which is better to use, and why? EXPLAIN!

Low level RDM should stick with swords, for better damage. If and when you can use Joyeuse (and have one), you'd be very glad to have sword skills under your belt. With appropriate support job equipped, you can gain access to Vorpal Blade, which is a very strong weapon skill. (Just not available natively to RDM.) Spirits Within is another nifty option to have when dealing with targets resistant to physical damage.

However, Daggers can be very useful as well; weapon skills like Energy Steal and Energy Drain can return MP, and Cyclone is excellent against some enemies which are weak to magic. Evisceration, RDM's quested dagger WS, probably out damage Savage Blade (quested sword WS).

In short, use swords now, but beware you should skill up both sword and dagger in the long run.

Lots of discussion on the topic here: http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/general-ffxi-discussion/64405-dagger-sword.html

The original poster is level 5.

Sword at low levels. Forget melee altogether and go with Clubs (specifically wands) somewhere around level 32 for the INT/MND boosts. And forget about wands in favor of Elemental Staves at level 51.


Icemage

Daggers improve a great deal after you get the En- series of spells, especially against mobs that are strong against physical but weak against magic damage like many amorphs and elementals.

Until then, swords are always better.

After getting En- spells, it depends on what type of mob you are fighting.

The original poster is level 5.

Sword at low levels. Forget melee altogether and go with Clubs (specifically wands) somewhere around level 32 for the INT/MND boosts. And forget about wands in favor of Elemental Staves at level 51.


Icemage

Im going to have to disagree with you on this, i myself prefered to melee until thoughts like this cast the rdm into the back line, we are a combat casting mage which is why we ve access to B skills in both sword and dagger.

Now i am not trying to knock you here for your style of play or any thing, this is just how i feel about comments such as this.

As for the topic at hand sword vs dagger has long been debated,

for levels 1-20 i would typically recomend us in sword here the daggers for this level range just dont stack up in DoT whcih is what our job is all about.

post 20 begin using daggers look for ones with low delay over higher damage the point for us is to not get the big numbers like the other melee.


20-71

in these levels i would be using dagger only subbing in sword to keep it capped. by using dagger it gives us some pretty tasty abilities in the drian line of weaponskills for sucking MP from a mob and giving it to ourselves, also as i said before we do not put up big numbers stick to the least delay daggers and with the appropriate enspell you can put up a lot of little numbers really fast which really add up. typically to as much as a normal melee would do minus his/her weaponskills

at level 51 you gain access to elemental staves and for 10 levels or so you may find it hard to melee do to our lacking staff skill and the burden of you duties, however at level 60 and with at least your AF hat and Coat you should be able to drop the staves and pick up the dagger again, be sure to use proper equipment as always enfeebling comes first other things come second. Also around this level youll realise youve been duped by the masses of the partying world and realise you dont need to haste everybody or refresh everybody, i wont ruin the suprise for you but by 60 youll know who to refresh haste and who not to.

at lvl 71 things change with the addition of the final weaponskills
again i lean towards the dagger side of things we are not a big number job by anymeans cure nukes and melee we are DoT, however sword is nice to have levelled and the joy toy is great i recommend subbing ninja and using joytoy of hand.

So afer that long description i personally beleive that dagger fits into our style a bit better than a sword, en-spells work better on daggers and many daggers have great enfeebling traits with them which seems to be our job, keep both leveled and use your own discretion, hope this helps

oh and i forgot to mention try using a /dnc this subjob will give us a permenant accuacy bonus and subtle blow so you wont be a tp builder to the mob, as well as a nice line of tp cures and aspir/drain samba for more effective DoT without wasting your own MP

Im going to have to disagree with you on this, i myself prefered to melee until thoughts like this cast the rdm into the back line, we are a combat casting mage which is why we ve access to B skills in both sword and dagger.

Now i am not trying to knock you here for your style of play or any thing, this is just how i feel about comments such as this.

When you can show me a "melee RDM" who can anchor a party and achieve XP chain #100+, then I'll change my mind about which role is a superior approach to partying on RDM.

oh and i forgot to mention try using a /dnc this subjob will give us a permenant accuacy bonus and subtle blow so you wont be a tp builder to the mob, as well as a nice line of tp cures and aspir/drain samba for more effective DoT without wasting your own MP
Sorry, but Subtle Blow I hardly qualifies as "not being a TP builder". I suppose it's superior to not having it at all, but 5% decrease in TP given to monsters isn't exactly a good reason to use a specific subjob.

For solo exploits, naturally using weapons is smart (usually), but the truth is that if you're soloing before level 74 (perhaps for Utsusemi: Ni with a Ninja subjob), your time is probably better spent gaining experience points and increasing your overall power level instead of trying to make do by trying to solo stuff at a disadvantage.


Icemage

at level 51 you gain access to elemental staves and for 10 levels or so you may find it hard to melee do to our lacking staff skill and the burden of you duties, however at level 60 and with at least your AF hat and Coat you should be able to drop the staves and pick up the dagger again
Are you insane? I can barely claim to reliably land Silence on Imps at Lv.75 with 4 Enfeebling Merits, Spider Torque, and NQ Wind Staff. At Lv.60, resist still happens even with Artifact gears and Staves; I'd hate to see how a RDM performs while willingly gimping himself by not using the Elemental Staves.

The "Coat" isn't enough to reliably stick enfeebs at Lv.60. The "hat" is great, but RDM's native Elemental skill is only C+.

be sure to use proper equipment as always enfeebling comes first other things come second.

As a general rule Elemental Staves are the "proper equipment", and you'd better be casting spells using them.

Also around this level youll realise youve been duped by the masses of the partying world and realise you dont need to haste everybody or refresh everybody, i wont ruin the suprise for you but by 60 youll know who to refresh haste and who not to.
It's not a matter of have to or don't have to; it's a matter of having enough MP to or not. I couldn't find the MP to do that at Lv.60, so I prioritized.

At Lv.75 with additional refresh (e.g. Ballad), I've hasted/refreshed an entire merit party full time. Not every party, but some you can--and thus should--while some you just have to reserve a greater buffer for cures. *shrug*

well to be honest with the exception of fast cast + the hat igenerally in my opinion less important then the tabard which gives enfeebling skill + 15 which is much more important to landing enfeebs on the mob then elemental skill i honestly have stopped casting nukes in a party unless i need to recap my elemental skill after a level.

again i would agree that staves are a major priority with landing spells and i do use them in situations where silence wont land, but for me i get my main enfeebs of no problem with out them and in 2 more levels when i get my enfeebling torque i will have a +25 enfeebling skill, also worth poitning out how long does it take you to cast your main enfeebs (dia(bio),slow,paralyze,blind, and gravity) whis generally takes me the first 30 seconds of the fight as it should most red mages, refresh and haste cycles can be done from the front lines.

And with you hitting the mob at the front line /dnc or not yes you will build TP to the mob at a mere 5% less than you would normally, however if you /dnc like i recomend you will also save plenty of MP by using the TP cure provided by the subjob.

As much as it is "Better" for a red mage to sit on the back line pre wotg i would agree but since this dancr job and the addition of TP curing,healing MP conservation can equal or excede that of stealing a few moments to heal.

Im notsaying all rdm's are capable of this or they "should" do it all im doing is trying to provide advise on what can be done to someone who asked a question. I have been doing rd/dnc for about a week now and i feel that it more completes my role as a RDM in the broder scale of things, the TP cures, erase (healing samba) drain and aspir samba are incredibly valuable to the speed at which a rdm can play since he is not reliant on MP as much as before.

Also to be noted that if you ever do become reliant on MP you can just use WS to drain the mob of its MP, provided the mob has MP, if not go sit down and rest and start the whole process over.

For to long weve been pushed to the back line because of our reliance on MP, well SE said theyd bring RDM back to the frontline and i feel this is it, a complete new way to help the party that does not rely on MP.

well to be honest with the exception of fast cast + the hat igenerally in my opinion less important then the tabard which gives enfeebling skill + 15 which is much more important to landing enfeebs on the mob then elemental skill i honestly have stopped casting nukes in a party unless i need to recap my elemental skill after a level.

again i would agree that staves are a major priority with landing spells and i do use them in situations where silence wont land, but for me i get my main enfeebs of no problem with out them and in 2 more levels when i get my enfeebling torque i will have a +25 enfeebling skill, also worth poitning out how long does it take you to cast your main enfeebs (dia(bio),slow,paralyze,blind, and gravity) whis generally takes me the first 30 seconds of the fight as it should most red mages, refresh and haste cycles can be done from the front lines.

And with you hitting the mob at the front line /dnc or not yes you will build TP to the mob at a mere 5% less than you would normally, however if you /dnc like i recomend you will also save plenty of MP by using the TP cure provided by the subjob.

As much as it is "Better" for a red mage to sit on the back line pre wotg i would agree but since this dancr job and the addition of TP curing,healing MP conservation can equal or excede that of stealing a few moments to heal.

Im notsaying all rdm's are capable of this or they "should" do it all im doing is trying to provide advise on what can be done to someone who asked a question. I have been doing rd/dnc for about a week now and i feel that it more completes my role as a RDM in the broder scale of things, the TP cures, erase (healing samba) drain and aspir samba are incredibly valuable to the speed at which a rdm can play since he is not reliant on MP as much as before.

Also to be noted that if you ever do become reliant on MP you can just use WS to drain the mob of its MP, provided the mob has MP, if not go sit down and rest and start the whole process over.

For to long weve been pushed to the back line because of our reliance on MP, well SE said theyd bring RDM back to the frontline and i feel this is it, a complete new way to help the party that does not rely on MP.
I get the impression that you have no idea what you're talking about. You agree with the concept of using elemental staves, yet brush over the very significant issue that you lose all your TP when you switch weapons, thus making using elemental staves incompatible with /DNC.

You can't use those TP cures without TP, and you can't cast your enfeebles effectively without elemental staves. So either one suffers, or the other suffers, but you can't have your cake and eat it too, since RDM has no intrinsic Staff skill to build TP with even were you to just use a single commonly used staff like an Ice Staff.

It sounds to me like you set out from the beginning with the mindset of just refusing to be a backline mage no matter how less effective it makes you and are coming up with a bunch of (flawed) rationalizations to make yourself feel better about your decision. On the face of it, that's fine as long as that's all you're doing, but you're now here in this thread attempting to mislead other players into thinking that "your way" is somehow a fresh and better new way to playing Red Mage - when it clearly is not.


Icemage

I can barely claim to reliably land Silence on Imps at Lv.75 with 4 Enfeebling Merits, Spider Torque, and NQ Wind Staff.


Really or are you exaggerating?

I'm only level 70, no Torque of any sort, no Enfeebling Merits, no +Enfeebling gear other than AF, and the NQ Wind Staff and I land Silence on Imps very reliably.

I realize it's a tangent not particularly relevant to the conversation at hand, but your statement is still surprising to me given my experiences recently.

Regardless, being able to land Silence reliably on Imps has proven to be a major boon to levelling against them, and equipment swapping to use a Wind Staff is a key component in my arsenal to get it to land.

Actually, all of the elemental staves are key components in my casting, and since I am constantly switching between them, melee in a party is not practical.

Really or are you exaggerating?

I'm only level 70, no Torque of any sort, no Enfeebling Merits, no +Enfeebling gear other than AF, and the NQ Wind Staff and I land Silence on Imps very reliably.

