Final Fantasy XIV - Healer Classes / Characters

Magi who use their arcane powers as a method of succor, healers focus on mending the wounds of allies who have sustained damage in combat. An essential member of any group, they are not only the literal life of the party, but they also have their share of offensive magic to fight back.

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Healers in General

Back from the Brink: Basically the only situation in which a healer's Level 3 Limit Break should be used - it immediately revives and fully heals the entire party, which can easily turn what would have been a Total Party Kill into a Heroic Second Wind. A few Ultimate Raids specifically invoke this by setting up situations where the healer has to use an LB3 on an otherwise crippled party or it will result in a guaranteed wipe.
Color-Coded for Your Convenience: All the healers have green class icons.
Combat Medic: Unlike other MMOs, Healers are meant to, along with keeping everyone alive, deal their own share of the damage.
Crippling Overspecialization: As of Endwalker the Healer jobs are divided into two categories: "Pure" healers (White Mage & Astrologian) who specialize in having several healing skills that can easily restore HP to full; and "Barrier" healers (Scholar & Sage) who specialize in temporary shields & damage reduction to increase survivability. Because one type lacks many of the other type's advantages, organized 8-player parties are encouraged to bring a Pure and a Barrier healer to get the best of both worlds.
Cutscene Incompetence: Of the "other people forget his/her powers" variety. You are a healer. At high levels, you have a list of healing spells as long as your right arm. Even at low levels, you will be able to effortlessly provide aid and succor to other characters. Nonetheless, in almost all cutscenes where someone is injured and needs medical attention, the other NPCs will treat you like Just Some Person Who Can't Heal, sometimes to the point of asking you personally to go find a healer. That said, there are a couple of scenes where your status as a healer is acknowledged.
- In one of the Stormblood cutscenes where, after a major battle which leaves several prominent NPCs wounded, one of the major NPCs asks you "What are you standing around for? You're a Healer, aren't you?" And then you are actually shown in the cutscene using a healing spell on the injured.
- A Shadowbringers cutscene also has you assist an NPC heal a wounded person, in defiance against another authority.
Damage Reduction: Each of the healers have two abilities that lowers damage taken. "Temperance" and "Aquaveil" for White Mage, "Sacred Soil" and "Expedient" for Scholar, "Collective Unconscious" and "Exaltation" for Astrologian. Sage, meanwhile, has three: "Kerachole", "Taurochole", and "Holos".
Did You Die?: Related to their Combat Medic role, this is often sarcastically asked by experienced Healer players when newer DPS or Tanks who don't know the deal yet complain about not receiving enough healing.
Evolving Attack: Each of the Healers has a basic attack spell which upgrades into progressively stronger forms as they level up. They each have a single Damage Over Time spell that similarly gets stronger.
Forced Sleep: The "Repose" spell, which puts the target enemy to sleep for thirty seconds or until someone attacks them.
Full-Contact Magic: "Seraph Strike", a Healer-exclusive Lost Action in Bozja, is a gap-closer that strikes with a burst of light and grants the user the Cleric Stance status, forcing them to take the offense for a short time. The White Mage has their own version in PVP, giving their party the Protect buff instead and granting one use of Cure III.
Healing Hands: All of the released healers use magic as a method of healing rather then that of traditional medicine.
Improbable Weapon User: Out of all the jobs, the healers tend to get the more unconventional weapons. The White Mage and Scholar are straightforward, with a cane and a codex, and then you have the Astrologian with a "star globe" and a deck of cards, and the Sage with "nouliths", a set of four magical floating guns.
Limit Break: Healers, as you might expect, use their Limit Breaks to heal nearby party members. The shared level 1 and level 2 Limit Breaks restore fixed percentages of a player’s health and MP. The level 3 Limit Break instantly revives, restores HP and MP to full, removes any Weakness debuffs from all party members.
The Medic: Healers by definition are charged with healing the wounded in the party and while others may have a few abilities to restore some health, healers are the ones with the most.
Not the Intended Use: "Rescue", as the name implies, is intended to get party members out of danger by pulling them to the healer's side. However, situations that can best be resolved by yanking a player across the arena (almost certainly disrupting their rotation) are actually pretty infrequent, even compared to the skill's lengthy two-minute cooldown timer. As a result, the skill sees more use for dragging the tanks forward in trash pulls, as a sign the healer believes the party can pull bigger. And also for trolling your friends by yanking them over a cliff or into danger.
Power at a Price: In Bozja, the Healer-exclusive Essence of the Profane doubles a Healer's damage output while also gimping that Healer's ability to heal people. The Essence's effects were once in an ability known as "Cleric Stance", which flipped the Intelligence and Mind stats of the user; this was prior to making Mind the primary stat for all of their actions. The ability itself no longer exists, but it does live on as a status effect given by the "Seraph Strike" Lost Action.
Regenerating Mana: The "Lucid Dreaming" role ability, which originated from the White Mage's removed "Shroud of Saints", gives healers regenerating MP for a short time. They share this ability with casters.
Squishy Wizard: Like casters, healers are vulnerable to attacks without a tank to protect them and die easily to enemy attacks. If the healer in your party dies, there is a very high chance you're screwed unless there's a Summoner or a Red Mage that can revive them (since they're the only other classes who can revive people in combat). The optional Eureka and Bozja areas allow a Healer to avert this trope by using various items which drastically increase their hit points and/or defensive stats for the duration of the instance.
Status Buff: "Swiftcast" makes the next spell you cast within ten seconds go off instantaneously, while "Surecast" ensures that you can cast spells without interruption from taking damage and makes you immune to most forms of Knockback for the duration. Healers share these buffs with the caster classes.
Support Party Member: The Healer classes' primary role in combat is to keep their teammates alive and in the fight with healing and supportive spells. While the White Mage and Scholar can also dole out sizable amounts of damage, the Astrologian's attack spells possess middling damage output in exchange for their ability to provide damage buffs and shielding.
Technician/Performer Team-Up: A Shield Healer and Pure Healer makes the quintessential healer duo in a Full Party composition, as they cover each other's shortcomings. The Shield Healer preemptively heals and sets up shields to minimize damage, while the Pure Healer reactively heals the damage that goes through.
Useless Useful Spell:
- Level 1 and 2 Healer Limit Breaks are considered not worth the trouble. While they're powerful group heals, they aren't that much stronger than the standard AoE heals that the Healer classes already have available. And they carry a steep opportunity cost in losing access to any other limit break. The Level 3 Limit Breaks for healers completely restore the HP and MP of every party member, as well as resurrecting them from KO and removing the Weakness penalty for reviving in combat, which is an incredibly useful tool in a desperate moment. Other than that, expect to almost never see a Healer using a Limit Break.
- Repose is a spell that puts a single enemy to sleep for 30 seconds. Beyond raids and Trials making the spell outright useless (since no boss can be put to sleep), the status effect goes away on any enemy the moment that they take damage. It's not even all that useful as a way to escape a Total Party Kill, since it lacks the actual Sleep Role Skill's (that only Casters have access to) AOE effect and can only be applied on one foe at a time. For this reason, it's extremely uncommon to see Repose ever used seriously.
You Will Not Evade Me: A friendly version in "Rescue", which magically pulls another party member to the healer's location. The intended use is to get the targeted party member out of harm's way, though there's not much stopping one from using it for evil. The only anti-trolling measure is that it can only be used during combat and is on a 3-minute cooldown to reduce frequency of use.

Conjurer and White Mage

Preferred Weapons: Wands and Canes
Armor Type: Healing
Guild Location: Old Gridania

Magic users who channel the aether of the land itself through a wand made from unworked wood. With a focus on healing and bestowing allies with a few Status Buffs they also command the power of earth, water and wind to defend themselves as needed. Becoming a White Mage gives the player unparalleled healing skills as well as the powerful Holy spell.

