I just cant grasp Sage

Given it a try, im not a healer main, nor do I even have much experience.
This job just feels like total garbage.

WHM I was ok at, Pop Medica 2, DPS, maybe a targeted heal or two, win.

Sage has so much target switching its total chaos and both the barrier's and heals feel like they do barely anything, so far have only been trying to heal the NPC and she always drops dead pretty much the moment i target the enemy to start DPSing.

it feels chaotic, it feels unintuitive, it feels like theres just too much going on for this to be fun. Oh right thats healing in general.

Just what Am i supposed to do to get this job/job role to bloody work?

And my god, all the damn target switching, having to know where my cursor is at all times with everything going on so i can click elsewhere/the NPC meanwhile AOE's everywhere and having to also heal yourself.

I mean damn SE, Were humans, we have limits ands this just feels like there is too much going on at once and no time to react!

I seriously dont get it at all!

Everything feels chaotic at first including dps jobs and tanks. Being new to healing means there is a lot to adjust to. Just give yourself time. No one has been able to play Sage for more than a day yet. There is plenty of time to settle in. Try lower level dungeons where your kit is smaller and work your way up. You'll get the hang of it soon enough.

TY I will later once I have calmed down. 25 times seeing the NPC in the first story dungeon lose 95% HP in one blow while shielded, then lose the rest after an instant heal but before you get a chance to pop any others, gets a bit.... well Its pushed my desire to play at all too an all time low lol.

So i think some calming down is in order for now.

Let it settle give it a go, if it’s not your thing then it’s not your thing.

You'll get it eventually! I think Sage is very solid and pretty easy to get the best out of.

Tho, I basically only did a few Rous and some dummy practice.

Put the thingy on your Tank, use dps abilities, use proper heals sometimes and you'll be golden, promise ^^

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Originally Posted by Sililos

Given it a try, im not a healer main, nor do I even have much experience.

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This'll get the backs up of everyone here, But swap Dosis, Toxikon and Phlegma for a macro that goes something like:

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/ac "Dosis" <t>
/ac "Dosis" <tt>

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What it does is simple. If the target is hostile, casts at that target. If the target is friendly, your Dosis will be cast at whatever the friendly is targetting.
It'll prevent you from being able to queue those spells and leads to a DPS loss over time, though the feature should be a freaking baseline in Healer DPS spells.

But it does let you freely DPS while holding your target on the Tank or other party members. Which eliminates the annoying need to be swapping targets every 2 seconds.

That story instance shouldn't be chunking the tank NPC anywhere that hard.
Eukrasia Diagnosis should be dropped on the NPC whenever it isnt up.
Your main healing will come from Eukrasia Diagnosis (Even in mass pulls, i only need to resort to regular Diagnosis spam when DPS is too slow and i run out of everything else)

If you've never tried it, set the boss/hostile to Focus Target. Tankbusters will usually be long cast attacks that will be visible on that bar for you while you have the Tank targetted.
Eukrasia Diagnosis while the tankbusters are charging. Taurochole if the tank is missing HP to heal it and grant 15 seconds of damage reduction.
Kerachole if they're full HP for the same 15 second damage reduction.

If you ever played Dark Knight during Heavensward, Eukrasia is basically a GCD version of Dark Arts (Part of why i love Sage i think lol) and is meant to be used liberally.
If done right, you can go whole dungeons and never have to hardcast anything other than Dosis.

But probably the main thing is to ensure you have a full set of gear going in lol.
My Armory was all over the place so i didnt notice that i didnt have the right gear on me and the recommended gear button put a cosmetic helm on and level 50 accessories including a caster ring lol. So i did that story dungeon technically with half my gear missing XD

I advise you go learn a lower level healer first rather than sage to get a feel for how healing works. The most important thing to do as a healer in ff14 is NOT PANIC and the second is to dps when you don't need to heal. Given sage heals by dpsing, this is even more important. The moment you start panicking is when things die.

The sage toolkit is a bit overwhelming at first like any new job though so that will be a significant factor in why you panicked

I also feel for you about the target switching, ugh that was hard on controller when your tank isn't in the party. Thank goodness druochole is so busted

the principles of healing in ff14 are

1. Read your tooltips (like any job)
2. Get a feel for your healing tools and their strength/frequency.
3. Dps when you dont need to heal.

