Jack Of All Trades: A Guide To Red Mage

I dinged 30 on mastery level and tried things out rq.

Chocobo Jig works and is great.

SCH rapture only increases Dia III initial damage, doesn't affect the dot, not a huge surprise. Just possible to waste a gem on accidental Dia instead of a heal. Doesn't activate on any other enfeebles.

SMN Avatar's favor activates and indicates that it is working. Mostly looking at it for niche +Crit or MDB.

I do the same thing for farming solo exemplars on RDM, and often add in a bursted Fire2. Doesn't sound that important, but with a trust setup of Sylvie, Star Sibyl, Joachim, Ulmia, Monberaux on apex mobs (basement Ra'Kaznar bats or Outer Raz hounds) it consistently bursts for another 18-22k while not killing my TP gain for the next step. I view it as just additional damage from the WS/SC, and am not aiming to get a killshot burst with that low of a tier nuke, but each one of those T2 bursts basically is another WS without slowing down TP gain.

Just snagged a Sroda Tathlum and looking at my Enspell melee sets, interested in any advice/critiques on the below /NIN TP set.

A few things I'd be interested in hearing opinions on:

1) Vitiation Tights +3... viable for enspell damage (with Enspell Group 2 merits to activate the augment), or should I give up on that? I know Malignance Tights is the common recommendation, but I don't have those yet, nor do I have Volte Tights (the STP+8/Haste+9% ones), so my other options would be stuff like Carmine +1, Ayanmo, Nyame, Bunzi. But even considering Malignance, I'm curious to try to get that extra enspell+ in my set. Maybe it's not worth it, IDK...

2) Offhand weapon. Daybreak is of course better for Sanguine/Seraph, but I'm also thinking I'm kinda comfortable with Gleti's due to the massive Acc/Atk difference (plus the haste and lower delay). For this set, Gleti's R0 is ~ Mainhand Acc+51/Atk+30 and Offhand Acc+133/Atk+121 versus Daybreak (for me at ML5, before food/buffs).

3) Neck? Been back and forth a bit between Duelist +2 (Macc), Sanctity (good spread of Acc/Atk/Macc), Anu Torque

Capping equipment haste is always a bit of a concern on RDM too, especially with the waist slot tied up with Orpheus and potentially my legs slot going to Viti+3. And Sroda takes away another spot where you could get a little extra haste from Hasty Pinion +1. With 240/1024 gear haste, capped magical haste, and /NIN and DW+15 in gear, that should be capped... but needs Gleti's Knife for that. Daybreak and assuming 220/1024 gear haste (IDK the exact x/1024 numbers) means 79.14% total delay reduction... so 2-3 DW shy of cap.

ItemSet 384651
* Cape is DW+10
* Note that I don't have Malignance Tabard or Tights yet for my RDM (5/5 on my other main character, now having to get it again on my 2nd character that has RDM and it's torture lol...)
*2nd ring I tossed Ilabrat on, but I guess I could use a 2nd Chirich +1 if I swipe that off my other character, or even consider Crepuscular (Macc+10/STP+6) - don't really see any of those as a huge game changer though, unless Subtle Blow is important (in which case, yeah, Chirich +1 x2)

I've found I do best with keeping daybreak in the offhand and wearing carmine +1 in the legs. I've sacrificed a bit of enspell damage for store tp as well (using malignance hands in one of my builds) and it seems to be better overall with the tp overflow.

I haven't put anything in a spreadsheet or done a very controlled parse so take everything with a grain of Himalayan Sea salt.

What situation exactly are you gearing for? Enspell damage only? Enspell + magic WSs? Do you have trusts that you can cap haste with?

Enspell damage + magic WS.

Yes, I can cap magical haste with trusts... Haste II + Cornelia does that, so pretty easy for a RDM.

Even without hitting capped equipment haste, the above set (with 24% gear haste and DW+15) ends up at 80.31% delay reduction. That's about 1 DW over cap (removing 1 DW = 79.98%) but I'd still go for Suppa over Eabani for the +5 sword skill. Other ability haste buffs (Haste Samba) can also change things a bit. Basically, a DNC main's 5/5 merited Haste Samba = no need for any DW gear (back + either a DW ear or Carmine legs), or DNC sub Haste Samba lets you drop 1 DW piece. I almost never have a DNC with me when I'm on RDM though, so not really a concern for me.

