Thought about RDM's utility

[Seraphor]

Giving caster DPS the ability to battle rez in controlled amounts wouldn't be a bad thing. I'd personally go for introducing "DPS raise" as an ability on a 60s cooldown (subsequently remove Verraise and SMN's access to Resurrect).
Raise may be a white magic spell, but it is not a defining aspect of RDM.
Making it a role ability on a 60s cooldown means MP is not a factor.

PS: Job homogenization is a non-threat, as BLM still has Enochian/Polyglot/Astral Fire/Umbral Ice, SMN would still have trances and aetheflow, and RDM would still have spell spam & the glowy toy sword.

So what version should ALL casters get? Role skills at all are a bad idea.
Give Healers their own versions of Esuna back please.
Physical Ranged already have their own versions of a party defense buff, give every job its unique skills please.

Why not give SMN a 60s CD Resurrection, and give RDM a 60s CD Verraise with 2 charges.
Differentiate it a bit. BLM doesn't need one at all.

[wereotter]

To be fair SMN also hates SpS, that class is way too based on double weaves and thus it can easily lead to clipping (not to mention the fact it won't buff oGCDs, making it a subpar stat by default),

I was just using that as an example, but yes. SMN doesn't really want a large amount of spell speed either.... but even then SMN gets more out of the stat than RDM does since it has two DOTs that are a major source of damage for the job, while RDM gets zero benefit from the stat and actually can run into complications with the cool down on corps-a-corps and mana levels if that stat gets too high. Though I wouldn't be surprised if the RDM and SMN BIS gear are very similar if not identical.

[Duelle]

So what version should ALL casters get?

Assuming you're talking about caster DPS, I'd suggest a simple word like Recovery or Arise.

Assuming you're talking about all casters as a whole, Raise becoming a role action for healers (spell on the GCD with an 8s cast time), and Resurrect becoming a role action for caster DPS (instant cast, 60s cooldown).

Why not give SMN a 60s CD Resurrection, and give RDM a 60s CD Verraise with 2 charges.

That sounds too arbitrary for my tastes.

[Seraphor]

Assuming you're talking about caster DPS, I'd suggest a simple word like Recovery or Arise.

Assuming you're talking about all casters as a whole, Raise becoming a role action for healers (spell on the GCD with an 8s cast time), and Resurrect becoming a role action for caster DPS (instant cast, 60s cooldown).
That sounds too arbitrary for my tastes.

Arbitrary? For Red Mage's identity as a support dps with white magic? For its reputation as a rez bot?
2 charges would allow it to be more effective at raising than Summoner, yet still put a limit on it.

Everyone gets Raise?
What about Ascend, Resurrection, Verraise?
No. More. Role. Skills.

[Duelle]

Arbitrary? For Red Mage's identity as a support dps with white magic? For its reputation as a rez bot?
2 charges would allow it to be more effective at raising than Summoner, yet still put a limit on it.

Giving RDM two rez charges is arbitrary, as there's little reason to do so aside from wanting to keep the rezbot meme alive.

Everyone gets Raise?

Might wanna reword that, as my first reaction was "WAR, DRK and DRG are getting Raise too?".

Sure, in terms of thematics it's nice to have multiple versions of the same spell. That said, little (if anything) would be lost in making the healer rez spell Raise and implementing it as a role action. Adloquium, Essential Dignity, Cure, Assize, Benediction, the lilies, and tarot cards still exist.

[Archwizard]

Giving RDM two rez charges is arbitrary, as there's little reason to do so aside from wanting to keep the rezbot meme alive.

I disagree.

The current "rezbot" mentality features an interesting intersection of two mindsets. One, which I assume falls closer to dev intent as seen with the SMN, is that giving a DPS role access to a rez tool is useful for if the healer(s) -- otherwise the only other access to a rez -- falls in battle. The other, from a higher-end player perspective, is that the RDM's comparable access to raising makes them first priority to perform raises on the party, since their MP is otherwise expendable compared to a healer's own and they waste fewer GCDs on each one.

