Red Mage 101Follow

I have so many macros that I have no room for healing macros. I arranged my spell list so the most used are on the top and bottom for fast casting purposes. The nukes, enfeebles, and enspells are all on my macro bar for easy use since there are so many of them. The top of my list is refresh followed by the cures and buffs while the bottom goes Warp/Escape/Gravity/Aspir/Drain/Sleep II ... we have too many things to keep macro bars nice and neat, very similar to summoners.

don't bother putting words in your macros telling /p that you are curing, it's annoying and makes it harder for tanks to see a call for a renkei or a tp call. Most melee's i know usually have actions done by others filtered off(besides paladin usually), that means they don't want to see you casting spells ;)

and if you're having problems casting on party members either in ur cure macro make it look like this:

/ma Cure <stpc>

and then press the fkey for whatever party member and press enter. Or if you find yourself not meleeing alot just make it:

/ma Cure <t>

just press the fkey to select whichever party member first then hit ur cure macro.. i find this is faster than using stpc.. but it may just be a personal preference.

Frost - Lowers AGI (melee hit more)

Burn - Lowers INT (more damage and less resists on BLM spells)

Rasp - Lowers DEX (lowers monsters accuracy and chance of critical)

Choke - Lowers VIT (melee do more damage)

Drown - Lowers STR (monster hits for less damage and damage is more variable)

Shock - Lowers MND (debuffs hit easier and last longer)

How to use them

Opposite elements do NOT stack e.g. if you cast Frost and then cast Burn Frost will wear off and Burn will hit.

Rule of thumb - Water > Fire > Ice > Wind > Earth > Lightning.

Here are some basic recommendations for how to use them. If you are fighting beetles or something else with high evasion and you are doing good damage with your nukes but melees are missing, this is when you cast Frost. After Frost you can also cast Rasp and Drown because these 3 WILL stack~

If you are fighting something that resists your spells a lot e.g. Anticans, cast Burn. After Burn you can cast Choke and Shock because these 3 will also stack~

Some more combos.
Frost & Shock (helps melee and debuffs)
Burn & Drown (helps you and the healer)
Choke & Frost (best melee combo)
Drown & Rasp (helps the healer)

There are a bunch more combos that you can play with~ These are just my suggestions.

In most parties I start off with Frost and Shock then recast these when they were off but it depends highly on my party config which ones I use. BTW all of the elemental debuffs stack with ANY other regular debuff (dia, bio, blind, etc etc...)

Well, I don't have any of those spells yet.

What I'm worried about is something like me casting Paralyze and then Bind. Does one cancel the other out? Things like that.

The elemental debuffs will cancel each other out if you have two adjacent elements. Blind gets cancelled by flash. That's about it.

For macros I only have /p commands in a few (always colored with humor): enspell macros (subtle hint for the elemental casters letting them know the mob's weakness), nukes (I don't use them often, but lets the party know what the **** I'm doing), and enfeebles (prevents overzealous BLM/WHM folks from doubling up my enfeebles ... assuming they are paying attention anyway). I don't put text comments in anything else since the party doesn't need to know what I'm doing except that I'm keeping them alive and managing their MPs perfectly.

I am a firm believer in text lines in enfeeble macros. It lets the party help in recommendations if they feel something else could be used and you're not using it (gravity, for example). If you're doing your job right this shouldn't ever happen, but especially in your early levels letting them know what you are doing will assist them in letting you know how you can help them further.

/p lines in cure macros make baby jesus cry. It's not as if we can't see that you're healing people.

Believe me, seeing "IT'S SOOOOOO WET!" flash across party chat before a battle never loses its humor, and at the same time they all know exactly what I'm doing. ... I think all the 50-65 Fairy folk know who I am now if they haven't figured it out already ... please keep it to yourselves though, as I really don't need new stalkers. I already have a few from my old fishing posts stalking me to see where I fish.

so airspirit you're gonna let me in on your secret fishing spot ya? :p

if you see blm castin bio when a mob is high defense low attack(crabs for example) slap him and anally rape him or something. Then tell him to stop and let you handle that type of debuff. Tell him to focus on always getting shock + frost on the mob and you will handle bio/dia.

My favored tactic is to withhold Refresh from any mage that decides to waste my debuffs. If I'm not refreshing them anyway (BLMs most of the time) I will refuse to debuff AT ALL ("It seems Virtue wants to debuff, so lets see how she fares at it shall we?") and the group normally straightens the lousy mage out. If they don't or become abusive about it I just warp out. It's not worth risking your life because some idiot mage wants to train their dark skill up or some nonsense.

The one thing that came to mind from what Smurv said, and something I figured you may want to tack on. I melee in 90% of my parties, but there are certain mobs I pretty much refuse to melee against. (Gobs aren't one of them. I personally Barfire myself if WHM's enhancing seems low)

The prime examples of this are Mandrags and Antican's. Mandrag's have the notorious AE sleep of course, and I'd rather not be one of the one put to sleep by it unless I'm in set party. (I only trust my set WHM and PLD to get things done right) Antican's have AE Silence (gah.) and AE Petrify that is an agro reset. On Ant's I like being outside the AE Petrify and make sure it b-lines to me instead of the WHM. (Also make sure Gravity is on him so it may not even reach us)

Otherwise **** good layout, though I used some different armor along the way. (Mithra RSE legs/hands are great for the big MP adds and MND enhancements Imho.)

are ppl really that lazy to actually type in the party members name in their healing macro's and for any healing not macro's can easly be used with ctrl m
<bt>
<me>
Name

By using <st> I can target anyone with one macro.
I can also target the mob, someone in another party, myself, or anything within range.
You migh not think it, but this is very handy to rig your macros for multiple situations.

Stuff happens fast and I dont have time to change someones name in a macro.

BTW, stats arnt locked. Theres no need to throw away your character for +10 dex or +50mp.
Buy some gear and you'll do just fine.

I found that to be an excellent and informative post, airspirit, although admittedly my rdm is only lvl 10. I have a few (somewhat noobish :/) questions which I would be greateful if you could give a good response to.

Firstly, what should one do to get enough cash for astral rings (170k each on my server) and Valkyries Mask (280k) amongst others. preferably without becoming madly frustrated lol. 2 silk threads per 30 minutes of farming crawlers is not very efficient. My main job is lv 50 and laughable as this is my income is still about the same as it was when I was around lvl 20. Do you know any good specific farming places for various lvls (e.g. where would be a good place for a lvl 20, lvl 40, lvl 50 etc.) I see lvl 60+ equipment which is between 2-4 million gil (vermillion cloak for example) and think wow i will never be able to afford that.

2. I am wondering have you done any BCNM's as rdm and would you say they are a good choice for it? BCnm 40 mainly but info about 50,60, BCNM's (if you have done them of course) would be useful also. In-game I am mainly told that rdm is not part of an ideal party setup for it (rather like drk).

3. You mentioned about camping NM's, or rather not doing so until you are in the lvl 40s. Am curious as to why you think one should wait until they are in the lvl 40s, as there are many nm's such as spook for instance which can be killed at about lvl 20. Unless you mean being a 45+ thief.

4. I know you have to kill Maat for the last genkai, and you said that as an elvaan (or galkan) rdm it would be impossible to win. Is this really true? Hehe imagine being an elvaan rdm at lvl 70 being unable to progress any further.

your advice would be appreciated.