Sage Needs More Options to Generate Addersting

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Originally Posted by EaMett

You can handle all movement in every encounter so far with 3 start Adderstings and generating new ones during downtime.
If you find yourself needing more then there are areas you can improve on. And this isn't new to optimized strats or whatever else you can think of. This was true since week one of any of the encounters.


Getting the Addersting isn't particularly engaging (minus a couple of difficult downtime portions, and btw none of the suggestions made here change that either), but placement, slidecasting, and timing are skill-based and will prevent you from spending your Addersting and running out. Figuring out when and where to use Toxicon II in order to not lose dps to mobility and open mini burst heal windows is a good optimization mechanic. The current balance (from all the encounters we've seen so far) has made it challenging enough and a lot of fun IMO.
If you were to say, straight up remove toxicon II, the sage gameplay would take a serious hit and wouldn't be anywhere as fun to optimize. So it isn't just useless button bloat. It would be exactly in the same vein as how shifting SCH over to a 2.5s cast ruined the entire optimization cycle of SCH and made the class even more boring to play than it already was.

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Your statements are contradicting themselves. "There's nothing wrong with Addersting." "You can handle all movement in every encounter so far with 3 start Adderstings" Ah yes, a GCD button you never need more than 3 times in an instance sounds like an amazing gauge mechanic. "If you were to say, straight up remove toxikon II, the sage gameplay would take a serious hit and wouldn't be anywhere as fun to optimize." But you JUST said that you use it less than 3 times per instance. Not every fight even has downtime to get any more than that. Also I've taken Toxikon II off my hotbar because it's such a colossal disappointment and I notice no difference because I can avoid using it all the time anyway with E. Dosis and Phelgma.

Also, you completely ignored my fix to Addersting which gives you what you want: Ruin II, and allows Addersting to not be one of the most flaccid gauges in the game.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Your statements are contradicting themselves. "There's nothing wrong with Addersting." "You can handle all movement in every encounter so far with 3 start Adderstings" Ah yes, a GCD button you never need more than 3 times in an instance sounds like an amazing gauge mechanic. "If you were to say, straight up remove toxikon II, the sage gameplay would take a serious hit and wouldn't be anywhere as fun to optimize." But you JUST said that you use it less than 3 times per instance. Not every fight even has downtime to get any more than that. Also I've taken Toxikon II off my hotbar because it's such a colossal disappointment and I notice no difference because I can avoid using it all the time anyway with E. Dosis and Phelgma.

Also, you completely ignored my fix to Addersting which gives you what you want: Ruin II, and allows Addersting to not be one of the most flaccid gauges in the game.

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There are a LOT of skills you can't use more than 3 times in a fight. Are we supposed to remove all of those too? That's not a valid argument.
It's not about how often you can use a skill in a fight. It's about what gameplay derives from that ability and what it brings to your role.

Healers right now have a huge issue. That issue is that they have basic gameplay with very low difficulty and once you get to grips with them they leave you with no room to grow since the skill ceiling is so low. It's good for beginners but when you get better they just become boring.
Having a few abilities that are harder to use right should be cherished, not ironed out.
Addersting being a limited resource is the point. You need to put some thought into your placement and movement because of that. If you can get away without using Toxicon at all then you need to teach me your masterful ways. I'm not there yet.

And I did see your comment and I think it's a bad idea. That just means that you'll spend your fights throwing out empty heals just to get infinite movement and extra damage. And when it lines up correctly, it'll give you more healing when we already have too much. That would completely dumb the job down.

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Originally Posted by EaMett

There are a LOT of skills you can't use more than 3 times in a fight. Are we supposed to remove all of those too? That's not a valid argument.
It's not about how often you can use a skill in a fight. It's about what gameplay derives from that ability and what it brings to your role.

Healers right now have a huge issue. That issue is that they have basic gameplay with very low difficulty and once you get to grips with them they leave you with no room to grow since the skill ceiling is so low. It's good for beginners but when you get better they just become boring.
Having a few abilities that are harder to use right should be cherished, not ironed out.
Addersting being a limited resource is the point. You need to put some thought into your placement and movement because of that. If you can get away without using Toxicon at all then you need to teach me your masterful ways. I'm not there yet.

And I did see your comment and I think it's a bad idea. That just means that you'll spend your fights throwing out empty heals just to get infinite movement and extra damage. And when it lines up correctly, it'll give you more healing when we already have too much. That would completely dumb the job down.

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And Ruin II has never been one of those skills. Sure you only use Macrocosmos 2-3 times in a raid, but it's an incredibly powerful and game-changing effect. Getting 2.5 seconds of mobility is not, especially when you have 2 other instant cast DPS spells. The gains you actually receive from 3 Toxikon IIs is also so negligible that it may as well not exist anyway. E. Dosis conveniently comes up during movement phases occasionally enough in a lot of content and otherwise I just use Phelgma III. Instead of just burning Phlegma as it comes off CD, I save it till around 5 seconds before gaining a second charge to use it unless I need movement first or burning both during burst windows when possible. Toxikon II as a mobility tool is entirely irrelevant to me. Yes I can see the theoretical advantage, but I do not think that warrants some limited use restriction.

I also find it insulting because SCH was legitimately the only job I played during ARR and I loved it. Ruin II used to be the same potency as Ruin during ARR and was increased in power to match Broil during HW at the cost of being double the MP. That was a great system. It gave you mobility and weaving power at the cost of additional MP--not enough to bleed you dry with moderated usage, but enough to bleed you dry if you spammed it. It's insulting that they took that away from us only to give it back to Sage as the "selling point" of their gauge, which in actuality is a failed system. The fact that they had to give us Addersting for free at the start proves that.

