Final Fantasy Hacktics

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I should start this thread with the following disclaimer:
"I love red mages, but they still suck"


Then, I have to follow that with an explanation:
Red Mages in many games of the series were unbalanced and in some cases served as utility classes.  Despite this, I actually really enjoyed the challenge of still running them end game.  Fun fact, FF1 for NES came out when I was very young, and the original description (direct from the original game book) was so appealing:

Quote from: Original NES BookThe Red Magician has the ability to learn some of both black and white magic spells and is a fairly good fighter.

To a small child, words like "some" and "fairly" hold no weight.  As such, I ran 4 Red Mages, and soon learned the error of my ways.

First and foremost, what is a Red Mage?
The Red Mage has been a Final Fantasy staple since the dawn of FFTime.  When it debuted in FF, it existed only to suck.  Most people would argue and say "you're wrong, old school!  They used white and black magics, a wide variety of weapons, and heavy armors!"  To this, I usually grunt or roll my eyes.  I like to think I'm an expert on the topic, having made a huge mistake my first go round at the age of 5 and playing 4 Red Mages.

End game Red Mages couldn't use any armor, plateaued in their stats, lacked the best white and black spells, and had a crappy selection of even mage gear.  Later games introduced cool stuff like spell proficiencies, dual-casting (the Red Mage trademark), enchanting weapons like the FFV Sorceror...  This did a lot for the Red Mage, and serves as the foundation for my Red Mage.

If you think I'm full of crap, you're not wrong.  My spouse's ex would absolutely agree with you.  I do rely heavily on my experience grinding Red Mage JP/XP, as well as the incredibly thorough stuff at https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Red_Mage.

I wanted to show my appreciation to Lijj & Cheetah as early in the post as possible, so it's worth noting that several Red Mage sprites exist (http://ffhacktics.com/sprites.php?search=red+mage) and in addition to my son who loves Red Mages, served as inspiration.  Thanks, Lijj, Cheetah, and Nightmare Child!

What do they wear?
Red Mages have seen a lot of changes over the years as games evolved.  Unfortunately, none of those changes made them great.  They just have cool hats.  Originally, Red Mages used knives, swords, rods, staves, and a few other miscellaneous items, and wore armor and light shields, but ended up just being a crappier version of its black and white counterparts as the black and white robes were exclusively for their respective mages.  In FFIII, however, they became slightly more versatile with the use of a few bows.  True to the Red Mage form, though, the best bows were reserved for real Light Warriors!

Does FFT support Red Mage Mechanics?
  It depends on your preferred flavor of Red Mage.  To Nyzer's point, the Red Mage doesn't have to suck, but the early releases in the FF series didn't know that.  Your Red Mage can be anything, but because I prefer the genuine vanilla experience, I prefer the early Red Mage, which I can then augment with other class magics (Time, White, Black...).  If you still want traditional Red Mage but want more power, that brings us to Dual Cast.  The general consensus at present is that the level of effort would most likely be astronomical due to the fact that FFT does not support multiple commands in a single turn.

FFXI was also kind enough to bring us skills from an actual awesome job (Sorceror), stealing them instead for your Red Mage.  FFT doesn't support the elementally charged strikes without heavier modding.  That brings us to enfeebling spells.

What Red Magics already exist?
All of them!  Red Magic was a mix of white and black magics.  It's really about how you want to make your Red Mage unique.  I personally try to avoid duplicating any skills across classes.  It's just... lazy.  Good news, there's an even crappier job than the Red Mage, and that's the Oracle!  If you pair up White Magic and your new Red Magic skillsets, you have a healing, enfeebling, useless in end-game, magical warrior.  Just an example.  You can save yourself something like 14 (fourteen!!) ability slots by getting rid of the most notoriously worst class in Final Fantasy history.  No, I'm not an advocate for the level down cheat.

This is not the only Red Mage flavor, but because it's mine, I'm going to pass it off as the best.
Awesome, old school!  I'm going to jump in and make one!
Unlike my post about the Blue Mage, I really think this is a worthy addition, and I'm honestly disappointed in Square for not having done it initially.  Even better, the only thing you really may want to change is the PA multiplier.  Remember, like the Oracle, the Red Mage is supposed to suck.  Just up the multipliers, add a few weapons types, and you're good to go with your crappy, sorta versatile, new Warrior of Light!  But, for the love of God, please don't give them armor and knight swords!