Sure, the devs could just give insta-Verraise a 1 min CD and go home, safe in the knowledge that RDM is no longer Swiftraising more frequently than SMN or any healer has access to Swiftcast... except that A) it would be the only rez-accessing job restricted to a cooldown, and B) that's a drastic change to the RDM status quo.

Giving it two charges still keeps it restrictive (especially since spending both charges at once means you have to wait 2 minutes to get them both back), but the extra charge isn't just a gimmick or consolation. If the RDM is expected by their raid team to have expendable raises for DPS and by the devs to have emergency raises for priority targets, being able to keep an extra raise in their back pocket for a rainy day allows the caster to accomplish both goals, so long as they remain tactical in their deployment.

Unrelated note, I disagree highly with your signature. RDM has never been a melee-centric or melee-heavy job, and in fact usually spends more time casting in the entries for which it is available; the fact that it has better melee equipment or physical stats in older entries is, for the most part, consolation for limiting their access to stronger spells. The Red Mage has only ever been about combining White and Black magic into something more, with swordplay being largely vestigial; in fact the "iconic" use of a rapier is actually quite recent in series history, around FF11 I think. By comparison, it's been a "turret" as long as it has had Dualcast, introduced in FF5.
For a job focused on combining sword and sorcery, you may mean Rune Fencer, Spellblade or Mystic Knight. But first and foremost, the Red Mage has always been... a Mage.

[SaberMaxwell]

That depends on group more than anything; RDM, like SMN, should be third priority to raise. It loses more damage than a healer in the event it has to cast the spell. Many will have them be first for a variety of reasons, but in my experience since RDM's Advent it's mainly "I thought he was fine. RDM scrape him off the floor so I can still get my orange ty."

[Duelle]

One, which I assume falls closer to dev intent as seen with the SMN, is that giving a DPS role access to a rez tool is useful for if the healer(s) fall in battle. The other, from a higher-end player perspective, is that the RDM's comparable access to raising makes them first priority to perform raises on the party, since their MP is otherwise expendable compared to a healer's own and they waste fewer GCDs on each one.

While you're not wrong in your assertions, you seem to be downplaying the effect battle rezzes have on the meta and how they affect perception of the jobs involved. The devs are treating battle rezzes in a way that seems to be detrimental to RDM's (and to a lesser extent, SMN) place in the meta, and this is exacerbated by the knowledge that RDM can bypass Verraise's long cast time because of how Dualcast was implemented.

Now combine this with the thread about RDM not being wanted in PF groups because of their lower DPS (which, again, is presumably thanks to Verraise), and you can probably see my reasoning. Killing the rezbot meme means that when RDMs ask for things (like higher DPS output so that they don't get excluded from PF groups), the naysayers have one less thing to bring up (they'd likely fall back to Vercure and the job's lack of "complex" mechanics, which are harder to quantify and thus easier to ignore). And to do so you need to fundamentally change how raises are handled by DPS classes.

A) it would be the only rez-accessing job restricted to a cooldown

As I'm very much in favor of changing stuff across the board, this part is a non-factor. In situations like this, you want the affected roster to all play by the same rules instead of making unnecessary exceptions.

B) that's a drastic change to the RDM status quo.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

If the RDM is expected by their raid team to have expendable raises for DPS and by the devs to have emergency raises for priority targets, being able to keep an extra raise in their back pocket for a rainy day allows the caster to accomplish both goals, so long as they remain tactical in their deployment.

Battle rezzes are generally meant to try to prevent a wipe by bringing back someone that is crucial to raid survival. It's supposed to be a second chance with a big "now don't screw up again" attached to it. Having "disposable raises" undermines that entirely.

