Cure v. Cure 2

[Silver-Strider]

So you waste the actual Heal it provides in favor of a 50 potency regen that heals nothing before any damage is taken. Waste.

You time Medica II for when you see party/raid-wide damage coming in 3 seconds, not before the damage lands.

You do realize that Hand of Beauty places an AoE puddle of foulness around the healer that got targeted and to avoid further damage, said healer would have to move in order to avoid it, at which time Lakshmi is already in the middle of casting Strolham, correct? At what point would I have enough time to move out of the AoE puddle and have Medica 2 up prior to Strolham going off and potentially killing the DPS that were also hit with Hand of Beauty? Apart from Swiftcasting, there is absolutely no way to get that heal out in time so I'd rather the regen be there ahead of time because at least the DPS WILL survive in that situation.

How long does it take to clear trash in Baelsar's Wall? Castrum Abania? Kugane Castle? Ala Mhigo?

In most cases, trash dies before there is time to cast Holy a second time, except the current level 70 content. So in most cases I don't even bother, either I cast Holy first before doing anything else, or I don't cast it at all. You're supposed to cast Holy for the stun time because it's the only AOE stun that can be spammed. Celestial Opposition is an instant cast but has a longer recast time. Gravity+Celestial Opposition = single Holy cast. But AST's are more likely going to use that after they've thrown other buffs on. Do you have time to setup buffs on trash? Not really.

Where the fun gets sucked out of this game is when people do things in the laziest fashion possible. You're supposed to use Cure 1 on tanks that have lost less than half their HP, and Cure 2 when they've lost more than half, but depending on their gear and your gear, your Cure 2 can either heal them for 60% or for 20%. If a tank is not using their cooldowns, you may spam as many Cure 2's as you want but they are taking larger hits than your cure 2 recovers.

It's bad practice to just do things because the button is there. A Healer is not a DPS, nothing is being wasted by not casting it until you need it or it's most efficient to use it. At level 52+ and later you may as well use Assize either when 10% of your MP is gone or 20% of the party's HP is gone (It's a free instant-cast Medica used once.) Using it for damage right at the pull is silly but the net damage is more powerful than hitting every mob with stone IV, so the larger pull, the more net damage. You never get a chance to use Assize twice on a trash pull, and rarely on a boss mob. Hence using Holy+Assize gives you more bang than Holy spam, every time.

So, what you're saying is that you won't even use Holy because trash dies too quickly to even bother, in which case the advice you gave that you should weave in Aero III or a Heal between Holy casts just further cements that Holy Spam would be more effective than either other option you yourself stated. If trash is dying fast enough that neither Aero III or a Heal matter, WHY ARE YOU SUGGESTING IT? You are contradicting yourself and the failed strawman argument about AST with Gravity+Celestial Oppression is just that, a failed strawman argument that just tries to distract from how wrong you are in your original statement. I'm not saying that you shouldn't use Aero III or a Heal when trash are dying slowly but if trash is dying as quickly as you are claiming than there is no need for either.

Next, you go on to say that 52+ using Assize for damage at the pull is silly (Assize is 56 btw) but in reality, you aren't using it at the start of a pull. You're using it after the tank has established hate and has thus taken SOME form of damage and you have just saved yourself some time by not having to use your GCD on a heal and can instantly start using Holy. Not only that but using it earlier ensures that Assize will be up again when you reach the next trash pull so that you may repeat the process, especially if you had Lillies for Assize. The damage from Assize has still occurred so it's not like using Holy before or after Assize makes any difference as damage is damage and the heal from Assize isn't going to waste as you still healed the tank.

For the sake of preventing this thread from devolving further from it's original point, I will not be commenting further and I suggest you do the same because it's not helpful.

[KisaiTenshi]

For the sake of preventing this thread from devolving further from it's original point, I will not be commenting further and I suggest you do the same because it's not helpful.

I will not shut up because you want me to.

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. Plus you recover the MP of that initial Holy. Spamming Holy before the stun wears off is just a waste, and if you do it on monsters that have interruptable mechanics before they telegraph those mechanics, then they become immune to it faster.

Expert can be done pretty easily with 1 tank + 3dps if the tank pulls 1 group at a time. In other words, there is no reason to take a healer if the tank is pulling that small.

I would argue that the only time the developers explicitly designed for single group pulls is when walls exist between groups.

While larger pulls may not be great for free cure, they are great for DPS cooldowns and mp/tp efficiency of AoE dmg.

No, they put the walls there to discourage people running all the mobs straight into the boss room, or skipping them entirely. Brayflox, Haukke and Stone Vigil are different versions of the "throw roadcones in the way." Brayflox has no walls after the second boss, so you can quite literately gather up over 20 mobs and take them into the boss room. Haukke has a few locked rooms, but you can still get overwhelmed by the mobs before and after the first boss. Stone Vigil you can just train all the mobs straight into the boss room, except the last boss room which you can't open the door with being hit 10 times per second. If you run any content unsynced you'll notice how small every dungeon really is, and it only feels like it takes forever because you stop and fight one or two group of mobs.

Post ARR dungeons, the dungeons are more linearly designed and they put walls in so you can't just skip groups of monsters. Otherwise all it takes is a tank to attract all the mobs, run into the boss room, die, and the party hangs off to the side as the mobs run back to their origins and defeats the boss without the tank, then the tank takes the shortcut and repeat. That is explicitly why the walls exist.

In other games they usually invoke the "locked door and key" mechanic, where you only need to kill the mob with the key, you just don't know which one. In FFXIV it's always the last mob of a certain type.

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.

[Silver-Strider]

I will not shut up because you want me to.

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. Plus you recover the MP of that initial Holy. Spamming Holy before the stun wears off is just a waste, and if you do it on monsters that have interruptable mechanics before they telegraph those mechanics, then they become immune to it faster.

So you're saying you DON'T use Thin Air prior to Holy Spam? Got it.
Also, you never stated at any point about any mob that had interruptable mechanics prior to this statement of which case you aren't going to Holy spam anyways, that's should be common sense.

Anyways I'm done speaking about this.

[Parawill]

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).

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

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).

[Silver-Strider]

*snip*.

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.

[Parawill]

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.

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.

[MoroMurasaki]

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.

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.

[Menae]

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.

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.