Red Mage has been shafted all expansion and "but Verraise" doesn't cut it

Yeah yeah. Blah blah blah, "it's okay to be lower on personal damage if you have lots of utility!", "Verraise is so helpful!", whatever. Red Mage has been subjected to a whole tidal wave of total BS this expansion and this latest "balancing" patch where they cranked the already strongest caster even higher is just icing. If it were one or two things, hell, even three or four it'd be arguable. But there's a whole litany of nonsense aimed at Endwalker RDM.
- It's the least mobile job in the game
- It lives in an encounter design meta that loves making people run all over the place, which makes lack of mobility a tough thing to play around. Again, this is fine. In a vacuum. When it's not sharing space with all the other points.
- Endwalker's comically large hitboxes have made melee's "weakness" practically irrelevant.
- Caster is the only role where a "prog job" is a thing. Everyone else has their damage and utility *actually* balanced, whereas Black Mage gets this enormous damage bonus factored in on top of it for not having Raise.
- Red Mage's burst and mobility are rolled together in a melee phase, in an expansion where fight design is in sweaty monkey love with forcing people away from the boss during those burst windows. Guess who's getting a melee safe spot for their burst? A melee.
- Raising people is taxed in MP, it's taxed in stopping your damage rotation (and not building B/W mana), and taxed in class design budget. Triple taxes for the win!
- It's the only caster without personal mitigation, making it inordinately squishy, especially in early progression. You know, the place it's supposed to be most useful.

And all of this for doing physical ranged levels of damage. Come on Square. This is ridiculous. Black Mage was already the highest damage caster no contest, and you just slapped a huge buff on top of that? Red Mage was already so far behind that you could have added forty potency onto every single one of its buttons and it would still do less damage than Black Mage, and that was before the unnecessary 6.4 buff. Stop "balancing" classes based on play rate.

BLM only contribution is damage... Asking RDM to match or come close to BLM output is just silly.

I agree casters have been ignored this xpac, but blm needed this buff to sit comfortably ahead of the melee. It was preposterous that you’d play really well as a blm and do the same damage as ninja or dragoon. Rdm should do as much dps as the melee. The encounter design is hostile to casters and hand-holdy for the melee.

As a two expansion RDM main, I never want to suggest that our damage should be comparable to BLM. It just isn't the same with how difficult that class can be compared to us. I do think that it is extremely unfair that SMN is stronger than RDM despite being pathetically easier to operate. As everyone already agrees with, SMN is by far the most mobile caster job with barely a cast time every minute or so. Despite that they do higher damage compared to RDM who has to plan for it's movement astronomically more.

Also the argument that RDM is balanced to be weaker in hardcore content because it would be too strong in casual content is weak because guess what? It's casual content, who cares how strong the jobs are when running through content made for people that don't want to do extremes, savages, or ultimates. Plus if people are still worried about the damage in dungeons and fates then here is a fix, add a late level trait ( lvl 80+) that boosts damage by like 1% when in trials or raids.

At the end of the day, these arguments about damage all stem from one spell, Ver Raise. Personally, I am okay with them limiting the strength of Ver Raise if it means that they have more wiggle room to adjust the rest of the job. Even YoshiP has gone on record that hey have considered removing Raise from RDM and SMN due to this exact problem. I think a good compromise would be to change Ver Raise to a charge system, give it 3 stacks of Ver Raise with a hefty cooldown (60sec-120sec) per stack. This change would still keep the Rez Mage idea alive while also providing the developers more room to adjust the job, I hope that out of everything they see of people whining about balance I hope they consider this one the most.

I don't play BLM so I really can't be tossing my hat in the ring in that regard. But I do play RDM casually and I will say this. RDM is WAY more useful then a damage turret. Playing RDM well takes some skill and understanding situations VERY quickly. I have saved runs with a quick verraise. RDM is the ultimate utility job in the game....it can do it all.

