RDM's Weak Auto-Attack

[Repulse97]

How come a lv 80 crafter will do more damage with an auto attack than a Red Mage will? I think it has the lowest auto attack of anything in the game, and it's a dps. Could you not raise it to maybe 300ish per auto attack?

[Wayfinder3]

No, RDM is a magical ranged dps and melee auto attacks conflict with that

[Rongway]

No, RDM is a magical ranged dps and melee auto attacks conflict with that

One could argue, with good reasons, that RDM is a swashbuckling fightermage and that melee auto attacks should be part of that.


That aside, the reason RDM has such weak auto attacks is that they're pigeonholed into the caster role and functional auto attacks would be a significant source of lost damage for many people. Currently, total auto attack damage for an 8 minute fight is less than a single spell cast. If RDM had auto attacks that actually scaled on INT (and spells adjusted downward to compensate), living outside of melee range would result in a loss of 15%~18% of DPS, and fights that force half the DDs to fight at range would make RDMS even less wanted. A 300 damage-per-swing auto attack would be "okay" maybe but the total damage of auto attacks in an 8 minute fight would still be less than two spells, so it's mostly a why even bother.

[Rhyn]

If you give them relevant auto-attacks, they HAVE TO stay in melee range from now on in any competitive content. I don't want to see that.

[Zerathor]

Become what you must. Bring back the strength melded rdm meme.

[TheGrimace]

I'd prefer more reasons to get close for damage on Red Mage and I already hug enemies with it because Red Mages have always been swordboys in my mind. I like the idea of Red Mage and Blue Mage both doing more damage with auto-attacks. Probably won't happen due to reasons listed above, but whatever. I can still pretend I'm a melee boy while being effective.

[Brandedblade]

It would be cool if they had something like "Casting Enchanted Riposte grants you Blade Arts for X seconds, causing your auto attacks to deal additional unaspected damage with a potency of Y," As opposed to just having fulltime auto attack boosts, make their melee combo rotation temporarily enhance their auto attacks and make it last just long enough that it ends by the time you displace and go back to caster mode.

[Zyneste]

Autoattacks need to remain Negligible. We are already forced to be in melee range for 20% of an encounter. We cannot be fighting with melee for melee range mechanics or suffer large DPS losses because someone wants a harder hitting autoattack between their dualcasts/melee combo, that is a terrible design.

Pass.

[Gaethan_Tessula]

It would be cool if they had something like "Casting Enchanted Riposte grants you Blade Arts for X seconds, causing your auto attacks to deal additional unaspected damage with a potency of Y," As opposed to just having fulltime auto attack boosts, make their melee combo rotation temporarily enhance their auto attacks and make it last just long enough that it ends by the time you displace and go back to caster mode.

Yeah, something that's on temporarily might be appreciated just for the aesthetic.

It's that or RDM's DPS gets tuned to be competitive without the autos, and with them you get an entirely bonus extra few %. More of an optimization game than a requirement; issue is, it'd probably become or perceived as a requirement for early progression Savage/Ultimate.

If OP just wants a sense that their RDM is an actual swordfighter and not just a mage with a toy sword, RDM's unenchanted weaponskills do give it the "advantage" that if you're somehow ever totally out of MP, you can do more damage than the other casters also out of MP (or, really you can do more than an OOM healer or SUM, because BLM gets enough for one blizzard and now they have mana again).

[nmaxtro]

Maybe not a more powerful auto-attack, but I'd like another melee attack, maybe procced off a spell that isn't cast too often. It's really cool zipping in and out of melee range but it's disappointing that I have to wait until I have enough mana to use the combo.