I'd love to hear your Red Mage designs in the comments below.  This post is oozing with seeming disdain for Red Mages, but they are my favorite class, and how you'd make them not suck is interesting!

Suggested Red Mage Flavors
It is recommended that you explore your own creativity, but here are a few to get you started.  Feel free to mix and match to your heart's content, and if you have an idea that is worth sharing, add it in the comments below to have it featured.

If you feel your idea has been misrepresented, please contact me directly so we can collaborate and get your idea out here properly.






Resources:

• Sprite Sheets

This post has been made possible by the members of this site.  Special thanks to:
Lijj
Cheetah
Nyzer
Nyzer
Nyzer
Nyzer

Um... no, you *don't* share learned skills across jobs in FFT. If you have a Freelancer with Cure, a Red Mage with Cure and Cura, and a White Mage with Cure-Curaga, learning Cure on the Freelancer will not learn it on the other two jobs.

As for balancing the Red Mage, I really strongly disagree with the idea that "the Red Mage is supposed to suck". "Jack of all trades, master of none" is not necessarily synonymous with "useless in endgame". Especially when FFT does have a very comparable job already - the Monk. It deals damage, inflicts debuffs, heals damage, heals MP, cures debuffs, and has a rez.

A fairly balanced design that would make a Red Mage useful without being overpowered would be to give it strong (but not the best) MA and PA, and slightly above average SP (after all, it doesn't wear armor unlike the Knight, Samurai, or Dragoon), but to give it low HP, MP, and Move, and merely average Ev%.

The low Move would fall in line with the Red Mage being a caster. This wouldn't cripple its usefulness because it has both ranged damage and support options. Yes, its lower spell levels would mean that this isn't going to be OMGWTF damage, but it's not nothing, and allowing the Red Mage to have high PA still allows it to be a useful damage dealer in melee range. Not as much as a Knight Sword wielder, but KS are stupidly OP anyway with all their buffs and the ability to dual wield them. Rebalancing Knight Swords just so that - for example - they can't be dual wielded, while regular swords still can; or so that they're forced 2H but swords can still be used with shields or the Doublehand support, would easily make the Red Mage a worthy melee fighter without giving it Knight Swords.

The low HP wouldn't cripple the Red Mage either. Giving them Protect, Shell, and Regen, in addition to their lower Move, easily allows them the opportunity to buff up before they hit the front line. A Red Mage with Protect & Regen could theoretically be tankier than a heavy armor job without it.

The low MP is the only one that doesn't immediately give a Red Mage a tradeoff mixed playstyle rather than just being an outright nerf. Granted, yeah, this concept of a Red Mage is indeed meant to switch from casting spells on approach to swinging a sword on the front line, but if it runs out of MP entirely, it just becomes a weaker version of a generic Squire. Still, you could argue that this is part of the playstyle - the Red Mage's long-term usefulness decreases if you don't use it sparingly. Having the Red Mage just as a backup rezzer/buffer isn't that bad of a niche, after all.

But we can even do better. Give the Red Mage its own unique niche: the mana battery. FFT surprisingly really doesn't do much with the concept of MP restoration. Even the Dark Knight's Dark Sword/Duskblade/Infernal Strike skill is nearly useless as an MP restoration skill since it's exclusively put on jobs that have no-cost healing and attack moves. You could give the Red Mage a very unique role with just two skills: one ranged skill that costs MP, restores MP (whether AoE or single target is up to you), and cannot hit its caster, and then one sword-requirement weapon range skill that drains a target's MP. (You could even drop that last skill if you just wanted to move Duskblade here but I'm not much of a fan of that idea, especially since I think forcing the Red Mage to be in melee range if it wants to do a lot of casting is a good way to reinforce its mixed-role design.)

