rodrigo-gutierrez
commented
9 months ago What if we are in a situation where the boss is not target-able (hence Afflatus Misery cannot be spent), but there is still damage coming out from mechanics that needs to be healed? Examples: High Concept 1 & 2 (P8S), Levinstrike 1 (P9S), Ultima Blade (P12S)
Wouldn't having Afflatus Misery ready in that case prevent you from using Cure II and Medica?
Alluneve
Afflatus Solace and Afflatus Rapture can safely be merged into Cure II and Medica.
1) The abilities in question must be truly mutually exclusive - are they?
Yes. Afflatus Solace is strictly better than Cure II, as it has equal potency, has equal range, has no cast time, has no MP cost, and (at level 74 and up) grants a blood lily stack.
It is possible to argue that using Cure II may be desirable if healing is needed while Afflatus Misery is prepared. However, this is only a factor if Afflatus Misery is available, and using Cure II at such a time is still worse than Spending Afflatus Misery before using Afflatus Solace, even from a healing standpoint (heal occurs at the same time due to Cure II having a cast time but Afflatus Solace being instant, and the healing potency is the same, but in the Solace case no MP was spent, movement was possible, and if synced to level 74 or above a blood lily stack was gained).
The cast time situation does technically add an extremely niche situation where, should multiple consecutive GCDs need to be spent on healing, it may in theory be preferable to use Cure II before Afflatus Solace instead of using Afflatus Solace before Cure II, allowing the second heal to occur one GCD earlier (at the cost of making the first heal arrive one GCD later). There is also a theoretical case where Cure II would be used first to avoid overcapping on MP in the event that the MP gauge is already full, at least once GCD will need to be spent on a non-lily heal, and extremely heavy MP consumption is expected over the course of the encounter. However, much like a RPR intentionally breaking their Infernal Slice combo to reduce overkill damage, despite being theoretically interesting it is probably irrelevant at almost all levels of play.
2) Does this actually save you button space?
In the Solace/Cure2 case, yes. Solace is commonly used, and Cure2 sees occasional use.
In the Rapture/Medica case, technically yes, but I suspect that in practice a lot of players don't have a hotkey dedicated to Medica since Cure III and Medica II exist.
3) Is it wild and wacky?
On its own it is very tame. The fact that the Misery combos exist may be a complication. Of the two, the one that does not replace a healing button with a damage button strikes me as the less wild and wacky one.
4) Is the overall level of intelligence required to execute is about as low as the floor?
Yes. There is a decision involved, namely deciding whether to use a non-lily heal or wait for the next lily, but merging the hotkeys does not take this away any more than WAR's Storm's Path combo takes away the decision of whether to keep comboing or use Fell Cleave.