Why Won't You Main WHM

WS set is really mostly the same, which is Nyame. Depends on weapons, you can use Nyame/Bunzi (just hands if R0, head if high rank) or Empy+3/Bunzi for TP. Accessories are also pretty universal for cape, rings. Oshasha ammo, Cornelia belt for WS. TP belt kinda depends if you have Lehko's Ring or not. Gazu Bracelets +1 R15 are also an option.

Not gonna lie, Kraken Club makes melee WHM both stronger and way more enjoyable, but R15 Yagrush AM3 with TP bonus offhand or Maxentius with TP bonus offhand are also good options. I think really the only problem would be R15+ Nyame, because WHM doesn't really have good alternatives for WS.

I have basically every single job properly geared, all of them with appropriate REMA. I enjoy playing every single one of them...

That said, what do you think I need to play 80% of the time? Yes, NEED. If I don't? Simply, the static cannot operate. Either I play whm or we can't go. THATS my annoyance with whm. Spending your time working on jobs you never get to use because of being typecast. Boring.

Pile on with a static dd who flat out refuses to come COR cause he wants JPs for his WAR? It's these thoughts that honestly keep me from even logging in sometimes.

That said, I actually like playing whm. I'm good at it. Would just prefer some variety.

[Rantoff]

In sortie? JPing? You need to replace the war (seriously,JP on your own time) or find a new static. I would talk to the WAR and explain why that's not acceptable.

I put up with a lot of "Having to make it work" because others do not have a viable job load out but at least they are trying to build a COR so others that are a better DPS option can not play COR. My static is not the same 6 people every day but we do have 3 people who can WHM, 2 who can RDM, 2 who can BRD and 5 who can COR.

Also, it may be time to make friends with another WHM that hopefully has a good job load out too.


The point is that a perfectly geared WHM is no where close to any other job in the game, in regards to soloing. I would argue it is not a good experience for the effort you have to put into getting there.

When I started, I was playing summoner, but quickly came to the realization that almost nobody wanted a summoner for content. This is when they were still releasing high-tier battlefields and we didn't even have job points / rhapsody yet. A few merc groups got to know me as a summoner and brought me to use Perfect Defense, but that's about it.

So, I leveled and geared WHM, and that is what got me invited to groups. Despite liking summoner, I spent almost all my game time outside of soloing as a WHM. I wasn't super geared, but since I was always able to keep parties alive, people would know me and accept me regardless of gear. I enjoyed it, so it wasn't too bad, but it was a bummer that I couldn't play SMN. I came to the realization that I need a Nirvana if I want to try to push SMN, so I pretty much mained WHM and GEO in all party content to make gil. I considered a mythic weapon pretty much unobtainable, but decided to buckle down and just go for it.

Near the end of my time in FFXI, I almost stopped playing WHM entirely, because I just preferred playing other jobs. It's still fun, but other jobs were my priority and also strong enough that people wanted them. I also reached a point where I didn't feel like I was dragging down the group by bringing my SMN to content.

White mage white mage,
What cha gonna do!?!
When nobody wanna heal for you!!!!

I am a main WHM, and I can say that it is my favorite job. I remember solo healing Omen 18 people, and solo healing Dynamis D, but with all that praise and love from other people, also came the "abuse" of:

"THE WHM SUCKS CAUSE THEY CANT KEEP ME ALIVE AND I REFUSE TO WEAR A DT SET"

Anyway, I love WHM, and I will continue to put through with the abuse, but I understand why so many people dislike it.

I know I'm replying to this a while in the future but I love your breakdown here. WHM was my main first job when I came back to XI in 2016 and it lead to soooo many people getting clears and gears.

This job is difficult to navigate and requires a constant check on buffs/debuffs/enemy hp/Player HP/Cooldown timers/Content timers... the list goes on.

You said its like a puzzle and I love that. Each fight is unique. Doesn't matter if you are with the same players or new ones for any specific fight, each time you join a fight it is new and based on how often and when a mob does a TP move or a spell which can change your cure flow.

It requires Professor Moody's Constant Vigilance approach. Even if you got the gear you and you aint got the skills, it could fall apart... Even if you got the skills and not the gear... same could be said... Even after all those are said and done. Sometimes a fight just *** goes sour. Being on point and choosing the right cures/Na spells makes or breaks a fight....

Not everyone wants to do that. Its *** hard but once you get used to it... it becomes second nature. Took me about 6 months of only whm play to fully understand what fights required what focus and that was back when Omen was new.

I wouldn't trade it for anything. I had So many omen fights succeed because I was able to tank the boss while folks recovered from death due to xyz. Healing alliances in Dynamis feels the same way... Keeping everyone alive makes it so we don't all waste our time. Odyssee and Sortie I'm relearning but each time we reach a new Venge clear while on Whm just *** feels good.

Anyone who is interested in Whm, check it out and try it. It has a low bar of entry and if you dont like the stress then push a bit farther. Its not that bad of a job and you will open doors to the rest of your job clearing desires.

Edit... I didnt even reply to the comment I wanted to - Hit reply and all. smh

Rarely in these days..often back in the day during my HNMLS period..

We all know it's because of them front line with their fancy glass cannon TA/QA sets.

