Quote Originally Posted by Absurdity View Post
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There's absolutely no point in comparing GCDs with oGCDs. You might as well be comparing Cure 2 with Benediction. The overabundance of instant cast healing/shielding is a different issue altogether.

Shielding has less of an advantage over direct healing now than it did in Stormblood, largely as a function of changes to LB gauge generation during speedruns. All things being equal, though, it's much more convenient to be able to toss up a shield during a bit of downtime and let it do its thing, rather than trying to play catch up after the fact. Decay/cap systems in games are typically designed to offset that.