I realize it's a tangent not particularly relevant to the conversation at hand, but your statement is still surprising to me given my experiences recently.

Regardless, being able to land Silence reliably on Imps has proven to be a major boon to levelling against them, and equipment swapping to use a Wind Staff is a key component in my arsenal to get it to land.

Actually, all of the elemental staves are key components in my casting, and since I am constantly switching between them, melee in a party is not practical.

I'm sure II isn't remembering the Imps at 75, probably the Imps at 69-70. At 75 I have very good Silence Accuracy--above 50%. I usually land the first one, but if it doesn't go, I toss another one and he's done.

Auto-swap in Wind Staff, Tabard, Wise, and +MND jewelry on macro.

Imps aside, try a Mamool Ja Blusterer sometime. Absurdly difficult to Silence. Torque, Tabard, Wind Staff, 8 levels of enfeebling merits and a stack of +MND, 2 levels of Wind Accuracy, and I still miss about half of my Silences on them. I can only imagine how horrible my hit rate would be without the staff.


Icemage

Really or are you exaggerating?

I'm only level 70, no Torque of any sort, no Enfeebling Merits, no +Enfeebling gear other than AF, and the NQ Wind Staff and I land Silence on Imps very reliably.

At Lv.70, I found Imps to resist my Silence more than half of the time. Even when it landed, it tended to be for very short period.

It was around Lv.72 or 73 or so when I started to land Silence more than resisted. (When using Goblin Mushpot.) Still, the duration were short. Once I hit Lv.75 and with merits, Silence on Imps did became a lot easier. However, resists do happen quite frequently.

I'm very surprise you were able to do well with just Artifact armor and Wind Staff. Then again, I may have been emotionally scarred by all those nasty Imps, and that distorted my memory of how bad things were. >_>;

well to say i dont know what im talking about is an insult, and i dont much appreciate it. however if you read my post i say i use elemental staves in certain situations, and by no means did i say a red mage should melee all the time, and by know means am i trying to mislead people from doing what the community feels is right.

do i feel i am a rdm who refuses to play backline absolutley not i will back line i do backline, however with /dnc we gain a whole new line of cures and healing abilities which dont require us to use mp, which makes us more useful to the party in the long run. refresh and haste can be cast from the front line and instead of wasting mp curing the party you can burn tp instead.

as with all sub's this is a completley situational sub and as beneficial as subbing whm unless you are not a taru and rely on the mp boost from a /mage job.

as for the use of elemental staves in spells i have the majority of staves at HQ quality if i need to i use them, but again if you read my post you note i cast all my enfeebles in the first 30-5 seconds of the fight, at which point i would normally begin the refresh haste cycle, i do not require the staves to land the high accuracy enfeebles like slow paralyze, and my high native mind ensures my gravity sticks nearly everytime without a staff so these can be recasted at antime.

the arguemnt im trying to make here is solely that /dnc allows you the option of assisting your party in a different way (not a better or worse way) than /whm or /blm, and as always im not detering away from our regular duties, but however to preform this job you must have an understanding in several key areas, firstly you need to learn how to cast a spell as your hiting the monster it is invaluable to tp gain, secondly what a skill chain is and where you fit in, a rdm meleeing in a party should always use dagger o we can open skill chains for the heavier hitting DD to land on and we can then burst said chain, by doing this we have just assisted the party in more DoT.

Also we can assist the party in hate control, now ive only tested this breifly and if proper stats are on your rdm it is possible for you to become a secondary voke, or a thf's sata partner, stoneskin gives us a breif amount of time taking no damage, enough time for say a ninja to get his shadows up again.

In addition to all this you have a line of cures at your disposal that do not require mp and generally cure for more than its magical counterpart. drain samba and aspir samba will assist the party in keeping health higher and allow for you the dark the blu and any other frontline mage job to regain MP per hit.

Am i saying this job is a great dd no am i saying its a good dd no, am i saying rdm should all scrap mage subs for dd no, infact i am still working with this new combo peicing together a write up soi can tell all rdm's my findings on it and possibly introduce them to a new side to the game, we dont have to be a backline job if you know how to play the job properly, however i understand not all people arerich like me in the game and cant afford the high end stuff i speak of, in which case you should decide if this is worth it or not for you, if you cant land enfeebles on a mob 4-5 levels higher than you without the aid of staves perhaps you need to do something about that equipment or skill wise before trying this otherwise you will be embarassed by the mobs resistance.

and just for you incase you cant understand by bogled thoughts

rdm party role
enfeeb>>> refresh(not all need it) >>>haste(not all need it)>>>> rest>>>> restart

my personal style
enfeeb>>> attack mob>>> refresh>>>haste>>> keep party alive with TP cures saving MP

well to say i dont know what im talking about is an insult, and i dont much appreciate it. however if you read my post i say i use elemental staves in certain situations, and by no means did i say a red mage should melee all the time, and by know means am i trying to mislead people from doing what the community feels is right.

do i feel i am a rdm who refuses to play backline absolutley not i will back line i do backline, however with /dnc we gain a whole new line of cures and healing abilities which dont require us to use mp, which makes us more useful to the party in the long run. refresh and haste can be cast from the front line and instead of wasting mp curing the party you can burn tp instead.

as with all sub's this is a completley situational sub and as beneficial as subbing whm unless you are not a taru and rely on the mp boost from a /mage job.

as for the use of elemental staves in spells i have the majority of staves at HQ quality if i need to i use them, but again if you read my post you note i cast all my enfeebles in the first 30-5 seconds of the fight, at which point i would normally begin the refresh haste cycle, i do not require the staves to land the high accuracy enfeebles like slow paralyze, and my high native mind ensures my gravity sticks nearly everytime without a staff so these can be recasted at antime.

the arguemnt im trying to make here is solely that /dnc allows you the option of assisting your party in a different way (not a better or worse way) than /whm or /blm, and as always im not detering away from our regular duties, but however to preform this job you must have an understanding in several key areas, firstly you need to learn how to cast a spell as your hiting the monster it is invaluable to tp gain, secondly what a skill chain is and where you fit in, a rdm meleeing in a party should always use dagger o we can open skill chains for the heavier hitting DD to land on and we can then burst said chain, by doing this we have just assisted the party in more DoT.

Also we can assist the party in hate control, now ive only tested this breifly and if proper stats are on your rdm it is possible for you to become a secondary voke, or a thf's sata partner, stoneskin gives us a breif amount of time taking no damage, enough time for say a ninja to get his shadows up again.

In addition to all this you have a line of cures at your disposal that do not require mp and generally cure for more than its magical counterpart. drain samba and aspir samba will assist the party in keeping health higher and allow for you the dark the blu and any other frontline mage job to regain MP per hit.

Am i saying this job is a great dd no am i saying its a good dd no, am i saying rdm should all scrap mage subs for dd no, infact i am still working with this new combo peicing together a write up soi can tell all rdm's my findings on it and possibly introduce them to a new side to the game, we dont have to be a backline job if you know how to play the job properly, however i understand not all people arerich like me in the game and cant afford the high end stuff i speak of, in which case you should decide if this is worth it or not for you, if you cant land enfeebles on a mob 4-5 levels higher than you without the aid of staves perhaps you need to do something about that equipment or skill wise before trying this otherwise you will be embarassed by the mobs resistance.

and just for you incase you cant understand by bogled thoughts

rdm party role
enfeeb>>> refresh(not all need it) >>>haste(not all need it)>>>> rest>>>> restart

my personal style
enfeeb>>> attack mob>>> refresh>>>haste>>> keep party alive with TP cures saving MP

How extensive has your testing been?

I'm thinking if you're maining a PT 55+ your main cycle will be too long to really effectively build TP against XP mobs--most mobs you're fighting are VT/IT--are you eating Sushi? Also remember, most mobs last under 1 minute.

well for one i do eat sushi i dont require mp or int from pie as i am a taru and yes i know most mobs dont last longer than a minute 2 at the most however i suppose for the base of this arguement i should tell you i am in a static where i only require refresh and only haste 3 people including myself so the cycle takes no time at all and usually last for a mob and a half sometimes 2.

on a side note i feel this topic has gotten off track the question at hand is dagger vs sword and in my oipinon dagger is the better for faster tp gain and enspells, i only offered my veiw as /dnc as a reason for melee in a party.

naturally as with all subs its situational but if you do plan to melee in a party and are in a setup where this can be done like myself /dnc is a viable subjob that offers support for your melee and support to the party through the tp abilities

im not saying this job is going to replace /whm or /blm by any means but it is now another job that will offer us a great addition to our situational role that we play in most xp parties.

if you wish to debate more on the subject of /dnc i will happily open a new topic which i plan to do as i explore more deeply into this job combonation.

dagger in itself opens many great damaging skill chains and allows for a greater array of MB for yourselfor the BLM.SCH in the party, it is in my opinion the only weapon a rdm should use until the joytoy and even then if you plan on meleeing i recomend using dagger at high levels because of the speed and weaponskills it offers.


as for the question dagger> sword we are not a high damage job we can not keep up with a warrior but we do excel at DoT, with dagger and enspell our damage adds up fairly fast, and again we are able to open some pretty nice skill chains which many dont take into account if for example a rdm uses evisceration to open a chain it lowers an enemies resistance to the coresponding element, resaulting in a higher damaging closing by a true DD, this AD (assisted damage) goes unnoticed by everybody because the game does not tell us how it works all we see is the numbers on the screen. RDM is not a DD and im not saying it is and im not suggesting that RDM should e there swinging, the AD rdm gives is nice however this entirely situational postion is only capable if you are able to do the rest of your jobs effectivly, that meansenfeebling and keeping refresh/haste if the burden is to large backline it if you are able to get into a static where you have minimal duties outside of enfeebling by all means the AD is welcomed, infact most parties do not mind RDM meleeing as long as we do our job properly and do not get distracted, we have a dagger skill for a reason and parties know this, not meleeing is something we do to ourselves as the rdm community, and i agree at times we are over burdened with tasks and meleeing dosent seem feasable, but its not impossible it takes alot of work to do the RDM job all aspects of it are very time consuming and require plenty of focus.

I used to backline it because the burden of the refresh haste cycle as a new late game rdm overwhelmed me, the fact my enfeebles didnt stick and seemed to cure more often than not, but this was just a learning exprience i have come through and with my equipment no longer require staffs to land the big 3 and can keep haste refresh up with no trouble, also now that other jobs have become better with their abilities as we have all grown i find i do not cure as much, this leaves plenty of time and room for me to melee, playing this job effectivley means mastering enfeebs, refresh, haste, proper curring, and when to nuke, as well as melee which most people forget about, its all about confidence in yourself and you party to know what they are doing and you are doing, its about prediciting what the other jobs will do next, the experience you gain through parties should not just go to you charecter but to you as a player, to be able to help the party anyway it can is the true art of a rdm and that includes meleeing at appropriate times
and with the appropriate weapon that suits our job, the dagger

Dagger doesn't open much of anything worth mentioning other than Gravitation (which barely anything save for Penta Thrust can decently close.) Also, RDM's dagger selection leaves a lot to be desired, and it's already a so-so weapon type in the mid levels. Plus its WS suck until Evisceration. Gust Slash can be decent but Burning Blade will put up the same numbers (while opening Fusion, which MNKs are very apt for closing, early on with Combo, and later with Raging Fists.)

Also, less walls of text please.

Evisceration opens Distortion.

