White Mage Final Fantasy Guide: Your 101 to Conquering Healxiety

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Candela Maldonado

Cande has been in the gaming industry for about 5+ years, working as a Localisation specialist for games. However, it would be her burning passion for JRPGS that would lead her to FInal Fantasy Insider. When she isn't racing chocobos, or grinding away in FFXIV, she's often playing Persona, Nier, or just about any other JRPG out there.

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Final Fantasy’s White Mage is iconic. In the different titles of the franchise, we can find prominent white mages, such as Minwu, Rosa, Princess Garnet, or Yuna. In Final Fantasy XIV, you shall carry the torch of healing the damaged and raising the fallen.

As the name suggests, the main characteristic of white mages is to conjure up white magic. This magic serves mainly to restore the life of the group members thanks to the spell Cure.

White Mages get associated with deities. But since it is a job that has complete and utter control over the lives of their teammates, I just took it to a new level. I am a god, I control life and death.

Though White Mage is generally regarded as one of the most straightforward Final Fantasy jobs, you still need to understand every mechanic to exploit them.

This White Mage Final Fantasy guide provides a practical healing framework from level 1 to the end game.

TL; DR

• Job: White Mage
• Type: Healer
• Playstyle: DoT while the tank is pulling, heal and regen once the party is settled. Then, you must be as helpful as possible to the party with heals, mitigations, and buffs.
• Fundamental Abilities: Medica 2 for AoE, Cure 2 for single-target.

White Mage Final Fantasy Guide

The Fine Print

Always Be Casting

ABC, which is the central theme of all jobs. You want to be something other than standing around. You can be healing, damaging, or DoT-ing, your enemies.

You should always have a GCD window rolling, a damage spell, an AoE damage spell, or a healing GCD spell.

Only sometimes, we want to focus on using our off-global cooldowns as much. Also, gearing is more critical now, so keep pieces of gear from falling behind.

Gear will affect healing and the damage you do.

Your Star Skill: Lucid Dreaming

Lucid Dreaming will be your best friend now, as White Mage is sorely lacking in MP Regenerative abilities compared to the other three healing jobs.

You will treat Lucid Dreaming as a regular skill on your tool kit to keep on cool down during the battle. If you use this ability regularly, you will have 0 problems with MP.

Cure 2 vs. Cure 1

The last thing I want to mention is that it’s still true to this day, but Cure 2 is always better than Cure 1. So once you get Cure 2, you should always prioritize this GCD healing if you’re going to use one.

Should you take your one off your hot bar? No, because if you sink down, you’ll need Cure 1.

The Level 1-29 White Mage

At this point, White Mage is like any other healer job.

Playstyle

1. In a dungeon, the tank pulls the first mob. You’ll begin with DoT-ing each enemy as the tank is running.
2. Once the tank stops, you cast Stone for single-target damage and healing as necessary.

Tips

Make sure Lucid Dreaming is rolling as soon as you’re losing MP. This will start getting you into ensuring Lucid Dreaming is on cooldown during battle.

You also have Medica, which is right now your only AoE heal. Use as necessary if you need to heal multiple people.

The Level 30 to 49 White Mage

Let’s move on to 30 to 49 content. Again, this content is smoother as you get some of your base utilities.

At this level, it’s relatively easy if you keep an eye on how many enemies there are. However, the ticks of damage can pile up quickly, which you’ll get used to seeing as you play more.

Abilities

Presence of Mind will increase your spell cast time and recast time.

You’ll pair this with your single target damage ability, Stone, or your AoE damage ability Holy.

You can also use it for some swift GCD healing.

Regen is your go-to healing ability applied to the tank during the battle.

This ability should always be your first ability after a tank pulls a mob. Regen has a total of 1500 potency over 18 seconds.

Cure 3 has improved but can still be hard to utilize if everyone is spread out, as the radius is tiny.

You can cast this on you or someone else for 600-potency healing, but they must be close together to benefit. If you need to heal everybody. I wouldn’t prioritize using this over Medica.

Medica has a broader range than Cure 3, with just a 200 potency difference.

