I'd like more sword play from RDM in the future, melee and ranged

[Claire_Pendragon]

while I wanted a 50-50 or 60-40 melee-casting ratio back in the day, I know adding more melee options just wont happen. (And why that is), but there is a happy middle ground for everyone involved, that im a 100% certain SE would never do. (I doubt the system could even do it anyways) Keep the rotation identical to how it is now, and how RDM functions. Then, additionally, w/o changing any of what I just said, make it so the game recognizes if you're in melee range, or distant, and changes the animation of 'single target' 'dual-casted' 'DPS spells' into 'melee enhanced animations' as long as you're in melee range, auto attacking the boss/enemy. So if you dualcasted Veraero, or Verthunder, you get an aero blade/thunder blade. (This would ideally apply to even messed up jolt/stone/fire, but thats extra animations im sure SE doesnt want to do. This also applies to Swift-Casted spells.) If you run out of melee range, or stop auto attacking the boss, it shows the current casted spell animation.

[Sylvain]

While I understand why you would want something like this, as Cetek14 said, RDM is first and foremost, a caster.
You can argue wether it is fine or not, but I don't see RDM getting any more meaninful melee skills.

As we've seen with Shadowbringer, some jobs got very minor upgrade (not especially numerically but more in term of addition to the core rotation).
Job with an already strong core kit got very little, nothing fancy enough to change the way the job is played.

RDM is part of these job, in essence nothing change since SB. You have the exact same rotation with just an extra button after your Ver-Holy/Flare. Reprise is too situational to be considered as part of the core rotation. (it is usefull for long movement tho)
We didn't even get the highly anticipated Ver-Water/Freeze!

In order to satisfy your desire of having the redmage more "hybrid"(let say 50/50 melee/caster), the job would need to go through an extensive overhaul. Simply increasing the mana gain per spell won't cut it as I'm assuming you want more than spamming the same melee combo backtoback twice as often.
And I don't see that happening. The job is very popular and beside an extra melee skill on a long CD or some sort of more elaborate moulinet, I don't see them adding enough melee skill.

[SpeckledBurd]

While I understand why you would want something like this, as Cetek14 said, RDM is first and foremost, a caster.
You can argue wether it is fine or not, but I don't see RDM getting any more meaninful melee skills.

As we've seen with Shadowbringer, some jobs got very minor upgrade (not especially numerically but more in term of addition to the core rotation).
Job with an already strong core kit got very little, nothing fancy enough to change the way the job is played.

RDM is part of these job, in essence nothing change since SB. You have the exact same rotation with just an extra button after your Ver-Holy/Flare. Reprise is too situational to be considered as part of the core rotation. (it is usefull for long movement tho)
We didn't even get the highly anticipated Ver-Water/Freeze!

In order to satisfy your desire of having the redmage more "hybrid"(let say 50/50 melee/caster), the job would need to go through an extensive overhaul. Simply increasing the mana gain per spell won't cut it as I'm assuming you want more than spamming the same melee combo backtoback twice as often.
And I don't see that happening. The job is very popular and beside an extra melee skill on a long CD or some sort of more elaborate moulinet, I don't see them adding enough melee skill.

The big problem with Red Mage having a greater amount of Melee time beyond the obvious "Red Mage is a caster DPS not a melee", or the amount of time that would take for an overhaul is that any additional time spent in Melee range will force it to compete with actual Melee jobs for uptime. Right now the Melee combo is so quick that it's unobtrusive for the flavor it adds, but more than what Red Mage currently does and there's likely to be problems.

More Melee options could be added in the form of more combos with the same activation requirements though. You'd still have the Enchanted Riposte>Zwerchau>Redoublement combo, which would give you a status that would alter your next Melee combo into something like: Enchanted Ballestra>Botta Drita>Stromacione (obviously could be named something else, I just grabbed a bunch of terms from Italian Sword treatises). They might need to fold each combo together into a single progressing combo button akin to a PVP combo for bar space, or just have the Redoublement combo upgrade into the Stromacione combo equivalents when under the effects, but that would add more Melee flavor without creating positioning or gameplay flow issues.

As for not getting any huge additions, I'd say most jobs really didn't really change from their playstyle in Stormblood. Red Mage got some utility skills to help with mobility and positioning, and it's shiny big new thing was a secondary Finisher that follows up your first finisher. That's about on par with what every other job got barring Summoner, Ninja and Machinist. the latter two which were unplayable on launch from their additions and the former which was basically a whole new job.

