Seeing Red - A Complete Red Mage Guide

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Originally Posted by Volatile

Anyone else finding swiftcast to be a little awkward to use? Duelcast won't proc off of a swiftcasted spell, so I've been doing without. Should I try and work it back in?

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I don't use it much either to be honest with you, I tried it a couple times, but its just not needed really.

The casting times on almost everything is really short. So everything goes off so quickly I don't even need it.

I think VerCure is the only thing, other than VerAero and VerThunder.... but those are what you use in your dual cast anyway so the casting time on them isn't even seen.

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Originally Posted by Volatile

Anyone else finding swiftcast to be a little awkward to use? Duelcast won't proc off of a swiftcasted spell, so I've been doing without. Should I try and work it back in?

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Swiftcast will be useful for times when you're ready to go into melee combo, but your mana is even. Pop SC and get them uneven, then do combo. I'm not sure about a "rotational" use, though.

Other than that, I've been using to burst down mobs solo.

Just arrived at 56 as Red Mage. And I have to confess... I always played healers but Red Mage is actually the first class that has me seriously considering switching to a DPS class. It rocks.

I always hated the looooooooong casts of the Black Mage, and with the Dual Cast system the Red Mage has, that's far less of an issue. Couple that with a pretty powerful heal and it makes playing a RDM a very fluid and quick experience. Only drawback for me is that the RDM doesn't have dot's to cast.

When it comes to using Swift Cast. So far I only used it a few times in fates to quickly heal the poor guy who is taking all the damage when I have to get out of the telegraphed areas. Or when I'm not paying attention and I messed up the black/white magic balance. To get faster back in balance by casting an instant Verthunder or Veraero.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

I got paired with a RDM in Pharos Sirius NM earlier, and I just got to wonder, is your damage output insane or something? We had a tank doing small pulls, so groups weren't huge, but I'm not sure I've ever seen stuff melt so fast.

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I'm starting to get more used to play RDM now but yeah DMG can be insane when you comfortable with the skills and "rotation". I was having so fun in the L63 dungeon last night and was pulling hate so much from the Paladin :)

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Originally Posted by Rinuko

I'm starting to get more used to play RDM now but yeah DMG can be insane when you comfortable with the skills and "rotation". I was having so fun in the L63 dungeon last night and was pulling hate so much from the Paladin :)

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Yeah its seriously insane DPS.

I don't even have Jolt 2 yet (60th level here), but just Jolt 1 + VerAero/VerThunder is a 480 potency attack. Then when you have VerStone or VerFire pop and replace it with Jolt on your next cast its 570 potency dual casted damage.

Not even bringing up the major DPS from the melee combo, or the other OCDs. Just the base output is incredible.

At first I thought there was no way the AoE could compete, but we're literally doing 400 potency in AoEs every 5 seconds by spamming Scatter.

While I'm still not sure how this will shake out vs BLM in single target, it's going to be awful close. Leaving SMN at the bottom of the pile in both Single Target and AoE. They never should have nerfed SMN.

That said... RDM is also more free form, so it will be hard to ever form a set rotation for it, meaning it will be hard to just teach this one or have a set pattern to do things in.

I am seriously considering switching to this as a Main at this point.

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Originally Posted by Volatile

Anyone else finding swiftcast to be a little awkward to use? Duelcast won't proc off of a swiftcasted spell, so I've been doing without. Should I try and work it back in?

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Swiftcast is also p good for manafication. I always find myself breaking 40 with an instacast, so you can use Swift to bump up your second mana to 40 and save a GCD.

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Originally Posted by Elysaine

Just arrived at 56 as Red Mage. And I have to confess... I always played healers but Red Mage is actually the first class that has me seriously considering switching to a DPS class. It rocks.

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Literally took the words right out of my mouth

This is sort of semantics but it really needs to be pointed out again, since it can lead to people getting on the wrong track for damage calculations: dual cast spells still trigger the GCD. It's not like you're getting free spells in there, its just the difference of them hitting at the start or end of the gcd. Jolt+ VerAero/Thunder is NOT a 480 pot attack. That combo averages to 240pot over two gcds.
Dual cast is pretty convenient in a few ways but the increase in dps from dual cast only comes from verthunder/aero having hard-cast times that are longer than the GCD.


