Red Mage

[Del Murder]

I'm not sure I understand the Red Mage job. I thought they were supposed to be healers, at least when the party didn't have a White Mage. You know, sit back, away from the fight, and just heal. Except the difference with a RDM was that they could cast some other offensive spells between heals. I've played with 3 or 4 red mages (level 15-30) and they always enganged against the enemy, cast debuffs occasionally, and only healed in dire circumstances. As a paladin or warrior this annoyed me. I was main healing myself which even though I'm a Taru I shouldn't have to do. Is this their normal role or did I just get stuck with a bad crop? I've also seen at least two RDM/WAR which also baffles me.

[Rostum]

I notice early on in levels that red mages love to engage in combat, rather then do what their job excells in. Later on you'll find they end up in the back row healing / refreshing / enfeebling / debuffing and sometimes nuking.

They are a very busy job, they must dispel mobs, enfeeble them and refresh all the mages in the party (That can be a pain, you have to keep up a consistent cycle, and it sucks the more mages you have). So yeah, a very busy job -- but you wouldn't think so during the lower levels. It'd be nice if they could just keep up with main healing and debuffing.

RDM/WAR is probably good from levels 1-10, but I'd rather it sub WHM.

[Miriel]

The term is tossed around a lot when referring to Red Mages, but that's mostly cause it's true. A Red Mage is the Jack of all trades in VanaD'iel. They can heal, they can nuke, they can attack, and they can buff/enfeeble.

Out of all these things, a RDM's specialty is enfeebling. No other class in the game can enfeeble as well as a Red Mage can. RDMs can't heal as well as WHMs, can't nuke as well as BLMs, can't attack as well as other melee classes, but enfeebling is their thing. Later on Refresh and Dispel become a huge part of what a RDM is all about.

If you have a RDM in your party and no other healer, then they really should be the main healer. And while acting as main healer, they should not be meleeing. At all. Not even a little bit.

In the early levels a RDM/WHM's main duties should be first enfeebling, backup healing, nuking and then if they have time, meleeing. Later levels dispel and refresh will be the main priority for most RDMs.

I'm sure Ouch! or some other high level RDM can give you a more detailed answer.

[Ouch!]

As far as I'm concerned, a RDM shouldn't be engaging in combat at even lower levels. While that may be what SE had intended when they created RDM, in a party situation, a RDM is rarely geared towards melee battling. Of course there's always circumstances where it may be permissable, but it's safe to adopt the policy of not allowing your party's RDM to melee in an exp. party.

As others have mentioned, RDM excels in enfeebling spells, moreso than any other job. Enfeebling the mob right off the bat has always been my priority at the beginning of any battle. That should be your RDM's first concern. Later there's dispel, which is used as needed and pretty self explanitory. At level 41 RDM become responsible for refreshing the other casters. This can become quite a pain, and it only gets more annoying at level 48 when RDM learns haste.

A RDM's role in the party is entirely dependent on what other mage classes are present in the party. More often than not, I end up being the main healer in place of a WHM, or perhaps I split the responsibilites of healing with a SMN or another RDM. On some rare occasions I've substituted for a BLM, but those are, as I said, rare occasions.

As Miriel pointed out, RDM are consider the Jack of All Trades (take a look at my new custom title; it's there for a reason) because of this flexibility. I find that RDM works at its full potential with both a BLM and a WHM present in the party, more specifically post-refresh. This allows a RDM to focus on enfeebling and maintaining the refresh/haste cycle while throwing in necessary bursts and heals. What people need to be most wary of is stretching their RDM to thin. There are many who seek to abuse RDM by making them do all of these jobs at once.

That's it in a nutshell without going into the pros and cons of the various subjobs that RDM can use. There's a lot more once you get into that.

[Vincentsinnerdemon]

I've found that post-Valkurm Dunes very few RDM melee the only reason i can think of is the fact of how many n00bs there are in Valkurm as compared to Qufim Island and the Elshimo Low/Highlands.

Today I was in a party in Eastern Altepa Desert and I did encounter a RDM that melee'd the mobs but that was the 1st I've seen in 4-5 weeks maybe. Maybe I'm just lucky and run into good RDMs that know they're not supposed to melee but I havnt before today in a long while.

[Markus. D]

Enfeebleishious.

[Roogle]

The role of a Red Mage changes over the course of the FINAL FANTASY XI experience. I think that, at your level, Red Mages can fill in any gap in the party that they want to, but I'm sure that if you or the party leader tell them that you have a desired role for them, they will listen.

[ScottNUMBERS]

If the mob doesn't AoE I don't see why a Red Mage shouldn't melee, sinse many do not approve of Red Mages meleeing I don't tell them or expect them to, nor would I melee as a Red Mage. Perhaps someone can explain why Red Mages don't melee, if there is no AoE I don't understand why not.

I never get a Red Mage to main heal (Unless there's two of them), they don't have very much MP and they learn spells that might be required (Cure II in the dunes for example) later than you may need them. Of course it is possible for a Red Mage to main heal in some cases, but it's not a task I like to entrust to them. Early on I expect Red Mages to fulfil a missing role (No Black Mage = Red Mage can nuke). Later on (Level 41) it's just Refresh, Refresh, Refresh.

I'd say that was a Bad crop, even though I don't understand why Red Mages don't melee, any Red Mage that does melee I should imagine are new to the game and haven't learnt exactly what is expected of them. Another thing is that if they were expected to main heal they shouldn't be wasting their spells on nukes. The best thing to do with them is take them under your wing and tell them what they should be doing, it will not only benefit that party, but it will be good for future parties that he/she joins. Some idiots like to give them abuse about how they're not doing their Job correctly, this just triggers a bad reaction. If the party is full of these people that don't know what they're doing or if any of them are too ignorant to listen, just run. Run far, far away. Also, you should never be expected to main heal as a Paladin, although it's possible to in some cases.

[Yeargdribble]

Below are a handful of reasons RDM shouldn't melee, especially at later levels.

1) Every hit that a melee lands feeds the mob TP. This causes the mob do do extra strong TP moves. If you are hitting the mob for 2-5 damage while everyone else is hitting for 15-30 damage all you are doing is feeding the mob TP while not really doing enough damage. In XP, even with enspells, you can't really do enough damage to justify the TP you are giving the mob.

2) If you want your melee to begin to even approach sub-par you'll need to use gear that will help with that (STR, Atk, Acc). If you are focusing your gear on these things you aren't focusing on MND, INT and MP. You can't really get away with macroing the gear around either and the cost is beyond the reward. Most people aren't going to spend extra time to make money for a melee set and an enfeeble set.

3) By the time you can use elemental staves you have no excuse to melee. You should be macroing your staves (and other gears) to help you land enfeebles, as this is your primary job next to Refreshing and Dispelling. RDM has no natural staff skill so you won't be able to hit anything with your staves really and even if you did you'd be macroing different ones in so regularly that you wouldn't be able to keep TP for yourself which makes your damage even more pointless.

4) There simply isn't time, as you level higher, to do anything but your job. You need to be enfeebling, keeping up a refresh cycle, dispelling as the mob buffs itself, sleeping links when the PT gets them, and throwing out back up or main cures. I don't care how good some people think they are at RDM but the truth is, you can't find time to melee while trying to juggle all of the things that your job needs to juggle, regardless of the fact that your melee is crap at best.

[ScottNUMBERS]

I supose that makes sense, thanks for clearing that up.

[coll]

Being a Red mage I always ask what they want me to do, last night i was in 2 partys, the first I was asked to heal as their was 3 rdms and no whm's

Where as the second party I was asked to cast offensive spells as we had 2 whm's and 3 war's. In this party even if I had run out of MP I didn't attack I just ate a cookie and healed my self.

I'm no expert on the game but in every party i've been the tank/s should not be healing at all.

The onlt time I attack is when i'm soloing.

[Miriel]

If the mob doesn't AoE I don't see why a Red Mage shouldn't melee, sinse many do not approve of Red Mages meleeing I don't tell them or expect them to, nor would I melee as a Red Mage. Perhaps someone can explain why Red Mages don't melee, if there is no AoE I don't understand why not.

