Red Mage Help

[souleman]

I can't find damage charts for Bio III, but with RDMs lousy Dark Magic skill, what is the best way to jack it up for Bio II?

Crimson Finger Gauntlets, Merciful Cape, Abyssal earring, Dark torque/earring

Glamor Jupon

[Gaborn]

"Extra" MP? Please elaborate a little.

[chapstick]

By bumping up your HP/MP for Convert to above your normal casting MP, that extra mp you get after a convert due to the gear changes is used towards curing yourself back up, so when you go back to normal casting gear you have full~ish MP.

[rrynn]

put on your enfeebling/nuking gear, look at your mp pool. any mp you have otherwise, i call "extra" mp. because it's mp i gain when i convert, and loose when i cast something that i want mnd/int/skill on for.

for example, my convert gear on rdm/whm has me just over 1k mp. where as my casting gear is something like 800 (would have to go put it on to tell you exactly).

chapstick, i'm camping this bc i'm bored waiting for mp soloing blm, what's your excuse?

[chapstick]

king arthro wanted to pop last minute, RMT claimed and took the full 20 minutes... and I like talking about RDM. ._.

[Seditedi]

Btw, for jacking up dark skill for Bio II, you only need +11 skill to hit the next tier from RDM cap.
After that it jumps up to 7/tick at like 269, which RDM can't hit.

[Gaborn]

I appreciate the forum camping guys, the information so far has been really helpful. From what everyone has said so far in regards to magic skills vs INT and MND, the skill of the magic is comparable to the accuracy of the spell, or chance of resists; the INT and MND come into play enhancing the effects of the spell itself. So for HNMs and other high level things you'd want to load up on skill+ to avoid resists. In any other situation work on raising raw stats to maximize the spells effect.

[rrynn]

except, if you have multiple rdms at an HNM. you all want to load up on mnd for slowII/paraII anyway...one of you will manage to not get resisted. perhaps cast slow1/para1 in skill gear to get *something* on the mob from the get go.

slowII/paraII will overwrite the teir 1s, but, you want the most potent (ie most mnd behind it) slowII/paraII possible on the mob.

for example, in my limbus/salvage group, both myself and another rdm have slow II/para II. (each of us has 1 maxed and the other at lv 2, opposite ones actually). we'll start with slow/para in skill gear. then he'll try to land a maxed mnd slow II, and recast it on when it wears. and i'll try to land a maxed mnd para II, and recast when it wears. if one of us is having a crappy resist day, we communicate with each other, and the other takes over. (both also have 1 lv of phalanx II for pinches, but another rdm in our group has it maxed. teamwork > all rly)

that is also why no one can really tell you the "best" things for teir II merits btw. bc it really depends on a) what endgame you are planning on doing w your rdm and b) what the other rdms in your shell have merited.

[Osede]

I appreciate the forum camping guys, the information so far has been really helpful. From what everyone has said so far in regards to magic skills vs INT and MND, the skill of the magic is comparable to the accuracy of the spell, or chance of resists; the INT and MND come into play enhancing the effects of the spell itself. So for HNMs and other high level things you'd want to load up on skill+ to avoid resists. In any other situation work on raising raw stats to maximize the spells effect.

INT and MND does give Macc for the spell respectively. You can try to dig the thread deeper in this Newbie section. There is a thread discussed about this before.

The appealing part of this job is it's ability to serve any role, but I would like to toy around with rdm tanking and soloing most.

I have read about this part. If I'm not mistake that you want to play rdm as a tank or soloing sometimes. Then you don't need to put any G2 merit on phalanx2. Instead, try to cap out slow2. Group 2 spells are more useful when they capped. And bio3 will be the best spell for rdm solo. But it still depends on how you want the solo style, nuke sleep kite? or DD it. Different play style you might consider where put 3 points on bio3 or 1 points on it.

My rdm merit for group 2 is
para2 - 3point
slow2 - 2point
phalanx2 - 1point

My rdm is more like the support mule for my nin char. Plan to took of phalanx2 to cap slow2 if I ever go to cap my staff and scythe skill. Para2 is very nice when doing nyzul for fighting the fafnir and aspi. In both case para2 does proc alots, and also for ultima fight. Althought para2 usually wear off in 10secs for ultima

For the choices of weapon and equip when casting enfeebling. Try the full MND before using any staff/enfee skill/Macc equip. Since that I don't do any ground kings or hnm beside nyzul/dynamis/limbus. Most of the time the the situation just either you can land it in full MND equip, or you just won't able to land at all with full skill.

[Tsukasaz]

Btw, for jacking up dark skill for Bio II, you only need +11 skill to hit the next tier from RDM cap.
After that it jumps up to 7/tick at like 269, which RDM can't hit.

Technically, a RDM could get 270 on darksday (lol) if they were anal and had a Diabolos' Ring, Blood Finger Gauntlets, etc. But... way too much gear for me to carry.

My RDM specific merits are:
Convert-5
Ice-3
Wind-2 (Or 2 Ice 3 Wind, I don't remember, not on game now)

Slow II-3
Paralyze II-1
Phalanx II-1
Dia III-1

Dia III because I used to merit a lot but now it's just for random stupid crap when I feel like spending 15 more MP to cast it...

