Just saying... Coming to a thread tiled "Noob RDM Question" that involves a dude asking why he should use INT on RDM.. And advising them that they can melee as well as normal DPS is how terrible players are made.

He's not going to have BiS melee gear you forgot to mention you'd need to be relevant as a melee RDM/NIN. He's not even going to literally have NIN unlocked for most of it.

stop giving bad advice to noobs to be contrarian. Also, even with the best gear possible, melee RDM/NIN is basically subpar when compared to other DPS given the same resources you had to equip your RDM. RDM fulfills a very important role in parties... Melee DPS isn't one of them, as a general rule.

My mindset isn't stuck in 2003. I'm just not trying to be different for attention, instead I was just trying to answer the dude's question.

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ITT: Bad advice.

If you want to leave a good impression on people, use INT/MND Clubs until 51, then swap them out for Elemental Staves or an Iridal/Chatoyant.

You don't need to be another subpar DPS feeding TP to the mob when you can be focused on keeping the mob tied down with Enfeebles prior to 48. Then you can start Hasting people on top of being either the main or backup healer.

If you're swinging a sword in a party of 6 people, something's wrong with the setup.

If you're dicking off with friends, that's an entirely different thing.

The guys above me have more experience, but as a 36 RDM I'll add my 2cents.

As you level up and get more options available to you, you'll want a MND gearset and a INT gearset and then swap them out using your macros as necessary for WHM or BLM spells. At 36 using gearsets, I can get +21 MND and +18INT, and that's not even with the best equip.

As you get more gil, you'll also want a resting gearset with the stuff that gives you +mp while resting.

I maintain a decent sword and armor in my moghouse for soloing or farming.

Oh, and one suggestion for a new RDM: Level both WHM and BLM subs and you should tend to go for /WHM in parties unless you know you'll be nuking. You get a lot of -nas that are useful with sub WHM.

Don't forget to swap to /BLM when traveling for Warp in case you forget your scroll/club/staff.

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Fun debate when the simple answer to the question is use your equipset menu in the same section as your macros. You can make up to 100 gear sets and equip them with /equipset 1, equipset 2, etc. on the line before your spell in the macro. A good state of mind in this game in general and particularly as a rdm is support support support. That being said, there are many different ways to play this game. I pl'd my melee rdm with my other rdm pretty much the whole way up and at 63+ went enhancing sword and kraken club and duo'd or trio'd with friends on aura pots in sky for 25k/hour.

Edit: Realized i mistook the sword, it was a gold sword and then the enhancing sword at 68. That thing is the tits foreal if you wanna try out dps rdm in those levels.

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In my opinion, the OP posting "Noob RDM Question" should do exactly this same path.

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Someone get the OP a KC!

You're not wrong for qufim and valkurm dunes, but other melee start to really beat them around 30 in bibiki bay on this server.

You have a B grade in sword skill, assuming equal gear you will miss more than other DD. You will not hit as hard as other DD. Even with capped enhancing magic and capped sword skill. And sword WS are butt, even with A rank sword skill. 75 rdm, 60 paladin. I promise you, they all suck. Even with sword merits. The exception so far has been savage blade with Thief subbed, that can be fun. That also falls into the 'screwing around with friends' category mentioned earlier. Without a K. Club or an Excalibur your sword skill and sword in general are good enough to farm stuff and get your /nin solo shenanigans on and that's about it.

Your strongest point in a party setting is healing. And enfeebling, but mostly the keeping everyone alive thing. Milk it for all it's worth to get your rdm to 75 fast where you can actually have fun with the job. It will be easier and more painless for you, and those around you, if you just embrace the healing and support aspects the job excels at rather than fighting it and trying to shoehorn the class into a melee DPS role. We have BLU for that, and it's better at it.

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Haha, I leave for a day and this has generated way more responses than I thought I'd get, so thank you everyone.

I guess I could've worded it more concisely, the basic question has certainly been answered after reading all the replies, plus I got a lot of extra advice from you guys so I can't complain at all. I'll just stick to clubs in parties and a sword for solo for now.