Red Mage: A detailed look.

[JDR388]

Yes, This thread again.

Fair warning. This post is HUGE. Many have already complained about it and many more will. If you don't have the time to read the whole thing then just zoom down to the TLDR (which is still quite long but I think a few paragraphs are more acceptable to most people). Most of the text is spent describing and explaining the rotational significance of each ability. I am a sucker for details (as the thread title says).

Introducing Red Mage

A number of people have already brought this discussion to the table some weeks ago and while there were some very good suggestions and considerations in those threads, I feel the idea bears some revisiting. For those who don't know, the Red Mage has been something of an iconic asset featured in just about every single Final Fantasy video game, or Final Fantasy related title where a class based system can be found. It has always been a mainstay of the series, a "jack of all trades; master of none" that can swap roles instantly in a pinch and help fill the gaps if something in your strategy goes wrong. As such its defining trait has always been that it can cast Black Magic, White Magic, use a sword, and take a few punches to the face. Not so much that it exceeds the power of classes specialized to those other roles, mind you, but enough so that it can fill a gap if one of them falls.

However this organization of abilities poses some problems in XIV where they may not have been present in previous games. As MMO games tend to function around classes, the traditional Red Mage runs into some serious balancing issues as its "master of nothing" manner of construction would ultimately hamper its inclusion in a game where specialization is often more sought after in groups then hybridization. Ultimately two camps of arguments have arisen on this notion, the purist argument (which, yes includes a very vocal crowd from XI), and the new wave MMO argument. However, from my observations and personal discussions with staunch supporters of both positions, many aspects of these arguments share much in common when it comes to Red Mage. Both want complex rotations and both want to play a class that is easy to pick up yet extremely challenging to master. As such I believe I have arrived at a conception of the job that can satisfy both camps: an extremely complicated, difficult to master class and job that are capable of enhancing the overall DPS capability of the party while remaining primarily focused on dealing as much damage as it can as quickly as possible.

The Red Mage concept I have come up with focuses mainly on switching roles so that one always relies synergistically on the inclusion of the other. As many others before me have suggested, it uses the base class of Fencer (FNC) upon which Red Mage (RDM) becomes the job.

Fencer

As I have devised it, Fencer on its own focuses on the melee spectrum of things. It is a very complicated class and as such could fit in well as XIV's first advanced job. Its main weapon is the rapier, a very fine, long bladed sword designed for thrusting rather than slashing. While Fencers get attack spells early on, most will not use them regularly until around level 35 or so. This is because players will not have a significant need to so until they obtain "Ignite" a spell that, when cast with a combo bonus, enhances their weapon to inflict additional umbral damage. Once they obtain this spell they will find that in order to preform on a competent level compared to other melee damage dealers, they will need to have "Ignite" up as often as possible. In addition to this fencers also poses an innately low resource regeneration rate, meaning that thier MP and TP regenerates slower compared to other classes (remember that in ARR TP will refresh itself).

By growing along this path a Fencer, or by extension a Red Mage, that simply focuses on only dealing melee damage or only casting will always perform on a subpar level compared to the other DPS jobs he or she is stacked against. Therefore, RDM in my conception becomes less about being able perform a variety of roles in a pinch, but rather about deftly navigating a number of different roles simultaneously in order to enhance the next thing you intend to do. Executing careful planning while navigating a complex rotation is the key here and I have accomplished this mainly by building very specialized combo bonuses that a competent Red Mage can exploit to aid in both resource generation and damage enhancement while swapping between the front line and the back line. One of the tools through which I accomplish this, as mentioned above, is through limiting resource generation.

For both Fencer and Red Mage, MP and TP regenerate much slower than they do for every other class. As such, they need to rely on a number of other tools available to them in order to ensure that they will always be able to sustain a comparable level of damage. In this manner, resource generation, and switching tasks so as to not over use one in lieu of the other becomes paramount to succeeding as a FNC/RDM.

