Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better!: RDM Guide

augment vs nonaugment enhancing duration are separate multipliers so you get more duration with duration from augment instead, also you can stack skill with ghostfyre

it's not necessarily that you get more duration from augment vs. native, it's that whichever one has a lower base will give you more total duration due to how multipliers work. RDM has a very high native amount of duration + equipment, so augments of the same value end up being better.

The really interesting ones are the ones where it's not the same value. For instance, that same ghostfyre cape with only a 15% augment is still break even with an ambuscade cape for the most part for self casted buffs.

Ah i see. After 3 stacks of crystal i have got

Mag Acc+3
Enfeeb+ 8
Enhance +4
Enh Duration +20%

If i am not mistaken the most important stat is Enhance duration 20% and Enhance +? How crucial is that Enhance + in this case and or should i keep going until Enh+10 Duration +20%?

Iirc, enhance+7 is enough to get the last tier of enspell potency at ML50 and all the +4 artifact/relic pieces that have enhancing skill on them; same for Temper II at ML47 (discounting Hoxne Torque). Less ML means more enhance+ needed on ghostfyre cape, more ML means less enhance+ needed.

It's marginal (a single point of base enspell damange and 1% TA chance), so you decide if it's worth it.

you don't need +10. Ideally you want enough so that when you put your best skill set together it gets you the highest tier on Temper II (and enspells). I think that means +8 or more, but I don't remember. Temper is really easy, it's in 10 skill break points, so if your skill in the set is divisible by 10 you're golden.

Thank you guys!

So my set with composure could get some of my spell to 30minutes , and some to 22mins. However, when casting it on other, my Haste II and Refresh only last around 6min, flurry around 9minute. Now what is the benchmark, or minimum requirement for grouping that you will aim for enhancing other duration? for let say Refresh III and Haste II.

Haste2 on others caps at 14:xx something minutes IIRC, and that's with all the max duration gear under the Vana'diel sky.

Duration+ is more to make the rdm's life easier. 14min haste2 means you can do things other than hasting people every 6min.

Everyone will still shout for hastes, don't worry.

I believe the highest possible enspell tier at the moment requires 724 enhancing, while 725 is the max rdm can hit right now at ML 50 with hoxne torque and every other piece of gear. Temper caps for real at 700, unlike enspells.

So let say if i join a group and giving out 6min Haste II is that like a "omgnoob Rdm we wont invite him again" kinda thing? or it is somewhat acceptable. Afterall i guess as long as they kept getting refreshed 6mins or 14 mins isnt too much different..

In and of itself, no it's not an issue, especially if you're keeping everyone buffed regardless. What it does imply is that you have more work to do on gear, and therefore may be lacking in other sets that could be critical to the strategy or content, such as max potency enfeebling effect for a Gravity II kite strategy. It's important to set expectations when joining with random people you don't know, they will be much more forgiving if you tell them your limitations up front rather than in the middle of the fight when something is needed but cannot be provided.

I like my haste 2 being shortly shorter than bard songs. This way we both apply them at the same time. That's just me though idk if this is the norm.

This is very valid but I cast in full duration then just rehaste everyone when we stop for songs. No need to have short buffs to recast it since it overwrites anyway.

Unless it's an automatic "oh noes buff gone" detection, I guess.

No, nothing like that.

It does depend on what the group is doing though. If you join a group aiming to clear v25, the expectation is that everyone in the group has their respective job maxed out. In that group, you do need 12-14min hastes so you don't have to re-buff everyone mid fight - Ody fights are 15min long.

If you're joining a Limbus/Ody/Omen farm, there is no such expectation.

For rdm specifically if I saw someone with a 6min haste2 I would think they're new to rdm. Duration for others is pretty easy to get for rdm, literally 5/5 empy will get you most of the way there without having to upgrade relic/af and you just keep improving on that incrementally.

