So, will you be levelling RDM?Follow

If you don't already have it, does anyone else think there's a serious chance that /RDM may be come a necessity for 99 WHMs? I love my /SCH and I'm guessing we'll still use it but we may need /RDM now? I guess it depends a lot on what other spells they give us on the way up and whether they nerf convert and refresh at all for subjobs?

Subbing SCH at 99 may net you Manifestation, Accession and...

04 Stone
08 Water
12 Aero
16 Fire
20 Blizzard
21 Drain
24 Thunder
30 Sleep●
30 Stone II
32 Dispel●
34 Water II
36 Aspir
38 Aero II
41 Sandstorm
42 Fire II
43 Rainstorm
45 Windstorm
46 Klimaform - probably not because its the SCH AF1?
46 Blizzard II
47 Firestorm
49 Hailstorm

But you still save all the nice things that you have with Light Arts, Sublimation, Conserve MP etc. Sublimation will take longer to charge of course with higher HP. Another charge would be nice but I doubt we'd see it as it doesn't kick in on SCH til after 48.


Subbing RDM at 99 may net you Convert, Magic Attack Bonus II and Magic Defense Bonus II [[b]Edit: irrelevant as we have higher already] and[/b]... It may become necessary to sub RDM sometimes especially as you get

04 Stone
05 Poison
08 Blind
09 Water
10 Bio
11 Bind
14 Aero
16 Enthunder
18 Enstone
19 Fire
20 Blaze Spikes
20 Enaero
21 Gravity
22 Enblizzard
24 Blizzard
24 Enfire
25 Sleep
27 Enwater
29 Thunder
32 Dispel
33 Phalanx
35 Stone II
36 Bio II
39 Barvirus
40 Ice Spikes
40 Water II
41 Refresh
45 Aero II
46 Poison II
46 Sleep II

No extra Fast Cast trait as that doesn't kick in until later. I'd speculate they could mess with the convert ratio, but they may not touch it. Sleep II is a nice bonus. Blind, Grav, Sleep, Dispel (without having to change to Dark Arts. Phalanx would be nice too as we get access to enhancing gear but a lot of the benefits from subbing RDM are from convert/fresh.

Subbing BLM at 99 would give you only an extended spell list of...

01 Stone
03 Poison
04 Blind
05 Water
07 Bind
09 Aero
10 Bio
10 Blaze Spikes
12 Drain
13 Fire
15 Stonega
16 Shock
17 Blizzard
17 Warp
18 Rasp
19 Waterga
20 Choke
20 Ice Spikes
20 Sleep
21 Thunder
22 Frost
23 Aeroga
24 Burn
24 Poisonga
25 Aspir
25 Tractor
26 Stone II
27 Drown
28 Firaga
29 Escape
30 Shock Spikes
30 Water II
31 Sleepga
32 Blizzaga
34 Aero II
35 Bio II
36 Thundaga
38 Fire II
40 Stonega II
40 Warp II
41 Sleep II
42 Blizzard II
43 Poison II
44 Waterga II
45 Stun
46 Thunder II
48 Aeroga II


Subbing SMN would give you Resist Slow II and the following

38 Crimson Howl -- Ifrit
39 Sleepga -- Shiva
42 Lightning Armor -- Ramuh
43 Ecliptic Growl -- Fenrir
44 Glittering Ruby -- Carbuncle
46 Earthen Ward -- Titan
47 Spring Water -- Leviathan
48 Hastega -- Garuda
49 Noctoshield -- Diabolos


Another way of getting an AoE Stoneskin and Haste but Hastega will last 90s and the stoneskin is limited by Avatar level.


I think we may see /RDM become stronger for WHM and a more serious contender for /SCH than either /SMN or /BLM. I'm guessing though that the light arts benefits will scale up too when you're looking at 200+ MP per spell but I can see an argument for /RDM on the horizon (even if I don't want to!)



Edited, Mar 5th 2010 4:11pm by eldelphia

Edited, Mar 8th 2010 2:17pm by eldelphia

A few Corrections: MDB II from /RDM doesn't stack with our native MDB IV. Convert is every 10 mintues not every 5 =P

/RDM Offers Fast Cast II, which is 5% more than Light Art's.

All in all, what I'd probably miss more is just Light Arts in general. I like having my B+ in Enhancing/Enfeebling; on top of all the other goodies it comes with.

But yeah, /RDM may not be the best sub; but it'll probably be required if you ever need to be on Refresh Duty.

I expect us to be switching from /RDM and /SCH a lot.

Also need to point out for /smn that Siphon is 50, so we'd never see it as sub unless they move it.

And I am so glad my rdm is already 50 and done.