Conjurer

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/1ea8fa6b_fd0f_42df_8f19_5907f01bff83.jpeg

Abbreviation: CNJ
Unlocking Requirements: Available at the start of the story

The Artifact: Shields being equippable alongside one-handed wands. In 1.0, the shield abilities actually came from a separate class, Sentinel, which was only used as a subclass by Gladiators, Conjurers, and Thaumaturges. This class was removed when Jobs were introduced and the abilities were rolled into Gladiator and Paladin, removing a mage's ability to use them. All weapons introduced since then (aside from the Final Fantasy XIII-inspired weapon) have been two-handed, and two-handed variants of existing one-handed weapons got rolled out as replacements.
Beehive Barrier: The "Protect" spell, which was eventually made a role ability possessed by all healer Jobs and which has since been removed from the game entirely with the release of Shadowbringers.
Blow You Away: The "Aero" spell line inflicts damage-over-time to the target.
Cast from Hit Points: Part of the Conjurer's questline, though the player doesn't use this trope. It's revealed even if one has a natural talent for healing, without the study of the elementals, and thus their blessings, they'll end up doing this. It can eventually lead to their death if they heal too much. This is specifically because Conjurers' healing involves channeling life force into the one to be healed; 'orthodox' conjury takes from the life force of nature (effectively a drop in the bucket), while without that, one inadvertently draws from their own life force and can die if they overuse it.
Combat Medic: The Healer role calculates their magical damage with the same stat used to determine healing power — which, as healers, they tend to have quite a lot of — allowing them to be quite effective in kicking ass as well as healing when the time is right. The trope becomes a point in one of the late class quests where you are told that conjurers must learn to be able to do more than just heal people.
Dishing Out Dirt: The "Stone" spells, which damage an enemy by making large rocks burst out of the ground beneath its feet.
Druid: The conjurer has strong druidic flavor, possessing the bond with nature to help channel their spells and with some of the wands being branches complete with leaves.
Elemental Powers: Has both the "Aero" and "Stone" spell lines as well. They used to have a water spell in "Fluid Aura", but that has since been removed.
Gameplay and Story Segregation: It's established in background lore that Conjurers receive their healing powers directly from the Elementals, and as such, they have very strict rules about how they can only use them based on the Elementals' whims, and how doing something as simple as healing a sick child without it being sanctioned by the Elementals can carry severe consequences. Thankfully, the Warrior of Light never has such an issue - likely due to the player being stated to have a near bottomless font of aether and anima, whereas most other conjurers need to rely on other sources.
Healing Hands: The various "Cure" and "Medica" spells; the former have very potent healing for a single person ("Cure III" can also heal anyone else in the small vicinity of the target) while the latter isn't as strong but makes up for it by healing multiple people at once in a large area around the caster.
Knockback: Was once provided by the "Fluid Aura" spell which knocked its target a good distance back from the Conjurer and bound them in place for several seconds. It saw a number of different iterations between expansions but was considered a rather niche spell for most of its existence, and was ultimately removed altogether in Endwalker.
Land, Sea, Sky: The three main elements of conjury revolve around the life-giving elements of earth, water, and air to contrast with the destructive connotations of the Fire, Ice, Lightning elements wielded by thaumaturgy.
Light Is Not Good: Several dialogues in-game heavily imply that Conjurers routinely and willingly let people die if such is the will of the Elementals. Also, the White Mage Job questline reveals that White Magic became a forbidden art because it was exploited for selfish purposes and warfare.
Magic A Is Magic A: Conjury and White Magic use the classical interpretation of "conjuration", the invocation of spirits to accomplish a task — in this case, calling upon the blessings of the elementals of the Twelveswood, allowing them to wield the elements of the land (earth, wind, and occasionally water).
Magic Wand: What the class uses if they aren't using a two-handed staff.
The Medic: Conjurer is the only healer class in the game (although there is more than one healer job) and also possesses the handy "Raise" spell. Before the removal of the cross-class system, Conjurer was pretty much mandatory for the other healing jobs for spells like "Protect" and "Stoneskin".
Nature Hero: Both the Conjurer and the White Mage are themed around the healing powers of nature. The questline begins with healing minor disturbances in the land, wind, and water of the area around New Gridania, as well as learning to hear the voice of nature to understand what the world wants the conjurers to do in order to heal it. The elementals of the Twelveswood are also brought up in the same questline as Spirit Advisors for conjurers as a whole. In addition, their offensive spells are based around water, earth, and wind.
Reduced Mana Cost: The "Freecure" trait gives a 15% chance that the Conjurer’s next "Cure II" will cost no MP whenever they cast "Cure".
Squishy Wizard: They have powerful supportive spells that are essential to keep entire parties alive. But their defenses are paper-thin as a tradeoff, requiring proper positioning and the protection of a tank to work their magicks.
Whatevermancy: Though the player can’t actually play as one, the Othard counterpart to the Conjurer is the Geomancer. They use the same set of earth-, water-, and wind-elemental spells for offense and healing as the Conjurer does, with the added caveat of being Seers who can predict the future, and being willing to subjugate the elements of Othard to settle, instead of Gridania who lives in harmony with them at the price of being beholden to their Blue-and-Orange Morality.

