How Many Would Have Rather Seen RDM than SMN

[Leoheart]

they should have avoided Summoner like the plague because it wasn't so hot in a previous title (XI).

Not sure if trollin'

[Levian]

Not sure if trollin'

Don't go takin my words out of context. If I were trollin, you'd know it. It's a fact that they didn't live up to expectations in XI. If you base your opinion of whether or not to include a job on the titles they struck a sour note in, you could also include (once again thanks to XI) DRG. But this is a new game, with new mechanics, so you can't do that.

Edit: @ NefGP - I think the bigger problem with RDM meelee was it's B- sword/dagger skill. You could never make up for that, even with Merits. The fact that even in the hands of a job with A grade skill sword WS were lackluster didn't help either.

[SwordCoheir]

Edit: @ NefGP - I think the bigger problem with RDM meelee was it's B- sword/dagger skill. You could never make up for that, even with Merits. The fact that even in the hands of a job with A grade skill sword WS were lackluster didn't help either.

It was actually a plethora of problems on both the mage and melee side that hurt RDM badly. You could say one side is a little bad like B level sword/dagger skill and nobody would say anything because their mindset was "eh it's just one little problem no biggie every job as a few", but the problem was there were too damn many "one little problems".

Like:
-Poor Merit Selection, and under powered merit spells.
-RDMs "niche" in enfeebling lacks any real exclusive spells outside of Gravity II and poor merit spells.
-Enfeebles were often straight resisted by anything worth a damn.
-Had a ridiculous amount of 3 minute single target and self-buff spells, so even if RDM had good offensive capabilities it was severely hindered by constant casting/recasting.
-There were no weapons that gave the benefits of the Elemental staff affinities, you essentially were married to staves.
-No physically offensive traits.
-Only one physically offensive Job ability.
-Role was often based solely on subjob.
-No powerful weaponskills form Swords.
-No powerful Daggers outside of Mandau (till recently mind you).
-2h update completely obliterated 1h capacity to melee.
-Damage from 1h and 2h weapons continues to grow wider apart.
-RDM Enhancing spells scaled poorly.
-T2 Enspells are flat out broken.

And the Big one...

-Magic and Physical aspects were kept completely separate from one another.

And when SE tried to force the magic part onto the physical like with T2 Enspells you either had to bring down your Physical damage to make your Enspells stronger or bring down your Enspell damage to make your Physical side stronger it was a very lose-lose situation. The fact BLU really shined is because it's physical and magical properties are tied within each other in a harmony that SE should have taken a hint from and applied to RDM which is in need of a major revamp.

This of course doesn't discount the fact FFXI's developers have mostly left the job untouched for 8 years, had a knack for shooting down any worthwhile ideas to fix RDM, and often going one step further to rub salt in the wound when they give those ideas to other jobs who are already in a secure position like WHM or new jobs like GEO.