nublet WHM

[Jeryhn]

Please god do not waste your Merits on enhancing Regen.

gtfo jumping on bandwagon "whm is only good for barspells" is stupid

Because having an extra 5hp/tick on your Regen is gonna help your tanks on those big Gigaflares.

And not every WHM is going to be doing Wyrms or other HNMs where the bar spells matter. An extra 25% return on Regen III isn't exactly a small difference.

No, not every WHM will be doing bigger stuff than sky, but if the name of the game is to attempt to progress away from things like that and eventually try bigger things like Bahamut or CoP Wyrms, then its usually better not to stack the cards against yourself from doing so, right?

(Hell, what would Red Mages give to get an extra 25% on Refresh...)

HP and MP are two different things. There's a lot more than can be done with MP than with HP. 8)

[gandorf]

and to answer the OP: Learn to love flash for XP parties. Don't believe the "It pulls to much hate hype"


Don't forget HMP stuff, also I have been 75 WHM for about a year now and my healing magic is still about 10 points from cap. =/


If your endgame is Sky + Ground Kings and Meritpo regens are probably worth meriting.


If you want to JOL or AV or anything that casts pretty offensive stuff. Shellra V + Barspells are going to beat out regens.

Ninjas will love you for using flash when their shadows drop. When i was lving whm i had 3 sets of gear, Mp Hmp and mnd and i also had special food for each.

Regen merits are very nice. One thing i wish i got that i never had was af2 body to test out cap regen plus af2 body.

When i got 75whm i got healing magic cap in same pt. To lv healing fast go spam cure on undead or go pl a few partys. I had like 300 healing magic i think with af2 pants on.

[Tirrock]

5. Gear-wise, other than nobles and light/apollo staff, are there any other notable pieces that are a must have?

hMP is awesome. Other than the obvious dark staff, go for the fairly cheap level 40 +3 hMP sash. Seer's body until either errant, yigit, or any refresh body. Baron slops are great, especially at how low level you can use them. Antivenom earring is nice, +15MP +1hMP. Relaxing earring is pretty good if you're into the pain that is farming flowers in sea. (See signature.)

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. You don't really need to go crazy on hMP gear, but I think it helps. Plus if you level multiple mage jobs, you can use the same resting gear on all of them.

[Aerides]

Plenty of the answers you're seeing are written from level75 perspective. You've a ways to go so I'll try and bear in mind level 47:


1. How would I go about increasing the amount cured over time via Regen?

No way till AF2/Merits. Once you get Regen 3 you can rotate all the regens on different party members, but be aware of the long cast time.

2. How would I go about increasing the damage of banish and dia?

Don't worry about damage. Not your job. In the rare KRT party at 75 you might care. Read what other say about Dia but that's it. Banish1 for when you're bored with a 2 NIN party and everyone is hasted only.

Level your divine magic with flash once you have some -emn gear (AF) and when you have a good tank. Cast during Ichi for a nin, and do not ever get in the way of a PLD flash with yours.

3. Is Dia based on the same principle as the elemental debuffs? i.e. the more int you add for the debuffs the more dot they do.

As others have said, Dia is not there for Dot purposes, it's for def down.

4. Wtf is up with healing skill, it seems I can barely level it up, from 43-47 I have only gained 0.3 skill. Mind you, I've been in fairly decent parties where I don't have to spam nubs with Cure IV.

Some 'na's also give it and you'll use more of these in later levels. I was WHM75 for about 7 months before mine capped - and I'm always WHM at events... Don't worry about this one, it will catch up eventually.

5. Gear-wise, other than nobles and light/apollo staff, are there any other notable pieces that are a must have?

There are some nice new pieces for HMP - a level 40 belt (quqirn something), a level 60 necklace (beak) that just came in recent updates. Depending on your race, your AF will be very suitable for you thru Nobles/Blessed. Some WHMs like the Raven/Crow for the 50's but if your tanks are not idiots, and you aren't either, AF/Seer/MP/MND/Hmp gear is likely better.

[Septimus]

No, not every WHM will be doing bigger stuff than sky, but if the name of the game is to attempt to progress away from things like that and eventually try bigger things like Bahamut or CoP Wyrms, then its usually better not to stack the cards against yourself from doing so, right?

