RDM 7.4 changes and job identity

[Solilunaris]

I’m honestly baffled with the RDM changes in 7.4. Now the class that was a cool melee-caster hybrid and felt right and lore accurate is just another braindead stationary class, a fix for a fight that is not even relevant anymore.
Red mages now have a sword that has no use, they didn’t even bother to give new animations as you swing a sword at nothing. Might as well play BLM at this point.
This is yet another strike at job identity and a unnecessary fix pandering to a vocal minority of Braindead players that refuse any little bit of difficulty in the game. Way to go.
Extremely disappointed and I just hope they will fix this joke of a change.

[Alice_Rivers]

I have to agree, I was RDM for the fight in question and I hated all of it but the job shouldn't give because the fight design was atrocious. Instead the devs should playtest with all the jobs and ask "does this work?", that should have lead them to move that part of the fight to a one minute window instead of a two minute.

As regards salvaging it now that the damage is done, I could see some good from just making magic-melee attacks do full damage within melee range and when beyond melee it could use a blade-beam animation and lose some of it's damage (20% maybe?) so it's not a complete loss when at range but it's still better to be in melee range. Also drop that bit from manafication, just make it a stock feature of the attacks themselves. It doesn't fix bad fight design and it doesn't fix this change but it would be better.

[Appleboops]

On the one hand, people were complaining that RDM was "weakened" by the fact that its primary damage rotation was dependent on close-range hits, and so when close range is infeasible due to Boss mechanics it weakens RDM's damage output, at least temporarily. This led to the arguments that RDM was getting the short end of the stick and was imbalanced compared to pure casters. It wasn't specifically an argument on "playability" or "difficulty", though granted I'm sure some of the complaining was also likely related to that.

That said, my answer to all this is that not all jobs need to be exactly equivalent in all situations - in fact that's what "Identity" means in the first place. I get that SE is trying to balance things so that all jobs feel rewarding and competitive in all scenarios but to do that for such a vast variety of jobs is simply not feasible unless, as you've seen, they strip away all unique mechanics and normalize each job category across the board.

I think SE's is going the wrong way with all this, the changes to RDM and even the changes to GNB which similarly make it much closer to WAR in its cycle (though I'm no GNB expert to be fair so I'll defer to others). If trends continue I won't be surprised if DRK is next in line because as I see it now, it's the last Tank that's actually unique in some ways.

Rather than trying to make every caster the same, every tank the same, and so on with only visuals and extremely minor gameplay differences, they should be looking more at their one-track Boss design to try and make those more accepting to different circumstances. Don't change the jobs, change the fights themselves.

I personally loved RDM's playstyle, not being an RDM main or anything but still even with my limited time playing it. It was unique and engaging, and now like it's been suggested before, the job is much more lethargic and streamlined. I'll still play the job because I like to play all the jobs in the end, but I do hope they correct this very poor show of judgement.

[RodericWarblade]

I'm honestly really confused about why people are complaining about the changes. I personally love them.

It's a temporary range buff when you use Manafication now. You still need to dash in and do melee range combo without it. Everything else from what I've been playing has been great, and all I play is RDM. Burst window is easier, it makes me feel like an actual Magical Sword wielder when I power up and can slash away from a distance.

Why complain when your buff window was made easier? I don't get it. It's not like they removed Dual Cast or anything. Just made it easier.

[Solilunaris]

The idea of “positionals” would be an amazing very good fix that encourage melee range but also doesnt punish when you are stuck far from the boss during burst. Pair it with some animation and it would fix it

Cannot see the devs do it tho, too much of a good idea.

[Brandr]

Just tested it.

... I'm sorry to say this, YoshiP, but whoever in your team who came up with this idea....
The most polite way I can say this is:

Don't trust this person anymore! They either might be plotting to destroy our game or shouldn't have any business giving combat suggestions!!

[Kishin12345]

In a scenario where every other job can do their bursts and you would be the odd one out sitting in your corner hitting embolden and just dual casting, do you really feel that's fair or not? Granted there are not many scenarios like that right now, but i think the changes were meant for the upcoming savage tier and potentially new ultimate. There were some fights where it was tough but not impossible to get off a melee and quickly get out again. P12s p1 or p10s come to my mind. But if getting off the melee becomes an impossibility due to the fights mechanics, i'd rather be able to do my burst from range. It is still just speculation if there will be fights where it will be impossible but the new extreme is already kinda tough to get the melee off in some scenarios.

[Solilunaris]

In that case the implementation of a “positional” was the better system. Max potency from melee range but you can burst from afar for slight less damage. As it is now you have zero incentive to be in melee at all during burst. You just stand there and unload everything for 30 seconds

[ovIm]

In a scenario where every other job can do their bursts and you would be the odd one out sitting in your corner hitting embolden and just dual casting, do you really feel that's fair or not? Granted there are not many scenarios like that right now, but i think the changes were meant for the upcoming savage tier and potentially new ultimate. There were some fights where it was tough but not impossible to get off a melee and quickly get out again. P12s p1 or p10s come to my mind. But if getting off the melee becomes an impossibility due to the fights mechanics, i'd rather be able to do my burst from range. It is still just speculation if there will be fights where it will be impossible but the new extreme is already kinda tough to get the melee off in some scenarios.

The answer to that problem should be Square not designing raids where in crucial moments, 4 in 4 out is a necessity.
But instead of changing the fight design to fit the classes, they force the classes into one mold that fits the fight design.

[Kishin12345]

In that case the implementation of a “positional” was the better system. Max potency from melee range but you can burst from afar for slight less damage. As it is now you have zero incentive to be in melee at all during burst. You just stand there and unload everything for 30 seconds

That would indeed be interesting! I doubt this will happen and i doubt these changes get rolled back, but it would've been a good solution.