Elementalist => Red Mage/Geomancer Job idea

[Shurrikhan]

- Point-In-Line: What if Point-In-Line was an instant cast-ability that automatically parried the enemy's attack? You have to use it at the right time for it to work and get the Double-Touch trait buff.

One thing you could do is simply have it take effect (at no cost) only when you are perfectly in front of the enemy and have that enemy targeted. This would be automatic if you had threat, but you could potentially play with the mechanic by allowing the ELM to parry attacks not aimed at you. ELM would thereby become more supportive, moving into tank position for AAs and dodging back out before cleaves. Just a thought.

Arcane Cycle
- Casting the spells in the correct order is necessary BUT you can start anywhere on the cycle you want, I just started it with Fire because it's the first spell you get.
- The Arcane Cycle stack is placed on the enemy. For abilities that use Arcane Cycles, you have to have a foe with stacks selected to use them.
- The Arcane Cycle is based on the Attunement debuff and using the opposite elemental spell to it. Example: You use Burn and wait for the DoT to end and the Fire-Attunement debuff to pop up, you need to use Drown, then Shock when the Water-Attunement debuff is up, and so on until you finish of with casting Burn on an Ice-Attuned foe.
-You don't have to cast the spells on the same enemy. You just need to cast it on an enemy that has the correct attunement debuff on them. This is where RDM's Elemental Burst and Doublecast comes in. I'll remove the Arcane Cycle cost on Elemental Burst to make it easier.
- As for the 18 seconds, the last trait ELM gets at 48, Cycle Through, reduces DoT's time to 9. I had designed the DoTs to force players to use magic and melee combat to maximize damage versus specializing in one or the other like the other DPSs.
-You can have multiple Arcane Cycle stacks on multiple foes.

So does each reversal (fire-->water or ice-->fire, etc.) constitute a stack, or each full rotation of elements? In either case, if the Arcane Cycle is basically foe-only, there really is no free-floating concept to it to speak of (not to say that you implied there was; it just tends to seem a level less significant to the class when the concept is simply a result of action). Instead, each attunement debuff simply grants a stack of charge, <Arcane Cycle>, whenever an opposite element is used, and certain abilities then consume that stack.

Basically, it makes me wish there was a native version of the Cycles as well, such as an attunement buff on the ELM itself, that required strategy to sync up with certain future wants for the elemental uses. This complexity would also be aided by having more than just Burst and Doublecast to spread about mobs, syncing up their debuff elements differently.

In a lot of dungeons, mobs don't last 18 seconds. You may want to drop the original time down to 9, or have the attunement effect take place after a certain minimum amount of damage has occured, where DoT crits could accelerate the readying of the debuff, and it on average goes off about 9 seconds with no crits and faster with them. "Cycle Through" could probably use a better name as long as the speed of elemental wheel rotations is its only major element effected.

Red Mage
-Red Mage was designed to be a single-target-supporting DPS versus Bard, which is a group-supporting DPS (at least in my eyes it is. :B ).
- I had designed their abilities to be a bit lackluster just for that reason, Enchant and Doublecast. I also did it to give them things that Bard, the only other support job, didn't have, like a debuff-remover (to help healers) and something to give spike damage to tanks.
- Doublecast was designed to help spread Enchantments and Elemental Spell DoTs. It allows you to cast two of the same spell on up to two targets. With Enchant up, the two spells become Enchantments.
- Elemental Burst is RDM's equivalent to ACN/SMN/SCH's Bane but instead of using it after placing a DoT on an enemy, you use it before to make it an AoE.
- I'll also be boosting Spike's damage output. >w>

Even as a support, RDM doesn't have to have lackluster abilities. Try to imagine scenarios that really stick out to you and make you want to play the job. Who all does it pair with, when and why, and how does it affect the linked party members' rotations? If it doesn't affect their gameplay at all (not that I recommend that a paired class should have to outright renegotiate its rotations to better benefit from RDM), such as a general dps increase or a minor benefit that doesn't allow for any extra action or opportunity (e.g. a skill speed increase that doesn't allow for an extra ability per shorter rotation), it will be that much less interesting.

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To be honest, I still think ELM doesn't really have a place as a class, especially as *the* rapier class. I'd much rather see Fencer used with the Fencer weapons, and for its elemental abilities to seem only either coincidental or stylistically-matching to an otherwise physical repertoire. I think that also brings more of the unique spellblade style of RDM than if starting from a caster class that happens to carry a sword and uses a couple sword finishers. I'd recommend reading MartaDemireux's take on the RDM. It's not exactly what I'm recommending by any means, but it will give a better example than I can illustrate in writing here.