Final Fantasy XI

This FAQ is written for personal use only. It is meant as a guide for white mages that are starting out, or needing more guidance. This FAQ may not be reproduced without advance written permission. Commercial use of this FAQ is strictly prohibited.

Being a white mage, your job is to help others. This usually happens in a party, quest, or while solo. Your role is not to do damage, although there will be times you must in cases of emergencies. Your main role is to buff and heal up your party members, and remove negative status effects.

There are 5 races in FFXI. All races are not equal when it comes to being a white mage, as you will later find out, however. The genders are identical.

For attributes, Hume, mithra, and tarutaru should focus on MND, then MP. Elvaan and Galka should focus on MP first, then MND. The other attributes should not be a concern for a white mage and can be ignored, although very strong consideration should be paid attention to equipment that increases MP regeneration while healing.

The bottom line on Attributes in general regardless of race for White Mage (A being best, G being Worst) with starting bonus in parentheses:

Benediction - Instant - Affects all party members within Area of Effect -- 2 hour recast

This move recovers HP of all party members in the area of effect. This move is obviously going to get the mobs attention, and you will be the new best friend of the mob for a very long time. At low levels, this should be used in emergency, or when the mob is near death and you are out of mp. Characters will not hold hate for very long in the early game when it comes to parties. At higher levels (level 35+), you will have reraise, blink, stoneskin, and chances are that the paladin in your party will have Cover ready which makes this move less risky. Eventually, this move when used effectively at high levels should not gain the mobs attention unless your tank goes down. This move should be ready at all times for certain HNM fights, AF NM fights, and certain BCNM fights because you will never know when you must use it.

After you use this move, the decision to run or take the hits depends on the situation. If you are near a zone or the fight is essentially un-winnable and you used it to give the other party members a chance to run, chances are that you will be running. However, there are times that the zone is too far away or the mob is so close to death, where you may have to take the hits and possibly bite the bullet. Prior to level 33 this is rather risky (especially in certain spots), but sometimes using this and letting the mob beat you down may be the difference of your party winning and losing that fight.

Divine Seal - Level 15 - Instant - Doubles the power of the next Cure or Curaga spell - 10 minute recast

This is probably one of the most useful abilities to have, especially when you have to camp mobs with very infamous AOES (goblin bomb, cursed sphere, etc.). Divine Seal, when combined with the Curaga line of spells, can pretty much act like a 10-minute benediction for a small amount of MP.

The drawback is that this ability, while it does not directly add to your hate meter with the mob, can get the mob on you depending on what type of cure spell you use. The stronger the cure or Curaga spell you use, the more likely the mob will be after you. You might want to hold off on Divine Seal+Curaga until the fight is over if at all possible, or in cases of emergencies.

Divine Seal does not affect your buffs or Raise. Divine Seal will not affect spells that heal status ailments until you get the job trait Divine Veil at level 50. With the Divine Veil trait, your spells that heal status ailments when used with Divine Seal will affect the entire party within a small radius around the target. This is useful for spells like Erase, Viruna, and Cursna, all either with lengthy cool-down timers or high on the MP cost. Divine Seal being used in this manner may cause the mob to go after you depending on what status ailment removing spell that you use.

This improves defense to magic spells mainly attack spells and enfeebles. This trait can lead to more resists from magic spells that the mobs will use on you.

You automatically recover 1 HP every 3 seconds while standing. This stacks with the Regen line of spells.

Enhances the effect of Divine Seal. When Divine Seal is used with a spell that heals a status ailment, the effect area for spells that remove status ailments will increase from a single target to a small radius around that target, provided all the targets are members of your party. Beware: certain spells may get the mob's attention.

You will get Combat and Magic Skills to use. Some skills are more important than others, when it comes to leveling them.

Staff = C+ -- should be leveled but it doesn't have to be capped. You won’t get anything useful in staves til level 51.

Throwing = E -- can be ignored as a WHM - you don't have anything that you should be throwing.

Shield = D -- may be neglected as well - its a skill that doesn't need to be capped.

