How are Red Mages?

[Shade.Alchemist]

Help a newbie out

I've been looking for get FFXI for sometime now, but I only just decided to purchase it. I'm an active Guildwars player, and the two games seem so different

One of my friends reccomended I go Red Mage. So I just want some oppinions. How do they play? Are they useful? What roles do they play in party's? Is it worth leveling? What secondary job goes well with it?

And answers and comments appreciated.

^^

[Satori]

Re: How are Red Mages?

The best thing is to play the job you like most if you are used to warrior types then go for one of those, I found redmage fun but I played all basic jobs to level 10 and then decided on what felt best, I chose White Mage in the end from my limited experience as a red mage you have some nifty spells that the other mages dont have acces to plus you get to equip some good armour. Which kinda saves your but compared to us White mages in our *Friar Tuck* robes lol

Best of luck in game take care

[Shade.Alchemist]

Re: How are Red Mages?

Meh, no armour can look good on TaruTaru's

I might become Black mage, I love dealing heavy damage Would having a White Mage secondary for healing be good?

[Hamlet]

Re: How are Red Mages?

Too many smilies in this thread.... can't respond......



For a quick answer, all 3 base mage jobs are good pretty much throughout the game, and you will usually be using either /blm or /whm for subs.

[IxX3xil3d0n3XxI]

Re: How are Red Mages?

i love RDM, but my opinion would probably be rather biased.
For my RDM sub i use /blm, /whm, /nin for soloing and i really need to lvl drk when my rdm hits 75

i would recommend what i do to most new ppl, take all base jobs to 10, you can do that in 1 day. i usually play warrior/melee classes in most games but after i tried all base jobs i realized mages are more for me.

[Shade.Alchemist]

Re: How are Red Mages?

Too many smilies in this thread.... can't respond......

smilies = 1337

I was reading some stuff, and would Red Mage/Ninja or Dark Knight be anygood?

Thanks for the replies by the way ^^

[Hamlet]

Re: How are Red Mages?

smilies = 1337

I was reading some stuff, and would Red Mage/Ninja or Dark Knight be anygood?

Thanks for the replies by the way ^^

Red Mage anything but /whm, /blm and maybe /bard before lvl 74 isn't really that good. Rdm/nin and rdm/drk have specific uses at endgame, and some people like to solo with rdm/war (and it might help once in a blue moon if you want to tank for a lower lvl event), but really if you just go /blm and /whm for 1-75 you'll be set.

Rdm is kind of a weird job. You really sell your soul to refresh at lvl 41. It's kind of an annoying spell to constantly cycle through to get it on everyone, but the tradeoff is it's really effective and gets you parties very easily.

If you just want to deal damage, go with Blm main and /whm sub.

[Szkol]

Re: How are Red Mages?

I don't have much to say about RDM... just that it's the BEST JOB EVAR!

Granted, I haven't been playing all that long, but I have to say that you get such a great feeling when your party members pull in a mob, and you immediately fire off a barrage of enfeebles, Paralyze, Blind, Silence, Slow, etc. and laugh demonically at the helpless mob being utterly slaughtered by the rest of your party. You then busy yourself by buffing your party members, Protect/Shell/Regen and various cures and other white mage support spells, and then just as the mob takes its dying breath, you blast it with some powerful black mage nukes and sent it screaming into oblivion.

I dunno about the other RDM's but I really get a rush when all my enfeebles land and the mob has no other option but to die.

It's really a fun job to play, and you're always kept busy either nuking or supporting in some way. And if you aren't you can always join the other melee chars by macro'ing in your sword and beating down the mobs.

RDM FTW!

[Murphie]

Re: How are Red Mages?

Tarutaru look awesome in everything! Everything.

[Mhurron]

Re: How are Red Mages?

Meh, no armour can look good on TaruTaru's

Oh really.
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/5206/fullrdmafmz7.jpg
http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/4805/fullblmafaw7.jpg
http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/6567/magerobegi5.jpg
http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/4295/monkymelu4.jpg

[Murphie]

Re: How are Red Mages?

Exactly.

[Lilani]

Re: How are Red Mages?

Before level 41, your main goal as a red mage is to support the party. You cast enfeebling spells, help cure, and help cast offensive spells or use a sword to cause damage. However, at level 41 you get a nifty spell called Refresh, and your whole world is turned upside down. Refresh gradually restores a person's MP (mana points, needed to cast spells), at 3 MP per "tick" (a tick is about a second long) until they've gained 150 MP. When you learn refresh, you have to cast it on the people who need it most. The easiest way to do this is with a cycle. My typical cycle is: myself > paladin > white mage > blue mage > black mage > summoner > dark knight.

Of course, what you cast on who depends on your party setup. If I had a paladin tank, a blue mage, and a white mage in a party, I would cast me > paladin > white mage > blue mage. The reason being that I need MP first. If I have no MP, then no one else does, and I know when it wears off so that I know when to start casting again. Then paladin because they have low MP, and they absolutely *need* it. Then white mage, because they are a white mage, and then blue mage because yes MP is essential to their job, but they aren't quite as priority as PLD or WHM.

