Red Mage Cannot Equip Serpent Sword

[Yizz]

The Serpent Sword cannot be equipped by Red Mage in my game, despite the official Wiki and other build guides I've found suggesting the Red Mage can indeed equip it. What's the deal with that?

[Skoops]

I believe the Red Mage can only equip the Serpent Sword in the DS/3D remake of FFIII, not in the original Famicom or Pixel Remaster versions. The DS/3D remake made a number of changes to job mechanics and equipment options.

[Yizz]

Originally posted by Skoops:

I believe the Red Mage can only equip the Serpent Sword in the DS/3D remake of FFIII, not in the original Famicom or Pixel Remaster versions. The DS/3D remake made a number of changes to job mechanics and equipment options.

Thanks friend, and it was my fault for not noticing the text on the wiki which stated the equipment in italics was removed from Red Mage in the Pixel Remaster.

[Shneekey]

Yea, Red Mage really struggles to find a place in the Pixel Remaster, outside of the initial two boss fights. Obviously, equipping it with Wightbane helps with the first dungeon clear, and it is a spellcaster so it can handle the rat boss you have to be Mini'd to fight. But after that? RM is really just not viable.

Maybe swap out for Martial Artist after the rat boss? Should do pretty well until you get to the next crystal. Fighter is legitimately strong as well, since dual wielding is a general thing not locked to a specific class.

[Yizz]

Originally posted by Shneekey:

Yea, Red Mage really struggles to find a place in the Pixel Remaster, outside of the initial two boss fights. Obviously, equipping it with Wightbane helps with the first dungeon clear, and it is a spellcaster so it can handle the rat boss you have to be Mini'd to fight. But after that? RM is really just not viable.

Maybe swap out for Martial Artist after the rat boss? Should do pretty well until you get to the next crystal. Fighter is legitimately strong as well, since dual wielding is a general thing not locked to a specific class.

Yeah it's sad, now that I've beaten 3 the Red Mage really falls off a cliff in effectiveness later in the game. Oh well, at least most of the other classes are fun and effective.

[FreshMint]

Originally posted by Yizz:

Yeah it's sad, now that I've beaten 3 the Red Mage really falls off a cliff in effectiveness later in the game. Oh well, at least most of the other classes are fun and effective.

Honestly that's a thing the NES (and PR version as extension) has in general, where most jobs eventually fall off because better jobs start showing up and/or because they stop gaining new equipment.

[Shneekey]

Originally posted by FreshMint:

Originally posted by Yizz:

Yeah it's sad, now that I've beaten 3 the Red Mage really falls off a cliff in effectiveness later in the game. Oh well, at least most of the other classes are fun and effective.

Honestly that's a thing the NES (and PR version as extension) has in general, where most jobs eventually fall off because better jobs start showing up and/or because they stop gaining new equipment.

Most classes that fall off do so because you get an improved version of the same job. For example, Fighter and Knight.

Then there are the 'gimmick' classes that just... have exactly one use in the entire game and are never useful outside of that. For example, the Scholar is only useful (and arguably not really) for a single boss who has elemental affinity roulette he changes every few turns. Geomancers are only useful for that one dungeon. Dragoons, despite their potential, are treated more like a gimmick for Garuda. These are classes that are intended to be used once and discarded thereafter.

Then there are those classes where, well, an attempt was made. For example, Bard. Poor class has really gone through hell in the Final Fantasy series. And the sad thing is, the Pixel Remaster version is much stronger than the original version, with multiple song options available. Unfortunately, while it is solid at clearing areas, it simply cannot function in a boss battle. It can heal the party, but not enough to keep up with boss damage. It can buff the party, but not enough to really be worth having a dedicated slot for the role.

The Red Mage, I feel, really fell into the 'an attempt was made' category. In the original Final Fantasy, a Red Mage could be a viable replacement for a White Mage in a party, with the ability to do enough healing while also being able to hand out Haste buffs. But without the Haste spell, or a Temper spell, the Red Mage really isn't that good. Outside of the Rat boss in the Mini dungeon, a Martial Artist is always going to out-perform for damage output. And there, I'd rather have a second Black Mage than a Red Mage, because of the higher magic stat to do more damage with spells. Thanks to how damage is calculated in Pixel Remaster, items do damage based on the user's Magic stat as well, so the damage items you've been picking up in the game do very little damage in the hands of anyone other than a Black Mage.

So... yea. Red Mage just kinda got nerfed. No support, damage is relatively low compared to other classes. This is probably the weakest incarnation of Red Mage in the entire franchise.

[Yizz]

Originally posted by Shneekey:

Originally posted by FreshMint:

Honestly that's a thing the NES (and PR version as extension) has in general, where most jobs eventually fall off because better jobs start showing up and/or because they stop gaining new equipment.

Most classes that fall off do so because you get an improved version of the same job. For example, Fighter and Knight.

