Noob!

[Rodin]

Seriously, a WHM casting holy (and Banish) every fight really pisses me off. It might be okay for the occassional Magic Burst, when you have the MP, and are relatively not busy with curing. But, it's 100 MP, thats two Cure IIIs, and at my level, that's 470 HP (With Noble's Tunic, and Apollo's Staff) that goes to the tank/DD. Instead of doing the 75-100 DMG to the mob (Who have thousands of HP at this point). Debuffs on WHM aren't really that important. Most of the time, you should be letting the RDM or NIN cast debuffs. After 60, our enfeebling rate really hurts. So Paralyze, Slow, Silence, and Bind won't stick as reliably, unless you have a lot of MND+ and some Elemental Staves, even then, it's not as great as a RDM's. If you have a NIN in your party, you should be letting him debuff for hate anyways.

That's what I meant by useless spells.

[Vair]

Like everyone said, don't melee! And for god's sake don't use benediction if you're the only one in a mild bit of trouble. Had that happen to me once. The whm got into the yellow and starting freaking out. He hit the "Panic Button" after the mob had gone back to the tank. Shortly after he was a Corpse of a WHM.

[Mog]

Here's a tip.

If you use benediction and the mob is at more than 25 percent health, you will die.

Don't use benediction unless the party is in dire need of health and if the mob is almost dead. If you use benediction at the beginning of a fight, there's no chance in hell that you will survive.

[Murphie]

If you use benediction and the mob is at more than 25 percent health, you will die.

Well, tank depending. Any PLD can break out their two hour and you'll be fine, and I've even gotten hate back from a Bene as a WAR/MNK before (level 26 in Yuhtunga, and the WHM had the sense to stand still after his bene), so it can be done.

But still, you'll eventually learn when it is a good time to use your Two Hour, and when it isn't. It's all a learning process.^^

[Macht]

Well Ctrl+Alt+Del has some wise words of advice for Elvaan WHM... Well not really but this comic piece is a warning for the melee's not to pick on the WHM.

Stretch!

As for being on topic, seems like most of it's been covered for cures. Can get more specific, but they'd only be situational. How you need to focus on cures and what not generally has the same thing with few situations were it changes.

Otherwise it would be like what the others have said, so many repeats of the same info though... Got to many parrots.

[Icemage]

I've said it before, but it bears repeating again:

Benediction does not spell automatic doom for a smart WHM once you pass level 29, and maybe even before.

You should start considering using Benediction when you're still above 100 MP (enough to cast Stoneskin plus Blink twice, with enough to cast a Cure II or so). If you're paying any attention at all, you usually know when a fight is going to end badly fairly early on; if you think you'll need to use Benediction, cast Blink, Stoneskin, use Benediction, and immediately start recasting Blink. This gives you anywhere from 3-5 hits worth of defense - usually enough time to let the monster get less angry at you, and for your other party members (who are now at full HP) to get control again or kill it.


Icemage

[Gentoo]

Here's five tips that have been floating near the surface for me.

-- Do not over cure.

In the dunes (and a bit in the jungles) I'd see White Mages that insisted on keeping everyones HP topped off during the fight. Invariably, these parties would either have massive down time, or get into a situation where the WHM was out of MP, and the tank was in dire straights.

If you've got a DD (or other non-tank position) that isn't stealing hate regularly, isn't in danger of being one-shotted, but doesn't have a full health bar --- it's okay. They don't need to be cured.

Keep that MP around in case your tank gets into trouble.

-- Have all your spells

All the Protect, Shell, Regen, Cure, and Bar*ra, and *na spells are useful. If you're close to being able to use such a spell, make sure you're carrying it along with you.

I have recently just gone through the dunes with two different characters than my main (Gentoo). Every party I got (that had a WHM), the player in question didn't have have Barwatera or Curaga (17+). The former would have saved MP through damage reduction from the attacks relevant to the crabs and pugils. The later would have saved MP so that the WHM wouldn't have had to spend MP curing all the praty memebers indvidually after a fight.

The exception to this rule (for me) is the offensive *ga spells for WHM. I still don't have any of the Banishga <n>, or Diaga <n> spells, nor have I found myself in a situation wishing I did.

-- Do not cure yourself in a fight

You've somehow managed to get the monster attention and it's beating on you. The last thing you want to do is cast Cure on yourself. You've already got hate, probably by curing someone in your party. Curing yourself will only create more hate for yourself, and make it that much tougher for your tank to pry the monster off you.

This is situational of course. If the monster is almost dead, and you think you can keep yourself alive long enough so that party members can kill off the mob, go for it.

-- Don't stand to close to the action

The amount of hate you can accumulate before getting the monsters attention, has distance figured in. That is, the farther you are way from the person you're curing, the less chance you have of getting the monsters attention.

Additionally, this saves you from any AOE that the monster might have. The melees might be able to narrowly withstand a goblin bomb toss -- the same is not true for mages.

-- Learn to cook, and do it early

As a mage, food is vitally important. Juices, cookies, pies, mushroom dishes, humma humma, yadda yadda. Learn to make it yourself early on, it might save you some gil, but it will certainly make you more efficient (i.e. bringing stacks of fruit along with you to Valkurm Dunes to make juices...)

[Lucky and Elizabeth]

soon i will be a noob on Remora

You don't sound like a Noob to me.