Dev Tracker: Discussion (Old)

[Economizer]

You don't see the Paladin forum lit up with requests for Holy adjustments. It's there, you can use it if you want to, but its utility is extremely limited (building Azure, basically).

Divine Emblem + Holy II is pretty sweet, even if you can only pull it out every ten minutes or so. Not only does it do nasty damage, you can essentially use it as a form of Stun on undead creatures since it has an amnesia blast attached to it (if you believe BGwiki anyways). It would be great for getting a hate spike early on in a fight if the enmity system wasn't so trashed.

[arus2001]

We'll just keep it simple for now, then. 1) Better gear. 2) Martial traits or spells that mirror them. 3) Not bogging the job down with even more spells to cast on people. Basically, "Say no to Temper and Gains as party buffs!"

Pragmatically, the job was designed for a 50 cap game and never really got upgraded after. Yes, this is evident in the giant gaps the skill system creates. Healing Magic skill was pretty much useless for the bulk of the game's life, and this not only made RDM tolerable in the role, but even allowed jobs like SMN to pinch heal because they had the MP for it. They are rightfully behind WHM and SCH in MP efficiency here and I'd basically say RDM's healing is fine now without Cure V. Elemental magic had its moments of spottiness at 75, but now the gap is pretty huge between RDM and BLM, or even an Arts'd SCH. This is also partly why I mentioned the job is limited to SCH as a sub. Some might think, "Gee whiz, look at all that Fast Cast! The upcoming Elemental Magic changes are gonna make RDM an awesome nuker!" ...which may be true if you have Dark Arts at your disposal. Giving up giant gobs of MACC with other subs on harder content isn't going to be helping. The Enfeebling Magic skill on its own hasn't really meant anything other than MACC, and Immunobreak arguably helped other jobs more than it has RDM. RDM's main problem with this skill branch is just lacking debuff variety, and BLU has them beat there in possible spells and even spells that apply multiple debuffs at once (Remember that saving time not casting spells bit from earlier? It's important).

Ultimately, before the job can even hope to get fancy, it needs its basics brought up to the current game. Then you can let stuff like gear and sub further enhance, but never be required to actually perform. But those basics also go beyond just tweaking a few skill grades. T2 Enspells have been a sore spot basically since inception. And yes, others have noted ways to fix them here. I'd expand that further and point out on-strike effect conflicts also exist with Sambas and special effects weapons carry like Excalibur's. These all need to function hand-in-hand, that way RDM/DNC opens up as a sub or you could even get a RDM and DNC partying together without the RDM having to drop their Enspell if they wanted a Samba effect.

The next big issue is the staff issue. +Affinity and healing potency are pretty big values to be giving up for a sword and/or dagger. You might see some RDMs suggest elemental weapons, but that ignores the issue of TP loss when swapping. The job needs some kind of trait where if you're wielding those types of weapons, you're not so glaringly behind staff performance. And it should probably come in tiers starting at 50 so it can either match or at worst be 1 affinity behind staves at 99. Back-liners need to acknowledge that their superiority here comes with the safety of distance. Things like this are to both encourage and synergize with further benefits of the melee game. Risk needs reward.

Now that the job isn't a flaming bag of poo that nerfs itself insanely with a style choice, NOW you can get fancy. Create a stance system for Enspells for all I care that emphasizes Offense with one aspect and Defense on another. Let successful hits on a target build (de)buff potency and extend duration. Let us fiddle with mob level for various calculation purposes. There's a lot that can be done here and truly why I scoff at those who just think party-wide Temper would fix everything. That's just small thinking. Otherwise, I'd love to see some example of SE taking in a player-discussed suggestion (in English, no less) and implement it. Because I'm one cynical motherfucker when it comes to that and they seem locked in Nerf Mode right now.

As for other job issues, I have no qualms with them getting the love they need. Bringing up PLD seems like a bit of a red herring here, though. And enter the inevitable, "You just want your job to be a super job and no one would ever play anything else!" logic trap. Fuck, just mail me free relics, SE!

[calinz]

The next big issue is the staff issue. +Affinity and healing potency are pretty big values to be giving up for a sword and/or dagger. You might see some RDMs suggest elemental weapons, but that ignores the issue of TP loss when swapping. The job needs some kind of trait where if you're wielding those types of weapons, you're not so glaringly behind staff performance. And it should probably come in tiers starting at 50 so it can either match or at worst be 1 affinity behind staves at 99. Back-liners need to acknowledge that their superiority here comes with the safety of distance. Things like this are to both encourage and synergize with further benefits of the melee game. Risk needs reward.

