Red mages can cast black and white magic and wield good weapons. I thoguht of this question while playing FFIII DS but applies to the other games too.
Is there any reason not to have a party full of red mages?
because all-arounders are nice, but soemtiems, it’s nicer to have people who can use the full range of an abaility?
Red Mages can’t cast higher level spells, so they become useless later in the game.
I know this is reeeeaaaaallly off topic,but ragnarok,do u play runescape?
creepy evil drow face I SHALL RULE THE EARTH!!!
Red Mages are cool in the beginning, but as the game gets harder, like Rinn pointed out, they tend to outlive their usefulness. Too bad FFx-2 did not have a red mage outfit
That would have been interesting to see - another shout-out to the old school jobs in that game…
If I were stuck with one character, I don’t think a red mage would be a poor choice; however, having three or four party members allows for more specialization without as much sacrifice.
But I like rounded characters. But having 4 RMs seems like cheating (that’s why I’ve got 3 RMs and a BM in FFIII).
And I would’ve thought that there’d be catch to this class besides not beging as good as you could. Is there a place where I can compare the relative job stats (in FFIII in particular)?
And no, I don’t play Runescape. Or any other MMOs for that matter.
Red mages are pretty much a jack-of-alls trades and a master of none. In the beginning they are great since they can do all of what a White and Black mage can do and can attack well and wear good armor. However, as the game goes on, the other characters excell in their specialty (like magic or fighting), while the red mage remains mediocre in each area and actually falls behind in the later levels.
By the time you reach the end of the game, a party of red mages can’t use any of the last two levels of magic, or equip any of the best equipment, making them decidedly bad choices for characters.
It has already been said that Red mages don’t get to use stronger spells as you progress. Red mages are useful, they saved my ass a couple of times in FF I though.
Every post you made, you had this typed at the bottom. Is this supposed to be your signature or something?
In Final Fantasy V it’s a good class throughout the game. Add something like Time and you can heal, do elemental or physical damage, and cast haste and reflect – basically take care of the party’s random needs.
It also might be the best class to master. Use X-Magic as a Time Mage and you’re unstoppable.
FFXI without RDM would be a very bad thing.
Red mage varies a little depending on the FF. In FF1, a party of red mages can be quite good withoput really sacrificing too much. true, a fighter would do more damage with a sword and the other wizards can cast some better spells (but not as many as in other FFs i believe) however such a party is still more than acceptable a think, if insanely expensive. Of course, it’s much easier to do in the easier ff1 remakes.
Next we have FF3. honestly, after seeing how absolute crap my white mage was in the beginning (…i can either go unarmed for 18 atk, or equip 2 rods for 6…WTF! I don’t remember white mages sucking that much.) and since cure is a level one spell which red mages still get decent enough mp for (nothing compared to other mages but still decent enough to survive between inns and heals) I now have two red mages in my party. I’m quite tempted to change my fighter into one as well (well, i’ll have to now since i’;m at the mini part) since his attack really isn’t any better and the defense difference at the moment is minimal. However, black mage is worth it’s own instead of switching to a red mage. it’s equiping of bows allows it to be a very decent back line physical fighter, and it’s incresed mp allows it more availibility as a nuker too. However, eventually the usefullness of a red mage wanes as weapons start becoming unavialable for it, and it reaches it’s spell limit. Still, for the time being it’s good enough. (espicially since they nerfed the white magic casting abilities of the archer and dark knight classes)
Next red mage FF is FFV, in which, well, they are among one of the classes that you should master as soon as possible. NOt so much for their usefulness, though they are useful enough as back up healer, secondary fighter, secondary nuker, for quite sometime until they’re spell list become fairly obsulete, but becuase of X-magic. After x-magic is recieved, keeping the red mage class on is pretty much pointless.
And then there is a jump to FFXI of which i haven’t played but i have heard that red mages are one of the most sought after classes for parties and quite rocking in their own rights.
However to answer the question, there are 2 reasons not to have a party full of red mages. 1 is that eventually their usefulness wanes. the second is that they are pretty expensive as well. Instead of just buying weapons and armor for a fighter and spells for a mage, you’re buying both. Also, why oh why did i actually write something that large out.
I’ve noticed, though, that even though my red mage in FFIII (Luneth) can use all my magic so far, I have a black and white mage becuase their MP is nearly TWICE that of the RM. But my Fighter (or warrior?) deals less physical damage than my RM. This may be attributed to the large difference in job level (20:10 at most), but I think I’ll change Arc to a RM too.
In FFV, I have bartz as a RM, about 949BP from getting X-Magic (being able to use Raise and Cura in the same turn is really appealing).
As for FFI, RMs are probably pretty useful, as monsters are more susceptible to magfic earlier, and when the magic part becomes nearly useless, the RM still has physical attacks. 'Course the good thing about FFV and FFIII is that you can change jobs when the RM becomes obsolete (and in FFV you can carry X-Magic over to other jobs).
Red Mages in FF1: Get. They’re good from the low levels when they can wield weapons and magic with the best of them. And at higher levels they’re still useful as they can learn up to level 7 magic and are good canidates for the Masamune. Plus having a second healer at any point of the games helps alot.
Red Mages in FF3: Good for the first half. After Salona their usefulness wears thin and with only level 5 magic and even weaker equipment they are over shadowed by other more advance jobs. Sages seem to have been retooled to fit a high level Red Mage (sans equipment) and the Onion Knight seems to have been retooled as a wargod like an even higher level Red Mage (with equipment and a half to boot as well).
Red Mages in FF5: Get. Though they only wield up to level 3 magic out of 6 (but is still less compaired to the other games) and with decent yet limited equipment their greatest strengh is 2*Red especially after you change into bare/freelancer after mastering white, black, or any other magic that can be double casted.
Red Mages in FFTA: Get. Again for Double Cast which you can use with Summons for the win. Even though they can only use the most basic level of spells and can only be armed with raipers and light armor.
Red Mages in FF11: Don’t know. I’ve never played it before and I probably never will.
Oh yes, completely forgot about FFTA did I. yes, red mages are quite awesome in it. A double cast of cure by them can easily equal the effectiveness oif curaga and so on, plus double casting summons and other magic are quite awesome too. decent enough fighters as i recall too.
I haven’t played FFIII for DS, but I thought I may as well give my input for RedMage in FFXI, as I played it quite a bit and Red was my favorite.
RedMage is the jack of all trades, as somebody stated before. yet in FFXI he is not the master of none, but the master of versitility. Almost any slot in a group that was open was open to me as a RedMage. Nobody has white or black mage characters (or leveled up enough for our current objective) I could fill their spot easily. I had been main healer, nuker, even played the main tank in a group, drawing all of the hate and thus taking all damage for the group.
This class made FFXI fun, despite the slow leveling system.
Red Mages own all in the beginning stages of FFIII. One is really enough, though, as there are Red Mage specific weapons, like the Wight Slayer, that you only get one of. Eventually, though, you’ll want to change your Red Mage to a Black Mage eventually (assuming you’re using my typical party of Fighter, Monk, White Mage, Red Mage, which is statistically unlikely). At least, that’s how it works on the Famicom version. The DS version may be all screwed up.