RDM update stuffFollow

Yet your solution to anyone who doesn't have one hammered out in, let's say, 1-2 weeks is to find a better linkshell. Gotcha.

Maybe I'm just weird with my rational attempts at adult time management, but standard equipment shouldn't take a month or more to acquire.

Nobody's arguing that a good linkshell doesn't help with everything. Lording down from the assumption that everyone has one is problematic, though. Or more appropriately, it can skew the perception of standard. Setting the bar high for yourself is one thing, but you just can't expect everyone to meet or exceed it. It's just not possible with how all of our lives, skill, and play styles vary. And really, you can see these frustrations mounting with recent events like poor scroll drop rates, the heavy plate issue, and VW's shoddy loot system. It's bad enough fighting game issues. Adding player politics on top is enough to scare people away entirely.

Based on the reports I was getting in here, I was expecting to see a number of flaming and trolling posts, but I don't see anything on either end of the spectrum that warranted any kind of moderation. The post reporting function is something to use in the case of a legitimate complaint, but what was recently reported doesn't really constitute flaming or trolling in any way. Don't abuse it, alright?

Calling people tards is.

Well sh*t. I was going by the definition folks have been using over at the Official Forum. They're official so they have to be correct, right?

Oh and I am just going to leave this here.

Total Empyreans completed 27,217

As of June 2011

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/guide/development/census/10/4.html

Hard is hard eh.

For comparisons sake

Total Relics completed 5978 (Final Stage, L80, L85 and L90) - rather time consuming
Total Mythics completed 512 - actually difficult to obtain (thank you 30K alexandrite)


Oh and for further comparison

Relics were available in 2004 iirc, Mythics 2007?, and Emps 2010. first dates are kind of off I think but the important one is the 1 year Emps have been available, That is 74.5 Emps finished every day.

at the time other census of course, likely higher now, with more and more people being capable of farming them in a timely manner, higher levels and better gear helps too.

Edited, Oct 12th 2011 3:46pm by rdmcandie

What do you think is wrong with Sword as is, beyond the EX requirements on all the good WS? (Which I agree, those need to go)

Suckiness of Relic/Mythic acquisition doesn't change the Empyrean situation at all. If anything, it emphasizes SE's piss poor mentality on "ultimate" weapons prior to Abyssea and why I'd personally favor them easing those requirements instead of shoving the 1500 Heavy Metal Plate stage at us to try and "balance things out" like some think they're doing to placate the Jeuno Posers.

Anyway, looking at the numbers of CDC capable weapons, there are 2546 out there as of the census. Distributing them amongst 16 servers, that's about 160 swords per server. If we want to assume 250k people are playing and split those among the servers again, that's 15625 people per server, obviously not all on at once. Roughly 1% of people on a server could maybe CDC. If we want to be liberal on job spread, 1/3rd of those will be RDMs, or ~54 of that 160. Could maybe 1/3 that again if you want to split up between JP/NA/EU. 18 people on at a time sound like much?

Now, if we were looking at numbers of 51% or higher, I might start leaning toward the standard argument as that's the beginning of majority. 80% or more of people owning one would be a better number in terms of determining standardization. Of the above numbers, we have no way of determining who's multi-boxed, PUG'd, or pooled LS resources. If I had to guess an order of success, though, I'd go LS > multi-box > PUG. And the further you move to the right in that order, the far less likely you'll have someone who can do it in a week or less.

Edited, Oct 12th 2011 5:51pm by Seriha

Hey, I'll play along and say they doubled since census. Awesome, now 2% people per server have a CDC weapon. 78% to go.

I just hope you realize I'm evenly distributing the numbers based on numbers SE's given us. It's possible your server could have 1.66x more than another that's 0.33x the average. That's still not a high number and how someone wants to play RDM really means @#%^ all. Either the swords exist or they don't.

Edited, Oct 12th 2011 6:20pm by Seriha

I'm on board with civil discourse. However I ask that if anyone makes opposition to statements that are made, that you fully explain the entire context of your argument in their first reply, rather than draw out the conversation intentionally. We can then break down important points needed in each statement from there if needs be.

-----------------------------------------------

Now to regard things from the top. I'd like to ask, RCD, that we separate the concepts of Support and Healing. I do this because there are roles, and jobs specifically for Support that have limited healing ability, such as Corsair and Bard, and as such these functions should probably be weighed in on their own merits, even if the solutions can perhaps cross the lines between. However, I will address what I believe to be our core function first.