It serves RDM's identity very well. Jack of all trades...master of none. We have a RDM in our static and they are ALWAYS saving runs.

Honsetly, RDM is prolly one of if not THE most well designed job in the game.

See I completely agree that RDM is one of the most designed jobs in the game. I think it is right up there with black mage in terms of how well designed it is. The issue is that the utility is being valued much higher than it currently is. At least in raid content, the amount of body check mechanics gives no chance for RDM to even use its raise so the utility is just a flat zero at that point and the lack of self utility while being the squishiest caster means that RDM can die from Raidwide damage far easier than the other two. My Static's DRK just has a macro now for throwing TBN on me since he knows that even with BIS, I will need it for Raidwides.

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Originally Posted by Rychu

See I completely agree that RDM is one of the most designed jobs in the game. I think it is right up there with black mage in terms of how well designed it is. The issue is that the utility is being valued much higher than it currently is. At least in raid content, the amount of body check mechanics gives no chance for RDM to even use its raise so the utility is just a flat zero at that point and the lack of self utility while being the squishiest caster means that RDM can die from Raidwide damage far easier than the other two. My Static's DRK just has a macro now for throwing TBN on me since he knows that even with BIS, I will need it for Raidwides.

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Eh, Black Mage isn't a well designed job. A quick look at Scathe, Lucid Dreaming, and Blizzard 1 tells you all you need to know about how 'well designed' it is. You can say it's fun if you want, but it's a textbook definition of "Too many hats." That is, they don't actually change or fix the class, but they keep adding new hats to it. How can a perfect class keep getting better each expansion if it wasn't already in a bad place? Yada yada. I can go into a lot of detail as to what makes it a badly designed class but, that has no bearing on personal enjoyment (and people do enjoy it,) nor the topic at hand.

What I will say, weighing in as someone who loves Black Mage's core gameplay with most endwalker experience on BLM being in DSR of all things, is that Endwalker in general has shafted anyone who wants to simply sit still and cast. Including red mage. Not having personal mit is frustrating. Having to pretend you're a physical ranged DPS in every other mechanic is a serious problem. One Red Mage can do a lot better than Black Mage with how movement-heavy every single EW fight has been.

As you say, Endwalker is also filled to the brim of mechanics that 1 death = wipe. This is if we're not also including the tight DPS checks all but forcing 2 melee DPS, especially in abyssos, because melee DPS do that much more damage.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

- It's the least mobile job in the game

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Hard disagree here, but it depends on if you need quick point to point movement, short but sustained movement, or a little bit of movement, a lot, over a long period of time. I will say, at least in DSR, red mage completely destroys black mage on practical movement.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

- It lives in an encounter design meta that loves making people run all over the place, which makes lack of mobility a tough thing to play around. Again, this is fine. In a vacuum. When it's not sharing space with all the other points.

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This is hitting Black Mage about 2-3 times harder, in actuality. There is a reason RDM is played 2:1 over BLM in most cases, and often a worse ratio for ultimates. This expansion has been awful for casters in general. Even healers feel it.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

- Endwalker's comically large hitboxes have made melee's "weakness" practically irrelevant.

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Don't forget the lack of forced melee downtime mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

- Caster is the only role where a "prog job" is a thing. Everyone else has their damage and utility *actually* balanced, whereas Black Mage gets this enormous damage bonus factored in on top of it for not having Raise.

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I disagree with this premise, but understand the concept. That is to say, I have regularly progged on BLM. That said, I will also say that raise utility being missing from BLM is a big problem for BLM's balance, as well as the balance of CDPS as a whole.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

- Red Mage's burst and mobility are rolled together in a melee phase, in an expansion where fight design is in sweaty monkey love with forcing people away from the boss during those burst windows. Guess who's getting a melee safe spot for their burst? A melee.

