Suggestion for: RDM improvements

Instead of boosting up the potency of skills, reduce the recast timer to 2.0 for Ver- damage skills.
It improves DPS and also makes the class a lot more fluid.
Or not?

It make clipping and mobility only worse.

Pretty much what Sunako said.
I think what they could do is add another tier to the single-target spells that proc (50% or maybe 75%), high damage, always instant cast and guaranteed Verstone/Verfire ready. Also you'll choose if you want the black or white magic spell instead of procing a specific one just to prevent overload with one element.
It might fix both the damage and mobility issue.

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Originally Posted by dinnertime

Pretty much what Sunako said.
I think what they could do is add another tier to the single-target spells that proc (50% or maybe 75%), high damage, always instant cast and guaranteed Verstone/Verfire ready. Also you'll choose if you want the black or white magic spell instead of procing a specific one just to prevent overload with one element.
It might fix both the damage and mobility issue.

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Like Scorch?
Why not give Dualcast a chance to proc... TRIPLE!!
That'd be so great.

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Originally Posted by Siete

Like Scorch?
Why not give Dualcast a chance to proc... TRIPLE!!
That'd be so great.

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Kinda like Scorch, except it combos from Veraero and Verthunder. Maybe called Verblizzard and Verwater, Veraero III or Verthunder III or whatever. Same could be done with AoE too.

I'd love for them just to add some DoTs at the end of certain Ver damaging skills. One of the things I hate most about Red Mage and that is unique to Red Mage is that if you aren't casting you are doing literally 0 damage. Most jobs have some kind of DoT damage that keeps some source of damage on the boss when they cannot keep their GCD rolling.

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Originally Posted by Kejara

I'd love for them just to add some DoTs at the end of certain Ver damaging skills. One of the things I hate most about Red Mage and that is unique to Red Mage is that if you aren't casting you are doing literally 0 damage. Most jobs have some kind of DoT damage that keeps some source of damage on the boss when they cannot keep their GCD rolling.

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Part of the reasons I like Redmage is the presence of no dots

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Originally Posted by Siete

Part of the reasons I like Redmage is the presence of no dots

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To each their own. It wouldn't hurt to add burning after fire, etc. It's not much more exciting then just raw potency increases to DD spells but it's something. I'm not talking about a DoT button that you push and have to maintain like Bard which has two. No caster is more screwed by movement than Red Mage currently. Red Mage doesn't have mobility on demand like BLM does. Sometimes you get forced to move and waste a GCD or you have to use Reprise which is awful. I'm not sure why you enjoy doing absolutely zero damage when you cannot cast, don't have dual-cast or swiftcast up, and don't have enough time to squeeze a slide cast off. BLM can hit for 100k, twice, when forced to move. Not to mention a plethora of other ways to deal with forced movement on demand.

You could add a 1 sec dot to each ver slow and ver fast only one Dot can be activated at a time. I know dots tick at 3 but it would be unique

I have a list of things I’d like to see
Aero/Thunder 2 buff to 140 so they work on 2 targets
Flèche is now 30sec at 500 potency
EReprise to 280-300 potency
Manafication allows you use 3 Ewep skills ignorant of gauge cost
Swiftcast spells and Scorch can proc Dualcast
VerHoly/Flare/Scorch all do AoE damage scaling 50% off on 2 targets
Acceleration gets 2 charges and restores 1500 mana each use.
Displacements damage is removed, Engagement is removed entirely
Corp A Corp gets 2 Charges and is buffed to compensate for displacements removal.
Vercure buffed to 800 potency gives a Stone Proc immediately upon use (why not)
Verraise gives a Fire Proc immediately upon use.(community can decide if they want to keep this or not, I’m over it)
Embolden works on EVERYBODY(the fact that it doesn’t is silly)

If we can get these, I’d enjoy RDM much more especially if the damage cap is closed. For 6.0, I’d also consider a bit of a redesign to truly capture that SpellBlade White magic support casting DPS identity that rdm was supposed to be. More melee, More white magic tools, more utility defensively and offensively. None of this needs to equate to RDM being the best caster/job, the job currently feels like a 2.0 BLM clone with a raise

Nitpicking but Remove the magic crystal medium, it’s ugly and I rather red mage shoot magic off the tip of the blade, not out of the crystal like some BLM clone.

