At what level should I stop meleeing?

[Stormwalker]

Ok, here's one of those nice controversial topics, I know... but I'm not looking to start an argument, I'm looking for advice.

At what level do I need to stop meleeing and stand back with the other mages? At my present level (20 RDM/10 WHM) I find I can still hit even an IT with some frequency, so I think I am still contributing something to the battle by being in there with the melee. Obviously, I take care of my casting responsibilities first, but at this point in the game there are only so many enfeebling spells which can be cast and most of them still last the whole fight. As long as I'm using juice, MP isn't a problem, I usually find the WHMs (who as often as not do not use juice) run out before I do anyhow.

However, I know that as RDMs level up the lack of an A-rank weapon starts to really hurt our melee ability, especially when it comes to IT's. Next level I get Gravity, and I have read that this makes the mob easier to hit, which in theory should prolong my ability to melee effectively somewhat... but I don't want to be a liability to my party, and I don't want to be looked at as a n00b because I'm meleeing. I certainly have no problem with backline fighting... I didn't get 30 levels of WHM by joining the melee. :p

I've heard some people say it's above level 20 that the RDM's melee really falls off, others 30, others even say to melee right up until you get 40 and Convert (at which point you don't want to be near the mob anyway, right?)

So... you more experienced RDM's out there (especially the 40+ crowd), at what level do you recommend I take my place in the party backline?

[Bamce Sylph]

lvl 40-41 is when melee starts to slack off, 2 very important things happen, at 40 u get convert, and that makes you very wary of stray or ae attacks since converting then having a hornfly use its sphere attack is bad times.
at 41 you get the almightly refresh and u will be constantally casting it so that makes your spare swings meaning less

however its occasionally still alright to melee i like to keep my weapon skills decentally high for solo farming purposes but choose the things your going to melee agaist ie w/o painfull ae's, very strong monsters that will take a large peice out of u if u draw hate early, after a couple debuffs, and a heal that monster might decide it doesn't like you very much and take a casual swing or 2 your way.

one last note (pun intended) be carefull when grouping witha bard and decide which songs u want, do u want the mage songs, or do u want the melee songs. its is incredibly hard to try and land ballad on a redmage thats meleeing w/o hitting any of the real melees.

[Pilsbane]

As long as you put your spells and your party above your melee you can melee all you want. By that I mean if you are keeping up on all the spells you need to be casting and have enough MP to keep chains going, then yeah, swing away. Rest after each battle, don't stand because you have tp. What you could do with the MP gained outweighs what you could do with a little bit of tp.

Since you have to kneel for a long time in this game, I believe its 20 seconds, before you can get your first tick of MP back you will be standing through most fights casting spells anyway. Just make sure to macro your spells so that you can cast them while engaged.

The other situation, putting your party above your melee, is to use common sense. Don't melee things that have very negative Area Effect spells/abilities. Things like Beetles and Crawlers are pretty harmless if you melee, but things like Anticans can really ruin your day if you are in range of AE silence and some of the other nasty stuff they can do.

If your question was when does redmage melee start to suck compared to other jobs, thats a harder question. Against even matches and below I do as much damage or more than a Paladin of my same level, 56. Against IT's the Paladin does a lot more. But if you think about it, even Paladin damage isn't all that great when compared to Monks, Dark Knights and other damage jobs, putting the Redmage way below the heavy hitters.

I felt the drop-off in melee the most severe in the 30s for Redmages. Other jobs keep getting better skills and weapons and the redmage gets very little in melee--which is ok because we get a lot of awesome spells between 32-41 to more than make up for it.

[Tulerin]

The last time I picked up my sword in battle I got yelled at hehe. That was around lvl 40 and was against a beetle (...but then he did like to bark out orders alot so...^.^)

I would say just melee to raise skills against non ae mobs. By the time you get to higher lvls and the group wants to go after flies, funguars melee is the last thing you want to be seeing.

As for convert, I do it before or after a battle never in a battle. Of course ive gotten away with it during battle but its just not worth the risk. If you think about it, when do you want to be at 20 life? Before a mob is in camp, or when its having fun in camp?