I guess this is what can happen if you just jump into healing. I strongly recommend taking a healer into Hall of Novice. I was able to hop right into SGE because I've been healing using all three jobs since HW, and even then I still had to really read the tooltips and put them into practice to understand was SGE is trying to do. I couldn't even imagine just hopping into healing @lv70 with a ton of skills I don't even have remote experience with.

The solo instance giving you difficulty is not due to the design of the encounter. If you or the NPC keeps dying, you are either not keeping them healed, or not doing a certain mechanic that punishes you and/or her if you fail it. Sometimes solo encounters do have soft enrages that has you focus on DPS, but that is not the case here. I know you hear all the time to cause as much damage as possible no matter what role you are playing, and SGE has a heavy 'I do deeps' vibe, but instances like that one is to teach you three things:
1. Keep your own butt from frying
2. Keep your team from dying
3. Destroy all hostile targets

The instance is a good indicator that if you can't clear it, then stay out of dungeons until you do.

Sage is a bit complicated to understand at first, but it's a lot of fun and quick to play, you can chain mitigations and Dps together very quickly.

There is a sort of DNC buff, but that provides the heal when you dps: Kardia.
You can place it on yourself during quests or your chocobo. It allows you to dps while enjoying a heal that helps.

Spells usually heal but with a special action Eukrasia, adding mitigation to the group or target rather than healing it more.

Some skills regenerate mana very often. Which is kind of strange at first when dps a target, the spell does a normal attack and with the skill changing the spell Eukrasia, it becomes a dot, it's a hit to take.
When Eukrasia Diagnosis takes damage when placed on an ally or yourself, it gives stacks that allow you to cast the remote AoE Toxikon.

Eukrasia is a skill used all the time for mitigations, Toxikon proc or DoT. It's a skill used all the time. It's keyboarding that does it, I don't know what it does on gamepad shortcuts. I'm talking mostly for Ps4/5 players, where the Mouse, regardless of the number of buttons, only takes into account the basic ones, not the side buttons or MMO's Mouse.


It's a kind of AST with fast and nervous mitigation (and no buff Ofc), I love it!
I just wish the running animation with the weapon out and some cooler skill animation, but that's a detail.

One thing to remember also is there have been lots of tanks just coming back to the game from a while ago or people rolling tanks for quick queues that also have no idea what they are doing. I have ran many dungeons where not a single tank cool down was used yesterday.

Having played healers in every game for as long as I have been playing them helped but sage still took some extra reading. Yesterday I had two occasions where I was told along the lines of "omg sages can be amazing but I thought they were undertuned or bad.". I have found the burst healing on then can be insane and can fix things other jobs would really struggle with. You do have to learn the abilities which like any class will take some time to learn especially starting out at 70 with a ton of abilities.

The biggest thing is don't panic. Stay ahead with your shields. Even if you don't know when abilities are coming drop a group shield in a boss fight, they stay up for 30 seconds. Don't be afraid of the longer cool down heals just make sure you have charges for the ones that need it. I almost never use diagnosis without eukrasia as all the ogcd and long cool down abilities have general healing covered. Most regular content if I am not going crazy on dps my mana/tp has been no issue at all even forgetting to hit my regen.

Sometimes I felt like I'm managing tank cooldowns with Sage. There's I think three skills that give a 10% dmg reduction, though two of them don't stack (but can be used back to back). So it's possible to have 20% dmg reduction at times (with the 120sec cd skill though) and able to keep up 10% mitigation at most times. The multi-stack shields (Hainama and Panhainama or something?) seem really cool and unique (.. so much that I often forget to use them since I'm not used to anything similar on my hotkeys), though the aoe one seems -very- situational. Can't think of many situation where the entire party gets hit multiple repetitive times, but guess maybe the 81-90 content has some more of that (only ones I can think of are the stack-marker lasers that hit multiple times, like pagl'than last boss or final steps of faith or moon lady)

Not a Sage main. Only played it a bit, that said it has some strong heals. I would say this though some tanks don't use proper cooldowns. Take 1 dungeon i did yesterday. Sireson. Tank did the 1st pull and didn't use a single def cooldown except sentinel at the end of the pull. I had to burn all my instant heals to keep him alive instead of periodically throwing one out as I dps to heal him with Kardia.

