What am i doing wrong as a RDM...?

[Cailleach]

Lately, I've found myself as a Red Mage becoming less and less useful in group. After the exp section today, i finally have had it... i need a major overhaul to my strategy, and i'm asking the greater red mage community's input.

My current equipments

(i swap different elemental staffs and corresponding accesories in accordance to the spell i'm casting)

in the usualy nin or pld, 2 DDs, whm, rdm/blm (me), & blm (or a skilled offensive smn)

1a. max mind gears & wind staff, then silence mage type enemy.
1b. swap into Promise Badge & Mistilteinn, then cast refresh on myself.
2. switch to enfeebling torque + ice staff, then start casting ice based debuff.
3. switch back to Mistilteinn + Promise badge, then refresh or haste the tank depending on his/her job.
4. enfeebling torque + earth staff, slow.
5. back to mind gear set, then haste one DD.
6. (optional) wind staff + enfeebling torque, gravity. (if DDs are having a hard time hitting the targets)
7. mind gears again, refresh main healer.
8. haste another DD.
9. refresh BLM or smn (if there is one in party)
10. MB within my mana pool allowance. (corresponding elemental staff, max INT gears, and moldivate + wizard's earrings)

However, when i am the main healer, my performance really begin to take a hit. Even with the optimal nin/rng/thf/rdm(me)/brd/blm party combo, my performance is merely medicore, resulting in more party down time. So far, i've dicovered certain points i've come short:

i. my whm sub is serverely under lvled, so my sub is still /blm even if i were main healer.

ii. except dispell (which is covered by brd in pt), and elemental debuff (most blms will cast those), i still cast the debuffing spells rdm specialize in, which leaves little time to heal.

iii. by the time i swap into healing set & start casting cure (light staff, promise badge), the other mages who sub rdm or whm have already began healing. As a result, sometimes i'd cast cure iii on a fully healed teammate.

iv. because of my inability to use whm sub, i have to ask the other mages to take care of status repair such as erase or poisona.


i can't join exp party anymore... because my retardness will only slow down or kill the other teammates. Now i'm asking my fellow brothers and sisters in red for advice. Asides from lvling my white mage to lvl37 as another sub, what else should i do to make it better?


Cailleach, Red Mage in training on Remora

Edit: added some minor information.

[Patchinko]

This goes without saying, but level up your WHM sub to cap, for one thing. You cannot be main healer at this late level without it, because status cures are so necessary. Although I also highly prefer BLM subjob, in a party without a WHM or SMN/WHM, I usually need to sub WHM now because many mobs use status debuffs, especially on the tank. If you truly want to be the best RDM you can be, you will have to do this.

Also, since you are Elvaan, you may have to remove those excess hastes in your casting. You probably do not have the MP to spare on a luxury like hasting a DD, and that may be contributing to your downtime.

Nobody should beat you to the cures or status repairs (once you start using WHM sub that is...), even with equip macros (you are equipping your light staff etc. in the macro itself... right?).

Also, depending on what level your WHM is, we could level up together. I am raising my WAR right now for subbing on my RDM during some solo work, and it's at lvl23, but I've noticed a very severe lack of mages around the 20s on Remora, sadly. See you around~

[Zempten]

in the usualy nin or pld, 2 DDs, whm, rdm/blm (me), & blm (or a skilled offensive smn)

I'm seriously thinking you need to add a BRD to that combination.

Even with the optimal nin/rng/thf/rdm(me)/brd/blm party combo, my performance is merely medicore, resulting in more party down time.

Okay so you added a BRD. Your getting 6 ticks of MP per second. You only have 2 people to Refresh and 3 to Haste ( only 1 if your counting the NIN ). Remeber that your in a PT. You do not need to handle EVERY SINGLE cure and status debuff, rather let the BLM help you out on that matter as well and with a good NIN tank you shouldn't have to give Cures every 10 seconds in the fight. Also I'm wondering why your switching into MND gear for Refresh?

