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.