For example: While playing as a Red Mage, you will quickly notice that you do the most damage while casting. Casting, however, cannot go on indefinitely as you will always run out of mp sometime after two or three full rotations (about 2 minutes 40 seconds). Therefore a clever Red Mage will use this opportunity to combo into the aforementioned "Ignite" spell and dive into combat. A Red Mage will always want to have the "Enspell" effect afforded by "Ignite" active while in melee combat as the base damage on rapiers after level 40 tapers of somewhat compared to the weapons that other jobs possess. Since the "Enspell" bonus has a limited duration a Red Mage will want to return to casting once it wears off (3 minutes 30 seconds). Because the RDM's MP has been regenerating during this time when he returns to cast he has more or less a full pot to cast through. The main rotation continues in this vein until either the RDM dies or the target is killed.

Finally, Red Mage's two cross-classes are Conjurer and Thaumaterge, allowing it access to all tier 1 elemental nukes except blizzard (we have seen in screenshots from 2.0 that conjurer will have water), sacred prism, cure, protect, raise, stoneskin, sanguine rite, necrogenesis, dark seal, and resonance.

Before I go on any more about the specifics of the class and job I want to share with you the combo trees and micro rotations I have designed.



In the image above, weapon skills and spells that are red are part of the Red Mage job only. Underlined abilities can be cross-classed (I was somewhat conservative here). Black lines indicate combos that a Fencer can make and red lines indicate combos that only a Red Mage can make.

As you can see, Red Mage here more or less sinks or swims based on how well the various tools used above are used. As I stated above, proper resource management is a huge part of their game play.

I want to take a few moments here to discuss each of these actions and explain what some of the more difficult to grasp abilities listed above can do.

The Spell Tree

The Spell Tree is by far the most complicated part of the class and is likely where most RDMs would start their rotations so I will begin here.

Chainspell (Red Mage)
This is possibly the most confusing ability on the chart above so I will address it first. Many of you will remember "Chainspell" as the Red Mage two-hour ability from Final Fantasy XI. In this incarnation, however, "Chainspell" functions very differently (and lives up a bit more to its namesake). Rather than allowing you to cast a series of spells instantly, "Chainspell" affects what spells you can combo with and, in conjunction with some clever combo bonuses, can be used to change the elemental properties of your higher tier spells.

Essentially you can use it to perform a combo between any tier-one attack spell you have set (including cross-class spells) and any other tier-two spell, or any tier two spell and a tier three spell and still retain the combo bonus. You will, of course, have noticed that the combo bonuses on the mid and high tier FNC/RDM spells allow the spell's elemental affiliation to be changed based on the spell cast before it. As Red Mage's two cross-class jobs are Conjurer and Thaumaturge this means that by using "Chainspell" a RDM could change the elemental properties of its higher tier nukes to match whatever cross class spells it has chosen to set (limited by "Chainspell's" cooldown, of course).

Applications for this grow increasingly complex further down the line as both RDM's most powerful nuke ("Reciprocal Gyre") and its primary self enhancement effect ("Ignite") can both benefit from the elemental attribution shift. I will talk about these further on.

Also please keep in mind before making your judgments that no RDM can set all five 'tier 1' elemental spells at once. Remember that the limit is five cross-class actions total. Red Mages will also want to take advantage of other abilities available to them as well so most will only be setting two cross class nukes on their bars at a time. These two will likely revolve around what they are fighting at the time. The fact that Red Mages will need to consider the elemental attributes of their enemies before battle and set spells accordingly is a subtle throwback to old FFXI solo RDMs and I hope the sentiment is appreciated by this crowd. Finally, "Blizzard" is locked to thaumatergy so "Reverberate" and "Reciprocal Gyre" can never be chained to deal lightning damage (BLM has this territory pretty well covered anyway), and "Ignite" cannot ever grant "Enblizzard".

Wist (Fencer)
Brings the Fencer's wit to bear in aetherial form. "Wist" is a generic first-tier nuke for Fencer. Useful in that it deals non elemental damage. Casting time is fairly short, 2 seconds. Can be cross-classed.