Enfeebling

While I'm in agreement with the bolded statement that we do need our enfeebles to land better on NM monsters, as NMs are the target of our enfeebles primarily. But we also suffer from a lack diversity and depth within our enfeebles.

Put bluntly, even if our current list of enfeebles worked to full effect on all current notorious monsters, with the exception of Gravity and Bind, it would not make the NM environment any less disposed against Red Mages. This is because the majority of our enfeebles address Auto-Attacking (with 2 spells to regard casting) and SE has decided to make the majority of difficulty center around TP moves that, aside from subbing for stun, we have no direct means to combat.

I feel this should be rectified as a first priority to any other changes to Red Mage. Having an innate way to lower the damage and/or general effectiveness of an Enemy TP move is a boost that will filter down and assist every other one of our moves, simply by proxy of not having to focus so heavily on recovery.

Beyond that, I would like to see more offensive debuffs. Ones that lower Magical Defense, and perhaps a debuff that increases critical hit damage received or critical hit chance would both be effective and synergize well with the new ability trends. These offensive debuffs can also serve as support elements while essentially bypassing the 'single/self target only' trend SE has firmly locked Red Mage into.

To wrap up this section, I believe Enfeebeling is the core answer to most of Red Mage's problems, though not all of them. Having a strong enfeebling arsenal against the enemy that is both defensive and offensive can really outshine what more direct adjustments to problems brought to light in the past years. Proper enfeebling will allows us to be very versatile, and potentially devastating beyond the fodder game.

Summary:
- First Priority: Give RDM a Debuff to weaken TP attacks.
- Make current Debuffs more effective.
- Create more offensive debuffs to support damage through weakening the enemy.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Support

This is where I divide myself from the common perception of what "Support" is. Or, perhaps more specifically, I am in support of the Developer's approach to Red Mage's Enhancing as a means of closing the gap between itself and other classes. From this perspective I have to disagree with the concept of making all of our single target spells accession-able. However, there is a twist to this that I will explain at the end of the segment.

I did notice, however, in how we have quite a deal of support spells and functions in the way of defense and melee, but little in the ways of spells that support our other spell functions, aside from Refresh and Gain Spells. I think in here there is an opportunity to create buffs that conflict with Temper to assist our other forms of casting such as curing (As a priority) and nuking (even though nuking itself is in a good place.) These buffs would help 'close the gap' a bit in terms of being able to fill in these roles. As some brief suggestions, one that enhances cure potency (that breaks cap) and reduces cure cast time (or gives a HoT effect), or a spell that increases Magical Critical chance and Magical Critical/Magic Burst damage.

Now here is a twist. I've been listening and watching a lot when it came to desires of being a better buffer, of keeping cycles out of the concepts, and SE's hesitation to give RDM AoE/Sphere buffs and keeping their gap closer spells actually working for Red Mage specifically. But I beleive there should be some sort of comprimise.

So as a possible 99 JA or Meritable Ability, to give an ability that allows us to bestow or share our single target specific buffs (stoneskin, aquaveil, Temper(or mage equivilants) Phalanx, Enspell and Gainspell, to one targeted ally. Have the recast long enough so that we must choose a priority member to give this to, in order to prevent cycling, and have it meritable that these abilities receive a boost to their potency for their natural duration when transferred. (A seven minute superboost seemed to be too long.) Note, while the timer should be high enough to prevent spam onto multiple players, the timer, I beleive, should be low enough to maintain on one person. This is to be the ultimate assistance to a Duo Partner, or a group tank, healer, nuke, or that one important member for that moment: the ability to share a Red Mage's substantial self-growth through their magic with gives it such a spot light solo, to the most needed individual in party play.

Additional, as a possible merit to give a general "Enhancing Magic Potency" to assist our enhancing magic's strength could be a possible idea to further increase the overall effectiveness of these buffs.

This paired with the more offensive enfeebles listed in the above section should help round out our support function nicely. (Refresh and Haste already do this for us.) Granted, we won't be invited JUST for that on its own, mind you but it helps provide a more complete package.

Summary:
- Keep Self-Targets as is.
- Give new buffs that aid Magical Duties such as Curing and Nuking.
- Give a High Level or Meritable ability to give/share self buffs at a higher potency to one additional member in the paty.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I should note that anything below this point I consider to be a secondary role of the job. In terms of development and invite reasons, particularly in endgame, the three roles below should play second fiddle to what is offered as roles above. Not that it should be impossible for a Red Mage to say, heal effectively, but it should be considered additional 'dressing' to the meat and potatoes that is enfeebling and support functions. In situations in which enfeebling in particular isn't needed, theses secondary functions should be able to take the spotlight more. But as the difficulty of the monster increases, these functions should fade further into the background against our core.

