FFXIV White Mage Job Guide: Leveling and Rotation

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In the world of Eorzea, Black and White Magic flow through the land in currents and eddies like mountain streams. Where the former tends toward destruction, White Magic aligns harmoniously with nature, bringing renewal and healing to those in need. The FFXIV White Mage is a Healer without equal, capable of sustaining a party through the most trying trials while also stunlocking enemies with bursts of Holy light. This week, we’ve put together a FFXIV White Mage Job Guide to help you get started.

Ready to become a legendary Healer? Let’s begin!

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Conjure Up Some White Magic

First, you must master the comparatively simple art of the Conjurer. This class makes its home in Old Gridania at the Conjurer’s Guild in Stillglade Fane, located on the southwestern side of town. Head over there and take up the wand of a Conjurer, then get yourself to Level 30 to unlock class quests and the White Mage Job.

Your time as a Conjurer will teach you much that simple instructions can not. Namely, just how terribly squishy you are, and how reliant you are on others to handle the heavy lifting in dealing damage. Now that isn’t to say that you’re helpless as a Healer. You can throw rocks and conjure biting gusts of wind to get you through most quests solo. But when it comes to duties and adventurer parties, better to keep your focus on filling health bars.

After you get your windy DOTs up and toss a few rocks, that is.  

The Role of the White Mage: Heals for Peers

As a White Mage, you must steel yourself to shoulder the immaterial yet burdensome expectations of the entire playerbase with every duty and trial you run. The FFXIV White Mage is simply the best pound-for-pound Healer in the game. And that’s due in no small part to their robust toolkit for medical intervention.

For all their tricks, however, the White Mage can end up seeming like one of the simplest classes in the game. But when the party is on its last legs, buckling beneath the blows of a Primal, playing a Healer and playing it well is anything but simple. It requires nerves of steel and the ability to think on your feet to prioritize heals and Swiftcase Raise when needed.

The rest of the time? Yeah, playing a Healer is ideal second-monitor-Netflix fodder.

White Mage Job Rotation

You’ve got a lot of spells on your hotbar as a late-game White Mage, but your core rotation is thankfully simple in practice.

You’ll use the Cure, Regen, Medica, and Asylum spells to handle healing. Cures and Regen are single-target, while Medica is a healer-centered AOE and Asylum is a location-based AOE. Both Cure and Medica come in Tiers I–III with escalating potency. Both Medica II and Asylum offer heal-over-time (HOT), while the latter also buffs healing performed within it.

The Medica group of spells are AOE heals centered on the caster, and are great for recovering from party-wide damage dealt during Primal battles. Medica II even adds a HOT to keep the good vibes flowing beyond the initial healing burst. They’re a must on the hotbar for a good White Mage, though they burn through MP like none other, so they shouldn’t be your first line of defense.

The Healing Gauge

In a very on-brand move, the White Mage’s supplementary resource also continues the thread of naturalistic healing that binds the class together. At Level 52, after completing the class quest A Journey of Purification, you’ll unlock the Lily-powered gauge. How do you obtain Lilies? By engaging in epic battle, of course!

For every thirty seconds you’re locked in combat, you’ll gain a Lily on your Healing Gauge. Take note – you can only carry a maximum of 3 Lilies! Better to be using them and earning them back instead of capping out.

Lilies are used to power certain late game class-specific spells. These same spells also may “nourish the Blood Lily,” which requires three charges in total before blooming. Blooming the Blood Lily — no, that’s not a 90s nu-metal album — allows you to case Afflatus Misery, which deals a good bit of AOE damage and may buy you a bit of breathing room. In the list to come, keep an eye out for the ones with a Lily cost, and those which nourish the Blood Lily to make the most of this mechanic.

No Hippocratic Oath Here

As has been said before, every class in FFXIV is a DPS at heart. Not even the White Mage is exempt. When the time comes to trade blows, you’ve got the Stone spells for single-target damage, Aero/Dia for  damage-over-time (DOT), and Holy.

We’ll get to Holy, don’t worry.

You even have a few panic buttons too. Keep Benediction and Tetragrammaton on your hotbar for instant, bar-filling heals. As with most panic buttons, the cooldown on these spells is mighty, so take note. With all these spells combined, you’ll be the White Mage you always dreamed of being. But more than having the spells, you have to know how and when to use them.