Healing = A+ -- should be capped if at all possible; this affects Cure line of spells. Spells that heal ailments will also raise this skill.

Divine = A- -- early on this skill will be neglected; later you will need to keep this as close to the cap as you can, so your Flash won’t get resisted at the worst possible time.

Enhancing = C+ -- you won't get anything till level 7 - from this point on try to keep this skill capped. This directly ties into Stoneskin and the Bar spells.

Enfeebling = C -- try to keep this skill as close to the cap - the best spell to use is Dia. You will likely be landing certain debuffs when soloing or in skill-up parties.

Pros: fewer aggressive mobs to account for in beginner zones until you get very deep, quadlavs have beneficial drops for white mage

Cons: fame quests aren't that great or beneficial for WHM til you are a much higher level (only one is for Warp for blm subjob), the mobs don't drop a lot of early game profit. It is also difficult to raise fame in Bastok until you get Level 3 fame (and the 2 scroll quests you need require at least Level 5 Bastokian fame).

Pros: mobs in the early zones drop profitable items, more profitable quests for low level white mage (including some that benefit subjobs), one of the mobs has good drops for white mage, easier to level fame (but not as easy as San D’Oria)

Cons: more aggressive mobs to account for, some of the early mobs are harder to kill than in Bastok. Raising fame in Windurst can be a pain in the butt if you are a new player due to the constant zoning that is required.

Pros: good repeatable fame quests using drops from early level mobs (rabbit hides, flint stones, bat wings), mobs drop decent amount of profit (not as much as Windurst), easiest town to get Level 9 fame.

Cons: You are stuck to worms, bats, and rabbits until much later in the game; none of the early game drops benefit WHM; the most beneficial quests for WHM in Sandy do not come till you are at a much higher level (Drain for BLM subjob, artifact, teleport).

In end, all 3 nations are well balanced. Windurst might be the ideal place to start if this was your first job due to the potential profits and the early quests, but if this is not your first job try starting in Bastok or San D'Oria instead. Regardless on where you start, you need to work on your fame for each city. You will need at least Level 5 fame for Teleport scroll quests, Level 3 fame for scroll quests for your Black Mage subjob, and Level 8 fame for your Summoner subjob (avatar quests).

Once you hit level 18 with your first job, you will be eligible to do the 1 of 2 subjob quests, either in Mhaura or Selbina. Once you start one quest, you cannot do the other. You must use a subjob as you get higher in levels (starting at level 20), it’s the only way you will get party invites in the long run. Subjob items can be obtained at anytime; you will likely get them while in experience parties in Valkrum or Buburimu. The highest level of your subjob is one half of your regular job, rounded down. Since the highest level you can get in this game is 75, the highest level your subjob can be is 37.

For this quest, you are requested to obtain a Damselfly Worm, a Crab Apron, and a Magiciked Skull. Damselfly Worms are dropped off Damselflies in Valkrum Dunes. Crab Aprons are dropped off Snippers in Valkrum Dunes only (there are Snippers in other zones, but only the ones in Valkrum will drop the subjob item). Magiciked Skulls are dropped off any Ghoul except from ones in Horutoro. Ghouls can be found in various zones, with Valkrum having the highest drop rates (but you almost need a ranger to track them down in Valkrum). You are most likely to find ghouls in Gusgen Mines or Maze of Sharkamani. The ghouls in the maze are the strongest ghouls in the game and have the worst drop rates of the skull, so be aware of that fact. The ones in Gusgen are slightly stronger than Valkrum, but not as strong as the Maze; however they can have some very bad drop rates even with a thief with Treasure Hunter II trait in the party.

You will need Cup of Dhalmel Saliva, Wild Rabbit Tails, and a Bloody Robe. Wild Rabbit Tails is dropped off of Mighty Rarab, which does not have the greatest drop rate in the world. However, they are the weakest of the 3 mobs you will encounter. Dhalmel Saliva is dropped off Bull Dhalmel, which you will be seeing plenty of if you get a party in Buburimu while in the mid-teens (when snippers and rabbits start conning tough). Bloody Robes is dropped off Bogy just about anywhere where you find a Bogy. The ones in Buburimu are the weakest, as they are even match starting at 25. (The ones in Valkrum do not con even match until level 30.) Bogies will drop the robe rather quickly, however, much better than the ghouls dropping the skulls.

