The boring mage of red

[Duelle]

Jack of all Trades Master of None. That is not what we have here.

To be fair, RDM would become a bench-warmer without even getting to set foot in EX/Savage content if it had been designed as a generalist.

The DPS label works, but the gameplay leaves much to be desired due to the sword seeing so little use and just how it was integrated in said gameplay. I'll say it until things change or I keel over dead, but you could remove Riposte => Zwerchhau => Redoublement from the job, replace the manaburn phase with a 3-step Ultima spell (Verflare => Verholy => Ultima?) and see next to no difference at all. And that says quite a few things about the design.

Seems to me you just wanted the class to be something its not. If you had any real experience with Red Mage in past final fantasies you'd know its mostly a caster class with melee as a type of little bonus (as it is in FFXIV). Hell, in some final fantasies they primarily used staffs rather than traditional melee weapons.

Turn-based combat does not treat hybrids the same way as live/MMO combat does. MMO combat has mechanics that work for hybrids that turn-based games like the console FFs cannot supply nor replicate. I can list examples, if you want.

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Staying on topic, spellspam is something I find very dull. You may be pressing buttons faster than a BLM or SMN, but you're still sitting in one spot spamming spells. A sword & spell hybrid feeling dull because the design forces you to not use the sword, nor does it allow you to be flashy by mixing both in combat. Who'd have thunk it, right?