Jack Of All Trades: A Guide To Red Mage

INT does something for every elemental WS.

Sanguine Blade has only STR and MND modifiers, and before Crocea Mors came on the scene, INT was more powerful than the 50% MND mod, for example.

Good point, I had forgotten about the STR mod on Seraph Blade. But the same doesn't apply to Sanguine. However, 30-32 more MACC over Pemphredo Tathlum does seem very useful, but at least on RDM I practically never see my magic WSs get resisted (plus we have Frazzle 3 if needed).

Also locking in Ullr means you can no longer use Regal Gem for Enfeebling potency or Staunch Tathlum+1 without losing TP.

No. You are thinkign about Dstat, but INT is not always a Dstat for elemental WSs. It can be some other statistic (including AGI on best ranged elemental WSs for example) or it can be none like for Seraph Blade.

Yes, but im asking for what the BiS is looking like :p especially since there is a rdm here with some insane gear.

Sanguine also has STR mod just 30% not 40%.

True about Regal gem tho. But how important is that 10% enfeebling potency tho? Also you can just use Saboteur then cast enfeebling at start with Regal and before you will need to re-apply it, you can just use Ullr. Also if you swap Ullr to Regal right after WS you will only lose like 100TP?

And if i remember correctly, dStat does not do a ton when it comes to damage for high level targets, right? Because its practically impossible to beat their stats.

Well, it did a lot before Crocea Mors came on the scene. But the dStat seems to exist outside of Croc's 100% boost, making the actual modifiers fairly powerful as long as they are a 40% or more mod. If it's a 30% or less modifier, dStat should win even with Croc as far as I can tell.

Edit: Maybe I'm letting Red Lotus Blade influence my thoughts too much. As that one you're actually gearing hard core for INT because it's both the dStat and a mod.

Maybe you're right for a lot of these WS that the dStat is pointless on hardest targets.

Interesting.

I havent messed around with Red Lotus at all though, mostly due to the no +affinity gear for it.

For Sanguine if you're using Croc, it doesn't matter if the target is easy or hard, MND will win over INT.

Derp, you're right. For some reason I was thinking it had a pure MND mod. Please disregard then.

Also I just went out to Dho Gates and tested Ullr vs. Pemphredo:

For 3k Seraph: Ullr adds about 400 damage over Pemphredo Tathlum. Gain-STR and Gain-MND are also identical for damage (seems obvious, but I just had to make sure).

For Sanguine: Pemphredo does about 16 more damage than Ullr.

Therefore I'd concede Ullr is pretty much BiS after all. Suits me just fine because that's even more MACC for Enspells and Empyreal Arrow is awesome thanks to Malignance gear.

Whats your seraph gear look like, Aerix?

ItemSet 368736
- Merlinic augmented with: INT+2/MACC+30/MAB+40/MDMG+2
- Chironic DM augmented with: MACC+13/MAB+48 (barely stronger than Amalric feet+1)
- Cape: MND+30/MACC+20/MDMG+20/WSD+10%

Fotia and Malignance Earring are pretty close to Baetyl and Regal Earring respectively (<20 damage difference at 3k), if someone doesn't have them yet. Honestly, Fotia might even be BiS due to TP not depleted+1% and it might be stronger than Baetyl at lower TP values (too hard to test 1k and 2k TP exactly).

Also, for what it's worth as I haven't tested for real DPS yet: 4-step RLB > Seraph > RLB > Seraph while holding TP as much as possible with Rostam SAM roll did about 12k less total damage than Seraph Bladex4 holding until close to 3k.

Apex Jagil take increased damage from Fire, Earth and Light, so there shouldn't be any damage bias.

Curious about something, you dont find stacking Amalric +1 more effective (due to its pretty sizable set bonus?)

edit: just noticed you said its augmented with +48, not a total of lol. (I didnt even realize its augments could break +40)

Also, I was using the Quetz necklace (+10 MAB/+10 Mag Acc) since i figured 3 MAB would be low, but you can always use more acc lol.

As an aside, just how much damage is your Seraph doing in that get up at 3k TP?

As I said: I've almost never seen my magic WSs get resisted on RDM (unlike my DP COR) as we generally have decent MACC in gear. So I generally opt for maximum damage. Even moreso now that we know Ullr is BiS for damage anyway.

