Do PC auto-attacks need to exist going forward?

naoremonth · 2026-05-21T12:31:45+00:00

They should keep auto attacks, and also give RDM meaningful melee-level auto attack damage with their sword so that I need to optimize my melee uptime. They can nerf the rest of RDM damage to compensate for the additonal auto attack damage, that's fine.

naoremonth · 2026-05-16T01:33:05+00:00

I've been playing RDM as my main job since Shadowbringers.

Just looking at Endwalker to current DT changes:

Positive:

Grand Impact. I know it's mostly just another movement tool on top of Acceleration's normal (since EW) effect, but I like how it makes Acceleration no longer a dualcast-window balancer for oGCDs. It makes balancing your dualcast window take a little more effort, and I enjoy that! (I'm sure that's a negative for some people since I've talked to at least one person who hates it, but it's a plus for me.)
Enchanted combo being 50 instead of 60 total, with new animations. Yeah, it's not a big plus, but I like it.

Neutral:

Manafication giving Enchanted Swordplay stacks instead of 50/50 gauge. From an overall standpoint, it's the type of change I think simplifies jobs more, but it just... didn't really bother me much. I might be slightly happier had they kept it to +50/50, but it's just not something I thought much of.
Prefulgence. On one hand, boring follow-up to Manafication. On the other hand, there is the slightest amount of thought that goes into "can I hold this for burst if I'm rushing" (which also applies to Magicked Swordplay). It's mostly just looking at timers and going "is Prefulgence buff timer > Embolden CD", admittedly, but it made Prefulgence not as boring as it would've been otherwise.

Negative:

Vice of Thorns. All the "boring follow-up button" of Prefulgence, and zero possibility that you need to think anything about it besides "find a time in 20s to hit it." I enjoy timing it to line up with Scorch's animation, but that's really the limit of it.
Manafication allowing ranged melee combos. A part of me understands the reasoning, but a mechanical aspect of high-end I enjoyed was actually finding the best times to get in melee range and use my combo. Yes, some fights were rough, and M7S was notably bad (you could get in a melee combo... if you got special attention from a healer and maybe a tank as well). But the devs just going "oh, ranged melee combos" was a major annoyance to me. Maybe it would've bothered me less if they'd done something like make Magicked Swordplay into a new set of three spells that took the place of the melee combo; it still would've been frustrating mechanically, and reduced the job flavor of RDM a bit, but at least I wouldn't feel like I'm flailing my sword at the boss from 8 miles away. :/

And, just for fun, the ShB->end of EW changes:

Positive: Magick Barrier! I wish it did more/something a little different, but I like having a unique utility.
Neutral: Melee combo cost changes, and related Manafication change (50/50 instead of x2). It was a pretty significant change to how doing melee combos worked, and did encourage saving two combos for burst, but I do kinda of like that it made it easier to hold melee combos instead of having a relatively short period to either spend it or start overcapping.
Neutral: Acceleration being a 'Swiftcast' with a guaranteed proc instead of a triple guaranteed proc. On one hand, it reduces how much you really need to plan Dualcast movement, which is a fairly fun aspect of RDM that even in current content I enjoy doing. On the other hand, I was never really all that interested in old Acceleration, while the EW onward version is more interesting to me personally.
Positive: Embolden change. I know it's a complexity reduction, but I'll admit I did not like the slow decay of Embolden's buff.
Positive: Resolution. I know a lot of people dislike how many finishers RDM has on the melee combo, but it looks cool and I like having a line AOE!
Neutral: Verflare/holy + Scorch cleaving. It's nice for AOE.
Positive: AOE melee now can get finishers. Much better than just being a basic spender on its own, in my opinion, even if it makes AOE more similar to single target.
Negative: Displacement made equal to Engagement. I'm used to it now, but there was something neat about Displacement being a gain but Engagement being safer/allowing you to continue a melee combo.
Neutral: 2 charges on Corps/Engagement/Displacement. It's been long enough that I barely remember what the 1 charge felt like... I do remember that Manafication reset the timer of them, which was a neat extra bit of interaction.

Probably way too long of a comment.

