Starter tips for RDM

[Arcticie]

Hey I am getting the game next week and I know my first job is gonna be a red mage but i wondering.....

What is the best Weapon for a RDM starting out?

[Jei]

when you starting out solo, use sword.
When buying magic, look around your starting city and check maps for magic store. Level 1-20 you can buy almost all spells cheap from NPC.
When you got into parties, some parties you can attack with sword. But some parties if they need you as a caster, switch to wand for INT and MND bonus.
The higher you get, the more you will become a spell caster.

[Murphie]

Sword while solo. You'll want to use wands when in a party to increase your MND and INT.

I think you start with a sword or a dagger. I can't remember.

[Icemage]

Red mages start with a sword. I'd recommend getting together a bit of money from a quest or two and buying a Bronze Sword to replace it as your first order of business, however.


Icemage

[Arcticie]

Cant i use a gun also???

[Caspian]

According to the calculator on somepage, RDM's have no natural skill in marksmenship. They do have a D rank in archery. However, if you're trying to solo with one, you'r going to have a very hard time w/o a LOT of ranged accuracy gear, which is virtually nonexistent in the first levels.

[IfritnoItazura]

Cant i use a gun also???

No. >_> No bullet for your Red Mage.

And, if you're just starting out, you can't afford guns and bullets anyway. Wack at mobs with your pointy stick (sword) while solo'ing, and keep a spoon (wand) with INT+ and MND+ on your belt while in party should be good for the most part.

You may need to melee a bit in lower level parties, but I used my sword exactly once battle during Lv.32-34 while in party.

The nice thing is, I think you can comfortably solo to Lv.15 on RDM even as your first job, provided you keep your equipement updated. Once you're tired of solo'ing, party invite rate shouldn't be that bad, either.

(On my Thief, level 8-11 or so was a total pain... And, no, I don't want to talk about partying on a Lv. 11-15, subjob-less, rank 1 Thief. You can't make me! I'm in my happy place! >_< )

[Taskmage]

Red mages start with a sword. I'd recommend getting together a bit of money from a quest or two and buying a Bronze Sword to replace it as your first order of business, however.


IcemageNot actually correct. (*gasp* ;)) Red mages start with an onion dagger and Dia pre-learned. When I first started I didn't know you could get Dia free that way and made my starting job warrior so I'd get an onion sword instead, then switched my job to rdm immediately. ^^ Not that it matters much.

[TheGrandMom]

Ok, first things first. Go around town and talk to EVERY SINGLE NPC. This will start up quests for you, some of which you can complete right in town. It also helps you to get to know your starting city for easy navigation and knowing where things are.

Also remember you will have a map, make sure to use it instead of shouting for help finding a spot that is easily identified on your map.

Do some of those quests that you recieved from talking to NPC's. It REALLY helps! Some cities give you repeatable quests. Like in San'doria you will go outside and kill rabbits, bats, and worms in the beginning. Each of these mobs drop items that you can trade to a NPC for gil! (Rabbit = hide, Worm = flint stone, & Bats = bat wings) This is a great way to help you make money and knowing where these NPC's are is important which leads me to my next one.....

Learn to use your map and place markers on it. You will see when you open your map that a box will pop up that says markers. You use these to label a spot where something important to you is. So lets say you want to remember where the NPC's are for repeatable quests, then you click on the marker and move the dot on your map to your dot, as you're standing by the NPC. You will also be allowed to give it a SHORT name. So like for rabbit hide guy you could put RHide or something easy to understand. Then when you finally have rabbit hides open your map and look at the markers....TA DA! there he is!

And most of all, don't worry too much. The first 10-12 lvls that you solo you will learn a LOT of stuff. Just relax and enjoy yourself and don't worry to much about whether you should be doing this or that because it will all gel together in the end. Just enjoy your time in Vana'diel because the new player freshness eventually wears off and you'll look back rather fondly on all the little mistakes you made one day!

[Srxjo]

i started of with a Onion sword till my cousin gave me a onion sword at the lower lvl stay with the starter equipment till lvl 7 then get Leather stuff this all i can remember im a lvl 51 Rdm its been awhile since this lvl

*Edit Onion Dagger is what i started with

[Szkol]

I'm having a little trouble Learning what all the various Symbols are on equipment, that I now assume are elemental boosts or decreases. My question: for a Lvl 15 RDM, do the elemental effects of various equipment have any noticeable on the spells that I cast, or does it just effect the spells/attacks done to me? If it does affect my spells, should I focus on getting MND/INT boosting armor instead?

Also, if there's a simple guide showing what the different symbols all mean could you point me to it? I sort of think I have it Figured out.... the tornado is wind, the Flame is fire, the Water droplet is water.... but some I'm not sure... like there's a purple vortex-looking thing that I guess might be Dark?