All of this would turn the Red Mage into a unit that perfectly straddles the line between caster and melee, encouraging the player to switch between both no matter what the Red Mage's current role in the team is. If you're using them as a melee attacker, you'll still want to toss out some Blizzaras before you can close the gap, and regularly top up its Protect/Regen. If you're using them as a supportive caster, you'll still want to dart in and top up your MP with a Manastrike (name pending trademark) since you don't have the MP pool that the focused caster jobs do.

Also, honestly, just the fact that the Red Mage gets Raise is enough to give it a skillset that's a thousand times more generally useful than half the jobs in the vanilla game.

Quote from: Nyzer on January 21, 2020, 10:07:58 pm
Um... no, you *don't* share learned skills across jobs in FFT. If you have a Freelancer with Cure, a Red Mage with Cure and Cura, and a White Mage with Cure-Curaga, learning Cure on the Freelancer will not learn it on the other two jobs.

That's actually good to know. I thought I had experimented before and had that issue, but could easily have been mistaken.  I'll update when I can get to a computer.

As for the rest of it, they definitely aren't made for late game. You either play them for Dual Cast or it's FFXI. Raise was a Red Wizard spell, which you can also argue that the White Wizard gets Holy and the Black Wizard gets Flare. My opinion is hardcore against the armor, though.  They, traditionally, aren't meant to wear it.

Of course it's all really RDM flavor and personal preference. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, and I hope this back and forth helps people make the Red Mage they always dreamed of, lol.

I should also add, and maybe I'll clarify up top, this is not what they can be, but rather what they have been in the series. A lot of your ideas are more geared toward a more FFXI approach of self-sustainability, and I like that. I was happy with the Sorceror/Red Mage they made. I'm not sure that's for me, though. The one thing I noticed you didn't argue with, however, is the Oracle. Can we take a second to reflect on that?

QuoteYou either play them for Dual Cast or it's FFXI.

If there was a Dual Cast support skill in FFT, I would be far more amenable to the idea of generally leaving the Red Mage an all around weak unit, since Dual Cast is all kinds of powerful. Players would be able to Raise two units per turn, for example, or back-to-back Protect and Shell. Even just dual Cura is a great way to come close to matching what a White Mage can do without doing exactly the same thing.
Without it, there has to be another way to keep the Red Mage useful in the late game. Hence the idea of having it serve the dual purpose of being a comparatively strong melee unit with a few unique disadvantages that it's meant to mitigate by actively using its skills, or a comparatively strong caster unit with a few unique disadvantages that it's meant to mitigate by applying swords to heads once in a while.

You do have to take a grain of salt when looking at the way early FF games balanced jobs, because... well, they were hardly balanced. FFIII in particular - a lot of jobs are very specifically meant to be tossed aside at a certain point. At the same time you can't just look at FFXI/XIV in which the jobs (theoretically) have to be perfectly balanced in order to all be viable in raids, as this tends to either cause homogenization to a degree or just straight up fail.

QuoteRaise was a Red Wizard spell

Case in point. There wouldn't be a Red Wizard analogue in any FFT mod unless one was just scrapping all the melee classes entirely. Raise is a Red Mage skill in FFV, and given FFV's much better job balance and creativity overall than FFIII, I would definitely look to FFV first and foremost.

QuoteMy opinion is hardcore against the armor, though.  They, traditionally, aren't meant to wear it.

I also said they shouldn't wear armor. That this no-armor design is what justifies a slightly higher Speed.

All great points. Sorry, phones don't do any favors for these forum posts. I'll keep this one short and just say "Yes." They started out crappy, then got several much needed reworks. 

Updated!  Thanks for catching my error!

To be honest, though, I don't know what you expected from a conversation with a guy named "old school".  Clearly, the earliest, blandest, most pixelated versions of the Red Mage were the best crappy job.  (jk, sarcasm, it doesn't translate well in text).

I actually really like your thoughts on the "mana battery" approach.  It does sound like a cool mix of melee and magic.

Yeah, the Oracle is really weak in FFT. To be fair, this isn't specifically about their skills, though there are a fair few problems there, but more about the fact that most status effects aren't useful in FFT because the damage scaling is too high.

As for their skills? Well, they're far too laser-focused on the one thing they do. Even after fixing status effectiveness the Oracle still doesn't have much of a useful niche; it's kind of like the vanilla Knight. Except the Black Mage with poison/toad/death does most of the same job anyway...

