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

[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.

[Cabalabob]

Oh, I certainly don't think that's the case; there's plenty they could do to mix it up, like having Vercure generate white mana or having Fire and Stone have different cast times/damage amounts/mana generation so that, for example, RDM's needed to cast 1.5 x as many White spells for each Black spell. A lack of symmetry would just make White and Black magic not feel exactly the same, as opposed to now where for the most part casting is "left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot".

None of that is to say that the things I mentioned are better, just that there are certainly different things they could do if they chose to.

The problem with white magic is that RDM is a dps, if it was a healer there might be a case for having it use both healing and damage dealing magic since healers usually dps aswell as heal. But as a dps, RDM’s focus is on dps and nothing more. If it had white magic that provided healing and support, it would simply never use them… if it had to use them to generate mana for the melee combo? Either the melee combo would have to do absurd dps to make up for them having to spend time healing/buffing, or it would be too weak to be worth using and RDMs would simply never use the melee combo.

Then you have the balancing act of putting that against other jobs, why bring a MCH if a RDM does the same dps but also brings healing and buffs? It would have to have the dreaded “support tax” (which it gets bad enough already with just raise and vercure). At which point you now have to decide why bring a RDM when we are looking for a dps not a mini healer?

In ARR-HW era I could absolutely have seen RDM as a healer, since healers had not been lobotomised yet and still had more than 2 dps buttons. It would have been able to much better toe that line between black and white magic having a more fleshed out arsenal on both sides. But as healers are today? We’d just have the reverse of what RDM is now, having a fully fleshed out healing kit and then 2 legitimate black magic spells.

[Rithy255]

I think the white magic and black magic aspects are fine and cool.

My only complaint is you dont get a lot of white magic support spells outside of magick barrier and ver raise. (ver cure doesn't count lol). It sort of like it to lean on some small support healing aspects such as what Dancer has.

I think it's important that it would still have very limited support options not to make healers even more useless... unless they somehow make outgoing damage different from what it is right now. With the DPS VS utility "tax" aswell RDM already gets highly punished for ver raise (more then it should).

[Shurrikhan]

A tax is essentially pre-payment for resources with value greater than their opportunity costs (making those actions obligatory, at least when usable). If greater their opportunity cost, the lower their chance of being useful (the more situational those skills become), but that also means having to pay less (or even nothing) for their simply existing in that kit.

Clemency, for instance, doesn't appear to cost PLD sustain; because that tool is merely an emergency option (uptime and MP costs), its tuning is done with little to no consideration of Clemency (leaving it typically second only to "OP" Warrior in sustain).

Given what gauge RDM would give up, atop uptime, on healing spells via White Mana spenders, it wouldn't be hard to pick a point of balance where it's situational without feeling overly weak and can avoid "taxation".

[LilimoLimomo]

The problem with white magic is that RDM is a dps, if it was a healer there might be a case for having it use both healing and damage dealing magic since healers usually dps aswell as heal. But as a dps, RDM’s focus is on dps and nothing more. If it had white magic that provided healing and support, it would simply never use them… if it had to use them to generate mana for the melee combo? Either the melee combo would have to do absurd dps to make up for them having to spend time healing/buffing, or it would be too weak to be worth using and RDMs would simply never use the melee combo.

I think you may have misunderstood what I'm saying, because I wasn't in any way proposing that RDM become more of a healer. Verholy, Verstone, and Veraero are all damage-dealing white spells, and they would be the main thrust of what needed adjustment so that each school felt distinct — rather than Verfire and Verstone literally being the same spell with the lone exception of the type of mana they generate. I just also think it would be neat if Vercure added white mana as well since it's a white spell, and the result would be that in the rare case Vercure was cast, the RDM would then adjust the cadence of Black and White magic afterwards to make up for the offset. It just seems a bit silly that arguably the "whitest" spell RDM has doesn't generate any white mana.

[Cabalabob]

I think you may have misunderstood what I'm saying, because I wasn't in any way proposing that RDM become more of a healer. Verholy, Verstone, and Veraero are all damage-dealing white spells, and they would be the main thrust of what needed adjustment so that each school felt distinct — rather than Verfire and Verstone literally being the same spell with the lone exception of the type of mana they generate. I just also think it would be neat if Vercure added white mana as well since it's a white spell, and the result would be that in the rare case Vercure was cast, the RDM would then adjust the cadence of Black and White magic afterwards to make up for the offset. It just seems a bit silly that arguably the "whitest" spell RDM has doesn't generate any white mana.

I’m curious how in depth you’ve actually gotten with RDM, cause to the uninitiated I’m sure it would sound ‘neat’ for vercure to generate white mana. But if you actually know the job you’d know that it could cause horrible imbalances in your mana generation, screw up your rotation and actually deter you from using vercure in the few situations where you’d actually currently use it.

I won’t go into the rotational nightmare that your suggestion of white and black spells having different potencies/mana generation will cause, I’m sure someone out there could give you an entire essay on it. But I assure you it’s not as simple as you think it is to rebalance these tools for what amounts to mere flavour.

A tax is essentially pre-payment for resources with value greater than their opportunity costs (making those actions obligatory, at least when usable). If greater their opportunity cost, the lower their chance of being useful (the more situational those skills become), but that also means having to pay less (or even nothing) for their simply existing in that kit.

Clemency, for instance, doesn't appear to cost PLD sustain; because that tool is merely an emergency option (uptime and MP costs), its tuning is done with little to no consideration of Clemency (leaving it typically second only to "OP" Warrior in sustain).

Given what gauge RDM would give up, atop uptime, on healing spells via White Mana spenders, it wouldn't be hard to pick a point of balance where it's situational without feeling overly weak and can avoid "taxation".

PLD is very much taxed in dps for its extra utility. It is the lowest damage tank of all of them and the only things it brings over WAR are clemency, shield bash and cover, all extremely niche abilities it hardly ever uses. And that tax is applied in general, it’s not even for USING the abilities (which hurt its dps even further when it does).