Another thing that comes to mind is what is your MP pool at? This could also be one of the problems of your downtime. If you maximize your MP some then you can hit Convert at every 10 min interval rather then waiting for Convert to activate.

iii. by the time i swap into healing set & start casting cure (light staff, promise badge), the other mages who sub rdm or whm have already began healing. As a result, sometimes i'd cast cure iii on a fully healed teammate.

I have encounter this problem plenty of times. The only way I see thru this problem is that you watch the log window and see when your other members are casting Cure. If you see them casting, then don't cast. Unless your tank is down to like 200 or 300 HP I wouldn't advise you to cast if you see the BLM or anyone with a WHM or RDM sub casting already. {EDIT} Or you can just down right tell the BLM or whoever else that can heal to heal for now while you sit down and rest your MP for a moment. Or you can assign people to heal other's while you only worry about healing the main tank.

If your going to be the main healer. It will come down to leveling your WHM sub. I know it's tough. I really do. I'm leveling BRD and I just finally got it down to 30, but please understand that everyone and their mom is a RDM nowadays. You need to have other subs so you can offer your PT what the other RDMs cannot and also some of the best equipment. My WHM is 21. I've been leveling subs for a while now. I know it's difficult leveling with new players, some are ignorant but just think that you might meet someone that you can guide. Someone that actually will listen and in return your helping your server eliminate one less arogant player. Furthermore, WHMs get PT easily. You can level fast. I level 1 level a night and that's cause I'm a casual player. You could hit our WHM to 37 in no time considering you can get from 1-10 in just about a day soloing. 2 hours (maximum) for each level after that with a good PT. You can maximize your chance of a good PT by starting them yourself.

I hope this can help you.

[Pounce]

Assuming you have someone else in PT who can do status debuffs, I found /BLM to be better for RDM main healer. Conserve MP seems to do wonders. Although my max MP difference between /WHM and /BLM isn't too substantial, I seem to be able to do a heck of a lot more casting as /BLM than /WHM.

As /WHM, my routine was (in order of priority):

1.) Refresh
2.) Debuff
3.) Heal
4.) Haste 1 person
5.) MB

If I had to haste more than 1 person, I often could not go from convert to convert. MBing was also iffy. Often times I did not have the MP to MB. (This is assuming, of course, a party set up like PLD, WHM, RDM, BLM, DRK, 1 other DD where there's a lot of refreshes to throw, your mileage may vary if your party is more like NIN, BRD, RDM, BLM, RNG, MNK =P)

I recently got around to fully leveling my BLM subjob, and gave /BLM a go. WOW.

I could get in every single MB without worry of MP. Although I haven't tried it, I could probably haste 2 people easily enough too. My MP pool just seems to last so much longer.

So, assuming you're mainly there to toss Cures and can rely on someone else for status cures, I think /BLM is actually the better sub for a main-healer RDM.

[alpha1471]

Re: What am i doing wrong as a RDM...?

Originally posted by Cailleach
my performance is merely medicore, resulting in more party down time. So far, i've dicovered certain points i've come short:

i. my whm sub is serverely under lvled, so my sub is still /blm even if i were main healer.

ii. except dispell (which is covered by brd in pt), and elemental debuff (most blms will cast those), i still cast the debuffing spells rdm specialize in, which leaves little time to heal.

iii. by the time i swap into healing set & start casting cure (light staff, promise badge), the other mages who sub rdm or whm have already began healing. As a result, sometimes i'd cast cure iii on a fully healed teammate.

iv. because of my inability to use whm sub, i have to ask the other mages to take care of status repair such as erase or poisona.

i. and iv. Take some time off to level your WHM. It is a useful subjob to have. It can be more useful than BLM depending on what mob you're facing and the party makeup.

ii. Magic Finale has a much longer recast time than Dispel. Bards won't be able to keep up with mobs that used 2 buffs in a short period of time. Also, I think you're underestimating RDM debuffs. Debuffs help greatly on reducing down time. Using Convert at the right times will reduce down time greatly as well.

iii. In situations where there are multiple healers, I tend to use Cure II unless the tank is down about 300+hp from max. Equip change macros should not slow down casting time. You do not need to equip anything except the Light Staff when casting cures. My cure macros are set up like this:
/ma "Cure III" <stpc>
/equip main "Light Staff"
Equipment that is changed during the casting time but before the spell is cast will affect that spell.

