Pipe Dreams: Red Mage the melee DPS

[Duelle]

I do want to confirm if you intended for enfire, enblizzard, and enthunder to only affect your Manablast ability though.

Remember that enemies do not have actual elemental resistances/vulnerabilities so the type of magic damage does not matter. Everything is magic damage. The only difference is potency between the various elements (which is why BLM will cast Fire on Ifrit and Blizzard on Shiva).

This is correct, and I am aware of this.

Limiting RDM to one element is going to annoy someone (me if the element is not fire, others if the element is not ice or thunder), so I did try to add something by way of options. Magic Burst is a tough one because there's only so many ways to implement this type of mechanic without creating a weird sort of bloat, which is why in the end I decided to turn it into a way to deal AoE damage. Originally it was going to be something like an AoE version of Manablast or Burn/Frost/Shock depending on the enchant consumed. So Magic Burst was originally supposed to look something like this:

58 Magic Burst - Consumes active sword enchantment. Effect is determined by the enchant consumed. Cooldown: 30s. Shares a cooldown with Spellblade.
--Enfire: Deals fire damage with a potency of 150 to nearby enemies.
--Enblizzard: Afflicts nearby enemies with +20% Slow for 20s.
--Enthunder: Deals lightning damage over time with a potency of 30 for 30s.

I'm not keen on giving RDM AoE bind (since it can cross-class Blizzard II). Same thing with giving RDM an AoE stun (though I admit it'd be handy in emergencies). I also would nerf the potency, since Enfire MB would still be weaker than Fire II in Astral Fire III (100 potency + 87%).

Spellblade was also going to be designed around unique effects determined by the consumed enchant, but by then I was running out of ideas. >.>;;

[Anova]

Also, I noticed that melee attacks tend to have combos while magic have procs. I'm just wondering if you ever considered playing with those two systems to capture the essence of a spellblade.

For example, a buff that lasts xx seconds and triggers a proc at xx% chance when the RDM uses an attack skill. That proc removes the cast time and cooldown/gcd on the next spell cast, effectively turning it into a free spell and additional dps or utility (heals).

It's just another take on a mechanic to capture that feel of combining spells and swords, but using magic instead of melee mechanics.

[Madrone]

Very similar to a build I've been working on. I use stacks for spellblade that are usable like aetherflow abilities smn use (Doublecast, Aetheric Discharge, and Circle Blade), and have certain skills shift the Spellblade element between ice, fire, and thunder. Traits make each element give the rdm a buff. Spellblade gives a small damage boost. Fire = temper (more damage boost), ice = fast cast (15%), thunder dot ticks proc bonus spellblade stacks with proc chance doubled when spellblade element is thunder. I give it brd-like support by discharging it's spellblade as a 15s party buff. I also combo melee skills and spells, combo bonus being +30% potency for fires and half cast time, and instant/front loaded dot (like thundercloud) for thunder.

There's kind of no way around making it supporty since it has a diverse toolkit, which means limiting its overall dps a little.

I opt for main stat int, since enchanted sword makes that an easy logic leap. It then uses caster accessories and has its own left side armor which is like the reverse of drg, High mdef, medium physical defense. Leveling it uses general DoM gear. I also built refresh like Goad, and its a cooldown so it can't be used frequently. I sacrificed the whm side of things, giving rdm only regen + cnj cross class spells. But I traited it to use int for healing potency (lvl 24) and have battle raise (lvl 48). I was contemplating Triple as a 61+ skill, but it'd apply multiple dots on a 60s cooldown instead of being the triple version of doublecast. Lvl 60 skill is Chainspell which for 10s makes spell GCD be 1s and gives 5 stacks of swiftcast. Ends when all stacks are used or 10s is up.

There's no ice combo. I gave rdm a casting stance (cold-blooded) that let's them spam blizzard like a blm does fire, for about 10% less damage/spell (but they cast faster in spellblade ice anyway). It's their recovery mode (since they also make use of tier II astral/umbral) and disables auto-attack and gives weaponskills a cast time similar to brd/mcn stances. Its basically an option to be a ranged caster instead of melee. Canceled by reuse or any fire skill/spell. And otherwise they have two combos to choose between, single target & supporty thunder combo, or high damage and resource consumption fire combo. Fire combo's 2nd hit is aoe, and can close with fire or fire II, making it viable for single target or aoe rotations.


