Basic Principles for WHM - What and what not to do.

[Spoekes]

I find more uses for it than stacking points.
Situations where DPS get hit are not as rare as you are picturing them, even in 4 man content (to a lesser extend, of course).
The thing that need practice and good judgement is valueing medica(1 or 2) vs. cure III.

Why are you still saying its MP hungry? Its just feeding to the misconception (IMO!).
I just gave the example of two players that have taken damage, where 2 cure IIs are more expensive than one cure III and take double the GCDs
Do I miss something here?

Especially if you want to add damage, saving GCDs on healing is key

[Sebazy]

I'm not so sure! You're working on the assumption that the DPS who pulled agro is within range of the tank, and that you can judge the range and start casting the relevant heal within a GCD. If you misjudge the range or either the tank/DPS moves then you're losing out.

I'm also saying it's MP hungry because er.... It is? Don't get me wrong, there is no ability in the game that match it for raw HPS and in the right situation it can turn encounters around, but it is also the fastest way to burn through your MP by a considerable margin even compared to holy spam. It's biggest problem will always be that getting DPS to position appropriately is akin to herding cats and thus it's rare (outside of fcob) that you can safely assume it's going to land on your desired targets. I've pulled some proper saves with a cheeky swiftcast Cure III (typically using myself to position it) especially against certain bosses (Boogeyman I'm looking at you) but I couldn't tell you if Overcure was up on any of those occasions.

At 50 cap 4man, I usually find I'm MP limited rather than running out of GCDs =(

[Spoekes]

No assumptions about tanks and range to tank. Just assuming to players got damage and they are close enough together to receive cure III.
Sometimes you can place yourself in the middle of 2 players and cast it on yourself to "bridge" the gap and heal both.

Cure III is MP hungry if used wrong, on the other hand its MP and time efficient if used right. Of course a spell that heals multiple players does cost more than single target heals, but common thats obvious.
Again, if you can hit 2+ players with it, casting 2 cure II is slightly more MP hungry than one cure III, while cure III is saving a GCD.

[KisaiTenshi]

No assumptions about tanks and range to tank. Just assuming to players got damage and they are close enough together to receive cure III.
Sometimes you can place yourself in the middle of 2 players and cast it on yourself to "bridge" the gap and heal both.

Cure III is MP hungry if used wrong, on the other hand its MP and time efficient if used right. Of course a spell that heals multiple players does cost more than single target heals, but common thats obvious.
Again, if you can hit 2+ players with it, casting 2 cure II is slightly more MP hungry than one cure III, while cure III is saving a GCD.

The only situation where Cure III is even usable IMO is if the Tank and both DPS are melee because they will both be close. The rest of the time Medica is better because it has farther reach. Cure III's reach is less than Holy's.

[Spoekes]

Why tank again? Noones talking about the tank.

2 players got hit by around 2k damage and stand close enough -> Cure III wins in MP cost and GCDs used against 2xCure II, medica will not be enough, if you need those 2 players full asap for whatever reason.
With more than 2 players close enough it gets a no brainer.

If theres more players to heal at a greater range than Cure III can offer, of course you're not using Cure III.

[SunDriedRainbow]

Re: Repose

Raincatcher in the first pull of Brayflox Hard Mode is perhaps the only mob I ever cast it on. You can sleep the birds right before the Zu boss in Pharos Sirius, but they will actually follow you all the way up the tower, so it's not really gonna save you any time.

[Sebazy]

Because I almost never see melee DPS collectively taking agro from the tank and ranged will usually be too far apart.

The situation you are describing almost never happens except in very specific circumstances (Boogymans big AE plus dot) with sufficient rarity that you're not going to be able to count on having an overcure proc up. The majority of 4 man boss AE damage is better dealt with medica II+regen. And on big trash pulls, if two melee are both pulling separate agro off the tank, you've got bigger issues than the efficiency of Cure II vs III =(

If I want to be efficient, I use regen. As stated before, trash is usually going to die fast enough that they won't take another hit. And boss AEs tend to be far enough apart that regen has plenty of time to work. Cure III is about maximising raw HPS throughput, don't dress it up as something it isn't.

[Spoekes]

Where does that thought come from that you can only take damage while having aggro?

I'll have to agree though that many situations where I frequently use it are where DPS are getting hit by avoidable stuff, but there's also more legit uses.

[Ghishlain]

I'll just add my two cents to the whole Cure III vs everything else debate and comment on the fact what heal to use is up to preference and situation.

For example:

Decent sized damage on the two DPS but long lag between AoE attacks? Regen both DPS - Two GCDs / less MP than Cure III
Group took a huge hit, needs some fast attention and two melee DPS close by? Cure III - One GCD / Good MP to HP restored ratio
Light raid wide damage (say around 1.5K)? Medica - One GCD / More range and less overheal
etc etc

My thoughts behind the whole thing:

Cure III vs Cure II
I agree with Spoekes, Cure III on two targets is generally slightly less MP AND slightly less HP rolled up in a single GCD. Obviously, once you're in the 3+ valid target range, Cure III > Cure II (though these situations tend to be rare outside of specific scenarios)

Cure III vs Regen
On a two target scenario that's listed above, Regen will most likely prove to be the most efficient HP/MP ratio at the cost of more GCDs. Regen will provide better HP/MP ratio within 15 seconds of the initial two casts and generally always a good option as most arena wide attacks tend to take longer than 15 seconds between casts - this option is good for those looking to conserve MP but not go for high GCD efficiency.

Cure III vs Medica
Depends on the HP lose. While Medica does provide less HP it can overall be more MP efficient and generate less over heal (threat) in a single GCD. This judgement is dependent on the power of the arena sized attack and the composition of your party (you're going to have a hard time hitting ranged DPS with Cure III).

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I use a lot of comparisons because I feel it's important for WHMs to understand their options and not get pushed into a specific answer for what can be several differing scenarios. The WHM toolkit relies on standing still and casting so a good WHM will need to understand how to make the most use out of each GCD to maximize their efficiency while matching a player's play style and minimizing overheal/threat/MP loss.

[Eisenhower]

On the topic of Cure III vs Whatever:

Cure III is a spell that has very limited use outside of a raid environment due to the lack of organization and numbers. In any 24-player content (which is honestly just a large clusterfuck and not a raid) enough damage might be flying about but the group will be so spread out that Cure III just isn't worth it. In any 4-player content the group might be also be too spread out or just not taking enough damage at the same time to warrant that spell being used. Finally, outside of a raid environment there just aren't that many enemies that deal significant damage to the entire group several times in quick succession. With the exception of speedruns where the tank pull half the instance and everyone gets cleaved.

In my experience, Cure III is the go-to spell provided that (1) many players are below half health - give or take, (2) there's another strong attack about to hit several players and (3) mechanics allow for stacking. The last one is fortunately often the case in coil, which is also the place where (1) and (2) tends to pop up.

When you only have (1) but not (2) or (1) but (3), any of the Medica variants will probably do a good enough job, even if you'll be overhealing a bit. But whatever, as a WHM you have Shroud to deal with that.