The Lone Red Mage at Mamool Ja Staging PointFollow

OK, I know Bismarck has lots of good red mages among it's residents, so I am sure at least some of you can relate to this.

As a meripo warrior, I am all too familiar with TP burn parties and the simple "target and kill" method of obtaining merit points. But, because I am also a meripo red mage, even as warrior, I do not forget how much more work it is for the red mage in a meripo party.

Contrary to belief, the meripo red mage is not an endless supply of healing, and hasting, mp. It does run out, often, between converts, even with a bard in the party. It's much better with a bard and a corsair, but that is not always possible. And it is dependant on the bards and the corsair's attention to ballad and evokers roll.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have had about 3-4 parties as the only mage in the party and only a bard or two for ballad. All of these parties were at the Mamool Ja Staging Point. In these particular parties, ballad was slow in coming (even with 2 bards) and my mp was drained rather quickly throwing out cures on disorganized, over-zealous, and careless dd's (no actual tanks). Also on over-zealous bards, pulling non-stop (as if pulling Colibri), even when my mp was low (between converts) as was the hp of the dd's. At the same time, the dd's are screaming for haste. No problem, if they want haste instead of a much needed cure, then haste is what they get. Deaths occured, but that goes without saying.

Just a note here: I get a rhythm going on the hastes and refreshes. There is a fair recast time on both, so it is easy enough to keep a good and well organized party hasted and myself refreshed, even in a party with four dd's, one bard, and myself. And plenty of mp and time for cures, to boot. My rhythm is, start with myself, refresh, then a haste, and alternate (if there are others needing refresh, such as brd/whm or a drk) between the two ... otherwise, just do the hastes as the recast timer allows. Haste lasts a little longer than refresh, so I know when my refresh runs out, the hastes are soon to follow and I start the cycle over again. In an organized party, haste never really, or rarely, wears off of the dd's.

So, the purpose of this post is this ... and I am not mentioning the names of those who have been so quick to blame the lone red mage (me) for their own failures and disorganization and deaths. I probably should, some may, if they were in my shoes, but I won't. I am not out to get revenge on anyone, I just want all of you to realize that, while meripo for the dd's is so easy ... target, kill, target another, and so on ... life as a meripo red mage is not so easy. It's very busy and when the bards over pull and the dd's are disorganized and careless, no amount of healing and hasting from a lone mage is going to be enough to make the party a success.

Last night I was actually kicked from a party after multiple deaths by dd's. In other words, they, without a word, blamed me for the deaths. They were disorganized, running rampant at mamool ja staging point and expected me to keep them hasted and alive. I, myself, nearly died several times. There were 2 bards, and the one pulling, pulled wrecklessly and I spent as much mp keeping him alive as I did any of the dd's. The bard giving me ballad, only gave me one ballad and did not keep it up continuously. Wyverns have a nasty habit called "Fang Rush" and it can take a dd at full hp down to 0 in an instant. That is not the fault of the red mage. Mamool Ja's "Fire Spit" can also do hefty damage. A Philosiphers -aga spells can can take a whole party's hp down significantly and they are resistant to silence. (A little note: for this party, I was the replacement for their healer, presumably a rdm. When I got there, there were two well geared 75 WHM's present, who appeared to be PL'ing (O.o), once we got started after my arrival. After I was kicked and replaced, the party soon disbanded altogether.)

The key to a successful party at Mamool Ja, imho, is to remember that these are NOT colibri. It requires a different strategy. I have had many, many successful parties at that staging point ... even as the only healer ... but the parties have always been well formed and organized ... and FUN!

Please, people, don't blame the red mage when things go wrong due to such difficult party behavior. Yea, I know there are some crappy red mages, just like there are crappy dd's, but that wasn't the situation over the past couple of weeks.

this is why i haven't meripo'd since WotG. the only time a dd thinks about mages is when they fail.

Its even worse when they make a 5 melee + 1 rdm pt...and then half of them are drk/war, drg/war, mnk/war, etc.

Then they try to make you out to be the bad guy when you drop pt before heading to camp.

At 40, 50, ... 75??? O.o

I still haven't figured out why that party needed me when they had TWO well-geared, level 75 WHITE MAGES on hand. The only reasonable answer I can come up with is they knew they were prone to death, so they wanted the whm's on hand for R3's and additional buffs. BUT!!! Why not just have one in the party to start with? Why invite me after their previous healer left? And why, I have to wonder, did the previous healer leave? lol

But, yea, the colibri mentality has all but ruined partying at higher levels. No one knows how to do skillchains and magic bursts any more, nor do they know how to put together a balanced party that works.

I did, a couple of months back, get party where I was the only healer and no bard or corsair. Just me and 5 melees. One melee stood up for me and told the party he was dropping and to get a bard or corsair, because, and I quote ... "That is going to be one over-worked red mage!". I can't remember his name now, but he knows who he is and to him I say, "Thank You!".

I have PL'd parties, up through Garlaige Citadel (which is where I draw the line at PL'ing). I don't mind doing it, if I don't have anything else that I want or need to do. But, one thing third party PL's need to remember is, over-healing the party leaves the party's healer with nothing to do except enfeeble/nuke. They don't get their much needed healing skilling ups (if this is their first mage job). I just stand back and basically "watch their backs" and cover for the healer when they need mp.

