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.

[Silverquick]

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.

Well, the reason I bring this up is because there is actually more potential for melee side of RDM and NOT just as a turret, but all of it is tied to the Mana Guage.

While I gave one example above in the things I was talking about regarding the Super Combo of Melee + VerFlare/VerHoly... there's more than that.

While I realize the focus tends to be on Raid damage, the Red Mage has very good potential for melee damage in other circumstances. When we are talking about plain old clearing dungeon trash. While just sitting back and using Scatter + Ver II, much like Summoner he's actually really good at AoE... but there's a trick to it... you have to CaC + Enchanted Moulenet when they start getting down to half to finish them off quick (which it does do).... IF you can manage to build up the Mana Guage to 60.

But again all of those melee related options cannot happen unless the Mana Guage fills up faster.

[Leidiriv]

Well, the reason I bring this up is because there is actually more potential for melee side of RDM and NOT just as a turret, but all of it is tied to the Mana Guage.

While I gave one example above in the things I was talking about regarding the Super Combo of Melee + VerFlare/VerHoly... there's more than that.

While I realize the focus tends to be on Raid damage, the Red Mage has very good potential for melee damage in other circumstances. When we are talking about plain old clearing dungeon trash. While just sitting back and using Scatter + Ver II, much like Summoner he's actually really good at AoE... but there's a trick to it... you have to CaC + Enchanted Moulenet when they start getting down to half to finish them off quick (which it does do).... IF you can manage to build up the Mana Guage to 60.

But again all of those melee related options cannot happen unless the Mana Guage fills up faster.

So... Red Mage's damage is good if you use your actions right? Color me surprised.

Additionally, 3 Moulinets is weak compared to the true potential of RDM's AoE. Build up to 90/90 on the first pack, go into the second pack, pop Embolden, use 2 Moulinets, Manafication, then 5 more Moulinets and a Swiftcast Impact. Enemies just melt when you do that.

[Silverquick]

So... Red Mage's damage is good if you use your actions right? Color me surprised.

Additionally, 3 Moulinets is weak compared to the true potential of RDM's AoE. Build up to 90/90 on the first pack, go into the second pack, pop Embolden, use 2 Moulinets, Manafication, then 5 more Moulinets and a Swiftcast Impact. Enemies just melt when you do that.

That wasn't really my point no, the point is the complete opposite... that because the guage doesn't fill fast enough your melee options become a little too limited, because they're linked to the guage, ergo, the real solution for RDM is to adjust how fast the guage fills not necessarily Potency increases.

And what you just brought up gets into the Supercombos that I described before so a little out of scope for what I was talking about... still that's a great combo move.

I am talking just the ability to purely use Melee and Spells in combination more frequently as Duelle is talking about so you don't just end up as an RDM Turret as Duelle is claiming.

Because honestly as both you and I demonstrated, the capability for a Red Mage to be very flexible is indeed in there... but get locked into play due to not enough leeway on the Limit Guage.

[Gruntler]

That wasn't really my point no, the point is the complete opposite... that because the guage doesn't fill fast enough your melee options become a little too limited, because they're linked to the guage, ergo, the real solution for RDM is to adjust how fast the guage fills not necessarily Potency increases.

And what you just brought up gets into the Supercombos that I described before so a little out of scope for what I was talking about... still that's a great combo move.

I am talking just the ability to purely use Melee and Spells in combination more frequently as Duelle is talking about so you don't just end up as an RDM Turret as Duelle is claiming.

Because honestly as both you and I demonstrated, the capability for a Red Mage to be very flexible is indeed in there... but get locked into play due to not enough leeway on the Limit Guage.

It takes the same amount of gcds to get enough mana to use an Enchanted Moulli in Shadowbringers as it did in Stormblood.

[Duelle]

Well, the reason I bring this up is because there is actually more potential for melee side of RDM and NOT just as a turret, but all of it is tied to the Mana Gauge.

While I gave one example above in the things I was talking about regarding the Super Combo of Melee + VerFlare/VerHoly... there's more than that.

While I realize the focus tends to be on Raid damage, the Red Mage has very good potential for melee damage in other circumstances. When we are talking about plain old clearing dungeon trash. While just sitting back and using Scatter + Ver II, much like Summoner he's actually really good at AoE... but there's a trick to it... you have to CaC + Enchanted Moulenet when they start getting down to half to finish them off quick (which it does do).... IF you can manage to build up the Mana Guage to 60.

But again all of those melee related options cannot happen unless the Mana Guage fills up faster.

To an extent, I agree with what you're saying. You want increased mana gains to make use of melee more frequent, which is a commendable intention. Barring a complete overhaul of how the job plays, that probably is the best we can hope for.

That said, there's a couple of things to keep in mind. As I said, the mana values of most spells are what they are for a reason. Assuming you're not banking Verfire/Verstone Ready when you hit 80/80, mana gains from melee combo => Verholy/Verflare puts you within a couple of points from going beyond the balance threshold between white and black mana. You'd have to increase the threshold or remove it entirely because otherwise you might end up unbalanced either after the melee combo or during regular gameplay.

Additionally, increasing melee combo frequency means you might need to nerf the enchanted weaponskills, though this depends on how much you're increasing melee frequency (along with how that affects overall DPS output) and where the devs want RDM to be compared to other jobs. It'd be an interesting experiment to see what would happen if you increased Jolt to something like 5 mana, Veraero/Verthunder to 13, Verfire/Verstone to 11, and Scorch to 10.

This is slightly unrelated, but AoE could be further supplemented by having Moulinet interact with Impact, which in turn could help RDM in AoE situations while also playing into my wish of seeing sword skills and spells used together. An idea I had (admittedly meant for my RDM writeup) was for Moulinet to grant a buff that makes Impact to deal slightly more damage (15-20 potency increase at most) and reduces its GCD to 1.5s, but prevents it from generating mana. So the AoE rotation would be alternating between Moulinet and buffed Impact until you run out of mana. The only downsides I see are that AoE rotations would be longer and it might end up being a bit too powerful (since you're doubling the length of the AoE burst phase).