Coming to understand WHM in endgame

[Gemina]

A thing to keep in mind is generally, forums tend to err towards the min/max levels of content. Which is where the "Never use Cure" thing comes from, because in a min/max static, it's entirely possible for Healers to co-ordinate so as to put the majority of the healing onto their oGCD skills leaving more room for pushing DPS.

I didn't read a single post here that told the OP to not use Cures. I pointed out using Cure II over Cure I, but that is the extent of it. The OP has also expressed his interest in taking WHM into endgame, so optimization and min/max is going to be very important, and it's best to learn it sooner rather than later. But striving to play optimally is going to put you a cut above the rest of the healers in PUGs if even only for the courtesy you're showing your other party members. They will appreciate it. Trust me.

A lot of min/maxers will say that min/maxing doesn't matter for anything outside of savage/ultimate. The ABC rules applies heavily here because they look at every single second during an encounter, and if your GCD isn't always ticking down, you're wasting everyone's time. This is a much different mentality than what's being proposed to the OP here. I oppose the meta mentality, but only the thought processes that lead to exclusions and elitism. I don't oppose optimization by any means.

That is not to dismiss your post though. A lot of healing is reactionary. Especially for WHM, and even more especially in 24-man content. While I feel that savage content tests your ability to memorize an encounter; alliance raids is where it's at to test your ability to react to damage that is not part of the script. In chaotic battles which are common in alliance raids, it can (not always) make more sense to hold on to certain abilities or sit on a couple of GCDs to evaluate the situation. But you still want to ABC as much as possible.

[Kalise]

I didn't read a single post here that told the OP to not use Cures. I pointed out using Cure II over Cure I, but that is the extent of it.

No, but the OP mentioned reading Forum/Reddit posts that said that kind of thing.

Which, like a lot of strange things that people end up getting confused about, stems from people using vague statements as opposed to explaining fully the actual situations. To which, is not a problem for people whom know what is inferred, but for people who are unaware and looking for more information, it ends up giving the wrong idea.

"Never use Cure I/II" "Healer DPS isn't important" "Tanks never use Tank Stance" "Only use oGCD's to heal" "Min/maxing is not important outside Savage/Ultimate content"

These are common statements. But they don't detail the actual thoughts behind them and if taken at face value, are outright wrong.

"Never use Cure I/II" doesn't mean to just take them off your action bar and literally never use them. It means that generally, you'd prefer to be using any other heal in their stead. Sometimes things don't go to plan and you NEED to toss out a Cure II to top off someone who accidentally took some more damage. If you're doing Roulettes you'll likely want to be using Cure I/II frequently because incoming damage tends to be faster than oGCD + Regen can keep up with in higher level dungeons and trials.

"Healer DPS isn't important" is referring to how it's less punishing for a Healer to pause DPS to spend GCD's on non-damage skills than it is for any other role that have higher base DPS so things are played out with that in mind (I.e. Tanks forgoing extra mitigation of Tank Stance in order to push out more DPS > the extra bit of healing they save the Healers having to do by having that extra mitigation)

"Only use oGCD's to heal" again, is more about focusing on utilizing oGCD's more than GCD's. Since it's better play to be able to continue to DPS as much as possible. But if you need to use a GCD heal, you need to use one.

"Min/maxing is not important outside of Savage/Ultimate content" would generally refer to playing in a "Perfect" way. Since you'll never get to play "Perfectly" outside of content where everyone else needs to play "Perfectly" too. It doesn't mean that learning optimal ways of using a class is not important, only that it's good to know the "Perfect" way to play and work towards that while adapting to the content that you're running. I.e. Focusing on using oGCD's to heal, but then using things like Cure I/II when necessary.

[Gemina]

No, but the OP mentioned reading Forum/Reddit posts that said that kind of thing.

Which, like a lot of strange things that people end up getting confused about, stems from people using vague statements as opposed to explaining fully the actual situations. To which, is not a problem for people whom know what is inferred, but for people who are unaware and looking for more information, it ends up giving the wrong idea.

I can't speak for what the OP read on reddit, only what I've seen in this thread; and he, and any onlookers will have received very valuable and elaborate information from its contributors.

I believe I know where your stance is coming from. The 'in a perfect world, in a perfect static, you can play perfectly like this." But no one here is telling the OP to take Cure I and II off of his hotbars, or healer DPS isn't important, or min/maxing only matters in savage. Everything you have elaborated on in your previous post has been covered, and OP understands that a lot of what healing entails is situational. All of this won't change the fact that someone will point out that all encounters in FFXIV are scripted though. It's the cold hard truth. It's why I prefer alliance raid over savage. The latter truly is like learning and practicing choreography, and a misstep can throw everything out of whack. I much prefer the randomness of roulettes, and not knowing if someone will eat a mechanic or not.

Perhaps going into 5.0 the devs will stop the scripted battle nonsense they've been leaning on for over 5 years now. It would be very interesting if enemy AI sees that 5 of 8 party members are below 50%, and moves to finish them off. Right now, healers can comfortably let players sit there so long as they know what's coming.