Jack Of All Trades: A Guide To Red Mage

Thank you.

So Sab gives +1.0 potency on normal but +0.25 on NM's, gloves always get +0.12 regardless.

No Sab

(((Base Potency) * 1.0) + dMND) * (Enf Potency)

Sab on regular mob with gloves, called DMND and 44% Enf Potency

(((Base Potency) * 2.12) + 10) * 1.44

Sab on NM under same situation

(((Base Potency) * 1.37) + 10) * 1.44

BTW looked through my log at duration:
((Base Duration × Saboteur) + (RDM JPs)) × (Enfeebling Duration + Gear)

So I was wondering: has it actually been tested whether Enfeebling magic potency is a percentage increase on Distract/Frazzle rather than just a flat value? The search is kinda broken for me right now.

I know it's probably a silly question, but with all the potency gear we've been getting, it feels like Distract III is getting really insanely strong (even if they were flat bonuses). With BiS gear it would be like -200 Evasion before Saboteur or something, if I'm not mistaken? And we're getting Empyrean+3 gear in the future.

Now if only it also increased the Defense down on Dia III, too...

It's percentage, extremely easy to test inside Balista.


Haha that's small.

Assuming capped DMND, 600 Skill and 44% Enf Potency

((117 * 1.0) + 10) * 1.44 = 182 Evasion Down

Powered up with Sab on non-NM (for whatever reason)

((117 * 2.12) + 10) * 1.44 = 371 Evasion Down

Powered up with Sab on NM

((117 * 1.37) + 10) * 1.44 = 244 Evasion Down

Though I prefer to use Sab for Frazzle III to squash a targets MEVD and allow everything else to be landed at max potency.

And aren't you the idiot that made those claims on how shitty RDM was in the update thread, without knowing anything about RDM. Just serves to backup my claim that 99% of this games RDM's are ***because they never bother learning the mechanics of their own spells.

Yeah, but instead of having to go out and test it myself, I thought I might as well ask first. Potency+ is not a percentage bonus for Dia III, for example, as it receives +1 dmg/tick per point of potency.


Of course it's small, that's why I specifically said before Saboteur, so I'm not sure why you even bothered calculating that. Also since the current max is +54% potency thanks to the new torque, you may want to use 49% or 54% in your math as NQ Torque is not too expensive and pretty much every RDM should get one until +2s become more affordable.

In any case, I also prefer not to use Saboteur for Distract III on most things, as there are very few mobs with Accuracy checks that would even require a boosted one.


And aren't you the guy who failed to properly read every single post of mine? And you even missed or ignored my mention of Saboteur this time around, too.

I said in that very same thread that RDM is my second main and what kind of gear I have for it, which is fairly close to BiS for Enfeebling. Merely asking whether any testing instead of conjecture has been done for a particular spell instead of believing every single word written on BGwiki hardly constitutes being ignorant of a job's mechanics in general.

I also never claimed RDM was shitty, just that SE likes to stack the odds against the job for a lot of content.

Anyway, can we just drop this animosity *** and continue with a civil conversation instead, please? It's really tiring slinging petty insults back-and-forth that don't contribute to the discussion.

Where do you figure in the bonus from Relic for our merit spells?

That's a very good question. I'll test later if someone else doesn't before me.

So I decided to start this test using Dia III and well I'm getting some crazy *** numbers.
I've done a bunch of gear changes with and without sab and pretty much none of it lines up once sab is involved.
I only have 1 merit in Dia III and I am a Master RDM. Testing is on a Regular Mob not NM.

Dia III Nothing else: 50s
Dia III + Relic Hat: 56s edited: (drunk mind math was bad last night >.>)

Now WTF times:
Dia III + Sab: 4m 10s
Dia III + Sab + Relic: 4m 16s
Dia III + Sab + Relic + 30%: 5m 34s

I knew it was a minefield when I asked. I've gotten weird results myself.

I'm 5/5 on Dia III.

Relic + 30%: 4min20sec
Relic + Sab + 30%: 8min40sec
Relic + Sab(with empy119) + 10%: 7min22sec

I think the in-game timers are more accurate than those shpwn5 in Windower; I'm pretty sure Windower doesn't take newer gear into account.

