Medicine RingFollow

Hey all,

So, I'm thinking about dusting off the whm and coming out to heal for a bit. I play whm/sch with the usual run of gear, but I am curious about the Medicine Ring.

I know the latent only triggers when hp is 75% or less, but I don't see any way to force my hp that low at level 51 through gear swapping. I could go from ether/electrum to medicine/mana, but even that isn't going to be enough. And I need it to be a gear swap so I can hmp.

Has anyone figured this out? I couldn't find a thread in here about it. Medicine rings go for 8k on Pandy (I picked one up today, they aren't up for sale often) but this seems to be as valuable as a Sorc Ring.

Thanks in advance!

Medicine Ring gets the most mileage in three situations:

1) Campaign when people aren't pulling hate off you;
2) Any other soloing; and
3) Situations where you have a good reason to be in AoE range.

I think it's going to be a while until you can trigger your latent for Med Ring, which is a good thing. Medicine Ring is not to be used lightly.

I keep mine with me as 75WHM, and carry a convert set with me to trigger it. However, it's still very rare that I actually use it. Only in situations where I feel very secure with my party/alliance, or I'm already in yellow from an AOE, and I'm going to Curaga.

A WHM putting themselves at risk is putting everybody at risk.

Be smart about when to use it and it's great.

This of course depends on what kinds of things you use your WHM for.

It's worth noting that if you are using this ring for Cura, if your own Cura heals you back to white HP, your heal on yourself will be boosted by the ring but it will not be for the rest of your party. Apparently, the heal on yourself is calculated first before it is on everyone else.

It's kinda like a RDM using Joyeuse with Fencer's Ring; if he double attacks and the first hit would keep him below 100 TP but the second hit would put him over it, the Enspell damage for the first hit will be boosted but it will go down on the second.




I don't think "all the time" was meant to be taken 100% literally. He was just saying that while you saying Taru should never use the ring, he is Taru and he does.

Taru has the easiest time activating LV50 latent rings anyway, so...

Edited, Aug 16th 2009 2:58am by Fynlar

You said it, not me. I cannot explain how happy I am as a mithra, non-taru white mage. I've survived dozens of attacks that have left me at less than 100 MP. It's basically an everyday occurrence.

The problem with all the "as long as you know you won't pull hate" arguments for using the ring is that you DON'T know when you'll be pulling hate. If the tank just drops dead, through your inaction or not, you may be unpleasantly surprised to find yourself in second place on the hate list simply by doing your job. And this is without considereing all the blindsided AoEs or getting a hate spike from healing that you could possibly predict and are a regular occurance for any serious WHM.

The inescapable auto-refresh also makes using the ring a burden. Doubly so for me, since I largely fulltime marduk hands with the regen effect. Having to play with macro swaps to get your HP latent to activate takes time and attention away from doing the parts of the job that often require lightning reflexes.

You can't even rely on stoneskin for added protection because of sublimation. That 200+ stoneskin you think you have is constantly being eaten away at. It might offer you next to no projection, it's really hard to say. The only way to be sure is to be constantly recasting it, and, not only does that again take time and effort, but it also totally erodes the MP savings the medicine ring gives you in the first place.

The only times this danger isn't true are on activities that are so basic that you don't need the ring. Or, said another way, the only time you can safely use the ring is when you don't need it.

I have a friend on game who, I am not ashamed to say, is a better white mage than I am. He's used this medicine ring as much as he could, and it's gotten HIM into trouble. If one of the best healers on the entire Sylph server that understand the job like only a totally obsessive can... if he occasionally gets killed trying to use the ring, than I make absolutely no recommendation to the average, run of the mill player to use it. You're putting your life, and the lives of your parties and alliances, in jeopardy all to see slightly higher epeen numbers.

I can see the case for using it in merits over a lot of other things but in all honesty I just don't like this ring for WHM. It very much depends on what you are doing and I can see that it might be fun in Campaign but in most of the fights I am involved in, the taru are first on the floor and I have no desire to join them.

Also for me, it would take up a slot which is better used. I pair the tamas ring with a trooper's ring most of the time, only switching in Aqua and Balrahn's when needed for Cure V and enfeebles.

