Red Mages: How do you feel about the symmetry of Black and White magic?

[Supersnow845]

RDM to me always felt like they had half a job design then implemented the “black and white mana” so they could double the number of skills to make the job feel more complete and while I know it’s part of wider FF lore the idea of trying to introduce white magic utility spells like vercure was never going to go anywhere in a holy trinity MMO outside of something like eureka

The core rotation from SB was a good foundation but the overall focus on just increasing the finisher over and over and the changes to what the finisher costs makes RDM feel like an immobile phys ranged rather than a mobile caster, I think they need to stop touching the finisher (if anything is support them removing the final finisher they added in 6.0) and going back and trying to make the caster element more interesting, rather than 2 identical skills that just differ in what magic they generate what about if they generated different amounts of mana but had different effects, like 1 veraero gave as much mana as 4 verthunder’s but veraero was a short DOT so you don’t want to cast it as often

I also think it’s time to upgrade fire and stone and just in general please buff RDM’s damage

[Korbei]

I don't mind the gameplay flow of the white and black symmetry. It's a fairly simple and straight forward means of building up to that crescendo of the big melee combo/big boom. A little from column A, a little from column B. Repeat until boom, like an acid/base reaction. It's executed with appropriate style and I dig it.

I would kind of enjoy a forced alternation between Verflare and Verholy, like Summoner switches between Bahamut and Phoenix to force a swap between elements one rotation to the next.

I do take a bit of issue with the disingenuous use of the term "white" in the lore of the job in this game. It's all black magic.. let's be honest here. There's very little white magic to be found. It's just Vercure and Verraise. What we're really talking about here is light and dark... But that's how this game has decided to interpret the blend for practical purposes and I've come to terms with it.

[Jade_Tyrant]

Overall I think Red Mage is a solid and fun class, but the one thing about it that feels lackluster to me is the perfect symmetry between Black and White, where for every Black spell I have a White spell that is exactly the same, just that it generates white mana instead of black mana. And to me, that's a bit disappointing, as I wish the class defined by taking these two very different schools of magic and wielding them both was able to give each school a distinct personality, rather than simply framing it as Thunder and Fire being the polar opposites of Aero and Stone.

But that's just one player's opinion. How do the Red Mages in the audience feel?

Personally, I don't mind it at all. As a RDM main, I enjoy the equal balance of the white and black spells and how it works in the gameplay. It's a solid fun design for me.

I definitely can see how ideas for more imbalanced black and white magic spells would be interesting and fun in its own right, but I admittedly don't have much interest in them reworking the job to make that happen. I enjoy RDM greatly in its current state, and I don't want to lose a job I love for a job that will play differently that I might, maybe like as much.

The flavor of the two magics working differently would be great, but for me, I don't really want to see the job reworked for the sake of it. I'd rather that, if the flavor is to be added, that it be through actions outside of the main rotation that leave the current rotation alone.

I do take a bit of issue with the disingenuous use of the term "white" in the lore of the job in this game. It's all black magic.. let's be honest here. There's very little white magic to be found. It's just Vercure and Verraise. What we're really talking about here is light and dark... But that's how this game has decided to interpret the blend for practical purposes and I've come to terms with it.

I mean, in terms of FF classification, Aero has been White Magic in a number of games. Earth is usually Black Magic, but I believe (not sure) that there's even precedent for it being White Magic in at least one other game.

[Shurrikhan]

Tbf, XIV lore does classify Holy as white magic, and XIV's white magic and the light elements are almost wholly interconnected (see the Mhachi).

[Rithy255]

I think the white magic and black magic aspects are fine and cool.

My only complaint is you dont get a lot of white magic support spells outside of magick barrier and ver raise. (ver cure doesn't count lol). It sort of like it to lean on some small support healing aspects such as what Dancer has.

I think it's important that it would still have very limited support options not to make healers even more useless... unless they somehow make outgoing damage different from what it is right now. With the DPS VS utility "tax" aswell RDM already gets highly punished for ver raise (more then it should).

[Shurrikhan]

A tax is essentially pre-payment for resources with value greater than their opportunity costs (making those actions obligatory, at least when usable). If greater their opportunity cost, the lower their chance of being useful (the more situational those skills become), but that also means having to pay less (or even nothing) for their simply existing in that kit.

Clemency, for instance, doesn't appear to cost PLD sustain; because that tool is merely an emergency option (uptime and MP costs), its tuning is done with little to no consideration of Clemency (leaving it typically second only to "OP" Warrior in sustain).

Given what gauge RDM would give up, atop uptime, on healing spells via White Mana spenders, it wouldn't be hard to pick a point of balance where it's situational without feeling overly weak and can avoid "taxation".