What race...

[Rai|Kye]

Re: What race...

@Icemage
i have no idea how you get out of MP in a Caedarva Mire PT....
i mean you had a nin tank so all you need to do is Haste refresh and erase ... the mobs in Caedarva Mire barely last longer then 30 sec from engage and cant harm a good nin.

i main healed in Caedarva Mire PTs where we got up to chain #47.
With MP sanction, Refresh, Ballad, smn sub, and Dalmatica you just cant run out of MP no matter how limited your MP pool is.

i found a pic of one of my CM PT's

http://mitglied.lycos.de/seikisushi/...522-165242.jpg

as you can see we are on chain #27 and my mp pool is near to full without convert.
Every Race can make a good RDM and MP dont give you and edge over others because those might have the gear to convert their races weakness.

[Icemage]

Re: What race...

I'm talking pre-75, before you get access to all the cool abjuration gear. I'm over-equipped as RDM with extra merits from my WHM75 job - my gear gives me +151HP and +214MP at level 72 for Convert, including a Vermillion Cloak between casting to recover MP, and I gear swap into some heavy duty casting gear afterwards.

Level 75 melees and tanks will take very little damage, I agree. But until then, you're going to have to deal with quite a lot of damage on your party from AoE Poisonga II, the odd -ga II, or whatnot - and without that extra MP to fall back on to cast Curaga, Erase, Poisona, etc. there's no way you can keep up before you are near or at 75 when some of those problems go away due to Silence being more effective (but consequently your XP goes down too).

Imps use a variety of spells, and if you're below level 75, they are going to get a few spells off before you can Silence them at least some of the time. I still have some trouble landing enfeebles on them (silence included) with full Enfeebling merits (+14) and an Enfeebling Torque (+7) with AF1 body (+15) with an elemental staff at level 72. From stat-booster gears and merits, I'd say I enfeeble at least as well as a normally equipped non-merited level 75 RDM, and my stick rate still isn't what I'd call reliable yet (75%), which means I'm constantly "cleaning up" after failed Silence attempts, which costs a lot of time and MP.

Speaking of which, if you're subbing SMN, who's status curing?


Icemage

[arkaine23]

Re: What race...

Race- mp is important on your way up. At the end you can merit and gear and eat such that any race can get a pretty good convert ratio- most can hit the 1000hp/1000mp neighborhood pretty easily. Convert ratio is not the be-all-end-all of red mage gear selection. In fact it shouldn't matter in the slightest and I don't understand why people even care about it. non-taru swap a lot of mp+ before convert so that the immediate cure follow-up is free compared to the mp max from usual casting gear, that is it. End. If you have even mp/hp there'll be more frequently times where you're outta mp and really need to convert fast, but aren't at full health. oops. So much for perfect efficiency. Galka would be the toughest race to play effecively given the high casting load red mages bear in xp parties and is the only race I would not recommend for red mage.

Aside from hp/mp, racial stats are really not so significantly different to matter much in the grand scheme of things. Forget what people say about ooh your race's xxx stat is teh suxzors. A lot of people are actually sicohpantic idiots who merely learn by rote and repeat what they hear. Base stats of different races hardly vary more than 8 by level 75, usually more like 3. Red mage makes use of every stat in different situations. Mind and Int obviously in casting, but by endgame, these stats are not primary. Skill and mp are often preferred, where just a few pieces of stat+ cover what is needed. Str/dex/agi/vit are very useful when melee soloing. Even charisma if you I dunno.. /brd or /bst?

Choose what you like to look at. Consider what other jobs you might someday want to play. I'm a hume.




Caederva Mire xp is sort of off on a tangent.... 75 merit pt's shoud have no trouble- they typically have a Bard, a WHM, and a RDM, much like a KRT pt- in fact a KRT setup owns the mire. It kills too fast for mobs to spawn and its better to go with only 2 mnks... and that's if the area is not totally crowded and ppl are being disrespectful mob-stealing biotches! But often melee slots are filled with standard dual-weilding dot DD's like wars and thfs, which are almost as good as monks. :p

Sanction gives refresh or regen if you want it. If your bard has enough time to keep ballads up, that's 7mp/tick without and auto-refresh gear. You may think 1hp/tick is not a lot for melee's, but it adds up to a whole lot of hp over the course of a few hours of xp. And all the hp is ultimately saved mp. Tell your melee's to get auto-regen from sanction. There's no reason not too. Any mage or mp-user shouldn't even think twice about getting auto-refresh sanction.