I would not ask them to do anything like land debuffs on HELMs, sortie bosses or Dyna NMs, but good people are always invited to things appropriate to their level regardless if they are new to the job or not. It's more about you taking feedback, willing to improve and honest about what you can/can't yet do.

Is Hoxne Torque better than Duelist's torque +2 for anything?

There's not a lot of stuff that doesn't cap at 500.
One notable example is Temper II, it caps at 700.
You can totally reach 700 without Hoxne, but you don't exactly get a lot of options, especially if you're not ML50.
So, in light of that, Hoxne can help you reach 700 skill more easily.

Judging from the fact you mentioned Duelist+2 instead of Incanter's though, I'm afraid you had other things in mind with your question °-°

For enhancing magic, temper spells cap at 700 and enspells don't cap yet, but the highest tier atm is 724 iirc. Aquaveil possibly caps at 501, but I don't know it anyone who has the gear and MLs has tested 701. Regardless, you can't hit 701 with all aquaveil+ gear anyway, so it's a wash.

If you have a perfect enhancing set other than hoxne, you can cap temper at ML 45, but you still need to use incanter's. Even at ML 50 you won't cap temper with duelist's. If you have hoxne and a perfect set, you can cap at ML 25. Obviously, you can only hit that 724 for enspells with a perfect set including hoxne and ML 49 or 50.

For enfeebling magic, the real number to hit is 625 for frazzle iii, and you want to hit it while having full enfeebling potency gear as well. Nonetheless, you would want the duelist's torque in this set for duration, so you'd want to hit that skill in other slots. And you don't want to deal with hoxne's slow+ on enfeebling spells, even ones that don't immunobreak.

tbh if I saw a 6 min haste2 my first thought would be "gearswap's broke" and not anything about their gear - and I don't know about you all but I will never judge someone on a gearswap file breaking, especially on rdm, something probably just went wrong somewhere! it happens all the time!

There is and was no assumption, other than your own.

The OP said they're new to Rdm and have a 6min haste. Don't assume someone has a broken gearswap when they just might be new and make them feel like ***for getting called out on it.

It's acceptable if you want to create that expectation for yourself to always keep the buffs active and never let them drop, but that's more work for you. The shorter your buffs are, the more times you'll need to recast them on others. It's not particularly a big deal in general, but I've been in PUGs where if I see shorter duration buffs, I already know in my mind I'm going to have to remind the WHM/GEO/SCH/RDM that my "haste wore off, im not capped" in a short time, because that mage already isn't aware enough of optimal buff timers to begin with. If the support isn't actively paying attention to people's buffs, there will be a time when it falls off when its needed and the support missed it, throwing off the flow of the party to an extent. It's a minor annoyance that could create other problems down the road. I'm not even trying to sound like an elitist either, I just know how it goes when you have to constantly keep asking for a buff because theirs only lasts 3min. It also starts to look like you're nagging the mage for a buff when, if he had longer durations, I would be less annoying to ask for it again.

Honestly, getting high duration buffs is a peace of mind kind of gift you're giving yourself in not having to do as much. Don't sleep on that as a benefit. If ever the situation goes left and you have to decide what to do, chances are if important buffs are off, you'll ignore those in favor of more important roles, like healing, NAs, silence/debuffs etc. Having longer durations saves you time and headache in the long run, IMO.

Probably more noticeable for people who play without addons.
As a primarily support/healer player once I started using partybuffs and could see buffs and debuffs on the party easily, it was a complete game changer for me. I didn't need to rely on the timers or remembering buff durations as I could now see when they expired.

I'm curious what peoples thoughts are on Vitiation Tights +4 (when merited in enspell) and the Sworn Brais sword enhancement spell damage? is the ratio 1:1? The sworn pants are definitely a better option defensively, but the attack on the Relic pants is very nice for hybrid auto damage play. Thoughts?

It's +1~5 enspell dmg depending on merits vs +9 set on sworn. Not much of a contest really, moreso when sworn starts getting the TA augment added into it

You're telling me you don't absolutely love/need that +spike damage!