Red Mage Melee Suggestion

Please change the potency of the normal melee attacks to the ones of the enchanted versions. I know this sounds much, but this means the magical ranged rotation would still do more dps plus producing black and white mana. The enchanted melee attacks have a smaller recast, so they are still stronger (needed when there are no follow ups in lower levels).

Additionally change the enchanted version of the first attack to cost 80/80 mana and cause the second and third to combo out of it without using any mana. This allows using the normal attacks still at 79 mana without going into the enchanted melee combo.

This change makes the red mage able to use his melee combo when he has to move without losing too much dps. Reprise will still be good as it causes a little bit more damage but costs 5 mana. So reprise would be used if you have to move while out of melee range.

The whole change would make the red mage more of a real hybrid and the normal melee combo would have a reason to exist again. An option would be to even add some small mana gain to the melee attacks.

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Originally Posted by Gorondu

Additionally change the enchanted version of the first attack to cost 80/80 mana and cause the second and third to combo out of it without using any mana.

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It's not 80|80 on start because you would waste 50|50 if you could not follow through with the combo. This happens often enough when learning new fights that this would just be frustrating.

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This allows using the normal attacks still at 79 mana without going into the enchanted melee combo.

This change makes the red mage able to use his melee combo when he has to move without losing too much dps.

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RDM barely has to stand still as it is. You can move 3s at a time after every 2s spent casting, and you can E.Reprise about once per minute without losing DPS. If you're losing too much DPS from movement, practice slide casting, using E.Reprise once per minute (or twice every two minutes), and Swiftcast once per minute.

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The whole change would make the red mage more of a real hybrid and the normal melee combo would have a reason to exist again.

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Please no.

End-game encounter design is heavily skewed toward having two melee and two ranged DDs, and making RDM even more melee-oriented than it already is will just put us in an even worse position. As it stands, we have to know fights from both a melee perspective and a ranged perspective so that we can take up a melee spot in a party with a ranger and another caster, and we can take up a ranged spot in a party with two melee DDs.

If RDM gets a higher focus on melee damage, we lose out in parties with two melee DDs, because they have to be in melee spots, and the other casters would have an even higher lead on us at range so why bring a RDM at all.

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Originally Posted by Gorondu

Please change the potency of the normal melee attacks to the ones of the enchanted versions. I know this sounds much, but this means the magical ranged rotation would still do more dps plus producing black and white mana. The enchanted melee attacks have a smaller recast, so they are still stronger (needed when there are no follow ups in lower levels).

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1-2-3: (220+290+470)/5.2 seconds=188.46 potency per second.
Verstone->Verthunder =680/5 seconds=136 potency per second, which is a disparity of about 48 potency per second.

The potency per second of Verholy->Scorch =600+700/5=260 potency per second. However, this is in stead of your basic spell combo, so instead, we must look at the difference to determine the value of the finisher: (600+700)-(680) = 620 additional potency across those five seconds.

620/48=12.9 which means that the value you gain from using your finisher is actually less than 13 seconds of having melee constantly up and going 1-2-3. This is just over 5 gcds. And bear in mind, this is in the ideal situation of having perfect procs. The damage disparity grows more in practice.

Even the best opener can't build to the finisher in 5 gcds.

What this means is that your suggestion would change RDM so that the optimal gcd rotation would become:

1) Use your 1-2-3 combo
2) Do ogcd things between the combo.

The change would not make the red mage more of a real hybrid. It would make it a level 26 lancer.

Look, if you want the fantasy of being a melee-stabber who occasionally uses magic, that exists. It's called 'Ninja.' I'm here for the dualcasting--you know--the thing RDM's actually known for in the series.

This suggestion confuses me. For starters it would mess with the whole gimmick RDM has, that works. Also, while its not advised, especially after you get Reprise, but if you need to use the un-enchanted version of their melee combo, for whatever reason, it still deals decent damage. A good example is the Construct 8 boss in Ridorana, when the boss is moving with that laser attack. You need to be close and don't have much time to cast spells, but the melee combo still hits decently.

What about a melee move that triggers after Scortch. You could then have Scortch reset your gap closer and evasive move so you could get in close, use the melee ability and then dash away.