I suspect the relatively small amount of enspell dmg+ from relic legs may not make up for what you lose from Malignance and its STP. But, since I don't currently have Malignance Tights, the other main alternatives would be:

(1) Nyame (Path B, I'm not making A path legs just for RDMelee) or Bunzi - both of which are similar for RDM melee purposes. As compared to Viti. Tights +3, Nyame/Bunzi both have worse Acc (don't forget the DEX+22 from relic legs, a rare stat for leg armor), worse Atk (at least until you get near R20 Nyame B, which I don't have yet), and no enspell dmg+. So, Viti+3 look like the winner from an offensive perspective.

Nyame and Bunzi do have somewhat better defensive stats, but this isn't the common comparison of an Odyssey piece versus total glass cannon gear. Viti+3 are no slouch defensively, with a decent amount of DEF/HP/Meva/MDB and PDT-5%. That's enough to usually make me comfortable giving up a little defense for Viti's better offense as a default choice.

(2) Carmine +1, which are still pretty solid. D path Carmine +1 have almost identical Acc (when accounting for DEX) to Viti+3, and:
Pros: 1% more haste, DW+6 that frees up the ear slot for an option like Telos, Cessance, Dedition, or Dignitary's
Cons: About 20 less atk, no enspell dmg+, worse defensive stats (Meva-47, MDB-4, no PDT-5%)

For DW builds Carmine is certainly a contender, and I've used them quite a bit. Though keep in mind that if you're ever single wielding Crocea, the DW that makes Carmine appealing is no longer an advantage so that situation would be pretty solidly in favor of Viti+3.

(3) Volte Tights (the Bastok ones with Haste+9%/STP+8) are sort of like a Malignance -1. Slightly worse STP, slightly worse Acc, no Macc, worse defensive stats. I also don't have those, but they're not an unreasonable choice for someone with no Malignance Tights.


Giving up Ayanmo hands in favor of a STP option doesn't sound like a great trade to me for Crocea Mors. Enspell +17 is a lot, and the whole point to me of Croc is that it puts out SO much more white damage. Strong Sanguine/Seraph blades are also nice, but IMO the real draw is the TP phase DPS. But I also don't have hard data to back that up, so if someone thinks that's incorrect please share.

As for Daybreak... yeah, its increase to WS numbers might be worth it over a dagger/sword. Situational though, you do have to consider the sizeable acc gap between Daybreak and something like Gleti's, Ternion +1, or Tauret in the offhand.

I was mostly just speaking to master levels for my own testing, I should have clarified that. I switch up enspell damage gear depending on what I'm fighting.

Man I wish there were a semi-updated RDM spreadsheet around, so many times I just pick random stuff because I have no way to test which of my currently available options would be better for a specific slot, sigh.

Capuchin not entirely relevant to your questions, but I parsed damage from RDM ML0 to ML 22 against some Apex monsters using Red Lotus Blade and Seraph Strike (they SC together, that's the reason) and I tested Crocea MH.
Turns out as OH Thibron was giving me noticeably better DPS results than Daybreak.
With Daybreak Seraph Strike WS damage was higher, but Red Lotus Blade damage was much lower.

Not sure if this is what you expected or not, I was partially surprised.
Difference was big enough that after a few days I just kept Thibron OH and called it.

I know this doesn't solve your issue where you want 2% haste from Gleti's :-(
Without a spreadsheet it's hard to tell.
I don't think you have many options because you can't really use Gazu Bracelets (giving up Ayanmo hands with Crocea MH sounds like too big of a sacrifice to me)
There's also the Sroda tathlum vs Hastypinion+1 thing, wonder what would win. Wouldn't take it for granted Sroda wins in the long run, you're <2% away from haste cap.
You could use the same approach and be <2% away from DW cap by using Suppa/Eabani, capping Haste with the Ambu cape and keeping Sroda this way.
Would it be better or worse? Hmmm...

