Today I learned that FFXI has endgame content that requires THREE jobs at 99 and I have no earthly idea what I could possibly want to level that isn't Red Mage.
@OchotonidKnight The Red Mage really should count as 3 jobs tbh It does the work of a fighter, a black mage and a white mage
@FreyaManibrandr Not quite how it works in XI, lol. Every job has a pretty distinct identity in some form or another.
@OchotonidKnight I'd be curious to learn what has changed to make the red mage more unique in FFXI
@FreyaManibrandr Red Mage's identity first and foremost is that of a support role job. Our A+ skill is in Enfeebling Magic, and our next highest is in Enhancing. We buff and debuff stuff, and actually got main job exclusive abilities in service of this over the years. Saboteur is a 1-minute Magic Accuracy buff that also buffs the potency and duration of Enfeebling spells that land under it. We also basically got an Enfeebling-specific Elemental Seal for our second 1-hour ability.
@FreyaManibrandr Composure is our stance ability, trading increased recast times (basically a nonfactor between Fast Cast and Haste) for increased physical accuracy, TRIPLED duration of self-cast Enhancing magic, and, most recently, +200% Enspell damage.
As I hinted before, our third-highest skills, Sword and Dagger, are far less neglected these days. We've native access to Sword Weapon Skills we previously needed to /PLD or /DRK or (ugh) /BLU for, like Vorpal Blade and Seraph Blade.
@FreyaManibrandr Also there's actually like. A lot more Swords with magic traits now to help us actually do our jobs??? And we've been finally given more light-armor bones recently, like we'd been so starved over basically straight from ToAU all the way through Abyssea and even a little into Adoulin.
@OchotonidKnight that does sound pretty fun to play. Being able to weaken the enemy and buff yourself for more combat effectiveness plus being inherently combat effective.
@FreyaManibrandr Depending on when you last played, a lot of things. It's actually not that uncommon to see Red Mages on the front lines now, actually doing somewhat respectible damage on top of their supporting duties. Really the only thing we can't do (any more) is tank, and not because we're frail, no we're actually nigh-unkillable, but our ability to generate and maintain enmity got substantially gutted, shortly after someone managed to quantify it.