White Mage

Abbreviation: WHM
Unlocking Requirements: Level up Conjurer to 30

An Adventurer Is You:
- The Classic Healer is their primary role, having the highest potency direct healing spells and low MP cost. Eventually, they unlock the trait "Secret of the Lily" which previously caused their "Cure" spells to generate Lilies as a resource to reduce the cooldown time on their healing abilities. Shadowbringers changed this into a self-generating resource that fuels the "Afflatus" spell series. The expansion has also shaped them up to be The Nuker among the Healer jobs, thanks to gaining powerful damaging spells such as Glare, Dia, and especially Afflatus Misery... which isn't terribly out of sync with their portrayal in Final Fantasy.
- In PvP, they also take on the Mezzer role. A well-aimed "Afflatus Purgation" can stun the entire enemy team, while "Miracle of Nature" can render a target utterly harmless for two seconds, which can buy allies breathing room or create an opportunity to take down slippery targets.
Anti-Frustration Features: Due to "Liturgy of the Bell"'s twenty second duration having potentially awkward healing timing in combat, the White Mage can opt to end the spell and expend all the leftover stacks right away.
Area of Effect: White Mages are well known for having some of the strongest area of effect damage output in the game between Holy, Assize, and Afflatus Misery (and previously Aero III). The tricky part is balancing their AoE output with their primary role of healing, though the stun provided by Holy helps with mitigation and Assize doubles as a AoE heal.
Badass Long Robe: Nothing says badass healer like having a long white robe with red trims on it, and their artifact gear has consistently kept the white-and-red motif since the very beginning. Even the level 70 "Seventh Heaven" armor set still retains the theme in spite of being a departure from the usual long robe fare.
Barrier Warrior: White Mages dip into this with "Divine Benison", a spell that grants one party member a 15-second shield which blocks damage equal to a heal of 500 potency. Its previous Stormblood incarnation originally calculated 15% of the receiver's HP. They also get "Aquaveil", which is a water barrier that reduces damage taken by 15% for a few seconds.
Black Mage:
- Rather fittingly as a parallel to the Black Mage, the White Mage is this among the other healing jobs, sporting the highest raw damage output, and also capable of unleashing a powerful nuke spell. In Shadowbringers, their main damaging spell, Glare, even had the same potency as the Black Mage's main damaging spell, Fire IV, at 300 potency (albeit not counting Astral Fire).
- In the Save the Queen questline, healers get access to a pair of special Lost Actions that dramatically increase their DPS: Lost Chainspell and Lost Seraph Strike. But no job uses it better than White Mage, as Thin Air allows them to offset the colossal MP cost of Lost Seraph Strike and the damage boosts inflate Afflatus Misery's output to mind-boggling levels. These two actions along with a damage-boosting Essence can turn White Mages into one of the most damaging jobs available in Bozja.
Blood Magic: At level 74, the White Mage learns "Afflatus Misery", an extremely powerful spell with 1240 potency that becomes available to use once they create a Blood Lily from using Afflatus Solace or Rapture three times. Amdapori White Mages also partook in this to animate constructs; the Demon Wall in Amdapor Keep, contrary to its name, is not a voidsent but a soulkin animated with blood-drawn sigils.
Boring, but Practical: White Mages don't provide that much utility compared to the Scholar or Astrologian, but the sheer raw potency of their heals and the incredible damaging power of their spells is enough for them to be incredibly vital to the party.
Charge Meter: The Lily Gauge gradually fills up as the White Mage spends time in combat, granting them a Lily which can be spent to cast "Afflatus Solace" or "Afflatus Rapture" every thirty seconds. It can stockpile up to three Lilies at a time.
Charged Attack: "Afflatus Misery" is a very powerful offensive spell that can only be used after the White Mage nourishes the Blood Lily with three castings of "Afflatus Solace" and/or "Afflatus Rapture".
The Chosen One: The Warrior of Light is one of the few non-Padjali to ever be accepted by a White Mage Soul Stone, likely due to their importance to the realm. This initially comes at the chagrin of A-Ruhn-Senna, but he later accepts the fact.
Close-Range Combatant: In a PVP context, while they do have some range in their basic offensive magic, the rest of their repertoire is offset by having very short range for a magic-based job. This is further enforced with having access to "Seraphic Strike", allowing them to quickly gapclose into combat and get in-range with their spells, but also put themselves in greater danger.
Color Motif: It isn't a White Mage without the signature white and red. In Amdapori culture, white represents purity, while red represents life and vitality.
Combat Medic: While all healers can do damage for solo play and throw in a bit of extra if nobody needs healing, the White Mage is the second most offense-oriented healer. Compared to Broil and Malefic, which have lower potency, White Mage by contrast has Glare which is the second highest potency main damage spell, Dia which is the strongest damage-over-time spell of them all (and the only one which has instant damage when applied), Holy with its incredible utility as a stun and fair damage, Assize which has a high-potency, no-falloff AoE component as well as being a powerful party heal, and Afflatus Misery, which at a massive 1240 potency is only out-damaged by the hardest-hitting spells of proper DPS jobs.¹ They're only beaten out in damage output by the Sage, who has access to more damaging attacks. In PVP, they're basically DPS jobs who happen to be able to heal, having quick access to damaging attacks like Afflatus Misery and Seraph Strike, and their Limit Break, Afflatus Purgation, is a highly damaging spell with massive range, letting them snipe enemies from afar.
Cooldown Manipulation:
- "Presence of Mind" speeds up cast times and recast times by 20% for 15 seconds, allowing the White Mage to crank out a ton of spells within that time frame.
- The primary purpose of the Lilies in Stormblood, which were spent to reduce the cooldown periods of certain spells ^note whenever you cast those spells. Depending on how many lilies were spent, the spell’s cooldown time would be reduced by 4, 10, or 20 percent. This later got upgraded so that you'd also have a chance of reducing the cooldown time on "Asylum" and "Assize" by 5 seconds whenever you critically healed someone with "Cure" or "Cure II". In practice, the trait ended up being a Useless Useful Spell, as the impact of the lilies were so insignificant that it was much better to just see it as a small bonus rather than something useful to the White Mage's playstyle, not to mention that the chance to reduce cooldowns with the critical Cures was a measly 20%. In Shadowbringers, the Lily system was reworked to have new spells use lillies as a resource to cast, as well as have those spells build a gauge for a special attack spell.
Dangerous Forbidden Technique: The White Mages of Amdapor once had a hand in causing an Umbral Era by drastically overusing the aether of the surrounding land and draining the elementals of the Shroud during the War of the Magi, which lead to a great flood. As a result of this in the modern day, White Magic is mostly only used by the Padjal who are uniquely keyed into the will of the elementals, in cases where non-Padjal are given soul crystals (Which, in Legacy was given to any trusted conjurer due to the impending Calamity), they're watched like a hawk, and anyone found practicing White Magic without the blessing of the Elementals is, effectively, considered a terrorist in the Black Shroud.
Evolving Attack: The White Mage’s basic "Stone" spell gets progressively stronger as they level up, transforming into "Stone II", "Stone III", "Stone IV", "Glare", then "Glare III". Similarly, "Aero" transforms into the stronger "Aero II" and "Dia" spells. The "Holy" spell also becomes "Holy III".
Fight Fire with Fire: "Stone IV" upgrades into "Glare" and "Aero II" upgrades into "Dia" at level 72, both light spells. By then, the Warrior of Light should have reasonably traveled to the First and cut their teeth as the Warrior of Darkness, and are thus turning their light-aspected magic against light-aspected sin eaters.
Flower Motif: The White Mage has an association with lilies, with Stormblood introducing the Lily Gauge that provides resources to their spells. Shadowbringers expands this concept with their Afflatus spells, the spells themselves having lily-shaped effects and utilize lilies. Endwalker further expands on this by giving them "Liturgy of the Bell", a Lily of the Valley-styled healing totem that releases heal pulses when the caster takes damage. Holy's upgrade, "Holy III", makes it a blooming lily of light.
Forced Transformation: "Miracle of Nature" in PVP, which turns a target enemy into an animal for a couple of seconds.