As for the neck it depends what you're fighting and if Frazzle is up I guess. On exp mobs I'd go with an STP neck probably, especially with the small amount of macc provided by Cornelia which you can exploit right now.


edit:
Oh and there's the body thing too.
You sure Ayanmo is gonna win over Malignance?
DA+7% should theoretically give you smaller returns when you have as much TA as a RDM can easily get thanks to a capped Temper2 set.

Most of this comes down to your situation and strategy.

I sometimes use Ayanmo hands over Malignance but pretty much exclusively if I'm expecting my ws's to be weak for some reason or I'm purposely trying to shift my damage towards enspells maybe so I can let a trust or a pup or something hold hate. In general Malignance hands are much better dps if my ws's are effective. In these situations where I'm choosing Ayanmo I'm usually offhanding Levante Dagger if I can get away with Enaero because that's pretty much your best pure enspell combo as long as wind is acceptable.

If going for seraph blade damage daybreak wins by a mile, acc is rarely a concern for rdm and if it is you can usually just cast distract III and no more issue.

As to replacing Malignance I'm sorry to say but there really aren't any good options Malignance is OP for rdm.

That's good stuff, thanks for the very practical example.


I honestly don't think 24% haste is a very big deal for /NIN. It just means that instead of needing DW+11 for capped delay reduction (assuming capped gear and magical haste), you need DW+14~15. I can't imagine the pair of Sroda & Suppanomimi loses to Hasty+1 & any other earring. And Hasty+1 has that nasty STP-3 too.


Oh, you're absolutely correct there. I'll use Malignance when I get it, I just don't have body. 3/5 on the set for this character and missing body/legs, both of which I will likely end up using for TP if Lilith ever gives them to me. And then I'll gladly never look at her again, farming two full Malignance sets is a paiiiiinnnnnnnn. But if I'm overlooking any other not-Malignance body options that may be better than Ayanmo +2, I'm listening ;)


Ah, Levante Dagger is an interesting one... thanks for noting that.

For some other examples of use cases:

I'm often dualboxing while playing RDM, and usually my other character is the main DPS or tank. So, once I have my buffs and enfeebles up, I'll add some melee damage but my RDM is not necessarily getting my 100% focus and I might not be WSing immediately at optimal timing. Particularly since TP overflow doesn't make too big of an impact on Sanguine/Seraph, if I think I might have some late WS I do tend to err on the side of gearing to help that strong white damage. I realize that's more of a user-specific case though!

Last month's ambuscade (Quadav) was also a GREAT example of enspell damage being nuts. Melee the PLD add and murder it during invincible. Main NM's shield drops and you smack it with a triple attack enspell for huge damage on each hit and do more damage during the short damage window than most physical DDs would do with a WS.

Similarly, PLD mobs in Dynamis? LOL ok, I'll engage and not care if they Invincible cause when they do they still die fast.

Odyssey segment farming is another one... it's just so frequent that you're overkilling mobs with WS, so even parses can be misleading by overinflating WS numbers (such a common issue with Savage Blade - when a mob had 1000hp and you kill it with a 60k Savage Blade... how much damage did you really do?). While it might not be immediately apparent on a parse that shows excess WS damage, having strong white damage is actually often more effective than it gets credit for. Same logic for some other stuff like empy AM3 being a bit underrated in there. For instance, some of the WARs on this forum swearing by Ukonvasara. Or a Masamune or Caladbolg being great to finish a mob with a potent extra melee round and saving TP to WS the next mob). Or for me, I always get more total segments with Chango WAR than I would with Naegling/Savage WAR (despite parses sometimes looking similar due to that fools' gold of excess SB damage showing up in the numbers).

If you're looking at enspell damage while hanging on to the enspell + pieces you listed I would drop Gleti's knife for Pukulatmuj +1 R15 and drop Malignance Boots for Taeon boots with an augment of +3 DW which shouldn't take too long to get and won't be too pricey.

Think with 22 gear haste and capped magic haste you need 16-17 ish dual wield to cap.


EDIT: And you can change your suppa to brutal, Dedition or cessance.

So levante dagger is not mab+15 but wind affinity +15?

Yes it says wind elemental magic attack bonus

Reaching 80% delay cap with less or more Dual Wield is not the same. Dual wield cuts tp per hit.

Yes but in his case it's probably better than staying at 10% dw with 24% haste.
He's probably right in that regard.