Perhaps a deep dive is in order?

FFXIV White Mage Job Guide: Leveling

Now that the overview is out of the way, let’s dig into your toolkit from top to bottom with a breakdown by level.

A Realm Reborn: White Mage Actions

Levels 1–10

Stone (or Stone I, Lv. 1) is your very first Conjurer spell, and is unsurprisingly a damage-dealing one – with 140 potency single-target damage on tap for 400 MP. You’ll need to be able to defeat enemies to level, right?

Cure (or Cure I, Lv. 2) is your first healing spell. It’s a low-cost, low-potency way to handle wounds from weaker enemies, with 450 healing potency for 400 MP with a 1.5s cast time. Once you unlock the Freecure Trait at Level 32, it also offers a 15% chance to grant you a free Cure II cast as long as it’s within 15s of your Cure I cast. Do the math, though, and you’ll discover it isn’t quite so useful in practice. Best to stick with the higher tier healing spells once you unlock them.

At Level 4, you get Aero: a DOT spell that deals 50 damage on target and 30 damage per tick for 18s. It also costs 400 MP, so it isn’t a matter of mana management. Once your Tank has enmity locked down, throw an Aero on target then start healing or follow up with Stone.

Your first Role Action, Repose (Lv. 8), is a 600 MP spell that puts your target within 30 yalms to sleep for 30s. Note that it won’t work on all targets all the time, but for the odd mook, it’s a great way to help your Tank stay vertical.

For those party-wide damage waves, Medica (or Medica I, Lv. 10) is an AOE heal centered on the healer casting it. It has a potency of 300, healing both the caster and all nearby party members. However, it costs a hefty 1,000 MP, so best to save it until you need it.

Also at Level 10, you unlock your second Role Action: Esuna. It removes a single detrimental effect from the target, like certain debuffs and DOTs, for 400 MP at up to thirty yalms (refer to the UI for the brightened line that indicates an Esuna-able debuff). This spell is especially handy in duties and trials where bosses drop debuffs like grandmas do candy on Halloween. Looking at you, Aurum Vale.

Level 11–30

Level 12 brings a big spell in the form of Raise. For a whopping 2,400 MP, you can bring a party member within 30 yalms back to life — albeit in a weakened state. This spell takes 8s to cast, so you’ll have to position yourself accordingly and time it well. You’re generally a party member or two down when you’re casting it, after all.

Fluid Aura (Lv. 15) is an instant spell that binds a target with 25 yalms for 6s. Root an enemy in place if you’re being chased so you can make your escape, or do the same for a friendly under fire. It has a relatively short cooldown of 30s, so you can make use of it multiple times during a single combat situation.

At Level 18, you get your first upgraded spell: Stone II. This keeps all other stats, like the 400 MP to cast and 25 yalm range, while bumping the damage up to 200 potency. You’ll also get your next Role Action, Swiftcast (Lv. 18), which is an instant that makes your next spell cast immediately if cast within 10s. It’s most commonly used to Swiftcast a Raise on the Main Tank or second healer in trials, but you may find other applications with some practice — keep an open mind!

Lucid Dreaming (Role Action, Lv. 24) also offers strong utility, as it’s an instant that will gradually restore your MP for 50 potency per tick for 21s after casting. Pop it in the moments where you know you’ve got a lot of spells to cast in the near future, or when you see your MP dipping to dangerous levels mid-fight.

Cure II drops into your toolkit at Level 30. It costs 1,000 MP and casts in 2s for 700 potency versus Cure I at 400 MP, 1.5s, and 450 potency respectively. Unlike some other class upgrade spells, Cure II won’t overwrite Cure I, which means you can keep both on your hotbar and cast either one depending on your mana reserves or the windows of opportunity you have to work with. Generally you’ll be casting Cure II though, as the healing outweighs it’s predecessor so heavily — especially in late-game content.

Your second Level 30 unlock, Presence of Mind, reduces your spellcasting time, recast time, and auto-attack time by 20% for 15s. This is a powerful spell to help you get a salvo of healing or damage off in a hurry. It has a 150s cooldown, so hang on to it for the moments where you really need it. Your party will thank you.