If you're really struggling, I recommend to go practice in a lower level dungeon first so it's not as if you get a full list of skills you have to figure out. This helps you consolidate a small section of the sage's toolkit at a time. After familiarizing with what you have learned so far, then you can go read tooltips for other skills, and then practice those skills in a higher level dungeon. That helped me get a good grasp of the Sage's toolkit.

EX: If you pop Kradia on the tank in Satasha and then spam Dosis, you can sustain them very well at Satasha (Lv 15).
Then you go to level 30 dungeons to practice how Eukrasia works and Phlegma for positioning.
Then you go to level 45 to 50 dungeons to practice with your Sage Gauge, Icarus, and Soteria. At this point, you should be working on getting a feel on when to heal, and how much you can use your passive healing from Kardia to sustain them.
Then to level 60 for new abilities - practicing how Zoe will augment your heals, when to best use Pepsis over your other healing tools, and how effective the upgraded Physis II works in tandem to your healing abilities.
Then to level 70 for newer abilities - figuring out when to use Taurochole and Haima, preshielding for Toxikon stacks.
And then you're set to where you need to be. You can continue the same pattern of learning at level 80 and level 90.

That's the prob with starting at lvl 70.
There's a lot to learn about the role first, then the job.

That's why it feels unintuitive or unfun.
I don't recommand people jumping into healing with Sage if they never healed before unless they have at least some strong knowledge of how it can perform.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

If you're really struggling, I recommend to go practice in a lower level dungeon first so it's not as if you get a full list of skills you have to figure out. This helps you consolidate a small section of the sage's toolkit at a time. After familiarizing with what you have learned so far, then you can go read tooltips for other skills, and then practice those skills in a higher level dungeon. That helped me get a good grasp of the Sage's toolkit.

EX: If you pop Kradia on the tank in Satasha and then spam Dosis, you can sustain them very well at Satasha (Lv 15).
Then you go to level 30 dungeons to practice how Eukrasia works and Phlegma for positioning.
Then you go to level 45 to 50 dungeons to practice with your Sage Gauge, Icarus, and Soteria. At this point, you should be working on getting a feel on when to heal, and how much you can use your passive healing from Kardia to sustain them.
Then to level 60 for new abilities - practicing how Zoe will augment your heals, when to best use Pepsis over your other healing tools, and how effective the upgraded Physis II works in tandem to your healing abilities.
Then to level 70 for newer abilities - figuring out when to use Taurochole and Haima, preshielding for Toxikon stacks.
And then you're set to where you need to be. You can continue the same pattern of learning at level 80 and level 90.

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This is my preferred method of learning new classes. It lets you digest the entire kit of a class step by step instead of being dumped on by a ton of skills and trying to put the jigsaw puzzle together.

Jesus, calm down.
Maybe try and get the role first, than the basics of the job, read its tooltips, before coming to the forums and calling a job "garbage"

Sage it's not as easy as WHM, it's pretty complex, their own kit has some pretty nice interactions with itself, but it takes some time to get used to it
just like AST you can't simply jump into a new role, get the most complex job and expect everything to be a piece of cake. o. O

I've been using sage so far in story and have a good grasp on it, only usage situation I haven't figured out is Pepsis. It can only be used to dispel a shield into a heal, otherwise it does nothing. Is it just a skill to do just that? If I wait for damage then the shield is gone and Pepsis doesn't work. It seems to be a 50 potency increase for using it though but it doesn't feel good to use.

Everything else is pretty simple. I'm a little shy of 83 before the game refused to let me login for nearly 5 hours today.

i think sage is similiar to scholar in its time based spread of skills for scholar you use emergency tactics to boost your 2 basic heals for sage you use eukrasia to boost them but added bonus you have pepsis for that extra if needed burst also similar to scholar where youd use fey blessing or indomitable so if your struggling with sage try scholar out see if that helps things click

use the force

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Originally Posted by Mesarthim

I've been using sage so far in story and have a good grasp on it, only usage situation I haven't figured out is Pepsis. It can only be used to dispel a shield into a heal, otherwise it does nothing. Is it just a skill to do just that? If I wait for damage then the shield is gone and Pepsis doesn't work. It seems to be a 50 potency increase for using it though but it doesn't feel good to use.

Everything else is pretty simple. I'm a little shy of 83 before the game refused to let me login for nearly 5 hours today.

