Up to date guide on White Mage Healing?

[AppleCrumble]

Just started my journey in this game and I'd like to heal. I've been doing very well in all of the instances I've run so far.

I would just like to know if there is any place i can go to do some more reading about the class?

Thanks.

[SecretCrowds]

Welcome to the game and welcome to WHM healing! I am really happy that a new player is putting in effort to make his/herself better.

Anyway, http://www.ffxivguild.com/ffxiv-whit...healing-guide/ would be a decent guide to read.

There are many opinions on how to best play a whm. But for me, the best whm would be the one that is flexible and knows when to heal, when to dps (with Cleric Stance) and how to manage mp without screaming at a bard.

[AppleCrumble]

Thank you for the link!

After having a quick read, I'm struggling to see a point apart from maybe the initial pull where stoneskin is even useful? 10% damage reduction isn't really that much, considering the cast time? Unless I'm missing something?

[Naryoril]

One thing you miss is that it's 18% on a white mage of a high enough level (high 30ies iirc). And there sometimes are hits that take 90% off a tanks health, casting stoneskin before these hits will leave the tank with roughly 30% health and not just 10%, which makes a huge difference. In addition, you can basically temporarily increase the tanks max health by 18% when you know that there will be periods when you won't have much time to heal the tank because you are dealing damage or because you have to heal the group or because you have to run around to avoid AoE and to deal with other boss mechanics.

Keep in mind that a guide you read now will be outdated in about 3 weeks when the addon will be released. I'm sure it will still have useful information, but it won't be "state of the art".

[AppleCrumble]

Thanks for that feedback. I completely understand about the expansion, but I like to start from the ground and work my way up. Understanding where you come from is just as important as knowing where your going.

[Menae]

Thank you for the link!

After having a quick read, I'm struggling to see a point apart from maybe the initial pull where stoneskin is even useful? 10% damage reduction isn't really that much, considering the cast time? Unless I'm missing something?

The main use for mid-pull stoneskin is an hp buffer. If somebody has 5k maximum HP and they get hit for 6k HP, they gonna die unless there's some sort of shielding effect going on. This is primarily useful for tank buster attacks, though if somebody is undergeared for the fight it can help for raidwide damage as well.

The three other uses I can think of off the top of my head are to get around healing debuffs like Death Sentence, which reduces the strength of conventional heals but not percentage heals (or stoneskin), to avoid taking stacks on Levi EX, and to avoid debuffs that are gained upon being hit by an ability by completely negating the damage, like Prey in T10 or the suction attacks from all the stupid frog mobs in the game.

Seriously, those frogs suck.

[Seryl199]

Another situational use for stoneskin mid battle is to tip toe around delicate aggro situations. Healing incurs .5 enmity for however much you heal. Heal for 1,000, you get 500 enmity on any mobs' aggro table that you or your target is on. Stoneskin on the other hand has a flat rate of 70 enmity regardless of how much HP it buffers for. It's safer than a heal bomb to cast on a tank picking up adds since, even if you accidentally pull hate, the tank will rip off you with one move, then you can proceed to heal as normal.