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Question: Why do you need to keep melee skills capped? I planned on using magic most of the time... btw, I have never played RDM... but plan to in the future I'm also a taru.

The biggest reason that you keep your melee skills up is so that if you have to draw a weapon for whatever reason, you'll actually be able to aim the pointy end at whatever's being antagonistic, and give it new orfices in a timely fashion.

If you don't plan on meleeing much in PT, it doesn't seem necessary to keep your skill up.

However, if you do, you'll be much more effective when soloing, plus you can't get the neat WSs like Circle Blade (for AoE farming) and Spirits Within (arguably the single best WS in the game) for sword, and Energy Drain and Energy Steal (I think that's the name of it, but I still need to cap out my dagger) for dagger.

Also, you can't do any of the really crazy junk you hear end-game RDMs doing, because they do dumb things like solo some avatars and HNMs through battles of attrition, and the sword has to do most of the dmg. You win the battles by staying alive longer, not by killing quickly, so nuking yourself OOM doesn't help you win. If you don't keep your melee skills up, you're forced to cast to do dmg, and there's a lot of times where it'd be easier and smarter to hack/chop/poke something to death instead of nuking it to hellingone.

Galkas should be able to perform well as rdms...even if their mp is as abundant as a humes or an elvaans but come on...give the race a chance..im goin rdm/nin anyways and im a galka which ill be wearing RSE (full).

Absolutely not! That's one of the most effective things you *can* do to better yourself as an RDM. See my post at the top of this page... Once I switched to /equip macros I saw a world of difference in my game.

It just gets better and better!

good..i like to keep my options open in the party and what not

You make a great point about the early 30's... When I got Dia II I was pretty much OMG !! 59 mp?

I didn't cast it all that often in my 30's but I can promise you that in a few levels it will become very tolerable. 40 will help and 41 makes it basically a non-issue.

Now at 45 it wouldn't bother me if I had to cast it every battle, or Bio II for 66... and I am not taru.

If you have dispel, then don't bother using Dia II for a few more levels (unless you REALLY need it and are full on MP.) Just being able to dispel cocoons and evasion boosts will put you far ahead of non-RDM parties.

That was an excellent job! Thank you for sharing your information with the rest of us.
Amelia

There is truth to that, but it works both ways...

I keep WHM and BLM as my subs... I leveled RDM first, and since an RDM does *everything* it keeps my enfeebling, enhancing, and elemental capped for my subs.

So then it is much easier to level your subs... It works both ways I guess.

After reading the entire first post and at some point or another all the replies (I think) I'm rather curious... it seems obvious from reading that tarutaru can't fufil the full potential of the job in all areas... but wouldn't they still be the best rdm for keeping chains going?

and in an entirely related question, after this thread I don't understand how effective melee is as a rdm, say as a hume. Assume I decide to melee, and go hardcore to buy excellent gear like Airspirit. Will my damage be worth bothering? Or will it be so negligable that a single melee round by the rest of the party is equal to it?

Nowhere did I say Tarus couldn't do the job. Let me break it down nicely how the races stack:

Hume/Mithra: Balanced, can do everything pretty darned good without any real weaknesses or uber strengths.

Elvaan: Masters of WHM debuffs, gimps of BLM debuffs and nukes. Best damage, worst accuracy in melee. Best emergency tank bar none, lowest MP to keep the buffs and chains going (I don't consider Galka an option). Best healer, if they have MP.

Taru: Masters of BLM debuffs and nukes, gimps of WHM debuffs. Worst damage, decent accuracy in melee. Worst emergency tank bar none, best MP to keep the buffs and chains going. Worst healer, though they WILL have MP.

I like the balanced path, personally. Some people want to specialize more. Personally, I love seeing Taru BLMs dropping sleepga since they can do it much much more accurately than me with equivalent gear. The same goes for Elvaan dropping slow or para on HNMs since their MND helps them a great deal. It all just depends on what role you want to take.

Air, I was just curious if you'd tested out RDM/NIN against nasty things like prime avatars, HNMs, or the like now that you're 75 and have Utsu: Ni.

Note: I'm not a RDM/NIN fanboy, I'm just curious if you've actually tested it to see if it is truly as "uber" as everyone makes it out to be.

The theory behind it is certainly sound, but as theories often don't survive practical application, I'd rather hear about the latter.

I can imagine you might not have time to do so, what with all the gil-making and (ridiculous) gear acquisition, so I certainly wouldn't be hurt or anything if you simply hadn't found time.