This right here is on my list of biggest reasons against melee RDM. There's no weapon that can compensate for the loss of curing and nuking power. Sanus Ensis sort of helps the enfeebling potency and partly cure potency side, but doesn't address the MAcc, MAB, and INT mod side of things. From a system standpoint, if dual-wielding I guess it would be possible to split these effects over 2 weapons and make up for the power of a staff. Alternatively, a mainhand and a shield. The trait idea also sounds cool, but not sure how feasable it is system-wise. Affinity isn't the same as cure potency when it comes to light affinity, so they would have to come up with something else that would improve healing at the same time as nuking and enfeebling.

Other than that, I must say I'm enjoying reading this debate quite a lot! There's a lot of potential ideas here on how to bring back RDM to being relevant. I just hope SE reps still read other forums except the official ones, which I honestly doubt they do, considering the amount of stuff they have to deal with just on the official ones.

[Damane]

We'll just keep it simple for now, then. 1) Better gear. 2) Martial traits or spells that mirror them. 3) Not bogging the job down with even more spells to cast on people. Basically, "Say no to Temper and Gains as party buffs!"

Pragmatically, the job was designed for a 50 cap game and never really got upgraded after. Yes, this is evident in the giant gaps the skill system creates. Healing Magic skill was pretty much useless for the bulk of the game's life, and this not only made RDM tolerable in the role, but even allowed jobs like SMN to pinch heal because they had the MP for it. They are rightfully behind WHM and SCH in MP efficiency here and I'd basically say RDM's healing is fine now without Cure V. Elemental magic had its moments of spottiness at 75, but now the gap is pretty huge between RDM and BLM, or even an Arts'd SCH. This is also partly why I mentioned the job is limited to SCH as a sub. Some might think, "Gee whiz, look at all that Fast Cast! The upcoming Elemental Magic changes are gonna make RDM an awesome nuker!" ...which may be true if you have Dark Arts at your disposal. Giving up giant gobs of MACC with other subs on harder content isn't going to be helping. The Enfeebling Magic skill on its own hasn't really meant anything other than MACC, and Immunobreak arguably helped other jobs more than it has RDM. RDM's main problem with this skill branch is just lacking debuff variety, and BLU has them beat there in possible spells and even spells that apply multiple debuffs at once (Remember that saving time not casting spells bit from earlier? It's important).

Ultimately, before the job can even hope to get fancy, it needs its basics brought up to the current game. Then you can let stuff like gear and sub further enhance, but never be required to actually perform. But those basics also go beyond just tweaking a few skill grades. T2 Enspells have been a sore spot basically since inception. And yes, others have noted ways to fix them here. I'd expand that further and point out on-strike effect conflicts also exist with Sambas and special effects weapons carry like Excalibur's. These all need to function hand-in-hand, that way RDM/DNC opens up as a sub or you could even get a RDM and DNC partying together without the RDM having to drop their Enspell if they wanted a Samba effect.

The next big issue is the staff issue. +Affinity and healing potency are pretty big values to be giving up for a sword and/or dagger. You might see some RDMs suggest elemental weapons, but that ignores the issue of TP loss when swapping. The job needs some kind of trait where if you're wielding those types of weapons, you're not so glaringly behind staff performance. And it should probably come in tiers starting at 50 so it can either match or at worst be 1 affinity behind staves at 99. Back-liners need to acknowledge that their superiority here comes with the safety of distance. Things like this are to both encourage and synergize with further benefits of the melee game. Risk needs reward.

Now that the job isn't a flaming bag of poo that nerfs itself insanely with a style choice, NOW you can get fancy. Create a stance system for Enspells for all I care that emphasizes Offense with one aspect and Defense on another. Let successful hits on a target build (de)buff potency and extend duration. Let us fiddle with mob level for various calculation purposes. There's a lot that can be done here and truly why I scoff at those who just think party-wide Temper would fix everything. That's just small thinking. Otherwise, I'd love to see some example of SE taking in a player-discussed suggestion (in English, no less) and implement it. Because I'm one cynical motherfucker when it comes to that and they seem locked in Nerf Mode right now.