As for Amalric+1:

- Amalric head+1 has no MAB without augment/set bonus, so it loses to Jhakri head+2 or a well-augmented Merlinic head

- Amalric hands+1 flat-out lose to Jhakri hands+2 because of WSD+7%

- Amalric feet+1 lost to my Chironic DM augment by about 350 damage when I tested it. So personally I'm using that even though the difference is pretty miniscule and anybody else will do just fine with Amalric+1

I suppose the straight MAB from Merl head beat out Viti Hat +3? (6 WSD and a sizeable amount of stats MND, INT, STR)

Just paper math, but if you're doing ~1500 TP WS at each point of the 4 step, then you're looking at a 1500*4= 6000 TP time window of white dmg.

Compare that to the Seraph holding to 2750TP and multiply that by 4 and that's a 11,000 TP time window of white dmg.

They're both a 4 WS comparison so there's no difference in ability delay/swing delay.

The 4 Step seems pretty solid in that light. 6k TP time window vs 11k tp time window for 12k dmg difference between the two.

Vitiation Chapeau+3 lost by about ~800 damage to my Merlinic Hood. Even after stacking Idris Acumen and Rostam lucky Wizard's Roll which would favor WSD.

WSD+6% equals about 24-32 MAB with BiS gear and buffs. Just to give you a rough idea why it lost to Merlinic Hood with +50 MAB and +2 MDMG.

Only because the sheer amount of MAB that hat provides, yeah.

If the Vit +3 only had like +30~40 MAB it would be fine lol.

Yeah, going by that it seems like multistepping could win out. However, the longer you continue the chain, the less time you are able to hold TP so it's closer to 1k WSs + overflow after step 4 usually. The first three WSs were almost 2k+250 each.

And over longer fights, the multistep method will WS far, far more often than pure Seraphs, so the ability delay will add up in return for more SC damage. It's really something that needs a proper parse when I have the time for it.

How about Relic feet+3? They have 7 less mab than Amalric with bonus, but 12 more str and 12 more mnd.

Good call, will test later. Pretty sure they'll win since it's like Pemphredo Tathlum vs. Ullr as before.

Viti. Boots +3 beats Amalric feet +1 by roughly ~70-110 damage depending on buffs, but still loses to my Chironic DM augment by several hundred. Non-DM Chironic can still get MAB+40 so that should still be slightly better than Viti. Boots+3.

It would need to be +40mab and +MND or +STR.
Just 40 mab will put Chironic at +6str, +24MND, +60mab
Amalric+1 with bonus are at +6str, +20MND, +62mab, +11 Magic Damage
So if Vit. win with Amalric, they will most likely also win with Chironic with just +40mab.

You're right, my bad. I posted too hastily as I had other things to do, so I didn't really take all the stats properly into account.

Still seems weird that little bit of extra MAB on my DM aug would beat the STR/MND of Viti. Boots+3 by so much despite high MAB gear, Rostam Wizard's Roll and Idris Acumen. The only thing I couldn't use was Malaise as that kept capping my Seraph Blade damage, making it impossible to compare gear.

So what im reading is... it only fluctuates by small margins. Use whats already in your inventory (probably vitiation/amalric) lol

inventory > 100dmg.

Question on endgame events.

Particularly D-Dyna wave2+.

Are you RDMs actually able to sub nin? (for daybreak)

I find that /blm or /whm to be a bigger gain in these events?

Thoughts?

None here will tell you that. It completely depends on your setup. If you can go as hybrid DD then why not. If your job is to buff whole ally + debuff every mob + sleep + etc because that's what needed for your setup then you probably wont have time to melee anyway.

Whenever I go RDM to buff an alliance, I really can't wait for the next club (sandwich) that will finally enable us to use Hastega 2: "Lunchbreak".

/sch if we're doing something serious like a full clear. (Mainly for the easy RR. And the better cures from Aurorastorm and B+ skill.) Otherwise, just /nin is fine for farming.
It's not like subbing ninja gimps your ability to buff people.

They should really just make Haste/2 Accessionable. No one but the dumbest SMN would care about not being the only one able to Hastega 2. (As if that's all SMN is good for....)

What should I idle in until I can get refresh augments on Chironic?

And should I wait for a DM campaign or are refresh augments somewhat common if I were to buy DM?