Magic Melee DPS category?

[wereotter]

They missed the opportunity to make a magical melee with red mage. I had hoped, and assumed it would be more fencer based sharing ninja’s scouting gear and just having it’s magical attacks scale off dexterity, just like ninja’s do.

[Jonnycbad]

They missed the opportunity to make a magical melee with red mage. I had hoped, and assumed it would be more fencer based sharing ninja’s scouting gear and just having it’s magical attacks scale off dexterity, just like ninja’s do.

Problems:
1) Having cast times while in melee range is analogous to being a melee with animation lock on every GCD. This would be a huge issue for surviving mechanics while keeping up DPS. Unless a RDM's spells had no cast time, at which point they're basically just a melee but with "magic-looking animations" with a 3y range like melee GCD.
2) Mages have lower physical defense and HP than melee because they don't have to move as often and fewer mechanics target them. If a close-range mage were to be made, there would need to be some adjustments made to their equipment or perhaps a new class of gear for them that had high INT but also decent VIT like striking/maiming. That would mean another denominator when gear drops, as we already have 1/6 or 2/6 drop rate with Fending, Healing, Casting, Striking, Scouting, and Maiming, and adding another class of gear for magic-melee would be a 1/7 or 2/7 drop rate on equipment from raids.

[wereotter]

Problems:
1) Having cast times while in melee range is analogous to being a melee with animation lock on every GCD. This would be a huge issue for surviving mechanics while keeping up DPS. Unless a RDM's spells had no cast time, at which point they're basically just a melee but with "magic-looking animations" with a 3y range like melee GCD.
2) Mages have lower physical defense and HP than melee because they don't have to move as often and fewer mechanics target them. If a close-range mage were to be made, there would need to be some adjustments made to their equipment or perhaps a new class of gear for them that had high INT but also decent VIT like striking/maiming. That would mean another denominator when gear drops, as we already have 1/6 or 2/6 drop rate with Fending, Healing, Casting, Striking, Scouting, and Maiming, and adding another class of gear for magic-melee would be a 1/7 or 2/7 drop rate on equipment from raids.

If a Red Mage, by my original description, was using scouting gear, then your argument about defenses and vitality is null as the stats would be identical to ninja, and like ninja, magic doesn't have to be based off INT. Ninja has it's magic attacks based off DEX, paladin has its magic attacks based off STR, and all healers have their magic attacks based off MND.

I don't know exactly how it all would work in practice, but if red mage was, as I was hoping, primarily a fencer and using spells as a secondary form of damage, think how samurai works to build up sens then having a cast time to use them up, then you've got a melee DPS that can their attacks deal magic damage, as opposed to piercing, that could have some other unique quirks. Obviously that's not how the job was implemented in the end, which is why I also said they missed the opportunity for a magical melee when they designed the job.