Red Mages: How do you feel about the symmetry of Black and White magic?

[Korbei]

I don't mind the gameplay flow of the white and black symmetry. It's a fairly simple and straight forward means of building up to that crescendo of the big melee combo/big boom. A little from column A, a little from column B. Repeat until boom, like an acid/base reaction. It's executed with appropriate style and I dig it.

I would kind of enjoy a forced alternation between Verflare and Verholy, like Summoner switches between Bahamut and Phoenix to force a swap between elements one rotation to the next.

I do take a bit of issue with the disingenuous use of the term "white" in the lore of the job in this game. It's all black magic.. let's be honest here. There's very little white magic to be found. It's just Vercure and Verraise. What we're really talking about here is light and dark... But that's how this game has decided to interpret the blend for practical purposes and I've come to terms with it.

[Jade_Tyrant]

Overall I think Red Mage is a solid and fun class, but the one thing about it that feels lackluster to me is the perfect symmetry between Black and White, where for every Black spell I have a White spell that is exactly the same, just that it generates white mana instead of black mana. And to me, that's a bit disappointing, as I wish the class defined by taking these two very different schools of magic and wielding them both was able to give each school a distinct personality, rather than simply framing it as Thunder and Fire being the polar opposites of Aero and Stone.

But that's just one player's opinion. How do the Red Mages in the audience feel?

Personally, I don't mind it at all. As a RDM main, I enjoy the equal balance of the white and black spells and how it works in the gameplay. It's a solid fun design for me.

I definitely can see how ideas for more imbalanced black and white magic spells would be interesting and fun in its own right, but I admittedly don't have much interest in them reworking the job to make that happen. I enjoy RDM greatly in its current state, and I don't want to lose a job I love for a job that will play differently that I might, maybe like as much.

The flavor of the two magics working differently would be great, but for me, I don't really want to see the job reworked for the sake of it. I'd rather that, if the flavor is to be added, that it be through actions outside of the main rotation that leave the current rotation alone.

I do take a bit of issue with the disingenuous use of the term "white" in the lore of the job in this game. It's all black magic.. let's be honest here. There's very little white magic to be found. It's just Vercure and Verraise. What we're really talking about here is light and dark... But that's how this game has decided to interpret the blend for practical purposes and I've come to terms with it.

I mean, in terms of FF classification, Aero has been White Magic in a number of games. Earth is usually Black Magic, but I believe (not sure) that there's even precedent for it being White Magic in at least one other game.