[GiaCorleone]

Kind of an old thread but I thought I'd sound off a bit. I'm rdm/whm and I have a lovely static of whm/blm, blm/whm, rdm/whm, sam/war, drk/thf, pld/war. My party routine is as follows:

1. Refresh whoever is next
2. Para/Slow/Gravity (all macros with appropriate element staff)
3. Haste SAM
4. Refresh next on list
5. Haste DRK (whm hastes pld so I don't worry about it)

After that, I just recast enfeebs that wear, keep refresh cycle going and participate in both MB every fight (distortion and darkness). I usually have to convert after Chain #4 to make it through Chain#5 and usually end up doing some healing and some nuking on 5 as well.

BLM WHM and I all have Erase and have our own melee to watch after. I usually do 331 with Blizz2 burst (compared to BLM's 800+ Blizz3 XD), ~450 with Water3 (compared to BLM's 700+)...so about half the BLM burst. I am happy with my MBs and fighting goobbues the other night made me really thankful for silena >.>

My point is, even with 2 MBs, 2 Hastes, Refresh cycle, enfeebs, status cures, erase and random miscellaneous tasks, my mana pool still holds up enough for Chain #5 on some stupid hard mobs. Granted, I'm Taru, and I have 765HP 812MP so my mana pool rivals some WHMs. ^_^ I'm in the process of lvling my BLM high enough to sub it, because I've never tried it before. If I manage to get it lvld in time I'll sub it one night instead of WHM and try it out. Of course, I've already discovered that even with it majorly gimped (67rdm/24blm) I still much prefer /blm when soloing/farming/questing because of elemental debuffs, drain (the most efficient cure) and of course warp. Aspir and escape will come in handy when I get those too. It's still really hard to give up erase and paralyna/poisona/cursna/etc. I think I'll always be rdm/whm, but I'll surely give rdm/blm a try.

[Icemage]

Just to give you a non-RDM viewpoint:

I take my role as WHM in an XP party very seriously. If a red mage is casting Cure spells instead of doing what he's best at, I'm doing something wrong. Not that I don't appreciate the help if it's there, but a good WHM can usuallystay on top of healing and status effects without additional help.

Really the only things I ask out of a RDM are Slow, Paralyze, Silence, Dispel, Refresh, and a little help with Haste if it becomes necessary (usually only need Haste on one of the two DD melees). Magic Bursts are nice if you can manage it and spare cures are nice. Other than that, I don't really mind anything else that a red mage does or does not do. You'd be shocked how many red mages I see who can't manage the basics.

Granted, there are a lot of not-so-good WHMs out there who you might have to cover for, but like bad players of all jobs, it's best to avoid those players in your XP parties if they are so bad that you have to basically do their job plus your own.


Icemage

[Sepukku]

Icemage, are you the Icemage from marrisa's forum and titanicus.com? I always pictured you as a Hume or Elf...never knew you were a Tarutaru!

[Icemage]

Hehe. Yep, that's me. I don't mention my chosen race over on the fishing-related forums since it doesn't make a lick of difference for crafting.

BTW, sorry for the temporary thread hijack.

I'll get back on topic by mentioning that using equip switch as part of your spellcasting macros is the key to really sharp game play. I've gotten to the point where even as a WHM, I constantly blink on-screen switching at least one or two pieces of gear for every spell. This is much more effective than having a separate switch macro before activating a spell macro. If you find yourself wanting to switch more than 3 pieces of equipment per spell, then perhaps its time to re-evaluate your gear and either consolidate or do without certain bonuses.


Icemage