Since we know that DPS and tanks are running around the arena like chickens with their heads cut off, I usually prioritize Medica first. However, cure 3 could be helpful for stack markers where everyone’s on top of each other, and you’ll know you’ll get the benefit out of it.

We also have one of the most memed abilities of Final Fantasy 14, which is Holy. This is your AoE damage ability paired with the stun.

It will stun enemies multiple times when used in succession. Remember that enemies not attacking your tank is a form of mitigation, and you can basically seize all attacks on your tanks for around 7 seconds.

Playstyle

1. As the tank pulls trash mob, you will Regen the tank and DoT your enemies as your tank runs.
2. As soon as your tank stops, you can reapply Regen if it falls off.
3. Use Holy and heal as needed.

Your first Holy will last about four seconds, to which your second Holy cast will overlap. If your enemies are stunned, it will not refresh the timer.

Therefore, the first one needs to fall off entirely before the second one is applied.

The Level +50 White Mage

At this point, you’ll have the bases for what the dungeon pulls and the boss will look like, and this stays the same.

All we do now is add in the new skills and job abilities that we get into the base rotation and upgrade to be more efficient.

Abilities

At level 50, you get 2 extraordinary abilities that you’ll be utilizing a lot, which are Benediction and Medica 2

Benediction is your 100% healing ability. It has a relatively long cooldown.

I have seen players go either way with this. They either let the tank help drop while focusing on the DPS first. Then, as soon as the tank hits around 15 to 20%, they use Benediction for complete healing.

I have also seen players hold on to it as a safety heal.

Just follow your heart on this one.

Medica 2 can be pretty controversial for White Mag. The reason is it’s a party-wide Regen similar to Astrologian’s aspected Helios. The difference, in my opinion, about this spell is that the White Mage has very few OGCD Regens comparatively.

I use this ability quite a lot. Having 2 Regens on a tank is very powerful and will give you a ton of slack as a new healer. This, mixed with Regen, can keep the tank’s health pretty high without having to really focus on it.

Job Abilities

White Mage’s job abilities are GCDs, which means they reset the global timer. This means that they take away from damaging your enemies.

You’ll want to use Afflatus Solace instead of Cure 2 abilities.

At every angle, Afflatus Solace is a free Cure 2.

Regen and Medica 2 are still your main Regens at this point.

Asylum is an excellent ability for casual players. To effectively use it, you’ll want to wait until the tank stops moving or, as you get more skilled with healers, you can place where you generally know where the tank can’t stop after the second pull of the trash mob.

At later levels, you get a recovery boost to healing actions. The wide-range AOE is great for your second Regen and should be kept on cooldowns during battles.

Assize is another incredible skill that should have charges. This is our ability to regain MP, damage enemies, and heal allies. It really is an all-in-one ability.

You should always prioritize this for the damage rather than for the healing. It’s our only other damage ability.

White Mage’s Thin Air did have a few changes for Endwalker. It used to be an incredible duration paired with Presence of Mind. But now these are charges to make one spell MP cost zero.

We can use this in a couple of different ways.

One obvious way is to pair it with Resurrection, which will make raising a dead teammate absolutely free.

The other way is pairing this with Medica 2, which costs 1000 MP.

Tetragrammaton is a free, slightly less powerful Cure 2. It’s an OGCD, which means prioritize this over Afflatus Solace. It won’t reset your GCD timer.

Playstyle

1. When your tank is pulling, and you’ve cast your first Holy, you can then cast Medica 2 between the 1st and 2nd Holy.

This will allow you to get the stun out, let it run out, party-wide Regen, and then apply another stun immediately. This is what I’ve always recommended to new healers. And they usually bring a sigh of relief to have the kind of pressure taken off of big pulls.

One Regen and a Medica 2 for a double Regen will keep a very healthy amount of slack until you feel comfortable just using one Regen, and another OGCD heals.  Everyone has to start somewhere, and this is a better place to start than just spamming Cure 1 or Cure 2 in dungeons.

