#RIPRDM

[Duelle]

Rewatching the video there does seems to be one ablity that gives 2/3 of both bars.

That's the cooldown I was talking about. The RDM hits 41 white/black mana and uses a cooldown to double the mana accumulated. Not-Holy adds 21 white mana, and Not-Flare is speculated to do the same for black mana. If I were to hazard a guess, those two spells will probably be locked behind a requirement; requiring a Cross Cut => Chant du Cygne => Millionstab combo, requiring you use the jump back, or requiring you to spend X amount of mana (though the chances of the last one are very low).

what im saying is dont base everything you see based on a video of someone playing a class that they havent played at optimal

I only brought up rotation because the rotation is the result of what abilities a class has. When the bulk of your abilities are ranged spells, and the devs show nothing but mechanics that involve ranged spell casting aside from grudgingly putting the sword to use for 3 GCDs...the writing is on the wall. You'll cast like a turret until you pool enough mana to do your three hit combo and back to casting you go.

I wish I were wrong, but as I said in the other thread, the devs have had plenty of opportunity to prove me wrong, and have not.

Focusing more heavily on magic vs melee for the Red Mage fits the Final Fantasy XIV lore. After all, the Red Mages are former Black and White Mages that worked together to create an entirely new school of magic.

And at that point I ask, why Red Mages? If you want mages that don't use swords making peace and joining forces, Sage would have been a much better pick. Make them ascetics focused on balance in everything to create something bigger/better, and go from there. It'd even conceptually fit as a magic counterpart to MNK (who have the light and dark chakra thing).

[Mhaeric]

You'll cast like a turret

This is incorrect. The base cast time red mages operate under due to chainspell is 2s on the first gcd and instant on the second gcd, repeating every 2 gcds. That's a 60+% uptime in which there is huge mobility and ability to weave ogcd abilities we havent seen all of yet. They will feel and play much more like the current bard than a black mage what with the priority proc rotation, short cast times, and ogcd weaving.

I'm super looking forward to it.

[Duelle]

This is incorrect. The base cast time red mages operate under due to chainspell is 2s on the first gcd and instant on the second gcd, repeating every 2 gcds. That's a 60+% uptime in which there is huge mobility and ability to weave ogcd abilities we havent seen all of yet.

Which means nothing other than being able to avoid telegraphs without as much slidecasting. Doesn't address the problem I have with the job's implementation: you're standing at range spamming spells for most of the gameplay.

[Mhaeric]

Which means nothing other than being able to avoid telegraphs without as much slidecasting.

It means that gameplay will be more than just standing at range spamming spells most of the time, since there will be huge opportunity to weave plenty of additional ogcd effects between casts for a very fast paced playstyle. BLMs are turrets because they don't have time to do anything but stand there and cast. RDM will not be standing there just spamming spells and nothing else. And even if it does end up to be just standing there during the spell part of the rotation...

Doesn't address the problem I have with the job's implementation: you're standing at range spamming spells for most of the gameplay.

We need to build ~80 mana in each type to be able to unleash 3 melee attacks according to the video. It takes 2 gcd to build 20 mana, so that's ~16 gcd without the use of any cooldowns. We then unleash 5 gcd worth of melee and leaping rapier attacks. That's a ratio of ~25% melee to 37.5% black magic and 37.5% white magic. With the use of the cooldown as shown in the video we only need to build up ~40 mana in each type taking ~8 gcd to do so, so the balance is ~38% melee to 31% black magic and 31% white magic. I.e. The balance is not as big of a difference between melee and casting as you're making it out to be. This RDM design certainly fits with what red mage has been throughout the series: a caster that mixes black magic, white magic, and melee attacks in roughly equal measure. That they're not doing them simultaneously while in melee appears to be your biggest hangup. To be honest it sounds like you actually want a rune fencer/magic knight with the degree of emphasis you are placing on being in melee. Your melee rdm suggestion from your signature certainly reads like a magic knight with it's emphasis on weapon en-spells and exploiting them.

Anyway, regardless of your opinion, the design is not going to change significantly from what is coming apart from number tweaking, so your choice is either to learn to enjoy it (or at least not hate it) or to wallow in bitterness and disappointment. So far you seem to be leaning towards the latter with your comments about devs not proving you wrong, etc., so I wish you luck in that and hope you are able to come around from it. Bitterness is never a fun place to ground oneself in. Cheers.

[Blueyes]

We need to build ~80 mana in each type to be able to unleash 3 melee attacks according to the video. It takes 2 gcd to build 20 mana, so that's ~16 gcd without the use of any cooldowns. We then unleash 5 gcd worth of melee and leaping rapier attacks. That's a ratio of ~25% melee to 37.5% black magic and 37.5% white magic. With the use of the cooldown as shown in the video we only need to build up ~40 mana in each type taking ~8 gcd to do so, so the balance is ~38% melee to 31% black magic and 31% white magic.

I'm being a little nit picky, but you'll want to take note that certain actions will generally have a blue aura around the character's feet which indicates ability intended to be woven in during or between global cooldown execution. So abilities like the jump in and jump back don't equate to a global cooldown usage. Interestingly, when we focus on global cooldown usage, what we see are three casts white magic, three casts of black magic, three casts of red magic, and then three executions of melee weaponskills. This discounts the final white magic spell which is used after the gauge is reset. So in an ideal scenario you will be using weaponskills approximately 25% of the time with spells of varied types occupying the remaining 75%. This could potentially be skewed further if their "double up" ability has a lengthy cooldown, prolonging mana accumulation when that ability isn't available, but how often that ability can be used remains to be seen.