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Originally Posted by Wayfinder3

I have a list of things I’d like to see
Aero/Thunder 2 buff to 140 so they work on 2 targets
Flèche is now 30sec at 500 potency
EReprise to 280-300 potency
Manafication allows you use 3 Ewep skills ignorant of gauge cost
Swiftcast spells and Scorch can proc Dualcast
VerHoly/Flare/Scorch all do AoE damage scaling 50% off on 2 targets
Acceleration gets 2 charges and restores 1500 mana each use.
Displacements damage is removed, Engagement is removed entirely
Corp A Corp gets 2 Charges and is buffed to compensate for displacements removal.
Vercure buffed to 800 potency gives a Stone Proc immediately upon use (why not)
Verraise gives a Fire Proc immediately upon use.(community can decide if they want to keep this or not, I’m over it)
Embolden works on EVERYBODY(the fact that it doesn’t is silly)

If we can get these, I’d enjoy RDM much more especially if the damage cap is closed. For 6.0, I’d also consider a bit of a redesign to truly capture that SpellBlade White magic support casting DPS identity that rdm was supposed to be. More melee, More white magic tools, more utility defensively and offensively. None of this needs to equate to RDM being the best caster/job, the job currently feels like a 2.0 BLM clone with a raise

Nitpicking but Remove the magic crystal medium, it’s ugly and I rather red mage shoot magic off the tip of the blade, not out of the crystal like some BLM clone.

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Short of adding expanded melee abilities that fit into the rotation or actually useful healing tools, I'd like RDM to get some kind of cooldown that reduces black/white mana cost for melee weaponskills to 0 for just long enough to get two full melee combos + verflare/holy+scorch off before it drops. It can be used for instant burst while at 0 black/white mana and/or for extended periods of forced movement.

I agree that RDM just needs potency buffs for 5.x, but I'd love to see their utility get reworked a bit for 6.0, maybe alongside Raise becoming a role action. As I detailed in a previous thread, getting Black/White defensive utility skills that rebalance your mana and have offensive applications would add a fun bit of depth to RDM's gameplay and fit the hybrid flavor without compromising our role as a DPS.

Personally I feel RDM needs Embolden to work with everyone to solidify them as the more support oriented caster DPS. Giving acceleration two charges would be fine, but when it comes to Corp-acorps/Displacement/Engagement, I personally think removing Corps-a-corps and replacing it with Engagement, then giving engage/disengage three charges while equalizing their potency would be fine. Let RDM choose which skill they want to dump charges on, they will preserve it for the melee combos in between manafications.

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Originally Posted by Wayfinder3

If we can get these, I’d enjoy RDM much more especially if the damage cap is closed. For 6.0, I’d also consider a bit of a redesign to truly capture that SpellBlade White magic support casting DPS identity that rdm was supposed to be. More melee, More white magic tools, more utility defensively and offensively. None of this needs to equate to RDM being the best caster/job, the job currently feels like a 2.0 BLM clone with a raise

Nitpicking but Remove the magic crystal medium, it’s ugly and I rather red mage shoot magic off the tip of the blade, not out of the crystal like some BLM clone.

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Personally, I like RDM to be a caster. Don't get me wrong, I think leaving Checkov's Sword just lying there or relegating it to a generic burst timer is taboo at best (or, licence for execution for those less subtle) -- but, I think the point of the sword should be to make it a better caster, as paradoxical as that might sound.

BLM, for instance, is a caster with significant strengths and (until the last couple expansions) distinct weaknesses. RDM's strength as a caster should be that it has no distinct weaknesses. Its maximal, perfect, theoretical turret-fight rDPS, therefore, isn't quite BLM's, but there should be literally no way for any fight to deny a skilled RDM its contribution. Try to stop their mobility -- they've got the sword through which to channel magics. Force them out of melee range -- well, they're a caster... Try to force desync into their burst-phases -- they have plenty of means by which to realign it. Not because they're a "jack of all trades", per se, but because they're a master of a highly modular toolkit.

Its special benefit, rather than an above-average theoretical peak performance, is simply the byproducts of that toolkit: for instance, it happens, also, to be capable of healing, because healing is one other way for it to never be denied significant contribution. Healing will never be its primary mode of contribution -- but, even if you were to sap 90% of a RDM's damage away under some debuff phase affecting all DPS, it'd still be contributing via healer GCDs freed up in some significant fashion.

But that still leaves another wasted opportunity: at present RDM has access to 4 of the 6 elements, and easily could have access to 2 more for the full set, but if they continue to simply be pairings of the same concepts (combinations of 2 colors and 2 lengths each for B-L, W-L, B-F, W-F), that'd be even more bloated than what we already have.

I also happen to like the MCM, and would prefer that it have a bit more presence, actually, to -- similar to the sword -- make it worth its art assets.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Lots of words..

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Good post, unfortunately, the FFXIV team seems to be in love with the current design for the job and convinced that they nailed it 100%. I'll admit they got some things right - I really like how they managed to make the melee combo an essential part of the rotation, and I do have a lot of fun playing the class - but it\\'s not so perfect that they can just sit on their hands and never try to do anything with it. Ultimately they played it too safe with RDM in this game and as a result it mostly feels like a gimped black mage with a rez and a melee combo they need to use. Giving it aero and stone and calling them white magic is the least innovative or interesting thing they could have possibly done especially when they made the job\\'s healing tools so underwhelming as well. Having the melee combo is nice at first but when you\\'ve played the class for over two years it\\'s hard not to notice that it\\'s designed in such a restrictive way that we\\'re unlikely to ever see it expanded. It would be nice if they had someone passionate about Red Mage come in and look at ways to improve the job.