I have also duel-boxed PL'd my parties using my sons account. Same level restriction ... up to Garlaige Citadel only. Beyond that level, PL'ing should not be necessary. A level 75 party with 2 WHM's on the outside is just ridiculous, even if those WHM's are being controlled by members of the party. Not to mention, the WHM's, themselves, become aggro targets. What then? And if death occurs and the party fails, why blame the red mage when two out-of-pocket WHM's were there and still couldn't keep the melee's alive? Of all the parties over the past couple of weeks where I caught the flack for the melees "mistakes", that one party disturbs me the most. The others I just shrug off as cocky players getting themselves killed and needing someone to blame it on.

I for one believe that if a RDM isn't Refreshing, Hasting, Debuffing, Curing AND providing me with a piping hot cup of coffee with just a dollop (not a spoonful) of cream on top while I'm EXPing as WHM, then the RDM is simply 't3h g1mp' and 's0x0rs'.

Especially if it is Kestra.

But he's got whm leveled, so he'll just cast Poisona...you gotta think these things through more thoroughly.

As a semi retired RDM I totally agree with the OP. RDM is an overworked and under-appreciated job, especially in Meripo. Players these days have had their mentalities warped by the oft lamented/hyped/hated Aht Urghan mindset, so much that it even pollutes the lower-mid ranged lvls.

People feel the need to rush thru this game way too much, all for the sake of "Epeen". This game would do better off without this crackhead mentality.

So wait, let me get this straight. You're mad because people are thinking too highly of you and you aren't delivering what they want? Hell do you know how hard it is for any support job besides RDM and BRD to get in a party is? Meeles simply expect too much out of people at endgame, obviously, but they also like to refuse anything else that doesn't have haste. Seriously, I don't think I know anyone who isn't a RDM that actually is allowed in a meripo without the generic setup. I am not blaming any of the RDMs or BRDs at all however, meele DD jobs have just gotten way too pretentious since forever. "I NEED TO GO FAST! PULL 3 AT THE SAME TIME WE CAN TAKE IT! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU RESTING FOR?! WE'RE ON CHAIN #15 DON'T HAVE TIME!".

It's mainly because people have not explored other possible meripo options in forever, and that's pretty much the only setup you can take nowadays in a full party. So I suppose you can help other RDMs boycott meripos until they wise up, or something because things aren't looking too good.

While OP is having MP issues most people are more or less too fixated on keeping buffs up than they are worrying about MP. You have to understand that mages are not walking MP pools. There is also casting time (HOLY CRAP!) and cooldown timers (WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT!) so in order to keep everyone at minimal buffage you have to be constantly casting buffs on one person or another, even if you have full mp. I know a lot of meele who simply start fighting and expect their buffer to go ahead and buff them while they're fighting, well I got news for you, sometimes there's 4 or maybe even 5 other people that need the exact same buff, so you're going to be waiting a while to get that haste or refresh, sorry bub.

Maybe if you would wait until everyone has full buffs and then start the chain, the buffer might not have so much problems keeping buffs up, but nooo, waiting 2~3 minutes isn't worth it now a days, obviously.

Oh, and another thing:



Mages try to keep their MP high. They need high MP in order to maintain cures, buffs and such. Their MP should deteriorate over time, but if you're barely on chain #4 and your mage has around 85% MP, that is perfectly reasonable. Now if it gets in the way of curing and such, ok maybe that's overdoing it, but mages shouldn't have to push their mp to the very limit every battle. It's called "conservation".

here is the true sad part. Every meritpo party I am in, is 5DD 1 RDM they expect me to haste them all keep them cured, while facing lets say mamooks. Well They pull 3 at once and they expect me to have 100% MP all the time. It is a bad idea yet people do it all the time and don't care. No some melees do not understand. Let me explain. My drunk night we were facing imps from nyzul isle. we had the following party set up. NIN, WAR, SAM, RDM, COR, BRD. It was perfect except the COR would not refresh me. His words were "A RDM of this level DOES NOT NEED EVOKERS ROLL BECAUSE HE SHOULD NOT USE MASSIVE MP." That was annoying. lets see so here is my MP usage. hasteX3 40 MP each 120 total. Refresh 40 MP. protect IV on each the melees and the poor bard who keeps pulling her heart out and keeps getting killed pulling between battles- 350 MP. casting and spamming cure III, ,cure IV to keep melees alive with rest of my MP. Now i am a tarutaru so i should be top of the line. 1000 MP goes VERY quickly when there is no stopping. some Melees do understand it and therefore all i feel it is, is that when others are unsupportive of what technically is the sole mage who has the ability to keep a ninja, a samurai or a warrior from death is me. And when I have no MP i do not have the ability to cure. That is where it fails, 21 MP does not give you instant cure IV let alone cure II. If SE would lower the amount of MP to cast a spell maybe it would be different. I am not venting about who is right or who is wrong but I am explaining that this naturally happens and it is not always the lone red mages fault. All i can say is give the lone Red Mage some credit for trying to do his best to keep everyone happy and continue the exp flow to be speedy. =)

Edited, Oct 2nd 2008 1:13pm by Minibuddha