With clarification in mind, let's continue.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Healing

I'll address this first as it seems to be a major argumentation point.

Red Mage's healing needs help, I don't believe anyone is arguing against this point. I however, disagree with the concept that Red Mage and Scholar should be a part of a greater 'healer' category. Healing as a role in FFXI has grown into a rather distributed role, especially with updates to Blue Mage, and the inclusion of Dancer. As well as the plethora of damage prevention abilities, and the planned increases to Scholar's Regen Abilities, the need is lessenning.

In terms of pecking order, I beleive future adjustments should place Red Mage as 'tied for fourth' in terms of healing potential. Behind White Mage, Scholar, and Dancer (whom I'd recommend have their Waltz timers split into two categories to facilitate this.) And tied with Blue Mage. The placing of Dancer of course is a subject for another discussion, the equivocalness with Blue Mage's healing ability being the more important point here.

Put bluntly, BLU has some powerful curing spells, that can address damage in a wide as well as relatively inexpensive cures, but difficult sustain. As a general idea, Red Mage would have the sustain, but not the AoE ability to quickly address wide areas of attack with raw cure power.

To meet this goal, after thinking on this for a while, I'm going to take a step back on my current banishment of Cure V, with a catch. Instead of say, lowering the potency of Cure V itself, instead I'd reccomend that for non WHMs the timer is increased... like, Curing Waltz V (or worse)increased.

Now note, this is keeping in mind that we have Cure IV, Fast Cast, and the aforementioned "curing magic buff" listed above helping out our curing performance, the latter to adjust this base timer down to more manageable levels. But this insures that Cure V won't be spammed as a replacement to Cure IV. Instead, players would have to intelligently make the decision whether or not the situation merits for its use.

Situations in which large amounts of AoE damage beyond what these limits are occurring should, in my view, require more curing jobs or the specialist.

NOTE; this adustment is proposed while still under the fear that this might overshadow Red Mages' primary role, and if it came to a decision between the two, I would choose the primary role strength then to this (And ask that we would be brokenly potent in enfeebling to compensate). But if both can be implemented on a level that would make RDM both invited for unique roles and reasons and remain a competent healer, I am for it. I would still prefer that more inventive measures would be made to solve this problem, but they would likely require the level of work Square Enix perhaps wouldent make.


Summary:
- Red mage should be tied with Blue Mage in curing effiency.
- Give Red Mage Cure V on a long recast timer. (Keeping in mind a Enhancing Magic spell to buff Cure recast/Potency)
- Prioritize this under enfeebling adjustments.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nuking

I have no Red Mage specific changes (aside from the above listed boost for sake of completion.) to Nuking that I believe need to be regarded.

Rather, in the nuking field itself, I still believe that outside of Abyssea there is a bit of concern of the Damage potential over time feel compared to heavy damage dealers. This comes partially to due MP limitations, but also casting limitatons. I believe the answer to this should lie back with the dated Skillchain system.

What I would propose is that a successful magic burst grant a powerful detrimental effect to the enemy, related directly to what was burst-ed. For example, a burst-ed Paralyze should gain a Saboteur-like effect to the spell (that stacks on normal Saboteur) and that a burst-ed nuke should grant additional damage over time depending on the amount damaged in the nuke.

But these are just general ideas to increase the potency of teamwork and make the Mages' roles more potent through it.

Additional, it would be nice to see Magic Criticals more frequent and noticeable (Some sort of "Magical Crit!" notice on spells would be appreciated in this.

Summary:
- Make Skillchains and Magic Bursts more useful
- Make Magical Critical more noticable frequent, and powerful in general.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Melee


I might get a few odd glances for me placing this last, but honestly the issue is that much about RDM's melee performances and the recommendations in how to improve it is pending on what happens to Sword in the Weapon Skill updates.

To clarify my stance on Melee: That given things in the healing aspects are sufficiently covered or are of low concern, Red Mage should be capable, if not encourage to melee on fodder mobs and lesser to mid NMs so long as our primary role, enfeeblement, is done. With the adjustments above to enfeeblement and the possible WS adjustments it should be more than feasible for RDM to be a strong enough asset for them to be smacking things in all but the highly annoying, or highly difficult situations; especially if say you and your gathering of friends are plentiful on Red Mages or other curing sources.



