White Mage or Black Mage? wich one should I chose?

[kaoruflo]

Hi
I plane on having FFXI soon, and I'm wondering wich mage I should chose...
As I want a mage I'll chose a taru taru, but what do you advice me : black one or white one (not red, I do not like them)???
wich of them is in minority?
wich one is more fun to play with?
wich one will disserve the best a community?
wich one would be the most appropriate for a biginner in MMORPG
thanks a lot for your answers, and for showing me the advantages / disadvtanges of the WHM and the BLM in FFXI
thanks a lot again!

[Lord Diablos]

Well if u want more friends definently go for White Mage if u want to look cool go for Black Mage.

[Letum]

Black Mages and White Mages are like.. well, black and white. Night and day. They're completely different jobs.

White mages focus on keeping the party healthy and enhancing their tanking skills with protect and shell. This class is very in demand as a lot of people do not like playing it (maybe they don't like having the burden of having to keep the party alive). It is the class you should choose if you always want to help people, and/or always want a party. Now, the downside for whm. If you're new to MMORPGs, I don't recommend this class. At first it's very hard to keep up with the pace of raising falling HP. And if people die, you're the first one that gets blamed. I have a long history of playing healers in MMORPGs and when I first grouped with my WHM, it took me a little while to 'get into the groove.' Also, if you have a bad tank* who can't hold aggro** you will die***.

* Person who takes all the damage
** Whoever has the most aggro gets hit by the enemy
*** Something bad. Avoid this.

I found it very hard to solo my WHM from 1-10 (when people will start wanting you for parties). Equal level monks were hitting for more, faster, and twice per round. with no weapon..

I suspect the same is true for black mages, but at least they have some offensive power in their black magic.

Black Mages are the exact opposite of the White Mage (obviously). They have no powers that really help the party in defeating the enemy easier, until you realize that old the best offense is a good defence proverb. Black Mages are extreme power machines, able to unload extreme power burst damage. Burst Damage is defined by Webster as kicking a lot of ass, really fast (or something like that anyways). In the one group I have been in this whole time I've played this game, we replaced the WHM with a BLM. At first I thought this was going to hinder us, but we were able to take out harder enemies much easier (we had two other WHM, though). The black mage job is much more laid back, if your party dies, you can just blame the WHM.

Oh, by the way, remember how I said I've only partied once? Yeah, well, in that party we were getting our asses handed to us. I've got to say, nothing has felt as good in this game as using the WHM 2hr (Benediction: Almost-full cure to the whole party, MP free) and allowing our party to win.

I'm sure this information is obvious, and probably didn't really help you decide, since I'm sure you're already leaning towards one job slightly. No matter which you choose, you'll most likely sub the other job, though, so at least you'll have a little taste in both areas.

[kaoruflo]

ok thanks a lot!
well in fact I should say that it's more a psychological problem than a "gaming problem"
I think my personnality does definitivly go to white mage (that's the point of view of my friends, I asked them and they told me " you 're the one I would talk to in case of problem, etc) but as I'm a kind of white mage in the real life I was wandering if for the game I shouldn ' t be a "bad me"
that's psychological...
anyway I think I'll be a white mage, I 'm not sure yet, but...well i don't know
anyway thanks a lot for you advice!!! that has been very helpfull!
do you think it's possible to succed in being a whm for a first MMORPG (I've played a lot of RPG before)
thanks again!!

[Letum]

Yeah, sure. You have to start somewhere. Just don't feel bad if you can't keep up with healing and your party dies. You'll get the hang of it eventually. It's not all that difficult (nothing in a MMORPG really is), but it's a lot of responsibility.