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Pepsis was the most interesting part of the Sage kit to me. Barriers only last 30 seconds so the effective hp is lost if you aren't able to predict damage well. Pepsis acts as a safety net for inexperienced shield healers to always get value out of their barriers. For more advanced usage though I thought about attacks that can't be shielded at all. Take for instance the occasional mechanic where everyone has their health dropped to a single digit. These attacks ignore shields completely but a Sage can use preemptive shielding and convert it into health with Pepsis. Warrior of Light Extreme is a prime example where a Sage could shield early during the countdown and benefit thanks to Pepsis while a Scholar would be wasting their time doing the same.

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Originally Posted by Sililos

Given it a try, im not a healer main, nor do I even have much experience.
This job just feels like total garbage.

WHM I was ok at, Pop Medica 2, DPS, maybe a targeted heal or two, win.

Sage has so much target switching its total chaos and both the barrier's and heals feel like they do barely anything, so far have only been trying to heal the NPC and she always drops dead pretty much the moment i target the enemy to start DPSing.

it feels chaotic, it feels unintuitive, it feels like theres just too much going on for this to be fun. Oh right thats healing in general.

Just what Am i supposed to do to get this job/job role to bloody work?

And my god, all the damn target switching, having to know where my cursor is at all times with everything going on so i can click elsewhere/the NPC meanwhile AOE's everywhere and having to also heal yourself.

I mean damn SE, Were humans, we have limits ands this just feels like there is too much going on at once and no time to react!

I seriously dont get it at all!

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I'm just now getting the hang of it. Went though the Seat of Sacrifice earlier today and not only stayed alive, but kept peeps alive (as long as they didn't run into one-shot-kill mechanics). It feels a lot more mobile and a lot more button clicking than other heal roles - I've done White Mage and Astrologian. So, I agree, it definitely could be described as "chaotic". I think it's probably closer to the "expert mode" healer. I'd suggest if you are still having problems with it, try White Mage first - get to the concept of healing - and then ease your way into Sage.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

If you're really struggling, I recommend to go practice in a lower level dungeon first so it's not as if you get a full list of skills you have to figure out. This helps you consolidate a small section of the sage's toolkit at a time. After familiarizing with what you have learned so far, then you can go read tooltips for other skills, and then practice those skills in a higher level dungeon. That helped me get a good grasp of the Sage's toolkit.

EX: If you pop Kradia on the tank in Satasha and then spam Dosis, you can sustain them very well at Satasha (Lv 15).
Then you go to level 30 dungeons to practice how Eukrasia works and Phlegma for positioning.
Then you go to level 45 to 50 dungeons to practice with your Sage Gauge, Icarus, and Soteria. At this point, you should be working on getting a feel on when to heal, and how much you can use your passive healing from Kardia to sustain them.
Then to level 60 for new abilities - practicing how Zoe will augment your heals, when to best use Pepsis over your other healing tools, and how effective the upgraded Physis II works in tandem to your healing abilities.
Then to level 70 for newer abilities - figuring out when to use Taurochole and Haima, preshielding for Toxikon stacks.
And then you're set to where you need to be. You can continue the same pattern of learning at level 80 and level 90.

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Zoe + Eukrasian Diagnosis seems pretty effective (or I've been coincidentally getting really good rolls from RNGesus every time I cast it)
One I've also been playing with is Eukrasian Prognosis -> Pepsis -> Eukrasian Prognosis. Done quick enough, it seems pretty good at getting a group burst heal.

Hmm some really good info here.

Thanks everyone and thanks for keeping a cool head with your posts when i clearly could not.
Dont feel quite ready to jump into healing or playing the class just yet, but when i do, theres a wealth of knowledge here so ty all again.

This is kinda how I think of it and it may help: think of the combos you can do with your abilities.

You have damage reduction: Kerachole, Taurochole, Haima, Holos, and Panhaima.

You have healing boosts: Physis 2, Krasis, Soteria, and Kerachole (78).

You have healing bursts: Druochole, Taurochole, Ixochole, Holos, and Pneuma.

SGE has a lot of damage potential that needs to be used compared to other healers, so trying to get as much damage off to also proc as many Kardion heals is important.

