[Taskmage]

Always when doing casual events such as campaign battle and besieged.

Most of the time in parties pre-51 where you are not main healer and demand on your mp is low.

Often when soloing when the mob is not so dangerous as to require kiting.

Usually when blink tanking for extra enmity and parry procs, when TP control is not critical and the mob does not counter.

Sometimes when doing small group activities and there are few or no heavy DD.

Occasionally for ad-hoc strategies such as enspell DD in Crustacean Conundrum or rdm/war tank in Up In Arms.

Rarely when doing serious business, such as to pop an i.wing for death blossom to make sure enfeebles stick on a tough mob.

Critique.

[WishMaster3K]

Firstly- If a RDM has access to Death Blossom, congrats.

Secondly, if they are fighting a mob with the super godly Murgleis, then they are fighting a mob that is Hittable. This is important- being as there is a cap to the type/level of mobs a RDM can take on WHILE MELEEING.

If a RDM can effectively stand there, sword drawn, and get 100% TP to do the WS, then the mob should not be so tough as to REQUIRE Death Blossom. Also, if the RDM has Murgleis and needs Death Blossom to land Enfeebles on said mob, then they need to re-evaluate their choice in gear.

---------- Post added at 01:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:41 AM ----------

Notwithstanding, Death Blossom and, subsequently, the Murgleis, are AWESOME. I love it for the stats alone.. Double Attacking and Magic Accuracy bonus are icing on the cake.

I'd possibly never take it off, but the elemental staves still trump it for all magery needs.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

If we're going to have this discussion, please for the love of all that is precious and holy, RDMs, it takes a bit more than Scorpion Harness and Sniper Rings to do well at RDM melee.

There's a reason people scoff you and shoo you away from the frontlines and its because most RDMs just dive in with a sword and a scorpion harness and think that's all they need.

Consider the follwing for your careers if you really want to make the melee effort worthwhile:

Wahlra Tuban
Swift Belt
Dusk Gloves
Dusk Ledelsians
Pahluwan Legs
Pahluwan Body
Brutal Earring
/NIN sub and a dagger for main hand
Joyeuse for offhand
Eviceration Weaponskill unlocked
Accuracv foods.

Now, I'll grant you that some of this is really high level stuff and hard to get, but this is the sort of gear melees look at when gaging each other. We look at the subjobs and think about the WS available too. We do this all the time. I do it to CORs all the time, its why I bitch about them using those level 22 bullets so much. They're gimping two facets of thier job just to save a little gil, they will not perform as well for it.

Forget about Sword Enhancement gear, your Chapeau, your INT and MND builds and think like a melee before you pick up the swords and daggers.

If you don't, then we're right to scold and scoff you when you whip out the sword to "prove" you can melee. Any idiot can swing a weapon around and any twit can cast a spell, its the gear and knowledge of the player using them that matters.

[WishMaster3K]

I want the Pahluwan body and shorts SO bad.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Body is a breeze for anyone with dispel. Pants you just have to suck it up and play healer for as long as you can stand.

[Callisto]

I'm anxiously awaiting the new Gobbybag quests so that I can start carrying a couple of melee pieces on me again...I kind of stopped dealing with min/maxing my WS set just because the extra output wasn't enough to warrant the extra luggage, but I still keep pretty solid sets(really I just leave behind Tarasque Mitts and I hawked my Ogre Ledelsens, I WS in Dusk Hands/Feet so I'm missing out on 10 attack, w/e).

As far as the times where I actually see a benefit to myself meleeing past me just wanting to hit shit with a sword for no particular reason, I've had it do very well in two places, early Salvage floors when I'm not main healing, and low-manned Temenos zones. I successfully trio'd Temenos East with PLD/NIN COR/DNC RDM/DRK several times, the extra damage I output was just enough to push us from clearing most of the floors to consistently clearing the zone. Death Blossom was perfect for the SC properties, it opened Light for Atonement/Deto and Darkness for Salute, all of which worked well against the Elementals in the zone.

BBQ raised the important point though, a RDM should melee when they're geared well enough to make a positive impact(as well as when the fact that they're meleeing alone doesn't make a negative impact due to excess TP feeding or their own inability to cycle buffs, land debuffs, and melee at the same time).

For starters, if you don't have other melee jobs, merit your Sword skill. If you do have other melee jobs then melee on those. USE FOOD!! Sushi is the standby, though Marinara Pizza +1 is very solid as well, a nice mix of Attack and Accuracy, when one of the largest problems facing melee RDM is it's lack of both stats combined inability to consistently boost both at the same time via gear.

