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Red Mage Guide by Chingon

CAUTION!
Junction This article is a personal guide. Information expressed in this guide is one player's opinion and may be more opinion than fact. Strategies and information contained herein may not work for everyone.

No non-minor changes should be made without consulting the author. Changes or questions should be discussed on the talk page.

Junction
Red Mage

What is a Red Mage? Red Mage is a hybrid. Combination Warrior, White Mage, and Black Mage. They have a little bit of everything. Granted their skills are not as high as those of a Warrior, White Mage or Black Mage but they still have enough firepower in their arsenal to cast White Magic, Black Magic, and even do a little bit of Melee damage.

Pro's and Con's

Pro's

Con's

  • Low MP pool as compared to a White Mage or Black Mage.
  • A high demanding job.
  • Not as highly skilled as a Warrior, White Mage, or Black Mage. Yet, adequate enough to get the job done.

Race Selection

Final Fantasy XI allows players to choose between five different races, each with its own strengths and weaknesses in terms of stats. While certain races' stats are better matched to some jobs more than others, the differences are never so profound as to prevent any race from playing any particular job (except for Elvaans and Black Mage). All players can excel at any job they so choose, provided they have the skill and the equipment; the race selection is mostly an aesthetic decision.

Tarutaru
Mithra
Galka
  • Highest HP.
  • Average Strength.
  • Average Mind.
  • Below Average Intelligence
  • Lowest MP pool.
Hume

This is the race I choose to play Red Mage with. Pretty much with all Hume jobs everything will be Average nothing too high nothing too low.

Elvaan
  • High HP.
  • Highest Mind.
  • Highest Strength.
  • Below Average MP.
  • Lowest Intelligence.
Level 1 Statistics
Race HP MP STR DEX VIT AGI INT MND CHR
Hume 28 20 6 6 6 6 7 7 6
Elvaan 30 18 7 6 7 5 6 8 6
Tarutaru 24 26 5 6 6 7 9 7 6
Galka 33 14 7 6 8 6 7 7 5
Mithra 28 20 6 8 6 7 7 7 5
Level 75 Statistics
Race HP MP STR DEX VIT AGI INT MND CHR
Hume 976 494 56 56 53 53 59 59 56
Elvaan 1067 418 61 53 56 47 53 64 56
Tarutaru 780 672 50 56 50 56 66 56 56
Galka 1188 295 59 56 60 50 56 59 50
Mithra 976 494 53 63 50 58 59 56 50

Possible Support Jobs

There are different types of subjobs that a Red Mage can use. Below I will explain the most commonly used subjobs.

Note: The following are not the only subjobs that a Red Mage can use. Feel free to try out any of the other subjobs at your liking.

White Mage

White Mage can be used for many reasons. They excel at Healing Magic and give a good boost in mind. Usually you use White Mage for when as Red Mage you will be the main healer it your party. White Mage offers Red Mage the extra Job Ability of Divine Seal. Divine Seal is a nice addition because you can use it with Convert. This allows you to only use one Cure IV to almost completely replenish your HP with only one cure spell. White Mage offers one more important Job Trait, Auto Regen. With Auto Regen a Red Mage will gain 1 HP per tick. Which is a nice way to gain back some HP loss with having to cure yourself.

Black Mage

Black Mage just like White Mages just as important as any other subjob. Black Mage is primarily used when the Red Mage is playing the Support/Debuff role. They excel with the use of Elemental Magic and give a good boost in intelligence. Black Mage also offers more than intelligence they give a Red Mage another important job trait, Conserve MP. Conserve MP allows a Red Mage to save up on some of those big MP costs. Black Mage just like White Mage gives you an extra job ability, Elemental Seal. Elemental Seal is most useful to a Red Mage when having to stick a spell like Sleep to make sure it sticks and that you do not get resisted. Black Mage is also one of the most used Red Mage solo subjobs.

Warrior

Warrior is not commonly used in the 26+ level range simply for the fact that after a Red Mage gains the spell Cure III at times they will be asked to main heal. Warriors provide Red Mage with multiple job abilities and job traits. The job abilities that are offered to a Red Mage are Provoke, Berserk, Defender, Warcry. These job abilities are primarily used when a Red Mage is playing melee.

Ninja

Ninja is the ultimate Red Mage solo job. With the use of Utsusemi: Ichi and Utsusemi: Ni, Red Mages are allowed with the forms of shadows to survive. The Dual Wield job trait allows Red Mages the use there En- spells at a much more successful rate.

