New RDM on the block

[Kailea]

Ok not really "new" I am 52, but yeah....

I have full AF, all 8 elemental NQ staffs, and a good understanding of the duties of the RDM

But the only thing left for me to as is.... yes, gear.

I am a Mithra, with 4/4 HP/MP merits and 8 sword merits (no need to list other merits) and I want to gear myself proper. I am mainly focusing on MP right now, pretty much ignoring DEF and other boosts, but I have a feeling I am doing it wrong, and would like some advice on current and future gear I will need, and what general direction I should be going with stat boosts.

[Callisto]

Re: New RDM on the block

Max MP is never the way to go for starters. Bear in mind that a big full pool looks nice, but once you've cast a few spells you should be in gear that enhances the actual potency of your spells, as extra empty max MP is doing absolutely nothing. If anything hMP gear is a tad more important, as you get to higher levels how quickly you can restore MP becomes much more important than how much you can hold at once.

MND is more or less the most important stat for RDM, you're going to want a solid MND set for your white magic debuffs that have variable potency such as Slow and Paralyze. A lot of RDMs tend to neglect also doing an INT build for Blind, I keep one but it doesn't get used as often or have as great of an effect on fights as the other two.

For any spell that does not have variable potency you want to be in enfeebling skill/MAcc gear, you can pretty much threat them on a 1:1 ratio, just take whichever stat you can get the highest number on for that slot.

You'll also want to get used to using an idle set, one that is only for when you're standing around not casting anything. This should focus on damage taken- gear such as Earth/Terra's Staff, Cheviot/Umbra Cape, Patronus Ring, and so on.

There's a guide in my sig too, it's kinda long but it's relatively up to date with things that I've found, I try to update it every time I learn something new.

HQ staves can't be stressed enough, imo it's the best overall investment you can make in the game, for all jobs. For RDM I typically recommend something around the order of Aquilo's > Terra's > Auster's > Pluto's > Jupiter's > the rest.

[Kailea]

Re: New RDM on the block

thanks for the info, that helped alot, I will look at the guide as well, and rework my gear as I need. My LS was telling me pretty much that, but I always like to as here as well. Sadly though HQ staff will have to wait, because I am poor at the moment.

[Karinya]

Re: New RDM on the block

Max MP is never the way to go for starters. Bear in mind that a big full pool looks nice, but once you've cast a few spells you should be in gear that enhances the actual potency of your spells, as extra empty max MP is doing absolutely nothing.

Some people like it for Convert. The first thing you do after Convert is usually cure yourself, which isn't very gear dependent aside from the light staff, and after that you can switch back to your regular spell-effectiveness gear. (As an aside, though, spells that aren't much affected by most gear stats are still affected by Conserve MP, -Enmity, Fast Cast, and Haste. None of those is ordinarily a high priority for RDM, but spells like Refresh, Haste, and cures get used a lot and aren't affected by the stats you would prioritize for enfeebles, so you might as well swap in some of those "universal" stats for those spells.)

Personally, I've never had (or made) room in my macro palette for Convert; I just convert through the Ctrl-J menu, then DS (if /WHM) the same way, heal up, and continue with my regular spellcasting macros. But YMMV.

If anything hMP gear is a tad more important, as you get to higher levels how quickly you can restore MP becomes much more important than how much you can hold at once.

True, but hMP gear only works while resting, which RDMs might not be doing much of. hMP is very much a swap-in stat in general, and especially for RDM.

MND is more or less the most important stat for RDM, you're going to want a solid MND set for your white magic debuffs that have variable potency such as Slow and Paralyze. A lot of RDMs tend to neglect also doing an INT build for Blind, I keep one but it doesn't get used as often or have as great of an effect on fights as the other two.

If by "stat" you mean the basic 7, then yes.

For any spell that does not have variable potency you want to be in enfeebling skill/MAcc gear, you can pretty much threat them on a 1:1 ratio, just take whichever stat you can get the highest number on for that slot.

And often the ones that do have variable potency, too. Resists get you zero potency, or considerably reduced duration. Pure MND builds for enfeebling are only effective on non-serious targets, which you usually aren't bothering to enfeeble in the first place. This is especially true for Para2/Slow2, which have greatly enhanced potency compared to the regular versions, but somewhat worse base magic accuracy (in my experience).

You'll also want to get used to using an idle set, one that is only for when you're standing around not casting anything. This should focus on damage taken- gear such as Earth/Terra's Staff, Cheviot/Umbra Cape, Patronus Ring, and so on.

I'm curious what activities you do in which this would ever be relevant. When do you stand around not casting anything? "Idle" and "RDM" don't go together very well, and in the rare cases when you *aren't* casting or doing something else urgent, you should probably have your resting set on (and be resting).