Wtg, guys. You've let yet another thread turn into a melee vs mage RDM topic.

Evisceration opens Distortion.
Wtg, guys. You've let yet another thread turn into a melee vs mage RDM topic. Aren't those the only kinds anymore?

That aside, so does Savage Blade ;P

and in my oipinon dagger is the better for faster tp gain and enspells,

Agreed on en-spells benefiting less from swords (except Joyeuse), but why would dagger give (substantially) better TP gain?

Also, if you use staves at the start of the fight, then switch to dagger (or sword), how much TP would you have? Would it be enough to get decent use out of /DNC? Something just seems off about match a casting intensive job to a TP use intensive support job.

* * *

Getting back to dagger vs. sword at low levels: stick to swords for soloing, get out of the front line if there's AoE attack (or just stay in the back and rest for MP when not casting), and play around with dagger when farming. Both sword and dagger skills will be useful at higher levels, but sword wins the damage game for the beginner RDMs.

thats what im working on at the moment i personally enjoy experimenting with different subs for my favorite job i was one of the first on my server to play around with rdm/blu which for all intents and purpouses is a crazy sub, burning blade and vorapl blade made sword worth using, the stat boosts from spells allowed you to max out your enfeebling gear and mnd int without needing to sacrafice it for melee damage and acc.

as for dagger vs sword for tp gain cast haste on yourself and attack with a dagger then do the same for a sword i dont know if its just me but i find a noticible difference in the speed at which dagger generates TP

Dagger weapon skills open more powerful skillchains such as distortion, which BLM's burst on with the hgher ranked blizzard, which for some reason seems to hit harder than thunder more often (if anyone can tell me why this is id greatly apreciate it)

Sword to me isnt worthwhile until the joytoy, albeit it does build TP nearly as quick as dagger it dosent carry the same speed to do damage with enspells which is really the only way our damage can add up to decent numbers

RDM does not have naturally inherent amount of str or acc however i find that daggers seem to land more often than not compared to a sword, and due to the fact we dont have much str and we rely on enspells that puts dagger as top weapon in my books the DoT from dagger seems to out do that from swords as far as i can tell because of the amount of times enspell takes effect.

Im not trying to turn this into a debate between melee and casting rdm im simply trying to answer a question based on my knowledge of the dagger vs sword debate, i only commented on dnc because at higher levels our accuracy drops off greatly and its the only sub we can use (effectivley due to the skill set it provides) that offers us both subtle blow and an accuracy bonus.

Do i think RDM should melee, yes in certain situations lke i described in my last post, everyone who seems to be involved in this debate should know when those situations are, yes we are a mage class first and i have covered that, and a melee second, the fact is it is possible for RDM to do it effectivley and to do so takes the right person at the steering wheel.

Its the endless debate that will never be finished however i see more and more "Hybrid" RDM's as people are begining to get comfortable with their workload and are trying to return to the frontline, some good some bad the fact is some of us are trying to do different things and increase our roll in the party to help in diferent ways, while others are sitting here in forums flamming us for doing it.

Perhaps you nay sayers who sit on the backline are comfortable there, i am to, hower there comes a time when things need to change, personally for me i have delved into the combat caster role my gear is designed to be an effective enfeebler without the aid of staves and an effective melee without sacraficing my duties to the party. I have had to do UO about 7 times (and am 5/7 on a PCC and NI double drop :) ) so i can afford to get decent gear that does not hinder me either way, i know some people can not afford this and i understand that however those of us who are able to buy HQ gear can have Hbrid builds that allow us to do both sides of the fence effectivley.

And in closing because i do not wish to carry on this melee mage debate any longer i implore you naysayers who refuse to try and change new things wheter you are comfortable in your role or you just try and put others down to try this sometime get the gear get the tools for the job, until i began this melee endevour RDM was getting stale to me, being in PT's with a whm who didnt seem to do anything but take a free ride on my back, being in parties with a blm who didnt cast as often as he could because he had a rdm their to support nuke, frankly im tired of the role we have been painted into i guess you could say im biased in my opinions maybe so but at least im still doing my job and i am going above that to assist the party in other ways as well, we dont just need to assist through being MP sinks for haste refresh and cures the faster a mob dies the less MP i need to sink, if i only do 24 damage with a dagger and 16 from and enspell i dont care thats 40 more damage a swing the mob takes,. to call ourselves TP builders is shameful BLU dumps a stupid amount of TP to a monster with the big 3 our pidly amount from a dagger attack is chicken shit compared to our true DD counterparts.

If you have anything else to say on this matter, lets take it to one of the 6 million rdm melee fourms scattered across the web, if you want to talk about why i fell dagger is better then we can stay right here, if you want to flame me for being a rouge rdm and trying new things go ahead, i know i help my party im one of the better rdm"s on my server and get told this all the time, the only thing you need to d is prove to yourself you can do it then prove it to a party, its all about you not others others arent playing for you if you cant do it it is because you dont think you can, honestly its all about confidence in yourself as a player if you have confidence in your play style and confidence you can try something new to have a different style then you can and it will show and your party's will see it too.

Stop. Quite frankly...

Thisrdm/blu which for all intents and purpouses is a crazy sub, burning blade and vorapl blade made sword worth using, the stat boosts from spells allowed you to max out your enfeebling gear and mnd int without needing to sacrafice it for melee damage and acc.and thisas for dagger vs sword for tp gain cast haste on yourself and attack with a dagger then do the same for a sword i dont know if its just me but i find a noticible difference in the speed at which dagger generates TPand thisDagger weapon skills open more powerful skillchains such as distortion, which BLM's burst on with the hgher ranked blizzard, which for some reason seems to hit harder than thunder more often (if anyone can tell me why this is id greatly apreciate it)and thisSword to me isnt worthwhile until the joytoy, albeit it does build TP nearly as quick as dagger it dosent carry the same speed to do damage with enspells which is really the only way our damage can add up to decent numbersand thisRDM does not have naturally inherent amount of str or acc however i find that daggers seem to land more often than not compared to a sword, and due to the fact we dont have much str and we rely on enspells that puts dagger as top weapon in my books the DoT from dagger seems to out do that from swords as far as i can tell because of the amount of times enspell takes effect.is wrong.

Not only that, you're blowing out of proportion dagger's advantages. IF dagger has an advantage (a questionable proposition,) it's marginal. Swords in general do better melee damage and that'll counteract and probably exceed the extra enspell damage from more swings. Might I remind you that enspells can be resisted.

And that's as far as I cared to read your post. Speaking of which, I really need to emphasize that EVERYONE WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE IT IF YOU SPLIT YOUR ESSAYS INTO PARRAGRAPHS AND YOUR PARRAGRAPHS INTO SENTENCES. Your posts are downright painful to read. Nothing personal, by the way.

as i said i dont care for people who art trying to put my views down. as for proper sentance structure i care not if its hard to read dont read it. as for you trying to tell me im wrong on these things i dont care, evidently you missed the parts of my post where i state this is my opinion.

as for the debate at hand i really dont care what you guys are saying against me i am trying to answer someones question. if you want to debate me on sword vs dagger then fine state your reasons for this and i will rebutle them. Until then i will spout of on promoting the use of dagger as a main weapon for the sole purpoe I FEEL IT IS BETTER, see i said i feel it is better i didnt say it was better. PERSONALLY (see again refering to myself) I (myself again) think (in the currents sentance this word is a verb as to my thoughts my personal thoughts) that dagger is better, I (me again) have sword leveled equally to dagger and find it to be less usefull for me (myself)

as for proper structuring of paragraphs.

Paragraph

Noun. a collection of ideas or statements pertaining to a similar context or arguement

thusly i do properly construct paragraphs, pagraphs can be 1- unlimted number of sentances, statements, etc if they pertain to the same context. perhaps you should study english more or read some essays. If i remeber correctly writing essays you can have pages that are all the same paragraph i could be wrong though maybe im speaking german or japanese i can write in straight lines if you like.

T F Y I T
H O O N H
A R U P O
N R U U
K T G
S H

Egad @ the Walls O' Text.

I said you don't know what you're talking about because... well... you don't. I'm sorry, but it's true.

as with all sub's this is a completley situational sub and as beneficial as subbing whm unless you are not a taru and rely on the mp boost from a /mage job.
I'm Taru, and I still abuse the heck out of /mage subs on RDM. Maybe you don't appreciate an extra ~100mp every 10 minutes for Converts, but I assure you most people do. That extra 100mp covers a LOT of those little issues you've been harping about regarding things like status cures, incidentally. At best you're at a zero sum game.

as for the use of elemental staves in spells i have the majority of staves at HQ quality if i need to i use them, but again if you read my post you note i cast all my enfeebles in the first 30-5 seconds of the fight, at which point i would normally begin the refresh haste cycle, i do not require the staves to land the high accuracy enfeebles like slow paralyze, and my high native mind ensures my gravity sticks nearly everytime without a staff so these can be recasted at antime.
Wow. Where to begin?

(1) Good RDMs don't wait for fights to start to "start a Refresh/Haste cycle" - those spells are cast on a continuous rotation, and are interrupted only if an emergency appears (Dispel, someone going into red HP, whatever).

(2) Tarutaru have the lowest MND in the game. I don't know where you get this idea that you have high MND, but I assure you it is not true.

(3) In any case, Gravity isn't impacted by MND - it's black magic, and is resisted based on INT, which Tarutaru have good amounts of. That said, it's still a wildly inaccurate spell even with tons of INT, elemental staves, +enfeebling gears and merits, let alone without.

the arguemnt im trying to make here is solely that /dnc allows you the option of assisting your party in a different way (not a better or worse way) than /whm or /blm, and as always im not detering away from our regular duties, but however to preform this job you must have an understanding in several key areas, firstly you need to learn how to cast a spell as your hiting the monster it is invaluable to tp gain, secondly what a skill chain is and where you fit in, a rdm meleeing in a party should always use dagger o we can open skill chains for the heavier hitting DD to land on and we can then burst said chain, by doing this we have just assisted the party in more DoT.

Adding to your list of misundertandings:

- Spellcasting doesn't interrupt your melee timer, it just puts it on hold while your spell is being cast.

- Pray explain to me what skillchains you're opening with Dagger in the level 50-some range you claim to be at. Detonation? Liquefaction? Reverberation? Gravitation? Be still my beating heart!


Also we can assist the party in hate control, now ive only tested this breifly and if proper stats are on your rdm it is possible for you to become a secondary voke, or a thf's sata partner, stoneskin gives us a breif amount of time taking no damage, enough time for say a ninja to get his shadows up again.

So let me get this straight. You believe it's a good thing to make your red mage (who isn't resting for MP since he's too busy flailing away with a toothpick) to grab hate and tank using Blink/Stoneskin (using even more MP) versus a job that might intrinsically have shadows or other enmity/evade defenses that don't require MP (BLU/NIN, DNC/NIN, SAM/anything, DRG/whatever)? Red mage is my second to last choice for a trick attack partner behind your healer.

In addition to all this you have a line of cures at your disposal that do not require mp and generally cure for more than its magical counterpart. drain samba and aspir samba will assist the party in keeping health higher and allow for you the dark the blu and any other frontline mage job to regain MP per hit.
...except that you just sacrificed ~100MP from not subbing a mage job, and another ~50MP from not using a magic-boosting food, so now you're down ~150 or so MP every 10 minutes. How is this a cost savings, again?

