Red Mage idea

[Duelle]

Frankly I would think the musketeer/fencer would utilize the classic fencing weapon Misericorde (A.K.A. Parrying Dagger), which could be used for a weak offhand damage weapon, to help increase DPS due to Swords being on the lower end of the DPS ladder and increase the natural rate of parry.

Ah, the old rapier + main gauche combo! I can get behind that.

Haste works well in many other MMOs, successful ones at that, like WoW... so don't say it isn't a good idea in one. Sorry bro.

I think it may be the fact that haste and TP have this bad tendency of meshing too well. Think about it, in other games where haste is used, haste is almost never involved with classes with resources that are attained per hit. Rage, Righteous Fury, and TP all fall under that.

XI's melee balance was in part ripped to shreds because of haste along with store TP, especially classes that could dual wield. And it got worse when multi-hitters entered the picture. I'm sure it would be fine if Hastaga was treated like Bloodlust/Heroism in WoW, with a debuff that prevents you from receiving the effect for 10 minutes. The problem is someone would start frothing at the mouth because it doesn "feel" like Hastaga from other FF games.

[Alaltus]

They could always implement haste in a totally different way like for example make it a very long cooldown spell that resets the target player's cooldowns obviously not effecting haste itself or there would be shinnanigans. Though my only real issues with haste were that on gear they became > everything else and on RDM it was another spell you had to cycle throughout a battle. If SE gave RDM hastega this time round it wouldnt be so bad.

[AceofRains]

Gladiator/Thaumaturge would most definately not do this job justice as is. Red Mage most certainly needs the introduction of a new class, scout or fencer or what ever. Musketeer is a no no, we do not need to make red mage into a ranged backline job. So how do you make a jack of a trades? I have a very good example of red mage in my speculation guide but I'll give you all the short version here.

Scout Class - Weapon: Light Swords (Daggers, Rapiers, Katana) - Stealth, DPS, Enfeebles

The scout class opens up the best possiblity for red mage as it will have enfeebles right on it. I do not advocate making red mage some kind of enfeeble whore but hear me out. Now that your melee and enfeebles are covered you are free to borrow defensive and offensive magics from what even conjurer, thaumaturge, or possibly arcanist has to offer. Since the defensive and offensive magic are sub abilities, Red mage will innately never reach the strongest teir of offensive and defensive magic but will also have a variety of choices.

[Duelle]

So how do you make a jack of all trades?

You don't. You can have versatility while not making the job a pure generalist. Being a generalist worked against RDM rather than for it in FFXI. And while all generalists are hybrids, not all hybrids are generalists; Red Mage therefore needs to lean towards hybrid than towards generalist. Note: it'd probably be a different story if jobs were standalone and we had talent tress instead. Then you can create a generalist RDM and have his talent trees decide where you want to go with the job. That ship has sailed, though.

Personally, melee and magic should mesh together. Enspells are a step in that direction (a black mage doesn't need to enchant his weapons because he's blowing crap up from range, but the Red Mage would most likely bend that rule to make up for what they lack in strength compared to a barbarian or warrior). Magic spells (offensive and defensive) as openers and closers in combos is another. Abilities that play off both would also follow that ideology. This turns RDM into a job with its own identity and take on combat as opposed to a hackjob put together using scraps from the other jobs. The latter worked in single player RPGs due to you being solely in control (so if you never used RDM or had them spam only cures nobody's feelings got hurt), but RDM would need adjustments to truly be MMO-worthy.

[AceofRains]

You don't. You can have versatility while not making the job a pure generalist. Being a generalist worked against RDM rather than for it in FFXI. And while all generalists are hybrids, not all hybrids are generalists; Red Mage therefore needs to lean towards hybrid than towards generalist. Note: it'd probably be a different story if jobs were standalone and we had talent tress instead. Then you can create a generalist RDM and have his talent trees decide where you want to go with the job. That ship has sailed, though.

Personally, melee and magic should mesh together. Enspells are a step in that direction (a black mage doesn't need to enchant his weapons because he's blowing crap up from range, but the Red Mage would most likely bend that rule to make up for what they lack in strength compared to a barbarian or warrior). Magic spells (offensive and defensive) as openers and closers in combos is another. Abilities that play off both would also follow that ideology. This turns RDM into a job with its own identity and take on combat as opposed to a hackjob put together using scraps from the other jobs. The latter worked in single player RPGs due to you being solely in control (so if you never used RDM or had them spam only cures nobody's feelings got hurt), but RDM would need adjustments to truly be MMO-worthy.

