What would you like to see for your job: Red Mage Edition!Follow

Actually its not that hard to come up with a base point to start from. You take the current effect at max value, divide it into the level 75 skill and get your growth value. For example with Slow 1.

276/29 = 10 points per % (9.5 really but SE prefers to play with whole numbers in calculations)

You then apply the benefit to level 75+ So you now have: (lets assume 424 skill)

Skill-276/10+29 =
424-276/10+29 = 43.8%

Which is roughly a 50% increase to strength. As for everyone else being stuck at 29% that again isn't true WHM SCH and BLM are all capable enfeeblers and all attain skill past level 75 all would benefit from an increase to enfeebling potency. RDM however would gain the largest native benefit. At the end of the day with gear and skill set included RDM will be on top, followed by SCH, followed by WHM/BLM/DRK.

As for Enfeebles utility, SE has already announced they plan on adjusting the mechanics on how they effect the mobs. Paralyze is currently being tested (according to the new big wig) as being able to interrupt TP moves, as it does Normal moves.

If you want to fix the job you have to fix the mechanics, adding sh*t on to the top does not do that. Making new placebo's does not do that. Enhancing is worse for it namely due to the lack of needing the skill of MACC, but Enfeebling is in the same boat, @75 WHM BLM were not landing enfeebles @ capped potency, @99 they are T2's do not grow enough to compete with this, and havign the other half of RDM group utility available to sub job use is killing the job.

RDM needs to be mechanically the best at something, considering its skill superiority in Enhancing and Enfeebling, these avenues should be the ones pursued.

But by all means argue for new spells and abilities that are ultimately nonessential to group play. Watch as the invite rate soars when you get 20% haste II, while BRD's are still capping Magic Haste /RDM (or /WHM). Add a new line of enfeebles, make them crazy potent, and watch as no one cares because enfeebles don't actually do anything in their present form. Then watch as the NIN crowd consumes itself in anger when they can no longer land any of their spells and require that SE add more tiers for them.

Or you could just adjust the mechanics that effect all jobs with native skill positively to provide separation at the top end of the very jobs that compete with one another, and to eliminate the subjob canundrum SE created when they moved the cap to 99.



Awww dont be jealous I am sure one of the dozens of gimmicks you have come up with over the years will get noticed too. Me though, I got in when the getting was good. All those old ToAU grumbles were lost in places like this, I posted on the new (at the time) official forums. You could be right, but they copy and pasted my idea, however instead of a 50% increase, they gave it about a 40% increase. Id imagine something similar done here, since it is the same formula.




(as for your Whoa whoa whoa sh*t. I said people like you: not you specifically. Granted I also said asked for Cure 5 or a Cure 5 equivalent, which you did and ill happily dig through the trenches and find your little post about some cure spell that was like a hybrid regen/cure.)





Edited, Dec 12th 2012 11:28am by rdmcandie

Well, I don't need to see high numbers. I just would like for the party to be able to tell whose doing what. Anybody can cast an enfeeble, cure, or nuke, certain jobs have amazing spells that are job specific and truly stand out. I think if you bring a RDM to a fight, it should have something covered that everyonen is happy to have them over. This sounds so vague, if enspells are really rdms best spells, they should get abilities that increase it's prowess, make me stand out from a war, or PLD with a sword, I know B is pretty good skill but so what, this job doesn't get any real reason to use it unless its soloing.

Throw rdm a freaking bone. I gotta thank you guys for cutting into feather, because it went from a simple concept to something legit,ate, and worth having for RDM, anybody wanna help me scream this spell at the development team? I heard the new head of ffxi, actually reads these forums now.

Don't get me wrong, we all agree with your concept. People just disagree with the "best" way of accomplishing it. That will never change.

T1s do nothing regarding any kind of other-magic MACC. T2s slightly low the resistance of an element related to the enfeeble in the strength/weakness chart, but to no meaningful degree and a currently insipid manner. Ex: Wanna make an ice mob more vulnerable to fire? Hit it with Enblizzard! Derp, enjoy the Enblizzards hitting for 0-3 while your mages don't noticed a difference and you just feed TP...

Otherwise, tying some kind of elemental boon to your active enspell isn't a foreign idea. Some think it should work whether you melee or not. I believe such a trait should only function if you're wielding a sword or dagger to rival the functionality and casting superiority of staves. Without such a caveat, the job's martial side just plunges further into the pooper. I know I've also bounced the idea of matching element boosting an inflicted enfeeble akin to DNC steps. Make it a progressively harder chance like TH, but whacking a mob with Enstone and Slow should slowly creep its slow percentage up if it lives long enough for you to care about such. Or you could up the tic damage of a SCH's active Helix or whatever.

