What Red Mage may be in 4.0

[CookieMonsta]

some can please fill me in on why everyone's so obsessed with RDM?

[xJimmehx]

RDM can stab you, burn you, and heal you at the same time. Oh and the outfit is extremely stylish.

[ErikMynhier]

RDM can stab you, burn you, and heal you at the same time. Oh and the outfit is extremely stylish.

I always loved that pic.

[Morningstar1337]

some can please fill me in on why everyone's so obsessed with RDM?

Here are the reasons why people like RDM, most of these are also the reasons why its hard to fit it in as is

• Iconic status: it is one of the Original FF jobs, and the only one that dosne't have a clear anolouge (ACN and its Jobs don't count)
• It only does everything: This is a sticking point, Red Mages are capable of using both Black and White Magic, at first I thought this was their only gimmick until I found out they also use swords as well. So they can heal, use elemental magics or be up close and personal with a rapier (which is why I expect and perhaps desire a frankenstien between that class and Magic Knight, mostly due to the Armory System)
• XI Nostalgia: RDM was one of many classes that was in XI, where it is rather infamous for 2 things. Phalanx and Refresh

One thing to to note is that a Class already exists that uses damaging elemental spells to DPS and Heal, WHM (though the Aero Spells were usually white magic anyway) as well as ACN and its jobs mostly due to the SMN/SCH split. With that said, it's elemental power is moot due to the removal of the wheel, some of its other iconic skills have been given to BLM (Swiftcast and Convert), and on the Healing side, AST already fills the Jack of all trades niche that Red Mages usual have and (Complete with a lack of third tier spells, then again SCH also has that problem as well), not to mention that ACN, a class that already uses both Black and White magic, already exists.

The other problem is that to compensate from learning from both schools, Red Mages generally are limited to a lower skill cap then their "purer" counterparts, which usually means that they have to -aga/III spells, no Holy, etc. This isn't a problem if it was a Healer job because Cure III is situational anyway and until AST, havving 0 "2nd tier" spells for healers might had been considered the norm, but as a Caster DPS, they would have soe issues if they were limited to Fire/Blizzard II, making them a BLM that can heal a little better than an actual BLM (I'm not including thunder becuase the only differences are the DoT duration and WHM already lacked offensive III spells before HW) XI players as well a the bravely series compesatedby giving RDM their own gimmick, whcih wound up being research management related, but Refresh would be a little redundant unless they are going the support route and BD/BS's version works for a mechanic that doesn't exist in XIV.

The only possible route I think they could take short of creating something new and making the class "In Name only" or merging it with Magic Knight (again risking an "In Name Only scenario) is probably the Chainspell or Phalanx mechanic, But AST already has something that works like Chainspell anyway, and Phalanx seems more fitting to Tanks, which would have DRK-levels of ramifications. I know little of XI though, so take what i said with a grain of salt