Camate Lays it OutFollow

So a new type of enspell and perhaps staff weaponskills. I'm setting the over/under at 6 pages.

Yeah, I'm not sure why they think there aren't that many NMs that are straight-up immune to our enfeebles when 98% of post-VNM NMs are immune to Bind, Sleep, and Gravity at the absolute least.

They're hoping if they ignore the problem hard enough it will go away.

More of the same, it'd seem.

Meanwhile, I'll chuckle at how all of this is the retarded melee RDMs' fault that some are frothing with.

It's okay, we might get some gear for it... that probably sucks otherwise.

Its still pointless though in times we care about damage we will be /NIN dual wielding not caring about fencer, or we will be /WAR and get it "natively", or we could be /BLU which the gear will take a back seat to -pdt/mdt gear, or a Sang Blade set, meaning it will see little to no use. Unless it gets slapped on -DT gear. (or it is enhnces effect type and stacks with WARs bonus. although I highly doubt SE it that clever.)

Edited, Aug 9th 2011 11:58pm by rdmcandie

Everyone is so bent out of shape about not getting Fencer that we're choosing to ignore this part? Has anyone considered that maybe Fencer as implemented is not something that fits RDM? Because when I look at RDM's melee capabilities, I certainly don't think to myself "Y'know, 5% more criticals and 20 TP Bonus would solve all my problems!" Who cares what the ability is called? The only thing that matters is what it does, and Fencer (while quite nice while /WAR single-wielding Almace with Enspell II...) is not going to fix anything that's wrong with RDM melee.

I for one am glad they have ignored the general outcry over Fencer (which is 95% focused on the name, rather than what it does... and if you think about it, it makes perfect sense for WAR to have the highest tiers, what with the entire point of their job being weapon specialization... BST, uh, I've got nothing) and have made it clear they intend to buff our melee in some other, more job-appropriate fashion; giving us Fencer and calling it a day would've probably been the worst thing that could've happened.

And to those who think SE doesn't know what they're doing when it comes to RDM melee, I see your skepticism and raise you Composure... fulltime stance that increases melee accuracy (allowing us to wear more gear with better stats like Haste) and doubles self-cast Enhancing magic, and further enhanced it to (almost) triple self-cast buffs and double party-cast buffs, drastically reducing what is by far the largest detriment to RDM melee: casting spells. It's an ingenious ability really; the community doesn't give the devs nearly enough credit for it, made evident by all the bitching that the Estoqueur set does nothing for meleeing when, in actuality, it gives an enormous boost to one of the best tools we have for it.

I sincerely hope that all the people pining for sh*t like Fencer (fun, but not going to fix anything) or gear on par with heavy DDs (never going to happen) are once again disappointed, and the devs give us something that'll actually address the underlying problems with RDM melee.

Edited, Aug 11th 2011 4:53am by LyltiaofLakshmi

I never looked to Fencer as a major thing on its own, just one of those little baby steps, where if cumulatively built upon with other things like fixed T2s, better/readily available (hybrid) gear, and so on, help the overall picture. Steering past CDC "requirements" to enter the conversation, the drastic drop we face when going from /NIN or even one of the EX WS subs to sub-WHM/BLM/SCH certainly doesn't help since the most common scenarios are likely to leave us as one of those three anyway. Try to break the mold and suddenly you can get the stink eye, friends or not.

That said, if upping our "proficiency" simply means skill rating in Sword, okay. It's another one of those baby steps. There's also the more general evaluation of WS that we could be keeping an eye on, but the most pragmatic approach would probably be to hope we wind up with at least the EX Elemental WS... not that RLB or Seraph mean a whole lot, Abyssea procs aside. I couldn't give two sh*ts about native staff skill, though some have gotten wet over the possibility of Cataclysm, even if it requires subbing WHM. Personally, I don't see AoE WS being all that commonly needed in future content.

My gripes about our Empyrean set, despite the benefit it certainly grants to both having more time on our hands as well as some MP savings over time, is that it is both a good number of levels too late in its arrival and is a purely gear dependent "fix" that hinges on any given person having the means to wrangle +2s in a timely fashion. The cape can at least be brewed from Yaanei if you're desperate enough. But really, I've said it before and I'll say it again, RDM melee shouldn't suddenly "begin" at endgame after acquiring all the various goodies, and even with said goodies, it's brushed off as a toy or hobby because nobody sane will want it near anything that really "matters" in the game. Prior to Composure, I'd been all about a tiered "Enhancing Mastery" trait that would've upped the duration of any buff we cast on anyone and left RDM an enticing sub for others who wish to buff (though certainly better served if said job carried its own buffs prior to the cap increases). One could argue we kinda sorta got for ourselves only, but more needed to happen than just clipping a body off the cycle ho-hum 2/3rds of the time.