Still, any information/strategies you might mention would be nice to know (trying to decide if nin is worth lvling in the near future, or if it should be saved for a time when money is less of a concern).

Just make a name for yourself as a good mage to get invites. It's not hard.

I've personally melee soloed Aquarius with RDM/NIN (scary as hell) and have soloed both Titan and Ramuh the same way. The avatars are pretty easy, honestly, though I imagine Garuda could give you problems with her haste.

You know something this is all pointless, great info pointless argument. If your a rdm hume then good for you ,if your a taru rdm good for you,if your a galka rdm well good for you , and if your elvann rdm then good for you . When i bought this game my intention wasnt to sit and ponder if i made the right choice in jobs and races and weapons and armor etc. It was to have fun interact with other players and play them game. And if you bog yourself down in all the stats and racial choices then your just gonna make your self miserable, same goes if you try to keep up with the jones and lvl all the time <this one i learned the hard way> You do what you do and have fun doing it and if you do that and enjoy yourself everything else will fall into place. Now i know im gonna get called a noob and bashed over the head for this but screw it its my choice to post it and i stick with my choices . Airspirit you got great info and the list of macros was very informative. I never knew you could set up macros that way <ignorance isnt bliss lol> but now i intend to implement them. As for soloing where should i solo at lvl 52 cause i seem to face troubles money wise and its a pain . Thanks for your time and great info

I've just readed the whole guide, really NICE.
But there is one thing which really confuse me.
It's in the macro section (Alt bar2). You have listed ALT 1-2-3-4-5 & '0', But why no ALT 6-7-8-9?...

This is sick, dude. @#%^ing sick. I love it!

I went through 75 on the front lines, even many times as primary healer. Further, Tarus have the weakest general healing power of all the races due to lower mind (weaker non-cap spells like Cure IV). Another post right above here clarifies this in detail.

I'm in the middle of re-writing most of my Macros.

How do you keep all the macros for straight and swap between macro pallettes quickly for things like enfeebs, equipment swapping, healing, refreshing?

Airspirit, this post is opionated as hell. This is the "I wanna be a hume rdm" post. You barely give any credit to any other races. This is the most biased supposed FAQ on all the forums I've seen so far. I'll have to admit the info is ok, but do I really have to give hume the thumbs up after every paragraph?

Just because you picked hume, you don't have to justify it to everpone else.

I would like to say "great guide" but unfortunately I am not a hume. I'm a lowly taru that can't solo according to you and will always be just a backline mage.

To me this post is offensive and should not be stickied as a faq until such time as it can be revised to not be so biased.

It's posts like this that make people not want rdm in groups till after level 40. Thanks so much Airspirit.

I vote to move the sticky to the Hume forum.

By and large Humes are the best choice for the job unless you want to sacrifice one aspect for another both in physical and magical attributes. I'm sorry if your feelings are hurt because you chose something else, but if you take it that way then it is your own loss.

Seriously, this is the one mage job that needs strength in both MND and INT. Only one and a half races have this (Mithra are slightly behind in the MND department). It needs a healthy balance of HP and MP (Currently in most situations right now my HP/MP are within 10 points of each other). Only Tarus, Mithra, and Humes can realistically achieve this (unless you go full zenith with an elf and heavily sabotage your performance). It needs a balance of melee capability with magical capability: only Humes have this, though many would argue that this isn't necessary ... however I would just point them to the special later game situations in which a RDM/NIN tank is the most powerful tank you can get your hands on due to their virtual invincibility. Everything about this job calls for a balance in stats across the board and only one race has this perfect balance and that is Hume (and Mithra to a marginally lesser extent).

Conventional wisdom about choosing the "mage" race over another doesn't work any more than choosing the "melee" races over another. What is called for is a balance of everything so that the various aspects of our jobs can be enhanced as needed.

With that said you can choose to become more powerful in one area or another, but you will sacrifice heavily in the opposing area. INT/MND, HP/MP, STR/DEX, it is all a balancing game and only one race is balanced.

Cry about things being unfair: that is your right. I'm not saying that other options aren't viable. But since I assume you're playing as a Taru don't be surprised to find yourself one shotted if you step out into the front just like is described in this post. I can't count the number of times an AOE dropped me down under 100 HP: were I a taru I would have been singing "oOOooOOooOoOOOOOOooo" instead of raising my party members.

Crocque, why do you not write your own Guide on How to Play a Mage Strong Red Mage aka A TaruTaru's Guide to Red Mage.