There is no best build for tier 1 WHM merits, it all depends on what you use them for. A WHM who mostly uses it for merit parties or Dynamis will be far better served with Regen and Cure cast time merits. A WHM who does Wyrms will get more use out of bar spells. You need to build merits around what you do with your character, if you need to change it later you can change it. For as much as it would suck to lose 15,000 XP worth of merits, it would suck just as much to spend 15,000 merits into something that you will never get use out of.

Besides, if you are in the outside healing party, bar-spells and regen suck equally.

[Ohemgee]

I still use an Apollo's staff

[Medivac]

Alot of whms dont use the light/apollo's staff anymore, most I see use the Templar's Mace (+10% cure potency) and either a Divine shield (15hp 15mp 3 mnd(?)) or a Numinous Shield+1 (+15 mp +4 mnd +15 to all elemental resistances).

The +MND on the mace and the shield are a nice bonus for Cure V over light staff.

not to mention the added defense you get overall. you can also use sheilds for elemental magic resist builds (for faf etc)

[Sylphet]

For leveling WHM to 75 you seem to have a pretty good grasp of what to do.

Healing magic skills up slowly, it's just one of those things. I was 75 about 6 months before it capped (and I was mostly doing out party healing back then). It's still a cake walk to level in comparison to something like parrying or guard. It has a minimal effect on Cures I-IV but does help with Cure V, which is not capped and affected by MND, healing magic (and for some retarded reason-but to a far lesser extent) VIT.

Don't banish, you're just wasting your MP. As Gandorf and Aeredes said, flashing when a NIN has shadows down or is casting Ichi is really helpful and you'll end up skilling up your divine magic easily.

End game gear:

Weapons:
Templar Mace + Numinous +1 is what I use and I love it, bonus to Cure V and a higher resting elemental resistance is nice.

Armor:
Blessed is win and cheap. AF +1 gloves are the best in the game unless you have a haste obsession (then get blessed). AF+1 hat for Cure V (and hMP). There's a ton of other stuff I could mention but I'm anal retentive about WHM gear and it would be a longer post than even this one.

AF2:
It's all pretty good (gloves and hat to a lesser extent though). Best pieces: Legs, a must for barspells (also good for Cure V though they do approx. the same bonus as blessed pants w/o the -enmity). Feet for barspells and Cure V (unless you have mahatma feet or marduk). Body is what I normally wear with macroing in Aristo's for Cures. Cleric's Belt is made of awesome if you can get one.

hMP:
I can't emphasize how important I think this is. The ability to quickly recover MP is HUGE for anything you do, from XP to HNMS. I stack it and even though it's a pain in the ass to carry around with you it's worth it.

Food:
cookies, preferably wizard

Merits:
Best group 1: (agreed upon by most) barspells, regen, cure cast time. The choice is yours.
Best group 2: Shellra V, Devotion, some people like martyr Protectra V is pretty but... useless.

and just cause I ... can't... let... it.... go...

For the love of god, Regen merits are NOT A WASTE. Seriously, you try being the only healer on a low man Tiamat or support a dynamis melee party full of relic-weapon-adaberk-ridill toting parser whores and tell me if it's a waste. If you have tanks/melees who know how to share hate using Regen wisely can save you a shitload of MP. As opposed to using it all on cures and then crying because of {No more MP!}. It is ALL ABOUT HOW YOU PLAY THE GAME. Using your MP wisely makes a huge difference in your performance as a WHM.

Hope you enjoy your way to 75!

[Aihree]

I have been told that you can cast cure on mobs that mimic spells (specifically, Colibri) and a) they won't aggro, and b) you get healing magic skillups pretty easily.

Unfortunately I can't actually verify this as both accounts I have access to already have capped healing magic skill from the "hard and long way" of just doing it over and over again in parties.

If you want to try it, put up reraise first, just in case.

[Bardlet]

Please god do not waste your Merits on enhancing Regen.

Actually, the only reason I really levelled my WHM to 75 (aside from using it to solo stuff, yes yes, lolmeleewhm) was to use to duo with my 75MNK fiance, as duoing with MNK+BRD was a little rough sometimes. I don't do much, if any, HNM stuff with it- I use my BRD for everything because it's pretty much pimped- sometimes take my WHM to Dynamis, Assault, and Salvage. Took it sky farming once. Maybe merit on it once every two or three months. That's about it.

4/5 Cure Cast (need one more bump)
5/5 Regen (planning on this)
3/3 Devotion (1/3 atm)
3/3 Martyr OR 1/3 Shellra/Protectra V/Martyr, haven't decided yet

[Dammerung]

There's a ton of other stuff I could mention but I'm anal retentive about WHM gear and it would be a longer post than even this one.