Reverberate & Oscillate (Fencer)
As mentioned above, both tier 2 nukes have the ability to alter their elemental properties based upon the aetheric residue of the spell cast before it. While in the midst of its spell rotation A Red Mage will want to switch between casting the two of these spells as often as it can in order to deal the most damage possible. Because "Chainspell" has a cooldown a Red Mage will likely only ever combo past these two spells when an elemental property can be reassigned. Oscillate also functions as the classes enmity dump spell. It is somewhat more effective than "Quelling Strike" but nowhere close to "Freeze".

Also please notice that "Reverberate" deals damage based on the opposite of the previously used spell, this refers to the polar opposite as shown on this chart. In this situation a lightning spell will become ice element, water will become fire, and wind; earth. This makes "comboing" the proper element into "Reciprocal Gyre" somewhat tricky and more or less requires two spells be set for a single enemy type.

The names used here stem from actions preformed by sound waves, reverberation is what causes an echo and an oscillation is a measure in repetitive variation over time.

Reciprocal Gyre (Red Mage)
This is Red Mage's largest nuke and will ideally be cast two to three times before a RDM begins to run low on mp. "Gyre's" main property is that It deals greater damage on a target based on the number of enhancing or enfeebling effects available on the target. The lore behind this spell is that it takes the aetheric energies that make up magical enhancing effects and turns them against their user for a split second, causing a great deal of damage. In this manner the effects of enhancing magic become reciprocated. I am on the fence about whether all buffs and enfeebles should stack for the damage bonus as poison is not necessarily a magical effect, nor is paralyze, and therefore would not have an aetheric property to manipulate.

Regardless, the special effect outlined above is more of a bit of flavor as even without the enhancing effects a single reciprocal gyre is about on par with "Thundaga" in terms of damage. (balanced by its higher cost and longer cooldown). In my mind the enhancing effects will increase the spell's performance by about 3% for each effect active (stacking to 30%, 10 effects) Damage can of course be further augmented by proper manipulation of "Chainspell" and the right elemental spell when available.

It has also occurred to me that the reciprocal effect of the spell (turning buffs against their users) might provide more interesting gameplay in PvP so I would be willing to concede the idea that in PvP the bonus effect from enhancing abilities active on the target could be extended.

The name here was taken from a particularly powerful (and situational) spell from Dungeons and Dragons 3.5e. It can be found in Complete Arcane. The spell in DnD deals 1d6 points of damage per each spell level of buffs on it (up to 25d6). It blows the holy hell out of caster types.

Ignite (Fencer)
As mentioned before "Ignite" is an extremely powerful spell in that it gives its user an "En-element" effect when cast. By using "Chainspell" a RDM can set the effect to be whatever element they need it to be (except Ice). Without "Chainspell" the effect granted will always be "Enumbral". The "En-element" effect will always be more potent then "Enumbral". "Enastral" is also possible to achive by 'chainspelling' "Reverberate" to "Ignite", this would share the same potency as the "En-element" effects.

As you might have guessed "Ignite" is designed to be a transitional spell. By taking all of the RDM's remaining MP pool and granting an enhancement to melee damage it functions as a 'not so subtle' hint that the Red Mage ought to stop casting and start moving into melee range. It is also worth pointing out here once again that staying out as a caster forever is not feasible. RDM's slow resource regeneration makes sustained casting very difficult (if not impossible) for much more than three minutes. When MP gets low, use "Ignite" to give yourself a damage boost in melee. The damage boost makes your melee chains the higher DPS option while it is active so casting at this point is a bust anyway. The duration of the "Enspell" effect lasts for 3:30 minutes.

Row Change (Fencer)
This is the second main transitional ability and is very much tied to the Fencer class as a whole."Row Change" instantly moves the player either 12 yalms forward or 12 yalms backward depending on their proximity to the target. There are a number of class traits that work with this ability, most notably is "Versatile" which gives the Fencer a short duration buff based on whether the player is moving towards or away from the target.
When moving toward the target the FNC gets a short damage absorption effect for 8 seconds. At level 50 this absorbs a total of 380 damage. This is to offset some of the difficulties that might be incurred by charging in on a monster that uses AoE abilities (like Garuda) or cleave attacks.