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Originally Posted by Katie_Kitty

Giving it aero and stone and calling them white magic is the least innovative or interesting thing they could have possibly done especially when they made the job's healing tools so underwhelming as well. Having the melee combo is nice at first but when you've played the class for over two years it's hard not to notice that it's designed in such a restrictive way that we're unlikely to ever see it expanded. It would be nice if they had someone passionate about Red Mage come in and look at ways to improve the job.

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To be fair, most of the stuff that's white magic that would normally fall into RDM's kit is not really usable here. Protect doesn't exist anymore. Stoneskin isn't here. Dia might work as a DoT. I guess a version of Regen might work, though I'm personally not keen on it. There's also certain debuffs, though Slowing down a boss or Paralyze proccing before a tank buster would make RDM super OP.

My guess is that they went with that since the writers already established Stone/Water/Aero as white magic. Can't say I agree with it, but it does make sense.

Ok....

Reduce cd for manafiction by 15-20 seconds

Reduce cd for acceleration by half

add aserious number of enfeeblements, cleanses, beneficial abilities, and staus effect spells into the usable cross class abilities list for all casters (paralyze, stone, poison, float, dispel, et cetera)

Battle mage stance (45% increase in all potencies/durations, but doubles mp costs of spells for 20 seconds. Cross classed to all DoM)

Pre-charged spell casts (passive) that continue at 50% cast time for up to three different spells as long as the cast bar exceeds 65% of cast time to activate (once active pre-casted spell will begin at 50%, nextcastof same spell will be normal cast time), all DoM. This will allow DoM to prepare for emergencies or begin combat with burst damage.

Chain reaction spell combos (RDM only). Ex: Fire+wind=verfirecane. Vercure+wind=vermedica. earth+thunder=vermagneto. thunder+vercure=verregen (7 seconds)

The Versignal (passive): if Black or white gauge is below 25% at the start of combat: gauge below 25% will start increase to 25%

Um, just pick three or more of these, and it will would definitely increase DPS or any DoM QoL

RDM damage is fine. It's a very very simple class to play, and accessible to new players. This has value. I would, however, like to see them with 2-3 mob debuffs, as RDMs have in other FF games. This will further differentiate them from being BLM-lite, along with the cure and rez they already have.

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Originally Posted by alchemi80

RDM damage is fine. It's a very very simple class to play, and accessible to new players. This has value. I would, however, like to see them with 2-3 mob debuffs, as RDMs have in other FF games. This will further differentiate them from being BLM-lite, along with the cure and rez they already have.

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being the weakest job in the game with a 15% gap between it and the best dps is not good, DNC, DRG, and BRD are also notoriously easy classes as well as WHM objectively being the easiest healer. difficulty doesn't mean anything.

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Originally Posted by alchemi80

RDM damage is fine. It's a very very simple class to play, and accessible to new players. This has value. I would, however, like to see them with 2-3 mob debuffs, as RDMs have in other FF games. This will further differentiate them from being BLM-lite, along with the cure and rez they already have.

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How much damage a job does has nothing to do with whether or not you think it's simple to play.

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Originally Posted by Wayfinder3

difficulty doesn't mean anything.

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It most certainly does. Do you think classes that are more difficult to play shouldn't be rewarded in kind for optimal performance?

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Originally Posted by Katie_Kitty

How much damage a job does has nothing to do with whether or not you think it's simple to play.

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This isn't about what I personally think is simple. RDM is objectively much easier to play than most other classes, and possibly maybe on par with a couple of the classes Wayfinder pointed out. And it can rez and heal. It's notorious for being braindead, everywhere from these very forums, to ffxiv reddit, to FC forums, to in game chat. Are you really contesting this?

To both of you, I think raising RDM damage is fine as long as the damage is accompanied by added complexity. Do you agree to that at least?

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Originally Posted by alchemi80

It most certainly does. Do you think classes that are more difficult to play shouldn't be rewarded in kind for optimal performance?


This isn't about what I personally think is simple. RDM is objectively much easier to play than most other classes, and possibly maybe on par with a couple of the classes Wayfinder pointed out. And it can rez and heal. It's notorious for being braindead, everywhere from these very forums, to ffxiv reddit, to FC forums, to in game chat. Are you really contesting this?

To both of you, I think raising RDM damage is fine as long as the damage is accompanied by added complexity.

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https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...22/unknown.png


This was about 1 week into 5.08. The higher the number on the top right, the more difficult or inconsistent the player base is at performing high DPS. The lower the number the more consistent. Healers have an obviously high gap from healing. SMN/RDM would be skewed slightly from using raise GCDs, but not by much. In many ways, Monk and Dragoon are much easier than even Red Mage. They've practically baby proofed the melee.