I never get a Red Mage to main heal (Unless there's two of them), they don't have very much MP and they learn spells that might be required (Cure II in the dunes for example) later than you may need them. Of course it is possible for a Red Mage to main heal in some cases, but it's not a task I like to entrust to them. Early on I expect Red Mages to fulfil a missing role (No Black Mage = Red Mage can nuke). Later on (Level 41) it's just Refresh, Refresh, Refresh.

I'd say that was a Bad crop, even though I don't understand why Red Mages don't melee, any Red Mage that does melee I should imagine are new to the game and haven't learnt exactly what is expected of them. Another thing is that if they were expected to main heal they shouldn't be wasting their spells on nukes.

I disagree with a lot of this. RDMs make the best healers in the game outside of WHMs. They're better healers than SMNs for sure and as a SMN, 80% of the time I'm asked to main heal. So in a situation where there isn't a healer in the party, I would absolutely expect the RDM to be main healer. And in a situation where there isn't a BLM, I would expect the RDM to toss out nukes and magic burst occassionally.

RDMs get Cure II just three levels after white mage (14 instead of 11) and that's 8 levels before SMNs. They're perfectly able to be main healers although, granted, they will never be as good as WHMs.

[ScottNUMBERS]

I weren't saying Red Mages can't main heal, I very often have in the past got Red Mages to main heal, my point was that I don't like them to main heal because they screw up from my experiences. I know they're are definately Red Mages that can heal, perhaps in some case better than some White Mages can.

[Fuego]

Well i have a lvl 52 rdm ... and i have actually been asked to "jump on in" and start hacking into the mob with my weapon . I really don't mind because everytime i join a party i make it painfully clear what i will and will not be doing (only because sometimes people get confused on who is doing what ... turns into drama and we loose precious killing time) . i don't think its a noobish thing to do (well if you have a 41 + Rdm and still try to melee even though nobody asked you to (or you shirk your rdm duties to melee) then i have to ask how the hell you got to that lvl) .
At any rate, if i am not main healing or nuking i would be willing throw up stone skin , phlanx and/or blink , refresh , haste , and en-something ... its not that much more difficult to refresh the party from there also its (for me) easier to see the mob cast buffs on themself so i can dispel (because when i usualy play i have to keep the sound off, and sometimes the words go by way too fast >.< ) . Either way its up to the leader of the pt and somehow it works out ... so i don't throw stones at my taru house of glass :D

[Yeargdribble]

A big reason not to melee, that coll mentioned and I forgot, was that any time you actually would have enough time to melee you should probably be resting. If your MP is fine then you should be doing something else like nuking (which even though nowhere near the power of a BLM your nukes will still outperform your melee). Honestly, I can't even see a good excuse to bring a sword into an XP PT. Staves are where it is at 51+.

[Lionx]

Actually if you know your monsters weakness at lower levels lvl 20-30, you can do terrific damage to monsters with en-spells since even if you do 0 dmg, you will do at least 20 some points of damage per swing of en-spells with high enough enhancing magic. En-spells do not give TP to the monster. At lvl 10-20 i dont find RDM meleeing to be that big a deal unless they refuse to rest or manage their MP well, and granted /WAR, RDM can tank at certain levels or even main tank in dunes like a PLD of some sort. But its not expected.

[Yeargdribble]

I guess my think with RDM melee, even at low levels, is that it lacks efficiency. To make the melee truly efficient you would have to absolutely be hitting for 0 (to avoid TP feed) and make your enspells do the work. I doubt any RDM wants to use an Onion Sword in XP to make sure this happens. But all in all, RDM will be able to do more damage with their nukes than with their melee. If they find themselves bored at early levels they would do more good either resting or nuking.

And while I can agree that the game is meant to be fun, you will only run into trouble if you get into the habit of consistenly meleeing. Eventually you will end up having people telling you to GTFO if you melee.

[Lionx]

I forget i think Grendel of Gilglamesh who is very respected said he was just a little below most Melee DD with en-spells from 20-30 or some respected RDM...but i dont mind them meleeing at those levels anyway if they manage MP good.