When moving away from the target the Fencer gets a short duration refresh effect (equal to refresh +6). This is to ensure that when moving into casting mode the FNC has enough MP to do at least 2 full rotations of "Reciprocal Gyre" before charging back into combat again.

The cooldown for "Row Change" is three minutes long and ideally each combat phase for Fencer should last about three minutes and twenty seconds.
The idea for "Row Change" comes from the combat command found in many of the older Final Fantasy titles that allowed you to move one character from the back row to the front row or vice-versa. The name is tentative (read: awful).

The Melee Trees

Although much simpler then the magic tree, the melee combos still bear some explinations, mostly with regard to "Red Moon's Appel", "Checkmate", "Thousand Flurry", and "Enkindler".

Red Moon's Appel (Red Mage)
One of the Job's two signature melee abilities. Using this weapon skill the Red Mage makes a stomping approach against his target that forces its enemy to see images of the Red Moon Dalamud. This skill functions as a spell interrupt when used and as such cancels any spell being cast by the target. When used in PvP it also removes all combo buffs from the target.

Because the nature of interrupt abilities require the player to activate them instantly and on demand I have designed "Appel" to offer some options in how to use it. The player can choose to 'hardcast' the ability which has a high cost but also offers no appreciable cooldown . This option will be extremely useful in PvE bit not PvP due to the HP cost. The other option is to combo into it and avoid paying the cost. "Red Moon's Appel" can function as a third tier combo from either tree. When used through a combo "Appel" deals significantly more damage (but not a huge amount of damage as the alternative method deals almost none) and the recast time is increased to 45 seconds. This is to keep the attack from being spammed. "Appel" can be used to interrupt other melee players in PvP as well by breaking their combo bonuses.

I should probably take a second here to explain what I mean by "interrupts" before moving on as "Red Moon's Appel" is more indicative of greater design changes than any other item I have suggested here. The idea behind this ability more or less relies on SE designing new bosses or creatures in the future that have the ability to activate damaging, but interruptible abilities. When a Red Mage player sees that a spell is being cast then, by design, they have the ability to interrupt it if they are paying close enough attention. The sort of spells that can be countered with "Appel" in PvE are, by necessity, somewhat limited as it needs to be a non-instant-cast spell, weapon skills and monster abilities don't count.

One example from the current game that comes to mind is "Mognesia" during the Moogle primal fight. If "Mognesia" (the AoE MP drain) goes off in front of the RDM it is going to seriously hamper his ability to contribute meaningfully to the fight. Therefore the RDM needs to watch closely for the animation and hit his Appel button as soon as he sees the cast begin, preventing the ability from going off altogether. "Pom Flare", on the other hand, would not be able to be interrupted as it is technically a monster ability. Running out of its range is also a major part of the fight and trivializing it with an interrupt is not quite in the cards. Ultimately the relevance of this ability outside of PvP would rely on SE to introduce some new fight mechanics. In the current game this ability does not have much relevance.

The name here comes from a tactic used by real world fencers. An appel is an approach that a fencer may make to throw his opponent off guard by stomping his foot. Sort of like a physical kiai. The Red Moon portion of the name comes from associated lore.

Featherblow (Fencer)
Opening attack for the frontal combo tree. Can be cross-classed. The "Enhances Accuracy" bonus lasts for 10 seconds. In proportion to the growth of other abilities this skill deals more damage in earlier levels then it does in later levels.

Name comes from a skill used by the Fencer job in Final Fantasy Tactics A2.

Swallowtail (Fencer)
Second tier skill for the frontal combo tree. Melee AoE ability centered around caster like Steel Cyclone, or Leg Sweep. The "Additional Effect: Heavy" property makes this a very potent utility skill for PvP. May have some specialized applications in future PvE content as well. The Heavy effect sticks at a rate of 40%. With the "Enfeebling Accuracy Up" buff from 'comboing' the rate is closer to 70%.

