White Mage, the original healing class of Final Fantasy 14, is considered the best by many players. They use holy aetheric energy to mend wounds and smite foes, with high up-front potency on both their main damage and healing spells. The White Mage’s Healing Gauge system, known as the Lily Gauge, generates Lilies every 20 seconds while engaged in combat, including during downtime. Each “Lily heal” adds a Lily to your Healing Gauge for every 20 seconds you are engaged in combat, up to a maximum of 3.
White Mage Rotation is essential for constantly dealing damage while using a Lily charge. Blood Lily charges can be gained when using a Lily charge, but only after three usages. To unlock the lily gauge, players must complete the entire 2.X MSQ and begin the 3.0 MSQ before starting HW job quests for WHM.
Lilies are accumulated as time passes while engaged in combat and can be consumed to execute actions such as Afflatus Solace. Upon reaching Level 74 and learning the trait Transcendent Afflatus, consuming Lilies will develop a Blood Lily. After three Blood Lilies, it grows into Afflatus Misery.
Acquiring a Lily requires the player to be in combat. Every 20 seconds in combat, one Lily blooms on the Healing Gauge. Unlocked at level 74, Blood Lily stacks are generated when using Afflatus Solace or Afflatus Rapture, up to a maximum of three, allowing players to execute Afflatus Misery.
📹 THE WORST MECHANIC IN FFXIV | The Stormblood Lilies
I struggle to think of a single job mechanic that was ever DESPISED (hated?) as much as the white mage’s lily system in …
📹 ADVANCED White Mage Guide (Final Fantasy 14)
“How do I spam Glare?” It’s a hard question, but look no further. If you want to let tanks die for your personal damage gains, I’ve …
I named my character Lily because I knew she’d be a whm main 😅. I started to play her after ShB came out so I never seen what was before… however I absolutely love them as they are now. They are part of my identity as a whm 😅. Also Regen is just a must for me it allows me to Holy/Glare so much more 😁👍. And then after a bit I have my first Lily available and can use it for insta heal reapply Regen and go Holy/Glare over and over again xD.
I remember when the lilies were even worse than what they were at the end of SB. At the start of SB Cure II only had a 50% chance to grant a lily. This was changed VERY early on, thankfully, but lilies were also originally the ONLY WAY to cast Divine Benison. That’s right. WHM’s only shield was locked behind the lily system until 4.3 I believe? Before that a WHM might cast Cure II just to give themselves a lily to allow a use of Divine Benison… But this was mostly only during dungeon runs and only at the end of a pull so you had a shield for the next pull. Also lilies were only granted during combat so no, you couldn’t prestack lilies. Terrible. I removed the hud display very early on in SB because it was pointless.
Ya’ll knew this was coming from me sometime. The white mage lilies in stormblood was in my, and many other players opinion, the worst battle system EVER implemented in FFXIV’s history. 🍕🍕🍕:_evyxLoot::_evyxHug::_evyxWat::_evyxRofl::_evyxRofl::_evyxHug::_evyxLoot::_evyxLoot::_evyxRofl::_evyxLoot::_evyxLoot: Other Healer History articles: 1. Scholar’s Rotation in ARR | FFXIV History! – youtube.com/watch?v=r-KIrYHFfjU&ab_channel=ColeEvyx 2. THE OLD CARD SYSTEM | FFXIV History | Astrologian – youtube.com/watch?v=YJLWc6mQN9g&ab_channel=ColeEvyx 3. White Mage’s Rotation in A Realm Reborn | FFXIV History! – youtube.com/watch?v=l9EfOBQBtKs&ab_channel=ColeEvyx Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 0:56 Explaining the Lilies System in Stormblood 2:15 Lilies System Abilities that would have been REALLY GREAT 2:40 HOW TO EVEN GET LILIES? 3:32 Cure 1 sucks rant 4:12 Regen has always been and still is KING 4:46 Healer Approach… On GCD Healing is suboptimal 6:12 Lilies system benefits? MEH MEH MEH MEHTASTIC 7:04 Final Verdicts on the Stormblood Lily System 8:26 Outro — BURN THE (Stormblood) LILIES
