Red Mage DPS Rotation, Openers, and Abilities — Dawntrail 7.1

This page covers the endgame rotation for Red Mage. The base rotation for Red Mage is fairly straightforward, but it also has a lot of flexibility. As a resource-based job, your goal on Red Mage is to spend resources to put as much damage into buff windows as possible.

The casting phase will revolve around casting short spells to proc Dualcast and then instantly casting long spells. Verthunder III and Veraero III are your single-target long cast spells and should never be hardcasted outside of the opener. Jolt III, Verfire, and Verstone are your short cast spells you will be hardcasting throughout a fight. Jolt III is always available, while Verfire and Verstone have a 50% chance to become available after using Verthunder III and Veraero III, respectively.

A single or two-target dualcast pair should look like this:

1. Verfire or Verstone. If neither are available, use Jolt III
2. Verthunder III or Veraero III

A three-or-more target dualcast pair should look like this:

1. Verthunder II or Veraero II.
2. Impact

You should alternate spell casts to build both Black Mana and White Mana while keeping the difference lower than 30. For one or two targets, prioritize picking your long cast spell based on what proc you do not have available to minimize the amount of times you must cast Jolt II throughout a fight.

If there is downtime during a fight, Vercure can be used to proc Dualcast and begin the next phase with an instant long cast spell.

Your melee combo costs 50 Black Mana and 50 White Mana. Once you have enough to execute a combo, your rotation will look like this:

1. Enchanted Riposte
2. Enchanted Zwerchhau
3. Enchanted Redoublement
4. Verholy or Verflare
5. Scorch
6. Resolution

For AOE (three or more targets), it should look like this:

1. Enchanted Moulinet
2. Enchanted Moulinet Deux
3. Enchanted Moulinet Trois
4. Verholy or Verflare
5. Scorch
6. Resolution

Because a melee combo costs 50 Black and White Mana, and you can store up to 100 Black and White Mana, your melee combo is flexible and does not have to be used immediately. This allows you to take advantage of your melee combo to use it for mobility or to put more damage into buffs, which will be explained further below.

One of the strongest parts of Red Mage's damage is its off-global cooldowns. Fleche, Contre Sixte, Corps-a-corps, Engagement (or Displacement) are all oGCDs that should be used as much as possible to maximize damage throughout a fight.

Fleche and Contre Sixte should both be used on cooldown after the opener to keep their cooldown timer rolling. Because the cooldown on both of these is relatively short, it is easy to lose a usage of each through a fight or phase, hindering your overall damage.

Corps-a-corps, Engagement, and Displacement should also be used as much as possible to keep their cooldown timer rolling, but these abilities are more flexible due to having two charges. Corps-a-corps will cause you to jump to the boss, which can be taken advantage of when needed in addition to the damage it does. Engagement and Displacement both have equal potency and share a cooldown timer, so you will primarily be using Engagement for safety.

The order in which damaging oGCDs should be prioritized is as follows:

1. Fleche
2. Contre Sixte
3. Engagement or Displacement
4. Corps-a-corps

Other off-global cooldowns Red Mage has as a part of its DPS rotation are Embolden, Manafication, Acceleration, and Swiftcast.

Embolden is a raidwide 5% party buff that lasts for 20 seconds. It should be used on cooldown to align with other party buffs unless the full group is holding buffs for a specific purpose. Moreover, in Dawntrail, Embolden changes into Vice of Thorns upon use, which should be used in raid buffs and/or AOE.

Manafication grants Magicked Swordplay for 15 seconds, which makes our next three melee combo weaponskills cost 0 mana. It also grants a 5% damage buff on the next six GCDs used. This means that we should always use Manafication before a melee combo to align our finishers and the 5% damage boost. Moreover, at level 100, after consuming six Manafication stacks, we gain access to one use of Prefulgence, a 900 potency oGCD that should be saved for buffs and/or AOE.

Because Manafication has a cooldown of 110 seconds, this means using it on cooldown will drift it out of raid buffs. What is optimal will be fight dependent and killtime dependent. In fights where rushing Manafication will allow you to gain an extra usage, this will be optimal: not only does it result in an additional melee combo, but it also results in an extra Prefulgence (which can be held for 30 seconds for raid buffs). However, in fights where your killtime will not gain you an extra usage, Manafication can be held for ten seconds every buff window to align with Embolden and other party buffs.

