Can RDM get some melee gear please?Follow

What happened to all of the RDM melee gear? There hasn't been 1 decent melee piece added for RDM in the last 2 expansions.

Yes, We did get some nice mage gear, but we would like to be able to use our main weapon every now and again. Why give us 0 staff skill and force us to use staffs? And since the last decent melee piece we were able to use was lvl 75 and the next expansion will only have lvl 85+ gear it had better be a serious boost over the lvl 75 gear. And while you are adding some melee gear for RDM, why not WHM? They would be happy to get some melee gear as well.

Secondly, why can't RDM use TotM daggers or any dagger post-75? Did RDMs just suddenly forget how to use a dagger? It's not like you have to worry about RDM abusing the lower delay of daggers to increase DoT of En-spells. You already completely buggered up the second tier en-spells. What do you really have to worry about?

Not that I disagree per se, technically not entirely true. Personally, I don't see why RDM can't at least use Magian daggers, considering they start the game with a freaking Onion Dagger.

More generally, gear/weapons/etc have generally become less shareable lately. Most of what RDM has in terms of melee gear has been stuff that a wide variety of other jobs could also use. There's simply been less of that lately. Hybrid gear would be nice...but inventory as a whole would be helped if we could at least get in on Dusk version 2.0 or whatever is coming down the pipe.

Fundamentally, never using a weapon is pretty much a violation of the job concept. We can argue up and down about player preference or how broken someone thinks something is, but the point still stands that RDM is touted a melee mage and has pretty much been anything but the past 8 years. Accessible gear is part of this problem, but it's not the only aspect.

Of course Utsusemi is one of SE's biggest blunders, but what you're talking about is not at all consulted here.

Apparently "arts of the sword" is SE for "a bunch of staves". But hey, let's nix Composure, Enspells, and set Sword/Dagger skills to 0 since a play style somebody isn't interested in shouldn't matter and nobody else should care about it.

Otherwise, it's up to you to prove that RDM can prove an overpowered job with a melee buff, main heal at the same time, juggle a 6 man Haste cycle, enfeeble everything, tank the mob, and throw out a bunch of nukes without ever running out of MP, as I can assure you the MP problem happens even without drawing a sword, and much more quickly outside of Abyssea.

Put simply, melee is a selective endeavor. You won't be able to do everything, but at the same time, it subtracts the most from other duties because the gear associated with melee currently isn't mage friendly. Settling on nuking is easier because they'll probably have some INT stuff for dark magic enfeebles, then likely some staves. Unfortunately, TP and WS set don't help there, and we both know inventory issues are a concern for people these days.

I'd like to be able to sub NIN, DRK, DNC, WAR, BLU, or whatever and not get questioned or jeered at behind my back. I'd actually like to be in the BRD party getting the melee songs because it's not just pissing in the wind if another accepted DD, but far more gimp, should get it "just because". I'd love for people to not slack off just because they think the RDM's @#%^ing around now and sabotaging the group can somehow be turned into their fault and claim they don't know how to play RDM.

You don't have to "get it" in the end. That's the good thing about RDM. I'm sure you could still main heal or whatever gets your jollies without people caring. For those that don't give a sh*t about solos or exploiting game flaws, we'd actually like to be what's been advertised on top of fitting in with how RDM started all the way back with FF1.

Of which there are counters SE can exercise if they feel the same. Draw-in, rage, flee speed, enfeeble resistance, regen, regain paired with shadow bypassing TP moves... examples of what they can do individually and collectively to maintain an idealized challenge on a specific target. But don't kid yourself if you think RDM is the only job out there soloing stuff, and @#%^ off if you wanna penalize people by stagnating progression because of it.

RDM may not be able to use ToM daggers, but all the swords are pld/rdm/blu, so you will have to resort your other main melee weapon. I don't see a problem there. As for armor, I have no clue.

