Jobs are what mostFinal Fantasygames call their classes. White Mage was their stand-in for a healer in the original game and it has stuck ever since. A typical trait of a White Mage includes healing magic and sometimes they can have status-effecting spells or even something more devastating like Holy as a spell.
They have low attack and defensive stats but make up for high stats in magic attributes. Main characters have fit the White Mage build over time while never exactly being called them. While some of theseFinal Fantasycharacters are not exact matches, they imbue most of the White Mage tendencies of wanting to help others. It’s time to rank their power levels and healing abilities.
Penelo is not a stereotypical White Mage as allcharacters inFinal Fantasy 12don’t exactly fit the classic Job molds. Any character can use any ability or equipment so long as they unlock the License for it.
Each character will start somewhere random on the License Board and Penelo will have beginning levels of White Magic unlocked. It would be wise to keep leveling up Penelo in this manner to create a strong White Mage for support. Unfortunately for her, she’s one of the less consequential party members in the game’s story so players probably won’t use Penelo much.
The characters inFinal Fantasy 7also don’t have exact Job titles. They can equip Materia which will grant them a whole arrangement of spells from Black to White. Limit Breaks is how characters can be distinguished from one another along with their weapons.
Aerith is a White Mageas far as her Limit Breaks go, for example. Healing Wind will heal the party while Breath of the Earth will reverse status effects. Her ultimate Limit Break, Great Gospel, will heal HP and MP and make the party temporarily invincible which is great for boss battles.
Players probably will not likeHope inFinal Fantasy 13’sstory until the sequels when he matures a bit. He’s the youngest party member who loses his mom at the start and is rightfully traumatized. It doesn’t excuse his whining but that is beside the point.
While Hope may be hard to like in the story, he is a gifted White Mage based on his stats who shouldn’t be ignored. He has low HP but compared to the others, he can learn the best spells as part of the Medic and Synergist Roles.
Porom is a White Mage fromFinal Fantasy 4who joins the party alongside her Black Mage twin brother, Palom. They’re the two best mages in the early stages but have to leave temporarilybecause they get turned to stone.
Before that though, Porom is a stereotypical White Mage with high magic stats and low HP, Defense, and attack power. She does have an ace in the hole though, Twincast, which allows her and Palom to combine their turns to cast stronger spells including Pyroblast and Comet. The DS remake added more Twincast spells like Ultima, making that version of Porom the strongest yet.
4Rosa (Final Fantasy 4)
A Cupid Class
Rosa is also fromFinal Fantasy 4and she’s the love interest to the hero Cecil. In terms of stats, Rosa is the better White Mage compared to Porom. She does like Twincast but she has two other good abilities exclusive to her character.
Aim will make her bow skills stronger while Pray will heal the party for a small amount without wasting MP. Pray alone makes her a more appropriate White Mage character and since Rosa is with the main party more, it just makes sense to put her slightly higher.
And now here is the part where White Mages start to get enhanced via Summoning abilities. Garnet is up first fromFinal Fantasy 9whois a princess. She begins with the ability to learn typical healing-based spells like Cure.
Later in the story, she starts to control Summons like Ramuh and Shiva which makes her extremely powerful. Compared to the other Summoner in the game, Eiko, Garnet is better. However, her lack of some White Mage spells diminishes her allure.
2Eiko
A Worse Summoner But A Better White Mage
Eiko, like Hope, is a bit of a pill to swallow as she can come across as bratty. Her magic skills are unrivaled though, especially her White Magic. She can learn Full Life which will fully resurrect a party member along with Esuna and can cure any ailment.
Holy is the ultimate White Mage ability in anyFinal Fantasyand Eiko can learn that too. Plus her Trance, which isFinal Fantasy 9’sLimit Break system, is called Double White, allowing Eiko to use two spells simultaneously. Garnet was blessed with Summons while Eiko was treated to high-ticket White Mage abilities.
Yuna typically makes most top White Mage lists for all RPGs. She’s just that powerful which makes sense given that she can also use Summons. There’s no split forYuna inFinal Fantasy 10compared to Eiko and Garnet fromFinal Fantasy 9either. Yuna is the only dedicated White Mage and Summoner who is controllable in the game. Granted, other characters can learn White Magic eventually but not Summons.
Her character is so powerful that it’s a bit broken given that Yuna replaces party members with summoned creatures temporarily during combat. If they die then she can always cast a new Summon to take their place from Ifrit to Bahamut. Yuna becomes more talented in the sequel too so overall, Yuna just has a lot of growth as a White Mage in the series.