Saevel, you better not count me in that 99%. T_T

Why waste Sab on Dia when you can Distract/Frazzled? Not that I'm advocating against Sis e; hell no, it's great and 5/5 is what I have.

Re: SE stacking against RDN: I respectfully disagree. With the sets available to us now we're capable of performing all of our varied roles at a high level (at the cost of three wardrobes and hours with random augment NPCs....)- buffer, debugger, healer, nuker, and melee DD.

That is, if people let us. I do note that most people who let you come once as a trial tend to ask you back after seeing a skilled seord-wielding RDM in action.

Now, a question- outside of DM augments, how can I improve my Savage Blade set?

ItemSet 360001

I've messed with my rings- I like using Ilabrat, but with BRD COR GEO even a RDM isn't attack-starved. Byrne suggested that I use Regal Earring in place of Ishvara during a chat over gearsets a few weeks ago; I appreciate the tip because I believe it's better. So, thanks. ^.^

Anybody know of a good healing club I can use that isn't Nibiru?

Dia has a very short base duration that lends itself to testing, whereas Distract/Frazzle has almost 4x the base duration of a Dia III with 1 merit.

To your WS set, why would you use Carmine over jhakri pigaches +2

My Carmine feet are augmented down the MND path; I use the Jhakri feet in my WSAcc set.

Rarely do i find myself recasting Dia unless it's something like Omen caturae, and that's because they can wipe debuffs en masse. In those cases, I just recast it. As I almost always stay in support mode for the hard ***, as long as I mind my rotations I have plenty of time and MP to sling Dia3. I like my Distract/Frazzles to *stick*, because on higher tier mobs you're more likely to hit a resist, so ensuring that your landed spells stick (Dia is virtually unresistable, to my knowledge) for as long as necessary.

Then again I have 5 merits in it because I consider it one of my most important enfeebles, as my LS prefers to melee or ranged kill T4s instead of throwing a Ramuh ARMY at them.

Don't get me wrong- SMN method is efficient and faster. Some mobs should be AFAC on principle (Vir'ava, this means you).

To the question of why saboteur dia3- quendi and I very often over the years rdm a lot of helms. And whether bad luck, poor attention, or an off night, wipes happen. A saboteured dia3 with full merits and key gear pieces means that a rdm can drop alliance and sac hold with just 1 sabo-dia3 followed by a nq-dia3, and the alliance is ready. No having a bard who should be buffing doing 5 elegies. It just simplifies things, and is a good toll in the arsenal. No, in actual battle saboteur is of course best used for something that gains potency... but again, this is just a unique use.

but you could just not wipe

or the brd could NT requiem to the same effect

rdm loses a lot more being weakened than brd does

I don't think anyone here said they were using a windower addon for time.

No one originally was even talking about using sab dia in combat it was for testing purposes because at one merit it's super short.

Seek's they are trying to figure out how the duration on relic gear is interacting with other gear. Dia III at 1 merit is super short so is convenient at testing.

In actual content there is zero reason to Sab Dia III, with merits and gear a single Dia III will last more then 3 minutes which is the weakness timer on Arise. Just manage timers well and you should be unweak, back in the alliance and buffed long before it wears off. On high end stuff you normally want to Sab Frazzle III to make it easy to land the entire arsenal of debuffs at full power.

Again, I never said RDM was useless or that it couldn't perform. But a RDM player needs to work a lot harder and meet a considerably higher gear threshold than almost any other job in order to compete at the higher content levels. Otherwise most groups would rather bring a 900 skill GEO because they don't have to deal with resist rates.

I agree that it's an amazing job and can perform very well in melee with some attack buffs. I wouldn't be building all REMAs for the job if I hated it.

Its actually the opposite in high lv content. We almost always bring idris to highest lv content. But rdm in ally just sit there and cast debuffs and haste2.

Technically you just need a macc set and debuff set and maybe enhancing duration set in high lv endgame. Nobody gives a ***about how good your melee sets are, or if your phalanx stoneskin set is perfect or not, or if you can nuke and mb for 80k in cp pt. All you really need is to land debuffs and haste people. A rdm will never get a dd slot in endgame unless you are in a ls that lacks talented dds.

On the other hand a 900 skill geo will be unemployed for really really long time until an idris. They can probably do some lowman stuff like ambu or something. But in most of the successful endgame ls, the geo spot is almost always taken by idris.

