Red Mage 101Follow

Because I'm curious as to how that turned out, Smurv. How long did it take him to get out of jail? Did the GM say anything more? Can they do it anymore now or what? If it's off topic, then I'm sorry. But I have a question for the man who knooooows.

To sickeness: ok could I have a reason why you just cast instead of using your dagger/sword + en-spell? I mean the person that posted said 10 hits with dagger doing 10dmg + 8-12 dmg en-spell will out dmg your 350MB that is only happens once in a battle. Is it cause your a taru? You ever think about soloing own coffer keys for other jobs if the time ever comes? I kno damn well that Lv75RDM/37NIN could solo any coffer key they need for any of there other jobs. I bet they have there dagger capped out so they could use eviceration Lv230 dagger skill 5 hitter. Is it not worth just capping your dagger/sword then become a full on back line person? After I cap my sword/dagger Im really rarely at the front lines cause honestly it makes RDM job much easier for me if I dont have to attack but I feel somewhat obligated to when my dagger/sword is not capped, reason: For what I have stated before to solo my own keys. and bring out the fullest out of RDM.

I agree completely.
I always melee if it's ok with the PT ONLY TO CAP SKILLS after I cap my skills, I usually stop meleeing and full time cast with ebony wand+1.

My issue is that the original poster is saying that anyone who doesn't melee is a coward who had deficient skills. I'm not a coward and I have sword and dagger skills capped but I choose not to melee in PT because I feel the risks (in most cases) are not worth the extra 200 dmg.

Note: I'm lvl 60 so I already have all my AF and have had it since I was 55. ^^

airspirit said: "These are lessons that all red mages need to learn but unfortunately I can't start an academy in Jeuno..."


Actually... It would be quite an achievement if you were to videocapture some of those training sessions and add video examples to you guide. I'd become a premium member for that kind of thing.

Again, cowardice is only one of the reasons. I honestly know red mages that don't melee because they are afraid of getting hurt and no other reason. Not all do it for this reason though. Laziness is much more common, and genuine fear of causing downtime is also common. The most common reason though is the misconception that we can't do it at all ... that is what gets me the most.

I'll try to get fraps on during my next training session for your viewing pleasure ... I don't usually do too many though since I'm busy saving the world, lol.

On my solo guide I have sitting here I am planning on attaching a video showing techniques for soloing DC-T mobs with ease. It'll be a bit though, since I have to buy a copy of fraps first.

And yes, I was tempbanned because my son was suspected of being a bot. It took me six hours to get that mess straightened out but finally after talking with the head of customer service they reversed it. GMs don't mess with me anymore, since there is a flag on my account telling them to leave me alone due to a certain JP GM's incompetence. My children no longer play, though, due to this and I cancelled their account to prevent this from happening again. That issue is completely beside the point, though.

edit: looks like my troll stalker has found me again ... will the loser ever give up?

Edited, Sat May 15 03:21:44 2004 by airspirit

only one word...awesome!

And regards to nuking... when blackmages are rare...I find that 2 redmages in a party can do pretty decent nukes especially on these terror pugils and robber crabs...

with morion earrings and wisdom ring +1 plus a dozen other int+ equipments...at lv.59 my blizzard II was doing around 297, while blackmage was doing around 320. 30 damages less, but pretty impressive I would say. Having summoner as sub definitely helps, the mage stat boost is incredible.

Okay, I will be holding practicum tomorrow for levels 48-67 at various times during the day. If you are interested, please send me an email at junkmail 4+ airspirit d0+ net (farking web spiders) containing your level, common subjob, and character name. Information on your current gear would also be helpful if you care to provide it since if you desire I will not only do demonstration but direct practical solo training and I may have some replacement gear for you to test out depending on your level ... if I can call it all back in from those borrowing it now. Leaving a time that you should be online (including time zone) will make it easier for me to get a hold of you tomorrow. I would ask that you come with a couple apple pies and a couple mithkabobs if you can. Even if we've had bad blood in the past I hope we can work together to advance our abilities.

