How Can I Be A Strictly Less Turrible Whm?

ItemSet 320997 Thats just a basic, can do it with various items, Genbu can get I think upto 5% potency and cure cast time.

The way it was worded was like those were the only 2 items needed to hit the cap and I was totally confused XD

Thanls for the clarification :)

I have dozens of macros for whm, but for the duration of any given fight I usually only use about a half dozen. Recognize what's truly important within a fight, and have your macros set up to allow you to focus on that.

Preparation

Make sure to buff the party up before they start to fight (should be a no-brainer, but because of the duration of some events it's possible that buffs will start dropping in the middle of a big fight, and you want to ensure that never happens). Make sure they stay in range (slap the hyperactive Tarus). Make sure you maximize those buffs, because a little prep work at the start can save you a headache later on.

EG:
Max barspell. You should be able to hit 180 in a bar-element while using 4/5 AF3+2 (all but legs; legs should be relic+2 or reforged relic), if /sch. As melee, getting pitiful little 130~ish barspells means I know it's not going to ever really reduce the damage taken. Add barstatus spells where it's feasibly useful (eg: Baraera + Barsilencra for the chapuli NM in Ceizak; make sure the brd and cor are in range when you're buffing up, since they're the ones the barsilence is helping most).

Max protect/shell. You should have 5/5 Shellra V along with relic+2/reforged relic legs. Reforged feet and ~3/5 Protectra V is also nice. Melees that know when to put on a Sheltered Ring help too.

Use Boost/Auspice spells liberally in the prep phase, since you will rarely be able to renew them mid-fight. Dex (or Agi for rngs) if acc is a concern, otherwise Str. Try for 500 Enhancing skill to reach +25 to the stat.

Sch subjob. While there are situations where /rdm and /blm can be useful (and even /nin; I use that in the AA TT fight), learn to use its advantages. AOE Stoneskin before a fight; AOE Cure IV to get cureskin on everyone it hits (eg: if Tojil gets Lahar off and everyone has weakened HP); Divine Caress + AOE -na spell (eg: Paralyna on the peiste); etc. As a counterpoint, however, you generally do -not- want to AOE Regen; it doesn't last long enough for whm to be worth it. Save the strategems for more useful stuff.


Cast time.

There are a couple approaches to getting fast casttimes on your cures. Traditional precast/midcast is only really optimal if you're using GearSwap. Otherwise you can do an all-in-one set with Spellcast or Windower macros. Do everything you can to hit the 80% cast time reduction. It makes your life sooo much easier.

Cast time reduction doesn't do you any good if you're not actually casting as quickly as possible (ie: as soon after the damage is take as is feasible). This requires good positioning so that you don't get constant "out of range" messages when people are taking damage. For endgame stuff, expect to mainly use curagas (unless you're doing a pld+rng setup). AF3+2 pants make curagas nearly free, so abuse that; spam low level curagas if not much damage is being done, but be ready to spam the high tier curagas in certain situations (eg: delve shark boss).

Do not be afraid of running out of MP. Be worried about it, yes, and do what you can to conserve MP (and yell at the brd for ballads..), but hitting someone with a Cure V that only uses half its potential (though also gives them a good cureskin) is better than plinking people with Cure III when everyone's taking a ton of damage. AA Mithra hitting a pld for 1k damage Cloudsplitters (plus skillchains) means you spam Cure IV/V, even if any given Cloudsplitter doesn't do much damage, because it's very possible to take 3k+ combined damage in a matter of seconds.

Every spell you cast has a 3 second lockout that prevents you from casting another, so you need to optimize the amount of benefit you get for each spell. That is, you need to balance optimizing for time (one Cure V is vastly better than two Cure III's), overall effectiveness (Curaga when you can instead of individual Cures), and -then- MP.


Melee

No, not you meleeing. The melee themselves. There is a surprisingly large difficulty cliff for a whm when healing melee that don't know how to gear or behave properly. The better your melee are, the easier your job is. Try to be aware of which ones need more babysitting, and which are better at taking care of themselves.

