RDM/NIN -- What it do, mang.
RDM/NIN, the end all, be all of well....everything. It's so much versatility packed into one little job. Whether it be tanking or soloing, RDM can do it efficiently. Although RDM is such an incredible job, a lot of people disgrace the job when trying to accomplish the afore mentioned tasks. Misuse of gear, spells, or overall lack of skill can be the downfall of any aspiring RDM. In this entry, I will try to offer some insight into the tanking world of RDM.
Red Mage / Ninja -- As a Tank
Overview & History: RDM/NIN as a tank has become very popular over the months. It was first made public by Phalanxx of FantasticImpromptu. It was later adopted by fellow FI members and became their main tank. The idea slowly spread to other LS's including Kazoku, LabyrinthofPhantasm, ApkalluVendetta and even UnDeFeatable. Although mocked and laughed at when it made its debut, members of the endgame community immediately recognized advantages of the combo over traditional PLD or NIN tanks. It had all the tools to be a completely self sustaining tank. Damage reduction with Stoneskin, Phalanx, Protect, Shell and a natural magic defense bonus. Pair the following damage reduction spells with a Fast Casted and often Hasted (Possibly even double March from a BRD) Utsusemi: Ichi & Ni and its not uncommon for you to go without HP for extended periods of time while tanking. When you lose HP, you have the necessary Cures to keep yourself alive and in operating condition. But keeping yourself alive isn't worth a damn unless you can pull some kind of hate. This is the downfall of many amateur RDM tanks. Hate spells at your disposal include Sleep, Sleep 2, Bind, Dispel, Cure III, Cure IV and Blind. Sleep, Sleep 2 and Cure IV should be the staples of your hate holding foundation. While hasted and marched, it is possible to spam hate keeping spells non-stop, especially if you are trying to take hate off of your tanking partner and don't need to rebuff yourself. As I mentioned earlier, the problem here is most amateurs either focus all their time on buffing and staying alive OR they only focus on keeping hate at whatever the cost, meaning they do not buff themselves properly. It is important to find a balance in your technique. If you cannot find a balance, you are useless, defeating the whole purpose.
Merit Distribution: I understand that most everybody has another job to consider when distributing merits. Keep in mind that this would be the ideal setup of merits for a RDM tank.
HP: 4
MP: 4
Parrying Skill: 4
Enhancing Magic: 8
Enmity Increase: 4
Enemy Critical Hit Rate: 4 OR Spell Interruption Rate: 4
Convert: 5
I will now explain the choices. HP and MP can differ, usually depending on race. Galka might go 2 HP, 6 MP and Tarutaru might go 6 HP and 2 MP. Most of the time Mithra, Elvaan and Hume will be good with an equal balance of both, as both are important to the job. Parrying Skill is often a skill many RDM tanks underestimate, probably because they don't have it any where close to the cap (Which happens to be 200). When fighting HNM, I get at least 3 parries per fight, most of the time they are life savers. Using an Earth Staff will increase your chances as well, as two handed weapons get a parrying bonus. Enhancing Magic is an obvious choice, 16 levels of enhancing magic make it more easy to reach the Stoneskin damage cap, meaning you don't have to wear as much MND gear while casting Stoneskin, leaving room for things such as Duelist's Tabard, Warlock's Chapeau, Loquacious Earring or Swift Belt. Enmity Increase is obvious. Enemy Critical Hit Rate and Spell Interruption Rate I find rather useless, but I suppose they would give you a slight advantage. Personal preference, I opted to finish out the "Other" Category with Critical Hit for my NIN. Convert is a given for a RDM based solely around tanking. Pair the fact that a RDM/NIN tank without a Duelist's Chapeau or Dalmatica can run out of MP rather quickly, with the overall uselessness of the other Category 1 choices for tanking and you arrive at the obvious choice of maxing out Convert.
Gear: Equipment is another tough spot for amateurs. They think stacking haste or enmity in every possible slot will make them good. Not true in the least. To address the issue of stacking haste; it is incredibly easy to meet the lowest possible timers with only a few pieces of gear, haste spell and double march. The following are the lowest recast timers you can possibly get for a few spells.