It might be worth having a set for running from place to place not casting anything, which happens a fair amount in Dynamis, Limbus, Nyzul, etc. -- except that there would be almost nothing that would matter for that set other than relic hat, dalmatica/morrigan's body, and some kind of +move speed gear, if you're lucky enough to have them.

You didn't mention nuking; the set of situations where a RDM should nuke isn't huge, but it's worth paying some attention to IMO. MAcc, skill, and Magic Attack Bonus are generally what you want to prioritize (aside from the appropriate staff that matches your spell).

Finally, if you still have any budget left after the above, it might be worth looking at a dark magic set for Drain, Aspir, and Stun (when you have their respectively appropriate subjobs). MAcc and skill are the main factors here too, with INT as a secondary priority. Crimson finger gauntlets are particularly notable -- they have quite a bit of skill, the cursed item isn't too expensive IIRC, and the abjuration drops from a lesser god which isn't too terrible (depending on conditions on your server). Avoid using them against demons, though, because of the intimidation effect.

HQ staves can't be stressed enough, imo it's the best overall investment you can make in the game, for all jobs.

Well, for some jobs. There's plenty that get no effective use out of staves whatsoever (most melees), or use them only very situationally (PLD, NIN, RNG), and the latter are usually in ways that NQ or HQ makes no difference or a very tiny difference.

Even for casters, although staves are powerful, I haven't found the *difference* between NQ and HQ to be all that mind-blowing. Proper use of staves is a much bigger deal than whether they are NQ or HQ.

For RDM I typically recommend something around the order of Aquilo's > Terra's > Auster's > Pluto's > Jupiter's > the rest.

I'd put Auster's first (in fact, I did, when I was buying them for myself). Silence is the most important enfeeble of all in fights where you are using it, and there can be a huge difference between landing it and not. For some fights, ditto Gravity. The difference between paralyzing something now and paralyzing it on the next attempt is not nearly as big, and for slowing even less. (Pluto's would be higher for the same reason, if not for the fact that there are likely to be many other sleepers with you when attempting any sleep-dependent content.)

Also, I wouldn't bother listing Jupiter's separately from "the rest"; most things that you are likely to stun aren't going to resist with any appreciable frequency that would be reduced by Jupiter's, and if you want to nuke you can usually do it better with Aquilo's, which has elem skill. It's somewhat mob dependent, but the number of situations where you want to nuke at all *and* the resistance differences favor thunder enough to offset 10 elem skill is pretty small.

[Kailea]

Re: New RDM on the block

I am soooo going to be broke for the longest after leveling RDM ;p

[Mog]

Re: New RDM on the block

I'm curious what activities you do in which this would ever be relevant. When do you stand around not casting anything? "Idle" and "RDM" don't go together very well, and in the rare cases when you *aren't* casting or doing something else urgent, you should probably have your resting set on (and be resting).

This is more useful from a lowman perspective (which RDM can solo a good deal of NM's). Refresh + movement + dmg down for when you're idling/kiting.

[Callisto]

Re: New RDM on the block

This is more useful from a lowman perspective (which RDM can solo a good deal of NM's). Refresh + movement + dmg down for when you're idling/kiting.

This, as well as in just in general when doing crowd control or any time you might pull hate. I personally use spellcast which makes things easy, but even when I played on console I made it a point to have damage- gear on for the odd AoEs that may happen in all sorts of events, as well as for the few seconds you may have a mob that was previously slept whacking at you before you can sleep it again. This aside from the fact that in every slot but head/neck/body/legs, there is no gear other than damage- gear that even does anything while you're standing there not casting a spell.

The main reason I put Aquilo's first is because it's the most affordable, and typically mobs that can actually be silenced aren't high end enough that resists are a factor, except for maybe Suzaku, meanwhile all sorts of high end mobs can be paralyzed and/or bound. Jupiter's was listed strictly for nuking.

Having Max MP gear for Convert is fine, that's what my set is for, it's just that sitting around in MP gear once you've cured yourself or cast other spells to spend the excess, it does nothing.

Nuking I left out just because that's one of the harder sets to get together as a newer RDM, strong nuking gear is general expensive and/or hard to get, however RDM nuking is better than many people give it credit for, and should be done many times when you're sitting on excess MP without other things to cast.

With Enfeebling Magic merits you really shouldn't be unable to use a max MND build on the large majority of endgame, at most needing to add in a staff as opposed to Club/Shield. I still need full skill/MAcc gear for things like sky gods, but your typical Limbus bosses/dynamis mobs/salvage mobs and bosses/normal NMs you should have no problem landing full MND debuffs.

I agree about the Dark Magic gear, though I tend to fill in with Haste as opposed to INT where you can't get skill/MAcc.

