Healer NPC Diversity

How many healer npcs are Conjurers? How many are White Mages? How many are Astrologians? And how many are Scholars?

There seems to be a lack of healer diversity in the game, and Im curious as to how many of each type actually exist in the games story.

Throughout FF there has been a surprisingly low amount of healers, because of the usual single player format of one healer per party that players tend to use.

I feel like this is a problem that needs to be addressed in the new age of Final Fantasy, so I really am curious as to how common different healers are. Im not even sure Scholars actually exist in the games world aside from job quests. Astrologian I feel are becoming more and more common the closer we get to Sharlayan. Urianger also seems to use Astromancy in the Shadowbringers trailer.

I really hope the devs see this, and add more lore to the healers.

Almost all healer NPCs are conjurers simply because that's what there are most of in Eorzea. White mages are very rare and almost exclusively padjal. Scholars are nigh extinct, with the WoL and the occasional tonberry being the only modern practitioners. Sharlayan astrology never really caught on in the rest of Eorzea so there just aren't that many astrologians outside of Sharlayan. By default that leaves conjurer as the primary healing class in modern Eorzea.

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Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

Almost all healer NPCs are conjurers simply because that's what there are most of in Eorzea. White mages are very rare and almost exclusively padjal. Scholars are nigh extinct, with the WoL and the occasional tonberry being the only modern practitioners. Sharlayan astrology never really caught on in the rest of Eorzea so there just aren't that many astrologians outside of Sharlayan. By default that leaves conjurer as the primary healing class in modern Eorzea.

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Which is soooo lame. Obviously ASTs presence in Ishgard, and Sharlayan being an unreleased location means that they will likely have their time.

Scholar is just pitiful though. They should remain rare, but it would be cool if the quest line had a revival arc leading to more npcs.

Its so boring when every npc is a conjurer. Healing lore needs to be expanded.

Job Availability is always based on lore and not overall job representation. There are technically four healer jobs/classes available: Conjurers, White Mages, Astrologians and Scholars. Out of those four, Conjurers are the vast majority simply because Conjurery has the least amount of requirements needed to learn it. For starters, a Soul Stone isn't needed and there aren't any unsurmountable cultural limitations on who should learn it. So most, if not all healers seen outside of specific job quests are Conjurers by default. That's just what most, if not all, Eorzeans think of when they think of a healing mage.

White Mages are the most restricted. In order to be a White Mage, you either need to be born a Padjali or have the one known White Mage Soul Stone in existence. On top of that, the Elementals have expressly forbidden the teaching of white magic to anyone who doesn't match those requirements.

Scholar is similarly limited, but for different reasons. Scholar's faeries live in the Scholar Soul Stone and so far we only know of two of those types of Soul Stones. One is yours. The other belongs to Surito Carito from the Lvl. 60 - 70 SCH quests. Provided more Scholar Soul Stones are found, there could eventually be more Scholars. In fact, that's the overarching plot of the Scholar quests. Alka Zolka wants to revive the job and is actively studying it.

Astrologin should have more practitioners then White Magery or Scholar does. However, all those practitioners would be in Sharlyan and Sharlyan is infamously xenophobic when it comes to spreading it's own magic arts around. In fact, the Lvl. 30 - 60 AST quests are all about how the Sharalyans who want to introduce Astromancy to Eorzea are being hunted by a group of Sharlayans who don't want their native magic arts getting out. So if there's anyone who should be see using Astromancy it would be someone with a tie to Sharlayan. Although, given how the Lvl. 60 AST quests ended, it might be possible that the Ishgardians start using it sooner rather then later. All that said, we shouldn't be running into very many people who know what Astromancy is, let alone are competent at it.

Healers are not the only role that works like this. We see many more Muraders and Gladiators then we do Warriors and Paladins. And we see more Warriors and Paladins then we see Dark Knights. Likewise, nearly all damage oriented mages are Thumaturges. We see more Ninjas then Rouges and more Lancers then Dragoons. Puglists are more common then Monks, Samaurai are only seen in the Far East, we never see Machinists anywhere but Ishgard, and we've yet to see a Bard outside of the Bard quests even though we've seen plenty of Archers.

For better or for worse, the FFXIV team has never cared about "equal job diversity". What they care much more about is "accurate job representation". Once they determine how rare or plentiful a job is according to the lore, they tend to stick with it. Which gives a better world-building experience overall.

How is this even remotely a problem?

