Red Mage: I am not a Back line class

[Eremor]

I've had my hopes up for Red Mage since I saw it in the third player's poll, I believe the choice was 'A front line debuffing job (Red Mage)'. Not sure if that was the exact wording but 'front line' was definitely in there...

I played Red Mage in XI for years, I loved the job but always felt it never quite lived up to it's full potential (at least in parties, soloing I pushed the limits and enjoyed every minute of it). But I digress, I don't want to copy Red Mage exactly from XI to here, now it's time for Red Mage 2.0.

Now even though Fencer sounds like a class that wouldn't use any magic at all, it's somewhat of a necessity that it does since the majority of skills will come from the base class (only 5 of 20 abilities come from jobs at this time) so Fencer is going to feel alot like Red Mage since I just can't fit the entirety of the Red Mage job in a measly 5 skills.

So here is my suggestion for a build for the Fencer class and the Red Mage job as I hope it might be here in FF XIV:

Weaponskills (in combo order, names are just off the top of my head)

Thrust - Basic rapier attack; damage increased from in front of the target
combos to:
Flourish - lowers target's accuracy; combo bonus increased accuracy down effect
---
Indirect - chance to inflict TP bleed when executed from the left or right of the target
combos to:
Spirit Taker - Inflicts damage to target's MP; combo bonus drain MP
---
Fletch - a running attack that passes through the target, chance to inflict Bleed when used from the front of the target.
combos to:
Tranche - stun attack, chance to stun increased when used from behind the target.
combos to:
(Red Mage weaponskill) Death Blossom - powerful attack that inflicts magic evasion down; combo bonus increase magic evasion down effect.

I know this is fewer weaponskills then most other jobs get but I thought it was important to keep the idea of a melee mage, and more WS means less mage, so trying to keep it balanced. Important to note that the weaponskills inflict abnormal status ailments (ie. flourish inflicts accuracy down effect rather then blind), this is important to allow the Red Mage to stack WS effects and direct spells (like blind) for extra enfeebling potency. I also Included the unusual effect of Spirit Taker, it would deal MP damage rather then HP damage, ideally this would be balanced such that it would potentially be possible to use it to fully deplete an opponent's MP before their HP (maybe 2 or 3 hits for most mobs 4-5 for a boss). This could potentially be powerful but could be balanced by giving bosses an MP recovery move, this would be a better counter then simply giving bosses impossibly huge MP pools since while it would keep Spirit Taker from locking down spell casting completely it would still be useful as a delaying move (making the boss waste TP to recover MP). Also the MP drain effect would probably not be equal to the full damage of the WS but at least some reasonable return. For Fletch I was thinking that the WS animation would actually move your character through the mob. (sort of like Shoulder Tackle) Ideally this would be quick enough to allow you to combo with Tranche even when soloing (like how it is possible to hit mobs from left or right if your timing is good).

Spells:

Blind

Slow

Silence

Paralyze

Haste

The classic debuffing spells for direct, on demand debuffs, plus haste to help with soloing and support role in parties. Maybe swap one out for Bind for crowd control.

Red Mage Job spells:

Dispel - a potentially powerful debuff

Refresh - yeah I know this probably going to be flamed, but right now it seems that XIV is in need of another refreshing support job, especially a single target caster to help with PLD. I don't mind if Red Mage is that job so long as it isn't the main focus.

Abilities:

Cold Steel (Enblizzard) - adds ice elemental damage to attacks and inflicts evasion down. Consumes MP while active.

Arcing Steel (Enthunder) - adds lightning elemental damage to attacks and inflicts attack down. Consumes MP while active.

(Red Mage ability) Liquid Steel (Enwater) - adds water elemental damage to attacks and inflicts defense down. Consumes MP while active.

Expose - reset's the target's resistance to your next enfeebling magic spell.

Composure - dodge next area of effect attack.

Here's where the meat is. In order to make sure Red Mage isn't pushed to the back lines I thought it would be good to make the enspells the primary means of debuffing a target. Additionally I tried to make each enhancing spell as useful as possible, Wind based mobs are weak to Ice damage and also are more likely to have high evasion, Earth based mobs are weak to water and also are more likely to have high defense, attack down on enthunder was just to fill out the triad (probably wouldn't be used much). I limited it to just these three in order to make Red Mage the elemental counterpart to Monk. Exposure is needed because all of the traditional debuffs are nerfed by the crowd control adjustments, this lets you be able to at least stick one debuff on any mob at any time. Composure is absolutely essential, especially since Red Mage would most likely have the lowest HP pool of any job in melee, it will require a very potent survival ability just to avoid being a liability in combat.

15 Minute ability:

Runic Blade - Absorb hostile spells with your sword, nullifying their effect and restoring your MP.

I thought this would make a good support role ability, probably be a suitably short duration (10s probably). It could be chainspell, but why? With no native offensive spells chainspell would be very underwhelming, since spamming enfeebles would just build the mobs resistance.

Traits (in no particular order):

Enhanced Physical Accuracy

Enhanced Magic Accuracy, levels 1 and 2

Enhanced Enfeebling Magic Potency, levels 1 and 2

Swift Composure

Enhanced Composure - increases melee damage and reduces TP the target gains from your attacks while composure is active (thinking 30s duration or untill it's consumed by an aoe attack)

Swift Expose

Enhanced Expose - adds a chance to reset the target's resistance to all enfeebling magic.

Fast Cast, levels 1 and 2 - 15% (20% at level 2) chance of having your next spell cast instantly (I thought this would be more noticeable then having your 2 second cast times reduced by 20% but the overall effect would be the same. Numbers are assuming an Enhances Fast Cast trait on AF armor bringing the total to 25%. The primary purpose of this is to reduce the effect of spell casting on melee capability, it would have no effect on recast times)

Red Mage cross class skills would probably be best as CNJ and THM since without any native heals or nukes this would help keep the image of a generalist mage as well as give Red Mage a good list of support abilities (being in melee makes the Red Mage perfectly placed to pop off Sacred Prism + Sanguine Rite).

This is just my idea, it could certainly be better. I just hope that we can influence any decisions regarding the job to make sure it is both useful and more importantly is enjoyable to play.