Skill speed/spell speed is the issue I'm having trouble with. How to unify them as one stat while preventing materia abuse?

Sry for deleted posts below. Tablet browser wouldn't let me edit my posts, and needed to get around 1k char limit when I posted originally.

[Shurrikhan]

Skill speed/spell speed is the issue I'm having trouble with. How to unify them as one stat while preventing materia abuse?

To be honest, I don't see what's to abuse. The only classes that can actually make use of both would basically need that by default to be truly balanced (though more QoL clunk-removal than any real output improvement), which still mostly comes down to just 3-4 jobs -- PLD, DRK, BRD, and now RDM.

Though I'm more fond of the idea of a RDM having NIN-level dps when not sacrificing dps to further support, I like the, as you say, diverse toolkit it carries in your idea, and the unique left side armor seems pretty neat (though I'd hope more jobs could eventually use each, such as Blue Mage making use of RDM's and Samurai making use of DRG's). I really like the stack system for Swiftcast, etc., as an idea, but for now I still have trouble picturing how it would turn out over the course of a minute+ in combat. Not sure how I feel about the intergration of UI/AF. Not a fan of the auto-attack disable or weaponskill cast timers. (You say that this allows them a ranged caster stance, but don't mention the cast damage being boosted or the weaponskills becoming ranged?) I feel like a caster stance should rarely be optimal (though typically decent) for RDM, and shouldn't be element-locked in implemented. I don't quite understand your vision for the spell combos.

Edit: Regen may also run the same issue as Refresh in the past, requiring the RDM to break up its own flow of combat just to maintain an inferior but nontheless high (per-execute) potency heal on the tank. I think access to this should be bit more limited, so that it cannot be thoughtlessly maintained (possibly making rotations more interesting rather than just adding a GCD within them that may or may not effectively reduce buff windows). In turn, that might excuse higher overall healing potency available to RDM.
Similarly, rather than using a 3-minute CD (as per Goad), something like the above shift may serve Refresh well too. Having the ability to refresh mana in emergencies, as long as it does not overlap with the long-term niche of Bard, could enhance the RDM playstyle. It's only when it exceeds the usefulness of other activities, consistently, that it pigeonholes the job.

[Duelle]

Also, I noticed that melee attacks tend to have combos while magic have procs. I'm just wondering if you ever considered playing with those two systems to capture the essence of a spellblade.

For example, a buff that lasts xx seconds and triggers a proc at xx% chance when the RDM uses an attack skill. That proc removes the cast time and cooldown/gcd on the next spell cast, effectively turning it into a free spell and additional dps or utility (heals).

It's just another take on a mechanic to capture that feel of combining spells and swords, but using magic instead of melee mechanics.

Ah, you mean the old Art of War mechanic. I agree that this would be a good mechanic for RDM, and under other circumstances would have included it. I could probably tweak the ability spread and make it possible with this build, too. I just thought people would get more of a kick out of comboing magic and spells.

To be honest, I don't see what's to abuse. The only classes that can actually make use of both would basically need that by default to be truly balanced (though more QoL clunk-removal than any real output improvement), which still mostly comes down to just 3-4 jobs -- PLD, DRK, BRD, and now RDM.

I think Madrone means the fact RDM would require both to do its thing. Assuming you add no conversion traits, you'd need to meld one or the other on accessories.

[Shurrikhan]

I think Madrone means the fact RDM would require both to do its thing. Assuming you add no conversion traits, you'd need to meld one or the other on accessories.

Ahh, I see. I just figured we'd combine both types into a single stat, as it applies to gear, i.e. Quickstrike materia.

[Madrone]

@Shurrikhan

Hard to summarize the whole build in a short post. I'll try to add some depth on things that were unclear or missing. And I hope the OP sees this as less of a hi-jack, and more as passionate collaboration about the design complexities of a melee/caster like RDM, and that I just genuinely want to share some of my ideas.

My potency numbers are estimates and probably wind up doing OP damage when DoT and auto-attacks factor in... On the other hand, I did plan to cripple RDM dps by giving it weapon damage ratings 10% lower for both magic and physical damage than standard melee and mage jobs. So an i200 weapon should be 74/102 physical/magical damage, but RDM's i200 weapon damage would be 67/92.