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The fun thing is, you can still save your melee burst combos and, after learning fights, know when you can double melee burst. It's part of what rescues RDM's mobility, since having damage on the jumps and backsteps instantly kills the argument that those abilities are also mobility spells. This won't always work, but as mentioned, it depends on the exact type of movement you need out of a fight.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

- Raising people is taxed in MP, it's taxed in stopping your damage rotation (and not building B/W mana), and taxed in class design budget. Triple taxes for the win!

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Hard agree, iterating the also-balance-problems created by it from BLM not having a res. Defesive utility should not be taxed, period. I don't see melee DPS being taxed for having a crappy aoe heal (Reaper) or Feint in general.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

- It's the only caster without personal mitigation, making it inordinately squishy, especially in early progression. You know, the place it's supposed to be most useful.

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This shouldn't be a problem, but I understand why it's a point all the same. I'd find more offense in fight design requiring the mit versus not, however.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

And all of this for doing physical ranged levels of damage. Come on Square. This is ridiculous. Black Mage was already the highest damage caster no contest, and you just slapped a huge buff on top of that? Red Mage was already so far behind that you could have added forty potency onto every single one of its buttons and it would still do less damage than Black Mage, and that was before the unnecessary 6.4 buff. Stop "balancing" classes based on play rate.

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Nothing has killed my desire to play the caster DPS role more than endwalker. The fight design is so hilariously, stupidly anti-caster. They've completely destroyed the entire point of the role. Hell, they're trying to turn casters, a traditionally stationary role, into a role as mobile as ranged physical DPS, for every single damned fight.

It's like every encounter designer completely forgot that there's an entire role in the game that is supposed to be designed around primarily sitting still and casting. What happened to the days of RDM being irrefutably the most mobile caster? Why is it the devs need to destroy the role I used to enjoy the most in the game?

EDIT: Clarified to defensive utility shouldn't be taxed, not just all utility.

While I don't think there should be such high DPS disparities between the jobs, I do think the job identity of RDM being a support caster with lower DPS than BLM is very important. BLM should always be the top DPS in the game, and RDM should have so much utility and support that they're among the bottom DPS. In classic FFs, they are known for this type of playstyle, and that's why I enjoy playing RDM. I do not want BLM to ever have raise, and I do not want RDM to ever lose Verraise or Vercure.

I agree that they should not be the most immobile of the three casters, either. They should be the most mobile. I think increasing the Mana generation so you can combo more often would be a good solution while perhaps increasing their melee range so they can be more mobile as they spend more time in sword combo than casting.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Come on Square. This is ridiculous. Black Mage was already the highest damage caster no contest, and you just slapped a huge buff on top of that? Red Mage was already so far behind that you could have added forty potency onto every single one of its buttons and it would still do less damage than Black Mage, and that was before the unnecessary 6.4 buff. Stop "balancing" classes based on play rate.

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IMO i think devs don't read forums when it comes to this AND don't play RDM cause for them it's "Prog Mage". Just swap to SMN when you get to enrage on savage and it's all good! It's sad to see a well designed job being neglected like that. They gotta put on their minds ppl play RDM because it's an awesome job not because it's good for prog.

- RDM just keeps dying everywhere

In All content against Raidwides at full HP in random parties. Personal opinion and observation though, take it with a grain of (himalayan?) salt.

The lack of Self-mitigation in their kit is glaring... " Pls my lovely party? Mitigate the Raidwide " - while they Vercure their HP to full ( a DPS loss... ) is about all a RDM can hope for. And Vercure is not a self-mitigation as it doesn't shield you from anything. Magick barrier only provides 10% Magic Shielding against magic damage, which does nothing vs Physical and no matter how much others will tout that it covers your Raidparty, that still amounts to 10% magic self-mitigation in their kit.

RDM rotation isn't as easy as SMN that has less casting then a SAM a melee job. I don't base DPS based off of Job difficulty cause Square clearly doesn't either. It probably does suck, but it is what it is. RDM is a powerhouse in Prog without question, but after Prog period is over, nothing is blind, fights are mapped out, strats are tested and flushed out... then what... So, RDM are...

