Thread: RDM 7.4 changes and job identity

It's kind of ironic.

Red Mage is and always has been my favorite Job in every Final Fantasy it has been available.

So much so, I pre-ordered Stormblood so I could have early access to it. An adept with both White and Black Magic and Melee - I love jack of all trade jobs. Bit of everything.

My Red Mage job has yet to ever break past into level 60 in all that time because, I felt and still do that it's just a glorified Black Mage with a melee combo tacked onto it.

I was more upset actually that it has so little "Whitemage" in it at all. The white spells are more or less a fill in gimmick for two spells that do the same things. same potency. same single or aoe. Just other than one fills the other gauge.

I was finally gonna get around to leveling it after all these years to have a support dps, but now I've learned they'll most likely be removing raise from RDM in 8.0. Which will make it even less half whitemage than before.

In my honest to gosh opinions if we were to get a serious overhaul.

I'd say it should be melee up front.
It's black magic should be it's ranged attacks.
And It's white magic should be heals.

No need to really balance either of them, that whole concept seems silly to me. I'd say melee positionals or combo that will grant you free instant casts of Black Magic for one variant and another for white magic.

I think that would be more Red Magey.

^ I mean it does have its fair share of White Magic... there is just a misconception that White Magic, particularly in this game, is all about support and healing, when it is supposed to rival Black Magic in offensive properties at times.

Stone, Aero and Holy are spells employed by white mages in this game's lore; Red Mage uses Verstone, Veraero and Verholy as well as having access to Vercure and Verraise, which absolutely help in a pinch. You technically have MORE white magic than black magic on Red Mage in this game.

Furthermore, while Red Mage in older games did have more powerful supportive capabilities than in FFXIV, you still wanted to get the most out of its offensive kit unless your team did not have spread-out access to healing or you had no dedicated Healer job on the team.

I think while Red Mage "could" have more interesting support options, it will probably hamper Red Mage too much as the philosophy of utility tax has yet to shift quite a bit.

Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

^ I mean it does have its fair share of White Magic... there is just a misconception that White Magic, particularly in this game, is all about support and healing, when it is supposed to rival Black Magic in offensive properties at times.

Stone, Aero and Holy are spells employed by white mages in this game's lore; Red Mage uses Verstone, Veraero and Verholy as well as having access to Vercure and Verraise, which absolutely help in a pinch. You technically have MORE white magic than black magic on Red Mage in this game.

Furthermore, while Red Mage in older games did have more powerful supportive capabilities than in FFXIV, you still wanted to get the most out of its offensive kit unless your team did not have spread-out access to healing or you had no dedicated Healer job on the team.

I think while Red Mage "could" have more interesting support options, it will probably hamper Red Mage too much as the philosophy of utility tax has yet to shift quite a bit.

It's more like the addition of Whitemage's offensive spells the way how they work with Redmage works now just feel like different colored versions of the same attack.

I'm all for there being White offensive magic just the same. But they should act differently. Veraero could at least act the way Aero 3 did, where it's a mass aoe dot.
I don't think an AoE spell with the same potency and no difference is really fun... At least with black mage with fire and ice it serves as a burn phase and a mana ramp phase.

I think though overall it be cooler to have that healing utility where maybe it's not as strong but being able to spam out its own healing with one of its saved up White Mage procs be really cool.

I think getting in there with a good swordwielding kit schwing schwang

backing up and having options of black magic or white magic that you built up by doing different melee combos be more satisfying.

But I guess it would muck things up... iunno I thought it be interesting.

The thing is there is too many jobs in FFXIV and the Game would be better off if they took away 1 Healer, 1 Tank and 2-3 DPS jobs

So I am like, lets discard Gunbreaker, Sage, Reaper, Viper, Pictomancer.

No new skill designs or anything to the current jobs left or new animations, in fact in most cases go back to the old animations.

Endwalker pvp RDM was interesting in a way, as picking between White or Black Shift would offer defensive/healing or purely offensive options. That's a bit how pvp PCT currently works, albeit in a simplified manner (Comet vs Holy).

But this makes zero sense in the current pve environment because only damage matters.

Originally Posted by Valence

Endwalker pvp RDM was interesting in a way, as picking between White or Black Shift would offer defensive/healing or purely offensive options. That's a bit how pvp PCT currently works, albeit in a simplified manner (Comet vs Holy).

But this makes zero sense in the current pve environment because only damage matters.

I liked the dual stance too, it was skillful and very on theme. Disliked the white and black magic circle around me at all times tho..
Unironically believe that PvP has some of the best job identity and mechanics. Hope some stuff leaks into pve.
Coping for 8.0 but hope is very very very fickle

Originally Posted by Valence

It won't leak into pve. It's opposite to their current direction, and pvp tends to collect a lot of abilities that have been removed from the game. It's essentially a pvp retirement zone and quarantine area[...]

The bolded part echoes hard deep into my bones lol.

I recalled screaming a couple of times in healer sub-forum back in ShB days about repurposing SCH's Deployment Tactic into DoT spreading that I noticed people missed (Bane) and I sorely want to give it a try myself. Fast forward to 6.1 they added exactly that - except it was on PvP, splashed with secondary effect with the same old Miasma icon too except it's called Biolytic lmao.

Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

I despise the idea that 'DOT spread' be tied to Deployment 'cos thats how it is in PVP', because IMO there's a much better candidate for it: Bring back Bane as an upgrade of Energy Drain (I'd stick it at like, level 42 or so, and move ED/Aetherflow back down to level 10 to match the level that ACN learns it at again). It'd make ED useful in AOE situations (ie dungeon trash), lets us keep Deployment Tactics specific to Healing purposes, and makes it far more accessible (3 uses per 60s via Aetherflow, vs Deployment being once per 90s, it wouldn't even be up for every trash pull in a dungeon).

Additionally, change the effect of Bane from 'resets duration, reduces potency by 40%' (or whatever % reduction it had in SB, can't remember exactly). Instead, have it spread with 0% reduction to damage, and NOT reset durations. This then allows for a new effect to be added: spreading Chain Stratagem as if it were a DOT, turning the once-SingleTarget effect into an AOE, and synergising with the followup AOE action, Baneful Impaction.

I don't necessarily hate the idea of tying 'Bane' to Deployment with a caveat: IF there's more way(s) to access multiple uses of Deployments that is not "lol just reduce the cooldown to 30s - 60s and call it a day". If it were to be slapped onto today's Deployment, then yeah that would be.... 'meh' at best, and annoying at worst. Then again, it's not like we use any form of 'Bane' in today's 'awesome raid encounter' outside maybe M6S in recent history.

I wouldn't mind either to have them tied AF-Bane though.