Utsusemi: Ichi - 15 seconds
Utsusemi: Ni - 22 seconds
Stoneskin - 15 seconds
Refresh - 13 seconds
Haste - 13 seconds
The above caps can be reached with 4 pieces of gear, 2 marches and haste spell. Dispelling the myth that stacking haste gear in every slot is useful.
The next misconception is that enmity gear piled high would be an efficient use of equipment slots. Wrong over and over again. Truth be told, you need about 15 enmity total (Gear and Merits together) to be able to keep the mob off nuke spamming BLMs. Any more enmity and you are setting yourself up for solo tanking, as you should keep an enmity level similar to your tanking partners. This way it is easier to take hate on command, rather than struggling while one tank has all the hate and is getting beat down. But to sum it up, both tanks should have roughly +15 enmity and you are golden. Different rules apply if your co-tank is a PLD or a NIN, as RDM uses a different type of hate.
The following is the ideal equipment setups for a variety of situations.
Utsusemi
Head: Warlock's Chapeau Spellcasting Time -10%, Spell Recast Time -5%
Body: Duelist's Tabard Spellcasting Time -10%, Spell Recast Time -5%
Earring 1: Loquacious Earring Spellcasting Time -2%, Spell Recast Time -1%
Waist: Swift Belt +4% Haste
The above setup, coupled with haste and double march will reach the lowest Utsusemi recast timers.
Note: You can achieve 15 second Ichi without Swift Belt. Unfortunately without Swift Belt, your Ni timer will be 23 seconds, instead of the minimum of 22 seconds.
Stoneskin
Head: Warlock's Chapeau Spellcasting Time -10%, Spell Recast Time -5%
Body: Duelist's Tabard Spellcasting Time -10%, Spell Recast Time -5%
Neck: Enhancing Torque +7 Enhancing Magic
Hands: Duelist's Gloves +15 Enhancing Magic
Legs: Warlock's Tights +1 +15 Enhancing Magic +5 MND
Feet: Duelist's Boots +4 MND
Back: Rainbow Cape +3 MND
Ring 1: Aqua Ring +5 MND
Ring 2: Aqua Ring +5 MND
Earring 1: Loquacious Earring Spellcasting Time -2%, Spell Recast Time -1%
The above setup will achieve a full Stoneskin (350 damage absorbed) while maintaining the lowest recast time of 15 seconds. You may alter various pieces of MND gear depending on race. If you have full Enhancing Magic merits, you can drop the Enhancing Torque and perhaps some various MND gear. Although rare, there is an item that will push your Stoneskin past its 350 damage threshold.
Neck: Stone Gorget Enhances "Stoneskin" Effect
The use of a Stone Gorget causes Stoneskin to absorb an extra 30 damage, thus causing Stoneskin to absorb 380 damage, instead of 350 damage.
If you are in need of determining how much your own Stoneskin absorbs, the formula is as follows:
X = (Enhancing Magic / 3) + Total MND
F = Damage Absorbed
F = X (if X < 80)
F = X2 - 60 (if 80 <= X <= 130)
F = X3 - 190 (if X > 130) Most RDM's will naturally end up here
Magic Defense
Range: Lamian Kaman +1 +2 Magic Def. Bonus
Hands: Duelist's Gloves +2 Magic Def. Bonus
Waist: Resolute Belt +2 Magic Def. Bonus
Ring 1: Merman's Ring -4% Magic Damage Taken
Ring 2: Merman's Ring -4% Magic Damage Taken
Earring 1: Merman's Earring -2% Magic Damage Taken
Earring 2: Merman's Earring -2% Magic Damage Taken
Back: Resentment Cape -5% Magic Damage Taken
While somewhat simplistic in nature, this assortment of items can greatly reduce the amount of magic damage taken. It can cut the amount of magic damage you take by 1/4. Essentially saving yourself time and MP. There are some rare alternatives and pick ups you can get to enhance your magic defense gear.
Body: Dalmatica +5 Magic Def. Bonus
Feet: Ataractic Solea +4 Magic Def. Bonus
Ring 1: Shadow Ring Occasionally Annuls Magic Damage
Ring 2: Minerva's Ring -8% Magic Damage Taken
Ring 2: Defending Ring -10% Damage Taken
Shadow Ring far surpasses it's mantle counterpart, as it kicks in almost 25% of the time. All five are good pickups IF you can manage to get your hands on them.