• Ranged Taxed
• Utility Taxed
• Prog Taxed?
• Self-Mitigation Taxed?

I'll just chat-weave " Feels RDM " whenever they are the only one dying to a raidwide full HP. Making it tradition. Not to bash them... I just don't see being brought up enough. RDM doesn't need to ask for much to be that much better of a Job, and somehow that's regarded as to much to ask cause you have some juicy Utility... okey dokey.

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Originally Posted by Arguscbf

IMO i think devs don't read forums when it comes to this AND don't play RDM cause for them it's "Prog Mage". Just swap to SMN when you get to enrage on savage and it's all good! It's sad to see a well designed job being neglected like that. They gotta put on their minds ppl play RDM because it's an awesome job not because it's good for prog.

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RDM isn't even really a prog mage. The amount of fights in the game that straight up kill you on deaths that also hit a number that healers cannot deal with it can be counted on 1 hand for endwalker. And even that might be overstating it, as it's mostly dungeons where the healer dies.

Hell, if there's a true prog role, BLM should be what people are going into, but even current numbers off fflogs show that BLM just still isn't being played, and is well (~31%) below the average on play count, and no. 3 least played class in the game despite even with awful play being the strongest caster in the game.

I wouldn't even call it a prog role. People are playing it because they like the playstyle, but at ~48% of the entire CDPS populace, SMN is overwhelmingly what people are playing anyways. Why bother playing a frustrating class, regardless of the numbers it offers? It seems a plurality of the CDPS population just wants to play the fun class.

If they add some type of phase in future extreme / savage content that kills off half of the party automatically (or everyone other than healers), then RDM may be seen as necessary

You people just don't get it, they tried to keep the vanilla flavor of classic FF red mages, where they overperformed during early leveling but absolutely suck in endgame due to their jack of all trades and lack of specialization nature.

RDM shouldn't come close to BLM in terms of damage simply because RDM provides a raid buff, raid mitigation, heal and a raise.

BLM brings nothing but damage.

But I do agree that RDM has been shafted this expansion.

Raid buffs are actually a point against balance, in this case
In the context of something like Void Dais, if you consider just raw damage RDM is third to last but when you factor in raid buffs it falls to dead last. The 600 or so DPS provided by raid buffs aren't saving it from the garbage heap. If Embolden got moved to 8 or 9% it may catch up to SUM
To catch up to BLM (which I wouldn't ask for, just as an example) it would be like 18 to 20%

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Originally Posted by VerRaisingway

Raid buffs are actually a point against balance, in this case
In the context of something like Void Dais, if you consider just raw damage RDM is third to last but when you factor in raid buffs it falls to dead last. The 600 or so DPS provided by raid buffs aren't saving it from the garbage heap. If Embolden got moved to 8 or 9% it may catch up to SUM
To catch up to BLM (which I wouldn't ask for, just as an example) it would be like 18 to 20%

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This is one of those things where it's being killed by optimization moreso than strictly because it's bad. RDM and SMN both do about the same damage, even in Dais, after factoring in for rDPS. This is also combined with fights just not being fun for casters in general in endwalker. The expansion has fundamentally ruined the role in entirety.

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Originally Posted by Valence

You people just don't get it, they tried to keep the vanilla flavor of classic FF red mages, where they overperformed during early leveling but absolutely suck in endgame due to their jack of all trades and lack of specialization nature.

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Agreed with the reference to FF1 -- they have added some FF1 Red Mage / Red Wizard elements such as the addition of "Magick Barrier" which was called "NulDeath" in FF1 in the English version (both are called "Bamajiku" in the Japanese version). Also, Red Mage in FF1 had spells that cause the silence status on enemies which was reflected for PvP.