It really remains to be seen exactly how good the RDM dps is but I'm pretty sure they didn't drop something OP on us with this one. Like, I don't know the exact average potency but Blackmage is chucking lots of FireIV at 260+the Astral Fire Buff. RDM's average is about 270.
BLM vs. RDM comes down to this:
BLM's main rotation is certainly higher damage (fireIV is a good bit more damage than RDM's "rotational" spells)
BLM's burst phase is lower than RDM's (Foul is 650, they only get it once per 30sec, RDM's melee averages 380 over its 4gcd)
BLM has a bit of a lull-phase during umbral ice.

So RDM can "catch up" to the BLM's more steady high damage through its ability to burst with the melee combo.

Really liking RDM with how much I've been able to play thus far (58 currently), but is there a reason for impact to be a different button than jolt? For all the abilities that change to empowered

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Originally Posted by Hanmerreborn

Really liking RDM with how much I've been able to play thus far (58 currently), but is there a reason for impact to be a different button than jolt? For all the abilities that change to empowered

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... it seems like jolt 2 should just switch to impact to reduce button bloat.

/horray for no edit button and fat fingers

Hey, I normally just lurk and see what you all come up with for rotations/openers but I hadn't seen this mentioned and wanted to throw it out to see what others think.

What about Vercure on yourself (or party member) before pull to get Dualcast for first cast?

Level 53 now in RDM. Been doing PoTD which has been a lot of fun. Still finding I will mess up occasionally on rotation mainly in not noticing a verfire or verstone proc. I think it is more the nature of PoTD which is the issue. At low levels you don't have them and I find I get into a certain casting pattern that I forget to adjust to. Need to rearrange my bars.

As for swift cast, I haven't used it once and highly considering dropoing it.

thank you :D i found rotation bit confusing searched it up but it confused me more but you explained it way better and less confusing

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Originally Posted by ColeSlawter

Hey, I normally just lurk and see what you all come up with for rotations/openers but I hadn't seen this mentioned and wanted to throw it out to see what others think.

What about Vercure on yourself (or party member) before pull to get Dualcast for first cast?

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It would shave off a bit of time, but not much. Jolt and Jolt II have a rather short cast time. If you do that I would also pull with Accelertion up. Then you get a duel cast from vercure and an immediate proc of Verfire or Verstone that you can follow up with Verthunder or Veraero.

Edit: Had to wait till lunch to edit this as I couldn't do so on my phone. I would not recommend this for one reason, Impact. Once you Jolt II you also gain Impact and the Impactful effect. You want to do Jolt II and then follow it up by Impact and then go into the rest of the "rotation"

A little question to those higher lvled RDMs around, is Impact a skill separated from Jolt?
As in, if you use Jolt it transitions into Impact or Impact simply remains as a different skill grayed out until you use Jolt?

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Originally Posted by Arkenne

A little question to those higher lvled RDMs around, is Impact a skill separated from Jolt?
As in, if you use Jolt it transitions into Impact or Impact simply remains as a different skill grayed out until you use Jolt?

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Jolt II (which is upgraded from Jolt) procs Impact, which is a separate skill.

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Originally Posted by Anastacy

Jolt II (which is upgraded from Jolt) procs Impact, which is a separate skill.

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Oh ok, then I'll plan my sets around that, thanks!

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Originally Posted by Rbstr

This is sort of semantics but it really needs to be pointed out again, since it can lead to people getting on the wrong track for damage calculations: dual cast spells still trigger the GCD. It's not like you're getting free spells in there, its just the difference of them hitting at the start or end of the gcd. Jolt+ VerAero/Thunder is NOT a 480 pot attack. .

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Its is indeed just semantics.

Its a 180 potency Jolt with an insta-cast 300 potency VerAero/Verthunder tacked on... but its still just a single attack in the same time period. So yeah.... its basically a 480 potency attack.

The reality is, the Red Mages 2 spells go off easily within the same (actually faster) time period as a Single Fire IV and it is just like a single attack. Its the same damage.

BLM has a bunch of other things that can be done inside Enochian which can boost their DPS, but it doesn't change the fact that RDMs attacks are 480 and 570 respectively.