Yes, a good stoneskin will save your butt but there are many times when your MP and time is better spent curing others than ssing yourself, even with Celerity. My thinking is that the more -ENM I pile on the lower I stay on the hate list and that will save my butt and everyone else's.

I remember making a conscious effort to stay at or close to 1k HP as a Hume in dynamis and that + the -ENM I pile on kept me alive and consequently our tank party alive for far longer. I remember being the last WHM standing on many occasions. I tend to stay away from anything that reduces my HP, my only exception is Morgana's and I still hate that it does but I'm sat at 970 ish HP /SCH. I've taken Devotion, Martyr & Misery as further hints that HP is good ;)

The fact is, whilst this ring is situationally useful, Cure potency means nothing when you're dead. I can see a case for using it if you're a galka or elvaan whm where you want to stretch your MP as far as poss and have the HP, but most of the time I wouldn't touch this ring if a Hume/Mithra and I think taru, should just step away from the shiny thing...

If cure potency is important to you (and it should be) go for Roundel, Aristo and the MKD hat. If I were a taru I'd focus more on survivability to exploit that enormous MP pool for longer.

Oh.. and any WHM wearing this in Einherjar or Dynamis is an idiot.

Edited, Aug 17th 2009 10:16am by eldelphia

I didn't mean that I full-time it...



Dark Ixion... Do your tanks like; not know how to avoid getting hit by the Thunder moves? No, no one is in range at all support-wise in that fight, ever.

Medicine ring is alot like the cura bonus on afflatus misery.

It can be very mp efficient but the way to get there is putting yourself at risk.

I can see this being a macro swap piece, but the amount of effort it takes to either switch to a new pallete or what have you seems to be not worth the extra cure potency. In a hectic situation, swapping out your normal rings for a medicine ring isn't exactly at the top of my list.

And the one area where I can see this getting a lot of use is the chariots in salvage or in nyzul/merit parties where whm is in tight quarters with dds, but in there, I have my (always on) tamas for -enmity and overall mage stats and Balrahn's for refresh effect.

By no means a poor choice if someone has the 3rd party tool to make this work, but from a purely basic macro switching exercise, it's probably too much trouble for what it's worth. WHM curing requires quick reflexes. The time spent switching to the medicine ring palette for that extra cure could mean death.


Edited, Aug 18th 2009 12:55am by Dekusutaa

'Putting yourself at risk' to activate the ring would be silly. As with any latent ring, you won't get much use out of it if you can't force it to be active.

Forcing the ring, assuming you're not stuck with sluggish, six line macros, is either an issue of pressing one macro to swap into -hp and one to swap out.. or just having long cure macros. It'd be entirely possible to do a swap/reswap in the time it takes to cast a cure.

I could see making two macro sets, one that does this and one that does not, to adapt to whether or not you expect any risk.

As for normal, old macros.. well, I'm not sure why anyone would force themselves through that sort of torment. (Unless they just don't swap gear.)

I boggled at this...

How do you handle curing people outside your party or alliance?

Edited, Aug 19th 2009 12:37pm by eldelphia

I have Specialized <stpc> macroed cure 2,3,4 and V, I can also on occasion drive it by the menu, and on windower there's special key combos to target alliance members similar to F1-F6

The 6x2=12 permanently mapped keys for Cure 3-4 are for the Party members, which is assumed to have priority on my cures. It's really much faster that doing F1-6 or tabbing to the right player then hitting cure for mundane things like cure management in end game fights. And surely, if people can drive cures via menus, and I know many WHM who do this (and I do this myself on occasion when curing outside), doing it faster with mapped macros can't be an issue.

But it's a style I've been doing over 5 years now and frankly haven't seen faster methods to cure in-party than than solution I have. And with the expansion in macro books in the past year, space is not even an issue anymore.




Pergatory, as I noted, I only do it for Cure 3 and 4. All my other spells including the -na spells are <stpc> driven and the time lag is noticable to me because I am used to the instantaneous no targeting spell casting on the curing side of my activites in-party. This is why Esuna is so damn nice.

I'm not here to sell my style of macroing, but since it's boggled your minds, I'm here to defend it. I suggest you try it out for 1 or 2 essential spells you think you'll cast often for your party and it becomes second nature and fast!