[fairyoracle75]

Re: New RDM on the block

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I am soooo going to be broke for the longest after leveling RDM ;p

Very true Kaliea. Until I found a better way to make gil I've had to park my RDM for months at a time during inflation to afford some of the gear. Good news is now that we don't have inflation most of the gear you need will be under a million (individual pieces I mean). I now spend part of each week on gil making activities.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: New RDM on the block

A bit of tangent, but I was curious about how much a new (but reasonably geared) RDM75's equipment should cost these days. Eschewing high end items like HQ staves, Penitent's Rope, Hedgehog Bomb, etc, came up with this:

Weapons.....................131,000
Main....Light Staff..........10,000
Main....Dark Staff............9,000
Main....Earth Staff...........9,000
Main....Wind Staff............7,000
Main....Ice Staff.............9,000
Main....Thunder Staff.........9,000
Main....Fire Staff...........15,000
Sub.....Bugard Strap.+1......13,000
Ammo....Phantom Tathlum......50,000

Armor........................19,000
Head....Warlock's Chapeau.........0
Body....Warlock's Tabard..........0
Hands...Yigit Gages...............0
Legs....Errant Slops..........5,000
Feet....Errant Pigaches......14,000

Accessory...................424,500
Neck....Spider Torque.......140,000
Ear.....Antivenom.Earring....50,000
Ear.....Insomnia Earring.....60,000
Ring....Hale Ring............95,000
Ring....Sapphire Ring........55,000
Waist...Al Zahbi Sash........10,000
Back....Rainbow Cape.........14,500

At Ifrit's prices, with 574,500 gil worth of gear, a RDM would be functional in most party/alliance situations. e.g. Can handle crowd control in Dynamis (at least city zones), enfeeb/cure/pull in Limbus, Salvage/Assault/Nyzul Isle, mission fights, various KS runs, and, of course, merit parties.

For a bit more oomph in hMP, Stoneskin, Convert, and nuking:

hMP..........................73,000
Body....Errant Houppelande...23,000
Legs....Yigit Seraweels...........0
Waist...Qiqrin Sash +1.......50,000

MND/SS.......................10,000
Neck....Holy Phial...........10,000

Convert.....................206,000
Back....Intensifying Cape...200,000
Ring....Electrum Ring.........3,000
Ring....Electrum Ring.........3,000

Nuking......................370,000
Feet....Yigit Crackows............0
Neck....Elemental Torque....310,000
Ear.....Moldavite Earring.........0
Ring....Diamond Ring.........60,000

An additional 659,000 would round out the secondaries, for a grand total of 1,233,500 gil.

That really isn't all that bad. For comparison, the foundation of most DD jobs' TP set is: Dusk Gloves (150k), Dusk Ledelsens (450k), Chivalrous Chain (155k), and Woodsman Rings x2 (70k x2)--895k, and that's not even close to the full TP set, nevermind the WS set's gear or even the all-important weapon.

[Callisto]

Re: New RDM on the block

They're also a fair amount of new or easy-to-get stuff that was added that I'm sure could save a bit, for instance there's a very easy NM in Xarcabard named Timeworn Warrior that drops a level 55ish MND+1/INT+1 tathlum, a Promise Badge can be quested fairly easily, and the Penitent's Rope BCNM has a pretty high drop rate and is very easy with 3 and reasonably easily to duo.

[Kailea]

Re: New RDM on the block

Well I just got a Joyeuse last night ^.^ soooo awesome, so now I am good for my PLD DNC and RDM, my RDM is coming along slowly, but good, redid my gear, and I did see an improvement, and the loss in MP I dont even notice. I thank you people for the continuing advice, as it is helping alot in future gear planning.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: New RDM on the block

a Promise Badge can be quested fairly easily

I suppose, but Holy Phial is nice because it's lower leveled and fairly cheap, plus it can be a part of the Convert set. Still, point taken.

[Karinya]

Re: New RDM on the block

I think your comparison is a bit unfair; if you're counting three pieces of Yigit at 0 there's no reason that melee can't earn their chiv chain, for example. (Or, depending on job, ditch the dusk ledelsens for amir boots.)

Of course you could say the same for the hale ring and both Assault earrings, and that's not even counting mission rewards (personally, I wear Omega and Balrahn's rings, for example; used to be Hale (earned on points) and Balrahn's before I got the Omega). And once you take those out, a lot of the rest of the cost of your basic set is taken up by spider torque, which isn't THAT bad to camp (in my experience).

If you do Assault for the Assault pieces and camp the spider torque, you could have a reasonably effective RDM set pretty darn cheap. Then you start earning some of the really nice rare/ex pieces.

[ShepardG]

Re: New RDM on the block

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU CAMPING DUNE WIDOW.

[Callisto]

Re: New RDM on the block

In the time you got Dune Widow to drop you could easily farm enough gil to buy an Enfeebling Torque, lol.