I hope that Square Enix does not touch Verraise and Vercure for several reasons.

1) Lore/Immersion:
To me, the damage difference is perfect and justified. Why? Red Mage is always supposed to be the "Jack of all trades, but the master of none". Since 1987, when it has been introduced in the first Final Fantasy.


If you want damage, then you have to specialize in Black Magic. If you want to have a full healing/supporting abilities, you can specialize in White Magic. If you want RDM to be as or nearly as powerful as a BLM, it sounds like you refuse to use a Rocket Launcher in a shooter game and rather want the SMG to have splash damage and massive impact as well. Why would you want that? Especially in a game where you can switch professions instantly like FFXIV allows you to.

From that one thread after the recent patch, I have saved a chart showing the rDPS or whatever some user posted. RDM is charted as roughly 10,500 and BLM as 11,500 (+- 100 as it's just a chart without numbers). That is a difference of a mere 9,1%. This is perfect in my opinion as this means you have a reason to switch to BLM but also enough reason to stick to RDM damage-wise.

2) I really, deeply enjoy to have a rich toolkit.
I know it's iffy to use Verraise and Vercure, but to have it saved my life, my team mates lives and randoms lives so often, and it's just beautiful to have it! Also to stop "You spank it, you tank it" healers that refuse to heal a poor soul - I can jump in to stop that kindergarden and keep my other DPS mate alive.

Such a joy to dish out arcane death and thanks to Dualcast save-Vercure a mate on the instant after it. This is RDM-awesomeness, and many of you seem not to see the many facettes of this incredibly beautiful profession but want to have it changed it in favour of DMG, DMG, DMG! (Which is sad)

 If you want to change one of the signature profession of this game franchise that exists like this design philosophy in mind since 32 years just because you refuse to play the other viable option, Black Mage, then I don't know what arguments could reach you..

What I just think is a bit too quick is our Rapier combat. Especially the shared timer of Engagement with Displace is kinda strange and I do not see the point of that. Potency-wise, the last time I did a check and the Close Combat fight was roughly 31% of our skills, meaning 69% of our entire skill's potency comes from magic. This sounds so much for the melee portion, but the actual combat lasts so short for two reasons (which are awesome and well-thought again!):

* Weapon skills are always quick - especially Rapier/fencing

* We have not the defensive stats / HP pool to sustain long face-to-face fights, so retreating back into safety as soon as possible is also a gift we RDM have.

I do understand where some of you come from though; I just came from a Duty Roulette in the Great Library and I was hardstuck on #3 vs a Machinist. But then, the healer was a first-timer, and I assist-Vercured trough the Wall-to-Wall pulls, which reimbursed me for that a lot.


And last but not least: Maybe Red Mage is not your thing? If you really want to take away Verraise/Vercure - a core part of RDM - to turn it into something that this profession never was meant to be...


Sincerely,