RDM capable of good dmg?

[crispin]

I'm a noob but i was reading up on RDM and wondered why all they talk about is debuffing... on a tough mob cant u use the debuffs then chain blackmagic? especially in lower lvl's when there isnt that many debuffs... o, and what the the Bar- spells do? i was poor so didnt bother buyin them at the time

[crispin]

o, i forget to say that im talkin about in groups not solo, thanks for any input

[Hopkins]

Sure ya can do good damage. Just got to make sure you have INT to make the black spells actually land well.

Pick the right element or you don't have a chance.

I did a 111 dmg Magic Burst at lv 28 or so. I was pleased :D

[Deodorant]

Largest Damage number At lvl 75:

In exp parties: ~700 dmg Thunder 3 MB
While farming easy crap: ~1000 dmg Savage Blade

Honestly though, compared to other jobs, rdm damage output is weak. Even whm do equal, if not more damage melee-wise - they have B+ in club, we have B in sword, and they have hexastrike, which is stronger than every single WS rdm has (unless you sub war or drk for vorpal blade ... then maybe ...)

[Calladen]

I disagree with the melee comment.

A Red Mage supposidly becomes more melee capable (in groups) at 55+ Why? We have a lot of good sword choices available to us.

The reason why Red Mages are infamous for being the "Whiff machine" is because we don't equip melee armor. A Warrior isn't going to hit the mob if he doesn't have + Accuracy, and he isn't going to hit it hard without + Attack. This same rule applies to Red Mages.

So what am I saying? Ditch the mage equipment like our Astral Rings and Hairpins for +Dex rings and a Valkryie's Mask? Absolutely not. We need to be fully capable in the mage department - that's where our strength lies.

You need to have top notch Mage gear. But if you can afford it, you should also have top notch Melee Gear.

This is what I do.

When I'm fighting I start off with a wand and cast all my enfeebles plus a nuke or two. Then I EnSpell and switch from a Wand to a Sword.

This is a simple thing that I've seen...oh maybe....2 other Red Mages doing. But it really helps my preformance.

Obviously not everyone can afford two sets of equipment, and as new stuff has become available to me I've had to make some tuogh choices. It's all up to how you want to play your Red Mage.

[Manatra]

There's only one RDM I know that melees and he has a kraken club, subs ninja, and is very rich. He also makes a pretty good tank too :p But he's an exception.

RDM is a support job, and as such, you won't be meleeing very often in exp PTs, RDM already have enough on their plate when it comes to Refreshing, debuffing, and backup healing..

[Deodorant]

Originally posted by Calladen
A Red Mage supposidly becomes more melee capable (in groups) at 55+

Wrong. The higher you get in level, the lower your melee capability is. Reasons being:

B-skill rating:
At lvl 75, my sword/dagger skill cap is 250, which is the same skill cap as a lvl 70 using an A+ weapon. Melee'ing at lvl 75 gives you the effectiveness of a 'real' melee 4-5 levels lower, and you should know by now that 4-5 levels means a lot in this game.

Having said that, borrow/buy a full set of +accuracy and +atk gear and go melee in exp parties. I tried this late 60's, had about +30 accuracy. I will admit that B-skill in sword isn't as bad as some people make it out to be, and with that borrowed melee gear I had a pretty damn respectable hit rate. However ...

Sword is a Shitty Weapon:
Of all the weapons regularly used to melee in exp parties, sword is for all intents and purposes the shittiest weapon. Only daggers are worse, but the jobs that use them rely on something other than just melee damage: Thiefs have sneak+trick, Rangers depend on their bow/gun. Furthermore, RDM do not have access to the 'heavy' swords that PLDs and DRKs can wield, thus limiting our damage even further.

Sword has shitty WS:
The only sword WS's that can do somewhat respectable damage are vorpal blade (not usable unless rdm subs war, pld or drk), swift blade (not usable by rdm's at all), and spirits within (useless unless you have close to 300% tp, and if you have that much tp in an exp party you're playing your job wrong).

To sum everything up, let me ask you this: Would it be acceptable for a whm to switch to melee gear and go melee the mob? Because like it or not, whm melee is superior to ours. They have a higher skill cap, do more damage per hit with mauls, and hexastrike does more damage than anything we can come up with.

[Calladen]

I understand that.

Don't get me wrong. I understand 100% a Red Mage CANNOT substitute a melee position in the party.

However, with the right equipment we have enough skill in our weapon to do adequate damage. We're not helpless when it comes to melee. I read that 55+ when Accuracy and Attack equipment becomes available to us we can do up to 2/3 the damage of a regular melee member.

The RDM guide on allakhazam's went into great detail of this.

Like I said, I'm not starting an arguement or saying that Red Mage are meant to be at the front lines of battle. Absolutely not. We have enough to deal with as it is without worrying about having to do uber damage with our sword.

I'm just saying, if you're willing to put some major investments into getting both Mage and Melee armor you will see a MAJOR improvement in your abilites. The reason why I said 55+ is because thats when a lot of equipment becomes available to us (Life Belt, Valkyrie's Mask).

I won't argue with you - you're a level 75 Red Mage and obviously you know what you're talking about. But I would like to know how much melee equipment you;ve invested in - out of curiousity.

[Deodorant]

I haven't read the rdm guide on allakazham ... but if it claims you can do 2/3rd the damage of a real melee, then it's flat out wrong.

When fighting mobs about 15 lvls lower than me, I hit for 40-50 damage per swing, max. This is in melee equipment mode, with +20 str (including meat mithkabob). Can you imaging how low that number is going to drop vs level-up mobs?

