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Re: Fighter/Spellcaster
Are you talking about being melee/caster in xp parties or when solo? Because Blu will be a better fit for a party while Rdm will work very well solo.
The major issue with Blu as was already mentioned is mp recovery, and some of their spells are as costly as high tier nukes. Also, for soloing they've got a few defensive spells, but really not as versatile a toolbag that a red mage has. No Fast Cast means relying on haste gear to reduce utsusemi recasts when subbing ninja. No haste spell. Fairly weak cures. Regen only from subjob. Just not as much survivablity overall, but packing a lot of offensive artillery.
Here is why red mage can do so well on its own: Red Mages are walking xp parties, capable of healing, self-buffing both offensively and defensively, nuking, enfeebling, and meleeing. More specifically:
Sleeps, silence, and high enfeebling skill
Nukes & decent Elemental skill
Damage over time spells & bind/gravity/crimson legs
Cures up to Cure4 and regen
Refresh & Convert
Decent Sword/dagger skill, enfeebles to weaken mobs, en-element spells to increase melee damage of each hit (+18-19 elemental damage per swing at level 75)
Phalanx to reduce damage from each hit, MDB, MAB, Stoneskin/Blink/Haste + good enhancing skill to power them
Relatively high defense armors
Fast Cast
Flexibility to make use of many subjobs for different purposes
Why red mage does not work as well as a melee/caster hybrid after the 30's or 40's is that they have slightly less attack power and accuracy than regular melees, eat and gear more for magery because it is more efficient to do so, and play a support role which parties really need (haste, refresh, back-up healer, enfeebler). However going solo, odds are you're not going to fight the same IT+++ that your xp party would choose as prey. You probably could if you don't mind burning up shihei and subbing ninja.
Fighting anything solo can take a long time because monsters have far more hp than we do even if they're the same level as us. They're built to be taken on by more than one player at once. Red Mage melee soloing involves a lot of defensive casting which takes away some time that you should be swinging, hence battle can take awhile. Also, many choose to gear defensively to compliment their magical buffs and outlast mobs, which takes away from offensive power but makes for a safer fight. Fast cast is a very powerful ability that can help you get your spells cast between mob attacks and reduces recast time of the buffs that are keeping you alive, be it Utsusemi shadows or stoneskin. While refresh and convert give you nigh unlimited staying power. And when if a situation starts going south, you can generally- sleep/bind/gravity and run away or chainspell + teleport/warp/escape for an even quicker exit.
No other job has the combination of abilities a red mage has. It's just their skills are all taken down a notch from specialist levels and therefore not as effective against harder IT mobs. This is why red mages are equipment whores and will have a gobbie bag bursting with a max mp set, a melee (generally focused on attack, defense, or haste) set, and int/elemental/enfeeble+ set, and a mnd/enfeeble+ set. And its why they can merit magic accuracy and have magic acc+ on their JSE.
Geared and fed right, and unsaddled from the duties of refreshing, curing, and hasting the party a red mage can do pretty well as a frontline attacker/caster, especially if fighting slightly weaker mobs, like VT's. Eat sushi and sub warrior for berserk, etc. But that's generally not what they are invited into a party for.
Several factors work against red mages as far as melee damage goes-
Lower skill, dagger/sword cap at 250, this = less accuracy and less attack power. Even merited to the maximum at level 75, the cap is 266, whereas DD jobs usually use weapons that cap at 269-276 without merits. This difference is less dramatic at lower levels, and becomes greatly accelerated around the 60's. Other sword users have skill caps at 276 (pld), 269 (blu), and 250 (war). Yet warriors at least get signifcant +acc from their best gears and have a Job Ability to temporarily increase their accuracy.
Weak weapon choices. Arguably the best red mage weapon, joyeuse, has a base dmg rating of 35. Stronger swords we can't use rate in the 40's and almost up to 50 for base damage. Daggers are even weaker, but at least attack fairly quickly. Red Mage choices on daggers are also limited. This is not even considering relic weapons of course. Red Mages could theoretically sub ninja and dual wield Excalibur/Mandau.
Weak weapon skills. Sword weapon skills are not particularly great. Vorpal Blade is the best it gets, a 4-hit WS. Red Mages can only use that if they sub warrior, paladin, dark knight, or blue mage (all of which are in fact very good subs for when you want to melee solo). A good Vorpal Blade can do upwards of 1000 damage on something very weak, but 400-700ish is probably more the norm for a red mage against something that actually will give you some xp. Evisceration is a very consistent 5-hit weapon skill for daggers and one we can use independent of subjob. But before the levels those are available, the WS choices are pretty crappy.
Weak base strength. Yup, all that time learning spells and only swinging daggers and light fencing swords means lack of muscle under the Tabard. Usually around 60-70 at level 75 depending on race and subjob. With a lot of gear we might be lucky and get close to 100 STR.
Taking red mage up to its max will be a long journey, most of which you'll be expected to sit on the backline and cast spells (33-75). But at the end of the journey, you'll have arguably the most surviable soloing job in the game. Taking Blue Mage up will be mostly on the frontline, and is in fact sort of overpowered up to about level 30. But away from your party, you won't be nearly as capable as a red mage.