Besides Red Mage could have it worse, most people enjoyed Red Mage in Stormblood and it's gameplay loop is still satisfying. It's not like Monk which was despised in Stormblood and they just rereleased that version but with less rotational skills and not even a new finisher addition while spending months saying they were taking feedback.

[Mindiori]

'Ranged casting' category aside, what makes me giggle philosophically is the idea that if the Red mage were to fling the sword into battle for a fixed potency (remaining at a distance), or accompanying said sword by flying in behind it - the net result beyond aesthetics is effectively the same. Sans ofcourse exposing your physical self to damage, which can always be lessened by iframes. I find it hard to believe that a compromise can't be found, as simply arguing difference on semantics alone is a bit asinine. The RM clearly has the potential to engage at various ranges and various posters argue around the forums that 'if you could, most people would'. Seems a straight enough line of thinking. Having an additional option to engage in the 'style' of melee, even if not in the exact same vein as a melee job shouldn't be out of the question, short of people being unable to think out of the box. If RM was 'nothing but' a ranged individual who essentially never closes distance, said person should never have bothered with a sword to begin with lol.

[Saefinn]

I think to have the melee combo more often could be the satisfying solution rather than a longer combo. RDM plays and flows well as is, but it could break up the magic phase a bit more, as it can get a little repetitive and as a solution I think would be inoffensive to its design. Maybe spells generate gauge quicker and that's the only change needed.

Get more melee, break up what can sometimes be the "same-y-ness" of the magic rotation more.

[ReiMakoto]

Having rdm go into melee more often could be a very good way of balancing it to have a higher dps, essentially cutting its "range tax" down by forcing it to be not at range more. Its not like theres any inherent negative to a caster being in melee range, when you're raiding thats where they should be unless mechanics say otherwise anyway, so all this chat of "having a caster in melee defeats the point" is nonsense, its not like you're more likely to be hit if youre in melee range or something, outside of specific mechanics which you would know about

[Klaleara]

I think to have the melee combo more often could be the satisfying solution rather than a longer combo. RDM plays and flows well as is, but it could break up the magic phase a bit more, as it can get a little repetitive and as a solution I think would be inoffensive to its design. Maybe spells generate gauge quicker and that's the only change needed.

Get more melee, break up what can sometimes be the "same-y-ness" of the magic rotation more.

I'm only going into Stormblood now, so I don't have cap. But I'd say reducing Manafication (Or whatever) to 60 seconds instead of 120 seconds. That would allow us to only need 40 b/w mana every other engage or so? I'd think that sounds about right. I'd be totally fine with that amount of diving in. It would also increase the skill cap a slight amount.

Granted it doesn't resolve my other issue, in how I NEVER go into melee in dungeons unless its a boss. I always fear I won't have enough time to get it back up before we start the next boss. For a main mechanic, that seems like bad design.

[Claire_Pendragon]

only need 40 b/w mana

unless it changed from SB (it might have, due to the 5% DPS increase from manafication) ideally you want to be closer to 49/50. (I forget the exact number, but u get the idea with 49/50) every point of mana you lose, is DPS lost. so doubling at 40/40 loses more than doubling at 48/50 for example.
while you do lose some DPS leaving manafication up, it usually lines up to be ready when u have enough mana. (I havent bothered looking into ShB info regarding the RDM min/max, so if this out of date, let me know, otherwise its something to consider)

[Sylvain]

The big snip.

Well I could see that happen and I would rather see that than 'what the op requested as I agree with you,.

Just wondering, no one else was surprised/disappointed that scorch doesn't require us to swap between verholy and verflare?
It's really something that bothers me, the whole kit revolves around 'balancing black n white mana' and... Well you can just use wathever finisher you prefer so long as you align enough mp (and even if u don't care the dps loss from the proc isn't really punishing )

I really thought back then that they would actually put a new rotation requirement revolving around swapping between verholy/flare.

But nope

[Klaleara]

Well I could see that happen and I would rather see that than 'what the op requested as I agree with you,.

Just wondering, no one else was surprised/disappointed that scorch doesn't require us to swap between verholy and verflare?
It's really something that bothers me, the whole kit revolves around 'balancing black n white mana' and... Well you can just use wathever finisher you prefer so long as you align enough mp (and even if u don't care the dps loss from the proc isn't really punishing )

I really thought back then that they would actually put a new rotation requirement revolving around swapping between verholy/flare.

But nope

Yeah but how often do we even use verholy/flare? Its such a huge gap between them, to try and force them to be swapped would be awkward.

Imo, in order try try and make swapping part of the rotation requirement, we'd have to go into melee more often.