Following the gear guide on the nasWiki, it's told me to buy a willow wand because it's required for party play.

I don't know how to make macros to swap into the wand when needed, or if I should even be worrying about that right now? Just equip sword for solo & want in party? Thanks in advance for answers.

If it states its for party play it probably has stats for enfeebles/enhancments etc. Like INT and MND. If your in a party i suggest you just main the club and don't worry about your sword. RDM swordplay is more of a solo thing for when your farming etc. But to change them in and out it would be macro one first line /equip main "club name" and for the sword on another macro /equip main "sword name"

Also bare in mind to change your main means to reset the TP counter - so if you plan to melee, that's a big hindrance to your damage output, not that you'll be doing that much anyway. There's no one sure fire way to play RDM in parties. I myself treat it like a mage because I like having the MP for enfeebles, heals and the occasional nuke, especially if I'm getting a lot of resists (on enfeebles) I can burn through my MP pool pretty fast just trying to get the enfeebles to stick. Because of that reason also, the extra INT from the wand is going to be a must.

These are just my observations and preferences though. You do you ultimately and find what works best.

use a sword in parties up until about 40 and keep your enfeebling capped. you dont need mage gear until later levels.

Please don’t do this.

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Upto about level 35 or so, rdm nukes are fairly decent, you can do as much or more dot nuking instead of melee. You will also be out of aoe range and feeding less tp, adding to the parties efficiency by not causing unneeded damage to your party.

Int and mnd should be your priorities, int for nuking and black magic enfeebling, mnd for healing and white magic enfeebling.

Go to macro menu and make equipsets for these stat stacks and then simply place them into ur macros /equipset 1 etc..

it's so sad that the mindset of FFXI players hasn't changed over 15 years. RDM/NIN will actually out dps any other "dps" before 40 very easily with juices and melee food. The only DPS that may keep up is a war with capped marksman weaving RAs

IE: Don't listen to people who say "please don't do this" because their mindset is stuck in 2003.

Please don't do this, either.

Oh.. and also: While you're not doing this, please, find better DPS than whatever Dancer had to form this opinion.

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To OP, it's mostly about what your current activity is.

In a 6-players party like in the Dunes, Red Mage will most often be expected to enfeeble the enemies (INT makes your enfeebles stick) and then help the healer keep the tank alive (MND makes your Cure-family spells better). Meanwhile, using your sword on an Incredibly Tough+ lizard will scratch it for single-digit damage and it will increase its TP, making your tank receive a Tail Slap sooner. It also puts you into Fireball range, another TP move from lizards that hurts everyone in AoE around the tank.

In other groups that aren't for making XP on IT+ enemies but for questing, missions, small-party leveling, etc, it's possible you'll have a good fencing sword, an appropriate En-spell (Enthunder, Enfire, etc) and an opponent that takes more than single-digit damage from that. You could be with only 2-3 friends, and the sword TP moves would give you good skill chain opportunities with them. In soloing, the sword is also preferable because you want to kill the thing before tomorrow.

So, in Final Fantasy XI it's expected you have tons of situational gear sitting in your Mog House, clubs, staves, swords for RDM, and you bring along what you need for the current situation. Macros are worth the time to figure out, even just for casting targeted spells, because they make you act faster as if you had a 1-2-3-4 bar like in modern MMOs (look up <stpc>, <stnpc>). However switching your weapon, shield or ranged weapon mid-battle sets your TP to zero. I would just bring a wand to 6-player parties and bring a sword for other activities. Have fun!

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Baleful Badger

Now imagine if a real melee with real weapons (not 1h swords) and real job traits could do if they also used melee food.

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