Red Mages Needs a Bit More Complexity

[Vincent_Mateus]

I suppose I can throw this in, because I haven't seen it anywhere... if you tilt your mana expenditure one way or the other (we'll say black) the mana you gain of the lesser color is halved. It's expenditure is also halved, so long as you maintain this shift in color.

Using this information you could execute your fully enchanted melee combo at 52/97 for example. Or 26/49 if using Manafication. I tried encorporating this knowledge into a rotation, and due to the random nature of our procs did not have luck. I did however recover from an accidental swing and gained dps from this by entering my melee combo earlier than I otherwise would have. its not a grand find, but it can come in handy in rare situations you find yourself unbalancing yourself. (You could do it intentionally and push yourselves to the proper level by using acceleration and or swift cast as well obviously

[MidnightTundra]

Half of these suggestions are really not well thought out.

Red Mage is fine as it is but its numbers are too high for what it brings to an encounter. The burst of the class is high and frequent (which is valuable for fights with a high number of phase transitions), it isn't inherently punishing and the fights don't punish you much due to lack of buff management and high mobility to deal with mechanics. The class is legit just good fun and I'd like it to stay that way. May others would most likely agree with me due to the overwhelming majority finding RDM really fun to play.

It doesn't need to be some overly complex, melee caster with cleric stance-sword mechanics. 32% of your gcds during an encounter require you to be melee or chain off of a melee combo. 25% of your gcds are weapons skills. That's 25% more than any other caster; RDM is currently assigned in this "ranged caster" role. What the job is doing is fine.

Tune the numbers for what the job is based on the adaptability of its kit and raise the damage of BLM and SMN. RDM should be the weakest caster in personal DPS at the highest level of play.

[Amulrei]

Please no.

As an older adult with health challenges I love the fact that there are less complex jobs in the game. Give me my red mage, white mage, and paladin. You can play with the more complex jobs all you want.

Amen. As someone with nerve damage in my wrist from a car accident, I tend to prefer classes that don't play like a concert piano recital.

If people want complex classes with hundreds of actions per minute then play one. There is no shortage of them. I just wish people would stop asking for nonsense changes for the classes that are a little more relaxed in their mechanics and rotations.

[Amulrei]

I guess I should go RDM too! No effort required, no punishment like Aetherflow and the bosses can't laugh into my face as they currently do when I wanna get a full Fire rotation through.
And sick damage on top of that!
Why be BLM or SMN at all right now, El oh El.

I think you will find your issues are far more with how ridiculously punishing SMN is to play right now than anything to do with RDMs in general.

[Frowny]

Amen. As someone with nerve damage in my wrist from a car accident, I tend to prefer classes that don't play like a concert piano recital.

If people want complex classes with hundreds of actions per minute then play one. There is no shortage of them. I just wish people would stop asking for nonsense changes for the classes that are a little more relaxed in their mechanics and rotations.

That is perfectly fine, but I feel the damage output should also reflect it.

[JMadFour]

That is perfectly fine, but I feel the damage output should also reflect it.

that's fine with me, so long as it doesn't make my Job absolutely unwanted in all content.

I'm here for the playstyle in this case, not necessarily the numbers.

[VorpalSpork]

That is perfectly fine, but I feel the damage output should also reflect it.

I totally disagree here. Complexity isn't a stat. We shouldn't start trying to decide how much a job needs to be nerfed because you believe it is simpler than your job. The point of balancing is to make the jobs as close together as possible, with adjustments for group utility perhaps. Some silly epeen requirement that one job do less than another because of apparently less difficulty is just silly. Do you define the percent nerf based on button presses? People should play the style that they find fun, not be funneled into classes because they do more dps due to supposed complexity, much of which is subjective.

[Amulrei]

I totally disagree here. Complexity isn't a stat. We shouldn't start trying to decide how much a job needs to be nerfed because you believe it is simpler than your job. The point of balancing is to make the jobs as close together as possible, with adjustments for group utility perhaps. Some silly epeen requirement that one job do less than another because of apparently less difficulty is just silly. Do you define the percent nerf based on button presses? People should play the style that they find fun, not be funneled into classes because they do more dps due to supposed complexity, much of which is subjective.

Amazingly well said.

[Duelle]

Complexity isn't a stat. We shouldn't start trying to decide how much a job needs to be nerfed because you believe it is simpler than your job. The point of balancing is to make the jobs as close together as possible, with adjustments for group utility perhaps. Some silly epeen requirement that one job do less than another because of apparently less difficulty is just silly. Do you define the percent nerf based on button presses? People should play the style that they find fun, not be funneled into classes because they do more dps due to supposed complexity, much of which is subjective.

I agree with this 100%. The best thing one can do from a design perspective is make classes that cater to various skill/dexterity levels. Yes, making a class simpler to play than others runs the risk of inflating the ranks of said class (9-6-9 prot paladins in WoW come to mind), but it does provide something for everyone. I think we stand to gain more from that approach than to make every DPS class an experience where the player fights his/her class' mechanics instead of the boss.

[GrizzlyTank]

They could have added some kind of use for having imbalanced gauge.