Still missing are spells like "Haste" "Focus" "Invis" and "Temper" which were all great buff spells that would be great to have in FF14.
Those were also spells available for Black / White mages in FF1, but seeing that Black Mages are fully DPS and White Mages are basically pure healers with some DPS, buffing should be more of a strong point for Red Mages in FF14 if the development team wants to pay homage to FF1.

Personally, FF1 Red Mages were a favorite -- as long as you equip the "Murasame" and cast Temper and Haste on yourself, you can end up with a formidable DPS (and Warriors can wield Excalibur after all).

Just in case this wasn't obvious, I was being ironic.

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Originally Posted by Valence

Just in case this wasn't obvious, I was being ironic.

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Nonetheless it is how RDM should be in FF14. They should be among the 3 lowest aDPS, only above BRD and DNC because of how much party DPS buffing/utility they should bring with Embolden and others. That is the job fantasy RDM should be fulfilling. You should want to play RDM because you want to be a jack of all trades, master of none, and fulfill a party buffer and utility role as a caster that gets to melee sometimes. Essentially, RDM should be the BRD/DNC of casters.

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Originally Posted by Mithron

Nonetheless it is how RDM should be in FF14. They should be among the 3 lowest aDPS, only above BRD and DNC because of how much party DPS buffing/utility they should bring with Embolden and others. That is the job fantasy RDM should be fulfilling. You should want to play RDM because you want to be a jack of all trades, master of none, and fulfill a party buffer and utility role as a caster that gets to melee sometimes. Essentially, RDM should be the BRD/DNC of casters.

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The only place I disagree with this take is that those balancing concerns fly straight out the window the second people start talking about melee DPS. Oh, Monk has Brotherhood and Mantra and a personal shield and is nearly as utility-laden as RDM minus Vercure and Verraise? But it's a melee DPS, so it also gets to be competitive near the top of the pack for damage on top of it because Meleewalker.

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Originally Posted by Mithron

Nonetheless it is how RDM should be in FF14. They should be among the 3 lowest aDPS, only above BRD and DNC because of how much party DPS buffing/utility they should bring with Embolden and others. That is the job fantasy RDM should be fulfilling. You should want to play RDM because you want to be a jack of all trades, master of none, and fulfill a party buffer and utility role as a caster that gets to melee sometimes. Essentially, RDM should be the BRD/DNC of casters.

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This is all cute, except WHERE'S THE UTILITY???

embolden is just damage, so it doesn't count as utility, since it counts as damage.
vercure means the pull is over and you're about to disband the party
And yes, we all remember that one time the rdm raised the healer, the healer used lb3 and everyone went happy home (yaaay), but what about the other times, huh? Another thing: In late ShB, smn dealt nearly as much damage as blm and i don't remember people complaining about that (other than the whole casterbringers idiocy)...
Magic barrier is right now the worst mitigation tool in the game. If the rdm can survive a mechanic with MB, so can any other job in the game survive it withou MB... Not to mention machinist has better magic barrier and i don't see anyone go "OMG machinist has so much utility!!!"

Now, i don't realy care how much damage rdm deals, but if they want it to be bottom dps, then at least give it some REAL utility and not something that works realy well on paper but falls apart on reality.

Also the big issue with rdm right now (besides the utility) is how inconsistant it's damage can be. The devs wanted to balance jobs with potencies? Then give 10 potency to bolt (from 310 to 320). While this won't solve much (it also needs some correction on the cooldowns of certain abilities) it will mitigate some of the punishment rdm recieve when RNJesus decides to take a week off on vacation

>Prepping for Savage
Oh look, Harrowing Hell is a huge healing and mitigation check at the end of P10
>It's physical damage so Magick Barrier's only half useful, prepare to be the first job to get pasted by the incoming damage
Did someone with a RDM-themed vanity license plate run over the job and encounter designers' dog or something?