Enmity
Neck: Harmonia's Torque +3 Enmity
Back: Cerberus Mantle +3 Enmity
Waist: Trance Belt +4 Enmity
Ring 1: Sattva Ring +3 Enmity
Ring 2: Mermaid Ring +2 Enmity
This setup will give you +15 enmity. As mentioned before, 15 enmity is pretty much all you need. Usually add 4 to that from merits and you'll hover around 19 or 20 enmity. As long as your RDM/NIN co-tank can match that number, you will have no problems. You will notice I left Body and Head piece out (Among other things) because the combinations can vary. A Fast Cast setup, while nice, is not needed, as you usually will not get the whole way through your hate cycle.
Note: PLD uses a different type of hate via Provoke and more notably Flash. PLD will require more enmity, as their only spell that is similar in hate structure to RDM is Cure. The following graphs document hate in a unique way. As a long time tank, I find that graphs to be completely true. Credit to Elmer the Pointy of BlueGartr Forums.
Although those are the only four sets of gear needed, I personally use a Standing Macro, which I default back to after everything I do. It may not be necessary for everyone.
Standing
Head: Duelist's Chapeau Auto-Refresh
Body: Dalmatica Auto-Refresh
Back: Shadow Mantle Occasionally Annuls Physical Damage
Legs: Crimson Cuisses Movement Speed +12%, Elemental Resists, HP/MP +25
Earring 2: Ethereal Earring Converts 3% of Damage Taken to MP
Getting at least 5 MP per tick (Usually more with a COR or a BRD) is nice. The Shadow Mantle, while completely unreliable, could kick in at a clutch moment. The Crimson Cuisses aren't really something you need to stand in, it just makes me feel safer knowing that if something were to happen, I could run the hell away 12% faster than everybody else. Also good for kited mobs such as King Behemoth or Kirin (If that is something you kite). The Ethereal Earring is more of a full time job, rather than a standing piece. I just threw it in there because I felt it should be mentioned. It can either be extremely useful or extremely not useful. Practically all HNM have some devastating moves, while their normal attacks do anywhere from 150-350 without Stoneskin. If you do happen to get caught with your pants down, why not get 5-10 MP back every time you get your face bashed in?
The last thing to address about gear is Weapons. You will see most RDM's dual wielding Beaver Tails (Macuahuitl +1's) because as I stated earlier, they believe if they get as much enmity as possible, they will win the internet. Honestly, you don't even need to carry them around unless you know you're co-tank uses them and you want to keep a close level of enmity. Full time Earth/Terra Staff because who knows when a mob could rip off a TP move, then 2 double attacks in a row, killing you in a matter of seconds.
Tips:
- Know your co-tank and their play style. Adjust accordingly to assure the only people getting hate are the tanks.
- Convert is not only a way to regain MP, you can use it for hate as well. Cure IV yourself a couple times after converting for some quick hate
- Shell IV can greatly reduce the amount of magic damage you take, USE IT. If your WHM's have AF2 pants and merits, let them cast the bar-spells.
- Keep yourself Refreshed...nobody else is going to do it for you and in the heat of the fight, you may often forget. Same goes with Haste.
- On that same note, don't bother Refreshing or Hasting anybody else. You got shit to do, they can get that elsewhere.
- With capped Enhancing Magic and Duelist's Gloves, your Phalanx will reduce 25 damage from all attacks. Thats a lot of damage over the course of a fight. Be sure to keep Phalanx up.
- Make sure you engage the mob while you are taking it down. Parries are a life saver.
- If you have hate, focus on keeping yourself buffed with Stoneskin and Utsusemi. Between buffs, throw out a Blind, Sleep or Sleep2 to ensure you still have hate. If you are getting beat down, spam yourself with Cure IV until you can get Utsusemi back up. Then proceed to recast Stoneskin so you are at max capacity once again.
- March x2 and Ballad x2 greatly increase efficiency. Seek two BRD's for your tank party. WHM and COR aren't bad either, as they have Devotion and Evoker/Magus Roll respectively.
