WHM Role Skills?

These are the skills I've been using, although Lucid Dreaming looks pretty tempting. Is there anything I should change on my list? Thanks.

https://i.imgur.com/wp69wX8.png

I always use:

• Largesse
• Swiftcast
• Lucid Dreaming

Protect is only used once at the beginn of a duty and goes off my list if I know I probably have noone to res and reapply during a fight, like in dungeons.
Medica only goes in, if I know I have to cure status allignements.

If I don't need those 2 skills during a duty I exchange them at the start with Cleric Stance and/or Eye for an Eye.

For explenation:

• Largesse is a must have, it's the only buff you can take to empower your healing power and your empowered HoTs are able to keep tanks alive on their own most of the time. Also it makes your life easier if you struggle with healing power in specific phases or situations.
• Swiftcast is my second must have. It is a simple tool to make Res'ing instant, but can also be used as Swiftcast-Holy to apply a AoE stun, which is a huge possibility to mitigate damage, so makes healing easier if the mobs aren't immune against stuns.
• Lucid Dreaming is your only enmity dump and a MP regen. I use it primarly for its enmity dump to give my tanks breathing room so they can shift their focus more into more damage, aka faster runs, and don't have to worry so much about enmity. The MP regen is also a nice bonus.
• Protect is a fire and forget skill. Its baseline to apply and (almmost) noone wants to go without. Apply and take it off your list, you wont need it within the next 30 minutes unless you restart the duty or start a new one and then you have enough time to take it in, apply and take it off again.
• Cleric Stance is a good tool to boost your DPS. A good way to help speed up a dungeon when used at the right time. Take it if you have a free slot and don't need any other skill or any other skill doesn't have a useful situation in this duty.
• Eye for an Eye is an situational skill, only really useful in trashpulls. So your not in a dungeon and have no takn for big pulls, take it off your list. In the best case it gives an even damage mitigation to Protect in overall during its application but it is to short to be really usefull, especially in boss fights or with low enemy count.
• Esuna is to situational nowadays. In most duties status allignments are avoidable and if not they are mostly not cleanseable. If you know you will need it, take it, else take something else.
• Surecast is a good skill for fights where the boss will push you around. Also your spells can't be disrupted during its effect.
• Rescue is like surecast, good for fights where you or the party get pushed around or simply someone gets pushed around but it is crucial to keep him by the party and he can't or didn't slot his antiknockback skill.
• Break is useless in groupplay. Maybe it has its pros in soloplay with its heavy but that's it. Don't use this in any duty you don't have to heavy anything, if you can't handle it without heavy, use the other method and never use Break, its just a wasted slot in 99,9%.

Always keep Lucid Dreaming! Otherwise your only MP regenerating skill will be Assize (which you have to use like clockwork and during some fights, won't be very helpful by itself). It with Lucid Dreaming, I rarely run out of MP. I use it, Protect, Esuna (I think is one? I can't remember atm), Swiftcast (a must have for Raise), and Thin Air -useful when used with Presence of Mind. You'll be able to quickly heal or attack WITHOUT using any MP! I like to use it to blast Holy for mobs. I quit using Cleric Stance around the SB change since it only lasts a few seconds anyways, I just use Intelligence Materia to up my attack. Which seems to work better anyways. Hope this helps! ^^

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KokonoeAiyoko

These are the skills I've been using, although Lucid Dreaming looks pretty tempting. Is there anything I should change on my list? Thanks.

https://i.imgur.com/wp69wX8.png

---

Lucid Dreaming is a non-negotiable unless you literally never DPS (in other words, you should need it) and are not running any level of raid content.

My must-haves are the same as Legion88: Largesse, Swiftcast, Lucid Dreaming.

Eye for an Eye I've mostly given up on. It was fairly niche and unreliable when it was an ACN skill, and now that it's a role skill and on a long recast I'm even less impressed. It's worth tossing in there for big trash pulls after you've thrown up Protect, but no one is likely to notice a difference.

Cleric Stance is another "better-than-nothing" replacement for Protect, but it's probably the first thing to go if you find yourself wanting to use a different role skill. Damage is important for all roles, but you'll never be dropping, say, Swiftcast for that occasional 5% boost.

Surecast is a very niche ability but wonderful when A) you need it and B) it actually works against that mechanic. Sadly I don't get much use out of it right now except to ignore Vacuum Wave in O4S part 1.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mitsuri

Always keep Lucid Dreaming! Otherwise your only MP regenerating skill will be Assize (which you have to use like clockwork and during some fights, won't be very helpful by itself). It with Lucid Dreaming, I rarely run out of MP. I use it, Protect, Esuna (I think is one? I can't remember atm), Swiftcast (a must have for Raise), and Thin Air -useful when used with Presence of Mind. You'll be able to quickly heal or attack WITHOUT using any MP! I like to use it to blast Holy for mobs. I quit using Cleric Stance around the SB change since it only lasts a few seconds anyways, I just use Intelligence Materia to up my attack. Which seems to work better anyways. Hope this helps! ^^

---

2 issues with this post. The first is that Thin Air is not a role ability. It's a WHM exclusive one. But you're correct in that it's amazing to use with PoM. The second issue is that intelligence materia does absolutely nothing for healer dps, you'd do just as well with no materia slotted. Healer damage is based solely off of mind now.

Cleric Stance is eh. Largesse is more useful.

Also, please cast Protect and switch it out. It's a wasted slot and put LD in it instead.

My personal list:

Must Haves

• Swiftcast - The ability to instant cast allows you to handle Raises fast or deal with movement mechanics without missing a beat and is too good to pass up.
• Lucid Dreaming - For the MP restore mostly, but the enmity dump has applications too. The WHM DPS kit can output tons of AoE damage at the cost of massive resources and Lucid will help mitigate that.

Common Choices

• Protect - You can apply this at the beginning and then swap it to something else. I would recommend doing this in a group you trust and where you won't expect any death. I keep this on my bar for the 24-mans because there is always a death and you'll want to be able to reapply mid combat in this case.
• Cleric Stance - 5% Damage up CD. Nothing much to say, when you get to a certain point in gearing and skill you don't need too many other things in your Cross Role list and thus "MOAR DAMAGE" starts to be come optimal. This is one of the roles I will quickly change out though, if I need to free up slots for more situational and fight-dependent cross roles.

Situational

• Eye for an Eye - Decent choice for AoE pulls and those bosses that have heavy physical tank busters and auto attacks since you can use this preemptively on the tank to reduce the oncoming tank buster damage. Just remember that the ability needs time to proc on the monster so give it enough lead time if you can.
• Esuna - Not many hard fights have dispellable debuffs. In fact I don't use this at all in Omega Savage. The selection of Esuna will be fight dependent and I always recommend to have this on for any fight you do blind until you discover you won't need it. Better to be safe than sorry.
• Surecast - It grants Knockback protection. Like Esuna, you will want to select this depending on the fight ( O4S ExDeath and Shinryu, for example). Just know which knockback effects Surecast can and cannot mitigate. Some experimentation may be required :)

Low Priority

• Rescue - From a DPS standpoint, Rescue has applications in getting melee back into attack range quickly after a knock back mechanic. It's difficult to gauge how useful this will be in actually "rescuing" someone unless you have huge situational awareness and even then saving someone once just to see them go splat in the next mechanic makes you question why your brought this cross role in the first place.
• Break - The only benefit Break has is that it costs 0MP. I could see use of this as a GCD filler in situations where you have to expend high amounts of MP to heal ( O4S solo healing ) but you normally aren't in these situations.
• Largesse - The goal of any healer is to spend as little GCDs healing and organize their CD usage to optimize healing. Since Largesse only affects spells, it does little for the White Mage kit outside of the GCD heals that you're trying to minimize. Once you get to a certain gear and skill level, you'll find the bonuses Largesse can provide will be minimal at best. Until you reach that comfort level though, Largesse does provide a oops factor correction benefit that many can find useful, so take this cross role if you're still getting used to the White Mage kit and/or the content you're participating in.

I pretty much always use Lucid Dreaming, Swiftcast, Esuna, and Largesse. For the content I'm doing (ie: not savage) those are always handy. Sometimes Esuna isn't useful, but leaving it on means I don't have to remember to put it back on for the cases that do need it and thus doesn't result in unnecessary deaths when Doom comes out. Swapping out is something that is more useful in harder content where the extra bit matters, below that it's simpler to keep your favorites on all the time.

I had Rescue for a while but I find it's activation is just too slow, by time it grabs someone and moves them the odds are the effect I was trying to rescue them from has already gone off. So I got very few saves with it. I have Surecast there now instead.

I use the protect swap macro below to effectively have both Protect and Surecast at the same time. It also tells the party I'm casting Protect, which has proven extremely effective at stopping people from running away from it. (Doesn't work in combat.)

/macroicon Protect
/macroerror off
/aaction Surecast off
/aaction Protect on
/p Casting Protect, please stay close! :)
/ac "Protect" <me>
/wait 3
/aaction Protect off
/aaction Surecast on

I really disagree that Lagresse is low priority.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cold_Sand

I really disagree that Lagresse is low priority.

