Rdm/Whm Good OR Not?

[Red MageShooter]

Rdm/Whm would you think that he woul d be good in a party that as low levels fight i just want too here other peoples opionions* i think that would would be good in a group if they leveled up the healer to 18 or so? and the he'd probably get the job done....

[Rubicon Scarlet]

From what I understand is that RDM/WHM is better at low lvls than past 50. However, I play as one and I love it. If im in the zone, I can take the place of a healer in most quests. I wouldn't depend on the healing completely but you can do a fairly good job of it. Anyways, it's a great job combo.

[IsseyMiyake-]

~

The Extra MND helps with Debuffing ...

I get resisted sometimes still on para and slow and I

Macro Equipment switch
between electrum --> Saintly
Fencing Degen --> Wand

;; Beatles give me extra hard time..

The status cures also help alot

[Karinya]

I keep both WHM and BLM subs leveled, they both have some benefits. But at my current level (31) I find I am usually primary healer in most of my parties, so I use WHM sub. If you don't have Raise you have to keep people from dying in the first place and Divine Seal does that very well. Status cures are handy too, but usually there is a BLM or BRD with whm sub that can handle those if necessary.

/BLM is better for add control with El Seal + Sleep, but most of the time someone else in the PT will "help" by attacking the add "so it doesn't go after the mages", and break sleep after 1 second. :mad:

The other benefits of /BLM are Clear Mind (BLM sub gets it earlier), Conserve MP (at 40/20, doesn't go off often but helpful when it does) and slightly higher base MP. Warp is convenient but kind of a selfish reason to choose a PT sub. :sweat:

[Vahn Masamune]

Yeah you should really lvl both whm and blm because it all depends on what your pt needs out of you and what you are fighting...if you are in a pt at all that is. I'm not sure if RDM get poisona since I have to wait for ps2 release, but it is important to be able to counter enemy enfeebles with spells that remove the effects.

[Vaiyo]

WHM is one of the two preferred sub jobs of RDMs, the other being BLM - I personally use WHM for the following reasons.

1) You get the -na spells which will help in a lot of situations where either 1) there is no WHM in the party and you happen to be main healing or 2) need to help a WHM which can entirely too busy keeping people alive at any given moment.

2) The -ra/ga spells can be helpful, especially if you don't have a WHM in the party and you need to kill some downtime (if there is no WHM, I Protectra II the party then use Protect III on the tank(s); then for AE sleep I toss in a curaga in there to heal all the tanks to wake them up).

3) Divine Seal is nice too for emergency reasons, and as a hume since I have way more HP than MP - Divine Seal, then Convert, then Cure IV and I'm back to almost 100% hp and about 85% mp.

Keep in mind that RDMs will get to the point where they are almost incapable of doing all the healing by themselves - they'd require at least one back-up healer of any kind/to any degree depending on the situation, or a bard to keep the mp flowing at a maximum rate (due to the need to refresh and dispel, both takes time & MP to cast and will make sitting down to heal almost pointless). RDMs are support players, we're not designed to be able to negate WHM jobs (or any other jobs for that matter) - we enhance every other job on what they can do; otherwise, alone we're just a poor subsitute.

[Azael]

Honestly, I wouldn't give up my /whm sub for the world. The extra mp BLM gives is easily overridden by the Divine Seal/ Cure after Converting. For my Static PT /whm is super useful, we make sure me and the bard are in charge of -na spells if the pt gets status effects from the mob, also the curagas are very nice for when theres mass sleep issues. BLM has many good sides too it, but personally, WHM for me, wouldn't trade it for the world, also, it lets you be less cookie cutter, most rdms choose /blm

[Deodorant]

Originally posted by Vaiyo
Keep in mind that RDMs will get to the point where they are almost incapable of doing all the healing by themselves.