Full-Contact Magic: Though born as a Lost Action, White Mages have their own version of "Seraph Strike" in PVP. It's the same gap-closing charge, but it offers the Protect buff and a "Cure III" use, which is independent from their limited "Cure II" charges. In the context of PVP, however, one has to be careful they're not charging headlong into danger, otherwise they'll be easy pickings for the enemy team.
Gradual Regeneration:
- The "Regen" spell restores a player's HP in small bursts for several seconds. Over its full duration, it is one of the most powerful single-target healing abilities in the game, short of "Benediction".
- "Medica II" grants everyone within the spell’s range a weaker but longer-lasting health regen effect, in addition to healing them directly. Shadowbringers increased the regen potency while its duration was halved.
- Heavensward gives White Mages the "Asylum" ability, which lays down a large field (comparable to the Scholar's "Sacred Soil") that passively regens everyone standing in it.
Healing Hands: On top of having the healing spells from the Conjurer class, White Mages also get their own healing spells as a supplement such as "Regen" which grants Gradual Regeneration and "Benediction" which can instantly restore a person's HP to full.
- Past level 50, White Mages gain even more healing abilities, such as "Asylum" to create a magical field to heal everyone over time if they're inside it, "Assize" to give instant healing to everyone near you while also damaging enemies, and "Tetragrammaton" to give instant healing that is like "Benediction", with shorter cooldown to compensate for its lower potency.
- Two out of three three "Afflatus" spells introduced by Shadowbringers are instant healing spells that consumes Lilies. "Afflatus Solace" is essentially Tetragramaton with halved cooldown, while "Afflatus Rapture" is the AoE version of the instant heal.
Holy Hand Grenade:
- The very powerful "Holy" spell, which stuns everyone on top of being an AoE spell.
- The Heavensward expansion added "Assize" to the White Mage repertoire, which on top of being more damaging than "Holy" without diminishing returns, is an AOE heal more potent than Medica, and recovers 10% of your MP. It gets even more potent on 4.5, as its potency becomes twice as much as "Holy" and its cooldown reduced from 60 seconds to 45.
- In Shadowbringers, White Mages learn offensive light magic that replaces the "Stone" and "Aero" attacks, which are "Glare" to replace "Stone" and "Dia" to replace "Aero". They also learn the incredibly powerful "Afflatus Misery", a 1240 potency AoE attack that becomes available after the Blood Lily blooms from using the Afflatus healing spells three times.
In the Hood: Both the White Mage's Healer and Orison armour sets feature a white and red hood. The artifact armor's hood is kept down, while the Orison hood is kept up.
Light 'em Up: Eventually learns Glare and Dia, which replace Stone and Aero respectively; and that's nothing to say of their Holy and Assize magics. Fittingly, both spells were introduced/unlocked in a setting where the Warrior of Light is submerged in a shard replete with light-aspected aether.
Limit Break: "Pulse of Life"; at level 3 the White Mage clasps their hands together, kneels and radiates a wave of healing energies, healing all party members to full while also reviving dead ones. In PVP, they have "Afflatus Purgation", a huge Wave-Motion Gun that severely damages and stuns all enemies in range, and grants the Temperance effect.
Making a Splash: "Aquaveil" is a defensive example, utilizing water to form a protective barrier. "Thin Air" is a more subtle example, represented by a dewy rain. Lastly, before it was removed from their kit altogether, White Mages had "Fluid Aura" - a blast of water that would knock back an enemy (and damage them, in its initial depiction).
Man in a Kilt: The level 60 Orison Skirt gives men one through via skirt over slacks. The Ebers Skirt is a floor-length one while the Theophany Skirt stops just above the knees.
Not the Intended Use: Holy is intended purely to be an offensive spell, but the added—and rather long—area stun effect gives it a popular secondary use to interrupt enemies, even during damage-heavy pulls when the White Mage should otherwise be focusing on healing. Because of the secondary effect, it's often joked about by the community as being a Mitigation Spell, because after all, if the enemies can't attack, the party isn't being hurt.
Power Gives You Wings: "Temperance" temporarily gives them wings of light, which powers up their healing potency and reduces damage taken by everyone in range and the user.
Reduced Mana Cost: "Thin Air" makes the White Mage’s next spell cost nothing. Previously, it would make all the spells free for 12 seconds. Between this, "Assize", and "Lucid Dreaming", the White Mage has a leg up in mana economy by nullifying the normally costly spells such as "Raise" or "Cure III". While the Scholar has something similar, White Mages have no such limitation, and has multiple charges to use as needed.
Regenerating Mana:
- "Shroud of Saints", which not only grants the user enhanced MP regeneration for a few seconds, but it also cuts all current aggro to the player by half. The skill proper no longer exists but is remembered as the original form of the "Lucid Dreaming" Healer role ability.
- The Assize spell restores 5% of the White Mage’s MP, in addition to healing all nearby allies and damaging all nearby enemies.
Simple, yet Awesome: As far as healers go, White Mage doesn't have the mechanical depth, and various benefits, of the others, but its simple no-frills approach is highly effective in any player's hands, beginner or master. They sport the second highest raw damage output among the other healers, beaten only by the Sage. They also have superb burst heals in their kit, and has the spell "Benediction", the only spell that is guaranteed to heal to full HP. All of its powerful heals makes the White Mage synergize well with a barrier healer, whether it's a Scholar or a Sage. Tellingly, there was hardly any changes to the class from Shadowbringers to Endwalker for this very reason.
Situational Sword: "Liturgy of the Bell", the White Mage's level 90 skill, only triggers its 400 potency healing whenever the White Mage takes damage^noteIncluding ticks from Damage Over Time, with the remaining stacks healing everyone for 200 potency each after 15 seconds. While the skill isn't bad at all, being hands-off sustained healing, its best situations aren't too plentiful. At worst, it's just more healing to go with the job's already powerful healing output.
Status Buff: “Presence of Mind” makes the White Mage cast spells 20% faster, “Thin Air” removes the MP cost of spells, and “Plenary Indulgence” grants party members the “Confession” buff, which provides extra healing whenever the White Mage casts an area-of-effect healing spell. “Temperance” gives the whole party Damage Reduction while also boosting the White Mage’s healing output.
Status Effects: The “Aero” and “Dia” spells inflict Damage Over Time, “Fluid Aura” bound its target in place (before it was removed completely), and “Holy” stuns enemies in addition to inflicting damage.
Technician Versus Performer:
- The performer to Scholar's technician. White Mages draw directly on the elements for their magic, deal with the most raw healing power of all the healers, don't have to be particularly strategic with most of their abilities, and can generally do just fine following the flow of combat, in contrast to the much more involved and strategic Scholar.
- They're also performer to the Astrologian. Despite both being pure healers, the White Mage fares better with reactionary healing, having an uncomplicated kit that doesn't require extra steps to cast their spells.
Took a Level in Badass: Since the 5.0 overhaul of the healing role, where healers are expected to heal at least half the time, Astrologian and Scholar haven't done horrible but the nerf is noticeable. In contrast, White Mage hit the ground running and has kept a firm grasp on the top of the healer tier list, both offensively and supportively. White Mage seems to thrive in this style of healing and was overhauled to feel the same, but the lily system makes it feel like a proper parallel to Black Mage since staying in battle gives lilies and using the lilies for Afflatus healing spells gives a powerful nuke, Afflatus Misery. The Stormblood iteration was more of a Skill Gate Character, but White Mage only thematically resembles what it used to be.
Wave-Motion Gun: The White Mage in PVP has "Afflatus Purgation" as their Limit Break, a humongous laser beam that stuns all enemies caught in its trajectory and grants the Temperance effect to the White Mage.
White Mage: Well... yeah. It's right there in the name. Regardless, out of the healing classes, they're the most pure healer; the White Mage's healing magic restores more HP than the Scholar, Astrologian, or Sage. But they don't get as many skills that grant shielding, aren't as mechanically versatile, and their damage output (even with Afflatus Misery) isn't up to par with the Sage's damage.

