Please explain this job thing :)

[_Babble_]

thanks again!

[Lunaxia]

One more question on this topic: is it beneficial or maybe even necessary to continue to level my subclass after I hit 15 and choose a job?

Is it beneficial? Yes.
Is it necessary? No.

As the above poster said, you can get cross class skills through levelling other classes - in the case of Arcanist, that's an Eye for an Eye, which can be handy, but isn't absolutely vital, nor does it make or break you as a healer. If you enjoy playing Arcanist and want to try Scholar/ Summoner one day, by all means get it, but don't feel obligated to otherwise. Thaumaturge's Swiftcast, on the other hand, is an absolute necessity, as you will probably realise once you start doing more trials/ working towards level 50 content. I recommend getting it ASAP.

[DBthaONE]

Good morning!

I just bought the game over the weekend and so far I am having a really great time! Eorzea is beautiful and I love the character customization! I was reading here on the forums about scholars and white mages which confused me a great deal After a little research, however, I now see there is an additional choice of a job.

So, I see that when your main class is 30 and subclass is 15, you can select a job. My first quest is, should you select a job that early? Or should I level to max in my class/subclass and then select my job? Once you have selected a job, do you level it like you did your class choice?

1. It becomes LESS confusing as you grow in the game. Don't worry about the confusion too much right now.

There is an additional choice of job, although it's not what you think. (Or at least what I'm surmising you think.) The actual additional choice of job is Astrologian. That job, however, is locked to you until you reach Heavensward content (aka lvl 50+).

2. Should you accept a job that early? ABSOLUTELY! There are ZERO reasons NOT to accept the job. You will continue to level the pertaining class when leveling it's corresponding job. In other words, you will continue to level your Conjurer while you level your White Mage. The "job system" (lore-wise) is meant to unlock the "full potential" of a given class. As a white mage, you'll learn abilities that benefit your abilities as a conjurer (an example of such is Divine Seal, which boosts your healing power for a duration).

3. After level 50, you will not gain any new abilities for your class. They will only be learned for your job. Thus, if you continue to level ONLY your class but not your job, you will be missing out on abilities that you could have.

One more question on this topic: is it beneficial or maybe even necessary to continue to level my subclass after I hit 15 and choose a job?

Is it beneficial? ABSOLUTELY! Moreover, there is an additional class that you can learn abilities from. In your case, you are required to level Arcanist to level 15 to unlock White Mage. It is beneficial to level arcanist to level 34 for another ability that you can gain. (I'm referring to the cross-class system, which allows you to use abilities from other classes.) This help you as a white mage. The additional class for white mage is Thermatauge. Although it is not explicitly required, you NEED to level that to 26. You'll gain access to abilities that are of use to you.

Let me be clear, YOU DO NOT NEED TO LEVEL ANY OTHER CLASSES AT THIS MOMENT, EXCLUDING THE PREREQUISITE ARCANIST TO 15. In fact, I generally tell new players that eventually they should (read: [I]need to/I]) level their sub-classes for additional skills, but only after they've reached max level.

[_Babble_]

Really great information! I did not realize I needed both subclasses. So Arcanist to 34, Thermatauge to 26 - got it! One more quick healer question: is there a version of target forwarding in this game? I looked in options, but I couldn't find it (or didn't realize what it was). In the 2 dungeons I've run, I didn't contribute much dps wise because I would have to switch targets from my healing target to my damage target. Is there a way to avoid having to do that?

Thank you all for the guidance - what a really great community this game has!

[Niwashi]

One more question on this topic: is it beneficial or maybe even necessary to continue to level my subclass after I hit 15 and choose a job?

It's definitely beneficial to level both of your job's sub-classes as far as their highest cross-class skill. (As already mentioned, that's 34 for Arcanist and 26 for Thaumaturge.)

As to whether it's necessary, in the case of WHM, the combination of THM's Swiftcast with your Raise skill is so incredibly powerful that it's essentially necessary. The others are nice to have.