And I can say with little doubt that I cast Cure III a lot.


Edit: you went from Good to Decent. Not my doing.


Edited, Aug 19th 2009 5:35pm by Dekusutaa

Edited, Aug 19th 2009 5:36pm by Dekusutaa

I wasn't being enormously critical when saying I was boggled - I just find I do something similar to Perg but it's always interesting to see how people do things. I've never once bound someone's name into a macro :)

I found that st macros are very slow too but I couldn't restrict myself to party members only. Possibly because of the fact did 3+ years in dynamis as one of two WHMs in a 25-30man shell. So I guess I adapted. And I like to have critical spells on one palette.

I can imagine for your party that it's nice and quick but a royal pain for alliance healing. I do events where there are multiple alliances such as Einherjar and Dynamis and so I throw cures all over the place if needed.

I use stpt sparingly - erase/refresh/ballad. I never cast from the menu, I just hit the F keys and a macro.

I am considering copying over all my WHM macros and creating a set for certain 18man events with stal in but that's about it. My main palette is setup like this...

|Erase|Rest|Cure3|Stand|CureV|Silena|Poisona|Stona|Paralyna|Blindna|
|Curaga|Silence|Curaga3|RegenIII|Cure4|Haste|Repose|Esuna|Slow|Paralyze|

Then I have a Buffs palette one above main with Shell/Prot/Barspells/Stoneskin/Devotion gear+cure which I use for Dev and Martyr and then below my main I have Holy with a MAB set lol... and some other things like sacrifice.

What this means is I can be super quick with removing ~na and waking peeps but prolly not quite as fast as macroed cures. I'm just interested in how other mages do things :)

I use SCH JA by hitting Ctrl+J on WHM but when playing SCH I have some macroed.

And don't comment on why things are where they are, lol, that macro palette has evolved over years...


Edited, Aug 20th 2009 12:07pm by eldelphia

Now this I find very interesting, it seems we are opposites! You have specific names in your cures and <stpc> in your -na spells, while I have <stpc> on my cures and <t> in my -na spells.

This is so I can target whoever needs it, usually with F1-6, and hit the macro with no additional keys for fastest response time, as status ailments can frequently kill people a lot faster than lack of cures. Thus far I've never met anyone who's able to land those faster than me, even with macros that have the person's name in it. Having to target the person doesn't slow you down that much if you're fast with the keyboard. Anyone outside my party I generally target by typing out "/ta name" and still can land -na spells faster than a semi-attentive mage. The reason I use <stpc> on Cures rather than <t> or a hard-coded name is because frequently I'll see a Cure is needed before it's needed. Thus I get the cursor ready over their head and once they are low enough HP, I hit enter and it fires. I'd say at least 50% of my Cures, I have them ready before the person is low enough to need them.

P.S. You also went from good to decent, I'll rate back up again as we may disagree but both arguments are constructive and insightful.

My Cure spells are laid out one per row as follows:
- Cure <p1>
- Cure <p2>
- Cure <p3>
- Cure <p4>
- Cure <p5>
- Curaga <stpc> (or Benediction for Cure I)
- Cure <stnpc>
- Cure <stpc>
- Cure <t>
- Cure <me>

I do this for all five degrees of Cure spells with III and V on top, II and IV in the middle, and I on the bottom. Buffs and -na spells are immediately above this block, followed by Bar-spells, debuffs and nukes, and a whole ton of other stuff I use for Campaign/soloing.

I do enough capped events and NPC curing for listing out full rows for every level of Cure to be worthwhile. The logic behind their placement is that, in general, hanging out with less potent Cure spells means I'm doing something that doesn't require much of the advanced WHM abilities, whereas hanging out with Cure III and V means I'm doing something that requires access to most of the arsenal.

Laying out Cures in rows like that means there should be a slight delay if I'm somewhere else in the book, but - and this may not be the case for other people - I can scroll faster through my macro book than I can recover from some party member that happens to blink while my sub-cursor is over them. Two years ago, this wasn't as big of an issue for me, but given all the new toys we have to play with and the proliferation of Windower and Spellcast, it's been working out for me, even if it sounds a bit inefficient.

