What is our purpose?Follow

ftfy

Brd has ~7 more haste than rdm (march x2 vs haste), unless they're /whm, then they get 22% more...

Not sure where you're getting 2% from.

Oh, right, rdm won't cap haste. So brd has an even bigger advantage there.

4%. That's kind of a lot.

Been reading through this post, and this was just something I had to comment on. As a Battle BRD (when the situation allows for it), I know for a fact switching instruments does not deplete TP. I tend to do my buffs in the appropriate instrument, and then switch in Angel Lyre (Haste +2%) when I'm TPing.

Also, while I'm on the topic of RDM melee vs. BRD melee - we don't have a whole lot of time in a 4 song rotation unless we make it. If we're giving 2 songs to melees and 2 songs to mages, we don't have much time, unless we're packing huge -songcasting time. That is why I enjoy fully merited Nightingale and Troubadour, it allows the BRD to do other stuff, sometimes meleeing. And if the BRD is in a melee only (or mage only) party, they certainly have time to melee.

Edited, Sep 15th 2010 5:32am by apresmoi

BLM party: Why not? Refresh II takes 5 seconds to cast and lasts 2 1/2 minutes. Casting on 5 people, that leaves you with two minutes to melee.

Main Healer: Why not? Sub DNC and don't weaponskill. It's actually easier. My RDM/DNC has double multi-hit weapons for example and I can gain TP at a very fast rate. I'm sure if TP became easy and you had 5 finishing moves you could probably toss in a weaponskill or two, or if your MP was good. You can also add Box Step and soon you'll be able to add Haste Samba. You could be a main healer that helps the DD's deal damage in ways DNC can't do (5% less attack speed from Haste Samba, but RDM can cast Haste and Dia III).



Might be? If you're co-healing with the WHM it's not like you have to dedicate yourself to it. On tough HNM mobs you can't melee anyways, of course you have to dedicate yourself, but on "ash and trash" mobs, it's better to melee, imo.



Agreed.

Not that I actually care about this discussion anymore (SE will do what SE will do, and I personally don't expect them to live up to what they said about promoting RDM melee, plus they killed my RDM tank, which is unforgivable), but since Colibri stopped being the merit target-of-choice, what mobs do you have to actually worry about BRD songs on? We don't merit on Sahagin or Yagudo...

Anyway, carry on with the endless debate.

Edit: But I will say this: "screw you" to all the people who want to limit RDM to no native AoE spells/abilities "for thematic reasons", but don't want the job to ever be improved to actually be consistent with its theme.

Edited, Sep 15th 2010 11:44am by Aliekber

Should note: If Brd is casting Marches on himself to maintain highest haste possible, then he's not using other songs on himself to increase his attack and accuracy. He has to choose between them just as RDM will have to choose which Gain Spell and Enspell to use. Though, RDM really doesn't have a limit on "Total Buffs" he can place on himself. Only a few (Haste, Enspell, Gain Spell) Will effect his melee performance directly. Though others (Dia II, Graivty.) will effect it indirectly.

Comparing those two's combat styles is a mixed bag. Though honestly I'd like to see more melee enthusiasts among some of the support classes. The game is beginning to lean its way towards encouraging them. And as the game is melee-centric it'd be nice to see these jobs take advantage of that fact.

Unless you have RDMs going /WHM in your Dynamis normally (I think most full-alliance and lowman groups use RDM/BLMs, or maybe RDM/SCHs), it's really more of an issue of not having Sleepga than not having the full complement of /WHM's -na spells, but I guess you do have a point for that one if a given Dynamis shell uses exclusively/mainly RDM/WHM healers.



What do you want melee RDMs to want then? To melee HNM? You're opposed to that, but you want them to want it so you can knock them down like strawmen? Not trying to be hostile, but you really have me confused as to your stance on this.

Hyrist's issue is, and as far as I know always has been, that people lose it if you pull out a sword against a VT mob, something we're already equipped to deal with via melee.

"Piss Poor"

What do you want to do, Melee PW? Even that's unrealistic. The only one here who has a piss-poor perception of RDM has been you, and that hasn't changed in years.

You CONSTANTLY flip-flop between opinions on RDM and its melee aspect. At least I can be credited for being consistant.

Take a stance and stick to it before you start critisizing other people's viewpoints. RDM's frontline performance dosen't suck when it's used in the contexts I've described. Essentially anything you can put your dagger-weilders on you can put a RDM on provides the situation doesn't specifcally calls for RDM to be out of Melee Range for some reason.

I do think at times people treat certain NMs with way too much safety involved. (If a DNC can step it, why cant I go in for a Death Blossom?) But that's the way it currently stands, and it's not a huge issue, given how much utility we have elsewise.

Aliekber hit the nail on the head when it came to what my issue with frontline RDM is. VT mobs, cannon fodder, should be fair game. This includes the weaker bits of WoE mobs, as well as Abyssea mobs (We get status boosts to make up for the increasing difficulty of those.)