From the perspective of someone who didnt play during SB, the lily system, in theory sounds really cool and unique. But in practice, it sounds like a mess since it messes with the whole GCD stuff. What i’d like to see if they bring the system back is that they keep lilies tied to every 30 seconds in battle, but make it so that when you use them, they apply to every off global WHM has( tetra, bene, temperance, Planetary, etc.) But also give it a new gcd heal called… say Afflatus Umbral. This button gives a weaker heal than solace, but it gives a shield that scales off of the amount of lilies you use. It keeps the whole lowering you cooldowns though, but it applys to both and the amount of lilies you have only scale on umbral rather than scaling for both. Also, lets say that at lvl 2 it reduces off global cooldowns by 4 seconds, lvl 3 10 and lvl 1 2 seconds That way in a perfect situation, you would have bene on 10 seconds before cooldown and assize on 6 seconds.You also have a lily coming in in 5 seconds. You give the tank a lvl 2 umbral shield and give them a solace as well once you get the lily so they live the tank buster. They eat it, but their health isnt looking too hot and an unavoidable AOE is coming out. So what do you do? Give them your newly found assize that was off cooldown and then bene them once they live through the AOE attack. Again, in theory it sounds kinda fun and complex, but it didnt seem to stick too well in practice.
There was an additional trait at lv 68, Secret of the Lily 2, which grants a 20% chance that Asylum or Assize recast time is reduced by 5 seconds upon healing critical HP with Cure or Cure II… They were very clearly trying to encourage white mages to use cure and cure 2 alot. What are the odds of critting, and then procc-ing this 20% for just a measly 5 second reduction? Everything about the lily gauge design in stormblood baffles me. Im so glad i only started xiv in 4.3, because whm was my main and by the time I realised the lily gauge was hot garbage shadowbringers was alrdy coming.
Jeez, I can’t imagine that system and having even less to do. WHM is like simultaneously really boring and stressful for me, because you’re supposed to DPS, but you’re also the one responsible for keeping everyone else alive. So I’m just thinking how much I’d hate not even having extra off-GCD heals. (Side note, but I just like to think WHM is all about the booty with a-flat-ass and ass-size spells) This makes me think/hope that Sage is going to have a ton of off-GCD heals and a steady stream of DPS abilities, but that’s really just me fantasizing about how I’d make a Sage healer that has the same kind of core idea as the Sage in FF3.
Hot opinion but I still think the lillies are kind of lame. They should up the potency of misery to make it equal to glarespam at the very least. I always disliked how white mage is punished for actually healing while the other healers have more “free” ways to heal. Afflatus Misery is a step in the right direction but it’s still a dps loss compared to just spamming glare, so I usually see white mages just relegate most of the heals to the other healer.
Confession Stacks ugh…they’d have a chance to work on a healed target. Then you’d use planetary to eat all those stacks for extra heals…problem was besides being RNG, the confession stack proc duration didn’t last long so they’d often fall off prior smh. Cure 1 tho, idk why it doesn’t just get a trait to evolve into Cure 2 but with MP cost 800 from 1k MP
Thank you very much for this guide. However, I have a slight gripe with your point at 3:13. What you said about getting Misery into the two minute window and benefiting from raid buffs is 100% true, but first, you ask the question, “Which is more likely: All 4 Glares critting, or 1 Misery critting?” This is not the correct question – what we should be looking at is the expected value of casting Misery or 4 Glares. For simplicity’s sake, let’s say that Glare does 100 damage, Misery does 400 damage, and you have a 15% crit chance. In other words, there is an 85% chance that you do normal damage and a 15% chance you do 1.5x damage (since that is the damage bonus when you have 15% crit chance). The expected value of a given event with a numeral outcome is the likelihood of the outcome times the value of the outcome. Therefore: The expected value of casting Glare is (100 * 0.85) + (150 * .15), or 107.5. So, the expected value of casting 4 Glares is 4×107.5, or 430. The expected value of casting Misery is (400 * 0.85) + (600 *.15), or 430. The primary difference between casting 4 Glares or 1 Misery is that the total amount of damage you do with 4 Glares will be a normal distribution centered on the expected value, whereas the value of casting 1 Misery is a truly random distribution. But over time, if you cast 100 Miseries, that will also become a normal distribution with the average centered on 430. Now, it is literally true that critting on all 4 Glares is less likely than critting on 1 Misery (.