So SGE approaches in a similar vein to a tank: reduce the flow of damage down and raise the flow of healing up. Damage will usually outpace your healing flow (Kardia), but you have ways to refill HP bars in bursts (Druochole).

When you have nothing left, then Eukrasia Diagnosis becomes your friend. If damage comes in hard enough, spamming Eukrasia Diagnosis would be your best bet. You can get a large burst by using Zoe+Eukrasia Dosis and Eukrasia Dosis immediately followed by Pepsis.

But as you spam Eukrasia Diagnosis, keep an eye out on your Addersgall for getting that Druochole in to give you a breather.

So, maybe setting up your bar for mitigations, regens/boosts, and bursts might help make the gameplay a little more intuitive.

And, I wouldn’t worry about Kardia swapping just yet. Kardia introduces triaging as you can assign your new “patient” as you excise the cancers plaguing the party. Once you’re familiar with your kit and the transition from damage/tools to E.Diag spam and back, then I’d start adding in some Kardia swapping.

Good luck young doctor!

(Also gear helps a lot. There’s also a lot of nuance with abilities due to their double nature, but I’d worry about that later.)

I've written this up because a newbie friend is also coming from only having tried WHM and is trying to get her head around SGE. Please Note: This is based on 2 days of play an no attempt of optimising, so I am sure there are ways this can be improved. This is written from the perspective of starting at 70, so it ignores everything 71-90.

What is Eukrasia?
Eukrasia will enhance an ability (with 3 to choose from). To use it, use "Eukrasia" and then one of the following abilities:
- Dosis -> This will turn it from a spell that does damage up front, it will turn it into a damage over time spell. Like Dia/Aero on White Mage. You will want to keep this on your enemy at all times. (Eukrasian Dosis)
- Diagnosis -> This will turn it from a healing spell into a shield spell. I will cover shielding vs healing separately (Eukrasian Diagnosis)
- Prognosis -> This will turn it from a healing spell into a shield spell. (Eukrasian Prognosis)

Use these as DPS abilities:
Dosis -> When you have no other DPS buttons to push and are fighting 1 enemy, spam this
Dyscrasia -> Whene you have nother DPS buttons to push and are fighting more than 1 enemy, spam this
Phlegma -> A nice AoE damage spell, you need to be close to use it and target an enemy. Use this for single target too. Use it whenever you have it.
Toxicon -> Use this whenever you have it.
Eukrasian Dosis -> Whenever you don't have Eukrasian Dosis applied to an enemy


How do I get Toxicon?
Apply a Eukrasian Diagnosis on somebody who is going to take damage. When that shield breaks you get an "Addersting" (the purple diamonds on your job gauge), you can collect up to 3 and you can spend these on Toxicon.

Base healing spells:

- Diagnosis is your base single target healing spell. Use it like you'd use Cure II on White Mage. It can be spammed.
- Prognosis is your base multiple target healing spell. Use it like you'd use Medica on White Mage. It can be spammed.
But if Diagnosis and Prognosis not healing enough?
Use "Zoe" first, it will boost your healing potency.
- Physis - this is your multiple target regen healing spell. Use it like Medica II on White Mage, BUT unlike Medica II it has a recast, so you cannot use it all of the time like you can on White Mage.

Bonus healing spells:
These all use your Addersgall (the blue thing on your job gauge, you get a total of 3 and they gradually build up). You can think of them as your "oh shit" moment spells. Though they have a wider use than that when it comes to optimising your healing, but to start with, it's best to treat them as life savers when in a tight spot. Then when you've got the hang of everything you can think of how you can use them to optimise your healing, worry about that later.

Druochole -> Single target instant heal. Or "oh shit that one person needs healing right now"
Ixochole -> Multiple targe instant heal. Or "oh shit we all need healing right now"
Kerachole -> Reduces damage taken for all your buddies. Or "oh shit we're all about to take damage".
Taurochole -> Stronger single target instant heal that reduces incoming damage. Or "oh shit, they need healing right now and will take more damage". This has a recast, so it cannot be used as frequently, hence you'd not always use it instead of Druochole.

These are also your oGCD/off global cooldown skills. Although they're referred to as "oh shit" moments above, I think they have that use whilst learning as they can be a life saver, but they become very important in your main healing toolkit rather than for "oh shit" moments (but even then, if you got an oh shit moment you didn't plan for and an oGCD, spend it).