UI/AF- These cap at level 2. Get Astral II at lvl 20, get Umbral II at lvl 40. Many damage boosts come into play which boost Fire/Ice spells. All SpellBlade elements give 10-20% (level/traits) melee damage boost, SpellBlade Fire gives 30% after a trait at level 44. SpellBlade's damage bonus starts to apply to same-element spells when certain traits are acquired. The end result once you have all the traits is that (with AF II and SpellBlade Fire) Fire spells have an overall damage boost the same as BLM's AF III (+~75%), and Ice spells have an overall damage boost (when Cold-Blooded/UI II and SpellBlade Ice) of ~60%, plus SpellBlade Ice gives Fast Cast +10%. Thunder Spells will have +20% damage when cast with SpellBlade Thunder active. This is 2.0 BLM rotation damage level since RDM's lack the BLM's good stuff, but is mandatory to make decent use of these kind of spells. RDM make up dps ground with 2 strong DoT's, auto-attacking, and Doublecasting combo closer spells.

Ok, so the casting stance is a lot like Wanderer's Minuet and Gauss Barrel, like a Transpose on steroids, and can feel like it has a little dash of Enochian. However, even though I hate those caster stances for ranged physical jobs, I feel like it will actually work and feel right for RDM.

Casting stance is called Cold-Blooded, and its a level 30 ability, with short cast time. It has a small mp cost, so like a BLM you could spend your mp too low to use it if you're not careful. It gives Umbral Ice I and switches spellblade's element to ice- so it aligns you into your double ice buff state. It enhances Umbral Ice to give Ice spells the same damage boost that Fire spells get from Astral Fire (10% for I, 32% for II), and their mp cost increases (mostly moot since UI mp recovery). RDM gets an Ice-based DoT spell at lvl 34, Frost. It lasts 30s and is fairly weak for a DoT, 250 total potency. But its made quite powerful by the ice spell damage boost. You'll always want to cast Frost in Cold-Blooded with 2 stacks of Umbral Ice, which pushes its total damage up effectively to 400 potency. This means you'll want to rotate to back to Cold-Blooded/Ice phase as close to 30s after casting Frost as you can when fighting a target that takes awhile to kill. You lose Cold-Blooded if you lose Umbral Ice or change SpellBlade's element to something other than Ice, so if you want to stay in Cold-Blooded to spam Blizzard non-stop, it has a little bit of Enochian-like feel because you can't let Umbral Ice drop. It has a 15s cooldown so if you're wanting to Blizzard/Frost/Thunder stuff to death, you won't have to worry about severe consequences if it drops. If you care about doing great damage and offering all of your utility, you'll be popping out of Cold-Blooded as soon as you've gotten your mp back and cast Frost.

Cold-Blooded penalizes melee quite heavily; it disables auto-attacks and gives weaponskills a cast time. If you do Thunder combo, Fire combo, or cast a Fire spell, you'll lose SpellBlade Ice or Umbral Ice, and by extension Cold-Blooded. There are ~5 melee skills/abilities you can still use without canceling Cold-Blooded, and really only 1-2 of them would have useful utility or good damage. So when you Cold-Blooded, you pretty much switch to being Blizzard-based mini-BLM with some CNJ support spells.

Total damage bonus of +~60% is still weaker than Fire spells, but mp is limitless, and SpellBlade Ice is traited to give you Fast Cast 10%. Very late in RDM's career they'll get an AoE Ice Spell (Deep Freeze) which gets an added effect when cast immediately after a Doublecast Blizzard I/II, of +1 bonus spellblade stack... this makes Blizzard spells the only spells RDM can Doublecast for free. This is sort of a mini combo: Doublecast Blizzard (spend a stack) > Deep Freeze (get a stack) Doublecast's cooldown is still a limit of course.


Combos are hit > hit > spell. The 2nd hit is elementally charged (Burning Blade/Thunder Slash) and is the skill that's responsible for changing SpellBlade's element to Fire or Thunder. Burning Blade also grants Astral Fire I/II as its combo bonus. 2nd hits cost 140 TP and have small a cast time even though they are melee abilities. They also have a small mp cost anytime they change spellblade's element. This may seem pricey, but because RDM is drawing from 2 resource pools, one of them bottomless bc of Umbral ice, it helps balance things out.

