Red Mage - Discontinued

With the addition of the weapon, Rapier and the beautiful chocolate shield, FF fans can now complete a Red Mage. In a nut shell, a red Mage is a fencer who is capable of using white and dark magic. Even though a red Mage is weaker in all of the areas, they are valued for their versatility in a party.

What does this have to do with Toram? It is able to hold boss in place for Storm to do its full damage, so even though the damage per tick is lower than a full Mage, it has the potential to compete.

What you lose with this build: 20% matk as you gain 3 matk with sword versus 4matk with staff / MD.
What you gained with this build: more hits from Storm and 100mp fast cast combo. When other mages are charging in battle, you are DPSing.

Stat: INT + DEX
You can follow @Mugami's advice below to do 3 DEX 1 INT or I'm doing 1 DEX 1 INT now. It works great. I was able to tank Roga today only using 2 Revita III, even though that's not the purpose of this build, it proves the survivability with the combination of the flinches, tumbles and Sanctuary. Don't overdo it by adding Rage sword, we are assisting the tank, we are not the tank.

Note:
Going with the above combination yields terrible result if you are aiming at any rank. Tank rank is likely, but not when you have a real tank. Attacker is out of question until we max 2 stats. Break can be a possibility when you have over 1k cast speed, hard to do when half your stat is in INT. I didn't think Sanctuary counted toward support rank, or may I was just out-supported. This build will start to shine when we maxed 2 stats, so just be patient with this for now.

Weapon: Rapier
Sub: MD

Combo:
Hard Hit > Impact (Save) > Storm (Smite) > Spiral Air (Consec) > Sanctuary (Consec)

Spiral air should keep Boss inside Storm for the whole duration.

Skill list:
Hard Hit lvl 10
Impact lvl 7-10
Storm lvl 10
Spiral Air lvl 10
Sanctuary lvl 10
Hp Boost lvl 10
Quick draw lvl 10

After some thinking, to add Bless and Gloria to this build will result in a 6-skill combo, which for a close range melee-magic fighter, this is dangerous. To narrow down to 1 skill that will help the party, I chose Sanctuary.

Later on in game, you will have healer class, support Mage, which will all stay ranged for thei own safety.

With this build, since we already have 2 flinch and 1 tumble skill, we can afford to be fighting alongside the tank and Sanctuary will help reduce damage taken by any party members who are too close.

Just like Red Mages in FF, this Red Mage build will find its niche in battle by offering something to the party they would not normally have from traditional builds. Too bad RMs in FF gets a powerful double cast ability that I cannot replicate here ^^

 

interesting idea ...
but magic weapons gain 4 MATK and 1 ATK form INT, while swords only get MATK.
without any DEX, you won't have any ATK besides the basic weapon stat.

i tried a similar build before, it was supposed to be a paladin using shield and sword and priest skills.
the problem was that the stat growth of swords was lower than that of staves and in the end this DEX+INT sword character had only half as much power as my STR+INT staff character.

although at that time the stat growth for swords was 2 ATK per DEX and 2 MATK per INT, while a staff would gain 3+1 and 4 from STR and INT.
if it was raised to 3 now, then this shouldn't be a problem anymore.

i like the idea, but if you use a shield, your black magic will be weakened by 50%.
so i guess you are better off without shield skills and use the MD instead.

 

Based on testing last night, you are spot-on.

Mad is the way to go. I'm storming non-stop, but each storm only did 10k total to BB Gob. I never had to charge through out battle and the combo is fast enough to chain Storm as soon as the first one ends, without Bless as I didn't have the Spina to buy all the skills yet. I had Hard hit at lvl 5 and Impact at lvl 7 so the flinch and tumbling effects are so so, need to max those. My overall output is slightly lower than a Bow Sniper, so from a DPS stand point, it kinda failed. By the time I add DEX to further increase my matk and make the sword skill count, a bow user would have maxed STR and further out-damage me with Crit-damage bonus.

Switched to Sword of Sin as it gives 2% Dark bonus, but the difference is negligible.

If one day we have magical swords like Iruna, this build would rock.

Right now, I'm still looking for ways to enhance this build. It can be a good supporter, just like red mages in FF. But I think late game, all players would switch their Red Mages to Summoners as Red Mages' potentials starts to become limited...

Compared to Angelic Sniper, this build cannot currently be declared a success yet. My level 66 AS was Sniping 16k+ at BB, while this Red Mage only Stormed 10k. Will also test against Roga later and update.

