Duo mage preference?Follow

Coming from someone who doesnt have thf, but whm rdm sch all leveled, RDM. Level whm sch and nin subs for it.

whm with refresh atma's and cure 5 spam is broken. shell 5/5 and Barspells on whm are key to a lot of fights in abyssea.

rdm can go /nin and cure 4 spam. This way you can duo tank a NM. But with rdm/nin you cant use -na spells. rdm has more options to trigger yellow !! Rdm can solo tons of NM and your thf could just be there for TH. Rdm has addle which is awesome on some NM.

Both are nice at 85. Personally I would go with a whm thf duo. Then ask a blm/brd friend to join and trigger yellow !!

*Edit*
You beat me to what I was going to say. About enfeebles. I find that in abyssea they are either capped of floored. Sure rdm has better versions plus addle but my whm has no trouble landing enfeebles on most Abyssea NM unless they are immune.

Edited, Oct 22nd 2010 8:30pm by Breaze

I would have put my energy on the lv75 galka and level his mage jobs. I know they got lower mp pools and mage stats, but race has never been that much of an issue and the time saved redoing all those missions would be worth it IMO.

Haha thats actually part of the reason i did this. The 75 mnk doesnt have sky or sea(think just finished 3 promies), highest mage was lv 11 whm, and (had) no expansions since TAU. He had even gotten his "mage mule" fame in most areas, access to TAU zones, rank 4.5 etc because he was planning on using him before he quit. So really, i just did the 2nd half of magicite for airship pass Really, the only "extra" things i have to do are genkai quests, but i got the 1st 20-30 levels of blm/whm/smn already done on the mule instead.

If the mnk had everything already done i probably would have done it on him, but since im basically starting from scratch no matter what, might as well do it on the hume and jump into abyssea at lv 30 faster (rdm 32 now, whm 36. Good to go!).
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Thanks for the offer Sham. I may just make them myself since the act of making them makes it more familiar, but at the least i might just see how you did yours for inspiration :P

Fyn, you are probably the reason I favor rdm for duo partner anyway just from nostalgic memories of awesomeness duoing shizzer with you years ago.

I dont really want to post in the rdm achievement threads about how im gimping my ass to 85+ as i dont think it would be much appreciated :P so ill just chronicle it here for grinseys.
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Achievements:
*Rdm 32-50 last night in an abyssea party. I have REALLY underestimated the exp rate for low levels in there (i had never "leeched" in abyssea before). I just went on my drg to kick some ass and he stood in a corner and bam, lv 50 with capped exp.

*Completed Genkai 1 also last night. (@#%^ you Papyrus! 1/1! How you like me this time around with TH4 BIOTCH! Sweet justice!)

*got about 30 levels of elemental/enfeebling while doin genkai mobs(around 100ish each now). Might as well start prepping skills for maat fight whenever i can.

Next steps:
*Get 1 exp to hit lv 51.
*Complete Genkai 2 (boreal hound i be comin for ya!)
*Partay from 51-60.
*Get AF

But first things first! Halloween crazy weekend go!

I have to tell you guys because you will appreciate it. My GF is going as Stephanie from Lazy Town (it helps shes kinda short :P)
.....I shall be......
.....
.....
.....
PEDOBEAR!

This will be EPIC!

Too bad you gotta do the genkai quests, cause if you had enough caffeine you could probably go from 30 to 85 in one day in abyssea!

I did consider brd. Elegy+ combo of 1-2 march/mambo is always great. But you have to choose only 2 song buffs, have limited healing capabilities, and the only debuff (while GREAT) is elegy. Slow+haste+Blind will have a similar effect on rdm to elegy/march/mambo, both have sleep/dispell spells, but rdm has HUGE curing pool by comparison, and additional boosts like bio/dia/Paralyze. Beyond that, i really like the option to nuke/grav/bind stuff which really sealed the deal for me.

The genkai's are annoying though, but its not that bad. I have a static recently setup to farm AF3+2 trinkets and other abyssea things a couple times a week now. This group does TEs and pop item farming (exp-ish) but breaks freqently for NMs killing chain. I have been going and just hasting/curing myself, refreshing/resting mule etc (also nice practice for getting the swing of 2xBoxing in a safe environment :P). But it isnt a true "exp party" so I generally get 3-6 levels from one of those sessions so far. So really, it is working out well for me doing genkais as I am leveling more casually as a side effect rather than a primary goal in 3-6 level increments. Works great.

I agree with noodles on the mambo thing too. I have not had ANY problems with anything I have fought recently in regards to evasion. I am really thinking we got a ninja Eva Bonus 5. I feel FAR more evasive than I ever did at 75, and im talking about NMs in the new abyssea zones designed around lv 85 chars (not older stuff thats a joke). Blind from rdm and gear should cover me for almost anything at this point other than zone boss type NMs that I wouldnt be 2xBoxing anyway.

Edited, Nov 5th 2010 10:30am by Banalaty

Bana, you and I are almost in the exact opposites. I'm a BRD/RDM/WHM(SMN,PUP) character and I recently started leveling a Thief. Got him to 45 so far.


Anyways, the point I am trying to get at is this: Duo mage preference, I think, is entirely situational. Some fights I might prefer BRD, and others I'll prefer WHM. And I have the luxury of doing so. With the additions of Abyssea, I strongly urge you to try to level another mage (or two) to even out the playing fields. Sure, one will suffice, but having versatility is also nice. For farming Avalerion, I prefer BRD+THF over any other setup when I duo him with a friend because I can't really nuke him with RDM without risk of dying (from hate resets). Bard's hate is low enough that a simple Sneak Attack will be good enough, on top of double march and elegy.

The only downside to that is I can't proc seal !!'s, but i really don't mind that. I can still do H2H, Sword, Club, and Dagger blue !!'s on thief, which i think is what gives me a better droprate on Spiral Ring (350k~)

Achievements:
*Ding lv 75!
*Got 7 merits so I can do both genkai for 80/85!
*Genkai done to lv 80!
*Atma of the Minikin! (10/tic refresh, 50 int, -enmity) OH YEAH!

Next Steps:
*Level to 85
*Get some merits yo!
*Gear up for the post 75 world
*Charby

It may sound stupid, but I cast sleep on a lizzie in miseroux last night while doing sobek and it....SLEPT!. Ive enfeebled my 1st mob with something besides dia that I would actually fight at 85. Probably not very impressive, but feels good to be getting to the point that I can actually enfeeble mobs. Once I can do that reliably, the world is open to me with a 10/tic refresh rdm that can enfeeble mobs for my thf! Im almost there!

So I tried duoing Manohra Thf+Whm.

Died first attempt at 19%, positioned Whm badly so it got hit with stun from damnation then the bird just picked off both chars.

Second time with better mage placement went fine. Rocked Eva set full fight and had only Slow/para/Dia from Whm, Pizza+1 and Sangunie Scyther/TH Atmas. Fight untill 15-20% was fine, this time Damnation dive spam was fine as I basically just rocked full eva set on thf and just Cure5 bombed on whm.

Got a drg seal (which i needed) which is great, except that my computer decided to put it's self to sleep between lotting on main and passing on the mule..................................................