Red Mage "better"??

[Duelle]

ingame it seems like I am the only Red Mage fan

I don't think we'd be having any of these discussions if we weren't fans of the job. Being a fan of something does not mean you have to absolutely love everything about it nor does it make the object of fandom exempt from criticism.

If you're happy with where the job currently is, more power to you, but it does not invalidate anyone who has problems with the design or sees issues that need to be ironed out.

We finally stepped up our profession and don't borrow skills like before (Ver[skill])

Attaching a prefix to spell names doesn't do much to negate that RDM is still borrowing spells from other jobs, which is something that has come with the territory since the beginning. As such, I wouldn't disdain at the idea of RDM borrowing things from other jobs.

That said, modern hybrids combine their different aspects through mechanics or interactions between said aspects. In that regard, RDM has yet to "step up", as even the FFXIV RDM segregates sword from spell instead of having the job use them in tandem.

our sword - the Rapier - is finally a real blade

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

I hear that we "need more damage" or "more mobility" or "getting Vercure removed in favour of damage". Stuff like this makes me die inside because that would not only be wrong, but also just means those players are free to change their profession instead of forcing RDM to be something it was never was.

Keep in mind that RDM is classified as DPS. The primary role of DPS and what largely justifies their presence in a group is their contributions in making the peoples fall down. This is true even for DPS hybrids.

Also, you can't blame people that ask for the removal of Vercure and such when the developers themselves seem to use utility as a reason for letting RDM trail behind as it did before 5.1. When utility starts to get in the way of a job's primary role (intentionally or unintentionally), the expected reaction would be to ask for a change in utility so that the primary role can be buffed to compensate for that loss. Whether it is the only way to address the issue is an entirely different matter.

Duelle for example, says in his signature that we are supposed to have more melee, but that would require us to have more defensive stats or health but we are still mages, so I think it makes sense to have a short melee phase.

Something you and the "mage" argument people tend to miss is that you can't look at a hybrid that is part warrior, part black mage, and part white mage in the same light as your run-of-the-mill squishy caster.

If we go by prior incarnations of the job, RDM trades magical power for the ability to be a little hardier than your average BLM or WHM and have melee at their disposal.

Statwise the job is locked into "of Casting" gear, which I acknowledge is a problem because of HP and Defense gains from gear. Hence why I used to suggest putting RDM on Aiming or Striking/Maiming gear instead of Casting. Since that ship has sailed, I'd suggest adjusting something under the hood (read: native HP and defense scaling/multipliers), though that has its own risks.

Rapier duels are quick, it's a charge at the enemy and then attacking swiftly

Rapier duels also include binds, a lot of footwork/dodging and end in one-hit kills (generally speaking; takes a while for a person to bleed out from a rapier wound). None of which apply to combat in-game, so you're stretching things a bit there.

I'm not sure why'd you bring up duels, since the job's gameplay is very far removed from them. Specially since the job was designed to spam magic from a distance until hitting an arbitrary point that then allows use the sword.

The last time I did the math, we had 70% Magic and 30% Close-Quarters combat in terms of potency. I think that's not quite a turret.

As I said before, prior to Scorch and the changes to Acceleration, RDM gameplay comprised of 18 GCDs spamming spells vs 3 GCDs swinging a sword. It's still a far cry from where it needs to be for me to change my signature.

Then I read about damage. As said: About 9% difference to BLM according to those FFLogs from before. If it gets less, people would question why they would choose BLM then except for aesthetics.

Faster kills, for one. For two that if your group knows what they're doing (which is the case for raids/statics), things like Verraise see little to no use.

Well I do have to give summoners a break here... every expansion at the outset they get nerfed hard... so bad they end up nearly at the bottom of the pile.

Part of the issue here is that SMN has seen some sort of big change in the direction it is taken between expansions. I've called it schizophrenic design in the past, and it seems have become a tradition for SMN at this point.

I don't think the Potency Increase was the real solution here... but the Guage filling faster to do more of the Red Mage version of the Super Combo is the solution the way the Summoner is able to is the solution. Like a much shorter CD on Manafication.

While I can see this, it would require messing with all aspects of how white/black mana are generated, which is tricky since the mana values for most spells are set at very specific numbers for a reason.