---

Largesse's priority depends on how much you are able to leverage abilities vs. spells.

If a large portion of your healing is coming from abilities (as it should if the healer is playing efficiently and if the party is not making life difficult), Largesse's value is diminished.

On the other hand, if you are having to use GCD heals frequently, or if you anticipate the need for significant burst healing, Largesse pays for its slot.

I consider Cleric Stance worthless since 4.0 launched. Five percent more damage for 15 seconds every 90 seconds is just too inconsequential to waste a skill choice on, especially when your primary role is healing.

Swiftcast and Lucid Dreaming are must haves IMO. You need to be able to instant res people and you need a way to regenerate MP.

While some people like to use macros to swap skills, I consider Protect and Esuna must haves for me specifically.

I am not interested in juggling role skills via macros only to have something fudge up the macro's execution and I am lacking a skill I need at a specific time. Parties expect the healer to have Protect. In the case of a static 8 man you can always designate one healer as the Protect giver and the other can take something else, but in general I always have Protect. The same goes for Esuna. Unlike some players, I make it a point to cleanse any and every debuff that can be cleansed (when possible and when it won't get someone killed). While not every encounter requires it, I like knowing I always have Esuna when I need.

That leaves me with one role skill choice left. I basically have Largesse there. While not vital, its always useful when heavy damage is incoming and you want to pump up your throughput. Of all the role skills I chose, Largesse is the ONLY one I could consider swapping out for something else if I found it useful for a particular encounter.

Cleric Stance = a waste
Break = a waste
Rescue = very situational
Surecast = very situational
Eye for an Eye = doesn't do enough for its duration and cooldown to really matter.

So basically I find little to no reason to deviate from: Protect, Esuna, Swiftcast, Lucid Dreaming, Largesse

I still want to know why Break even exists. It’s so horribly useless that’s basically a “noobtrap” skill that tries to fool new players into thinking it has to be good for something simply because it exists.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cold_Sand

I really disagree that Lagresse is low priority.

---

As Cynfael has mentioned, your mileage with Lagresse is dependent on spending your GCDs to heal. My own personal experience is my healing partner in my static loves pushing HPS so I'm left to essentially Regen, use my oGCD heals, and occasionally GCD spot heal. This puts Largesse pretty low on the scale for my on a personal tier list.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cynfael

I still want to know why Break even exists. It’s so horribly useless that’s basically a “noobtrap” skill that tries to fool new players into thinking it has to be good for something simply because it exists.

---

The only time I've seen Break used at the highest skill levels is during the first O4S solo heal when the N.AST was using it to fill GCDs between mechanics without spending MP. That's... about it. lol. It's not much of a reason but still puts it slightly ahead of "useless" I guess? *Shrugs*

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ghishlain

As Cynfael has mentioned, your mileage with Lagresse is dependent on spending your GCDs to heal. My own personal experience is my healing partner in my static loves pushing HPS so I'm left to essentially Regen, use my oGCD heals, and occasionally GCD spot heal. This puts Largesse pretty low on the scale for my on a personal tier list.



The only time I've seen Break used at the highest skill levels is during the first O4S solo heal when the N.AST was using it to fill GCDs between mechanics without spending MP. That's... about it. lol. It's not much of a reason but still puts it slightly ahead of "useless" I guess? *Shrugs*

---

You have a point; I forgot that it had an MP cost of 0, so I suppose it's better than nothing if you're attempting a world first and are having to make every point of MP and every GCD count.

Thanks for the helpful responses.

Yeah I suppose getting rid of Eye for an Eye for Lucid Dreaming is a much smarter choice (I honestly misread this ability a while back and it's why I wasn't using it and kept wondering why they got rid of refresh).

That said, I can't seem to part with Cleric Stance as I do feel it's useful for typical dungeons and I don't run savage. I can't seem to find a spot for Largesse as I don't want to get rid of Esuna either as it does has its uses, especially when Paralysis occurs.

That leaves Protect and I feel that's useful as well. I kind of feel I can get by without Largesse since I don't run Savage or Extreme content these days.

I disagree with Largesse being low priority for WHM, as it takes effects on HoTs and Cure III which is where WHM's main source of healing comes from. It's much more useful than something like Esuna that is only useful in very few situations, 99% of them requiring your party members getting hit by things they shouldn't. My personal picks are: Protect (if my co healer isn't carrying/for dungeons), Cleric Stance, Swiftcast, Lucid Dreaming, Largesse, Surecast (swap protect for this after cast).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KokonoeAiyoko

That leaves Protect and I feel that's useful as well. I kind of feel I can get by without Largesse since I don't run Savage or Extreme content these days.