It is my opinion that the 3 Sword jobs listed in Emperyan/Magian weapons should not have any limitations as to what weaponskills they use under that catagory, with the exception being the Job Specific Mythic Weaponskills. Furthermore, I believe that current weaponskill performance on our existing weapon skills should be improved, particularly in the matter of our Magical Weaponskills which are highly lackluster.

However, above all of this, I firmly belief that Sword users are overdue for our version of Rampage/Dancing Edge/Hexa Strike. For the new near-99 level Weapon Skills for Sword, I'd say it should be something that displays a mastery of sword usage, through a powerfully damaging Weapon Skill. Considering Sword has always been a strong Final Fantasy weapon staple I feel as if it has had a fairly weak showing in FFXI, overly much so even keeping in mind that this is an MMO.

And while CDC and Almace shows promise for the future and displays the power of the weapon itself. It feels more as a display of the weapon's strength, not of the strength of the job wielding it or the fact that Sword itself is powerful.

As far as Red Mage adjustments, there's not much new to be be said on this. I believe that Composure should scale up with level, and that there should be more gear support for the Melee aspects. But I wish to wait on specifics to this until we understand the depth of the Weapon Skill adjustments we will be receiving.

It is a current beef, however, that we are not currently on many scale and harness type sets in our current level arc. I'd like to see this changed.

A note about Dagger:
I disagree with RCD that we should be on Dagger Trials. There has always been a discrepancy between our dagger and sword uses that have always favored Dagger above Sword, and I believe SE was correct in amending that by putting RDM on Sword Magian trials and not on Dagger.

That said, I am not opposed to us receiving more powerful Dagger choices outside of Magian Trials, to keep it as a secondary weapon option for the job. This is currently lacking in the field, probably due to Magians, however I feel as if this may correct itself in the future.

Summary:
- Improve Existing Sword Weaponskills
- Give Sword Skill a powerful non-weapon specific WS.
- Put Red Mage on more Melee gear. (Where's our Scale and Harness sets?)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Wow. Long post is long. Sorry about that. Check the summaries if you'd like not to have to deal with my reasoning. Over all none of this is a shock (Except for perhaps me giving an ok to Cure V even if I put it on an obscenely long timer.)

In the end there's a lot of work that still needs to be done on Red Mage, particuarlly in the boss/HNM department. I believe though we often differ in opinions on how Red Mage should come into it's own, we all agree that we would like this job to be a stronger presence overall. If we could maintain our focus on that, instead of auguring over other issues, I have a feeling these forums could become a healthy, active environment again.

Speaking of such, when was the last time Red Mages ever shared Red Mage stories with each other? You'd think the Duelists of Vanadiel would have plenty of interesting tales to tell.





Edited, Oct 12th 2011 6:59pm by Hyrist

Agreed. But this said I believe the physical effort should be made first before the conclusion is made form the player that it is beyond their grasp.

There are plenty of interesting alternative Swords out there in the game, and while not as powerful as Almace, I don't beleive these should be ignored just because the Emperyans are comparatively easy to obtain than relics are, but rather Sword's performance should be raised to make these other options passable.

You can keep CDC king, but I can't count vorpal as a good enough of a WS to merit itself in the 'high end WS' category, which means that Sword lacks one outside of Emperyans.

As someone who would like to make a FFXI hobby of collecting swords, this is disappointing.

Edited, Oct 12th 2011 7:12pm by Hyrist

Not specific to RDM, but I've been concerned with the lack of new WS gained simply by skill levels since the 80 cap. Some will say Emps were our level 85 WS, fine, but 90 and 95 were left lacking. SE not adding more when we hit 99 likely isn't to be received well, but I could also see them putting the new WS on the final phases of all magian weapons. I see this as both good and bad, since a job like RDM wouldn't have to worry about the EX restriction on a Sword WS, but it's also more than likely these WS won't be as good or better than CDC for sword, and so on down the weapon list. Then again, this absence of new WS could also be a side effect of their phantom promise to tweak WS across the board.



If you have a way of breaking down how that 10% are actually individual players and not, say, half of it being the power gamers with multiples all up in our grill saying everyone should have one, go for it. I focus on CDC because CDC pertains to RDM with regards to how some feel any RDM should have it if they want to engage a mob. The unfortunate reality, much as their favorite immolated idiot is the distributor of thruthiness, is that these people are currently rare and will continue to remain rare short of SE making some kind of drastic adjustment. What they pulled with WoE certainly didn't help those seeking Badelaire as the "easier" version.