Now sometimes, you don't have this optimal setup. Lacking the bard or lacking the red mage is mainly what I mean, or maybe having 2 rdm instead of a whm. That makes it tougher to last to converts and xp slower. Lately, I've been stuck with either crappy DD's or no bard. In the lvl 70 area, I would take it as a matter of course that after awhile, there's gonna have to be a recovery pitstop. WHM's cannot last forever. RDM's are lacking signifcant mp from what they woud have at 75 from mp merits and gear as well as convert merits. You basically need 2 RDM, or a RDM WHM and BRD to go non-stop. And though its difficult, I've found maintaining a constant regen on all melees is very efficient though somewhat tricky. I'm generally a rdm/blm in these parties i.e. secondary healer, haster/refresher, and there's either a rdm/whm or a real whm for curagas and status cures. The WHM can overwrite my weaker regens if he wants and its no loss to me.

ES Aspir on imps for 30-60 mp {All Right!}. They have tough dark resistence. ><; Conserve mp is often belittled compared to say /smn or /pld auto-refresh. But in the mire you can have both, if white magery is covered. It makes lasting to convert a lot easier.

[Rai|Kye]

Re: What race...

Speaking of which, if you're subbing SMN, who's status curing?


Icemage

teh brdz lawl ?
no actually /smn is an option to get more refresh, but not in this party situation.
i was /whm at that time...
i need Rdm AF2 hat to complete my refresh set but i threw all my points for RNG and NIN body ;;

taru might have a slight edge over other races when playing mage jobs but is so slight you wont really notice it...
btw taru mnd sucks

[Icemage]

Re: What race...

teh brdz lawl ?
no actually /smn is an option to get more refresh, but not in this party situation.
i was /whm at that time...
i need Rdm AF2 hat to complete my refresh set but i threw all my points for RNG and NIN body ;;

taru might have a slight edge over other races when playing mage jobs but is so slight you wont really notice it...
btw taru mnd sucks

Again, we're talking below 75. With sufficient HP>MP gear, any RDM can be ok in Caedarva at level 73+ IF they have some Zenith Gear, but I put forward that only Taru RDMs will survive the crunch prior to that point with any amount of success without a backup healer, and if you have a backup healer, you won't have enough offense to keep up the indefinite chains the way level 75 parties can.

For such non-75 parties (and a large proportion of the 75 merit parties), the bard is usually pulling with /NIN. So no, the bard probably isn't casting status cures - he's too busy pulling from every corner. That also means he doesn't have time to sit there and sing Ballads for you most of the time - you're lucky if you have Ballads more than half the time, and he's also soaking up some of your MP to keep him effective.

As for MND, Elvaan MND is very nice - everyone else pales in comparison, but Elvaan RDM have to work much harder to make up for their lower MP pool than Tarus have to make up for the few (3) points that they lag behind Humes at level 75.


Icemage

[Rai|Kye]

Re: What race...

wtf ... i never had a brd/nin in any of my merrit PTs ... dunno how it goes on your server but on pandy the brd goes /whm ...

i mean why would the brd gimp his self and sub nin ??? only for pull ?
hes has SS blink and stuff ... no need to sub /nin lol.
most bards i merrit with have osode and god gear, so a fairly high defense...

im no brd but i have 3 lv75 jobs, almost 4 and i merrited alot and all the bards pull with elegy, then lullaby, then a mage SleepII if needed...
a brd goind /nin because hes afraid of taking some hits is like a whm /nin because he could get hate ><

[Hamlet]

Re: What race...

I think it's pretty standard for bards to go /nin when pulling. I pted with one today that did that. But yeah, ss and blink seems like it would work just as well. Maybe if the bard is 74+ with Ni it would make a difference. I've heard about it alot.

arkaine- most of the game is spent on your way to 75, not at 75 (maybe not for you, but for most people it is), and it just doesn't make sense to say that around 250 mp or so every 10 minutes isn't even worth mentioning. Tarus don't even need zenith gear, so besides the annoyiness of getting it, they also can wear other stat boosting gear.

Humes can play rdm and do the job fine. But tarus will have more flexibility and an easier time throughout the game. As for elvens, I don't even really understand how they play rdm considering how crunched I am for mp all the time. But it's been done and is done all the time so I guess it's possible. I mean, the RDM ghost from the AF story was elven so that must mean something.

