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you put up good points there. I'm a RDM and i DO know how to do my job unlike most RDM's. It's a pain in the a** to level but I make up for that will all the fun I have outside exp parties. Yes a RDM MUST have a refresh order going. It should start with him/herself. So when their refresh wears they will know when to start the refreshing again. 2nd to be refreshed should be the PLD due to low MP count. 3rd should be the WHM since he/she keeps everyone alive. Next comes the BLM with all the nuking they do. Last but no least is DRK. Resfresh the DRK as needed. If the DRK doesnt use their MP dont waste a refresh on them. If they do use their MP the DONT forget to refresh them. As for nukes I agree. RDM CANNOT nuke as well as a blm. I do throw in an ocossional nuke or 2 during a battle (if time/MP allows it). But I dont spam them. And yes RDM should MB when possible. a RDM MB nuke can still do some decent damage. (last night i did 316 DMG on a Blizzard II MB). Yes a RDM should throw in cures as needed. expecially when health getting on the low side. (if anything i'd say this is where my weak point is ><) and as for a curaga, sometimes it can help out after a battle. expecially when WHM MP is very low. but don't cast curaga during a battle, just a HUGE was of 60ish MP. RDM have the lowest MP count of the 4 mage jobs. Yet ironicly they have the most jobs to do, lol. Now for the melee topic. lv 1-50 will be the levels to melee if you want. 1-40 you have no refresh to worry about so it isnt that hard to melee. But like you said CAST an En- spell. lv 41-50 it get tricky. You CAN afford to slack on your new duties to keep people refreshed. If you can fit in time to melee you can buy your most likly be busy casting. lv 51+ meleeing I do not see as possible if you want to be a good RDM. lv 51 you can finnaly use the ele staves. these staves can really help you spells. and since RDM has no staff skill DMG is nothing making meee out of the question. even if you switch to a sword ud just lose your TP when you switch back to staves. you need a dark staff for resting. A Light staff is very helpfull for the ocossion heals. Also a light staff will help you heal more HP after a convert (cure potency +10% i believe is the stat on the light staff, might be a lil wrong on that). Then you need the Ice, earth, Wind, and Water staves. Each staff element to its corrosponding enfeeb spell. Earth staff to Slow, Ice staff to paralyze, etc. I've been told by many souces that the ele stave will help you enfeeb stick more. So if your enfeeb stick faster you can spend less MP recasting those spells over and over till they stick. Which brings me to my next point, ALLWAY cast enfeeble magic. you will allways be using it because its the RDM's job to enfeeb the monster. As for equiptment, yes you need armor with proper stats. The level of the equiptment isnt as important, as long as the stats are good. I keep both my MND and INT boosted. (im currently at INT+7 and MND+10). This is my opinion on RDM and i've gotten no complaints on me doing bad at my job. I may still have a few flaws to work out but I though to at least speak out my mind.

I just recently started playing with a red mage...sounds hard

RDM is my mainn. And alot of peopole have complamented me on how I work. Others have helped me out, others...well...not very nice.

One of the ones that wasn't nice was this. They wanted me to do all this (I am 53 mind out)

Keep Refresh on PLd, Myself, blm, blm. (I did relatively well, it was off one of them (mainly blm) for 30 seconds to a minute at MOST)
Main healer.
Enfeeble
Magic Burst,
Nuke when not doing anything else.

ok I only have 501 MP, so it was hard to do all that. After doing good for one pt (even with Dark Staff) I rested and got back up with only 200 MP After about 3 more battles I said i was going to go cause I couldn't do all of that. it is impossible to keep everyone healed, refreshed, and the mob enfeebeled, if the blms aren't going to back up heal, or enfeeble some so I don't have too and can do my other jobs. They then got an attitude and kicked me, getting another RDM, I sent him a tell and told him its gonna be tough, he said they were asking too much and left. So they disband. Still not vvery nice people ><

i dont MIND red mages
but i do DISPISE their af
its so BLAH and on asura its far to common!
people these days thing rdm is an easy job that will get u to high level fast.


i just hit lvl 25brd today so im BRD25/WHM12 and i gotta get bard to 60 so i can do avatar fights ;_; because i am UNABLE to solo the avatars ;_;
only another 35 levels to go... crying

lol i am a blm myself and i heard 98%(well people say that) are stupid cuz they over nuke and get hit a ton heh i try to not take hate as it gets confusion. i always start out with shock and such with what the monster does the most(melee dmg i use rasp etc and magic dmg i use shock) but yes if they can't stop from nuking too much and taking aggro they aren't a good blm because they should learn by now that nuking over a period of time is safer for themselves and for the party because the whm doesnt have to spend his/her mp on the blm who overnukes and the tanks don't have to provoke so often when other needs the provoke(you know maybe sata viper bite etc) so a blm that doesbt know how to nuke over a period of time isnt useful

as for whm i played whm also if you there waiting for red hp well you obviously can pay attetion to healing(i know some people dont have mp to heal at some cases) when i play my whm i make sure that if someone is on yellow health i heal them cuz i dont want to wait for red health and risk one of my party members either yelling at me or wanting to leave the pt cuz the whm sucks. another reason i heal when the hp is yellow is because some of the monsters do a ton of dmg and when you go to quicksand caves and you fight those ants that do AM your tank is bound to get hurt so why not cure them before they reach orange or red

ok i never tried rdm before but i can already tell it is hard work because of healing and refreshing... but as a rdm at level 40+ i would mainly refresh enfeeble and heal in case the whm(most likely there should be a whm in the party if your crazy enough to depend on a rdm alone) doesnt have mp to heal. i would refresh in order of whm blm pld and others that need it(o yea and myself :p) its a tough job because rdm get yelled at seriously when they are waiting for refresh to come back people are like {refresh} {can i have it} so it gets annoying at times. and if your not going to refresh the pld things will be tough... same with the whm as the cure spells are a little bit stronger then rdm, without refreshing the blm the slower the battle(same thing if the blm cant nuke over time then there just over using there mp)

anyways if i were to rate how hard each of the 3 mage classes from hardest to easiest i would say rdm is hard(enfeeble, heal, and refresh crazy because most pt members want them ^^ so thats a lot compared to whm and blm) whm is average(look at party members hp to make sure to heal, for me heal party members when they have yellow health) and blm is easy(dont need to be depended on healing unless whm needs help.learn how to nuke over time because the tank doesnt have to provoke off you every single time!, have blink on in cases you do overnuke)

i would say rdm is hard ^^ even though i dont play it i love rdm mages until maybe 55 or so because now bard and rdm really battle each other for refreshing(no offense to bards but when rdm gets refresh i like it compared to bard until 55)

o yes one more thing... i know this mithra in my server that is a rdm that tanksO O she knows how to also^^ she was use phalanx and such i think she has war sub because itll be hard without but i heard she is a great rdm tank on bahamut... not sure if she still plays though

I love the RDM, however, I find that RDM is a piece of crap when you first get it, mainly because you start with the goddam dagger, which does nothing. RDMs with swords are okay, but you don't get all the sword skills which is a major bummer, so it's best to start with WAR, and than change to RDM, and than do the whole BLM thing, all the while working for the ever important job of either SMN or NIN, as RDM/NIN are awesome if used corectly.

no duh XD

rdm/nin owns
brd/nin owns
melee jobs/nin owns

blm or whm/smn is good

smn/blm, rdm or whm is only way to do it XD