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Originally Posted by Zyneste

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...22/unknown.png


This was about 1 week into 5.08. The higher the number on the top right, the more difficult or inconsistent the player base is at performing high DPS. The lower the number the more consistent. Healers have an obviously high gap from healing. SMN/RDM would be skewed slightly from using raise GCDs, but not by much. In many ways, Monk and Dragoon are much easier than even Red Mage. They've practically baby proofed the melee.

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Upper right number seems confused.

It's less than 20 difference between Max and Min on Red mage, about the same as Dragoon, and only 1 less than Ninja.

In other words, you got differences of 19.x, 20.x, and 21.x.

No one in their right mind would say "Dragoon is only slightly easier than Ninja" or "Red mage is just as difficult as Ninja", or "Paladin is harder than all of them."

Delete both rdm and blu and fused them together so they can become the Magnificent VioletMage!!!

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Originally Posted by giwaman

Delete both rdm and blu and fused them together so they can become the Magnificent VioletMage!!!

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And thus, a new job was born!

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Originally Posted by giwaman

Delete both rdm and blu and fused them together so they can become the Magnificent VioletMage!!!

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You my friend deserve a huge /hug

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Originally Posted by alchemi80

It most certainly does. Do you think classes that are more difficult to play shouldn't be rewarded in kind for optimal performance?


This isn't about what I personally think is simple. RDM is objectively much easier to play than most other classes, and possibly maybe on par with a couple of the classes Wayfinder pointed out. And it can rez and heal. It's notorious for being braindead, everywhere from these very forums, to ffxiv reddit, to FC forums, to in game chat. Are you really contesting this?

To both of you, I think raising RDM damage is fine as long as the damage is accompanied by added complexity. Do you agree to that at least?

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You haven't even leveled red mage nevermind played it in high end content nevermind optimized its damage at that level. Tell me, why should anyone let a level 60 RDM tell them what "objectively" is true about the class? Why should we even entertain demands related to the job from someone who doesn't even have it leveled?

This seems like a pretty common pattern I must say. People love talking crap about RDM but then when you look at their lodestone guess what? They barely even touched it. I mean you don't even have any eden savage clears so lol

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Originally Posted by alchemi80

RDM damage is fine. It's a very very simple class to play, and accessible to new players. This has value. I would, however, like to see them with 2-3 mob debuffs, as RDMs have in other FF games. This will further differentiate them from being BLM-lite, along with the cure and rez they already have.

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I find BLM easier than RDM, your point is?

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Originally Posted by alchemi80

It most certainly does. Do you think classes that are more difficult to play shouldn't be rewarded in kind for optimal performance?


This isn't about what I personally think is simple. RDM is objectively much easier to play than most other classes, and possibly maybe on par with a couple of the classes Wayfinder pointed out. And it can rez and heal. It's notorious for being braindead, everywhere from these very forums, to ffxiv reddit, to FC forums, to in game chat. Are you really contesting this?

To both of you, I think raising RDM damage is fine as long as the damage is accompanied by added complexity. Do you agree to that at least?

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No it doesn’t, because these jobs aren’t that far apart in difficulty to begin with and, No job is WAY harder than of them but i'll humor you. Let’s say BLM is harder than RDM, by how much is it harder, and how much of that should matter. NIN is touted as being harder than MNK but it's worse, and AST is arguably much more difficult than WHM especially on a controller but there is very marginal difference between the 2. so really, how much should difficulty matter in RDM's case when it doesn't matter anywhere else?

Give me a statistic before you try and feed your “objective” conjecture on a completely subjective subject

there is no "objectively harder" to play, only "statistically more people find harder" to play. Having said that, classes need to be tuned around DPS output and utility tax, not difficulty. If a class is too difficult to pull off the require max DPS, then what the designers should do is not to buff their DPS, but make the class less complicated to perform at max DPS. This is to balance the classes at the highest levels of raids around Savage. In fact, utilities shouldn't be taxed so heavily that they either become useless or required for raiding progression.

Another way to look at it is to "assume all high end players have sufficient skill to play all DPS at 99% effectiveness"; if the gap is big enough, nobody will play those simpler-to-play classes with lower DPS.

I don't raid Savage myself, but I've been playing MMO for over 10 years with experience from other games and the above is the best DPS balance philosophy imo.

Anyone that says Red Mage dmg is "fine" obviously does not play it past expert roulette..

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Originally Posted by alchemi80

This isn't about what I personally think is simple. RDM is objectively much easier to play than most other classes, and possibly maybe on par with a couple of the classes Wayfinder pointed out. And it can rez and heal. It's notorious for being braindead, everywhere from these very forums, to ffxiv reddit, to FC forums, to in game chat.

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I mean, I'll respect your opinion on this once you at least get the job to 68 or 70, but meme-y echo chambers aren't really known as reliable sources. Else, DRG would have still been "mopping floors" all through Heavensward instead of being central to its meta comp. Once you have your own opinion from having run a couple raids on the job, at the least, then I'll know you're not just regurgitating past regurgitations. Until then it's just scarcely possible to know one way or the other. Frankly, I'd sooner trust what you personally think, or could better discuss the job from that standpoint, so long as your opinion was informed, than I'd trust the majority of reddit comments or shout chat.

besides obvious pot buffs id like
Scorch and enchanted reprise to proc dual cast

Personnally I would rather have a shorter recast after ver thunder/aero.
I know it, could cause clipping issue but I really dislike the downtime after every thunder/aero.

