Red Mage could use some help.

[EllieShadeflare]

"But ELLLLLLLLIE! They don't need any help! They're loved by many for progreeeeeessions!"

Actually, they kinda do, and let me explain.

• Embolden: So, with the buff to Summoner's Devotion, it's pretty clear that Embolden is now a pretty bad ability. Granted, Devotion has a high initial percent and helps some of the better classes (aka anyone that's not shooting a spell other than Summoner), but the fact that it doesn't synergize with healers or other mages is a pretty big issue. You don't see this with Monk too badly because Monk is a melee and Brotherhood buffs melee. However, in both cases you remove any incentive to take a mage class over a physical class and that's something that shouldn't happen anyway. Make it universally compatible with all classes (and apply the same to Brotherhood.)
  
• Pretty pathetic DPS: It's one thing to not be a Black Mage, DPS wise. It's another thing to hit like a support class in a role that's now dominated by heavy hitters. A slight increase to potency shouldn't hurt too much. A 10% increase to their abilities shouldn't hurt too bad, without making it TOO overpowered.

I don't think these requests are too unreasonable, so. I'm hoping to see the response to the post.

[Kabooa]

By 'abilities' do you mean the kit, or specifically 'Abilities', such as Fleche?

[EllieShadeflare]

By 'abilities' do you mean the kit, or specifically 'Abilities', such as Fleche?

Oh, sorry. I should have been more specific. Yeah, I mean the kit.

[Valdegarde]

Red Mage has become very dear to me, and the balance between its raising support and the further lackluster everything else feels like a very touchy subject. I do feel it's okay that a job with an extremely powerful support mechanism has to be one of the lower damaging classes, but not by this much at the rate we're going.

This made me think of an idea that I hope other jobs would feel more willing to compromise with regarding raise utility. What if it cost the same amount of MP, but was off GCD at a cooldown of about 30 seconds or so? This would be twice as useful as any other swiftcast raise, and would not be a damage sacrifice in situations where we need to use it, yet not this party/alliance wipe preventing juggernaut.

This would free up some balance for things like Embolden to have more of a prominent effect, or the addition of some direct DPS I think. I feel its in Red Mage's personality to be a strong contender for new content but not make it to the "end-game" well, a theme it revolves around in every iteration so far. But Raise being its only niche and everything else sliding into a gap that's starting to become irredeemable isn't the way I'd like to see Red Mage go.

[Zerathor]

Rdm atm fills a very specific role, and it fills that role quite well, but most people who have rdm don't enjoy that role. A rdm allows prog groups to make it further into fights that would have been wiped a long time ago for more opportunities to learn mechanics in certain spots.

Their damage could use a slight boost, but the level of utility they bring could only be ballanced by being the lowest dps job. No other dps can redeem learning groups as hard as rdm.

[Kabooa]

Oh, sorry. I should have been more specific. Yeah, I mean the kit.

Doing this would put Redmage just under Samurai and Summoner on every encounter except Halicarnassus, which would also put them just under black mage.

We would then need to do this for Bard, as it is in a similar position, and then do the same by another 2-3% for every other job except Black Mage, who would then need literally anything to not be inferior in every way.

[Leukka]

I'm not sure what should be done in terms of potency but I'm pretty sure almost everyone here can agree that Embolden ought to not have a damage type restriction. Please let it affect other magic users. Please open up more comp options!

[Elkanah]

I find it funny cause I piss off both SMN's and BLM's in the same party in savage content because I'm out DPSing them with the ability to raise people who don't dodge stuff and die to mechanics, throw out manashifts and lucid dream/addle and still come out the top dps under or above Samurai (depending on their skill rotation set and how common they're hitting, which is about 99% of the time).

Honestly RDM feels solid right now where it's at. It's not overly OP and not too under that it cannot maintain decent damage while moving around the battlefield. While BLM is a stationary canon and smn needs to worry about their dps/dots and buffs going out with a clunky rotation system, rdm's feel good. I play both BLM and RDM, along with NIN. And while Trick attack is amazing every 2min or less compared to embolden, it's still doing or pushing out decent damage as a semi support dpsing class, like brd but in mage category lol. Again, mostly just opinion.

[RLofOBFL]

The issue with it only being super useful during prog is you spend all your pages and stuff gearing it up just to swap it out later so you'd need to gear an entirely different class. Maybe just a flat embolden buff would help bc its dps is somewhat lacking when played on the highest levels and it will get worse as our gear gets better.

[Cynfael]

I find it funny cause I piss off both SMN's and BLM's in the same party in savage content because I'm out DPSing them with the ability to raise people who don't dodge stuff and die to mechanics, throw out manashifts and lucid dream/addle and still come out the top dps under or above Samurai (depending on their skill rotation set and how common they're hitting, which is about 99% of the time).

Honestly RDM feels solid right now where it's at. It's not overly OP and not too under that it cannot maintain decent damage while moving around the battlefield. While BLM is a stationary canon and smn needs to worry about their dps/dots and buffs going out with a clunky rotation system, rdm's feel good. I play both BLM and RDM, along with NIN. And while Trick attack is amazing every 2min or less compared to embolden, it's still doing or pushing out decent damage as a semi support dpsing class, like brd but in mage category lol. Again, mostly just opinion.

If you compare a good RDM to less skilled players, RDM comes out looking godly.

If you compare RDM to equally skilled players who know the fight and rarely make mistakes, RDM doesn’t look so great.

The devs have put themselves in an awkward position. RDM is difficult to balance in a satisfactory manner: it’s a fairly low-damage DPS Job with utility that is amazing at the start of progression and becomes more and more irrelevant as everyone skills up.