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Originally Posted by Mithron

Nonetheless it is how RDM should be in FF14. They should be among the 3 lowest aDPS, only above BRD and DNC because of how much party DPS buffing/utility they should bring with Embolden and others. That is the job fantasy RDM should be fulfilling. You should want to play RDM because you want to be a jack of all trades, master of none, and fulfill a party buffer and utility role as a caster that gets to melee sometimes. Essentially, RDM should be the BRD/DNC of casters.

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Nobody cares about adps for balance.

People care about what the job brings to the party (its own dps and its raid damage buffs). RDM right now could be the BRD/DNC of casters for all we care, but it's still not competing with the top dogs (melees and BLM) with what it brings.

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Originally Posted by Mithron

Nonetheless it is how RDM should be in FF14. They should be among the 3 lowest aDPS, only above BRD and DNC because of how much party DPS buffing/utility they should bring with Embolden and others. That is the job fantasy RDM should be fulfilling. You should want to play RDM because you want to be a jack of all trades, master of none, and fulfill a party buffer and utility role as a caster that gets to melee sometimes. Essentially, RDM should be the BRD/DNC of casters.

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Agreed with the direction. I would like for Square-Enix to stick with the theme of Red Mages and not make it into something it isn't.
In general the FF14 RDM has not reflected the buffer aspect of the FF1 RDM very well.
I supposed they had some role in FF11 as a debuffer but I never played FF11 to be sure.

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Originally Posted by Foinhas

This is all cute, except WHERE'S THE UTILITY???

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Nuke 2 minute burst meta, give RDM a Haste in addition to Embolden. Make Haste strict DPS gains on every job accordingly. Embolden can be AoE buff while Haste is single target buff, akin to DRG's Battle Liturgy and Dragon Sight. Every third Haste applied, allow RDM an AoE Haste. That way they're managing offensive Mana and utility job gauge resources for job fantasy fulfillment (jack of all trades, doing everything).

The weirdest thing is that they could just tweak how much Embolden boosts the RDM's damage instead of the party. I always thought it was weird that Embolden stated that it boosted your magic damage by 5% but the party just had their damage boosted by 5% (no magic specifics). This was always weird as that is effectively the same thing but worse for the RDM in fringe cases, why not boost magic damage by 8% or something just for the RDM and keep the party at 5% like it was so the damage isnt insane for the entire fight and just the burst phase

What bothers me the most is the comparison to the BLM. I don't want to be a BLM, I want to be and stay an RDM.

This is about the RDM. He does too little damage or is of no use to his group (last place rDPS). One of the two points must be fixed.
He's the first to die, how is he supposed to rezz someone?
What use is the rezz if a dead player means a wipe for most mechanics anyway? Verraise is fun and sometimes makes sense in regular content. But with the current boss mechanics, it's pretty much useless.
Magick Barrier is far too weak, especially against physical damage, to which the RDM, like all casters, is even more vulnerable than other damage classes, not only because of the low HP, but also because of the lower defense value of the armor, and unlike other casters, the RDM has none own protection. He's like the bard, plus dying from raidwides.
The problem isn't the RDM itself, it's the combination with the current boss mechanics that's causing problems.

I like the idea of Rychu. Plus maybe 5% physical damage reduction for the Magick Barrier?

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Originally Posted by Rychu

The weirdest thing is that they could just tweak how much Embolden boosts the RDM's damage instead of the party. I always thought it was weird that Embolden stated that it boosted your magic damage by 5% but the party just had their damage boosted by 5% (no magic specifics). This was always weird as that is effectively the same thing but worse for the RDM in fringe cases, why not boost magic damage by 8% or something just for the RDM and keep the party at 5% like it was so the damage isnt insane for the entire fight and just the burst phase

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In SB and ShB Embolden used to only buff physical party damage, as a counterpart buffing your magical damage since most of your kit is magical besides Fleche and Contre-Sixte. It was one of the quirky oddities of Embolden design I guess, but they removed it for obvious reasons.