My rdm is extremely mediocre, and I still bring it to endgame fairly often. Majority of my sets like melee or nuke really rarely gets used. If I lv a 900 skill geo now the spot would still be taken by idris.

I said higher, not highest. Obviously Idris GEO is almost always a given for CL145+ stuff. But if we're talking about REMA-level jobs, then a RDM needs to have gear that's good enough to match anyway or you're just getting carried. Almost nobody would even consider a DD RDM here.

As you said, for anything lower, like VD Ambuscade or T3s, you can easily win with a nearly ungeared 900 skill GEO, whereas a RDM with average gear will often have a hard time with enfeebling. But it's been like that since SoA, as far as I know.

The thing is, a RDM just smoothes out runs, but it's never essential. Which is a damn shame considering how much gear it requires to be good and how fun the job is.
It really could use an actual niche in the meta which can't easily be replicated by other jobs, but I doubt SE will ever do any drastic changes. They can't even get a more straightforward job like MNK right.

Yeah pretty much, but the game has 22 jobs and if Im going to pick jobs with niche in endgame thats so relevant it would be 7 to 9 jobs in game. Rdm is not in worse position than majority of jobs.

Like I said, I personally find the job pretty damn useful, and it lead to a pt slot for me sometimes. there are enough geo in game, not many play rdm nor have enough ffxi common sense to play it well. Its a nice niche to break into endgame community imo.

RDM, by its very nature, doesn't have its own niche, and really, shouldn't. The description of how a RDM "smooths over" runs is very apropos, and pre-ToAU where there were fewer jobs RDM had a much better position in the game. But now, the best time I have on my RDM is on CL 130 or lower where I can melee, burst on SCs, enfeeble, and buff all at once successfully. Start going higher and your roles reduce, and then RDM becomes a very boring and frustrating job very quickly- a world full of haste/flurry/refresh cycles and resists/immunobreaks.

PUP and SCH are similarly versatile to RDM, yet they each have their own niches or strengths that make them extremely useful and difficult to replace. Just because RDM is an all-rounder doesn't mean it can't have something unique that makes it as valuable to groups as certain other jobs. Enfeebles are really nice and should obviously be the main perk of the job, but a more impactful, strategic debuff would be great.

Sch is difficult to replace in blm pt, thats it. In melee pt rdm is usually a better choice since rdm buff and debuffs benefits melee a bit more. Unless you are in pet ls I fail to see how PUP being more relevant than rdm for real endgame. I personally havent pt with a pup for really, really long time, last time when I pt with one was may ambu PUG with inexperienced players who needed the surviability of pup tank to prevent wipes.. With experienced player dd run was a much better and faster choice.

Basically, in my event shell we NEVER use PUP, but we do use rdm 20x more often. I would argue that pup is in a even worse position than rdm unless you are in pet ls.


And which debuff should that be? There are enough defense down in game, to the point that everything dies too easily. There are enough defensive buffs in game like fade wilt vex attune, to the point that adding anymore game got even easier. In fact SE nerfed vex attune just because it took away the difficulty in entire game.

Basically, there are already no room to add anymore game changing debuffs because it will affect the difficulty when the game is already very easy since 2017. the only possibility to maintain difficulty is to take away what geo can already do and give it to rdm, such as removing fade and wilt entirely and give it to rdm instead. And a nerf this huge is probably something se would avoid.

Just fyi, geo is already nerfed in number of contents, such as master trials and newest endgame dyna wave 3. and macc requirement is quite high there. Pretty soon we will probably see groups bring rdm to frazzle 3, as if rdm isnt alreay a very good job for macc in sealed fate bc and blm vini already. And thats their "niche" in endgame.

I don't have a pet LS either, but my PUP has been very useful lately for unassisted fetter sac pulls in Wave 3 Dyna, without having to worry about weakness. Not to mention PUP can Overdrive zerg a lot of CL 135-140 NMs or similar content solo, which would take other jobs a lot of time and effort to replicate. And that's before any and all lowman tanking PUP can do.

Whether you consider that useful enough or not is your prerogative.


I mean, I could suggest any number of things SE could add to RDM to make it more popular--and I already did in the update thread (an indirect Scherzo effect via enfeebling), but it ended up with me and Saevel flaming each other. So I'd rather not repeat that by listing random ideas.