Level 31–50

Regen (Lv. 35) is like the Swiss Army Knife of healing spells. It’s a single-target HOT offering 200 potency per tick over 18s that you can set-and-forget on just about anyone. DPS took a bit of damage from an enemy AOE? Regen and retarget the Tank. Want to keep the Tank topped off? Regen. Lost a little health to a misstep yourself? Regen. And all for 500 MP with an instant cast time on any target with 30 yalms. It’s simply spectacular, and essential for any White Mage.

At Level 40, you get the best of the best Cure spell with Cure III. Like before, it won’t overwrite Cure I or II, so you can mix and match as needed. Cure III heals a target as well as any party members within 6 yalms of the target for 550 potency, so it’s great to heal multiple Tanks in a trial or clustered DPS players who all just ate an AOE. It takes 2s to cast and costs 1,500 MP though, so best to keep this as a last line of defense.

Surecast (Lv. 44) is another instant Role Action that serves a strong but niche position. When cast, you are granted 6s of uninterrupted casting, meaning that taking damage won’t stop you from channeling. It also prevents most knockbacks and draw-in effects, granting you sure footing in a moment where you need it most. Recast is 120s, so keep it in your back pocket for when you need it.

Remember when we said we’d get to Holy (Lv. 45)? The time has come. Holy is an infamous spell with a 2.5s cast time and 600 MP cost that can turn battles around in a flash. Literally. Once channeled, the Holy caster erupts in a blinding flash of light, dealing 140 damage and stunning all nearby enemies for 4s. With a recast time of 2.5s, this means you can chain Holy spells together to stunlock mooks — sorry, it doesn’t stunlock bosses. But remember that your main goal in the party is to heal. Holy has a right place and a right time — despite what you may think, that isn’t “everywhere” and “all the time.” Apply when overwhelmed by adds, or simply to mop up near the end of a pull.

At Level 46 you get Aero II, an upgrade to Aero I, which deals 60 potency wind damage and adds a 60 potency DOT for 18s. It keeps Aero I’s low 400 MP cost, and is an instant cast. Drop this DOT on any target within 25 yalms that your Tank is holding aggro for, then get to healing.

The last Role Action, Rescue (Lv. 48), allows you to physically drag a party member to your side. If the Tank’s in too deep in the telegraph, Rescue them to pull them out of harms way. It has a 30 yalm range, 120s recast timer, and cannot be used outside of combat or when the target has certain debuffs. But when you need to use it, you need to use it. Always keep your head on a swivel for Rescue opportunities in trials.

Lastly, Level 50 brings two great spells in turn to round out A Realm Reborn’s White Mage toolkit: Medica II and Benediction. The former is a non-replacing upgrade over Medica I that costs 1,300 MP for a 200 potency heal on yourself and any party members within 20 yalms. It takes 2.5s to cast, but for that extra time Medica II also applies a 100 potency Regen effect for 15s. So heal now and heal later while you’re at it! Benediction is an instant that restores all of a target’s HP within 30 yalms. Great for saving your Tank — or yourself — from the brink, but its 180s cooldown means you’d better keep it until you need it.

Heavensward: White Mage Actions

Level 51–60

Taking your White Magic self to Coerthas will bring new magic spells as pure as the driven snow. Afflatus Solace (Lv. 52) is as pious as it sounds, instantly restoring the HP of a target within 30 yalms for 700 potency while also nourishing the Blood Lily. You remember the Blood Lily, don’t you? Note that Afflatus Solace costs 1 Lily, so plan accordingly.                                                           

Also at Level 52, Asylum allows you to plop a bubble of healing and healing accessories right down on the battlefield. You can instantly envelop a “designated area in a veil of succor” 8 yalms around anywhere within 30 yalms of yourself. This realm offers those standing within in a HOT of 100 potency for 24s, and also increases HP recovery via healing actions on party members within by 10%. Maybe drop Asylum on yourself and your party before casting Medica II?

Stone III (Lv. 54) is even stonier, dealing earth damage of 240 potency to a target within 25 yalms for the same low 400 MP. It does have a cast time of 2.5s, so make sure you can commit first.

Assize (Lv. 56) is a lovely AOE that deals potency 400 unaspected damage to all enemies within 15 yalms. But that’s not all! It also heals yourself and party members within 15 yalms for 400 potency at the same time. And it restores you 5% of your maximum MP. All wrapped up in an instant ability with no MP cost and a 45s cooldown. Yeah, you’ll be casting this a lot.