For when to get them, ideally it'd be nice to get THM up to 26 for the swiftcast skill by the time you get to the level 28 dungeon, or soon thereafter. This is because at level 28 you'll get a Conjurer trait that lets you use Raise while in the middle of combat. The combination of swiftcast (which makes your next spell an instant cast with no casting time delay) followed by an in-combat Raise is incredibly powerful. (In lower level dungeons, where you don't have that trait yet, swiftcast isn't nearly as useful as it is after that point, mainly because your most important use for it —your Raise skill— isn't as useful until then.) Although 28 is ideal, many players do get swiftcast later, while WHM is somewhere in the 30's or 40's, and that's ok too, but you'd generally be expected to already have it by the time you're in your 50's.

Getting ACN up to 34 for Eye for an Eye is something you'll probably want by the time you get to endgame. In fact I'd recommend doing it around the time you get to the game's original endgame at level 50. (Along the way, when you get ACN to 30, you'll already have the secondary classes for unlocking its jobs, so you'll get a chance to try out SCH and perhaps SMN if you're interested.)

[DBthaONE]

Really great information! I did not realize I needed both subclasses. So Arcanist to 34, Thermatauge to 26 - got it! One more quick healer question: is there a version of target forwarding in this game? I looked in options, but I couldn't find it (or didn't realize what it was). In the 2 dungeons I've run, I didn't contribute much dps wise because I would have to switch targets from my healing target to my damage target. Is there a way to avoid having to do that?

Thank you all for the guidance - what a really great community this game has!

I'm not really sure what you mean by "Target Forwarding." I'm guessing you mean if you target a monster your tank is attacking to do some damage, then see that the tank needs a heal you can select Cure and it automatically hits the tank. If that's your question, then yes you can. I'd say it's cumbersome, but still easy enough to do. (I don't when I heal.) You'd have to make a macro, under the macro settings, and at least one the following:

To heal whomever your damage target is attacking:
/micon "Cure"
/ac "Cure" <tt>

<tt> = target of the target

To heal the tank in a dungeon:
/micon "Cure"
/ac "Cure" <2>

This assumes that the tank is always the 2nd person in your party list.

To do damage to whatever the tank is attacking:
/micon "[Offensive Spell like Stone or Aero]"
/ac "[Action above]" <tt>

This will attack whatever your tank was attacking, as long as you are focused on the tank.

Again, I'm not really sure if this is what you were asking, but I hope it helps if it was.

[Niwashi]

is there a version of target forwarding in this game?

In macros, you can specify that an action should go to your target's target by adding <tt> after it. For instance, a macro like:

/ac Aero <t>
/ac Aero <tt>

would cast Aero either on your target or your target's target, whichever is suitable for an attack type skill. Check out the Placeholders tab on this page to see more.

There are also ways to switch your current target to your target's target, but to more effectively discuss that part, it depends, are you playing on keyboard/mouse or controller?

[Canadane]

Let me be clear, YOU DO NOT NEED TO LEVEL ANY OTHER CLASSES AT THIS MOMENT, EXCLUDING THE PREREQUISITE ARCANIST TO 15. In fact, I generally tell new players that eventually they should (read: [I]need to/I]) level their sub-classes for additional skills, but only after they've reached max level.

I ran into a problem today where, in The Vault, a rather healer-intensive place to be, we wiped a number of times. Silly mistakes happened, but each were unrecoverable after the first death because our White Mage did not know Swiftcast. Any attempt to raise someone took too long and they either had to cancel to move out of the way of an attack/heal the tank, or just end up dying themsleves in the process of raising another.

Now while this could have been avoided if things didn't awry in the first place, it was still something that would have recovered the fight a lot easier had they known Swiftcast.

You've all given some great advice to this new player, and I'm sure she appropriates it. I just wanted to touch down on this comment in particular with an anecdote of todays adventures.

[_Babble_]

Thanks! I will definitely start looking as some rudimentary macros to get started.

[Naria]

Niwashi was probably also referring to /assist. This will switch your target your to your target's target. For example, if you are targeting the tank, the tank is targeting a mob, and you use /assist on the tank then you will now be targeting the mob that the tank was. If a mob is targeting the a player and you use it on the mob then you will target whatever they are. You can bind this to a hotkey or a controller key under system configuration. I have it bound to L3 and it helps me with dpsing as a healer quite a bit.