Quote Originally Posted by Eremor View Post
Therefore, while I really like the original concept of the Red Mage as a sword wielding generalist mage, the mechanics of any non-turn-based game will render the majority of their skills useless in most situations. We have to take this opportunity to redesign the Red Mage job into one that will be more useful in a real-time, party based environment.
Hence the different approaches some of us take. I never liked buff-bot/refresh-bot RDM because to me it is demeaning to see a sword&magic hybrid become the buffer because the devs decide to not bother fixing the job (same issue I had with how WoW treated Paladins up until they were fixed in 3.0). Ideally we could have the three disciplines of RDM become play-styles possible depending on how you like to play (that way the guys that like to nuke do so, the guys that like to heal do so, and the guys that like to melee do so), but with the Armory system in place, I instead support Fencer being the parent class to RDM, RDM being focused on melee combat with magic mixed in the form of magic fencing with situational spells to help the group and hinder enemies. Let SCH or BLU or whoever is going to be based off Arcanist be the debuff/buff-bot this time around. All I ask is that such crap is kept away from my favorite job.