Oops 10 minutes for Convert, my bad. That brings it back to only slightly appealing. Let's run some real rough numbers:

Figure you can get 1100 HP/MP, minus 135 for a Cure V afterward = 965 MP every 10 minutes.

In order for /SCH to compete in terms of efficiency alone, you'd need to save 965 MP in 10 minutes through Light Arts, Penury, and Conserve MP. Penury is pretty easy, we know we'll get 5 charges in 10 minutes, and I think we can safely assume about 50 MP savings per activation, so Penury should cover about 250 of that 965. Light Arts is a flat 9% or so MP reduction on average, and I think I remember the base Conserve MP trait giving about 7% as well, so we're looking at about 16% MP savings per cast. For that 16% to cover the remaining 715 MP difference, you'd have to spend 4469 MP per 10 minutes, or 24.8 MP per 3.33 second tick.

That seems rather extreme for current game mechanics, but not entirely impossible for shorter battles. As MP regain rate increases through new spells or whatnot, this could become even more feasible, but still is a surprisingly high number. It'd be crazy hard to sustain 25 MP/tick output for very long on WHM/SCH.



On the other hand, if we assume half strength Convert, we'd be getting only 550 MP per 10 minutes, minus 135 for a Cure V = 415 MP every 10 minutes. Subtract what you could save with Penury, and the base Light Arts + Conserve MP need only cover about 165 MP in savings over 10 minutes which would be trivial. At 16% savings, you'd have to spend only 1031 MP in 10 minutes to do that, or about 5.7 MP per tick which is well within reason. You could do that with Sublimation & two Ballads easily without even resting.



Conclusion: In terms of MP efficiency alone, full strength Convert would mean /RDM is probably a fair bit more efficient than /SCH. Half strength Convert would probably not be competitive with /SCH at all. I suspect we'll be getting full strength Convert after all, and it won't be quite as game-breaking as people suspect.

Edited, Mar 5th 2010 3:34pm by Pergatory

Also, you might want to adjust your strategem count for Penury usage - you're probably only going to be using three charges every 10 minutes for Penury, with the other two going to keeping Accession + Haste going.

And who knows if/how Accession from sub is going to get hit. (Probably just bump the time and MP modifiers from 2x on main to 3x on sub.)

I'm suspecting either half-strength or 2/3-strength Convert, more likely the latter now than the former. (Possibly even 3/4-strength, which still gives RDM-main Convert an advantage over /RDM - something important to keep in mind when you look at SCH/RDM vs. RDM/SCH at 96+. There's not a whole lot of distinguishing features there, and they're mostly on SCH's side...)

Eh, that still doesn't make up for what SCH/RDM has over RDM/SCH for those last four levels...

Well yeah, but we're not talking about SCH main here >_>

As they currently are, RDM/SCH and SCH/RDM would be pretty much the same job, except SCH gives up its melee ability to be a far better caster. I'm hoping that SE is smart enough to differ these two jobs a bit more.

It can be, depending on the RDM's role. Generally, if you don't have to juggle Arts, then it can be quite awesome. If all you're doing is nuking stuff down for instance, Dark Arts is a HUGE boost to a nuking RDM, and quite possibly even more so in the future particularly if RDM main gets tier 4 nukes.

Sorry, but RDM is my job; I have to answer any inquiries that I can about it. >_>

Yeah, confused the durations of Haste and Stoneskin, but at three minutes you'd have to refigure the whole thing on a half-hour basis (you get 5 charges for Penury and 10 for Hastega, vs. 3x Convert).

Either that, or I was predicting that Haste II will have a 5-minute duration. Take your pick. :-)

EDIT to respond to chewzer: And once the cap hits 80, you can move Erase from the "RDM/SCH doesn't get it" list to "RDM/SCH gets it if they're willing to blow a charge on Addendum: White", just like most of the -na spells (you want Stona, you'll have to go /WHM, sorry :-D).

Edited, Mar 6th 2010 10:17am by MDenham

@Chewser: Figured that since LA/DA has a 1-minute recast, and when I remember levelling rdm, I was constantly casting alternating spells, the penalties added up.



>.> but I've gotten used to /sch. I'm really thinking that, if 'vert and 'fresh are uncapped, then /sch is gonna be used a lot less. Boo.

If the rate of MP-depletion doesn't change much from 75 to 99, I think /SCH will still be fine. Rather, I hope it is, because it'd be very fun to have another alternative to Yagrush in our arsenal.

Luckily my RDM is 75 already, but I'm sure there will be situations where /RDM will be lots of fun, and now it will be tied with /BLM for its MAB II trait -- so if WHMs do get this free nuke they mentioned, that would be spiffy ... !