Dark Knight

Dark Knight is primarily used in most endgame situations. For the simple fact that Red Mage will gain the spell Stun and there is nothing better than casting stun with the help of you two hour Chainspell when that situation calls for it.

Beastmaster

I dont want to spoil this guide, but Beastmaster is a very good subjob too. I have experimented this myself and it works very well. HOWEVER ... for best results you need to have your Beastmaster at the same level as your Red Mage or better. This is because your Charm resist rate will decrease if for example your BST is 45 and your RDM is 30, because instead of your BST being /BST15 it will be in effect RDM30/BST30 giving you alot more flexibility to your soloing.

Playing Red Mage

The two single most important stats for a Red Mage are Mind and Intelligence. I will say it again. The two MOST IMPORTANT STATS are Mind and Intelligence. There are some little, yet important, things to know as Red Mage. Do you ever wonder why you have SOOO much intelligence and your Enfeebling Magic is capped, yet you can't stick that Paralyze or that Slow well it's very simple. White magic spells require Mind not Intelligence to successfully land the spell. So please keep this in mind do not think just because you have so much Intelligence you will land every spell with success. You have to have the correct gear setup in order to cast and be efficient. Remember use mind for your White Magic Spells and use intelligence for your Black Magic Spells.

Leveling Your Red Mage

There really isn't a set way on how to "level". This part is totally up to you and your style of play. I know people who soloed Red Mage to 37 just to use it as a subjob because they didn't want to deal with parties or did not want to heal. Remember choosing how to level is totally up to you. No one can tell you how to play the game. Just remember to have fun while your doing it.

Levels 1-15

During this level range you will most probably be soloing yourself. Warrior is probably at this stage the best subjob for soloing because will be able to kill things a lot faster than if you were using a mage job as your subjob. Even though at level 10 you might want to start parting with Warrior as your subjob because it will probably still be your best choice because you MP pool will still be pretty weak and you will still be able to debuff and gain back your MP loss while your party is resting for more MP.

Levels 15-40

This level range is where it gets tough.

Levels 15-25

At this point you will either be in parties or you will still be soloing you still have a below average MP pool and still will not be asked to main heal in parties. This of course is not true unless you are using two Astral Rings. If you are then you might be asked to main heal. But for the case being I am going to speculate and say that you aren't.

Levels 26-40

This is where it gets tricky as Red Mage at this point you will have a decent amount of an MP pool to be the main healer in the party. Yet, most of the time you will be asked to be in a support role. Melee at this point is frowned upon by most parties, yet some people understand that Red Mage at these levels can still melee. Which they can still do. Of course, not like a Warrior or a Samurai can but they still can be an efficient melee and debuffer at this level range.

Levels 41-75

This level range is when your White Mage and Black Mage subjobs will be the most used. At level 41 you get your most sought out spell as a Red Mage, Refresh. Refresh is your most important spell. It gives the person on which it was casted on a 3MP per tick. Granting a total of 150 MP per cast. From this point on you will be asked to either main heal or of course refresh. At, level 48 you will be placed with and extra task Haste. You will be asked from time to time to haste some people like a Ninja tank. Plus at level 51 you get to use the Elemental Staffs which help you cast your spells with more success. For example if you are trying to cast Paralyze the Ice Staff would be best because paralyze is an ice based spell.

The Refresh Circle

When I am playing Red Mage I like to keep what I call my Refresh Circle. What that means is that when you have to refresh your party you want to keep a very simple way of remembering who and when you have to cast refresh on. Take this party set up as follows :
// You
// White Mage
// Paladin
// Blue Mage
// Dark Knight

What you want to do when you have a setup like this is you want to first and for most cast refresh on yourself. Then cast refresh on the White Mage, then on the Paladin, and finally on the Blue Mage. What does this do? Well its very simple, by the time refresh wears off on you,(just to up date this once you obtain, and if you use it, composure, refresh will last longer on yourself and give you 450mp instead of 150. This means that the circle doesn't include yourself every time.) you know that you have about 15 seconds before refresh wears off on the White Mage. So what you do now is that you recast refresh on your self and on the others in that order. If you are playing a support mage role in your party don't forget that you can also have not only a Refresh Circle, but you can also have a Haste Circle. Which is the same concept as my Refresh Circle but only with haste.

Source entry: Red Mage Guide by Chingon. Cached on this server on 4 November 2026.

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