Let's delete tier 1 "Cure" spells in 6.0 (by upgrading them to tier 2)

[Semirhage]

Whatever changes they make to the tier 1 cure spells or the Freecure passive, my (vain) hope is that they make said changes with skillful gameplay in mind. A question to ask when designing something is, "what gameplay is this ability encouraging?" There are generally two good answers to this question: you either guide the player toward skill expression or your provide a safety net against poor skill expression. Stormblood lilies were horrible for a lot of reasons. One major factor here was that they provided a terrible answer to that question: they encouraged spamming GCD heals. In FFXIV's combat system, this is incredibly poor skill expression. It's a mark of someone who's not using their abilities to the fullest. Furthermore, rather than providing a safety net, they attempted (ineffectively) to put good skill expression behind said poor skill expression. That is, you were encouraged to play badly in order to (presumably) play well. Even though number crunching showed it wasn't worth it, but that's a different matter.

I'm against changing Freecure in any way that doesn't change its answer to the above question. Spamming GCD heals is not a habit to encourage.

[Allegor]

To be fair, it's not like WHM has much to work with outside tetra or assize regarding ogcd. The concept of shortening the cooldown of abilities was good on paper, but the main problem was that it basically rewarded overhealing. Had the lilies been tied to stone or aero proccs, however...

[Semirhage]

It wasn't even nearly as good on paper as it seemed. The Lilies used to reduce the cooldown time of the single next oGCD (not all of them, but a short list of them) by 4, 10, or 20%, depending on how many lilies you had stored up. Contrast this with The Spear card back in Heavensward: it used to reduce ALL of its target's oGCD recast times by 20% for thirty seconds. An Astro throwing an unbuffed-by-Royal-Road spear card at you was directly superior to the most powerful reward your entire job gauge could possibly build to. The Spear was the same card that was widely considered to be so worthless that it was eventually changed into a crit buff. So it wasn't just inferior to a single AST card, it was inferior to the worst AST card. Even if you tied it to Stone and Aero, it needed a hell of a lot better return of investment to not look totally pathetic next to anything Astro could throw out.

[Almagnus1]

It wasn't even nearly as good on paper as it seemed. The Lilies used to reduce the cooldown time of the single next oGCD (not all of them, but a short list of them) by 4, 10, or 20%, depending on how many lilies you had stored up. Contrast this with The Spear card back in Heavensward: it used to reduce ALL of its target's oGCD recast times by 20% for thirty seconds. An Astro throwing an unbuffed-by-Royal-Road spear card at you was directly superior to the most powerful reward your entire job gauge could possibly build to. The Spear was the same card that was widely considered to be so worthless that it was eventually changed into a crit buff. So it wasn't just inferior to a single AST card, it was inferior to the worst AST card. Even if you tied it to Stone and Aero, it needed a hell of a lot better return of investment to not look totally pathetic next to anything Astro could throw out.

That's why I'm looking at Free Cure reinvented into a mechanic that (on Cure 2 cast) basically turns Cure 1 into Tet. When you need to generate a ton of HPS, that's a good way to utilize a skill that's not getting utilized. However... the better thing to do is simply delete Free Cure (it may have been good years ago, it needs to go now), upgrade Cure 1 into Cure 2 via trait when you would unlock Cure 2.

[Allegor]

the better thing to do is simply delete Free Cure (it may have been good years ago, it needs to go now), upgrade Cure 1 into Cure 2 via trait when you would unlock Cure 2.

Cure II spam is not sustainable at lower levels [unless your tank is really good or you're playing the 'how low can their HP get' game], the only way to get rid of Cure I would be to give them either Solace or Tetra at about lv 35-40, not only because of the increased mp cost but because Cure II would be literally their only single target heal.

Freecure is a trait that's meant to help while leveling/sync down, so rather than removing it because it becomes redundant at higher levels, I think it's best to upgrade it into something useful like any other trait would.