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

There are technically four healer jobs/classes available: Conjurers, White Mages, Astrologians and Scholars. Out of those four, Conjurers are the vast majority simply because Conjurery has the least amount of requirements needed to learn it. For starters, a Soul Stone isn't needed and there aren't any unsurmountable cultural limitations on who should learn it. So most, if not all healers seen outside of specific job quests are Conjurers by default. That's just what most, if not all, Eorzeans think of when they think of a healing mage.

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Conjury would also have an advantage of being easily teachable, as it seems to be incantation-based (although dependent on the skill level of the caster). Quite possibly as long as you've mastered the basic ability of casting a spell on a target, and know the right words for the situation, anyone can do the magical equivalent of first aid.


There's also one extra (NPC) healing discipline that's being overlooked here: arcanist as a healer.

While both of their advanced jobs are exceedingly rare in lore, arcanists themselves are more common. It's a completely separate system of magic to conjury, being mathematical and symbol-based, and has its own approaches to achieving the same effects - ie. Physick instead of Cure.

For battle instances where there isn't a true healer available, arcanist is usually the second option - in MSQ, Urianger and Alphinaud have taken the role before, and in the WAR quests we have Broken Mountain who is maybe a scholar in the general sense, but not a Nymian battle-scholar with a fairy.


Astrologian is a bit of a mystery, because it's not clear how common it is in Sharlayan either. From the AST quests we know that the Sharlayan colony was more open to Eorzean visitors for a while, so it seems like people should have had some awareness of it, but perhaps it wasn't all that commonly studied either. I expect it's similar to arcanistry in that you need more of a mathematical brain to grasp the concepts and do situational calculations (or at least have a good memory of your star map, so you don't have to inspect it closely before casting each spell).

It definitely seems like it's spreading and becoming a more accepted discipline in Ishgard/Coerthas around Lv60 and into Stormblood.


Also of course we have Urianger "switching to" astrologian for Shadowbringers - though I'm fairly sure that as a Sharlayan mage with an interest in prophecies, he would have studied it already at this point, even if he doesn't use it as his primary class.

Aren't most jobs rare? At the top of my head there are only a handful of dragoons, there aren't that many red mages, paladins are more or less the elite guards for the sultana, dark knights are rare, machinists are just starting up in Ishgard, I don't remember bard being too popular in Gridania bc they don't believe in the power of song. I don't think its just a healer diversity problem but rather its supposed to be rare and above the class roles.

I would like to point out that the lore restrictions with the types of healing magic that applies to the Source does not necessarily apply to other shards like the First. Someguy might have coincidentally developed techniques similar to our SCH, including the use of faeries and arcanima, and it so happens that the job is commonly used in the First, same with Astrologian. So if there is anywhere that SE decides to introduce new NPC healers of one of the other classes (or more importantly I believe, NPCs wielding another weapon besides a cane) they would be residents of the First, or learning their techniques there. As Iscah said, Urianger is already getting the AST treatment in ShB (whether that be Sharlayan style AST, or First style AST is unknown).

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Originally Posted by Anselmet

Aren't most jobs rare? At the top of my head there are only a handful of dragoons, there aren't that many red mages, paladins are more or less the elite guards for the sultana, dark knights are rare, machinists are just starting up in Ishgard, I don't remember bard being too popular in Gridania bc they don't believe in the power of song. I don't think its just a healer diversity problem but rather its supposed to be rare and above the class roles.

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Lorewise, the more populous jobs would probably be Samurai and Astrologian and maybe Ninja. The others are indeed comparably rare.

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Originally Posted by Anselmet

Aren't most jobs rare? At the top of my head there are only a handful of dragoons, there aren't that many red mages, paladins are more or less the elite guards for the sultana, dark knights are rare, machinists are just starting up in Ishgard, I don't remember bard being too popular in Gridania bc they don't believe in the power of song. I don't think its just a healer diversity problem but rather its supposed to be rare and above the class roles.

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Typically the full job title is rare. That's why everyone is so shocked when you just stroll up and become whatever, because either the barrier for entry is too high for almost anyone to obtain that status or it's a dead/dying art that no-one has heard of or has any talent for.

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

One is yours. The other belongs to Surito Carito from the Lvl. 60 - 70 SCH quests.

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Super minor nitpick: the Warrior of Light's soulstone is Surito Carito's soulstone, which is why we have his faerie, Lily. Through the course of the Stormblood Scholar quests you discover Setoto's father's soul crystal with the faerie Lilac. Still two soulstones though.