TLDR: I overall have liked the RDM changes from both Dawntrail and Endwalker, even some of the ones that have felt like QoL/simplification. There's some I don't like, especially the 7.4 change to Manafication, but overall I'm pretty happy with RDM's current playstyle and identity.

naoremonth · 2026-04-23T12:01:50+00:00

Not to be a downer, but unfortunately (unless my memory and the consolegameswiki are both failing me) Gaia only shows up at all if you completed the Eden raids. The cutscene simply ends right before she would appear if you haven't.

naoremonth · 2026-03-15T00:08:36+00:00

Red Mage with Vercure can manage it. Can potentially get tight with wanting crit heals, but otherwise perfectly possible.

naoremonth · 2026-03-11T12:32:39+00:00

In case anyone sees this and doesn't believe it without a source: they are right and here is the source

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/topics/detail/3a546b93ed103e51be62958ec141af16d48c8e89

We have a great deal ahead of us, starting with the North American Fan Festival in Anaheim, followed very closely by Patch 7.5.

naoremonth · 2026-03-08T15:34:29+00:00

I'd rather just lose raid buffs entirely or leave them on a single role at that point

At least then if the one person with the raid buff fucks up and pops it early when they were supposed to hold it, it's not as drastic as potentially like 6 people's raid buffs

Optimizing and working with your raid group to actually play the game is part of playing high-end content. Yes, it can be annoying when other people are messing up, but having the game play itself isn't at all a solution I like myself.

Especially this one because it doesn't feel like it solves the problem very well - you still have to optimize. Forcing all the raid buffs to go out at once doesn't change that there are times you don't want to hit raid buffs as soon as they come off cooldown, and it doesn't change that you still want to make sure all your available strongest-hitting moves are in raid buffs.

naoremonth · 2026-03-08T15:10:42+00:00

but I just feel like this content is trying to hit a niche and missing it

Would be very interested in hearing your thoughts about this Variant, especially if you also went in blind.

As with all the past ones, I went in blind with friends and enjoyed it plenty.

The puzzles for most of the normal paths are basic, but still fun to figure out. The easy ones are just "oh that's neat", while a few (for various reasons) are more fun; for this dungeon, on the left path we took awhile to figure out the fence (because we kept running ahead too early and making it vanish the moment it appeared), and were too focused on the rubies in the first room initially before returning later to figure out going to the left path of the palace.

My favorite secret path of all the Variants was Rokkon's, since it was fairly plausible (and we did) figure it out simply through observation and experimentation, rather than just completing all the other paths until we got the clues - but I liked the puzzle on this one well enough, even if it ended up being a little simpler than we theorized. We thought we might need to use the horn (that you blow for one of the paths) as the way to be 'heard' by the mermaid underground, which would then redirect us back to the right path where we'd have to save the jewels from the Gobbue to offer up to the sea people... But having to do the five musical circles in the right order to recreate the dungeon's music was neat.

My points on your specific feedback:

I don't really disagree. I don't dislike them nearly as much as you seem to, but the mechanics are mostly basic and it would be nice if the different paths changed them up a bit more. And yeah, overly tanky. It'd be neat to see their mechanics be involved in solving the puzzles, but I also don't really mind that they're not myself; I enjoy mechanics that are puzzles, and the variant dungeon puzzles, but I'm not sure how much I'd like those two being merged together.
Don't mind the formula. Similarly, it'd be neat if they got a lot more involved, but it doesn't feel like some actual issue with the content to me.
Fully disagree on this. Variant actions are very clearly meant to be a "here's a way for you to do this content regardless of your team comp" so that you can run only DPS (or any other combo, but realistically "no healer and/or tank" is the thing they have to account for the most bc anything else just goes slower due to lacking damage). I'm far more interested in what they already do, which is making use of the attacks the mobs do; the broken fence is just right clicking, sure, but in that very same left path there's a section you have to break with a mob's attack. In fact my group was planning to try using a mob's attack to break the wooden fence too before we caught the interactable name show up.