[Almagnus1]

Cure II spam is not sustainable at lower levels [unless your tank is really good or you're playing the 'how low can their HP get' game], the only way to get rid of Cure I would be to give them either Solace or Tetra at about lv 35-40, not only because of the increased mp cost but because Cure II would be literally their only single target heal.

Freecure is a trait that's meant to help while leveling/sync down, so rather than removing it because it becomes redundant at higher levels, I think it's best to upgrade it into something useful like any other trait would.

If you need to Cure 2 spam at lower levels it likely means the tank isn't using their cooldowns and their gear is trash so trying to weave in Cure 1 is going to get them killed.

Free cure is trash and needs to be either changed or deleted.

[Irenia]

If you need to Cure 2 spam at lower levels it likely means the tank isn't using their cooldowns and their gear is trash so trying to weave in Cure 1 is going to get them killed.

Free cure is trash and needs to be either changed or deleted.

Freecure is trash, yes, but it's useful trash for synced content, as I've said before. Unless you want to make mentor roulette impossible for WHM - I like trying to carry newbies when they try, so no, I will not drop Corpse Hall when I get it on the roulette. No, I won't just play Astro either.

A common critique of SE's job design is that older jobs get really bad kits when synched. Just deleting freecure and upgrading cure just makes 50 WHM go from bad to terrible.

Change it, sure, but the level cap is not the entire game.

[Deceptus]

Freecure is trash, yes, but it's useful trash for synced content, as I've said before. Unless you want to make mentor roulette impossible for WHM - I like trying to carry newbies when they try, so no, I will not drop Corpse Hall when I get it on the roulette. No, I won't just play Astro either.

A common critique of SE's job design is that older jobs get really bad kits when synched. Just deleting freecure and upgrading cure just makes 50 WHM go from bad to terrible.

Below level 50 sucks on WHM because WHM doesn't have a reliable mana regen outside of Lucid while SCH and AST both do.

If they gave that to WHM, Freecure wouldn't need to exist.

[Almagnus1]

Below level 50 sucks on WHM because WHM doesn't have a reliable mana regen outside of Lucid while SCH and AST both do.

If they gave that to WHM, Freecure wouldn't need to exist.

That's why I want to see Thin Air granted to WHM before they hit 50.

[Grimoire-M]

Whatever changes they make to the tier 1 cure spells or the Freecure passive, my (vain) hope is that they make said changes with skillful gameplay in mind. A question to ask when designing something is, "what gameplay is this ability encouraging?" There are generally two good answers to this question: you either guide the player toward skill expression or your provide a safety net against poor skill expression. Stormblood lilies were horrible for a lot of reasons. One major factor here was that they provided a terrible answer to that question: they encouraged spamming GCD heals. In FFXIV's combat system, this is incredibly poor skill expression. It's a mark of someone who's not using their abilities to the fullest. Furthermore, rather than providing a safety net, they attempted (ineffectively) to put good skill expression behind said poor skill expression. That is, you were encouraged to play badly in order to (presumably) play well. Even though number crunching showed it wasn't worth it, but that's a different matter.

I'm against changing Freecure in any way that doesn't change its answer to the above question. Spamming GCD heals is not a habit to encourage.

How about making it encourage the use of DPS spells instead?

I posted this elsewhere, but I'll put it up here:

Cure: Restores Target’s HP. Cure Potency: 450. 1.5s Cast Time. 400 MP.
Additional Effect: Cleric Stance: Increases the potency of the next Stone, Glare, or Holy you cast by 50% while reducing its cast time by 2.5s. Duration: 15s.

The intent here was to get you to use Cure for movement and a touch of healing while offsetting the DPS tax of said movement. I'd give this in ARR where it's most needed as well as has its most interesting ramifications. Effectively it's a pre-cursor to Lilies. It's part of a larger rework I've posted elsewhere, and in that it does get phased out, but the gist is there. Compare its use cases to the rest of WHM's kit as it is currently before looking for my rework and you'll see what I mean. It's probably too busted at a guaranteed rate, but it doesn't discourage pure DPS, just excessive healing without forethought.