If someone is yelling at you for Haste or -na or whatever, *don't take it personally*. It's easy to get caught up in stuff and lose track of timers, or not know who got hit with a move that adds a debuff, or be stuck spamming spells and just flat out not having time to renew haste buffs and such. Every statement of that type is an attempt to help you, because helping you helps the entire group. Accept it in that manner and keep doing your job as best you can.

By the same token, however, you should be able to yell at people who are doing things that make your life more difficult, such as not staying with the group, or positioning at the far side of a mob that you don't want to get within AOE range of, etc.


Pay attention

Be aware of things you need to do or not do in any given fight (beyond the standard awareness of what you need to erase on the DDs). Don't cast Slow on Mastop. Don't Dia Tax'et once Exuviation is done. -Do- Dia the scorpion in Ceizak. Etc.

Very off-topic, but I've been using your gearswap (including all includes) Motenten and have a short question.

Whenever i press Ctrl + to see augs on gear i just get a msg in chat saying "NPC targeting is now on/off"

I've looked around the include files but I'm really not good enough with code to change anything, so if you could help remove this feature I'd appreciate it.

Every file is exactly like yours excep WHM file where i messed with sets

Slightly off topic, but if you do a bee run, check with your run leader. Strategies can vary a lot on tax'et. For e.g. on my run, you don't ever ever debuff Tax'et on whm or I might kill you :3.

Otherwise very good advice

It's ok when melee ask for haste and -na's but some players that don't play support have a hard time understanding a white mage's priorities. If things are going badly, keeping the party up comes first, then -na, then buffs. I see this nagging a lot in pickup groups, like in Delve1 with bad stunners. Sorry gimpy Oatixur monk, but your haste doesn't come before keeping the melee alive (including yourself) when they are hitting Tojil with spikes up and not turning/spikes aren't dispelled.

One thing that I'd like to add, not sure if anyone else did, is that with 6 man content like Delve and AA's, you are going to want to have an enfeebling set on white mage. If you want to enfeeble AA's over normal, and I imagine Delve2, your set needs to be very good indeed. There's a lot of good gear for this purpose, and WHM can wear just about all of it :)

Props for being proactive and making a genuine inquiry to better yourself OP.

I can't offer much advice on the subject, but it looks like you're getting some decent input, and some particularly good advice from Motenten, as usual.

Hope things turn around and you get to where you want to be.

Of course, WHM gets a some nifty regen duration and enhanced regen pieces of gear though and, Bologna Club will make regen even more sexy :3

You say tomato, I say potato.

whm regen still useless

I would disagree, even naked it gives 30HP/Tick, for a total of 600 HP in the end. Lets you use smaller cure spells to conserve your MP a little bit better.
Or Regen IV your RNGs if they get hit with an AoE since typically it only brings them down to yellow, and their not constantly getting hit.

Or you can just cure them.

That's good thinking at lv20 when you're fighting your way through qufim half a decade ago, but these days, if you're fighting anything remotely dangerous, you'll have double g-horn ballads.

I'm not entirely sure it's MP efficient either. Curaga3 is 180mp. Say 3 RNGs and each is down 500hp. You'll get 75MP back, so 105mp cost. Regen4 when AOE'ed is 164.

If multiple rangers are hit and the rangers stay together i can understand, but rangers don't seem to stay together; at least any ranger i've ever gone with haven't making Curaga 3 hit a RNG and PLD or RNG and a BRD.

Regen is still an effective spell for tanks, especially PLDs, some NMs have easily bouncing hate, Regen can help close the HP Gap and allow the PLD room to cure themselves to help hold hate better so the whm can wait until a certain HP amount or after an ability before they cure a person.
If you've watched my stream you'd have seen during my DMII I kept regen on the PLD and cured the RNGs, I only waited to cure the PLD until he fell into the yellow and didn't cure himself.
I made sure I Devotion him so he had MP between Chivary recast.
With RNGs cured and PLD Regened he had about 94% he was able to recover back to 100% while i watched for any WS about to be preformed with Cure IV ready.

Also; Not all BRDs even in event shells have Ghorn or Daub, not all PLDs have Ochain/Aegis, so you shouldn't rely on the 15 tick regen from Ghorn BRDs, and expect some PLDs to need more curing than normal, Regen IV helps keep their HP flowing while you help cure them.