AltanaCubby is made of win.

And I'm glad someone finally agrees with me on Regen merits 8) (For reference, I have 5 Regen and 5 Cure Cast Time for Category 1).

[Sylphet]

There's a ton of other stuff I could mention but I'm anal retentive about WHM gear and it would be a longer post than even this one.

AltanaCubby is made of win.

And I'm glad someone finally agrees with me on Regen merits 8) (For reference, I have 5 Regen and 5 Cure Cast Time for Category 1).

That's neat!

Though this really all hearkens back to my WHM livejournal update of legend that I've been promising people for a year now... yeah... I really will do it some day;

[Dmer]

Colibri don't reflect cure spells anymore. I used to cast cure on them as rdm in XP when lvling up. not only would they cure whoever had hate, it worked like stun as they couldn't do anything else while casting.

I was in a merit pt at the camp with the colibri and the new rhinosaures the other day and they refused to reflect cure or cure II. Also gave the "no effct" message when I cast it.

As for skilling up on it, my healing skill is also capped, so I can't help you there.

[Bakthi]

I read somewhere that they fixed the "casting cure on any random mob will give you healing magic skillups and not aggro" thing an update or two ago. Have not tried to confirm it myself.

Flash is awesome. You don't need to wait for -enmity gear, really, unless hate is sketchy anyway. I used it as much as possible from the moment I learned it. Yes, it is important to give PLDs room for their own Flash. Also keep in mind that PUPs can use Flashbulb, which does the same thing. If you can time things so that you're flashing around whoever else in the party can do it, the mob will hardly be able to hit anything.

As far as doing damage on WHM, I actually did the last 2 levels of WHM duoing imps with a BLU. Yeah, BLU can solo the imps, and it's more efficient for them to duo with another BLU, but this was someone from the LS leveling during the day, and they wanted more safety than soloing. Banish III (and Banishga II) did some serious damage to those things (I only had a Moldavite and Yigit body as far as MAB). It's also viable to do banishburns in Riverne if you're either 38-41 or 75 (on limits). Neither of these are the most common or efficient ways of exping, but they're not bad, and can be a fun change of pace if you get the chance.

[defiant]

I rarely get any skillup on Healing Magic.

Most the time if I do get one, it's from casting Reraise 3 or removing a status effect from someone >_<

[Mifaco]

healing magic is the most worthless skill there is in the game. Being the master of healing is jack shit when the difference between a 232 Cure3 and a 235 cure3 is 50 skill points. Don't worry about capping it.

[Eldelphia]

I went barspell merits because it bumps up your MDB too. If I could have barspells and regen I would. I settled for barspells (+ cleric's pants) and don't regret it in the slightest. My regens get bumped up some by the cleric's briault.

Depends on your shell and your individual circumstances - it would be nice to have a range of skills between mages if you can cover all bases. I just love seeing the number of resists pushed higher and higher by the barspells and the offensive stuff that tends to spam ele stuff tends to be super nasty so I'd rather improve my chances of resists.

If I could have cure casting, regen and barspells - I would, but until then - barspells for me.

[Vail]

Barspell merits, for well over a year now (back when everyone said I was crazy for meriting barspells)
My whm was built up to be barspells cause my whm was only used for one thing, tank party whm for elemental damaging HNMs. (Grand Wyrms and such) I was treated as a "specialty case" for doing so.

man, how times have changed.

Regen merits pale in comparison to a full barspell merits whm vs almost any HNM, almost every single HNM has some kinda elemental attacks, and often are all the same element.

If all you do is exp and merit, then yeah, maybe regen is better for you.

[Tajin]

I'm meriting healing magic :D

oh wait...

i do agree with this tho:

If all you do is exp and merit, then yeah, maybe regen is better for you.

and this:

healing magic is the most worthless skill there is in the game. Being the master of healing is jack shit when the difference between a 232 Cure3 and a 235 cure3 is 50 skill points. Don't worry about capping it.

When it caps im quitting FFXI >.>;

Being in the pt that stays alive after an AoE or Spell is priceless 8)

[Septimus]

healing magic is the most worthless skill there is in the game.

I see that you never met my friend here, Divine skill on a Red Mage.

(Or his good buddy, Elemental skill on a Dark Knight.)