Main problem with RDM is while there are some simple fixes it needs, it needs some complex work to make it appealing, too. It's just hard to see that happening with SE favoring other jobs for given roles, a history of ideas we've proposed being added elsewhere, and a dash of people who delight and support in RDM's misery due to the past. Maybe one day Matsui will actually look at the job, but I fear they trust the census a bit too much regarding whether or not it needs help.

Welcomed changes, will definitely make RDM nuking better. However it's a better buff for BLM and SCH.

We'll have to see how well Fast Cast and dINT will be implemented.

True, but you know the routine, we have to find the "bright side" on updates. In this case, since it helps everyone, maybe we can be seen as a better alternative for nuking.

He mentioned enfeebling, but he didn't state any details. I'm curious on how they will attack that.

One enfeebling change has already been announced, or at least the idea has been pitched by Matsui to the Devs (or maybe vice versa), and that is to allow Paralyze to have an effect on TP moves. But they still do not have any ideas for slow (come on TP gain reduction).

As for this adjustment, when looking just at RDM it is a nice buff, 6 second cast times and 30 second recasts are going to be nice with our fast cast and haste, its going to let RDM put out a lot of spells pretty quickly and the damage modifiers mean we aren't really just married to 1 maybe 2 spells. However when you compare to BLM and SCH it doesn't really close the gap much. The only ground really made up is a small % improvement in the T4>T5 damage gap (based on cast times/recasts and base damage). But SCH and BLM will still be slinging better nukes.


Sadly it isn't going to help RDM get into groups, but it will help us in solo/lowman stuff, simply by killing a bit quicker.




Edited, Jan 14th 2013 11:04am by rdmcandie

The Enspell thread was a rant thread to begin with, so I never took it seriously. To be honest, it's hard to keep a serious outlook on the OF in any circumstance.

We actually don't have the worst enspells. While PLD has the best one in of itself, they don't have the ability to enhance it with +Enspell dmg gear via Hollow Earring and Chimeric Fluret. They're also stuck with sword 'n board while RDM can go /NIN for dual wield.

Our Enspell IIs are crap no matter how you slice it, but I prefer to forget they ever existed instead of hopelessly trying to fix them.

When I was reading that thread and the logic came up that basically every other tier up of a spell was an improvement, while T2s basically bucked that norm, I thought to myself, "You know, T2s feel more like they should be called Defrost, Derasp, etc.." in the vein that if enfeebling was their intent, they could maintain their meager damage option with the -MEVA (removing the quirky cross-element relationship) on top of maybe the -stats.

But even in more in general regarding Enspells, I know myself and others have bounced the idea in the past the specific element bestows a specific bonus not unlike the +Affinity, just more specialized. Enaero would be +Subtle Blow, Enfire +ATK, Enstone +DEF, Enblizzard +MATK, Enwater +MDEF, Enthunder +Crit. Specific values probably couldn't just pull off the direct enspell damage offered, but your skill would at least be some kind of reference point. Each should at least emphasize a particular "role" you'd choose with your engagement at the time, where my thought on the Enaero aspect should be that our TP feed should be very minimal.

Overall, I'm trying to look past the game we know now with what's been hinted of the future. If zergs go the way of the dodo (for the majority of fights) while enemy TP moves and their use become more sensible, the endgame environment can look a lot different. And while some RDMs may look to play more of a nuker with the proposed elemental magic tweaks, I still don't want to see melee shoved aside entirely and will always continue to brainstorm on methods to help stop the whole, "Not in my party!" mentality that's plagued the job since forever.

But even in a broader scope, I'd certainly like to see Enspells/Sambas/Weapon effects play nice with each other. The fact they don't hurts /DNC as a sub for us, and for those who have Excalibur, it's effect becomes a juggling debate between it and enspells.

Edited, Jan 15th 2013 8:01pm by Seriha

I think yes we have been a support job, perhaps not in the technical sense of active support, but we have been a support player at least ever since I played. RDM has alwaqys been that job that can fit in to just about any role. While RDM may not actively support in the sense of say a BRD or a COR, we provide support in a different way.

Or at least we did before Convert went to subjob, and SE embraced the Zerg mentality and went with it.

