What if Red Mages had Elemental Swords?

[Yellow Mage]

In the mid-50's, Red Mages don't get much of anything in the weapons department: Lust Dagger and Triple Dagger are the only Daggers of note, and there aren't even as many with Swords. So it is from level 51 onward that every Red Mage grabs themselves a set of Elemental Staves. Thier ability to enhance some key Enfeebling spells and help them be effective against tougher monsters becomes vital, and de facto. This goes generally to the point where that Red Mage never swings another weapon for the rest of his carrer, with rare exceptions.

So what if Red Mages had a choice? What if there were Elemental Swords that also helped the potency of a spell's coresponding element, even if to a slightly lesser extent than the Staves? This would provide Red Mages with an alternative to using Elemental Staves.

Of course, Elemental Staves are sometimes used all the way until level 75, so multiple tiers of this set of Swords would be nessecary, should the Red Mage actually want to swing a sword far after 51, without having to swing a level 51 Sword. And example would be one set for level 51, another for level 63, and a final set for 75.

So, seeing how valuable Elemental Potency is, can it come in the package of a weapon more suited to the Red Mage?

[Ziero]

Even if they did make Elemental Swords with similar-but-less effects then the staves, people would still want Rdms to use the Staves. No one will ever invite a Rdm for DDing in an Exp pt, and outside of Exp there *are* plenty of decent Rdm swords. So the need really isn't there and in the end it wouldn't help all that much. Just imo at least.

[Murphie]

It would be hell on TP, since a RDM is going to change staves (or swords) depending on what spell they are casting. I mean, at the start of a fight, I'd cycle from Dark to Light to Ice to Earth to Water, etc.

It's an intriguing idea, but would require a lot of work to implement.

[Yellow Mage]

TP loss from weapon switching was something that did cross my mind, but that can't be helped without terribly breaking the game.

[Callisto]

I still regularly get invited to XP parties at 75 in which I'm encouraged to melee. The only time I need to have a staff on is when fighting some kind of high-level endgame monsters that may actually resist my debuffs, in which case I wouldn't be meleeing anyways. Plus there'd be the issue of inventory. If the staves are even a bit more effective, I'd have those still, and carrying around more swords than the 2-3 I already do, in addition to the other 45-50 pieces of RDM gear I lug around, would burst the gobby bag; ; 1 sword with reasonable melee damage and a few points of Magic Acc + would be nice.

[Malacite]

Or what if SE said screw it and released Mystic Knight >_ >
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_character_classes
Mystic Knight
Magic Knights, Sorcerers, or Mystic Knight are knights that can cast magic on their swords to perform attacks with the power of the spell for several rounds. They have also been called Mageknights or Biskmatars. In the pre-Game Boy Advance English localizations of Final Fantasy V, they are called Sorcerers.[21] In Final Fantasy V, the magic knight can use any magic previously learned on their sword.[21] In Final Fantasy Tactics it is called Temple Knight and is a special character class. The skill itself is called Magic Sword and Spellblade (Final Fantasy V Advance). Although their magic power is weaker than the mages', Mystic Knights use less MP (and generally pierce Reflect, which can stop certain mages from attacking). In Final Fantasy XI, Redmages have "En-" spells, which imbue their weapons with elements. The Mystic Knight's ability appears in Final Fantasy IX in the form of the combo between Steiner and Vivi, where Vivi cast's a spell on Steiner's sword, who attacks the enemy at the same time.
lolenspells = {Too Weak}

[Mhurron]

I still regularly get invited to XP parties at 75 in which I'm encouraged to melee.
You really should have noticed something else at 75 as well. Everything changes.

Now think back to the 50's. Any RDM not using the staves should be beaten with the first one they buy. Mobs, like players, gain kill and stats faster once they hit lvl 50, except with the way people play, they hit 50 back when you were 45 or earlier. The 50's are a horrible time for resists and RDM (and BLM) need all the help they can get landing spells.

Personally, what would be nicer would be a Sword that had (decent) +Enhancing Magic Skill. That would be a decent weapon for soloing.

[Karinya]

Well, they could solve the TP/weapon-swap problems in this particular case by releasing *one* sword that enhances all eight elements with the same potency as a staff... and if it's high level, they don't need to do it over and over again at different levels. RDM and BLU could both benefit from it, if it was a type of sword that they can both use. Rare so that you can't /NIN and DW them. Don't include the other bonuses on the staves (skill, stats, hMP) so that it's not *strictly* superior to staff-swapping, but is still useful for a cast-and-melee style.

