![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrRed Mage is definitely not the best job for everyone, it just played best to my particular strengths and weaknesses. Below is a lot of technical game talk about how I figured this out, in case it's helpful to anyone else.
This is very much my personal job-finding journey, if you want a more general guide, Jobs 101, Jobs 102 and Jobs 103 give a fun overview of the jobs you can play at the start and there's lots of detailed guides and discussions about all the jobs if you poke the internet.
So. The three main categories of job are Tank (protector), DPS (damage dealer), and Healer. There's then melee (fighting up close) and ranged (fighting from a distance).
Also, a "class" is level 1-29, while a "job" is levels 30+, for historical reasons that make everything more complicated than it has to be.
I started out with Archer (which at level 30 becomes Bard), which is ranged DPS. I was no good at figuring out how to select and shoot at enemies from a distance, and a lot of the actions involve casting party wide buffs instead of directly damaging the enemy. I want to feel like I'm hitting things and doing damage! On the other hand, afaict this is where I got the cute green outfit from, so, no regrets ;)
I switched to Marauder (which at level 30 becomes Warrior), a melee tank class, mostly because I liked the idea of hitting things with a big axe. This wasn't too bad at first, but at level 15 you get access to a series of tutorial missions which explain how to do Tank, DPS, and Healer properly, at which point I realised I'd (a) been doing Tank all wrong and (b) didn't want to do it right.
Tanks: You're very hard to kill, so place yourself in a good position and then seek out the attention of powerful enemies, turning them away from the rest of the party. Heal and shield yourself, keep track of what all the enemies are doing and herd them in the right direction, make decisions on behalf of the whole party.
Healer: Keep track of when party members need healing, and heal them (and yourself). The rest of the time, damage enemies and avoid getting damaged.
DPS: Damage enemies and avoid getting damaged.
Tank turned out to be Too Many Things Too Keep Track Of for my brain, and feeling responsible for protecting people made me anxious. Healer sounded just as bad. DPS sounded much more my thing: pick an enemy, try not to let it hit you, and keep hitting it until it's dead!
Since ranged hadn't worked for me with Archer, I poked around the various melee DPS classes and got the impression Pugilist (which turns into Monk) would be the easiest for me.
Before I get into that, I should explain Global CoolDown/GCD, since it comes up with every class/job. The Global Cooldown is the few seconds you have to wait between "GCD actions". The main rhythm with all the classes I've tried is press button for GCD action 1, wait, press button for GCD action 2, wait, etc. BUT there are also off-GCD actions with their own individual timers. So the GCD rhythm is interspersed with arhythmic clicking of whatever off-GCD actions are available and appropriate. The buttons light up to show when they're available but it's still a lot to keep track of.
Pugilist/Monk if very GCD action focussed, with few off-GCD actions. You just cycle between various versions of three types of GCD attack. Like, in its simplest form, you press 1 2 3 over and over, in the right rhythm. If you click the wrong one, you still do damage, just not as much as if you'd kept to the cycle. BUT to do maximum damage you also have to be in the right "positional", either at the back of the enemy or to the side depending on the action. Also, if you switch up which version of each attack you do, it adds helpful effects.
So the actual cycle is like
1 (whatever) 2(back) 3 (side) 4 (side) 5 (back) 6 (side), repeat
with the player shifting around for every attack, to stay in the right position with respect to both the enemy (which might be moving around) and the attacks. Also, because it's melee, you're very close to enemies and in the path of a lot of attacks you have to dodge.
I am absolutely pants at movement/sense of position. So I was bad at dodging, and ignored the position stuff completely. I just pressed 123456 from the same position roughly at the back, and checked for off-GCD actions when it occurred to me to.
This was not very effective! It got me through all of ARR, but just barely, and other players got annoyed at my visibly Wrong playstyle.
So I decided to look into my other options!
My logic for picking DPS still seemed sound, but I had finally figuring out how to select and cycle through enemies (you...press 'tab' >.>) and my friend pointed out that ranged DPS would mean less dodging.
I did some searches for what DPS role people think is easiest, but opinions varied widely, with almost every job having it's fans and detractors. Still, the most commonly described as easiest seemed to be Dancer, Red Mage, and Samurai.