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Originally Posted by Nickeling

What bothers me the most is the comparison to the BLM. I don't want to be a BLM, I want to be and stay an RDM.

This is about the RDM. He does too little damage or is of no use to his group (last place rDPS). One of the two points must be fixed.
He's the first to die, how is he supposed to rezz someone?
What use is the rezz if a dead player means a wipe for most mechanics anyway? Verraise is fun and sometimes makes sense in regular content. But with the current boss mechanics, it's pretty much useless.
Magick Barrier is far too weak, especially against physical damage, to which the RDM, like all casters, is even more vulnerable than other damage classes, not only because of the low HP, but also because of the lower defense value of the armor, and unlike other casters, the RDM has none own protection. He's like the bard, plus dying from raidwides.
The problem isn't the RDM itself, it's the combination with the current boss mechanics that's causing problems.

I like the idea of Rychu. Plus maybe 5% physical damage reduction for the Magick Barrier?

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What if Magick Barrier worked more like the PLD's divine veil, and it gives the whole party a shield in addition to the damage reduction and increased healing?

Yeah let's buff everybody and their mothers' party mitigations, it's not like we already are drowning under them and rphys had been robbed of a part of its identity by this already...

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Originally Posted by Valence

Yeah let's buff everybody and their mothers' party mitigations, it's not like we already are drowning under them and rphys had been robbed of a part of its identity by this already...

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After seeing what they do with everyone having a ton of mitigation, I would seriously rather have crap removed. What's the point of having 4 personal mits as a tank if you require 2 for every single tank buster? What's the point of giving a DPS extra party mit if you end up requiring DPS to constantly do it? It stops feeling interesting and starts feeling like a chore. Even things like Feint and Addle just lose meaning when literally everyone is doing it and it's required. I'd just as soon not have mits like this if the devs are going to require it.

That's not to say remove it from rphys as well, but rather that if you're making a choice to bring 2 rphys or a rdm with 1 rphys, it should feel like a bonus.

Just hearing what I know about TOP's tank busters, where you need to throw a ton of personal mit as a tank while also getting mit from other healers, it just reminds me of my general hatred of the level 86-88 healer skills. They're nice bonuses that really serve no actual purpose, yet oddly are forced mandatory, turning a tank mechanic into a healer mechanic on top. Which further reminds me of the myriad reasons I actually despise Endwalker's fight design.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm probably older school and have played since HW, and what motivates me is rotational intricacies, pulling my abilities well and using them properly, as well as bringing my tools to the party and find the best way to support or buff in the face of fight odds. That's what I find fun, actually a lot more than having to dance all across abstract platforms and react to pixel perfect shenanigans (I see you Bonds3 in P10S), finicky tethers to pass around, or whatever. I like numbers and tactics, because I'm playing a RPG, not an action game.

So, I don't mind having a lot of mitigations and finding where to use them the best, although there is also the point you make that mitigation for the sake of it leads to duplicates and redundancies that just clutter your OGCDs for no real gain.

I have you beat on that, having played since ARR. I don't mind mit existing if its a core role thing. That is, tactician? love abilities like that. Magick barrier is interesting but represents a crisis for cDPS as a whole, because you either make it mandatory, or it's just kind of whatever. But I also prefer classes to have tight playstyles that aren't button bloated. Button bloat is also one of the single biggest problems the game had in HW and has in ShB and EW.

This is why, when I look at how content is designed, I see tanks kitchen sinking everything and go: "Why?" When you have 5 mits, 1 an invuln + a 2m/30%, 90s/20%, 90-120s/flavored 15-20%*, and 15-30s 20-25%* (oblation and dark mind make this a bit weirder,) having to press 4 of those oGCDs to kitchen sink just isn't a fun experience.