Am i saying this job is a great dd no am i saying its a good dd no, am i saying rdm should all scrap mage subs for dd no, infact i am still working with this new combo peicing together a write up soi can tell all rdm's my findings on it and possibly introduce them to a new side to the game, we dont have to be a backline job if you know how to play the job properly, however i understand not all people arerich like me in the game and cant afford the high end stuff i speak of, in which case you should decide if this is worth it or not for you, if you cant land enfeebles on a mob 4-5 levels higher than you without the aid of staves perhaps you need to do something about that equipment or skill wise before trying this otherwise you will be embarassed by the mobs resistance.
Against VT or higher enemies, even with fully merited (8 levels) of Enfeebling and good gears in the 50s, it was nearly impossible to reliably land the most important enfeebles (Silence, Sleep, Sleep II). We can babble all we want about Slow and Paralyze until the cows come home, but while those spells are important, they're not vital the way Silence and Sleep are. I'm sure your party will be simply thrilled to know your TP cures are there after you've just gotten slammed by Firaga II because you failed to Silence that spellcasting enemy.


Icemage

It doesn't matter what your opinion is or how you feel about your dagger's performance if it's wrong. That's kind of the point in pointing those things out. Daggers are not more accurate than swords, because RDM has the same skill rating in both weapons. Blizzard does not do more damage than Thunder, unless you're nuking something that's Thunder resistant. Daggers do not open "more damaging Skillchains."If i remeber correctly writing essays you can have pages that are all the same paragraph i could be wrong though maybe im speaking german or japanese i can write in straight lines if you like.Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Try it some time, I'm sure you'll lose a big chunk out of your grade.

And you should care about the legibility of your posts. This is a forum. If you're posting here, it's for others to read your posts. Making hard-to-read posts is a waste of everyone's time.

...on a side note i feel this topic has gotten off track the question at hand is dagger vs sword and in my oipinon dagger is the better for faster tp gain and enspells, i only offered my veiw as /dnc as a reason for melee in a party...


This particular thread had it's real answers on page one. The rest of it is just tangential conversation. Since a sequence of very good answers have already been given the thread's life is basically limited by the ideas arising as a result of the initial thread. It can no longer be an "on-topic" thread and be relevant or interesting. I believe there's already a RDM/DNC thread somewhere which we can necro (It'll be a good fleshy zombie, the thread is recent--hardly recognizable as such).

ok well i never claimed i was a lvl 50 something mage im lvl 65 and have enfeebling torue enfeebling earring and my tabard that adds 25 to my enfeebling skill i have +35 MND from the rest of my equipment which more than enough cover my lack there of and again if you look at my previous posts im in a statci and refresh only myself i also have a bard who casts ballad on me i rarely drop below 500 MP and we keep chain 5-7 regualrily.

If you guys would read my previous post youll see that i clearly state that ths is how i see it and how it goes for me, i dont care if you cant land your spells i can, your issues is not my problem, im stating what i do and what ive found works from my exerience, i could care less of your setups or your styles, if i did i would have asked you. i see this has now just turned into a flame glueds play style topic and will happily debate you until im blue in the face

for you to sit here and tell me how to play my RDM is insane, i dont tell you how to play yours so dont tell me how to play mine i have HQ elemental staves for ice dark wind and stone, i garuntee that at level 75 i will be ale to out play any of you regardless of the sub i choose, i have taken playing this job to a science and know that i play it at a better ability than most. i suppose to say i can out play you is outrageous and i appologize but again my end game set up will be better than 90% of the RDM i have seen, and the fact that i can do my job while meleeing adds to my skill set over you who just coast by on the refresh/haste cycle to full merits.

If i wanted to play as a backline charecter i would play as one but i dont, so i dont, i dont give two shits about how you think i should play, its people like you that cause RDM to be deemed a boring job and no fun because when you play it the way you do it is not.

If you think playing your backline style is more effective then me good your entitled to your opinions and i am mine, swords suck daggers arent much better RDM has a crap melee skill either way, however you can take your swd and ill use my dagger and i garuntee you i will out damage you over an equal legnth fight i would put money on it.

Im tired of you nay sayers flooding fourms and topics negating the fact RDM can melee, it is because of you and people like you our job suffers in a prison of boredom, its because of you that all the xbox players have been taught RDM never melee and dont, its because of you that these types of arguements will never cease to exist, take peoples opinions as their own and leave it at that, i grant you ur opinions and your styles grant me mine and stop fucking peppering me with your BS nonsense answers that dont mean anything to me, maybe one day if i come to the fourm and ask a question saying should rdm melee or is backline play better than frontline, then you can give me your shitty details about it until then i have my opinion and i have my style it works for me and it works for my party if it doesn't work for you i dont give a shit you can go fuck yourself.

enjoy my wall of text thats a proper paragraph all the sentences point to the same thing I DONT CARE WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT MY IDEAS but dont tell me how to play my job, im better than you

To be perfectly honest I'm going to commend Glued for searching for ways to improve his job, I'm sick and damn tired of red mages hopping into Black Mage manaburns and freeloading their way to 75 and merits while half assing the refreshes, hastes and nukes.

How long is it going to be before you red mages finally learn that there is no God combo in this game, everything is situational in your subs. /whm/blu/dnc hell ive seen a red mage /war duo tank with stoneskin phalanx blink. You all walk around and brag about being the games most versitile job but I don't see any of you trying to expand the horizons of your job.

Also to answer your question Glued, blizzard hits more often than thunder without resists because more often than not you fight againsed wind elemental monsters as opposed to water element.

Basically what I'm trying to say to the rest of you red mages, maybe he's right maybe he's wrong but then... how do you know you havn't even tried it now have you? I was againsed manaburning with a pup, figured a pup has no place in a manaburn party, and he fit in fairly well. To be honest the majority of players who strut around as their level 75 rdms are some of the laziest party members I ever had.

As for /dnc, don't knock it unless you've tried it, and you havn't, so shut up.

The original poster is level 5.

Sword at low levels. Forget melee altogether and go with Clubs (specifically wands) somewhere around level 32 for the INT/MND boosts. And forget about wands in favor of Elemental Staves at level 51.


Icemage

Im going to have to disagree with you on this, i myself prefered to melee until thoughts like this cast the rdm into the back line, we are a combat casting mage which is why we ve access to B skills in both sword and dagger.

Now i am not trying to knock you here for your style of play or any thing, this is just how i feel about comments such as this.

As for the topic at hand sword vs dagger has long been debated,

for levels 1-20 i would typically recomend us in sword here the daggers for this level range just dont stack up in DoT whcih is what our job is all about.

post 20 begin using daggers look for ones with low delay over higher damage the point for us is to not get the big numbers like the other melee.


20-71

in these levels i would be using dagger only subbing in sword to keep it capped. by using dagger it gives us some pretty tasty abilities in the drian line of weaponskills for sucking MP from a mob and giving it to ourselves, also as i said before we do not put up big numbers stick to the least delay daggers and with the appropriate enspell you can put up a lot of little numbers really fast which really add up. typically to as much as a normal melee would do minus his/her weaponskills

at level 51 you gain access to elemental staves and for 10 levels or so you may find it hard to melee do to our lacking staff skill and the burden of you duties, however at level 60 and with at least your AF hat and Coat you should be able to drop the staves and pick up the dagger again, be sure to use proper equipment as always enfeebling comes first other things come second. Also around this level youll realise youve been duped by the masses of the partying world and realise you dont need to haste everybody or refresh everybody, i wont ruin the suprise for you but by 60 youll know who to refresh haste and who not to.

at lvl 71 things change with the addition of the final weaponskills
again i lean towards the dagger side of things we are not a big number job by anymeans cure nukes and melee we are DoT, however sword is nice to have levelled and the joy toy is great i recommend subbing ninja and using joytoy of hand.

So afer that long description i personally beleive that dagger fits into our style a bit better than a sword, en-spells work better on daggers and many daggers have great enfeebling traits with them which seems to be our job, keep both leveled and use your own discretion, hope this helps

oh and i forgot to mention try using a /dnc this subjob will give us a permenant accuacy bonus and subtle blow so you wont be a tp builder to the mob, as well as a nice line of tp cures and aspir/drain samba for more effective DoT without wasting your own MP

@ Glued: I think this whole thing started with you suggesting a playstyle that YOU prefer to a new red mage rather than suggesting the common playstyle. The playstyle you prefer might not get him/her some invites or may get him/her kicked out. The common playstyle will get him/her more invites than the playstyle you suggested to him/her. A NEW red mage playing your playstyle might feel miserable of the lack of invites and/or the way people judge you on how you play. I'm not trying to "attack" you or anything by the way. I just think that you continue to say "It's my opinion and it's the way I love my experience" or something related to that, but fail to release you're suggesting this uncommon playstyle to a new red mage and he/she may become confused because he/she got the wrong information. I mean like...there's even a Summoner on Allakhazam that's suggesting to try Melee Summoner.

Glued: You're annoying.

Krut: You're preaching to the choir and when you know game mechanics, you don't have to be a genius to see if something works or doesn't.

Maybe /DNC works in certain party setups and circumstances. That's all well and good. But Glued sure is doing one hell of a poor job at arguing in its favor, since whatever he posts is inaccurate (and that's being generous) more often than not.

I have been doing a lot of rdm/dnc and I don't think I would do it outside of a bard pulled merit pt so suggesting it to a lvl5 rdm who should be using a wand is just retarded.

i dont care if you think i am annoying.

the arguement i am making that you seem to be avoiding is we are a DoT job id like to see you keep up an arguement that your fast blade will out damage my wasp sting or that your shining blade would out damge my viper bite it wont, since both dagger WS's add DoT however since your probably a screen reader and only look at damage you can see you wouldnt recognize this as benefitial to the party.

Wheres the weaponskill that allows swords to stick a decent DoT effect to a target oh thats right it dosent have one

as for the tp gain arguement
dagger 5%
sword 6%

typically a dagger attacks slightly less than 1.5 times for each sword atack so doing basic math

2 sword x 6% = 12 % 3 dagger x 5%= 15%
15 sword x 6% = 90% 20 dagger x 5%= 100% weapon skill
17 sword x 6% = 102% 3 dagger x 5%= 10%
weaponskill
2 sword x 6% = 12% 6 dagger x 5%= 30%
15 sword x 6% = 90% 14 dagger x 5%= 100% weaponskill
17 sword x 6% = 102% 9 dagger x 5%= 45%
weaonskill

as you can see by this simple calculation chart the dagger gains rather quickly on the sword due to the ammount of attacks it gets at a higher speed, the dagger is already half way to the 3rd weaponskill as the sword is just starting to gain for it.

as for enspell damage you can do it the same way

assuming your enspell is hitting effectivley at 12 points of damage for arguements sake

using the same basis

2 sword attacks 24 damage 3 dagger attacks 36 damage

as for weapon damage itself i will use my personal weapons if anyone would like to check weapons on their charecter please do.

sword wize wizzards annelace hits from 35-40 damage
dagger kidney dagger hits 20-30 damage (occasionally crits from 30-40*will leave this out for accucy sake*)

so again we will do our base formula

2 sword 70-80 3 dagger 60-90

adding in enspell damage we have

sword hiting 2 times for 94-104
dagger hitting for 96-126

facotring this damage with the conclusion drawn from out first calculation the
sword damages for about 94-104 every 2 hits and getts 2 weaponskills
the dagger damages for about 96-126 every 3 hits and gets 2 weaponskills and 45% gain on the sword

depending on the weaponskill chosen is what will provide a larger gap for the dagger or sword however keep in mind if it so happens you are getting many skillchains a fight dagger will win hands down.

it is a very close race and really depends on personal preferance i choose dagger for more little number over time as well as viper bite which poisons a target as well as damages this damage i couldnt begin to tell you what it is all i know is it is their and adds more damage done overall by the dagger.