I also feel that a need to shoutout to the unconventional healer types in certain solo duties: Cid functions as a healer in the Mor Dhona ARR MSQ when you protect Maggie from Imperials by using "Aqua Vitae" to heal the Warrior of Light. This skill is re-used by other NPCs for the same purpose. During the Interdimensional Rift solo duties, Midgardsormr will be the one to cast Cure should someone drop below a certain threshold, since neither Nero nor Cid are capable of magic. Yugiri also uses a skill "Suiyaku" to heal the Warrior of Light in several duties as well, and I believe the Ninjas in the job quests do as well. Jacke casts Physick, for some reason, showing off the now defunct cross-class skill system! Orn Khai heals the Warrior of Light in the Dragoon Stormblood finale, etc.

The rank and file healers of Eorzea appear to be mainly conjurers, this is true, but that's also because when you break it down, conjurer is the only healer Disciple of Magic class. It's not brought up as often any more, I think, but soulstones are rare (though becoming more common! think of all the soulstones the Summoner questline introduces and it's arguably the oldest job usable by the Warrior of Light!); so NPCs are often relegated only to classes, and so, the disparity.

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Originally Posted by Rocl

I also feel that a need to shoutout to the unconventional healer types in certain solo duties: Cid functions as a healer in the Mor Dhona ARR MSQ when you protect Maggie from Imperials by using "Aqua Vitae" to heal the Warrior of Light. This skill is re-used by other NPCs for the same purpose. During the Interdimensional Rift solo duties, Midgardsormr will be the one to cast Cure should someone drop below a certain threshold, since neither Nero nor Cid are capable of magic. Yugiri also uses a skill "Suiyaku" to heal the Warrior of Light in several duties as well, and I believe the Ninjas in the job quests do as well.

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Aqua Vitae (water of life) and Suiyaku (liquid medicine) are supposed to represent them using potions on you, so anyone could have access to those "abilities" if there was a need for an improvised healer NPC. They just need to use which ever potion word fits the NPC's cultural background.

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Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

Almost all healer NPCs are conjurers simply because that's what there are most of in Eorzea. White mages are very rare and almost exclusively padjal. Scholars are nigh extinct, with the WoL and the occasional tonberry being the only modern practitioners. Sharlayan astrology never really caught on in the rest of Eorzea so there just aren't that many astrologians outside of Sharlayan. By default that leaves conjurer as the primary healing class in modern Eorzea.

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This. It's a side effect really of how some jobs are largely written to be so exclusive so you don't often see npcs that are tied to jobs directly outside of job storylines.

It seems to affect magic jobs more so than dow jobs. You see more thaumaturges than black mages, more arcanists than summoners, for the same reasons. Obviously there are some actual job npcs like Estinien, Yugiri, Gosetsu and Hien etc. I think Lyse is probably a pugilist rather than a monk but I'm not 100% on that.

Jobs tend to be pretty limited to the WOL and a handful of npcs for the most part. Though some more so than others. New monks are being trained in the Peaks, there's an order of dragoons and only the azure dragoon is limited to the WOL, the sultansworn are training free paladins but they wouldn't hand these out to just anyone I think.

Though this may be changing to a degree. We see Urangr as an astralogian, Thancred seems to swap from rogue to gunbreaker etc, so maybe we'll be seeing more ncps with jobs etc.

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Originally Posted by Rocl

It's not brought up as often any more, I think, but soulstones are rare (though becoming more common! think of all the soulstones the Summoner questline introduces and it's arguably the oldest job usable by the Warrior of Light!); so NPCs are often relegated only to classes, and so, the disparity.

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Soulstones are not required to become a job (except SCH and WHM.)

Soulstones are a history of the job and the abilities learned by the previous holders, making it easier for the current holder to learn said abilities. It's possible to become a paladin/bard/dragoon/etc through time and effort and training alone. The soulstone is just a shortcut that lets you skip the years of extra training. (The exceptions being SCH where the fairy is tied to the stone, and WHM where the elementals won't accept a non-padjal without it.)

Running out of things to complain about I see.

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Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

Soulstones are not required to become a job (except SCH and WHM.)

Soulstones are a history of the job and the abilities learned by the previous holders, making it easier for the current holder to learn said abilities. It's possible to become a paladin/bard/dragoon/etc through time and effort and training alone. The soulstone is just a shortcut that lets you skip the years of extra training. (The exceptions being SCH where the fairy is tied to the stone, and WHM where the elementals won't accept a non-padjal without it.)

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From a lore perspective, this is correct. Take Machinist, for example - their Soulstone is completely empty. In theory, an individual should be just as accomplished with or without the stone equipped, since the stone provides no knowledge or skills whatsoever (rather, you're wearing it as a courtesy to pass your own skills and knowledge on to future bearers of the stone).