[Gaborn]

Noticed something doing research today:
Phalanx caps at 23 with no merits and max skill.
Phalanx II caps around the 20-23 range depending on gear.

So for solo and RDM tanking, Phalanx is better than Phalanx II. This would also mean that the only reason to have Phalanx II over Phalanx would be because it can target another player? If this is the case than it seems like it would be silly to merit Phalanx II at all for my style of play, and because of other RDMs in my shell ahving Phalanx II already. Therefore would it be fair to say that the best Tier II merit solution would be for me to max out Slow II and Paralyze II for the best enfeebles?

[Tomiko]

If you have no plans of being in the tank party (except as a tank), then there's no point of meriting Phalanx 2.

Slow 2 and Para 2 would be the most helpful in your situation (Soloing and tanking).

[Kyreth]

Right. Phalanx II is designed to be used as a buff on others, not yourself.

And I'm of the opinion that if you don't max it, don't bother. P2's ability to reduce damage improves at 2 and 3 meritings- to the point that my Dynamis tanks <3 me when I toss a full-power P2 at them. I'm Slow II x3, Phalanx II x3. Two of the other RDM's in my LS are Para II maxed + whatever.

If you're soloing, take those three spell merits and aim them towards something else- but I suggest focusing. IMHO, most RDM merited spells save Dia III (fine at x1) and Bio III (which at best matches BLM Bio II DoT with our lower skill, but /SCH may change this...) are best done to maximum meritage or not done at all. Paralyze II may be a bit wonkier, but when it works, it works very, very well. Slow II x3, Para II x3 for you perhaps? Blind II is effective, but more so for helping someone evasion tank and ninjas can drop a blind debuff effectively as well.

For the lower merits- Ice and Wind are the biggies, followed by Earth (Slow II sticks amazingly well when fully merited) IMHO.

[Zoot]

I didn't see this mentioned so I'm going to throw it out there, capped Phalanx II can be really useful for salvage. Especially if you play the trick where you have someone in -physical damage gear hold a group of mobs while you pick them off.

Also useful for spikes that can't be dispelled in sea and a plethora of other situations that you'll probably run into if you play RDM alot.

I went all out tank party merits and Have capped Slow II and Phalanx II, which I don't regret. I sometimes regret meriting into Earth accuracy because we don't do alot of wyrms or kings anymore, and I'd really like ice accuracy for Bind when soloing (less things seem to resist bind over time than they do gravity).

[Gaborn]

Ice Wind and Earth Accuracy Merits seem to be the most commonly discussed so far. Which elements affect which enfeebling spells exactly? The colors of the spells are a bit difficult for me as I am colorblind, so I never really bothered trying to decipher them. I need to have things written out in text for me to understand them.

[Kyreth]

The biggies- Ice is Paralyze and Bind, Wind Silence and Gravity, Earth Slow. Blind is Dark-element (but Enfeebling magic), as is Sleep/Sleepga/Sleep II.

Ice merits are popular because they also back up our best nuke- Blizzard III + Ice staff (for the extra elemental skill and the usual 10%/15% for HQ boost), serve to add a bit more bite to Paralyze and Bind, and they're nice with Ice Spikes too.

Wind because when you have to have a mob STFU, you really want it to STFU before that Thundaga III incinerates the party. Or you. Or both.

Earth is for folks who don't merit Slow II enough/at all, IMHO. It does help Slow I stick as well, and that's enough for some people.

I do suggest going 5/5 Convert though. Nothing better than a steady HP into MP cycle when you're casting constantly.

[rrynn]

for my group one merits, i went: convert 4, wind 3, ice 3.

at one point i actually had 5/5 wind 5/5 convert tho. silence and sleep are, imho, 2 of the most important spells in terms of having them STICK. either one, a missed cast can mean a dead you/whiped party (hello thundaga III /sigh). since we cannot merit dark acc (bastards) i stacked the hell out of wind.

bind has a longer recast time then silence tho, and solo bind not sticking will kill me just as often/easily, so i went back and rearranged a bit and am very glad i did.

aparently earth acc is very nice for sticking slow 1 with extra mnd behind it, and i did toy around with thunder acc briefly to put more int/less skill into my thunder III's, but overall ice and wind just seem more useful to me. i would go 5/5 in each but i am wayyyyyy too used to having a shorter convert cycle to try to go back to a full 10 mins.

[Gaborn]

That was another thing that I had noticed. Why is Blizzard III the preferred nuke over Thunder III even though the Thunder III is the final level 75 spell?

[Obev]

Ice accuracy merits and more INT/skill from Aquilo's over Jupiter's mean that it's less likely to be resisted.

[rrynn]

thunder III still has the *potential* to do more damage then blizzard III, but because of the above mentioned 10 skill on ice/aquilo's staff blizzard III will tend to do more consistant damage due to less resists.

sometimes i macro duelist's tights in for thunder III, vs mahatma slops for blizzard III, to make up a bit for the difference in resists. this does sacrafice some of thunder's potential damage, but if i am trying to kill something with a lot of HP having several resisted/half resisted nukes will slow me down a lot more then loosing approximately 20-30 damamge off the top of each unresisted one. (sorry, early in the morning, my brain is not awake enough to pull out the actual damage formula for the difference)