This only applies to Fairy server ... I apologize to the others out there.

im very unhappy i cant participate in this training session.. /em cries.

if there are any good rdm that are willing to do a similar sort of training session on lakshmi pleeeease hook me up ? i think it would be great if some rdm can get together and help eachother out. unfortunately most of the high level rdm that i see on lakshmi are jp, and very hard to comunicate with.

yesterday, i watched a taru rdm 65+ in crawlers nest.. he was helping to clear a soldier crawler and 3 worker crawler out of the way at the zone point.

he fully buffed himself and started on the soldier, it took approx 2 minutes to kill... he then proceeded to kill the other 3 workers.

i was sooo impressed with this, all i could do was /bow /kneel etc.

soon... sooooon i shall be like him.

rdm on lakshmi! help pls, im pretty good with my character, but im not proud enough to turn up advice from uuber duub-arus

Exactly right. The question is probably not the accuracy of the information provided -- in fact, nearly all of it is probably right -- but the tone -- it is arrogant and confrontational -- not acceptable for a sticky post which should be fairly neutral, gently offering advice based on consensus opinion. Inflammatory but informative posts are standard fare on an internet message board and may be welcomed -- but sticky posts bear the implicit endorsement of the moderators and thus color user's opinions of the site, and why the moderators would want to drive away potential users of the site with such a aggressive sticky is beyond me.

My original thread, from back in January, was a full detailed walkthrough of the entire AF process, like the AF 3. When I copied it, it was only a snippet. If someone wants to bump it, or dig it up to request a sticky, be my guest. The details I had were pretty inclusive all the way up to and including exactly what you should kill for each coffer key.

you wrote a guide to necropolis (af for gloves, the numbers confuse me)

Good guide. A little biased on race and playstyle, but good.

Im all for the melee redmages, I do regardless of the party liking it or not, unless its AoE silence or some other nasty attack. (once again carrying multiple armor sets helps a lot) Im cirious what sub you are using while soloing Even Matches and Toughs. About the only monsters I can see this possiable with are the Robber crabs, or monsters with weak attack and high defense, redmages can just stick it out... any other monster and soloing a mere decant challange is Increadiably Tough. (unless you have the fearless Ninja Sub)

Hey Airspirit, would you mind updating your character profile?

ok wow, i made the obvious mistake of only reading a little bit of the post before replying to it...

again.. wow... you say you're level 64 and still melee? i don't know whether i'm disturbed or amused.. i also don't know why on earth this post is stickied rofl

jeez man... i mean, i'm sorry but you're just wrong, and anyone who thinks otherwise is wrong too, lol.

it's not a question of whether or not RDM *can* melee, it's just that it's almost NEVER worth it.

whenever i level other low level jobs of mine and party with veteran JP players who are leveling their low level RDM, even as valkurm and qufim the majority of them don't melee. and it works out a lot better. and don't try to tell me that they don't know what they're doing, out of all the low level red mages i've partied with the only ones who ever casted gravity were those well-informed veteran JP (or first-line NA veterans) who know that red MAGE (i'm tempted to always type mage in caps from this point on) is better played as and more beneficial to almost every party as a MAGE.

-all skeleton types (which you do level on around 70 and 70+) do the black cloud WS, at high levels for around 300+ damage, and it blinds you so you're already piss poor accuracy is worse unless the WHM wastes mp giving you blindna. not to mention at high levels they usually do black cloud a bunch of times every fight, and considering almost every one of those is going to drop your HP into deep orange when the other undead can detect you and link from low health... they also do blood saber so you being there is one extra person that they get HP drained from

-or the tigers (in kuftal tunnel and batallia people level off them) who constantly do roar which is group paralyze, or some claw WS that does cone-area damage

-or those cockatrices which do group INT down

-or mandragora which do MND down and group sleep

-or weapon types (you do level on them a lot at 70+ in romaeve) who do that whirl of rage or whatever which does group stun (just pretty annoying when it stops you in the middle of casting something and keeps you stunned for a bit)

-or crabs which do bubble shower and give your already WEAK strength an extra down

-or raptor types which can give you disease so you can't get MP while resting, causing a WHM to use valuable MP for viruna (undead dog types do disease too)

-or anticans do jamming wave (group silence), or the group petrify WS (which resist petrify never once resisted for me)

-spiders and crawlers will both poison you (if you don't think that's annoying then ask a WHM who sits down to start resting at the end of a fight only to have the stupid meleeing RDM say he needs poisona)

-all mushroom types (exorays) do dark spore or silence gas (both of which i have seen nearly 1 hit kill an actual tank, never mind an rdm)

-bombs self destruct

-goblins bomb toss

-lizards do fireball

-ghosts do group curse and grave reel

-many mage type monsters can cast sleepga

that's just a short list of some stuff that comes to mind, all of which will only effect you if you're up close meleeing, all of which requires valuable MP and time to remedy each member that it effects. the issue is, is it worth your pansy damage to spend that time and MP remedying you? and the answer is almost always NO.

