Why are we advertized as fighter-mages when White Mages can out-do us?

[Hyrist]

On a side note, for the love of altana focus on STR/Atk/Acc over Enhancing/En-spell gear. You can put out much higher DoT with melee no matter how much Enhancing/En-spells you try to rack up. En-spells are supposed to be there to support your damage not be your main source of damage.

In the case of Tier1, both are appropriate. As far as gear that enhances enspells. As far as gear that enhances enspell damage, they're often on the weapon itself.

Accompanying Attack Gear with RDM is a tough juggle as you have to balance it with Accuracy Gear and Haste, Haste Trumping everything. What makes Attack more valuable than enspell damage is how plentiful it is.

However the appropriate enspell with the proper gear supporting it will give you equivilant damage boost a great deal more attack than is piratical to equip. Coupled with the fact that it effects our other given buffs, most especially our Gain Spells which will give us a projected +20 in the chosen stat makes Enhancing gear a high priority to have.

That said, attack is most defiantly needed. But +20 Dex can give us that extra 10 Accuracy to take off our gear load to swap out for more attack gear.

It's funny but SE is slowly addressing smaller bits of our Gear Issues through spells and trickling items. But of course that won't be enough on it's own.

[Swords]

In the case of Tier1, both are appropriate. As far as gear that enhances enspells. As far as gear that enhances enspell damage, they're often on the weapon itself.

Accompanying Attack Gear with RDM is a tough juggle as you have to balance it with Accuracy Gear and Haste, Haste Trumping everything. What makes Attack more valuable than enspell damage is how plentiful it is.

However the appropriate enspell with the proper gear supporting it will give you equivilant damage boost a great deal more attack than is piratical to equip. Coupled with the fact that it effects our other given buffs, most especially our Gain Spells which will give us a projected +20 in the chosen stat makes Enhancing gear a high priority to have.

That said, attack is most defiantly needed. But +20 Dex can give us that extra 10 Accuracy to take off our gear load to swap out for more attack gear.

It's funny but SE is slowly addressing smaller bits of our Gear Issues through spells and trickling items. But of course that won't be enough on it's own.

Well my main gripe about enhancing gear is that a lv90 RDM can easily hit the 21 damage cap for tier 1 enspells w/o help from gear or merits. Any additional Enhancing gear is really just for resists which can be negligible as long as the monster isn't resistant to magic to begin with.

I suppose En-spell enhancement gear like the enhancement sword is kind of negligible because there are only 2-3 you would realistically use in any given situation.

Admittedly I haven't messed with the Gain buffs because I've yet to get RDM back up to par on this toon, but I had assumed that the gain/boost spells are affected by the skill at the time of casting, which you would macro swap in enhancing gear for casting if that's the case. In either case I fail to see the benefit of fulltiming for +1 DEX or STR per 10 enhancing skill vs using one slot for a +3~10STR, DEX, Atk piece (Or better yet haste, DA, TA piece). I mean most of the stat boosts would come directly from our native enhancing skill + merits which at 99 I'm guessing roughly 400-420 skill, so that would still give us at least a solid 15+ from a gain spell proving there's not a cap on gain spells.

TBH it's really hard to play the ideal setup, you have to constantly gauge yourself and how well you do, what your fighting, knowing your enemies weakness and so on. One method I've found to work pretty well for me was go in full haste, TA, DA, STR, ATK, gear. Melee a few and gauge your hit rate, and keep swapping in Acc piece by piece until you can hit a reasonable rate. Then consume food and adjust your gear based on one of the following ideals.

- If you can hit fine with ~20 Acc, consume Atk/STR food.
- If you need about 20~40 Acc. I recommend consuming a Pizza then falling back on the starting melee setup.
- If you need excessive Acc beyond what a Pizza provides, consume Sushi and fall back on your starting melee setup.
- If you STILL need more Acc you probably need to skill up or not melee at all in that situation.

Anyways, I'm gonna stop I think I've started rambling. If I misconceived what you were trying to say Hyrist do tell.

[Hyrist]

If I misconceived what you were trying to say Hyrist do tell.

You have, severely.

