Piety is a stat in Final Fantasy XIV that affects how quickly a healer’s mana regenerates in battle. When the Stormblood expansion launched, Piety was restricted to healer classes only, and has no relevance to other roles.
So let’s say you’re a healer.
Allies rush into battle and you keep them hale and hearty while dealing out damage yourself. It can be stressful – tanks might not be mitigating high-damage attacks like tankbusters, or DPS might be casually strolling through AOE attacks.
In dire situations, your mana pool can start to run a bit low. And you know that when that runs out, the party is screwed.
Piety is the stat that determines how quickly your mana comes back in battle. Having a high amount of Piety gives you more room to compensate for error.
Healers often have to make tough choices, too.
Is it worth spending mana on a Raise spell to get that DPS player up now, or should I save it in case the tank finds more trouble? Well if your mana regenerates faster, then you can be a bit more liberal with your spells.
Piety can be increased with stat bonuses from gear, and can be increased further by slotting that gear with Materia.
Should I Focus On Piety Gear As A Healer?
The overall consensus amongst the healing community is a soft “no”.
While Piety can be very useful for certain jobs, there are simply more important stats to focus on – like Determination, which increases your damage and the effectiveness of your healing spells.
Basically, by focusing on stacking Piety, you’re missing out on increasing other stats that would boost your performance in more noticeable ways.
Someone in the Novice Network once referred to XIV’s healer roles as “DPS with extra responsibilities”.
And that’s true – you’re not expected to sit back and just watch everyone’s health bars. You’re going to have to put some damage into the boss too, balancing your healing duties with DPS output.
If you focus on other stats besides Piety, this balance will ultimately become easier.
The potency of your attacks and healing spells will increase over time, and you’ll naturally become more efficient as a result.
Having high Piety seems like a great option when you’re new to the game. More mana means more spells, and more spells means more healing.
But you could be increasing the potency of those heals instead, meaning you have to cast them less overall.
It’s also worth stating that not focusing outright on Piety as a stat, doesn’t mean you won’t have any.
The amount you get even from gear that doesn’t focus on it will probably see you through most situations.
And when it doesn’t, there are other ways to regain mana in a cinch – like Ether potions or mana regen abilities. It’s generally better to rely on those, while getting comfortable enough with your skillset to know your own capabilities in any given encounter.
But every player is different.
Within your group it may be more important to have that added margin for error. Maybe you personally feel more comfortable knowing you can afford to toss out a few big spells to keep everyone healthy, rather than playing conservatively.
Broadly speaking, Piety is not the most important stat for a healer, but it can be quite useful.
