Cure v. Cure 2

Cure 1 still has its place. While it may or may not be optimal in cases where we're pushing for healer DPS, there are times where I need to play defensively to not only conserve mana for impending deaths of duty finder (very specific to full parties, and very rare for astonishingly low tank AND actual damage dealer's DPS). Also there are times where I need to save offGCDs for something else within the next few seconds, so I opt to Cure (or Regen--really depends on the situation) unless I really need Benision (for whatever the reason).

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

So you're saying you DON'T use Thin Air prior to Holy Spam? *snip*

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From what I understand (and also what I do) is to never use Thin Air when I start off Holy'ing unless my MP is below two Holy Casts as you'd want to maximize everything Assize does from healing HP, restoring MP and doing damage. In addition to this, by holding Thin Air for when MP drops below two Holy casts, we can benefit from the natural MP refresh in addition to Lucid Dreaming to supplement the Holy casts beyond Thin Air (if the mobs live that long anyways).

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

Anyway, the point is, cure 2 does not replace cure 1. The dungeon layout is designed that if you take it as laid out, you can use Cure 1 at minimum ilevels. If you only use cure 2 and never use cure 1, then you need to be able make your MP last. So on trash, that is easily done, even on larger pulls because you are still limited by the cast time. So the tank can't pull bigger and take more damage than you the healer can heal for without them using their cooldowns. If they use all their cooldowns and the trash isn't dead, then that pull was too big. Hence strategic use of Holy and Assize buys more time for a larger pull. Benediction and Tetra can save one big pull but can't save consecutive pulls nor retries of the same big pull.

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But what about in the real world where either the tank pulls big and I use Cure 2 to keep him up or the tank can't pull big because of some sort of obsticle and he is in no danger of death so I let his health drop lower and Cure 2 becoems more GCD efficent than Cure? Either way Cure 2 is winning unless party DPS is so bad I need to conserve mana. In most groups that is not the case. Your argument is great from a theorycrafting perspective but doesn't hold up in practice.

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Originally Posted by Parawill

*snip*.

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Something to consider is, how much MP have you used to keep the Tank/DPS up prior to Holy spamming? In most case, you need to wait for the tank to stop pulling before you can start using Holy and if the tank/DPS are taking heaps of damage for whatever reason, it's unlikely that you'll be able to even get started without having used at least some MP to make sure everyone is fine before you Holy Spam, if you can at all. DPS pulling ahead of the tank/ripping hate off a tank is becoming far too often an occurrence that I'd be lying if I said I was a full MP prior to starting Thin Air+Holy Spam.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Something to consider is, how much MP have you used to keep the Tank/DPS up prior to Holy spamming? In most case, you need to wait for the tank to stop pulling before you can start using Holy and if the tank/DPS are taking heaps of damage for whatever reason, it's unlikely that you'll be able to even get started without having used at least some MP to make sure everyone is fine before you Holy Spam, if you can at all. DPS pulling ahead of the tank/ripping hate off a tank is becoming far too often an occurrence that I'd be lying if I said I was a full MP prior to starting Thin Air+Holy Spam.

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Absolutely. I think the most I've ever done was Tetra/Cure 2 before they reached the next pack. DPS can die if they get hit by too much avoidable damage though cause at that point I don't have GCDs to spare to heal them.

With Cure 2 being a 100% lily proc, if I'm using a direct heal I use it, if I have 3 lilies already then I use cure 1.

Cure 2 at higher level is your go to single target spammable heal, really, since MP often isn't your primary concern vs HPS and GCDs. But then you get Susano normal in the duty finder with a bunch of folks who have never done it (like me), who then die early (like me), and then have to res people throughout the fight (me, after the other healer got me back up).

At that point the focus shifts to simply having enough MP to remain functional, and Cure 1's MP efficiency + freecure matter a lot more. It's kind of weird that Cure 2 is a better bet more often than not given how the job design suggests it should be Cure, but IMO it works reasonably well as is. You've got a tool where you can trade MP for throughput, and a tool where you can throttle back throughput to conserve MP.

Once you figure out how you want to approach using them, it seems to work well enough.

Cure 1 is more mp efficient, but Cure 2 is more time efficient, allowing you to dps more. So if you have excess MP Cure 2 can be worth using, even in situations cure 1 could technically handle it. The extra lily chance is just the cherry on top.

As a side note this also means piety can indirectly be a considered heal/dps throughput stat if it allows you cast more Cure 2 instead of cure 1.

For me it comes down to the situation. As I'm sure the majority of healers are getting familiar with, the standard for tanking seems to be pull big, sometimes it seems excessively big to me at least. Your basicly forced to use Cure 2 to keep up with the damage the tank is taking, generally though I'm also trying to pop asylum and regen on the tank to make things easier for me. I don't have any raid experience mind you but from dungeons and such for the newer content I tend to use Cure 2 a lot more then Cure, lilies have zero influence on it at all, as nice as the system is it only affects 4 spells. 2 of those spells also have a 5 sec. cooldown reduction (20% chance) when casting cure and cure 2 as well from a trait. At bare minimum right now, at least for me, lilies are a nice little perk nothing else. The only time I'd stick with Cure is running any of the old content where you don't have Assize handy.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

If you are playing content where the trash dies before the Holy cast even goes off, then there is no point casting it. Especially when you have a tank that keeps dragging the mobs around. You're supposed to use instant-casts after cast-times because it conserves the GCD recast time. So holy then assize, not assize then holy.

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That's not quite how it works. You are supposed to use instant oGCD abilities after instant or very short cast GCD abilities (for us instants are Regen or Aero 2 or anything swiftcasted, and short cast GCDs are Esuna and sort of Cure 1, Cure 2, and Cure 3). This allows you to use your oGCDs and get through their animations without impacting your GCDs as much. Holy's cast timer is actually LONGER than the GCD, so if you aren't swiftcasting or moving the only difference between Holy>Assize and Assize>Holy is that one uses Holy first and one uses Assize first. Which is better depends on the context of the situation, but your next ability will still start at the same time either way.