Red Mage Solo Guide by Kurokatana

Category:Guides
=Introduction=
Red Mage, the jack-of-all-trades more or less of mages. Universally loved by most players, especially other mages and high level speed experience parties simply because of the Dispel and Refresh spells. As such, parties are not hard to find normally for Red Mages when those spells are finally learned. Before those levels Red Mages are harder to obtain a party because unless they are asked to support cure.
Advanced or Experience players will likely find this guide to be old news and obvious, which is fine by me, this guide is aimed closer to the new Adventurer and the new Red Mage. This doesn't mean the some advanced players won't find out something new about Red Mage, but I am acknowledging that the chances are that they won't.
=The Basics=
==Sub Job Overview==
The right subjob can make all the difference, and different subjobs can be more effective at certain levels than others. This section is to give a basic overview of the subjobs and their usefullness, but each individual level range will also contain suggested subjobs.
I am aware of the norms, but for the sake of completeness I will be testing each job at the different level ranges to give an overview of all possibilities for players.
*Warrior
Warrior is the basic melee class. As a subjob it has a few bonuses which are usefull, such as Defense Bonus job trait when you get your main to level 20, Double Attack at 50, and Attack Bonus at 60. However, at the higher levels Warrior does not make a suitable subjob for Red Mage.
*Monk
Monk is known for hand-to-hand attacks and the job's high HP. For a sub, the HP and some DEX is really the only advantage of this job.
*Thief
Thief is excellent for farming and for the quick critical attack on a mob. Capable of giving Flee and Sneak Attack. Other than that, it doesn't have any practical use, especially not in solo fights.
*White Mage
White is the universal mage sub for many. For Red Mage, White Mage will be usable in nearly every situation, however there will be some points where white mage will not work, so be warned.
*Black Mage
Similar to White Mage, but with the INT increase and elemental and dark assistance instead of MND and curing. Very useful for soloing later on.
*Paladin
If you need more defense and are not really worried about your MP pool, this works decently enough - albeit not being noticeably effective.
*Dark Knight
Can be useful at Lv.74 and up thanks to spamming Stun via Chainspell and a good increase in attack power. Not recommended otherwise.
*Beastmaster
Having the ability to have a pet is nice, especially in soloing.
*Bard
By subbing Bard, you can only have one song active at a time (due to not being able to equip instruments) and you gain no bonus MP whatsoever, thus giving minimal returns. 
*Ranger
If you plan on decimating enemies with Slug Shot or Sidewinder, this will be necessary. Those weaponskills will have a tendency to miss a lot though, so it's really not recommended.
*Samurai
Samurai is very useful. But not for Red Mage, as it adds stats you'll most likely not need at all, and some abilities you won't be able to use due to them requiring you to have a Great Katana equipped.
*Ninja
Your primary MP-less subjob, Utsusemi is a life saver if used well. This will be your popular one once you hit Lv.24.
*Dragoon
For a mage main, Dragoon doesn't provide any benefits as a sub, being tailored more for full-on melee.
*Summoner
MP, MP, MP. Summoner is the sub for MP, as summoner only has Avatars that use their MP, as a sub where the Avatars are unnecessary the MP, and later the Auto-refresh trait is simply there to provide: MP.
*Blue Mage
This will provide you with really nice low-level healing spells, Cocoon and nice status boosts across the board. It's basically a fusion of the two real hybrid jobs in the game, and it works surprisingly well.
*Corsair
Like with Bard, you're limited to one roll at a time, other than the fact you'll get no MP or other useful status bonuses from it.
*Puppeteer
Similar to Beastmaster, except that your Automaton can cure and has access to Stoneskin via the Shock Absorber attachment and several other useful abilities.
*Scholar
Scholar is useful, if limited, in that one can use Dark Arts and Light Arts for a boost to their skills in the appropriate category. MP bonus is small, but can help. Some people prefer this as sub in Colibri Merit parties.
*Dancer
Dancer is by far one of the best new jobs for the soloers, in my opinion. Since they use TP for their cures, enfeebles and buffs, using these abilities won't hurt your MP pool. The missing MP bonus, however, will. This is really more useful for jobs who naturally can't heal themselves.
