White Mage Strategy

I had the urge to create some kind of a strategy page for White Mages for some time now, so here it is.

Playing a White Mage effectively is just as involved and important as any one of the other jobs, even though you'll typically not see much time actually dealing damage to an enemy. Warriors and other members of the party can't be that effective if they're dead, and that's where you come in. Your job, then, is to make sure everyone is operating at maximum efficiency and health, and sometimes to possibly sneak in and get a few whacks in with your weapon.

What do you need to become an exceptional White Mage? Get good at thinking on your feet. Heal calmly and with your wits about you, instead of panicking every time someone dips into the red. Watch those status effects on your party and the enemy. Most importantly, make sure that everyone walks away alive.

So what should you be looking for when making your new White Mage? There are a number of good choices when first creating your character. In terms of races, Elvaans have the highest MND stat, which will affect the amount of HP you heal with your spells. Tarus will have a large amount of MP, which will let them cast much longer without resting, but have a significant weakness in terms of HP. Humes are balanced characters, and lie somewhere in between.

As mentioned above, since the MND affects your healing ability, it's important to try and keep this stat as high as you can. Some good WHM equipment:

Friar's Rope

Justice Badge

Priest's Robe

It's a matter of personal preference as to what job you will choose as a secondary job, but I tend to be boring and prefer something that increases my effectiveness as a healer. Yeah, a MNK sub is good for that HP boost, and a THF sub is good for finding more loot from enemies, but in terms of boosting healing ability, nothing tops either a BLM or SMN sub.

A WHM sub can also be handy for other jobs, especially if you like soloing a lot. Having someone with a WHM sub is also great for having a secondary healer when things get rough, but keep in mind that there may be a sacrifice of offensive ability when doing this.

Healing can be deceptively easy at first glance, and often is during the lower levels. Find the cure spell and cast it, rinse and repeat as needed. Until Cure 2 is available, White Mages will not need to worry about what amount of healing will be adequate for a given situation. When Cure 2 is initially learned, it will also not heal at its fullest potential; a few levels and some points in your Healing skill and MND stat will be needed to squeeze out that full 90 HP per cast. (The same goes for Cure 3 and others, later on.) The caster should ask themselves about the tradeoff of time (faster replenishment of HP with higher level spells) versus efficiency (lower level spells will require more casts to heal the same amount, but will save a few MP) when selecting which spell to use.

The spell Curaga is either greatly admired or hotly disliked. At 60 MP per cast (120 for Curaga 2), it has the effect of Cure 2 on everyone in your party. (It doesn't spread across alliances!) If your warriors can manage to even out the damage with a good provoke order, this spell quickly becomes very efficient in terms of time and MP spent. It has the downside of dramatically increasing your hate level, so be careful when using it. Use Divine Seal for better results.

Regen is also another misunderstood spell. I'll admit I don't even have the spell, since I am currently waiting for Regen 2, but I definitely see the advantages of it. In terms of versatility, it's useful to cast this before battle on the person who is pulling enemies for the group, useful during battle to give a constant amount of HP over time to someone, and useful after battle when you want to heal the non-resting meleeing characters while copping a few z's yourself.

Before you even get Curaga, you will start to notice that your spell list is growing, growing fast. Soon after that, your ability to scroll thru your spell list, in order to find the correct spell during battle, will become much slower. To get around this, make sure you have your most frequently used spells in a macro for easy and quick casting. Look at the Useful Macros page to get a sense on where to get started. The less time you spend casting a spell, the more time you have to, well, cast more spells. :)

The active ability Divine Seal increases the effectiveness of your next healing spell. One popular way to use this ability (and one of the Healer Macros on this site) uses Divine Seal before casting Curaga. This skill can mean the difference between life and death in a pitched battle. Try to keep tabs on the status of your Divine Seal ability, and use it if you need to, especially if you are running low on MP.

One thing that I'm stressing throughout this guide is the need to pay attention to what's going on with your party. A healer who is not catering to their party's needs is a useless one. Watch for status effects expiring on your party and the enemy. Keep track of your MP levels. Watch the life bars of your party. Keep track of when you can use your job abilities, like Divine Seal.

Also related is keeping your party informed as to your status. Need a provoke? Ask for one. Need to rest? Tell your party that you're resting. Silenced? Ask a mage to cast Silena. Going to use Benediction? Let them know!

As a WHM, the idea is to have the tanks take damage for you while you cure them. Unfortunately, during the heat of battle, the enemy will sometimes end up coming towards you after you perform a bout of healing. Here are some basic thoughts on keeping your hate level low.

Do not self heal, if possible. If you have another full-time healer with you, try not to heal yourself of a few HP when you're still in decent condition. A typical problem is a WHM getting halfway down in health, panicking and casting Cure 2 or Cure 3 on themselves, getting their health back, and then getting attacked by the enemy again because of their self-healing, thus repeating the cycle. This can be a tricky judgment call to make, since you obviously don't want to die, but if someone is able to heal you and is doing so, try to relax a bit and let them help out. Of course, if you have less than 100 hp left, don't sit back and let yourself die.

Watch those -ga spells! Curaga or Curaga 2 is sometimes more MP efficient in terms of HP regained, but will produce a significant amount of hate. Only cast it when it's necessary, or when in dire circumstances.

Take a breather, sometimes. It's usually not necessary to toss heals non-stop during a battle. If you can afford a few seconds between each cast, it will allow your hate level to slowly decrease.

