Galka RDM -- accomplishing the impossible

[Blubbers]

I'm a Galka PLD, and I have a bunch of other Galka friends. When my RL friend decided to get FFXI and wanted to be a RDM, I told to be a Galka. While at first glance this may seem crazy, even impossible, it will work. At the lower levels, he's the man. He usually has highest HP in the group, can tank as well as the wars, and can heal and nuke. Later on I'm planning on helping him get full Galka RSE (which should be good until AF) to make up for the low mp, and he's going to have a SMN sub (big INT + MND bonus, auto-refresh, mp bonus). It's funny because I've only seen one other Galka RDM 20+ before and he was japanese. Anyone have any suggestions for what gear to get later on, or if you think it's doable?

[Jei]

MP is all you have to worry about really.

before 30, prepare to pay for pies. Also some juice.

after 30, stick to race suite and you'll be fine. Galka race suite has the highest MP boost out of all race.

[Bamce Sylph]

might wanna let him play a melee of soem varitey to play off hte strength of his race till he gets subjobs ( a theif works wonders b/c everyone should havelvl 15+ theif for th alone) and then start as mages, the mp boost from having a sub will be a huge boon

[Mila]

BLUBBERS!!!

T_T I'm hurt.. you dun remeber me? From Kazham? Heheh good luck it's definately doable, this game is all about skill baby, and from what I remeber you're a pretty good player so you shouldn't have too much trouble.

[Jonnyram]

That's the great thing about Red Mages. They are pretty much capable of doing anything, so you can be flexible with races and sub-jobs. I think the RSE's pretty much balance out the races if you wear all of them, so like Jei said, they'll definitely boost your MP. Also there are some great rings for HP->MP swapping, and wear a hairpin too.

[Valcarde]

Maybe it's just me, but it seems that Galkan casters learn the fine art of Mp Conservation before any other race...

[Weezingpipes]

Once you get Refresh it makes a big difference in whether or not you can be a lower MP race as a RDM I think, and Convert helps too. There aren't many Galka RDM at higher levels on my server (quite a few Elvaan though). I've only seen one Galka RDM in full AF, of course he had good MP items like Serket Ring, Astral Ring and other good mp boosting items. RDM I think is probably the only mage job which any race can be effective at, just the lower MP jobs don't get as efficient converts as Taru RDM will.

Try it out, it will probably work out ok as long as you play well and try to keep up on as much +MP stuff as you can because that difference will matter a lot before Refresh and after too. Just don't be a WHM or BLM until you are high level and can afford the really exceptional +MP items. Seen a few of those but mostly japanese players who have really great equipment to supplement the really bad mp.

[Bamce Sylph]

mana conservation? u mean blm's aren't suppose to dump they're full bar's into monsters? /boggle. anyway thats my feeling as well. if i see a galka mage lfg in most circumstances i will invite them, chances are they are wearing proper gear, eating pie, have juice and don't waste mana. whitemages nuking is just kinda...wastefull in myeyes, yeah its nice to break up the monotony, but don't go overboard and wastefull

[Blubbers]

Milah!

Ahh sorry Milah!!! I remember now, that was an awesome group we had!! I think i remember grouping with you in the back of my mind and that's what got me to think about this! Galka power!!

[Rico]

I once pt'ed with a Galka rdm in Qufim he had a okay amount of MP he ate apple pies (help out alot in low lvls) and had a brass hairpin he was pure surrport he barely nuked due to sucky int :sweat:

[The Heretic]

This situation calls for RDM/SMN =P

[Awntawn]

A galka RDM/BLM has less MP than a hume PLD/WAR of the same level...

At level 60 your MP is only in the mid 250's... even with millions of gils worth of MP boosting equip you're not gonna have very much...

When RDM runs out of MP, converts, and heals their HP to full, they usually have almost all of their MP remaining, so it's really efficient. A galka RDM uses almost half of it's MP just to cure themselves to full after a convert... In a party with 3 mages and a PLD (4 MP users), it burns half of it's MP just to cast refresh on all of them... And this is at 60. I can't even imagine when they just turn 41 to get refresh. When your RDM casts refresh and you see 1/4 of the RDM's MP bar vanish, you can't do much more than cry.

Getting level 60 and AF for galka mages is an achievement. Anything further than that is simply "no."

[SSDrizzt]

Galka at 41 with full rse which adds like a whopping 96mp
plus say 2 astral rings 50, plus 2 +5mp earrings , plus holy phial +9, plus electrum hairpin +25... maybe plus a pie +25 has plenty of mana to do his job, and thats not even needing millions of gil, maybe a few hundredk for astral...

[Jei]

yea gil... if you can afford all those items Galka mages are responsible to spend their gils to make up for their MP disadantage.

I think Rdm gets easier and easier as you get higher. Because... at 41 and 70 you basicly are responsible for the same spells. Say, refresh and debuff with some heals. You'll be using pretty much the same amount of MP whether you're 41 or 70. So the higher level you are, the more MP you'll have and things should become easier. To have enough MP to be efficient at low level tho is the difficult part.

[prellius]

i know this is a RDM thread but i pt'd with a galka whm/blm with full RSE and some bcnm equip, astral rings etc and he had an incredible mana pool for galka, something like 650 at lvl 54. but if he had no rse and no insane equip it might have been painful to do his duties.

since ill never have that amount of money, im not even going to try being a galka mage. hope your venture works out tho.