White Mage PvP Guide for FFXIV

White Mage is a powerful, well rounded healer with many high-impact spells and abilities. It excels at crowd control with its game-changing Limit Break and its uncleansable Miracle of Nature. Its kit is rounded out with mitigation, mobility, and the ability to cleanse a crowd control effect from an ally.

Note: This guide is focused on Crystalline Conflict. Much of it may apply to other PvP modes, but it is written with only Crystalline Conflict in mind.

Strengths

• Well rounded kit with damage, crowd control, mitigation, and mobility
• Excellent crowd control with an AoE stun and an uncleansable polymorph
• Targeted Purify effect on a short cooldown
• Game-changing Limit Break that charges twice as fast as most Limit Breaks
• Does not require the team to play around you to make use of your kit

Weaknesses

• Limited access to healing while moving, making it more punishing to be caught out of position
• Vulnerable to Cure II cast being interrupted with crowd control
• Cure II's cast time delays healing after you have been crowd controlled
• Party defense buff and AoE heal are locked behind using a gap closer on an enemy

Glare III is your basic damage spell. Use it to contribute damage whenever you are not doing anything else. It is not very threatening on its own, but it helps to wear down the enemy, drain their resources, and secure kills. Take advantage of its short cast time to reposition between casts, especially to duck back behind a wall until your GCD comes back up, disrupting enemy line of sight and making it much more difficult for them to damage you.

Afflatus Misery is your burst damage GCD. It has a short cooldown, so try to use it frequently, especially when your allies are bursting someone down or when enemies are grouped close enough to get hit by the AoE. It is also one of your only instant-cast GCDs, so it can be used to keep up the pressure while chasing, retreating, or repositioning.

The limited nature of all healing resources in PvP means that you must approach healing with a very different mindset from what you may be used to. You must consider whether healing someone will actually save them or if it would be a waste of a limited resource that could be put to better use. For example, if someone is crowd controlled (stun, silence, etc.) without Purify and is taking heavy damage, it is extremely difficult to keep them alive with external healing. If they have no MP to use Recuperate even if you keep them alive for a few more seconds, there is almost no hope of them making it out alive.

In a case like that, it may be better to devote your healing resources to people you can reasonably save. Otherwise, the enemy gets the kill and drains your resources at the same time, leaving you even more vulnerable. In a perfect world, you want to barely save someone's life with your heals. This means that your healing was the deciding factor in preventing the enemy from getting the kill. They used many resources to attempt to get a kill, and you used a handful of resources to negate everything they invested in it.

Cure II is your basic healing spell. It has the highest potency of any healer's basic heal in PvP, but it has the significant drawback of having a cast time. It is harder to use reactively, though this can be worked around by anticipating the burst target and pre-casting Cure II on them. With a cast time, Cure II is also much more vulnerable to interruption. If you are interrupted mid-cast, the time you put into the cast bar before it was interrupted is completely wasted. After the crowd control wears off, you have to begin the cast again, creating further delay before your heal can reach the target.

Cure III is accessed by using Seraph Strike (it replaces your next Cure II). You have 10 seconds to use Cure III before the proc expires. Cure III is essentially a stronger, area-of-effect Cure II. It is an instant-cast GCD, and it does not consume a charge of Cure II.

Despite being an AoE heal, it is a targeted spell. It heals party members within 5y of the target, so your party must be grouped close together for you to heal multiple people. The Seraph Strike you use to unlock Cure III can be used to get into position to heal multiple allies and give them the defense buff.

Aquaveil is an oGCD ability that instantly shields the target. It can remove one debuff that can be removed by Purify, and if it removes a debuff, its shield potency is doubled. This is your only instant, on-demand healing tool other than Cure III, which must be prepared by using Seraph Strike.

Its cleansing effect is extremely impactful when used thoughtfully. It only removes a single debuff, unlike Purify, so it will not instantly free someone who is afflicted by multiple forms of crowd control. However, the large instant shield is still powerful. It is especially impactful when used on an ally who has already used Purify and has been crowd controlled again after the immunity has worn off.

White Mage possesses excellent utility in the form of powerful crowd control and party mitigation. In particular, its crowd control is one of its greatest strengths. If used well, it can allow you to have a huge impact in your games.

Miracle of Nature is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal: an uncleansable crowd control effect on a short cooldown. It allows the enemy to move, but it prevents them from taking any actions to heal or defend themselves. It cannot be removed by any means. It can only be resisted by Guard, so be careful when using it against an enemy that has Guard available. The immunity granted by Purify does not block Miracle of Nature.

Miracle of Nature has many uses, including interrupting enemy burst to save an ally's life, preventing an enemy from disrupting your party's burst, and preventing a burst target from healing or guarding. In some cases, disrupting an enemy's combo is especially devastating, such as using it on a Samurai who has their Limit Break ( Zantetsuken) available and has just used Hissatsu: Chiten. Even if you cannot prevent or interrupt an enemy Limit Break, you can often prevent the follow-up damage and allow your ally time to use Recuperate and get away.

