Some Sage Discussion

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Originally Posted by jojober

I would like Holos better if it applied just a shield with the damage reduction. Would feel easier to use since i wouldn’t be wasting that healing for the damage reduction.

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You can chose how you want to use it depending on the scenario.
In trash pulls it's fantastic for healing the tank a bit and giving mitigation for a whooping 20s. Things start dying by the time it wears off.
For boss aoes it's just a regular heal, they don't hit hard enough to use it as mitigation even with vuln stacks.

In raids you can either leave some HP loss before the next raid wide so the initial heal tops the party off while the mitigation is for the aoe itself or, if everyone is already topped off, use it as an heal afterwards and either enjoy the mitigation for subsequent aoes or for the tank.

If you're using Holos on a single hit raid wide just for the mitigation when they'd survive without it, you're wasting its potential. If people survive it without additional 10% (you have a 10% mitigation on a 30s cooldown aswell), 300 potency heal is the stronger part as you'd have to heal afterwards either way.
You'd need to take almost twice as much damage as you have HP within 20s for the mitigation to outclass the heal when used like this. It's fantastic for aoe sequences like WL 2, Terminal, Cycles etc. And for all other scenarios it simple needs a bit of situational awareness.
Holos is one of the skills that rewards planned HP loss when used outside the abovementioned mechanics.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

In other words, too much of a resource drain. It would be better to just raise the DRK—you’d spend much less on them that way.

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And this is where DRK has an invuln mechanic issue. That's for the DRK Mega Thread that literally has been yelling at the top of their lungs how Living Dead is horribly designed.

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

And this is where DRK has an invuln mechanic issue. That's for the DRK Mega Thread that literally has been yelling at the top of their lungs how Living Dead is horribly designed.

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And I've said in threads similar to that one a simple 20% increased healing actions buff along side it would go a LONG way.

Sage is almost a legit healer. It has a bunch of multiplicative cooldowns that allow you to spike healing when necessary if you plan ahead, and it almost has a dps kit to boot. Even the simplest WoW healing class was still deeper last I played (been a while since I escaped that treadmill), but SGE at least proves that the XIV design team is capable of putting together an interconnected healing kit. There is a tiny chance that I could stand to play SGE in raid, though I'm still highly skeptical of encounter design.

Saying that Sage is "too busy" is wild though. Let there be complex healers to keep the role interesting; there's still SCH and WHM for intro healers.

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Originally Posted by Corbeau

Saying that Sage is "too busy" is wild though. Let there be complex healers to keep the role interesting; there's still SCH and WHM for intro healers.

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Or better yet, tell people to buy a story skip and watch the story in an inn room if the concept of playing a video game is so terrifying that classes are "too complicated", and give WHM and SCH identities beyond "playpen for people bad at healing".

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Originally Posted by Corbeau

Sage is almost a legit healer. It has a bunch of multiplicative cooldowns that allow you to spike healing when necessary if you plan ahead, and it almost has a dps kit to boot. Even the simplest WoW healing class was still deeper last I played (been a while since I escaped that treadmill), but SGE at least proves that the XIV design team is capable of putting together an interconnected healing kit. There is a tiny chance that I could stand to play SGE in raid, though I'm still highly skeptical of encounter design.

Saying that Sage is "too busy" is wild though. Let there be complex healers to keep the role interesting; there's still SCH and WHM for intro healers.

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If only Sage was actually complex, though. I know healer players are starving for... Anything remotely interesting, really, but Sage is just proof that the devs don't care about anyone else than healbots. More of the same with a different coat of paint is still more of the same.

By XIV standards, Sage is complex.

That's a super low bar though. Excluding cooldowns, of which I had a dozen of varying purposes and timings that almost all had optional synergy between them, I was still slamming 8+ rotational buttons as a resto shaman in Legion.

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Originally Posted by jojober

I would like Holos better if it applied just a shield with the damage reduction. Would feel easier to use since i wouldn’t be wasting that healing for the damage reduction.