You're not serious.

If curaga isn't hitting all the rngs, then aoe regen4 isn't going to hit them either. You can regen4 them one by one, but then you're casting regen4 multiple times, and it has a 12-24 second recast depending on how much haste you have on.

So your RNGs are already in yellow, fighting something with wide reaching range, and you want them to wait 20-30 seconds before they start getting 30-50hp per tick back.

That's moronic.

Casting regen on your pld is also moronic. Let him cure himself, your regen isn't doing anything but keeping him from building as much hate as he can. Your only job as is to keep haste on him, status effects, bar spells and making sure he doesn't get 1-shotted. Regen plays no role in any of that.

I'm not even going to comment on your excuse that not everyone has basic, essential gear for an event ls. Relics aren't hard to get nowadays; relics weren't hard to get years ago, there's no excuse now.

It is useless but I still indulge it with a regen set. There is nothing wrong with making a regen set but with empy+2 legs, mp efficiency is no longer a problem.

I will throw them out from time to time though if I just feel like being lazy but never -aga it. I usually just stick it on the PLD as an aid then keep an eye on that one DDer that you just know is going to go splat.

Also when you hit 50% without needing a hand slot, theophany mitts are awesome.

I'm trying to point out there are still uses for regen. Not Regen is better than cures overall.
Also I never said anything about AoE Regens, Typically I keep Regen on 1 person maybe throw it over on someone else if their low and not in a possible death situation.
PLDs getting hit for 20-100 damage tanking things could use a regen help keep their HP from falling too a before they cure themselves.
You wouldn't cast Regen on them right as the fight starts, let them cure themselves a few times and pull hate first. But Regen is still effective in keeping them capped off on HP to lesson their chance of being 1 shot.

You're the first person to complain about me regening people on a regular basis, I've never had problems with MP or keeping people up.

And; Yeah relics aren't hard to make, but their time consuming. Even in an end game shell you cant reply on all your best geared people to be there.
RL stuff happens and they miss a day, do you disband the run or go with a BRD with 1 instrument?

Nah, just regen them at start. Cure enmity is truly terrible as an enmity source these days. No PLD should be trying to generate hate that way(if you did, it'd be a last resort cause you've got literally nothing else left to use.)

So by all means, Regen the PLDs right off, an keep HP high and cureskin on. ^^

Yeah kinda meant this in a way, Regen them before the fight starts but not right after he swings at the thing (because if its a miss and he hasn't provoked yet you just took hate, lesson learned.) But there does still need to be room for them to be able to cure themselves. If they over do it I have Devotion Ready.

I don't know what to say to that.

The keys to being a good white nmage are basically these few things:

1. Orison body/legs: the legs create mp advantage which is something that need not be justified further. the body allows you to put a "cureskin" on your target essentially mitigating damage of the next attack. (use this say on whichever target has hate by targeting the mob and typing /as, or by using accession and cure 4'ing)

2. Learn what mobs moves do before you enter the fight. Ask people if you have to. If people have to ask at all for erase, paralyna, or even cure at any point in battle youre doing your job wrong

3. Before the battle begins, have haste (by bards, cors and other /whm or /rdm jobs with haste other than you, while youre getting used to these events. when you are ready to be efficent with your time you can do it all yourself.anyone who says "NO A WHM SHOULD HASTE EVERONE" or if a cor or brd either wont haste or isnt sub whm, then have them change sub or kick them because they suck) assignments set. please state that for ever second haste is down on a melee whoever is assigned to haste that target is wholeheartedly failing the party and should be yelled at for being negligent. If a melee has to ask for haste more than once, outside of dispels, then someone is failing terribly because haste is direct dps which means the battle will last longer and that tends to lead to losses

4. Curaga. Use curaga3 when you see players HP either 10% down still in white against a mob that uses aoes alot, or THE SECOND you see players HP drop. do not wait to cure the party till seeing yellow hp. you need to cure fast. if you see yellow hp, and you havnt already started a curaga youre probably going to be too late.