By replacing Dyskrasia with Toxikon in the way I proposed, we not only trim down bloat, but create a dual-purpose function to our AoE button rather than it be an entirely useless button in the majority of content outside of dungeon trash, which is a good thing. Additionally, by costing more MP, you're not obligated to spam it and do need to monitor your use of it as a mobility tool because overuse can burn you. It's not preventing you from overusing it, but giving you the choice to use it at your discretion, which I would argue is far more interesting than just saying "here's 3 uses of it. Don't waste them."

Meanwhile, by allowing it to upgrade into a DPS neutral Toxikon II, we not only have the Ruin II you desire with more meaningful choice, but we also make the gauge system actually desirable and make tactical use of GCD healing something Sages actually do rather than nearly never. That takes focus away from Dosis III in favor of windows where E. Diagnosis/Prognosis can be used. If you want to throw out empty heals with that kind of change then that's your decision, but I'd want to use that window to use those heals at opportune moments rather than just immediately burning them.

There are other things that would be worth addressing to better balance Sage around that system, like slimming down other healing options in our OGCD library since that is a bunch of additional healing as well as adding a new tool to help ensure you have an Addersting during burst windows and another way to spend it (Sage Continuation). But that would likely not happen till most likely a new expansion patch, or maybe 6.3. I have absolutely no idea how you could see it as dumbing down the job, though as it does anything but.

Ensuring proper DoT management because far more important because falling asleep and forgetting to reapply your DoT hurts you more, you have more opportunities to make meaningful decisions with how you use your Toxikon, there's more emphasis on preparing your resources for burst windows, and a good Sage will make their GCD heals count rather than wasting them. Also, it further helps reinforce Sage's identity as a barrier healer which is something that they barely do outside of Haima/Panhaima currently, which isn't that a huge goal we want as a healer community?

I think it would not take much to fix this. I like the way we generate Addersting, but the problem is that it is inefficient and usually a DPS loss. Because you'll prioritise more efficient healing methods when they're available and you'll not use a less efficient healing method for a DPS skill when doing so is a DPS loss.

So either:
- We need to rely on that shield more ergo we generate Addersting more frequently
- We need the same method to be a DPS gain.

I feel the second option is likely easier to balance. Because hey, I'm sure other healers don't mind a boost to damage too, especially if some of their problems get addressed through it.

We could:
- Have Toxicon get a potency boost
- Have 2 types of Toxicon, one for single target, one for multiple, so the single target one hits harder
- Have Toxicon hit harder for the first enemy
- Have Toxicon become an oGCD

I am against the 4th option because I feel it'd feel more like a SCH weaving Energy Drain (which is 'eh' IMO) than say, a DNC, weaving Fan Dance.

And we wouldn't need more methods to generate Addersting, but incentivise us to use the existing method more. In a way, we'd also get a wider use of our healing toolkit, but it's rarer we use our GCD heals and there's the bonus of having an incentive of not playing "how low can you go?" which would alleviate some of the "healers don't heal" complaints, because you'd be shielding people a lot...and ultimately, that's what they're wanting us to do as Shield healers.

Personally I think that Taurocole was supposed to be the Addersting generator. Currently it has a raw heal AND mitigation on it, which means that at any given time you're wasting a part of it. If the heal was a shield instead, that gives an sting on break, that would make WAY more sense from a job design standpoint.

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Originally Posted by EaMett

There are a LOT of skills you can't use more than 3 times in a fight. Are we supposed to remove all of those too? That's not a valid argument.
It's not about how often you can use a skill in a fight. It's about what gameplay derives from that ability and what it brings to your role.

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It certainly is a valid argument if you remove the entire Reaper Enshroud, replace it with the Soulsow mechanic, and then call that a good gauge mechanic for reapers. The problem isn't a lack of addersting, it's calling that as a gauge that should only exist as the majority of the gameplay.

The whole point of addersting is as fulfilling to use as Soulsow and Harvest Moon when you want to use it properly. This is good for what it does, but not fulfilling if this should be the entire purpose of the gauge if it has very limited uses.

Certainly, having soulsow and Harvest moon is a great addition to the reaper toolkit, provided they have other things that also help with engagement. Healing is not engaging. There are strict limits to healing. No matter how much you optimize healing, you only start healing less. You don't use your healing tool as frequently when you get better - ergo you use your healing gauge less.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

It certainly is a valid argument if you remove the entire Reaper Enshroud, replace it with the Soulsow mechanic, and then call that a good gauge mechanic for reapers. The problem isn't a lack of addersting, it's calling that as a gauge that should only exist as the majority of the gameplay.

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I think this is a fair point, but I wouldn't want to attribute too much importance to the gauge. As a reminder, the gauges were just added to provide visual clarity for skills that had stacks. For some classes those can be central to gameplay, and for others they just track items that could be in your statuses (stances, etc.) or stack counts on some skills. Addersting isn't on the gauge because it's something essential to the role. It's there for convenience and because there was enough room for it (and because they thought it was better to use than another stack/status). If we had a lot going and a bunch of other things to track on the gauge, they would just leave it as stacks/procs on your hotbar. (like how the dancer gauge doesn't track their dives)

My take: Make it work like it does in PvP. Toxicon I is on three charges with a short cooldown and it’s OGCD, you can use it whenever, it doesn’t cost any resources. Any shield you apply or adder’s gall you use had a chance to generate a sting, the sting upgrades it to toxicon 2 that just deals more damage. Maybe the vuln it gives in PvP could just come from toxicon 2.