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I disagree.
Taurochole and Holos feels even better to use when finding the perfect moment to make full profit of both effect.
And if we have to choose beetween one or then so be it.

I like these dual effect/choices to make.

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Originally Posted by Corbeau

By XIV standards, Sage is complex.

That's a super low bar though. Excluding cooldowns, of which I had a dozen of varying purposes and timings that almost all had optional synergy between them, I was still slamming 8+ rotational buttons as a resto shaman in Legion.

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Care to elaborate? I struggle not only to see how Sage is complex, but how it can be considered more complex than AST or even SCH. I'd agree with you that we can barely talk of complexity and difficulty about FFXIV healing, though.

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Originally Posted by Szylver

I kinda feel the devs don't understand us or maybe players from Asia are very diferent from NA/EU. All i see in the forums are people wanting better DPS rotations or more fun DPS rotations. But they gave us SGE a healer with Healing Rotations... idk SGE isn't really my style. To many buttons for cheap healing, "clicking 3 rotations" to keep tanks alive... the spells look cool at least.

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Yeah I think you should play WHM and i'm not mocking you about this.

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Originally Posted by rewd

Care to elaborate? I struggle not only to see how Sage is complex, but how it can be considered more complex than AST or even SCH. I'd agree with you that we can barely talk of complexity and difficulty about FFXIV healing, though.

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AST at least has something to juggle on the DPS side, but complexity-wise pretty much every healing kit in XIV has at most one piece of interconnectivity. Heals are almost entirely oGCDs of varying potency that you press in priority order in total isolation from each other. Sage at least has % output buffs to consider. Even it's HoT being tied to offensive GCDs is a step up in interconnectivity - as laughable as that is when compared to Discipline Priest or Mistweaver Monk.

If you instead wanted a rant on how much more interesting WoW healing was though... boy would I be happy to slam a wall of text into the forums. I've done it before. The TLDR still comes down to kit interconnectivity though; there was a metric ton of inter-cooldown synergy in WoW healer kits, and fights were designed appropriately to demand a wide variety of use patterns. Though mana being an actual resource is also a factor driving that diversity.

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Originally Posted by KDSilver

Yeah I think you should play WHM and i'm not mocking you about this.

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i'm not gonna play the job you want. Have a nice day.

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Originally Posted by Corbeau

AST at least has something to juggle on the DPS side, but complexity-wise pretty much every healing kit in XIV has at most one piece of interconnectivity. Heals are almost entirely oGCDs of varying potency that you press in priority order in total isolation from each other. Sage at least has % output buffs to consider. Even it's HoT being tied to offensive GCDs is a step up in interconnectivity - as laughable as that is when compared to Discipline Priest or Mistweaver Monk.

If you instead wanted a rant on how much more interesting WoW healing was though... boy would I be happy to slam a wall of text into the forums. I've done it before. The TLDR still comes down to kit

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As far as interonnectivity is concerned, WHM has Asylum and Temperance that provide healing buffs and Plenary Indulgence which adds potency to Afflatus Solace and Afflatus Rapture.

AST can use Helios and Aspected Helios to give Horoscope more potency and a longer duration, Neutral Sect to get a healing buff and to add a shield component to Aspected Benefic and Aspected Helios. Lastly, Synastry can be used to share a portion of the potency of your single target healing spells to another target.

SCH can use Protraction, Fey Illumination and Dissipation to get healing boosts, Recitation to force a crit on some oGCDs and GCDs healing skills and save resources (be it MP or Aetherflow). Lastly, it can use Emergency Tactics to convert the shields from Adloquium and Succor to raw healing and Deployment Tactics to spread the Galvanize effect of Adloquium. It was rather funny to see that you described Sage as complex and SCH as "intro healer" because a popular complaint about SCH is that it allegedly needs to use more buttons and all these "gigabrain combos" to do what AST and WHM do with one button.