Elusive self-pin, but someone pointed out I didn’t go a lot into RAISING: 1) White Mage, despite having Thin Air, is kind of low on the raising priority list because its GCD spam (Glare) has one of the highest potencies of any healer, meaning others lose less by sending out the rez. You can and should still rez, however, especially if your co-healer’s mana is trending downward already. It’s also just an unavoidable part of prog. 2) Swiftcast, accordingly, CAN be saved for rezzing, but it’s also a pretty important movement tool for WHM. I recommend holding it during prog in case you need to raise someone, then gradually finding areas of high-movement where you want to use it as your group cleans the fight up and dies less. 2b) In case I’m in a group like PF or duty finder where there isn’t voicechat, I also have this handy Swiftcast macro: /micon Swiftcast /p Swiftcast ready in Essentially, you press it and it reports your exact CD left on Swift, e.g., “Swiftcast ready in 0:13.” It’s a good way of letting people know you either can or can’t rez, because I don’t personally care for rez macros. The little audio blip at the end is just to grab attention and I don’t spam it, but you can remove it if you’d prefer. Thank you all!!
Something this article didn’t mention is about the natural hp regen all characters have. If the boss does a raid wide followed by avoidable attacks, it will give everyone a chance to recover naturally, meaning you may not need to heal up the raid wide at all (mostly in Normal difficulty, where they don’t hit as hard). People don’t need to sit at 100% HP the whole time, leaving them partially empty lets their own HP regen do the work for you while you cast more glare.
Something I learned from a long long time ago is that if you see a DPS about to die you don’t have to give them bene to save them. A Regen should do just as good since they most likely just goofed a mechanic the regen at least will either get them back to safety so you can focus on other things and if you have time throw tetra or something. They don’t need bene but of course do use it for it’s intended purpose as described in this article. 🙂
Fun thing about Medica 2: Given the length of the GCD is rroughly tick length, if you chain cast Medica 2 over and over, where only ONE tick is healing from each one before you overwrite it, 250 + 150 = 400 potency of healing. That is, you cast Medica 2 and get the 250 heal, immediately start casting it again, the first tick will register for 150, then the cast goes off. So AT MINIMUM, if you were chain casting Medica 2 (which is silly, but if you were), you’re doing the same healing as chain casting Medica 1. The only difference is it’s 100 MP more and has 5y more range. At this point, if Medica 2’s MP cost was reduced by 100, there would literally be no reason for Medica 1 to be in the kit except for running low level content (and not confusing new players a smidge). If Medica 1’s tooltip was rewritten “250 potency heal, 150 potency Regen duration 3 sec”, and Medica 2’s MP cost was reduced by 100, Medica 2 would be a straight upgrade, and it would be more obvious when written that way. As it is, Medica 1 is a SLIGHTLY better option if the party is > 10 y apart but < 15 y AND you have 900/1800/2700 MP exactly, such that Medica 2 casts don't work out (more than 2700 and it honestly doesn't matter) There are some quirks like that. Cure 1 is also SLIGHTLY faster, so there's an EXTREMELY niche case use for it when you need a heal to land in less than 2 sec but greater than 1.5 is still okay. I've had this happen from time to time, but it's extremely rare. Cure 2 has somewhat more use since it's more powerful and is a strong option if a Tank wall-to-wall pulls more than they can chew/mitigate and you've already used Solace, Tetra, and Bene. It used to be better when Thin Air was a 15 second duration rather than charges, but it's still the most powerful spamable single target heal in the game. A second use case