Useful weakening spells

[trax]

Hello everyone :biggrin:
It's been a while since i started my career as a RDM and (despite being only level 14) i already got a fair amount of weakening type spells... and im really having an hard time deciding what spells are good and whatnot..
for example someone in another thread pointed out that slow isnt that useful and barely noticeable, and IMHO Bio is overrated for the mana it costs, once a goblin casted bio on me and lowered my STR by 3 only :sweat:
Not no mention paralyze, it never sticks and when it does lasts only 1 second or 2
The only spells i think are worth the effort so far are:
Bind - lasts a lot and rarely fails
Blind - when the monster doesn't resist the spell it does a noticeable difference i his hit/miss ratio
Poison - the damage sucks but doesnt cost much and its fast to cast
Dia - same as poison and weakens defence as well

Any insight and advices really appreciated, what weakening spells do you experienced casters use all the time (include spells of higher level too for future reference)?

[Jei]

there are actually only a few spells tho that i use all the time. while some others i never really use them

slow + paralyse is the 2 spells I use all the time. solo or PT. they are a great help.
Slow slows the enemy. making them attack a lot slower.
Paralyse paralyses the enemy (...sounds funny when put it like this) stop them from doing any action completely.

dispel + gravity are RDM's only special weakenning magics. they are also super useful in the right circumstances
Dispel dispels 1 positive effect the enemy might got on. really important spell to have. some enemies got ability to increase evade rate, defense, dilspel can remove them. dispel can also remove magic effects.
Gravity makes enemy run slower and also lower their evade rate. normally I used it when i need to run away from enemy and when my PT fight something with a really high evade rate such as THF type monsters.

Dia i don't know how strong it's effect is. the good thing about Dia however is that it will never get resisted. can cast over and over again to train magic skill.
poison/dia are both pretty fast. I use them both for monster calling and stealing too

poison is pretty useless... as i said only use for monster call or steal

Blind helps a bit. But it's sooooo easy to get resisted compare to other spell. no idea why. I like to use it when solo more than in PT.

bind... I never use this spell at all actually. VS strong enemies it just bind the enemy about 0.5 seconds.... might be useful for a poor little Tarutaru BLM when they wanna stay away from something and nuke it... butwe are RDM we can melee :P

[Irinicus]

Hey leave us poor lil Taru Tau BLM's alone, ok. hehe j/k. Actually I am a prime example of your explanation of the Bind spell, I currently use it all the timt, could be that I am also lvl8, hehe.

[Maxim]

Yes, Paralyze and Slow are really good spells (although Paralyze is better in my opinion since it actually cancels a monster's move instead of just slowing him down). I always use these two spells at the beginning of the fight (along with Bio, Dia, and Gravity), since not only does it make it look like I'm doing something in the party but because the weakening spell makes a big difference in the long run.

At low levels Bio costs quite a bit, especially for a Red Mage who doesn't have a lot of MP so it's not a good idea to constantly use it. Still, it's best to use it every once in a while to raise your magic spell or else darkness skill will be left far behind all the other ones. That's probably why everything resists Blind for me -- my darkness magic skill is pretty low because I didn't use Bio up until my late level 30's and it's a little hard to catch up.