Like I said... these two are very competitive with each other as a base Jobs. Summoner is not even close on any side of the ball.

Well, it is still two gcds isn't it? It is more like 240 per cast in the build up phase. The potency of the blm spells is far higher here? I.e you would still start your third cast at 5 seconds and the blm would not be far behind. Honestly, the potency of the rdm skills look a little low to me (could be completely wrong as I have not got to 70 yet or do any actual testing beyond simply looking at the potency of the skills).

It's only a single attack if you want to be misleading (or you misunderstand the concept). The jolt+aero pair still uses two GCDs. If you want to call it a 480 potency attack you also then have to say you attack half as often as the BLM does. It's a horrible basis for comparison.

You don't attack once and that's that. It all averages out over time and the GCD (plus oGCD extras). The lack of thinking about time averaging is why you think summoner is so bad in single-target. It's not, you aren't accounting for how the changes have saved dot-casting GCDs allowing for more ruin and thus a better average per gcd.

EDIT: Yeah, JustMatt, they actually do seem a bit low. But RDM does get two oGCDs and a raid/personal buff. The jury is out until someone does all of the math, but it might be close. IMO it's unlikely the RDM does more personal DPS than the BLM and it was probably intended to be that way given the other stuff.

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Originally Posted by JustMatt

Well, it is still two gcds isn't it? It is more like 240 per cast in the build up phase. The potency of the blm spells is far higher here? I.e you would still start your third cast at 5 seconds and the blm would not be far behind. Honestly, the potency of the rdm skills look a little low to me (could be completely wrong as I have not got to 70 yet or do any actual testing beyond simply looking at the potency of the skills).

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No that's not actually how it works...

Think of it this way...

Jolt is a 2 second casting time... ANY spell done after the first is like using Quick Cast on it... so its instant. There's no buildup. I guess you just have to do it or see it. Then it makes all the sense in the world to you.

So basically its... Jolt + VerThunder instantly.

So you literally are casting a 180 potency spell directly in tandem with a 300 potency spell. There's literally no buildup. It's instant. And this is with EVERY spell.... not just that spell.

Its what the Devs were saying all along... and now that I've done it... they were right.

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Originally Posted by Draxxion

It would shave off a bit of time, but not much. Jolt and Jolt II have a rather short cast time. If you do that I would also pull with Accelertion up. Then you get a duel cast from vercure and an immediate proc of Verfire or Verstone that you can follow up with Verthunder or Veraero.

Edit: Had to wait till lunch to edit this as I couldn't do so on my phone. I would not recommend this for one reason, Impact. Once you Jolt II you also gain Impact and the Impactful effect. You want to do Jolt II and then follow it up by Impact and then go into the rest of the "rotation"

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You want to replace the next jolt with impact, not follow up with it.

Impact is basically jolt 3

You are not factoring in the gcd it doesn't matter if it is instant. You are still locked by your gcd. If you swift cast fire 4, you cannot just start casting a fire 4 spell straight after. You have to wait for the gcd and this applies to RDM too.

You have to look at the overall time it takes. 5 seconds for 2 spells is still 5 seconds for 2 spells whether one of those is instant doesn't matter.

The benefits are that is gives us great mobility, It makes it easy to weave without clipping and we get quite good burst every 2 gcds because of it.

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Originally Posted by Hanmerreborn

You want to replace the next jolt with impact, not follow up with it.

Impact is basically jolt 3

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Thank you for that. Still not high enough to have dealt with it. It would still most likely apply to this situation though that you don't want to delay Impact further. It would require testing.

Does anyone agree that Impact seems a little redundant of a skill. Like they only gave it to us to make RDM "a little more complicated". Only 30 more potency and 1 more of each mana than Jolt II, but taking up another hotbar slot. Seems like they could've used that slot for something more fun and impactful to the job (pun intended) rather than what is essentially Jolt III.

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Originally Posted by Shirolumi

Does anyone agree that Impact seems a little redundant of a skill. Like they only gave it to us to make RDM "a little more complicated". Only 30 more potency and 1 more of each mana than Jolt II, but taking up another hotbar slot. Seems like they could've used that slot for something more fun and impactful to the job (pun intended) rather than what is essentially Jolt III.