Wierd got disconnected while I was typing, that's what i get for soloing SCH and posting at the same time I guess.

Anyways I typed a lot and don't wanna put it all up, basically what I said was, New players should form their own opinions about their jobs/equipment and subjobs on their own, as we all should.

Don't stop experimenting with new things just because you found something that works, because you might find something that rocks. Also Icemage did you say that the 100MP boost from a /mage job is imperitive? and that you are a Taru? if so talk to me when you hit 75, at 75 I can spit 100 Mp on the ground and still function for 3 more fights. It's called convert, and it isn't just for emergancies.

...
as for the tp gain arguement
dagger 5%
sword 6%

typically a dagger attacks slightly less than 1.5 times for each sword atack so doing basic math

2 sword x 6% = 12 %

You don't understand the mechanic. TP gain is scaled based on delay so that two people with equal stats will arrive at 100% TP at approximately the same time. This facilitates Skillchains. No weapon is superior.

Schwert: 5.9TP/hit, 221 Delay. 5.9/221*60 = 1.60TP/s
Harpe: 5.7TP/hit, 210 Delay. 5.7/210*60 = 1.63TP/s

The Harpe gets .03 TP over Schwert each second, so it takes 33 seconds for the dagger to get 1% TP--based on this difference the Harpe user will get an extra WS every 330 sec (5.5 min). The formula for TP gain is based on the delay of the weapon--not the type, and it is fixed so that all weapons are roughly equal. You will find this relative truth in almost any weapon you look at with the exception of weapons like Joyeuse, Ridill, and Kraken Club which get multiple attacks per delay cycle. Oh, and extra TP is for naught if you're at 103% when you blast your WS--the extra 3% may scale the damage, but naught else.

Darksteel Maul: 8.75TP/hit, 340 Delay. 8.75/340*60 = 1.54TP/s
Nodachi: 11.5TP/hit, 450 Delay. 11.5/450*60 = 1.53TP/s
Yoto: 6.2TP/hit 232 Delay. 6.2/232*60 = 1.60TP/s
etc..

Also, if you don't have a good WS, you're often better off using Fast Blade because it's a double hit which will, in general, beat anything off a dagger except an unresisted Cyclone (which is most efficiently launched at 200%). If you don't have Vorpal (4 hits) or Savage (2 hits), stick with Fast Blade for damage and Flat Blade for Stun effect. When using a dagger for DPS, you should stay with Cyclone activated at 200% until you get Evisceration. Wasp Sting and Viper Bite are laughable without THF's AGI and DEX bonuses. Viper Bite doesn't even scale based on TP--it's modifier is always 1.00. Fast Blade Scales 1.0 > 1.5 > 2.0 with TP and so does Cyclone. Cyclone is the most powerful WS RDM gets until Evisceration. When I'm using dagger, though, I am most often using the dagger to supplement MP regeneration against Magic-using Mobs by WS'ing Energy Drain which can be quite useful when you're using a lot of MP and can't rest.

Let's take one last look at the TP thing.

Schwert: 100% TP / 5.9TP/hit = 16.9 (17 hits) 17 * 5.9 = 100.3% (17 * 221 / 60 = 63 seconds/WS)
Harpe: 100% TP / 5.7TP/hit = 17.5 (18 hits) 18 * 5.7 = 102.6% (18 * 210 / 60 = 63 seconds/WS)

You will notice that the Harpe wastes 2.3% more TP per WS than the Schwert which further equalizes the TP gain rate since this extra 2.3% disappears when you launch. Since it takes 63 seconds to WS, the extra TP (1% every 33 seconds) you got from Dagger being ever-so-slightly faster is lost (wrt to launching WS) when you WS every time you reach threshold.

Wierd got disconnected while I was typing, that's what i get for soloing SCH and posting at the same time I guess.

Anyways I typed a lot and don't wanna put it all up, basically what I said was, New players should form their own opinions about their jobs/equipment and subjobs on their own, as we all should.

Don't stop experimenting with new things just because you found something that works, because you might find something that rocks. Also Icemage did you say that the 100MP boost from a /mage job is imperitive? and that you are a Taru? if so talk to me when you hit 75, at 75 I can spit 100 Mp on the ground and still function for 3 more fights. It's called convert, and it isn't just for emergancies.

But what if it works AND rocks? :)

If it works AND rocks you have discovered the "Krutmage" all skills 255 all hits do OVER 9000! damage.

Don't stop experimenting with new things just because you found something that works, because you might find something that rocks. Also Icemage did you say that the 100MP boost from a /mage job is imperitive? and that you are a Taru? if so talk to me when you hit 75, at 75 I can spit 100 Mp on the ground and still function for 3 more fights. It's called convert, and it isn't just for emergancies.
Ahem. If you'll click on my character information, you'll see that I'm a level 75 Taru RDM. I also have 5 levels of Convert merits, and a 1131 MP Convert ratio in ToAU zones.

http://img26.picoodle.com/img/img26/5/11/14/f_Convert4m_ecd60cc.jpg (http://www.picoodle.com/view.php?img=/5/11/14/f_Convert4m_ecd60cc.jpg&srv=img26)

100MP is 100MP. Even for me. That's an extra nuke I can toss to try and hold an XP chain together, or a failsafe Cure IV to save a melee who just got hammered.

Even with all that MP flow, there are still times when my MP pools are challenged; if you're just doing the typical chain 5 party, then no, you don't need all that MP, but when I'm trying to maintain a chain bonus and going for XP chain #100+, I'll take every advantage I can squeeze out of my gear and playstyle, and be thankful for it.


Icemage

Maybe I just think 100 MP is nothing because you can cap out your mp with a simple convert. With 5 merits in Convert time then I don't see how 100 Mp is an issue at all, not to mention glued explained he would be saving MP using TP to cure.

Maybe It'll work there Icemage, and hey maybe it wont. Why don't you go try it for yourself and then come back to talk about it with an educated opinion because between the 4 of us it seems like Glued is the only one doing any research.

I'm not sayin your wrong Icemage, and I'm not saying your right. Just try if before you dismiss it. What's the worst that could happen you'll waste a few hours of time you could have used doing the same exact thing you've done for the last 75 levels... and if you don't what to try it than stop talking about it and dismiss it all together, you dont want /dnc you dont need /dnc and you arnt even interested in /dnc? well than forget about /dnc and play some cookie cutter rdm.

i dnt understand where you pull 5.9 and 5.7 from the tp gain rate for swords is 6 and tp gain rate for dagger is 5

please reread my post i mistakenly posted it prior to finishing, and if tp gain is designed on delay and sword is as close to dagger as you say why does my thf in my static get roughly 3-4 weapon skills vs the palidin who uses a sword.

as for your mp thing at 100 you say its nice to have for a cure 4 or a nuke, if this is the case why would my /dnc not be better using tp cures leaving me with plenty
of mp remaining not be better of than you for an emergency cure or nuke, also for an extended convert cycle.

i rely on the 10 minute cycle and i can make my mp last this and then some rather easily the TP cures and healing (erase) waltz's only increase this time frae allowing me to easily keep up with mu job's demands.

as for 75 merit parties i dont know much outside of what ive read however the situatinal role we play as far as can tell remains the same from when we got refresh, the extra mp i save from /dnc will not make me fret when im trying to hold on for convert.

Maybe I just think 100 MP is nothing because you can cap out your mp with a simple convert. With 5 merits in Convert time then I don't see how 100 Mp is an issue at all, not to mention glued explained he would be saving MP using TP to cure.

Maybe It'll work there Icemage, and hey maybe it wont. Why don't you go try it for yourself and then come back to talk about it with an educated opinion because between the 4 of us it seems like Glued is the only one doing any research.

I'm not sayin your wrong Icemage, and I'm not saying your right. Just try if before you dismiss it. What's the worst that could happen you'll waste a few hours of time you could have used doing the same exact thing you've done for the last 75 levels... and if you don't what to try it than stop talking about it and dismiss it all together, you dont want /dnc you dont need /dnc and you arnt even interested in /dnc? well than forget about /dnc and play some cookie cutter rdm.
My main observation with RDM is that you're too busy casting to fight. I spent the majority of my RDM levelling career as RDM/BRD, so I'm not exactly unfamiliar with unusual builds.

Even with a Joyeuse available to me, if I were seriously going to try and melee in an XP party, my rate of TP gain would be extremely slow in any party 60+ (TP burn or even manaburn). There's just too many responsibilities shoved onto RDM; main healer, primary enfeebler, Refresh, Haste, status removal, Dispeller, emergency link control. There is no TIME to melee. Usually by the time I'm done casting a Haste and a Refresh, something has already died and the party's on to the next target. I don't have to sub DNC to know I won't have enough TP available to make it worth my time even if I weren't weaponswapping for staves.

I'm sure there are situations where RDM/DNC is a viable combination, but first-hand experimentation for me will have to wait until I have Dancer levelled to 37, and that's not happening any time soon since I'm still working on Scholar. It's not a horrible combination, and might actually be pretty good in the 10-40 range for RDM, pre-Convert, but I take issue with it being presented as an equal option, particularly at higher levels where experience shows that the techniques being discussed simply will not work due to insufficient time to engage in melee.


Icemage

@ Glued: Here, truth:
You don't understand the mechanic.
Hint: If you're eyeballing something and then come to a conclusion, you're doing it wrong. If your grand statements regarding anything starts with "I feel...", you're probably mistaken. It's not about how you feel, it's about what is, and what isn't.

Dagger doesn't get TP significantly faster than sword, period.

Don't care what we think? Fine. But, we're not about to stand by and let you spew moronic nonsense to new RDMs unchecked. And, no, I don't care how you "feel" about that or about your dagger's TP.

Wrong, is wrong.

@ Glued: Here, truth:

Hint: If you're eyeballing something and then come to a conclusion, you're doing it wrong. If your grand statements regarding anything starts with "I feel...", you're probably mistaken. It's not about how you feel, it's about what is, and what isn't.

Dagger doesn't get TP significantly faster than sword, period.
Don't care what we think? Fine. But, we're not about to stand by and let you spew moronic nonsense to new RDMs unchecked. And, no, I don't care how you "feel" about that or about your dagger's TP.
Wrong, is wrong.
More specifically.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/TP

That's the correct calculation for TP, easily verified in-game by experimentation.


Icemage

ok well plugging in the delays of these weapons kidney dagger and wize wizzards anelace

kidney dager 5+((183-180)*6.5)/270= 5.2
wize wizards anelace 5+ ((226-180)*6.5/270= 6.1

SE rounds down to the nearest whole number so 5% and 6% respectivey please read my above post as i have already calculated the damage over the course of a fight

ok well plugging in the delays of these weapons kidney dagger and wize wizzards anelace

kidney dager 5+((183-180)*6.5)/270= 5.2
wize wizards anelace 5+ ((226-180)*6.5/270= 6.1

SE rounds down to the nearest whole number so 5% and 6% respectivey please read my above post as i have already calculated the damage over the course of a fight

You're doing it wrong. TP per swing is rounded to the nearest 0.1, not the whole number. The display is whole number, but you can easily see the systems tracks to the 0.1 by swinging 10 times.

