I was in the best party EVER last night. It was WAR/DRK/RNG/BRD/RDM[me]/WHM, and we never rested. Not once. The BRD was sub WHM, and I'm subbed BLM. The BRD, RNG, and I were all 42, the WHM was 40, the DRK 39, and the WAR was 37. You'd think we would be average at best, but we were sick. We went down into CN and started taking on Soldier Crawlers and here's how it would go: the RNG and I would head out into the field to pull. Whoever would find a crawler first would announce it and after getting the okay from the other (preventing double pulls) would pull. We'd both head back and I would slow/para then refresh, followed by Bio 2 and blind before casting refresh on the WHM. As we'd bring in the target the BRD would cast the attack songs on the fighter types, and as I was debuffing and refreshing he'd cast the refresh songs on the WHM and I. I would then join the fray with an enblizzard on and we'd lay the beatdown. Quickly. As soon as we'd finish the RNG and I would head back out to pull another with no time to stop. 15-20 seconds later we were fighting again. Between Refresh and the ballads the WHM and I were constantly full of mps, and we were continuously hitting chain 6 on mobs that due to our low level fighters should never have been doable (with the bard, white mage, and I all healing the tanks were practically invincible). In one hour we got over 4K experience and then the server went down ... but not before the nightmare occured:
While I was out pulling, a water elemental spawned behind me. Of course, I didn't see this, so I pulled with slow and turned to find a pissed off elemental dropping spells on me like crazy. I ran back toward the group insisting they NOT help me in any way ... I was going to just suicide for the group. As I was running back, I notice that the crawler pulled two of its buddies that had just spawned (an oh crap moment), and I saw the young WAR coming out to provoke. I did the only thing I could to stop my whole party from eating it: I pounded chainspell and cast warp. I got the spell off, but not before I was pounded by another spell from the WE and hit by three soldiers simultaneously ... I arrived in Jeuno as a corpse. A nearby WHM raised me (laughing the whole time), and the whole party was appreciative that I ate it for the team (especially the WAR when the others explained to him how I saved his ***). We decided since the server was going down in less than ten minutes just to head out, and I ended up less than 1500 TNL (I need to stop powerquesting and race to 50, lol).
A BRD is nice, but it is no replacement for a GOOD red mage, just like a RDM is no replacement for a GOOD BRD. Stacking refresh and the ballads reduces your downtime to zero (adding a BLM would prevent this, since they typically burn more MPs if they are a primary damager). The problem with RDMs and the reason people don't understand them is because many of them just plain suck. It is probably the hardest class in the game to play bar none. In some of those fights I was dropping nukes. In some I was dropping heals. In some I was just slashing away. In all of them I was debuffing. Ultimately, we are responsible for crowd control, making sure the group is flowing right (since we are the most flexible class), and keeping people alive if for some reason something happens to the main healer (assuming you have a WHM). Many Red Mages just sacrifice some of their skills (like never levelling elemental or dark, for example) out of ignorance, and others want to play a different class (like playing only to melee ignoring all spells except the occassional self-heal, or only nuking, or ... you get the picture) and ignore the strength of the class.
The worst part, and the place where bards and red mages are similar, is not many people will let them do their job properly, or just don't understand what they do. Telling a red mage not to melee on a non-AOE mob is stupid. So is telling a bard not to heal if he has a WHM sub. So is having dark knights or other mages insisting on debuffing when the bard can do it, or the bard letting the red mage cast dispel when he can do it for free without a problem. I'm just waiting for people to get more experienced and realize what these two classes can do in tandem ... it is truly sick.