I also wouldn't mind 2 charges on both flèche and contre sixte.sometime they come back right before a transition or at the very beginning of jolt making you loose a few seconds.

I want a couple oGCD heals as RDM. If it's gonna be themed as a hybrid, with pDPS accordingly, then make it actually contribute to both jobs.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Upper right number seems confused.

It's less than 20 difference between Max and Min on Red mage, about the same as Dragoon, and only 1 less than Ninja.

In other words, you got differences of 19.x, 20.x, and 21.x.

No one in their right mind would say "Dragoon is only slightly easier than Ninja" or "Red mage is just as difficult as Ninja", or "Paladin is harder than all of them."

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To clear up what that number in the chart is: Its the percent difference of the minium value from the maximum value, rather than the raw difference between min and max. I.e. (max-min)/max. (There's 2 typos in the chart: either Monk should be 20.2 and Dancer should be 19.0 or one or both of their min/max values has the typo)

DISCLAIMER! Everything from this point on in my post is just some math stuff I did for fun rather than actually making an argument for anything. There are way too many factors to be able to represent how hard a job is with a single number.

That number in their chart is meant to represent the skill gap and how wide of a dps gap there is between different skill levels. I think a better gauge to the above calculation would be comparing the percent difference of the minimum compared to the median to the percent difference of the maximum compared to the median since that would give you the relative difficulty of reaching median level compared to the relative difficulty of reaching the maximum. Just for funsies I did just that! The numbers in a list below are just the final relative differences, but before that I've listed Monk's calculation in full to show how I arrived at them.

Monk:
(Max-Median)/Median = (99.4-88.65)/88.65 = 12.1
(Median-Minimum)/Median = (88.65-79.28)/88.65 = 10.6
Difference = 12.1 - 10.6 = 1.5
This result indicates it is harder to reach skill cap than it is to reach the median but needs to be compared to the other jobs first.

Now for the full calculations in order from "hardest" to "easiest":

Ninja 3.9
Samurai 2.6
Dancer 2.5
Black Mage 2.4
Summoner 2.0
Red Mage 2.0
Dragoon 1.7
Monk 1.5
Bard 1.3
Machinist 0.6

Edit: Adding tanks:
Gunbreaker 2.7
Dark Knight 1.9
Warrior 1.2
Paladin -0.7 (Yes, Paladins are apparently so easy that they ended up with a negative number)

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Originally Posted by Mhaeric

Now for the full calculations in order from "hardest" to "easiest":

Ninja 3.9
Samurai 2.6
Dancer 2.5
Black Mage 2.4
Summoner 2.0
Red Mage 2.0
Dragoon 1.7
Monk 1.5
Bard 1.3
Machinist 0.6

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This can only inspire the most rational of responses.

Jesting aside, I'm going to come out and say that difficulty should never be a significant impact on Job performance if we want to talk about balance. All that does is create a timeline until the "easier" job is obsolete. There's a reason characters in Moba-types that have more value while being more 'skill based' (RE: Not point and click) get constantly adjusted down to a normalized value.

The skill floor (and ceiling) will eventually be surmounted and reached, thus ensuring every other option is just a weaker option.

Now - If -every- option had a 'harder' variant of itself that lead to higher performance (RE: Monk Tornado Kick), then I think that's fine, if we're talking values in the 5-10% range, but the punishment for doing it wrong should also be equally lower.

The fun in having more demanding options is the demand itself. Having a suitable, stable and simple 90%, but with the option to attempt a more volatile 80-100% range, and having that for every job, might seem antithetical to what I just said, but the key is that the option exists for every job, instead of just some jobs.

I think players should have the opportunity to excel, but the prestige should primarily be the playing itself, not the end result. Having a 'more than enough' simpler path but also a challenging 'it's worth it if you can do it right' path would be ideal.

• Manafication now gives a flat 40/40 Mana, while Enhanced Manafication increases this to 50/50 Mana.
• Embolden reworked: now increases ALL personal damage by 10% and ALL allied damage by 5%, no longer diminishes over time.
• Verraise is now a (90 sec to 5 min) CD with two charges.
• Jolt II and Scatter now give 4/4 Mana; Impact gives 2/2 Mana per target struck, up to 5 targets; Scorch now gives 10/10 Mana.
• Enhanced Contre Sixte increases the potency of Veraero II/Verthunder II to 130 each.
• Enhanced Displacement also reduces the CD of Displacement and Corps-a-corps by 5 sec.
• New trait at 80, "Enhanced Redoublement": Reduces the recast time of Enchanted Redoublement, Verflare and Verholy to 1.5 sec.

