Przeklejka z :
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/jobs.html ... 2156&num=9
By : Aerides RDM54/WHM51/BLM42
Hopefully to give us something else to read besides the 98768292 melee arguments, I figured I'd focus on the other aspects of our job that make us far more unique and define our flexibility thru the early 50's:
RDM – Adapting to Change(thru 54):
Levels 10-32
Ok so you bounced along from 10-32 in parties mainly groaning when they hired you as a main healer, but accepting the invites rather than sitting for the next hour or two with your flag patiently waving. You kind of wondered about your role. You’re not the real healer obviously, you don’t do much damage. Besides gravity, the WHM and BLM can cast the same enfeebles as you do, and you sometimes get the feeling you were just invited to fill the 6th slot.
Hopefully you still kept enfeebles up (slow, paralyze, dia at the start of the fight), maybe melee’d some, maybe not. You learn that using a pie makes life a lot easier, but now also those stacks of water crystals you got from the clips and snips don’t cover the cost of feeding yourself through a party. You find a way to make gil, (fish/farm/craft) and start saving. Maybe make a mule.
Levels 32 - 39
Then at 32 you got dispel (if you didn’t, /slap), but didn’t really know what to do with it for a while. Played around with your chat filters and basically cast it whenever the melees couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn. Slowly you learn which mobs buff and which don’t and start to see when they do.
Nuke Nuke Nuke, away. Have fun while you can do half the damage of the BLM (unless he’s a Taru, oh well).
Invites have picked up a little, but you still spend plenty of time back up healing. Maybe take some time and level yourself a BLM sub to warp out of the Citadel/Nest at the end of the party. (Especially after that time you found yourself alone in the desert with a /whm sub and with no way home…/cry)
Level 40
Then at 40, you have convert. And then soon after you have your first post-convert death. Things start to change now. However, it’s a good thing you got a least a level to try this out before refresh. You figure out that having max MP gear on means you create more MP…hmmm.
Level 41-50
At 41 you now become the butterfly crawling out of the chrysalis. Can’t stay in Jeuno for more than a minute without /tells for parties at all hours – even when you have your Thief subbed to go out and farm. Anon is your friend.
You struggle through the 40’s griping about PLD’s who keep going “refresh please” and converting every 10-15 mins while listening to your poor little fencing degen go “thwump” against the mob for about 5 damage (plus an enspell, if you didn’t have it up, /slap 2). You always throw up stoneskin before convert if it’s mid fight. You learn to dump your MP down to about 30 or less before converting, and learn when it is safe and when it is not. You have a warning in your convert macro so as not to give your party members a heart attack. If you sub BLM you drain after a convert, or if you sub WHM you use Divine Seal for your cure. You don’t let the WHM cure you back to health but bow graciously for a Regen II. Your HP is your own worry.
Hopefully you give up on the idea of ever using a Weapon Skill now as you are equipment swapping like a fiend and blinking away every 5 seconds on the screen (equipping wands/rings with each cast and returning to your sword after IF you melee). You have done several gobbie bag expansions to carry the assortment of wands/swords/rings, etc you need to swap in and out with each cast. If you don’t, you got it, /slap 3.
You are getting the handle on dispel now and learning the difference when a mob readies a buff vs. an attack. You learn to become a speed reader and barely let your eyes stray from the log. You watch the ticking mp bars with your peripheral vision and help out the Whm with cures on the Tank when needed.
About 47-48 you get a new sword or two but your melee damage (hahahaha) is not what it used to be. Hmmm….that Blizzard just landed for 48. Hey, my Paralyze resisted! You start to realize that your nukes are a waste for anything but the magic burst, and that your debuffs fall off quicker. You see them fall and recast them. Fights take longer. Refresh came down on everyone with 40% hp left on the mob. You start to adjust.
You get haste and help out some if the WHM needs it but really, you have enough else to do so split the duties at most here.
You do L1….shame on any RDM who is not dispelling the liches with ice spikes on, I don’t care if you have a level 75 NIN helping you, you are a RDM you support your helpers even if they can’t possibly die. Likewise, you refresh all the mages that came along. You likely aren’t getting XP if you have help here, but play as if you are in a normal party and don’t just sit there and wait for your paper.
