Lets Talk - Red Mage

[SwordCoheir]

Myself and a few people have made some threads on RDM (I actually have the link to mine in my sig), basically most have summed up thoughts that the current and future FFXIV system will make it impossible for RDM to be a carbon copy of FFXI's RDM.

The spell/job ability limitations are so restrictive they would have too combine the aspects in order for RDM to even be the least bit viable at anything and maintain the basic status quo of melee and white/black magic user. So in hindsight if RDM were to come out it would probably be built like this.

1-2 Heal spells
3-5 Buff/Job abilities
3-4 T3 Magic Sword Combos (Example: Burning Blade > Red Lotus Blade > Flare Blade)

-or-

1-2 Heal Spells
3-4 Buff Spells
1-2 Job abilities
1 T2 Sword/Magic Sword Combo
2 T3 Sword/Magic Sword Combo

Proving they don't do away with combos all together, I imagine they would be set up somewhat similar. In any case they would have to try really hard to mess RDM up in the same manner they did FFXI's RDM, and that's because they don't have all the freedom and guesswork that they had to deal with in FFXI like skills levels, EX weaponskills, mostly unlimited magic pools, retarded boundaries of skills etc.

[Ikkenoe]

they would have to try really hard to mess RDM up in the same manner they did FFXI's

strange how they could "mess up" a job that ended up being deeper than pretty much anything else in that game, and certainly much deeper than anything in this game comparatively

healing?
debuffing?
chainspell nuking?
tanking?

you got it!

but everyone's butts are still hurting because they don't care about how effectively overpowered it was. they just wanna wear frumpy mage-slash-swashbuckler gear and swing around a flamey sword yayyyy

[Ingolf]

RDM's were great soloers, stunners, tanks, debuffers and healers.

They only found their way into obscurity after SE killed RDM/NIN tanking and debuffs became less necessary with Abyssea and VW.

Upping the level cap made convert one less ability that RDM's had under their belt too. A lot of RDM's problems now-a-days is that pretty much everything they can do, other jobs can do better.

I don't know why everyone assumes they were always under-powered, they were one of the most necessary jobs for a long time.

[Jennestia]

RDM's were great soloers, stunners, tanks, debuffers and healers.

They only found their way into obscurity after SE killed RDM/NIN tanking and debuffs became less necessary with Abyssea and VW.

Upping the level cap made convert one less ability that RDM's had under their belt too. A lot of RDM's problems now-a-days is that pretty much everything they can do, other jobs can do better.

I don't know why everyone assumes they were always under-powered, they were one of the most necessary jobs for a long time.

It's because most people either:

1. Never played FFXI and will hate on, which is a common trend on these forums.
2. Played FFXI and want XIV to be a unique snowflake compared to it's predecessor even though the game was beyond successful so it had to do something right.
3. Want XIV to resemble XI in no way -- I read in a topic people want "Store TP" and "Rolanberry items" to go away because it was used in FFXI, that's how far the ignorance goes.

RDM was the most powerful job in FFXI next to Blue Mage. I would say Samurai but that job was SE's favorite so it's not counted.

[SwordCoheir]

do you understand how class balance works yet? do you see how each of these classes do something slightly different from the others, specializing in different roles and excelling in different situations? so tell me where you see red mage fitting in with this picture while retaining balance in relation to the other classes and also having its own identity.

i'm all ears.

Frankly, there are too few ability slots to actually go into an all out hybrid mage like they did in FFXI, so even on the most conceptual level FFXI or classic RDM in general is plain impossible without making it severely under/over powered or going back into FFXI's classic Backline/Frontline arguements.

I've been thinking RDM's focus should probably be on Magic Weaponskills for damage, combining the Black mage side into the melee side and forcing front lining in order to operate with maybe one or two support spells.

It's primary focus is single target magic spike damage through it's weaponskills, with physical DoT from Auto-Attacks, the TP debilitation preventing constant spammage like BLM's can do, and MP restrictions will limit long-term combat without needing to rest occasionally.

In keeping with the RDM tradition, RDM will lack any AoE moves outside of maybe a 5-15 minute turn single-target to AoE type move (Similar to Sacred Prism but for offense).

Heals, frankly one decent spell that gives roughly .75 the power of Cura, or have the same level of power as Cura but have a drawback like Sacrifice and consume 1/4 of hp for the amount healed. Like Holy Succor though, it will not stack with Sacred Prism to limit it's overall usefulness to main healer.

With Armor they can wear Scale, Cloth, Leather, Harness, Bone, Chainmail, Tabards, basically anything but the heaviest of armor like Haubergeons and Platemail.

Weapons, pretty much Rapier, Epee, Fluent type weapons, with roughly the same DPS and weapon damage as PLD swords. Piercing type.

Accuracy/Magic Accuracy Since RDM will need to utilize both to successfully land the WS move and be unresisted, they will need decent accuracy on both fronts.

HP, RDM will have low-mid HP with heavier armors allowing them to take a hit, but lower HP will prevent them from doing frequently.

MP, being RDM will be in a constant state of combat there will be no regeneration in normal circumstances, so high MP pool will probably be justified so RDM is not resting after just 2-3 WS combos.

Bonus Stats, with MND to help with Magic Accuracy, and INT to assist in WS damage to allow RDM to stay with mage stats and avoid a horrible intangible juggle between physical and magic stats outside of Physical Accuracy.

