Thread: RDM 7.4 changes and job identity

The RDM changes are completely in line with those that hit BLM. Constraints are fun, they give you something to focus on when playing. Combat in this game is consistently going in the wrong direction.

This is my fault. I went from BLM to RDM after BLM was lobotomized. Sorry guys.

I get why these changes are being made, but fight designs should be made around the jobs, not the jobs made around the fight designs.

The changes are because of standard full party comp and mechanics in extreme and upwards fights, that's it. If you had 2 melee, then often times RDM just couldn't do the melee part of it's rotation without killing itself and a melee if the mechanic didn't favour it, or failing a ranged mechanic they had been assigned to.

I like the changes, and I don't mind how it looks either. Doing sword slashes from range and having them hit feels magical, like you'd imagine a magical blade user do, or something like Law from One Piece. It's cool, it doesn't take away flavour in a bad way imo.

I like the change as it was honestly a long time coming. RDM has always been punished the most by fight design when in a normal standard double melee comp. While friction is okay, I would rather they continue to do different and weird mechanics than design fights to be perfect for every job. The latter is how we got the big silly boss hitboxes in Endwalker. This was very obviously a response to both M6S and M7S and I'm sure it wouldn't have been the last time RDM would have dealt with something similar.

You still spend most of the fight in melee range as you're using corps-a-corps+displacement regularly for potency, you also still need to be in melee range for a lot of melee combos. The job still has its identity as a hybrid melee caster and you still need to use your brain to play the job optimally. Very little has actually changed. I've been doing the EX a lot on RDM and play it pretty much the same as I always have. Just maybe once during the fight I'm off the boss during 2 minutes. Not a huge deal, I'm doing pretty much what I've been doing since the day I picked up the job the moment it was introduced in Stormblood.

I think if they wanted to address red mage it should have not been done so lazily as to "yeah now its ranged for burst enjoy!"

Red mage would actually fit if fights weren't strictly designed around two melees as RDM could just be inside a melee slot, but because 90% of the time you want 2 melees your RDM is going to be in the caster slot only. I think it also speaks volumes of because fights are always designed with 4 ranged and 4 melee in mind that they don't even want room for different comps or any diversion to that formular.

If I were to Rework Red Mage I'd look into serval aspects on how to bring out all of it's identities aka: White mage, Black Mage & Melee

• First Simple change would to stop tying burst to Melee (or now ranged sword hit nothing combo), Melee would now be a general part of your kit that is still enhanced through black and white mana, the main difference would be that your combo is now only a very slight damage gain rather then a big part of your burst damage, the combo would also be generated much faster, you'd also remove the 3 burst ranged options from the melee and just make them general 2 minute burst actions, This would make it a viable option without tying it to the 2 minutes.

• I think Rez needs to have a long cooldown such as 300s, but damage and other utility aspects get buffed, First off RDM should have a Shield similar to other casters to make it slightly more unique It could be interesting if you could put it on allies, Second off I'd like to see Magick barriers healing Amp buffed as the 5% is kind of weak your mainly using it for magic mitigation. I would also suggest something like a small aoe heal but I think theirs also a good debate on that alot DPS have too much healing right; If it can work and fit though I wouldn't be against it, lastly I'd just buff vercure it's a kinda meme skill but it would be nice if it was expensive like clemency but could be used to legitimately save people

I do think maybe I'm not as well infomed as I don't play much red mage as I used to mainly because I want use my sword and have utility outside "I rez a lot" but a RDM that used their sword often outside burst for small damage gains with higher utility just less focused on rezzing would be awesome Imo.

Did i miss something in the patch notes? Did they change or remove verraise that people are complaining about RDM job identity?

Originally Posted by Kheiga

Did i miss something in the patch notes? Did they change or remove verraise that people are complaining about RDM job identity?

Verraise is not Red Mage's Job identity, that's just reductive and not funny. Being a melee-caster hybrid is its' identity, the former of it being what greatly sets it apart from the other casters - and what has been essentially lobotomized for about 60% of it's swordplay MELEE combo usage becoming ranged to "alleviate friction in fight design with the job performance".

Frankly, I wish at this point we'd just start treating Red Mage like a melee instead rather than dumbing down the best gameplay feature of the job. Having ranged dps lag behind in damage numbers and making double melee quasi-mandatory is what actually causes this friction. We used to make strats to accomodate for Black Mages moving less or Red Mages having melee moments, which felt more organic than putting all dps jobs into a 2-role filter for mechanics.

Originally Posted by Kheiga

Did i miss something in the patch notes? Did they change or remove verraise that people are complaining about RDM job identity?

A lot of people are complaining that it doesn't do enough damage because of veraise, I'd personally like to keep that and buff rdm utility a bit more while making it slightly more competitive damage wise.

Originally Posted by Rithy255

A lot of people are complaining that it doesn't do enough damage because of veraise, I'd personally like to keep that and buff rdm utility a bit more while making it slightly more competitive damage wise.

I'm gonna be perfectly honest... using Verraise as an excuse that raise casters can't be buffed into more competitive damage numbers is such a cop-out considering one of the highest damage jobs at the time was Summoner in Stormblood and probably also Shadowbringers, while retaining access to Resurrection.

Raise as a caster action is genuinely overtaxed. No, Red Mage does not need to be Black Mage levels of damage, but it could most certainly be higher.