Kicking some of their status effects to a physical job would free up space to get experimental with their niche and expand a bit on what they do. Removing beneficial effects in order to heal a unit, removing negative effects from allies at the cost of HP, MP restoration (if not using the Red Mage for it), etc. They can be status-focused without being so one-note.

A question and a thought come to mind.

Question: Has anyone ever come close to coding an actual Dual Cast ability?

Thought: I'm wondering if it would viable to ASM a special skill set that allows you to buy skills from two other specific sets? Basically, the skill set is empty normally but buying a skill from one of the source skill sets writes it to the appropriate SRAM location for that specific character. It would no doubt be complicated.

Second time someone has asked about dualcast today. It's never been done so far.

Oh man, I totally forgot to add a nod to the "Enhancer". Also this:

Quote from: Nyzer on January 22, 2020, 10:14:42 amRemoving beneficial effects in order to heal a unit, removing negative effects from allies at the cost of HP, MP restoration (if not using the Red Mage for it), etc. They can be status-focused without being so one-note.

That's pretty awesome, Nyzer. I like that idea!

First and foremost, I'm necroing this post because it's mine.  Nyzer has changed the game, literally and figuratively.

I have been thoroughly enjoying Nyzer's mod, FFT ReMix v1.2.  It is extraordinarily well done, offering significant QoL improvements without sacrificing the Vanilla feel we all love.  The additional events, skills, and character dialogs share the PSX and canonical Final Fantasy stylistic elements.  Most importantly, the recent additions have paved the way for a Red Mage that stays true to the Jack-of-all-trades trope, with one difference that isn't even a deviation from FF canon: he's a master of debuffs.

What I just can't seem to figure out, however, is after all that work, even adding a Doublecast, is where the Red Mage be at?!  It's still in spot 55, improperly named the Oracle, which sucks and is about to get a much needed remake.

I'll list out the changes, loosely by tab in FFTPatcher, followed by the logic behind those changes.

Jobs

Stat	Value	Rank	Supporting Details
HPg	11	7
HPm	95	8
MPg	10	7
MPm	110	5
SPg	100	3	1: Ninja, 2: Thief, 3: all other classes
SPm	105	5
PAg	50	10
PAm	100	11
MAg	50
MAm	100
Move	3
Jump	3
C-Ev%	10

Red Mage stats for levels 1, 50, and 99:

Level	HP	MP	SP	PA	MA
1	29.44	15.94	6.29	5.00	4.00
50	149.70	86.99	9.35	9.80	7.84
99	269.95	158.04	12.41	14.60	11.68

White Mage for comparison:

Level	HP	MP	SP	PA	MA
1	24.79	17.39	6.59	4.50	4.39
50	135.27	94.90	9.80	8.82	8.62
99	245.74	172.41	13.00	13.14	12.85

Equipment
https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Red_Mage_(Final_Fantasy_V)
Knife
Sword
Rod
Staff
Pole
Shield
Hat
Armor
Clothing
Robe

Innate: Doublecast, it needs to be done...

The Logic
By making the Red Mage have extraordinarily average stat growth and multipliers but a large equipment pool, he can fill any role with a slight change.  For a larger MP pool, robes and/or MP replenishment skills such as MP Rage.  For front line melee, armor and perhaps a pole, but at least the iconic Enhancer (below).

By end game, I releveled my mage using the Mime and ended up with the following:

435 HP / 153 MP
93 Br  / 84 Fa
9 PA
24 MA

Enhancer (renamed Rune Blade +2MA)
Aegis Shield (+1MA)
Ribbon
Robe of Lords (+2PA/+1MA)
Chantage (Genji Gauntlet is a great choiceat +2/2, but I like to not die)

Red Magic (previously Yin Yang)
(Thinking Time Magic, undecided though)
MP Rage
Magic AttackUP
Move +3 (could go with Move-MP UP though)

My Skillsets are:
Attack
Red Magic
(Time Magic?)
White Magic (x2 subset)
Black Magic (x2 subset)

I can instant cast a 400-500 damage 2-tier spell without equipping an elemental weapon.  That's no Orlandu, Dark Knight, or Dual Wield Ramza, but I can also instant cast 200-250 HP Cures and smack dudes around for 120-240 damage.  This is all before the battle altering array of debuffs.  It's worth mentioning that I built my Red Mage as a mage, and she doesn't disappoint when it comes to being disappointly average, which is precisely the goal.