==Leveling==
While writing this guide I will have died countless times(unless I feel like keeping track), however, I am willingly dying for two reasons: so that those who read and follow the tips in this guide do not, and because Red Mage is not a main job that I need to worry about getting to 75 at any specific time. This allows me to be thorough in all of my research and experience.
So that you can follow my guide, I will outline my organizational structure here before the main section of the guide:
Sections will be divided by levels. ex: lv1-10
It will be followed by suggested subjobs with the lvl range of RDM where they should be equipped.
ex: NIN(20-30) → SUB(level range of RDM)
Armor will be listed and described next. To allow for various fund ranges of players alternates will be mentioned.
Finally I will list and describe camps and their level range with the mobs and mob level ranges. ex:
South Gustaberg → lv1-10
Tunnel Worm → lv1-3
=The Guide=
==Levels 1-10==
Welcome to Red Mage, come in and enjoy the freedom of one of the best jobs in the soloing department.
Levels 1-10 are to some the make-or-break areas of a job, to others it's just the mud they must trudge through before the hot enjoyable shower. 
Suggested Subjob (if available): WHM, BST, PUP, BLU, BLM (also WAR and MNK in some situations)
*White Mage
Very useful, since you will have access to Cure right off the bat. Normally, Red Mages have to wait until they attain Lv.5 before they can use it themselves, so it will improve your survivability by a good margin. To optimize your Cure spells and white magic enfeebles, you should stack up on MND equipment, such as the Ascetic's Ring, the San d'Orian Ring and the Justice Badge (starting at Lv.7). If you're an Elvaan (who, by nature, have the highest MND stat), you should consider improving your MP rather than your MND.
*Beastmaster
This subjob will give you access to Charm, thus allowing you to fight with less downtime. You'll be required to stack up on CHR gear, depending on your race. Tarutaru won't have any problems there, but Mithra and Galka will have problems charming their enemies due to their low CHR.
*Puppetmaster
A great sub below Lv.10. If you have the right attachments, your automaton will be capable of a full-fledged Stoneskin (via Shock Absorber), which will save you a lot of trouble. A Strobe will allow it to use Provoke, thereby ridding you of the enemies' attention. 
*Blue Mage
In the low levels, this sub job can be vastly superior to /WHM. Most of your equipped spells will give you handy status bonuses and, of course, the ability to use them. Pollen will play a major role here, as its soft cap is slightly higher than that of Cure, and you'll reach that cap a lot quicker than with said White Mage spell - and will cost just as much. Sandspin can also prove to be useful for its accuracy down effect and thus making it harder for your enemies to hit you. Sprout Smack can slow your enemy, Wild Oats is good to reduce your enemies' VIT if you can spare the MP, and it also adds a nice deal of Max HP. By equipping the latter two spells, you'll also gain access to the Beast Killer job trait, which will give your character a chance to intimidate beast-type mobs.
*Black Mage
Adds a good deal of INT and MP - and that's about it, at least during your low level phase. It doesn't get useful until the 30+ levels, and since you'll acquire all your low-level nukes from your main job already, you won't have a good selection of spells for a good while. After a certain point (when you can access Warp and elemental debuffs like Burn, Shock, etc. via your sub), it will prove to be much more useful. And actually, you'll be subbing this a lot, e.g. for landing Gravity and Sleep, two extremely important soloing spells, later on.
*Warrior
The only benefits from this sub are your increased STR, VIT stats and abilities such as Berserk and Defender. A huge downside to it is the fact that you'll not get any MP from your sub, thus effectively making soloing harder, since RDMs defeat enemies by outlasting them with their spells.
Up to level 10, it will increase your damage output a bit while giving a very marginal boost to your defense. It does have its uses up to that point, but it will be pretty much obsolete after that, unless you're into suicide.
*Monk
Same with WAR, this is entirely melee-oriented. You most likely won't make any good use of it, except for the occasional damage spike via Boost. Since a RDM doesn't have a natural hand-to-hand skill, your accuracy and attack power will be effectively halved. Even Martial Arts doesn't help much there, especially not if you're resorting to weapons other than Hand-to-Hand ones. For some extra damage below Lv.10, it can be pretty useful. But since it offers nothing beyond that, you're better off with other sub jobs.
