Red Mage has been shafted all expansion and "but Verraise" doesn't cut it

[Raikai]

NO IT NEEDS THAT!!!! How else am i going to move fast in cities???

.... ....... By swapping to SCH and using Expedient, of course!

On the topic, maybe a good way to address RDM's niche was to make it way more support oriented like DNC and BRD, but maintaining a damage debuff on the boss instead of buffing the party. But then, it was almost Ninja's role with the previous iteration of Trick Attack... unless they somehow revert the 2min meta.

[SaberMaxwell]

Hasteaga while reworking combat so that Haste is a strict DPS buff on every job.

While we're in the realm of ground-up reworks of the very bones of the combat system, add a fourth "Synergist" role, dump BRD, NIN and DNC in there, give them between dps and tank level damage and instead give them abilities to facilitate better damage like expedient/feint+addle/haste/embolden/healing up/support healing/etc.

Or better, redesign rdm ground up to be a healer. People gush over verraise anyway, and healers are better positioned to be supports in XIV anyway. Not to mention XIV healers *do* dabble in a little of both damage and healing.

Short of that, the class fantasy of jack of all trades, master of none, surely sucks worse than a master of one doesn't work in XIV and instead they should just accept that it is a dps and, like every other dps in the game, should be known for "doing a lot of damage."

[Raikai]

Short of that, the class fantasy of jack of all trades, master of none, surely sucks worse than a master of one doesn't work in XIV and instead they should just accept that it is a dps and, like every other dps in the game, should be known for "doing a lot of damage."

The sad part is that this is true - as much as the idea of an actual support role looks attractive for some people (I'm personally really drawn to it in other RPGs), there's no way it could work with XIV as it is.

They would have to redesign a lot of what they do for combat to accomodate it as a true meaningful role and they would have to work back on 5 old content packs (counting ARR) to make sure the game isn't a retroactive mess because of future changes. For that reason alone, I have little faith that it would happen, or heck, even something more urgent as to change damage profiles to make healers more interesting.

[vetch]

The sad part is that this is true - as much as the idea of an actual support role looks attractive for some people (I'm personally really drawn to it in other RPGs), there's no way it could work with XIV as it is.

They would have to redesign a lot of what they do for combat to accomodate it as a true meaningful role and they would have to work back on 5 old content packs (counting ARR) to make sure the game isn't a retroactive mess because of future changes. For that reason alone, I have little faith that it would happen, or heck, even something more urgent as to change damage profiles to make healers more interesting.

1) ARR and HW were designed when the game had support skills.

2) They don't redesign old content unless it's literally uncompleteable, in which case they go in and make the minimum required effort. Nor do they usually need to, with how much the potencies on base combos have been crept upwards.

ARR/HW raids were left largely untouched despite the huge shift in job kits except where a skill that was outright required for a mechanic was removed, despite those raids wanting different behaviors and skillsets from later raids (more tank positioning, different mitigation patterns, constant GCD healing). It's left as a challenge to the players to adapt to the different content styles, rather than put upon the developers to make sure all expansions play the same. Going back to a 'ShB/EW-style raid' after a new design shift would be no different.

[Semirhage]

Exactly. Give RDM "actual utility" instead of more damage. You don't play RDM to be known for damage. You play RDM to be a party buffer. That's its job identity since FF1.

That depends on how much combat design is willing to change. Because as things currently stand, I'd definitely take what, say, Monk has: basically as much utility as RDM has minus Verraise with the Meleewalker damage boost on top of it.

"Don't play RDM to be known for damage" yeah, sure, that works in a game where non-damage utility has more than the faintest of effects on combat, whereas FFXIV only cares about damage.

The melees+BLM doing way more damage than everyone else needs to be addressed.

[Mithron]

That depends on how much combat design is willing to change. Because as things currently stand, I'd definitely take what, say, Monk has: basically as much utility as RDM has minus Verraise with the Meleewalker damage boost on top of it.

"Don't play RDM to be known for damage" yeah, sure, that works in a game where non-damage utility has more than the faintest of effects on combat, whereas FFXIV only cares about damage.

The melees+BLM doing way more damage than everyone else needs to be addressed.

Well every job should be within 1% rDPS of each other within their roles, but you play RDM to do low aDPS and make up for with DPS buffs instead. A BLM should have the highest aDPS while a DNC have the lowest aDPS, but both should have ~1% difference in rDPS so clear time/speeds are the same regardless of what you play, so long as you play it well. Buffing RDM aDPS instead of giving them more DPS buffing abilities is not the job's identity or fantasy.

[Taranok]

Assuming there is no DNC in the group; if you ever did less DPS than a NIN or DRG as BLM, i don't think the problem is potencies somehow. The buff just means BLMs that know how to play now shoot way ahead of everything else, the buff SHOULD have gone to RDM, they just objectively need a buff, BLM was absolutely fine.

Just, transpose idk.

No, Black Mage needed the buff. The class was, and probably still is, hemorrhaging players. The devs just have this idea in their head that, if the class isn't being played, it probably needs more damage. And in the CDPS role, BLM is well behind RDM and especially SMN, in actual play count.

Don't take this as RDM shouldn't get buffs -- it absolutely should. But the problem is that neither is especially fun to play in Endwalker fight design, and it sucks having to suffer just to play your class, while also suffering with inexcusably low damage. BLM needs more attention as far as the devs might be concerned, but RDM also needs attention.

[SaberMaxwell]

Past two weeks across all of savage, fflogs shows ~32k RDM and ~26k BLM parses compared to ~55k SMN parses. Between BLM and RDM is MNK at 30k and below BLM is BRD at 22k(!). Looking at the available data, a range of 6,000 is not abnormal between jobs and is actually on the lower end discounting BRD being 14k (!!) below MCH and SMN nearly outdoing RDM *and* BLM combined.

This isn't even a recent trend; RDM and BLM saw similar proportions of usage numbers in TOP.

BLM is behind RDM but I wouldn't say it's "well" behind RDM, they have similar numbers because they face similar movement issues (note: I am not advocating for removal of movement issues or abundance of movement tools, keep casters casting it's what makes it fun). Both need attention but Red Mage has no actual niche anymore. Its not the prog mage: summoner beats it in every metric, even "rez spam" past what a summoner can do is useless, especially when most raises end up being needed during rdm's 2m burst thanks to jank fight design. Even BLM sees more early kills of fights than RDM despite the latter supposedly being "for prog."

All that said: poor BRD, ho-lee.

[Valence]

BRD makes no fucking sense to me besides that it's harder to optimize and pull off than the two other mindless rphys, perhaps. But there isn't even uptime excuses to be had unlike RDM/BLM.

[ChameleonMS]

What kind of utility? Mitigation/healing, or damage utility?

It would need to be damage utility to bring the rDPS up.

The following tweaks to Embolden are my ideas:
1. Increase % from 5 to whatever the math needs e.g. 7%
2. Actually last the length of a double melee window
To maximize the RDM damage you need to be able hit Verflare, Scorch, and Resolution twice in an Embolden window. This means trying fit 9 gcds in that window.
At 20 seconds, you can only fit 8 on 2.5 GCD, only BLM wants SpS. So, I would recommend 24 seconds

To help with RDM movement, remove the Black/White cost from Reprise.
Or, as others have suggested; increase Black/White mana gain so you will have more available for the movement requirements.

Another option is to lower embolden time to 12 seconds and significantly increase % damage.
Or, split the difference, 24 seconds length on self with 20 seconds for the party.