Levling as a Whitemage/Conjurer Low on MP

I'm leveling as a white mage, and I have this problem when questing;
I am running out of MP in the middle of boss fights... Usually when the boss have ~50% health left.

I am using MP restoration pots, but it doesn't help much.
Is there any way to avoid running out of MP? Do I need to play with some kind of rotation or use any special ability?

Right now I'm using "Aero">"Stone II">"Stone II">"Stone II">"Etc." + "Fluid Aura".
(Not much of a rotation. Heh..)

Sad to say this but White Mages don't have any form of MP recovery outside of Shroud of Saints and their BFFs, Bards.
Your best bet during boss fights in dungeons and trails would be to focus on healing.
While soloing or doing things like FATEs or trash mobs in dungeons, you should use use Cleric Stance, it will increase your damage. Just remember to turn it off when you're healing.
At you're level, the rotation you have now is the best you can do. You could grab Bio from Arcanist and Blizzard II from Thaumaturge if you want more DPS.
If you want to be a healer that can do damage, you could switch to Scholar, they have all of Arcanist's DoTs and have access to Conjurer's Cleric Stance plus a Fairy that can heal for you.

It is a curse you must learn to live with lol.
Cure 1 procs all the way and shroud of saints.
Thats all anyone can really say when it comes to mp regen for whm.

I'm guessing you mean the solo quests like class quests, job quests and main story non-DF quests? If so you're usually set up with NPC's that tank/DPS. As a CNJ you'll actually want to heal them and DPS as a secondary priority. Use Aero and Aero II as needed but save the rest of your MP for Cures and if it looks like it's going well use Stone/Stone II as MP permits. The class/job quests emphasize this more as a means to teach you how to play the clas/job but it's tempting to try and just go full DPS. With CNJ it's more about slow and steady for those.

Otherwise some tips for MP management:

+ Cure procs free Cure II's. Use Cure as often as possible over Cure II unless you have a proc or someone's in danger.

+ Cure II procs critical Cure III's. Rarely useful due to its small AoE but it can heal a lot of HP for less MP if everyone is grouped up tight.

+ If you're confident your group won't have a death Swiftcast (THM ability) Stoneskin can help if 18% of the tank's HP is higher than what you could cure with the same MP. Most often only happens at high ilevels though some WAR's can make this happen earlier.

+ Shroud of Saints should be used liberally around 80%MP as it heals your MP over time and isn't an "in a pinch" ability.

+ MP base regeneration is directly linked to your max MP. If you still have trouble stack on PIE. Playing carefully 4k-4.5k MP at 50 is safe and 5k MP leaves you with no problems whatsoever.

+ When you apply your DoT's or nuke make sure Cleric Stance is up to get the most DPS for your MP.

White Mages don't really have a set rotation. You will maintain 2 dots (aero/aero2), and use stone1/stone2. Fluid Aura is a useful skill while soloing. Just remember to use cleric stance. If you need to heal, regen and cure are often enough. Any more damage than that and you're probably taking a dodgeable aoe.

If you're still having trouble, consider only using aero and cure. It is much slower, but costs you less MP than spamming stone. You can still use fluid aura, since that doesnt' cost mp, but only use your mp to keep yourself alive and to maintain aero. If you have to keep an npc alive or kill something to save the npc, it is best to turn to dps and be intelligent in who you focus. Use repose to sleep multiple targets and fluid aura to interrupt or push enemies away.

Finally, consider updating your gear. Your main hand and body pieces should be lv.25 or higher, and your accessories somewhere around lv.20 (although you may have some lv.15 neck or wrists because there's a little gap between lv.15-25). Try to get Disciple of Magic gear. I don't know if your profile is bugging and showing you wearing crafting gear (because the image is obviously a cotton robe, tights, and circlet), but that might be one possible reason for the lack of MP and damage you're dealing.

You might be panicking and spamming medica/cure2 without realising it. Those eat up a huge amount of MP. You're still only level 31, there often isn't a lot of party wide damage for fights around that level and you're fine just spaming cure by itself, medica only if more than one person in the party is below 50% but it is rarely necessary. Your party will not be taking as much damage so you'll have time to cure multiple targets.

There's no need to be esuna-ing debuffs as well, at that level, everything besides paralyse is a mere annoyance. Just leave it be. Even the poisons is in upcoming brayflox can be ignored without causing too much problems.

The only real way to conserve MP is to remain calm no matter the circumstances, do not panic heal.
If the DPSers dies, well, too bad. But as long as you and the tank are alive, most situations are recoverable.

Healing priority is usually yourself > tank > DPSer.
If the tank dies, you can raise him. If you die, unless there's an arcanist/summoner in the party, it's a wipe.