there's also the issue that while you almost never will hit a monster at higher levels, every time you do hit something for your weak meleeing-MAGE damage, you give the monster TP. monsters needing TP to do stuff is most definitely a confirmed fact seeing as the purpose of the new Subtle Blow job trait is to counteract that for the jobs which attack 2 times every round.

it's simple math, the benefits of your meleeing are very little, and far outweighed by the down sides to it.

white MAGES have a higher weapon rating with their club, which actually has decent weapon skills like hexa strike, than we do with our sword (sword being our best weapon). our rating with sword is so low, our accuracy is so poor, that even though we don't spend that much time resting, it takes so incredibly long to build TP, not to mention the only sword WS available to us that's worth using requires 300% tp to be useful.

you know, i just realized that i wasted so much time writing that all when, the guy i'm responding to, said one of the reasons why taru aren't good RDMs is because they can't alt-tank very well..... god what a lost cause

i wouldn't quite call caster rdm's "cowards".. we choose to play a different style and focus 100% on our casting instead of splitting our attention to meleeing & casting. It's a difference in playstyles.. joft i think you went a little over the top in your response.

i myself play as a full caster, and i'm taru rdm. I dont agree with his point of view of hume rdm being the 100% best choice for rdm, for a solo/melee rdm yes, but for a xp PT friendly rdm(who doesnt plan on doing alot of soloing, and focuses 100% on being a caster in a group) taru is better. it depends on where you want to take your character.

my gear is also 100% caster stats, i have no gear that is geared towards meleeing, unless you count my crimson sword. i honestly cannot melee and focus on my duties as a rdm. Other people can, and it's not my place to tell them not to do it. As long as while they are meleeing they do not lose focus on doing their job as a rdm i have no beef w/ meleeing mages.

The extra tp is almost negligable considering most of the times your melee damage(especially if you're using a dagger) will be 0-1 damage, and only damage you're doing is your EN spells. When you hit for 0 the mob you are attacking will get NO tp.. which has been said.

maybe i went over the top in listing so many monsters when the point can just be made by saying almost all monsters in this game have area/group attacks which have negative effects that require MP to remedy. other than that, i'm sorry but airspirit was making a point about taru not being very good rdm's because they can't backup tank well..... that's just a lost cause

as for being a coward... lol. yes, i'm a coward because i understand that my defense is 200 less than the other guys up there fighting, not to mention my attack, and accuracy, and i have about half the HP. call me a coward if you like, and i'll call you a fool, and we'll be even. except i won't be the one dying to AoE attacks when fighting NMs, and i won't be the one pointlessly attacking monsters in XP groups other than to get some skill up, and even that is debatably selfish.

you lose the advantage of being able to target party members with the F keys for quicker casting of spells. you can't macro every spell, and even the <stpc> won't work well if there are other parties around

no i haven't read all 4 pages of replies, but my point stands. if at the time he wrote this "guide," he had some strange idea that red MAGES in any way ever acted as some type of strange backup tank or trick-attack target or something, i just wasted all of my time replying, it's a lost cause

Backup emergency tanking and trick tanking are two things that we can do depending on race and proficiency. Some people can't pull it off ... I'm working with two red mages now that can't defend themselves if their lives depended on it (and in this case they do).

If you can't do the most important part of your job while meleeing (enfeebling and enhancing) you have no business on the front lines. That goes without saying since that overshadows all. If you CAN do it and have no reason not to then I call that either laziness or cowardice unless there is a SERIOUS reason why you can't do it.

Further, the INT/MND debuffs you are referring to don't matter. Neither do stun AOEs. You will find that on all of the -INT -MND mobs that they have the corresponding stat low making your debuffs and nukes land well even with a lowered stat. I've not encounted a mob yet that didn't follow this rule of thumb. Stun WS and things of that nature aren't a big deal, and on many AOE damage skills the damage you will add is more than the equivalent nuke in healing MPs. Look at the numbers some time and you'll be surprised.

