Small tweak for RDM

[Lium]

We need more aspected spells, water based and such and mana cost reduced for spells.
This is of much higher importance by far

That's basically a blue mage.

[Gruntler]

water based

Vercure is water-aspected, unlike the wind-aspected Cure and Physick.


The swords are ice-aspected, obviously.


The elements are already there. Red Mages definitely don't neglect the water-aspect. That's probably why their cure is gotten so late in their progression, they literally learn to use the element of the Calamity that birthed them in order to undo damage done.

[Nalien]

I agree that the aetherial blade spam has visual appeal -- I've personally suggested summoning a barrier of crystal swords for a counter-based personal mitigation tool many times before, citing Noctis' Armiger and Sora's Ultima Form, "En Garde" is a perfect name -- but let's not get carried away. The Red Mage archetype has always been primarily about blending the opposing forces of White and Black magic, with a splash of better physical stats to make up for its lower potential as a caster, not about tossing out swords as a primary mechanic.

Am I suggesting making the aetherial blades a primary mechanic, though? I'm thinking something along the same lines of Summoners Fester, part of the rotation but the summoning rotation clearly, and rightly, takes priority. Fleche and Contre Sixte are already part of our rotation of course, I'd simply prefer them to be both a bit more visually interesting, and mechanically. Two oGCDs that you simply press on cooldown is just dull. A similar "You have X stacks of Aetherial Blades, spend them before Aether(blade)flow is off cooldown". Don't think I'd even make spending them that intrusive, I'd be more incline to simply change Fleche to give the stacks, then have existing skills (such as Engagement) supplemented by them. Takes what we already have and just makes it a tad more interesting, IMO.

Only new skills I'd actually really like with regards to any of this, would be a Meditate style charge skill to work in to lengthy phase transitions.

[Archwizard]

Vercure is water-aspected, unlike the wind-aspected Cure and Physick.

The swords are ice-aspected, obviously.

Nope! Just spent two hours collecting data on this.

Enemies who cast Water and its variants use a spell-swirly animation that's the same shade of aquamarine as most oGCD skills available to all jobs. (Including, funnily enough, our swords.)

Vercure (and Benefic) use a shade of desaturated silvery-purple-blue that shares more in common with the lighting on our job-switch animation than any Water spell. I'd sooner argue they're a unique color for "unaspected healing" (as opposed to the "rainbow" of unaspected damage).

The swords, meanwhile... deal unaspected damage. And before you say "well they're stabbing you", Blizzard IV drops a glacier on your head and still deals ice damage, impact type ain't the determining factor. Contre Sixte's swords explode and still don't deal ice damage.
Our sword oGCDs are just crystallized aether. Stop imposing your headcanon as fact.

[Gruntler]

Enemies who cast Water and its variants use a spell-swirly animation that's the same shade of aquamarine as most oGCD skills available to all jobs. (Including, funnily enough, our swords.)

Spells that target enemies and spells that target friends use different animations. There's a different kind of sheen to an enemy cast spell than a self-cast spell. Not to mention Blue Magic uses its own swirly regardless of element.


The swirly you see is the generic swirly for abilities, but lightning sprits have a special sparking animation to go with their casts for their spells, and so on; what you do see is -before- the swirl/spark, for a brief second, you do see the same purple-cast aura that a blm has when casting thunder for Thunder Sprites. So, if you look at the water sprites, you can see they do have an offensive cast aura that an aqua blue color.


The cast animation for Vercure and Benefic and Esuna has two colors--blue-purple in the center, and on the outer swirls, the same blue color as the water sprites use in their subtle offensive cast animation under the swirlies.

However, if you go to Il Mheg, and you fight undines, when they cast water II, they don't have the 'ability swirl' you describe. They have a bluish purple casting aura--the exact same blue purple in Vercure et al.'s cast aura.

What we don't see are the rainbow effects of unaspected spells, which contain hints of red and blue and green, as well as white--something you can see for yourself.

Vercure (and Benefic) use a shade of desaturated silvery-purple-blue that shares more in common with the lighting on our job-switch animation than any Water spell. I'd sooner argue they're a unique color for "unaspected healing" (as opposed to the "rainbow" of unaspected damage).

Except for Undines casting Water II, Sahaguin casting Enwater....

The swords, meanwhile... deal unaspected damage.

They deal physical damage. Not 'unaspected' which is magical. You can test that for yourself with Embolden.

And before you say "well they're stabbing you", Blizzard IV drops a glacier on your head and still deals ice damage, impact type ain't the determining factor. Contre Sixte's swords explode and still don't deal ice damage.

Blizzard IV doesn't deal physical damage. RDM abilities do. Everyone knows this. Test it for yourself.

Our sword oGCDs are just crystallized aether. Stop imposing your headcanon as fact.

Claiming the swords are 'unaspected damage' when they're physical would be imposing 'head canon as fact.' And it is entirely possible to channel ice-aspected aether and deliver a physical attack. Samurai do!

[Ardox]

Spells that target enemies and spells that target friends use different animations. There's a different kind of sheen to an enemy cast spell than a self-cast spell. Not to mention Blue Magic uses its own swirly regardless of element.


The swirly you see is the generic swirly for abilities, but lightning sprits have a special sparking animation to go with their casts for their spells, and so on; what you do see is -before- the swirl/spark, for a brief second, you do see the same purple-cast aura that a blm has when casting thunder for Thunder Sprites. So, if you look at the water sprites, you can see they do have an offensive cast aura that an aqua blue color.


