Red Mage could use some help.

[PrismaticDaybreak]

...

They don't balance off of ease of gameplay, Yoshi-P is on record saying as much.

[Galvuu]

They don't balance off of ease of gameplay, Yoshi-P is on record saying as much.

And they shouldn't, because it's highly subjective and not a good design philosophy.
I find bard way easier than machinist, and I'm told it should be the other way around.

[Cynfael]

They don't balance off of ease of gameplay, Yoshi-P is on record saying as much.

Exactly. If they balanced RDM based on ease of gameplay, we would probably be using Verflare to blast collectibles out of Lush Vegetation patches.

Joking aside, Galvuu is right that difficulty is highly subjective. I imagine that players who aren't accustomed to proc-based gameplay find RDM to be stressful, while those of us who were BLMing it up in 2.x find RDM to be kind of nostalgic (at least that's how I see it, and I actually enjoy RDM specifically because it reminds me of the old BLM playstyle, which I admit to enjoying despite its bare-bones simplicity).

At first I didn't agree with SE's intent not to balance Jobs with estimated difficulty in mind, but it's probably a good thing for the game if a wide variety of Jobs and mechanics are available and also viable. Playing a mechanically complex Job well should largely be its own reward, and it's also less messy when SE doesn't try to impose its opinion of which Job is the most or the least difficult.

[Elkanah]

After putting more time in endgame to rdm for savage content, I have basically all I need for dps numbers at the moment running the content, but shortly after learning the mechanics, I switch it out for a ninja in our party. It does need some buffs for the potency increase, or possible embolden and dropping the stack decrease during casts.

[Singularity]

IMO, remove the "tapering" aspect of Embolden (i.e. keep it at 10% for the entire duration) and make it affect all damage types for everyone it lands on. That would make it Trick Attack levels of good, but then RDM's personal DPS and other utility is comparable to NIN's also.

[Llugen]

IMO, remove the "tapering" aspect of Embolden (i.e. keep it at 10% for the entire duration) and make it affect all damage types for everyone it lands on. That would make it Trick Attack levels of good, but then RDM's personal DPS and other utility is comparable to NIN's also.

The highest RDMs are already doing just about the same damage as the highest NINs, with a difference of ~100 give or take depending on the fight. If Embolden was a full +10% to ALL damage for 20 full seconds with no falloff, it would be insanely broken, never mind wanting to increase its single target damage to be even higher.

Could either do +5% for 20 seconds or +10% for 10, if you don't want to do a falloff, or just keep the falloff and include magic damage.


I know I'm in enemy territory when I say this, but again you don't want to break your class so hard that it's "required" (Note: we don't want ANYTHING to be trick attack levels of good, because it's broken and always has been. It's incredible that they haven't tweaked it in almost 4 full years). Or do you. I guess I don't know.

[Singularity]

I know I'm in enemy territory when I say this, but again you don't want to break your class so hard that it's "required" (Note: we don't want ANYTHING to be trick attack levels of good, because it's broken and always has been. It's incredible that they haven't tweaked it in almost 4 full years). Or do you. I guess I don't know.

I understand what you mean. I'm not trying to make my main job broken, but I would argue that if Trick Attack is the gold standard for what SE wants a "utility DPS" to deliver to group DPS (as evidenced by the fact that it has not changed at all in three years since NIN was released), and Embolden is the only way RDM can contribute to group DPS, then it does in fact need to be something this good.

It's not like NIN is miles ahead of other support DPS either - Hypercharge for example delivers 6% universal damage-up for ~28 seconds every two minutes, which isn't quite as good, but MCH has higher personal DPS to compensate.

I expected the proposal I made to elicit a reaction in the realm of "WTF that's so broken", But really I just want all the jobs balanced relatively equally. If RDM is going to have NIN/BRD levels of personal DPS, then it should also contribute NIN/BRD levels of group DPS. Note also that I've completely ignored other utility here, for which I expect NIN still wins out with its aggro control stuff.

[Dualgunner]

5% for 20 seconds is still in its own way fighting trick for effectiveness, even if it keeps its 2 minute cd. With no taper I'd say find what the average percentage gain it gives now over 20s (can't think of the number off the top of my head) and that would be the number it keeos for 20s every 2 minutes.

[Shurrikhan]

5% for 20 seconds is still in its own way fighting trick for effectiveness, even if it keeps its 2 minute cd. With no taper I'd say find what the average percentage gain it gives now over 20s (can't think of the number off the top of my head) and that would be the number it keeos for 20s every 2 minutes.

Trick affects all damage though, not just allied physical, and can be slightly better aligned to damage peaks. So long one's not clipped just short of an additional peak within TA where all could just barely fit within, say, Hypercharge, shorter at higher rate tends to be better when the product of percentile and duration are technically equal.

To be honest, I'd be happy with just it and Monk both seeing universification to their respective raid buffs, affecting both physical and magical as per Hypercharge and Foe's changes prior.

That, and, again, something that can allow RDM to take on more of a "selfish" dps role at cost to its especially indirect utility (i.e. rezzes), rather than Embolden, so that it doesn't feel like a "only keep it around until we can throw it out".

@Shuri: The hypothetical buffed embo would also be universal damage, but you do make a good point.

Edit (also due to daily cap): Sorry, I must have missed the most recent suggestion there. I am really do badly at that, sorry.

[Llugen]

5% for 20 seconds is basically hypercharge level damage, although a little weaker since it's 6% now for 20 seconds on the turret which generally manifests as 27-29 seconds on the boss, iirc.