The "Eternal Debate" should have been over years ago. My current issue with is we now have fallen behind pretty hard in gear support. That problem could be fixed by giving us more spell/ability support (More than Gain STR, I'm counting that already as it's inevitable) or better overall TP gear.

So long as the populace gets accustomed to the idea that "VT is ok." I'm fairly satasfied with our melee set up. If you want to try to push for more go right ahead. I'm still in support of pushing the envelope, but really it's still going to boil down to "Is it ok for people to TP on this?" as a ruling factor. I'm ok with having the same threshold as say a THF or DNC, when it comes to that.

And we don't HAVE to agree, or push people into "Shadow's camp" or "Hyrist's camp" everyone has varying tolerances as far as how far our melee can go, and that's perfectly fine.

To be honest I was tempted not to post in this thread at all because I initially thought it was borderline trolling. We're really not suffering from that much of an idenity crisis as much as an oppertunity to re-craft certain aspects of our job idenity; to obtain more. I've given my idea for that in the form of Aura spells (working like Avatar's favor.) and I'm pretty much running dry on other ideas besides the bread and butter "Moar damage." methods. We have a HUGE assortment of tools at our disposal, and I don't see the point in snuffing our nose up up at it just because they're not dependant on being in the front lines. I like that level of variability, and we already have mele dependant tools (Enspells, Spikes, Death Blossom.)

There was an idea in which we could use melee to enhance the potency/duration of enfeebles, but Saboteur kinda took that one right out from under us.

So what next? I'm open to the ideas but I'm also not blind to the realities.


So the important questions, Shadow, is:

What role do YOU want RDM to take?
How far do YOU want RDM melee to be effective?
How would YOU impliment the changes to make that feasible?

Right now, I've never been more satasfied with RDM's utility. Do I want more? Yes. But I'm not panicked at what RDM is, and honestly, I coulden't care less on how certain people view the job from the outside.

Actually, scratch that, I do care enough to be sick of all of this BS surrounding ignorant jackasses that tell people how to play without even a basic understanding of the job they critisize. Most the time how they view mage jobs are often incorrect. (I moved off Midgardsormr with my Fiancee because we hated how her WHM was being discriminated against.)

The players and how they act are probably my biggest problem with FFXI and other MMOs.

So you'll have to pardon me if I'm a bit agressive against the 'appease the other's' approach you're trying to protray. Most the time it will not go appreciated at all, and they don't even understand what RDM is capable of now. (Dosen't help that we're misrepresented by our own brand of morons.)

We can talk about what we can do to further advance it's melee aspect, or how we want to 'further define' the job till the cows come home. But I beleive ignorance is the bigger problem for the majority of this game, on far more than just RDM, when it comes to what classes are capable of, and how to utalize them.

I've spent years with off-the-beaten path job combinations, players, playstyle methods, and it's funny how after all this time I still hear the same old complaints that were disproven years ago.


So I guess the bigger question is, how do we correct the common misconception of our class?


Edited, Sep 15th 2010 7:35pm by Hyrist

This. There are 20 @#%^ing jobs. How could they possibly not step on each others' toes? Pretty much everything other than whm, blm, rng, war, pld, thf/nin, and maybe rdm is redundant.

Edited, Sep 15th 2010 7:35pm by ThePsychoticOne

Worse, some of the aspects he beleives are stepping on other players toes STACK!

How can you say we step on a DNC's toes when there are 4 types of steps and only 1 15 second timer per dancer or /dnc? Is RDM pushing Box Step/Dia III going to ruin DNC's oppertunity to use Feather Step or Quick Step more, no!

Frightful Roar STACKS with Dia III STACKS with Box Step, it only competes with other Defence Down abilities that Red Mage wont even have access to unless he's maining the Defence Down sword!

This is the DUMBEST argument possible in event contexts unless you are damn right restricted to a specific number of people.



And again, he proves me right by flopping. First he calls my concept of RDM frontlining piss poor, then says personally he'd rather me stick to that "Piss Poor" concept.

He MUST be trolling.

Edited, Sep 15th 2010 7:40pm by Hyrist

It's primarily hobby to me. It just so happens that my hobby becomes the majority of my game because of my erratic playtimes.

I know I'm being lazy when I back line, even when I'm doing all the other tasks a RDM normally does, because I know I can manage the front lines while doing it. (Sadly, I actually perform BETTER in the front lines because I'm more interested, and therefore, more attentive.)

Somehow the old 2005 arguments still permiate the crowd mentaility. We're no longer in an age of "Must have X build to win." Hell, most the CURRENT situations now have multiple solutions to them. HNMs being being an exception.
But I understand also when people want to play it safe, keep certain key abilities out of AoE ranges or keeping a better eye out for links. (Though I do just fine with links even behind me in melee range.) So if they're uncofortable, I step in the back line.

The main reason I became the 'White Knight for RDM Melee' is I coulden't tolerate the ignorance surrounding the subject. Oh, and I hated main healing parties back in the ToAU era because of what it did to my girl's WHM.

