What's with Medica 2

[Urthdigger]

Alright, consider me the terrible White Mage, as very recently, it's what I was doing.

Here's the story: I haven't really levelled White Mage that much. But my mother plays the game, and she's really not good with trials or raids. So, when the main scenario demands trials, I do them for her. Now, the healer I know better is Scholar, but I'm familiar enough with White Mage.
So, the recently released trial needed to be done. And I really am not familiar with the level 80 WHM toolkit.

The other healer is a white mage. So there's no sort of shields from all the raidwide damage. Medica 2 is my go-to mass heal here, because I know there will be mechanics requiring intensive healing over a short period of time, while mechanics I need to dodge are happening. I can't really stop and stand still, and people are constantly dying, so Swiftcast isn't available for any sort of bursty healing.

I use Medica 2 in advance, so that it has a few ticks of healing keeping everyone from dying to Pyretic while I'm busy backing off out of telegraphs. If I'm not supposed to use that, then what do I use instead? I'm not being sarcastic, genuinely, how should I be mass healing when there's massive damage going out in rapid succession?

If massive heals are needed back to back, use Medica. Medica does more immediate healing, Medica II is only really useful if there's at least 9 seconds or so between damage, preferably at least 15. In any case, the topic was more about WHMs using it in inappropriate situations as just "This is what I push always." So, spamming it back to back, using it when only one person needs healing, just trying to keep the buff up 24/7, etc.

[Liam_Harper]

If massive heals are needed back to back, use Medica. Medica does more immediate healing, Medica II is only really useful if there's at least 9 seconds or so between damage, preferably at least 15.

Not really. Medica II equals Medica after 3 sec and beats it after 6. Medica II is actually a decent ability and much more useful than something like Succor when you need to GcD. One reason WhM is beginner friendly.

You generally only use Medica at 80 under all the following conditions.
-Medica II is already applied
-The party is too spread out for Cure III
-You have no lilies
-You didn't have Plenary or Temperance for the Medica II, forgot them or they still weren't enough.
-The party is not topped off and another heavy aoe is coming very soon or Doom is ticking and will kill everyone.

This situation is quite rare, to the point that I haven't used Medica in months.

I use Medica 2 in advance, so that it has a few ticks of healing keeping everyone from dying to Pyretic while I'm busy backing off out of telegraphs. If I'm not supposed to use that, then what do I use instead? I'm not being sarcastic, genuinely, how should I be mass healing when there's massive damage going out in rapid succession?

Afflatus Rapture. Prep Temperance and Plenary Indulgence to give it juice if needed. Use 2 Raptures if really needed for the big aoes. The nice thing with Rapture is it's instant, so you can do all this while moving. Once you get a feel for a fight, you keep a few lilies handy for these points.

Things like Pyretic are party responsibility, iirc that's the debuff where you're meant to stop attacking? It's not your fault if you're burnt out on lilies because they stand in everything, your co-healer is twiddling their thumbs, you have to move and they all mess up another mechanic.
There are options though. Slidecasting out the telegraph. If they aren't scattered in headless chicken mode, pop Asylum down just before. If only one or two players got hit, Tetra+Bene. If no one's dead, Swiftcast Medica II to let you cast while dodging.

And to be completely honest, if your pre-cast Medica II HoT ticks actually let the party survive a mechanic they wouldn't have otherwise and you aren't just blindly spamming it all fight, good job. It's not the most optimal route but you made a decision that let the party live. You'll become more familar with efficient healing as you play more and get used to the toolkit.

[Veis_Alveare]

You're definitely missing something, because you provided no context. We can't speculate on the motivations of a "hypothetical WHM who uses Medica II" without context.

"Why is every healer I'm being matched with using it for big tank pulls where the focus is single target healing?". I don't buy it.

But they specifically gave context?

Like they mentioned it being used when they were at 5% HP (a bad use) and when everyone was full (another bad use) so clearly they've seen multiple, unrelated issues with the use of the spell.

I wonder what kind of context would satisfy this sort of question? Like a detailed breakdown of this person's every interaction with each WHM in question?

Way to be argumentative for no reason.

For what it's worth as to the actual OP I think this happens because some people think things they get later on must be better. Medica II is a level 50 ability I think so clearly it's better than they silly Cure II they got back at like 30.

[Rae88]

If massive heals are needed back to back, use Medica. Medica does more immediate healing, Medica II is only really useful if there's at least 9 seconds or so between damage, preferably at least 15. In any case, the topic was more about WHMs using it in inappropriate situations as just "This is what I push always." So, spamming it back to back, using it when only one person needs healing, just trying to keep the buff up 24/7, etc.

Medica has a 1000 mp cost and 300 potency, medica 2 has a 1300 mp cost with an immediate 200 cure potency plues 100 regen ever 3 seconds. Medica has more limited uses than medica 2, and people advocating for medica to be used more widely are doing so on the basis of the old system where medica 2 would rip aggro off the tanks. This isn't a concern anymore.

Really medica heals for so little you're either topping people off with medica, which is frowned upon, or you're spamming it because of consistent AOE damage, which is more the correct usage. And it's quite rare, a plenary/temperance medica 2 is very powerful.

But at the end of the day, 2 medicas is 600 potency. A medica 2 is 700 potency overall. If you used two medicas instead of a medica 2, you just used 700 more mp and wasted a GCD.

This situation is quite rare, to the point that I haven't used Medica in months.

Definitely more of an old ability these days