Just a few tweaks here and there, all that I think are doable this expansion.

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Originally Posted by Wayfinder3

VerHoly/Flare/Scorch all do AoE damage scaling 50% off on 2 targets

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Okay, let's start with... why?

I get that Verflare and Scorch look a bit like AoEs, fine, but the problem with this suggestion is that it completely ignores context. If you're at a point where you're meleeing in an AoE scenario, you're not going to be bursting your melee combo somewhere Moulinet is an option, and I don't think "two-target scenarios" where enemies are grouped are common enough to rebalance our finishers over.
If there is some multi-target scenario where Moulinet is practically insufficient, where our single-target combo plus 50% cleave on our Verfinishers would far and away be more potent output, then by all means suggest away -- but I would say the problem in that scenario would be our existing AoE option, not any lack of a new one.

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Vercure buffed to 800 potency gives a Stone Proc immediately upon use (why not)

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"Why not" is because we aren't a healer, and a potency buff of that magnitude (bigger than Cure II/Benefic II/Emergency Adloquium, with Dualcast to boot?) would either lead to our damage being penalized as an offset to this utility, or us replacing a healer in raids, neither one of which sounds good to me.

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Verraise gives a Fire Proc immediately upon use.(community can decide if they want to keep this or not, I’m over it)

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Gonna tackle something of an elephant here: A) rewarding us for spamming raises is going to make "Rez Bot" memes worse not better, and will definitely lead back to the above where our potency takes a big hit, and B) ignoring that Verraise/cure/stone are White Magicks and Verfire is a Black Magic, having forced damage procs off of Vercure and Verraise promotes Mana imbalance since the two of them are not used equally.

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For 6.0, I’d also consider a bit of a redesign to truly capture that SpellBlade White magic support casting DPS identity that rdm was supposed to be.

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Okay, yikes. Spellblade's a separate job, Red Mage is a caster DPS, and the "more melee, more white magic" thing will make us more of a disjointed mess, not somehow cause a wave-function collapse into a perfect rendition of the job that will make everyone happy.
There's no reality where a caster with hardly any access to survival tools is better off with more attacks that restrict them to a 3 yard range of the target, and heaven help you if they add positionals like a true melee without True North. And in RDM's particular case, it would require an extensive revamp of the Mana Gauge economy to actually amount to more time in melee rather than more time casting to fund it anyway.

Also, if anything I would argue we need more Black Magic tools next expansion, since we already have nothing to balance out access to Vercure and Verraise. I would normally have argued for a literal "Verscathe" to offset Vercure but we've already got Reprise so that's moot, and BLM's not exactly a fountain of utility to start with.

If people want a Spellblade next expansion, just be direct and ask for a Spellblade. You cannot have it both ways of "There's too many melee jobs and I don't want them to add more, but I also want them to (for all intents and purposes) turn existing an caster into a melee job in all but name."

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

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I like your suggestions, but here are my reasoning, everything i've suggested is open to input but it's all still grounded in this games combat and what can be expected from this game.

1st. VerHoly/Flare/Scorch being AoE means RDM have a proficient way of using their mana on 2 targets, moulinet doesn't enough damage at 2 targets to warrant expunging mana for it.

Moulinet on 2 targets for 5 gcds= 2000 potency
Melee combo on a single target for the same amount of gcds = 2270 potency


this means RDM in prolonged 2 target scenarios such as adds in ucob or add heavy fights like o7s can only use single target melee combo which puts them behind SMN and BLM who have dots that help with this as well as powerful AoE abilities to spike their damage. while this is a niche scenario, giving rdm this flexibility will help them should they aim to do longer add phases in future ultimates or savage encounters designed around multiple enemies. not every change needs to be groundbreaking, some can be little touch ups and future proofing, this won't change RDM in anyway besides give them more AoE options and if 50% is too strong, we can reduce it to 30% so that E moulinet isn't invalidated at 3 targets.

2nd. giving a fire and stone proc for using raise and cure isn't a true reward, you still lose the 310 potency from veraero and thunder and these are RDMs 2 most potent GCDs over the course of a fight. This is called mitigated losses, it's the same concept behind white mages lily system. Afflatus misery's 900 potency is worse than the 4 glares you alternatively would've had (1200 potency). vercure would be buffed by this but only so far as downtime and this would at least save the RDM some potency on their follow up cast by allowing it to be verfire or stone . the issue you present about using the spells equally wouldn't matter as much because cure and raise give you Procs, not mana, you still have to cast the spells to get the mana and thus won't have to worry about imbalancing.