I've been in parties where I was the main healer, and it worked out fine. Rdm's are arguably as efficient a healer as whm's; lesser mp is made up for by refresh, and the lack of regen2, etc is made up for by convert. In fact, if I was to choose a backline for maximum efficiency I would choose blm rdm brd - no room for whm.

Having said that, many rdm's I know (me included) absolutely loathe main healer job. Furthermore once somebody dies, you're stuck with raise1 (25% exp back) instead of raise2 (75% exp back). Plus, getting to hunting spot can be a bit more complicated with no teleport spells.

[Vaiyo]

I know the depending on certain situations & factors involved, a RDM can and/or cannot be full-time, main healer by themselves (that was the point I was trying to get across).

I usually party with a static group of LS mates, and it consists of paladin, black mage, white mage, ranger, thief and dragoon (we make it an alliance since we've pretty much figured out that exp ends up being faster that way) plus myself. Sometimes the WHM wants to do crafts, and that makes AF hunts almost impossible so we decide to grind exp in Boyahda Tree - we're level 57ish, 58 now and I single-handedly healed by myself plus kept up refresh on the three of us that needed it, and debuffed plus dispel. That was hectic, and very rarely did I get to sit for long enough to even get one tick of MP regen. If we were level back in level 53, there would've been no way that I could've single-handedly healed, especially with the sickle slash.

In my experience, RDMs can singly heal a group sufficiently at lower levels (up to around 33 once you get out of Kazham), then from there on it becomes an issue. Beyond that, I feel RDMs can only heal everyone by themselves if the group is almost at a high enough level to be ready to move on to a harder zone. 57-58ish is about the end of the pond in the Boyahda Tree doing crabs & knight crawlers; soon my group will move to Cape Terrigan for awhile - from what I can tell, there's no way I can single-handedly heal my group in there at 57, but I bet I will be able to at around 61.

It all depends on the situation, really. As a last thought, I'm a hume RDM so sometimes I can run into situations where my MP does not last me until Convert comes back up - in which case it means downtime; Tarus will have less of a problem with this because by now at 57, most have at least 150 more MP on me.

[shifty_89]

Hey vaiyo i will soon be on your server (fairy) and was wondering how the supply of whm and rdm is?? Sorry for using this post but i just wanted to ask^^

[Vaiyo]

Funny that you asked, because out of boredom I actually did a /sea all for all the mage jobs on the server at around 11pm EST the other day and came up with the following numbers:

/sea all: 3300ish (total players on the server at the time)

/sea all <job>
- WHM: 339
- RDM: 328
- BLM: 343
- BRD: 89

Since there were 3300ish players online at the time, the mage/melee ratio is pretty darn close to 1-1.8. So for the most part, most groups will find at least one or two mages available to party with most of the time.

[EDIT] Well those numbers are just from those who did not make themselves anonymous, so the mage-melee ratio may actually be a lot closer than 1-1.8, maybe even 1-1.5.

[shifty_89]

Thanks for the info, maybe once i get a decent level we can party together.

[EDIT] Oh yeah i will most likely be a rdm whm like you

[Xerzes]

I play a Taru Taru RDM/WHM and I find that I like it more than RDM/BLM. I dont get Warp or Escape, but my MND is higher (Taru have pretty low mind) So my enfeebles stick better, I also use an Eremite's Wand for PT play as it gives a bonus to MND, MP and Spell Interuption rate. I think RDM/WHM and RDM/BLM both offer very massive perks, depending on what you want to do.

[DrunkyDoggy]

I am playing as a RDM/WHM right now... I am usure if I should focus more on the RDM or the WHM. Any insight?

[Vaiyo]

I'm afraid no one is going to be able to tell you exactly what you should do.

If you want to play full-time healer, focus on WHM. If you want to play as a supporting role to every other jobs in the game, focus on your RDM. Note that you'll have to level both your main and your sub. If you want to really blow stuff up, or do any real significant melee damage, don't play either a RDM or WHM.

That's about as good of an answer as anyone's going to be able to give you. ^^