Rate That Class! Week 1

[Assailant]

Let's try to spice up the forums with a little rating game. It'll go by week. Week 1 will be...the Redmage!

Rate (out of 10) in:

Solo Ability
Partying
Fun Factor

And then of course, average them together for an overall. I'll start.

Solo Ability: 9 - A jack of all trades, soloing isn't tough for this class

Partying: 5 - Perhaps being decent at everything isn't the best for partying

Fun Factor: 8 - I personally like playing a redmage

Overall: 7.33

[Sur Realis]

Solo Ability: Admittedly, a well-built Red Mage will be able to tank anything and survive successfully; they are almost built perfectly for the survival factor, with all of the choice buffs, and somewhere around 3rd best defense overall in the first place. Not to mention Cure 3, which even with their minimal Willpower will still heal plenty of HP. However, when you get right down to it, no matter how you build the Red Mage, there will always be some flaw that will ultimately bring it down. If you build on the Red Mage's attack power, then you will in some way lack magically, whether from a lack of MP, Willpower, or both. However, the opposite remains true that if you choose to build on magic, then the physical strength alters, and the few attack spells the Red Mage receives just is not enough to do it. There will almost always be some flaw, somewhere, that is the Red Mage's own undoing. Past the natural ability of survivalism, there really isn't much the Red Mage can do. Therefore, the best Red Mages are Red Mages that specialize in specific areas and let their weak points be covered by the party.

Score: 7

Partying: By being 'decent' in everything, it must be noted that this means that only sometimes will the Red Mage be useful; compared to certain classes, they will be more often useful, but even still there are times where they will just drag down the party. Ultimately, once buffs are passed out, there isn't much that the Red Mage can do or do effeciently besides toss out a low-powered Healstorm for the slight benefit or take out monsters that are already mostly weakened. By all means this does not make them useless; their survivability paired with ability to Life does make a nice addition to the party, but if it comes down to this then the party itself is at fault for either being unorganized, underleveled, or just plain stupid.

Score: 4

Fun Factor: Hah. Fun. Right.

Score: -1

Average: 3.33

[Divusmors]

Solo ability - Seriously? You're taking the class with the third highest defense and the ability to not be affected by status spells, giving them every defensive boost in the game almost, then expect it to come out fair for others? xD Yes, they have amazing solo capabilities, and a majority of the game itself comes before the three tier spells.
Having so much defensive boost will make everything either stalemate or an easy win. But once you go later into the game, they really don't have a lot of that fire power anymore, so they drop back down hard. So I give them a 6.

Partying - Depends, how many red mages are in the party? One red mage itself won't make much of a dent at anything, especially late game. Two, it's a bigger improvement, almost enough to seem like you really have a full healer, magic attacker, and melee attacker, but only one of those per round if the RMs work in unison.
But you may still as well have a full attacker and healer at the same cost of spots. I give them a 4

Fun - Beginning, really. With each passing area, they become less and less enjoyable. Kreland is fun, DM is alright, skyre they start to drop a lot, ice caverns and PoP I haven't been to as a red mage, but if they follow suit, and with how their abilities seem to lackluster, I'm guessing they drop to not very fun and bad. :\
I give them a 4 for now, since my only experiences lead as far as Ruoze, so I won't be judging IC, mona, and PoP.

Total - 4.66

[Takahashi]

-= Red Mages =-

Solo Ability:

Overall, their natural HP growth is solid, being on par with that of a Knight. Their natural MP growth is lacking, but a bonus to MP every three levels and their growth mirrors the natural growth of a Blue or White Mage. With armor options just below that of a Fighter or Knight, it means that RMs do indeed have the third highest natural defense for (currently) every point in the game. Thanks to Barrier 1, (eventually) Master Resist Ailments and Forcefield, they're around third or fourth place in terms of 'complete' defense.

A RM can last for a very long time due to no shortage of defensive options. In terms of offense though, RMs can be a little lacking. Boost 1 and/or Instill Element will help to delay matters, but eventually a RM will run into a situation where they can't deal damage fast enough without spending at least two rounds buffing themselves first. Magically their choices of damage are limited as well. Drain 1 works well for a while, but eventually ~100% willpower damage isn't going to be enough. That same applies to Lightstorm 1, although LS1 does at least hit multiple targets. That leaves Demi (not bad but less useful the longer a battle rages) and Fire (or Ice or Lit) 1/2/3. With Fire/Lit/Ice, how useful the RM is depends entirely on their element, and in turn where in the game they are.

In short, RMs can do fine on their own. The later into the game they get though, the more important their stat build (and choice of element) becomes. I'd give them a 8/10.

Partying:

IMO, the only type of party that a RM would have a hard time fitting into is one where the party makeup is heavily slanted towards a particular approach, doubly so if the RM's build doesn't match that approach (i.e., heavy duty melee with a Blue/Black Mage or two mixed in for Boost 3). Basically any party where the RM's above average capabilities turn into shortcomings.

Interestingly enough though that same jack-of-all-trades nature is what helps make them useful for several kinds of party. In one where there is no WM present, Fast 2 and Healstorm 1 can be important. In one where magic damage is limited (no Black or Blue Mage), a RM's ability to Drain, Demi, Lightstorm and Lit/Ice/Fire can be good. In one where single healing is limited (one or no WMs), Cure 3 can be a critical addition. Also, I feel there are many more cases where a RM comes in handy than cases where they don't, so they end up with another 8/10.

Fun Factor:

To me there's nothing quite like building a RM, knowing that my margin for error is wider than it is for any other class. I've yet to get beyond Geyzer on a non-BH character, but I've managed to make many RM builds work in many types of party. I've had magic-heavy RMs (one Ice, one Lit), a hybrid Fire RM (my current RM, up to Southern Skyre), melee-heavy RMs (one Fire, one Lit)... at one point or another I've built at least one RM based off of one of the builds on the website, and none of them were something I wish I'd never tried.

However, when it comes right down to it though it can be a very delicate balancing act making sure that I'm able to contribute and not just be a way to increase the number of monsters per fight for the 'real' battlers to mop up. In terms of that, it can be VERY annoying having a RM, just to find that you can't do that much without being noticeably higher in level than the monsters and/or your teammates. RMs are definitely not for those who are easily (or even not so easily) frustrated. Because of that, I'd say that in terms of fun factor that they only rate a 5/10.

All things considered, that'd leave RMs with an average of 7/10. Not bad, but not outstanding.