Non-sequitur:

Unrelated note, I disagree highly with your signature. RDM has never been a melee-centric or melee-heavy job, and in fact usually spends more time casting in the entries for which it is available; the fact that it has better melee equipment or physical stats in older entries is, for the most part, consolation for limiting their access to stronger spells.

I never said RDM was melee-centric. What I did say is that RDM is a combination of sword and spell, and representing that combination is very important. The console FFs kept the three aspects of the job segregated from each other (largely because of turn-based combat), but a modern MMO doesn't have that limit. There's several mechanics that could be used to help represent that combination of trades that the were not possible in the turn-based games.

The Red Mage has only ever been about combining White and Black magic into something more, with swordplay being largely vestigial; in fact the "iconic" use of a rapier is actually quite recent in series history, around FF11 I think.

There was no combining of anything in the older games. RDM was used as a stand-in for whatever it was you were missing (hence why there are FF1 runs where RDM is the healer since the group has no white mage). As I said above, by design the three aspects of RDM (sword, white magic, black magic) had no interaction with each other, so it was a matter of weaker cures being better than having no cures at all.

Funnily enough, FFXI was the game that tried having RDM combine their trades with Enspells (which allowed auto-attacks to deal additional elemental damage) and Phalanx (which reduced damage taken and stacked with Protect). This was a step in the right direction towards (IMO) the natural evolution of a hybrid like RDM.

Despite the fact that RDM in FFXI was boned by several factors, that one step taken with Enspells and Phalanx is very significant and something that should be built upon.

By comparison, it's been a "turret" as long as it has had Dualcast, introduced in FF5.

Dualcast as a RDM job command was pretty much exclusive to FF5 before the offshoots, and the only reason that job command exists was because Sakaguchi & Co needed a gimmick to get players to level and master RDM (considering Dualcast + Black Magic or Summons was a popular setup, it was a strong gimmick but one that RDM benefited the least from).

For a job focused on combining sword and sorcery, you may mean Rune Fencer, Spellblade or Mystic Knight.

This isn't much of an argument, as the combination that I speak of is more than just enchanting your sword and whacking away (though it is a single step in the right direction). Beyond melee strikes with particle effects, your average hybrid also has mechanics that combine magic and melee: melee skills weakening the target to magic spells, magic spells weakening the enemy to melee skills, melee skills making a follow-up spell instant (bonus if the player has to decide to use that instant cast for a damaging spell or a healing spell), melee skills following a spell having a secondary effect. This all goes well beyond the scope of Mystic Knight/Rune Fencer's concept (though as FFXI has proven, the concept does have directions in which it can grow).

Compare the aforementioned gameplay and mechanics to one where RDM has to stand in one spot spamming magic for 18 GCDs (assuming no Verfire/Verstone procs) before wasting a gap closer to use 3 melee skills + an instant nuke before wasting a gap opener and going back to spamming spells. Where the melee combo feels tacked on and looks like it was almost grudgingly put in because the job would otherwise be as insulting as Revelation Online's Swordmage.

oversused "mage" argument

Was wondering where that would rear its ugly head.

[Archwizard]

While you're not wrong in your assertions, you seem to be downplaying the effect battle rezzes have on the meta and how they affect perception of the jobs involved. The devs are treating battle rezzes in a way that seems to be detrimental to RDM's (and to a lesser extent, SMN) place in the meta, and this is exacerbated by the knowledge that RDM can bypass Verraise's long cast time because of how Dualcast was implemented.

[and so on]

Sure. And the act of putting Verraise on a cooldown in itself addresses that, since the availability of an instant Verraise would be equal to Swiftcast-Raises for other casters.
At least in the vacuum where other casters don't pop other CDs to cast additional Raises quickly or for reduced cost.
It doesn't actually dismiss the possibility of giving it an additional charge, particularly when strictly limiting our Raise ability to a cooldown bears its own potential tuning knob (ie adjusting the cooldown to, say, 90-120 sec while still retaining 2 charges; still fairly reasonable without being crippling, and enough to call it an alternative to what SMN currently brings without being worthless).

