Quote Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell View Post
-"Why not play Black Mage?"

Many red mages are being forced to so that's a thing yeah. Maybe I personally prefer the aesthetic of a spell blade and it's just unfortunate we got red mage instead of mystic knight.

-"DPS that can pitch in with healing"
It's fine and all that you find this nice but again, you'd support the party way more as an actual healer than a DPS who's ignoring it's own role to do someone else's job.

-"Hybrid"
This isn't a good game for hybrids, firstly, and secondly in FFXIV RDM is not a hybrid. It's a pure blooded DPS job; when it competes for a spot in the party, it's not competing with White Mage, Scholar, or Astrologian in the role of a healer, all three of which being specialized to healer mean they're infinitely better equipped to do damage and healing simultaneously than RDM. It's competing with Black Mage, Summoner, Machinist, Bard, and Dancer, most of whom do more damage than RDM and the ones who don't provide much better and longer lasting healer support than raise spam.

In both competitions, it loses. But that's fine and it's selfish to suggest maybe RDM shouldn't be known as a meme raise mage because it's selfish to not be satisfied with that terrible identity.
Many jobs in ff14 have actions which "belong" to another role.
Examples:
Ranged have aoe shields
Tanks have heals
SMN + RDM have Raise
Healers have dps spells

Your stance is, if i like using Veraise to help my grp out, i should play a healer.
Nobody denies, that rdm could use some dmg buffs atm. But don´t change rdm gameplay.
And all beware, now i will say it: "Wait till 5.1". There, i said it.