Using Miracle of Nature offensively to assist with securing kills is covered in greater detail in the Burst Rotation section below.

Seraph Strike is an oGCD ability that allows you to jump to an enemy, dealing damage in an area around them. It also applies a 10% damage mitigation buff to party members within 10y of the target, including yourself, and gives you access to a single cast of Cure III.

Seraph Strike can be a powerful repositioning tool if you target the right enemy, but it can also get you killed if you are not careful. Using Seraph Strike for the damage can be tempting, but its primary functions are mobility, party mitigation, and unlocking Cure III. It does not deal enough damage to be worth putting yourself in any significant danger just for the damage. Even if you survive, you will likely be forced to spend extra resources to get out alive. However, if you have plenty of resources available, this may not be a bad thing if you are drawing the enemies' attention away from vulnerable allies by jumping in with a defense buff, Cure III, Guard, and plenty of MP for Recuperate.

Afflatus Purgation is your Limit Break. Its base charge time is 60 seconds, making it the fastest charging PvP Limit Break. It stuns and deals significant damage to all enemies in a massive line in the direction of your target. It also gives you a buff that increases your damage dealt by 10% and heals party members within 30y of you every 3 seconds.

Its 40y range ensures that you only need to worry about direction and line of sight. Be especially careful about targeting an enemy that is very close to you, as it is very easy for them to move around you in a way that will point your Limit Break away from their party as your Limit Break locks in the direction.

One of the most powerful aspects of Afflatus Purgation is its short charge time. It will come back up fairly quickly, so avoid sitting on a full Limit Break gauge for too long. However, do not waste it at a time when you and your team are not in a position to follow up on it. If you are too weak or outnumbered to fight, wait until your party is recovered and regrouped.

In a desperate situation, you can use it to prevent an enemy from chasing your team down and finishing you off after you have been forced to retreat. Consider the timing of when you use it, though. You want to have it available for the next skirmish, not have it coming up right after the next skirmish ends.

On maps with dangerous environmental effects, the area-of-effect stun can be devastating. If you catch multiple enemies in the stun in the path of the Eruption on The Volcanic Heart or right before Turbulence on Cloud Nine, you can force multiple enemies to use Purify or even get them killed.

White Mage does not have much burst damage without its Limit Break. Instead, White Mage's most significant contribution to burst is its crowd control. Choosing the right target and the right timing for Miracle of Nature can prevent the enemy from even getting a chance to fight back. When used on a low-health enemy, it can all but guarantee the kill.

When using Miracle of Nature offensively, you are usually aiming to chain it with other crowd control. Using Miracle of Nature first can be advantageous because it cannot be cleansed with Purify. The target would have to Purify the follow-up crowd control, and they should already be very low on HP, so they may not have time to use Recuperate afterward. If another crowd control is used first, Miracle of Nature can always be used as the first effect wears off. Even if they Purify the first effect, Miracle of Nature ignores the immunity granted by Purify.

Your target selection is just as important as the timing. If the burst target is already defenseless (low MP, no Purify or Guard), using Miracle of Nature on them is unlikely to make it any easier to kill them. They have no defensive actions for you to prevent with that crowd control. Instead, you could use it on an enemy healer or someone else with crowd control abilities that might disrupt your team's burst.

One of the most impactful uses for Miracle of Nature is to burst a target that does have defensive resources available. If you burst down a target before they get the chance to use Recuperate or Guard, you can prevent them from soaking up more of your party's damage, time, and resources.

Keep in mind that Miracle of Nature has a very limited cast range. You will need to get close to the enemy to use it, which can be very dangerous if you are using it offensively. You may be able to use Seraph Strike to position yourself before or after, depending on the enemy positioning.

1. Afflatus Purgation
   • Seraph Strike (optional)
2. Afflatus Misery
   • Miracle of Nature (optional)

This example begins with your Limit Break for its damage and crowd control. The Limit Break also gives you a 10% damage buff for the rest of your combo. Afflatus Purgation is followed by Seraph Strike and Afflatus Misery for instant burst damage. Seraph Strike may be omitted if it would put you in too much danger. In total, this combo should deal 40,000 damage almost instantly.

Miracle of Nature may be used to help the party secure the kill if the target survives the initial burst. Alternatively, it can be used to disrupt an enemy healer to prevent them from saving the burst target.

1. Glare III
   • Miracle of Nature
2. Afflatus Misery
   • Seraph Strike (optional)

This example deals 25,000 damage before considering external buffs and debuffs. Again, if Seraph Strike would put you in too much danger, it is better to skip it. Especially without your Limit Break, your greatest contribution to a burst attempt is your use of Miracle of Nature, so consider your timing and your target selection.