Red Mage: I am not a Back line class

[KumaAkuma]

When they brought out Dancer I thought "Yes this is what Red Mage is actually supposed to be like"

[illriginalized]

When they brought out Dancer I thought "Yes this is what Red Mage is actually supposed to be like"

Wat? I thought RDM was just supposed to be a swordsman with debuffing spells only?

[Firon]

Wat? I thought RDM was just supposed to be a swordsman with debuffing spells only?

No that's what FF 11 thought rdm should be, rdm has never really been Debuffer it just had a little of everything. Some folks need to remember that FF 11 is not the whole FF Franchise.

[Arcell]

No that's what FF 11 thought rdm should be, rdm has never really been Debuffer it just had a little of everything. Some folks need to remember that FF 11 is not the whole FF Franchise.

^this. 1000x this.

So RDM being a jack of all trades, it would get some melee skills (likely with status effects) and a little of both support and offensive magic. Red Mages have traditionally used swords but Gladiator is already the 1-handed sword class. However Red Mages have also been known to use Rapiers so that would make Fencer the class (since class = weapon) which leads to Red Mage as the Job.

Now Rapiers are a little different from Gladiator swords, they would be used without a shield and thus would be able to parry. Parry should be a form of light damage mitigation for Red Mage so that it can stand on the front lines, in the same way evade helps Monks stay in the front lines longer. To balance it against WAR's parry ability, RDM would obviously have much less health so it would not be able to take Warrior's spot as a parry tank. Also they could link some conditional skills to parry.

Throw in CNJ/THM as their cross-class, give them Dualcast/Fast Cast as their 15 min and throw in some job exclusive en- spells.

[SwordCoheir]

Wat? I thought RDM was just supposed to be a swordsman with debuffing spells only?

Nah RDM lore in all the games were a highly diversified class that wielded roughly 3/4th - 4/5ths the power of normal classes but had the ability to use participate in combat and use both schools of magic. FFXI's RDM however went through a series of changes in the early pre-RotZ age, and was eventually rebuilt with it's core purpose as an enfeebler when advanced jobs were first introduced. Unfortunately FFXI's evolution has not been kind to RDM and much of that versatility went underutilized and became underpowered as updates for RDM stagnated.