As for the 250k, that's a conservative guess at the decline on subs based on the last 300k number I read up on. Obviously, if the number of subs get higher, the percentage of distribution will get worse. I might be more inclined to say FFXI is sitting at 150k subs these days, but 160 swords a server still isn't much, nor do we know how many completed weapons are associated with inactive/banned accounts. Edit: Not sure how valid you could call this, but as of 2010, this pegs XI around 350k users.

Edited, Oct 12th 2011 7:43pm by Seriha

Edited, Oct 12th 2011 7:57pm by Seriha

You can shake your head all you want, but the fact remains that Empyreans are stupidly easy to acquire, Almace is the best weapon for a melee RDM, and any melee RDM who wants to be good at what they do is going to go get one, not sit around and bitch about it.

You can argue that your numbers on density matter, but all that really shows is that the majority of the playerbase is incapable of being proactive on their own behalf, only able to accomplish anything by way of showing up for LS events and being told what to do... of course, that's how FFXI has always been.

Did anyone ever say otherwise?

LOL ok bud w/e you say. Having quickly skimmed I noticed the word cycle used many times, Spamming used many times. Looking over your summaries I see new ability/spell in 3/5 categories you listed. If you feel me not wanting to read a long winded post about what kind of new gimmick you can come up with this week, and responding to it as such is harassment, by all means hit that little button and report it.

I could link a dozen posts right now from the official forums where you say no no no because that will shoehorn us into X role (that isn't melee).

Also I didn't want to have a civil discussion with you, I wanted to have a civil discussion with someone else, someone who actually is capable of a discussion and doesn't resort to gimmick new abilities as the answer to everything when all that needs done is minor tweaking on the abilities already in the game. (there are maybe 3 posters here that I consider relevant in the discussion of RDM.)

I told you earlier in this thread where I put you in this community, my stance hasn't changed, I am not your friend.

So go ahead and push that button and say it is harassment, see how far it goes, me not wanting to read a long winded post about NEW SUPER AWESOME things to add to RDM is not harassment, me replying and saying I don't think we need new stuff (which the majority of your posts are always) and that we need to fix what we have now (adding new stuff into systems that are already broken is not a fix), is also not Harassment.

(if the thread is any indication it is myself Lyl and Cid who are being harassed.)

I don't think anyone ever said they were gimp. Evis is a pretty potent WS in and out of Abyssea, as is Sanguine Blade. What was said is anyone serious about melee is going to have or be working on an Emp weapon.

Ill go back and find the relevant quote that caused this whole silly exchange.



see someone wanted to be a smartass, and got called out on it. Emps are the standard for anyone serious about melee, whether you have one or not is redundant, only that you recognize that it is the standard, and it is easily obtainable.

RCD,

Bear this difference in mind: When Cid, or Lyltia state or discuss something that is not outright inflammatory, I give it the respect it's due, regardless of differences in opinion. It is when opinions are listed as facts or slip into insults that become exasperated and offended.

Additionally, playing who's who on the victim card gets us nowhere. You can list whatever 8 year old posts about me trying to defend RDM Melee all you want, but it has absolutely no relevance to now.

I am not an unmovable object, as is seen by my slowly changing opinions on Cure V, and I do listen to ALL viewpoints.

This is why my efforts seek compromises to fit multiple desires, not even contexts to just one. When I say "Hey, this can bypass cycles." It is because I'm definitely not the only one who wants to see cycles mitigated.

Does that mean I don't want us to support a party? No. I'm just trying to find solutions within both the bounds of reason and to appease a large set of desires, as well as trying to stay within the bounds SE has already made for us.

Why? To try to come up with ideas that are more likely to be implemented by the developers. Making buffs that help other RDM aspects that conflict with Temper is more realistic than just banging your head against the wall screaming for a spell that makes the Developers scared out of their minds.

And focusing on making enfeebles a function of support for damage no only would be easier for SE to implement than revamping our entire buff list to be re-balanced for Acession. Not to mention the precedent is against you in this regard, as there's no spell in my memory that's been ADDED to the Acession list after previously not being there. Where as we DO have a Physical damage aiding debuff. (Dia tiers.)


If you want to disregard the posts I make because you don't care to read it. Then simply don't reply. I've actually done that courtesy for you more times than I can count. I don't care if you want to be my friend or not. But I'm done playing children's games here RCD. This isn't high school, and by now you should have graduated, unless you started really young.