Level 51+ (only thru 54 myself at this time)
Ahhhhh 51. (P.S. Do Not Go to an XP Party without a Dark Staff)
Ok time to get serious. Your role is now SUPPORT, SUPPORT, SUPPORT. That’s it. You will not do significant damage to the mob. You will not be able to main heal and refresh together (unless you have another RDM, or a Bard, or some crazy amazing dual blink tank party). I’m not going to talk about melee here – to each his own but please read the logs and if you are doing no damage you will stop, and save you sword for skill up and AF parties. Also take into account AoE attacks especially Silence. Your WHM will not want waste MP curing you; she is too busy with the tank.
You have two critical roles from now on: Keep the MP bars healthy, and keep the mob crippled. Hopefully you have farmed and solo’d enough to know how it feels when you get paralyze or slow cast onto you – only then can you appreciate the importance of these spells.
Your gear should be all about MP, and you should be swapping in MND and INT as needed for each spell. You should have an Ice staff swapped in for the few times you actually cast on the MB. A Light Staff is nice for your cures (especially if you do main heal). However, if you see the mob buffs itself right before the skillchain so you forego your MB for and extra quick dispel to make sure that Freeze lands for 1200 rather than 500. You make sure you keep your enfeebling capped NO MATTER WHAT ELSE. You have kept your dark leveled enough to make Aspir and Drain worthwhile (if you sub blm), and you use them liberally to manage your MP.
You are working on AF, including dying an average of once for each piece. You are called to help with higher levels in the Linkshell with stuff as, let’s face it, you won’t take hate with the 62 pld around but you can still keep him refreshed.
Parties: Your debuffs often resist. They fall off Ľ way into the fight. You recast. The mobs buff about 10 times a fight. You dispel, dispel, dispel. Fights last longer. You may go three refresh cycles in a single fight. (ok only in extremes but it'll happen). If you don’t, you have massive downtime and PLD who can’t cure himself.
You get in the habit of having refresh on 100% of the time you spend outside your mog house. You cast it while fishing. You cast it while standing at the Auction House. It is crack to you now. You cast it on WHMs when you get a teleport. You cast it on other RDMs
. You break rest to recast it.
Same for your magic users in your party. You cast refresh on them the second you join as quickly as you /wave, /bow, /welcome. You know instinctively when it’s gonna fall and start recasting, and then repeat the cycle again. Me, Pld, Whm, BLM, etc. In between you see another buff and dispel. You don’t stick to a hard schedule. Your WHM is full but the BLM is down to 400 mp you swap them around in the order this time. You use your judgment but get it back up on everyone as soon as Mithranly possibly. You are the “refresh dealer” – the other mages are hooked on it now too and they are in withdrawal every time it drops. This does not mean you support your BLM in his attempts to kill himself by casting so much he pulls hate of the tank, but you never want to hear that he didn’t have enough MP for freeze on the skill chain.
You level sllloooowwwllyy. At 51 the xp went to 10k, then 11k, then 13k, etc. 20k at 56. There’s a reason for this I believe – it’s to grant you the time to prepare for later in the game, to cap those skills, and to truly learn the dynamics of your job.
If you are playing RDM effectively now, there are rarely even 3 seconds between one cast and the next, be it enfeebling, refreshing, dispelling or curing. You equip swap like crazy and hardly ever hear “refresh please”. If you do you are mid-cast at the time. You have barely time to equip your dark staff before the next pull comes in because the MP is kept flowing. You convert as needed, always with stoneskin, and mainly only to extend the chain or if something unfortunate happens. You wonder how those melees have time to chat in the party log midfight as your fingers are glued to your macro buttons. You are exhausted at the end of a good party. But you are also exhilarated in the glow of a job well done.
Level whatever:
The job continues to change after this. The Flexibility of the RDM is in adapting to this ever changing role. In adapting your play style to each party setup, each xp location, each mob. You expect to reread the guides on AK every level or two to see what else you should now be doing, what gear you should acquire, what skills you should hone.
You don’t do it all, but you enable everyone else to do their job to the best of their ability:
Black Mages: You give them MP to nuke
Melees: You dispel and cripple the mob so they can actually hit it
Tank (PLD): You give him MP to keep hate through curing
Tank (NIN): See Melee
White Mages: You give them MP to keep the party alive, hasted, and buffed
Anyway, sorry for the long post but I've been thinking about this lately and there have been few posts on play style beyond the melee debates of which I am so weary!
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CD od :
Czarina - Female Elvaan - Mistress of the Enfeebling
36 WHM/69 RDM
Alexander Server
Well I think I will help a bit, so I will go from 51 to 70.
