Thank you for (job changes): Thank them!

[ErryK]

Their Red Mage is basically a black mage with a sword (slightly less insulting that Revelation Online's sword mage, but very up there), if the skill showcase is anything to go by. So I beg to differ.

FFXIV is not FFXI. If you want XI's RDM, go play XI. As far as I'm concerned, I'm happy with the RDM we are getting and especially happy of how the mechanics and nuances of RDM operate.

[MomomiMomi]

FFXIV is not FFXI. If you want XI's RDM, go play XI. As far as I'm concerned, I'm happy with the RDM we are getting and especially happy of how the mechanics and nuances of RDM operate.

He definitely does not want FFXI's RDM. That was one of the greatest travesties of RDM ever.

But unlike him, I'm perfectly happy with this RDM. It's almost everything I would have wanted.

[Iromi]

He definitely does not want FFXI's RDM. That was one of the greatest travesties of RDM ever.

But unlike him, I'm perfectly happy with this RDM. It's almost everything I would have wanted.

I gotta say, if you knew what you were doing in FFXI, RDM was pretty nice as a job. XIV RDM looks fun too tho.

[Duelle]

But unlike him, I'm perfectly happy with this RDM. It's almost everything I would have wanted.

No disrespect meant, but you wanted to spam spells from range and sometimes swing a sword? You could remove the sword and replace it with a bigger nuke that consumes Black/White mana and you'd have a job that has a cohesive concept and a solid spot on the battlefield. Bonus being that at least then they'd have to call that job something else.

Someone on reddit compared it to one of the renditions of WoW's balance druid, and I am inclined to agree. And that's not really a good thing; not when we're talking about the original melee mage of the Final Fantasy series.

[MomomiMomi]

No disrespect meant, but you wanted to spam spells from range and sometimes swing a sword? You could remove the sword and replace it with a bigger nuke that consumes Black/White mana and you'd have a job that has a cohesive concept and a solid spot on the battlefield. Bonus being that at least then they'd have to call that job something else.

Like I said, almost. It isn't everything I wanted. But in concept it is RDM, and it works. We really couldn't hope for much more than that.

Also, calling RDM a "melee mage" is disingenuous. They could use both swords and staves, and they kept that concept intact.

[Duelle]

Also, calling RDM a "melee mage" is disingenuous. They could use both swords and staves, and they kept that concept intact.

It was the only mage that could equip fighter gear up to a point, the only mage that could use swords, and the sword swings were not negligible (though due to a lack of hybrid mechanics in the console FFs, you didn't see things like Enspells and such). It was very much a melee mage. It had no fancy mechanics, but that's because turn-based combat and hybrids do not play well together. That the job could use staves doesn't detract from the fact that it's a melee mage.

If the idea was to make it a pure caster, it should have never been able to use swords and medium armor in the first place.

FFXIV is not FFXI. If you want XI's RDM, go play XI. As far as I'm concerned, I'm happy with the RDM we are getting and especially happy of how the mechanics and nuances of RDM operate.

Read my sig. The FFXI RDM is the last thing I want.

What I wanted was a melee mage. I've even pointed to the two most successful sword & spell hybrids in recent time (WoW's enhance shaman and retribution paladin) since the beta for ARR in hopes that SE would look and learn from them, instead of giving us what is essentially a BLM with a sword and a poor excuse thrown in to use it.

The skill spread tells me that they thought up of the spell system first, and then remembered that the job also uses a sword and pulled something out of their asses to give us that. And if pinning a pimp hat on the love child of a Time Mage and Oracle (AKA FFXI's RDM) didn't get a pass from me, pinning one on a BLM with a sword (FFXIV's RDM) won't either.

[Shurrikhan]

No disrespect meant, but you wanted to spam spells from range and sometimes swing a sword? You could remove the sword and replace it with a bigger nuke that consumes Black/White mana and you'd have a job that has a cohesive concept and a solid spot on the battlefield. Bonus being that at least then they'd have to call that job something else.

Someone on reddit compared it to one of the renditions of WoW's balance druid, and I am inclined to agree. And that's not really a good thing; not when we're talking about the original melee mage of the Final Fantasy series.

I have to agree here. The animations and the overall style are looking good, and it seems to warrant at least a pretty interesting faction in XIV's own lore, but it doesn't appear to be a melee, front-line, or otherwise especially versatile mage, nor even all that duality-concerned. Enspell and other weapon-oriented skills also seem to have taken a back seat, if at all available. That's not to say I'd have been okay with simply applying a self-buff and then AAing the day away—far from it, but I would have hoped that there'd be more reason to swap in and out of melee range, and for the blade to play a larger part in determining cast rotation, rather than just being, essentially, an alternate appearance for spenders that, as a side-effect, trades range for mobility.