Why take a Red Mage?

Black Belts OWN.

Actually, that's a pretty decent party. Red Mages are like gods early in the game, and then lose steam later on...right when the black belts, who suck a mountain of bum the size of the Death Star early in the game, start to come into their own as the most abundantly damage-dealing powerhouses in the world.

But such a party has no tanks. Sure a black belt deals a bit more damage than a fighter...depending on the level of the characters and what weapons the fighter has found. But the fighter has better armor, has more hps (for most of the game at least...I think the BB has more hps at levels past 35), and can do some healing after class change. He is a little behind in the damage department, but not by much.

So if you are looking at damage dealt only, then yes, black belts do the most damage and, as you put it, "OWN." If you are looking at the best addition to the party, the fighter is only slightly behind in terms of damage dealing and way ahead in all other categories.

1 fighter, 2 black belts and 1 red mage = best party ever. Give your red mage the masamune, and now everyone in your party can deal huge amounts of damage, you have your tank in the fighter, and your 2 black belts will get decent defense towards the end of the game. Also you can take advantage of the black belt absorb bug, and give your black belts ribbons and prorings and still have their absorb=their level. Oh and the red mage has his magic when needed. Good stuff.

Statistically the RM is the third-best character, the FT and BB being first and second respectively. Ninja only has a slight defensive advantage over RW and the BM and WM are useless at normal levels as they have low amounts of useful spells.

Well Red mages. are very usefull at low levels.. you could replace a white mage with them at the beginning of the game.. They can use Swords they have higher defense than white mages and can use black magic..

later on in the game replace him/her with a white mage as he'she become useless..

you cant replace members in FF1

That's true.

Red Mages are great for many things. If you want only one magic user in your party, a Red Mage would be the obvious choice (though a White Mage is also good, you'll just have to run from some things). If you have no Fighters in your party (I'm not too fond of them), a Red Mage is a good front row man. If you like hacking and slashing more than tediously casting spells, Red Mages are the only Mages with decent swords.

They also have very cool hats...

Considering there are only 3-4 good (and consistently useful) spells to get for any given level, sometimes less, the Red Mage is like, >>> Black Mage. I even have Life2 and Nuke (I'm not quite sure how) on my Red Mage in a recent game I did, so the Black Mage has 0 advantage.
I won't go about comparing Red Mage and Thief, they both have their uses.

Yeah, the Red Mages are very useful. I love to use them alot, especially since I love the thieves! :skull: I think that they are very good! They save you some space for a different party member, like I use a Warrior, a theif, Red Mage, and a Monk. :skull: