Red Mage AoE

[Hyrist]

They do look at population/job numbers and feedback. They did give Monk Raid utility, and moved the Damage Combo on Paladin as well. Sure, it's slow moving, but it has to be in order to make the right reaction for everyone, not just the vocal. We're dealing with multiple hundred thousands of people and opinions here. We can loose sight of that sometimes.

[Phoenicia]

They do look at population/job numbers and feedback. They did give Monk Raid utility, and moved the Damage Combo on Paladin as well. Sure, it's slow moving, but it has to be in order to make the right reaction for everyone, not just the vocal. We're dealing with multiple hundred thousands of people and opinions here. We can loose sight of that sometimes.

Yeah I agree with you here and I'm half-sarcastic in my comments as I'm here mostly for the salt lol. But the vocal population's voice is sort of justified. And let's face it, most of the non-vocals have no clue to even know what the vocal populace is worried about.

[Cebo]

Here's one idea:

Modify Scatter so that it increases Black Mana and White Mana by 3 for each enemy hit by Scatter (perhaps with a cap of 15 or so for balance sake). It's still worthless as a single target, but in AOE situations, now you have a mana generator stronger than Verfire or Verstone, which would also allow more Enchanted Moulinets. It would slightly increase RDM AOE dps, accelerate the AOE rotation a bit, while also giving the option to conserve the mana to dump it for single target damage later.

[Hyrist]

Eh, I'm watching my blood pressure - so low sodium diet for me.

I'm also conditioned on FFXI's version of RDM, and it influences my thinking whether I like it or not. Red Mage in FFXI, and also in other games as well, was never really that good at AoE. They followed the concept of 'duelist', as is common in the association with their Spanish/French fencer motif. So for me to see the level of AoE utility they currently have, I'm just more generally accepting of it. Besides, it looks as if the developers were more interested in taking some of the AoE power away from the mages as a whole, and distribute it among everyone. What with Samurai having a strong AoE set, Monk getting more utility to use their Elixer Field more frequently, and Dragoon trading up their Ring of Thorns for a more compact and usable AoE rotation.

So yeah, you combine all that and I'm kosher. I'm a big picture kinda guy.

[NovaLevossida]

Besides, it looks as if the developers were more interested in taking some of the AoE power away from the mages as a whole, and distribute it among everyone.

They really only lowered SMN's AoE / Fire 2 potency and buffed BLM's AoE with Thunder AoE, multiple Flares in a row thanks to Umbral Hearts / triple swiftcast, and Foul. I don't see it as a thematic trend when all they did was take away SMN's birthday presents and give them to BLM.

[Hyrist]

They really only lowered SMN's AoE / Fire 2 potency and buffed BLM's AoE with Thunder AoE, multiple Flares in a row thanks to Umbral Hearts / triple swiftcast, and Foul. I don't see it as a thematic trend when all they did was take away SMN's birthday presents and give them to BLM.

If you're going to go that route, you're going to have to address the Elder Primal in the room. Pretty much at the end if your second Dreadwyrm stance rotation you get a free wipe out an AoE group card in the form of two higher potency AoE OG Deathflares in the span of 30 seconds.

You're not dealing with any more salt than the other classes did in 3.0, and theirs didn't get padded with a dragon god for a pet. Any arguments past that and you're going to need to parse first.

[NovaLevossida]

If you're going to go that route, you're going to have to address the Elder Primal in the room. Pretty much at the end if your second Dreadwyrm stance rotation you get a free wipe out an AoE group card in the form of two higher potency AoE OG Deathflares in the span of 30 seconds.

You're not dealing with any more salt than the other classes did in 3.0, and theirs didn't get padded with a dragon god for a pet. Any arguments past that and you're going to need to parse first.

BLMs just call that Foul, or as Hulk would call it: puny god. In the time you build up to using Akh Morn twice, BLM has gotten mulitple Fouls. On top of everything else they have vs. what SMN lost. Let's be honest about the AoE discrepancy between the jobs instead of just wanting SMN to not have taken as big of a hit that it has.

[Rbstr]

Let's be honest...

I'm not saying that concerns aren't invalid from what we've seen. But, I figure real honestly would be doubting they'd gone through all the trouble of changing all these skills to have one job just flat out suck in the end. Everyone should doubt that tooltips and potencies we've seen are accurate to the release.
And also recognizing that balance ebbs and flows, like how SMN poached the AOE king title from BLM with HW's release. Often times balance changes are also intended to shake up the meta to make things fresh.
I think SMN looks like it's going to ramp up to one hell of a prolonged burst phase with Bahamut. It's there to address like the #1 Summoner complaint: that pets aren't quite what you think when you think FF summons. I'm excited to see the changes more than anything.

[Hyrist]

BLMs just call that Foul, or as Hulk would call it: puny god. In the time you build up to using Akh Morn twice, BLM has gotten mulitple Fouls. On top of everything else they have vs. what SMN lost. Let's be honest about the AoE discrepancy between the jobs instead of just wanting SMN to not have taken as big of a hit that it has.

There's no being honest about jumping to conclusions, sorry. Not to mention if there is, what of it? Pre Heavensard, Black Mages were the undisputed King of AoEs. That position reversed in Heavensard - even that position reverses again the sour grapes seem even louder than before when the situations were reverse. It's kind of grating.

The better point is that BLM was behind SMN in AoE in Heavensard, and SMN's powerful AoEs got the same treatment as everyone else's AoEs for Stormblood. Both have new toys and will be far more than adequate for what most players of either class are going to use. If we're being completely honest, this is an Epeen measuring contest and some SMNs are jumping the gun with feeling inadequate.

Until the ACTUAL numbers come out and there is physical evidence from rotational trials, anything said about it is conjecture. If anything, we should be glad that their comparatively similar now. Not to mention their AoE Depth is far better developed than what RDM's is currently.

This ^ Its dumb that its not AOE. The original moves are AOE and this version looks way stronger than those. Makes no sense? If it was AOE it'd be like SMN Deathflare. a nice aoe combo finisher.

Actually... more often than not, Flare and Holy are single target spells in Final Fantasy, so it is FFXIV White Mage and Black Mage versions that are the outsiders. And neither have ever really been natively available to Red Mage before now. I find that your statement ignores the larger context of both the spells, and the Job Class that it's being applied to. Be happy we have them at all.