What is the best weapon for a Red Mage (please answer)?

[OnionWarrior]

Alright, I just wanted to get a general opinion and small debate going. I was wondering what weapons you guys use, and would also recommend to new Red Mages. Personally, I think swords are most useful. At low levels you tear through mobs of bad guys and it serves as a good backup hitter at higher levels. Daggers/knives however tend to focus on enfeebling, which is of course, a Red Mage's specialty. As for the others I'm not very informed. So, what do you guys think?

[Blondybadass]

well tazirai pretty much covered everything you could want to know about weapons for red mages on the first page of "Red Mage Hints" at the top of this message board.

[Atma]

The answer is: keep both maxed. :)

Swords overall do more damage per hit, but daggers attack faster, plus you get the same amount of damage from your en spells. At level 16, I'm finding that daggers are more useful, since I 1) Don't hit very well with swords, 2) Don't hit for much when I do hit anyway, and 3) think en-spells rock.

But at high levels, there are some realyl cool looking swords. Sign me up for a flueret (sp), heh. Looks pretty spiffy.

[ingus]

I'm currently 53 RDM, and i use swords. my combat skill is 154 swd, and 143 dagger. main reason i went with swords is that at high lvl, swords usually come with better bonus stats than daggers of the same lvl range. the sword i'm using right now when grouped is the crimson blade, +10 MP and +5 INT. should i be farming low level stuff for cash, sword is still the way to go, because it has higher damage. when i do farm i use my T.K. army sword which is 32DAM/240SPD. Sneak Attack + Fast Blade with that sword does around 200 damage to L30 mobs.

another problem with dagger is there simply aren't that many daggers at high lvl that are usable by RDMs. most of the daggers in game are designed for thf or rng, and a few for blm. 50+ there just aren't many daggers you can use.

so in the long run, stick with sword is probably a better idea ^^


Tessia
53 RDM - 20 BLM - 25THF

[Discordian]

I'm a sword user myself. I don't feel safe unless I have that 0.7 meter piece of steel with me. I am however looking for a wand. The reason being that when it comes time to start chaincasting a lot of spells down on a target I could use any INT boost I can get. Even 1 point is noticable, if I can get two points all the better.

For soloing sword.

IT leveling probably wand

quick attack to get TP dagger


It comes down to how you want to play.

[tonka]

The debuffing daggers make no sense with a Red Mage. If you pull a spellcaster mob, you cast Silence on him immediately. Unless the dagger debuffs are much more powerful than your spells, it seems redundant to use them.

I would say just keep your Sword skill up in case you need damage. I often use caster weapons (club/staff) but i dont any skill to just equp them for bonuses, so Sword is the only skill that i keep maxed.