BEING A HEALER IN FINAL FANTASY XIV

Fighting is all well and good, but someone has to don the white robes.

- Steven Messner

From the outside, being a healer in Final Fantasy XIV—or any MMO—might seem like a boring, thankless job. After all, your mission is to keep your party alive while they get to look all sexy and cool caving a monster’s head in with an axe—and if the party dies, you’re usually the one to blame. But appearances are deceiving. Any player worth their salt knows how integral a good healer can be to any successful party, and more than anything, I love being that healer.

If you’ve never played, the concept might seem a bit foreign. But Final Fantasy XIV, like practically every MMO, follows a simple template for the composition of adventure groups. One player plays the tank, whose sole purpose is to be a human shield for their weaker party members and keep monsters’ attention focused on them. A few other players are the ‘DPS’ or damage-dealers, and their job is to beat the living tar out of those monsters. And, finally, there’s the healer, who keeps everyone alive.

Compared to those other roles, it’s no wonder most players prefer to play DPS. In