---

If you don't mind not being able to cast Protect during combat, the macro solution works great for it. If you really want to cast it during combat, then you're pretty much stuck having it slotted.

Lucid Dreaming is not optional. It's the most mandatory cross role skill a healer can take.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mitsuri

I quit using Cleric Stance around the SB change since it only lasts a few seconds anyways, I just use Intelligence Materia to up my attack. Which seems to work better anyways. Hope this helps! ^^

---

Int? But healer's magic attack is calculated using Mind. Since Stormblood I thought that Int was pretty useless for healers.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cynfael

Largesse's priority depends on how much you are able to leverage abilities vs. spells.

If a large portion of your healing is coming from abilities (as it should if the healer is playing efficiently and if the party is not making life difficult), Largesse's value is diminished.

On the other hand, if you are having to use GCD heals frequently, or if you anticipate the need for significant burst healing, Largesse pays for its slot.

---

How to make a large portion of a White Mage's healing come from just Bene (180s CD, 100% HP), Asylum (90s CD, 100 pot for 24s) Assize (60s CD, 300 pot), Tetra (60s CD, 700 pot) and PI (60s CD, 150/300/450 depending on confession stacks)?

Remember that Cure, Cure 2, Cure 3, Regen, Medica and Medica 2 are spells. And I think that most of WHM's healing include those 6 spells.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ghishlain

As Cynfael has mentioned, your mileage with Lagresse is dependent on spending your GCDs to heal. My own personal experience is my healing partner in my static loves pushing HPS so I'm left to essentially Regen, use my oGCD heals, and occasionally GCD spot heal. This puts Largesse pretty low on the scale for my on a personal tier list.

---

The reason I see everyone use it because Regen is still a spell. Largesse+Regen is enormous. You may not use Cure much, but you use Regen a LOT.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Estelle9lives

I disagree with Largesse being low priority for WHM, as it takes effects on HoTs and Cure III which is where WHM's main source of healing comes from. It's much more useful than something like Esuna that is only useful in very few situations, 99% of them requiring your party members getting hit by things they shouldn't. My personal picks are: Protect (if my co healer isn't carrying/for dungeons), Cleric Stance, Swiftcast, Lucid Dreaming, Largesse, Surecast (swap protect for this after cast).

---

For non Extreme / Savage content, although Largesse is useful, I don't really need it per se. That said, if I end up running into a fight where I do require it I'll toggle off on the skills I don't require like Protect (after casting).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by NorthernLadMSP

Lucid Dreaming is not optional. It's the most mandatory cross role skill a healer can take.

---

So essentially I didn't catch the "Refresh" bit a few months ago so that is why I haven't been using it because I misread. When I decided to recheck all of the Role skills the other day I saw that and said to myself "So that's where my MP restoration went to".

Funnily enough, however, I was able to get by just fine using Assize and that one ability that let's you cast freely for a short bit. This'll just assure I always have MP.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by miraidensetsu

Snip!

---

I'd imagine that regularly playing with the same co-healer and thus learning to complement each other makes those kinds of shenanigans possible, along with having extensive knowledge of the fight in question.

Looking at some of the top spots on FFLogs in the Combined Healer DPS category, you can see that the top White Mages have more than half of their healing coming from Abilities for Alte Roite and Catastrophe. It does fall off for Halicarnassus and Neo Exdeath, but most of the time they're still pretty close to half of their healing being done by Abilities still.

Obviously, as mentioned, this requires flawless play from the rest of your group, a deep trust for your co-healer, a good feel for the damage flow of the encounter and a pinch of mad skills. Very few are blessed with all four, probably. :p

Personally, I use Largesse all the time, but less for emergency/healing worries and more for further enabling my DPS. Not that I'm a god or anything, but I try. :x

It also depends on what you're doing. Triple pull in an expert where the DPS is slow killing stuff is going to require more GCD healing, since stuff is alive longer and there is no other healer to help out. Contrast that to O2N where you can go full minutes with the only GCD heal you cast being Regen and it's more than enough when paired with Tetra, Assize, Embrace, & Indom (last two are from your co healer of course :) ).

Using as few GCDs to heal as you can is a good goal, since it encourages optimum use of oGCD heals instead of saving them all the time and frees you up for more other actions. But it's not a baseline, as we can't realistically all do it on every encounter. It depends on what you're doing and who you're doing it with, among other factors. That makes Largesse awesome for some people and weak for others. For me, it's firmly in the "awesome" camp even if I don't press it as often as I should. :) YMMV.