If you look at a lot of the relevant support buffs, RDM could provide those similarly, from Evasion+ to ACC+, unfortunately things like Gravity 2 (-40EVA or up to a 20% increase to Hit Rate) and Blind are coin flips in whether they are immune or not. Of course thats not even getting into the cluster@#%^ of G2 Merits and the inability to really take Blind II at all as a spell.

Abyssea kind of gutted RDM as a support role though, its inabilities stack up faster than its abilities, and it has had a great impact on the job, ie. it is no longer deemed relevant in content.

Thats why id rather see more emphasis put towards making RDM a desirable option because what it can do...if needed, and what it provides otherwise while waiting for that need to open up. It doesn't need to be a long list of buffs or debuffs. Simply giving RDM the ability to increase group productiveness (such as En-Elemental Debuffs, or something in that similar sense EN-Trait) while waiting for a WHM to get low on MP or BLM to need to /heal. Enfeebles not being immune on everything would also help a lot, as most of RDM's buffs actually are tied to enfeebles.

Although I think in order to reestablish RDM in a similar role it had at the 75 cap, it would require the restriction of convert to subjobs...and I think that one would piss a lot of people off.


|I don't know Id rather compete with BRD/DNC/COR for a party slot, instead of with 10 DD's, or be pigeon holed into a singular role again.

I would rather fix them. They are subpar, but not nearly as much as people are making them out to be. Just changing the +enhance to be at casting would be a great enhancement. As awesome as dual-wielding EII would be, I do believe that would be too much of a boost. I would rather have the second hand be a samba or some other enhancement.

Maybe create a Tier III that gives some sort of buff/debuff and only works on the off-hand?

Yeah, like I said, additional effects need to play nicer with one another.

And I'm not really sold on a fully powered T2 being dual-wieldable as the end of the world, especially in party settings. Our innately lower ATK values are still a concern, with that lesser WS potential. Attack rate, thus TP gain, is also inhibited by casting, albeit offset a bit FC and Temper and DA/TA gear. Basically, that added damage would help compensate a bit. Sure, we'd munch through fodder mobs more merrily, but are really worrying about fodder or things that matter, that'd likely involve MDB and resist issues anyway?

There's a part of me that hopes with SE adjusting nukes that they also go through the game and adjust every mob so elemental strengths/weaknesses mean more for us. Right now, it's pretty much Thunder and Blizzard or GTFO unless the mob is deliberately resistant to both. Situations where Thunder would do like 0.25x damage while Aero would do 1.75x on an Stone-y mob would be welcome by me, nuke or enspell.

I still don't think damage is the answer. I just do not see giving RDM more damage solving the issues with the jobs desirability. Unless we overnight become comparable to top end DD's, we will still be over looked. I agree that Enspells and Sambas (and the like) should play nicer together, but I don't think damage increases will help us in any way, I firmly believe that adding utility to them to boost those around us ability to perform is something that will benefit RDM more in terms of being desired, whether that comes in the form of -STATs like Elemental debuffs, or enhanced traits, I believe it would serve us better than focusing on how to enhance RDM damage, and RDM damage alone.

While it's easy to say what we offer in support should make up for what we lack in damage, we've basically got a decade of our lacking damage not even being a factor to support, and this is ultimately tied to the risk:reward aspect of it. Losing one of your alliance's support jobs to nasty AoEs while also bringing greater risk has just been too much of a burden for our limited support options. This is why I won't argue against improved damage, but I'll also mark it as the lazy solution.

Plus there's the part of me that feels anyone who's played an extensive amount of time on BLU and can objectively look to RDM as a brother/sister hybrid realizing that RDM can be better in its own ways. Now, some may fear this will lead into continued job overlap, but we're basically past the point of that never happening with 20 jobs and 2 more on the way that theoretically dabble in venues RDMs have wanted to play in the past. The overlap can happen as long as unique things still get added, too. And personally, I'm not against MNKs or WARs getting more utility options to stave off the whole, "But then only people would play RDM!" line of thinking. Mind you, that's still a long way off when you consider other aspects like gear, WS selection, and innate skills. Evasion tanks we are not, for example.

I just played for the first time in a long time and my Enspell II's were capping out at 58 with no additional enhancing gear. I can only imagine the damage with dual wielding, enhancing calculation on cast and a decent DD build.

They wouldn't. The fact that we have to recast the spells, as well as having a resist rate vs mobs that matter kills the non-existant overpowering notion.

