Red Mage "better"??

[Leidiriv]

In my experience since the change, while it might be a gain, and it's definitely nice for the opener, it's made the job feel like I'm tripping over the rotation (or at least the rotation I'd been using) because I used to very heavily rely on acceleration being up at specific times. Now I find that it's often either still on cooldown when I used to rely on it, or using it when I would have before means I can only get two procs before I start to overcap on mana making its timing worse, or both.

This change alone, again for me, has made the job feel so bad to play that I abandoned it entirely in favor of summoner, which now has a much better flow and better mobility than the red mage while also doing a lot more damage. The way they changed acceleration feels like a bandaid type of change to address issues with one specific part of a fight while ignoring the knock on effects of those changes for the entire remainder of an encounter.

They really need to look into how they want all the skills on this job to interact and make more adjustments accordingly, because it really just feels like a mess since this patch.

There's two things to remember with Acceleration nowadays.
1) we have Reprise to solve/minimize overcapping.
2) It's 100% okay to only get 2 procs out of Acceleration.

With those two things in mind it's even okay to press Acceleration closer to 70/70. Additionally, with the 2.5s GCD BiS, RDM rarely runs into issues with Acceleration coming up really late in the cycle.

I am glad you're enjoying SMN though, and I wish you the best of luck!

[MrKusakabe]

First of all: This thread is fantastic to read through; ingame it seems like I am the only Red Mage fan (even though I am somewhat behind story-wise *cough*), probably a Zodiark thing?

I often (too often) think about RDM and I love not only the FFXIVs version of it, which is finally a real Red Mage and not those pathetic hackjobs and mishmash we had before. We finally stepped up our profession and don't borrow skills like before (Ver[skill]), our sword - the Rapier - is finally a real blade (Tactics for example had Florets, which are laughable) and visually, we have been gifted by beautiful audio/visuals. That's why I am somehow a bit baffled that are still unhappy about the current state. I said it in a "general discussion" thread, but wasn't the difference to the main damage-dealing caster about 9%? Now it's even less after the buffs, but I don't have the FFlogs comparison at hand.

Square Enix is the only company that I know that respects their own design decisions. Red Mage is known for being a "Jack of all Trades - But the Master of none", even on external sites such as TV Tropes. That's because the concept of our beautiful, fantastic profession is old. Red Mages exist since 1987! And I am impressed that Square Enix gave us this incredibly beatiful and fun profession for XIV. I hear that we "need more damage" or "more mobility" or "getting Vercure removed in favour of damage". Stuff like this makes me die inside because that would not only be wrong, but also just means those players are free to change their profession instead of forcing RDM to be something it was never was.

I am not so much into hardcore theorycrafting as I am ingame a normal player, while you guys are certainly much better and play in more competitive environment, but it does not matter how I look at XIV's RDM, I just love it. It seems so complete! Other developers tend to make multi-purpose professions terrible, but Square Enix is on a tightrope right now - and manage to carefully balance it in all directions. And is doing a great job at that! We have fine mobility, we deal fine damage, we can decide wether to fight ranged or closely (e.g. when a boss starts to go apeshit), we can heal fine, we can resurrect, we have Dualcast - And we have our place!

Look, Duelle for example, says in his signature that we are supposed to have more melee, but that would require is to have more defensive stats or health - but we are still mages, so I think it makes sense to have a short melee phase. Rapier duels are quick, it's a charge at the enemy and then attacking swiftly (or evading - that's called a Riposte btw; our opener skill ) and then going back until one is dead. At least real life history. The last time I did the math, we had 70% Magic and 30% Close-Quarters combat in terms of potency. I think that's not quite a turret.

Then I read about damage. As said: About 9% difference to BLM according to those FFLogs from before. If it gets less, people would question why they would choose BLM then except for aesthetics. And want nerfs for that.

Red Mage made me come back from GW2 after I quitted it. I am not here to abruptly end your discussion from the outside, because I highly enjoy reading the input of other RDM fans, but sometimes to me it reads you might forget how beautiful our profession is - audiovisual, our artifact gear, the entire philosophy behind Red Mages. I think I never had so much fun in a videogame, and I have the bad feeling that if Square Enix changes more, this balance could cause an avalanche of changes that cause a irreparable mess.

Sincerely,

[wereotter]

There's two things to remember with Acceleration nowadays.
1) we have Reprise to solve/minimize overcapping.
2) It's 100% okay to only get 2 procs out of Acceleration.

With those two things in mind it's even okay to press Acceleration closer to 70/70. Additionally, with the 2.5s GCD BiS, RDM rarely runs into issues with Acceleration coming up really late in the cycle.

I am glad you're enjoying SMN though, and I wish you the best of luck!

I admit this may have just been my comfort in how I used the skill, but I always used Acceleration after performing a melee combo, mostly since it made it really easy to rebalance your mana after getting all that dump of one color, but now I find that acceleration isn't available often enough to use it in that regard. Also I had felt frustration regarding where I used to use it in tandem with Manafication to do a rotation like:

Verholy -> Scorch -> Verstone -> Acceleration -> Verthunder -> Verfire -> Verthunder -> Manafication -> second melee combo.