I would guess that the others are the same way. It's not impossible to learn the job skills though research and self-discovery - having them pre-packaged in a stone just makes it easier and more convenient to pass knowledge of these skills. I'd argue that this even applies to SCH and WHM. In the case of SCH, a Soulstone is a convenient place for the fairy to dwell, but it needn't be the only possible such dwelling. An animated puppet, like the one you earn at the completion of the Anima questline, could serve, as well. (As for WHM, I forget what makes their Soulstone so special and unique - but recall that Amdapor in its prime had PLENTY of folks wielding White Magic; a single stone couldn't possibly account for that, so it's clear the skills can be learned without bearing that specific stone, or likely any stone.)

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

As for WHM, I forget what makes their Soulstone so special and unique - but recall that Amdapor in its prime had PLENTY of folks wielding White Magic; a single stone couldn't possibly account for that, so it's clear the skills can be learned without bearing that specific stone, or likely any stone.

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Theoretically you could come across a WHM stone in a sixth era ruin or something but you'd probably seriously piss off the elementals if you tried to use it without padjal approval.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

Though this may be changing to a degree. We see Urangr as an astralogian, Thancred seems to swap from rogue to gunbreaker etc, so maybe we'll be seeing more ncps with jobs etc.

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I think they also called Y'shtola a BLM back in the February fanfest? Though that may just mean "suped up Thaumaturge" and she won't actually get a soul stone.

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Originally Posted by JeanneOrnitier

I think they also called Y'shtola a BLM back in the February fanfest? Though that may just mean "suped up Thaumaturge" and she won't actually get a soul stone.

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There's also the theory that it may be Matoya in her body but we'll find out soon enough when 5.0 launches. With the ambiguity of the sutation there I decided to leave Ysthola out.

It's also stated in the Black Mage quest line you can't cast the bigger/harder black magic if you don't have a soul stone or you end up dying. I think there could be more Red Mages as our trainer got taught by someone else and had a fellow student. Then we also have Geomancers who from what little we know about them are a cross of conjury and astrology. Some of the we don't see a lot of X job is probably due to having so many soul stones or teachers of the art not being around or lost to time and various calamities. I mean we've had giant earthquakes, floods, fires ice ages and at least where scholar is concerned a whole city engulfed by a magical weapon of mass destruction.

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Originally Posted by SannaR

It's also stated in the Black Mage quest line you can't cast the bigger/harder black magic if you don't have a soul stone or you end up dying. I think there could be more Red Mages as our trainer got taught by someone else and had a fellow student. Then we also have Geomancers who from what little we know about them are a cross of conjury and astrology. Some of the we don't see a lot of X job is probably due to having so many soul stones or teachers of the art not being around or lost to time and various calamities. I mean we've had giant earthquakes, floods, fires ice ages and at least where scholar is concerned a whole city engulfed by a magical weapon of mass destruction.

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I'd have to redo the blm quest, but it seemed to me like those people burned themselves out more so because of inexperience/poor training than it being inevitable without a stone. Much more dangerous without one but it didn't leave me thinking it was impossible.

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Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

Soulstones are not required to become a job (except SCH and WHM.)

Soulstones are a history of the job and the abilities learned by the previous holders, making it easier for the current holder to learn said abilities. It's possible to become a paladin/bard/dragoon/etc through time and effort and training alone. The soulstone is just a shortcut that lets you skip the years of extra training. (The exceptions being SCH where the fairy is tied to the stone, and WHM where the elementals won't accept a non-padjal without it.)

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Principia also says a soul crystal is required to become a Summoner. He doesn't explain why, but he lists it as one of the criteria.

I don't even want to think about the sheer confusing mess that is the Paladin soul crystal, since apparently both the writers and the NPCs want to forget that the Heavensward "Paladin soul crystals must fight for dominance" questline even existed.

Not quite. If you ask Sugiru about what is up with Myste after the Lvl. 70 DRK quests, he just says that soul crystals are weird and no one knows everything about them. And then he backs that up by saying that rumor has Paladins have a thing where their Soul Crystals need some kind of pecking order established or their Soul Crystals don't work properly.

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Originally Posted by MrThinker

As Iscah said, Urianger is already getting the AST treatment in ShB (whether that be Sharlayan style AST, or First style AST is unknown).