Switch off on those spells! Casting different types of Cure spells in succession (such as Cure, Cure 2, Cure, Cure 2, etc) seems to not increase your hate level as quickly as casting, waiting for the spell to recharge, and then casting the same spell.

White Mages are lucky. They get a special ability that refills their HP as well as the local party's HP. (It does NOT work across an alliance!) The price is high, however; it is second only to the Paladin's Invincibility in terms of hate creation. Anyone who has played a WHM for more than a few hours knows that this often means you die while the party lives.

So when should you Bene? The answer is: you shouldn't have to, if your party is fighting appropriately difficult enemies, if your party is provoking properly with a good provoke order, and if the healers are paying attention and healing properly. Unfortunately, we're not always so lucky. :)

Calmly and quickly assess the situation before you use Benediction. Can the tanks possibly provoke and share the damage while you rest a moment? How are the healers' MP levels; can they cure? Is anyone currently healing the person about to die? Is someone generating a large amount of hate and in danger of dying in the next hit? Do you have a few seconds to Curaga instead? Finally, if the answers to most of the above questions are all 'NO', are you ready to die?

Warn the party when you are going to Bene. If you're out of MP, and think the fight is going badly, a simple 'Bene ready' will suffice. When I say this to my party, this means I am ready to stand and Bene, or have my finger poised on the trigger. This also lets the warriors know that they need to be ready to spam with provokes as soon as they see their life bar refill.

Have an exit strategy once you Bene. If the enemy is almost dead, just take a few hits while the warriors provoke, if you can. Sometimes, even if the enemy is nowhere close to dying, warriors will be able to provoke fast enough to draw the aggression away from you. Let them have a second to do their job, now that you've done yours. Now, if you are close to the exit of the zone, and have now taken a few hits, it's okay to run. You may consider running early, but know that you run the risk of training the enemy away from the rest of your group, depriving them of a chance to save you.

A party with two healers is highly fortunate. This party will be able to kill things faster, more efficiently, with less downtime, and with less risk of dying. However, these rewards are contingent on all the healers knowing what their role is.

Plan your initial status spells before the battle begins. If you're going to cast Paralyze, say so, and then watch for the effect to expire so you can recast it. A status effect cast twice, when the first one worked, is just wasting MP that could have been used to heal.

Agree upon a healing order with the other healers. There's usually little reason for two healers to be standing at the same time. Plan ahead as to who will heal first and who will rest first, and the conditions of switching roles. Do you switch when the resting mage is at full MP? Do you switch after each fight? Do you switch when the active healer is out of MP? Do all the mages cast status spells at the beginning of battle, and then rest or heal, or leave it all up to the active healer? Discuss these things with the other healers.

Communicate and inform your party as to your current condition. If you're getting low and need to rest, ask the other mage to stand and take over. If someone has forgotten whose turn it was, politely remind them to stand or rest, as needed. A macro which displays your current HP/MP levels to the party is always useful.

While White Mages are not able to deal a lot of damage to an enemy themselves, they can lend a capable hand by casting status effects on their party and the enemy. The tricky part is watching out for these effects expiring, and acting accordingly. Another important aspect is knowing what the enemy is capable of, so that you can either protect your party accordingly, or disable specific enemy attacks.

Certain status effects require immediate action when noticed. (You must watch the battle messages closely, because some effects are only noticable when the message first appears.) For example, if a mage is silenced, they are pretty much useless. Cast Silena on them, or if you're silenced yourself, use an appropriate item. Warriors, when blind, need to be unblinded immediately in order to operate at peak performance. When any job is paralyzed, they have a chance at failing whatever action they attempt, so heal them as soon as possible. Poison is usually something that can wait until after battle to be healed, since the rate of HP loss is so slow. Make a judgment call according to their HP level before taking valuable time to remove the poison effect.

After the battle, ask your party if they have status effects that need to be removed. You can also watch their life bars to detect if they are poisoned. If they are decreasing slowly, they are poisoned or Dia'd. If they are regaining HP, but not at a constant rate of 5 HP (for Regen, dunno about Regen 2 yet), they are most likely poisoned.

During combat, watch your battle messages to see if your status effects on the enemy have taken hold. Recast as necessary if you fail, but keep in mind that sometimes it's not worth it to cast if the spell keeps failing.

And finally, if you see Protect effects disappearing from your party, recast Protectra and/or Shellra immediately. Both spells provide significant defensive bonuses, and are vital to keeping people alive. All White Mages should have these spelled macroed for immediate use.

Mages have it pretty rough, moneywise. Not only do we need to buy equipment, but we need to keep up with the latest spells available to us. Otherwise, we're not as capable as we could possibly be. This, unfortunately, can be an expensive proposition. Fortunately, there are a number of good ways to make gil.

One way to make money early on is to do quests. It can be a pain, and is sometimes boring, but will bring at least a little money in. Quests are also tremendously important to a WHM, since later on in the game, the teleport spells can only be acquired through quests that require a certain amount of fame before they can be granted.

Once some levels have been gained, some WHMs sell raising services to those who need them. I don't charge unless I am making a long trip to the corpse (and of course, never for my friends or party members!), and even then I only expect a minor donation on top of travel fees. Acting as a taxi service, and teleporting people to crags for some money is also possible. Teleporting is much easier with a BLM sub and the Warp spell learned.

The best way to make money, in my opinion, is to just hunt for stuff and hope gil or items drop. Quadavs in the Palborough Mines, Orcs in La Theine Plateau, and Dhamels in Tahrongi Canyon are excellent things for the beginning character to hunt.