The argument most often made is that RDMs who are meleeing are usually the type that will tend to slack on the things that the RDM was invited for in the first place. Unfortunately, despite the fact that I'm sure there are RDM meleers who actually stay on top of this stuff, the stigma is not without merit. All too often have I seen RDM meleers doing things like Refreshing only themselves, letting Hastes drop for long enough to be significant, completely not noticing the link on the pull that strayed from the puller and started to nom on the resting WHM, etc. An overall observation of every single RDM I've observed in a standard party shows that a greater ratio of RDMs who melee will slack on their duties than those who do not.

Is it possible that these people would be slackers even if they weren't meleeing? Certainly. But people just do not want to take that chance and possibly place that extra straw on the (possibly good) RDM camel that ends up breaking its back, particularly when you consider this fact -- if leaders wanted more DD, RDM isn't what they would be looking for in the first place.

The best thing you can do as RDM melee, if you insist on sticking to your guns, is to prove these people wrong. Show that you can stay on top of everything while still meleeing, and even if the general populace still doesn't fully accept you, you'll at least come to be accepted by the people you regularly group with. Additionally, always remember that depending on situation, there are things you just should not be meleeing. Learn to recognize these. Stubbornly insisting on meleeing EVERYTHING in EVERY situation is a good way to earn scorn for your RDM.

Am I the only one who's willing to comment on the inurendo here?

Anyone remember how excited Shadowedge was about 3x buffs from Composure's debut?

And does anyone remember how bat-sh*t crazy LIVID he got when he found out about the +15 accuracy it also gives?

Good times.

Nah, that's fine.

I don't know what's going on in this thread anymore. I decided to re-read the OP to maybe find where this chaos stemmed from.



That's a good thing.



Playerbase stigma. People don't say "oh hey, this guy has Dia 3! No wonder my Gekkos were doing so much."

Nah all we hear are "Woot {Tachi: Gekko} 2145!!!" "lol gratz"

Enfeebling is a thankless job, especially since the sh*t that really matters half the time gets resisted.



You almost had it there. You appear to have tacked on an extra word for some reason.

Continuing on that same quote..



I don't think you understand what "Jack of all trades, master of none" means.




My brain is full of @#%^.jpg

No, seriously, I don't know what to think anymore. You say this with sincerity only to turn around and make up bullsh*t about why we can't do a simple task like melee.

There is no balance of hybrids.

Taking advantage of every tool available to you is not self-indulgance.

I was going to refrain from any form of attack since you seem like a reasonable man but the more I read your posts the more I find that you're nothing but a hypocrit. You're probably just going to turn around and say I'm nit-picking your posts. If you could make up your damn mind about what you want we wouldn't be having this problem, now would we?

Edited, Sep 15th 2010 11:23pm by StylinOfGilgamesh

I could've said just as much about the original post, the more I read it. And I have to ask the question to ShadowedgefFXI. What was your purpose in making this post and what was the response you expected to get?

Did you:
1) Know fully well that it will eventually turn into a discussion about RDM melee? Because that is the direction so many posts of its kind seem to go in. It is telling that we got Gain-MND and are going to get Gain-INT. And the ones that people are excited about is Gain-STR. Not that I personally mind getting Gain-INT as much as I want Gain-STR; I would like to make sure I'm ready for any opportunity to do things on RDM, even nuking...excuse me..."wasting MP on random nukes" as some would like to call it.

or did you

2) Seriously expect people to raise their hands in outrage that BLM got Break, NIN got Aisha, even though we're supposed to be the Masters of Enfeebling? Let's suppose for a second SE truly came out and said, "No, we never intended for RDMs to frontline. We wanted it to be a debuffer exclusively." Can we finally get our pitchforks and demand that SE give us Break, Aisha, elemental debuffs, elemental resistance reduction that doesn't require us to be in the frontline, magic evasion reduction that doesn't require us to be in the frontline, Flash, Stun, a light based sleep and dispel, Terrorize, and Amnesia? My suspicion is some of the other jobs would counter our pitchforks with shotguns and say "No, you already have enough. You can heal. You can nuke..." and I suspect some might even say "...you could even melee if you put your mind to it. Now get off my lawn!"

If we're about to be in role limbo as you're original post seems to ask, I think we have a legitimate case here to start asking for these things. Who's with me? Let's go flood the feedback forum.



What people in this game don't get, is that the mob died in 10 seconds because of everything that went into it, not just the one person who had 1337est, biggest, baddest WS. Worse, Dia III is something that is seen as optional because of its status as a merit spell, when in reality, it's just about the only thing we hold a monopoly on left in the EXP party setting.

Edited, Sep 16th 2010 1:31am by Ketaru

Font lining isn't an extra duty, it's just a change from hitting your idle macro after casting to hitting your dd macro instead. The only real change is having to cast enblizzard once every 9 minutes. Dding on rdm is the absolute lowest possible priority. You do everything else you'd normally do first, and then while idling you simple attack and keep your dd gear on, instead of sitting there with your thumb up your ass.