No GCDs for tank?

[Ilan]

Mathematically, I find that Cure 2 simply isn't efficient. It is a 700 Potency and costs double the MP of Cure 1, when you use Cure 1 though 450 potency and is able to proc Cure 2 as a free heal. I personally say that if you can keep the tank up with Cure 1 then you can hold your Free Cure for more vital circumstances. I find MP to be a concern for WHM if they focus on only Cure 2, Cure 3, and Medica 2. I do find Tetragramation to be more of an emergency oGCD Cure 2 to be used with tank busters and the like. As for Benediction, they are best for the true emergency button when the Tank pops their Hallowed Ground/Holmgang/Living Dead. SCHs should use their oGCDs more since they can use them A LOT more and the CD for them is much less than Tetra and Bene. Just my opinion.

So you are basically just spamming cure 1 and doing nothing else? If you keep the tank up with only cure 1 you could also just use hots and hit the fancy dps buttons in the meantime.
Cure 3 has only 1 use anyway and thats when the party is stacked and you have heavy incomming partywide dmg.
Tetra and Benediction shouldn't be used just as the famous "oh shit" buttons, you can use them effectivly in dungeons to keep your dps uptime as high as possible without wasting a GCD for healing.

[Shurrikhan]

oGCDs are free resources. They cost neither uptime nor mana. As a rule of thumb, if you're delaying their use unnecessarily, you're wasting uptime and mana.

[Elleia]

It depends on the situation. Trash pulls in dungeons usually require more GCD healing (especially large trash pulls) and in a PUG or DF group it’s best to be more careful, as you often don’t have time to perfectly plan things out with PUG cohealers and tanks.

That said, in savage and ultimate, you want to minimize GCD healing as much as possible. Most healers at this level will map out the fights and figure out where to use cooldowns. My static’s healers have it down to a science - they use a spreadsheet with the fight timings mapped out and coordinate with our tanks. It’s very much like “OK, at 1:07 the tank is using holmgang on that buster, I’ll use benediction there,” and “main tank will only have rampart at 8:50, good place to put an excog on them”. Much like a DPS, our healers try to repeat the same “rotation” of skills each time we do a fight, optimizing when possible.

Of course things change here and there based on party skill and mechanic RNG. Then there’s the possibility of someone making a mistake and taking unnessary damage, critical hits, etc. The best thing to do is familiarize yourself with your whole kit and use your oGCDs more frequently to allow yourself more DPS. Get comfortable with fight timings, know when you can just apply some regens and let them do their job.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

The point isn't to strictly neglect GCD healing, but instead to only use it when you have no options.

WHM has a lot of oGCD tools to heal with, and a good Regen. It's more than enough to deal with almost anything the game throws at you. The game is designed in such a way that big damage almost never comes out more than once every 30s or so, if even that, so relying on regens and waiting for a Tetragrammaton is the way to go.

Looking at the most recent example, Seiryu ex, you can get away with not a single Cure I/II cast. There's simply never any damage that can't be healed with a ogcd coming out.

It all takes some practice, but the main takeaway is to only heal when you NEED to.

[joshdavis271]

Most dungeons I run I usually pop medica II on the pty then regen the tank, most the time I dnot need to heal after that, refresh as needed otherwise stones and aeros for days, I like tho throw both aeros on the mobs for added effect.

[NocturniaUzuki]

Regarding the Cure I vs Cure II discussion:

I use Cure II if I need to, and also Cure I if it's most efficient. For example, if you just need to get the tank up above a certain threshold to hold them until a lull where regens will do all the work, Cure I is better. It costs much less MP, and in the long run, the extra HP from Cure II will be restored later via regens after the immediate threat.

In terms of large scale heals without oGCD options available, Cure is almost always better. Only exceptions being if you need to save the oGCD you have remaining for something that would cause more efficiency loss (i.e. save Benediction to heal off Walking Dead instead or 3x Cure II), or you need a Lily to make your rotation work properly (almost never an issue, but there are a few cases where you might want to ditch a GCD to help line up a cooldown later to save yourself a GCD or two).

[NocturniaUzuki]

Regarding the Cure I vs Cure II discussion:

I use Cure II if I need to, and also Cure I if it's most efficient. For example, if you just need to get the tank up above a certain threshold to hold them until a lull where regens will do all the work, Cure I is better. It costs much less MP, and in the long run, the extra HP from Cure II will be restored later via regens after the immediate threat.

In terms of large scale heals without oGCD options available, Cure is almost always better. Only exceptions being if you need to save the oGCD you have remaining for something that would cause more efficiency loss (i.e. save Benediction to heal off Walking Dead instead or 3x Cure II), or you need a Lily to make your rotation work properly (almost never an issue, but there are a few cases where you might want to ditch a GCD to help line up a cooldown later to save yourself a GCD or two).

Edit: Cure I is only better if you only need one cast to meet the threshold. Otherwise obviously cast Cure II.

[Dmhlucky]

Its a Brave new world, in where a "healer" isn't just a healer. We have DPS tools that we should utilize.
That's where this comes from. Time spent using GCD heals is time you could be damaging the monsters and needing less healing overall.

Lets assume a monster does 200 damage a second. If you stick to cure 1 every 2 seconds and do nothing else, you'll break even, but do no damage. Where if you use Regen and Tetra when tank starts to get low, you can be casting Stone 2 (whatever tier you have) causing damage that whole time and causing the monster to die faster.

Don't think the damage from Healer spells doesn't add up. True, we aren't a hardcore DPS, but e still do substantial damage.

[Kacho_Nacho]

I learned a lot by reading this thread. Thanks to everyone who pitched in.

[Jonnycbad]

I hope they change this moving forward by weakening oGCDs and increase auto attack damage of bosses, forcing main tanks to tank stance and forcing Healers to.. well.. heal. Rather than Healers being DPS with healing cool downs.