3rd. Paladin has a very functioning heal in clemency and doesn't pay for it as it's arguably the best tank and the role is so well balanced. taxes are flexible, giving RDM an effective single target heal on the GCD doesn't require the job to be 15% weaker than BLM. if 800 is too much, 500 is fine but i can assure you, a 800 potency cure 1 isn't replacing any healer anytime soon when none of them in optimized play ever cast their cure 2s. Adlo is the exception but thats for a deployed shield. Cure 2, Cure 1, Bene 1, Bene 2, Physick and arguably Lustrate all go unused because 1 GCD on a single person isn't worth the DPS loss. suggesting that it would implies RDM would be able to help the main healer heal up 8 players with this one single target GCD as well as heal through attacks like tumults. If you chose to bring up the AST solo heal thats currently possible, RDM getting an 800 potency heal won't make that main stream largely because again, it's a single target heal and 2, fflogs standard comp metric would make that solo comp pretty much ignored. All this 800 potency would do is allow RDM to recover runs by keeping the tank alive on top of members making it better for prog(what it's currently designed to contribute in the most)

4th. In later implementations, More melee can be handled easily if it's stored nukes like xenoglossy that also add mobility. Personally, i believe the red mage melee aspect of the job would flow better if it were a GCD combo on a cooldown like GNBs gnashing fang combo for a couple reasons. first, It allows us to plan our melee combo without worrying about mana generation, second, it means the job will no longer have a delayed burst which will add a fun layer of optimization. as for additonal melee abilities, you can BW mana build to a strong melee range hit, that can be used every 50 B/W mana and have acceleration immediately give 50.
also, caster rarely don't want to be in at least max melee range and the idea that them not having survival tools ala second wind is a very strange argument to make. if this was a legit concern, they could just give casters second wind or an equivalent, BLM has manaward so survival tools aren't alien to casters. Red mage can easily get more melee as long as its handled properly


more white magic can just be more defensive ogcds, such as a possible AoE regen, a shield to mitigate damage, (it could be a weaker rdm version of temperance as an example) some healer abilities that are nerfed but can slot into a dps kit without turning it into a healer. verraise and vercure are fine defensive utilities but they're too niche in their application which causes the job to feel like that white magic identity is too small. the only BLM utility offered that RDM could've taken was apoc which doesn't exist anymore. frankly, if they added a nerfed blizzard ability that restored mana, that would be a nice Black magic ability to take.

I don't want a spellblade job, i already have one and, that is the Red mage. what i want is for the devs to capitalize on the potential a magic melee job with roots in B/W magic could offer. Red mage won't be a top tier dps like BLM, i don't see the point in asking for that, but i can ask for the job to be close enough to BLM that the dps disparity won't matter unless you want extra saftey or even more damage. Red Mage should do more than just B/W B/W melee combo in my opinion. i don't need a spell blader thats 100% melee with little magic (play paladin if you do) I want a Red mage that specializes in versatility and uses it's magic enhanced sword to support the party as well as it's prowess in black and white magic. This is what red mage has always been, you seem to believe it's not possible to explore the melee dps aspects of RDM, i believe that it is and you simply need to open your eyes to the possibilities. As a caster melee hybrid, red mage is allowed to walk the line between melee dps and ranged because it's not competing with melee. Red mage doesn't need positional because it's also a spell caster and casters have cast times which are equivalent to the melee's positional as a role design choice. I'm not even sure why you think i want them to turn red mage into a melee dps. more melee doesn't mean, all melee and no spells so this argument is very strange.

i'd agree Spellblade was a different job if all of Red mages Enchanted Melee skills weren't fundamentally the same as imbuing swords with magic. the only difference between spellblade jobs and red mage in past games is that they could imbue their sword with any magic, while red mage could just use lower tier B/W magic. this however isn't true for this game where Red mage can imbue magic and use B/W magic of which tiers don't matter. In my eyes, they are the same. If RDM wasn't doing this, explain why their melee combo is functionally and lorewise, doing magic damage. it's because they are indeed a Spellblader.

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Originally Posted by Wayfinder3

1st. VerHoly/Flare/Scorch being AoE means RDM have a proficient way of using their mana on 2 targets, moulinet doesn't enough damage at 2 targets to warrant expunging mana for it.

Moulinet on 2 targets for 5 gcds= 2000 potency
Melee combo on a single target for the same amount of gcds = 2270 potency

this means RDM in prolonged 2 target scenarios such as adds in ucob or add heavy fights like o7s can only use single target melee combo which puts them behind SMN and BLM who have dots that help with this as well as powerful AoE abilities to spike their damage.

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So the solution is "increase the damage of two of our Verfinishers by 30-50% for a niche scenario" (which will most definitely come with an offset to their single-target damage) instead of increasing the damage of Moulinet by 30-40p (which at worst would come with an offset penalty to our AoE damage, most likely Impact which still has 60p of wiggle room in 2-targets)?

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3rd. Paladin has a very functioning heal in clemency and doesn't pay for it as it's arguably the best tank and the role is so well balanced.