If you want to continue to be petty on this matter than by all means, let's see where it goes. (As I recall, you were already banned once.) Otherwise, when you're ready to bury the hatchet I'll be here.

Edited, Oct 12th 2011 8:47pm by Hyrist

Actually, that's... reasonable.


Elitist would be "If you don't have the top-end shi-t you're garbage and have no business doing X!" or "Performance issues? Just go grab top-end item Y. Problem solved."

Lyltia, I apologize. I regarded this in my huge wall-o-post but I do realize it's a fairly hard read, let me address it more directly.

To start off with my quote:



I had mentioned before the above that I would like to see magical weaponskills receive a boost as well in particular, as they've fallen heavily by the wayside even before they were out leveled.

What really breaks this down is Vorpal Blade. It is lackluster compared to it's counterparts in other weapon categories, to the point of being the worst of the bunch by a large margin.

RCD summerises by saying "Just use Evisceration" and then goes on to suggest that we be added to the Magian Dagger category. And while I would normally not be opposed to this there are a few issues that prevent men from outright jumping in and saying "Yeah! more damage daggers!" one of which is being capable of looking at problems larger than just Red Mage itself.

When you look at sword, to your credit, you say "No other sword best Almace in damage." And while true, the degree in which it stands out should not be in just "Oh hey, finally, a bad ass weapon skill, on a rocking sword no less!" The reason being is this.

There are going to be other swords in development, there have been other swords released. But because there is not enough support behind these swords in direct terms of powerful sword WSes (Sanguine Blade is decent for Magical use, but dosen't hold a candle. DB, even with Temper now backing it is still no Evisceration.) These swords get passed up, even as intermediaries, or substitutes, or even toys. And this isn't just RDM, it's RDM PLD and BLU together that looks at them and go. "pretty, but why?"

That's bad design for the game, and discourages participation to go get these items.

With better native sword WSes, these swords might be back on the table. Things to get and play around with while waiting for your turn in an Emperian LS, or when waiting for you and your friend's schedules to align. It gives you something worth lotting on when the item comes around in the loot pool. And more importantly it brings up the performance of all these weapons in general.

Now, I wouldn't be opposed to say, them putting a fifth (main hand) hit on vorpal and see from there if it's enough. But moreover I want them to start taking a look at what's been neglected in the current WS field, particularly in swords, and start to level out the weapon balancing a bit between classes. I don't believe Sword should be behind dagger and Club in terms of output, and CDC shouldn't be the sole gap closer.

We don't have to agree. But let's not get into an insult fit over it. I'm just stating that things shouldn't be so polarized with Sword. It would be nice if we had something besides CDC to rely upon for sword BNS.

And I'm not opposed to changes to make them more accurate.

But I'm saying we need to go beyond just making the ones that exist work. I'm stating the situation is WORSE than you imply in this department. I'm not saying "don't fix it" I'm saying "Fix it and do MORE."





Quoting an old idea that I've listened to responses on and since altered some of my ideas on. Again I'm not an immovable object RCD. I listen and work with people who work with me on ideas.

Yes, healing skill should have a higher impact on cures than it does. But if we're going to talk about that (and we should.) which directions should we go? Should higher healing skill mean for more potent cures than we have now? And if so, how does that keep WHM from being even more overpowered.)

Conversely if we reverse the process, it will means the cures we have will be even less powerful then they are now due to our low innate Curing Skill. (Remember, it's a C-, that's not high.)

And then why not another self-buff to close that gap you just made, or go beyond it? Especially if we're concerned of how far behind we are, this can help make things more potent, more useful for us, and keep with the theme.



BRD has double attack? I know COR does, but Bard is news.

Haste, Refresh, and Gains fine, I was in support of these since the beginning. I'm referring mainly to Temper when I say 'no'.

We need to keep certain spells, not just in melee catagory, but in general, that remain essentially spell verions of what other jobs have as JAs or JTs. That's how Square Enix gives us these things instead of making them the JAs and JT's we've been asking for. It's their idea (however ass backwards it seems) that we increase our own performance through spells more than abilities. With Saboteur being the exception (though could be related directly to the "Seal" abilities other mages got years and years ago.)

It was my idea that if SE is going to go along that vein, why don't we have ones that benefit our magic? You know, what we're invited for?




What I'm trying to do is create new spells and abilities for RDM that would help solve its problems. Not just be a gimick. You could call everything about Red Mage a gimick pulling it in the right light.