Pros: Fast Cast (trait), Resist Petrify (trait), more enfeeble/enhancing spells, modest MP gain

Cons: lack of job abilities, most useful enfeebles and enhancing spells do not come until level 64+ (dispel, phalanx), lack of Warp/Escape

Subbing Red Mage is a good idea, but the red mage does not get the good spells until level 32-33 when it has Dispel and Phalanx. Dispel removes buffs from a mob, and Phalanx is defense boost. If you sub red mage, you will not get either spell until level 64 and 66. Some of the best red mage abilities and spells do not come until level 40 and 41, which makes them unavailable if you sub red mage because the highest level your subjob can go is 37. Red Mage sub is also good in the early game, when you need a few more HP than usual, but eventually you want to find a more suitable subjob.

Pros: second highest MP gain, Warp, Escape, Tractor, Spikes, conserve mp trait, magic attack bonus.

Subbing Black Mage is a must once you get the subjob quest done. In low-level zones, this subjob is nice for the weaker mobs where the halved elemental skill does not mean as much. At higher levels, those elemental magic spells are gimped, and will likely be resisted. The main reason for the black mage subjob is the mp boost, and having Warp at 34. Once at 50 you get Tractor that allows you move the dead out of dangerous spots and into much safer locations for Raise. Escape comes at 58 and is very useful while in dungeons and it is more convenient (but takes more MP) than teleport. The magic attack bonus trait can help your power of your Banish spells, and Elemental Seal can be useful when you must use Silence on a nasty magic using mob that loves to resist. Having Sleep at 40 is useful, but you will only use sleep in a party only in cases of emergencies.

The summoner sub is very useless prior to level 50, as Auto Refresh is a level 25 summoner trait, and most of the decent avatar buffs (Aerial Armor, Frost Armor, etc.) you will not get to use until level 50 at the earliest. The only races that could benefit from this subjob prior to level 50 are Elvaan and Galka, due to the MP issues. Auto-Refresh does stack with the refresh spell of the Red Mage, the mage ballads of the Bards, and equipment with refresh effects, however, so this subjob cannot be ignored.

The thief subjob is relatively useless until you hit level 30 or so. The only reason to use this subjob is when you are soloing for farming purposes only, but you will not get treasure hunter until level 30. At higher levels, this subjob is nice from stealing Mythril beastcoins from that antica with the ranger job that sits outside of Rabao. This subjob is not meant for exp parties, though. I have seen some white mages use thief/ninja as their farming job while playing this game, though, strictly because they can get that job to 45 for Treasure Hunter II and Ninja is the widely accepted subjob of Thief once they can use that job. Some have even taken Thief to 70 because Thief has a simple strategy for Genkai V: successfully steal from Maat.

The ninja subjob is more for your thief subjob (though you may have to level warrior to 18 or so to make that your ninja subjob). The only time ninja subjob is nice to have is if you are in a skill up party for your club (which is important at higher levels), as you can dual wield clubs starting at 20. You might find the ninja subjob useful if you have to go mining in Ifrits Cauldron, where there are several sight mobs that aggro to magic but not ninjtsu (which makes Tonko a very important spell to have). Utsusemi is a more reliable version of blink that can buy you just enough hits to survive a fight or to teleport out in case of problems. At 74 you get Utsusemi: Ni, which makes soloing much more bearable.

Equipment isn't the most important aspect as a white mage, and you will not be upgrading equipment as often as a melee will. However, to become a good white mage you will find that you will have to pay good money to get the best equipment, and this fact is true with any job.

The other key stats should not be of any consideration for the white mage besides MP, MND, and INT. However, there are exceptions. You may want to have a pair of battle gloves, life belt, Bastokan Hammer, and spectacles for use in skill up parties for the accuracy bonuses; and later some of the gear that give wind resistance and/or evasion bonuses may be a key item for use in the Genkai 5 BCNM fight with Maat.

