Red Mage could use some help.

[Tzain]

Personally, I usually just Corps-a-Corps and Displacement on CD for the free oGCD damage, and try to ensure they've just been used before Manafication's refresh to each, so they've never really struck me as necessary book-ends to the melee combo. The main oddity to me is just that it feels like it might as well all just be Flare or any other ranged finisher, except that we're spending 1.8 GCDs prior via instant melee range skills prior. As both resource generation and spenders, especially, are so one-dimensional, nothing about it feels different or even like it needs the sword, even when slashing people with it. It just feels ornamental.

Yeah, I was just using the Corps-a-corps as a sort of 'simplistic short hand' for a combo that I figured we all understood. Although Displacement into the Ver-finisher just feels sooooo gooood.

I do see what you mean there, but there's only so many ways you can do 'damage' before they become redundant. Having a melee combo powered by ranged spell slinging is at least somewhat unique. Also take a look at my other comment to Firestar, I do mention in there why I think the melee combo is so linear and simplistic.

[PrismaticDaybreak]

...

They don't balance off of ease of gameplay, Yoshi-P is on record saying as much.

[Galvuu]

They don't balance off of ease of gameplay, Yoshi-P is on record saying as much.

And they shouldn't, because it's highly subjective and not a good design philosophy.
I find bard way easier than machinist, and I'm told it should be the other way around.

[Cynfael]

They don't balance off of ease of gameplay, Yoshi-P is on record saying as much.

Exactly. If they balanced RDM based on ease of gameplay, we would probably be using Verflare to blast collectibles out of Lush Vegetation patches.

Joking aside, Galvuu is right that difficulty is highly subjective. I imagine that players who aren't accustomed to proc-based gameplay find RDM to be stressful, while those of us who were BLMing it up in 2.x find RDM to be kind of nostalgic (at least that's how I see it, and I actually enjoy RDM specifically because it reminds me of the old BLM playstyle, which I admit to enjoying despite its bare-bones simplicity).

At first I didn't agree with SE's intent not to balance Jobs with estimated difficulty in mind, but it's probably a good thing for the game if a wide variety of Jobs and mechanics are available and also viable. Playing a mechanically complex Job well should largely be its own reward, and it's also less messy when SE doesn't try to impose its opinion of which Job is the most or the least difficult.

[Elkanah]

After putting more time in endgame to rdm for savage content, I have basically all I need for dps numbers at the moment running the content, but shortly after learning the mechanics, I switch it out for a ninja in our party. It does need some buffs for the potency increase, or possible embolden and dropping the stack decrease during casts.

[Singularity]

IMO, remove the "tapering" aspect of Embolden (i.e. keep it at 10% for the entire duration) and make it affect all damage types for everyone it lands on. That would make it Trick Attack levels of good, but then RDM's personal DPS and other utility is comparable to NIN's also.

[Shurrikhan]

Yeah, I was just using the Corps-a-corps as a sort of 'simplistic short hand' for a combo that I figured we all understood. Although Displacement into the Ver-finisher just feels sooooo gooood.

I do see what you mean there, but there's only so many ways you can do 'damage' before they become redundant. Having a melee combo powered by ranged spell slinging is at least somewhat unique. Also take a look at my other comment to Firestar, I do mention in there why I think the melee combo is so linear and simplistic.

Oh, I didn't mean to connote contrary views in posting as I did. My intent was more one of piggie-backing off your text than running counter to it, but as there was that first bit of difference, I lost my shorthand "This!" to denote that fact. My apologies.

Side-note: I had a huge pipedream RDM idea written out before RDM was mentioned as an upcoming job, and it played hugely into the idea of a macrorotationally nuanced spell-sword. I'll have to dig it up sometime and see what I can salvage of it, which may be little since it was built on an idea that Additional Skills would be replaced with, well, something far more integral than Role Skills.

[Llugen]

IMO, remove the "tapering" aspect of Embolden (i.e. keep it at 10% for the entire duration) and make it affect all damage types for everyone it lands on. That would make it Trick Attack levels of good, but then RDM's personal DPS and other utility is comparable to NIN's also.

The highest RDMs are already doing just about the same damage as the highest NINs, with a difference of ~100 give or take depending on the fight. If Embolden was a full +10% to ALL damage for 20 full seconds with no falloff, it would be insanely broken, never mind wanting to increase its single target damage to be even higher.

Could either do +5% for 20 seconds or +10% for 10, if you don't want to do a falloff, or just keep the falloff and include magic damage.


I know I'm in enemy territory when I say this, but again you don't want to break your class so hard that it's "required" (Note: we don't want ANYTHING to be trick attack levels of good, because it's broken and always has been. It's incredible that they haven't tweaked it in almost 4 full years). Or do you. I guess I don't know.

[Dualgunner]

5% for 20 seconds is still in its own way fighting trick for effectiveness, even if it keeps its 2 minute cd. With no taper I'd say find what the average percentage gain it gives now over 20s (can't think of the number off the top of my head) and that would be the number it keeos for 20s every 2 minutes.

[Llugen]

5% for 20 seconds is basically hypercharge level damage, although a little weaker since it's 6% now for 20 seconds on the turret which generally manifests as 27-29 seconds on the boss, iirc.