FFXIV – Conjurer, Part 1
459 words.
During the time I’ve been waiting in FFXIV endgame queues for my Bard, I’ve leveled all my other adventuring classes to 15 through a combination of FATEs, levemetes, and hunting log completion. (You’d think leveling to 15 would be easy, but in reality the time it takes to get from level 10 to level 15 seems endless.)
My goal was to get all the classes to 15, then pick one to dive into and level the rest of the way to 50. At the time of this writing, the winning class is Conjurer, which I have gotten to 27, mainly in dungeons.
Conjurer is one of the healing classes in FFXIV. I’m not an especially great healer, so it’s a challenge for me right off the bat. I tend to buckle under the crushing weight of responsibility that I feel for the safety of the party. As a healer, if you make one mistake at the wrong time, you could literally get the whole party killed. At least, that’s how I feel. It would be fine if I was always running with a party of nice people, but you never know what you’re going to get in a PUG.
The Conjurer basically has one single-target healing spell: Cure. It has an insanely long cast time, so you have to plan ahead with your casting. That’s in addition to the rather lengthy global cooldown in FFXIV, by the way, and the occasional spikes of 1-2 second lag. It’s a little nerve-wracking. ‘Oh crap, the tank’s health is dropping really fast, I better cast a heal. Oh look, now his health is plummeting straight down to zero, but my cast bar is still only half full. Oh, now everyone’s dead.’ (That’s a slight exaggeration. In reality that only happens if the tank is really bad and over-pulls, or a DPS pulls threat on everything at once.)
There’s also an AoE heal called Medica, but it’s an even slower cast-time, and costs a whole lot of mana, so I don’t use it much. (I have to assume it’s more cost-effective at level 50 because I see WHMs casting Medica II almost exclusively.)
The other major skill is a dispell called ‘Esuna’ for some reason, which is a relatively fast cast but so far when I’ve needed it, I’ve needed to cast like nine of them in a row (in I think it was Toto-Rak when everyone gets poisoned).
And that’s pretty much it, unless I’m totally missing something in my noobness. At the start of the dungeon, you cast a Protect on everyone, then you follow the tank around casting Cures. If you have a good tank, it’s a pretty easy ride. But that’s the trick, isn’t it? Getting a good tank.
Archived Comments
gattsuru 2014-02-05T17:43:54Z
One trick is that damage in FFXIV is very spiky : mobs and especially bosses have highly dangerous attacks, but these attacks are very spaced out. Even at the endgame, it’s rare for bosses to attack faster than once every three seconds. Once you’ve gotten some experience, you’ll find that there’s a rhythm of damage that leaves a lot of tolerance for reaction time or latency. Until Brayflox’s Longslop (~32), the tank (and most DPS roles, if they take aggro) should be able to take at least three such rhythms before absolutely needing heals. Of course, if the tank is undergeared or wearing pugilist or lancer gear, then things go very pear-shaped.
A related point is that you don’t have to just sit around during the lulls in combat. Healing is more important, but unlike most other MMOs, Conjurers and Scholars can actually put out a lot of damage, often comparable to a damage role fighter over short battles. ((The dangerous part is that Conjurers in particular run out of mana quickly if they cast Stone and Aero, so this is a bad idea in boss fights.)) You can do a lot to help
If your group is reasonably competent, Conjurers (and Black Mages) get a sleep spell fairly early. This isn’t used often in 8-man combat, but it’s vital when leveling : you can sleep any individual enemy for up to 52 seconds, and you can sleep multiple enemies at the same time. It’s not always easy to get other people to not wake up sleeping enemies, and this cuts down the maximum time an individual foe can be slept, but it’s a major assistance. Stone Vigil is /very/ hard for White Mages that don’t use Sleep.
You also shouldn’t notice the global cooldown when casting Cure – it starts at the same time as you begin casting. It’s mostly relevant when you’re handling Esuna, Regen, or Aero.
Medica II is a group regen ability, so it can be efficient in 8-man settings, but it’s expensive and an aggro hog. For fights with a lot of area damage, like the hard mode Titan, it makes sense, but you see the ability spammed in places it doesn’t always help. Part of the overuse is because Cure III was a generally terrible AOE heal until 2.1, but part of it’s just convenience. That said, if you overgear the content heavily and don’t need to worry about aggro, Medica II and Regen can keep a group topped off enough for the Conjurer to spend twenty seconds or so in Cleric Stance.
ultrviolet 2014-02-06T02:23:34Z
Yeah I’ve been working in more and more damage as I get a better handle on what’s going on. The global cooldown I was talking about is the one that follows the Aero DoT … that one feels like it takes forever.
I never even thought of trying sleep before.. that’s an awesome tip. Thanks!
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