Red Mage AoE

[Rbstr]

Let's be honest...

I'm not saying that concerns aren't invalid from what we've seen. But, I figure real honestly would be doubting they'd gone through all the trouble of changing all these skills to have one job just flat out suck in the end. Everyone should doubt that tooltips and potencies we've seen are accurate to the release.
And also recognizing that balance ebbs and flows, like how SMN poached the AOE king title from BLM with HW's release. Often times balance changes are also intended to shake up the meta to make things fresh.
I think SMN looks like it's going to ramp up to one hell of a prolonged burst phase with Bahamut. It's there to address like the #1 Summoner complaint: that pets aren't quite what you think when you think FF summons. I'm excited to see the changes more than anything.

[TristanBlane]

Flare and holy not being aoe kind of bothers me, despite it being a part of the single target rotation.

This ^ Its dumb that its not AOE. The original moves are AOE and this version looks way stronger than those. Makes no sense? If it was AOE it'd be like SMN Deathflare. a nice aoe combo finisher.

[Hyrist]

BLMs just call that Foul, or as Hulk would call it: puny god. In the time you build up to using Akh Morn twice, BLM has gotten mulitple Fouls. On top of everything else they have vs. what SMN lost. Let's be honest about the AoE discrepancy between the jobs instead of just wanting SMN to not have taken as big of a hit that it has.

There's no being honest about jumping to conclusions, sorry. Not to mention if there is, what of it? Pre Heavensard, Black Mages were the undisputed King of AoEs. That position reversed in Heavensard - even that position reverses again the sour grapes seem even louder than before when the situations were reverse. It's kind of grating.

The better point is that BLM was behind SMN in AoE in Heavensard, and SMN's powerful AoEs got the same treatment as everyone else's AoEs for Stormblood. Both have new toys and will be far more than adequate for what most players of either class are going to use. If we're being completely honest, this is an Epeen measuring contest and some SMNs are jumping the gun with feeling inadequate.

Until the ACTUAL numbers come out and there is physical evidence from rotational trials, anything said about it is conjecture. If anything, we should be glad that their comparatively similar now. Not to mention their AoE Depth is far better developed than what RDM's is currently.

This ^ Its dumb that its not AOE. The original moves are AOE and this version looks way stronger than those. Makes no sense? If it was AOE it'd be like SMN Deathflare. a nice aoe combo finisher.

Actually... more often than not, Flare and Holy are single target spells in Final Fantasy, so it is FFXIV White Mage and Black Mage versions that are the outsiders. And neither have ever really been natively available to Red Mage before now. I find that your statement ignores the larger context of both the spells, and the Job Class that it's being applied to. Be happy we have them at all.

[Nezia]

Numbers apart, I think the major issue with red mage is the lack of cleave spells.

Every single class in this game has something that will increase their dps if there are 2 targets to hit instead of only 1, be it ST rotation skills that deal aoe damage or multi-dot. RDM has none of those. They really should make verflare/verholy AOE and even so I still think the cleave capabilities of the RDM would still be the lowest in the game.

[Hyrist]

Numbers apart, I think the major issue with red mage is the lack of cleave spells.

Every single class in this game has something that will increase their dps if there are 2 targets to hit instead of only 1, be it ST rotation skills that deal aoe damage or multi-dot. RDM has none of those. They really should make verflare/verholy AOE and even so I still think the cleave capabilities of the RDM would still be the lowest in the game.

From my observations they are not applying mage relations to Red mage. It's fairly clear that they're using Physical DPS standards when it comes to their resource management and AoE. In this manner it makes perfect sense as we have 1-2 spammable AoE skills that are effective with 3+ Mobs, at the cost of sustainability.

Something to keep in mind to correct the general mentality of expectations with jobs.

We have 15 jobs. The developers have categorized them into two sections of balance. Primary stat (For mathematical/programmer balance) and Practical/Positional (for visual/piratical balance). Focusing on Practical Balance

Melee: WAR PLD DRK, MNK DRG SAM, NIN

Ranged: WHM SCH AST, BLM SMN BRD MCH

Red Mage falls in the only current "Hybird" position in this - and its reflected in some of its mechanics. As far as potency numbers, again we should be waiting on hard numbers from Patch notes/In Game at this point. We've been told that we are looking at an old development build more times than I can count.

If anything I'd say we need improvement on potency numbers on the AoE Skills, but not by a dramatic amount, if we're going by melee standards.

[Rbstr]

Every single class in this game has something that will increase their dps if there are 2 targets to hit instead of only 1, be it ST rotation skills that deal aoe damage or multi-dot. RDM has none of those.

That seems like a pretty dubious thing to be concerned about. What kinds of skills are you actually considering? RDM has Contre Sixte and enhanted moulinet can be used that way if you've already built gauge up. If that kind of off-GCD doesn't count then there are several classes that won't fit this well in SB (in particular because many of the big stand-alone DOTs are going away).