I decided I was looking for:
a fairly consistent cycle of GCD actions, without too many off-GCD actions
Don't have to worry about what position you're in
No tank/healer aspects, eg no worrying about what other party members are doing
Can get away with clicking the wrong button occasionally
Some I could reject right away:
Machinist, Reaper, Dancer: Only unlocked later
Ninja: You have to get the combo of actions exactly right or nothing happens and the game makes fun of you. No thank you!
Black Mage: Powerful spells with slow casting times, so you need to be able to predict/remember a safe position to cast from or you'll get damaged and your spell interrupted.
My friend suggested I try Arcanist/Summoner, which is ranged DPS. You summon little magic pets and then give them commands. This was fun for a little bit, the animals are cute, but it involves (a) some tanking/healing parts and (b) positioning and keeping track of the pets, and it hurt my brain. Also I would have had to level all the way from 1 to get back to level 50 to progress any further.
Looking back at Archer, all those buffs tend to be off-GCD actions, and it's generally considered one of the harder classes.
This left three options: Samurai (melee), Dragoon (ranged), and Red Mage (ranged).
Samurai seems similar to Monk, with similar position issues.
Lancer/Dragoon seemed promising, it apparently has a straight-forward rotation of GCD actions, and while it does have some positionals they're relatively simple. But it also apparently has a lot of off-GCD actions, and would require me to work my way back up from level 1.
And one look at Red Mage made me go OK I AM TRYING THAT FIRST and I liked it so much I never got around to trying Samurai or Lancer.
So! Here's the wiki guide, and a youtube video An Idiot's Guide to Red Mage! which may or may not be more intuitive than my description below.
The thing with magic in FFXIV is it takes time to cast, during which time you can't move or the spell will be cancelled. But the thing with Red Mages is that every second spell is instant. So the rhythm is quick-weak-spell, slow-powerful-spell, repeat. There are few off-GCD actions, and no position worries asides from some rare-ish actions needing you to be in melee range, so mainly you just repeat that rhythm over and over from wherever seems safest, dodging any attacks that happen to come your way.
The tricky part is choosing which quick spell and slow spell to cast.
There's a default quick spell, Jolt, which you have to use most of the time, and I use basically all the time. Sometimes other, more powerful quick spells become temporarily available, basically at random, in which case you have to (a) notice before they expire and (b) break the usual cycle of key-presses to click them. I am not good at this and mostly just use Jolt.
Meanwhile, you generally alternate slow spells. This is because they fill white and black magic bars respectively, and you need those bars to fill evenly, otherwise your magic stops working very well. If you do fill them evenly you eventually unlock a three-shot of super powerful melee attacks, so you rush in, bash the enemy three times, then run back to safety.
My cycle is thus 1 2 1 3 1 2 1 3 ..... and then 4 5 6 when the bar fills up, before beginning the cycle again.
It's fairly forgiving: If I screw up and do, like, 1 2 1 2 I just have to balance it out with 1 3 1 3. If I screw up and do 1 2 3, the third spell will take ages to cast, but will still work fine once it does, and I can get back to the cycle from there. And the powerful 4 5 6 attacks will just sit there waiting to be used if I don't notice that they're ready for a while.
I'm less good at noticing and using the more powerful quick spells when they unlock, or doing the various useful off-GCD abilities, especially for movement. Also there's variations for fighting groups I'm still a bit shaky at. But I feel like getting better at that is within my capabilities with practice in a way the Monk positionals were not.
For anyone looking at this going "wtf that sounds SUPER complicated, how is that EASIER?", yeah, that's how my friend who got me to try summoner feels, she's been playing the game for ages and has never even tried Red Mage, and generally prefers to play Healer. These things are very subjective!
Also because Red Mage starts at level 50, it throws you in the deep end a bit, and you have to have gotten to level 50 in some other job before you can try it. So I couldn't have started as one even if I wanted to. Looking at my other options, I might have been better off starting as a lancer, but maybe not. Pugilist/monk got me where I am, so I don't regret it.