I'm not saying ignore the issues you've presented. I'm saying we're in such a bad state that we need to do more than just fix what's broken at this point. Fixing what is broken would make us more useful against level 75 endgame.

We need more if we're going to be tackling on the TP-move happy 80-99 endgame in front of us.

Why?
SMN gives DA, COR gives DA, why can't RDM? What is so bad that RDM can't give DA as a castable party buff?
We can give haste, so can SMN, COR somewhat, BRD, we can alter attack/def, but so can SMN, BRD, COR.

The difference is they can AoE all of theirs. We can't, accession helps something but it should be for all self target spells.

But really why not temper? is it because it might pigeonhole us into the back line?




Its problems are mechanics related. Healing Magic Skill, Enfeebling Spells being worthless, Accession not working on spells it should, the fact /RDM is going to be as good as RDM in most support roles, an as a sub to some jobs it will be better.

We don't need more fluff, we have a ton of fluff already, we need SE to address the real issues, and that is the fact that we have 1 support buff post 75, we have enfeebles that are outright immune or useless, we are no longer a realistic healing option, and even in a support healing role, BLU/WHM, or BLM/WHM provides better overall options.

Focus on the mechanics, they are the issue with so much in this game.

Ok, let's get things out here. I'm not worried about RDM being pigeonholed in the backline. I haven't been since 05. The benefit of having friends is them being understanding of your playstyle.

But no, it's more of a general principle; an attempted understanding on the way SE thinks and why Red Mage is what it is and what SE is doing to the job. Again, I'm trying to meet everything part way.

The issue here is that once you start spreadding around everything to everyone there are two major balance factors you have to keep in mind. "Can they be balanced while stacking? Is doing this dangerous to other jobs?"

AoE Haste and Refresh helps a target issue we've been suffering under for years, and not just as back line jobs, but as a support in general. It'll further streamline what AF3 does for us. Gain's puts us back on level with WHM which just boggeled my mind. Why we can do this with bar spells and not gain spells is aggravating.

Temper? Takes us away from what we are and into the BRD, COR, SMN category.

It also makes us reliant on one subjob for this capasity, and I'd rather the solution to our problems be within the bounds of Red Mage as a native job. People can excuse not subbing scholar for say, /blm if sleepga and stuns are needed, and people don't worry so much about AoE Gain spells and deal with their single target Hastes.

But if you added Temper on that? God forbid you be on anything else but /sch from that point on. Red Mage dosen't need that sort of complex on it.

But I understand what you mean, what you're desiring here. So I have to put this back on the table. Why not better enfeebles? Offensive ones that do about the same as what you're asking? Maybe not so much double attack as perhaps other items (or maybe it can be a debuff that ups double attack rates on melees striking it, who knows?) This breaks our reliance on a specific subjob to do the supporting for us and makes JUST RED MAGE as a main job more powerful.

We both agree that this idea of /RDM about ready to take over all our basic aspects is disheartening. But isn't it kinda shallow to say that our only recourse is to rely solely on /SCH?





I know you don't like to hear this, but altering those mechanics might not happen at all. And we have to deal with the possibility that that's already beyond the scope of the truncated development team and start looking for alternatives.

You also have to understand that new is what keeps people playing, considering it fluff or no.

But ignoring both of these aspects, you have to look more at just the raw resist numbers and pay attention to the kinds of monsters we are fighting now. What's Paralyzing or Slowing a mob going to do when their NORMAL attacks are calculated out as TP moves? Or their spells for that matter?

End fight WoTG has the boss using spells as TP moves. Silence and Paralyze has no effect. Enemies are bypassing TP reduction spells like slow by using MULTIPLE WEAPONSKILLS IN A ROW. Which makes stun only partly work and you need twice as much now to negate one round of TP.

And then there are monsters that ignore the TP mechanic all together use abilities pretty much at will.

I hear you, I understand you want to prioritize fixing the mechanics. I'm behind the fixes. But we need to do more. You cannot leave it there and expect us to be in any better of a position than we we have been since Ground Kings. We can fix what we got but it won't catch us up.

I know you see this stuff as fluff man, but you got to pay attention to what is going on as a whole. You're pounding your head a problems that are several years old when we've got a bunch of new ones the deal with as well.

What, you can't handle being /blm occasionally?

You have no case RCD, you're taking one sentance out of context and taking it in the wrong direction.

The case about temper is a case against locking down /sch on RDM as opposed to /whm & /blm. I don't give a damn what people think about /melee.

If you think AoE Temper is going to outdo Haste Samba when it's not there, you're lieing to yourself.