Nevermind that RDM DD gear, while it has vastly improved, is still left to be desired when you compare it to jobs like DRK which bathes excellent DD gear.

The fact that no one is threatened by it means there is room to move forward martially without upsetting balance, which is great justification.

Just what non-physical aspect are you hoping to see promoted, and just why must it come at the cost of both fixing the tier 2 formula and applying mulit-hit?


Edited, Jan 19th 2013 7:41am by SunriderRagnarok

I played X before I played XI and I thought for sure XI would work a little something like this from the word go. I also half expected that something like Fire IV on a Bomb.... Oooops!

I think a big problem with RDM is that everything we offered was handed out like candy to every other job. And it's not that by itself that's the problem. It's that you can't make a RDM a pro at anything any of the other jobs are supposed to be a pro at because you will destroy the player base's will to play that job. If RDM heals as well as a WHM, nukes as well as a BLM, Enfeebles, Buffs, etc, there'd be no point to play any of the other jobs because with just a quick gear swap, in the field, RDM is a full fledged Warrior who suddenly changes to life support in an instant with the only real limiting factor being the sub job.

RDM basically HAS to have unique little things of its own to set it apart from the other jobs. Unique RDM only things + a little bit of everything anyone else can do = RDM.

The En- line of spells, while unique, are for all intents and purposes nothing but supplemental melee damage. It's melee damage in a different form. It makes up for our lack of Attack stat to some degree on normal melee swings while offering nothing to boost WS damage. They tried to do something a little different with the second tier of the spells, but I don't think they went far enough to make them something that a party wants. So the En- line is unique, but it's not a unique spell that attracts group play attention.

This is really the problem with a large majority of our unique spells. They don't attract group play attention.

There was a time, that a simple spell like Refresh or Haste, gave RDM a spot in pretty much any alliance. There was a bottle neck of sorts for spells like these. There was no Sub Job Haste/Refresh as an option. That bottle neck is gone.

The enfeeble meta-game needs fixing and RDM needs something unique to offer group play.

They could add a spell that boosts a job trait. A job trait pre chosen. Cast said spell on a Warrior and the Warrior gets 10% more DA. Cast the same exact spell on a Thief and they get 5% Triple Attack, or on a BLM and they get 10MAB. They could figure the math for how much of the job trait it has to be for it to be balanced across the board, choose the job trait and have it all hard coded. Make it a 3min recast timer, Fast Cast will bring it down (Casting on yourself would boost Fast Cast beyond the current cap), and make it last 5mins on the target. The numbers might need adjusting, but the idea as I see it, would be to intentionally try to limit being able to maintain the spell to only 5'ish people, including yourself. If you can only maintain the spell on 4 other people, you need to choose who it will best help, and you can't rely on just one RDM for a whole alliance to get this buff, meaning the door is open for at least 3 RDMs per alliance. This will help increase demand for the RDM.

So if you invite a RDM you get a half DD (melee or nuke) or a hybrid nuke/cure support, or a 90% cure focused RDM that can only perform 60% of what a WHM could do...

PLUS a unique support that could add up to a total of 5% more TA on a thief, 10% more DA on a warrior, -20 delay on a MNK, and 10% more MAB on a BLM. The damage of the THF, WAR, MNK and BLM will all go up, and it will be the players demanding for the RDM to be in the party and not just accepting the RDM in the party because there's nothing else. And because of the nature of the cast cycle on the spell, it's not something that benefits from job stacking nothing but RDMs. If they make the spell relatively cheap, and relatively fast casting, it would more or less allow a RDM to do what they do now, with the added support this spell would provide.

In the end though, I feel pretty confident that to get RDM more desirable, it's going to take something unique and castable on others or a serious fixing of the enfeeble meta-game.


Edited, Jan 21st 2013 10:45pm by Torzak

I don't really think that giving everyone something to "shoehorn" them in is so bad. It's kind of what wow does, the problem with wow is that every expansion they add new abilities to pretty much every single class, make adjustments to how stats scale, sometimes change how bosses stats scale, etc all while trying to balance between both pve and pvp. At that point there's so many variables it ends up taking a while through the expansion to get balance right.

FFXI doesn't have a big element of that, and that's pvp balance. Giving everyone their so called "shoehorn" ability/spell, is almost exactly what the game has to have for every job to be valuable. You don't want to create a situation where job stacking is the best way; bring 3 of this job as a tank, bring 9 of this, this, or this job for DD with one exception, a thief, maybe. The rest is support.