Skillset
Subtle changes, added Matra Magic for the sword users, made it x2 for now, can target self.  This allows the Red Mage to swap MP and recharge, making better use of an already odd character.  Swap and heal to recover most of your health, but it's MP heavy and leaves you vulnerable.  I moved the Support abilities to the Calculator and moved Doublecast to the Red Mage.  It has been, and will continue to be, the only thing this utility class provides (along with fun).  I also made it 999 JP, which is odd for Tactics, but a throwback to FFV's 999 ABP cost to master the Red Mage.  I'm a nostalgic guy.

Items
Logic first on this one.  I found that increasing the melee efficacy of mages by adding spells to staves and rods is not game breaking, but makes for a wider range of play styles and increases heat (by 19%) from some random battles.  I was farming JP and got mildly rekt by 2 time mages that outgeared me in Ch1 because they had Gold Staves (Magic: Petrify, nod to Midas) and I had no softs.  It forced me to bail early, and that's enough to be fun.

ID	Item	Update (blank if no change)	Description (if changed)
09	Air Knife	Strengthen: Wind
1D	Ice Brand	Strengthen: Ice
1E	Enhancer		Sabre that increases magical power. (FFV desc)
33	Rod
34	Thunder Rod
35	Ice Rod
36	Fire Rod
37	Poison Rod
38	Wizard Rod	Magic: Spell Absorb
39	Dragon Rod	Magic: Flare
3A	Faith Rod
3B	Oak Staff
3C	White Staff
3D	Healing Staff
3E	Rainbow Staff	Magic: Demi
3F	Wizard Staff	Magic: Spell Absorb
40	Gold Staff	Magic: Petrify	Glittering golden staff. Capable of turning things to solid gold with but a touch.
41	Mace of Zeus	Lightning elemental Strengthen:Lightning Magic:Bolt 3
42	Sage Staff	Magic: Ultima
72	Whale Whisker	Strengthen: Water

The Red Mage can enhance the following (excluding accessories):
Fire Lightning Ice Wind Earth Water Holy Dark

I'll add more later, especially my thoughts and justifications, but this is the bulk of it.  I know Nyzer will disagree, which is half of why I'm posting it.  For example, we were both against armor at the beginning.  Buuuuut the FF Red Mage's first gear was the Chain Mail, and the thought of a Reflect Mail on a spell caster is interesting.

Excellent work!  You made the disappointingly mediocre possible!  (and I mean that in a very good way!)

Oh, man, this old topic. I do vaguely remember this!

Quote from: old school on September 24, 2024, 09:46:50 pmI know Nyzer will disagree, which is half of why I'm posting it.  For example, we were both against armor at the beginning.

Nah, actually. A lot of my arguments were based on the fact that the Red Mage, lacking Doublecast or the ability to use the appropriate learned skills from other jobs, needed to make up for the disadvantages that it has as a result: that lack of viability, that lack of any worthwhile niche, and the slog of relearning skills that were probably available in other jobs. Trying to go with the more FF1/FF3 niche of being the jack of all trades but master of none would just make it a magical discount Monk. It would be rendered completely obsolete as a melee attacker by the Oracle  and completely obsolete as a mixed caster by a Summoner - never even mind how much worse it would get when either of those jobs started picking up good secondary skillsets and RSM. Equip Gun Summmoner or Defense Boost Oracle with White Magic or Iaido is everything the vanilla-restrained Red Mage would wish it could be.

The idea of a Red Mage being a weaker version of multiple other jobs at once and having absolutely nothing else just doesn't translate into a system with a much more customizable loadout like this one. It only works in FFI and III because there's no other way to get a unit that can do weapon attacks and magic.