- A good hate cycle includes Sleep, Sleep 2, Blind, Dispel and Cures.
That wraps up my guide to the world of RDM/NIN tanking. Any suggestions, questions or adds can be messaged to altfan28@yahoo.com
Red Mage / Ninja -- As a Tank
Overview & History: RDM/NIN as a tank has become very popular over the months. It was first made public by Phalanxx of FantasticImpromptu. It was later adopted by fellow FI members and became their main tank. The idea slowly spread to other LS's including Kazoku, LabyrinthofPhantasm, ApkalluVendetta and even UnDeFeatable. Although mocked and laughed at when it made its debut, members of the endgame community immediately recognized advantages of the combo over traditional PLD or NIN tanks. It had all the tools to be a completely self sustaining tank. Damage reduction with Stoneskin, Phalanx, Protect, Shell and a natural magic defense bonus. Pair the following damage reduction spells with a Fast Casted and often Hasted (Possibly even double March from a BRD) Utsusemi: Ichi & Ni and its not uncommon for you to go without HP for extended periods of time while tanking. When you lose HP, you have the necessary Cures to keep yourself alive and in operating condition. But keeping yourself alive isn't worth a damn unless you can pull some kind of hate. This is the downfall of many amateur RDM tanks. Hate spells at your disposal include Sleep, Sleep 2, Bind, Dispel, Cure III, Cure IV and Blind. Sleep, Sleep 2 and Cure IV should be the staples of your hate holding foundation. While hasted and marched, it is possible to spam hate keeping spells non-stop, especially if you are trying to take hate off of your tanking partner and don't need to rebuff yourself. As I mentioned earlier, the problem here is most amateurs either focus all their time on buffing and staying alive OR they only focus on keeping hate at whatever the cost, meaning they do not buff themselves properly. It is important to find a balance in your technique. If you cannot find a balance, you are useless, defeating the whole purpose.
Merit Distribution: I understand that most everybody has another job to consider when distributing merits. Keep in mind that this would be the ideal setup of merits for a RDM tank.
HP: 4
MP: 4
Parrying Skill: 4
Enhancing Magic: 8
Enmity Increase: 4
Enemy Critical Hit Rate: 4 OR Spell Interruption Rate: 4
Convert: 5
I will now explain the choices. HP and MP can differ, usually depending on race. Galka might go 2 HP, 6 MP and Tarutaru might go 6 HP and 2 MP. Most of the time Mithra, Elvaan and Hume will be good with an equal balance of both, as both are important to the job. Parrying Skill is often a skill many RDM tanks underestimate, probably because they don't have it any where close to the cap (Which happens to be 200). When fighting HNM, I get at least 3 parries per fight, most of the time they are life savers. Using an Earth Staff will increase your chances as well, as two handed weapons get a parrying bonus. Enhancing Magic is an obvious choice, 16 levels of enhancing magic make it more easy to reach the Stoneskin damage cap, meaning you don't have to wear as much MND gear while casting Stoneskin, leaving room for things such as Duelist's Tabard, Warlock's Chapeau, Loquacious Earring or Swift Belt. Enmity Increase is obvious. Enemy Critical Hit Rate and Spell Interruption Rate I find rather useless, but I suppose they would give you a slight advantage. Personal preference, I opted to finish out the "Other" Category with Critical Hit for my NIN. Convert is a given for a RDM based solely around tanking. Pair the fact that a RDM/NIN tank without a Duelist's Chapeau or Dalmatica can run out of MP rather quickly, with the overall uselessness of the other Category 1 choices for tanking and you arrive at the obvious choice of maxing out Convert.
Gear: Equipment is another tough spot for amateurs. They think stacking haste or enmity in every possible slot will make them good. Not true in the least. To address the issue of stacking haste; it is incredibly easy to meet the lowest possible timers with only a few pieces of gear, haste spell and double march. The following are the lowest recast timers you can possibly get for a few spells.
Utsusemi: Ichi - 15 seconds
Utsusemi: Ni - 22 seconds
Stoneskin - 15 seconds
Refresh - 13 seconds
Haste - 13 seconds
The above caps can be reached with 4 pieces of gear, 2 marches and haste spell. Dispelling the myth that stacking haste gear in every slot is useful.