Red mage is not a hybrid job. It is a caster with 4 close range attacks. It's fine how it is.

I'm misunderstood. The normal rotation should not change at all. It should only make the 1-2-3 combo usable when we have to move without losing too much dps and without triggering the enchanted melee combo when below 80/80 mana.

Isn't that what Reprise is for?

I could see giving the unenchanted melee combo a ~50 potency buff on all three skills, that shouldn't make it more attractive than your spells, especially as it doesn't have the reduced GCD effect.
But not triggering enchanted skills until 80/80 is a no go.
As it stands if you enter melee combo and get cut short for one reason or another, you only loose the 30 or 55 mana you've spent, and not all 80.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

As it stands if you enter melee combo and get cut short for one reason or another, you only loose the 30 or 55 mana you've spent, and not all 80.

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Good point. Didn't thought about any disadvantage that could have.

How about the cost stays the same, but the enchanted version only gets active at 80 mana? The second and third attack have to combo out of the first of course.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Please no.

End-game encounter design is heavily skewed toward having two melee and two ranged DDs, and making RDM even more melee-oriented than it already is will just put us in an even worse position. As it stands, we have to know fights from both a melee perspective and a ranged perspective so that we can take up a melee spot in a party with a ranger and another caster, and we can take up a ranged spot in a party with two melee DDs.

If RDM gets a higher focus on melee damage, we lose out in parties with two melee DDs, because they have to be in melee spots, and the other casters would have an even higher lead on us at range so why bring a RDM at all.

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This so much.
I already had to fight tooth and nails for tanks and melees to leave me one tiny spot for a measly ~5s during mechanics like Thunderstorm on e5s or that I can stay a bit closer during HoH on e6s so I don't have to delay it and mess up the subsquent timing. More often than not they were unwilling because it put everyone at a signifcant higher risk and I've seen so many deaths happen when a RdM was in a double melee comp and everyone played more on the greedy side.
And those were only a handful of mechanics. Now imagine having to more or less permanently deal witht this.
You already have to be really careful on some fights with your gap closer and melee combo, adding more melee-ranged skills will either constantly cost dps because you won't be able to use them freely or put others at great risk/ killing them when the timing or positioning was slightly off.

Endgame fights aren't designed for 2 1/2 melees, period. Even with two melees one often has to bite the bullet and lose uptime. No double melee comp half serious about their performance would take a RdM.

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Originally Posted by Rilifane

This so much.
I already had to fight tooth and nails for tanks and melees to leave me one tiny spot for a measly ~5s during mechanics like Thunderstorm on e5s or that I can stay a bit closer during HoH on e6s so I don't have to delay it and mess up the subsquent timing. More often than not they were unwilling because it put everyone at a signifcant higher risk and I've seen so many deaths happen when a RdM was in a double melee comp and everyone played more on the greedy side.
And those were only a handful of mechanics. Now imagine having to more or less permanently deal witht this.
You already have to be really careful on some fights with your gap closer and melee combo, adding more melee-ranged skills will either constantly cost dps because you won't be able to use them freely or put others at great risk/ killing them when the timing or positioning was slightly off.

Endgame fights aren't designed for 2 1/2 melees, period. Even with two melees one often has to bite the bullet and lose uptime. No double melee comp half serious about their performance would take a RdM.

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Again, the normal rotation would not change. You do the same thing as before. You only have the option to use your melee attacks instead of EReprise when in melee range. Thats it. End of story.

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Originally Posted by Gorondu

Again, the normal rotation would not change. You do the same thing as before. You only have the option to use your melee attacks instead of EReprise when in melee range. Thats it. End of story.

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But I believe that's what all of us are saying, the melee moves are usable when in range, they are just not as efficient as your spells or their enchanted upgrades. Try hitting a striking dummy with your melee combo. You'll see it still deals decent damage. As for the gauge usage if it's not at a full 80/80, that more or less depends on your playstyle. Because if you were close to the 80/80 mark anyway, waiting is the better option, and inversely if you weren't close at all, the gauge isn't an issue.

