Quote Originally Posted by Zophar View Post
My answer to that, is the same as my answer will be to any such question. To hell with XI. this is XIV. It should never try to be XI. (etc..)
You didn't address my statement. A lot people want Red Mage in this game and, so far, the only way it's worked semi-successfully in an MMORPG is as a buff/debuff caster. It was many other things in other games, but in an MMORPG many of those things it was are not possible due to class balancing. I'm not saying this game needs to be like XI, I'm saying that if the Samurai job focuses on impairing mobs, including many ways of landing debuffs on bosses that don't exist for other classes, that being their unique role, like Bards are super-mobile ranged DPS, then what is left to be unique to Red Mage? I think it would be harder to think up a legit role for RDM other than debuffing/support, than it would be to think up something else fitting for SAM. That said, they could share the same role.