Doing that now felt awkward since I would lose procs. I can sit on that second verfire, but I'd not be able to use that third charge from Acceleration before completing the melee combo. Good to know that's sounds like it's fine, but still it FEELS like a loss, which is still poor design, at least in my opinon.

Also as you mentioned you use Reprise to prevent overcapping, which again to me doesn't feel good. It feels like you have to use that as a bandaid because they adjusted some skills while ignoring others.

I'm only bringing this up because I want the job to be fun to play and have a good flow to its rotation, and to be, I don't think the devs have made that happen, and with this patch, the job's rotation feels broken. If I'm wrong, then that's fine, I'll admit I don't understand how this change plays into the flow of the job. But if I'm right, then I really hope that the job has a reevaluation to make sure that skills naturally flow into each other again and are intuitive as to when you should use them.

Either way, I do hope that if I'm wrong, or not that those who are still playing are enjoying the increases in potency and other adjustments

[Leidiriv]

Regarding the Reprise thing, that's exactly what the skill's built for. It's meant as a mana dump, a movement tool, a way to use cooldowns while minimizing drifting. It's insanely versatile and not a bandaid at all. In fact, you're supposed to use around 2-3 Reprises between Manafications in the 110s rotation to deal with the natural overcap from Manafic. We just use it proactively to serve other purposes at the same time.

[Gruntler]

Aren't they literally losing autos if they fight like a turret? Pretty sure the RDM like the DNC is supposed to fight in a "pocket" in front of ranged, just behind melee at the very tip of auto range (so the get autos in between casts) with their back dash being more a fast "get out of the mechanics" skill like Leyline.

Auto-attacks do such a small amount that your total autos over a Hades-length fight comes out to less than a Corps-a-Corps. Each auto is at best, one potency each, and it does not scale with gear.

You're close because it makes healing more efficient and helps you deal with certain mechanics easier.

[Maero]

Rdm is mostly ahead of all physical ranged and in some fights can keep up with Nin ..

Dps-wise Rdm seems ok for its "utility"...

just Smn is OP atm (top Dps in almost all encounters, especially with heavy movement)

And i had predicted this. Smn community is never happy unless they are at the top and each expansion SE always oblige

As for Red Mage, playing it more again it feels pretty good. I still think they should make changes to embolden and the like but am not crying about it, lol

[Silverquick]

And i had predicted this. Smn community is never happy unless they are at the top and each expansion SE always oblige
As for Red Mage, playing it more again it feels pretty good. I still think they should make changes to embolden and the like but am not crying about it, lol

Well I do have to give summoners a break here... every expansion at the outset they get nerfed hard... so bad they end up nearly at the bottom of the pile.

It makes it completely pointless to play one when an expansion comes out. Then the Devs realize their mistake and then overbuff them but usually it makes playing every new expansion as a Summoner pointless until they get around to rebuffing them. It happened in Heavensward, Stormblood, and even in this new expansion.

That aside,

I honestly, though greatful for potency buff... feel the real problem with Red Mage is moreso with their Big Melee Combo which is kind of the Red Mage's version of Dreadwyrm and Deathflare combo.

While I can do it with Summoner a good 3-4 times in a long fight, with Red Mage I can only manage to get off 2 or 3 in the same time period. So the number of Big Melee + VerFlare/Verholy needs to increase to the same amount of time.

I don't think the Potency Increase was the real solution here... but the Guage filling faster to do more of the Red Mage version of the Super Combo is the solution the way the Summoner is able to is the solution. Like a much shorter CD on Manafication.

[Duelle]

ingame it seems like I am the only Red Mage fan

I don't think we'd be having any of these discussions if we weren't fans of the job. Being a fan of something does not mean you have to absolutely love everything about it nor does it make the object of fandom exempt from criticism.

If you're happy with where the job currently is, more power to you, but it does not invalidate anyone who has problems with the design or sees issues that need to be ironed out.

We finally stepped up our profession and don't borrow skills like before (Ver[skill])

Attaching a prefix to spell names doesn't do much to negate that RDM is still borrowing spells from other jobs, which is something that has come with the territory since the beginning. As such, I wouldn't disdain at the idea of RDM borrowing things from other jobs.

That said, modern hybrids combine their different aspects through mechanics or interactions between said aspects. In that regard, RDM has yet to "step up", as even the FFXIV RDM segregates sword from spell instead of having the job use them in tandem.

our sword - the Rapier - is finally a real blade

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

I hear that we "need more damage" or "more mobility" or "getting Vercure removed in favour of damage". Stuff like this makes me die inside because that would not only be wrong, but also just means those players are free to change their profession instead of forcing RDM to be something it was never was.

Keep in mind that RDM is classified as DPS. The primary role of DPS and what largely justifies their presence in a group is their contributions in making the peoples fall down. This is true even for DPS hybrids.

