RDM underperforming by the way of neglect

[darcstar62]

And so the monkey's paw started curling...

...which is exactly why I added my disclaimer about not being serious.

[Kalaam]

...which is exactly why I added my disclaimer about not being serious.

I know, but we both know this part is disregarded by the monkey xD

[FireMage]

Emphasis mine

This statement is why we are getting nowhere ITT - there are two different camps here. People that are running savage now are unhappy with RDM because it's not useful for early prog or for farming. For early prog, the raises aren't useful because deaths will prevent you from making the dps check. For farming, you don't need it because everyone should have the fight down and the rare deaths can be handled by a healer or SMN. The only place RDM excels in Savage is for late clearing groups (and maybe early prog just to try and see more of the fight), where their gear gives them enough cushion to survive the dps checks even if they have rez sickness.

The other group is people that play RDM for non-savage content, including EX's, particularly in PF. These fights also don't have big dps checks (and often don't even have enrages) so dying over and over isn't an issue, so the RDM's chain rez ability is great because it can save fights when people mess up or are just bad (particularly when your healers are dying over and over).

For group 1, RDM in its current form doesn't bring enough to the table, while for group 2, it's perfectly fine. I don't see any way to make both groups happy without adding some kind of new mechanic like "Rez Stance" (similar to the old cleric stance) where raising is only allowed in that stance but it penalizes your dps. (FWIW, I'm not being serious about adding this, I'm just trying to make a point that having a single job that satisfies both needs is going to be difficult.)

Yeah, but one camp knows what they're talking about, the other does not

[Kuroka]

Thank god RDM is at least a job Square Enix seems to understand well and has improved upon every expansion. They just need to buff all caster dps and we good.

Thank you, at least some sane voices....

[FireMage]

I don't understand what kind of self-respecting RDM wouldn't consider Embolden+Verraise+Vercure utility, but you are certainly living the dream huh. Oh, I guess according to you... Dancers and Bards aren't support either guys, they are just DPS! And healers are just glorified 1 button dps right? ... dude. Support jobs EXIST and they are within the dps role. Paladin is also a support focused tank (although badly implemented). It's not hard to understand. You are playing a job with strong support hating on it's support, and wishing it had the damage to compete with melees. That won't happen. Red Mage is an ALL AROUND DPS, so stop trying to discredit it's support which is a major part of it's gameplay.

Also, you are literally the only one here saying RDM should be higher than SMN in damage lol... that makes 0 sense. What they need is to fix the horrible job that is SMN right now.

Thank god RDM is at least a job Square Enix seems to understand well and has improved upon every expansion. They just need to buff all caster dps and we good.

EDIT: Please go look at RDM in the other FF games before anyone claims they should remove support abilities... it's not hard.... just type "Red Mage in ff games" or something in google and voila.

If you use Vercure to do anything but ready Dualcast in downtime in group content you are using it wrong. And RDM is not a spatula, it is a DPS. See that red around the Job icon? And there is no support role, it doesn't exist. rDPS buffs aren't support, they are the DPS of the person using them. It's clear you don't do high end content. And I've stated why SMN should be higher, and judging by the likes I'm getting...well, it's clear that others spoken on the matter by proxy

[Azuri]

I don't understand what kind of self-respecting RDM wouldn't consider Embolden+Verraise+Vercure utility, but you are certainly living the dream huh. Oh, I guess according to you... Dancers and Bards aren't support either guys, they are just DPS! And healers are just glorified 1 button dps right? ... dude. Support jobs EXIST and they are within the dps role. Paladin is also a support focused tank (although badly implemented). It's not hard to understand. You are playing a job with strong support hating on it's support, and wishing it had the damage to compete with melees. That won't happen. Red Mage is an ALL AROUND DPS, so stop trying to discredit it's support which is a major part of it's gameplay.

Also, you are literally the only one here saying RDM should be higher than SMN in damage lol... that makes 0 sense. What they need is to fix the horrible job that is SMN right now.

Thank god RDM is at least a job Square Enix seems to understand well and has improved upon every expansion. They just need to buff all caster dps and we good.

EDIT: Please go look at RDM in the other FF games before anyone claims they should remove support abilities... it's not hard.... just type "Red Mage in ff games" or something in google and voila.

A) Making a job complete trashcan tier within design realities of a given game for the sake of lore is asinine. Support jobs do not exist in this game anymore. "Support" is a derogatory word that describes lesser jobs that are objectively worse than non-support counterparts. Oh, but they get a worthless gimmick that has literally zero objective usefulness and only makes the clueless casual think that they are bringing something to the group.

B) "I don't understand what kind of self-respecting RDM wouldn't consider sitting below SMN an acceptable state." Well, actually, I do - the kind who has no clue how to play the job well.

C) You know what SE has done to RDM since the pretty tragic state of the job in Stormblood? Added damage spells. Who would have guessed...

D) Explain one thing to me. Sage.