As for other job issues, I have no qualms with them getting the love they need. Bringing up PLD seems like a bit of a red herring here, though. And enter the inevitable, "You just want your job to be a super job and no one would ever play anything else!" logic trap. Fuck, just mail me free relics, SE!

To me Red mage, was and will allways be a Mage and nothign else. If you look at the gear that SE has been introducing lately, It states the same. Yes there are some melee gear for RDM. But lets look at the main gear RDM gets.
Empyrean Armor is based on a mage job.
RDM gets Nares out of Nyzul Isle and not Thaumas.
Salvage +1 gear is also considered a Casters gear.
Spurrina gear set (Legion) is also made fro mages.

Its cristall clear to me that SE wants RDM to be a mage job and not a melee job, as most of the player base sees it. So why do you want to push the Job into a direction that contradicts 80% of the gear it got previously? The melee effect of RDM is just a nice niche piece to play around a bit on your own, the same reason why WHM get some melee gear.

[arus2001]

There's apparently enough outcry for some people to be annoyed by it, and I still stand behind the point that this is an issue that has been perpetuated through ages of neglect. Can you 100% tell me that everyone who ever played RDM did so because they believed it should be a pure mage? Or has it been played as a pure mage because its limited tool set best supported such? You also need to consider the social dynamic of support jobs being a minority in the holy trinity of play, inviting the old days of anything with an MP bar and a cure spell being "good enough" to get a party going. Right now, people simply can't know if they'll like it because it doesn't exist. I'd like to see it exist, at that point with the flexibility of those who enjoy the now being able to persist with such while those who like the new toys having their fun with them. What's to gain? A job that is played. What is lost? ...maybe a lolRDM meme?

[Churchill]

wanting or believing something to be the case while completely ignoring the developers intent is not an issue for the developers to deal with. they have a melee mage. rdm may have no role as a casting mage right now, but it did before and may again. it never had a role as a melee mage.

[arus2001]

Various abilities would disagree, but hey, I know the game. If it's not MNK or WAR, nobody gives a fuck. Herd mentality is also part of the problem here.

[Taim Meich]

On the SCH vs RDM MP efficiency topic: Don't you realize that the differences are so small that they're actually meaningless? We can consider them equally as efficient, and start considering other factors, like what to do with all that MP. That's when RDM starts lagging behind SCH, and where RDM needs a lot of help.

[Byrthnoth]

I think you can argue that SE wants RDM to have some melee role given one of its two unique 90+ spells was Temper. However, I think you can argue more easily that SE's ultimate agenda is to keep RDM mediocre in all ways. Worse than melee jobs at meleeing, but better than mage jobs at it. Worse than nuking jobs at nuking, but better than non-nuking and melee jobs at it. Worse than healing jobs at healing, but better than jobs subbing WHM. The only two bones they've ever really been thrown that make them unique are:
1) Refresh + Convert - High MP regain for level 75, which was probably done to enhance their melee viability rather than how we used it.
2) Best Black/White magic enfeebler. - I think this was really where RDM was meant to shine and be unique. Too bad enfeebles are effectively irrelevant.

Temper was given to RDM because it was getting so much worse than the melee jobs that it needed a bone thrown to it. It's still just in line with keeping the job mediocre, though.

[Churchill]

Where are we migrating this winter

[Aumaan_Kujata]

It seems extremely unlikely that Square would give RDM any traits or self-buffs or whatever that would in any way approximate the massive benefits of the magian staves, or anywhere near them. And without that, you need to be wielding staves instead of sharp things. This seems like where all the dreams of meleeing in "real" (group/alliance, challenging target, blah blah) contexts run aground. Unless that premise is (astonishingly) violated, RDM has to make a choice, in a given (again, "real") context, between melee and mage roles- no hybridizing.

I've been playing RDM as my main/primary/favorite job since the release (and I've got a damn sexy melee set for it, for my own amusement, heh), and I can think of any number of different ways for Square to mess with the job with varying likelihoods of happening, but I see outcomes in the category that Arus is hoping for as being way down the probability gauge, for the reason above.

[arus2001]

SE don't do effort, which is why it's down there on the probably gauge. They'd rather make a new job with anything RDM wanted since the last expansion launch.

[Ophannus]

The one thing RDM is really good at is surviving and lowman. RDM usually survive in most events because they can quickly cast stoneskin/blink and cure IV themselves for 800+, they also have decent access to PDT/DT gear to be able to take hits and have a good chunk of HP/VIT. Usually in events like Legion or Odin, if we're wiping or something went awry, my RDM is one of the last to die, RDM fully buffed can take quite a beating if you have Aquaveil and a good Stoneskin build with a capped PDT set.


