Quote Originally Posted by Elexia View Post
Depends. In Abyssea tier III > IV > aga (aoe tiers) were used heavily. In Voidwatch all tiers are used. WHM/SCH/RDM curing will use III/IV/V/VI depending on situation. BLUs will use different tier debuffs depending on situation. While leveling you'll use different tiers as it is what's available to you at the time and so on.

This game can use tier spells even if they scale, because Cure > Cura > Curaga isn't really enough cure spells when you think long term, breaking it up to Cure > Cura > Cura II then Curaga > Curasa for AoE tiers work fine. While Curaga works on less hp > more healed, it's really an "oh shit" spell since the only optimal cure spell will generally be locked down on recast whereas if we had multiple you could cycle through it incase of emergences (since most encounters you only have 1 benediction.)
The system using suffixes goes beyond -Ra and -Ga. Like you said, there's Curasa, but there's also -Ja. Here's a list of all I've seen in the franchise:
-Normal/No Suffix (e.g. Fire, tier 1 fire spell)
-ra (e.g. Fira, tier 2 fire spell. Also for AoE versions of FFXI buffs, such as Protectra or Barfira)
-ga (e.g. Firaga, tier 3 fire spell, or AoE in FFXI)
-ja (e.g. Firaja, tier 4 fire spell, also does something weird in XI but I forgot it)
-na (e.g. Poisona, removes Poison status. We have Esuna as an all-purpose debuff remedy)
-sa (e.g. Curasa, heals HP in proportion to missing HP in FFXIII)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember hearing that Materia in the Japanese version have tiers using this system:
Materia > Materira > Materida > Materiga. This opens up the possibility of more tiers, such as Materija and Materisa (V and VI for EN players), which we may see after a level cap increase. Perhaps they could make Materina as a unique type that can alter/remove currently-melded materia. Not saying they should, but it's a thought.