Wow. Wow. Wow. I can't wait to start implementing some of these things. All those grey areas I had floating around have now been brought sharply into focus. I'm glad to see you posted here not long ago. I sure wish you'd update the FAQ again.

I consider myself a pretty damn good RDM. I receive compliments on my abilities during battle, and have only received one type of criticism. The one criticism I receive on a constant basis, is that I should be back with the blm and whm, because I am a mage. My immediate response is an examination of the person giving the criticism. Nine times out of 10, I'm wearing better melee gear than they are. So, I tell the person criticizing that I'll be happy to loan him/her my armor for the fight so I don't have to heal him/her as often. This generally shuts people up pretty fast.

I also like to add up the amount of damge (melee only) I do during a fight. Even against IT beetles in the nest, I average 30 dmg/round when i connect (AF1, and enblizzard). That's 150 damage per fight if I only hit 5 times. It takes about 3 casts of thunder to a Blazer Beetle to make that much damage. I will then tell the offender that that's 3 cure II's or 2 cure III's I won't cast on him/her.

It irks me when a party expects me to stand "in back". I try to "select" the puller in the party menu after I see the "pull" macro. Once I can select them, I stand, and engage asap. I then fire my enfeeb macro. This makes sure that I have the most immediate access to the mob. I then swap in my sword, cast an en-spell if it's worn, and start choppin'. Every time the message that I defeated the mob comes up (via melee), I point it out.

I got lucky and was invited into a static at lvl 44, and we plan to go up to at least 60. One MNK and I initiate a burning blade to raging fists renkei when I have the TP. We were recently dropping exos for mold. At lvl 50, my burning blade did about 120 damage, the renkei added 75-100 more. The instant i had finished my ws, i spammed my FireII macro for a burst of 272 (most ever, so i remember lol), dead exoray, mold drops, last person in static gets first genkai 1 item. That's nearly 500 points of damage to a mob that can 1 hit kill (dark spore) a lvl 49 mithra RNG.

I'm still hunting my papy, so i'm still lvl 50. After reading your post Airspirit, I'm done arguing. I'll just tell the next party if they don't want me to melee they can boot me. Anyone who thinks RDM's aren't "supposed" to melee....read the above paragraph.

If you're still not convinced: Only -->2<-- jobs can equip Excalibur, the most powerful one-handed sword in the game. One of them is PLD. I'll leave it to everyone else to figure out what the 2nd one is. I don't want to ruin the surprise. ;)

Thanks again Airspirit for the post.

RATE UP! TROLLERS BE DAMNED.

holy **** how long did it take you to make this it took me a 1/2hr to read

I read this guide a bit too late (10 Red Mage, but I already had dumped quite a lot of time and money into my Alchemy and doing many quests) as I had already chosen Elvaan for my new character. I took this guide to heart, and decided I'd do my very best to make as good of an Elvaan Red Mage as I could. My only problem is that my melee is HORRIBLE, but I do it anyways, but lately everyone has started complaining to me about it, especially my friends. I took the guide to heart about RDMs should always melee, but none of my friends in my LS agree with me.

I'm at a major disadvantage to them all, since I cannot say anything to them to change their minds. The major arguements on why any Red Mage, not only me as an Elvaan, shouldn't melee is that even though they're adding damage, they're also gaining aggro so they take damage, forcing the main healer to heal me, or forcing myself to waste MP on myself. If I bring up using a fast dagger (Platoon Dagger) with en-spells, they say I'm wasting MP on myself for an enhancement that only lasts 3 minutes and won't do sufficient damage. If I say that added damage is still added damage, they tell me that added damage is also added TP so the mob can kill the tank faster.

I've thought it over, and I've decided that melee really isn't worth it due to all this, but I still believe you said it is for a reason. So, please, explain to me what is so worthwhile about a red mage's melee abilities.

Edit: I'd like to also add that a friend of mine (fifty somethign WAR) says that all RDMs he parties with never melee at higher levels. I use your arguement, that they're too cheap to buy good swords and too lazy to keep their skills at or right next to cap, but he says that even RDMs get in skill-up parties while looking for genkei items, so even they have capped melee skills. He's even made a topic at gamefaqs, and after 15+ replies, not a single person has been Pro-RDM Meleeing, one has even said he boots RDMs from his parties that melee.

Edited, Tue Aug 24 00:28:38 2004 by Kratona

oops... double posted somehow

Edited, Wed Aug 25 17:40:47 2004 by EmeraldZT