Plus, you're using the wrong formula; 180 ~ 450 delay weapons should be using this one:

TP/swing = 5.0 + [(Delay (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Delay) - 180) * 6.5] / 270

Kidney Dagger: Dly: 183; 5.0 TP/swing
5.0 + [(Delay - 180) * 6.5] / 270
= 5.0 + [(183-180)*6.5] / 270
= 5.0 + [3 * 6.5] / 270
= 5.0 + 19.5 / 270
= 5.0 + 0.722...
= 5.07...
=> 5.0 TP/swing (truncate down to nearest tenth decimal place)

183 delay = 3.05 sec/swing
(5.0 TP/swing) / (3.05 sec/swing) = ~1.64 TP/sec


Wise Wizard's Anelace: Dly: 226; 6.1 TP/swing
5.0 + [(Delay - 180) * 6.5] / 270
= 5.0 + [(226-180) * 6.5] / 270
= 5.0 + [46 * 6.5] / 270
= 5.0 + 299 / 270
= 5.0 + 1.107...
= 6.107...
=> 6.1 TP/swing (truncate down to nearest tenth decimal place)

226 delay = 3.766... sec/swing
(6.1 TP/swing) / (3.766 sec/swing) = ~1.62 TP/sec


So, 1.64 TP/sec vs. 1.62 TP/sec using the example weapons you picked. That's barely more than 1% difference in TP gain rate.

* * *

Read it again: http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/TP

hmmm seems alot more different in the game but i suppose numbers dont lie

Even with a Joyeuse available to me, if I were seriously going to try and melee in an XP party, my rate of TP gain would be extremely slow in any party 60+ (TP burn or even manaburn). There's just too many responsibilities shoved onto RDM; main healer, primary enfeebler, Refresh, Haste, status removal, Dispeller, emergency link control. There is no TIME to melee. Usually by the time I'm done casting a Haste and a Refresh, something has already died and the party's on to the next target. I don't have to sub DNC to know I won't have enough TP available to make it worth my time even if I weren't weaponswapping for staves.

Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. In my pt yesterday on colibri I was doing 5 Hastes, 1.5 Refresh(damn drks), 3 PhalanxII and kept protectIV up. I converted about once every 12 minutes (no ballad) and almost always had 200-300TP.

Also, who derailed this?

its kinda been back and forth debate between sword and dagger and this /dnc thing which i beleive as you seem to support creates different more versatile role as rdm
also you are talking about joy toy which i do not have access to yet i think ill stick to dagger for the sole reason it offers me more usefull WS if need arises that i use the MP drain is invaluable if i require more mp vs that of circle cut or w/e it is i also urge all rdm's new and old to use dagger and sword both like ive said from the begining, both have their uses however the dagger weaponskills seem to be more like a red mage dont you thin wi the status ailments they provide poision aspir bind, vs the elemental bonus from swords and stun which i find tends to be pretty pathetic

I support /dnc when used in a merit pt with a bard pulling. So far I have only really tested it on colibri, the pts I had on mamool would have been garbage no matter what I subbed. I really don't see the healing from it being strong enough pre 70(35 sub) or the TP gain high enough without Joyeuse, sword merits and a decent haste/acc build that's not available to most players that aren't 75. And I really don't support melee rdms pre 75 because they will most likely be slacking in their main job if they do.

But if you want to solo pre Joyeuse I guess I would go with dagger for energy drain or if undead use a non piercing sword. It really depends on what you're fighting, what level you are and what's available to you.

Putting the applications of RDM-melee aside, the selection of sword that RDM can equip is better the the selection of daggers. There are a few outstanding daggers for RDM, but they are far and few in between.

In terms of game mechanics, dagger only offers pierce type damage; sword includes slash or pierce type damage.

TP-wise: If the WS is nothing special, then it does not really matters.

For skillchain: If the party is depending on skillchain to exp. chain, every seconds count. If the skillchain partner's TP reach 100% when the counterpart's TP is not even close to 100%, what is the point?

IMHO, from a non-RDM point of view, RDM-melee works in exp. party if and only if the mob is extremely weak.

its kinda been back and forth debate between sword and dagger and this /dnc thing which i beleive as you seem to support creates different more versatile role as rdm
also you are talking about joy toy which i do not have access to yet i think ill stick to dagger for the sole reason it offers me more usefull WS if need arises that i use the MP drain is invaluable if i require more mp vs that of circle cut or w/e it is i also urge all rdm's new and old to use dagger and sword both like ive said from the begining, both have their uses however the dagger weaponskills seem to be more like a red mage dont you thin wi the status ailments they provide poision aspir bind, vs the elemental bonus from swords and stun which i find tends to be pretty pathetic

We're really not debating. I don't think anyone of note has stated that either Sword or Dagger is superior. They're both useful. Let's take a look and recap the benefits of either:

Dagger

Low delay means more Enspell damage. Excellent for damage-resistant monsters like Ghosts (25% resistant to pierce/slash) and Elementals (75% physical resistant).
Specialty Weaponskills: Cyclone (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Cyclone) (beautiful ranged AoE attack--launch at 200%), Energy Drain (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Energy_Drain) (Additional MP pool kick in fights where you're using a lot but don't want to rest).Sword


In general, the "best" sword for your level will produce better physical damage output than your "best" dagger--especially end-game when Joyeuse (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Joyeuse), Justice Sword (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Justice_Sword), and Mensur Epee (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Mensur_Epee) come into play. The only dagger to come into competition with these three is the beautiful Blau Dolch (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Blau_Dolch) which still doesn't reach the DPS rates of the three mentioned swords (It beats Mensur Epee in a party, but not solo).
If you're subbing DRK, BLU or another job that unlocks Vorpal Blade (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Vorpal_Blade), the 4-hit Sword WS, Sword is probably the best thing to put in your main hand. When you get it, Savage Blade (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Savage_Blade) will replace Fast Blade (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Fast_Blade), but make sure you take note when reading the stats for Savage Blade that you should always build 300% TP before launching it because a 300% Savage Blade does more damage on average than 3 100% Savage Blades. The caveat to the 300% rule is that if you're opening Light, you'll want to go at 100% to create more opportunities for Magic Burst.As for Richie's two posts:

I noticed that you are basically referring to a single situation and that is main healing a Greater Colibri Meripo (assuming /NIN + NIN version) which, I have found, is so mindlessly easy that I don't have to sit and can melee as RDM. The cycle is not terrible since I've only got 3-4 Hastes (not including myself if I want one, but I usually don't give myself one) and 1 Refresh. Enfeebling is also out of the question since if I cast anything the tank usually takes it on mime. Colibri are a weird exception though you spend a lot of time fighting them, and I can see RDM/DNC being useful on them; however, RDM/DNC usefullness is strongly situational. The general direction of this thread is toward the RDM who is transitioning into the lower 50's however, so Meripo usefulness does not address this phase of RDM.

the arguement i am making that you seem to be avoiding is we are a DoT job id like to see you keep up an arguement that your fast blade will out damage my wasp sting or that your shining blade would out damge my viper bite it wont, since both dagger WS's add DoT however since your probably a screen reader and only look at damage you can see you wouldnt recognize this as benefitial to the party.Glued, you're an idiot of you think Wasp Sting can do more damage than Fast Blade. Fast Blade does two hits, Wasp Sting does one. Each of Fast Blade's hit does more damage than a normal sword swing (which would already do more damage than a dagger swing) and Wasp Sting does the exact same damage as a dagger swing, all it does is add a sucky Poison effect to the mob. Plus, because Fast Blade has two hits, it's far less likely to miss completely and botch your precious Liquefaction skillchain.

But it doesn't take an intimate knowledge of game mechanics to know that. If you'd ever used a sword once in your life, you'd know that Fast Blade beats Wasp Sting any day of the week. Oh, and Viper Bite sucks too. It may double your Attack, but when it comes down to it, it's still a normal dagger swing. Every damaging dagger WS before Evisceration is pure trash, and whatever damage you can squeeze out of Gust Slash and Cyclone is easily reproduced with a sword.

And guess what: For every dagger you can equip, I can find at least one sword within -/+ 2 levels of it with better DMG/sec.

Sure, you can argue that against high level mobs, your melee damage will do less and your enspell damage will be worth more, but against high level mobs, your enspell damage is going to get resisted, putting you back at square one.

Cyclone (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Cyclone) (beautiful AoE Ranged attack--launch at 200%)

I have nothing to contribute other than that edit for great justice. Also Vorpal is only 4 hits.

i toatally agree with the fact it is a situational sub, i also agree that pre 50 players should focus more on leraning their role as an endgame rdm seeing as nothing we get post 50 really seems to affect our role (sub jobs aside). However like all subs this merely situational sub i find through my practice seems more beneficial toa party than say /blu or /nin in terms of melee use. Keep in mind by melee use im not solely referring to numbers, sure subbing blu will give you vorpal and red lotus blade, however to effectivley use blue you must burn your mp to cast damaging spells which sometimes will miss the target entirley being only half the level of a mob or less. /NIN brings dual weild into play which can be benefitial to the party in terms of skill chaining, as for the reason i only know through other forms but if partying with samurai for instance who sometimes has to solo a skill because know other skill is ready it would be very beneficial tohave a rdm be able to open dark chain with evisceration (as it would be at 75 in a merit party), lastly /dnc in its situational role could be needed and i find more so with a nin tank accomponied by a warrior first voke as is in my party setup. this being said i think in a situation such as mine /dnc out weighs the bonuses provided by /mage job, with the additional damage and healing provided by drain samba, this ability can prove to be invaluable for hp regen for the melee's.

As i have been saying this is another entirely situational sub job choice like all of our sub jobs are we are a very demanded job and our duties are the same, if we can sub a certain job in a certain situation we should do this. all of us know aproper rdm is only as good as the spells and abilities he brings with him. so keeping these mindsets we have to ask ourselves what justifys a certain job and when and what jobs will this entail.

now i can sit here and go on for a long time describing situational subs and why however i think most uf us already know when and where to use certain jobs and for thos that dont honestly it is something you need to learn for yourself and not just read posts on subjects that may be beyond your skill level at the time.

personally i have sch, blu, nin, dnc, whm, blm, brd, and smn leveled to 37 and use them all rather regularily for diferent situations, the only one i wold like to get to this point aswell would be drk which is locked (however seeing as my war is lvl 1 the quest is taking forever and i give up on it till i require use for /war)

as for dagerand sword i have a decent one of both and apply both again situationally. my dagger i tend to use on mobs weak to wind or ice element seeing as i can open and close these chains respectivly, and for all intents and purposes the mobs in my camp areas (aydeewa subteraen, bhaflau thickets, caedavera mire, wajom woodlands) seem to be more often weak to ice and wind then they are fire and light which seem to be the swords main skillchain elements.

however this does not mean i dont condone thuse of swords i am simply saying that in my current situation dagger is better so i use it, i implore all up and comming rdm to keep both sword and dagger capped so you can switch back and forth with out neading to worry about the skill level, and again as with the subjobs you must figure out for yourself when the situation arises for sword or dagger, personnally i appologise to you young rdm if you found my post misleading im just offereing my insight based on my current situation and kind of 1 sided the arguement which i wrong.

