Sage Design Idea

Alright, so even though Sage is stealing Scholar's toys, it is definitely on the right track of being the "DPS" healer. However, my main gripe, which is also why I feel like Sage is still copy paste Scholar, is the lack of Kardia interactions. When I play a job that rewards me for being aggressive, I want to be REWARDED for being aggressive. I propose a few tweaks to nudge this job further in that direction.

Remove Physis II. Sounds scary but bear with me since this will help us pull away from Scholar's Whispering Dawn (and yes I know AST has Celestial Opposition but that's a battle between AST and WHM).

New Passive:

Placebo Kardion: Whenever you heal an ally, apply Placebo Kardion to them for x seconds. This buff heals the affected allies for 50% of the healing applied by Kardia. This buff will not affect the target if they are already affected by Kardion.

Ability Changes:

Soteria cooldown reduced to 30 seconds and grants 5 charges.
Philosophia cooldown reduced to 120 seconds.
Psyche now procs Kardia.
Addersting can now be granted for every x times you proc Kardia (Placebo Kardion is not counted).

My rationale is that we pull the potency out of Physis II and put it into Kardia interactions. Of course these numbers aren't exactly what I believe they should be; I just wanted to make sure I'm getting the general idea across.

Now for some damage changes, while we're here, assuming Scholar is never getting it's DOT gameplay back...

Reduce Eukrasian Dosis duration to 18 seconds while increasing potency to compensate.
Reduce Eukrasian Dyskrasia to 12 seconds while increasing potency to compensate.
Reduce Dosis potency to x if needed.
Reduce Dyskrasia potency to x if needed.

Sounds interesting sage definitely needs more ways to use kardia as it really only a more controllable embrace at the moment

I genuinely think SGE’s biggest problem isn’t how underwhelming kardia is or how useless toxicon is. It’s the fact SGE’s healing is completely mindless (to be fair AST is also this way)

Think of WHM, its bread and butter heal is rapture, WHM can buff rapture 3 ways (temperance, asylum and plenary) but outside of rapture WHM is rather limited and misery actively enforces a time limit on how long you can hold misery. This creates healing loop around the best use case of rapture at any one time.

SCH is an even better example because near every skill it has is a choice
-aetherflow heals and energy drain
-seraph and dissipation/aetherpact
-seraphism and dissipation
-expedient and illumination picking the more useful effect of the two in the moment

SGE meanwhile everything is just completely free. Kerechole is the correct answer to everything, holos two effects stack with each other and both achieve the same thing, panhaima doesn’t make you choose shields or healing because it gives you both, pnuema is DPS neutral

Despite getting a new DOT and an oGCD I’d say sage is furthest away from the right design of the 4 healers right now because it can’t even get the healing side right. Subbing out physis for true pankardia (not philosophia) would be a good first step because it enforces damage but it does little, soteria needs like 5 seperate abilities to proc different kardia effects before it is even remotely useful as a skill

So yeah I’d say that SCH and WHM are the best candidates for DPS changes because they are the two that actually get healing right. SGE either needs absolutely everything to rely on kardia (except limited downtime tools which you could even dodge by having a mediate like ability that procs kardia as long as you don’t move) or give its tools downsides before they go any further with the class

I had an idea for Sage, I'll use your thread instead of creating a new one, sorry.

I know Sage is probably the last Healer to need a rework at this point.

Since it was sold as a DPS healer, I'm going to make it one :

Dps would now be a 123 combo (not interupted by anything but out of order combo option, just like WAR can do whatever they want without breaking their)

1-dikrasia : damage(mid) + proc kardia
2-<greek name 1> : damage + (if combo) proc kardia + 10-15s dot
3-<greek name 2> : damage + (if combo) proc kardia + get one addersting

can be used with eukrasia and get the additionnal effect :
-"restore hp (kardia's potency) in a 5-10y radius around kardia target
-step 1 & 2 become instants

AoE :
1-dikrasia : AoE damage + proc kardia
1.5-<greek name 3> : AoE damage + (if combo) proc kardia + 10-15s dot (could just keep Eukrasia dykrasia too I guess)
2-toxicon : AoE damage + (if combo) proc kardia + get one addersting

Stances :
-Haima : become a stance like eukrasia granting 1 stack of haima (max is still 5) instead of the kardia proc
-<greek name 4> : new stance using one addersting to "enhance" the dps combo (finisher may grant an enhanced phlegma/pneuma)

Misc :
-on shield break : chance to auto-proc eukrasia or haima