Red Mage idea

[SwordCoheir]

That's an interesting theory Alerith and might be one worth exploring. I might do another buildup in my spare time with that hierarchy. (Although I'd probably use original WS's)

[Duelle]

As there needs to be obvious drawbacks that keep a single job from being overpowered, doing combos like this would either have to have a fair recast timer depending on how powerful your spells got, or they would have to chew through MP.

Another option to consider is spell damage caps and scaling. A RDM's spells are obviously going to be weaker than a BLM's version of the same spells. I'm iffy on recasts and mana costs because I'm not too keen on dead periods, which are expected of a dedicated caster but not from someone in the front lines. Going OOM due to carelessness is different from going OOM by design, after all.

[kazaran]

They need to give Blms complete elemental magic before a blended malee mage, so doubtful you will see rdm havign access to all those spells. It need to focus on the weapon side enhancement, not mage style nuking.

Luckily BLM is beign fully balanced in ARR (tests shown them casting aeroga and others).

DOn't want to great offset blm/thm casting, but a job who uses magic to inhance it's weapon, and weaken the mob, or enahncign players in malee in turn

[Tonkra]

Luckily BLM is beign fully balanced in ARR (tests shown them casting aeroga and others).

where have you seen this please?

[AceofRains]

They need to give Blms complete elemental magic before a blended malee mage, so doubtful you will see rdm havign access to all those spells. It need to focus on the weapon side enhancement, not mage style nuking.

Luckily BLM is beign fully balanced in ARR (tests shown them casting aeroga and others).

DOn't want to great offset blm/thm casting, but a job who uses magic to inhance it's weapon, and weaken the mob, or enahncign players in malee in turn

Umm no its not like red mage would be able to use them all at once anyways. You would have to select which element you want to use situationally, otherwise your probably gonna be strapped with cure/stoneskin/raise/sacred prism.

Where did Black Mage cast Aeroga? Pretty sure they aren't going THAT deep into revisions.

I also want to address the fact of en-spells. So your telling me we have to make an ability for each element? Why do that when we could just give Red Mage "enchant" and after your next cast of one of the elemental magics your weapon becomes enchanted with that property.

I'm sayin theres no way a Red Mage could possibly 'offset' black mage's nuking with just tier 1 spells. There is also little merit in it's enfeebling/enhancing capabilities if we are looking at a CNJ/THM sub. Stop trying to make red mage out to a team enfeebler/enhancer that is XI thinking. Enfeebles and enhancements are marginal at best. Everything on Red Mage is marginal at best, that's what makes it what it is.

[SwordCoheir]

Stop trying to make red mage out to a team enfeebler/enhancer that is XI thinking. Enfeebles and enhancements are marginal at best. Everything on Red Mage is marginal at best, that's what makes it what it is.

Agreed, the Enfeebler/Enhancer could work in a way, but there's no way in hell FFXI's RDM would work in this game. TBH they'll have to do to RDM what they did with BLU and actually combine the two elements instead of keeping RDM's magic and melee worlds apart.

[Lux_Rayna]

Idk I dont think its that hard. Red mage would get elemental enhancements, enfeebles, debuffs, and melee skills. They'd also either get spells unique to red mage, or the low-level THM spells. Naturally they'd get low level CNJ spells too that we all have access to. RDM should not be a dps class, but a support dps class. You support while providing decent dmg to the mob you're fighting. Its basically the same role as Bard is currently. Bard your primary job is to support your team through songs and debuffs from combos...as well as AoE support. Damage is NOT the name of the game. And the same will be true of RDM.

[Duelle]

Damage is NOT the name of the game.

It is and has always been. Everything else is incidental and flavor. The idea you're pushing for has fallen flat on its face at least twice in the last 8 years or so. Don't really know why you'd want to push for something that has been known to fail.

PS: Please stop bunching up RDM with Bard.

[Eremor]

That is unfortunately the case. If it's not DPS it's not worth ****. All jobs must be top notch DPS in order to have any place in a party. PLD must parse with MNK, BRD must parse with BLM, WHM must parse with DRG (at all times in all circumstances). If a job is not doing sufficient DPS then the player isn't playing it right and should be immediately kicked from the group. There is no place in this game for slackers who can't keep up their damage. And no whining about things like hate or cures or any other bs like that, you don't need cures if the mob is dead, just zerg it down as fast as possible that's basic tactics.

Therefore RDM also can't be anything but a pure DPS job. It should have all elemental nukes at all tiers in order to keep up with BLM. It should dual wield rapiers and attack at high speed to keep up with MNK, and their en-spells should shoot out fire and lightning from their swords, dealing aoe damage to all nearby enemies to keep up with DRG. RDM should also have all levels of cure and they need to be instant cast to keep from interfering with their meleeing. And they should have a spell like phalanx in XI except more powerful to absorb all the damage they will take from all the enemies they will aggro to keep up with WAR.

You see, it's all about balance, Red Mage just needs to be balanced equally against all other jobs in the game and it will succeed.

Laying it on pretty thick this time since my previous joke fell flat, so I hope someone gets a laugh out of it.

[Duelle]

PLD must parse with MNK, BRD must parse with BLM, WHM must parse with DRG (at all times in all circumstances).

Your joking aside, class balance should aim to have tanks performing as close to as possible to equal with other tanks, same thing for DPS, and same thing for healers. PLD, WAR, BST and SAM (adding the last two for good measure) should perform within the same parameters as they're all tanks. If WAR is better, or SAM has higher DPS, then you lead to things like the community taking the "best" of the four and kicking everyone else to the curb.

DPS is also notorious for suffering from this problem. If BLM outshines everyone, then everyone will just stack BLMs and kick everyone else to the curb.

As far as how this applies to RDM...I've mentioned it before, but RDM would be a lot better off if we had talent trees for the hybrids so that if you want to spam cures and refresh you can, if you want to front line and use your sword you can, and so on. We don't have that and never will because of the armoury system's restrictions. On a personal level, I therefore support the RDM's gameplay being built around the rapier with magic (attack and utility) supplementing that part of the design. The job can and should still have some form of heals and nukes (as the job has always been sword, white magic, black magic), but within a focused role that makes sense for the job's concept and aesthetic.

You can't do a strict 3-way split between sword, white magic, and black magic because that's how the first draft of XI's RDM was designed, and it had to be changed because few could find a use for the job. Sadly, XI's developers chose to go the support-bot/cure-bot route.