The FFV system is a bit closer, but the differences it has are why the Red Mage works there but would be awful here. Even ignoring Doublecast, a unit that's actually in the Red Mage job gets access to the full list of Red Magic regardless of what their level is, making it better to be one. In FFT, once you finished learning the Red Magic you wanted, you'd likely abandon the job in favor of something else. Forever. In other words, you wouldn't be able to actually use the Red Magic you wanted right away, and as soon as you finally could, you'd never be a Red Mage again. There's also the fact that you only get a single slot for equipping support abilities or skillsets; this means you can't, say, load up a Geomancer with White Magic, Attack Up, Blade Grasp, and Move-MP Up. The role compression of Red Magic is therefore given much more value. The FFT Monk also just completely bullies the role a vanilla Red Mage would have: its skillset is a bit less versatile, but it's instant and free and attached to a top tier job. The only other job in FFV that really has a similar niche to the Red Mage is the Blue Mage, but given how dependent it is on learning Blue Magic... yeah, neither of them invalidates the other.

That's why, when it came to the idea of a Red Magic in FFT without the Doublecast hack, I was leaning so hard into MP management while insisting that it needed to have good PA and MA: unique niche, quite comparable damage/support output, nice and speedy, all at the cost of being fairly frail and needing to top up the MP tank quite often compared to other jobs.

Innate Doublecast with its attached mid-level White and Black Magic solves all of the main issues that previously had to be countered in other ways. It gives the Red Mage a ton of unique versatility that cannot be so easily replicated on just any other old job any longer. Access to four skillsets at once and a watered down Non-Charge plus a second spell if you so desire? Now instead of just being a shitty knockoff of a Monk, or only worthwhile early on until you start fleshing out properly synergistic primary/secondary skillsets and RSM, it's a magical variant on the Monk design that trades output for versatility at a pretty worthwhile ratio.

Quote from: Nyzer on September 25, 2024, 02:10:19 amInnate Doublecast with its attached mid-level White and Black Magic solves all of the main issues that previously had to be countered in other ways. It gives the Red Mage a ton of unique versatility that cannot be so easily replicated on just any other old job any longer.

Thanks for the response.  I'm a huge fan of your work and love dissecting your responses.

I've been messing around, and giving him 00CC-Bio (Oil) at 150 JP gives him a single attack spell and access to the Oil status.  I also added Reverse Undead, Darkness element, and made it more akin to a normal spell (hit caster, enemies, allies, 2x, Math, Mimic).  This is less efficient (MP), less potent (dmg), and 3x more costly (JP) than a tier-1 BLM spell.  BUT, the Red Mage (or better yet, a Dualcaster willing to sacrifice MAtkUP) is the only one that can cast Bio and follow up with Fire 2 for roughly 650 dmg.  Are the Geomancer slots available, or reserved for the ASM hacking on Geomancer?  Some other missing staples might be Temper (+Brv/PA) and Aero.  It would be awesome to see a mix in of sword spells, similar to Matra Magic, while avoiding a cheap clone of Beowulf.

Bio + Fire = Something like Ardor
Matra Magic + Cure = Replenishment (possibly full given optimal HP/MP values)

Bio is not intended to be permanent, as it's a Lucavi spell and I haven't tested the implications of these changes.  Just having some fun with options.  Someone else with far more knowledge would have to make sure I didn't break Queklainn.

I feel like there are other possible combinations, but would require some other spells to be moved to the underutilized skillsets, like Pray Faith to White (kinda tracks) and Paralyze to Time (Don't Move already there).  I haven't bothered to enumerate all the possibilities, but added Bio via the patcher last night and wanted to share.  Red Mage can't strengthen Darkness through anything but 108 Gems.

As I was putting the final edits on this post, I started salivating at the thought of a Black Mage with Red Magic and Doublecast that can blast out a Bio + Fire4 or Summoner that can do Bio + Ifrit.  It may not be the most practical, but I'll bet that would be fun.

Undead Red Mage fun, replaced the old stupid Reflect Mail.  Did anyone use that?

Armor fit for a corpse!
HP＋140  Always:Undead
Cancel:Blood Suck - Poison
Absorb:Dark   Half:Ice
Weakness:Fire Holy
Armor: Sq Ch Kn Ar Mk Pr Wi TM Su Th
        Me RM Ge Ln Sm Nj Cl Bd Dc DK