is if you have a Misery prepped, three Lilies up, but are finishing off the second wall-to-wall in a 4 man (that is, as soon as these die, you go into the boss fight) and all the enemies are less than about 10-15% health but the tank needs a patch up heal. Granted, you often have plenty of CDs and oGCDs you can use, but it's fine to throw a Cure 2 in this situation since the enemies are about to die and it's more fun (and slightly more damage optimal) to enter a boss fight with a Misery right off the bat in that first buff window. Cure 1 really need to upgrade to Cure 2 (though Cure 2 would need a MP cost decrease to make this really viable - but hey, Benific 2 is cheaper and not game breaking, so...), and Medica 1 needs its tooltip adjusted (so people don't think it's a nerf) and then straight upgrade to Medica 2 for 900 MP cost. But it's not like anyone asks me these things... 🙂 . WHM is fun and its straightforwardness is a strength, not a weakness. Not every Job/class in a game needs to be gigabrain to be fun, I think. I play all four Healers and always pick Healer classes in games, and I love it more than any of the others. Its kit is arguably the one in the best shape right now. The Lily system just works amazingly well and is the only Healer not penalized for using some GCD tools. IMO, the only problem with WHM is it has no "lesser" mit in its toolkit, which feels like an oversight. If it had a 60 sec 5% damage reduction button, that would more or less patch the one remaining hole in its kit, I think. I've seen it suggested Plenary be used for that, and think it would probably fit the bill.
One thing i suggest for WHM players is that assize while being MP and damage, is sometimes very worth to hold for a few seconds for raid damage incoming. I will typically not hold mine more than perhaps 4 or 5 seconds at the most and only if i know raid damage is coming, otherwise i just use it on CD. Its a very powerful heal, and used well will let you keep spamming glare without needing to heal. This is especially powerful for openers when you want to use assize during raid buffs and cast as many glares as possible during raid buffs, but typically there is an opening raidwide you would have to heal, when you dont have any lilies generated yet. Asylum+assize will heal most dmg from any opening raid wide, and allow you to just keep casting glare. Also if your party isnt standing in your asylum, yell at them. Asylum has a pretty strong heal over time and that is preferred to having your healer cast another GCD heal because your party wouldnt stand in it. Great guide!
I’m so happy to see you’re still doing these! Your Sage article came out right around the time I was thinking about dipping my toes into that job, and it really helped me from pure healer to barrier healer. I do hope you’ll do more of this in the future! (especially Astro, jkjk unless unless 🥺) As a healer main, I’m really enjoying your top quality healer content
Thank you so much for this guide. I got kicked out of two statics (Despite telling them I was new to healing savage) and felt so down that I was a horrible WHM. This actually helped me better understand where I can improve and look forward to next raid tier to put the practice I’m going to do on EX trials into action. Quick question for you, will you be making a SCH guide like you did SGE? The SGE guide was actually how I found your website and would love guides on the other healers. You put just the right amount of information in without causing overload.
Pro-tip: Go to Delubrum Reginae and play WHM as a DPS. Essence of the Ordained + Chainspell + Seraph Strike. You wanna use up lillies constantly to get Misery ready for your Seraph Chain burst window AND you wanna use Thin Air to cast Seraph Strike (5000mp). Also, it is actually worth snapshotting a DIA before the buffs fall off. It’s perfect practice for the high end play style. And it’s a lot of fun seeing your character hit for 250,000 damage in one hit.