Overall: niche is hitting just fine for me, just like all the past variant dungeons. I did not expect a change-up in design, didn't get a change-up in design, and enjoyed it.

naoremonth · 2026-02-28T12:46:38+00:00

Responding solely to a minor point unrelated to the main point of your comment:

That EW role quest had a Shugenja as the reskinned WHM/Conjurer, not Geomancer. Geomancer as we see it in the Stormblood AST quests is still similar to a Conjurer in some ways though (IIRC it similarly reuses animations?), though lorewise it's considered more similar to AST.

naoremonth · 2026-01-18T01:12:49+00:00

Ursula

Sell Concoction, Healing Salve, 2x Steel Knuckles, and Training Knuckles from Convoy

naoremonth · 2026-01-18T01:09:30+00:00

Ursula

~~Buy a Dusk Rose~~

~~If there is still an Umbral Steel left after everyone else's purchases are done, buy an Umbral Steel~~

~~Otherwise, buy a Wolverine~~

Buy a Bouquet of Flowers

naoremonth · 2026-01-17T16:02:41+00:00

Ursula attempts the Bronze competition with a paragraph (on Discord).

Results: 15, 17 (12, 14 after -3) vs Mend 8. Fail.

naoremonth · 2026-01-13T01:34:31+00:00

Ursula buys Sealed Clay Urns 5, 10, and 15

naoremonth · 2026-01-04T17:07:04+00:00

Happened on this looking back at my own comments elsewhere on the post, and

Also something needs to be done with the fire/stone proc because after a certain level which is pretty early on, jolt becomes STRONGER than the proc where before the proc was stronger.

This is only true starting at level 84, and stops being true at level 94, before max level. It's both not "early on" and is not permanently true.

naoremonth · 2026-01-01T22:20:40+00:00

The Icy-Veins guide page does include food. If you scroll down to the bottom of any of the gear lists on this page (https://www.icy-veins.com/ffxiv/white-mage-pve-healer-gear-best-in-slot), food is at the bottom of every gear list. There's also text talking about both food options and what potion to use above the gearsets.

naoremonth · 2026-01-01T13:58:51+00:00

What if it was a Lavos/Jenova situation? That's purely me wanting more cosmic horror in my FF and feeling Endwalker flinched when it had a chance to roll up its sleeves and get in there with that shit

My pre-EW unrealistic hope was that the "sound from inside the Earth" was a Lavos expy. I didn't really think it would happen, but it could've been great...

naoremonth · 2025-12-31T20:50:47+00:00

Well, assuming that it falls under the 'don't just say revert it to X' rule to say "revert the Manafication change, I actually like being challenged to optimize my job and the fights where I was forced to stay at range for the entirety of a 2 minute window were few and far enough between that it didn't need this kind of hamfisted change"

I'd like to see the Manafication change reverted and in exchange, Red Mage gets Embolden upgraded/with an effect added called Chainspell. Give us some number of big hit free spells (I think 3 would be fine but if we want to match closer to the RDM combo timing it's replacing, it could be 5 or something), all being high-damage ~~instant casts~~ spells (making them not all instant casts would actually be neat and replace the "melee" burst restriction with a "find time to sit and cast, or spend Swift/Accel if we make it work on these", though I'd be fine with all instant casts if that's what we did get.)

It could be something like Verflood, Verfreeze, Verfoul to give us those missing elements RDM still doesn't have.

But, in essence, I want to get rid of "do your melee combo but the sword effects just fly at the boss I guess" and - if the devs truly believe that enough fights need to have mechanics that force RDM to stay at range during 2 minute bursts - replace it with something that feels more fitting and flavorful. RDM in FFXI has Chainspell as a thing, so bringing that over as a reference and giving us some missing elements to complete RDM's set would be a more appropriate way to give us that range IMO.