Swiftcast is a role action that causes your next GCD to be cast instantly. Its primary use is for oGCD alignment after a single melee combo or a triple melee combo (more on oGCD alignment below). The main oGCDs to keep aligned as much as possible are Fleche, Contre Sixte, and Embolden. A short explanation of this is that each of these ability cooldowns is a multiple of five seconds, and each of our dualcast pairs takes five seconds, meaning our oGCDs will become available to use again during an instant cast GCD each time. Our melee combo, however, takes around 12.7 seconds to execute, meaning our dualcast windows become swapped with each use. This will cause our oGCDs to come off cooldown during a hardcast and drift, which will add up over time and cause lost usages. Because Swiftcast occupies a single 2.5 second GCD window, it achieves the same result of swapping our dualcast windows.

A short video demonstration of this concept with timestamps can be found here. Note that the content is outdated (Endwalker), but the concept is still relevant:

Acceleration is a Red Mage-specific ability that has multiple functions. It allows an instant cast of key spells with bonus effects: Verthunder III (guaranteed proc), Veraero III (guaranteed proc), or Impact (damage boost). In Dawntrail, it also grants "Grand Impact Ready", allowing us to cast Grand Impact. Grand Impact should be considered a completely separate instant-cast spell that is a DPS gain on both single target and AOE. This means using Acceleration grants us two instant casted spells: one cast of Verthunder III Veraero III Impact, and one cast of Grand Impact. Ultimately, this means it is best to use one charge on cooldown for damage, and the second charge is saved for movement to handle mechanics so you can cast those instant-casted spells back-to-back. It can be used for temporarily managing oGCD alignment, but its primary use should be movement or damage.

In Dawntrail, Red Mage can adjust openers for different needs. Three options are as follows:

The standard opener puts the most damage into buffs, but follows a stricter sequence for the first two minutes.

The early C6 opener offers more flexibilty to use movement abilities for mechanics and may be preferable in some fights with stricter Contre Sixte timings.

While 7.0 has changed potion animation locks, it is still harder to double weave due to item queuing issues. This opener allows for easier potion weaving for slightly lower overall damage and potion-boosted damage, but relatively high feeding of potency into buffs.

The flexibility of Red Mage's melee combo allows you to play into buffs efficiently. Keeping Embolden aligned with other party buffs will allow you to maximize your damage during buff windows. Your basic goal is to fit one melee combo into every buff window. If you do not need an extra melee combo elsewhere for mobility, it is also possible to fit an extra three finishers into 20-second buffs, including your own Embolden every buff window. To accomplish this, you must have a minimum mana count of 92|81, or have enough for a full melee combo and Manafication if you are not using it on cooldown. Begin your first melee combo five seconds before Embolden comes off cooldown, and weave Embolden after Enchanted Redoublement. By doing this, you will be able to fit the following into buffs:

1. Verholy or Verflare
2. Scorch
3. Resolution
4. Enchanted Riposte
5. Enchanted Zwerchhau
6. Enchanted Redoublement
7. Verholy or Verflare
8. Scorch
9. Resolution

Keep in mind that while Embolden only affects our personal magical damage and therefore does not affect all of our oGCDs, it is nonetheless ideal to fit at least one charge of Corps-a-corps and Engagement into buff windows when possible. If unable to start a melee combo five seconds before buffs, doing so one second before buffs and using Embolden after Enchanted Riposte is also acceptable.

For our potion window, our priority is to fit two full melee combos under a potion. If holding Manafication for each buff window, it is possible to fit three uses of Scorch and Resolution into a potion for a small potency gain. To do this, you must have 73|73 mana and Manafication available for use. Start your first melee combo when there is around 17 seconds left on the cooldown for Embolden (15 seconds is an acceptable sidegrade), and use a potion after your first Verholy or Verflare. Such a potion window would look like this:

1. Scorch
2. Resolution
3. Enchanted Riposte
4. Enchanted Zwerchhau
5. Enchanted Redoublement → Embolden + Manafication
6. Verholy or Verflare
7. Scorch
8. Resolution
9. Enchanted Riposte
10. Enchanted Zwerchhau
11. Enchanted Redoublement
12. Verholy or Verflare
13. Scorch
14. Resolution