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

[Jirah]

Agreed! I love the spellsword concept but red mage feels like more spell than sword. And Red Mage is really boring to play because how easy it is maybe more sword play can give it more flare.

[SpeckledBurd]

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

Having a caster that needs to go into melee range for a substantial period of time (longer than the 3-4 seconds it does now) is absolutely a huge drawback. If there's a greater ratio of time spent in melee to being ranged, then a Red Mage is inherently going to start running into mechanics where it'll need to be positioned at a range while the melee need to be on the boss, but RDM needs to be doing a melee phase. Mechanics like that are also all fairly common such as Fire 3's in ExFaust/Neo Exdeath, Optimized Fire 3's in O12S, meteors in E2S, Words of Unity and Entrapment in E7S, Ultimate Living Liquids proteans, and basically everything about the positioning of BJ/CC. Compared to a Black Mage or a Summoner that only need to worry about pre-positioning for most of that, it would be an enormous handicap to need additional melee uptime.

Red Mage also doesn't/shouldn't have a "Ranged Tax" anyway, that refers to the physical ranged completely free movement. Red Mage has cast times which limit extended movement, its real penalty is getting overpenalized for a rez (or Summoner being underpenalized).

[MirronTulaxia]

Red Mage is a caster DPS. Ultimately it should stick with that. While I would be all for a melee magic role it's far too late for that to be a plausible option. So as is it should stick to ranged. Honestly I would rather they just discharge from range too, but not like I expect that to catch on.

[Tlamila]

No. it's already hard as it is to time the melee combo right in hard encounters, especially those where you need to stay at distance for some time cause mechanics/boss disappears/etc, and as others have said it's a caster. We already have 4 melee, let casters be casters.
Just like ninja is a melee with some ranged spells but mostly melee, except of course a melee doesn't need to change range for that, it's just an uptime plus, while for rdm it would be an uptime minus, and mudras don't have cast time either.

I love playing melee but there's a reason why my main is RDM and not a melee.

[Duelle]

RDM is first and foremost ranged caster. Current design is completely fine. What we need is separate "spellsword/spellblade" job.

The two are not mutually exclusive. RDM could be given more melee options and sword use in regular gameplay while still making it possible to add a spellblade/mystic knight job. Right now the job is basically a caster with a decorative sword, which is a far cry from where the original hybrid of the FF series should be.

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.

I won't disagree with the overhaul part, because as is the job was built on mechanics made for a caster (also why I say that removing the sword would hardly be felt from a mechanics perspective). Adding combos or extra buttons won't do much unless you have them stand in for Jolt => Verspell spam in some capacity.

That said, a suggestion off the top of my head would be an oGCD skill that would share a cooldown with Fleche but be melee range. It would interact with Verfire/Verstone Ready, generate mana while consuming the effect and dealing more damage. This way you have this melee oGCD skill when in melee range, but still have Fleche in case you're not near the target for whatever reason. Melee additions would have to be along those lines if you want to keep the rest of the design intact.

[MirronTulaxia]

The two are not mutually exclusive. RDM could be given more melee options and sword use in regular gameplay while still making it possible to add a spellblade/mystic knight job. Right now the job is basically a caster with a decorative sword, which is a far cry from where the original hybrid of the FF series should be.

I won't disagree with the overhaul part, because as is the job was built on mechanics made for a caster (also why I say that removing the sword would hardly be felt from a mechanics perspective). Adding combos or extra buttons won't do much unless you have them stand in for Jolt => Verspell spam in some capacity.

That said, a suggestion off the top of my head would be an oGCD skill that would share a cooldown with Fleche but be melee range. It would interact with Verfire/Verstone Ready, generate mana while consuming the effect and dealing more damage. This way you have this melee oGCD skill when in melee range, but still have Fleche in case you're not near the target for whatever reason. Melee additions would have to be along those lines if you want to keep the rest of the design intact.

Red Mages in FF proper are a three way hybrid. That... isn't going to happen. It's not going to use Black Magic, White Magic, and Melee in equal amounts. What you got was a job that was basically leaning towards Black Mage with some aesthetics of the latter two. And honestly that's the only way it can be in this kind of system. The ratio can't, and really shouldn't, be a 1:1:1 thing. And honestly in FF Red Mages are really poorly balanced too so it's for the best that they didn't try to push that. Though I suppose they could have traded places with Blue Mage and then do all roles.

[Duelle]

Red Mages in FF proper are a three way hybrid. That... isn't going to happen. It's not going to use Black Magic, White Magic, and Melee in equal amounts. What you got was a job that was basically leaning towards Black Mage with some aesthetics of the latter two. And honestly that's the only way it can be in this kind of system. The ratio can't, and really shouldn't, be a 1:1:1 thing. And honestly in FF Red Mages are really poorly balanced too so it's for the best that they didn't try to push that. Though I suppose they could have traded places with Blue Mage and then do all roles.

