Red Mage idea

[Eremor]

That is unfortunately the case. If it's not DPS it's not worth ****. All jobs must be top notch DPS in order to have any place in a party. PLD must parse with MNK, BRD must parse with BLM, WHM must parse with DRG (at all times in all circumstances). If a job is not doing sufficient DPS then the player isn't playing it right and should be immediately kicked from the group. There is no place in this game for slackers who can't keep up their damage. And no whining about things like hate or cures or any other bs like that, you don't need cures if the mob is dead, just zerg it down as fast as possible that's basic tactics.

Therefore RDM also can't be anything but a pure DPS job. It should have all elemental nukes at all tiers in order to keep up with BLM. It should dual wield rapiers and attack at high speed to keep up with MNK, and their en-spells should shoot out fire and lightning from their swords, dealing aoe damage to all nearby enemies to keep up with DRG. RDM should also have all levels of cure and they need to be instant cast to keep from interfering with their meleeing. And they should have a spell like phalanx in XI except more powerful to absorb all the damage they will take from all the enemies they will aggro to keep up with WAR.

You see, it's all about balance, Red Mage just needs to be balanced equally against all other jobs in the game and it will succeed.

Laying it on pretty thick this time since my previous joke fell flat, so I hope someone gets a laugh out of it.

[Duelle]

PLD must parse with MNK, BRD must parse with BLM, WHM must parse with DRG (at all times in all circumstances).

Your joking aside, class balance should aim to have tanks performing as close to as possible to equal with other tanks, same thing for DPS, and same thing for healers. PLD, WAR, BST and SAM (adding the last two for good measure) should perform within the same parameters as they're all tanks. If WAR is better, or SAM has higher DPS, then you lead to things like the community taking the "best" of the four and kicking everyone else to the curb.

DPS is also notorious for suffering from this problem. If BLM outshines everyone, then everyone will just stack BLMs and kick everyone else to the curb.

As far as how this applies to RDM...I've mentioned it before, but RDM would be a lot better off if we had talent trees for the hybrids so that if you want to spam cures and refresh you can, if you want to front line and use your sword you can, and so on. We don't have that and never will because of the armoury system's restrictions. On a personal level, I therefore support the RDM's gameplay being built around the rapier with magic (attack and utility) supplementing that part of the design. The job can and should still have some form of heals and nukes (as the job has always been sword, white magic, black magic), but within a focused role that makes sense for the job's concept and aesthetic.

You can't do a strict 3-way split between sword, white magic, and black magic because that's how the first draft of XI's RDM was designed, and it had to be changed because few could find a use for the job. Sadly, XI's developers chose to go the support-bot/cure-bot route.

[Eremor]

You and I differ on one key issue though. You seem to see RDM as a DPS role job, with melee attacks and elemental magic damage. Whereas I would like RDM to be a melee support role job.

In my RDM fantasy world, the Red Mage is up there on the front lines, swinging a magically enhanced sword and casting spells that exploit the enemy's weakness. Debuffing to render them vulnerable to a coordinated attack by the rest of the party, and casting buffs to cover an ally's weakness. When the **** hits the fan, I want to be able to step up and say 'I got this', with a variety of abilities available to counter un-forseen situations.

And most importantly, at the end of the run, when whoever is parsing puts those numbers into the chatlog, I want everyone to say 'Wow, look how much damage the RDM did.' NOT because the damage is anywhere near that of the DPS jobs, but because the RDM is so valuable to the party in every other way that no one even expects them to do any damage at all.

But of course that is all just fantasy and I know that ultimately I'll have to settle for something less, I just pray that it will not be another DPS clone who's only on the front lines because there weren't enough people with BLM leveled in the party.

[Duelle]

You and I differ on one key issue though. You seem to see RDM as a DPS role job, with melee attacks and elemental magic damage. Whereas I would like RDM to be a melee support role job.

Not really. I see RDM more like a melee DPS job with utility rolled in.

My vision of the RDM would be a guy using fencing skills combined with magic, using their sword to land the debuffs, with perhaps some spells that toy with enemy weaknesses. RDM's version of elemental spells would deal reduced damage with a long cast time if hard-casted, but are instant cast, deal more damage and cost less MP if used while under the effect of the proc Combat Caster. Combat Caster also allows your next Cure to be instant cast, allowing them to help the healers in a pinch without the risk of being burdened with the healer's job. As long as buffs are not intrusive, they could also have buffs that would increase raid performance.