Every job needs something that buffs the rest of the alliance/party to some degree. And those abilities/spells all need to not stack with eachother in the sense that you don't want it setup such that if you bring 3 DRKs, your whole alliance's attack is increased by 10% * 3 DRK. In this way, if you bring one of everything, your alliance is the strongest that it can be. And if you bring 9 best geared DRKs, your alliance is sitting pretty low on the totem pole, no matter how flavor of the month DRK is.

I see two sides of this argument, maybe there's more? A lot of RDMs did not want to be seen as the Refresh/Haste and Convert and do it some more B-word. I myself, as I'm sure you must be familiar with, didn't like looking at RDM for just that aspect of it. I explored a lot of other options and enjoyed it.

On the other hand, what I did like about Refresh/Haste and the limited supply of it, is that it practically guaranteed me a spot in an alliance doing end game things on the job I enjoyed the most. It wasn't one aspect of RDM I enjoyed. I enjoyed it all with a little bit of a bias toward doing things unusual, just because. So when I was refresh/haste/converting with the occasional cure bomb or silena, I was enjoying myself. Could I enjoy *just* that play style, no.

But I don't need to be a Rank 1 tank, Rank 1 melee, Rank 1 caster, etc to enjoy RDM. I'm ok with Rank 2 across much of the board, as long as there's something I can do that makes me desirable regardless of the role I want to play. And that leaves us to the question of "how?"

How do we make RDM desirable? There's really only so many options on the table. You can think in or out of the box, but there's going to be a limiting factor: Is it going to displace the main purpose of another job?

That single question by itself, I feel, really limits the options. I don't think we'll get far on the caster swordplay unless there's something that comes out of it that enhances everyone else's play as a result of our caster swordplay. Everyone wants to optimize their efforts, and bringing a RDM DD isn't optimized, currently. Optimizing doesn't require us to be able to win parses, and would actually require us to not win parses, but it does require us to win the hearts of the folks we play with. We need them to want us.

An aura that enhances the party or alliance by having composure up?
A unique buff that we can cast?
Something a heck of a lot more interesting involving enspells?

These are very basic ideas that I think could work. You could expand on them in different directions easily. Example:
*Give RDM a <cast on others> spell that does <insert some method of enhancing another player>
*Make enspells do <insert something that enspells could do>
*Give RDM an aura attached or unattached to composure that does <insert something the aura does for the party/alliance>

... but honestly, I'm not interested in doing any kind of detailed break down at the moment and instead, I'd be interested in hearing other very basic concepts of how things could be changed to allow caster/swordplay. By basic, I mean as basic as the above listed with an asterisk.

I think right now, whether most of us realize it or not, is the best time to throw ideas out there. There are a lot of proposed changes on the horizon for various aspects of the game.

I just hope no one is expecting to be invited as a DD equal, cause I really don't think that's ever going to happen with our tool kit.

Lack of native melee traits... period.

Really, that's the number one thing that needs to be changed. Native traits yields an identity. The last thing we need is another "haste" cycle type spell. RDM's need stuff to bring to the table.

I would prefer RDM to be an MP driven dancer. I know that sounds counter intuitive to the purpose of a Dancer, but follow along. Give RDM spells that buffs and enfeebles during melee.

Increase the native acc, to allow RDMs to at least hit the mobs and have +enhancing/enfeebling as modifiers. This will allow RDMs to choose from +enhancing/enfeebling gear to buff/enfeeble, melee gear to melee for damage or a modified combination of the two.

That's why I would rather have it based on mp spells and not abilities. In order to not contradict a DNC, these spells can increase the efficacy of our current spells. So, instead of "en-slow" inflicting "slow", it enhances the modifiers for slow.

You're absolutely right, but the intent was to "push" RDMs to the front line, like enspell II, but give more benefits to the group outside of pure damage. So, it'll be like Enspell III (that works on both hands, but overridden by Enspell II on the main hand). So maybe instead of "en-slow" it'll be En-MND, EN-INT, EN-STR, etc. where every hit increases your stat by a number or percentage.

The main problem that I see with that is the potential overlap with our gain spells that we already have. There would be initial differences as one for casting and the other for melee, but there would have to be a justification to have both. Maybe all new enfeebles together? I'll keep thinking.

Yes, but I would like there to be a benefit for both in a scenario where melee isn't an issue.

I want RDM to be a desired party job as well, but I want temper all for myself. I think there are much better ways to make RDM a desired party job.