Refresh is a spell that costs 40 MP, and if you have a lot of MP users in your party then things can get tricky. Let's say the setup of your party is Paladin, white mage, summoner, black mage, theif, and samurai. Summoners have a TON of MP to start with, and they get auto refresh at level 25, meaning all the time they are gaining 1 MP per tick. Many a time, a summoner doesn't spend much MP, and even if they do auto refresh significantly speeds up their recovery time when they rest. If the summoner isn't using much MP from what I can see, I would only give refresh to them when they are starting to run low (but not *too* low).

Same applies to dark knights. They have their few spells, but from what I've seen, not a lot of them like to cast their spells. So I'll just give it to them whenever they start running low, and it saves me a lot of MP as well.

The best way to figure out how a red mage actually functions in a party is to get in there and practice. What you do in a party is directly affected by the setup and the monsters you are fighting. As you go up in the levels, you'll figure out what to do in what situations, and it will become second nature.

It sort of even poisons what I do in parties with other jobs, lol. I've been trying to get my black mage to level 37 so I won't have to level it anymore as a subjob for red mage. Every time I see the mages running low on MP I automatically want to refresh them, just to realize that I can't. Same thing goes with dispel, another spell you will be badly wanted for. Dispel gets rid of a special effect a monster has on it, which is *very* coveted in many party places.

[Aeni]

Re: How are Red Mages?

I took up RDM because I wanted a job that can solo certain things just about anywhere (Yes, BSTs can solo, but w/o pets they're just another DD in sheep's skin) Soloing elementals is a plus, since it has helped me immensely for crafting (Much more efficient I tells ya than doing it on DRK, especially when needing Dark crystals) I solo them and get exp too >.> So I get to farm AND get exp. What's not to like about that?

[tdh]

Re: How are Red Mages?

I'll have to confess, that the reason I picked RDM was because I saw the parallels to Cloud from FFVII. He could Cure, nuke, and swing a Sword. I wanted to be able to do that as well. Of course later I found that I wouldn't really be able to swing my Sword since I was too busy, but I had already fallen in love with the job.

I even picked Elvaan because of that reason. STR would help my Sword damage, and MND would help my spell effectiveness.

But to address your question. RDM has a support role in parties. We're Jack of all trades, Master of only Enfeebling. We can main heal and/or back up heal, we can nuke, do crowd control work, and past Lv.41 make sure everybody always has MP.

Lv.10 to Lv.40 your main bit of work consists of landing Slow, Paralyze, Dia/Bio, Gravity and Poison at the start of each fight. Help the Main Healer with keeping everybody's HP up, possibly wait for Skillchain to Magic Burst for additional damage.

Lv.41 to Lv.47 you're main role is Refresh, Refresh, Refresh. You still have the same Enfeebles I listed above to but you're going to be begged to join parties because you can now Refresh. Always Refresh yourself first, PLD is next, Main healer to follow, then depending on job you Refresh other MP users.

Lv.48 to Lv.75, Refresh, Haste, Refresh, Haste.... Some people find that this is the time that RDM because tiresome and boring. For me it meant more things for me to do, and added another element of my job. Adding Haste to my Refresh Cycle wasn't too difficult, but I did have to adjust my MP management due to the extra MP needed to Haste 2 people each cycle.

Lv.70 to Lv.75 you may be called up for TP Burn parties. These usually are more popular Lv.73~75, but they can start at Lv.70. Basically you're a Cure Tank. 4 Melees with pretty good Weapon skills, a BRD and a RDM to non-stop EXP Chains.

You will always be busy as a RDM, and for me that equals fun, but it's not for everybody. As I mentioned some people don't like the busy work, and complain that it's boring. For me, after 75 levels of RDM, I think WHM is boring and that's why I don't have a fully leveled WHM sub. (Bad Odude, I know! I just </3 it!!)

Somebody mentioned to level all of the Original 6 jobs to Lv.10 and then decide, and it's a great idea. Provided you have the gil to buy the items, gear, spells for 6 jobs to Lv.10, this may help you figure it out. Just keep in mind WHM, BLM, and RDM during solo play is night and day difference from EXP parties. But it's just to give you an idea.

[Aeni]

Re: How are Red Mages?

Just to add to tdh's post:

RDMs are about the only one of very few job classes that will see just about any job makeup combinations and in more than a lot of situations. That's because it's the very nature of the job class.

Kiting
Tanking
Main Healing
Backup Healing
Magic DD
Enfeebling

** Soloing **

Sure, soloing takes a long time, but I'm willing to bet that RDMs are not just master enfeeblers, but they've also mastered the art of attrition.




Edit: SE placed timers on BCs to not only limit the length of battles, but because they knew RDMs would win many of these battles soloing given enough time >.> One day, a RDM might even solo Faffy >.> Who knows ...