Name comes from a skill used by the Fencer Class in Final Fantasy Tactics A2.

Piercing Lunge (Fencer)
Second tier skill for frontal combo tree. As anyone who has attempted Darnus Hard can attest, dispelling effects from the boss is crucial to achieving victory. If this is indicative of future content, having more classes that can perform this task will be important.

Name is derived from a skill used by the Fencer Class in Final Fantasy Tactics A2 (a piercing lunge makes much more sense for fencers then a piercing blow. Do some research SE, geez).

Checkmate (Fencer)
Third tier weapon skill for the frontal combo tree. Three-fold attack that grants the player enfeebling accuracy up when 'comboed'. Damage is slightly lower than "Simian Thrash". "Enfeebling Accuracy Up" effect is very useful for beginning the rear combo tree or for ensuring "Heavy" sticks when using "Swallowtail". The buff effect lasts for ten seconds.

Name comes from a skill used by the Fencer Class in Final Fantasy Tactics A2.

Shadowstick (Fencer)
Opening attack for the rear melee chain. Can be cross-classed. "Blind" is a very potent debuff for an opening attack however the rate at which it sticks naturally is about 15%. When the Fencer has the enfeebling accuracy up buff from checkmate on the rate is closer to 55%. Usually a Fencer will not begin the rear combo until after the front combo for this reason.

Name comes from a skill used by the Fencer Class in Final Fantasy Tactics A2.

Nighthawk (Fencer)
Second tier weapon skill for rear and side melee combo. 2-fold attack. The rate for inflicting "Slow" is about 50% natively. With the aforementioned "Enfeebling Accuracy Up" buff the rate is 100%.
Name comes from a skill used by the Fencer Class in Final Fantasy Tactics A2.

Thousand Flurry (Fencer)
7 fold attack. Deals damage on par with "Chaos Thrust". The "Defense Down" effect triggers at a rate of 50% natively. With the aforementioned "Enfeebling Accuracy Up" buff the rate is 100%. It may be difficult to combo into "Thousand Flurry" with the bonus from Checkmate still active but should be doable with some practice. The "Defense Down" effect is fairly potent but not unbalancing, overall it should equate to a 4% boost in damage dealt per second on average (across the melee fighters). Since much of the Red Mage's talents lie in increasing the damage output of its group mates in addition to its own, being able to lower a target's defense fits in nicely. The debuff lasts for 20 seconds.

Enkindler (Red Mage)

Removes any weapon enhancements ("Enfire", "Enaero", "Enumbral") active and grants them to any party members within seven yalms. If there is no weapon enhancement active then this ability will not be available.

Much like "Ignite" this is designed to function as a transitional ability. A Red Mage will use this ability when his weapon enhancement buff is about to wear off, dropping his melee performance significantly. Rather than allowing the weapon effect bonus to dissipate, a RDM can elect to voluntarily give up the bonus seconds before, giving it to all nearby party members for 25 seconds instead. While this does indeed inflict the RDM with TP bleed as a side effect it won't matter much because the RDM will at this point be switching to the back line. The TP Bleed effect lasts for 25 seconds.

This is one of RDM's major group DPS enhancing abilities, a role that the class is secondarily positioned to perform. While it at first it seems like this ability may be extremely powerful please be sure to examine the cost it takes to perform. Being able to apply this bonus to a party every six minutes will take a significant amount of practice and skill, and at times will require the RDM to sacrifice his own damage potential in order to enhance the group as a whole. This also raises the amount of communication the Red Mage must make to the rest of the party as melee damage dealers will likely want some advance notice to prepare.

Enhancement

Hastega (Red Mage)
Red Mage's fifteen minute ability. This is a burst DPS skill. It increases the casting speed, attack speed, and resource regeneration of everyone within range by 25% for 25 seconds. It will also slightly increase the damage that limit breaks deal however activating a limit break will end the "Hastega" effect early so groups will want to communicate to get as much out of this ability as possible. It does not reduce recast timers.

