Why is RDM invisible right now? Where is the outrage?

[dinnertime]

RDM is a Ranged DPS. Magic Ranged DPS specifically. It'll get touched on. They mentioned NIN and SMN individually in particular because they have a gameplay problem.

[Arete-Nomos]

I am praying that by "ranged" they meant all 5 struggling jobs. However, "Ranged" is typically shorthand for Physical Ranged, ie BRD MCH DNC. They outright name SMN and they outright name "Ranged". I want to hear them outright name RDM. Until I see some acknowledgement that we are getting fixes too, I will assume that we are left behind.

[Excaliburnina]

My, my do we have some things to sort out here.

RDM has been bottom of the barrel alongside Dancer for the entire patch.

Objectively false; the lowest fight RDM ranks currently is E1S due to weaker cleave options, and even then it's still higher than MCH.

The discussion around Raise Tax is ludicrous.

Not really. Raise tax is a pretty viable concept when you consider how powerful battle raise can become. It's far too subjective and relies on far too many factors to truly quantify its use, therefore it's safer for the developers to make the job it's attached to a weaker one. Depending on the fight, the players fighting the boss, the jobs the players are using to fight the boss and what's going on with that specific group in the encounter battle raise can become the strongest button in the game. The opposite is equally true, where it can become one of the most useless buttons in the game. I understand where this gripe comes from because the few RDM that want to push it to its limits will feel that button's degrading usefulness as prog ends, but saying it shouldn't be considered for balance is just frivolous.

We know that "raise tax" isn't even a condition for RDM to have competitive output. Throughout Stormblood, RDM has always been on par with BLM.

I'm sorry, what?

Not to mention the fact that BLM's mobility vastly outperforms RDM's mobility in Savage right now - the single GCD of movement that RDM gets (dependent on standing still every 2.5 seconds) cannot compete with the on-demand chain of instant GCDs and multiple teleports that BLM have at their fingertips.

RDM vs BLM movement can be summed up in that RDM has an advantage when it comes to on-demand short-term movement, and BLM has the advantage for on-demand long-term movement. They do very different things, and you can argue fight design caters to one type of movement or the other but comparing them is a bit pointless.

Why would anyone bring a RDM when they could bring a BLM? Verraise is irrelevant here. Either you need the raise and you're not ready to clear (damage doesn't matter), or you are ready to clear and you just need more damage (non-healer raising wont save you).

Calling Verraise irrelevant is just to fit your woe-is-RDM narrative. Verraise's potential cannot truly be stated without trying to stick every single group at every skill level in some compartment, which will never work.

Just give us potency buffs to put us in line with the other DPS.

You're already there, though. The bottom half of DPS are all extremely close, and the melee chunk of DPS that are so much higher have indeed been recognized. Your desire for outcry is based in hyperbole and falsehood.

If you've really spent time on it you'd realize how much of a boon Verraise can be and how difficult it is to quantify and balance such a thing.

[MaelleRiou]

You shouldn't have to switch jobs. Why is Red Mage the only job in the game that has to deal with people telling them they "should" switch or calling them "training wheels"? That is such a BS mentality and I refuse to accept being kept down just because some people have this warped perception of my favorite job.

As long as red mage can throw out as many instant raises as it currently can it'll remain training wheels.

RDM vs BLM movement can be summed up in that RDM has an advantage when it comes to on-demand short-term movement, and BLM has the advantage for on-demand long-term movement. They do very different things, and you can argue fight design caters to one type of movement or the other but comparing them is a bit pointless.

Red mage doesn't really have on demand movement other than Swiftcast and Enchanted Reprise. Red mage has to hard cast something to get Dual Cast, so it's not on demand at all. And since Dual Cast is used a soon as it is generated there are certainly times when the red mage has to move and does not have time to do a hard cast. Not to mention fights where movement is longer than a GCD.

Red mage can move more frequently than other casters, but it's not on demand movement. So fights like Eden and Titan where there's phases with a ton of movement the red mage is going to be resorting to Enchanted Reprise since they'll likely be unable to safely get off a hard cast.

[Arete-Nomos]

Excaliburnina, I'm not sure why you're cherry picking misleading, unlabeled diagrams to discredit this argument. Ranged DPS can get buffs too without excluding Red Mage.

I don't know which percentile you're looking at for that graph, or why you're using normalized scores instead of aggregate amounts, but here are the numbers I am working with:

https://imgur.com/a/pX5M762

Most notably, this one:


Regarding the Stormblood figures, here are the numbers:

Delta
Black Mage
4,614.60
Red Mage
4,315.22
Difference
6.49%

Sigma
Black Mage
5,914.81
Red Mage
5,378.38
Difference
9.07%

Alpha
Black Mage
7,467.71
Red Mage
6,752.56
Difference
9.58%

Except the big difference now is that fflogs is recording rDPS, whereas the numbers we had from Stormblood were only pDPS. This means that Embolden wasn't factored into our DPS, and it added about 500 DPS in Alphascape. That would put Black Mage only 2.88% ahead of Red Mage.

The numbers we have for Eden, however, are the raw rDPS stats, which hides nothing. Black Mage is now actually that far ahead.


