is technically a better choice.

All of these factors lead to a very binary existence for red mage. On the one hand, we're considered completely invaluable for progression and pug content. On the other, we're pretty much not even worth considering among the best of the best. And as I said before, the balance of class should be balanced around where the balance actually matters.

One solution I've seen thrown around, and one that I favor, is to nuke away the extreme of RDM's utility in favor of general potency buffs. For example, if you made VerRaise an ogcd ability with a 60-90 second cooldown, we'd lose our identity as "walking healer LB3" and we'd be able to get better personal or raid damage.