Are you talking about being melee/caster in xp parties or when solo? Because Blu will be a better fit for a party while Rdm will work very well solo.
The major issue with Blu as was already mentioned is mp recovery, and some of their spells are as costly as high tier nukes. Also, for soloing they've got a few defensive spells, but really not as versatile a toolbag that a red mage has. No Fast Cast means relying on haste gear to reduce utsusemi recasts when subbing ninja. No haste spell. Fairly weak cures. Regen only from subjob. Just not as much survivablity overall, but packing a lot of offensive artillery.
Here is why red mage can do so well on its own: Red Mages are walking xp parties, capable of healing, self-buffing both offensively and defensively, nuking, enfeebling, and meleeing. More specifically:
Sleeps, silence, and high enfeebling skill
Nukes & decent Elemental skill
Damage over time spells & bind/gravity/crimson legs
Cures up to Cure4 and regen
Refresh & Convert
Decent Sword/dagger skill, enfeebles to weaken mobs, en-element spells to increase melee damage of each hit (+18-19 elemental damage per swing at level 75)
Phalanx to reduce damage from each hit, MDB, MAB, Stoneskin/Blink/Haste + good enhancing skill to power them
Relatively high defense armors
Fast Cast
Flexibility to make use of many subjobs for different purposes
Why red mage does not work as well as a melee/caster hybrid after the 30's or 40's is that they have slightly less attack power and accuracy than regular melees, eat and gear more for magery because it is more efficient to do so, and play a support role which parties really need (haste, refresh, back-up healer, enfeebler). However going solo, odds are you're not going to fight the same IT+++ that your xp party would choose as prey. You probably could if you don't mind burning up shihei and subbing ninja.
Fighting anything solo can take a long time because monsters have far more hp than we do even if they're the same level as us. They're built to be taken on by more than one player at once. Red Mage melee soloing involves a lot of defensive casting which takes away some time that you should be swinging, hence battle can take awhile. Also, many choose to gear defensively to compliment their magical buffs and outlast mobs, which takes away from offensive power but makes for a safer fight. Fast cast is a very powerful ability that can help you get your spells cast between mob attacks and reduces recast time of the buffs that are keeping you alive, be it Utsusemi shadows or stoneskin. While refresh and convert give you nigh unlimited staying power. And when if a situation starts going south, you can generally- sleep/bind/gravity and run away or chainspell + teleport/warp/escape for an even quicker exit.
No other job has the combination of abilities a red mage has. It's just their skills are all taken down a notch from specialist levels and therefore not as effective against harder IT mobs. This is why red mages are equipment whores and will have a gobbie bag bursting with a max mp set, a melee (generally focused on attack, defense, or haste) set, and int/elemental/enfeeble+ set, and a mnd/enfeeble+ set. And its why they can merit magic accuracy and have magic acc+ on their JSE.
Geared and fed right, and unsaddled from the duties of refreshing, curing, and hasting the party a red mage can do pretty well as a frontline attacker/caster, especially if fighting slightly weaker mobs, like VT's. Eat sushi and sub warrior for berserk, etc. But that's generally not what they are invited into a party for.
Several factors work against red mages as far as melee damage goes-
Lower skill, dagger/sword cap at 250, this = less accuracy and less attack power. Even merited to the maximum at level 75, the cap is 266, whereas DD jobs usually use weapons that cap at 269-276 without merits. This difference is less dramatic at lower levels, and becomes greatly accelerated around the 60's. Other sword users have skill caps at 276 (pld), 269 (blu), and 250 (war). Yet warriors at least get signifcant +acc from their best gears and have a Job Ability to temporarily increase their accuracy.
Weak weapon choices. Arguably the best red mage weapon, joyeuse, has a base dmg rating of 35. Stronger swords we can't use rate in the 40's and almost up to 50 for base damage. Daggers are even weaker, but at least attack fairly quickly. Red Mage choices on daggers are also limited. This is not even considering relic weapons of course. Red Mages could theoretically sub ninja and dual wield Excalibur/Mandau.
Weak weapon skills. Sword weapon skills are not particularly great. Vorpal Blade is the best it gets, a 4-hit WS. Red Mages can only use that if they sub warrior, paladin, dark knight, or blue mage (all of which are in fact very good subs for when you want to melee solo). A good Vorpal Blade can do upwards of 1000 damage on something very weak, but 400-700ish is probably more the norm for a red mage against something that actually will give you some xp. Evisceration is a very consistent 5-hit weapon skill for daggers and one we can use independent of subjob. But before the levels those are available, the WS choices are pretty crappy.
Weak base strength. Yup, all that time learning spells and only swinging daggers and light fencing swords means lack of muscle under the Tabard. Usually around 60-70 at level 75 depending on race and subjob. With a lot of gear we might be lucky and get close to 100 STR.
Taking red mage up to its max will be a long journey, most of which you'll be expected to sit on the backline and cast spells (33-75). But at the end of the journey, you'll have arguably the most surviable soloing job in the game. Taking Blue Mage up will be mostly on the frontline, and is in fact sort of overpowered up to about level 30. But away from your party, you won't be nearly as capable as a red mage.
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