Thunder combo is very good single target damage, and the most optimal way to deliver Thunder DoT for two reasons. At lvl 28+, the SpellBlade Thunder's damage bonus applies to Thunder spells (lvl 21-39 +15%, lvl 40+ 20%). And the Thunder combo bonus is a Thundercloud-like effect for its closing Thunder I/II spell, which is a lot of bonus damage vs just casting Thunder outside of the combo. Thunder DoT ticks can proc bonus spellblade stacks at a low 5% rate (the lvl 28 trait that adds this is called Overload), so you'll always want Thunder applied to something. This is Thunder's big benefit for you.

Late career you'd get an ability (Voltaic Arc) that can spread Thunder to nearby enemies and restart its duration (like Bane), which can help you rake in bonus stacks in AoE situations. Also, you'll get an ability (Recharge) to convert a chunk of mp into a SpellBlade stack, for out of battle use only though. Total possible SpellBlade stack usage (based on ability cooldowns) is more than triple the number of SpellBlade stacks that you get each minute, so picking up bonus stacks is always good, and you will always have to make tactical choices on how/when to spend your stacks. Forgot to mention that you get 3 stacks from using SpellBlade each minute (like Aetherflow), but your max capacity is 5. SpellBlade Thunder (and only while in Thunder) gives you access to use a long cool-down (90s) AoE damage vulnerability +5% for 15s debuff (Enervation Field) that costs a SpellBlade stack (big raid utility). Thunder combo's opening melee hit also has a chance of inflicting an attack power down debuff (similar to Eye for an Eye, -10% damage dealt for 10s). So with all of this combined, Thunder combo is more support-y than Fire combo.

Fire combo is solid damage and blows through your mp pool. The combo's 2nd hit is kind of like MCN Ricochet, doing ok damage to one target, and potentially hitting other nearby enemies with shared/divided damage. It grants max AF (II) as its combo bonus, so it is RDM's version of Fire III in that sense. You can close with either Fire or Fire II, and both will have enhanced potency when used in a combo. You pretty much just need to combo Fire once or twice, then can lay into non-combo'd Fire spells until out of mp, and your timing will line up for renewing Frost while Cold-Blooded. SpellBlade Fire gives you an alternate added effect for a 1m cooldown AoE skill, and turns it into an area DoT that inflicts magic damage taken +5%. Late career you'd get a big/slow/expensive AoE Fire spell (Detonation) that is a mp-free/half cast time proc when cast immediately following a Doublecast Fire or Fire II.

All that boils down to a modified BLM element rotation where there are combo melee hits between the spells, that enhance the spells. You don't have to stick to that rotation. There might be times you forgo DoTs or don't use Thunder combo at all, and just switch between Ice and Fire (like doing AoE on trash). There might be situations where it's safer to stay Cold-Blooded and focus on mixing support casts in with your Blizzard spam, or maybe just rotating Thunder combos and Cold-Blooded to maximize the strength of DoT's, usage of free SpellBlade abilities, and acquiring more bonus SpellBlade stacks. There is a mathematically optimal way of doing damage of course, but good luck figuring it out. RDM has the flexibility to adapt to the needs of the moment, and all elements/attack styles provide a sustained decent level of dps and their own unique utilities.

The combo bonus for a spell let's it hit much harder, basically the equivalent of the 2.0 blm rotation's procs. Fire would do 240 potency and fire II would do 130 (+75% like a AF III BLM) when closing a combo (and they cast faster in a combo to make interruption/dodging less of a hassle, but they aren't free). Thunder I/II would be like thundercloud procs, doing 295/330 plus DoT. Every 15s you could Doublecast a combo closing spell to really spike up the damage, however your stacks to power Doublecast (and other abilities) are limited to 3 per 60s, plus whatever bonus stacks you can luck into, and some of those stacks should go to 5% party-damage boosting abilities.

Some skills have slightly different effects under different spellblade elements.