Scholar

Abbreviation: SCH
Unlocking Requirements: Level up Arcanist to 30
Preferred Weapons: Codices
Armor Type: Healing
Guild Location: Limsa Lominsa Upper Decks

Arcanists trained in Nymish battle strategy and healing arts, they support and protect allies with their Fairy Companion and powerful barrier magic. Because they evolve from Arcanist, they share all of that classes tropes (though they lose access to the Carbuncle summons).

An Adventurer Is You:
- Keeping their DoT Master and Beastmaster from Arcanist, the Scholar adds the Preemptive Healer to their role, with healing spells that provide a shielding effect based on the amount healed or damage reduction shields. Also their pet summons switch to Fairies with two different roles.
- In PvP, they also take on the role of the Buffer and Debuffer, as "Biolysis" can reduce the enemy's damage dealt by 8% while the Catalyze effect of "Adloquium" can increase the targeted ally's damage by 8%. "Mummification" allows them to reduce enemy healing while "Recitation" increases movement speed and allied damage resistance. All of these effects allow a Scholar to deal serious damage across the course of a fight while helping their team maintain a sizable offensive and defensive advantage over their opponents.
Animal Motif: Butterflies. Their Stormblood relic weapon gives off a butterfly aura in Organum Anemos and the Pyros Codex.
The Artifact: Scholar has two different summoning spells, to summon two "different" yet functionally identical fairies. Prior to Shadowbringers simplifying things, Eos and Selene had different functions, with Eos being focused on healing and Selene using buffs and clearing status conditions. Gaining the ability to summon Selene is tied into the plot, so she can't be simply removed.
- This has been changed as of Patch 6.4. Selene is no longer a unique spell, but a glamour for Eos.
Artificial Stupidity: Eos is pretty infamous among the player base for her dodgy AI, which can overreact as drastically as "blowing every cooldown because the tank has a light scratch" to underreacting as badly as "The tank's almost dead, better heal the dps that's at 75% hp". For this reason, Eos is usually kept on obey so her powerful healing taken increase and AoE regen can be used reliably. Selene has similar issues, but not quite as severe unless you really need to control her area effect status effect removal. This is no longer the case in Shadowbringers, as Eos and Selene only use Embrace as their automatic skill, leaving "Whispering Dawn" and "Fey Illumination" only usable at the player's command.
Attack Its Weakpoint: As a reference to the Libra skill from other games, the Scholar gains the "Chain Stratagem" ability which increases the critical hit rate of attacks against an enemy by finding and exploiting the target's weak points.
Badass Longcoat: Both the Savant's and Orator's artifact gear sets for the scholar bear one. The Savant's coat has a steampunk overcoat flair while the third artifact has a more traditional academic talar.
Barrier Warrior:
- The Scholar's bread and butter. They don't heal for as much as a White Mage can, but two of their healing spells also add 30-second shields that block as much damage as they heal. On a critical heal, this effect is doubled for the "Adloquium" spell. On top of that, they also have "Deployment Tactics" to duplicate a player's shield buffs for the whole party; an effective Scholar tactic is for a player to stack healing-boosting buffs and hope for an "Adloquium" crit to share, completely trivializing certain mechanics, though this is less effective than it used to be as Shadowbringers made deployment tactics no longer share half of a critical barrier.
- They also have "Sacred Soil", which is a large magic barrier which stays on the field for 15 seconds, and any party member standing inside it receives 10% less damage taken.
Beehive Barrier: The "Galvanize" effect takes this appearance when healing allies with "Adloquium" and "Succor".
Bling of War: The Scholar's first relic coat is a military jacket complete with medals for service.
Boring, but Practical: "Expedient", the Scholar's level 90 ability, is very much this. It's not quite as flashy as the other jobs' level 90 abilities, but granting the entire team Sprint for a full 20 seconds, even in combat, alongside damage mitigation, is one of the best utilities in the game, especially in duties with movement-heavy mechanics. "Expedient" was so powerful, it was actually nerfed in Patch 6.1 by cutting its duration in half.
Brainy Specs: With one exception, glasses are a recurring accessory found in their artifact armor sets. The "/visor" emote can remove them from the hat.
Cast from Hit Points: "Dissipation" plays with this trope. It's your fairy's HP you're sacrificing instead of your own; using the ability removes the fairy from the battlefield to greatly increase your healing potency. The fairy will return thirty seconds later, though.
Consistent Clothing Style: An unfortunate victim of one for its Artifact Class armor where, excluding a couple, each expansion followed ARR's lead for its aesthetics, where were not consistant with their actual lore as Marine Corp Combat Medics and Strategists. Instead opting to go with a Sharlayan-style scholar style resembling a fresh graduate, teacher or field researcher. While Heavenward's class gear had a steampunk style outfit, this lacked any connection with its job identity and lore. Finally subverted with Endwalker however, where they are given a stylistic military style outfit befiting their lore and thematics, ironically within the same expansion where Old Sharlayan actually became available to visit and a Sharlayan field combat medic job became available in the form of the Sage.
- This makes sense lore-wise however, as the Scholar's job quests up to Stormblood deal with a series of events starting with researching the lost art of the Nymian Scholar's, then investigating the secrets of the summoned Nymian fairy, which leads us to saving the Tonberry's who were once Nymian citizens, training as Scholar's to help them cure their rancor and then finally working with them to cure the transformative curse and restore their original forms. This is then interupted by our escapades in Shadowbringers which takes us off world, where our artifact armor is made by a craftmen utterly unfamiliar with Nymian Scholars.
- Not that we were familiar either as we simply didnt have time or oppurtunity to research and recreate what Nymian Scholars wore back then as even after being cured, the Nymian's need to stage recovery and rebuilding efforts along with curing their remaining Tonberry brethren. Atleast until Endwalker, Tataru's consistent commissioning of armor for the us and the scions over every expansion has expanded into an entire trading enterprise with a full wardrobe of free artifact armor sets specifically researched and designed for each job and the Scholar job quest characters even start appearing during various annual holiday events to explore the outside world (and hilariously end up in Tonberry outfits during the Tonberry based 2023 Hatching Tide Event) coincides with Scholar's finally recieving appropriately themed gear.
Cooldown Manipulation: The "Quickened Aetherflow" trait allows them to reduce the cooldown of their "Aetherflow" ability every time they successfully heal with an "Aetherflow" spell.
Critical Hit: Getting Critical Hits will greatly improve the shielding potency of a Scholar's "Aldoquium" and "Succor" spells and they can force a critical with the "Recitation" ability. They can also use "Chain Stratagem" to make an enemy more susceptible to critical hits for a short time.
Crutch Character: The Scholar is fantastically powerful in low-level dungeons, as the healing output of the fairy is more than enough to keep the tank alive, letting the Scholar functionally act as a third DPS and turning a four-man party into a five-man party. Naturally, this becomes much less viable in higher-level content, as the fairy's healing will eventually be outpaced by the damage that enemies deal.
Damage Over Time: Shadowbringers upgrades the Scholar's "Bio II" to "Biolysis" at level 72.
Dark Is Not Evil: Though many of its abilities seem to have a divine nature (such as Sacred Soil), Scholar techniques have a darker side: it has roots in open warfare; employs several sinister-seeming techniques like draining life from foes to power their magic, inflicting debilitating illnesses on enemies, or the Art of War ability which unleashes a strong blast of dark magic; and it historically came from a nation in conflict with the White Magic stronghold of Amdapor. For all that, they're no less heroic than the other classes, with a job questline that focuses on stopping voidsent, curing diseases and protecting people.