Eden
Black Mage
13,430.80
Red Mage
12,104.35
Difference
9.88%

And again, you miss my biggest concern here: Bards aren't competing for spots with Black Mages. Red Mages are. This fight isn't about anyone else, nor does it exclude anyone else. This has nothing to do with who is super low and who isn't. The problem is that Ranged were specifically called out for receiving potency buffs, and I want to see Red Mage's problems addressed as well.

[dinnertime]

I am praying that by "ranged" they meant all 5 struggling jobs. However, "Ranged" is typically shorthand for Physical Ranged, ie BRD MCH DNC. They outright name SMN and they outright name "Ranged". I want to hear them outright name RDM. Until I see some acknowledgement that we are getting fixes too, I will assume that we are left behind.

Yes, but "caster" is called Magic Ranged officially, so Ranged DPS nonetheless. Have faith! And honestly RDM doesn't have too many glaring problems now aside from the lack of damage so that's probably why they didn't bother mentioning it but instead generalized Ranged DPS as a whole since they're under-performing (in damage I assume). Again, SMN was mentioned specifically because it plays like wack.

[Excaliburnina]

Excaliburnina, I'm not sure why you're cherry picking misleading, unlabeled diagrams to discredit this argument.

They're 95th percentile, and if you want to argue about job balance you should at least try to display a job's ceiling (or close to it, since crit/dh rng can influence the maximum performance and not necessarily be indicative of actual performance, but FFlogs is very limited). You can post low percentile rankings and judge a job based on that, but jobs that aren't being played at their ceiling don't exactly provide useful information (you'll see NIN topping charts at lower percentiles, which is about the least useful information you could garner from the rankings). Even in the aggregate amounts, RDM's peak is still comparable with the rest of the jobs around it, so I still don't see what you're trying to show; that it isn't BLM? It shouldn't be, not with the difficulty of Verraise balance.

Except the big difference now is that fflogs is recording rDPS, whereas the numbers we had from Stormblood were only pDPS. This means that Embolden wasn't factored into our DPS, and it added about 500 DPS in Alphascape. That would put Black Mage only 2.88% ahead of Red Mage.

It was still ahead enough to not use hyperbolic arguments like "Throughout Stormblood, RDM has always been on par with BLM. "; you're severely understating how far ahead 2.88% actually is in a game like this.

This fight isn't about anyone else, nor does it exclude anyone else. This has nothing to do with who is super low and who isn't. The problem is that Ranged were specifically called out for receiving potency buffs, and I want to see Red Mage's problems addressed as well.

You contradict yourself inherently by comparing RDM to BLM. If this "fight" isn't about anyone other than RDM, why compare to BLM so often? If this doesn't exclude anyone, why claim it's only about RDM and imply bringing up other jobs around it isn't valid? Job balance is a problem encompassing every job, and where RDM places in the grand scheme of balance is what has brought this supposed issue into light in the first place.

[Excaliburnina]

As long as red mage can throw out as many instant raises as it currently can it'll remain training wheels.



Red mage doesn't really have on demand movement other than Swiftcast and Enchanted Reprise. Red mage has to hard cast something to get Dual Cast, so it's not on demand at all. And since Dual Cast is used a soon as it is generated there are certainly times when the red mage has to move and does not have time to do a hard cast. Not to mention fights where movement is longer than a GCD.

Red mage can move more frequently than other casters, but it's not on demand movement. So fights like Eden and Titan where there's phases with a ton of movement the red mage is going to be resorting to Enchanted Reprise since they'll likely be unable to safely get off a hard cast.

This can be alleviated by using caster-uptime friendly strats which apply to BLM just as well. In a vacuum, RDM can't move very well, but nobody plays this game in a vacuum. Judging a job's ability to move based on vacuums makes no sense since no mechanics requiring movement occur in a vacuum. In real encounters, people make adjustments for every role to keep uptime, and if they don't it's of no fault of the job design. Even in scenarios where they don't, practicing good always-be-casting alleviates a significant amount of problems with uptime with RDM. You can even slidecast Stormy Horizons if you really want, just the same as Pantokrator. If your argument is that RDM at a low skill level shouldn't have the movement issues, then what about the entirety of casttimes in general? Should they not be punishing?

[Leidiriv]

As long as red mage can throw out as many instant raises as it currently can it'll remain training wheels.



Red mage doesn't really have on demand movement other than Swiftcast and Enchanted Reprise. Red mage has to hard cast something to get Dual Cast, so it's not on demand at all. And since Dual Cast is used a soon as it is generated there are certainly times when the red mage has to move and does not have time to do a hard cast. Not to mention fights where movement is longer than a GCD.

Red mage can move more frequently than other casters, but it's not on demand movement. So fights like Eden and Titan where there's phases with a ton of movement the red mage is going to be resorting to Enchanted Reprise since they'll likely be unable to safely get off a hard cast.

if the problem is Dualcast Verraise, why not just adjust Dualcast to just reduce spell cast times by 5s? It still makes Thunder and Aero instant, but doesn't do much for Verraise. Boom, training wheels gone, RDM can be a functional caster without "but muh raise" being an issue.

[Nemekh]

Dualcast merely magnifies the problem. We all know the root of it is Raise being a castable option on both RDM and SMN as part of Yoshida's justification for balance being the way it is. Utility and Raise, where Raise most certainly is the more egregious factor. Once I've finished a few updates on rankings.akhmorning.com I'll make a thread on my thoughts to alleviate the vice grip.