 

I tot this is a mage wearing red armor...

 

And a red pointy hat ^^

You'll never see me dress like that though ^^

 

grabbed a gladius from ruined temple and tested the stats:
INT give 3 MATK and DEX gives 3 ATK, looks good.
if you use a 50:50 INT-DEX with a magic device as sub-weapon, you will benefit from the full spell power and cast speed and can also use the sword.
just don't add any more.
i had a similar problem with my characters, i always wanted too much at once and today i had my 4th reset.
(but this time i definitely have it right)

just as the equipment system has a main weapon and a sub weapon, you can only have main skills and sub skills.
main will always be stronger than sub.
you can only do so much.

 

3 atk is better than I thought. Shouldn't it be 2?

 

well, it used to be 2 (for everything -.- STR, DEX, INT)
now INT and DEX is 3, haven't tested STR ...

i think it is only fair to get 3 points.
all other weapons get 3 or 4 points for their stats. swords were the only ones to get only 2.
now i feel like making a Spellblade again, but all my slots are full ...

magic devices can get 5 points on ATK, they gain 1 from INT and 4 from AGI
i heard that MDs reduce attack, haven't tested it when using it as a sub-weapon, but as main weapon it only reduces the effect of the STR stat.

 

Updated skill section to replace Bless with Sanctuary.

 

And there's that...
Okay. Looking at this:
Str is a bad choice.
Int & Dex are the good options.
1h gets as much atk from dex as it does from str. Both give stability. Screw the CD from Str. In this build, it's not worth it.

Int 0:6 & Dex 2:1, (Atk:MAtk)
So 6÷2=3. 3 Dex:1 Int =Dex165/Int55
+15 mp
Atk +110
Matk +550 (=495+55)
Hit +55
Cspd +162
Overall damage is lower. However, your combo plays on Proration. So DoT is increased by 25% compared to full Int @ Lvl80, cspd is faster so you'll flinch a lot less, and increased Hit will help land those Flinches and Tumbles from Hard Hit and Impact which you greatly interplay the use of. A good tumble from impact can be the difference between KO and no damage at all.

Using your combo with my suggested 3:1 will make spiral air double in damage and only lower storm by -25%. Meaning higher DPS as well as DoT.
You'll want to do 5 Auto attacks between each combo to maximize damage of combo.

I also suggest:
Shield Mastery 10
Force Shield 10
Magic Shield 10
Hp Boost 10
-This will give you +1500 hp & +20 Def/MDef.

Other options are:
Light Armor Mastery 10
Def Up 10
Atk Up 10
MArk Up 10
Parry 10
Gloria 10
Shield Bash 1
Switch to Mirror Sheild/Rapier
-For a total of:
+20 Def/MDef
+20 Atk/MAtk
(these all become +30 @ lvl81!)
Eva 22%
(Plus any Eva stats from equips besides mirror)
Parry 6%
(This can negate the damage of the incoming attack 100% when it procs!)
Suggested Primary Combo:
Astute(or Hard Hit)> Impact (Save) > Storm (Smite) > Spiral Air (Consec)
6cp
100mp
Suggested secondary Combo:
Shield Bash>Impact(save)>Gloria>Assault
4cp
100mp
Welcome to Spamdom.

 

Ultimately, Hard Hit should be one of your hot keys
¤ Hard Hit (Interrupt) ¤ Astute (Combo 1)
¤ Sheild Bash (Combo 2) ¤ Sanctuary
Battle Start:
Sanctuary
Combo 2
Combo 1
Combo 1
Combo 2
Combo 1
Combo 1
Repeat until it's dead.

 

Thanks for the help, @Mugami

I'm restarting / restating it because pure INT hurts, missed Hard hit and Spiral air totally defeated the purpose of this build ^^

 

Use a spare reset book. Or just remake.

 

Used that already.

If there was an emblem for 500 resets, @NineArts you and I are amongst the first the get it ^^

 

Lol I'm at around 110. You both well surpass me!

 

Imma steal mugami's stat distributions, and use it on my storm sandwich mindcraft. tempest+storm.
huehuehue

 

Added some notes after re-stat. Changed Stat section.

 

Switched back to full Mage using Wall > Sanctuary (Save) > Impact (Consec) > Storm (Smite)

Works better at current state.