Personally I'm content with Red Mage so this is just me pointing out some details.

[Hyrist]

It's also been speculated that these melee skills are simply augmented by the balanced mana system, not restricted. So, while it will likely be viewed on par with an 'ice mage' Red Mages will still likely be able to predominately swing their sword if they're really desperate for that sort of interaction.

Kidding aside, I'm willing to give Duelle's bitterness a bit of leeway. Not because his expectations are standard, mind you, but he has been quite invested in a particular mental image of Red Mage for a very, very long time now - and to see a decade's long dream dashed would naturally make anyone upset.

However, I will point out that the majority of the people are correct here. Red Mage was primarily magical balanced first, physical second in its history, and I do agree with the general feeling that this fairly well depicts that.

As far as the frequency of diving in and out of Melee range and the build-up of mana reserves - those are numbers arguments and can be tweaked over time. It's the concept that needed review mostly and it looks both attractive and logically sound.

lvl27cubone on Reddit has confirmed a lot of my theories stated above through his analysis of skills. Here's the thread for reference:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...mage_analysis/

It's also noted that the Status that buffs our mana is 35 seconds, and the dive in is 40 Seconds, so my guess is for optimal rotation we will likely be standing in mid range and have to manually walk in occasionally on every other rotation to combo, depending on how quickly we can get those stacks gathered.

[Duelle]

It means that gameplay will be more than just standing at range spamming spells most of the time, since there will be huge opportunity to weave plenty of additional ogcd effects between casts for a very fast paced playstyle. BLMs are turrets because they don't have time to do anything but stand there and cast. RDM will not be standing there just spamming spells and nothing else. And even if it does end up to be just standing there during the spell part of the rotation.

The only oGCDs I can think of would be Contre de Sixte, which is AoE and has a cooldown. Procs don't turn spells into oGCDs. Melee skills are on the GCD and can't be weaved in because you lose Chainspell if you do (not to mention you won't be in range to use them anyway).

The BRD comparison doesn't hold water, because despite the whole "1.5s casts means I can move more than a BLM" claim, you were still standing in one spot and spamming casts. Hell, half of the arguments belittling the people that hated WM were based on "well BRD doesnt get to run like an idiot while attacking too", acknowledging that the job doesn't get to move like it used to. Having a slightly easier time dodging telegraphs did not negate the fact that WM turned BRD into a turret, and by the same vein RDM is looking to play as one.

We need to build ~80 mana in each type to be able to unleash 3 melee attacks according to the video. It takes 2 gcd to build 20 mana, so that's ~16 gcd without the use of any cooldowns. We then unleash 5 gcd worth of melee and leaping rapier attacks.

Not with the way Chainspell works. This is why Jolt seems to be a very important part of the set up for Chainspell, since Jolt => Val Aero/Val Thunder means you're getting 12/3 mana per 2 GCDs. The only way you'd get 20 mana in 2 GCDs (not to mention skip using Jolt as a set up) would be if you get a proc to allow Val Fire or Val Stone to be cast.

And that's two GCDs spent getting in and out of the front line, with three GCDs doing actual swordplay.

That's a ratio of ~25% melee to 37.5% black magic and 37.5% white magic. With the use of the cooldown as shown in the video we only need to build up ~40 mana in each type taking ~8 gcd to do so, so the balance is ~38% melee to 31% black magic and 31% white magic.

Unless the cooldown on the double mana ability is 30 seconds or lower, you can't really count on it in the middle of a rotation. And even using your numbers, that 75% spamming spells, 25% using the sword. With numbers like that, the use of the sword might as well not be there; you'd probably get more bang for your buck replacing that with a three-step Ultima spell and saved yourself the 2 GCDs spent to dash in and out of melee range.

That they're not doing them simultaneously while in melee appears to be your biggest hangup. To be honest it sounds like you actually want a rune fencer/magic knight with the degree of emphasis you are placing on being in melee. Your melee rdm suggestion from your signature certainly reads like a magic knight with it's emphasis on weapon en-spells and exploiting them.

A mystic knight doesn't have much beyond just casting spells through their swords. Concept-wise, they're a very shallow idea that managed to work in the older FFs because job system = classes are designed as one-trick ponies.

Enspells are actually a callback to FFXI's RDM, and I'd be lying if I denied that I really liked the idea behind them. Those spells in concept are supposed to be the RDM trying to close the gap in attack power, since a RDM is obviously going to have less base STR and attack power compared to a fighter. If a musclehead fighter is dealing 100 damage per swing, a RDM with an enspell up was supposed to come close to that; the damage would just be split between their clearly inferior physical power plus the effects from the sword enchant. This largely didn't work in XI because they went crazy with how resists and magic accuracy worked, and that the devs purposely made enspells scale terribly didn't help, but it was a solid idea and a very good step forward for RDM (the same goes for Phalanx). I'd go as far as saying that Enspells (and Phalanx) do a great job emphasizing the hybrid nature of RDM.

Anyway, regardless of your opinion, the design is not going to change significantly from what is coming apart from number tweaking, so your choice is either to learn to enjoy it (or at least not hate it) or to wallow in bitterness and disappointment.

Who says I'm trying to change the design? This thing has been in development for more than a year now, so the devs have committed to it. While I understand that some will take to it because it's better than being a refreshbot, try to keep in mind that some of us (because it's not just me; I just happen to run my mouth more than others) are allowed to be disappointed after 5 years of suggestions and feedback yielded next to nothing. My path is laid out before me, and that does include criticizing what has been presented.

Have a good day.