For a weapon, you should be having a club equipped. White Mage has a B+ skill in club and a C skill in staff. There is nothing useful in staves until level 51+, and that skill can suffer. The club skill is the most important skill to use, and the main skill to work on in skill up parties. You can dual wield clubs but not staves if you decide to sub ninja for those parties. It is very important that even though you won't be doing much melee in experience point parties at all, to keep that club skill as close to the cap if at all possible. There will be times while soloing in low to mid-level zones where you must deal with a uninvited guest in order to raise someone, and sleep is not the answer to the solution. You will likely have to do some melee while doing some of your quests. Later at level 67, you will gain the weaponskill Hexastrike, which only white mages can use. There are couple clubs that give accuracy bonuses, which are useful for skill up parties. At level 65 you get Darksteel Mauls, which will likely be your final weapon you will be using.

For armor, don't bother wearing cloaks. Cloaks are more designed for the black mage and summoner in mind, not the white mage (there are exceptions to the rule, however). You should be sticking with robes and doublets for body armor, and slacks for the leg armor. You won't be updating armor very often. For most races, your RSE set (which is quested), is sufficient for a long time. For headgear, use the headpins with the mp boost if at all possible, though Travelers Hat is an acceptable alternative for lower levels.

At level 51 you will be able to use the Elemental Staves. The staves to invest are the Light and Dark Staves. Do not bother to invest in the other staves. When you are using a banish spell, it is in your best interest to have the Light Staff equipped instead of the Water Staff. While the Water Staff does have Divine Magic Skill +10, the Light Staff has an hidden effect of Light Magic Potency +10%. You may want to invest in the Earth Staff as money permits, as you will need it if you start pulling too much hate or you need to get Slow to stick. Wind Staff is good for getting Silence to stick on those certain mobs that need it, and Ice Staff is good for Paralyze, but the emphasis is that with the exception of the Light and Dark staff you are likely going to waste your money.

Since there are other good guides for macros available on the Internet, I will not get in a detailed guide about them. Having macros set is very important. You can have up to 10 pages of Macros stored in FFXI, and you should use them. Here is a sample of what I use as a macro page (I'll explain some of the macros but not all of them).

Alt 1-0: All key buffs (haste, bar- spell of choice, protectra/shellra, stoneskin, blink, spikes)

You can use <t> or <st>. <t> is faster, but has a drawback that when you do melee you will be casting that spell on the mob and not on the person that needs it. I highly recommend <st> as you can select whom to heal before casting the spell - it is a bit slower but you prevent mistargets. At high levels, mistargets can be costly. Just ask any Red Mage or Black Mage that decided to nuke Fafnir and actually end up targeting a Darter that not only links the room but wipe out the alliance.

The use of <bt> is important when you are targeting a mob. The <bt> will only target the mob that your party is fighting, and you do not have to scroll through 50 targets just to get to your mob. As a matter of fact, you can keep the target of your tank highlighted while you hit this macro. All spells that target the mob should have the <bt> with a few exceptions. Those exceptions are Sleep, Sleepga, Bind, Sleep II, and Sleepga II - where they should have <st> instead of <bt>.

Later as you get stronger spells you will find that they need to be put in quotes. Any spell that has a space in it must be put in quotes.