Difficult, but Awesome: Scholars have quite the difficulty curve, having to gauge how much mitigation their party really needs to conserve MP, and they also need to know which skill to use their stacks of Aetherflow on. A bad Scholar will run out of MP very quickly and become unable to keep up with healing, but a skilled Scholar is one of the best healers in the game, capable of keeping their party alive without having to use too much of their spells, and offers decent offensive utility for their party.
Divergent Character Evolution: Shadowbringers sees the Scholar move further away from its base class. They lose "Bane" and their "Miasma" spells, but in exchange they gain exclusive use of the Arcanist’s old "Aetherflow" and "Energy Drain" abilities, and their "Ruin" spells got significant potency buffs instead of becoming Situational Damage Attacks like the Summoner’s versions initially did. Endwalker sees a total overhaul of how Summoner plays, "Physick", "Energy Drain" and "Resurrection" being the only things shared wholesale between the two now.
Evolving Attack: Scholars eventually replace the Arcanist’s basic "Ruin" spell with the stronger "Broil". In turn, "Broil" upgrades to the stronger "Broil II" and "Broil III".
Fairy Companion: Lily, who can take two forms and, prior to Shadowbringers, provide different skills:
- Eos, replacing "Summon I"'s Emerald Carbuncle while using Scholar, is a healing oriented fairy, who in addition to the default "Embrace" healing spell, also has three Area of Effect abilities: one for Regen, one for a 20% magic defense buff, and the third gives a 20% spell-based healing received buff to those in range of her.
- Selene, replacing "Summon II"'s Topaz Carbuncle, however, is a more of a support/buffing fairy. It still retains the same "Embrace" healing spell, but instead has a Silence ability for spellcasting foes, and two AoE abilities that support the party; "Fey Wind" gives an increased Spell Speed and Attack speed while in effect, letting everyone attack faster, and "Fey Caress", a AoE Esuna-like ability that removes debuffs and status effects from party members in range.
Force Field: They are able to provide allies with barriers as Status Buffs while healing them.
Gentleman and a Scholar: The Scholar's Savant gear set dresses them in a steampunk esque tuxedo and top hat.
Gradual Regeneration: "Whispering Dawn" creates an Area of Effect regen effect that slowly heals everyone within the spell's range. Seraph's version is "Angel's Whisper". Alternatively, a Scholar can order the fairy to form a Fey Union with someone via "Aetherpact", granting a potent regeneration to the ally they're tethered to as long as they have some juice in the Faerie Gauge. Prior to Shadowbringers rolling the fairy skills into player skills, "Whispering Dawn" was exclusive to Eos.
Great Big Book of Everything: The Scholar Relic Weapon, the Omnilex, is a tome said to contain every military strategy and tactic known to man (at the time it was written).
Having a Blast: "Broil" creates several small super-heated explosions on the enemy, "Broil II" fires explosive charges at the enemy instead, "Broil III" makes the explosions blue.
Healing Hands: The Scholar's specialty, but through combining healing with a damage absorption effect.
High-Class Glass: The Savant armor's top hat has a built-in Steampunk monocle that can fold up to the brim of the hat or down into place over the eye.
Instant Runes: After level 72, the Scholar gains access to the upgraded spells, Biolysis and Broil III. Both are blue and create many rune-like particles and effects, a visual theme similar to Chain Stratagem.
Life Drain: "Energy Drain", which also absorbs some MP. It also has the distinction of being the original incarnation of the Arcanist skill before it was repurposed into Aetherflow generation for the base class and Summoner in Shadowbringers.
Limit Break: "Angel Feathers", where the Scholar summons Seraph, an angelic faerie, which circles around, healing all party members to full and reviving the fallen. In PVP, they use "Summon Seraph", which works the same way in PVE.
Maximum HP Reduction: Inverted with the "Protraction" spell, which temporarily increases one party member's maximum HP and heals them by an amount equal to the increase.
Military Mage: The Scholars were the backbone of the Nymian Marine Corps and in tandem with their army of marauders, they were able to compete with the far larger armies of the Mage nations of Mhach and Amdapor. Indeed during the class quests, your mentor was essentially a tough-as-nails training sergeant who refers to you and your partner as Marines, because that is essentially what Scholars were and are.
Meaningful Name: Eos is the Greek Goddess of the Dawn, while Selene, her sister, is the Goddess of the Moon.
Our Angels Are Different: The Scholar can transform their fairie into Seraph for their Limit Break and as a temporary power up.
Power at a Price: "Dissipation" gives the Scholar a full Aetherflow stack and a 20% boost to healing power. It also banishes their fairy, depriving them of its support for 30 seconds.
Reduced Mana Cost: "Recitation" negates the MP cost or Aetherflow cost for the next casting of "Adloquium", "Succor", "Indomitability" or "Excogitation".
Regenerating Mana: "Aetherflow" restores a tenth of the Scholar's maximum MP.
Smart People Wear Glasses: Nymian scholars use an ancient, but advanced form of arcanima that requires intense study and understanding to use while directing their allies with their military strategies. Their class gear frequently features them wearing glasses or High-Class Glass while their battle stance emote has them motion to straighten their glasses whether they're wearing them or not.
Steampunk: The Scholar's Savant armor set is a dapper steampunk-inspired design.
The Strategist: The lore of the Scholar Job has this as its origin, being field medics and tacticians for the armies of the tiny nation of Nym. This is especially apparent with the Japanese naming themes behind their spells that were changed to sound more mystical in English, with skills having names like Encouragement Plan (Adloquium, which is Latin for the same thing), "Raise Morale Plan (Succor)", "Field Medical Formation (Sacred Soil)" and "Live Encouragement Act (Lustrate)". Heavensward brought this into the English version as well, with "Deployment Tactics" and "Emergency Tactics" among their then-new abilities.
Super-Speed: The Scholar in Endwalker learns Expedient, which grants the party a damage mitigation buff, as well as increases their movement speed by granting them a full-on Sprint buff.
Technician Versus Performer:
- The technician to White Mage's performer. Scholars, built on the mathematically minded Arcanists, rely on careful planning, resource management, and preventative measures to support their parties in combat, in contrast with the more straightforward and powerful White Mage.
- Between the shield healers, the Scholar is the Performer to the Sage's Technician. Though both require the initiative for their preemptive healing style, the Scholar is better prepared for reactionary healing than the Sage. With their fairy responsible with passive auto-healing, the Scholar has the means to go double-time on healing should it be necessary, and can absorb their fairy's aether for an emergency supply of Aetherflow and boosted healing. Being the strategists they are, they need to be prepared for emergencies, after all.
Vancian Magic: After using "Aetherflow", the Scholar gains three Aetherflow stacks which can be spent to cast specific spells like "Lustrate", "Sacred Soil" and "Indomitability".

Astrologian

Abbreviation: AST
Unlocking Requirements: Exclusive to Heavensward and onwards; must reach level 50 in any of the combat classes
Preferred Weapons: Star Globes
Armor Type: Healing
Guild Location: The Pillars, Ishgard

Masters of a rare branch of spellcraft known as Astromancy, these seers use celestial aspected magic to support allies and attack enemies by altering fate and can bestow powerful enchantments using a deck of magical fortune telling cards. By attuning to the Power of the Sun they can grant allies Gradual Regeneration or by channeling the Moon they can instead shield them from harm.