The thing to remeber when you choose this job you must realise their is alot of power at your disposal , but with great power comes great reponsibility, levelling this job takes a long time if you want to acheive the full aspect of it, however you could coast to 75 and merits on the back line however their are plenty of situations where you will be better swinging at a mob effectivley than siting on the backline waiting for your next refresh/haste cycle

I have nothing to contribute other than that edit for great justice. Also Vorpal is only 4 hits.

Edited WS hits and added the word ranged.
------------------------------------------
...However like all subs this merely situational sub i find through my practice seems more beneficial toa party than say /blu or /nin in terms of melee use...

BLU is a very useful situational sub-job which I highly recommend you add to your arsenal if you're not already considering it. Wild Carrot and Healing Breeze are more MP-efficient than their /WHM counterparts (Cure III and Curaga). Watch Healing Breeze though, it's not good on mobs that use high-damage AoE effects because it is very slow, has a long recast, and cannot (under any circumstance) replace Curaga II (esp. w/ Divine Seal) for a oh-s___ situation. It's good for "maintenance" healing--I usually concentrate healing on the tank and neglect the DD batch until I see that a couple of them are getting yellow or yellowish (i.e. where 200hp will not top them off) and then toss a Breeze. You also get Cocoon and Vorpal Blade. It's very good in some situations.

NIN as a sub is not really a good party sub--It's a very good solo sub for defensive purposes. In a party, though, you'll not be drawing enough hate to make effective use of your shadows (unless you're 10+ levels higher than your associates). Dual wield by itself is hardly a reason to sub NIN over a DD sub like /DRK. If you want melee damage, Attack Bonus, Last Resort and Soul Eater (remember Soul Eater eats Stoneskin first) will do more damage than Dual Wield especially considering your bonus, and don't forget /BLM for laying down damage on the magic side especially when you're going for a Chainspell nuke sequence in a battlefield.


The thing to remeber when you choose this job you must realise their is alot of power at your disposal , but with great power comes great reponsibility, levelling this job takes a long time if you want to acheive the full aspect of it, however you could coast to 75 and merits on the back line however their are plenty of situations where you will be better swinging at a mob effectivley than siting on the backline waiting for your next refresh/haste cycle.

Back-line is not coasting... You're still advocating a front-line stance Red Mage by saying this. Back line makes Red Mage what it is. Saying this with a rather empty apology just indicates that you "feel" that a Red Mage who is not meleeing in an XP situation isn't "doing their job" which is not the case. Back-line is important for RDM. Front-lining RDM against AoE mobs is stupid--especially if they have effects like AoE Sleep (Mandragora/Sheep), Slow (Spiders), Silencega (Imp), or Knockback (Puk). The knockback effect will block that Cure IV you're using to save your tank and he'll die because of your insistence on being m3133 g0dz0r RDM. If you feel you should be anywhere near the front-line on AoE mobs, you're insane.

It is strongly situational which is why I don't recommend it before 75. I have 9 subs and the only 2 I don't consider to be strongly situational are blm and whm. /dnc happens to be the best for colibri just like /drk is the best for stuff that needs stunning.

m3133 g0dz0r ? im sorry i speak english not cyber geek

It is strongly situational which is why I don't recommend it before 75. I have 9 subs and the only 2 I don't consider to be strongly situational are blm and whm. /dnc happens to be the best for colibri just like /drk is the best for stuff that needs stunning.
This is the most intelligent post in the thread. :P


Icemage

m3133 g0dz0r ? im sorry i speak english not cyber geek

I was trying to stay away from this, but if this is the best reply you can come up with to the entire Sabaron's post then you are in trouble. :(

It is strongly situational which is why I don't recommend it before 75. I have 9 subs and the only 2 I don't consider to be strongly situational are blm and whm. /dnc happens to be the best for colibri just like /drk is the best for stuff that needs stunning.

How long have you played this game?

Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. In my pt yesterday on colibri I was doing 5 Hastes, 1.5 Refresh(damn drks), 3 PhalanxII and kept protectIV up. I converted about once every 12 minutes (no ballad) and almost always had 200-300TP.

Also, who derailed this?
Eww @ Colibri parties. Seriously eww. In that specific instance where you don't have to cast anything else or even move very much, then yes, you can melee all you like, but the XP/hr is pretty unremarkable. Against Colibri, yes, you're free to use /DNC, or /SAM, or pretty much anything you want because you almost never have to cast cures in those parties anyway aside from the odd Pecking Flurry.


Icemage

i dont have anything to say to his post he makes a good case and good points and those would be situations where meleeing would not be considered appropriate even by my standards, the only thing i have to say to Sabaron's post is what i said, numbers and letters should never occupy the same space unless it is in a mathematecial equation.

i not a computer i dont read numbers as letters to be honest i dont even know what the hell it is he is saying in that garble of arithmetic and alphabetical numbers

i dont have anything to say to his post he makes a good case and good points and those would be situations where meleeing would not be considered appropriate even by my standards, the only thing i have to say to Sabaron's post is what i said, numbers and letters should never occupy the same space unless it is in a mathematecial equation.

i not a computer i dont read numbers as letters to be honest i dont even know what the hell it is he is saying in that garble of arithmetic and alphabetical numbers
The only thing I'll respond to this with, is that if you play RDM as diligently as you post, you must be a very lazy RDM. Insufficient punctuation, no capitalization, walls of text... your posts are just as painful to read as Sabaron's sarcastic leetspeak.


Icemage

The whole idea of RDM melee is absurd because you'll do horrible damage and have horrible accuracy. You'd do more damage and be more effective subbing /BLM and tossing out some nukes because then you can still switch out between your staves and eat appropriate food.

As a RDM 51+ you MUST be doing all of the following: Haste, Refresh, Enfeebles, and main healing all without holding up the PT to rest for MP. That is the minimum baseline with which to work from. If you are sacrificing any of those to melee, you've failed. If you can melee and still do all of those, it remains to be seen whether the extra damage outweighs the damage you could obtain from /BLM (which I doubt) plus the enfeebling accuracy from staves.

Eww @ Colibri parties. Seriously eww. In that specific instance where you don't have to cast anything else or even move very much, then yes, you can melee all you like, but the XP/hr is pretty unremarkable. Against Colibri, yes, you're free to use /DNC, or /SAM, or pretty much anything you want because you almost never have to cast cures in those parties anyway aside from the odd Pecking Flurry.


Icemage

20k/hour+ is unremarkable now? If I subbed sam I would need ballad. If your melee aren't taking damage you're pulling too slow. The greatest thing about this sub is how easily our bard out pulls everyone else because he's only casting 2 songs. Drain samba and the aoe waltz is just enough to cover 90% of the curing situations and if you're casting cure spells you're not swinging, the dances are instant.

Esoa if you're going to use the nuke argument say /sch not /blm.

The whole idea of RDM melee is absurd because you'll do horrible damage and have horrible accuracy. You'd do more damage and be more effective subbing /BLM and tossing out some nukes because then you can still switch out between your staves and eat appropriate food.

As a RDM 51+ you MUST be doing all of the following: Haste, Refresh, Enfeebles, and main healing all without holding up the PT to rest for MP. That is the minimum baseline with which to work from. If you are sacrificing any of those to melee, you've failed. If you can melee and still do all of those, it remains to be seen whether the extra damage outweighs the damage you could obtain from /BLM (which I doubt) plus the enfeebling accuracy from staves.

Using /BLM for Nuke damage is plausible; however, you aren't being situationally mindful. The only situation thus far that has been mentioned to allow RDM melee (in XP) is against Greater Colibri. The next time you go and do a Colibri/Greater Colibri party, sub /BLM and nuke like there's no tomorrow. Then ask the tank how much he liked your contribution.

As an aside, I did frequently sub /BLM in XP for nuking/EleDoT and it does work out quite well as long as you're not fighting mobs that mime your spells back. I use a relevant EleDoT during my enfeebling sequence such as Burn (to decrease resists) or Frost (to reduce Evasion a bit) and then launch 1 nuke per mob and I found that that (in most instances) was spot on with my Convert cycle if there was someone else with the ability to heal. If I'm the only healer (or my backup is a Bard with 3mp) then I don't toss any nukes at all...ever.

20k/hour+ is unremarkable now? If I subbed sam I would need ballad. If your melee aren't taking damage you're pulling too slow. The greatest thing about this sub is how easily our bard out pulls everyone else because he's only casting 2 songs. Drain samba and the aoe waltz is just enough to cover 90% of the curing situations and if you're casting cure spells you're not swinging, the dances are instant.

Esoa if you're going to use the nuke argument say /sch not /blm.
Maybe I'm spoiled by 25K+/hr merit parties in Bhaflau Thickets. :P


Icemage

Try that on unicorn with the 6 other parties that are constantly there during my play time . :/
The highest I have gone there is chain 10 and then you just watch everyone stand around because there isn't even a fly to pull.

Try that on unicorn with the 6 other parties that are constantly there during my play time . :/
At Mamool Ja Staging Point? Everyone I've seen in random parties avoids that spot like the plague because most of them don't know what to do with linked Mamools.

I'd say my hit rate on that camp is personally at least 2/3 of the time.


Icemage

Try that on unicorn with the 6 other parties that are constantly there during my play time . :/
The highest I have gone there is chain 10 and then you just watch everyone stand around because there isn't even a fly to pull.

...and Nyzul is any better? Every time I go there there are at least 2 parties there. If you know how fast 1 meri eats Greater Colibri then you know that it can't support a 3rd party without tanking the XP rates and having Bards involved in nancy-boy slap fights over whose bird is whose. :P

On the rare occasions where I've been in a party that gets the bottom level (the one with the most birds) all to itself, competition usually shows up within an hour or so.

The meripos with the least competition in my experience is Nyzul Isle top tier Mooks which is not nearly as nice as MJSP or NI Bottom Tier Colibri.

Are Hediva Isle and Dvucca Isle any good? I've seen big mobs there, but the Soulflayers and Lamia give me a skeptical impression of the two.

Excuse me while I return to the original topic since the whole RDM melee vs mage thing is so tired and all good RDMs know the correct answers anyway.

Putting the applications of RDM-melee aside, the selection of sword that RDM can equip is better the the selection of daggers. There are a few outstanding daggers for RDM, but they are far and few in between.

We actually have access to excellent swords and excellent daggers later in the game. We can have fun with melee on our own time thanks to that.

Our best swords tend to be piercing type and our En-spells are a major boon to fast weaponry. Probably our best weapon is one of two swords because of the combination of great WSes being available with a strong subjob (/DRK) and the proc rate of the double attack on the Joyeuse or boost from the Enhancing Sword. But until one aquires one of those, the most available and best weapon is probably a Misericorde+1, a dagger and maybe second to that is Ryl. Grd. Fleuret, a piercing-type RDM/DRG(?) sword.

Then again, I'm thinking of a few years ago when I knew more about this, so maybe there's even better stuff easily available now. Someone else can fill in those blanks if so (I mostly focus my attention on getting a Joyeuse in the future regardless).

Now for a tangent, sorry for the late reply to this:

At Lv.70, I found Imps to resist my Silence more than half of the time. Even when it landed, it tended to be for very short period.
It was around Lv.72 or 73 or so when I started to land Silence more than resisted. (When using Goblin Mushpot.) Still, the duration were short. Once I hit Lv.75 and with merits, Silence on Imps did became a lot easier. However, resists do happen quite frequently.
I'm very surprise you were able to do well with just Artifact armor and Wind Staff. Then again, I may have been emotionally scarred by all those nasty Imps, and that distorted my memory of how bad things were. >_>;

Hm, maybe you are thinking of even earlier than 70.