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I like it. Impact is your second or third choice. A backup after stone and fire procs run dry.

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Originally Posted by Rawrz

I like it. Impact is your second or third choice. A backup after stone and fire procs run dry.

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Except it isn't. Its basically empowered jolt 2. If it's up it just takes the place of jolt 2. There's no "choice" about it. Arguing for impact to be a separate skill would be like making every empowered melee skill its own button.

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Originally Posted by Draxxion

Thank you for that...It would still most likely apply to this situation though that you don't want to delay Impact further...

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Honestly, the only time you'd want to prioritize Impact over Fire/Stone, is if Impact + Aero/Thunder will get you your melee phase two GCD's faster. That means one mana level is 77-79 (37-39), the other is 65-68 (25-28), and you don't have a Ver-ready proc for the lesser. Outside that, you're always going to be better off clearing out your Ver-ready procs first; Impact should be what you use to proc a dual cast for Aero/Thunder, and Jolt becomes your filler to proc dual cast and Impactful.

So Ive been doing some bosses and I wanted to get some opinions

I havent quite done the math yet BUT I think there are times you may want to spend mana without enough mana to do the entire combo. Let me elaborate

Ive found that quite often your embolden+manafication are like 10-15 seconds away from coming off CD right when youre sitting at 30 or so mana. So what do we do in this situation? Build up to 80 and hold the CD's to use it them OR (and this is what i think is better), build up to like 70ish mana, use the first part of the combo, Pop Embolden+Manafication right as they come off CD, and proceed to do your combo without having to hold those cooldowns.

Like i said i havent done the math but i think this may turn out to be a DPS increase since we end up not having to delay our strongest cooldowns.

TLDR: You guys think its a good idea to spend mana on a single part of combo just to decrease it to levels where we can use Manafication+Embolden without having to delay it?

Hard to say,

I have only run into one situation so far where I was low or out of MP. I was doing a Boss Mob Fate in Castrum area and there were only 6 of us doing it. But other than that,no normal dungeon so far has brought me further than 3/4ths down. And I've done Hullbreaker, Sohr Kai, and Sirensong Sea.

Usually because you're only clearing Trash mobs up to that point I've rarely used melee on them. Usually just a lot of scatter and then standard Jolt + VerAero/VerThunder on the last one that goes down because its really low.

So I've usually got my full melee attack series for the Boss mob.... and its my opener.

I'll lead off with that... Corps-a-corps>Riposte>Zwerchhau> Redoublement>Embolden>Displacement

So I'll drop my Embolden on the melees as I back outside of Melee Range at that point, and doing my standard Dual Casting Jolt +VerSpells, building up my guage again.

And just as a practical matter, Embolden is rarely ready before my next melee attack series is ready to go anyway. But I suppose you could force one early using Manafication.

Embolden works on the enchanted melee combo so you're kinda wasting the self-buff aspect.

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Originally Posted by Hanmerreborn

Except it isn't. Its basically empowered jolt 2. If it's up it just takes the place of jolt 2. There's no "choice" about it. Arguing for impact to be a separate skill would be like making every empowered melee skill its own button.

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They could actually share the same button and it wouldn't make a difference, right? In the priority list of spells to cast I would always want to cast Impact over Jolt 2, if I was able to and there were no Ver-ready procs available....

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Originally Posted by Rbstr

Embolden works on the enchanted melee combo so you're kinda wasting the self-buff aspect.

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Are you sure about that?

That's nowhere in the description.

Basically as soon as I kick it in, I watch the Embolden buff words float over the other melees and my head too... so while I admit I'm usually engaged in other things at that point and haven't looked at the row of buffs by my party icons... its actually buffing everyone.

EDIT: Nevermind I thought you were implying it dropped off if you moved out of range. But you actually meant for your own physical attacks. For that, well it only says it buffs your magic damage... not your physical. Hence why I drop it on party members and then back out with Displacement and do spells.

There is a ton of incorrect information going out. For the integrity of the guide, I would like to clear things up. First

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Originally Posted by Silverquick

Jolt is a 2 second casting time... ANY spell done after the first is like using Quick Cast on it... so its instant. There's no buildup. I guess you just have to do it or see it. Then it makes all the sense in the world to you.