Of course 11%dw with 26% haste would be even better but it's hard to reach that if you want a croce a mora e spell based build, with current gear and excluding DM godly augs

Can also use Quanpur Necklace with Enstone when Enaero isn't an option / when Enstone is better, FWIW. Frees up your off-hand too, at the expense of only your neck.

It's "only" affinity+5 though, gotta be quite different from Levante's affinity+15, right?

Exactly. I understand that DW reduces TP/hit, but for that small of an amount it's not going to be significant. Highly unlikely to even reduce the number of hits to WS (and viewing things through the lens of an x-hit built is not even very meaningful for a DW job with a lot of multiattack), and this also isn't a situation where excess TP overflow is hugely beneficial since the magical sword WS in use are not heavily impacted by TP scaling.

It's similar to the decision of going 1 or 2 DW over capped delay based on whatever gear you're using. Yes, that excess DW reduces your TP/hit a tiny amount. No, that tiny amount doesn't actually have a practical impact.

And in this case, remember that we're talking about omitting Hasty Pinion +1 in the uncapped gear haste set. Hasty Pinion +1 has STP-3 on the item, which is itself a bigger TP/hit loss than making up some delay reduction with DW instead of haste.

not true, building around an x hit is no different than for a 2h.

Levante has no +magic damage on it which makes it significantly worse than most other commonly held daggers, I believe.

Disclaimer: I'm going to be speaking from the perspective of having access to 5/5 Malignance, because that's what I've personally tested and calculated for. Not being able to cap haste because of other leg slot options could make it a very different situation.

With a few exceptions where WSing is not an option or WSs are super overkill, RDM magic melee builds should be STP + WS damage first, Enspell damage second. Basically the only slot one should actively give up TP speed for enspell damage is Orpheus sash, as a flat +15% is very significant.

Given that, you should gear for almost entirely STP in TP gear, using 5/5 Malignance, Aurgelmir +1, Dedition+Sherida, Anu or Ainia, and Chirich +1 x2 (or Ilabrat). If at capped magic haste, +10 DW from Ambu cape gets you close enough to cap, with any other sacrifices to get the last 1 DW not being worth the loss in STP.

If the foe is weak to skillchains and takes good fire and light damage, then alternating Seraph and Red Lotus Blade with offhand Thibron is your best DPS.

If SCs aren't worth it, then the DPS order for WSs and offhands go:

Sanguine w/ Bunzi's Rod offhand
Seraph Blade w/ Daybreak or Thibron offhand (if mob takes reduced dark damage)
Red Lotus Blade w/ Thibron offhand (if mob takes reduced light and dark damage).

When you come up against a situation where weaponskills aren't useful (like Invincible), you can swap to an Enspell set on the spot, too. I imagine it'd be similar to the max TP set except for Ayanmo +2 hands, Sroda Tathlum, and misc. minor multi-attack like Brutal earring. Vitiation +3 legs is an option, but it's only +5 to enspell (compared to +17 on Ayanmo hands) and makes it harder to cap your haste.

I'm not sure whether Pukulatmuj +1 or Levante would do better as offhand when using Enaero.

Taeon Boots with +3% haste aug means you have boots with +7% haste and 4 DW. It gives you enough slack to do whatever you want with both Enspell and DW optimized sets.

I personally have a general setup for store tp, enspell damage, and optimized DW (among others). Store TP that is all Malignance wins most of the time because I am almost always /DNC for SC Bonus and Healing waltz. Close Seraph Blade hard with a tranfixiation partner. Leaden Salute, Star Diver, and Evisceration are particularly nice since they also make Darkness as 1st and 3rd step. Burst stone with Quanpur neck designated because it's your cheapest, fastest, and strongest tier V. With a good refresh potency set, you should be able to continuously burst ever mob against stronger Apex mobs that aren't already dead. If you're solo, then do RLB/Seraph until they are dead as previously mentioned.

If you fight tenzen or PLDs in ambu, go /NIN and go absoultely silly with enspell damage. It gets outrageous with Crocea and Puk +1 offhand and all the +damage pieces. Umithi Hat, Malignance body, Ayanmo Hands, Relic legs, and Taeon boots makes 26% haste and even 4 dw to start. Bring a SCH friend for double weather and generally match the day element and just laugh in Tenzen's face.