One thing I know I'll love is being able to quickly D2 people all over the world:
Teleport / Recall >>> Warp II
or even:
Teleport / Recall >>> Escape >>> Warp II

One thing I would suggest is level it. Have the options.

I plan on getting all my subs to 49 as an option.

BLM gets stun - which is a nice thing to have on certain NM/HNMs/God fights + RDM refresh
SMN gets radar - this is usefull for Ny if your an active WHM and DD's tend to /NIN - also auto refresh + RDM Refresh
SCH does have some good things, at the moment its a winner but if I always got a RDM with me I tend to choose /SMN - having all that refresh to me over rates the need for /SCH. Although some will say its like having +11 refresh - no its not. Depending on a lot on how you use it.

I would still choose /SCH as the winner at the moment - soon to be RDM. but always keep the option.


Thanks for the post, all that info is helpful :)

In terms of MP savings I think accession could be comparable to penury in some cases anyway. Since it only doubles the cost of the spell that means you save 40 MP by doing accession haste rather than 3 separate hastes, assuming they don't up the MP multiplier, and on top of that people you might not normally haste (including yourself) will get it.

The other thing that might be worth considering is whether hastega and stoneskinga will last long enough that you could get away with resting for a couple of ticks, because even 2 ticks resting is about 100 MP. On top of all that, /SCH will still have aspir with decent skill, while /RDM won't.

That said, I can see the potential in /RDM, especially if convert works at normal strength, for the slightly suicidal WHM it even offers the potential for a very easy medicine ring activation.

HELL YEAH i'm going to be leveling Red Mage as a sub. Refresh and Convert ftw. It's about time White Mages start getting some incentive to bbe invited to parties. I left FFXI becasue no one would have anythign to do with White Mage, but after all the crap endgame WoWput me through, I might be makign a HUGE comeback.

All self buffing aside. All mana efficiency asside. Forget about convert. I think that it's not about healer mp control, it's about utility.



I think it comes to this:

You can cast refresh on party members.



If refresh is allowed whm/rdm, then I think nobody will want a whm/anything in their party instead of a whm/rdm. I think refresh, IF ALLOWED AS A FULL-STRENGTH SPELL, will make /rdm absolutely required. All other sj's will be dead as of whm82 outside of very rare sitautions.

Yes, the bards, cors and rdms can already refresh people. But I still think that many event leaders are going to be quite firm about the whm brining refresh if it is available. Especially if the rdms are already on sleep duty or few in number.

As for exp parties, who would you invite: The healer that can refresh the party or the healer that cannot refresh the party? After all, isn't this exactly why rdms get invites faster than sch/whm for exp?

Light Arts is fantastic. Sublimation is amazing. The thought of Accession makes me very happy. And I'm pretty sure it's all going to be of less value to the group than the utility a whm/rdm can bring with refresh.


Edit: Clarification

Edited, Mar 9th 2010 12:39pm by Thydonon

In the vast majority of my parties, I'm the only person with MP, so most of them wouldn't even care.



Absolutely not, in the case of SCH. SCH does not get invited in the place of WHM or RDM because it lacks Haste.

And I have never really had the problems some of you seem to have with WHM getting invites. o_O

Convert, yes, until WHM/SCH had proven itself to be capable of keeping most parties rolling just fine.

Most melee actually don't care about Dia, especially on piss ant Greaterbri that should be dying at infinichain pace regardless.

Solution: Give WHM Refresh natively, like we were originally supposed to. It doesn't even have to be at 61 like the plan back in '03 was. It could be at 76, or even 81.

But it'd be absolutely @#%^ing retarded to force us into one subjob because of one spell. (Note that BLM already pretty much is, that spell being Gravity in their case.)

Or people will just exp somewhere else.

I doubt that /RDM is going to become staple, since RDM main is most likely going to get Refresh II, and therefore become a tank pt/blm pt staple. And, as previously stated, /RDM is more likely going to be staple for BRD and COR (pure supporting jobs).

The powers and flexibility of /SCH is really hard to pass up. While the OP listed those black magic spells /RDM will offer, they'll all be nearly useless compared to /SCH's ability to cast them.

I can't say I'll likely be using /RDM more than /BLM unless we're very low on mages and I'm in an unsupported tank pt. Stun and ES will likely still find use. You guys have dark magic skill builds, right?

Oh, and Sandstorm cheap-gaiters.

have to keep in mind too, party set up. If you're paired up with a /RDM or RDM/SCH or SCH/RDM, then those situations might also be a factor, weather /RDM or /SCH will be more useful for the party.