I never said anything about doing multiple roles. The logical thing to do with a hybrid like RDM is let them stand in the front lines, using their sword and spells in tandem. Instead we got BLM -1 that jumps around like an idiot (which from my limited experience is disregarded since most groups just have everyone stack behind the mob). Expecting the sword to be more than just a decoration isn't outlandish by any stretch of the imagination.

What irks me from a design perspective is that the devs felt that Dualcast (a gimmick added in Final Fantasy V) was more important than RDM's sword & spell hybrid origins, to the point they used a system that better fits the Sage job as the foundation for their design. Seriously, if you remove the sword skills and change the job's name to Sage, everything else fits in almost perfectly. Including the spell selection and mana bars. A sage that lives in seclusion and managed to avoid the Garleans during Ala Mhigo's occupation even fits better within Stormblood's theme than a bunch of randoms that learned stuff from upside down pyramids.

[MirronTulaxia]

Multiple roles in the sense of Melee DPS being different from Caster, you are suggesting that. They're two different styles of DPS, and along with Healer of the five categories we have they complete Red Mages. Red Mages are hybrids that are extremely mediocre generally because of this. As is they kept it relatively focused and added a little bit of a flair to them.

And while Dualcast is added in FFV that's only two games previously with Red Mages, not exactly a large number. And Dualcast helped solidify Red Mages as being speedy casters, along with the weakness in terms of spell strength. So it's very much a defining part of the job.

As for Sage versus Red Mage, the two are very similar in a lot of ways so it's hardly surprising that you could rework Red Mage to be like Sage. Though even then, you're talking about removing eight different moves which is a decent amount, and Sages are more known for being... well, slow and heavy spellcasters, not quick and speedy like Red Mages. So you'd have to make more changes than just chucking the sword skills.

Edit: In terms of Red Mage throughout the series, I'm not sure how important the swordplay element really wound up being. It's an aspect, but most of their gimmick has been speedy spellcasting I would argue. The sword is leaning more towards being enchanted (which is what we already have here), and is mostly a means to round out their kit a bit. But honestly Red Mages are kind of a mess in the main series.

[BasicBlake]

Multiple roles in the sense of Melee DPS being different from Caster, you are suggesting that. They're two different styles of DPS, and along with Healer of the five categories we have they complete Red Mages. Red Mages are hybrids that are extremely mediocre generally because of this. As is they kept it relatively focused and added a little bit of a flair to them.

And while Dualcast is added in FFV that's only two games previously with Red Mages, not exactly a large number. And Dualcast helped solidify Red Mages as being speedy casters, along with the weakness in terms of spell strength. So it's very much a defining part of the job.

As for Sage versus Red Mage, the two are very similar in a lot of ways so it's hardly surprising that you could rework Red Mage to be like Sage. Though even then, you're talking about removing eight different moves which is a decent amount, and Sages are more known for being... well, slow and heavy spellcasters, not quick and speedy like Red Mages. So you'd have to make more changes than just chucking the sword skills.

Edit: In terms of Red Mage throughout the series, I'm not sure how important the swordplay element really wound up being. It's an aspect, but most of their gimmick has been speedy spellcasting I would argue. The sword is leaning more towards being enchanted (which is what we already have here), and is mostly a means to round out their kit a bit. But honestly Red Mages are kind of a mess in the main series.

You have pretty much summed up everything I have ever tried to explain to anyone about red mage. As much as people are wanting it to be some front line caster melee, where do we have a precedent for it? Old rpgs where everyone stands in a line and takes turns using abilities, no set distances from people. And while sturdier and able to use blades, their whole shtick changed over time to quick casting duelists. The class evolved. I also feel like this iteration of red mage is pretty great when it comes to options we could have gotten, opposed to XI where all you did was cycle buffs and debuffs. We have our spells, our hats, our quick casting, and nimble fast abilities to get in and out of melee range to use and enchanted sword for a bit.

Also with adding in more melee stuff that sounds like a nightmare to keep up with safely in a raid environment. I'm already trying to pre position for the next ranged mechanic and getting another melee combo in before the next invuln/phase where I cannot physically do it.

[Klaleara]

Not sure why everyone is making it sound like we want RDM just in melee, or even half.

Currently, on average, without the use of manafication. We are in melee about 6-7% of the time. I'd personally like to see it around 10%. Still heavily casting, but also we get to do our class mechanic more often, and allows us to use our level 68+ abilities more often. It just happens too rarely imo. Like I said before, if Manafication CD was reduced to allow the use of it every other engage, I think it would be great.

Also, the class is already considered to be one of (If not THE) easiest classes to play in the game. Is it really so bad that a bit of extra difficulty is added to it?

Red Mage is also not the first hybrid to grace itself in the MMO world, plenty of others have managed to do it and survive quite well within high level raid conditions.