Enspell Tier 1s, Gain Spells, Stoneskin, Phalanx/ etc base their caculations of how potent they are at the time of cast. Enspell II's are the only one that focus on our enhancing skill at the moment it connects with the enemy.

So the use of a full enhancing skill set, is when you are casting the spell not while you are meleeing. The sets are mutually exclusive, and thus, having BOTH sets to push your performance is encouraged.

Also, while you can hit the 21 damage cap with native skill at 90, the resist rate of your enspells are factored by your enhancing skill, and are relative to your opponent. Meaning the larger your skill, the lower the resist rate. That'll be a major factor in how much Enspells can assist your damage.

After that, balancing your acc/attack/haste can be figured normally. But you should never cast your Gains or your Enspell Is outside of a full ehancing skill/enhancing duraton set if you're going for max effect.

[Doombringer]

i dunno if ensell1 has a cap.. mine do 24 and my enhancing skill still isn't capped. so even if it does cap, it's better than 21.

the problem with building for enspell is your only options are (as far as i know) 2 earrings that require you to not wear suppa/brutal. and a ring than requires low health. it's not practical. (not counting weapons obviously.)

enspell2 is even worse, requiring you to melee in the enhancing gear. fuck that...

so yah, i sorta agree.. enspell can't be the focus. ESPECIALLY in abyssea. atma doesn't put your ENSPELL dmg through the roof. like 3 dmg per swing from a hollow is gonna compete with a 5% DA? especially when you can crit for 200-300 dmg, and run a 50-60% crit rate?


edit: just checked, @ 400 skill (thats not capped, but it is including merits and gear) and 97 mnd (dunno if mnd affects gains so i'm just throwing it in there) i get +15 agi and a 25 dmg enspell1. all that gear can be taken off and i maintain the +15 agi and 25 dmg enspell1.

[Swords]

You have, severely.

Re-reading what I wrote yesterday I must have been dead tired when I wrote that, and was far from what I was trying to convey in the discussion. XD

In any case, I admit I may have become a bit jaded when it comes to RDM melee arguements. The reason for my original comment you quoted me on was, while you can use enhancing skill gear to reduce resists on your en-spells, I just fail to see the reasoning behind it outside of physically damage resistant mobs. It's not because I do not see the power in en-spells, it's because I know RDM can easily squeeze out another 20-40 damage per hit with melee gear, while en-spells will always be subject to resists. The trade-off to sacrifice your base DoT over potentially losing some of your en-spell damage just does not sit right with me, hence my comment.

Hope that makes alot more sense compared to my original reply.

[Swords]

i dunno if ensell1 has a cap.. mine do 24 and my enhancing skill still isn't capped. so even if it does cap, it's better than 21.

Do you have any enchantment damage + gear like the hollow earring? That can surpass the 21 damage cap en-spells get from enhancing skill, unless they've increased potential damage since they raised the level cap past 75.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Pretty sure it's increased from 75 cap, haven't checked since I haven't meleed on Rdm lately.

[Hyrist]

I haven't breached 21 yet, but my enhancing skill is woeful at 90 right now.

Anyways, again, Sword, you're compltely getting it wrong.

You're stating gear confict where there is none.

1. Swap to Enhancing Skill Gear
2. Cast Enblizzard
3. Swap to Melee Gear
4. Resume Tping.
(Note, this can be done with rapid speed.)

Enspell tier 1s, their damage AND their resist rate are figured out based on the enhancing Skill you have DURING THE MOMENT YOU CAST IT. (meaning you do not have to be wearing it afterwards) Only Enspell II's calculate your Enhancing Skill from strike to strike.

You're not wasting DoT at all in this process. In fact, if you're NOT swaping in the gear for when you cast/recast your enspells, you're losing DoT in not minimizing your resist rate.

Absolutely nothing prevents you from doing both, at all.

[Dale]

Hyrist, are the same Red Mage that used to be on midgardsomr?

[Doombringer]

Do you have any enchantment damage + gear like the hollow earring? That can surpass the 21 damage cap en-spells get from enhancing skill, unless they've increased potential damage since they raised the level cap past 75.

i accounted for that. i don't use hollow /nin, but with chimeric fleuret, i'm getting 32 dmg per hit.