The main thing is, as a white mage if players in your party have to ask for you to use your spells in an efficient way ie. haste, na spells, erase, boost spells, esuna, sacrifice, ESPECIALLY CURES ect. then you know youre doing your job sub par to even shitty. do things faster than people can with meds, or even faster than they can ask for them. eventually people will KNOW you are good and not even ask because theyll know you have it coming and trust your priorities.



edit: also one more thing, get into the habit of carrying around remedies, panacea, a vile elixer and vile elixer +1 TO EVERY EVENT. I do this partly because i'm galka but i almost ALWAYS get people /t'ing me they are impressed with my white maging because i am so quick and prepared even in events where the content isnt so hard. this is non-negotiable if you want to be superior to the whm that a party can just shout for.

One thing to consider after you have mastered my above post:

Afflatus misery. In the new skirmish especially, against umbrils, those blue mobs, the purple NM, those skeletons, the bombs, and a few other mobs, ill use afflatus misery, barblizzara+barparalyzra (to nearly eliminate paralyze procs on myself, not necessarily to negate it completely) and use ESUNA when a mob uses aoe paralyze, slow, blind, bio, gravity, ect. then immediately use CURA III, then curaga if needed. its VERY efficient.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DxS7eT_ky4

The final thing id like to say, is that if you are partying with the same people and have failed at events with them a few times, ask your melee if they are using PDT sets efficently and intuitively (if they see you say, have low mp and see your party get aoe'd into low yellow hp, they should put on PDT gear, if they see you getting hit by an add, they shout put PDT on in case you get interupted till the add is dealt with, if you have low MP they should put PDT on to take less damage so you can use cure3 and curaga2 as opposed to cure4 and curaga3 till you get above 400 mp. tell your melee to use sets efficiently and if they dont then they are to be either kicked, or made to learn because its not your fault if the melee does not do their JOB and PLAY INTO THEIR WHITE MAGE

as a top DPS melee all this good gear at my disposal, i condsider myself an extension of my white mage, it is my responsibility to play into what my white mage can deal with. this means IF YOUR MELEE ARE NOT using PDT efficiently, RUNNING OUT OF RANGE OF A MOB AFTER IT USES ENCUMBERANCE, OR HP DOWN THAT TAKES YOU TO UNDER 500 HP MAX, or NOT BRINGING VILE and VILE +1 TO EVERY EVENT TO BAZAAR FOR 1GIL FOR THEIR WHITE MAGE TO BUY IN EMERGENCIES, THEN THEY ARE A SHITTY PERSON TO PLAY WITH

All in all, inspect your party, the players, and what you have for support. if your bard/cor arent helping cure or haste, or if melee's arent playing into you, then they are FAR MORE AT FAULT than you COULD EVER BE when they die.

if you HAVE TO PLAY with these people, here is a big thing:

TELL THEM TO ALWAYS BE IN A POSITION RELETIVE TO THE MOB AND YOU SO THAT YOU CAN BE 20' FROM THE MOB AND IN CURE RANGE OF YOU (of course not the case in the event of misery) TELL THEM TO FIGHT LATERALLY IN RESPECT TO YOU, NOT HOROZONTALLY, THIS IS ANOTHER INDICATION THAT YOUR MELEE ARE STUPID AS ***AND SHOULDNT BE PLAYED WITH

I wouldn't go that far, it's easy to miss a status effect on a DD when you're caught up on curing, hasting etc.

Being asked every single time means there's a problem, but to suggest a DD should NEVER have to ask isn't strictly accurate. Also you get some DD who scream for things you just gave them.

the people i play with literally never speak a word when im on white mage. they know that i am doing things in a way that holds their survival in priority #1, while maintaining the DPS of the party under that priority. IE. i dont give a ***about poison 1-10hp/tic ect. but ill get rid of para before it even procs on them when possible. if they havnt played with me before they quickly learn and notice the difference between their normal whm and one that they can actually depend on.

my whm motto is that no one should have to ask for any of those spells. they should assume that i know because a good whm should know and those melee should know that their whm is doing their job correctly. i mean, would you rather play with a whm like that, or one that you have to ask for those spells even half the time? lol how do you think those whm will react when they are stressed.