As much as GG loves to be all up in my grill over how I must totally suck at the mage side of RDM and that my personal experience and observation of others commonly leaves the job as a WHM-wannabe is apparently bunk, I can't help but think back to my experience fighting Voidwrought (T4 ironclad Windy VWNM) the other night. For those who haven't fought it, it's a fun little mob capable of casting Dispelga and possessing fun little TP moves that inflict an AoE HP/MP down. Like other Ironclads, slow means jack since its normal attacks aren't really normal attacks. I'm sure we've all experienced this chasing down the RR atma. Anyway, I'm in the tank party, consisting of 2 PLDs, 2 WHMs, myself on RDM/SCH, and a floater DD. You can pretty much guess my duties here. Buff, buff, help erase, cure, buff, addle, maybe toss a spell to try and proc, buff, buff, cure, sh*tdispelgajustgotthepldibuffed, repeat for good 20m or so where eventually it starts to hate reset, bust out weakness/stripga, and so on. All deliciously mind-numbing "fun" in the end where all I got out of the 2 fights we did were some AHable junk. And if you haven't guessed, I hate Voidwatch if only for the sh*tty loot system.

When you consider our +2 set, it pretty much solidifies we should be handling buffs we can cast over WHMs. We save them MP. They can focus more on cures. People get their buffs longer. I wouldn't call it "demi-god" status, but it's a sensible outlook. Fights like the above aren't really fun, though. Can also get types like Glavoid where, not only does it suck up your buffs AoE style, but between rebuffing people you've gotta Dispel. I have no delusions about how busy this job can get, but I don't think it's the good kind of busy. And our enfeebles mattering more is something I'll believe when it actually happens. God, I'd @#%^ing love if we could get some kind of dummy buff that absorbs all the dispels and sh*t that's getting thrown around since we're apparently too good for AoEs even with Accession.

Thats because there is nothing glaringly wrong with RDM melee. The largest issue now is the gear options available, a lot of our best sh*t is still from the 75 cap, and a lot of the sh*t we could have used to replace we were left off of (again that being said the only reason 75 stuff is used is because without Walmart/Goliard/Dusk+1 we can't reach haste caps). The fundementals of RDM melee are pretty solid, whil we don't have the strng of enhancing melee JA's like actual DD jobs do, we also don't have a string of magic enhancing JA's either. We have a hybridy one that boosts our melee via time spent on mob, via reduced casting, and we have a bonus to enfeebling JA.

What it comes down to still is the community stigma that a meleeing RDM should also be expected to shoulder all the same tasks as if they were on the backline. While it is possible to do, it eats a very large portion of the RDM's offensive output to do so. A RDM in a purely offensive mindset (playing like a DD) is actually pretty good.

Once again (for what feels like the millionth time) RDM melee is not a RDM issue, it is a Community stigma issue. RDM is good at moving from one task to another, so good people see it as seamless. But RDM sucks when it is trying to perform multiple tasks at the same time.

The only time i melee on my RDM is when i'm out soloing. I never ever break out a sword in a party, but even i think fencer would improve my solo melee career a little. I'm sure most rdm's would agree.
Playing around on the test server rekindled my love for soloing, so i hope the adjustments they end up making are helpful at least.

Uh, did I miss something or don't both of them have the highest base recasts of any spell we have anyway... Bind's base recast is 40 seconds, Gravity is 60 seconds.

Edited, Sep 3rd 2011 7:06pm by Neisan

This, everything back in the day was bio III to death. And yeah Rdmcandie I would have to say it has forced the rdm out of the pigeon hole it was in and forced people to be a better players and learn more about what jobs can do.

Actually its a very valid point, and pretty much the emphasis of an entire argument. The fact that current relevant mobs were no longer able to be solo'd in the old fashion changed a lot. Many gave up soloing, other devised new ways. The fact that they chose that particular time to change the way mobs functioned (but not all mobs) in regards to certain spells was a statement from SE saying, no more soloing, or find a different way to do it, you are not going to so easily solo clear the next batches of content. That is far from a moot point....it is the whole point.