My apologies I forgot to include the actually job actions that pull this all together. You called one of them and that is En-spells. With the limit of only 5 new abilities per job you need to find a shortcut on en-spells. Here the abilties I made up that help to make a jack of all trades be a melee attacker as well as a caster.

Enchant - Use a crystal to enchant your weapon with it's elemental property. This is so you have a constant flow of additional magic damage on your melee attacks.
Translation - Convert all of your TP into MP. This is so that if you happen to run out of MP, the fact that your dealing melee damage will help to recover it so you can keep going.
Delta Strike - It's name is tenative because I believe this is a Magus sister attack but this basicly deals damage to HP, MP, and TP it would be the red mage's unique weaponskill.
Free Cast - Now this skill really brings it all together. It allows you to attack and move while caating at the cost of gradual TP consumption. This makes it so that you don't have to take the time out to interrupt your melee while trying to get a spell off.
Chainspell - This allows you to essentially spam your magic for a short period, good for a 15 minute ability I'd aay.

These combinations of abilties will help red mage to be a caster on the front lines while continuing a melee onslaught. This is what I mean by a jack of all trades. What it really equates to is just a damage dealer with a few spare tricks up his sleeve such as raise and cure from conjurer.

[TaalAzura]

My apologies I forgot to include the actually job actions that pull this all together. You called one of them and that is En-spells. With the limit of only 5 new abilities per job you need to find a shortcut on en-spells. Here the abilties I made up that help to make a jack of all trades be a melee attacker as well as a caster.

Enchant - Use a crystal to enchant your weapon with it's elemental property. This is so you have a constant flow of additional magic damage on your melee attacks.
Translation - Convert all of your TP into MP. This is so that if you happen to run out of MP, the fact that your dealing melee damage will help to recover it so you can keep going.
Delta Strike - It's name is tenative because I believe this is a Magus sister attack but this basicly deals damage to HP, MP, and TP it would be the red mage's unique weaponskill.
Free Cast - Now this skill really brings it all together. It allows you to attack and move while caating at the cost of gradual TP consumption. This makes it so that you don't have to take the time out to interrupt your melee while trying to get a spell off.
Chainspell - This allows you to essentially spam your magic for a short period, good for a 15 minute ability I'd aay.

These combinations of abilties will help red mage to be a caster on the front lines while continuing a melee onslaught. This is what I mean by a jack of all trades. What it really equates to is just a damage dealer with a few spare tricks up his sleeve such as raise and cure from conjurer.

I don't see why FNC couldn't get en-spells, considering it's a melee based spell, and give RDM's job abilities magic oriented spells such as haste and refresh.

[Delila]

If RDM in XIV gets the spells haste and refresh I would never even start it. Being a Haste and Refresh monkey in XI WAS NOT FUN! Now if it was a sort of weapon affect like Haste Samba/Aspir Samba like DNC got that would be different.

[TaalAzura]

If RDM in XIV gets the spells haste and refresh I would never even start it. Being a Haste and Refresh monkey in XI WAS NOT FUN! Now if it was a sort of weapon affect like Haste Samba/Aspir Samba like DNC got that would be different.

Although it wouldn't be as much fun, make the CD for the spells pretty long so you can only keep it on one member at a time (Hello MNK becoming OP in pts)

[AceofRains]

I don't see why FNC couldn't get en-spells, considering it's a melee based spell, and give RDM's job abilities magic oriented spells such as haste and refresh.

Because it would make the class too similar to PUG with its fist stances, and it would eliminate room for variety in skills. That;s why I prefer the scout design over fencer. Scout allows for a few of the needed magics and evasive combat.

Plus do you really want to learn Enthuder, Enstone, Enfire, Enwater, Enaero, Enblizzard, and waste 6 skillslots on your job when you can just condense it into one action that is unique to redmage?

If you put en spells on fencer then ALL of the jobs that come with fencer-which I don't particularly see much more than red mage-will have have enspells, defeating the purpose of this unique job.

[Yrusama]

GLA is basically the all-sword class. Adding Fencer would be pointless, although I'd love to see the animations they came up with in the dummied files. They could give GLA a RDM job division and let RDM use GLA/THM/CNJ abilities. Then it would fit the proper mold of using simple melee and white/black magic. In addition they could give it better buffs and extreme parrying.

In early FF RDM wasn't able to use ALL swords, but it wasn't limited to rapiers. It could use sabres, broadswords, etc. Just no "knight" swords.