An Adventurer Is You: Their cards gives them the role of the Buffer, while their stances turn them either into the Classic Healer ("Diurnal Sect") or the Preemptive Healer ("Nocturnal Sect"). Endwalker removes the Preemptive Healer aspect with the removal of Nocturnal Sect, but few of their abilities are still capable of creating barriers.
Anti-Frustration Features: Shadowbringers gave Astrologians the ability to hold onto their cards indefinitely. Originally they would lose the card if they didn’t play it within thirty seconds of drawing it, and they could only hang onto a card with the now-removed “Spread” ability.
The Artifact: Unlocking the power of the gates during the initial level 30 to 50 questline has become this as a result of class changes. Originally, you would unlock a new ability at the end of each quest with the heavens' power. While the original plot remains unchanged and there is quest text to indicate you have unlocked the power of each constellation, it serves no practical purpose anymore, as you get all the base Draw cards upon unlocking the class now.
Astrologer: The hint is in the name. The quests for the Astrologian have them learn about fate, the stars above, and how the two interact with one another. Other Astrologians also make mention of constellations and reading the stars to learn about the future.
Badass Bookworm: They chart out the stars and use them to chart the future. They're also capable fighters and healers.
Barrier Warrior: Nocturnal Sect grants barrier properties to the Astrologian's healing magic. While Endwalker does away with Nocturnal Sect to make the job a pure healer, a few of their abilities retain the granting of barriers. Additionally, "Collective Unconscious" grants 10% Damage Reduction to anyone standing within it.
Boring, but Practical: Their offensive skills are, anyway. They only have three: a Damage Over Time spell, a single-target direct damage spell, and a multi-target direct damage spell. Even increasing these skills to the next level of potency doesn't increases their offensive capability all that much. At any level, an Astrologian will have the lowest DPS potential out of any class. But the reason for this is that they're so preoccupied with their support skills that their offense is rightfully simple. Those wanting to engage in more powerful offenses as a healer generally go with the White Mage or the Sage.
Cards of Power: Their Starglobe weapon is one part astrolobe one part deck of enchanted Tarot Cards.
Charged Attack: The "Earthly Star" Spell can be set and used right away to heal and attack in an area or you can wait ten seconds for it to grow more powerful before detonating it.
Cooldown Manipulation: "Lightspeed" shaves 2.5 seconds off the casting time of the Astrologian's spells, letting them cast most spells instantly for the duration.
Cool Mask: The Astrologian's signature gear both come with masks to create that mysterious fortune teller mystique.
Damage Reduction: "Collective Unconscious" has the Astrologian throw up a dome-shaped barrier which reduces all damage taken by anyone standing within it. "Exaltation" gives a similar damage reduction effect to a single party member for a few seconds, healing them when it expires.
Death Dealer: On the rare occasion they attack melee attack, they do it with their Cards of Power. The Lord of Crowns card acquired through "Minor Arcana" was also once the strongest attack ability that Astrologians could use, before Shadowbringers changed its function to be a stronger version of the physical DPS' buff card to mirror The Lady being the caster version.
Deflector Shields: Collective Unconscious has the Astrologian throw up a dome of energy around themselves, providing health regeneration and 10% Damage Reduction to all party members standing within it.
Difficult, but Awesome: While the Astrologian is fairly straightforward in terms of offense and healing, the difficult part comes from being able to fully utilize their immense utility and buffs to their full potential. Many of the Astrologian's most powerful abilities require waiting for their effects to come into play — "Earthly Star" deals more damage and heals more HP if ten seconds pass before its use, "Horoscope" can be triggered to heal more HP while increasing its delay from ten seconds to thirty seconds, and "Macrocosmos" requires letting the party take damage to restore more HP. Played well, an Astrologian can seriously boost the entire party's overall DPS while keeping the party's HP consistently high through planning and forward thinking.
Evolving Attack: The basic “Malefic” spell gets periodically stronger as the Astrologian levels up, becoming “Malefic IV” by level 72, and "Fall Malefic" at level 82. "Combust" likewise gets upgraded to the stronger "Combust II" and "Combust III".
The Fatalist: Astrologians believe that a man's destiny is written out in the stars and cannot be changed. However, as every man has several fates, an Astrologian can choose the most favorable of these fates for others.
Fictional Constellations: The Astrologian's power comes from six constellations, the Balance, the Bole, the Spire, the Ewer, the Arrow and the Spear. These constellations are also on the designs of the cards they use and are aspected to one of the elements.
The Gambler: Though they lack the motifs, their cards fundamentally fulfill the niche of the other luck-based classes, with each card doing something different, and the ability to combine cards to change their effects, reshuffle to make the next card stronger, and so on.
Gradual Regeneration: "Aspected Benefic", "Aspected Helios" and "Celestial Opposition" will grant health regeneration while the Astrologian is in "Diurnal Sect". Additionally, "Collective Unconscious" grants regenerating health to anyone standing within it, and "Celestial Intersection" grants health regeneration while the Astrologian is in "Nocturnal Sect".
Gravity Master: Their most powerful attack spell is Gravity.
Having a Blast: Their standard Damage Over Time attack is "Combust".
Healing Hands: The healing magic of the Astrologian is unique in the way that it heals by altering fate, at least on paper.
Improbable Weapon User: Their weapons are referred to as "Star Globes", and are a sort of telescopic lens focus based on Astrolabes with a deck of tarot cards circling it. In the rare case that they do actually use it to attack, they slice at enemies with the cards.
Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Compared to the relatively modest robes of Conjurers and White Mages, the academic uniforms of Scholars, and the formal white coats of Sages, the Astrologian's Artifact gear consists of long, ornate robes and dresses.
Limit Break: "Astral Stasis", where the Astrologian creates a massive spherical starfield and rewinds time, healing all party members to full while reviving dead ones. In PVP, they have "Celestial River", which reduces damage dealt by all enemies in range by 30%, and increases the damage dealt by allies in range by 30%. Both effects last for fifteen seconds, but each effect is reduced in potency by 10% every five seconds until it's gone.
Lunacy: The "Nocturnal Sect" stance relies on the Moon's power to create barriers.
Master of None: Astrologians were an incredibly flexible class able to provide strong damage buffs, healing, and shielding. However, to balance out their versatility they can't change stances in combat, requiring forethought as to if shields or regen are better, they also don't have as powerful regen as a White Mage (Save their long cooldown "Collective Unconscious", which is very powerful), and their shields, while strong, don't double on a crit like a Scholar's does. That doesn't mean they are bad though, they make for a great secondary healer to bring along because they can be either barrier focused if lacking a Scholar, or regen focused if missing a White Mage. Much of this was rendered moot in Endwalker, when it was reworked to being a pure healer like White Mage.
Meteor-Summoning Attack: "Macrocosmos" rains shooting stars for an Area of Effect attack.
Nothing Up My Sleeve: The Astrologian has the "Sleeve Draw" ability which of course is a reference to card sharps keeping winning cards up their sleeves.
Playing Card Motifs: The "Minor Arcana" skill has the Astrologians draw a Lord or Lady of Crowns, obvious references to the King and Queen cards.
Power Floats: Their Star Globe floats on its own when in use, hovering about the Astrologian's hand. Their deck is also rotating around this star globe in a circle, allowing the Astrologian to draw cards from it at their leisure.
Power of the Sun: The "Diurnal Sect" is governed by the Sun and grants Gradual Regeneration properties to the Astrologian's healing magic. The "Helios" line of spells likewise draws on the power of the Sun while the "Combust" line of spells creates a miniature sun to continuously damage an enemy.
Prestige Class: Astrologian can only be unlocked on a character level 50 or above who has completed the main story up to the start of Heavensward, and instead of beginning at level 1 as a class, they begin at level 30 as a full job.
Reduced Mana Cost: "Lightspeed" used to halve the MP cost of the Astrologian’s spells, but this was later removed.
Regenerating Mana:
- Prior to Shadowbringers, the Ewer would give its target regenerating MP, and the Spire would give its target regenerating TP.
- As of Endwalker, the Astrologian regains 5% of their maximum MP whenever they use "Draw" or "Sleeve Draw".
- The "Lucid Dreaming" role ability now usable by all healers began as a spell used by the Astrologian. It originally had a lower potency and lower cooldown than the White Mage's "Shroud of Saints", but when it was made the role ability was given Shroud's potency and cooldown, while keeping its original icon and name.
- With one seal, "Astrodyne" would restore their mana at a 50 potency rate for 15 seconds.
Robe and Wizard Hat: The relic gear dresses them in one decorated with celestial bodies.
Situational Damage Attack: Well, Situational Healing Spell. “Essential Dignity” is a healing spell with average potency, but becomes stronger if the target’s health is low. The lower the target's HP, the greater the healing.
Situational Sword: The healing effect of "Macrocosmos". It heals back half the damage taken from attacks, plus a 200 potency heal when the buff expires. While it does potentially bring everyone back to healthy levels, it relies on when a big damage attack happens. Poor timing with this skill will result in a worse healing return than the White Mage's unused "Liturgy of the Bell" stacks, which heals for 200 potency per leftover stack. Additionally, the healing happens all at once instead of intervals, making it more akin to pressing an undo button on damage sustained.
Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration: Its Stance System can't be altered in combat. Essentially, you need the the type of foresight you expect from a weaver of fate to properly decide which stance to be in.
Stance System: Astrologians have two stances to switch between. "Diurnal Sect" adds regen to some of their spells, while "Nocturnal Sect" makes those same spells grant damage-absorbing barriers. However, to balance the fact that they're the best of both worlds, their stances cannot be changed in combat, requiring forward thinking of which type of healing is better for the current fight. Shadowbringers allows high-level Astrologians to occasionally access the power of the opposite sect through "Celestial Intersection", and briefly combine both sects as "Neutral Sect". Endwalker does away with Nocturnal Sect and leaves Astrologian with Diurnal Sect built into its spells, but a few of their abilities are still capable of granting the Nocturnal Sect's barriers.
Star Power: The crux of their magic is the use of celestial bodies including the stars, the sun and the moon. The Stella line of spells, in particular, draw their power directly from stars and the "Earthly Star" spell allows them to simultaneously heal and attack with "Stellar Burst" or "Stellar Explosion".
Status Buff:
- Astrologians can use their Cards of Power to buff a party member’s damage output. Half of them^noteArrow, Balance, and Spear give a greater boost to Tanks and Melee DPS, while the others^noteBole, Ewer, and Spire give a greater boost to Healers and Ranged DPS. Prior to Shadowbringers, each card did something different.^note
- "Lightspeed" can only be applied to the Astrologian who casts it. It reduces the cast time of all of their spells by 2.5 seconds each while it's active, which lets them use their basic spells both without cast times and while moving.
- "Divination" gives the entire party a boost to damage output. In Shadowbringers the size of the boost depended on how many different Seals the Astrologian got from drawing their cards, while in Endwalker it's a fixed increase.
- "Synastry" marks a party member to receive a 40% copy of any single-target healing spell you cast. If the spell is cast on them, they get the copy as well.
- "Horoscope" grants nearby party members the Horoscope buff. Using the ability a second time consumes the buff to heal people, and it becomes twice as powerful if you cast a group healing spell first.
- "Neutral Sect" increases the power of the Astrologian's healing spells and tacks extra effects onto Aspected Benefic and Aspected Helios^note.
- "Astrodyne" gives the Astrologian up to three separate buffs, depending on how many different Seals they got from drawing cards. One Seal gives them temporary Regenerating Mana, two Seals lets them attack and cast faster, and three Seals increases their healing output and damage output.
Super-Speed: "Lightspeed" reduces the cast time of all spells by 2.5 seconds for 10 seconds, making it an extremely useful ability for when the Astrologian needs to fire off attacks faster, or quickly heal their party in an emergency. It also used to reduce their MP costs in half for the same duration, but this effect was later removed.
Tarot Motifs: The enchanted cards wielded with the Star Globe have tarot motifs to them.
Technician Versus Performer:
- The performer to Sage's technician. Despite both sharing their home in Sharlayan, the Astrologian focuses on charting the course of fate, which in itself is always uncertain and changing and must be reacted to accordingly, whereas the latter utilizes magic and science to protect. Astrologian also has swathes of stardust that decorate their constellation-powered spells, making it a light show in itself.
- Among the Pure Healers, the Astrologian is the Technician to the White Mage's Performer. While the Astrologian's healing spells are mostly on par with those of the White Mage, several of them^note do not give immediate healing, instead providing it when a timer expires or when the player manually triggers them a second time. These spells also need to be powered up in various ways ^note to get the most bang for your buck. Combine all of this with the need to buff the party with cards and the RNG elements of abilities like Astrodyne and Minor Arcana, and you have a class which is more complex and demanding to play than the straightforward White Mage.
Time Master: Astrologians use their star-charting ability to predict the future, and before the Endwalker rework, they actively had multiple spells that affected time: "Lightspeed" greatly reduces the casting time for all of their spells; the removed "Time Dilation", which extended the duration of the Astrologian's buffs for a single party member; "Celestial Opposition", which used to stun enemies and extend the duration of all ally buffs by 10 seconds (before Shadowbringers turned it into a powerful heal over time instead); and their level 3 Limit Break, "Astral Stasis", heals allies by rewinding time. As of Endwalker though, the time control aspect has been increasingly downplayed in favor of just treating the source of their healing as raw Star Power.
Weak, but Skilled: The Astrologian has the worst DPS potential of any combat-related job in the game. But they more than make up for it by boasting powerful damage buffs for their allies, strong damage mitigation tools, and the ability to work seamlessly with other classes, which makes them highly desired by advanced parties.
Winds of Destiny, Change!: Their healing magics operate by drawing the power of celestial forces to change fate, or rather, select the most favorable fate.
You Can't Fight Fate: Played with. The Astrologian doesn't believe that fate can be changed, but it can be redirected. According to the Astrologian mentors, they can use the power of the stars to change the course of someone's fate into one that's more favorable for them.

