Lets Talk - Red Mage

[fusional]

Um the black magic won't be near as strong as a blm? It's just weaker magic that can be woven in to rapier combos? It can be a front line enhancement specialist? Monk like medium armor but not have the evasion monk has?

You guys really can't think outside the box can you? And why ate we even thinking about PvP? Its not going to be major in this game at all. He'll rift managed to balance their new harbinger class (frontline mage type) why can't SE? Especially with an iconic class like redmage? You naysayers oversimplify everything and don't bother thinking about how it COULD work.

don't worry about pvp? why? because *you* don't care for it? don't be childish.

and okay, so you want to have debuffs/CC and perfectly strong melee at the cost of weaker magic, and you still don't see how this would be overpowered? list any debuffs melee currently have which actually have a major impact on the game. i'll wait. in the meantime let's talk about how many situations monk's 'evasion' ever matters in pve. so... yeah. taking that away from rdm isn't exactly hurting it.

you can cry about 'thinking outside the box' all you want but that still won't solve balance issues. see, in marketing they have tons of idea guys and one or two strategy guys who tell the idea guys whether or not that idea is good/possible or stupid/impossible in practice. i'm a strategy guy, and i'm trying to explain to you why your idea in its current form is simply unrealistic. it's not feasible. so i'm asking you to tweak it. and your response, rather than to answer a question i've posed, is to try taking the "pfffttt ur dum cant think outside da box" route? classy.

but here, let me help.

so we have a melee job which specializes in single target dps, excelling in short fights and against magic-weak foes. that's monk.

we have a melee job which does great single target and great aoe dps, excelling in longer battles. that's dragoon.

we have a melee job which does mediocre single target and good-to-great aoe dps, less squishy than other melee and excelling as an offtank. that's warrior.

we have a melee job which does poor damage but has high survivability and high threat. that's paladin.

we have a ranged job which does decent single target and good aoe dps, but makes up for this with range and support skills. bard.

we have a ranged job which does excellent single target and aoe dps as magic, but is limited by mp. black mage.

and we have a ranged job which does mediocre single target and aoe dps, but is a strong healer/buffer. white mage.

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.

because about the only things i can see working are:

A. make it like xi with mediocre melee and magic damage, but strong buff/debuff/support abilities
B. give it fair single target damage with good aoe damage and fair buff/debuff abilities
C. give it good single target damage with mediocre aoe damage and fair buff/debuff abilities

you can't have 2 out of 3 being strong or the class breaks balance. unless you want the buffs/debuffs to be weak. but even then you still can't have it matching blm in magic damage or mnk/drg in melee damage- because it would still have things those classes do not.

understand better now?

so how do you plan on resolving that problem?

tip: try thinking of this from a disinterested, objective third party perspective rather than a "i like red mage and i want it to be like so and so" perspective