In contrast with, say, Titan Extreme, where you'd need to learn when the TBs hit, but otherwise you'd use a 20% for the first hit, 30% for second, throw in ToB/Sentinel wherever you wanted, and then tank swap, I yearn for the days when I can use fewer mits for the same end goal.

To put it differently, sacred soil is an interesting way for a preparation healer to prepare. Temperance is not an interesting way for a throughput healer that wants for a more reactionary style to heal. This is, of course, ignoring that the game has no real reactionary healing, and hasn't really had it since T10. Flavored abilities like ye olde addle or apocatastasis is interesting, but especially given how rarely used they were, I really couldn't care less that the latter is gone. What I do see, however, is Addle having been broken into Addle for cDPS, a 10%/5% magic/phys damage reduction on a 90s cooldown, Feint, a 5%/10% magic/phys damage reduction on a 90s cooldown (boss targeted for both,) and Tactician+, a 10% damage reduction on a 90s cooldown, and I think to myself: "When the hell did rDPS gameplay become all DPS gameplay?"

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Originally Posted by Valence

In SB and ShB Embolden used to only buff physical party damage, as a counterpart buffing your magical damage since most of your kit is magical besides Fleche and Contre-Sixte. It was one of the quirky oddities of Embolden design I guess, but they removed it for obvious reasons.

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I feel like the original idea behind Embolden was that you will be in melee range when you use it so buff your melee friends since I guess they assumed you would be out of range of the other casters. I think they increased its range though so it reaches everyone now. It was one of those things that before players actually started using it sounded like a neat idea.

It's also from a time when we still had damage type synergies, which this mechanics used to fit like a glove.

Rdm has some well designed job mechanics but it is by no means a well designed job overall. Dual-cast verraise is encounter breaking mechanic and has been countered with numerous body checks. Enchanted reprise is almost as bad as scathe when factoring in the white and black mana cost. Our only movement tools besides reprise are also used on cd/not held for opti. It is dependent on slidecasts for savage more than any other job and is consequently less consistent in movements. It is probably one of the few jobs that doesn't conform fully to the 2 min meta outside of embolden and consequently lowers it's overall rdps (this is more of a problem with the 2 min meta but for now rdm suffers because of it). Magick barrier is nice to have but is never necessary and on such a long cd, it doesn't significantly save mit or heals. At the very least, you'll never choose rdm over phys ranged just because of magick barrier existance not to mention the role buffs. It is the only caster that does not have personal mit which combined with caster hp often leads to death even if no one else in the party dies.

I don't think rdm should lose verraise but I do think it shouldn't be dual-castable if it affects rdm's balance. Magick barrier shouldn't affect it's balance at all since it doesn't change the party's outcome in any significant way. Not to mention rdm has a lack of personal mit compared to smn and blm.

Personally, I don't care if rdm is the lowest rdps job but overall, there is still a huge disparity between melee and ranged for no reason. Rdm just happens to have the largest disparity and suffers the most because of it. It should be closer to smn as is.

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Originally Posted by keeper_of_moon

Personally, I don't care if rdm is the lowest rdps job but overall, there is still a huge disparity between melee and ranged for no reason. Rdm just happens to have the largest disparity and suffers the most because of it. It should be closer to smn as is.

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IMO, RDM should deal more dmg(not THAT much) than SMN due to optimization. SMN has more mobility, party buffs, self mitigation, aoe heal, backup raise, straight forward rotation that's so much easier to optimize, the only worry is when to use Ifrit. Lots of advantages over RDM...

And then summoners will cry because their job is crap in the only thing that truly matters in the current meta.

SMN would still be on a very good spot for what the job has to offer.

Everyone says BLM is much harder to play due to optimization, that has a high skill ceiling, which i agree cause i used to main BLM a few tiers ago but if you look only to BLM rotation you'll see its pretty easy and straight forward to understand, what i don't understand is why most people only look to RDM rotation and not its optimization as well. And last but not least, we have SMN that has both rotation and optimization easy peasy.