Sage

Abbreviation: SGE
Unlocking Requirements: Exclusive to Endwalker and onwards; must reach level 70 in any of the combat classes
Preferred Weapons: Nouliths
Armor Type: Healing
Guild Location: Limsa Lominsa Lower Decks

Healers whose arts hail from Sharlayan, they use a new form of magic known as somanoutics that combines traditional sorcery with modern aetherology and technology. These learned magi concentrate their magic through four mobile foci called nouliths, with the purpose of healing and protecting their comrades.

Alpha Strike: "Toxicon" has a Sage's four nouliths fly around the enemy, bombarding them rapidly with laser beams; its upgraded form reduces the laser spam in favor of stronger beams of light.
An Adventurer Is You: The Sage is a Preemptive Healer, capable of creating barriers to mitigate damage. Compared to the Scholar, they are also the Nuker, having high potency spells, and being considerably more aggressive in combat, encouraging the use of their attacks to keep their chosen ally alive.
Animal Motifs: The Sage has a snake motif in the Serpent of Immortality and Healing Serpent sense, using the duality of a serpent's image as both a dangerous predator and a symbol of medicine.
Anti-Frustration Features:
- Upon the job's initial release in Endwalker, Sages started with zero stacks of Addersting upon entering or resetting an instance. Because it enables use of the useful Toxikon spell, Sages had to spam Eukrasian Diagnosis thrice at the start of boss pulls. Every single pull. A patch quickly rectified this by having Sages always start with all 3 Addersting stacks upon instance entry or reset.
- Since they want them to break for charges of Addersting, a Sage's shield applied by "Eukrasian Diagnosis" will prioritize itself over the shields provided by their fellow healers. The only barrier with a higher priority is the barrier provided by the Dark Knight's "The Blackest Night", since they have significantly less time to break their shield for its own beneficial effect.
Attack! Attack! Attack!: One of the Sage's primary methods of healing is with its Kardia ability. A Sage selects a recipient for Kardia, applying the "Kardion" effect, who then is perpetually healed every time the Sage uses one of their DPS spells or abilities. As an analogue to the Scholar's constant (though slightly random) healing over time provided by their fairies, Sages achieve the same result by attacking constantly or consistently instead; as a result, the nature of the class is more DPS-oriented than its peers in order to contribute to the party optimally. Tellingly, they have the most damage options of the four healers, with a whopping total of six; they are also the only healing job to have two AOE skills by level 50, which both trigger healing through Kardion.
Attack Drone: The Sage's weapons are four technologically enhanced staves called "nouliths", which are remotely controlled through aether to attack with concentrated lasers and to form patterns for healing akin to their "ancestor's" adder stones.
Barrier Warrior: The Sage is sorted into the party system as a Barrier Healer, and possesses multiple powerful shielding skills like Eukrasian Diagnosis and Prognosis, as well as Haima and Panhaima. However, their barriers still aren't as powerful as a Scholar's; this works to their advantage though, as having their Eukrasian Diagnosis shields break allows them use of their Toxicon spell.
Beam Spam: The Sage uses their nouliths to fire many lasers at once, for both offensive and defensive purposes.
Blue Is Heroic: The job has a lot of blue in its spells and abilities (such as the basic Diagnosis and Prognosis), the nouliths advertised with the artifact gear are largely blue in color, and said artifact gear features blue finishes and flourishes.
Combat Medic: They seem to be the barrier healer's counterpart to White Mage in this regard, as they possess a multitude of attack options that additionally heal friendly targets that get caught in the crossfire. One of their unique abilities marks a party member to be healed every time the Sage uses a damaging spell, substantially encouraging them to be significantly more offensively-minded than even a White Mage.
Cool Crown: The headgear for a sage is a bejeweled circlet, adding a bit of fantasy flair to their otherwise very science-fiction-inspired design. When visored, the circlet covers the eyes akin to sci-fi visor-like goggles.
Counter-Attack: In PvP, "Toxicon II" may only be used if the barrier produced by Eukranian Diagnosis breaks first, encouraging the Sage to shield allies who are about to take damage ot pump out more damage of their own.
Deadly Doctor: The Sage has a distinct doctor motif, using medical Theme Naming for their attacks and spells and being Dressed to Heal in their artifact armor.
Death from Above: Both "Dyskrasia" and "Toxikon II" are Area of Effect lasers fired from above.
Difficult, but Awesome: As a healer, Sage requires a steep learning curve and level of nuance compared to the other healers due to their unique mechanics. Their raw healing is utterly pitiful when compared to the other three, with their worthwhile healing being on their Addersgall skills. It also takes a lot of awareness to be able to take full advantage of their Kardia healing without letting the party get too low with damage they can't gradually heal up. Played well, a Sage is constantly regenning and shielding their party while closing up scratch damage and spot-healing with their Addersgall spells; all of this is done while maintaining amazing damage for their role. Played poorly, a Sage is going to be running dry on powerful heals and panic-healing a tank by spamming Diagnosis over and over waiting for their resources to recharge while being too focused on keeping people alive to take advantage of their damage output.
Full-Contact Magic: "Phlegma" and its upgrades has the Sage direct the Nouliths in generating a sphere of energy with physical punch like motions. It also happens to be the hardest hitting attack in the Sage's arsenal at 510 potency with two charges.
Gratuitous Greek: All of the Sage's abilities are named in Greek, mostly for medical terms. This fits both the job's theming and its roots in Sharlayan, a Fantasy Counterpart Culture to ancient Greece.
Guns Akimbo: The nouliths are basically magical floating guns. Some of the nouliths even appear as flintlock barrels, or even flamethrowers.
Healing Shiv: The nouliths might be magical floating gunbarrels, but they also can be used to fire healing and protective spells at allies. Multiple offensive spells in the Sage's arsenal also heal the ally that is in the effect's range, meaning a laser blast that blasts a hole in the enemy would seal up an identical hole in an ally at the same time.
In Name Only: The Sage has very little in common with the recurring job found elsewhere in series outside of being spellcasters. Sages are normally a hybrid class capable of casting both Black and White Magic at the highest levels, but with very little durability. XIV's Sage conversely is focused primarily on healing and providing barriers to protect themselves and their allies, and have a Magitek bent to them.
Instant Runes: When charging attack spells through their nouliths, a magical rune will be conjured at the tip of the gun barrel.
Jump Jet Pack: The "Icarus" ability allows them to quickly cover distance using their nouliths to assist them in a jet assisted leap.
Labcoat of Science and Medicine: The Sage's artifact gear resembles a scientist or doctor's uniform, complete with a long white lab coat.
Limit Break: "Techne Makre", the Sage uses their nouliths to manifest a massive golden tree of aether (potentially representing either the Tree of Knowledge or The Bole) that heals and revives all party members in a 50 yalm radius. In PVP, they use "Mesotes", which creates a barrier at a target location, protecting allies from all damage unless enemies enter the barrier, which inflicts heavy Damage Over Time to them when they do.
Mage Marksman: The Sage's abilities are weaved through gun-like attack drones, both offensively and defensively.
Magitek: Somanoutics works by combining modern aetherology with traditional spellcasting as well as medicine, using high-tech drones to channel the spells.
Mechanically Unusual Class:
- Unlike the other healers, a Sage's non-cooldown abilities are compressed so that pure damage or putting a damage-over-time effect on the enemy are both on the basic attack action, and pure healing or shielding on respective healing buttons. Which effect it does is based on whether or not the Sage has casted Eukrasia before casting the spell, adding a level of nuance to adding shielding or healing damage, unlike a Scholar's shield spells which do both. Also, a Sage wants their shields to be broken instead of re-applying them when they can like other healers, as this gives them a stack of their Addersting resource and lets them use Toxicon - a respectably potent instant AoE attack.
- As mentioned under Combat Medic, Sage has more emphasis on doing damage than any of the other healers, and have the most regularly-usable high potency attacking spells out of any healer (only outdone by Afflatus Misery, which needs at least a minute and a half to use). Furthermore, a non-dismissible amount of those spells and abilities heal nearby allies as well as damage their target. Their unique Kardia skill gives a fairly strong pulse of healing on the linked person every time the Sage deals damage, greatly delaying how often emergency healing needs to be done and letting the Sage cut loose with focusing on damage.
- Sage is the only healer with a "melee" spell worth using in single target. Unlike a White Mage's Holy or a Scholar's Art of War, a Sage's Phlegma does far more damage than a single Dosis, is instant cast, and comes with two charges to boot; however, it has a 45 second cooldown and is only usable within 6 yalms. To better faciliate its usage, Sages also have Icarus, a gap closer that no other healers have.
Morton's Fork: Sage's PvP Limit Break, "Mesotes", presents this to the enemy team. They can either run away and try to wait out the barrier, potentially costing valuable time, or dive into the barrier to continue the attack. Doing so inflicts a nasty Damage Over Time debuff and huddling up in the tiny barrier to continue to do damage to the Sage's team risks getting everyone whacked with attacks like Dragoon's "Sky Shatter". This pressure is especially strong during Overtime or when fighting over objectives like the tomeliths on Seal Rock.
Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: The Sage is explained as largely a combination of magic combined with modern medicine, with advanced technology used as a focus to both sharpshoot threats and heal allies. In essence, a Sage is a combination of a physician, a sniper, a mage, and a technologist.
Power Gives You Wings: Both their "Icarus" and "Holos" abilities use the nouliths to manifest aetherial wings to briefly glide or leap. Their noulith weapons are also often referred to as "wings"; one weapon in particular is decorated to look like peacock feathers.
Ray Gun: The nouliths fire magical laser beams of concentrated, corporeal aether rather than conventional munitions.
Regenerating Mana: All of Sage's Addersgall skills ("Druochole," "Kerachole," "Ixochole," and "Taurochole") restore 7% of their max MP when used, resulting in a lot of casual MP sustained from simply using their combat abilities in addition to the "Lucid Dreaming" shared across all casters.
Science Wizard: The Sage uses traditional magic combined with advanced technology.
Sphere of Destruction: The "Phlegma" attacks creates a sphere of energy that detonates dealing Area of Effect damage to all enemies in range.
Sweeping Laser Explosion: Toxicon II does a version where the noulith's fire in an X shaped formation from above.
Technician Versus Performer:
- The technician to Astrologian's performer. Though they both share their home in Sharlayan, the Sage relies on modern technology and magic to execute their spells, and must be several steps ahead to utilize their barriers effectively and using their Addersgall wisely. Despite their powerful toolkit, their ability to react to dire situations pales in comparison to Astrologian, whom fares better with their reactive healing tools.
- Between the shield healers, the Sage is the Technician to the Scholar's Performer. While also seated with shield healing, the Sage has heavier burdens to bear with their offensive-minded abilities and protective magic, requiring more strenuous resource management to get the full mileage of their power. Though they can get their rhythm going, they're just as prone to dropping the ball hard if something goes wrong, making it difficult to get back on their feet with their below-average healing potency and strict resource generation.
Unskilled, but Strong: As the offensive counterpart to the Scholar, the Sage's healing output and shields aren't as potent, nor do they really offer any utility apart from damage reduction, but their damage output is the strongest out of all the healer jobs; they actively want their Eukrasian Diagnosis shields to break so they can bring on the pain even more via Toxicon.
Unstable Equilibrium: Arguably the biggest disadvantage of the Sage. They thrive on dealing lots of damage and having access to a decent number of abilities to heal the party, but these heals are not as potent as a White Mage's, Scholar's, and Astrologian's healing, with their biggest heals (and as such their abilities to quickly regain MP outside of Lucid Dreaming) being governed by a very limited resource akin to Scholar's Aetherflow. A Sage in a very heavily damaging situation may find themselves struggling to keep the party above the ideal health threshold without another healer's assistance; in simpler terms, they're not very good at "panic healing."
Wave-Motion Gun: "Pneuma" fires one which will both not only harm enemies caught in the blast, but is also the Sage's strongest group heal. Fittingly, it is the Sage's final spell at level 90.

Characters / Final Fantasy XIV - Healer Classes

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Characters / Final Fantasy XIV - Healer Classes

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