Red Mage vs White and Black in your party

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

I was just reading through an old article I wrote about Red Mages (http://home.eyesonff.com/content.php/2359-A-brief-history-of-Red-Mages!?styleid=128).

Would you rather have a Black Mage and White Mage in your party, or a lone Red Mage to cover all bases?

Red Mages have different strengths depending on the game you're playing, so let's say for the sake of argument that you're playing a game where the Red Mage only learns mid level spells.

Would you rather have strong black and white magic users or one Red Mage in your party who is just okay at both in order to free up a party slot?

[Wolf Kanno]

There are just too many factors at play here, not especially helped by the fact that the Red Mage has never been one of the series consistent classes, so depending on which version we're going by, you can get some fairly different opinions. I mean mid-tier spells means FFI, III, V, and XII's versions of the class to me, but only one of them is really god-tier and only in a specific version. A bigger factor is really what other classes would be available to choose from. If there is a good variety of classes, then I may go with the Red Mage but if not, I tend to bench them. Likewise, if the game has a sub-job system, then RM tends to be SOL since their main strength disappears and RM is traditionally a poor class to use with a subjob system due to their stats always being middling.

The biggest issue with Red Mage has always been the fact that while they make the early game a breeze, they become more of a liability by end game since they have a more difficult time pulling their weight by then.

[Lord Golbez]

I've never been a huge fan of Red Mages. I prefer a master of one area over a jack of all trades. I want the diversity of abilities to be in the party not one member to the detriment of having any character master white or black magic. If I use a Red Mage it would be in the place of a second fighter or black belt, not to replace the black mage or white mage.