Was reading Apple Pie's post on the Scarlet King
(Available at: http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/sho...threadid=48722 )
And I thought maybe I would start a strategy discussing equipment changing, and how RDMs can use this, and what effective methods are to maximize the power of it.
First off some simple facts (from observation
- If equipment is changed before a spell is finished casting, the spell receives the effects and qualities of your equipment at the time the spell is finished casting.
- If you switch any equipment in the "Main" "Sub" or "Ranged" slot, you will lose all of your TP.
- If you switch any equipment in the "Main" "Sub" "Ranged" "Head" "Body" "Gloves" "Legs" Boots" equipment, your character will dissapear and reappear. During this time, your animations, and any spell effects, or animations that would impact your target dissapear. For example if you were to change your hat while casting refresh on a friend, you would dissapear, and you would not see the spell effect of refresh on your target if the spell landed while you were not visible. But the effect will STILL land.
- Waits are not required between equipment changing, and actions utilizing them.
- If you switch from a 2h weapon, to a pair of DW weapons, you will occassionally encounter an error. This is only possible if /NIN. The error occurs because the game does not register you having a 1h weapon in main slot, so prohibits you from using a second weapon in your sub slot.
- If you change a weapon that causes you to dissapear, you will lose lock on.
- Use /? /equip ingame for more help.
So now that we've covered how it works, why should we do it?
- Equipment changing allows us to maximize our many roles as Red Mages.
- You will notice a drastic improvement in your performance, especially your debuffs.
- You'll feel more satisfied with your job, or you may simply enjoy feeling "uber."
- Debuff potency is very strongly tied to your statistics. Increasing them increases your debuff potency greatly.
- Essentially you can debuff harder, nuke harder, heal better, and even melee better. What could go wrong?
Bad sides of equipment changing... Or that stuff that does go wrong.
- You will have to be able to carry all of your gear.
- Buying all of your new gear may become expensive.
- If you use macros with equipment changes, you may not want to change gear and do so anyway.
So now some tips on how to write good equipment changing macros.
- You only have 6 slots per macro, so you can at most change 5 pieces of equipment and still cast one spell.
- Since at most you're changing 5 pieces of gear, in the simplest form of equipment swapping, you're most likely going to want to use... A wand or staff, a necklace, a ring, a ring, and then a belt, cape, or your choice of fifth item.
So let's look at an example of a low level Slow macro:
/equip "Main" "Willow Wand"
/equip "Neck" "Justice Badge"
/equip "Ring1" "Saintly Ring"
/equip "Ring2" "Saintly Ring"
/equip "Hands" "Zealot's Mitts"
/ma "Slow" <t>
This macro will swap in a total +MND of 12, and then cast slow. Pretty simple right? Let's put some more strategy into this, and come up with a convert macro.
/ja "Divine Seal" <me>
/equip "Ring1" "Electrum Ring"
/equip "Ring2" "Electrum Ring"
/p Using Convert.
/ja "Convert" <me>
/ma "Cure IV" <me>
This macro assumes WHM sub, but will let you use a job ability, change rings, warn your party of your conversion, use convert, and then use a divine sealed Cure IV on yourself to bring you back into shape. Not bad huh?
So we can use a lot of tools in our macros, what else is useful in them?
/recast "Ability or Spell" is an extremely useful tool that will tell you how long you have until you can recast a spell you're attempting. Most useful for Refresh I've found. For example, /recast "Refresh"
/check This is the same thing as alt or ctrl c, tells you a monster's difficulty, and relative statistics.
/attack - Goes into combat mode with your target.
/echo "message" Spits out the echoed message into your console, for only you to see.
Those are some basics on equipment swapping. I'm going to post a reply with my macro change system, the logic, and the understanding behind it in a reply.
I encourage other RDMs to do the same, I'm sure we all know some tricks of the trade that others don't, and hopefully everyone will learn some useful information.
(Available at: http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/sho...threadid=48722 )
And I thought maybe I would start a strategy discussing equipment changing, and how RDMs can use this, and what effective methods are to maximize the power of it.
First off some simple facts (from observation

- If equipment is changed before a spell is finished casting, the spell receives the effects and qualities of your equipment at the time the spell is finished casting.
- If you switch any equipment in the "Main" "Sub" or "Ranged" slot, you will lose all of your TP.
- If you switch any equipment in the "Main" "Sub" "Ranged" "Head" "Body" "Gloves" "Legs" Boots" equipment, your character will dissapear and reappear. During this time, your animations, and any spell effects, or animations that would impact your target dissapear. For example if you were to change your hat while casting refresh on a friend, you would dissapear, and you would not see the spell effect of refresh on your target if the spell landed while you were not visible. But the effect will STILL land.
- Waits are not required between equipment changing, and actions utilizing them.
- If you switch from a 2h weapon, to a pair of DW weapons, you will occassionally encounter an error. This is only possible if /NIN. The error occurs because the game does not register you having a 1h weapon in main slot, so prohibits you from using a second weapon in your sub slot.
- If you change a weapon that causes you to dissapear, you will lose lock on.
- Use /? /equip ingame for more help.
So now that we've covered how it works, why should we do it?
- Equipment changing allows us to maximize our many roles as Red Mages.
- You will notice a drastic improvement in your performance, especially your debuffs.
- You'll feel more satisfied with your job, or you may simply enjoy feeling "uber."
- Debuff potency is very strongly tied to your statistics. Increasing them increases your debuff potency greatly.
- Essentially you can debuff harder, nuke harder, heal better, and even melee better. What could go wrong?
Bad sides of equipment changing... Or that stuff that does go wrong.
- You will have to be able to carry all of your gear.
- Buying all of your new gear may become expensive.
- If you use macros with equipment changes, you may not want to change gear and do so anyway.
So now some tips on how to write good equipment changing macros.
- You only have 6 slots per macro, so you can at most change 5 pieces of equipment and still cast one spell.
- Since at most you're changing 5 pieces of gear, in the simplest form of equipment swapping, you're most likely going to want to use... A wand or staff, a necklace, a ring, a ring, and then a belt, cape, or your choice of fifth item.
So let's look at an example of a low level Slow macro:
/equip "Main" "Willow Wand"
/equip "Neck" "Justice Badge"
/equip "Ring1" "Saintly Ring"
/equip "Ring2" "Saintly Ring"
/equip "Hands" "Zealot's Mitts"
/ma "Slow" <t>
This macro will swap in a total +MND of 12, and then cast slow. Pretty simple right? Let's put some more strategy into this, and come up with a convert macro.
/ja "Divine Seal" <me>
/equip "Ring1" "Electrum Ring"
/equip "Ring2" "Electrum Ring"
/p Using Convert.
/ja "Convert" <me>
/ma "Cure IV" <me>
This macro assumes WHM sub, but will let you use a job ability, change rings, warn your party of your conversion, use convert, and then use a divine sealed Cure IV on yourself to bring you back into shape. Not bad huh?
So we can use a lot of tools in our macros, what else is useful in them?
/recast "Ability or Spell" is an extremely useful tool that will tell you how long you have until you can recast a spell you're attempting. Most useful for Refresh I've found. For example, /recast "Refresh"
/check This is the same thing as alt or ctrl c, tells you a monster's difficulty, and relative statistics.
/attack - Goes into combat mode with your target.
/echo "message" Spits out the echoed message into your console, for only you to see.
Those are some basics on equipment swapping. I'm going to post a reply with my macro change system, the logic, and the understanding behind it in a reply.
I encourage other RDMs to do the same, I'm sure we all know some tricks of the trade that others don't, and hopefully everyone will learn some useful information.
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