What is RDM all about?

[cidbahamut]

so bad is the meleeside not, you can melee or tank high nms in party, but .... 99% ppl want that. I find my rdm can tank better as my blu. the prob with rdm melee/tank is only a handfull good pl can do that, the other rdm play magestyle or/and hate melee site. I think 75% rdm play mage - so is not surprised other jobs dont know what rdm can.

But the others have right... for the mom you dont need rdm in endgame....

And now when i see the pup update.... i think pup is much better as rdm >.< stoneskin, haste, phalanxspell,,,,, for the pup.

[Lilia]

Who is that? >.<


lol

[Greatguardian]

His name is Inigo Montoya. You killed his father. Prepare to die.

[saevel]

RDM is in a weird place right now. Well actually it's been in a weird place since 2004. It's not the best at anything, the job concept is you want one part WAR, one part WHM, and one part BLM and cram them together. What you get is a job that is capable of multiple roles but not the absolute best at any of those roles. Of course MMO's are about stat whoring and min/maxing, or at least there is a small yet vocal minority of the game who preach this as gospel. Previously the min/maxers figured that you could take a single RDM, couple them with a single BRD and throw in four melee's to get the maximum damage output and thus XP while having the minimum support requirements. RDM became this zombie healer that wasn't particularly good, but had the MP stamina and was "good enough" to get by with. Since the level cap has been raised, without Cure V we can't solo heal a group and the min/maxers see absolutely no reason to bring a second job that can cast "cure".

That pretty much outlines whats going on. RDM can deal damage but it requires lots of dedicated gear and swaps and more then good dose of common sense and judgement. The hybrid style of play has been discouraged so fervently since 2004/2005 that there never was a good guide written on it. And that's a different discussion all together.

Anyhow, play the job your most comfortable with. Contrary to the barking, RDM is not useless at "end game", far from it. "End game" now actually consists most of VWNMs and Abyssea. Abyssea being whittled down to four ~ six "useful" jobs total and VWNM's being fun yet unrewarding. In both events I tend to be ridiculously busy and constantly changing tactics / roles. It's not easy and it's not cheap but it's hella fun.

[Ophannus]

RDM historically is not supposed to be the best at anything, but SE gave us the highest enfeebling/enhancing skill in the game. The problem is we're not even the best enhancer, we're actually the worst. And we are the best enfeebler except we aren't; at least only if a job as a whole can be defined as 'the best' solely by their merit abilities. Unlike WHM which gets the best cure spells without merits, RDM only gets the best enfeebles through merits which means all the other enfeebles are whored out to WHM and BLM and SCH. The only enfeeble RDM gets that no other job has is Gravity, which incidentally 90% of NMs are immune to. No other job relies so hard on merits as RDM does. It would be like if all mages had Cure IV and Cure V was a WHM merit spell that was only a little stronger than Cure IV.

[Psxpert2011]

PLAY THE WAY YOU WANT!

Don't shy yourself from other jobs either because their abilities and traits can benefit Red Mage if you're using 'em for subs.

Remember, Rdm is half mage and half fighter, that's why most people would say "level all of your jobs".

It takes skill to be a good rdm, not just time. Take time to explore the world, make friends, learn how they would play and learn the job but play your own way.

People don't make the rules, there's only deductions of what works the best. Through trial and error, battles can be won soloing or within a party.

Most people you dictate how you should play probably don't enjoy to die hence they hate failing a lot. Part of a good win is failing first than learning from your errors. When you go back, you decide how many times you want to repay that monster and pound it! (hehehe)

Goodluck, enjoy and have fun!

[Convictions]

Thanks everyone. I had to ask simply because this is my first time playing Final Fantasy XI and I wanted to get the most out of the game, and that includes end-game content which I am very keen to experience. I just don't want to be turned away from such oppourtunities simply because of my Job.

I must admit, trying to pick a job out of the amount there are is like trying to decide a life-changing decision hahaha. I still have no idea what to pick.

[Solonuke]

When it comes to meleeing during endgame, I think the biggest problem is not that your damage isn't worth it but the fact that 90% of the monsters in this game screams "don't tp this!". After meleeing quite a few Isgebinds with my LS I thought meleeing didn't seem bad. You won't be taking much damage from AoEs as RDMs gets access to stoneskin, shell and magic defense bonus traits. When it comes to resisting enfeebles, it helps out capping the magic skill while using enspells that reduces the monster's resistance to a specific element and use death blossom for reduced magic evasion. Capping enhancing now helps out on temper and gain-spells which helps out while meleeing.

RDM melee is probably the most discussed thing about this game and the discussion has been going on ever since the game was released. 9 years of whether or not a RDM should use its sword or not somehow sounds really funny to me.

[Crimson_Slasher]

Ophannus, Not to pick a fight but i have something interesting about history in Final Fantasy now. As of recent i began playing back through FF3 and ive found some interesting things. Now to be clear, this may be the third game in final fantasy, but this game marks the return of the classes formerly seen in FF1, a sort of "Second coming" of RDM/WHM/WAR/MNK/THF/BLM jobs, and due to the class change system, no character is set in stone, as well as many other classes. However upon starting a new file, ive noticed, that in this second incarnation that a lot of jobs have changed sharply from what we saw in FF1. In this game, i found a warrior very impotent for damage (by design) as well as a redmage able to match/surpass them (with help of gear availible to both). Now when it comes to endgame in FF3, from my research, most of those jobs, excluding RDM arent recomended, because there is a direct improved version of each (Viking/DRK/DRG over war, Devout over whm, Magus over Blm, Black Belt over mnk, and Nin over Thf) But baring onion-knight (who is a pseudo-all job) there is nothing that rdm moves into, and as that game is nearly all dependant on gear with only a little initial value factored in, rdm does quite well. In fact, rdm has access to some of the most broken gear and is very endgame worthy where DRK and WAR struggle to even cope with endgame, granted this is a far older game, and is highly limited, but it truely shows potential when my RDM has been very powerful and useful from square one, all the way to the 3rd crystal (and set of job unlocks.) So just my two cents. Course if we were to take a page from the O-Knight for ffxi's adjustments to rdm, we could see what a real broken job could be heh.

Just a bit since a lot keep coming back to rdm in history and nobody can decide if it was good or passable melee in old games. In FF1, passable, FF3, very good at endgame, FF5, dont recall, thats next on my list. FFTA/A2, very good/passable.

[cidbahamut]

Thanks everyone. I had to ask simply because this is my first time playing Final Fantasy XI and I wanted to get the most out of the game, and that includes end-game content which I am very keen to experience. I just don't want to be turned away from such oppourtunities simply because of my Job.

I must admit, trying to pick a job out of the amount there are is like trying to decide a life-changing decision hahaha. I still have no idea what to pick.

The best advice I can give you then, is to level a job you enjoy. Find a job that's fun and run with it. If you find a job you love to play you'll do better with it than any flavor-of-the-month job people tell you to pick. When you love a job you're less likely to half-ass it. A well geared and well played job will always have a niche in end game. The worst thing you can do is level a job that's good in the meta-game, but one that you don't enjoy. You'll end up half-assing it, and good end game shells will call you out on it and you'll be sad.

TL;DR: Find a job you enjoy. Level it and don't look back.