As I am getting into endgame, (being about to enter Endwalker) I have seen that I need to start applying some more asvanced tips as WHM, and this has helped me a bunch to see what exactly I am doing wrong and how to get better. I will deffinately be using this to keep my party topped up and become an even better glare mage! XD
i must say this was quite an interesting guide, as someone who just recently joined a static as the pure healer (and more or less against my own personal opinionated will, used to find WHM so boring that i never saw myself touching it after i got it to 90) currently as WHM(main job is SGE but the shield healer spot was already filled by another SGE sooo pure healer it is) so this is something i will try to atleast keep in mind as we slowly but surely prog trough the savage raids.
have to mention it takes a GCD or so for confession to apply to everyone. so if you hit plenary>rapture it may not hit everyone with that plenary buff too. (something ive noticed while healing) So ill always tell them to hit plenary>glare>rapture instead to be 100% sure you get the rapture fully buffed in there.
Well made article, I’ve been a whm since ARR but some of the smaller details like dot refresh or holy on 2 vs 3 targets are things I never thought to look into. I also feel like I subconsciously knew that about wings he asylum but its quite interesting when actually explained out loud. I found myself using medica 1 for the first time regularly during p8s prog, usually its a tool that doesn’t come up much but the damage that comes out during natural alignment during that fight as well as for general healing during high concept make it quite handy to have as a reliable wide reaching heal.
Personally, as a WHM main, I want to say that this is a great article. I think your point on using Lilies as a movement tool is really understated and there are a couple of points that maybe you might want to reconsider. Firstly, timing a Blood Lily for a 2 minute buff window is a great point, but it’s not as valuable as ensuring that you have 100% Uptime. Blood Lily’s value is proportional to the amount of Glare casts as you had mentioned. However, the real calculus around it is actually Blood Lily / 4 Glares + Missed Glares = GCD Damage Value. 4 Glares + 0 Missed Glares is obviously the goal, but if you missed a single Glare leading up to your Blood Lily usage, the value of Blood Lily goes down. You’re better off using any and all Lilies around movement and repositioning because you want to end a fight with near 100% Uptime. Let’s say you do get 100% Uptime and you time your Blood Lily which results in a buffed crit Afflatus Misery, that is absolutely a damage gain but you have to ensure you have 100% Uptime which essentially means that 100% Uptime is significantly more important than timing. Secondly, overcapping Lilies is actually not problematic in the slightest. An overfed Blood Lily is a problem because again, it’s actually Blood Lily / 4 Glares + 0 Missed Glares. An overfed Blood Lily is a missed Glare for every over feed you do. Let’s say you do an entire fight without using a single Lily, but you had 100% Uptime and didn’t have to cast any GCD heals. There was nothing lost or gained so there isn’t actually really a downside to overcapping your Lilies.
Another great article from you! As before, nothing really left unsaid that wouldn’t be quiiiite minor or extra nuanced. Uhh…instant tick when placing asylum I guess maybe? ~ Thank you for suggesting people play it decently safe for prog – mechanics come first and healer damage skyrockets after, it’s pretty much always how it goes when the rest have gotten into enough of a rhythm that you’re not constantly spot-healing~ And thank you more for the Airship Hilda Garde outro music c: Okay, I’m out. Time to go miss a dia-reapplication again and hit myself in the face 20 seconds later. Keep the wonderful content coming!
Came back to the game after 8 months, so I decided to see where things might be in the game after a while. First off, glad to see things haven’t changed very much, but still saddened to see that WHM still gets flak for being “simple”. While it’s true that it’s skill floor is below sea level, I strongly believe that it’s skill ceiling is also pretty darn high in comparison to other healer jobs.
