Red Mage Guide by Feauce/Job Traits

Main Job Traits
Now let's get into the basic stuff, starting with our Job Traits. Job Traits are passive abilities that are always active. As Red Mages, we get our fair share of these, including one unique and incredibly useful trait.

Resist Petrify

 * We get this ability starting at RDM10, and it continues to improve as we increase in level. Improvements hit at RDM30, RDM50, and RDM70.  Like all Resist traits, its effectiveness is debatable.  Any time you see "Resist!" at the beginning of your resist line, that's this trait activating.

Magic Attack Bonus

 * Fairly straight-forward trait. Starting at RDM20 this trait increases our damage output from elemental spells and elemental-type weapon skills by 20%, and this bonus increases to 24% at RDM40.  The damage increase, being a percentage, starts out small, but eventually can become significant, especially if increased with equipment such as the Moldavite Earring.

Magic Defense Bonus

 * Starting at RDM25, and improved at RDM45, this trait reduces the magic damage we take. First by 10%, and next by 12%.  Doesn't sound like much, but if your opponent has MAB I, this drops their 20% bonus down to a mere 9%.  (See Calculating Magic Damage.)  This along with our native MAB trait reinforces the versatility we have.

Clear Mind

 * This trait is extremely straight-forward. Starting at RDM31, and again at RDM53 and RDM75, we get a cumulative bonus of +3 hMP.  So, for the first tick of healing below 30, we get 12 MP.  By RDM75 (excluding gear), our base MP recovery at the first tick of healing is now 21 MP.

Fast Cast

 * Entirely out of order, since we get the first instance of this at RDM15, but I wanted to get the more standard traits out of the way first. Other jobs will at times use a RDM subjob strictly for this trait, since we are the only ones that get it.  Starting at RDM15 we get a bonus to our casting and recast time.  The amount of this bonus starts at 5% recast time reduction and 10% casting time reduction, and increases by 2.5% and 5% respectively at RDM35 and RDM55.  This is a very important trait because it is the only way to reduce the actual casting time of spells.  All other effects such as Haste affect recast time only.


 * The only gear Red Mages can wear to improve this trait are the Warlock's Chapeau and Duelist's Tabard, giving us the equivalent of Fast Cast VII, with a total of a 20% recast time reduction and a 40% casting time reduction. The only other gear we can wear that improves Fast Cast is the Loquacious Earring, which only improves this trait by 1% recast and 2% casting time, but also gives 20 MP...  In my opinion, there are much better earrings for us to use, but if you're interested, it can be purchased with Ancient Beastcoins.

Support Job Traits
Now lets get into some useful traits that you'll see from your subjobs, and what level you will get them as a Red Mage. I'm not only including mage-friendly traits, but also some melee-friendly traits, as we can and do use our swords, depending on situation and level. Levels listed will be for Red Mage main, and thus will be double the level at which the subjob(s) get access to these traits.

Resist Silence (Lv 10 or Lv 20)

 * For the sake of space, as well as my sanity, I will exclude all Resist traits except this one. Currently the only jobs that offer this trait are Bard and Scholar.  Adds a debatable resistance to becoming silenced in the first place, but also decreases the amount of time you remain silenced.  How dramatic this differs from normal duration isn't easy to determine, and I can't say how well this trait performs in this regard.