I've tweaked my sets a fair amount and am currently using these setups:

TP

Joy/Genbu's
Walahra Turban/Peacock Charm/Hollow/Brutal
Goliard Saio/Dusk Gloves/Ecphoria/Woodsman
Amemet+1/Swift/Nashira/Dusk Ledelsens

WS

Optical Hat/Thunder Gorget/Hollow/Brutal
Assault Jerkin/Dusk Gloves(Tarasque if room allows)/Flame/Woodsman
Amemet+1/Potent/Dusk Trousers/Dusk Ledelsens

My big disappointment so far has been that there just isn't enough solid DEX gear available to RDM to make a good crit build for Vorpal, but Blossom is still fantastic for the SC properties, and if nothing else the damage is at least consistent.

[Armando]

While I agree with BBQ, I don't feel Swift Belt should be on the list of expected/required items, as it can take quite a few attempts to get one, and there isn't a large gap in performance between Life Belt and Swift Belt.

[WishMaster3K]

I still need Swift for a Haste Build.

Armando, expect me to regale you with pestering questions about PLD sometime later.

Also, I haven't done any Nyzul, what floor were you up to when you decided to go and try to unlock the sword, Cally?

Oh, and BBQ, I haven't done ANYTHING in Assault with the exception of Golden Salvage up to 18000 points. I was going to do the last one the day before they nerfed the ability to check the treasure chests and not die

[Aksannyi]

Golden Salvage is the same zone as Lamia 13, just do that one. It's super easy. I got my P. body a long time ago, long before I started playing Salvage and before I started collecting Yigit pieces.

RDM melee ... you could add "minor sky farming" to that list, and by that I mean, when you're in a group of like, 12 or so, there are possibly some WHMs with you, and you wanna skill up while trying to pop Despot. Or silly shit like that. Let's be real, I have no real "melee" set for RDM. My WHM melee set is better. I think the reason RDM melee is scoffed at is because of the way people just don't take it seriously as a melee job. It's like DRG. People still "loldrg" because of how badly the job was played years ago, and they are still slowly trying to work themselves out of that deep rut they were in. No one's going to take RDM melee folks seriously until RDM melees as a WHOLE start acting the damn part.

That said, I agree with that list up there. I haven't touched RDM melee in a long time ... hell, my WHM easily outparses my RDM (sad but true), and it's faster for me to farm on WHM than it is on RDM, and it requires less gear rearranging from Locker to Safe to Inventory. And it seems like the true hybrid class that was meant to also melee on top of its other duties should be able to easily outparse a truly backline job like WHM, but it doesn't. LOLWUT. Doesn't make sense. I mean really, RDM does so many thing well but it really falls behind on melee. Jack of all trades, except for one?

It's disappointing. It's not how I expected the job to play when I picked it up. Which isn't to say that I haven't adjusted, because I have, and I do enjoy playing it from time to time, but it definitely doesn't fit my idea of "Jack of all trades."

Do I desperately want a RDM melee update? Not really. I'm happy with it as-is. I might pick up BLU eventually for my melee-mage fix, and that might make me happy. Which isn't to say I don't think RDM should get one, but we the players have really made RDM a red MAGE, and I'm kinda happy with that. I'm not sure I wanna leave my comfort zone on that one.

[Raydeus]

/

Is Pahluwan's Crit rate up really that noticeable?

Because to think that's probably the best melee body piece available for RDM is very depressing. And while easy to get I don't see why someone would want to go out of their way to get it if they already have say SH.

[Aksannyi]

I don't really notice, but I also don't set out to notice, to be honest. It's worth the 20k points in my book, and wiki says 1-5% crit hit rate increase, if you have crit hits merited it might be really nice procs, and with a double attack weapon like Joy or Justice, it's probably even better.

I'd also say maybe even consider using Goliard for the haste if your accuracy isn't a big issue.

[BurningPanther]

Yeah, the Crit bonus on khazagand is pretty noticeable. Me, another RDM, a DRK, and a WAR took out Roc one time. While mine was the lowest parsed damage, it was also the highest crit rate, and this was before my Crit Merits. Though, just eyeballling it(equipped and unequipped), you tend to note a difference.

Another minor bonus over Scorpion harness is the lack of Ice element defense reduction. I don't personally lament the loss of the 10 Evasion, and kind of enjoy the RAcc bonus(even though our Archery and Evasion are equally poor). While I look forward to one day owning the Goliard saio, I lament the pains I'll have to take to make up the Acc I stand to lose from the khazagand.

It looks so striking with my Duelist's chapeau, and it's been a part of my inventory for so long, it's gonna be hard to part with it. :/

[Raydeus]

So 1-5% crit up. Do they know what determines the amount?

If only RDM could use Heart Snatcher.

[Aksannyi]

It probably hasn't been solidly tested to pin down an exact percentage, lol. Otherwise, no idea. I never paid much attention to really do any testing. I guess I could, but that would require me to stop being lazy. Also I'm at turtle camp so I really can't anyway.

[Feba]

Between 3 and 6 AM, and weekends.

If RDM melee persists for more than four hours, consult a physician immediately.