Levels 51 - 56
Welcome to Boyandha tree, and to the Kingdom of Crawlers and Crabs (again ^^; ). Most of your time will be here dispelling the mobs and casting refresh. Also don't forget to buy Blizzard II, which will be your best xp party nuke until lvl 74. By this time you should have a good grasp and understanding of refresh and when/how to use dia/bio. In some cases the party may take you to Kufkaf(sp) tunnel near 54-56, yet there are still more crabs. Also, it till be good that you learn how to swap rings and neck depending on the enfeeble magic you are casting, and start save money for all the elemental staffs, because they are more useful than a wand later on the game. Yet at these levels, I will recommend you to stop at all leveling, and farm for at least dark staff and ice staff. Ice staff is cheap (40-60k in Alexander) yet dark staff can be up to 100k. Give dark staff priority.
Levels 56-62
You will spent some time in Gustav Tunnel fighting gobs/crabs, and Cape Terrigan (aka Valkrum Dunes of the high levels) fighting gobs/pugils/raptors/crabs, and later on in Valley of Sorrow fighting the dreaded Peritons.
Also during all this, you need to get your af. There is a good site in the forum:
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/jobs.html ... 112&num=65]
Yet the only thing I will tell you is to be patient. The af can wait, and the higher you are the easier it is to get it. Yet there is something I need to stress out: IF YOU NEED THE KEY, THEN ACT AS IF IT IS AN XP PARTY. You will not get any help for af if you are thinking it as a skill up party. Those higher level that are there will think of it that way, and will be expecting you to make their stay confortable (after all they are doing you a favor). My whm/brd/rdm/blm friends and I have simply quitted some coffer parties because we get tired of people insisting to do our jobs.
That said, from lvl 58-62 it would be an easy ride for rdms because raptors don't buff themselves and perytons rarely do it. Yet try to keep gravity up all times because their evasion is insane.
Level 62-65
You have two choices here: Being main healer with a bard in Onzonzo against toramas, or being supporter against gobs in Bibiki bay. By this point you should have all your af and a couple of staffs, mainly dark staff and light staff. I will not recommend a rdm to go to fight toramas because gravity sometimes isn't enough. This is the first levels in which the difference between a brd and a rdm really matters in xp situations. Personally I think the best xp will be bibikie bay fighting the first tier of Hobgoblins. Yet if you fight the hobgoblins, make sure to silence them and dispel them at the start of the fight. Also be prepared to stand uo and silence as soon as the rng is bringing a blm/whm -type hobgoblin because they love to spamm -ga from distance. For toramas, you can take them as rdm yet if you have whm sub, make a macros just for curing paralyze/silence on the tank, you will be needing it almost every 5 seconds.
Level 66-70
It is HNM levels. If your fame in your server and the equipment you are using is good, you may get into one HNM LS at lvl 66 or at lvl 70. About Dynamis, most LS prefer lvl 70 yet you may also have to wait until 75 for those.
This levels have a lot of camps, and you will start seeing job discrimination. The main SC are the lvl 3 Light and Darkness, yet most parties will try to just use Light. RDM doesn't have any good enfeeble besides gravity to MB in light and not a good nuke until Aero III at 69 (yet aero III is heavily resisted so I stick to thunder II). During this levels start saving for a wind staff for maat and for an enfeebling/spider torque (500k/200k). You will also need enhancing/healing torque, and fortunately this ones are cheap (10k/20k).
Also the camps will depend on the jobs you get. A mnk party will usually take you to fight bones in King rampere Tomb or Gustav Tunnel. A whm party will take you for lizzards in Den of Rancor. Other camps are near cluster of tides agaisnt fishes; tigers/cockatrices in Kufkaf(sp) tunnel; and the second floors of Boyanda tree againsts crabs/gobbues/flies; and even spiders and flies in Dragon's Aery.
At the same time, start farming like mad, because you will need pimp out armor for Maat. The two best places for getting testimonies are Sky and Qulum Dome. Aural pots drops rdm testimony and you may ask any HNM LS farming those if they can give you one. Also ruby quadav has a very nice drop rate (1/3 rubies). Other places you can hunt the testimony is Psy'Xyo (sp) and temple of Ugglapied (sp) yet I heard drop rates aren't good there and they are far deep and risky to get there (plus you need the teshodo permission from PM3-4 and the key to pass the gates of Ugglapied).
Finally don't discurrage if you aren't able to beat maat in first try. I only know one rdm to ever done it and she has almost 4mil in armor. In fact, one of my friends needed 13 tries to finally beat him. The usually rdm rate for maat is 1/9, so don't discourage. ^^
That's all I can say, so I just need to say good luck to all in the ways of the crimson blade/dagger.