Second to last for Heavensward, Thin Air (Lv. 58) is an instant with a 120s cooldown that reduces the MP cost of all your actions by 100% for 12s. That’s right, it makes all your spells free for 12s. Combine this with some heavy-handed Medica II, Cure II or III, and maybe even a Raise at the end for best results.

Coming in at Level 60, Tetragrammaton is an incredibly versatile spell that instantly heals a target within 30 yalms for 700 potency. It has no MP cost either, so simply spend the 60s cooldown dropping heals any which way you prefer before slapping Tetragrammaton down on the table again. But as with most hefty heals, if you don’t need to burn it, keep it in your pocket for when you do!

Stormblood: White Mage Actions

Level 61–70

Stormblood doesn’t have a lot to offer White Mages — but what it does is pretty sweet. Stone IV (Lv. 64) is an upgrade-not-replacement to the Stone line that is still 400 MP cost with 2.5s cast time, yet now it deals 280 potency damage to your target within 25 yalms. A little extra damage never hurt anyone — except for your foes.

Divine Benison (Lv. 66) is an instant that creates a barrier around yourself or a party member within 30 yalms for 15s. This barrier functions like an equivalent heal of 500 potency, and after soaking 500 damage it will be all used up.

Lastly — we told you Stormblood didn’t have a lot — Plenary Indulgence (Lv. 70) instantly grants yourself and any party members within 20 yalms the Confession buff. This means that upon receiving HP recovery via Medica I, Medica II, Cure III, or Afflatus Rapture cast by yourself, Confession will trigger another supplementary heal on top of it. That’s an extra 200 potency healing thanks to Confession, as long as you cast one of those spells within the 10s window that the buff lasts.

Shadowbringers: White Mage Actions

Level 71–80

You’ll pick up Dia (Lv. 72) not long into your adventures in Norvrandt. It’s an instant for 400 MP that deals unaspected damage with a potency of 120 as well as a DOT of 60 potency over 30s. It’s a nice upgrade to the Aero spells and will serve you well on the First.

Glare (Lv. 72) is a single-target damage spell that takes the mantle of the Stone spells, offering 300 potency damage for 400 MP with a 2.5s cast and cooldown. Not bad, but not the most interesting. Don’t worry, Shadowbringers still has some tricks up its sleeve.

Afflatus Misery (Lv. 74) is an instant that hits a target — and all enemies within 5 yalms of it — with an attack that’s potency 900 for the first enemy and 25% less for all remaining enemies. Note that Afflatus Misery can only be executed when the Blood Lily is in full bloom, so be sure to keep nourishing it with Afflatus Solace to combo into Misery.

Or you can do some nourishing with Afflatus Rapture (Lv. 76), which also nourishes the Blood Lily while healing yourself and party members within 20 yalms. The healing potency is 300, so decent enough for an instant AOE heal. Note that Rapture costs 1 Lily as well.

Last but certainly not least, Temperance (Lv. 80) is an instant with a 120s cooldown that increases your healing magic potency by 20% for 20s. But that’s not all — it also reduces damage taken by yourself and any party members within 30 yalms by 10% for the same amount of time. A great way to buff your healing and debuff enemy damage all in a convenient, instant package.

Join the High Ground

Playing a FFXIV White Mage is sometimes easy, sometimes challenging, and certainly nerve wracking when things come down to the wire. The hopes and dreams of the party ride on you — and sometimes you alone — to get them through the duty or trial in one piece. A Tank can only take so much punishment, after all. Even the strongest rock will crack beneath a never ending stream of blows.

It’s your job to patch up the rock, splash him with some water, and push him back in the ring. Brush up on your bedside manner and let your party know that “the doctor is in.” They may not say it, but deep down they’re thankful, and they know that they couldn’t have done it without you.

No matter what that Paladin says.

We hope you feel adequately equipped now to be a world-renowned practitioner of the White Magic healing arts! If you liked this FFXIV White Mage Job guide and want more content like it, be sure to give us a follow on Facebook and Twitter. Questions, comments, or concerns? Voice them in the comments section below. 

Until next time, we’ll be scouring the Dravanian Hinterlands for Unspoiled Mining Nodes.