Pre-50 RDM Gear-Swapping Poll

[Spinnthrift]

Re: Pre-50 RDM Gear-Swapping Poll

Well, as it has come up as such a touchy subject, I thought I'd drop a poll and use the results as advice for future RDMS and myself.

Does a RDM pre-50 NEED to have gear-swapping macros or is this a bit elitist?

Thanks for your posts,

Evion

Having read through this thread.. I'd like to add something to this.

I will state now, for the record, I am not what you would call a super Rdm, nor even a good one. I know - without a shadow of a doubt, that I suck at playing this job. My Rdm, right now - is at 44/45 and I doubt it'll see the other side of 60 before 2009. I use it solely for solo'ing ENM's to farm Cloud Evokers and helping out LS mates with BC's

I can't juggle multiple things around. Hell, most of the time - I forget to refresh myself. I'm not really used to having it.

I'm not a great healer either, often being slow on things.

So, when it came down to being able to dump say 50k into various cheap swap gears that helped with hmp, mind and int, so I could enfeeble better, heal better, and generally, not be the laughing stock of every party I was in... it was the best money I could spend (although I've had lots of people laugh at me for sitting on my butt knowing that my convert was up).

I know.. I'm a Rdm, I'm not meant to /heal. Tough, I've been playing Blm too long to know better. Every Gravity, Paralyna, Slow or Blind that stuck and proc'ced hard, made my already confused time as Rdm easier.

Going back to lurking the boards I'm better at now, like Thf. ^^

[WishMaster3K]

Re: Pre-50 RDM Gear-Swapping Poll

Man. This thread needs to get linked into the "What's wrong with the world today" thread.

This is the wrong forum to ask about Gear-Swapping being "necessary".

Gear swapping is better than not. How many times do we need to say it? You have a macro to cast a spell right? You're not wasting any more time typing 5 more lines while you lfg.

As a tank, I care a whole helluva lot if my RDM can stick Paralyze and Slow. And being as how at least 85% of pts before 72 have a tank, I'm probably not alone.

I was never rich in the game. I'm not rich now. But I got gear the same way everyone else did- one piece at a time. Devotee's Mitts. RSE. Maybe I couldn't buy them so I had to farm or do a stupid quest. There are so many more options for gear as opposed to when I was leveling, it's disgusting that so little RDMs care about being efficient.

[Raydeus]

Re: Pre-50 RDM Gear-Swapping Poll

Man. This thread needs to get linked into the "What's wrong with the world today" thread.

This is the wrong forum to ask about Gear-Swapping being "necessary".

Gear swapping is better than not. How many times do we need to say it? You have a macro to cast a spell right? You're not wasting any more time typing 5 more lines while you lfg.

As a tank, I care a whole helluva lot if my RDM can stick Paralyze and Slow. And being as how at least 85% of pts before 72 have a tank, I'm probably not alone.

I was never rich in the game. I'm not rich now. But I got gear the same way everyone else did- one piece at a time. Devotee's Mitts. RSE. Maybe I couldn't buy them so I had to farm or do a stupid quest. There are so many more options for gear as opposed to when I was leveling, it's disgusting that so little RDMs care about being efficient.

Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Wishie, typing more than one line in a macro is being elitist. Heck, typing /recast makes you not only an elitist but a leet pig.

I thought you would've understood that by now.

[WishMaster3K]

Re: Pre-50 RDM Gear-Swapping Poll

That's messed up Raydeus...

I'm only a part-time elitist- and that's when my main is set to RDM.

I use /recast on things like Sleep, Gravity, Bind, Refresh and Haste... It's NECESSARY!

Don't judge me.

[Raydeus]

Re: Pre-50 RDM Gear-Swapping Poll

NO! The other 5 lines are exclusively for roleplaying and (Last Resort) macros for abilities (they must include a <call> or two) and they should always use <bt>.

You get bonus points if your macros contain a combination of emotes and /say with <call>s so your party also notice when you use them every 30 seconds.

Remember that old Boost macro in /say? That's how you do it.

[WishMaster3K]

Re: Pre-50 RDM Gear-Swapping Poll

Or the Chi-Blast/Hadoken. Man, that's SO Original. I HATE it when Mages DON'T spam the chat with who they're healing. I want to know, damnit!

[Esoa]

Re: Pre-50 RDM Gear-Swapping Poll

I've always seen Enfeebling as the only interaction I get with the mob. I do it because it makes the job more interesting but that doesn't mean I have to think it's particularly effective. What matters in an XP party, once you've gotten the "we suck and die all the time" stage out of the way, is how fast you kill. Other than Dia and Gravity (both of which seem to have minimal effect) our enfeebles don't help with that. Assuming that you have enough MP to heal, then defensive enfeebles don't really do anything. Who cares if the tank takes an extra 2000 damage over a minute or whatever number you want to make up, because you have that MP sitting there doing nothing. I've been in many PT's where I've enfeebled, kept everyone Hasted and Refreshed, and everyone is taking so little damage (yay great DPS + NIN tank) that I've had to cast DD spells to fill the time....which is why I subbed /BLM from 35+.