If you know that magic damage is ineffective and you brought your RDM anyway, then DW setup is best and hopefully the acc check doesn't disqualify you from using a Thib in your offhand. Innundation > Empy Arrow > Savage > CDC as /DNC stacks up SC damage if SC damage works. Otherwise SB, CDC, or Black Halo until it's dead. Mercy Stroke if you're feeling extra. Gleti's in offhand if you can't Thib and do whatever you want for capping Haste and DW because you shouldn't have to try at that point with the taeon boots as an option.

If you're looking to not pay as much attention to your RDM as your 2nd character, I'd recommend sticking to Sanguine Blade so that your other character can SC without being interupted and your RDM is probably both alive and not pulling hate so you don't have to manage them. Make sure your Sanguine Blade set has enough HP in it so you don't yoyo your HP too much. The other advice I would give is have a full DT set to fight in because RDM are dumb tough with a good phalanx set and Crocea HPs. I'm a big fan of Sacro Shield when fighting Ngai and anything else in Gaol. Tier 3 shield feels like cheating compared to anything else you've ever used as a shield on RDM. Try out /PLD or /BLU with it on low man dynamis unlocks or segment farms. You bring all your buffs and debuffs to the group plus hate tools. Sanguine Blade if you're too lazy to heal yourself.

Good stuff, thanks everyone for the input. Especially the really good insight in the last 2 posts by Iocus and Geriond, appreciate it!


It's the same idea of how many attacks to 1000+ TP, but when you're using something like a... 14-15 hit build, with Temper II meaning frequent TP overflow, with WS that aren't particularly sensitive to extra TP? Eh, I really don't care all that much about whether I'm reducing a 15-hit build to a 14-hit. Yeah, it's something - but this isn't the 75 cap days with a 4-hit on a job with little multiattack, where shaving a hit off was WAY more meaningful.

For DW jobs in 2022, sure, one less hit is one less hit. Nice to have. But do you really gear based on a specific x-hit for a THF, DNC, NIN, RDM/NIN, whatever? Doubtful.

ItemSet 384676

10 STP on the cape

This is the current set I am messing around with, it makes a 9 hit but sacrifices 6 dual wield to do it. If you swap out Malignance Boots for Taeon Boots with an additional +2 DW augment (or +3 to swap out suppa and use eabani earring) you will get a 10 hit while capping attack speed. Either way it makes it pretty easy to self skillchain and the option of tp overflow is still pretty nice on Red Lotus Blade and Seraph Blade.


Either of these sets in somewhere like Dho Gates makes for a relatively reliable 3 step kill with just trusts. Adding a Geo to the mix lets me down a mob with just a 2 step. For either of these situations to work for me I am having to weaponskill at 1500+ tp a lot of the time.

If I'm just spamming Sanguine Blade then I will switch it up to a more enspell damage based setup and of course lose the Thibron.

That's an incredibly inefficient build, right? I'm aware that DW does reduce the amount of tp you gain per hit in order to gain AS, but you'd MUCH rather have the faster attacks on RDM because of enspells, right?

Wouldn't it be a much better idea to just put the DW on the cape and find another earring option? Like, say, Sherida Earring. Plus, with all that enspell damage in the set, would it be worth using ambuscade gloves? I know you're going for an x-hit build, but x-hit doesn't always translate to higher dps.

When killing scrub apex mobs this seems more efficient to me than building for enspell damage purely. Giving up capped attack speed for a 9 hit probably isn't the best choice. The enspell damage is nice but my damage is skewed much more towards weaponskills and skillchains on apex mobs, even when I use an all out enspell build.

Enspell damage is really being overestimated here when talking about overall damage. A decent ws set will have your Sanguines/Seraphs tripling your enspell damage every cycle (or more if you're really leaning into it with Malaise/Acumen and COR support). Enspell damage is a nice free chunk, but weaponskill damage is what's paying the bills, and the faster you can build TP, the better.

Focus less on hits and more on rounds. TP/second is also meaningless, which is where people get the idea to use less DW because at certain points it generates more "TP/second" but you still get to a WS slower, since your rounds come slower.

Its not meaningless, it's just another statistic that you can use if you know what you want to achieve...