Continued non-sequitur:

I never said RDM was melee-centric. What I did say is that RDM is a combination of sword and spell, and representing that combination is very important. The console FFs kept the three aspects of the job segregated from each other (largely because of turn-based combat), but a modern MMO doesn't have that limit. There's several mechanics that could be used to help represent that combination of trades that the were not possible in the turn-based games.

And I challenge you to name one that could not fit just as well (if not better) in the hands of one of those melee-oriented Mage-Knight hybrid jobs I mentioned.
The combination of sword and magic is something that has potential, maybe, but either way it lacks the precedence that your signature implies with statements like "It's supposed to be this instead." Supposed to according to... your headcanon?
How is one player's headcanon any more valid than another player's, much less a dev's?

Funnily enough, FFXI was the game that tried having RDM combine their trades with Enspells (which allowed auto-attacks to deal additional elemental damage) and Phalanx (which reduced damage taken and stacked with Protect). This was a step in the right direction towards (IMO) the natural evolution of a hybrid like RDM.

Despite the fact that RDM in FFXI was boned by several factors, that one step taken with Enspells and Phalanx is very significant and something that should be built upon.

And personally I'm not against RDM gaining similar skills here -- in fact I've suggested as much many times. However, to nebulously state that 11's ideas "should be built upon" without any mention of how to do so in a way that would have separated it from its contemporary Rune Fencer comes out as a lofty demand with no thought towards practical application. Hell, you've said nothing about why such expansion would be incompatible with the base we already have in 14!

I could just as much argue that such skills could easily be considered as the results of combining White and Black Magic! Black Magic has largely become more selfish and personal damage-oriented over the years (often to make way for Time or Green Magic as a group-buffing tree) while White Magic has always been largely a supportive role (here represented as almost entirely raw healing power with little other utility). Red Mages, being not limited to the damage-aversion of White Mages or utility-aversion of Black Mages, could easily combine the abilities of the two to create elemental damage buffs for the party, or barriers that instantly counterattack, or curses that heal attackers.
That, however, comes from under the purview of its role as a spellcaster.
(Besides, I'm fairly certain that Embolden was the devs' attempt to provide an En-spell in the absence of an elemental wheel, particularly when it was released in an era where all melee jobs provided vulnerability debuffs to physical damage types but only SMN had a magic damage buff.)

Dualcast as a RDM job command was pretty much exclusive to FF5 before the offshoots, and the only reason that job command exists was because Sakaguchi & Co needed a gimmick to get players to level and master RDM (considering Dualcast + Black Magic or Summons was a popular setup, it was a strong gimmick but one that RDM benefited the least from).

Why should that matter? It's become enough of a staple for the job identity since that we use it here. Given the complete dearth of entries featuring the RDM between V and XI because of the inability to min-max exactly your hybrid fantasy, that's the most iconic ability to debut with the job. Without it, you would never have wanted a RDM versus a pure healer or pure damage-caster.

oversused "mage" argument

Was wondering where that would rear its ugly head.

Dismissively saying it's "oversused" [sic] doesn't actually invalidate the point being made. Or perhaps it never dawned that maybe the reason it's overused in your eyes is because this is the general consensus towards your argument, which you've otherwise made no effort to dismantle beyond thinly-veiled sass?

The point I was trying to make is that SE has provided several different job archetypes over the years, and while many of them have some degree of overlap or are straight-upgrades to one another, they've been surprisingly clear about the distinction between "Mage who uses both White and Black spells (but lower ranked, with other stats to compensate, including in melee areas)" versus "Knight who employs Combat Magic", particularly when the latter can just as well describe the NIN or SAM we have now.

[SaberMaxwell]

The context for the non-sequitor, mind, is his response to a similar comment about FFXI's RDM and I believe Refresh? It's one of those "change keywords and the subject of the sentiment changes although the sentiment itself does not" style of comments.