There's an oGCD ability, Discharge (inspired by D&D/Final Fantasy Dimensions' Magic Missile), which consumes a SpellBlade stack (your 1st SpellBlade ability) and shoots a mp-free/instant single target nuke of your SpellBlade element. This does 140 potency when its learned at lvl 18, 170 at lvl 20-39, and 200 at lvl 40+. Astral/Coldblooded bonuses apply if SpellBlade is Fire or Ice. Because Thunder's damage bonus is weaker and its nature is to aid in getting extra SpellBlade stacks, Discharge's added effect when in SpellBlade Thunder is that it can be used without spending a SpellBlade stack. So, you'd add Discharge into any Thunder combo when its off cooldown, but be more selective about using it in SpellBlade Fire or Ice. In any case, Doublecast is better damage for combo'd Fires or Thunders once you've learned it, so the free use of Discharge in SpellBlade Thunder keeps it relevant.

Then there's Circle Blade (60s cooldown) that also consumes a spellblade stack, which does 150-300 potency AoE (based on melee damage, so Fire is just 10% stronger than ice & thunder). In SpellBlade Fire, Circle Blade damage is a 30s AoE DoT (15/20/25/30 variable potency) that also inflicts magic damage taken +5%. In the other elements, its just direct AoE damage. So whenever its off cooldown, you'd want prioritize spending a spellblade stack for Circle Blade in a Fire combo, especially in AoE situations. The variable potency on this one is fun. You charge it by pressing and holding the button and it fires when you release the button, it can charge for 1-4s and each second after the first gives it +5 more DoT potency. Animation when charging, you hold your sword skyward and it crackles with elemental energy, then its sort of like Circle of Scorn when released.


I try to work things like this in as incentives to do certain actions in certain elements, which helps ensure RDM's have reasons to keep rotating elements. But I also try to keep things simple- 2x 1, 2, 3 combos, 2 DoT's, a few special spellblade abilities, some with a unique added effect or free to use in a specific element, a few support buffs on long cooldowns, simple/weak support healing. I like to tweak skills already in the game since SE does this a lot already, and since RDM is supposed to be mix of existing jobs.

A thought occurred to me about Regen. I can't give it to RDM's unless its unstackable because in Light party content that's tuned for 1 healer, suddenly the tank can have stacked regens and the healer's job becomes way, way easier. And even in 8/24 man stuff, there'd be more possible regen-stacking than there should be. My solution is to change this to an oGCD melee skill on a 30s cooldown (Sanguine Blade) that does damage and absorbs/releases hp drained as a weak 5y AoE Cure.


There's also classic stuff like Aura, Phalanx, Regain, and Refresh all instant/single-target and on long/some shared cooldowns so you won't be saddled with too much support burden. I had to include a Convert-like move (In the Red), or you wouldn't have enough mp for an opener that includes Fire combo 1, 2 > Circle Blade > Doublecast Fire > In the Red > Chainspell Fire x5.


Regarding Speed stats, yes I meant that you'd make use of both, but shouldn't have to pay for them separately on gear stat budgets. If your left side gear gives skill speed and your right side gives spell speed, you could trait it so each speed stat gives its value to the other, essentially making them one stat. The problem is when someone melds a piece of crafted gear with both, what happens? Is it capped by one and the other's a waste? Do they double up, exceeding the usual cap on that gear? Speed's are not all that valuable to worry much over, but I still am unable to find a non-messy solution where materia is involved, that doesn't include special changes to the materia-melding interface. This is also why I made all RDM damage INT instead of INT and STR, and why I made healing potency determined by 80% of INT. Materia can mess up anything you try to do with traits to normalize multiple stats based on one.

I would prefer SE just combine the two speed stats for everyone. It would very little effect on most jobs. The other melee jobs that have spells (not including NIN)... aren't their spells instant casts anyway? More like abilities that happen to use mp? PLD is the only one I can think of, with its cross class CNJ spells.

[Duelle]

I would prefer SE just combine the two speed stats for everyone. It would very little effect on most jobs. The other melee jobs that have spells (not including NIN)... aren't their spells instant casts anyway? More like abilities that happen to use mp? PLD is the only one I can think of, with its cross class CNJ spells.

Under the current design, PLD and RDM would benefit a little too much from a combined speed stat. Of course, provided they were to tune jobs to scale differently with spell speed/skill speed and how a unified stat would affect both, it might sort of work.

PS: Updated the OP again.