Equipment:
Weapon: Wax Sword +1 is the best for starting, as it is the only one with a nice addition.
Armor: for armor, anything that rdm can equip works, being low level means that there is no important difference between one piece or another.
However, exception is the Body armor, if you can get one go for:
*Pilgrim Tunica, 
*Cobra Tunica, or 
*Iron Ram Jack Coat. 
A very viable option is the +1 version of the leg piece that was available during the Sunbreeze Festival 2008:
*Custom Trunks +1
*Custom Shorts +1
*Magna Trunks +1
*Magna Shorts +1
*Savage Shorts +1
*Elder Trunks +1
*Wonder Trunks +1
*Wonder Shorts +1
It will add a whopping +20 Max HP during sunny weather, which will make some low level mobs easier to defeat. In your starting areas, you'll be having that weather type for most of the time, allowing you to make good use of its bonus. The only downside to this is the fact that you can't equip any leg gear while wearing this special event piece, and of course the pretty low defense rating.
Camps:
Normal low level camps.
East Ronfaure
West Ronfaure
South Gustaberg
North Gustaberg
East Sarutabaruta
West Sarutabaruta
For levels 1-3~4
Ronfaure:
Tunnel Worm and Wild Rabbit
Carrion Worm and Forest Hare at level 2
At 3~4 add all other mobs as long as they check as even match or below.
Some mobs, such as the bats can be killed when checked as Tough.
Gustaberg:
Tunnel Worm and Huge Hornet
At 3 add Quadavs
At 5 add everything else
Sarutabaruta:
Tiny Mandragora, Giant Bee, Savanna Rarab
At 2~3 you can add on:
everything else except Fighting Pugil
Estimates:
Time: 1~1.5 hours
Exp: 100/mob
Believe it or not, but at level 4, and more so at level 5, I was having difficulty finding monsters that checked as Even Match. They would either be Decent Challenge which proved to be to weak, or Tough which shouldn't be too bad, but those tended to be Sheep and Goblins which are dangerous at this level. My recommendation is to head towards the Beastmen Outposts around level 5. Ghelsba Outpost, Giddeus, Dangruf Wadi.
Lessons from the Dead:
Some Toughs can be killed, but Beastmen (Orcs, Quadavs, Yagudos, Goblins) are very dangerous as Toughs as they'll easily burn your MP or constantly interupt the casting. Save your MP for curing, I did not cast any other spell until level 5 when I added one Dia at the start of a fight with a mob with high defense.
==Levels 7-20==
Subjobs: whm(rdm7-20), blm(rdm7-20), war(rdm7-15), blu(rdm7-15), mnk(rdm7-15)
Equipment:
Weapon: upgrade to a Xiphos or Xiphos +1
Armor: upgrade to leather gear, and buy a shield, it helps.
At level 10 add some MP rings.
Camps:
Ghelsba Outpost: levels 7-20
The first area of mobs is easy prey. Move farther in till you hunt down some decent challenges, but more specifically even matches. You will aggro the weaker mobs, but those can be killed easily. Tough mobs are present, and as long as you can fight them alone, they can be fought and killed, but any link means almost certain death.
Your target mobs are anything that check as even match. I first ran into them at (H-6) with Orcs.
At level 15 or so move into Fort Ghelsba.
Giddeus: levels 7-20
Just repeat what is said for Ghelsba Outpost. Just hunt down mobs that are even match or decent challenge.
Dangruf Wadi: levels 7-20
Once again. This area is just simple, find mobs of even match or decent challenge and go crazy on them.
Notes from the Dead: Paralyze becomes very handy at this point. You can start a battle with it, or if you happen to link a second mob, paralyze the second mob and kill the first one off before killing the second. Doing that on a Orc Grappler when fighting a Fodder has proved to be very nice as the Grappler ends up paralyzed enough times to let you kill both.
Camps cont'd:
After a long hiatus due to personal events, I can finally continue this guide. I will now also add in Fields of Valor pages for the rest of this guide since they are nice easy and free experience as well as useful for getting refresh and regen bonuses.