1. Once the pulling is over, apply the Asylum bubble where the tank stops.
2. Reapply Holy for another free stun.
3. Weave in Assize to deal some damage.
4. Use your OGCDs to prioritize healing.

The Level 60+ White Mage

You’ll unlock some job-specific abilities that will improve your healing journey.

Divine Benison is your go-to ability now with Regen. It provides a shield equal to a 500 potency heal.

Pairing Divine Benison with Regen can be a great damage mitigator at the start of each pool.

Plenary Indulgence is an interesting ability and will have better use later on. However, as of now, if you’re going to cast a Medica 2, just cast this ability first to get a little more healing out of it.

Medica 2 would be the best choice out of all of the other abilities at the moment. Since Medica and Cure 3 are just base AoEs with no Regen.

If you’re going to cast a GCD skill, apply a Regen anyway.

Afflatus Misery and the Lilies

Afflatus Misery is a DPS nuke for White Mage, but not necessarily used in the way you might think.

When you use a Lily, which you use by using either Afflatus Solace or Afflatus Rapture, you will get a Blood Lily.

DPS-wise, it isn’t optimal to use Afflatus Solace only to get blood lilies during battle. Think of this as just a way to recoup for healing your teammates.

I don’t prioritize lilies just to get the blood Lily, but dump them in between trash pulls to open up the next boss battle or the next trash pull with colossal damage.

Afflatus Rapture is a GCD AoE heal for your teammates. Again, because it’s a GCD, we don’t necessarily prioritize this. But it is great to pair with Plenary Indulgence instead of Medica 2.

The reason is that you can work towards Blood Lilies if you’re going to cast the Medica 2.

Now that we have a few more OGCD heals and regens, Afflatus Rapture becomes the better option here. In battle, it would be Plenary Indulgence and Afflatus Rapture to acquire a Blood Lily.

It is a great way to recoup damage with that nuke you’re losing by casting a GCD heal.

In short, the Afflatus Rapture and Plenary combo are less powerful than a Medica 2. But it can be DPS recoup combo.

Temperance is the most beautiful ability ever. Angel wings for damage mitigation of 10% and increased magic potency by 20%? Take my money.

This is a great way to mitigate damage and increase your healing potency for spells.

We then have Aquaveil, which is practically a tank buster ability with damage mitigation of 15%. This is great for tank pulls and tank busters during battle.

Liturgy of the Bell is our new level 90 ability. This will place five stacks of Liturgy of the Bell to yourself only. When you take damage, you will heal yourself and your party members for 400 potencies, practically a Medica.

Now the trick with this is you have to take the damage. This is very useful for multiple room ride attacks or stacking multiple attacks like Bahamut’s Akh Mor.

Even if you only use one or two stacks, the rest will get translated into a heal for the party for whatever is left, so still useful as a delayed heal.

FAQ

Question: Should I pick White Mage as my Starter Class in Final Fantasy XIV?

Answer: If you have just begun Final Fantasy XIV and want to get through the main storyline, you’re best off with a tank or DPS. The main reason is that you’ll need to kill several mobs and bosses to complete the MQS. White Mage has very few damage-dealing skills. Unless you’re perpetually teaming up with other people, you’ll find the game really slow.

Question: Is White Mage Difficult to Play in Final Fantasy XIV?

Answer: Not at all. White Mage is the perfect starter class for those who want to get into healers. It’s super straightforward and easy to grasp.

This is your go-to job if you have never played as a healer before in FFXIV.

Question: How to recover MP as a White Mage in Final Fantasy XIV?

Answer: White Mage has been memed to death for their lack of MP. Unfortunately, you need MP to cast, which is a rather severe issue.

The best way to keep your MP gauge up is to keep casting Lucid Dreaming. But, of course, ethers and Hi-Ethers are always helpful, too.

Parting Words

For a comparatively simple job, White Mage has lots of things you must pay attention to while playing. This stems from their job abilities being GCDS instead of OGCDs, like the other three healers.

It’s a compelling healing class but may need a certain flair that the other healer roles have come to be known as. The flip side? You can quickly grab this job and learn the ropes of healing in a couple of hours.