The next misconception is that enmity gear piled high would be an efficient use of equipment slots. Wrong over and over again. Truth be told, you need about 15 enmity total (Gear and Merits together) to be able to keep the mob off nuke spamming BLMs. Any more enmity and you are setting yourself up for solo tanking, as you should keep an enmity level similar to your tanking partners. This way it is easier to take hate on command, rather than struggling while one tank has all the hate and is getting beat down. But to sum it up, both tanks should have roughly +15 enmity and you are golden. Different rules apply if your co-tank is a PLD or a NIN, as RDM uses a different type of hate.
The following is the ideal equipment setups for a variety of situations.
Utsusemi
Head: Warlock's Chapeau Spellcasting Time -10%, Spell Recast Time -5%
Body: Duelist's Tabard Spellcasting Time -10%, Spell Recast Time -5%
Earring 1: Loquacious Earring Spellcasting Time -2%, Spell Recast Time -1%
Waist: Swift Belt +4% Haste
The above setup, coupled with haste and double march will reach the lowest Utsusemi recast timers.
Note: You can achieve 15 second Ichi without Swift Belt. Unfortunately without Swift Belt, your Ni timer will be 23 seconds, instead of the minimum of 22 seconds.
Stoneskin
Head: Warlock's Chapeau Spellcasting Time -10%, Spell Recast Time -5%
Body: Duelist's Tabard Spellcasting Time -10%, Spell Recast Time -5%
Neck: Enhancing Torque +7 Enhancing Magic
Hands: Duelist's Gloves +15 Enhancing Magic
Legs: Warlock's Tights +1 +15 Enhancing Magic +5 MND
Feet: Duelist's Boots +4 MND
Back: Rainbow Cape +3 MND
Ring 1: Aqua Ring +5 MND
Ring 2: Aqua Ring +5 MND
Earring 1: Loquacious Earring Spellcasting Time -2%, Spell Recast Time -1%
The above setup will achieve a full Stoneskin (350 damage absorbed) while maintaining the lowest recast time of 15 seconds. You may alter various pieces of MND gear depending on race. If you have full Enhancing Magic merits, you can drop the Enhancing Torque and perhaps some various MND gear. Although rare, there is an item that will push your Stoneskin past its 350 damage threshold.
Neck: Stone Gorget Enhances "Stoneskin" Effect
The use of a Stone Gorget causes Stoneskin to absorb an extra 30 damage, thus causing Stoneskin to absorb 380 damage, instead of 350 damage.
If you are in need of determining how much your own Stoneskin absorbs, the formula is as follows:
X = (Enhancing Magic / 3) + Total MND
F = Damage Absorbed
F = X (if X < 80)
F = X2 - 60 (if 80 <= X <= 130)
F = X3 - 190 (if X > 130) Most RDM's will naturally end up here
Magic Defense
Range: Lamian Kaman +1 +2 Magic Def. Bonus
Hands: Duelist's Gloves +2 Magic Def. Bonus
Waist: Resolute Belt +2 Magic Def. Bonus
Ring 1: Merman's Ring -4% Magic Damage Taken
Ring 2: Merman's Ring -4% Magic Damage Taken
Earring 1: Merman's Earring -2% Magic Damage Taken
Earring 2: Merman's Earring -2% Magic Damage Taken
Back: Resentment Cape -5% Magic Damage Taken
While somewhat simplistic in nature, this assortment of items can greatly reduce the amount of magic damage taken. It can cut the amount of magic damage you take by 1/4. Essentially saving yourself time and MP. There are some rare alternatives and pick ups you can get to enhance your magic defense gear.
Body: Dalmatica +5 Magic Def. Bonus
Feet: Ataractic Solea +4 Magic Def. Bonus
Ring 1: Shadow Ring Occasionally Annuls Magic Damage
Ring 2: Minerva's Ring -8% Magic Damage Taken
Ring 2: Defending Ring -10% Damage Taken
Shadow Ring far surpasses it's mantle counterpart, as it kicks in almost 25% of the time. All five are good pickups IF you can manage to get your hands on them.