I couldn't stick Silence if lives depended on it prior to 68, and only noticed in the last level that there's a significant boost in how often it and most of my other enfeebles are sticking such that it's worth my time to cast it (and Paralyze, which together make them laughably easy mobs to fight). I do have very a very strong MND set, but since I'm Tarutaru, I'm already at a disadvantage, plus I typically use Sweet Rice Cake over Goblin Mushpot unless I'm the sole back line job. I do notice that the resist rate is very dependent on the level of the mob at 70. The weaker Imp I could land Silence/Paralyze/Slow every time I cast them, the stronger one only half the time. It's just one of those threshold levels against those mob types.

Sorry for the tangent. Again, I will emphasize that meleeing against mobs like Imps, though, is simply not an option. The whole idea is kind of silly, given their tendency to spam AOE-silence, use -ga spells and the nature of the PTs that typically fight them. Take your melee set out for Besieged if you want some fun, but leave it in your Mog Locker for a level-up PT, especially at these late levels.

Mensur Epee is my sword of choice until I get Joy (which I probably never will :rofl: )

And for dagger I usually use Martial for the TP bonus until I get Blau (although not very excited about it anymore).


It would've been nice if SE would've at least gave us access to a Sirocco kinda weapon. :vent:

Lately I have been playing with both sword and dagger with my 75 rdm and have noticed some things I wish to share on the topic sword vs. dagger. First off, by the time I got to lvl 75 rdm both my sword and dagger where around lvl 100. I recently spent the time needed to lvl the skill up above 210 and I did it all solo so I could learn some ins and outs of both weapons as much as is possible doing that.

One cool thing I noticed was when you swing 2 daggers you get 9 tp, 2 swords you get 10 tp, and 1 sword and 1 dagger you get 10 tp so you get faster tp using either daggers or a dagger with sword then with 2 swords. To say the least here the rdm fairs well having both equipped given the /nin.

I don’t have evisceration or savage blade. Besides that I have noticed that some mobs are easier to kill with one or the other. When I fight trees, for instance, I keep my dagger in the main hand because Cyclone messes them up pretty good, I keep a sword in the offhand. When Cyclone isn’t going to be of help I main hand the Enhancing sword and offhand dagger. When I main hand dagger I use Martial knife due to the increase in Cyclone power for the tp boost. I don't have the Blau Dolch yet. So far, from this red mage player’s point of view from what I have seen with my skill up to only lvl 210, I need to carry both of these weapons around for the maximum benefit of both. I carry around 2 of each.

When I farm /thf is a different story, I pretty much stick with the Sword, even when I am fighting trees, and eat attack food.

Also, I have to consider what weapons I have. If I had a Joyuese to go with the Enhancing sword I don’t think I would bother with a dagger at all. If I had a Blau Dolch already I think I would always main hand that, and I'd finally hurry up my skill to get evisceration already. (Almost there)

For my melee red maging I don’t see so much sword vs. dagger when its time to fight something in a melee’s fashion, I see, "which one can I do better with right now." When I soloed the avatars (just to do it) I found that some are much easier to kill with daggers, and some with swords. Titan was a piece of cake with daggers, and Garuda was much harder to defeat with daggers then swords.

...and Nyzul is any better? Every time I go there there are at least 2 parties there. If you know how fast 1 meri eats Greater Colibri then you know that it can't support a 3rd party without tanking the XP rates and having Bards involved in nancy-boy slap fights over whose bird is whose. :P

On the rare occasions where I've been in a party that gets the bottom level (the one with the most birds) all to itself, competition usually shows up within an hour or so.

The meripos with the least competition in my experience is Nyzul Isle top tier Mooks which is not nearly as nice as MJSP or NI Bottom Tier Colibri.

Are Hediva Isle and Dvucca Isle any good? I've seen big mobs there, but the Soulflayers and Lamia give me a skeptical impression of the two.

I'm not sure about the other camps really, after I partied with this one bard we started semi staticing together. He likes not having to cast ballad and I like how easily he pushes the other pts out. And when we get 2 brds in the PT it's game over.

I really want to try a good pt on trolls since I never see anyone there, the one I had was garbage.

I'm not sure about the other camps really, after I partied with this one bard we started semi staticing together. He likes not having to cast ballad and I like how easily he pushes the other pts out. And when we get 2 brds in the PT it's game over.

I really want to try a good pt on trolls since I never see anyone there, the one I had was garbage.
There's no such thing as a great party on trolls. Diamondhide is a pain in the tuckus, and the spawns are so far apart that it's difficult to hold chains (possible, but not consistently). I think the best I've done there is somewhere around chain #20 or so.

---

Back on main topic, RDM's best weapon, if we're looking at raw damage, is Justice Sword. It's like a Joyeuse but with a +7 STR modifier. No other weapon touches it for damage for Red Mage, and it has slashing type damage, which makes it more appropriate for fighting some types of enemies.

It also doesn't interfere with Double/Triple Attack traits the way Joyeuse does, so things like Brutal Earring can kick in and add a third attack once in a while when you're wielding a Justice Sword.


Icemage

That is an awesome sword, but I'm never going to see it.

Excalibur is better than that even, no? But it's even less obtainable, of course.

I think Joyeuse is the best obtainable sword for me, anyway. Not sure how great Enhancing Sword is, to be honest.

That is an awesome sword, but I'm never going to see it.

Excalibur is better than that even, no? But it's even less obtainable, of course.

I think Joyeuse is the best obtainable sword for me, anyway. Not sure how great Enhancing Sword is, to be honest.
Excalibur is kinda cool. It does add damage = 25% of your current HP every once in a blue moon, which is neato, and Knights of the Round WS is cool.

If you have the funds for an Excalibur, though, what the hell are you doing soloing things? :)


Icemage

Excalibur is kinda cool. It does add damage = 25% of your current HP every once in a blue moon, which is neato, and Knights of the Round WS is cool.

If you have the funds for an Excalibur, though, what the hell are you doing soloing things? :)


Icemage

But is it better than Justice though? The aditional effect might be kind of weak, but if the hidden aditional damage kicks in often it could be a great weapon. (And by often I mean 50% of the time at least)

Otherwise it really isn't worth the price tag at all seeing how Justice is much easier to get and you have a guaranteed boost on your dmg anyway.

And gotta DW it with Mandau of course.:rofl:

If KOTR looked half as cool as Savage Blade, especially when a Taru does it, I might be sold. But meh. :)

And Ice Mage... it's not about soloing. It's about soloing god. In melee range. I mean, why else would a RDM need stuff like that?! ;)

Edit: And "something to wear while sitting in Rollanberry with a 99,999,999G Red Rose in your Bazaar" is not an acceptable answer, mister!

Any Red Mage that is able to, should be going after this right now. (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Vorpal_Sword)

Any Red Mage that is able to, should be going after this right now. (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Vorpal_Sword)

AFAIK, it's hidden effects (if any) are unknown. The Nyzul Weapons are one of the mysteries of Aht Urgan. If you have information about the sword, please spill the beans, but with only the data we have currently available, it doesn't beat my Mensur Epee (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Mensur_Epee).

The Nyzul Weapons are one of the mysteries of Aht Urgan. If you have information about the sword, please spill the beans, but with only the data we have currently available, it doesn't beat my Mensur Epee (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Mensur_Epee).

What is the effect or purpose of the Nyzul Isle weapons?

While still a few updates off, these items will be an ingredient to be used in new relic weapons with all new weapon skills.

See also: neat-looking rose-like Red Mage Weapon Skill in the Dancer WotG video.

Which brings me, again, to my point: if you're able to, then you should get it. A key to a Red Mage-only alternative to Excalibur is how I view it.

Knowing SE the requirements to get this new "relics" will be as out of reach as the current ones.

So at least for now I'm not interested in anything that takes more than a month to obtain. Screw relics and the such. :rofl:

...a Red Mage-only alternative to Excalibur is how I view it...

I had heard something like that, but originally thought it to be a rumor. I was already planning on doing Nyzul Isle Assaults just for Goliard, but now it looks like I'm looking for a Vorpal Blade too. Finally, a RDM style "relic" sword. Now I know why SE made them the only storable (non-event related) weapons--so people wouldn't throw them away.

My static is working towards 100, hopefully I'll have one soon!

I highly recommend anyone who hasn't tried Nyzul assault at least give it a shot, it's possibly my favorite event in FFXI, very challenging, but no so stupidly hard that it takes the fun away(read also: Einherjar). The drop rates kind of suck, but the gear is hot sex on a biscuit for the most part. Goliard Clogs are the best boots you'll find in the game outside of Morrigan's, I'm thrilled with mine.

Anyways, back on topic...I'm still using ESword+Joyeuse for DW...I realize that Joyeuse is most likely better DoT than the ESword, but I wuv my ESword and don't want to stop using it, especially for /DRK w/ Vorpal. :( I need to turn the two of them into Sword-chucks!

One cool thing I noticed was when you swing 2 daggers you get 9 tp, 2 swords you get 10 tp, and 1 sword and 1 dagger you get 10 tp so you get faster tp using either daggers or a dagger with sword then with 2 swords. To say the least here the rdm fairs well having both equipped given the /nin.

Sorry, just had to swing in and say this is an optical illusion. See here (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/TP), make sure to check out the Dual Wield section, and keep in mind what was said earlier in this thread -- even though the game only shows whole numbers (9s and 10s in this case), it actually keeps track of the first decimal.

Anyways, back on topic...I'm still using ESword+Joyeuse for DW...I realize that Joyeuse is most likely better DoT than the ESword, but I wuv my ESword and don't want to stop using it, especially for /DRK w/ Vorpal. :( I need to turn the two of them into Sword-chucks!
This is actually a good setup, even if you haven't realized just quite why. :) Your weaponskills are (typically) calculated off of your main hand weapon, so setting the Enhancing Sword as your main will give you bigger numbers of Vorpal Sword weaponskills.

The reason Joyeuse outdamages Enhancing Sword is because of the extra hits you get from its 50% Double Attack, but you get that anyway with it in the off-hand, so no loss there.

Do note, however, that you're actually gaining less TP from dual wielding ESword and Joy than you would by main-handing Joy by itself.


Icemage

This is actually a good setup, even if you haven't realized just quite why. :) Your weaponskills are (typically) calculated off of your main hand weapon, so setting the Enhancing Sword as your main will give you bigger numbers of Vorpal Sword weaponskills.

The reason Joyeuse outdamages Enhancing Sword is because of the extra hits you get from its 50% Double Attack, but you get that anyway with it in the off-hand, so no loss there.

Do note, however, that you're actually gaining less TP from dual wielding ESword and Joy than you would by main-handing Joy by itself.


Icemage

Oh yeah I do know why I use that setup for sure lol, I had actually meant I still like using ESword over Joy when single-handing as well. The Joy does seem to have a slight DoT edge more and more, but ESword is shiny and I like shiny. Plus I'd hate to say I have a sword that used to sell for 25m that is just for decoration. :wasted:

Sorry, just had to swing in and say this is an optical illusion. See here (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/TP), make sure to check out the Dual Wield section, and keep in mind what was said earlier in this thread -- ev