I mean, it's not as if having eight different staves is really stopping anyone from getting the appropriate staff bonus on every spell they cast. The only thing it would really change is the TP issue, and frankly, the TP of a RDM is just not that big a deal.

Sword mages might be nice, but they don't really do anything to address the issue of RDM being forced to choose between using 0 skill, crappy dmg/delay weapons or giving up freaking huge amounts of macc/mab.

[Taskmage]

Somebody put forth the idea awhile back that enspells could be used as a buff to make corresponding elemental magic stronger, like a build-your-own staff or an Elemental Seal/Quick Draw hybrid kindof ability.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Somebody put forth the idea awhile back that enspells could be used as a buff to make corresponding elemental magic stronger, like a build-your-own staff or an Elemental Seal/Quick Draw hybrid kindof ability.

Elemental Seal is for magic accuracy, I thought.

Quick Draw raises magic/tool based enfeebles up a tier, taking a Paralyze and making it a Paralyze II (in a manner of speaking.) No affect on songs whatsoever and this can actually can weaken the intent behind Ninjustsu's elemental debuffs. Yeah, weird.

Elemental Ninjutsu nukes one element, but debuffs weakens the mob to the opposing element.

Bard Threnody is similar NIN's, but just directly weakens to a specific element. The oddball part is where magic bursts are concerned, to magic burst a threnody, you have to use an elemental threnody that is the oppositeof the skillchain. Good luck with that.

Anyway, my main concern at this point isn't even allowing RDM more means to do melee, what's unattractive about levelling RDM to me is the fact it is no longer needed or looked to for what it specializes in - enfeebles. They can't capitilize on magic bursts because skillchains don't have to take place now. They're looked at for three things and three things only - Cures, Refresh and Haste.

BRD is in a similar situation. Don't tell me you invite them to support cure and maintain four buffs. You invite them for three things only - Pulls, Ballad and March.

Do one thing and all that changes.

Raise mob defenses. Do that and skillchain/MB is back, enfeebles are back.

Except on colibri.

[Callisto]

Anyway, my main concern at this point isn't even allowing RDM more means to do melee, what's unattractive about levelling RDM to me is the fact it is no longer needed or looked to for what it specializes in - enfeebles. They can't capitilize on magic bursts because skillchains don't have to take place now. They're looked at for three things and three things only - Cures, Refresh and Haste.

It just depends how you play/equip. Yes, you can't debuff/nuke Colibri. But you can use /DRK(or probably even /WAR) and eat some sushi, and have a damn fun time jumping in with the DD. I almost always pull as RDM, since Sleep 2 lasts much longer than Lullaby, I get a mob on deck, sleep it, and then go to town meleeing.

Do I get to do a RDM's specialty of enfeebling, no not really. Am I relegated to just Refresh and Haste, absolutely not. If you want to do something other than that as RDM in a burn party, you're more than able to. Cap your Enhancing and Sword skills, get a few decent melee pieces, and jump in with the DD. Better than sitting on the back line complaining that you don't get to do anything.

[Aeni]

1 sword only. Called the Rainbow Magicite Sword.

+15 to elemental skill. Hidden effect: Increase to damage on any elemental spell used.

Catch? Hidden effect only triggers on the elemental day. Hey! There's gotta be a catch somewhere...

[Yellow Mage]

Thank you all for your feedback.

I like Aeni's idea of a "Rainbow Sword," but am going to modify it a bit with the idea Lago brought up.

The hidden effect of the Sword would be "Enhances the Potency of Spells with an element matching the current 'Enspell' applied." (Note: this also applies to the Enspell itself.)

That will make RDMs break out the En-spells more, require no weapon switching, and balances it out by still making it only one element at a time.

Of course, this would still be weapon-dependant, unlike the idea Lago put forth. And, really, I would also be quite happy if it happened that Enspells could do that with any weapon, and no new Sword was released at all.



(Off topic @ Foobar: grats on getting the Guest Host position; I can't wait to hear the show ^^ .)

[Malacite]

SE could also just give RDM staff skill at long last (Seriously wtf?)


I agree about the enfeebling issue. It was IMO, a very bad move on SE's part to make the tier 2 enfeebs merit spells. They should have all been scrolls and given RDM new JA's and Traits, like say Enfeebling Seal to double the potency of your next enfeeble.