Yeah, I should just do the macro thing. Like, it's essentially Divine Seal and that's something I've been using since FFXI days. I do know how useful it can be.

I macro swap Protect and Esuna. Both have no CD.

I run

Largesse
Swiftcast
Lucid Dream
Esuna
Eye for an Eye (mitigation is mitigation)

In dungeons I run the following:

Cleric Stance
Swiftcast
Eye for Eye
Lucid Dreaming
Protect

Savage and Ex primals it varies, I still always run Lucid, Swiftcast, and Cleric regardless. O1S-O3S I tend to run Eye for Eye and Largesse, Exdeath I use Surecast and Rescue, and lastly Neo I run Largesse and Rescue(Rescue is taken just to increase PLD DPS since they don't have a gap closer when they get knocked back).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tridus

*snippers*

I use the protect swap macro below to effectively have both Protect and Surecast at the same time. It also tells the party I'm casting Protect, which has proven extremely effective at stopping people from running away from it. (Doesn't work in combat.)

/macroicon Protect
/macroerror off
/aaction Surecast off
/aaction Protect on
/p Casting Protect, please stay close! :)
/ac "Protect" <me>
/wait 3
/aaction Protect off
/aaction Surecast on

---

Thank you, Tridus!

/hug

Let's see...

I use Esuna, Lucid Dreaming, Protect, Largesse, and Swiftcast. I've been looking hard at Rescue; but, I'm not sure if people would appreciate me using it, even if I pulled them out of a certain death AoE. I'd love to hear other healer's experiences with this spell. Do non-healers like it? What uses have you found for Rescue?

Quote:

---

(Rescue is taken just to increase PLD DPS since they don't have a gap closer when they get knocked back).

---

Clever!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

Thank you, Tridus!

/hug

---

:D

Quote:

---

I've been looking hard at Rescue; but, I'm not sure if people would appreciate me using it, even if I pulled them out of a certain death AoE. I'd love to hear other healer's experiences with this spell. Do non-healers like it? What uses have you found for Rescue?

---

I had Rescue, but I found it hard to use because it's rather slow in activating. So, I'll see someone needs it, I'll target them and cast it, it picks them up and starts moving them, but the effect goes off while they're moving and they still take the hit. That happened a fair bit. Actual saves with it were pretty rare.

This is in DF and occasional PF content.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tridus

:D



I had Rescue, but I found it hard to use because it's rather slow in activating. So, I'll see someone needs it, I'll target them and cast it, it picks them up and starts moving them, but the effect goes off while they're moving and they still take the hit. That happened a fair bit. Actual saves with it were pretty rare.

This is in DF and occasional PF content.

---

Well, that stinks. Hopefully, if enough players make some noise about it, Rescue will be corrected. No use having an ability which doesn't work. Heck, just giving the target 100% immunity to damage while Rescue is moving them would help, from what you say.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by miraidensetsu

Int? But healer's magic attack is calculated using Mind. Since Stormblood I thought that Int was pretty useless for healers.

---

You would be correct. Int does absolutely nothing for healers anymore. Everything they do scales from Mind.

I use Lucid Dreaming, Largesse, Swiftcast, Protect, and Esuna. I tried the macro thing, but rarely end up with a second to breathe for that in dungeon runs, so I end up keeping Protect anyway since you can't do the swap while in combat. It's been useful more than not, to have it ready to cast on someone right away if they die during battle.

The 5 Role Skills that I use:
Largesse,
Lucid Dreaming,
Swiftcast,
Protect,
Esuna/ Surecast depending on what i am running.

It really just depends on the content you're running and what you're comfortable taking along with you. For WHM, Swiftcast is probably the only role skill that you use for EVERYTHING. Everything else is all situational. I don't do raids, but for difficult content, I would imagine that a specific set of role skills are required to handle the mechanics.

For general purpose, this is what I take in order of importance to me: Swiftcast, Lucid Dreaming, Esuna, Largesse, Eye4Eye, Protect. Six are mentioned here because I swap out protect after casting. I almost always take Rescue instead of Eye4Eye when running with PUGs. I have saved a-many-a-DPS with this ability whose numbers are about to hit the floor along with them. I may also take along Surecast if I know draw-in/knockback effects are going to be used by bosses/primals.

Cleric Stance and Break are dust collectors for me, and will continue to stay on the shelf until they see some adjustments.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

Let's see...

I use Esuna, Lucid Dreaming, Protect, Largesse, and Swiftcast.

---

This is also what I use. Cleric stance is pretty useless now. IMO lucid dreaming esuna and swiftcast are must - haves. I'm a healing WHM though, I only dps if I have time and everyone's health is ok.