Purple Mage – An Overview

The Purple Mage is a Red Mage who subs Blue Mage. The defensive spells of the Blue Mage enhances the defensive spells of the Red Mage.

A Red Mage could have quite a high defense added to damage reduction.

Red Mage’s defensive spells include Phalanx, Stoneskin, and Protect IV. Add Cocoon from Blue Mage, and the defense can easily rise above 500, and go beyond 600. With the right food and gear, and a SATA, a Red Mage could do some decent tanking, though it is not advised. The main point of a Purple Mage is to enhance the soloing capabilities of a Red Mage who wishes to solo using his sword rather than his damage spells.

On top of the defense, a Purple Mage also enjoys the added traits and status boosts from it’s Blue Mage part. Undead Killer and Lizard killer can be useful, especially when combined with their respective earrings. VIT, DEX, and STR status boosts can be useful as well. Auto-regen is not to be overlooked.

This is just an overview, and there may be more to the Purple Mage than what I have discussed. I want to turn it over to the others now. I ask for information about the Purple Mage. Perhaps how a Blue Mage/Red Mage might work instead of the RDM/BLU. I would also like to hear about stories of Purple Mages anyone might have.

I became a Purple Mage under the discipline of Xikeroth of Caitsith server.

~If such a thread already exists, then I apologize. If not, I will edit this part out later. Thank you.~

I am Telemachos of Caitsith, and I want to talk about a San d’Orian mission I was able to solo. The mission is 8-1, "Coming of Age". The player is asked to travel to the Quicksand Caves to recover Drops of Amnio from the Fountain of Kings. At the Fountain, two Sea Monk NMs appear, Honor and Valor. The smaller one uses Silencega and another -ga spell, but I don’t remember which one. I just know I wasn’t expecting to get silenced. The larger one just attacks, but will use Hundred Fists. These guys attack for a fair amount of damage, so I don’t know if I could have done it without the defense. With two of them on you, and ga spells, I don’t know if it would be possible to pull it off with /NIN either. From what I could tell, they couldn’t be put to sleep, but gravity and bind should work, but only temporarily of course. Like I said, I wasn’t expecting to be silenced, but I did have echo drops with me just in case. I went after the smaller one first, and then focused on the larger one. The general strategy for me was to:

Keep Stoneskin, Aquaveil, Phalanx, Refresh, Barwater, Barsilence, and Cocoon up. With a long fight, I couldn’t afford to use enspells or haste. I may have used IceSpikes, but I wasn’t too concerned about it, though I do think the paralyze may have worked a couple of times. Conserving my MP was the main concern, so keep up the bare essentials to stay alive and regain MP was important. I just stood there hitting the small one with Joyeuse, and rebuffing when needed, until it died. It’s important to keep cocoon up, and it shouldn’t go down. If it does, even for a second, incoming attacks could become too much to handle. I try to recast it every 20 seconds or so. I had a little freedom when I focused on the larger one, but I still had to conserve MP. When the larger one used Hundred Fists, I cast Bind and stayed away.

Gear wise, I would suggest Joyeuse, spell interruption down, and Bibiki Seashell. I don’t know if INT is really needed since it’s a melee stratagy, so focus on gear that will help you take hits. I had Genbu’s Shield, Jelly Ring, Sattva ring, Bibiki Seashell, and the cheviot cape. It gave a lot of damage reduction when combined with Phalanx and a decent intimidation chance against the Sea Monks. I would suggest Joyeuse if you can for the extra hits. It may help interrupt the smaller ones ga spells, but I don’t think I ever interrupted it. It does deal damage out faster than the other swords.

It was a long fight for me, but definitely a fun one. I almost died a couple of times, but I’m a better Purple Mage for it. If you ever try it, I hope you have as much fun as I did.