And the game may already be easy, but we're getting so much new powerful gear anyway that the power creep isn't really being kept in check to begin with. I don't see the issue with buffing certain jobs to give them an edge in content. Or are you absolutely satisfied with RDM's current situation in the meta?

Personally, rather than any completely new enfeebles/buffs, I'd prefer a change to Dia and Bio.

Make Dia unaffected by Light Shot (Corsairs do not need an easy, unresistible 20% defense down on top of everything else), buff Dia III and Bio III to 25%, and let Dia and Bio stack.

New enfeebles could be neat, but currently the meta is all about maximizing melees or SMNs, and this would make RDMs more useful than any new buff or enfeeble SE would remotely consider, especially in places where Frailty and Wilt are nerfed.

True, you're actually absolutely right about that. If Dia III were stronger or at least affected by Enfeebling magic effect+ with regard to Defense down, then RDM would certainly be a shoe in for a lot of content.

Same can be said for rdm...... safe to say that rdm and pup is just on the same tier but lower tier than geo.

Well I'd just have all the "merit" spells be given as actual scroll spells at 75 and instead have the merits enhance those spells. So Dia III at 15% but each upgrade raise's it by one, same with the rest. And COR should only be allowed to upgrade it once regardless of base potency. Oh and make Curaga III level 49 for *** sake.

Agreed, all of that would help a ton and is pretty reasonable. Though I don't think COR should be nerfed since it's nice to have an alternative for Dia IV if a RDM isn't available. But a RDM's merited/geared Dia III should beat Dia IV or RDM bonuses could transfer to Dia IV.

{Yes, please.}

Oh just noticed I haven't answer this question, so here it goes(inc Pandoras box).

If Im going to list jobs that really really stand out in todays meta, its probably going to be run smn whm geo cor war brd. These jobs happened to have irreplaceable niche in meta, and able to do more than their niche because of their versatility.

for example, war can zerg, thats their main niche. and they can cleave, do breaks, do leg sweep stuns, sub thf for certain mechanics, buff pt with warcry. Cor can roll(main niche),melee DD, shoot, close big fat sc in mage pt, buff in variety of ways. Run can dd, tank, do breaks, cleave, gambit.... And list goes on.

I feel its more like these jobs are too op because they can do way too many things, on top of having something that they are good at, not because every other jobs are too terrible. And yet whenever theres a job discussion going on people always demand their favorite job to match the effectiveness of above job and sacrifice game difficulty, when it should be the other way around.

Jobs like blm, sch, rng has their niche, but they are not as versatile(in terms of function in pt config, not the actual job itself). I wouldn't rank them on same tier as geo etc. blm rng arent used in melee setup and sch rarely, minus career sch wanting to join melee pt. By comparsion rdm fits in different setup a bit more easily. blm cant really contribute much in melee pt, but rdm can contribute in all types of pt. In that case rdm really isnt less useful than blm.

In terms of usefulness I would say rdm is indeed a tier below run geo cor brd smn war etc, but on the same tier as sch rng blm and most other jobs. Definately in better position than mnk, and arguably in better position than "just another DD" like drg or dnc.

Am I happy with the current situation? If you read my forum post history you would know I advocate difficulty balance way more than massive buff to jobs that are behind. I prefer se to nerf the 6 tier A job or keep it as it is, rather than buff 16 jobs to tier A level and breaks difficulty.

I can see a small adjustment like curaga 3 access makes rdm more attractive to less experienced groups because they are less likely to wipe using rdm as main healer. But I do think giving super game changing debuffs to rdm may drastically change the game difficulty. And that matters way more than everything else. Easy game = less longevity.

So yeah, all things considered, I am quite satisfied with rdms current situation. I have a couple of tier A jobs myself, my main has cor run and several other dd, my alt has whm brd and geo. I also have a couple of not so essential jobs like drk dnc and such. Even then I still play rdm in pt probably more often than every other job, friends in my connections frenquently ask me to come rdm for things like ambu, since the tank geo cor dd spots are all filled so fast rdm frenquently got me party invites. I would be lying if I say rdm is more essential than geo in a pt. But they are not completely useless, not even close.