If a RDM were able to stack the "Defence Down" effect from "Thousand Flurry", the group "Enspell" effect from "Enkindler" and then perform "Hastega" (with the limit break effect timed perfectly) then, by design, overall group DPS performance should be increased by close to 50% at the very maximum for about 25 seconds, making Red Mage an extremely potent all around ally. Actually achieving this feat, however, would be very difficult to accomplish. On average a RDM performing "Hastega" equates to about a 35% DPS increase group wide by design (the numbers may or may not add up perfectly as they were acquired using "math" but this should be taken as the designers final intent).

When players receive the effects of Hastega they also obtain a "Winded" debuff. "Winded" prevents the player from receiving the effects of Hastega again while the player suffers from it. It lasts for eight minuets and can only be removed by death.

Phalanx (Fencer)
"Phalanx" is a self only, instant cast ability that reduces damage taken by 30% for 5 seconds and prevents the user from receiving any debilitating status effects (effects that are specifically designed to function solely as PvE boss mechanics may prove exception to this). It has a two minute cooldown. While under its effects the player cannot take any offensive action or cast any spells. Can Be cross-classed.

This ability is in the Fencer's library to give them some much needed survivability during large damage pushes in PvE content (astral flow abilities, megaflare, etc) as they do not have access to sentinel, second wind, or the damage reduction trait for sanguine rite.

Refresh (Fencer)
Whenever I shopped this whole thing around to my LS mates and friends they always told me that refresh was missing. Now it's part of the design but you may not recognize it. I am probably going to catch some flak from FFXI vets here. Rather than have "Refresh" as a skill to be cast over and over again on every MP user whenever it is available I have decided to transform it from a pseudo passive skill into an active skill.

The role of "Refresh" in this iteration is to help patch up your parties MP whenever issues occur. If a WHM is down on MP and you know a big healing push is coming you can give him/her "Refresh" to aid your group's survival. Likewise, if you know a big DPS phase is coming and one BLM is going to need an extra oomph you can toss out a "Refresh" to keep them going. Finally, if the RDM wants to delay his melee phase for another Reciprocal Gyre rotation, "Refresh" will allow him to do so. All in all, the idea here is to take a spell that could have been cast by a robot in the past and transform it into something that needs communication and a close eye on the battlefield to use successfully. In this way it becomes more of a rolling cooldown to use when its needed rather then something that needs to be cast on everyone at all times.

"Refresh" grants a friendly target the effects of refresh +20 for 15 seconds (something like 110 mp per tick I think, I am not sure of actual refresh stat numbers). When cast on oneself the potency is doubled (Refresh +40, 220 mp per tick?). It is instant cast and has a three minute, thirty second cooldown.

Passata Soto (Fencer)
This is a skill to give the Fencer slightly more survivability when in melee range. If this skill is active on a Fencer and he is hit by a cleave or some other AoE attack the FNC will automatically evade it and counter with his own. The counter attack would return extra TP in the current version. In 2.0 it simply gives the player 100 TP. Can be cross-classed.

The name comes from a maneuver used by real-world fencers. To execute this maneuver the fencer ducks underneath an incoming attack and counters with her own.

Sacrifice (Fencer)
Remember this one? it's a bit different here.

This spell sacrifices the Fencer's own hp (and mp) in order to perform a light cure. This is by no means an effective self heal ("Phalanx" and "Passata Soto" already provide more than enough damage mitigation for solo play and PvP) but can be used as such if no other option is available. Because of the cooldown and the HP cost it will not be very attractive in PvP.

The big reason to cast Sacrifice is its associated trait. Once the trait has been learned the target of the heal is also given a "Stalwart Constitution" buff and becomes immune to the next generic status effect for five seconds. This includes poison, paralyze, bind, and slow. Once a single status effect is negated the buff goes away. "Stalwart Constitution" lasts for eight seconds.