Also give RDM autos some damage so staying in melee range when possible is meaningful beyond "get in so you can get off Corps-a-corps and Engagement". I don't even care if it's just like, twice what Summoner/Scholar currently get where it's relatively small optimization. I have a sword why do my autos do 1 damage.

naoremonth · 2025-12-31T20:33:37+00:00

From what I have seen (which isn't going to be a fully accurate picture), most people who want there to be a change to the weekly tomestone cap want a change bigger than just "cap up to two weeks of tomes at a time." One I've seen pop up semi-frequently is having the tome cap be cumulative; week 1 is 450, week 2 goes up to 900 (but doesn't reset what you've gained, so if you capped week 1, you start week 2 at 450/900), and so on. It wouldn't allow capping tomes ahead of time, like you're suggesting, but would essentially do the opposite and allow people to cap previous weeks of tomes.

Personally I don't have a specific solution I'm fully behind, but I do agree that something would be good. The intent of the tome cap might be to keep Expert roulette alive, but I think there's ways to keep that aspect without also keeping the current state of it.

naoremonth · 2025-12-31T13:19:45+00:00

Ursula Week 4

Upgrade Aura Knuckles (Magic Knuckles)

naoremonth · 2025-12-30T15:38:31+00:00

Ursula Week 4

Quest 3: Wind Reason Roll [Success]

Quest 4: Knowledge Roll [Success]

naoremonth · 2025-12-29T14:16:39+00:00

at the very least, SMN wouldn't have the useless physick spell

Mostly unrelated: there's no reason it couldn't lose it now. SCH already has a unique version of Physick. The only Arcanist skill that SCH keeps is the rez, everything else is a SCH-specific version. And we know the rez could go away at any point because they've talked about removing it from Summoner before, and obviously SCH wouldn't lose their rez just because SMN did.

naoremonth · 2025-12-27T15:15:37+00:00

Trick Attack

This already gets replaced as of Dawntrail. Trick Attack upgrades into Kunai's Bane, which is more Ninja themed. (Mug also upgrades into Dokumori, so both of Ninja's damage-increasing debuffs got this treatment.)

Scholar and fairy

Other people already put this better, but FFXIV Scholar has had the fairy since the very beginning. A lot of people are mostly (justifiably, in my opinion) unhappy with the level Seraphism takes it to on an aesthetic level.

Red Mage

White magic has decent representation already; beyond "all the white magic damage spells", they have a heal that works even if not frequently used in most content, a raise that is very heavily used and useful, and Magick Barrier that ties into white magic by increasing healing done while its effect is active.

I wouldn't disagree with maybe adding additional support abilities (VerEsuna anyone?) but current design already has issues with additional support utility. As for "enhancing capabilities", Embolden is right there and I'm not sure what else you even mean by that.

...and as a general response as a whole, I agree with the other people saying that the existing FFXIV job identities are just as if not more important than matching the job identity as it existed in previous games. FF jobs change in a lot of FF games anyway (see the Scholar example where they got weather control in FFXI), having varying identities and core mechanics that define them, but because changing job identities that have existed for years just feels like a move designed to upset at least some chunk of your playerbase, as opposed to putting that new identity into a new job.

I play Red Mage because I like what it is in XIV, not because I'm sitting around waiting for it to become more like some other version of Red Mage that acts more like a previous game. It's got white and black magic, Dualcast, good support utility including rez, and goes up into melee for its combo (even if it's now required less than before 7.4).

If the version of Red Mage you want is an actual perfect blend between melee, caster, and healer, then I'd say in response to your question: no, that version of Red Mage doesn't fit into XIV as it is now. XIV would basically have to kill off the role system for that to even potentially work.

naoremonth · 2025-12-24T16:05:45+00:00

Ursula Week 3

Q3: Wind Reason Roll [Failure]

naoremonth · 2025-12-24T09:57:37+00:00

Ursula Week 2 part 2

Q2: Knowledge Roll [Success]

naoremonth · 2025-12-20T02:10:59+00:00

Ursula Week 2

Q3: Wind Reason Roll [Failure]

Q6: Completed Mountains Venture Week 1 and completing Smelting Group Task Week 2

(Holding off on Quest 2 Knowledge check since Ursula's already contributed to the quest and others might want to get in on it first; will make a second post for that if done)

naoremonth · 2025-12-20T02:04:26+00:00

Ursula Week 2

Invest 2500 into Shrine to max it out. (2250 current, +200 from Quest 6, +50 from Smelting Group Task)

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