Thanks!

[Avoklex]

I reccomend aftergetting your first levels in, switch to another job to level it to the same spot. This will help, when you get your sub jog quest at 18, in finding parties, since you will have a decently leveled sub-job. Plus, levelingthe extra job nets you more crystals and other sellable items.

[Ellipses]

I'm having a little trouble Learning what all the various Symbols are on equipment, that I now assume are elemental boosts or decreases. My question: for a Lvl 15 RDM, do the elemental effects of various equipment have any noticeable on the spells that I cast, or does it just effect the spells/attacks done to me? If it does affect my spells, should I focus on getting MND/INT boosting armor instead?

Also, if there's a simple guide showing what the different symbols all mean could you point me to it? I sort of think I have it Figured out.... the tornado is wind, the Flame is fire, the Water droplet is water.... but some I'm not sure... like there's a purple vortex-looking thing that I guess might be Dark?

Thanks!
You're right, those are elemental resistance pluses and minuses. No, they do not affect your spells in any way, only your defence against spells and attacks of those elements. Focus on MND and INT.

I can't find a guide, so here's a quick verbal run-down:
Red Flame - Fire
Blue Dot - Ice
Green Tornado - Wind
Yellow Block - Earth
Purple Lightning - Thunder
Blue Water Drop - Water
White Dot - Light
Black/Purple Swirly Dot - Dark

[nanatsu]

According to the calculator on somepage, RDM's have no natural skill in marksmenship. They do have a D rank in archery. However, if you're trying to solo with one, you'r going to have a very hard time w/o a LOT of ranged accuracy gear, which is virtually nonexistent in the first levels.

Soloing at low levels with bow and arrow is easy and fun. And no you don't need a lot of ranged accuracy gear. You can solo your way to 15 quite comfortably with a bow and arrow set. And any EP/DC/EM you find are easy pickings for your D skill in archery. Using it in exp is a no no, however, as you won't be able to hit the broad side of a barn without ranged accuracy gear, and you'll do better with your sword anyway even if you did.

Remember, thf have a D in sword skill and do quite fine with it all the way up into the early 30s. Some thf even go with E handtohand skill. Archery is fine for a rdm for solo play at low levels.

[Altae]

Don't new characters starting as RDM start with a Onion Dagger?

[Aeni]

Don't new characters starting as RDM start with a Onion Dagger?

Yes they do. LOL Not sure why people are posting that you start off with sword. I should know. I started off as RDM when starting Akemie and had to dump it and bought a Wax Sword +1 instead. :)

Also, Dia isn't pre-learned. You have a scroll of Dia in your inventory and you must use it to learn.

[Lasswyn]

Just wanna throw something out there that I wish someone had explained to me when I entered Vana'Diel as a baby red mage. In your spells menu, there's a coloured block next to each spell. The connection is obvious when you're looking at things like Water, Aero, Fire, Stone...but less obvious when you learn your enfeebling spells, like Poison, Paralyze, Slow, etc. Learn the colours and what they mean, and you'll notice an elemental alignment for each of your spells.

<tangent>

I solo'ed to 15 RDM because I was terrified of getting into a party situation and screwing up royal. Ended up in the Dunes eventually, by necessity, on one of the beaches. Fighting crabs, I'm just standing in the back casting stuff, and after awhile, this self-righteous @#$% with a mentor bubble (undeserved, imho) essentially tears me a new one for casting Poison. He says, "You can't poison crabs, you should know that by now." Uh, no, nobody told me about this before, and it wasn't in any of the guides I'd read. But I took his word for it, and felt pretty awful.

The elemental alignment was a key part of this guy's logic. Crabs are water-based. Poison is aligned to water. Crabs are resistant to water. Therefore crabs are 100% resistant to poison.

WRONG!

You *can* poison a crab, it's just bloody difficult at times because of the resistance. Later on, more factors come into play as to whether your spells are resisted or not. That guy was sorta right that I shouldn't have been wasting MP on a spell that would likely be resisted, but the logic he used to get there was flawed, and he didn't even bother to explain his thinking to me. He just called me an idiot, basically, and left it at that. And I went on levelling with the entirely wrong idea about a lot of things.

Went back to the Dunes around level 36, though, and poisoned crabs just for the hell of it. Felt good.

</tangent>

If you don't know what element(s) a monster is weak or stong to, look for lists online, especially lists for WHM's, because they need to know what Bar- spell to use on their party. Then go back and look at your spells, and the colours next to them, and how often this or that is resisted. You'll start seeing patterns that will help you more as time goes by.