[rant] Red Mages, and MeleeFollow

No need to move it, because it's definately a huge problem on our server. All you here is, "A RDM that melee's? He must be a total n00b!" But a RDM who can melee, heal, enfeeble, buff, and magic burst is a heluva better RDM than one who sits back and doesn't use Spirit's Within when they can. ^^

I missed your post, but I have to say, I love meleeing too, and nobody ever gave me a problem when I did it. Lately I haven't been meleeing on Zarathustra, but that's because I've been using a Yew Wand+1, and the +4 INT/+4 MND bonuses are just too good to swap out for a sword to do 3 damage here and 5 damage there and occasionally get my head knocked off.

I'll probably switch to a sword when I can wield the Kaiser Sword or something comparable.

RDMs are ideally suited to melee/cast. The timing on many of their good spells works out great. You're ready to swing again just after casting another enfeeble. About the only problem anyone has ever had with me melee/casting is that I get hate *superfast*. :D

The only reason i kind of stayed away from RDM is because i was thinking of having to switch through weapons constantly (dagger, sword, and wand,) and that didn't sound much fun. ;.;

Cutriss you can still meela you jsut haev to set up your marcos to switch to teh wand right before you cast then switch bakc to your sword/dagger

do you get the buffs of the wand tho.. I alwasy thoguth you ahd to wait till the spell got done casting then switch it out

Ok first off here is my opinion smiply put a RDM who doesn't melee if there is plenty of time, then they are not doing their job correctly.




You can ditch the first /wait 1
also i don't know i haven't tested it personally but you might want to change the second wait to /wait 2 just incase of spell lag so it would look like this:
/equip Main "Yew Wand"
/ma "Dia" <bt>
/wait 2
/equip Main "Flame Sword"
* also would like to note i love the fact you use <bt> usually only newer plavers still use <t> when you aren't a puller but i have had parties die cuz something gets aggroed cuz of <t> since a few patches ago they deicded to auto select a new target if you happen to set off a macro with <t> just as the mob dies it will auto target the closest thing. ;.;



Yes you do so Dia would hold longer than if cast with the sword equiped but the spell has to finish casting before you swap back to a sword or you will not get the bonus.

Yeah, I know, but when you're trying to cast debuffs, that's a *LOT* of macros to reprogram, especially whenever you upgrade weapons.

Anyway, I spent all my Qufim time this weekend without a WHM, and found that thanks to Regen, I was *just* as good as a WHM. :D

I get two sides of this constantly. Some people don't mind Red mages Meleeing, and some insist (forcefully, sometimes even rudely) that you just stay back with the rest of the mages.

After much discussion with several of my higher level friends, I've come to the conclusion that melee for us should be provisional. I'll supply both arguments and supplement:

A. Why Red Mage should NOT melee.
The most common arguments I hear to this side of the coin: 1.You don't do much damage and all you do is feed the mob TP.
2.You make yourself bait for AOE attacks and force more downtime.
3.You concentrate on melee and don't do your duties.
4.Cluttered battlefield in close quarters.

Right off the start I'm going to state the obvious. We do NOT do as much melee damage as a melee class...period. For some reason, though, people seem to interpret this as meaning we do no damage at all. I keep a loaded En-spell on at all times (which is doing 11 damage and rising) and my main weapon choice is dagger, so I'm pushing a nice little chunk of damage myself. I can also contribute a nice array of Weapon Skills when my meter gets up there, which happens fairly fast, since, using Refresh, I almost never need to med anymore. The argument about feeding the mob TP is valid. Lots of hits, for less than huge damage, tends to build up mob TP pretty quickly. This issue, I think is strictly based on what you're fighting. Different mobs have different TP abilities, and some of them are...well...a joke, ie. Goblin Rush (oh no, I got knocked back 2 feet). Others however like Sickle Slash or Jetstream, can make short work of your poor tank, and perhaps its best to just hang back for those and not feed them more than you need to.

*** For you industrious players, I would really appreciate it, if someone came up with a list of all mob TP skills, so I could use it as a reference for what to avoid meleeing against.

As for AOE, I'll keep this short and simple. My static PT was fighting Flies and Goblins in Gustav Tunnel. Lots of AOE in there, yet I was meleeing, and I hardly ever took any damage. Why? STONESKIN+REGEN!

As to not doing your duties, Debuff, Refresh, Downtime management (including backup healing), being hindered because of melee, this is not an issue "just because you're a Red Mage meleeing". It's about multitasking. Red mages are called on, sometimes, to fill a variety of duties, other than the usual, so it can get very complex. If you can't handle all your regular (and temporary) duties, and are trying to melee too, STOP! Just hang back and cover your PT duties first. If you can do all that stuff and still swing your weapon, then, by all means, fight on.

The cluttered battlefield is a very specific situation, but it has a very good argument. When you have a lot of melees in your group, using maneuvers like SaTa and Cover, and especially when it's a cramped battle zone, like the Garliage Citadel or Yhoator Jungle, an extra body in there, only causes difficulty seeing, and sometimes confusion. Best to hang back in that case.

B. Why Red mages should melee:
Melee is 1/3 of your total ability, you were given your skills to use all of them as a whole, part healer, part nuker, part melee (and all Enfeebler). As I said earlier, this argument is only acceptable if you can do all your regular duties and still manage to melee on top of it.
Why do you we get to use melee battle spells and better weapons and armor than the other mages? So when the mob decides to hit us, we take less damage?? Yeah right! As far as the mage classes go, we get the least hate of the three, people. Red mages are a total support platform. Heals to back up the White mages, Nukes to assist the Black mages, and MELEE abitlities to back up the fighters.
One final point on this part; When you're going up against some nasty physical damage-resistant mob. you better believe that you probably will do more damage than a straight melee against it.


So, in conclusion, I look at it this way. Melee is part of what you do. Don't use that as an excuse to do it anytime you want, just because "you have it so you should use it". Use your judgement. Some things are okay to draw your blade against, others are not advisable. If it comes up as an issue with your party, don't waste your time and theirs trying to argue about it. Just cast your spells, or leave, simple. I've never really had an issue with it myself, but I had to come off my ego, when my friends started giving me some of the good points (mentioned above) as reasons not to. Most importantly, NEVER forget your main duties in favor of meleeing, because those are more important.

I hope that this post provides some insight to some players, Red Mage, or not. Thank you for your time.

Edited, Tue Aug 31 18:13:32 2004 by TheWanderingShadow