RED MAGE and other jobs

[Kitru]

RDM is mostly about magic, not tanking, or melee like GLA. Really the current system doesn't do well for RDM.

Classically, RDM is actually just as much about melee as it is about magic, whether black or white. The point of the job has always been to be moderately effective at everything (decent melee damage, decent survivability, decent magic damage, decent healing) without actually being particularly *good* at anything. The current system would work just fine for RDM as long as they have it so that all of their abilities, both melee and magical, use the same stat (whether it be STR, DEX, or INT) which, as I've said before, is not even remotely problematic.

The only real "problem" with RDM is that, as the archetypal hybrid job, it doesn't fit into the trinity design, which means that they would either be shoehorned into a DPS role which largely eliminates their WHM capabilities (or simply translates the WHM into support type abilities akin to the BRD songs) or the devs would need to alter the design of the game to accommodate an entirely new "hybrid" role for which the RDM would be the archetype (much like WHM is the archetype for the healer role or PLD is the archetype for the tank role).

[Derekloffin]

Classically, RDM is actually just as much about melee as it is about magic, whether black or white.

While I agree that they have had melee ability and are supposed to be a jack of all, being 1/3 melee still makes them mostly about magic (and historically, the overwhelming majority of their abilities have been magical in nature, really nothing much at all is focused on melee other than their ability to equip heavier armor and weapons than whm or blm), and thus a very poor fit for GLA which has 0 magic. You can make the new abilities work with whatever stat, sure, but that doesn't change the fundamental problem that it would be built on a class completely ill suited to the match up save it's weapon type being the most similar which could just as easily be fixed with the same contrivance of programming.

I do agree that biggest issue is that a hybrid job currently has no place in this hard trinity that we currently have.

[Kitru]

While I agree that they have had melee ability and are supposed to be a jack of all, being 1/3 melee still makes them mostly about magic (and historically, the overwhelming majority of their abilities have been magical in nature, really nothing much at all is focused on melee other than their ability to equip heavier armor and weapons than whm or blm)

If you only look at the previous incarnations of classes, no non-magic class is going to do much of anything since the physical attack option has always basically been "attack". The fact that RDM was, based on its stats, equally effective at magic and physical effect, both offensive, defensive, and support, means that it wasn't a 3 way split between physical, white, and black magic; it was a 2 way split between physical and magic. Remember: back before the MMOs, the only real physical attack was "attack" (at most, a class would have 1 other special physical but it was always of situational use compared to straight up attack). Whether a class is more melee/ranged/etc. should therefore be governed by the relative allotment of its stats rather than by what abilities it had access to, which basically sets RDM as the magic/melee hybrid rather than a caster.

thus a very poor fit for GLA which has 0 magic.

GLA actually does have magic, more than MRD, in fact. Flash and Circle of Scorn are both explicitly magical attacks (Flash even uses MP) and Riot Blade returns MP. It's still not suited to getting RDM, but it has nothing to do with GLA not being magical enough; it has everything to do with GLA simply not having anything in common with RDM as far as equipment goes.

[Giantbane]

GLA actually does have magic, more than MRD, in fact. Flash and Circle of Scorn are both explicitly magical attacks (Flash even uses MP) and Riot Blade returns MP. It's still not suited to getting RDM, but it has nothing to do with GLA not being magical enough; it has everything to do with GLA simply not having anything in common with RDM as far as equipment goes.

GLD is 1 handed blades, which currently incorporates everything from daggers to broadswords. It *could* incorporate rapier type weapons also if they felt like it. Bucklers are also a classification of shields. RDM may be able to use those but not kite or tower shields. As far as equipment, it's perfectly acceptable to limit RDM armor to high end MNK type equiptment and not allow them to wear heavy plate. A similar thing happens with SCH. SCH can wear healing gear that is usable by CNJ/WHM but not by its base class ACN. It is not allowed to wear high end caster gear that is usable by ACN/SMN. Don't really need to change any sub i50 gear.

Doesn't mean they're going to add it as a GLD sub-job instead of its own class/job, but it could be easily.