Also, you can't blame people that ask for the removal of Vercure and such when the developers themselves seem to use utility as a reason for letting RDM trail behind as it did before 5.1. When utility starts to get in the way of a job's primary role (intentionally or unintentionally), the expected reaction would be to ask for a change in utility so that the primary role can be buffed to compensate for that loss. Whether it is the only way to address the issue is an entirely different matter.

Duelle for example, says in his signature that we are supposed to have more melee, but that would require us to have more defensive stats or health but we are still mages, so I think it makes sense to have a short melee phase.

Something you and the "mage" argument people tend to miss is that you can't look at a hybrid that is part warrior, part black mage, and part white mage in the same light as your run-of-the-mill squishy caster.

If we go by prior incarnations of the job, RDM trades magical power for the ability to be a little hardier than your average BLM or WHM and have melee at their disposal.

Statwise the job is locked into "of Casting" gear, which I acknowledge is a problem because of HP and Defense gains from gear. Hence why I used to suggest putting RDM on Aiming or Striking/Maiming gear instead of Casting. Since that ship has sailed, I'd suggest adjusting something under the hood (read: native HP and defense scaling/multipliers), though that has its own risks.

Rapier duels are quick, it's a charge at the enemy and then attacking swiftly

Rapier duels also include binds, a lot of footwork/dodging and end in one-hit kills (generally speaking; takes a while for a person to bleed out from a rapier wound). None of which apply to combat in-game, so you're stretching things a bit there.

I'm not sure why'd you bring up duels, since the job's gameplay is very far removed from them. Specially since the job was designed to spam magic from a distance until hitting an arbitrary point that then allows use the sword.

The last time I did the math, we had 70% Magic and 30% Close-Quarters combat in terms of potency. I think that's not quite a turret.

As I said before, prior to Scorch and the changes to Acceleration, RDM gameplay comprised of 18 GCDs spamming spells vs 3 GCDs swinging a sword. It's still a far cry from where it needs to be for me to change my signature.

Then I read about damage. As said: About 9% difference to BLM according to those FFLogs from before. If it gets less, people would question why they would choose BLM then except for aesthetics.

Faster kills, for one. For two that if your group knows what they're doing (which is the case for raids/statics), things like Verraise see little to no use.

Well I do have to give summoners a break here... every expansion at the outset they get nerfed hard... so bad they end up nearly at the bottom of the pile.

Part of the issue here is that SMN has seen some sort of big change in the direction it is taken between expansions. I've called it schizophrenic design in the past, and it seems have become a tradition for SMN at this point.

I don't think the Potency Increase was the real solution here... but the Guage filling faster to do more of the Red Mage version of the Super Combo is the solution the way the Summoner is able to is the solution. Like a much shorter CD on Manafication.

While I can see this, it would require messing with all aspects of how white/black mana are generated, which is tricky since the mana values for most spells are set at very specific numbers for a reason.

[Silverquick]

While I can see this, it would require messing with all aspects of how white/black mana are generated, which is tricky since the mana values for most spells are set at very specific numbers for a reason.

Well, the reason I bring this up is because there is actually more potential for melee side of RDM and NOT just as a turret, but all of it is tied to the Mana Guage.

While I gave one example above in the things I was talking about regarding the Super Combo of Melee + VerFlare/VerHoly... there's more than that.

While I realize the focus tends to be on Raid damage, the Red Mage has very good potential for melee damage in other circumstances. When we are talking about plain old clearing dungeon trash. While just sitting back and using Scatter + Ver II, much like Summoner he's actually really good at AoE... but there's a trick to it... you have to CaC + Enchanted Moulenet when they start getting down to half to finish them off quick (which it does do).... IF you can manage to build up the Mana Guage to 60.

But again all of those melee related options cannot happen unless the Mana Guage fills up faster.

[Leidiriv]

Well, the reason I bring this up is because there is actually more potential for melee side of RDM and NOT just as a turret, but all of it is tied to the Mana Guage.

While I gave one example above in the things I was talking about regarding the Super Combo of Melee + VerFlare/VerHoly... there's more than that.

While I realize the focus tends to be on Raid damage, the Red Mage has very good potential for melee damage in other circumstances. When we are talking about plain old clearing dungeon trash. While just sitting back and using Scatter + Ver II, much like Summoner he's actually really good at AoE... but there's a trick to it... you have to CaC + Enchanted Moulenet when they start getting down to half to finish them off quick (which it does do).... IF you can manage to build up the Mana Guage to 60.

But again all of those melee related options cannot happen unless the Mana Guage fills up faster.

So... Red Mage's damage is good if you use your actions right? Color me surprised.

Additionally, 3 Moulinets is weak compared to the true potential of RDM's AoE. Build up to 90/90 on the first pack, go into the second pack, pop Embolden, use 2 Moulinets, Manafication, then 5 more Moulinets and a Swiftcast Impact. Enemies just melt when you do that.