We aren't looking to be a top tier DD. We are looking to be able to make use of the skills/abilities/spells that SE has provided us. Why give use things that are meant to be used in a melee situation. Just look at all of the melee related things we have.

Composure
Death Blossom
Phalanx
Stoneskin
3 Spike spells
6 Enspells (12 if you actually use the tier 2 spells)
Refresh (Let's face it this was added so we wouldn't need to rest during/between fights)
Protect spells
Haste
Gain-VIT

We get all of those things, but we go 10 levels without a single piece of melee gear outside of the all jobs jewelry. We also get removed from every single dagger post 75 save one.

I'm content with our melee ability as it is now. I wouldn't be averse to any additions that improved it, but I'm ok with the way it is now. What I'm not ok with is SE ignoring this aspect of RDM entirely for 2 updates (10 levels) forcing us to use the same gear we have been using for years while everyone else gets new (and better) gear to use.

They managed to add gear for BLU that enhanced their melee and their Blue Magic. They added gear for DRK that enhanced their melee without ignoring their magic. Why can't they add gear for RDM that enchances their magic and their melee?

Edit:





I'm confused. Are you blaming yourself for RDM becoming stagnant?

Edited, Oct 20th 2010 10:06am by IAmAnsel

You're such a retard.

But dood, RDM's overpowered and sarcasm totally fails in text format!

Edit: "Oh no, someone disagreed with me! Let's run to BG and whine about karma and people with no humor!"

Edited, Oct 20th 2010 12:15pm by Seriha

I find it kind of odd RDM isn't on the Taranis's Harness. It would be a fine piece of armor for RDM, focussing on Accuracy rather then Attack.

In Celtic mythology, Taranis wielded thunder with one hand (Enthunder) and a wheel in the other (most shields RDM can use are wheel-shaped bucklers). (Interestingly, PUP actually is on it. SE dropped the ball there;)

Because Goliard Saio is better so it is a moot point. Since the slots where we do put ACC (neck,rings) Generally have nothing that comes close to bettering the 4% haste lost on the Goliard Saio. Also historical reference means sh*t, especially since SE deems it meaningless in its own game lore. (see Fencer).

As for the need of gear. ATM we are not far behind. We can cap gear haste unlike some melee jobs, we have a nice new shiny Sword WS that can do over 2K in damage. We have ACC near equal to that of an A skill weapon. We have 20+(avg) DMG enspells (35+(avg) if single wielding using ENII which you should be). That are fairly accurate. Which is like adding a couple hundred attack.

Currently a RDM can get:

over 500ATK
26% haste (25% cap)
over 90% ACC
20-35+ DMG on every melee hit
With several WS that do moderate to Good DMG (Evis,Vorpal,DB,Sanguine,Aeolian Edge,CDC)

With near unlimited MP thanks to
Refresh II
Convert @ 8:20

While keeping the following:
Enfeebles
Nukes
Healing Magic
Buffs

If anything is an issue it is the expectations that a RDM that is meleeing should be required to also maintain a 6 person buff cycle, enfeeble mobs, and heal. That is the only drawback and it is entirely a player base issue. When put next to similar job we are not very far of pace of the like of DNC and BLU. We do more melee DPS than either job, but have a smaller WS DPS. DNC can not nuke, and we can, BLU can nuke faster than us but we can attack faster than them. As far as balance goes between the hybrid jobs we are smack dab in the middle.

If anything needs to change it is the player bases assumption that a RDM should have to maintain its traditional full workload regardless where it is on the field. In a DD role a RDM is capable of parsing very well. Our gear is fine it is the player base that is the issue.

Also:

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Rager_Ledelsens
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Vellaunus%27_Mantle
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Nifty_Mantle
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Anguinus_Belt
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Goading_Belt
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Ziel_Charm
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Brisk_Mask


As well as rings and earrings and swords.

But yep RDM got nothing at all that helps its potential as a melee. (the only thing id have liked to see is us on the pink set from hell, like BLU is on Teal but since it isn't a huge improvement from dusk. Who really cares.)

