What's the point of Benefic I?

[NegativeS]

Benefic I heals 500 potency for 400 MP, at 1.25 potency per MP.

Benefic II heals 800 potency for 700 MP, at 1.14 potency per MP.

Benefic I also has a small chance of making your next Benefic II heal for critical potency.

But... why?

In a lot of lategame content, Benefic I just doesn't cut it anymore.

An AST with their full kit is basically a walking panic button, and pretty much every part of their build works into that. Draw Lady of Crowns, put down Earthly Star, set up Horoscope, Opposition... That's 1620+ potency in instant-cast panic button that will all recharge in a minute or less, on top of the regen you'll be giving by literally just existing as AST, not even accounting for Intersection, Macrocosmos, and Collective Unconscious, all also instant-cast.

This is AOE stuff that you just do during your support rotation.

And in the very rare cases that I do need to focus on the tank who is getting burned, tell me why I would ever, in any case, use Benefic I over Benefic II, even with the 15% chance of a free crit, when I need heals right now? I'm not going to pre-Benefic I just for the 15 second timer to run out, and I'm not going to be spamming it randomly just for the off-chance when I have cards to draw...

Also, Astrodyne is a thing.

The MP recovery from Astrodyne is absolutely insane. I can spam Benefic II for an entire dungeon, and as long as I keep up on my cards I will never run out of MP.

There is no reason for Benefic I to even exist at this point.

[UkcsAlias]

I would say mana preservation. If during a heavy fight you drained a lot of mana and lucid dreaming is far from ready. Healing this way allows your mana to be restored. Also, the 15% does actualy make benefic one slightly more preserving in MP consumption even though it does require benefic 2. Healing crit damage can give quite a bit of extra potency. The main drawback is that it takes a lot of cast time, which you generaly are better off using to deal damage. But if low on mana, you cant realy do that anyway.

I do agree that it could need some sort of buff (same for cure 1 on WHM). And i think removing its cast time could already make it somewhat better (as this enables usage while moving).

[RinaShinomiya]

There is no point to it. WHM and AST often just remove cure 1 and Benefic 1 off their hotbars entirely because it's a button you'll never need. Some people suggested SE fused esuna with Cure 1, Benefic 1, Physick and Diagnosis and i like that idea a lot.

[Deceptus]

There is no point to it. WHM and AST often just remove cure 1 and Benefic 1 off their hotbars entirely because it's a button you'll never need. Some people suggested SE fused esuna with Cure 1, Benefic 1, Physick and Diagnosis and i like that idea a lot.

Cure1 / Physic/ Benefic should have simply traited into the next higher tier at a certain level.

[Liam_Harper]

No point. Take it off your bar and forget it exists. It should indeed be upgraded to Benefic II automatically for QoL in leveling roulette.

[UkcsAlias]

Some other ideas that might help (obviously not all at once as that would be OP)
- cure/benefic 1 gets boosted to the potency of cure 2 after each cure 2 usage. The MP cost then stays the same, but cycling through them then would preserve mana. This doesnt make the class more effective in healing potency, but does preserve mana while asking a bit more effort.
- cure/benfic gets charged by another 20 potency each tick of regen/aspected benefic. Up to a potential 500 extra potency. This simply allows an occasional extra strong cast.
- cure/benfic also applies a small self heal (potency 200?)
- cure/benefic gets a shorter GCD beyond a certain level (the shorter GCD could then give similar potencies compared to cure 2. Although the mp and potency values might need adjustment then)
- each cure/benefic cast boosts the next stone/glare/malefic cast by a certain percentage (reduces healing, in exchange for extra damage), instead of the current 15% chance of boosting cure/benefic 2.

I think removing cure/benefic and making it become cure/benefic 2 entirely would be a dull solution that doesnt add any interesting mechanics. By giving it some alternative effects, it can be a deliberate choise to take a weaker heal. As it very often already happens that you dont have to heal that much and are already going to damage spam. And sure, within a dungeon/raid you might still be mostly using just 1 of the 2 abilities. But if both have a use, then it still allows some extra optimizing through player skill.

And yes, if very skilled you might choose to ignore benefic 1 and still only use benefic 2 (if the cure 1 boost is too weak). Or only use cure 1 because its benefits are much greater than cure 2. But its not about it being the default. Its about a situational case in which it can simply aid more. Idealy i would give cure 1 a strong boost to damage aspects (allowing this to be weaved in through DPS attacks at a very low cost in damage), while keeping cure 2 for the case in which healing spam becomes needed. But this still becomes very player and team dependant already.

[Xtro99]

Benefic 1 is nearly as useless as undraw.

[Deceptus]

No point. Take it off your bar and forget it exists. It should indeed be upgraded to Benefic II automatically for QoL in leveling roulette.

It exists for when you get synced down in a leveling roulette, but that's about it.

[-BlueGreen-]

Think that's bad? Try Sage's situation...

Diagnosis 450 potency for 400 MP = 1.125 potency/MP
E.Diagnosis 300 potency + 540 shield for 900 MP = 0.933 potency/MP

And let's not forget that when you do Dosis and the like, you get a "free" 170 potency heal that is not applied when doing the two above!

Dosis (via Kardion) 170 potency for 400 MP = 0.425 potency/MP (and you do damage)

Sage also has Soteria which boosts this Kardion healing by 50% for 15 seconds, causing it to reach 0.637 potency/MP.

Expand the math over 2 GCDs to account for Addersting, and E.Diagnosis gets a huge boost (strictly in terms of efficiency, the other situations don't change since it's 2x the same skill):

E.Diagnosis 300 heal + 540 shield + Toxicon 170 heal for 900 MP combined (Toxicon is 0 MP) = 1.122 potency/MP

And let's not forget that over those 2 GCDs, your raw healing potency (adding in shields) works out to:

Diagnosis (x2) = 900 potency
E.Diagnosis + Toxicon = 1010 potency
Dosis (x2) = 340 potency
Dosis (x2) + Soteria = 510 potency

It's clear that E.Diagnosis is so much better over Diagnosis when taking everything in context. It heals for more over 2 GCDs and suffers from only a 0.003 drop in potency/MP efficiency! (oh, and unlike Diagnosis x2, the fact that Toxicon is part of this also means you're dealing 330 potency damage to a single target +50% of that to nearby)

Diagnosis isn't even great at low levels where you're effectively spending a GCD without Kardion to heal a bit more than if you simply just used a DPS skill. Sastasha through Thousand Maws is basically "Kardia the tank and then become the 1-button wonder".

Want to delete Diagnosis from your hotbar? Too bad, you need to combo it with Eukrasia in order to access E.Diagnosis.

[NegativeS]

snip snop

Man, I wish I could rename this thread to "What's the point of basic healing spells anymore?" I didn't realize the issue was across every healer.