Red Mage confirmed or nah?

[Atlaworks]

Am I the only one that does not get the whole red mage hype? In the original games Red Mage was nothing more than a cross between Black Mage and White Mage. What's so special about that? Why do people want this class so badly?

In the original games, red mages were able to be good at but not the best at... white magic, red magic, melee, tanking, pretty much everything. They're the quintessential example, at least in the FF series as well as a good deal outside of it, of the "Jack of all trades". That's why people want one- not just for magic, but the idea that they could be good at anything. Even me, I'm looking forward to it in a locked DPS role, because it'd be the first DPS class we have that can melee and use magic at the same time. Maybe a class that actually uses both MP and TP for once? Revolutionary.

[Niwashi]

In the original games, red mages were able to be good at but not the best at... white magic, red magic, melee, tanking, pretty much everything. They're the quintessential example, at least in the FF series as well as a good deal outside of it, of the "Jack of all trades".

That also tended to make them very powerful while leveling, but a bit weak for endgame. I'm not sure that would work as well here. Certainly it would be a deal-breaker in a typical one job per character MMO, but I wonder if it would be viable in one like this. It certainly doesn't seem likely to be anyone's choice for savage mode raids (unless they change the job beyond all recognition, which I'm hoping they don't), but if it were good for regular dungeons, that could still be enough to make it popular. The majority of players don't raid anyway, and those who do do other things as well.

[Atlaworks]

That also tended to make them very powerful while leveling, but a bit weak for endgame. I'm not sure that would work as well here. Certainly it would be a deal-breaker in a typical one job per character MMO, but I wonder if it would be viable in one like this. It certainly doesn't seem likely to be anyone's choice for savage mode raids (unless they change the job beyond all recognition, which I'm hoping they don't), but if it were good for regular dungeons, that could still be enough to make it popular. The majority of players don't raid anyway, and those who do do other things as well.

The idea is to make them not-as-good at a lot of things, but as good as(or slightly better!) than the norm by combining everything they're kind of good at. That can be balanced for endgame as well as anything else- balancing numbers is not inherently tied to how those numbers are outputted, after all.