I think you misunderstood. By melee DPS as in the TP phase of melee combat. Which is why I specifically stated WS DPS after the fact. A RDM should be doing more damage than these classes, simply because of enspells. However DNC creams us overall in weapon related combat, simply because they can amass TP so fast and consistently that they can WS 1-2 times more often than us. But this is acceptable when you consider the fact a DNC can not also provide magic damage via nukes.

BLU on the other hand lags behind us in TP phase DPS and is about even in terms of WS DPS. The saving grace for them is the ability to spam very fast casting spells to deal lots of damage. In the end when you have these three jobs DDing to the best of their abilities they will all Parse very close to each other because they are all very very well balanced jobs. RDM happens to be smack dab in the middle of them as DNC is a better melee oriented DD and a BLU is a better Spell Casting DD.

L2Play Stop being Gimp and quit crying. Christ. You still get spoon fed in RL too?

More accurately it is that if you force a RDM to main heal only, you don't need anyone else with cures. Making a party with 2 healers would allow both to melee... but why have 2 melee mages when you can replace it with 1 real melee?

Since pseudo-subtlety doesn't seem to drive my point home, I guess I'll have to be a little more obvious:

- People in general never change their minds unless something changes in the way of game mechanics. Moreso, it at times takes temporarily nerfing the alternatives or over-buffing the class in question to force people to accept the changes and thus affect the status quo.

Example 1: Druids and Paladins in WoW were basically healers only in raid content, despite the fact that both classes were hybrids with multiple roles available (Paladins being tank, healer, DPS hybrids and druids being tank, melee DPS, nuker, healer hybrids). Before The Burning Crusade came out, blizzard nerfed warriors (who were the only accepted tanks in the game at that point in time) for most of the pre-expansion updates and buffed the tanking abilities of druids and paladins. The result was that druids and paladins were on equal footing as warriors for tanking in the eyes of the masses once the expansion launched because the players were pretty much forced to accept them as tanks during the pre-expansion updates.

Example 2: The 2-handed update in retrospect did the exact same thing. 2-handers were seen as gimped because up until then /nin and DW trumped everything. People didn't bat an eyelash at them until DRKs started doing 3-4K damage guillotines and SAMs did 4-6K Yuki/Kasha/Gekko's after the update hit.

Example 3: The knight archetype I mentioned in my last post also falls under this point. Retribution paladins, much like melee RDMs, were seen as utter jokes and wastes of a party/raid slot because it was basically a hybrid with everything available to it, they lacked real melee mechanics and their abilities required spread-thin itemization. As I said in the RDM forums, even the insults hurled at them are the same insults that have been hurled at melee RDMs, including the "you're more useful to your group as support/heals" and "your unwillingness to just support/heal makes the rest of us look bad", coming from even people within the same job class (back-row RDM to melee RDM insults are 1:1 with holy paladin to ret paladin insults). Even when people made parses of rets doing respectable damage, the fact that they were widely used as healers still bogged them down (sound familiar?). To fix that, blizzard created mechanics that separated the three roles of the class just so that the melee DPS spec could have a fighting chance. Then they tossed in stat conversions (attack power to spell power) and some utility to boot (certain abilities proccing a party-wide refresh ability that could be easily kept up through the duration of a fight as a result of them being in melee). Then they simplified gear requirements for the spec to work with the new mechanics (hence why ret paladin tier sets have expected melee stats instead of STR, INT, spell hit rating, hit rating, expertise, auto-refresh, haste rating, crit rating, spell crit rating and so on).

To close, what I'm getting at is mass aceptance. Not acceptance with just friends. Not having only a handful of informed individuals. I'm talking about being able to be front line melee RDM, having the gear and mechanics to back it up in a way that no one in the group has even the chance to grumble to themselves that I would be more useful spamming refresh, haste and cures. You win out because you don't need to be stand-offish about your desire to melee when you join a group, and I'd win out because I can put my flag up and play as I want instead of rolling my eyes as I put on the light staff before I spam cure again.

