Beginners Guide to Red Mage

And here it is at level 90 with some upgraded skill icons:

Because I'm very visual, it's set up to keep related abilities close together so that I can quickly input combos.

If you take a look at your spells, you'll notice Veraero and Verthunder (the green and blue buttons) do high damage but take almost 5 seconds to cast. A really long time. They also only increase either white or black mana, though by a significant amount:


Jolt, the red one in the middle, only takes a remarkably short 2 seconds to cast and gives both black and white mana, but does much less damage and doesn't increase either color very much:







The goal is to start with a short-cast spell, and then follow up with a long-cast one, which will hit immediately instead of taking those agonizing 5 seconds.

So, if you are fighting a single target, that's Jolt, followed by Veraero or Verthunder. (Or, if like me your eyes want to glaze over with the fancy names for everything. Red, followed by Green or Blue.)

And how do you keep your black and white mana balanced? Easy. Each time you do your combo, switch up veraero and verthunder.

You basic magic combo is literally just Red, Green, Red, Blue, Red, Green, Red, Blue. If you set up your hotbar with these in convenient places, you can just get your fingers into a rhythm and eventually won't even have to think about it at all.


If you end up off balance with too much of one color, just repeat the other color a few times in between Jolts until it's back close together.

The AoE Rotation, Though?

Since you know why the cast times vary so much between spells, you can probably already guess how this works! They're inverted! That's all! If you're fighting 3+ enemies at once, you should switch to your AoE set which damages all enemies around your target. Your basic magic combo is still just Red, Green, Red, Blue, Red, Green, Red, Blue. But you start with Green or Blue first!





And this is your mana bar as you build up black and white mana through casting spells:


The white side, predictably, is white mana. The blue side is black mana. The gem on the top will light up in red when you have enough of both collected to perform a melee combo (which is 50 white and 50 black). It maxes out at 100 of each.

While your sword skills on your hotbar will color change from purple to red earlier than this, do not succumb to the allure. Wait until you get your magic red button. Every "Enchanted" sword strike you hit with will deplete your mana, so you need to make sure you have enough to do a full combo of all three attacks.


An Enchanted combo does MUCH more damage and it is absolutely worth waiting until you can combo them. Start with Riposte, the one that costs 20, and the others will light up in order afterwards to show you the correct steps.

Once you're too low on mana to run a full sword combo, go back to casting spells until your red gem lights up again!

AoE Melee Rotation

It's not even a rotation, it's one attack - Moulinet. However, it should be noted that at later levels, when Mana Stacks are added, you'll need 60 black and white mana to get a full three mana stacks by using your AoE sword skill, instead of the 50 needed for single target sword skills.

Imbalanced Meters

If you cast too much of one color without the other, your gem will change to reflect the imbalance. You get a penalty to gaining mana if the bars are off balance by around 30 points or more, so make sure to give the other color some attention until your gem turns red or clear again.

Mana Stacks

At higher levels, you'll get Mana Stacks, three diamonds underneath your bar that light up when you use an Enchanted sword skill. These basically add a third pattern after you use your spells to build mana, and your sword to spend it.

By completing an Enchanted sword combo (the three red ones that cost 50 mana to complete) or casting 3 of the Enchanted AoE Moulinet in succession (which costs 60 mana), all your Blue and Green spells will transform into Verflare and Verholy respectively:


You get to cast ONE of them. If you attempt to cast any other spells and certain other abilities, you will lose these. Make sure to cast them when they appear. They do not, however, run on a short timer, so if the dungeon boss is at 0.1% hp you can hold your actions and just use these on your next ad pack.

If your black and white mana are not perfectly balanced when you get these spells, that's a good thing. Try to pick the spell that matches your lower color. If you have less black mana, cast Verflare. If you have less white mana, cast Verholy. This will guarantee that Verfire or Verstone, mentioned above, become available to you:


If you pick the "wrong" one, don't worry! You still have a chance at getting your stone/fire spell. And if not, you can use Acceleration to quickly cast for whichever color you need to rebalance your mana.

A little down the line, you'll get a third bonus spell. Scorch replaces your Red spells and appears after casting Verflare or Verholy. That's a lotta damage!


And at higher levels, you'll get another red spell to follow on the heels of Scorch, called Resolution. To really help you finish off nuking everything in front of you.

Saving the Party from a Wipe

At level 64 you get Verraise. And since you know all about dualcast now, you know that 10 second cast timer doesn't mean anything to you, a Red Mage.

While you should generally let your healer(s) handle raising so that they don't waste their swiftcast trying to get someone that you might reach first, if you notice multiple people go down close together, or the healer is low on spells/having to work really hard to keep the party alive, or the healer is dead... you can resurrect someone every 2 seconds. Do not be afraid to help save the party from a wipe. It feels very powerful.

Your healing spell, Vercure, also has a 2 second cast time and grants Dualcast, so you can give party members a little hp boost in between shoveling them off the floor.