As you get in higher levels, you will need to have an escape macro set up in case the party doesn't have a mage capable of using the magic spell Escape (if you have BLM sub, you won't get access to this spell until level 58), the zone is too far, and/or you are in zones where Escape will not work (like Altepa Desert or Cape Terrigan). There are places where you got a very high level mob and the last thing you want is to zone it. In these situations, you must use the teleport spell. Teleports have a 20 second cast time, but once your hand starts going up - at this point if the mob doesn't kill anyone by this time - everyone within the area of effect eligible to get teleported will be teleported out of there even if the mob manages to defeat any party member at that point on. Teleport isn't just a spell where most white mages make their money off of in front of lower Jeuno mog house; it is also used to get your party out of bad situations. The only drawback to teleport is that it cancels reraise effect, but when you must use this spell, your main goal is to get as many party members out alive. Once you see text "xxxx vanishes" there is little the mob can do at this point even if he proceeds to defeat you or your party members - if that happens you will simply teleport to the crag "dead". If you are in a situation of this, at the start of the party mention which teleport spell will be the escape spell (usually the one closest to the place that the party is at). Due to the slow-casting spell of teleport (20 seconds) I strongly recommend having an equipment switch macro that automatically equip gear that reduces spell interruption rate. Teleport will draw aggro, usually right before it is cast because the mob will be very angry that your party got away and he's going to find whoever cause it. If you have the right equipment on, there are only 5 things that can keep it from going off: Stun, Silence, Sleep, Knock-back weaponskills, and your death. If you hit the macro, the melee will do everything to keep the mob off of you.

For more information about macros, I strongly suggest heading to FFXI WHM Macro Guide.

Partying is pretty simple. You will be asked to get in a party possibly as early as level 6 or 7, but most likely around level 8 or 9. From this point on, your experience points will be gained through a party, not solo. Your role in a party is not to do damage (thus you will melee very little) and take damage. Sadly, cure spells will eventually get the mobs attention, and if you aren't careful, you will be finding yourself eating dust. Melees at low levels do not hold hate that well, so spacing out cures and trying to conserve mp is important. If you got a member in party with Drain, let them try to cast Drain first before trying to heal them. There are two reasons for this: 1. Drain damages the mob while healing the caster, and 2. Drain has a very long cooldown timer after it is cast. Healing them before they get to finish casting drain will waste their mp and your mp.

Once you hit Valkrum Dunes, try to get in a balanced party if at all possible. The first mobs you will see in this zone will likely be Hill Lizards and Night Bats. A balanced party should include 2 people that can provoke (and both need to be well equipped for their jobs), white mage, black mage, and a combination of 2 damage dealers and/or support. Once you get in a party, I strongly suggest /anon, as I found out that even being in a party in Valkrum as a white mage does not prevent /tells from other people begging you to ditch your party and join another. /anon blocks those annoying /tells, and allows you to concentrate on your job. At higher levels you will probably be /anon a lot of reasons to mention.

You won't have that great deal of mp to use at first. Your divine magic skill can suffer for a few levels, since Banish is rather high on mp at this point. For enfeebling magic, just use Dia, and if there is no red mage, Paralyze as well. At 13 you will have Slow, and Silence at 15, and only use these spells only when the mob you are fighting warrants it. By the late teens, the mp for Banish starts becoming trivial to the point you can use it once per battle but no more. Cure II should be used in emergencies in the early teens; you can start using it a little more often by the late teens.

At 7 you have Protectra. You won't get Shellra until 17. These buffs last 30 minutes and should be cast whenever they wear off. As you get higher in levels, you will get much stronger versions of these spells. Bar- spells and single target buffs should only be used when appropriate.

When you hit 25, you will get Raise. At this point please on plan on being “/anon” a lot. Due to lack of Reraise, your death at this point will result in major downtime for your party, and there will be places where parties will go for EXP that are extremely remote (i.e. Furrier/Solider Crawler camp in the first jungle). If you do go into some remote places, I suggest carrying instant reraise, reraiser, and high-reraiser at all times and try to get a party member to carry a spare reraiser, as Reraiser is a rare item. Once you get to level 33, you will get the spell Reraise, which should be kept up at all times. There are new equipment called Reraise Earring that may be equipped at level 24 that gives "Enchantment Reraise" - plan on picking up couple of them, as they are very handy for parties and certain level-capped area

Race	HP	MP	STR	DEX	VIT	AGI	INT	MND	CHR
Hume	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D
Mithra	D	D	E	A	E	B	D	E	F
Tarutaru	G	A	F	D	E	C	A	E	D
Galka	A	G	C	D	A	E	E	D	F
Elvaan	C	E	B	E	C	F	F	B	D