[Gaunt]

Melee based on mobs, if its a crab or beetle wack on it, if its a gob or any other mob that does AOE damage don't.


It's not like you get to med when you have to keep refresh on 3 or 4 ppl, so might as well do something.

[Jei]

you can melee till 75 ^^ You just need to know when and what are apropriate for you to melee.

[SharMarali]

Stop meleeing?

Huh?

[Jonnyram]

You wouldn't pick a RDM if you thought you would never melee again :spin:

[Shiia]

I stopped meleeing around lvl 20s. First of my mp pool around that lvl was very poor. Soon after I got my RSE and went to lvl 41, my role doubled.

Recently I am 50% of the time main healer in groups, which gives some crap loads of jobs to do. My debuffs I notice wearing off easily or hard to stick. (specially paralise.. maybe because its water based) My sword does jack... I don't know maybe it will change. But from 40 - 58 I have yet got the time to draw my sword. Same was with the other Rdms that I partnered with.

[Arli]

It's really mob/situation/PT dependent.

In the 20's-40 meleeing wasn't such a great idea because you were expected to support heal ALOT along with your debuffs, and you actually were more effective in a PT resting as often as possible to regen mana. We don't have much of an MP pool compared to a WHM or BLM especially with all the roles we have to fill.

Once you get Refresh and Convert, its a whole different story. Keeping debuffs on mobs and keeping yourself and the PT refreshed means you won't have time to sit unless the PT stops pulling. So, instead of standing there looking thick for 10 second increments, you melee.

Of course, there are other situations that make meleeing fatal for a RDM. AOE mobs and mobs with intrinsic silence attacks. Other than that, try to keep your sword/dagger skills honed. You may not do much damage in the PT, but at least you can level your skills for farming :p

[Carbon]

I've seen RDMs melee constantly after they get Refresh, and they were very good at their primary job too.

Before that, I rarely saw RDMs melee except occasionally in a party. Those that consistently meleed tended to be rather bad RDMs to begin with.

I guess once you get Refresh, you don't have to worry about sitting down to gain MP, so you have more liberty to melee.

[Kiyotaka]

melee if you can an extra 20 dmg is always better than not doing anything

just dont miss any recasts

but my rule of thumb for melee is nothing that uses AOE

if its crawlers and all, and you dont miss any recasts, can save you time later on in skill up pts.

i was way behind once i got 41 and went to gustav, then when i got crawlers again, i meleed crawlers and not hornflies
then when i went to garliage again, i can melee eveyrthing, so ya

[EDarkness]

I don't know why everyone thinks that a RDM has to give up meleeing. Just baffles me to no end. My combination is RDM/NIN and I find that I enjoy it. I don't and won't stop fighting (meleeing). I find that evern after 41 I still fight pretty well. I just won't give that up. So my advice would be go with what you feel comfortable with. If you want to stand back and cast, that's good. If you want to melee, that's good too. Go with what makes you feel good.


-EDarkness

[Apple Pie]

I'm afraid if nobody here says we have to give it up...

As long as we keep track of enfeebling spells, Haste, and Refresh going off and keep recasting them right away, we're free to go meleeing.

Well, I think we should avoid standing at the frontline when mobs use AoE that even penetrates Blink and Utsusemi. White mages aren't willing to heal or cure stats of one more person. If we use our MP to heal ourselves instead, we're just wasting it unnecessarily. That leads us to have less chains.

We aren't working alone. We need to cooperate with other 5 people. If our melee annoys others (it sometimes annoys BRD and THF), we should stop it.

Anyway, we should be responsible of what we're doing.

[Shiia]

I wish I could have capped my skills when I was in crawler's nest lol. The hunting ground where I am now most of them uses some manner of AoE if not their evation is frigging high (Raptors...). Even with gravity and frost + Madrigal I barely hit them... Oh ya there were crawlers in Boyada... maybe for once if I am not main healer :sweat: