FreshFeeling Gaming

Ugh.

Red Mage is a top tier class in the original Final Fantasy and that hasn't changed in Renaissance. It's still an all-powerful superclass that can do it all. It doesn't really matter that it has less INT than other classes now that it has an effect. The class worked just fine before with the stat totally broken.


Instead, I have to talk about this skill. This stupid skill. This is a reference to Final Fantasy XI, like many things in the game. However, this skill is massive bait, effectively amounting to being a Temu version of the Mystic from Final Fantasy Tactics. The problems with SABOTEUR are twofold. First, Red Mage has much better things to be doing than status in many cases. Sure, HOLD is actually a very good spell that can shut down an enemy, and hey – three of the four fiends do not resist the status element. The issue, to reiterate, is that they have WAY better things to be doing than status in many cases.

Like I wrote in my job thoughts, a HOLD can lock down a random enemy, but a sword slash might kill it outright, and a FIR2 might kill it and its friends too. Which leads to the other problem: they don't get enough status spells. And most of them are situational! Of course, it does help immensely in those cases, but debuffs are not something for a Red Mage to focus on. Like SLP2 is still a crummy spell and shouldn't be taken on L4.

Okay, rant over. I'll be exploring another vanilla class solo in Renaissance mode this time around. I named the solo for the attire rather than the job, especially since there actually aren't a lot of canonical Red Mages in the series surprisingly. Those that do are have names that are too long or have a lot more to them in one special case.

The starting gold was obvious here. A Chain, a Rapier, the FIRE spell, and the SLEP spell. The latter isn't great. Units will always wake up if they have 80 or more HP even if it's inflicted. Which is basically anything past the early part of the game. Worse still, Ozmo took a liberty.


In the original FF1, it was beddy-bye until they made that roll to wake up. Here, hitting them with a physical attack will wake them up, like in many later Final Fantasies. He defended this choice as differentiating from other disabling status like paralysis, even though it just makes the status even more useless. In fact, if a target gets hit out of sleep before they move on a turn? They'll move and execute a FIGHT! It works both ways: if LICH hits his SLP2, then physically attacks before the victim wakes up, he's taking a hit to the face. So that's where it is. There's also no output to tell when an enemy is asleep: you just get a short delay. Thankfully the same doesn't apply to CONF: physicals won't hit an enemy out of it.

If it wasn't clear, yeah. GARLAND could be beaten at level 2, and the only reason why I didn't have Carmen do so was because this would gain her a level. So I pulled her back and did it at level 3 instead. FIRE spells and sword swipes beat him without incident.
The PIRATEs were hit with SLEP just as a taunt. It's basically the only reason I took the spell. Its usefulness was in the gutter past this very early part of the game. So why did I take it? I wanted to see if it'd disappoint and it did. It might've been better to take FOG actually: a +8 to absorb doesn't seem like much, but I could see a few niche situations for it. Still, a lot of Red Mage's L1 spells disappoint beyond the early game, besides the big promotion-exclusive exception in RUSE. I kept a slot open for it later.


Now, as I was implying, status spells on the Red Mage are a trap for the most part. This isn't to say they're universally bad choices, it's just that others might be worth considering over them. Take DARK, for example. It's simply not a good status in Final Fantasy 1: it decreases the victim's chance of hitting by 40 and also increases their chance of being hit by 40. It's a small bonus, and being status-elemental means quite a few things will be unaffected. MUTE and SLOW are good; better than that and LAMP and probably better than ICE long term, but there are still only a few battles they'll be useful in. TMPR is fantastic in a lot of parties, and ALIT while also shorter term can also make a LICH fight easier especially for a party. Or something like RAMUH if you're running it with an Evoker - that's another reason to take defense over one of the status spells.

I had Carmen pick up TMPR first and foremost. It takes Red Mage a few extra levels to pick up L3 spells, so having something to aid in fighting before then made the most sense.

L3 spells were something to consider here. CUR2 wasn't amazing for a solo, and LOK2 is as bad as always, but the others all had a reason to use them. I settled on having AFIR draw the short straw. The main use would be against LICH, and it is a way's into his spell list. It had no long term viability after Carmen pilfered a Ribbon. It felt more practical to kill him quickly, probably with FIR3. The other elemental anti spells would be more interesting, but I could make the decision on them later.


I sent Carmen into the Marsh Cave at level 9. But the dungeon wasn't being very cooperative. Leaving aside the trouble of reaching the boss, the WIZARDs loved showing up in packs of four. There's not much any class can do about that except hope for insane luck with a big spell. The second try had two, except they rolled very high damage and got good turn order. The final straw for me came when she finally got another two WIZARDs, only for one to critical and kill her. The odds of that are like 1%.