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Sharlayan astromancy seems likely, since (as I said earlier) he is Sharlayan and it seems probable that he would have studied it already. From the trailer, he also seems to have been conducting a fortune-reading with the Deck of Sixty cards - he's holding them when talking to Y'shtola/Matoya about their 'undeniable fate'. (At least I assume they're standard cards - haven't actually double checked against the game designs though.)

Even if they're trapped on the First, the stars should remain the same as on the Source - it may be that the dimension-split is localised and they're still looking out on the same stars, but even if the entire universe is split, 12,000 years isn't that long at an astronomical timescale and any difference should be minimal.

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Originally Posted by Rocl

Jacke casts Physick, for some reason, showing off the now defunct cross-class skill system!

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He's from the city where the Arcanists' Guild is located - it makes sense that he'd learn basic healing skills from there.

I can also see the 'visual magic' of arcanistry suiting rogues better than reciting spells.

If you've only got one or two spells that you need to cast, maybe you can get away with not having a grimoire? Just have that symbol embroidered on your clothing, or maybe as a tattoo. (There was something in the second lorebook about that, wasn't there?)

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

I don't even want to think about the sheer confusing mess that is the Paladin soul crystal, since apparently both the writers and the NPCs want to forget that the Heavensward "Paladin soul crystals must fight for dominance" questline even existed.

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Ugh. I hope they've got a good future plot point in mind involving that, because it made no sense at all at the time, and just derailed the whole plot for no good purpose.

Jenlyns summed it up pretty well.

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JENLYNS
Of course. It's so simple!
...Wait, no, it's not. It's needlessly complicated.

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

Principia also says a soul crystal is required to become a Summoner. He doesn't explain why, but he lists it as one of the criteria.

I don't even want to think about the sheer confusing mess that is the Paladin soul crystal, since apparently both the writers and the NPCs want to forget that the Heavensward "Paladin soul crystals must fight for dominance" questline even existed.

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But the Immortal Flames are training new summoners, does that mean they found new crystals for them as well?

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

But the Immortal Flames are training new summoners, does that mean they found new crystals for them as well?

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It's possible they found more crystals in the Allagan ruins.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

But the Immortal Flames are training new summoners, does that mean they found new crystals for them as well?

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Could be. I wouldn't surprised if someone had a bunch of SMN crystals sitting around somewhere, uncovered in Allagan ruins over the years. And as they're effectively unusable, they're probably not worth much outside of being a collectable novelty.

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

I really hope the devs see this, and add more lore to the healers.

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Going by your post, seems like you haven't even read what the lore the lore team prepared about them.

Also don't know if people mentioned but, don't forget Ishgardian Chirurgeons.

Tristan had a bunch of smn soul crystals course I think those were messed with as we know he got them from a questionable source.

There's been two places in the SMN quests where we find SMN Soul Stones. The first would be from Tristan, and those are the Soul Stones that the Immortal Flames are using to train Summoners. The second is the Node in the Lvl 70 SMN quest. In order to create the Egi of Sari, it needed to be hooked up to several Soul Stones. Those were somehow "eaten" by Principa for safekeeping in the event more Soul Stones were needed.

For the oldest Soul Stones we've yet come across, there's honestly a lot of SMN Soul Stones. It's just that the job has a lot of other prerequisites that keep it rare (being around for the defeat of a primal without being tempered mainly). What I would not be surprised to learn is if the Allagans with all their aetherchemistry figured out how to mass produce soul stones and made lots of them very quickly. Summoners weren't around for that long after all. It would explain why enough Soul Stones survived to the preset day for there to be multiple copies still around. We've probably got more Summoner Soul Stones then White Mage, Black Mage or Scholor Soul Stones at the moment.

I was putting some more thought into the role of the SCH soulstone as home to the Fairy. SCH are an extension of ACN, and one major difference between entities summoned by ACN and SMN, and those summoned by SCH, is that the SCH summons apparently persist even when not summoned. They do not completely vanish between summonings, and maintain a continuity of memory between summons. Carbuncles (and likely also Egis), on the other hand, are created wholly anew each time they are summoned, and do not have any memories from their times previously summoned.

It makes me wonder if early Scholars might not have originally summoned Fairies just as Arcanists do Carbuncles, with the Fairy completely disappearing and "resetting" between each summoning. Eventually, Scholars realized that it could be strategically useful for their Fairies to exist persistently, even when not actively summoned. There may have been many experiments to find ways to preserve Fairies between summonings before finally settling on storing the Fairy within the Scholar Soulstone.

Otherwise, we start running into chicken-or-the-egg issues... If you can't be a SCH without a Soulstone, where did the first Fairies come from?