SGE's interconnectivity is not exclusive to it and it has a rather straightforward and intuitive kit with little to no caveats attached to it. The biggest "annoyance" would be the fact that Taurochole and Kerachole can;t stage their mitigation. AST has some tricky tools to use (Earthly Star, Horoscope, Macrocosmos) that require more awareness to use properly while SCH has to deal with some caveats like Dissipation being the only healer skill that can actively punish you if misused, several abilities not working together and so on.

As a whole, SGE really doesn't even enough on its plate to be considered 'complex' (which is not inherently a bad thing), not only because of FFXIV's low bar, but also because there are at least two healers this term would fit better.

Oh, I don't put much weight on those abilities because, with very few exceptions, they buff GCD heals. GCD heals are niche buttons. I mained SCH through early ShB precisely because it had one genuine piece of setup via Adlo shenanigans, but that very rarely comes up. Sage by default buffs both spells and oGCD abilities, which means you need to constantly be engaging with and planning around more dynamic potencies. I wish it had even more - and I'd be absolutely thrilled if more healing buffs were reworked to apply to oGCDs as well as spells.

AST I think of as being more advanced just due to card juggling. That's not the type of skill test that I'm into but it's enough to put it into a more difficult category compared to WHM imo.

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Originally Posted by Szylver

i'm not gonna play the job you want. Have a nice day.

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Uh ?
I don't care what you play, I don't want anything from you, I don't know you.

But considering what you said, I was suggesting a healer that should suits your taste better.

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Originally Posted by rewd

SCH can use Protraction, Fey Illumination and Dissipation to get healing boosts, Recitation to force a crit on some oGCDs and GCDs healing skills and save resources (be it MP or Aetherflow). Lastly, it can use Emergency Tactics to convert the shields from Adloquium and Succor to raw healing and Deployment Tactics to spread the Galvanize effect of Adloquium. It was rather funny to see that you described Sage as complex and SCH as "intro healer" because a popular complaint about SCH is that it allegedly needs to use more buttons and all these "gigabrain combos" to do what AST and WHM do with one button.

SGE's interconnectivity is not exclusive to it and it has a rather straightforward and intuitive kit with little to no caveats attached to it. The biggest "annoyance" would be the fact that Taurochole and Kerachole can;t stage their mitigation. AST has some tricky tools to use (Earthly Star, Horoscope, Macrocosmos) that require more awareness to use properly while SCH has to deal with some caveats like Dissipation being the only healer skill that can actively punish you if misused, several abilities not working together and so on.

As a whole, SGE really doesn't even enough on its plate to be considered 'complex' (which is not inherently a bad thing), not only because of FFXIV's low bar, but also because there are at least two healers this term would fit better.

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Personally, they both play very different as barrier healers once you get used to them, so it's not easy to give a 1-1 direct comparison in which one is more difficult. Some players find it more easier to have healing and DPS be separate, some players find it a step up in complexity when they have to factor in dynamic healing potencies and mitigation together.

I find SGE slightly more complex because it's easy to get benefit out of their healing %, but more difficult to hit the ceiling and reach optimized levels since you have to think / adjust your healing plan every 20 seconds as opposed to SCH who has aetherflow and other skills to plan around every 60 seconds. For me, SCH is easier since I just know what skills I need to mix together to reach a certain amount of heal, and then I can just throw away the excess aetherflow every 60 seconds into Energy Drain. I'm also able to hold off from healing until I need it within 60 seconds without losing anything, so there's a lot more leeway towards pacing for SCH than for SGE.

That being said, I find SGE more fun because it also has more mobility earlier on and feels more engaging since I have to pace myself on addersgall and take into account both Kerachole and Taurochole doesn't stack, so my healing % potencies have to make up for that difference if I want to separate my healing plan into different phases like SCH naturally does with Seraph and Fey Union.