I think you 75 rdms forget what it's like before zenith. I mean, zenith gear basically turns you into a taru (hp/mp wise, at least).

[Rai|Kye]

Re: What race...

I think it's pretty standard for bards to go /nin when pulling. I pted with one today that did that.

well that might be standart on your server but not my and by far not on all.
you gimp yourself and party if you go /nin. because the only thing /nin adds to your performence is shadows ... you cant erase, you cant curaga, you cant do sh*t.

arkaine- most of the game is spent on your way to 75, not at 75 (maybe not for you, but for most people it is), and it just doesn't make sense to say that around 250 mp or so every 10 minutes isn't even worth mentioning.

this game has been out for so long most ppl spent there time being 75 alot longer then leveling their first job...
and i agree with arkaine because she can view things from 2 spots.
he/she been at the point where he/she was not 75 and decked out with gear and now he/she is 75 and probably got everything he/she wanted.

---EDIT---

i bet on midgrd the rdms sub /smn or /brd to add to the party dynamics

[Hamlet]

Re: What race...

Well, I took a year and a half break, and I'm not 75, so I'm seeing it from the under 75 perspective. I still don't get why it's not notable that you have to wear gear specifically for mp and spend merits specifically for mp to get to the point that tarus are at naturally. They can use those gear slots and mp merits elsewhere.

I'm not saying humes are gimped and can't play rdm. They obviously can. But to argue that the difference is completely inconsequential is irrational.

[Rai|Kye]

Re: What race...

ok ... whatever ... tarus are better RDMs then Hume, fine im cool with it.

but you know what ? in endgame they f***ing die all over the place.
if you are tiamat its always the tarus getting oneshoted because they overdid it and couldnt take a hit even with stoneskin.
at kirin they cant survive a stone5 (well i cant too but galkas can >>)

yeah you are probably right tarus have the best stats for caster jobs but survival is a huge point in Endgame and those point taru fail, no matter what job they play. they always die first

[Hamlet]

Re: What race...

Heh, that's cool. I really do want humes to be better considering I am one. It's good to know there's a situation where that hp comes in handy.

[swingfly]

Re: What race...

Hamlet, race doesn't really matter that much. What Arkaine said is the most important thing: "Choose what you like to look at." Pick the race you'll stand looking at for 1-2 years worth of playing the game. You might have to play the job slightly different on the way to 75 depending oon the race you choose but in the end it's pretty much all the same.

As for Brd/Nin, I've only seen that once I think, in a party with Nin, War, Mnk, Rdm, Brd, Brd where one of the Brds were /Nin and the other /Whm. I can't see it as being useful any other time really, the extra -nas and curagas from the Brd will be too good to pass up on in most party setups.

[Patchinko]

Re: What race...

Tarus are not always the first ones to die.

In fact, of all the NPCs that got captured in today's Besieged, the only one everyone bothered to go rescue immediately was a Tarutaru.

Guess which one...

[Icemage]

Re: What race...

BRD/NIN pullers because Utsusemi takes less time to cast than Stoneskin+Blink. The faster you pull, the easier it is to make those continuous chains, and more XP you make. It's that simple.

When you have a talented mage backline, you don't need the extra cures and -na spells from your main puller.

---

You've never seen RDM/BRD in action, have you? I use it all the time. It's very, very powerful in XP settings, and if you disagree, well, I guess you're just missing out.

---

Actually I have more HP than the MP-hungry Humes and Mithras. Probably because.. hmm... I don't have to use HP>MP gear.

Only stupid Tarutaru die at end-game. Smart Taru invest in +HP/+PhysResist gear, which makes them more, not less, survivable since they don't have to worry nearly as much about max MP on their gear (and the typical -HP associated with those items).

This isn't to say that hume mages are bad - they're perfectly acceptable at end-game and compare quite well when equipped properly. My original point was that Taru RDMs have a big advantage in the low 60s up through the low 70s, where gear cannot make up for the difference in HP/MP balance, and allows the Taru RDM to push the envelope much further than their lower-MP counterparts.


Icemage

[Balfree]

Re: What race...

Bit of Off topicness, but not really...

All that is pretty sweet, but hey, new job with refreshga, alot of new hMP gear, sanctioned refresh... Hume RDM 64 (moi) BRD COR NIN THF DRG party

/em laughs at /heal