Focus on the real conversation instead of trying to invent one of your own.

Edited, Oct 12th 2011 10:34pm by Hyrist

Cool, go play Corsair then - they've already got both of those and we can really deal without the redundancy.


In the meanwhile, I'll swap my subjobs according to what the party needs, instead of crying over a decision already made by SE, And have my better debuffs to boot.

Redundant solutions are redundant. You fix one problem by creating another, and that's pointless. Making spells acessionable does not make make RDM stronger, it makes RDM/SCH stronger. And we've already go the 'one subjob to rule them all' complex among melees. It's poor game design for an MMO, especially for a mage class that's supposed to be flexible.

You talk about Gimicks, and how changes to RDM's core job to make it more effective is fluff. But doing what you are saying is worse. You turn Accession into RDM's only gimick. In which case, why not give Temper to Scholar and call it a day?

You've got a very narrow viewpoint on RDM. In fact, it feels like you're still in the ToAU era.

Edited, Oct 12th 2011 10:51pm by Hyrist

No no, I agree with you on the concept that one weapon can be 'the best' but at this point even the damage discrepancies are too far apart to make things like Saga Singer and the new TP drain Sword to seem effective.

I don't think BLU and PLD would be all that broken than they already are by increasing physical damage WSes though. Again, a 5-hit Vorpal won't break the classes when PLD's looking for means to recap hate on monsters that frequently drop it, and BLU's already got damage spells upwards of 4k, yet is still told not to swing at an HNM. Higher damage points on either of these won't break the job in the manner I think your inclining to beleive, at least not in my opinion.

Honestly I believe at the very least we deserve to test it in actuality and see. We do have the benefit of a Test Server now to try these out before they're officially released.

As far as pure damage being the domain of relic class weapons. As far as being the best, I'll agree. However as far as things that deal damage in the interm, from high damage weapons to lower damage weapons, with the exception of staff there's always a WS that's out there to do large numbers of damage that's not an Emperyan or relic level weapon skills. Sword's is abysmal, and I believe that should be corrected, even if it is bested by a Almace in the end.

I'm not opposed to a boost in the magic based Weapon Skills as you suggest either though, so we're clear on that. Overall I beleive Magic WSes were sadly underated and if they were a good deal more powerful than they were over the years RDM Melee might not have been such a heated issue, through that niche alternative you mentioned.

I do like your ideas for 'meriting a sword' to make it more powerful, although I question whether or not that would be implemented. It's worth the mention though.

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Back at RCD a moment.

I know you're asleep, but I'd like to explain a moment the difference in scope between your idea of support and mine.

You prefer the 'buff' approach to support, where I prefer the debuff approach. It's fine, they're both ideas that should be considered, I just disagree with yours. I don't think that's a good approach for RDM.

The first flaw I stated in your argument is that it limits RDM down to one subjob for it to be effective. But that's not the end of those flaws. Additionally, it limits the expanse of the benefit you are giving.

For it to be truly effective, you would have to be in a melee party, and even then, you're only effecting the Melees in your party, specifically.

To it's credit, for fodder mobs, it would likely win out in the long run in a 6 man party quickly killing other monsters. But, we're not suffering in that department, really. Low man? Aside from a boost in cures, we're good. The only things keeping us out of parties in that respect is Procs in Abyssea, and giving out buffs won't help with that and if we want to push more on damage, fodder is THE PLACE to Nuke and Melee.

Offensive Debuffs, however, is only limited by how quickly the monster dies. On endgame content, bosses, etc. You'll be aiding an entire alliance's worth of DDs with a support that functions on the monster, rather than on the DDs. It's part of what makes Dia III so bad ass when the order to zerg it is given. Imagine giving us a second one of those, and/or a debuff that helps increase magic damage for the nukers out there. There's no comparison to the scaling there.

Pair it off with the adjustments we both recommend to make enfeebles more accurate against HNMs it'll be more effective than an AoE Temper could ever be.

Furthermore, I mentioned Role Redundancy. We have multiple effective buffers in the game. Even White Mage is a better buffer. That role itself is pretty saturated at this point. A dedicated debuffer, on the other hand, is sadly lacking, and it's a role we're supposed to be filling anyways.

So why are we trying to climb up hill against that mechanic when my solution is Main Job specific, increases exponentially with the number of applicable players in the group and subject to boosts from gear and abilities we already have in the game, such as Saboteur and our +2 Empyrean body?

You're trying to do this the hard way. Debuffs are the way to go on this, not Acession.