Red Mage (Tactics Advance)

Uses black, white and red magic.

Description

Red Mage is a job in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance available to the viera. Red Mage is a blend of Black and White Mage, and also has a few status effect spells.

They have well-rounded stat growth between physical and magic attack power, and are sought for their extremely useful Doublecast ability. Even when silenced, they can still dish out decent physical damage with rapiers with their surprisingly good Attack Power.

Two notable Red Mages are recruitable characters: Ritz Malheur and Eldena. Ritz is the only non-viera character to become a Red Mage; she upgrades from Fencer to Red Mage at the beginning of Act 2.

Growth[]

The Red Mage is the viera's mid-tier balanced job. Their stats are almost identical to the Elementalist, although the Red Mage has lower MP, slightly lower Magic Power, and slightly higher Speed.

HP	MP	Atk	Def	Mag Pwr	Mag Res	Spd
6.8 C+	2.6 C-	8.1 B-	7.6 C	8.4 B	7.6 C	1.3 C

Abilities[]

Red Magic[]

Red mage command. Use offensive magic.

Description

Skill	Equipment	AP	MP	Power	Range
Barrier	Mage Masher	300	10	—	3
Barrier	Raises weapon defense and magic resistance.
Fire	Scarlette	100	6	30	4
Fire	Generates damaging ball of flame.
Thunder	Stinger	100	6	30	4
Thunder	Calls down lightning to deal damage.
Blizzard	Flamberge	100	6	30	4
Blizzard	Creates chunk of ice to deal damage.
Cure	Fleuret	100	6	40	4
Cure	Eases pain and heals HP. Deals damage to zombies. Element: Holy
Sleep	Estoc	200	10	—	4
Sleep	Releases sleeping gas to put target to sleep.
Poison	Silver Rapier	100	10	—	4
Poison	Spew out poison gas, poisoning target. Element: Dark
Doublecast	Madu	999	*See below	—	—
Doublecast	Cast two spells in quick succession.

Reaction[]

Skill	Equipment	Effect	AP
Catch	Chain Plate	Catches thrown item and places it in stock.	300

Support[]

Skill	Equipment	Effect	AP
Magic Pow+	Colichemarde	Increases damage dealt by magic.	300

Combo[]

Skill	Equipment	Effect	AP
Red Combo	Mythril Rapier	Easily chained combo ability for red mages.	100

Overview[]

Strikingly similar to Elementalists, Red Mages are fit for both physical and magical combat. They have balanced stats with above average speed. Their Red Magic contains the core abilities from the Black and White Magic ability sets, as well as a few more support magic. Red Mages can work as spellcasters, healers, and supporters. Their "signature" ability, Doublecast, although difficult to acquire, allows the user to cast two magic spells they know during one turn allowing for endless strategies (see below). The unique character Eldena comes with Doublecast already mastered. Being flexible units, Red Mages also benefit from the abilities of nearly any other viera class.

Being so average, Red Mages can be outdone by more specialized units. Besides their speed, their other stats are unremarkable. Doublecast is great, but over reliance on it will spell trouble if the Red Mage is silenced. Overall, Red Mages are incredibly flexible, able to use many kinds of abilities and play different combat roles. Red Mages are also valuable for Doublecast alone, and other magically inclined viera may as well pick up some Red Magic just for Doublecast.

Enemy Red Mages usually do middling damage against tanky units, and often get outpaced by units like Jugglers. They have some physical combat capability, but it's nothing that some good melee fighters can't handle. Should the enemy Red Mage know Doublecast, the threat measure increases substantially. Red Mages with Doublecast are dangerous and demand to be prioritized. Silencing or otherwise disabling access to Doublecast cuts Red Mages off from their greatest source of power.

Doublecast mechanics[]

Doublecast casts two magic spells at once, not limited to Red Magic. E.g. if Spirit Magic is the secondary A-Ability, one can use those spells when Doublecasting. The MP cost of Doublecast is the combined totals of the magic cast, and so may vary. One can use Doublecast to bypass some laws, like restrictions against using summons or Fire, Lightning, Ice and Holy, because Doublecast is only seen as a Red Magic ability with no elemental affiliation. Doublecast can also bypass the "Target Area" law since some spells are intended for a single target (like the offensive Spirit Magic spells); this can help if the player needs to eliminate their enemies and aid allies afterward.

One potent combination is the Summoner class. Players may start out battles with both Reflect and Auto-Regen on their entire team. Phoenix allows players to revive multiple units at once followed by Unicorn to heal them to full HP (while also damaging any undead in the area) or add various status effects from either spellset on the same turn.