Integration of the Sword: Red Mage

[Duelle]

Spellblade is essentially a non-automatic version of what we already have, and there's no incentive to utilize mana before 80

I'll admit that this wouldn't be too different from what we currently have. The main reason for Spellblade is really to give the player control of when mana is getting consumed; also because the current system doesn't allow for sword skills and spells to be used in tandem.

I've been trying to come up with other skills that could be used to consume mana, but I think that creates the problem of then never having enough mana for Spellblade or Chainspell. Well, unless abilities/spells were to generate 20~ mana, but making you hit 80+ mana faster and more often would mean you'd have to nerf Spellblade/Chainspell to balance them out. The alternative would be locking both Spellblade and Chainspell behind a full mana bar (100), which is feasible.

aside from Chainspell which, if you wanted to utilize it with Foible you need 80 anyway since I'm assuming Chainspell doesn't remove/reduce the GCD either (And if I'm reading 'Enhanced Chainspell' correctly, the Reign effects aren't procc'ed during it)

On the first part, that's something I forgot to add to the description, so I'll correct that.

As for RoT proccing during Chainspell, you're correct in that it doesn't prior to lv66. I was thinking of letting RoT proc regardless of whether you have Chainspell active or not, but I thought that might make Chainspell a little too powerful. As I mentioned in my notes, Chainspell is more for situations where you're at high mana but are away from the target for some reason, or when you need to get Vercures/Verraises out quickly.

As a more thematic note I probably would call the capstone spell something different since Ardor means passion or devotion and probably restore the potency to 550.

Ardor is actually the RDM ultimate spell from FFXII (at least as of Zodiac edition). I needed a single spell to replace Verflare/Verholy, and it seems to fit if we wanted to do callbacks to other games. The potency nerf I felt was justified since you have damage more spread out between sword skills (which are a mainstay in the rotation in melee and don't deal low damage when used on their own), but sure, I'll buff it back to 550 potency.

PS: thanks for the feedback.

I think part of the problem is with the role system as a whole. If you look at the class tab both on lodestone and in game, there are three tabs for DPS. These are melee, physical ranged, and magical ranged. As role actions are tied to these groups, red mage must fit into one of them. In the current iteration, red mage is in the ranged magical role. This means that it is required to primarily provide ranged, casted magical damage and it's given role actions to support this (e.g. swiftcast, surecast).

If that's really the issue, they could just change the label from "magic ranged DPS" to "magic DPS". I certainly wouldn't have a problem with RDM falling under the label of magic DPS for gearing purposes (even if most caster gear looks ridiculous on RDM).

The role actions themselves aren't really distance-sensitive. The only skill that even suggests it might suit a ranged caster is Break, but stuff like Erase, Apocatastasis, and Mana Shift can and should be equally useful in melee or at range.