Quote Originally Posted by Wayfinder3 View Post
If we can get these, I’d enjoy RDM much more especially if the damage cap is closed. For 6.0, I’d also consider a bit of a redesign to truly capture that SpellBlade White magic support casting DPS identity that rdm was supposed to be. More melee, More white magic tools, more utility defensively and offensively. None of this needs to equate to RDM being the best caster/job, the job currently feels like a 2.0 BLM clone with a raise

Nitpicking but Remove the magic crystal medium, it’s ugly and I rather red mage shoot magic off the tip of the blade, not out of the crystal like some BLM clone.
Personally, I like RDM to be a caster. Don't get me wrong, I think leaving Checkov's Sword just lying there or relegating it to a generic burst timer is taboo at best (or, licence for execution for those less subtle) -- but, I think the point of the sword should be to make it a better caster, as paradoxical as that might sound.

BLM, for instance, is a caster with significant strengths and (until the last couple expansions) distinct weaknesses. RDM's strength as a caster should be that it has no distinct weaknesses. Its maximal, perfect, theoretical turret-fight rDPS, therefore, isn't quite BLM's, but there should be literally no way for any fight to deny a skilled RDM its contribution. Try to stop their mobility -- they've got the sword through which to channel magics. Force them out of melee range -- well, they're a caster... Try to force desync into their burst-phases -- they have plenty of means by which to realign it. Not because they're a "jack of all trades", per se, but because they're a master of a highly modular toolkit.

Its special benefit, rather than an above-average theoretical peak performance, is simply the byproducts of that toolkit: for instance, it happens, also, to be capable of healing, because healing is one other way for it to never be denied significant contribution. Healing will never be its primary mode of contribution -- but, even if you were to sap 90% of a RDM's damage away under some debuff phase affecting all DPS, it'd still be contributing via healer GCDs freed up in some significant fashion.

But that still leaves another wasted opportunity: at present RDM has access to 4 of the 6 elements, and easily could have access to 2 more for the full set, but if they continue to simply be pairings of the same concepts (combinations of 2 colors and 2 lengths each for B-L, W-L, B-F, W-F), that'd be even more bloated than what we already have.

I also happen to like the MCM, and would prefer that it have a bit more presence, actually, to -- similar to the sword -- make it worth its art assets.