Elvaan: Red Mage Guide by Tifaia

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Please keep in mind that this is a Work in Progress. If you have any comments or suggestions for changes, please leave them on the Talk[] page.
=== Overview ===
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Red Mage is a job that requires time, patience, and lots of MP gear, if you're an Elvaan. This guide is to help give a general overview on how Elvaan Red Mage's work, and to impart the 3+ years of wisdom I have on the younger generation. Please note that this is just a personal opinion, not a hard and fast guide, but I hope that it proves to be useful to someone.
We'll focus on the starting stats for Elvaan's, what to expect past Valkurm Dunes, RDM Macro heaven, and how to best prepare for Maat. There will also be a rough look at weapons, armor, and sub jobs.
=== Starting Stats ===
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HP: 30               
MP: 16	
HP: 30               
MP: 16	
HP: 30               
MP: 16	
HP: 30               
MP: 16	
HP: 30               
MP: 16	
HP: 30               
MP: 16	
HP: 30               
MP: 16
STR	
DEX	
VIT	
AGI	
INT	
MND	
CHR
7	
6	
7	
5	
6	
8	
6
You'll notice that the strongest stat for Elvaan is Mind. This is your best friend. Use it wisely and do not underestimate it. MND will help you with your enhancing and enfeebling spells, if you are conscious of what you're doing. Most people don't use Elvaan for RDM because of our lack of MP and INT. It sucks and you'll always be fighting with yourself to get more MP. RDM's also have the distinction of having one of the most difficult Shattering Stars fight. Galka and Elvaan's get the short end of the stick in RDM mode. But if you can beat Maat on RDM as an Elf, you have reached a goal few have been able to accomplish. Focus your starting RDM gear on MP over MND and INT. These will comes into play after your trip to the dunes. 
Your job from 10-20 is backup melee with the occasional cures, unless you’re informed by the pt that you are the main healer. It’s counter-intuitive to how you will play RDM for the rest of the time, but it’s the dunes. You whack stuff with a sword until you can move on to Qufim with everyone else. Why? Because you will run out of MP within 4-5 Cures and won’t have much else to offer other then another sword arm. 
Start working on stocking up on MP+ gear. Level 10-20 is the time to prep yourself . Go for the Astral Ring, if you can afford it. Pick up an MP+ club or staff. Find the best pieces of MP+ gear that you can. It’ll make life a lot easier post 20.
=== Level 20 to 30 ~ ===
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20 is when you’ll start to focus more on being the backup WHM. Expect your belly to become large with all the pies you’ll be eating. I’d recommend Apple or Melon at the lower levels due to its efficiency, price, and INT boosts. You could get more MND, but remember that we have a high MND base so it comes naturally to an Elvaan to toss out a high powered cure. If you remember anything from this guide, it’ll be that you don’t need MND to be an Elvaan RDM.
But really, the focus on 20-30 is MP. Yes you should even skip buying yourself drinks and cookies, which give you a short boost of Refresh. Why? Because you won’t have enough MP to make good use of the cookies and drinks. It is better to focus your efforts, and gil, on getting as much MP on yourself as possible.
While we’re at it, past the dunes level you should no longer be meleeing. Even if you have all 6 members of your party as mages, you do not melee. The strength of a RDM is knowing when to fight and when to cast spells. Most of your journey to 75 will be as a spell caster.
By meleeing you are taking away your best asset, your MND. You’d also have to buy an excessive amount of gear to make up for our lack of DEX, ATK, VIT, etc. Because let’s face it, Elvaan accuracy blows. It’s counterproductive to what you can achieve as a RDM.
The key spells that you should have by the time you are 20 are Paralyze and Slow. You will be using these until 75, when you can merit the remaining spells. Gravity is at 21, so have the scroll ready. For the 20-30 levels, the focus will be on healing your party and tossing in an enfeebling spell when you can. It is recommended for Crabs and Mandragora that you use slow due to the Double Attack and Counter your party will experience. You’ll become more active in spell casting as you gain levels, and more MP.
