These highly-valued healers are capable of saving a party from the edges of death and bringing them back into the fray. It’s a job that white mages do fantastically on their own, and usually they don’t need much support either. This means that they’re able to use jobs that drastically change what they’re able to do—often even changing their playstyle! So let’s take a look at the most optimal whm support jobs in Final Fantasy XI.
5. Black Mage
This combo is seldom used nowadays, but it still has some use in its limited black magic. Here’s a few valuable techniques: Tractor is handy for pulling players’ corpses around, allowing them to be safely positioned away from a monster that has either already wiped the party, or will blood aggro them—usually undead. Stun is a great way for white mages to provide some emergency backup support in case a party’s designated stunner is down, or unable to cast for any reason. Plus both Sleep and Sleepga (with the addition of their own Repose) allows white mages to effectively sleep any type of monster. And Aspir is a great tool for restoring MP should a white mage find themselves running out. While this combo does offer a pretty nice Magic Attack Bonus II trait (which certainly helps in situations where a white mage will be casting Holy or Banish), it’s held back by its native lack of relevant offensive spells, often being limited to only Tier II black magic—not enough to deal damage nowadays. Warp I, Warp II, and Escape are also handy for minimizing walking around, or to minimize travel to the many teleportation mechanics already in the game. But this combo has lost its luster because of how easy it is to get around Vana’diel these days.
4. Ninja
This is a very effective subjob for white mages who love to take the maces to enemy’s faces! In addition to giving them lots of defensive utility in the form of Utsusemi, the Ninja support job also gives any white mage a large and much-needed set of Dual Wield traits – allowing them to take on a very offensive role. White mages are capable of dealing physical damage when necessary, and while there are many ways for them to that, most often it’ll be with weapon skills. Having Utsusemi allows them to not rely solely on casting healing spells so much. This gives more time to focus on attacking and weapon skills, as well as adding a nice counterweight to their otherwise frail defenses – especially in situations where AoE physical damage will be an issue.
3. Dancer
Here’s another popular damage-dealing focused support job. This is a fantastic utility choice for a white mage because it allows you to offensively debuff enemies via steps, heal, or AoE heal with waltzes to save MP. A you can give yourself some extra Haste via Haste Samba. Like the Ninja, a Dancer offers the Dual Wield trait, but at a tier lower. Still more than enough to enable a white mage to be a club wielding menace. The dancer’s highly-acclaimed skillchain bonus skill means that it can offer much more damage when they’re able to skillchain frequently enough, and it allows them to limit the amount of TP they give enemies thanks to Subtle Blow—which goes very well with white mage’s Auspice spell! As of recently, this combo also offers the Damage Limit+ trait, increasing pDIF value of the job. This is something that’s much-needed on jobs not naturally designed to attack. Newer players will gravitate towards this sub job, especially in older high-level content where accuracy or survivability isn’t always a forefront concern.
2. Red Mage
While I think this has fallen out of popularity since the level 75 cap days, the red mage is still the second-most used sub job for a white mage in party content. Why? Because of its wide range of utility in spells. While this doesn’t really offer much as far as white magic is concerned (save for Flurry and Refresh), it does allow white mages to peek into the hole of black magic by giving them access to Dispel and Sleep. Refresh is also handy as a way to passively restore MP, especially when combined with a set that already has refresh on it. And much like the black mage sub job, players won’t be using this sub job for offensive black magic, since the pool of relevant black magic is even smaller. It does offer the same trait level of Magic Attack Bonus, however. So white mages are still free to use those bonuses on magic burst Holy spells! And in emergencies, Convert is a useful tool to quickly flip the switch on low MP, as it’s is doubly important on a job responsible for keeping the party alive. In addition to their other traits, a red mage subjob grants Fast Cast, which is always a welcome sight for any mage.
1. Scholar
I’d argue that this is the best support job for a white mage that’s looking to do its job as efficiently as possible. While a scholar subjob doesn’t give any new damage capabilities in the form of physical damage or traits, it does give white mages immense MP management capabilities which effectively never lets them run out of MP. It’s just one small bonus owing to the power of this support job. Light Arts, which is a scholar’s biggest benefit, reduces the MP cost of white magic. Just note that this further weakens the capabilities of black magic by increasing their casting and recasting times, in addition to an additional MP cost. Sublimation also provides massive amounts of MP when fully charged, and wakes you up if you’re put to sleep (provided they aren’t under the effect of Stoneskin). And that’s not all! This job combo can be used with the Accession ability to temporarily give AoE single-target cures, buffs like Regen, or remove the entire party’s debuff at once via –Na spells, pushing this support job’s value to astronomical heights.