In the current Tank/DPS/Healer format, RDM would likely be a DPS (melee/caster hybrid) that would fill a role similar to BRD. It should, at bare minimum, be given "Refresh" so that it is interchangeable with the BRD. Refresh should function similar to Mage's Ballad, where it comes with a cost to the RDM himself (either debuffs his DPS, or costs himself a lot of mana which might limit his DPS in some way).

Flash could also be changed (with RDM job crystal) to apply a debuff similar to Foe's Requiem, allowing for BRD/RDM to be more interchangeable.

[A_Magical_Unicorn_Rider]

If RDM tank: 30 CNJ/15 GLA.

BLU, however, would need to get enemy skills. Bad Breath being the top-tier skill. I'd probably say 30 THM/15PGL. The way to get said skills would be through Job quests and maybe some off-hand quests? (Usually requiring X amount of HQ enemy body pieces to turn in).

[Hiroradius]

There are many ways Red Mage could work, and I have a feeling they might be the first true hybrid, to the point of they can even select dps/healer/tank in the dungeon que, and you need to build them to a more specialized version, whether it's melee dps with casting enfire/enstone/etc on their equipment, or range dps with fire, ice, lightning spells, or healer, or even tank with phalanx and stoneskin and other things.. They will probably be a very hard class to master.


But I believe they will make them based off a new class at first, and then sub between red mage and blue mage.. Maybe they would start as a green mage (getting mostly buffs and debuffs) then can advance into blue mage or red mage.. in which blue mage get's the enemy skills and melee attacks, but they have to learn the ability, don't have to be targetted, but have a random chance to learn an ability they see someone in their party being hit by.

Red mages on the other hand start getting multiple abilites as they level to be a hybrid, but very hard to master. They would have different stances to determine what their spells and attacks do.. for example melee stance so their spells are cast on their sword.. again enfire, enstone.. or healer stance and their spells heal instead, caster stance and their spells are well attack spells, and tank stance in which their spells increase their tanking, survivability, enemity, and things like that. They would freely change stances (which might cause a problem with trolls queing as tank stance red mage joining dungeon then switching to dps stance or something, but sometimes you just have to deal with trolls)

[Kitru]

There are many ways Red Mage could work, and I have a feeling they might be the first true hybrid, to the point of they can even select dps/healer/tank in the dungeon que

Yoshi has actually referred to a potential "hybrid" role and explained that it would take the place of DPS within group compositions. It would not be able to role as a fully effective character in any of the roles, nor truly supplant a tank or healer. It would basically be a slightly subpar DPS (80-90% of a real DPS) that can swap to tank or healer functionality for short bursts when needed. Any class that could queue as any role would be monumentally borked and ripe for trolling/idiocy (imagine all of the newbies queueing up as everything if they were DPS spec'd/geared for leveling, assuming that they could actually be a tank or healer; we've already seen how often this happens in every other MMO that allows for queuing as multiple roles; they *always* have to assign restriction to prevent the inevitable idiocy from occurring).

[Myrhn]

I prefer that rdm blu and any other job would have a new class and no be branched of the old classes.

[Deathscythe343]

I prefer that rdm blu and any other job would have a new class and no be branched of the old classes.

I'mo not so sure about this. The base classes we currently have are pretty basic. What I mean by this is, they are the classical classes that a lot of games base their trinity off of. The only one that I can think of that is not currently present is some kind of rogue/thief class, which may soon be changing.

[Myrhn]

I'mo not so sure about this. The base classes we currently have are pretty basic. What I mean by this is, they are the classical classes that a lot of games base their trinity off of. The only one that I can think of that is not currently present is some kind of rogue/thief class, which may soon be changing.

The thing is for me i only see gla and mrd getting new tanks jobs and not dps or even less healer. Their basic skills have enmity in it. Sure they can make an ability for the job to negate the enmity but that is wasting 1 skill from the 5 skill we get for getting a job. Rather see new classes with wholle new skills/traits and new jobs than using the existing classes and just add 5 more skills for the new jobs. And also dont forget we share attribute point with the class and we would have the whole sch/smn sharing dilema that we have right now.