So basically its... Jolt + VerThunder instantly.

So you literally are casting a 180 potency spell directly in tandem with a 300 potency spell. There's literally no buildup. It's instant. And this is with EVERY spell.... not just that spell.

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This is 100% False. Damage is calculated as Damage Per Second. It is not a 480 potency attack. It is a 180 potency attack and 300 potency attack in two GCDs. Only with Dualcast, the second spell is executed at the beginning of the GCD, just like a weaponskill. Its still a GCD and you can't cast another spell in that time period. Regardless of how you try and spin it, it is 100% false. It is two 2.38 GCDs. plain and simple.

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Originally Posted by Silverquick

Are you sure about that?

That's nowhere in the description.

Basically as soon as I kick it in, I watch the Embolden buff words float over the other melees and my head too... so while I admit I'm usually engaged in other things at that point and haven't looked at the row of buffs by my party icons... its actually buffing everyone.

EDIT: Nevermind I thought you were implying it dropped off if you moved out of range. But you actually meant for your own physical attacks. For that, well it only says it buffs your magic damage... not your physical. Hence why I drop it on party members and then back out with Displacement and do spells.

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I've stated this previously in the thread. Embolden does increase the Enchanted Version of your melee combo.

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Originally Posted by Garotte14

Regardless of how you try and spin it, its' 100% False. It is two 2.38 GCDs. plain and simple..

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No its not... its ONE...

It's a 2 second cast time (mine reads 1.8) and a 2.5 second recast for the whole thing. Go ahead and test it. They aren't two stacked recast timers... its only one.

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Originally Posted by Garotte14

I've stated this previously in the thread. Embolden does increase the Enchanted Version of your melee combo.

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Well if you've tested this.... and the description for the tooltip is incorrect that's a different story.... so that would need to be fixed.

But the Tooltip is pretty specific, it states it increases magic damage for the Red Mage and Physical Damage for the other party members.

Increases own magic damage dealt by 10% and physical damage dealt by nearby party members by 10%. Both effects are reduced by 20% every 4s.
Duration: 20s

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Originally Posted by Sephorai

TLDR: You guys think its a good idea to spend mana on a single part of combo just to decrease it to levels where we can use Manafication+Embolden without having to delay it?

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In a nutshell, no. Using the first part of your combo isn't very potent. Also, Manafication does nothing but double the gauge. Meaning, you don't need Manafication + Embolden to happen at the same time. Also, it doesn't take too long to build up your gauge from 30 to 80. If you are wasting 30 mana to only use Riposte, you are losing dps.

I completely understand your logic and how you came to that conclusion. But no, you should never only be doing half of your full combo.

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Originally Posted by Silverquick

No its not... its ONE...

It's a 2 second cast time (mine reads 1.8) and a 2.5 second recast for the whole thing. Go ahead and test it. They aren't two stacked recast timers... its only one.

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Bud, I'm really trying to help here. You are incorrect. Capitalizing anything you said, won't make it correct. It is two gcds. That is basically saying If you swiftcast a Fire IV, that it doesn't cost you a GCD.

Something I haven't seen here.

But isn't it more potency and a better start off in our opener to Accelerate + Swiftcast VerAero or Verthunder at the start of a combat encounter? It's both more DPS and more Mana gain, it's also an instant start to good mana gain, and, provided the realism of a combat situation, swift cast's 60 second cooldown will have that ability back up in fairly short order to make use of it again whenever available.

My primary use for Swiftcast thus far has been opener, and to push Mana to ~80/80 to save a GCD. (As opposed to using Jolt/Impact to proc Dualcast.)

Opening with Swiftcast also opens up me using Fletche/Contre Sixte Earlier in my opener, so that's nice.

Also Silverquick, Garotte14 is correct. What you are thinking is cast times. No matter what we do, if we hit a main spell, we're triggering a Global Cooldown. It just so happens that our cast time can be pushed lower than our GCDs with Dualcast. Best way to show/prove that. In a Dualcast situation, remember how there's still a downtime after you instant-cast a spell. That's the Global colldown triggering. You don't notice it on the first cast because of the cast time. Global cooldown starts at the beginning of cast time.