I can never in good conscience ever assume a Taru non-melee RDM is a coward. I find that they are extremely unsuitable to be on the front lines if things go bad unlike their other cousins in other races. This doesn't mean they are "evil bad" but just have fewer options available to help their group. Really there are no "terrible" races for RDM if you are good ... some just give more options and abilities than others do at the expense of some niceties. To be honest, it is easier to play a non-melee Taru than any other race. I won't argue that because there is no way TO argue that. The drawback is that your solo skills will never be that of a different race and you won't have as many options to help your party than if you were a different race.

People are making a mountain out of a molehill here. Just because you can be more efficient and helpful doesn't make you some gimped bastard if you don't do that as long as you do everything you can in another way. The drawback is that there WILL be an efficiency loss ... it is the equivalent of a DRK not using absorbs (very common) or a PLD not using cure provokes. They are workable without it, but can be so much more with it.

Directional AOEs don't count, by the way. If you're stupid enough to be in the cone you deserve what you get. All judgement is deserved there. If you melee you should be on the side to the rear or directly behind it for your THF/THF sub. Further, nobody that could grab aggro should be on that side with you. Ask any WHM what they think of PLDs that keep the mob with Dir AOE aiming at them for a similar harsh dose of criticism. This is a bad choice penalty.

The only AOE you need to worry about is one shot kill, silence, and curse, really.

edit: oh how my stalker loves me ... see how attentive they are to rating my posts down randomly?

Edited, Sat May 15 03:25:42 2004 by airspirit

"Quote:
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Thats what I dont get... there is nothing to think about while attacking.. hit attack and sit there
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you lose the advantage of being able to target party members with the F keys for quicker casting of spells. you can't macro every spell, and even the <stpc> won't work well if there are other parties around"

(make shift quoteing, i have no idea how to do it)


This is why im defending the melee redmages, and is also why I posted my macro set, it solves wht appears to be a targeting problem.

Edited, Thu May 13 22:53:29 2004 by Pbwarhero

I understand how his macro set works but while meleeing your target is locked to the monster, to me it is safer to have an <st> macro set than to select the character first and risk a macro misfireing.

Edited, Thu May 13 23:10:44 2004 by Pbwarhero

heh, im guessing from that remark either im lost or im not understanding this as well as I thought. I know that I don't have to worry about selecting targets and curing people.

And I dont know what the point of argueing about it will solve or prove, 90% of the people posting here are level 50+ redmages and know how to play the job. lol

Edited, Thu May 13 23:32:28 2004 by Pbwarhero

I like how a 64 RDM with an underleveled sub is telling everyone on the board how to properly play a RDM, and even trying to tell lvl 70+ RDMs that they are wrong.

I also like how airspirit gauges someone's effectiveness as a RDM based on how well they can tank or solo DC-T mobs.

I want to be l33t like airspirit, so I'm gonna put on my search comment, "I can solo T mobs and I am able to backup tank, [Please Invite Me]"

How can a group turn down someone who can solo T mobs? Because you know thats what RDMs are invited for right?

Ohhh yes, thats right the reason why airspirit must solo so much is because maybe he doesn't get PT invites?
If I was another class and assuming I pt'd with a RDM who has melee gear and doesn't refresh the BLM, I don't think I would be very willing to reinvite him.

I dunno about fairy but on my server, you can usually tell who the melee RDMs are. They are the ones who have been level 55-60 for the past 2 months and always bitch about not being able to find parties.

Maybe you should advertise your tanking ability more, you can maybe get people to invite you in place of a paladin when they can't find one. Maybe you would be better off trying to work that angle.

Keep up the melee Allstar, someone's gonna need to solo all those robber crabs in kuftal to let the lvl 50's thru safely.

Edited, Fri May 14 07:02:06 2004 by sickeness

The reason I solo so much is to push my shield and parry up. Further, there is a glut of JP RDMs on our server now making it pretty difficult for a NA RDM to get a party before 12 AM (I've seen five JP RDMs seeking at once with only three other random classes out there from 62-67 before ... I don't know where they came from but being able to make over 1K/hr solo when nothing else is going on sure comes in handy. Further, being able to easily solo HNMs and avatars at 75 will be nice, since I have tons of solo experience to keep me alive (really, it almost becomes too easy) ... Serket is going to be my bitch :D

edit: Profile updated with my most common adventuring gear now. I'm up to five weapons, three shields, two belts, two capes, two bodices, two sets of gloves, two neckpieces, four earrings, six rings, and two pairs of shoes. It's all about being flexible.

Edited, Fri May 14 14:28:32 2004 by airspirit

Dude, throw in an enter key once in a while. Paragraphs are God's gift to the reader.