Red Mage: I am not a Back line class

[Delsus]

Idm if RDM is front line, mid line, back line, 500 lightyears line, JUST KEEP THE DAMN MAGES REFRESHED, and me hasted.

[Agoven]

I'd be a blue wizard but I'll settle for white for now...

[Duelle]

Idm if RDM is front line, JUST KEEP YOURSELF REFRESHED and hasted.

Fixed.

Looks like I didn't have to return to keep the melee movement going. Kudos to the OP for having the guts to get this thread started. Now with that in mind...

What I would like to see is SE play to RDM's hybrid nature by allowing two classes to equip a RDM crystal. One of them being Fencer, the other being Conjurer. Obviously, when Fencer has the RDM crystal, the result would be a melee mage that focuses on dealing elemental magic through sword strikes as well as enfeebling with very minor and limited support. CON using a RDM crystal could then yield a support-based caster that focuses on staying in the back and using spells.

The only thing that is VERY risky about the above is that desperation for healers may cause one to be preferred over the other, whereas I would want both to be useful so that there is no overlap between FNC/RDM and CON/RDM when both are in a party. I'll have to go back and mull over some of the suggestions I've made since these forums began and see what works. I hadn't realized the weapon classes had been notably trimmed in terms of abilities and spells, for one.

[Niqote]

You can have that and I'll take the buffing/debuffing/healing gypsy/dancer kay?

[Ramsey]

What I would like to see is SE play to RDM's hybrid nature by allowing two classes to equip a RDM crystal.

This is an interesting suggestion, but it's also a giant exceptional case, making it unattractive to devs. This would require they adapt their system to accept a 2:1 class:job ratio, all for the sake of a single job. When you also consider that a job is made up primarily of actions from its class (since currently, jobs only add a handful of abilities) you're making a lot of additional balance issues. It's basically twice the work for only one class.

Not that it's impossible, but I don't see it as being a likely idea unless they establish a new precedent where multiple classes branch into multiple jobs.

I see it being far more likely that we simply get a Fencer:Red Mage deal. Which I am perfectly fine with, though I see as being a bit wonky given that currently, you can only set 5 actions from other jobs. Assuming they give RDM access to CON/THM actions (as they should) it's going to be tough and highly dependent on situation which actions you're going to set.

Now they could give fencer some inherent magic actions, or even duplicate actions from other classes, but that sets another exceptional case, and so I also see that as being unlikely.

I suppose if I had to say what I hope to see, it's a Fencer that is half Fencer, half Magic Swordsman, with a wide variety of attacks and abilities that pull from the more physically oriented Fencer (Reflex, Nighthawk, etc.) and attacks that pull from the more magically oriented Magic Swordsman (Spellblade, etc.) Culminating in a DPS / debuff / evasion off-tank.

The tough part with this approach though would be the Red Mage specific abilities. Red Mage staples like doublecast and chainspell would feel awkward, as they're enhancement skills for spells. And as any sort of spellblade/fencing action would be a TP/MP weapon skill, not a spell, Red Mage would have job actions that can't be applied to any of the job's native actions. I suppose Paladin already has a little of this though, so it's not unprecedented.

White Mage also already essentially has doublecast, meaning it would have to function differently to warrant being a unique ability. Hopefully a much quicker cooldown, and perhaps the ability to cast the same spell on two different targets or two spells on the same target with one cast timer. (I.E. simultaneously)

If it were possible to make some sort of ability that functioned differently based on what you combo it with, some sort of context sensitive nuke as a RDM action might work, but again that's another new exception. But for example, Fire Sword > RDM Nuke (Becomes a Fire nuke for the combo.) Ice Sword > RDM Nuke (Becomes an Ice nuke for the combo.)

And unless doublecast were on an extremely quick cooldown, RDM would be incredibly sub par in healing when they needed to fill that role.

Ideally I would love to see RDM have various stances to play various roles that degrade over time, forcing you to switch roles over the course of a battle to essentially plug holes, meaning you could never take on any given role for an entire battle, meaning you'd never be pigeon-holed as a class into a specific role.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see what SE has in store. Given the system they've set up for class:job relationships though, I can't see how they can possibly create a RDM that can make everyone happy, or adhere to FF precedents for how RDM works.

Edit: Instead of having an option between rapiers and daggers, I'd love to see RDM using rapier main hand/ main gauche offhand, as a parrying only offhand. Whether as two separate items or one "two-handed" set it doesn't matter to me. I'd also love to see Celes' "Runic" ability reappear for Fencer, allowing them to negate a single magic effect and regain MP for it. Would be a nice anti-magic tanking ability.

[Duelle]

This is an interesting suggestion, but it's also a giant exceptional case

Well, RDM is in the unique position of being the original hybrid job. Then again, I was trying to keep those who liked playing in the back lines in mind.

