How Many Would Have Rather Seen RDM than SMN

[Kiote]

Wish those pics were real, sounds like a badass kind of Red Mage.

Red Mage is my all time Favorite Final Fantasy class.

I've always preferred the Games where every Character could have summons and you learn special skills depending on which one you used. I think they could have done it somehow in an MMO.

If they wanted a Pet Class, we should have gotten Beastmaster.

[Duelle]

Wish those pics were real, sounds like a badass kind of Red Mage.

I can personally picture three different lore uses for Red Mages. One being rogue mage/witch hunters, going along with an idea from the RDM Design thread on the FFXI forums, where someone mentioned that it'd be neat if an enemy wizard or mage's worst nightmare on the battlefield would be the Red Mage.

Another one would be field agents for a higher power, playing off how Red Mages were hinted to being used in FFXI. Of course, the writers never divulged much on that end, as the AF questline was basically "This is Rainemard. He knew too much. He was chopped to pieces and stuffed in a box. The end".

The third is a variation of the second, as peace keepers. Playing off the type of vibe people in western films get with the town sherrif, who is easily recognized (in the case of RDM, a guy in a red tabard, a rapier and pimp hat is hard to miss). For what purpose, I wouldn't be able to say.

you sure didnt know how to play RDM then, i think it was perfect in everyway. solo slow kills but win. I love it.

Refreshbot and Hastebot with staying power that made it beneficial to have as a healer in the group and lolenfeebles does not a Red Mage make.

They not only got the job wrong, but did a disservice to many people who played it.

[Loony_BoB]

To people saying RDM will just end up being not good enough if it's a Jack of all Trades, perhaps that is more down to the enemies being faced. If they job-lock you in certain dungeons then this problem would go away. What happens if there are fights in that dungeon where you need more healers than in others which would require more attackers? In order to win in such a case, you would need a versatile job - hello, RDM. There should be certain endgame content designed to cater for the various different jobs available to us. Also, if Bard can do damage from range while buffing and curing when needed, why not RDM? Give them perhaps WAR level melee damage, obviously less defence/HP to sort out the tanking issue, and magic. Simples. If there's a problem where RDM constantly gets turned into healer-only or magic-only, then the obvious solution is to lower the MP available.

[Ingolf]

If a RDM is a jack of all trades, then it won't have a solid place in any group.

it NEEDS to excel in some area.

[Levian]

So then you have to have a rdm, or you're locked out of the content. Or on the other hand, you could have someone along with gear for 2 jobs, one dedicated healing and one for damage dealing and just have them switch out depending on the boss. And if you lower the MP pool to the point where it can't function adequately as either healer or caster then you've effectively turned it into a pure meelee DPS with mediocre sword skill.

You see where Red Mage is a pain in the ass to balance yet? The problem isn't even so much the jack of all trades part, it's the master of none part. In an MMO setting you need one of 3 things mastered, Healing, Tanking, or DD in some form. I suppose since this is FF we can add a 4th role, buffing. But at the same time we're not talking about something that should be competing with Bard. I would say debuffing, but anything important is likely to be immune to debuffs so there's that.

So if you don't accel at one of those 3 roles, you'll be sitting out. A lot. Unless you're doing sexual favors for your LS leader. Or your job is ok at healing, then you'l get an invite because healers are perpetually scarce. I mean seriously, how do you make something that's B grade meelee, nuking, and healing worth that party slot in an MMO without making it stupid over powered? It literally can't be done, at least not in the traditional RDM sense.

My thoughts are give it B grade healing spells, just enough to keep a party going reliably. Give them an A grade mastery of rapiers, but tune them to do fairly weak damage in and of themselves, and use black magic to supplement that. En-spells to add an elemental property to the sword and increase it's damage, some DOT/debuffs maybe, possibly even a short or instant cast but slightly weakened nuke here or there to pump up the dps a little. But I don't think this would be the thread to hash it out in.

[MaethusXion]

Enspells... so then Mystic Knight instead of RDM?

[Levian]

Something I pulled from RDM in FFXI actually. Wasn't aware it was used elsewhere in the series, though thinking back Steiner and Vivi had a combo attack that worked similar to an enspell.

[ShinigamiKayla]

enspells were enveloped much into Pugilist and Monk so far so it would be kind of hard to give redmage but they did say that Monk was going to go through some drastic changes in 2.0 didn't they... who knows~ as for RDM should stay class C in all areas and not have all these top tier spells but have some Top Tiers of their own yes okay ill revert to say from FFXI spells like Haste and such just something to make them viable and give them at least some melee dmg... I don't know I'm glad were getting Summoner -sticks tongue out-

[KoujiGeki]

Well to the people would say Rdm excels at nothing, they COULD take the 11 path again and make them the BEST enfeeblers. Enfeebles that will actually effect bosses. That would give them some use. And give them AoE EN spells so they fighting Mire the whole party can get enfire. That would make them very useful.

edit: the en spells wouldnt overwrite the monks fist ability it would overwrite the En spell. and shouldnt have the same effect. Like Enwind will not make weapons faster.

[Malakhim]

I really don't think the idea behind RDM as a jack of all trades fits with what the devs are trying to do with the job system, which is all about specialization in one role. Like I said earlier, RDM as we currently know it according to anything pre-FFXI is essentially a Gladiator with magic. From what it looks like, Arcanist will be taking the role of DoT and enfeebles, so that probably throws that idea for RDM out the window. What's left? Elemental enhancements and different buffs than a bard? Possibly, but then they'd might as well release Mystic Knight/Sorcerer, which would add a a breath of fresh air as opposed to the usual addition of RDM.

Did anyone else notice in the PAX presentation that the demo presenter mentioned "new classes they'll be adding towards release" as in plural? It could have just been him mixing up class(arcanist) and job(summoner), or just a thing he said though.

But hmmm...