Then there are the 'gimmick' classes that just... have exactly one use in the entire game and are never useful outside of that. For example, the Scholar is only useful (and arguably not really) for a single boss who has elemental affinity roulette he changes every few turns. Geomancers are only useful for that one dungeon. Dragoons, despite their potential, are treated more like a gimmick for Garuda. These are classes that are intended to be used once and discarded thereafter.

Then there are those classes where, well, an attempt was made. For example, Bard. Poor class has really gone through hell in the Final Fantasy series. And the sad thing is, the Pixel Remaster version is much stronger than the original version, with multiple song options available. Unfortunately, while it is solid at clearing areas, it simply cannot function in a boss battle. It can heal the party, but not enough to keep up with boss damage. It can buff the party, but not enough to really be worth having a dedicated slot for the role.

The Red Mage, I feel, really fell into the 'an attempt was made' category. In the original Final Fantasy, a Red Mage could be a viable replacement for a White Mage in a party, with the ability to do enough healing while also being able to hand out Haste buffs. But without the Haste spell, or a Temper spell, the Red Mage really isn't that good. Outside of the Rat boss in the Mini dungeon, a Martial Artist is always going to out-perform for damage output. And there, I'd rather have a second Black Mage than a Red Mage, because of the higher magic stat to do more damage with spells. Thanks to how damage is calculated in Pixel Remaster, items do damage based on the user's Magic stat as well, so the damage items you've been picking up in the game do very little damage in the hands of anyone other than a Black Mage.

So... yea. Red Mage just kinda got nerfed. No support, damage is relatively low compared to other classes. This is probably the weakest incarnation of Red Mage in the entire franchise.

Good comment, I agree.

[FreshMint]

Originally posted by Shneekey:

...

I feel like the main reason Red Mage was still good in FF1 is that you're stuck with the jobs you picked from the start so versatility was more rewarding.
Games with more free job systems like this are more vulnerable to the rule of 'versatility bad, focus on attack OR magic only'.
The only thing holding them back from being truly worthless like Evoker is the Wightslayer (as they are the only one who can equip them, freelancer/3D onion knight aside), which I'd argue is a decent enough sword to have them worth keeping around for a bit.

Sadly that's the Red Mage version that plagued the job forever outside of the addition of stuff like dualcast (which just turned them into 'grind for the ability).
Bravely Default 2 made a fair effort to try something else with them though and I'd say that worked well (unlike the first two games where it was the usual low level mage but with BP generation).

I'd argue that Bard's buffs can be surprisingly decent in this game (but indeed wouldn't replace the dedicated healer) and is actually really useful in plenty places in FF5.

But Dragoon? In this game it mainly exists to kill the obvious boss and, t least in 3D, can instantly kill Bahamut in a single Jump, but otherwise Jump feels like a waste of time.
Especially because in 3D (And maybe PR?) you need to be level 50 just to make sure you didn't waste a turn on vulnerable enemies. And even worse it removes a potential target that isn't your healer.
And the job had poor treatment from there onward as Jump remained questionable, ff5's devs severely overestimated it's other skill and only went above mediocre when Jump became a cheese strat (Bravely Default 1 was vulnerable to that) while remaining painfully mediocre at best otherwise.

At the very least though you could argue that the devs of this game tried to make almost all jobs have at least some section or boss where they excel at.
....except evoker, that one has some interesting effects but just remains too unreliable.

[Shneekey]

Originally posted by FreshMint:

Originally posted by Shneekey:

...

I feel like the main reason Red Mage was still good in FF1 is that you're stuck with the jobs you picked from the start so versatility was more rewarding.
Games with more free job systems like this are more vulnerable to the rule of 'versatility bad, focus on attack OR magic only'.

Part of this comes from the leveling mechanic. As you level, you gain stats based on the class that is currently being used. So if you have a Martial Artist class, expect to get hit points and strength. If you are a black mage, expect to get Int. If you are a white mage, expect to get Spirit.

This, more than anything else, is what will pigeonhole characters, because switching from a melee class to a caster class will mean having lousy casting stats, and so it will underperform compared to a character that has been a caster class from the beginning.

Which is really detrimental to the Red Mage, who is a jack of all trades but a master of none. And its stat progression shows that. You just end up being a weaker version of whatever you were planning on doing with that character.

The only thing holding them back from being truly worthless like Evoker is the Wightslayer (as they are the only one who can equip them, freelancer/3D onion knight aside), which I'd argue is a decent enough sword to have them worth keeping around for a bit.

The rat boss in the Mini dungeon is another point in favor of Red Mage, as you need magic to kill it, and actually a stronger argument. A martial artist can punch their way through the Djinn dungeon, but they can't punch their way through the mini dungeon when they are doing a hard-coded one damage per hit.

