The Shrine

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>FFXI: Red Mages after level 41 are fantastic, and require more work than probably any other class in the game (save Bard). Man I'm tired.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt georgia; text-align: left; '>Im a rdm. Do you think Ill be able to continue as a rdm, since Im an Elvaan? I know later RDM pretty much become casters only. I was thinking about doing rdm/whm</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>You'd be fine. Convert at 40 gives you pretty much a backup mana tank every 10 minutes, and refresh is 3 mp/sec for 150 seconds. Just use your mana wisely and you'll be fine.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt georgia; text-align: left; '>I know theres a big debate with rdm's using a sword. As a higher level rdm, do you get in battle at all or just sit back and cast?</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>The last few levels we've been fighting Soldier Crawlers. They don't have an area attack, but they spit poison, which can hit you regardless of how close you are to the critter, so I run up and use my sword. This was also nice because I had about 10 or 11 sword ranks to cap my skill again, and that makes a difference in how much damage you do in melee, along with accuracy. Not as big a deal in a party, but when I'm soloing/farming, every bit helps. This also helps as the first artifact quest for each job is the Artifact Weapon, which is a good 40ish weapon (RDM: Fencing Degen - 22 damage, level 41, +10 MP, +1 MND +1 INT). So on crawlers, I do get up close, because there's no reason for me not to get up close and personal. (On Crawlers it's also good to be very close so you can see when they use their Cocoon special - Dispel works wonders on it).

Against critters with an actual area attack, I won't be meleeing. At that point the damage is insignificant enough to justify taking 150+ damage from an attack that I'll otherwise be able to avoid if the tanks are doing their job in a party.

So it's situational.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Bard? Work? Ha! "Here, sing a song. Okay, now AFK."</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Bard is a ton more work than that if you play it right.

Run to the front lines as they pull. Time first melee song to coincide with puller returning. Play second melee song. Run to caster line. Play Ballad for MP regen. Play mind/int boost song. Return to the mob, debuff the element of the nukes/renkei. Throw in your DoT. Keep an eye out for and sleep any adds. Melee and weaponskill if you have time. Start refreshing songs if the battle takes long enough, which it can with adds or on high ITs.

Whoop, monster's dead. Run back, refresh MP regen on mages. Run forward, layer HP regen songs on melees. Wait the 20 seconds for the puller to come back and start all over again.

Before 24 there's less work to do as there's no mage specific spells, but assuming bards are "Play and AFK" is like assuming that the tank can provoke once and get a drink, or the white mage can put Regen on everyone and go take a crap.

Bards are desired by parties because they can reduce downtime to near-nonexistant levels. How much they reduce downtime is directly proportional to how much work the bard does the entire time - there IS no downtime if you're the bard, because you can't just kneel to med afterwards. If it's a good party and you're a good bard you will be run ragged, but you will get a metric fuckton of exp in the process.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>a metric fuckton, you say...</div>

<div style='font: 9pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Glad to hear it. Should make a nice subjob for my Black Mage.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>It's a technical term.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>You'll like Fast Cast.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>Plus, you can't get away with "casting Regen on everyone and go take a crap" with WHM, because people are expecting you to heal. Nor can you get away with going AFK with a warrior either, because people are expecting you to provoke and use WSs. At least with DAoC (and the bard in FF11 isn't all that different), it was not unheard of to see a bard type /follow on a party member, do a MP regen song, and go AFK for a bit. Shit, that's the ONLY REASON people want a bard: for MP regen. Why fuck with HP regen when there's a WHM getting his MP back faster than you can shout "I need a heal!"?</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Stop making assumptions about the bard, Sine. You're way off base.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>I'm not dissing the bard, Tort. Nor am I saying that a good bard doesn't work hard.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light", "Century Gothic"; text-align: left; '>In reference to RDM's Chaincast, it can be a great 2hr when combined with PLD's 2hr Invic. No hate to deal with and the creature falls without having to take hits. Same with Manafont.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt georgia; text-align: left; '>I think youre confusing the FFXI bard with the DAOC bard.</div>

<div style='font: italic 11pt ; text-align: left; '>On a scale from one to ten it's very tasty.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>You're saying that the only reason people want bards is MP regen. It's the icing on the cake, but it's a very tasty cake without it.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>The problem is you need mana to cast all those spells.

The point of a 2 hour is to save your life. Before 40, 95% of the time when the situation goes sour, you're already at half mana or below. That doesn't buy you much time.

And casting a ton of heals, nukes, or enfeebles/crowd control spells is going to get you major, major aggro.

After 40, this leads to the next problem: Using convert when you do have aggro (or a very high risk of it) is you signing your death warrant. Which makes the whole "I won't run out of mana, I'll chainspell!" factor a moot point. You can't exactly spam a ton of spells when you get your head taken off with a single hit.

Paladin using Invincible is about the only time when you can spam the spells with Chainspell and get away with it.

Ultimately, Chainspell is a situational tool. That situation is running like hell.

Level 34 RDM/BLM: Chainspell/warp. Get out of trouble in 4 seconds flat, assuming you can survive the pounding during the warp animation.

Level 58 RDM/BLM: Chainspell/escape. Get your party out of the dungeon in an instant, without the 15 second escape cast time.

Level 72 RDM/WHM: Chainspell/Teleport. Same deal.

Aside from those, Chainspell is pretty much just a novelty. I used to use it when I knew I'd level on that battle, so I could spam a bunch of nukes. I got hit, but it was nice to use it for something.

It's not as useless as, say, the Ninja 2 hour, but the simple realities of aggro management make Chainspell iffy at best.</div>