But the topic isn't "Should I Enfeeble". It's whether people who don't gear-swap suck or not. I'm still waiting on some info on exactly how much benefit you get from that small amount of +mnd/int. I don't think it's nearly as much as people claim it is. Enfeebling plays a much larger role at lower levels because tanks typically take a lot more damage, DPS isn't as well geared, and you don't have things like Refresh and Haste but the impact that a bit more mnd/int has does not make or break your ability to do a good job.

As much as I'd like it not to be that way, enfeebles don't define the RDM role in XP PT's. Refresh and Haste and healing do. Maybe if our enfeebles were actually more effective (lol Slow < Elegy, lol Blind < Kurayami: Ni, lol Paralyze rarely procing). Oh well, but then we'd probably be too strong vs. extremely tough mobs and they'd have to compensate by nerfing us in other areas...namely to Refresh or Haste or healing potency. After all we're already vastly better healers than WHM for XPing post-Refresh.

[Spinnthrift]

Re: Pre-50 RDM Gear-Swapping Poll

Just as a quickie response to Esoa..

Dia III reduces the attack needed to hit 2.0 cRatio on the following merit mobs by:

G. Colibri: 116 attack

Seak Puks: 103 Attack

Mamool Ja: ~123 Attack (varies by type)

Skoffin: 125~130 Attack (varies by level)

Gravity basically gives the melee +~20 Accuracy.

That's the 'other' reason why Rdm is more popular than Whm other than pure mp regen power.

[Esoa]

Re: Pre-50 RDM Gear-Swapping Poll

Just as a quickie response to Esoa..

Dia III reduces the attack needed to hit 2.0 cRatio on the following merit mobs by:

G. Colibri: 116 attack

Seak Puks: 103 Attack

Mamool Ja: ~123 Attack (varies by type)

Skoffin: 125~130 Attack (varies by level)

Gravity basically gives the melee +~20 Accuracy.

That's the 'other' reason why Rdm is more popular than Whm other than pure mp regen power.

I thought Gravity reduced the mob's evasion by 10. Isn't that only 10 Accuracy? Where do I find the discussion/testing about the data you provided about Dia/DiaII? How much does Dia II improve actual melee DPS on those mobs?

[Sabaron]

Re: Pre-50 RDM Gear-Swapping Poll

I thought Gravity reduced the mob's evasion by 10. Isn't that only 10 Accuracy? Where do I find the discussion/testing about the data you provided about Dia/DiaII? How much does Dia II improve actual melee DPS on those mobs?

He got me with the same thing. His data on my post came from a test thread on BlueGartr and was reliable.

For Spinn, when you quote specific data like that, a Footnote or link would be nice so we can see where it came from. Otherwise, people will continue to think you're just pulling numbers out of thin air.

[Mhurron]

Re: Pre-50 RDM Gear-Swapping Poll

NO! The other 5 lines are exclusively for roleplaying and (Last Resort) macros for abilities (they must include a <call> or two) and they should always use <bt>.
You get bonus points if your macros contain a combination of emotes and /say with <call>s so your party also notice when you use them every 30 seconds.
Remember that old Boost macro in /say? That's how you do it.

I have a macro that just does 3 (useless) gear swaps with 3 calls to bring attention to me and to make me look like a better and harder working party member.

Paralyze rarely procing

Maybe if you actually tried to be a better player you'd see paralyze actually working. The way you play RDM, why are you playing RDM at all? All you are is a WHM with less MP, so why not just play WHM or go all out with the Pink Mage bit and sub SMN like a WHM.

And if you say you enjoy RDM more I'm going to bust out laughing.

[hongman]

Re: Pre-50 RDM Gear-Swapping Poll

Esoa

Wow. I hope I never have to play with someone that even agrees with HALF of what you say. Ever.

Now I feel better.

[Taskmage]

Re: Pre-50 RDM Gear-Swapping Poll

Who cares if the tank takes an extra 2000 damage over a minute or whatever number you want to make up, because you have that MP sitting there doing nothing.

If you have 168 mp sitting around doing nothing you should've nuked. Do you see why you fail?

MP savings represent not only a decrease in downtime but also an increase in kill speed and thus exp rate. If all you ever do is speedkill merit parties where you never fight a mob for more than a minute, fine. Enfeebles are useless in that context, but in every other situation in the game they're pure gold.

Enfeebles aren't our "defining role in parties" because the differences are subtle enough over a long period of time that unless you're the tank or the healer you probably won't even notice them. But I'll say it again. Just because other people are ignorant of your job's strengths is no excuse for YOU to be.

[Callisto]

Re: Pre-50 RDM Gear-Swapping Poll

Enfeebles aren't our "defining role in parties" because the differences are subtle enough over a long period of time that unless you're the tank or the healer you probably won't even notice them.

That's really only just for XP as well. Tanks and healers sure as hell notice the effects of Slow/Paralyze II against real monsters.

[Mhurron]

Re: Pre-50 RDM Gear-Swapping Poll

Enfeebles are useless in that context

Enfeebles that are effective over time have little place in a speed kill party, however the speed of the kill can be increased by making it easier to hit (Gravity) and take more damage per hit (Dia).

Of course if you're killing so fast that you don't even have time to cast at least one of those then do you really need a healer and therefore a RDM at all since did the mob even have a chance to hit anyone?