Advice on Cure method:

[Tobold]

Sitting to meditate in combat is less effective in FFXI than it was in EQ, because in FFXI the longer you sit, the more MP you regenerate per tick. I only meditate in combat if my groups strategy is to chain kill even and tough mobs. If the plan is to kill IT mobs, there is not enough time to sit.

[Calianeri]

The delay in sitting/standing, and the fairly long time it takes before you get that first 17-20 MP back, usually makes it more worthwhile for me to stand and cast instead IMHO. But whether or not this is MP-efficient all depends on what you're casting. For me, it's often a cure on the main tank, then a regen on a melee who's taken AoE damage (long cast time, very low MP use), then maybe a re-debuff if necessary, before another cure on main tank, then another Regen. So I may be standing, but I'm not wasting MP.

I'm not saying your strategy is bad, I'm just saying it's not necessarily much more MP efficient. If the MP regen rate was faster, or sitting/standing was faster, then I'd sit much more in combat. I do sit during combat if we're doing chains of Ts or VTs, but there's not much damage being dealt then. You must also find better tanks than I do...

I haven't hit the late-40s and above period with the huge special attack damage. Ice, thanks for scaring me... maybe I'll go level my thief before pushing to WHM50... :sweat:

[Oompa]

I'm very particular at keeping all my party members in the white. If one hits yellow, I heal, if two hit yellow, I still heal, etc. This is all with Cure I mind you.

Once anyone hits orange though, I break out Cure II and maybe a Cure I on top of it.

If your tanks die, you die. You ALWAYS have to keep them in good health.

[kaply]

One other reason no to sit while the party is fighting... You actually generate hate while "healing" that way and it's actually a significant enough amount that mobs will stroll over to hit you after a few seconds, depending on your overall hate of course.

[Sutra]

That works great for all the tarus but for us humes, mithra and galka, we are limited in mp, so we cant just toss in a cure 3 or 4 whenever we feel like it because it drains us too much... sux that tarus get so damn much mp >< not fair I tell you!

[Navia]

I got my introduction to crawlers nest yesterday and a taste of some seriously tough battles. Yhoator was cake compared to this place.

I really had to watch the amount of hate I would get, worker crawlers would do over 200 damage to me if I got alittle too quick on the heals.
At the start of the fight while the pull was coming, I put regen on the tank then would start casting CureIII when they were down about 150hp. By then the RDM was done enfeebling and would alternate cureII with me. I could never sit during the fight, the crawlers would sometimes get lucky and pound the tank so bad I would need to cureIII with rdm doing cureII still.
Sometimes the crawler would turn and poison spray most of the party some taking over 100damage, so you get faced with the question, who do you poisona, and do you risk doing that while the crawler pounds away at the tank.
Casting cureIII instead of 2 cureII seemed to make the crawlers less angry, is this really the better way to go?
Trying to heal while a skillchain is going always worries me, you run the risk of getting too much hate and ruining the chain, but its rare.

The xp was absolutely nuts, in 10hours went to 31-35 but my god I had to be right on top of things with curing. Those melee have it so easy, WHM can be a stressful job like this all the time at high levels? :confused:

Oh and the mp pool size isn't that big of a deal since I use apple pie and astral ring, only had 1 person die on me because i ran out of mp, puller got a crawler when i was at 25% mana.

[Ravizel]

I. Regen II right before the battles begins on the PLD.
II. Whenever I see the PLD get in yellow I drop a Cure III. He'll get back to near full health. Try to med a tick or two until I see him hit yellow again and repeat process. I can usually get a good two ticks in if the mob is fully enfeebled. If there's a RDM in our party I usually cast Haste on the PLD and never really have to med mid fight. If any other melee in our party goes yellow I cast Regen II, no Cure III, I rarely cure the mages as they can either Drain or Cure themselves back up to healthy status, unless it looks they might be in trouble.
III. When PLD gets hit by a nasty special attack (like the Exoray's which did 560 damage consistently to our PLD) I would Cure IV, PLD would use provoke, and I drop a Cure III. Back to medding and repeating step II. If its unfortunately a mass damage AOE attack, I divine seal Curaga I or II and the group will get it off me within 2 hits. But I've rarely had to use a group cure mid battle.

Never EVER had a main tank die on me. The last death I remember in one of my parties was the BLM near the outpost in East Altepa where a gob threw a suicide bomb and he was in his AOE range, the bomb did 360 damage to the poor Taru. (He would've died even if he wouldve been at full health.) Which means, mages, stand the hell back.

I love my Cure III spell, rarely even use Cure II anymore, and I can usually cast a couple Cure IVs without catching aggro at all, PLD usually does a stand up job keeping hate.

[Meriadoc]

I'd be hard pressed to put my strategy in writing.. I do it by instinct.. >.>

Some points I CAN put in writing..
If there's a PLD, I tend to ask him to heal himself once or twice in beginnings of battles. (When he needs it of course, and giving him the assurance that if he gets interrupted, I'll cover for him and heal him up)
Obvious reasoning behind this is hate management. In the beginnings of the battle, enemy's attention is still risky, so doing this ensures that the PLD has control of the battle..or at least helps anyway. (silly random factor)
Second reason, this gives me time to debuff if there are no rdms around to do it for me...
I tend not to waste pure curing spells on people who randomly get hit once (like the drk who got a stray hit) I'll just stick regen on them and move on...unless of course the stray hit was a big one....

That's the thing with my healing strategy.. I do it so much by instinct that putting it in writing creates tons of contradictions and conditions.. bleh.

I think each whm develops his/her own strategy as they go..