How Many Would Have Rather Seen RDM than SMN

[Levian]

I think RDM was done right, at least in regards to accurate portrayal according to lore. B grade swordsmanship, access to all but the highest tiers of black and white magic. Problem is it didn't seem to take into account that it was placed in an MMO setting.

Problem was the playerbase pushed em to the back line alongside White and black mages. It was rare to see it used as anything other than a healing haste/refresh monkey. God help you if you drew your weapon to smack something in a party setting, you'd never hear the end of it.

The inherent problem with a jack of all trades job in an MMO environment is that adequate will never be seen as good enough. If you're an ok meelee/magic damage dealing job and anything better is available, guess what will be fulfilling the DD role? Not you. I'm sure I don't need to point this out, but the group that's always overpopulated in the MMO Holy trinity is damage dealing classes. And if you're an ok healer...well you're still a healer and in every MMO i've played healers are the scarcest role, so guess where you'll be pressed into service. Just look at XI's Summoners, stuck healing from about level 10 until the late 60s/early 70s just because they had the mana pool to scrape by in the healing role with whm subbed.

I'll go ahead and say it, if Redmage were to do anything other than buff/heal it would need to be a Spellsword capable of respectable damage. Not bottom rung, not "mediocre," I mean right there alongside the other damage dealing classes.

Edit: On topic, there are other things I would like to see rather than either. But between those released and Redmage, my honest preference is Redmage. To be honest though, an FF title needs a few core things. At this point it wouldn't feel like a Final Fantasy title without both Redmage (or something close to) and Summoner. But that's just me.