Question in regards to end game gear (Healers)

[JCT]

I believe the goal of every healer shoul be to minimize Piety melds as much as possible - and also shoot for gear that have no/low Piety, reason being that it only acts as a MP cushion, bringing no benefit to either your damage or healing.

So I looked through of the higher iLvl pieces of gear i.e. Genji and Lost Allegan and there seems to be a lot of piety. Should I forego some of these pieces for lower ilvl pieces that do not have piety?

[Fernosaur]

So I looked through of the higher iLvl pieces of gear i.e. Genji and Lost Allegan and there seems to be a lot of piety. Should I forego some of these pieces for lower ilvl pieces that do not have piety?

Never! You'll get so much more out of the Mind increase than from not having Piety. Also, how much Piety you need largely depends on your group, and also on your other healer. The more raising you need to do, the more MP you'll need, specially if you don't have a RDM. The more shielding or AoE healing you do to help out your co-healer, the more MP you'll use too. The more healing you do with AF, the less MP returns you'll see from Energy Drain, etc, etc.

Piety is a stat for which you need to find an appropriate, personal comfort level. My personal MP milestone on SCH is 18k ish, but Halone knows that when I play AST I need a little bit more than that, particularly because the group I play AST with is much less experienced, co-healer included, so I need to do a lot more raising, shielding and active healing.

That said, even though Spell Speed is the worst stat right now, it's not necessarily bad either. Something that I personally like about SpS is that it allows for quicker stutter-stepping (moving before the spell cast ends without interrupting it), and it gives you a subjectively larger window to move without interruption.

For example, for this tier I stacked Crit as much as I could, but in lieu of keeping my three healers and tank geared up, I ended up taking a couple pieces from Omega Savage with SpS+Pie in them even if they're not theoretical BiS. In that case, the MND increase was worth more, tbh.

[Tridus]

So I looked through of the higher iLvl pieces of gear i.e. Genji and Lost Allegan and there seems to be a lot of piety. Should I forego some of these pieces for lower ilvl pieces that do not have piety?

Generally speaking you'll see more of everything as your gear goes up in iLvl because the higher budget means more stats in general. You'll also see different pieces in a given set of gear have Piety than in other sets.

Mind is your most important stat. If it has more Mind, you probably want it. If it has a lot more mind, you almost certainly want it. As you get more pieces, the Piety will tend to level out. Unless you're trying to min/max for progression content, that simple rule will always work. For materia, you likely never need to use Piety.

You can use a site like this to help compare: http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/WHM

[Ghishlain]

So I looked through of the higher iLvl pieces of gear i.e. Genji and Lost Allegan and there seems to be a lot of piety. Should I forego some of these pieces for lower ilvl pieces that do not have piety?

There is one niche case I'd consider dropping ilvls in the current healer gear list and that would be taking an Allagan Ring and Augmented Allagan Ring over Genji Ring and Augmented Allagan Ring.

Genji Ring is Piety > Spell Speed secondaries while Allagan Ring is Determination > Critical secondaries.

Spell Speed would be the lowest of the three secondaries for total boosts and Piety means nothing if you're comfortable with your MP pool. Determination and Critical would give you more overall benefit in this case despite the loss of Mind.

[JCT]

There is one niche case I'd consider dropping ilvls in the current healer gear list and that would be taking an Allagan Ring and Augmented Allagan Ring over Genji Ring and Augmented Allagan Ring.

So Augmented Lost Allagan and just Lost Allagan can both be used at once?

[Cynfael]

So Augmented Lost Allagan and just Lost Allagan can both be used at once?

Yes; Augmented version is a unique "ID" and counts as a different item.