White Mage Melding, Stat Priority, and Consumables — Dawntrail 7.1

This page will cover the not-entirely-obvious subject of stat and materia priority for White Mage. All healers in FFXIV suffer the same problem regarding stat priority; while the stats' effects are quite obvious on the surface, the actual use-case for them and which should be prioritized over others is not so obvious.

All main and substats in FFXIV increase in tiered levels, where after a certain amount of a stat is acquired, the effect of the substat will increase. However, this means that any amount of stats between two 'tiers' of a stat will be effectively wasted, providing no gain at all. For example, if substat X were to increase in intervals of ten, then each tier would be ten apart (0, 10, 20, etc.). If one were to have only nine of X substat, then all nine of this stat will have no effect.

Within the game, main stats are our strongest gains in damage, and substats scale at different rates. Critical His scales quadratically, and Spell Speed scales non-linearly (but not quite quadratically, more logarithmically). Determination and Direct Hit both scale linearly but work together dynamically to boost the other further. Piety is a unique healer-specific substat that increases the rate at which our MP regenerates naturally while in combat.

If you wish to see White Mage best-in-slot gear, it is located in our guide linked below. The decisions in those lists may differ at times from generalized suggestions due to stat tier optimization and cutting down on Piety as much as possible.

The stat priority for White Mage is as follows:

1. Weapon Damage;
2. Mind;
3. Critical Hit;
4. Direct Hit;
5. Determination;
6. Spell Speed;
7. Piety.

Some caveats: First, Spell Speed will technically increase damage more than both Direct Hit and Determination, and as of 6.1, it is even mostly equivalent to Critical Hit. However, more Spell Speed means more casts, and more casts mean more MP consumed per minute, taxing the MP tank. This can lead to White Mage running out of MP and being left unable to cast any spells. When you are not casting any spells, you are not doing any damage. This is a problem any healer can have, and it makes spell speed a generally poor choice while gearing up.

A crucial thing to know about all healers - we want to take as little Piety into a fight as possible. We want to take enough to get through a fight, but not so much that we have way too much leftover. Piety is the worst substat for White Mage if there is too much, as all those stats could instead have been allocated to something to actually boost its damage further, like Critical Hit or Determination. Since taking more Spell Speed after a point can necessitate taking more Piety, taking less Spell Speed can mean we get to take less Piety.

This does not necessarily mean that Spell Speed is bad. In fact, if White Mage can get through a fight without running out of MP, it is still a highly desired stat to a small point. This is why higher damage sets usually take a bit of Spell Speed--and also why they are generally only recommended to more optimized parties and not for general content.

Also of significant note, Determination is technically a better substat overall than Direct Hit in a vacuum. However, since healers cannot receive any Direct Hit on a piece of gear, it is far better to be focusing on Direct Hit as pragmatically a better stat than Determination. As aforementioned, Direct Hit and Determination scale off each other best, and the closer they are to each other, the stronger each becomes.

However, Determination and Direct Hit are quite close to each other in total value, and Determination will in fact also boost one's healing power in a fight. The effect of this is mostly unnoticeable in practice - it will be unlikely to make a difference or save someone who would have otherwise died, but it is still plausible. Thus, it is best to prefer whichever stat you like better, as the difference between the two is nearly negligible.

When melding your gear on White Mage, you want to refer to the above stat list and use that to direct your decisions. Meld Critical Hit wherever possible, and then either Direct Hit or Determination whenever Critical Hit is capped (or would not receive the full benefit of the meld). Again, pick whichever substat you prefer, but generally speaking, Direct Hit will provide slightly more damage due to how healer gear is set in FFXIV.

We want to avoid melding Piety on healers and White Mage as much as possible. Dropping Spell Speed in order to instead meld more Determination, Direct Hit, or even Critical Hit will usually be worth it in most cases.

That being said, sometimes melding Spell Speed is valuable and does have added scaling with the extra recast time provided by White Mage's Presence of Mind. In some cases, this can be your best meld. This is going to be case-by-case and depends on how good the player is, how well the group the player is playing with performs, and the content the player is doing. Please be careful when choosing to meld Spell Speed.

Potions in FFXIV are fairly straightforward. You will always want whatever the highest tier potion for the main stat of a given job is, which for the current patch (7.1) is Grade 2 Gemdraught of Mind. Healer DPS spells scale off Mind (not Intelligence), so White Mage will always take Mind potions to increase our damage wherever we can make use of it. Healers should also always carry Super-Ether in the event they die or run out of MP in a fight.

Food for White Mage is always included in best-in-slot gearsets. Sometimes, a gearset is completely reliant on the specific amount of stats the chosen food gives. If you want to know what food to stockpile, please visit our White Mage Best-in-Slot page and look for whichever gearset you suspect best fits your needs.