WHM or BRDFollow

Well, I don't have time to play like I did 4 years ago... finishing school and making my way into life with a wife and baby on the way....

I play with a small group of friends, and am not really sure what to be. My main is RDM, I play as a soloing Melee RDM... but I need something for group content, I am leveling BLM so that our group can farm seals fro the armor, but for our events, and boss fights, I am not sure what to be.... BRD i know is the best at buffing a group, but I am not sure how much they are used these days.
WHM we also need because we don't have any dedicated healers.... But I see 100s of WHM running around jeuno and am wondering if they are really in short supply or not...

Need some opinions on what to level and invest money into.

I have no problem with skilling at all. Hell, After rushing RDM to 99 i spent a week getting all my skills to cap on crabs... oh how i miss the old days.

As for content, none of us have done the abyssea content, and a few of the newer people want to run the older content, like zilart, and Cop and Nyzul stuffs.

I know I wouldnt mind getting at least one mythic weapon. RDM seems to have become a solo/***** around job to me, since its not really needed in groups anymore.

For Aby, you will want a whm. However, you have already mentioned leveling blm for Aby staggers, so I suggest leveling brd to /brd levels at the least for staggers. Quite a few NMs in Aby can be duo'd blu/nin and blm/whm, but you are missing a couple of staggers and TH when you go that route.

For older content, I like to run on rdm because to be honest, that is the only place rdm can still be useful. I rdm/sch and my BF goes blu/nin quite a bit on stuff like Limbus. I don't think the raw power of whm is necessary on older content.

WHM pulls ahead on newer content because of cureskin, but even with the new healing magic updates, Cure III and IV and used more often than not (at least for me). DDs and tanks do not have the HP pool outside of Aby that show a need for V & VI. WHM also pull ahead in DD parties because of their curaga power to keep the entire party alive in 1 cast.

I also agree with Wint on working on gearing up 1 job to its highest potential. I can thf, dnc, smn, war, etc but when it comes to my best jobs I am on brd the most or whm. BLM is honestly my main tho and I still spend time gearing it up and upgrading items, even though I haven't had much use for it lately.

Agreed, but you would be surprised how many whms still cast V and VI, even when the person they are healing isn't even in the yellow yet.

It is. Cure V enmity is lower than Cure IV. If I am duo'ing then I am more likely to Cure V, but in today's endgame, there is no reason for a whm to pull hate with the way DDs let loose on the mobs. Again, this is my own experience though.

My Cure IV restores around 900hp, making it only marginally weaker than Cure V. These days enmity is less of an issue, and the only reason to cast Cure VI is fighting powerful NMs which can take off large amounts of HP in quick succession while Cure V is in cooldown.

Personally, I think it's quite disappointing how weak Cure VI turned out to be especially since they updated the cure system. Cure V and VI are in need of a revamp to make them more worthwhile in my humble opinion, but at least the higher tier cures have fixed enmity for more prolonged battles.

Edited, Aug 13th 2012 12:14pm by Glitterhands

I've got gear for around +40% Cure Potency. In a VW fight, I can spam 3/4 all the time and keep people up to the 90%ish level. It's insane. Add to that 3 refresh from gear and 3 more from /RDM when I remember to cast Refresh. I do worry a bit about the hate, but hate is so broken now that it doesn't matter.

A big limit now is simply casting speed. And Curaga is mostly useless when people wander all over the place on both sides of the mob in VW. Forget Curaga, it's hard enough to stay at a safe distance from the mob to avoid aura-type debuffs and heal individual people who run to all different sides of the mob.


I saw someone doing that in a VW. It was painful. You can tell who is a good WHM because they're not spamming 5/6 all the time. A good WHM should be able to tell which cure to use by the size of the bar and adjust for people with different max HP, while trying to get to 90-95% HP. Sure, sometimes you have to alternate cures for for the recast, and that's the only reason to over-cure.

And then there's when you're healing a PLD tank. You shouldn't cure bomb them, but let them cast cure spells to build hate, or at least try with hate so broken. Regen IV is great for this. And Refresh/Devotion your PLD, dammit! Then again, if the PLD's MP bar stays full all the time, I think that's a sign of a sub-par PLD.


The enmity formula is broken. It doesn't really matter unless there's a hate reset right as you drop a Cure IV.


I was disappointed with Cure VI from the start. It was horribly less efficient than Cure V. But we knew then that the level was going to 99, so I figured it might actually be decent at 90 or so. Well here we are, and it's still an MP pig.

Edited, Aug 13th 2012 9:57pm by Elwynbelwyn

A properly timed curaga is amazing. When you see a big spell or dangerous tp move coming, time the curaga to land as soon as possible afterwards. If you waste a little mp it doesn't even matter, since you have tons of temps, /sch or /rdm, and +2 whm pants at your disposal.



Why does it matter if the WHMs in VW use mostly Cure V or VI? You will never run out of mp unless you are horrible. Same for the Pld. You should not be running out of mp in VW. I would rather have someone fully cured with a more powerful cureskin using a cure V or VI than be at the 90% level that you stated and get killed. I could see if this was some sort of mp strained event, but those are very rare in today's FFXI.

I don't know how you blow through 2 lucid ether IIs (500mp each) 1 lucid ether III (1000 mp) 2 mana powders (25% mp each) and a 300mp mana mist that get restored every time you proc a HV weakness. This isn't even including convert / refresh or LA / sublimation and +2 whm pants or the up to 7 tic refresh whm can get on gear.

Uhh...really? Do you have any idea what is involved in making a mythic weapon?

Did you even read what I wrote? A "properly timed curaga" is kind of pointless if only two people (other than yourself) are even in range because everyone wanders all over the place during VW fights. Well, I suppose if you got right up to the mob it would work, but then you get hit with Silencega spam/aura.


Oh boy, now we've gone from "nobody does anything but Abyssea" to "nobody does anything but VW"! Because everyone has VW temp items everywhere in every endgame event!

And as has already been said, cureskin ain't all that.

back to OP - I really like BRD. I find it more fun than WHM... but WHM is way more useful overall.

However, I am addicted to brd's movement speed. SO NICE.

Edited, Aug 14th 2012 10:55am by Olorinus

Except when the person you're targeting dies while you're casting because of how long Curaga takes to cast, which aborts your spell, causes you to freak out because now the second person still needs heal so you try to cure them and get "Unable to cast at this time" and now both people are dead.

If only two people need cures, it's usually safer to heal the one in the most danger first with a single-target, because it will land much faster than Curaga would. Then cure the second person ASAP. There are exceptions, of course. Sometimes you know another big AOE is coming and it's Curaga or bust (which is always fun because then you already know that after your current Curaga, you're most likely going to need another one).

Thank god for Orison Pantaloons +2.