A bonus heal that doesn't use Addersgall:
Haima -> This is a shield heal that applies a shield & healing every time the shield breaks for up to 5 times. You might use this when a tank does a big pull because they'll keep taking hits and Haima will heal & shield them for 5 of those hits.

What's a Kardia?

It's basically a healer version of DNC's Dance partner. The person you give it to gets free heals from certain things you do (like DPS).
You can increase the amount of healing this does with "Soteria".
One way I use this is I give it to the tank and use "Soteria" if they're taking continuous damage, like on a big dungeon pull.


WTF Is shield healing?

It's there to prevent incoming damage. If coming from White Mage you have very little in the way of shields for a point of reference, you only have had Divine Benison for this. But WHM is considered a "pure healer" so they react to damage as it comes in, if somebody is hurt then you heal them, WHM might use some spells pre-emptively too. But shielding is there to mitigate incoming damage. This means a shield healer will heal for less compared to a pure healer, but they rely on shields as part of their healing style to compensate. So as part of it you predict incoming damage and prepare for it by supplying a shield.

For this you have at 70:
Eukrasian Diagnosis
Eukrasian Prognosis
Haima

In addition to shield healing, you have spells that will reduce incoming damage (which helps further), which at 70 are:

Taurochole
Kerachole

But you don't just have to be pre-emptive with your shields. Because, let's say your party takes damage, you can shield them whilst you're getting their HP up. Your heals are weaker, so it may take a little more to get their health to full, however, that shield is protecting them whilst you're doing it. And SGE gets an additional benefit here, if nobody takes damage? You can detonate those shields for extra healing and this is what "Pepsis" does.

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Originally Posted by Sililos

TY I will later once I have calmed down. 25 times seeing the NPC in the first story dungeon lose 95% HP in one blow while shielded, then lose the rest after an instant heal but before you get a chance to pop any others, gets a bit.... well Its pushed my desire to play at all too an all time low lol.

So i think some calming down is in order for now.

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While this video is for Shadowbringers and Scholar, it's still very relevant information for how to approach healing. And with Sage sharing a lot of similarities to Scholar, it may help at least give you a better understanding on how to approach barrier healing. It may even be beneficial for you to play a little of Scholar as it's generally easier to grasp compared to Sage.

Beyond that, try not to beat yourself up too much. I've been leveling Reaper and even as an experienced Melee and Tank player, it still takes a bit to sort of get comfortable with how the job flows and what I'm supposed to align with my buffs.

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Originally Posted by Saefinn

Druochole -> Single target instant heal. Or "oh shit that one person needs healing right now"
Ixochole -> Multiple targe instant heal. Or "oh shit we all need healing right now"
Kerachole -> Reduces damage taken for all your buddies. Or "oh shit we're all about to take damage".
Taurochole -> Stronger single target instant heal that reduces incoming damage. Or "oh shit, they need healing right now and will take more damage". This has a recast, so it cannot be used as frequently, hence you'd not always use it instead of Druochole.

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This is a helpful newbie guide except I would suggest a different view on these abilities. These are all oCDG, so as long as you manage your gauge right they are less "oh shit" and more your bread and butter heals. The GCD heals like diagnosis and prognosis are more the "need to heal and don't have gauge left". It's very similar to scholar.

Not surprisingly, if people are familiar with scholar I think they'll find SGE pretty easy to pickup. Really the main difference is you can swap you abilities from pure heal to shield heal with eukrasia.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

Everything feels chaotic at first including dps jobs and tanks. Being new to healing means there is a lot to adjust to. Just give yourself time. No one has been able to play Sage for more than a day yet. There is plenty of time to settle in. Try lower level dungeons where your kit is smaller and work your way up. You'll get the hang of it soon enough.

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This basically encompasses anything any of the rest of us could tell you.

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Originally Posted by Sililos

Given it a try, im not a healer main, nor do I even have much experience.
This job just feels like total garbage.

WHM I was ok at, Pop Medica 2, DPS, maybe a targeted heal or two, win.

Sage has so much target switching its total chaos and both the barrier's and heals feel like they do barely anything, so far have only been trying to heal the NPC and she always drops dead pretty much the moment i target the enemy to start DPSing.

it feels chaotic, it feels unintuitive, it feels like theres just too much going on for this to be fun. Oh right thats healing in general.