This would require they adapt their system to accept a 2:1 class:job ratio, all for the sake of a single job. When you also consider that a job is made up primarily of actions from its class (since currently, jobs only add a handful of abilities) you're making a lot of additional balance issues. It's basically twice the work for only one class.

True. On the upside, if might remind someone at SE that each job is capable of more than one task alone. I know it's way too late to bring that to the table, but meh.

Not that it's impossible, but I don't see it as being a likely idea unless they establish a new precedent where multiple classes branch into multiple jobs.

Well, I think the Thief and Summoner enthusiasts are sort of hoping for this. My RDM suggestion kind of paves the way for them.

I suppose if I had to say what I hope to see, it's a Fencer that is half Fencer, half Magic Swordsman, with a wide variety of attacks and abilities that pull from the more physically oriented Fencer (Reflex, Nighthawk, etc.) and attacks that pull from the more magically oriented Magic Swordsman (Spellblade, etc.) Culminating in a DPS / debuff / evasion off-tank.

I would be perfectly fine with this.

Red Mage staples like doublecast and chainspell would feel awkward, as they're enhancement skills for spells.

Which were in the single player RPGs because you don't have 7/15 other people scrutinizing your build and what your Red Mages did. I'd be more willing to consider Temper and Composure as more fitting RDM staples, specialy in light of the abilities you mentioned being given out to BLM and WHM. Which I'm perfectly fine with because I want the job to lean more towards magic swordsman.

[JTSpender]

For all the folks who are super-adamant about RDM being a melee/white/black hybrid because that is what it was in various other Final Fantasy games... it's also worth keeping in mind that in most cases Red Mage also ended up being terrible mid/late game in a bunch of those games. There was usually a more advanced class that totally dropped the melee and was white/black magic combo only that totally outclassed Red Mage. :P

For people who *want* a white/black, healing/damaging combo *mage*, there are a whole lot of other awesome Final Fantasy classes/flavors you can pull from. Sage is the obvious choice, but frankly I would <3 at the return of Scholar in some form, because it is *neat*. There's no need to try and force RDM in that role when there are other options for that role, and so many people who would love for RDM to be a real front-line magic fencer.

That said, it's worth keeping in mind that in a lot of the single player FF games (and I guess in FFXI for that matter) there was a big pool of black magic spells, and a big pool of white magic spells, and different classes were grated access to different amounts of spells from those pools. FFXIV is structured a lot differently, and so "here's yet another slightly different combination of those same skills" isn't going to work. Everything is going to need it's own unique, focused skillset. I think the discussion about "would you rather see RDM as a DD or debuffer" makes sense (although it may be too late for that; MNK is already kind of sneaking into the elementalist melee role). And maybe doing something vaguely DNC-ish so they can also off heal a bit would be ok. But trying to do some wonky hybrid thing so they can front line or back line and fill all roles or whatever seems a bit much.

[Ramsey]

For all the folks who are super-adamant about RDM being a melee/white/black hybrid because that is what it was in various other Final Fantasy games... it's also worth keeping in mind that in most cases Red Mage also ended up being terrible mid/late game in a bunch of those games.

This is true, but it's true of a bunch of other jobs. Red Mage never became totally useless, it just didn't excel as much in any one area. Which is nice, which is sort of what I personally want. That said, there's obviously a difficulty with this in an MMO setting, which is why I think a degrading stance system would be a nice way to make Red Mage the jack of all trades that it ought to be.

Cycle through melee, nuking/debuffing and healing/buffing stances, and the longer you stay in one stance, the less effective skills of that type become. Encouraging the player to plug the gaps in a group and then switch to the next task.

[Mireille]

No actually most games where summoner is tied to a char and not a equipped item like FF 6-8 it has mostly had white magic. Rydia had both white and black Eiko and dagger both had white magic and so did yuna That right there is like the whole FF series iconic summoners...

Yuna started with whm spells, but early on you could make her into a blm and retire Lulu completely. Of the FF games I have played, which is X +, only smn has been tied to whm in only one of them: X. In X the system allowed you to multi-class your characters starting around the time you left Luca. Pre-X I can't speak to.

[Ramsey]

Yuna started with whm spells, but early on you could make her into a blm and retire Lulu completely. Of the FF games I have played, which is X +, only smn has been tied to whm in only one of them: X. In X the system allowed you to multi-class your characters starting around the time you left Luca. Pre-X I can't speak to.

FFX is a job-less FF, though not entirely irrelevant, the importance of that relationship is slightly diminished because, as you say, you can make anyone learn anything.

That said... The relationship between mage classes and summoner has been back and forth. In Final Fantasy Tactics, It's Black Mage > Time Mage > Summoner to unlock Summoner. FFTA is Elementalist > Summoner. FF9 Eiko and Garnet are White Mages but in FF4 Rydia has Black and White magic.

There's really no strict relationship between WHM and SMN or BLM and SMN. They could easily include a new class for Summoner to be linked out of. Arcanist? Oracle? Who knows.