So Overall.

Stat Levels:
Auto-Attack: Average
Single-Target: Great (especially on magic weak targets)
AoE: None (outside of maybe an 5-15 Minute single to AoE Job Ability)
Heals: Mid
HP: Low-Mid
MP: High (Not being able to regenerate MP without resting, I feel high MP pool is justified)
Armor: Mid-High
Base Weapon Damage: PLD level
Main Type: Piercing
Accuracy: Mid-High
Magic Accuracy: Mid-High
Bonus Stats: INT-MND

I think that's a rather fair way of designing RDM.

It's because most people either:

1. Never played FFXI and will hate on, which is a common trend on these forums.
2. Played FFXI and want XIV to be a unique snowflake compared to it's predecessor even though the game was beyond successful so it had to do something right.
3. Want XIV to resemble XI in no way -- I read in a topic people want "Store TP" and "Rolanberry items" to go away because it was used in FFXI, that's how far the ignorance goes.

RDM was the most powerful job in FFXI next to Blue Mage. I would say Samurai but that job was SE's favorite so it's not counted.

Most people who actually thought RDM was overpowered including SE, tend to generalize RDM's as overpowered due to the exploits of a very few, very talented, extremely well geared RDM's like Avesta, despite the fact many other jobs have proven to trump RDM in the aspect of soloability. Unfortunately people's exploits like Avesta was used as a constant excuse by players who never even touched RDM and SE in general to actually see the plethora of underlying issues with RDM to prevent actually giving it any significant upgrades or anything unique to the job even to this day. Since the level cap rose past 75, many of those issues have come to light by even the general community, however SE has done little to RDM still outside of a few very lackluster spells.

The other half of RDM's popularity was due to lack of content that required anything beyond RDM's level of healing/refresh/haste botting. Which actually falls on SE for not creating unique or decent combat scenarios that require the talents of jobs like WHM, PUP, or SCH.

[Duelle]

Nice take on the job, Sword. A couple of comments, though.

Accuracy/Magic Accuracy Since RDM will need to utilize both to successfully land the WS move and be unresisted, they will need decent accuracy on both fronts.

If RDM's stats are going to be INT and MND, then I'd personally want a trait that converts 25% of INT and/or 25% of MND into accuracy on RDM. I don't exactly expect the devs to create gear with mage stats and melee accuracy, as THM and CON don't really need it.

MP, being RDM will be in a constant state of combat there will be no regeneration in normal circumstances, so high MP pool will probably be justified so RDM is not resting after just 2-3 WS combos.

More frequent MP refunds but with smaller returns might also work for RDM.

Most people who actually thought RDM was overpowered including SE, tend to generalize RDM's as overpowered due to the exploits of a very few, very talented, extremely well geared RDM's like Avesta, despite the fact many other jobs have proven to trump RDM in the aspect of soloability. Unfortunately people's exploits like Avesta was used as a constant excuse by players who never even touched RDM and SE in general to actually see the plethora of underlying issues with RDM to prevent actually giving it any significant upgrades or anything unique to the job even to this day. Since the level cap rose past 75, many of those issues have come to light by even the general community, however SE has done little to RDM still outside of a few very lackluster spells.

Let's not forget that RDM is one of those jobs that showed how much allowing mid-combat gear swaps could break the game. The problem is that instead of opening their eyes, the players hated on RDM as if it was the job's fault for benefiting the most from that.

The other half of RDM's popularity was due to lack of content that required anything beyond RDM's level of healing/refresh/haste botting. Which actually falls on SE for not creating unique or decent combat scenarios that require the talents of jobs like WHM, PUP, or SCH.

I'll disagree here, because exp parties loved RDMs on the base that they could force them to heal and buff, opening the possibility of TP burns in the TAU era. Before that, RDM was the poor man's BRD due to it being the only other job that could allow other MP users to regenerate MP. That raised demand, which a lot of people took advantage of, as they found RDM was a gravy train to level cap compared to trying to level a DPS job like DRK or THF.

To all the people groaning about another RDM Thread. If you don't want to be apart of the converstion, then don't. It's really that simple. You guys would bitch about it if he necro'ed one of the old threads anyway. There are people that like RDM, and want to talk about it. It hurts you in no way.

I guess we would have gotten less complaints if this had been yet another whine thread about the currency reduction.

[SwordCoheir]

If RDM's stats are going to be INT and MND, then I'd personally want a trait that converts 25% of INT and/or 25% of MND into accuracy on RDM. I don't exactly expect the devs to create gear with mage stats and melee accuracy, as THM and CON don't really need it.

I don't think it would be too much of a issue being Acc materia fundamentally share different slots from INT and MND, however I overlooked that MND and INT share the head slot so that might cause fundamental issues long term. So perhaps substituting INT in favor of maybe PIE like other mages might be more beneficial.

[Hiruke]

Frankly, there are too few ability slots to actually go into an all out hybrid mage like they did in FFXI, so even on the most conceptual level FFXI or classic RDM in general is plain impossible without making it severely under/over powered or going back into FFXI's classic Backline/Frontline arguements.

When you say "ability slots", do you mean the Action Bar, or literally how many abilities you can learn on a class? If the latter, I think it's a huge mistake to think anything, much less everything, about 1.0 is going to be the same in 2.0. Especially with regard to how many abilities are available.