[Almandaragal]

The WHOLE POINT of RDM is being able to chain res and offer support (shield+damage+heal), while doing decent damage IN ANY CONTENT, not just world first savage raiding. You might be playing the wrong job if you think otherwise

It appears that someone actually didn't pay any attention to any of the quests or FFXIV version of RDM lore, if you actually think the "whole point" of RDM is to be a WHM lite. The "whole point" is to be a balance of white and black magic, and from lore perspective, do it in a way that's coming from your personal aether, not the surroundings. It is, as has been mentioned, a DPS class. The fact that it uses some white magic doesn't change this; we're all aware that white magic can be used for offense.

So, to break RDM down to literally just the meme of Rez Mage is oversimplifying what the job is, doesn't do it justice, and is largely just an attempt at distraction from the actual issue. That issue being that the utility that RDM brings is not of enough value in high level play to make up for the current damage deficit we experience (particularly felt with the recent tank/crit buffs benefiting nearly every other job at some level).

Oh, but they get a worthless gimmick that has literally zero objective usefulness and only makes the clueless casual think that they are bringing something to the group.

As much wrong stuff as the other person was spouting, this is pretty douchey, to be honest. Not to mention factually wrong in your attempt at emphasis considering the number of dungeons and raids I've salvaged with that "worthless gimmick". But hey, I'm just a clueless casual right? Even though I can recognize that said utility is not nearly as valuable in properly high level play as the damage RDM is behind by?

Let's maybe not spit on the majority of the playerbase because one random player doesn't seem to understand that the value of non-damage utility is far lower in Savage where runs need to be essentially clean this early in the tier. It diminishes the rest of your points to many people when you can't aim your criticism properly.

-----------------------------------

That stuff aside,

As one of those filthy casuals, I actually enjoy how RDM plays a lot, honestly. I like my little attack boost, I like optional if almost always useless cure (because when it's not, it's fun to pull off). I like my raise, even if it's only useful in casual content. You know, what something like 85% of the players engage with for the vast majority of their play time. I like my magic barrier that helps healers top us off afterwards. I like that I have some mobility, but I still know that I'm playing a Caster. The job is engaging for me, but not so complex that I don't want to play it when I'm tired after a particularly long day of work. I can be useful in a number of ways, even if those ways often are simply making up for deficiencies in performance in casual content.

What I don't like, however, is that now a well geared tank with a decent player is going to do similar damage in a dungeon to a decently geared decent playing RDM. One is supposed to be a DPS class, one a tank, yet SE apparently forgot to buff the DPS classes that weren't going to be affected by the crit/direct hit stuff, so now they're less useful. I don't like that there's a similar disparity to SMN, where you'd have to be a notably better geared, definitely better RDM player just to do similar damage to a decently geared, decent playing SMN. Especially when SMN has more in common mobility wise with MCH than RDM anymore.

One more thing I don't like? That those who play RDM at actually good levels of play are getting even more left behind than those of us at a casual level. They're being taxed for a res that isn't of notable use this early in the tier when gear is so tight, and for mobility that they are by no close means the highest beneficiaries of anymore.

All in all, I enjoy the "casual friendly" design of the job. It has added complexity for those who can squeeze it out, but I prefer it largely as is. However, given changes to other jobs that have improved them, RDM needs some small buffs to bring it back to the playing field.

[Atmaweapon510]

There's plenty of times in the past where Summoner didn't pay any sort of rez tax, scapegoating raise as the problem conveniently overlooks the fact that unlike BLM, MCH is constantly getting beaten out by its higher utility peers in rdps despite being the only class in the game with ZERO unique utility, nothing that helps others, and nothing that helps themselves. Obviously there's other things at play than utility when it comes to how the devs are balancing things.

Right now, the problem seems to be that SQEX is balancing around ease of play, including both people playing the hardcore content (Savage and Ultimate) and people playing more casual content (Alliance Raids and Trials). It's not uncommon to see Machinist crushing the competition early on when no one knows how to optimize fights, yet the devs seem to factor this early dominance into their balancing, thus making the "easy" jobs fall behind ridiculously hard compared to the harder ones once fights are learned.

[Lustre]

I changed my mind, it does need looking at but mainly just potency increases. I'd rather they didnt change the job too much cause it's still really fun to play.

[Aikaal]

Right now the P8S fight is just toxic on casters. It's not just RDM underperforming. I personally feel SMN is also underperforming. Overall, they need to fix casters in general. It's just unacceptable that melee DPS have 10% more DPS than casters. BLM is likely to lack behind because movement is actually a pain this tier and I feel SMN is better only because movement is a thing.

I just find it obnoxious and unacceptable that both SMN and RDM are doing significantly worst DPS because of the "res tax" when my static is literally telling me to use swiftcast on DPS to beat the door boss enrage timer.

But the bigger picture is that Endwalker is the worst expansion in term of balance. RPRs are behind melees. MCH is just dead and do worst than other ranged phys. SMN/RDM get spots because in prog they have res. That'll be quickly removed on speed clears because BLM is still better. WAR/PLD are just really sad right now. But it's fine; lets tweak Samurai and invest all the time on DRG rework that we didn't put because they didn't consider the community would be really angry about removing Kaiten. Completely ignoring more basic and urgent issues.

If SE didn't forced having a caster and phys ranged, we'd run quad melee comps :<