In a low man situation they can easily melee while full healing a party and keeping up debuffs/hastes. Meebles for example. Can stick a RDM in there to keep people alive and the mobs are weak enough that a RDM/DNC can keep people alive, toss out 800-1k CDC's while removing debuffs with Healing Waltz, debuffing a mob and hasting people etc. Low man RDM is very fun because you feel like you're contributing a lot at once. Sure you're not hitting for as much as other jobs but if you keep autoattack with a 26% Haste gear build with an enspell1 and temper with 500 enhancing with an almace and a STR shikargar(or sanus ensis if healing a lot) your damage is pretty respectable plus you can add in steps which stack with your dia III and stun with flourish while haste samba-ing.

[CoreyX]

I propose RDM be changed to a tank! It can serve as a halfway point between PLD and RUN styles of tanking. A jack of all tanks! RDM can handle both physical and magical damage pretty well.

[Dotsudoku]

Aegis/Ochain PLD already does that

[CoreyX]

Aegis/Ochain PLD already does that

It wasn't a serious suggestion, but according to SE Paladin is supposed to by a "physical" tank and Rune Fencer is supposed to be a "magical" tank. They'll likely make changes to make RNF far more desirable in magic tanking situations in the future. After all, what can Paladin do to mitigate the Thudaja XI his team mates are going to take in the face? All he can do is protect himself. Maybe Rune Fencer will "runic" it and block it from damaging others.

[fantasticdan]

I think you can argue that SE wants RDM to have some melee role given one of its two unique 90+ spells was Temper. However, I think you can argue more easily that SE's ultimate agenda is to keep RDM mediocre in all ways. Worse than melee jobs at meleeing, but better than mage jobs at it. Worse than nuking jobs at nuking, but better than non-nuking and melee jobs at it. Worse than healing jobs at healing, but better than jobs subbing WHM. The only two bones they've ever really been thrown that make them unique are:

Before the elemental magic changes go through, blu and pup are better nukers lol.

wanting or believing something to be the case while completely ignoring the developers intent is not an issue for the developers to deal with. they have a melee mage. rdm may have no role as a casting mage right now, but it did before and may again. it never had a role as a melee mage.

That made sense at 75, when rdm was a unique hybrid of blm and whm with superior mp conservation, but now sch has completely usurped that role.

In a low man situation they can easily melee while full healing a party and keeping up debuffs/hastes. Meebles for example. Can stick a RDM in there to keep people alive and the mobs are weak enough that a RDM/DNC can keep people alive, toss out 800-1k CDC's while removing debuffs with Healing Waltz, debuffing a mob and hasting people etc. Low man RDM is very fun because you feel like you're contributing a lot at once. Sure you're not hitting for as much as other jobs but if you keep autoattack with a 26% Haste gear build with an enspell1 and temper with 500 enhancing with an almace and a STR shikargar(or sanus ensis if healing a lot) your damage is pretty respectable plus you can add in steps which stack with your dia III and stun with flourish while haste samba-ing.

You realize sch and whm can melee in the same situations rdm could right? And it's more practical for them to do so, due to being better healers. I melee with pw staff + shattersoul on sch in meebles/neo-salvage all the time, as phalanx/regen do most of the work against weak mobs, and I have jack shit to do.

[Kyte]

I propose RDM be changed to a tank! It can serve as a halfway point between PLD and RUN styles of tanking. A jack of all tanks! RDM can handle both physical and magical damage pretty well.

SE has made it painfully clear that they do not want Red Mage to be a tank.

[Selamis]

It wasn't a serious suggestion, but according to SE Paladin is supposed to by a "physical" tank and Rune Fencer is supposed to be a "magical" tank. They'll likely make changes to make RNF far more desirable in magic tanking situations in the future. After all, what can Paladin do to mitigate the Thudaja XI his team mates are going to take in the face? All he can do is protect himself. Maybe Rune Fencer will "runic" it and block it from damaging others.

Um, Rampart? Granted it's only available every five minutes but still it provides a nice magic damage taken boost for an oh shit situation.

[Cairthenn]

SE has made it painfully clear that they do not want Red Mage to be a tank.

I'll still never understand this, as they have used RDM tanks themselves.