So Carmen left and went to the Peninsula of Power. FrWOLFs were good to face here, giving out a lot of experience and dying relatively easily. I got her to level 14, adding just under 100HP. This also gave her plenty of gold, so she bought SLOW, MUTE, HOLD, ICE2, and FAST. Okay yes I went off about the status spells, but they were the correct choices here. There's not much better after TMPR for L2 (ALIT but I ruled that out), I already talked about the L3 choice, and the only other pick for L4 was AICE. Which is very good for LICH, but it's still a coinflip whether the mage moves first and neuters his ICE2.


It wasn't really a problem at higher levels, and I wanted her to get them anyway before going into the Earth Cave. Two of the three WIZARDs died instantly to LIT2, so the extra levels didn't actually matter that much. She also got some good use out of SLOW against GARGOYLEs, a rare use of the spell against a random. They'd previously killed an attempt at level 9 when Carmen failed to run from them too many times. Fighting them was the correct choice because she could kill them first, but this removed all possibility of things going wrong.

She went straight to ASTOS after; the only catch was 5 PUREs wasn't enough for the cave and she'd run out. Luckily, the poison stayed out of her on the rest of the exit. After she landed the MUTE, the dark elf was done for. ICE2 easily handled him.


Of course Carmen Sandiego loves taking valuable loot, but there was no need to go for the Silver Bracelet in the Marsh Cave this run. Red Mage can wear Silver Armor from the Dwarf Cave. Relatedly, something I forgot to mention with Dio, a new hammer for the Machinist class was added and placed in the treasure room there. It's interesting, and I'll talk about it in more detail when I do its solo which should be within the next two. For other classes, it's effectively an extra 2500G. Every little bit helps! There's a lot of these added for new classes, but they tend to be later when cash doesn't matter and are also not worth much relative to when you get them. This one comes just early enough to help.

Now, L5 spells are interesting. LIFE is usually a staple choice for a Red Mage, but it's of no use for a solo. FIR3 is definitely a get. But the really interesting thing? BANE works with SABOTEUR. Poison isn't as widely resisted as you might think. Basically: undead, elementals, golems, slimes, and a handful of weird ones like Frost D and EVILMAN. You can even kill KRAKEN with it! Instant death being a status is a thing to think about with any hypothetical future status-based class; making an enemy instantly dead certainly outclasses regular status. It was something for Carmen to sit and think about for now, since it's only accessible by the Red Wizard.

Either way, I wanted her to have more levels for the Earth Cave. It's sort of an annoyance with solos: high levels are the best way to make it through the stunning undead. So characters end up higher level than they need to be. My solo Lancer's an excellent example of this: he squeaked by at level 22 through stubbornness and encounter watching, and ended up level 31 before entering the final dungeon. I've had solos who've had to go higher than that just to comfortably clear the Ice Cave!

I decided on a goal of level 22 to start off with, and not because of the above. It would be worth five charges of L5 spells and get her 3-hits with the Silver Sword.

I initially started outside of Crescent Lake. It's a really nice place for any offensive mage: decent payouts, and the inn is right there to constantly refresh on spell charges. The Peninsula eventually becomes better even with all the back and forth though.


I forget most of the run into the VAMPIRE since I was rushed out the door right after finishing, but it was on the first try and the guy himself got turned to ashes. There were some close shaves with WIZARDs, but otherwise, things went well. Carmen looted the RUBY and traded it for a ROD.

I also went ahead and bought CONF to fill her final L4 slot. Like I said, the only other competition was AICE, and that is both dependent on turn order against LICH and not having a Ribbon on. I figured that a bunch of FIR3s would work to defeat the fiend once Carmen got there given the numbers I was seeing regularly against ZomBULLs, which have 135 magic defense (affects the odds of status hitting and damaging spells doubling) against LICH's 120. CONF, meanwhile, was an excellent option for dealing with large groups of enemies that don't resist the status element.

Yes I know I've been getting Carmen a lot of status spells, but it still doesn't mean SABOTEUR is optimal. There is serious consideration to be made with getting AICE for LICH. It's still a gamble, but it can mean the difference between a win and a loss, and a four person party might actually make use of it. Meanwhile, SLP2 is still completely worthless and shouldn't be picked up anyway, same for some others like LOCK/LOK2 and SLO2 in 95% of cases. The status element is also resisted by several randoms. It sometimes is the best option though, and so shouldn't be dismissed entirely.


The return trip went very smoothly. Carmen ran into three undead packs along the way. She kept recovering and eventually killed the first set, got a preemptive on the second, and killed a small pack before most could move. Actually, the most dangerous encounter here turned out to be a group of OOZE of all things. They got an ambush and hit hard. Luckily, this character could simply ICE2 them and have done with it.


LICH's goal, meanwhile, seemed to be going for a successful paralysis. On each of his two turns, he tried a physical attack on Carmen. He failed both rolls and got burned by a pair of FIR3s.

Of the three midgame dungeons, I decided on Gurgu Volcano first. There was an Ice Sword to be claimed, and with it, monsters to be maimed. The dungeon was also pathetically easy (I said before Carmen nearly ate it due to some R.GIANTS) and with status on hand, KARY even more so. I did have to fall back out of the dungeon once to have her gain a proper level, but no big deal.