The cast animation for Vercure and Benefic and Esuna has two colors--blue-purple in the center, and on the outer swirls, the same blue color as the water sprites use in their subtle offensive cast animation under the swirlies.

However, if you go to Il Mheg, and you fight undines, when they cast water II, they don't have the 'ability swirl' you describe. They have a bluish purple casting aura--the exact same blue purple in Vercure et al.'s cast aura.

What we don't see are the rainbow effects of unaspected spells, which contain hints of red and blue and green, as well as white--something you can see for yourself.



Except for Undines casting Water II, Sahaguin casting Enwater....



They deal physical damage. Not 'unaspected' which is magical. You can test that for yourself with Embolden.



Blizzard IV doesn't deal physical damage. RDM abilities do. Everyone knows this. Test it for yourself.




Claiming the swords are 'unaspected damage' when they're physical would be imposing 'head canon as fact.' And it is entirely possible to channel ice-aspected aether and deliver a physical attack. Samurai do!

Thanks, I just didn't had the patience anymore

[Nalien]

The colour of the swirl around spell casting is a poor indication of a spells aspected element. The Cure and Medica series of spells are in fact Water aspected as far as lore goes, playing off the "Waters of Life" trope, despite the green swirls which are pretty much just the standard spell casting animation and nothing more (one could argue it's green to match the green HP bar I guess). That was the answer as to why Conjurer/White Mage had little representation of Water aspected abilities back in the day, at least. and when I say back in the day I mean 1.x/ARR beta, no I don't feel like grabbing a shovel to back that up, don't really care to convince with hard facts either way... if this is a topic that truly matters to anyone, I'd suggest making a thread in the lore section, this isn't really the place for it...

Given Red Mages origins with regards to White Mage, I'd imagine Vercure is likewise Water aspected. As for the aetherial blades being Ice aspected... I'd like to think so, but I don't recall any lore regarding it... Closest we have is Alisaies usage of it, and you can maybe tie in somethingsomething with regards to the choice of blade Urianger decided to hand her before we set out for Doma, but there isn't really anything... Unless there is a line in the lore book stating it's unaspected or Ice aspected, does it really matter? Even if there is, it doesn't really matter all that much... Let people have their own headcanon... Even if you take Vercure as Water and Fleche as Ice, doesn't surmount as an argument against Verwater and Verblizzard IMHO... If it did, we wouldn't have Verfire, because we have Verflare... Pretty sure we're allowed to double dip in the elements...

[Archwizard]

-snip-

First off, Esuna doesn't have the same color animation as Vercure/Benefic. Esuna has a much deeper, richer shade of unambiguous indigo (more akin to the casting of Teleport), while Vercure/Benefic use what appears to be a desaturated mixture of colors (silver, blue, purple).

Second, I checked in Ruby Sea against the Red Kojin enemies and Water Sprites, all of whom use the aquamarine swirl when casting Water that I described, which matches oGCDs.
I'll check Sahagin when I get home but since you didn't see Esuna as being different it's not looking good for ya.

I'm trying to wrap my head around how you claim impacting someone with a magically-conjured elemental weapon is nonelemental while dropping a giant ice crystal on someone is elemental. That's the definition of "cherrypicking".
Yes, Blizzard IV is elemental, in spite of the impact. That's my point. It doesn't make sense to claim the impact is different for Fleche when Blizzard IV proves that doesn't matter.
My apologies for using "unaspected" as shorthand for "literally not ice", I wasn't aware we'd be this pedantic.

Lastly, for Samurai, I'd say that's more due to game mechanics. Having most of their kit inherit benefits from Slash vulnerability and Melee buffs would hinder any magic-aspected attacks rather than aid them.
Red Mage, who gets self-buffs towards Magic damage, has no such excuse.

EDIT: Checked Sahagin Skirmishers in Western La Noscea. As I suspected, the casters used the same animation for Water as the Kojin and Sprite enemies I previously observed -- the oGCD aquamarine, not Vercure/Benefic's mix.
The unarmed warriors had a different effect for casting that lacked the swirls, but was a lighter shade of the same base aquamarine color.

Not to be outdone, I went to Il Mheg to observe the Undines. Their basic attack uses -- surprise -- the same exact effect for casting Water as I observed with all other mobs thus far. The same shade as oGCDs.
They do however have a unique effect for casting Water III, which I observed as being used by other mobs on their "most powerful charged attack" -- sort of an gold-tinted variation on the unaspected spell effect. Again, not the same color as Vercure or Benefic. Not even the same color as Esuna.

In conclusion, you're colorblind.

[Ardox]

/snip

Dude... you realize you base your argumentation on animations and no actual hard data, right? You refuse to think Fleche is Ice aspected even though it use ice sound effect and look frosty, but when you analyse the animation, then it's a perfectly valid point? Pray tell, where is it written that water spells can't take different shade of blue? Is Y'shotola Tornado spell not a wind spell because it's not the aero-spell-green? What about Water IV?

[Archwizard]

Dude... you realize you base your argumentation on animations and no actual hard data, right? You refuse to think Fleche is Ice aspected even though it use ice sound effect and look frosty, but when you analyse the animation, then it's a perfectly valid point? Pray tell, where is it written that water spells can't take different shade of blue? Is Y'shotola Tornado spell not a wind spell because it's not the aero-spell-green? What about Water IV?

Gruntler based his observations on color in another thread. I was refuting them.

To argue against your "ice sounds and looking frosty", we see and hear crystals and crystallization. That's not proof of "ice".