I've been playing WHM since about 2012 and I agree. There are a lot of situations (obviously there are exceptions) where you have to be extremely aware of what's going on, and what could potentially happen, at all times.
Every time I resub to XIV I think about how easy it is to heal in comparison.

I don't want to be white mage because I don't want to be the reason everyone died and we lost.

Im far too sensitive for the yelling that would happen because of my poor play

Because SCH and PLD more easily flush out DDs that aren't in tough sets when they are doing tough content.

100%. The attention you need to pull on RUN in dynamis or keep brd buffs up or keep people healed on rdm or whm is pretty significant. Compared to something like cor where you blast statues and hit your rolls every few minutes... just so much more relaxing. On Sam? Unless you are going to push your damage on a weaker hybrid or god forbid complete glass canon (as much as you can get these days...) there isn't the same anxiety lol.

You can't solo with WHM well as it doesn't do much damage. Most people are looking for Scholar or Red Mage these days too instead like in Sortie.

Why not main WHM? Well, I kinda tried. Made a character just to main WHM and its very first +2 earring from sortie was a maxed SCH earring.

SE basically TOLD me not to main WHM.

I started this game as WHM, in 2003. I cleared CoP in pickup groups on WHM, I cleared Dynamis on WHM, I camped kings on WHM, I got a Yagrush for WHM. I don't even mind being blamed for a wipe, because I'm competent and it's rarely my fault anyway; I know whose fault it is. I'd still play WHM today (if I were playing), but sometimes I avoid advertising that I even have WHM. Why?

For the same reason I don't always advertise my RMEA Bard. Sometimes I want to play something else. I have SAM, I have BLU, hell, I have an Epeo RUN. But once people learn I have WHM or BRD, they want me to come as those jobs 80% of the time. But sometimes I just want to whack things until they die.

The problem with whm is you have to heal dd's. Even after you spent 47 minutes buffing them before the fight.

The solution to this is that you have to put your foot down. Don't be the only WHM in a static group and don't let yourself be forced to go WHM every time.

I honestly dont like WHM-ing.

I do end up doing WHM stuff when multiboxing, but it is such stressful job.

I dont deal well with keeping up with debuffs, haste, cures, there is so much going on. It would be even worse without Yagrush.

As mobs become stronger, its always a matter of few secs you can spare to throw a cure before the player is taken down.

When I cure my mules, I just end up throwing curagas on them to at least not having to care about HP and can focus on status effect / haste stuffs.

When i came back to the game and joined an endgame group ilvl era the rule was if they didn't already know you, you had to have a mage job you could play. I think its good for most people to take turns at support. The perspective can improve your game play and its good to let people play different roles.

Personally i don't like whm i much prefer to heal on sch just to be different and often the regens give me time to find ways to dps depending on the content.

I find the people that are willing to jump on WHM
Are usually the better players

Because there are too much going with healing. The deeper you go down into the Whm rabbit hole the more gear and care you need to juggle around until you realized that a well balanced party is what gonna save your sanity while a wacky out of balance party will probably give you heart attacks.

At the beginning, your whm life is simple. You have 2 sets of equipments. You focus on Cure potency for cures and refresh for idle.

Then you need a FC set to fires up your cures faster and an emnity set because you couldn't get a tank and need to survive in low emnity environment.

Then you get taken to pound town anyways and need a DT set to survive the idiots.

At thing point, you might as well get an enhancing set, an enfeebling set and make serious adjustments to your cures sets so you can somehow "tank", enfeeble, cures and do some serious buffs.

The problem with WHM isn't the healing itself. It's the players you're going to be healing in most non static instances are just flat out morons. They're only capable of hitting the WS button on repeat without any concept of game mechanics or defensive measures. Which is why everyone wants to play DD. Hitting a button is easy. Healing idiots who can only hits button is frustrating

whm is fun, gotta know all the potential statuses of every enemy and what order to prioritize heals vs removing them. default UI makes this pretty unfun though, staring at tiny HP bars in the corner of the screen or chat log spam.

I love Whm and this thread is so refreshing. I was the only Whm in a 10 person Dynamis D run and was being spammed in chat to erase outside of party all event.

But people die all the time when I Whm and I enjoy it even more. #HitsplayonDrowningPoolBodies

“Whm shouldn’t run out of MP” - yes, well I hadn’t and was the only main cure for two parties.

(This has now turned into a trauma dump thread)

I would love to understand what type of fight misery is meant for
I mainly see whms just rock the cure skin

And I never see someone use ensuna or cura

Ensuna looks invaluable for some multi debuff sortie fights

Cura has very solid cure power when you take the dmg needed(which is like 200~ so pretty easy to achieve), think it still competes with -ga's of the same level for much less cost(not that cost matters post emp legs) esuna was/is pretty great where applicable, auspice is okay.

Problem is cureskin is just stupidly, stupidly good, able to block dmg from occuring at all if timed correctly. WHM meva basically means they're among the least likely to get debuffed which is the whole thing with esuna, then theres debuffs you simply dont want to risk having as a healer such as para/petra or silence, or multi/full dispel and then theres just not too many instances where you want the whm in the front lines fighting, or that its worth doing so. Theres also the barspell bonus but you can swap in/out for that if you needed to.

Common strat before yagrush was more plentiful was just to use sacrifice on someone with most/all the debuffs > misery > esuna, but game speed/levels of dmg being tossed out can make this pretty tight to do without something else happening