To begin, thank you to all who offered up your experiences and advice on this subject.

The more I think about this ring, the more I think it isn't for me. I'll still keep it incase SE changes the rules down the line or puts in some weird new gear that makes triggering it safe and easy. But since I do not use a third-party windower at this time I don't have a way to use it easily.

Also, I began to think about how I play whm. I do as much healing as possible by regen. Chances are, in my parties, if you take a hit you will get a regen from me. It's mp efficient. When I see a whm spamming cures and then constantly run out of mp all I can think is that player would probably be happier on rdm. After all, that (with a well-played combination of enhancing/enfeebling magics) is how a rdm heals and rdm can handle the mp load.

If you go for regen as your preferred healing method the Medicine Ring drops tremendously in utility. If you believe that a whm need to keep themself at or near full hp (and I've been thinking about how nervous I get when on pup I see a healer at 99% hp) then the Medicine Ring drops in utility yet again.

Maybe when if I get to endgame on whm and want to try to stretch further.... Until then I'll just keep it in the Mog House.

Thank you all again for taking the time to help out. I appreciate it.

Regen is SanFransiscoSupaFantastico!

...but I "hafta" curebomb 99% of the time, across 5 events (4 different LS's), because a few ticks into a regen, someone else has bombed the target to full.

(yeah, I know, "get a new LS!")

Still really fun when I'm the only healer, can regen all over the place! :D

RDM/WHM pretty much sucks, but it's the standard for exp/merits. RDM/SCH is very situational in parties; Pretty much only for parties where Erase will not be needed. For kiting or sleep/nuking solo, RDM/SCH is my preferred job if I don't need shadows from /NIN.

RDM/WHM doesn't suck D: People just don't like to play it.

Yeah, playing RDM/WHM is actually what drove me back to WHM. RDM is a fantastic support job, but compared to WHM it can't heal for beans. And the lack of erase (RDM currently is 61) makes me want to sit in the corner and slowly rock back and forth, crying.

I dunno, maybe if I was making the party on RDM/BLM and always invited a WHM/SCH along it could be fun. Maybe. But for now, I'd rather be the WHM/SCH.

P.S. Woot, scholar 29. Eight more levels and I can dump it down the same hole I stuck ninja, samurai, black mage, and dancer in.

I tried useing a Med ring when i was first able to use it, i would have a macro to Equip it once i had low Hp, but i would never force myself to have lower Hp.

After a few deaths due to Massive hate pulls, i stopped useing it, as it was more of a burden than a help.

Just like everything, the use of this is Situational. Some people will be better at activating it, while others will use it in Oshi situations only.

Personally mine's been sitting on a mule since i got Light staff. I tried it a few times in parties, and it was too much of a hassel to activate it, and had me holding too many pieces of gear.

I actually never considered casting in +HP gear. I guess that's more viable than -HP at this levels. But there's a flaw in using it like that.

Cure IV is still a ton of MND away from the second soft cap at level 50. Using an Elvaan WHM50/SCH25 and some MND Gear (+34MND); the difference between a No-MND Med-Ringed one, and MND gear one is only of 9HP in favor of the Med Ring.
The difference will tilt in favor of MND with other races.

So I'm not really sure how much MND you can pile on your Med ring builds. But from the looks of it; it doesn't look like a very noticeable benefit over regular gear.

Just a quick note, I have played with this on PLD & BLM in level capped areas:

Level sync keeps -HP in full, so if you have Hydra Haubert set pieces, or a Settler's cape or whatever, putting them on in Promyvion can make a great self-cure kit.

Similarly, if you're only a Lv.50 WHM due to a zone/fight levelcap, then you can use Wivre Hairpin, Tiphia Sting, Errant Cuffs, etc, to activate your ring.

(it's also fun if you're comfortable using SorcRing in capped zones/fights; much easier to activate at Lv.50 than it used to be) ^^

That's actually a pretty good question. I never toyed with latent gear on salvage to be sure.

But I do know that there is a way of activating Sublimation without an HP/Gear cell. I can do it on my WHM/SCH while completely naked (Max HP+SS). But it only seems to work like that.
Seems like modifying my HP in any way (Even with +HP) will make it not work anymore.