By level 25, and with some help, you should invest your time (or Gil, if you have a lot) into the Magna Armor Set (Elvaan Female)/Magna Armor Set (Elvaan Male). This will be your life-saver until you hit 62. The hands and the feet will be your best pieces as they provide a healthy boost of MP and INT. You will not find any better until you can wear the Wood Gauntlets/Gloves and Ledelsens. I’d recommend getting the Magna Body and Legs as well, as they can make for good temporary pieces until you can afford better gear. 
=== Level 31 to 40 ~ ===
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Also known as "the long road to Refresh." Hopefully you have managed to pick up the Magna gear by this time. Now you can focus on conserving MP. 20-30 is building it up. 30-40 is learning how to conserve. During this level range you should be seeing more healing mages in your party, and not you, standing by yourself in the corner picking your nose. The 30-40 range is the best time to start learning about your enfeebles, their recast timers, and to start integrating a spell casting routine. 
The main spells you'll use the most often on RDM will be Paralyze, Slow, Gravity, and Dia (1, 2, and 3 respectably). Gravity has the longest casting time while Dia has the shortest.
Slow appears to be the favorite amongst my melee friends, as it allows better timing for casting Utsusemi:Ichi and Utsusemi:Ni. I am a fan of Paralyze and it's proficiency. Not many RDM's seem to favor it. But with the right gear and enfeebling magic, paralyze can hit well and proc often, causing a major boost in the kill to life ratio and less need for cures to be tossed around.
***more to come***
=== Level 41 to 50 ~ ===
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You are now, officially, one of the best assets to a party. Refresh. You'll grow to both love and hate it. It's the reason why you're in a party and you are expected to use it.
***more to come***
=== Level 51 to 60 ~ ===
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=== Level 61 to 70 ~ ===
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=== Shattering Stars ~ ===
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You'll find out very quickly that a lot of people have different opinions on the RDM Maat fight. You'll also find that a lot of the successful strategies work best for Taru's, Humes, and Mithras, which are counter-intuitive to Elvaan and Galkas. From experience, it took me 11 tries to "defeat" Maat. In 5 years of gameplay, I have never met a single Elvaan or Galkan RDM who has defeated Maat on the first attempt. I met one Galka who did it on their 5th, but this was after Level Sync was created, they had already leveled RDM to 75 (so had all the best gear possible)-meaning they had already defeated Maat on another job. So, I don't think that really counts. XD This is all just a nice way of saying, don't try to put your hopes into the first fight and expect to win. You will go through a lot of trial and error before you find a method that works best for you.
To note, this section is meant for those who are level 70 RDM's and do not have any other jobs leveled. I'm approaching this from the point of view that the person reading this has not yet achieved level 75 on any job and want's to break that barrier. Of course the information that I am providing will be useful to anyone who wants to fight Maat between the levels of 70-75. This is from the perspective of "I just reached level 70 on RDM. I'm on my first job. I need to fight Maat if I want to obtain level 75." I.E. no high end gear talk. Got it? Cool. 
For starters, here is the quest, what you need to enter the fight, and some suggested tactics:
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Shattering_Stars/Red_Mage
I'm a fan of the patience method for Galka and Elvaan:
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Shattering_Stars/Red_Mage#Patience_for_Elvaan_and_Galka
I used a variation of this plan when I won. At that time though, a lot of people were adamant about the Chainspell method and the patience tried and true wasn't common.
My fight was an unintentional win. I went in on a whim and didn't expect to win. I thought I was going to die from the moment I traded the testimony, but I wanted to give a new method a shot...and it worked better then I expected. I was conscious enough after my initial win to take pictures of my macro set and the fight text for you all to view. Be forewarned-in the battle text I do use some language, and some horrible leet speak (which I regret to this day). But in that moment, I was really, really, really happy that I defeated Maat:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v645/tifaia/Final%20FantasyXI/Red%20Mage%20Elvaan%20Maat/
The photos are in order for the battle dialogue. You can see every spell I was casting, their damage, what items I was using, and a general approximation of my total HP/MP ratio.
=== Level 71-75 ~ ===
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