Hey guys - returning play needs help

[kawirider04]

hey guys, im returning back to FFXI again, but i am thinking of creating a new char.
I have always been a fan o the Mage class, but i am never sure what exactly to pick, being whether white mage, black, or red.

Which would you guys recommened for a somewhat experienced player, but definintely no expert. Also, what race?

(i know Taru carry the most mana)

O and one other question, what is a good, helpful, busy, and friendly server that one would join?

thanks again!

[Ellipses]

All three. Eventually, you're going to level them all anyway (except for, possibly, RDM if you mainly play WHM or BLM). RDM is likely going to be the easiest for you to get to level 18 for the subjob, since it solos fairly well compared to the other two.

Pick whatever race you'd like to represent you. Eventually, performance evens out enough that it doesn't matter that much (there are differences, but you enjoying your character is far more important).

[kawirider04]

thanks very much, so maybe ill go red mage so i can solo quicker.... what about server wise?

[Ellipses]

Yeah, I skipped that part because I don't know what to tell you. I doubt anyone could make much of an argument for certain servers being more or less helpful than others; it's all just a matter of finding helpful people, and those exist everywhere. And as far as population, I have no idea. Someone around here has some info on that, but it ain't me. :)

[Jaice]

Redmage is a lot of fun and a great class to get to 30 for the purpose of at least soloing a bit to get gil for spells/armor ^^

Im not sure I can comfortably give you the "c'mon ovah!" recomendation for the Quetz server.... because the starter area around Windy is usually barren (then again that may not be a bad thing). I'm lucky if I get 2 hours a week to play so my opinion may not be the best ^^

[Kitalrez]

Well, let me preface the first part of my answer here by saying you SHOULD NOT OPEN THIS LINK WITH INTERNET EXPLORER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Yes, this means you. The site in question is hacked often and they tend to end up with keystroke logger programs to stick to your machine. Now, provided you followed my advice:

Here's FFXIAH.com's database on server population by AH entries (http://www.ffxiah.com/data.php)

Provided you didn't follow my advice and clicked it anyway, let me be the first to laugh at you. One of my oldest friends on Diabolos just ended up on Titan server with his name changed, all his HQ staves sold off, and his gil emptied. He was using a firewall with IE, too. You really only have to ignore that one warning message...

As for race, people say different things. Min/max'ers would like you to believe that if you play a certain race for a certain group of jobs, you'll have the best possible stats and always succeed. Others tell you to pick whatever race you don't mind seeing constantly because you will see that race constantly unless you really love 1st person perspective, (please don't play in this). I'm more of the opinion that having a particular race combo allows you to do different things with different jobs. For instance, as a Taru SMN, I can kite a mob pretty much forever with carbuncle. Even if Carby wasn't free at this point, there's a good chance the mob would be long dead before I ran out of mp to keep an avatar summoned. My linkleader, Finathlon, is a Galka SMN. Yeah, he can't keep things out as long just by running around out of range while the avatar solos it. What he can do that I really can't is get up close and melee with the avatar. His Spirit Takers actually hit for decent damage, he also can take a hit if he pulls aggro. If the mob AEs, he'll live through it just fine. Me, I'm a bit more fragile. I'd like to melee, but if I take aggro, I'm probably a hit or two from death. HE'll never have as big of an mp pool as I will, but he can keep it filled by doing more DoT than I do and using that one staff WS. Same deal with other jobs, Taru PLD plays a lot differently than Elvaan PLD. There are situations where you'd value both of them.