If I were to cut any spell from this list, "Sacrifice" would be the first to go.

Final Remarks

Throughout all of this I have kept a tireless eye on balancing, both with regards to PvE and PvP and as such I am keenly aware that PvP will be an upcoming feature in XIV (something that a lot of job speculation posts forget). While I believe I have been very cautious with my balancing there are a few aspects of the class that I think might appear at first glance to be extremely powerful. Please try to remember that the "Enspell" feature is factored into the Fencer's late game DPS and as such is less of a concern than it appears. Rapiers have a lower base damage by default and this gap is made up through proper management of job mechanics. "Enkindler" may also appear to be somewhat powerful, however the bonus only lasts for a short time and can only be reapplied once every six minutes, it will also take a certain amount of skill with the job to be able to pull it off regularly.

The only aspect of this I have not tried to account for for is the logistics of building stats and gearing, While the main stats for Red Mage and Fencer should probably be something like Dex (auto attack) and Int (weapon skill) there is an issue with regards to stacking secondary stats. Balancing magic accuracy and accuracy will be a concern as players will likely need to stack both in late game play. One could get around the issue by introducing a trait that adds 20% of accuracy to magic accuracy as I have seen done in other games where similar concerns are raised, however I am not especially fond of this solution.

Regardless I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed creating it. Please feel welcome to discuss whether or not you believe this class job combination would be a good addition to the game in both its current form and in what we know of 2.0.

TL;DR

For those of you short on time or unwilling to read what has become a veritable novel this part is for you. What I have designed here is a class that takes the best of both worlds in terms of classical conceptions of the Red Mage and modern MMO standards. Rather than create a hybrid class that can excel in a few independent areas at one time the Red Mage is capable of excelling in multiple areas synergistically with one another. What this means is that its ability to cast magic is intrinsically related to how well it can execute its melee phase, and likewise, its ability to attack is directly related to how well it can execute its casting phase.

Resource generation will always been a constant concern for Red Mage players as the base class natively regenerates MP and TP at a slower rate than other classes. This is done more or less to force a shift rather then allow the player to stay on one task for too long. A Red Mage who stays out casting will always run out of MP and be ineffectual compared to other dedicated casters. Similarly, a Red Mage who spends all of his time in melee without "Ignite" active (grants an "Enspell" effect) will always do sub-par damage. The key here is learning how to strike a balance, switching between both activities in a single fight and manipulating the job's enhancing tools to help increase the overall damage output of the group at the right time.

This is very much designed to be a challenging and complicated class to play and I hope that you might take the time to read over the rest in the future.

[Angelas]

Very detailed, you must REALLY REALLY REALLY want Red Mage

[Momita]

That is a TL;DR? OMG O_O

btw i really hope in new awesome classes like RDM DNC or THF )

[JDR388]

you must REALLY REALLY REALLY want Red Mage

It's more that I had a really cool idea for it that I wanted to share. I have been working and balancing this in my head for a few weeks now. Now that I am not spending as much time in game I decided to write it all out. I had a lot of fun doing this, I may try to do more in the future.

[myerg]

so...this thread again...

[Charismatic]

so...this thread again...

Yes, This thread again.

lol'd /10char

[CorwinAurilliac]

Well done. This sounds like a really interesting, challenging, balanced version of RDM. I think it sounds pretty fun too. I'm hoping devs see this and pass it on.

[Nero]

I apologize in advance if this goes on too long. I will include a TL;DR section at the end for those that don't want to read a full article.

Your TL;DR is "too long, didnt read". -_-

I always liked RDM tho and looking towards the implemention of it.

[Naraku_Diabolos]

I liked this thought-out description. My one question is this; with your synopsis on Red Mage, why will it not be able to utilize Blizzard? Is it because of Ignite?

[Anonymoose]

MOAR LYK READ MAGE, AMIRITE

(Dun worry, it'd be economic suicide to not add RDM eventually... it just got so much playtime in XI that we're kinda hoping it's fun more than essential, late rather than early, and tactical rather than a GOD.)