[Karinya]

Staff skill won't change the fact that the elemental staffs are horribly crappy weapons, as weapons. There are daggers with more damage than the elemental staffs (and not just rare/ex high level ones, either).

And making it dependent on enspell would make it worthless - changing enspells is more time consuming than changing weapons, and costs MP too. Who wants to cast Enblizzard, then Paralyze, then Enstone, then Slow, then Enlight, then Cure III? Even RDMs don't have THAT much fast cast. And there is no Enlight for players.

A rare (maybe ex, maybe not; it should be something that anyone can work toward, though, not a drop from an HNM that pops once a week) Eightfold Sword that provided the hidden effect bonuses of all 8 NQ staffs and maybe Light Staff's cure potency, and had decent stats (not Joyeuse/Justice level of performance, necessarily, but something that wasn't horrible) would be a great asset to RDM, and probably to BLU too (although many of their spells are non-elemental, they would benefit when they used one of the ones that is). Twenty-something levels of staff swapping is enough - then the jack of all trades should get one of its trades back.

[BurningPanther]

I would very much like to see RDM's dependency on those cursed staves broken, either through stat tweaks, gameplay tweaks, or introduction/removal of available weaponry.

The current staves offer, across the board, +10% boost to nuke potency and Enfeebling accuracy, with +15% on the HQ. Small differences not withstanding(damage reduction on Earth, +Cure potency on light, +hMP on Dark, etc,), just including the potency and accuracy bonus would work out well enough on a sword. Just to be nice, I'd love to see sword enhancement +duration/damage included as well, since currently only two RDM-specific swords exist that cater to En-spells. In all, a sword that offered the potency and MAcc bonus would do well toward giving RDM an alternative to the staves.

Another method would be stat tweaks. I'll use BLU as an example, which was created with a novel concept. S-E tailored their physical spells' damage and accuracy to their weapon's damage and any inherent stat bonuses it offered, allowing BLUs to go crazy seeking swords with the strongest damage and inherent STR or Acc bonuses on them. Moreover, they made the physical spell generally stronger than their magical spells. This leaves BLU with every reason not to be confined exclusively to magical gear, such as wands or the cursed staves.

What I had in mind was to do something similar for RDM; tying spell accuracy and potency into their chosen weapon. Unfortunately, this would completely undermine the current utilization of MAcc/MND/INT, so the concept is still a work in progress.

Another idea would be to completely re-align the relationship between potency(INT/MND) and accuracy(skill), placing less importance on drawing potency and MAcc from INT/MND and gear, and placing it almost centrally in your skill level, perhaps in a 80%-20% or 90%-20% skill-gear ration. Again, another oddball idea, a work in progress.

And the last idea, certainly the least likely and least well-received, would be to take RDM off the list of staff-equippable jobs, to include a number of wands as well. RDMs everywhere would cry foul, and for a while, other jobs would shout "gimp," but at least we'd be free to use other stuff... :P

(that last one was just an radical idea from left field, only half-serious... maybe three-quarters serious)

[Yellow Mage]

And making it dependent on enspell would make it worthless - changing enspells is more time consuming than changing weapons, and costs MP too. Who wants to cast Enblizzard, then Paralyze, then Enstone, then Slow, then Enlight, then Cure III? Even RDMs don't have THAT much fast cast. And there is no Enlight for players.

That's pretty much the whole point: a Sword that gave Potency to every element simultaniously would either be horibly overpowered, or terribly gimped. One element at a time pretty much balances it without breaking it too much. It also forces Red Mages to choose thier element wisely for the occasion.

+Enspell duration/damage on such a weapon is an obvious must, and other bonuses on both the physical and magical sides would be nice.

Burning Panther, I see where you're coming from, but I think that most of the stuff you're proposing either isn't possible, or has a better alternative.

Such large stat re-assignments, for example, are too drastic an option, not to mention impractical.

So are making RDMs unable to use the Staves in question, as they are "All Jobs."

What would be nice is, instead of the Merited Spells of now, Red Mages has Tier II Enspells, which automatically also give bonuses to corresponding Potency and Accuracy, not to mention being a more powerful and longer-lasting Enspell on it's own. That, however, would eliminate the need for a sword which did this with normal Enspells at 75. But I wonder if Tier II Enspells should stack with such a sword, anyways . . .