Quote Originally Posted by Wolfsbane706 View Post
To be fair, Red Mage has pretty much always been "grey" mage with a sword. FFXIV, near as I know, is the most unique application of the class since its inception, though I don't know much to be honest. Your GRM ideas are pretty clever, though a bit difficult to pull off for console players.
Tbf, I feel like if we keep ground-targeting effects at all, they need a rework. For GRM, I'd want basic control of the roots to be a channel, during which your movement stick instead snaps to the furthest roots in that contiguous direction and allows you from that point to essentially pilot and extend their growth. During that time, certain actions would convert over to root-affecting ones, such as spending resource for a further burst of growth, to arm them with traps, or to immediately spring for an enemy in front of you (preferring your hard target but otherwise going for whoever's/whatever's in front of your facing while controlling said roots). Such would be mutually exclusive with your typical spells during the channel, anyways.
The first cast, with nothing around you, would basically just send out roots from beneath your feet, allowing you to go any which way at your current movement speed. But, if there are roots already in place, your control snaps slightly to their position, strengthening them per tick (this HP draining over time and with actions used by that space of roots) as you pass over them and moving far faster down their length until reaching a new, not yet grown-over space.
In all honesty, I feel like "Comet" should be the name of AST's primary DPS spell and give "Malefic" to GRM.
I feel like the Benefic/Malefic pairing works pretty well for AST, in that sense of weal and woe as set by the stars. But, a similar "curse"-like attack could fit GRM as well.

That said, I really would prefer to have a job that, for once, does not have a spammed filler.

Give GRM an offensive debuff or DoT with interesting Additional Effect interactions, and otherwise works towards offense through compounded weaves, and I'd be happier for the complexity so long as it's well polished, even if it takes more effort (proportionate, perhaps, to its added opportunities) to utilize.