Edited, Oct 27th 2010 1:01pm by Ruisu

1.5k nukes every 6-10 seconds says hi. Rdm is actually a very good dd now with some refresh atma.

RCD's always been a bit off base when it comes to actual decent BLUs, and I've always tried to spin that both RDM and BLU can be melee mages, BLU can specialize in spike damage (as it does now, and much more admirably with good atma) while RDM would be more DoT oriented (via Enspells and possibly new melee inflicted debuffs like a Bleed, etc.). Strong nukes throw a bit of a curveball into this, as they're obviously best achieved in not-melee gear. It's also a bit of threading into the eventual SCH-1 fear as, come 99, SCH will have their T5s, Refresh/Haste/Convert and other spells from /RDM, and whatever job-specific goodies they wind up getting on top of that (expected ones being T2 Storms/Helices). Back to RDM, this leaves individuality to the limitation of T2 merit spells, Addle, T2 Enspells/Refresh, Saboteur, and Composure. Gain spells may be a light consideration, but WHM has their group Boosts, too.

Some of RDM's above tricks aren't called on commonly due to the melee disparity. Yes, they could use some tweaks to help that along, but it doesn't quite solve the looming job identity crisis. Equipment's still part of that problem. Food can be considered such to some degree, too. Being held back by subjobs (These are meant to be supplementary, not restrictive) or excessive requirements for something presently not accepted easily scares people away, too.

I've said before that if DNC didn't exist, a lot of its Step abilities would be nice in the hands of RDM. While subbing DNC does give you a modest chunk of them, I still say TP is quite precious to RDMs since it's attributed to damage that is already stymied by cast loads despite Fast Cast and the general mediocrity of readily accessible WS/gear. Mobs dying fast never helped the demand for enfeebles, either. Just as I don't want to see RDM become a SCH-1, I don't want them to turn into a DNC-1, either. So, we're kinda left with SE needing to take a different approach to upping melee acceptance. Damage is basically the laziest route (and quickest to rouse complaint from balancemongers), but just as the temporary brokenness of the 2H update got people to look at 2H jobs more readily, similar could happen to RDM melee acceptance.

And a lot of my point was talking about the pending level 99 perspective. While /RDM is probably SCH's best sub in terms overall versatility, it's still a solid healer and nuker without it, of which is what people expect of it. And unless SE does something overwhelming to the Staff weapon class, I doubt you'll find many SCHs interested in melee, either. RDM's future is more murky (Don't confuse this with "bad") and the focus of more on mage gear doesn't leave much confidence in those who want the Sword and Dagger skill to be more than just for farming crap or Campaign.

Then again, I guess this should be the expected fallout of giving the class T4 nukes and subsequent Abyssea mechanics.

Not every RDM lowmans, just as not every RDM likes to main heal. Call it a waste, retarded, or whatever retort you deem appropriate, but when an aspect of the job's supposed versatility is perpetually never desired by a group, something's not right. That's basically been my point for years and I can acknowledge there are various ways of fixing the problem. Personally, I'm fine with some RDMs not being interested in melee. What I'm not fine with is them forcing their style just because they prefer it. Who knows, with proper attention, they may later eat their words.

Humor me, then. For things that matter, where would you take a melee RDM?

Edited, Oct 27th 2010 11:51pm by Seriha

Which more or less implies that TP feed is a concern, but unlike most other DDs, a RDM could sustain themselves while healers keep themselves dedicated to the tanks, pulling back at their discretion. So, does this not happen because mob TP moves are too fierce, or is the possible exchange still lacking in justification with damage or utility? In theory, one would think Death Blossom good with its added effect, but not only do people not seem to notice it, it doesn't exactly let us do things we couldn't do before like landing Slow on an earth-based or otherwise resistant mob.

Granted, my perspective of things that matter will differ from those who may consider being called elitist a compliment.