Seeing Red - A Complete Red Mage Guide

[Silverquick]

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?

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.

[Anastacy]

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?

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.

[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.

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.

[Rinuko]

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.

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

[Silverquick]

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

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.

[SunDriedRainbow]

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?

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.

[nexas506]

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.

Literally took the words right out of my mouth

[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. 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.

[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

[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

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

/horray for no edit button and fat fingers