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Yes, but its heal is a part of the Paladin's actual role as a tank, both for personal survivability and off-tanking, in lieu of tools like The Blackest Night, Aurora or Nascent Flash -- Arguing "PLD doesn't pay a tax on its healing!" is better matched with "WHM/SCH/AST don't pay a tax on mitigation!", not using RDM as an example. Vercure is outside of RDM's role as a caster DPS, hence its primary use as a means to pop Dualcast without a target, not a heal.
Not to mention that in both cases of Vercure and Clemency, each use of the healing effect is a penalty in itself, consuming both a GCD and resources intended for offensive skills.

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If RDM wasn't doing this, explain why their melee combo is functionally and lorewise, doing magic damage. it's because they are indeed a Spellblader.

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Functionally? Aight, let's start with the fact that without a melee combo at all, people would complain that it's "not a Red Mage" and "just uses the rapier as a stat stick" -- all things we already hear with the token melee combo we have (which kinda just proves my point that it would be much louder), which really makes me question where their stopping point is for a "real" Red Mage, but I digress.
The melee combo does magic damage because, as a caster, we capitalize on boosts to magic damage like the personal side of Embolden (or, back when RDM was released and it still existed, Contagion). To give us a melee ability that was purely physical like RDM has historically always had (for instance, literally the entire melee combo sans Enchantment) would be as detrimental to the job as changing SAM's Sen skills to deal Ice, Earth or Unaspected damage, on top of mitigating any future benefits that could be given to casters.
I mean, unless you want to tell me the enchantment is actually a detriment, and the job would have been better off not enchanting its weapon due to the more numerous boosts to physical damage that actual melee jobs benefit from? I'll wait.
Meanwhile, historically, a Spellblade doesn't enchant their weapons simply for the benefit of dealing bonus magic damage and exploiting elemental weaknesses, but largely for the purposes of granting buffs or debuffs via their swings that scale off their more physical stats, which is significantly more useful in FF14 given the lack of distinction between magical damage types.
Plus, y'know, having the core of their attacks be melee rather than spellcasting? Much like PLD vs WHM (or arguably SMN vs DRG, rock the dragon), it's kind of a significant difference.

Lorewise... what does that matter? There was no lore for Red Mage before Stormblood much like there was no lore for Gunbreaker before Shadowbringers or Dark Knight before Heavensward. Lore is neither justification nor tipping point for any balance decision, it's flavor text on decisions that have already been made. The devs could add a Spellblade tomorrow of non-Gyr Abanian origin and they would probably add a last-second writeup that "they always existed but you just never met one before," or "the art seemingly died with [Insert Ancient Magical Civilization Here]" like they've done for Literally. Every. Single. Job. Released.
Also, lore is a funny justification coming from the person who says Verraise should proc Verfire, balance be damned. Just sayin'.

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As a caster melee hybrid, red mage is allowed to walk the line between melee dps and ranged because it's not competing with melee. Red mage doesn't need positional because it's also a spell caster and casters have cast times which are equivalent to the melee's positional as a role design choice.

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Counterpoint: The people who say they want RDM to be more of a melee sound a lot like "I want to play melee but I hate positionals." SAM is already a job that uses cast times with its melee skills, so the two are already not mutually exclusive.

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I'm not even sure why you think i want them to turn red mage into a melee dps. more melee doesn't mean, all melee and no spells so this argument is very strange.

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You're correct that it doesn't mean "all melee and no spells" -- as we see with NIN, PLD or DRK, we can absolutely have a melee that still weaves spells, much as RDM is a caster that uses melee in bursts.
The key distinction I make with that, however, is largely due to significance and uptime.

Saying "I'd like to see more melee skills or spend more time meleeing" is, in a vacuum, harmless -- and likely will be exactly the direction the devs will take towards improving our damage in future expansions since the time factor makes for an easy tuning knob. All they need to do is add traits to reduce the CD on Manafication (ding, already done once!), add new spells with higher Mana returns (Scorch says hi), or trait to reduce the cost of melee abilities by a shred, and little by little we'll push that envelope and increase our melee uptime (and consequently our damage) by a respectable amount, even without having to add new melee attacks or increase the potency of any skills.

Perhaps this is a knee-jerk reaction on my part since you specifically may not actually fit the group, but in my experience the people who ask for RDM to have "more melee" or "be a real melee-hybrid" don't want 5-10 seconds of shorter delays before melee each expansion, they want the job to spend a significant percentage of the time performing successive melee combos broken up by strings of spells, or frankly have no idea what they want. The problem with that is, by the time you get to that 50% melee uptime mark, the job functionally is a melee sans positionals, that just so happens to have ranged attacks in their main combo -- and remember, nearly every melee has a rotational or oGCD attack with ranged or line damage, which they will often burst from point-blank anyway.
Why that and not the other way around? Because you have to play to the lowest common denominator, in this case the limited range opportunity of the melee attacks. You're under no compulsion to jump back 15 yards after the melee combo before you start flinging spells, nor under any penalty from bursting spells close-up aside from being squishy. We get away with backing off from the boss now because between cast times, pathetically weak auto-attacks and the sheer lack of melee uptime, we're hardly bound to melee range as-is; true "hybridization" of any significance would negate that.