The most I can see a fully melee-oriented RDM doing is 50% of a real melee job's damage, not counting WS. Factor in WS, and the difference is even more obvious; example being DRKs can constantly finish off a light renkei with fuidama spinning slash for 1000dmg+1500light renkei effect. It is absolutely impossible for an rdm to do anywhere close to 2/3'rds of that damage in a fight with melee only.

[Manatra]

RDM can never match the attack potential of other jobs in an exp PT, no matter what. The only time they can come close was as I pointed out earlier, nin sub with kraken club with millions of gil in equipment, and even THEN RDM is still kinda gimped.

Case in point, have you seen a fuidama dragon kick on a skeleton or spinning slash? They can do up to 50+% damage to a mobs HP... Can a RDM come even close to that? Not a chance in hell.

[Calladen]

I thought 2/3rd was a bit far fetched and I'm glad to have that cleared up. ^_^

[Chucklez_1]

It's true...RDMs isn't really great when it comes to dealing damage. Yes, we can kill non xpable enemies non stop but in the long run, it would be the same (or slower) compared to a drk or a job that can heal once in a while.

Heck, I was just helping a friend do his war AF1 and he kept on doing more damage than I did against brawlers (I had to keep hate by spamming cure on him)...how sad is that?! I'm level 62 btw and he's lvl 40 Also...it took me forever to kill Bard's AF1 too when i soloed it for a friend (took me around 4-7 minutes tops).

At xp groups, even w/ a maxed weapon skill...you'll still miss heckuva lot. That's why I just ignored my weapon skill after I got Spirits within (it did 411 dmg to the Pld AF3 ranger NM it was nice to see his life bar go down because of me )

[Uroboros]

All I'm doing is repeating stuff already said, but while that guide has lots of useful information, it's also not very objective. RDM does not begin to approach other melee damage dealers. To say RDM does 2/3 the damage of a melee DD is ridiculous. Past 60 all melees get WS that increase their damage output dramatically. Normal hits do not mean a whole lot, the game is about renkeis. When a thief Dancing Edges for 900 or a dark knight does Souleater Guillotine or trick attack Crossreaper for 1200+, when a WAR can Rampage or Raging Rush for 500, when a monk can WS an IT bone type and do 1/4 damage instantly, nothing RDM does stacks up. As for normal hits, when the DRK is swinging for 120 and the monk is hitting for 80, crit for 120, kick for 70 every attack round, your ~10 damage +18 enspell, provided you hit at all, and provided the enspell isn't resisted, does not mean a whole lot.

I have Royal Guard's Fleuret, Balance Buckler, Life Belt, AF gloves for ~20 accuracy up for when I feel like swinging at a mob that's safe to swing at. And my sword skill isn't far from cap. And miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, 23, miss, miss, miss, 10, miss, etc. It's not even worth en-spelling because I will hit maybe four times during the duration of the en-spell. I melee some mob types when it's safe to do so, but I don't have any illusion that it's for anything other than skilling up, and neither does anyone in my groups. If you want to do damage it makes more sense to me to use the time you had free to melee to rest instead, and toss out a nuke or two. I can consistently get 250 outside of renkei with tier II spells, and ~330 when bursted. When I party with a bard I end up nuking a LOT to use up all the free MP, and do far more damage than I ever would poking.

All this applies to ITs btw, on VT or below swing away, you will hit all the time. When it's 30k to level though people don't really wanna get 90 exp a kill though. The best exp in the game is bone parties, never will you see ITs go down so easily than with a PLD/MNK/MNK frontline, nowhere else will Chain 5 for 300 exp seem so effortless. I bring this up because of the "RDM melee is like a DOT" comment - when that's the best way to EXP, no one cares about DOTs. They care about the mob being dead in one skillchain, versus mobs you shouldn't melee anyway.

[DrMrLordX]

Uroburos, DoT effects, be they Poison II or RDM melee, WILL contribute to faster kills. Period. That being said, I think Poison II is much more potent than anything a RDM can do with a sword. Perhaps this is slightly different for mithra RDM.

It's nice to line up the mobs and knock them down, but it doesn't always work that way. Good, if not great, parties will renkei once per fight(sometimes more). Less-than-good ones won't, or they'll bring weak renkei to the table. Some melees just flat-out do a poor job due to lousy equipment. In those instances, RDM must push their own limits and dish out damage in as many ways as possible. It ain't impressive, but it's gotta be done. Not everyone gets a pld/mnk/mnk frontline vs skeletons. In fact, I find that I rarely get any monks at all, and that makes me kind of sad. I like monks.

All that aside, I have been in situations many times when it simply is not practical to melee in a party, even if the enemy is something with relatively weak/non-threatening WS such as Blazer Beetles or Rumble Crawlers. This is usually because the party is good and is killing at a fast pace, or because the party has a bard in it(or both!).

[Karinya]

There's no reason you can't poison II and melee provided you're keeping up with other spells. Meleeing costs less MP (0 if you don't use an en spell, 12 if you do).

All that being said, while RDM can do many things, top-ranked damage isn't one of them. We're an excellent support job, a pretty good healer, an OK nuker and a mediocre melee. It's fine to add what damage we can to a fight (through nukes, poison, melee or all 3 at once), but don't delude yourself into believing you're going to outdamage the monk, dark knight or black mage. Those classes are designed to deal lots of damage; ours is designed to do lots of other things and deal some damage.