We just need separate melee magical job. RDM is absolutely fine the way it is.

if RDM all melee attack skill is now enchanted by default, how about changing the usage of balance gauge? instead of making the gauge to use the enchanted version, now it require certain amount to pull verholy/verflare and the scorch.

so 40 for the verholy/flare and another 40 for the scorch, so if your gauge is 56 for example, you only able to pull the verholy/flare but not the scorch because you lack the mana to do it, essentially its still the same, you are still require to have at least 80 mana to pull the usual RDM full combo, and maybe twist it a little bit? for scorch skill the minimum is 40 but if you pull it off when you have 60 mana left (so 100 in total), it will give you extra potency.

but RDM can just be lazy and spam the enchanted 1-2-3 combo all the time then, well... how about a short cooldown? something like 20-25 seconds, and the melee attack obviously will not generate mana for the gauge. RDM playstyle is all about filling the gauge to use scorch combo, giving it a short cooldown for the melee attack should be fine, you need at least 40 second-ish to fill both mana to 100, without manafication so 25 seconds cooldown for the melee attack seems fair for me

these enemy is at death door but i dont want to use cast time, my fleche and contre is on cd, so does my melee, what then? thats what the reprise for

this is just fun "what if" from me though, pls dont take it seriously

While I would've preferred the class to have a better melee option, I'd say XI's version of the job is closer to pulling it off than XIV's. That said, I'm not against the notion of stances that could empower select abilities and reduce/disable others, but you're still going to have the issue of player bias and meta influence which XI's RDM also muddied through over the years.

At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if the unknown DPS job would be Mystic Knight as it could fill that magic swordsman niche in its own way.

I think a melee stance would be nice for flavor. It could temporarily convert our verspells into elemental melee spells for a temporary dps increase with the downside of putting you in melee range for 8~16 secs basically a cooldown secondary version of our burst (melee) phase but locked behind a cooldown rather than our job resource. Here is an example:

Ability: Spellblade
Cooldown: 90~180
Effect: Convert Verthunder, aero, fire, stone into Enthunder, aero, fire, stone, increasing the potency of the spells by X% for X seconds or until enchanted melee combo is used.

Of course if mystic knight is coming magical attacks would fit them better.

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Originally Posted by Brightshadow

I think a melee stance would be nice for flavor. It could temporarily convert our verspells into elemental melee spells for a temporary dps increase with the downside of putting you in melee range for 8~16 secs basically a cooldown secondary version of our burst (melee) phase but locked behind a cooldown rather than our job resource. Here is an example:

Ability: Spellblade
Cooldown: 90~180
Effect: Convert Verthunder, aero, fire, stone into Enthunder, aero, fire, stone, increasing the potency of the spells by X% for X seconds or until enchanted melee combo is used.

Of course if mystic knight is coming magical attacks would fit them better.

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i have something similar in my mind actually, but instead of new ability, its a replacement for Lucid dreaming. it always irk me that all magic class has the same way to refill their mana which is lucid dreaming, each class should have their own way to replenish their mana, basically...

Ability: let just call it the "Spellblade" too, its a cool name
received: level 40 or 50ish (replace Lucid dreaming with this Spellblade)
Effect: same as Lucid dreaming but, all your melee attack will become enchanted version and every successful melee attack also net you XX amount of mana

and maybe increase the mp cost for all RDM magic by 100 to balance this skill, if iam not wrong lucid dreaming fill up roughly 1/4 to 1/2 of RDM mana and with non stop enchanted combo, it could literally fill your mana to full

I don't know bout you guys, but i feel it takes way too long to build mana before going in for the melee rotation. Especially with how RDM is being portrayed by NPCs, they corps-a-corps so quickly after casting a couple spells. The whole appeal and core identity of a Red Mage is having to balance black/white mana while weaving dashing into melee and jumping out, If i'm gonna be standing back and casting spells for majority of the time, i'd might as well play a Black Mage or Summoner. They should add a melee finisher as well

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Originally Posted by Sorzai

They should add a melee finisher as well

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oh i would kill for a flashy melee finisher, but i doubt they going to put it, maybe a new melee skill but i dont think its going to be finisher.