I hear Red Mage isn't as simple later (it gains healing abilities, oh no!) so we'll see if I keep liking it, or if I end up trying out Samurai or Lancer after all. But for now I am a fan! Also the outfits are very much my aesthetic. Look at the starting gear:
This is very much my personal job-finding journey, if you want a more general guide, Jobs 101, Jobs 102 and Jobs 103 give a fun overview of the jobs you can play at the start and there's lots of detailed guides and discussions about all the jobs if you poke the internet.
So. The three main categories of job are Tank (protector), DPS (damage dealer), and Healer. There's then melee (fighting up close) and ranged (fighting from a distance).
Also, a "class" is level 1-29, while a "job" is levels 30+, for historical reasons that make everything more complicated than it has to be.
I started out with Archer (which at level 30 becomes Bard), which is ranged DPS. I was no good at figuring out how to select and shoot at enemies from a distance, and a lot of the actions involve casting party wide buffs instead of directly damaging the enemy. I want to feel like I'm hitting things and doing damage! On the other hand, afaict this is where I got the cute green outfit from, so, no regrets ;)
I switched to Marauder (which at level 30 becomes Warrior), a melee tank class, mostly because I liked the idea of hitting things with a big axe. This wasn't too bad at first, but at level 15 you get access to a series of tutorial missions which explain how to do Tank, DPS, and Healer properly, at which point I realised I'd (a) been doing Tank all wrong and (b) didn't want to do it right.
Tanks: You're very hard to kill, so place yourself in a good position and then seek out the attention of powerful enemies, turning them away from the rest of the party. Heal and shield yourself, keep track of what all the enemies are doing and herd them in the right direction, make decisions on behalf of the whole party.
Healer: Keep track of when party members need healing, and heal them (and yourself). The rest of the time, damage enemies and avoid getting damaged.
DPS: Damage enemies and avoid getting damaged.
Tank turned out to be Too Many Things Too Keep Track Of for my brain, and feeling responsible for protecting people made me anxious. Healer sounded just as bad. DPS sounded much more my thing: pick an enemy, try not to let it hit you, and keep hitting it until it's dead!
Since ranged hadn't worked for me with Archer, I poked around the various melee DPS classes and got the impression Pugilist (which turns into Monk) would be the easiest for me.
Before I get into that, I should explain Global CoolDown/GCD, since it comes up with every class/job. The Global Cooldown is the few seconds you have to wait between "GCD actions". The main rhythm with all the classes I've tried is press button for GCD action 1, wait, press button for GCD action 2, wait, etc. BUT there are also off-GCD actions with their own individual timers. So the GCD rhythm is interspersed with arhythmic clicking of whatever off-GCD actions are available and appropriate. The buttons light up to show when they're available but it's still a lot to keep track of.
Pugilist/Monk if very GCD action focussed, with few off-GCD actions. You just cycle between various versions of three types of GCD attack. Like, in its simplest form, you press 1 2 3 over and over, in the right rhythm. If you click the wrong one, you still do damage, just not as much as if you'd kept to the cycle. BUT to do maximum damage you also have to be in the right "positional", either at the back of the enemy or to the side depending on the action. Also, if you switch up which version of each attack you do, it adds helpful effects.
So the actual cycle is like
1 (whatever) 2(back) 3 (side) 4 (side) 5 (back) 6 (side), repeat
with the player shifting around for every attack, to stay in the right position with respect to both the enemy (which might be moving around) and the attacks. Also, because it's melee, you're very close to enemies and in the path of a lot of attacks you have to dodge.
I am absolutely pants at movement/sense of position. So I was bad at dodging, and ignored the position stuff completely. I just pressed 123456 from the same position roughly at the back, and checked for off-GCD actions when it occurred to me to.
This was not very effective! It got me through all of ARR, but just barely, and other players got annoyed at my visibly Wrong playstyle.
So I decided to look into my other options!
My logic for picking DPS still seemed sound, but I had finally figuring out how to select and cycle through enemies (you...press 'tab' >.>) and my friend pointed out that ranged DPS would mean less dodging.
I did some searches for what DPS role people think is easiest, but opinions varied widely, with almost every job having it's fans and detractors. Still, the most commonly described as easiest seemed to be Dancer, Red Mage, and Samurai.