You have no piety on your gear. This will cause mana issues as it slows your mp regen when in combat. This doesn't mean necessarily spend anything replacing your gear: I think it is fine. Just don't dps until you start getting drops with piety.

What bosses are you talking about? If you DPS all the time you're going to run out of MP, I don't think there is any way around it, they just cost too much MP. When I was soloing FATEs for my books I had the same problem. Even keeping SoS on cooldown, I would run out of MP eventually and had to rely on the chocobo. If you're talking about class quests, I honestly never DPS that much, if you keep alive NPCs they'll do all the work for you.

As for party content, everyone else said all that should be said I think. Divine Seal, Regen and Freecure are your best friends in managing your MP.

When doing the main scenario, or FATEs etc, I always had trouble keeping mana up as well! Especially long FATEs - I'd generally run out of mana before long. Tbh with those I recommend just not worrying too much as you will get gold at the end regardless if you've been doing a fair bit of damage. As Moqi said, if it's trouble in class quests, keeping the NPCs alive is very helpful. Otherwise, sadly there isn't really any fix to it except for pots.

If it's dungeons/trials/guildhests you mean, as a White Mage your first priority is healing. We don't really have a set rotation. Cure I until you get a free Cure II will help conserve MP. At this point, there isn't a lot of use for Medica unless everyone is taking damage, which I don't think happens in early stuff. Sometimes the DPS might take a bit of damage and then stop, and it's ok not to heal them as their health will regenerate any way. If you're sure you will have enough MP to heal and DPS then great, but if not it's better to save it for healing. If it's your first time doing the dungeon it might be better to just focusing on healing as you don't know what's coming up next, and after lv.30 the dungeons are a step up from earlier ones.
On the off chance you find you're going through your MP healing someone, check their gear as it might be broken or low leveled and tell 'em to fix it please.

Over time everyone learns to manage MP appropriately and not over heal etc, and Shroud of Saints and Regen are a big help, but it's just experience that teaches that!

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Originally Posted by Quinnie

When doing the main scenario, or FATEs etc, I always had trouble keeping mana up as well! Especially long FATEs - I'd generally run out of mana before long. Tbh with those I recommend just not worrying too much as you will get gold at the end regardless if you've been doing a fair bit of damage. As Moqi said, if it's trouble in class quests, keeping the NPCs alive is very helpful. Otherwise, sadly there isn't really any fix to it except for pots.

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This is exactly what i meant, doing main scenario, or FATEs where there are often long combat and I actually have to do dps. (Mostly when leveling without a group/party in general).

Regarding have no piety on my gear. When leveling it's hard to get the optimal attributes on my gear but I'm trying to use the "best" gear I can get my hands on. I'm trying to focus on Mind as #1, but I'm also trying to get some extra piety from bonus attributes.


However, thanks everyone for your tips! It helps a lot. :)

For damage, Stone II gives more damage, so is faster at killing things, but your original Stone spell is more MP efficient, so try alternating them or switching to Stone whenever your MP starts running low. I had the same problem shortly after unlocking Stone II, when I was essentially just replacing Stone with Stone II. In this game, the higher powered skill isn't always the best choice, since you have to balance that power against a significantly higher mana cost. The same basic rule applies to both Stone II and Cure II. You'll often find Stone and Cure work as well and leave you in better shape for the remainder of the fight. Use the higher powered skill when you really need that extra burst (and can afford to pay for it in MP).

My mana issues went away at some point over 50. My newbie mistakes were ditching medica for medica II and ditching cure for cure II. Understanding the differences between them and making good use of stone skin will go a long way MP wise. I never call on my bard unless people just simply can't stay out of stuff and start sponging heals. If you have a pretty good team you shouldn't have to struggle.

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Originally Posted by Zwipp

This is exactly what i meant, doing main scenario, or FATEs where there are often long combat and I actually have to do dps. (Mostly when leveling without a group/party in general).

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Do the level 30 quest in Camp Tranquil to allow your chocobo to fight with you and start giving it dps/tank skills. It can't help in instanced battles but it can be a substantial damage help for fates and other non-instanced things.

If you're going solo, you're really gonna get a lot of help from your companion chocobo. Stone1 is your best bet for DPS, it costs less mana than stone2 plus it grants heavy status on the target and the difference in damage is negligible. I use stone2 in groups tho because i usually don't get chased by mobs. Aero2 I find to be used only on occasion, usually in boss fights when things are going well and I have time to stand and wait for cast time. Other than that, when I'm in a group I only use Aero1 and the occasional Stone2. When soloing missions, you do want to keep the NPC's up while still doing damage so practice your stance dancing, using cleric stance to go between DPS and heals.