Sadly that's the Red Mage version that plagued the job forever outside of the addition of stuff like dualcast (which just turned them into 'grind for the ability).
Bravely Default 2 made a fair effort to try something else with them though and I'd say that worked well (unlike the first two games where it was the usual low level mage but with BP generation).

There's a game called Crystal Project which actually handles this balance really well. Basically the 'effectively a Red Mage' class gets Shell and Protect, as well as a spell that both heals (as much as a basic heal) and removes a debuff from the target. It doesn't have as powerful a heal nor any AoE heals (by itself, there's a class combo that can enable this, as it has a dual-class system not unlike FF V), but it can remove debuffs while also doing spot healing and can also buff defenses (which is actually really important in the game, with how damage is calculated). It also has dualcast, but it costs a bunch of mana, and restricts you to casting from the Red Mage spell list. It's still handy, but restricting it to the Red Mage's spells balances it out well.

I'd argue that Bard's buffs can be surprisingly decent in this game (but indeed wouldn't replace the dedicated healer) and is actually really useful in plenty places in FF5.

If you don't mind over-leveling, it can actually do really well in the mid game. The heal can hit up to, what, 19% of target's HP, as an AoE? That's not nothing. If you use boosts to over-level yourself, you can just burst enemies down. A turn one damage boost song can also help the damage bursting.

This falls apart once you get into serious bosses, though. When the boss is tossing out over a thousand damage AoE every turn, the Bard just won't be able to keep up.

But Dragoon? In this game it mainly exists to kill the obvious boss and, t least in 3D, can instantly kill Bahamut in a single Jump, but otherwise Jump feels like a waste of time.
Especially because in 3D (And maybe PR?) you need to be level 50 just to make sure you didn't waste a turn on vulnerable enemies. And even worse it removes a potential target that isn't your healer.
And the job had poor treatment from there onward as Jump remained questionable, ff5's devs severely overestimated it's other skill and only went above mediocre when Jump became a cheese strat (Bravely Default 1 was vulnerable to that) while remaining painfully mediocre at best otherwise.

At the very least though you could argue that the devs of this game tried to make almost all jobs have at least some section or boss where they excel at.
....except evoker, that one has some interesting effects but just remains too unreliable.

I even found a use for Viking. In the dungeon with the splitting enemies, you actively do not want to attack unless you are a Dark Knight with a katana. Those enemies do mostly physical attacks (a few relatively weak spells), but they can hit pretty hard. If they focus on a back-liner, they can burst a guy down. So, party comp is Viking, Dark Knight, Bard, Black Mage. And honestly, I could even see Geomancer being viable here, if it wasn't for the boss at the end. Enemies mostly hit the Viking, which takes pathetic damage, Bard heals every turn to cure the bruises (and anyone else who took a stray hit), and Dark Knight just Bladeblitz and wipes enemies out.

Geomancer, like Bard, got a huge buff, in that it can no longer accidentally hurt the party. Also like Bard, its abilities are not especially amazing for bosses. Great for normal enemy clearing, but poor boss fighters. Which unironically makes them an upgrade path from Black Mage for just normal traversal when you aren't worried about running into a boss.

The other problem with Dragoon is Knight exists, and is just better than Dragoon in every regard. Jump ability is relatively bad. Because of the multi-turn nature of Jump, it has fairly poor DPS, and removing a potential target to be hit instead of the healer or the squishy mage is a Bad Idea(tm). Also, Martial Artist exists, if you just want pure DPS. Also Ranger exists, who is actually a very viable DPS mid-game. With the elemental arrows, you can target enemy vulnerabilities and with Barrage, you can clear pretty reliably. It's also a solid boss killer with Barrage doing up to 2.4x damage to a single target. So you already have a plethora of options, it kind of just gets drowned out.

[FreshMint]

Originally posted by Shneekey:

If you don't mind over-leveling, it can actually do really well in the mid game. The heal can hit up to, what, 19% of target's HP, as an AoE? That's not nothing. If you use boosts to over-level yourself, you can just burst enemies down. A turn one damage boost song can also help the damage bursting.

This falls apart once you get into serious bosses, though. When the boss is tossing out over a thousand damage AoE every turn, the Bard just won't be able to keep up.

I think Elegy alone makes bard worth considering for tougher bosses, especially if it allows you to take a hit you otherwise might not have been able to.
Given that it lasts for two turns (iirc?), they can then either compensate their lack of damage with Minuet to boost the party's damage or support the healer (assuming they can't do the healing on their own/give your Sage a turn to cast magic).
They aren't huge buffs, but if your healer is struggling keeping people alive then Elegy may or may not change that... or at last I remember it helping me beat Garuda in the 3D remake.

Viking indeed is an awesome job for tanking, give it two shields and save for magic attacks they will probably not go down ever while drawing in most attacks.


Also yeah Crystal Project is one I've heard a couple times, might check it out in the future.