Thin air optimally can be used on your first glare cast, medica 2 -> if prog leave one for raise. otherwise use it on medica 2/cure3. and just try and not cap. Even if you don’t have a thin air for raise. if you are using it on medica2+ its value, and as long as you press Lucid on CD and use lilies, you should legit never run outta mana unless you are afk spamming medica 2 :3 BUT i will always and forever recommend this! FOR NEW FIGHTS BUY MP POTS!!!!!!!!!!! You never know <3
While I completely agree with the DPS increase for spending Lilies outside of raid buffs and casting the payoff nuke inside the buff window, I do want to note the “what’s more likely to crit?” opening to the topic is misleading as heck. Yes, it’s more likely for one cast to crit than 4 individual casts all critting, but it’s also more likely for one cast to not crit than 4 individual casts to all not crit. It averages out to the same thing, so it’s purely the raid buff window that squeezes that sweet sweet efficiency out of the system. I have used Cure I usefully, but they are incredibly funky situations where I need a single target heal, saving oGCDs/Lilies for a heal check (or recently used them for it), a need to keep moving, and Regen won’t do enough in time. VERY limited situations and I’m pretty sure it means I’m desperately compensating for someone else’s problem. I love the point on overheal during prog. Your Glare casts mean nothing until you can hit enrage except to practice which mechanics you can slidecast into position for. All in all, excellent article. Would be curious to know your position on using Regen since that is my (and I’m sure many WHMs) go to spell for single target healing if more damage isn’t coming out immediately. I have a questionable habit of saving Tetra so I can use it alongside a Lily to act as a ghetto Bene for non-tanks.
3:20 Yeah, but the opposite is also true; if you’re unlucky and Misery doesn’t crit, it’s like 4 individual Glares that all didn’t crit. The chance that at least one of 4 individual casts crit compared to one is also much higher as opposed to one single big cast. A single cast just crits or doesn’t crit, there’s no in between. Multiple casts are more consistent and less off a coinflip.
Hey there! Thanks for the article. I main tank but I want to give healing a try too. What happens to snapshots when the dsmage is done after several seconds when the cast ends? Think about Ravening or Silkspit. Does it still mitigate those attacks even if the debuff is over before you are hit? Thanks again for the article and take care!
I feel like there should be a little aside when talking about learning to play in Savage content, particularly if said content has been out for some time. As most players will have pieces/be BiS by this pojnt, the damage check for healers isn’t as strict and, as such, will allow those learning any healer more leniency to use GCD heals as they prog through fights. Yours truly The tank who cringes when they need to over mit tank busters and the follow up DoTs while the healers are at full MP.
On P8S Savage. I changed after 2 kills from DPS to WHM, cause of loosing a player.. Didnt played Heal on trails since ARR.. Holy. Savage Healing is very fun and we got the kills. but my dmg wasnt that good i wanted to. I had most of your infos in mind befor looking. but there is always new Stuff to learn. On max classes you didnt realy play on focus. There are a lot of skills you didnt notice right. or simply miss understood. So i didnt realice the Heal increase from Asylum. I think i wasted it sometimes realy hard. Second, the Bell. I was always confused of the “hit” part in the Description. So did i unsterstand right, that the whm have to take dmg for the trigger?
I’ve developed a bad habit of using Dia in those moments where I’m like HOLY SHIT I HAVE TO MOVE, GO GO GO. I know it’s optimal to time your movement between Glare casts. In an emergency, how terrible is it to have to sprint somewhere fast and refresh Dia as you’re running, just to follow the “always be casting!” principle? I know it’s technically a dps loss over properly timed glares, but even the 60 potency is better than casting nothing at all, right?
A good endgame mage could, at best, do 50%-60% the damage of, say, the average Reaper. So keep the real DPS alive. That’s your job. The only time you should even be attempting damage is if absolutely no one else in the raid is under 50% health. If you allowed a Samurai to die because you were trying to cast a Glare, you did a bad job. You cost the Raid DPS, you didn’t contribute to it. Also, the vast majority of Roulette White Mage players will rarely cast the level 90 skills, as there are fewer level 90 Duties.
Holy is a gain on 2???? I thought it was a gain on 3 cuz its cast time, not being instant like SGE & SCH instant aoe dmg gcd wow. The rest i knew being a whm vet but still good to check info on your mains anyways. Your job can change every expansion, even mid expansion in various ways. Always best to see how to play it better and not be stuck in old ways of your job prior ✨️