It's certainly one reason to do Gurgu first, or at least before the Ice Cave. A lot of my parties have had only one sword user and ended up grabbing the one from Ordeals instead. My idea was to have Carmen take advantage of a bug/quirk in FFR where FAST doubles hit%. So 80 hit% turns into 160 hit%, good for 7 hits. But it turns out it was fixed. That's a good thing!

Carmen actually ran into slot 7 FIREs on the bottom floor twice. Annoying, but the Ice Sword blew them up. I was noticing it was doing more damage than expected. I'm not sure if this is luck or related to changes in the damage formula to make Spellblade even function; thinking it was the former because it's still not that much (basically, the bonus damage gets added after absorb, which is still only 4-8 a hit).


Well, I had to try KARY twice, because the first time she immediately broke from confusion and hit with this insane critical. Carmen used SLOW the second time, then MUTE, then CONF, then HOLD, etc. FAST, TMPR as much as possible, and then exploded her for 893 damage.


Ordeals was the next stop. The Gold Bracelet would come in handy for the Ice Cave, and I also had Carmen pick up a pair of Gloves just for that little extra bit of absorb. Aside, if you were thinking that MUTE is a good way to counter MANCATs, well. Unfortunately, the stupid things resist all common elements, even the newly added wind and water for FFR. Carmen's best chance against them was AFIR, but in lieu of that, it was just running. That said, it does work on R.GOYLEs! It's another practical use of status. Turn order makes it unreliable of course.

The dungeon was a smooth first try. Aside from a group of those MANCATs, Carmen handled or ran from everything fairly well. The Zombie Ds got burned, no problem.

Well, that just left the Ice Cave. Carmen had an advantage in the ability to wipe the undead groups with big fireballs. It helps a lot with the run bug fixed: instead of trying to win a diceroll, she could just win. Her level was already fairly high on top of that, so this seemed fairly doable. The first three attempts went as follows:

1) Undead pit spike
2) SORCERER in the square room. Didn't die in time.
3) MAGE in the pit room. Not immune to status, so I tried MUTE. Went second and died.


4) More MAGEs! Surprisingly survivnig from the ambush turn again, and this time, they ate MUTE. I think they have silence awareness – a newly added feature of FFR as of 2.1 that makes enemies hit with MUTE act differently – because they proceeded to just physical (fruitlessly) at 25% odds and died. IMAGEs nearly got her after, but she got away.

I encountered watched from here. Slot 13 is a 6. That's the undead spike on B2 (the whole room) but just a GrPEDE on B3. I had Carmen loiter in the tiny connecting side room until it showed. Slot 14: 2. IMAGE/WRAITH mix. They got a lucky paralyze, but Carmen broke out at around half health and got off FIR2. Slot 15: 5. That would be MAGEs on B2. Back to B3, I'm too far away from the pit. It's FrGIANT/FrWOLFs there, one each. FIR3 and clean up the giant.

The next stretch isn't really that great: 1-2-4. 1's harmless, but 2 and 4 are MAGEs and SORCERERs respectively below. The safest way to go about it is to pull an encounter in the side room (B3, R.BONEs), then move up to the hole, fighting through some ghosts in the process. That gives two encounters to hopefully make it through B3 the first time.


Why not? Taking the extra steps here anyway, and it should help a bit on the myriad of fire-weak enemies. No problems from the ghosts or the spike (which was all ghosts). The first encounter was more than halfway through the floor, excellent. A single FrGIANT.


That 7 is the undead spike above and Frost Ds below. Pull it before going upstairs. FAST and attack absolutely destroyed it.

4-2-4-7-1-4 is the next string. I went over how bad those first three are on B2. 4s are COCTRICE/MUMMYs on B1, 2s are WIZARDs. Better odds to pull them up here, then I can go into the pit and hopefully get through in two encounters. The first was a chance to strike first. WIZARDs were a 3-pack. Everything in the next encounter set moved first. But they all failed the proc. One bird even ran. FIR2 cleaned up.


Hit the EYE with MUTE. FAST and bash. That leveled up Carmen and she missed VIT, but not important compared to clearing this place. Carmen moved third against the undead spike and hit FIR3. Low on fire charges. There were two Frost Ds!


That was a bit scary. What now, though? She was close to the stairs on B3. No more L3 or L5 charges. Did I want to try 3-6 R.BONEs or 3-7 WIZARDs?


My initial thought was this. I've been trying to stay away from spellcasting items in my solos because otherwise jobs get homogenized. Like, every single job can abuse spellcasting items and win the last part of the game in the exact same way. It's effective but arguably not very fun to read or play. I also didn't want to throw away a run this close to the end because of that. So just this once…!


Buuuuut getting out without another encounter worked too!

Okay, the biggest obstacle down. Turn the page for what's left.

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