Enmity
Neck: Harmonia's Torque +3 Enmity
Back: Cerberus Mantle +3 Enmity
Waist: Trance Belt +4 Enmity
Ring 1: Sattva Ring +3 Enmity
Ring 2: Mermaid Ring +2 Enmity
This setup will give you +15 enmity. As mentioned before, 15 enmity is pretty much all you need. Usually add 4 to that from merits and you'll hover around 19 or 20 enmity. As long as your RDM/NIN co-tank can match that number, you will have no problems. You will notice I left Body and Head piece out (Among other things) because the combinations can vary. A Fast Cast setup, while nice, is not needed, as you usually will not get the whole way through your hate cycle.
Note: PLD uses a different type of hate via Provoke and more notably Flash. PLD will require more enmity, as their only spell that is similar in hate structure to RDM is Cure. The following graphs document hate in a unique way. As a long time tank, I find that graphs to be completely true. Credit to Elmer the Pointy of BlueGartr Forums.
Although those are the only four sets of gear needed, I personally use a Standing Macro, which I default back to after everything I do. It may not be necessary for everyone.
Standing
Head: Duelist's Chapeau Auto-Refresh
Body: Dalmatica Auto-Refresh
Back: Shadow Mantle Occasionally Annuls Physical Damage
Legs: Crimson Cuisses Movement Speed +12%, Elemental Resists, HP/MP +25
Earring 2: Ethereal Earring Converts 3% of Damage Taken to MP
Getting at least 5 MP per tick (Usually more with a COR or a BRD) is nice. The Shadow Mantle, while completely unreliable, could kick in at a clutch moment. The Crimson Cuisses aren't really something you need to stand in, it just makes me feel safer knowing that if something were to happen, I could run the hell away 12% faster than everybody else. Also good for kited mobs such as King Behemoth or Kirin (If that is something you kite). The Ethereal Earring is more of a full time job, rather than a standing piece. I just threw it in there because I felt it should be mentioned. It can either be extremely useful or extremely not useful. Practically all HNM have some devastating moves, while their normal attacks do anywhere from 150-350 without Stoneskin. If you do happen to get caught with your pants down, why not get 5-10 MP back every time you get your face bashed in?
The last thing to address about gear is Weapons. You will see most RDM's dual wielding Beaver Tails (Macuahuitl +1's) because as I stated earlier, they believe if they get as much enmity as possible, they will win the internet. Honestly, you don't even need to carry them around unless you know you're co-tank uses them and you want to keep a close level of enmity. Full time Earth/Terra Staff because who knows when a mob could rip off a TP move, then 2 double attacks in a row, killing you in a matter of seconds.
Tips:
- Know your co-tank and their play style. Adjust accordingly to assure the only people getting hate are the tanks.
- Convert is not only a way to regain MP, you can use it for hate as well. Cure IV yourself a couple times after converting for some quick hate
- Shell IV can greatly reduce the amount of magic damage you take, USE IT. If your WHM's have AF2 pants and merits, let them cast the bar-spells.
- Keep yourself Refreshed...nobody else is going to do it for you and in the heat of the fight, you may often forget. Same goes with Haste.
- On that same note, don't bother Refreshing or Hasting anybody else. You got shit to do, they can get that elsewhere.
- With capped Enhancing Magic and Duelist's Gloves, your Phalanx will reduce 25 damage from all attacks. Thats a lot of damage over the course of a fight. Be sure to keep Phalanx up.
- Make sure you engage the mob while you are taking it down. Parries are a life saver.
- If you have hate, focus on keeping yourself buffed with Stoneskin and Utsusemi. Between buffs, throw out a Blind, Sleep or Sleep2 to ensure you still have hate. If you are getting beat down, spam yourself with Cure IV until you can get Utsusemi back up. Then proceed to recast Stoneskin so you are at max capacity once again.
- March x2 and Ballad x2 greatly increase efficiency. Seek two BRD's for your tank party. WHM and COR aren't bad either, as they have Devotion and Evoker/Magus Roll respectively.
- A good hate cycle includes Sleep, Sleep 2, Blind, Dispel and Cures.
That wraps up my guide to the world of RDM/NIN tanking. Any suggestions, questions or adds can be messaged to altfan28@yahoo.com