I decided I was looking for:
a fairly consistent cycle of GCD actions, without too many off-GCD actions
Don't have to worry about what position you're in
No tank/healer aspects, eg no worrying about what other party members are doing
Can get away with clicking the wrong button occasionally
Some I could reject right away:
Machinist, Reaper, Dancer: Only unlocked later
Ninja: You have to get the combo of actions exactly right or nothing happens and the game makes fun of you. No thank you!
Black Mage: Powerful spells with slow casting times, so you need to be able to predict/remember a safe position to cast from or you'll get damaged and your spell interrupted.
My friend suggested I try Arcanist/Summoner, which is ranged DPS. You summon little magic pets and then give them commands. This was fun for a little bit, the animals are cute, but it involves (a) some tanking/healing parts and (b) positioning and keeping track of the pets, and it hurt my brain. Also I would have had to level all the way from 1 to get back to level 50 to progress any further.
Looking back at Archer, all those buffs tend to be off-GCD actions, and it's generally considered one of the harder classes.
This left three options: Samurai (melee), Dragoon (ranged), and Red Mage (ranged).
Samurai seems similar to Monk, with similar position issues.
Lancer/Dragoon seemed promising, it apparently has a straight-forward rotation of GCD actions, and while it does have some positionals they're relatively simple. But it also apparently has a lot of off-GCD actions, and would require me to work my way back up from level 1.
And one look at Red Mage made me go OK I AM TRYING THAT FIRST and I liked it so much I never got around to trying Samurai or Lancer.
So! Here's the wiki guide, and a youtube video An Idiot's Guide to Red Mage! which may or may not be more intuitive than my description below.
The thing with magic in FFXIV is it takes time to cast, during which time you can't move or the spell will be cancelled. But the thing with Red Mages is that every second spell is instant. So the rhythm is quick-weak-spell, slow-powerful-spell, repeat. There are few off-GCD actions, and no position worries asides from some rare-ish actions needing you to be in melee range, so mainly you just repeat that rhythm over and over from wherever seems safest, dodging any attacks that happen to come your way.
The tricky part is choosing which quick spell and slow spell to cast.
There's a default quick spell, Jolt, which you have to use most of the time, and I use basically all the time. Sometimes other, more powerful quick spells become temporarily available, basically at random, in which case you have to (a) notice before they expire and (b) break the usual cycle of key-presses to click them. I am not good at this and mostly just use Jolt.
Meanwhile, you generally alternate slow spells. This is because they fill white and black magic bars respectively, and you need those bars to fill evenly, otherwise your magic stops working very well. If you do fill them evenly you eventually unlock a three-shot of super powerful melee attacks, so you rush in, bash the enemy three times, then run back to safety.
My cycle is thus 1 2 1 3 1 2 1 3 ..... and then 4 5 6 when the bar fills up, before beginning the cycle again.
It's fairly forgiving: If I screw up and do, like, 1 2 1 2 I just have to balance it out with 1 3 1 3. If I screw up and do 1 2 3, the third spell will take ages to cast, but will still work fine once it does, and I can get back to the cycle from there. And the powerful 4 5 6 attacks will just sit there waiting to be used if I don't notice that they're ready for a while.
I'm less good at noticing and using the more powerful quick spells when they unlock, or doing the various useful off-GCD abilities, especially for movement. Also there's variations for fighting groups I'm still a bit shaky at. But I feel like getting better at that is within my capabilities with practice in a way the Monk positionals were not.
For anyone looking at this going "wtf that sounds SUPER complicated, how is that EASIER?", yeah, that's how my friend who got me to try summoner feels, she's been playing the game for ages and has never even tried Red Mage, and generally prefers to play Healer. These things are very subjective!
Also because Red Mage starts at level 50, it throws you in the deep end a bit, and you have to have gotten to level 50 in some other job before you can try it. So I couldn't have started as one even if I wanted to. Looking at my other options, I might have been better off starting as a lancer, but maybe not. Pugilist/monk got me where I am, so I don't regret it.
I hear Red Mage isn't as simple later (it gains healing abilities, oh no!) so we'll see if I keep liking it, or if I end up trying out Samurai or Lancer after all. But for now I am a fan! Also the outfits are very much my aesthetic. Look at the starting gear:
