Quote Originally Posted by Duelle View Post
*snip*
Duelle,

You've become far too hardline in this stance over time, and you're beginning to mar yourself and other proponents by doing so.

First off, Red Mage was never swordsman first. In truth if we're speaking logicly, the casting has always taken the forefront of Red Mage, though always entangled and by a narrow margin. I'm not talking FFXI exclusively here, I'm talking through it's whole history. Please do not historically confuse Red Mage with Sorcerer. Sorcerers has always been the sword-caster.

That said, Melee is an inseparable part of the class and yes, the meta of FFXI did Red Mage a large disservice. But to stress, THIS IS NOT HAPPENING HERE. It was abundantly clear that a good portion of skill kit comes from adjusting the class's positioning. This would not be needed if it was primarily attacking only from range. To have both a closer, and a distance maker indicates that this class will be diving in and out of close range frequently. So both caster and melee will be important implementation.

And to be completely fair, attack magic was the MINORITY of that display. The first three skills seemed to be status inflicts of some sort (I'm guessing the first was chainspell. I don't know what the second was, but the third was some sort of restorative buff, by the coloring.) Then we have three melee attacks. The gap close, the attack skill, and the Gap maker. Then we had all of one offensive magic cast, at the very end, which did not even seem to have a cast time.

For someone claiming to not be passing judgement, you are clearly jumping the gun, and jumping it hard.

Red Mage has always been the versatile combat mage who sports both magic and swords. It has never been exclusively a front-line entity, nor a back line entity and I can see the pains SE has taken to keep that true here. Yes, A Red Mage casts spells, even at a distance, even at close range. That's part of the Job's original allure. Please don't become so enamored with your own vision of Red Mage that you deny any other of yourself, other players, and most especially the developers.

Please, pack it in. It's waay too early to be this heated on it.