Just what Am i supposed to do to get this job/job role to bloody work?

And my god, all the damn target switching, having to know where my cursor is at all times with everything going on so i can click elsewhere/the NPC meanwhile AOE's everywhere and having to also heal yourself.

I mean damn SE, Were humans, we have limits ands this just feels like there is too much going on at once and no time to react!

I seriously dont get it at all!

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I’m not sure why you’re target switching all the time… are you referring to moving Kardia around or just your oGCD heals? Or even regular heals, I guess. Need some clarification and perhaps I can provide some advice. That said, targeting NPCs has always been annoying. The game prefers to target enemies in combat, and you can’t shuffle between it and an NPC the same way you can party members since you aren’t technically in a party with an NPC. Switching to people in a party is no different than the other healers. Healing yourself doesn’t require a target. If you keep a mob targeted and then cast a heal, it will default to you.

All that said, SGE is also not meant to be a raw, burst healer like WHM. It’s a barrier healer, and it’s kit is designed more for the “slowing down” of HP loss versus “tank is at 10% burst heal him to full” gameplay that WHM has. It was marketed by Yoshida as a more “advanced” healer compared to, say, WHM; so it’s ultimately about practicing it. I would suggest not doing 70 content with it. Start at the lower levels and get used to the kit. Really learn what each button does. And then move up from there. It is definitely not a job someone with little to no experience healing is meant to grasp 100% immediately.

I’m more than willing to offer advice. I’ve played healers in this game almost since I started—AST was the third job I leveled. I’ve healed higher end content, so I know how each function. When I’m on lunch, I’ll read the rest of the thread and see if I can pick out some helpful tips for you.

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Originally Posted by tangentcat

This is a helpful newbie guide except I would suggest a different view on these abilities. These are all oCDG, so as long as you manage your gauge right they are less "oh shit" and more your bread and butter heals. The GCD heals like diagnosis and prognosis are more the "need to heal and don't have gauge left". It's very similar to scholar.

Not surprisingly, if people are familiar with scholar I think they'll find SGE pretty easy to pickup. Really the main difference is you can swap you abilities from pure heal to shield heal with eukrasia.

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Thanks and fairdoes, I put in "Then when you've got the hang of everything you can think of how you can use them to optimise your healing, worry about that later" but I realise that's pretty vague. I think for inexperienced healers they are good as 'oh shit' buttons as they'll be less prepared than experiences healers, but probably should be in there at least for awareness/something to work toward with practice/experience.

And yeah, as a former SCH main, I was able to pick it up almost instantly. Yet it doesn't feel quite like a carbon copy because it feels different to play, yet it feels like the kind of thing SCH should have evolved into.

AST main so I have no problems with sage and the target switching is pretty standard for any healer once you are a bit more competent. Just take a breath and practice flicking between mob and player, you can also keybind to target your target's target for even easier and faster flicking!
Sage has a lot of forgiving qualities too it imo since it has a lot of insta cast heals to allow for even easier ogcd usage and movement. I would also suggest taking a proper look at your skill tooltips, a lot of your ogcd's give a bonus 10% dmg mitigation as well. Always in dungeons aim (if dps and tank are competent) to heal solely with ogcd once you are comfortable on the job.

AST's old sleeve draw was very busy and I loved it, I enjoy sage for not feeling like I have nothing to do as well. You just need to relax a bit and practice.

Running with an NPC that isn't listed as in your party makes for a pretty tough introduction to the job, too, since you have to find them on your screen, you have to "manage" your mouse cursor, and you have to click a moving target. That's making it more difficult than it has to be -- in a group, you can see what you need to see in the party list, and you can click them comfortably without having to "aim" at them. ;)

So, don't worry. It's actually easier once you get into it. Maybe try Holminster Switch with your Trust buddies, to get a feeling for the job. (Avatar, not Story. Thancred is sturdier than Exarch)

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Originally Posted by Shironeko_Narunyan

Running with an NPC that isn't listed as in your party makes for a pretty tough introduction to the job, too, since you have to find them on your screen, you have to "manage" your mouse cursor, and you have to click a moving target. That's making it more difficult than it has to be -- in a group, you can see what you need to see in the party list, and you can click them comfortably without having to "aim" at them. ;)

So, don't worry. It's actually easier once you get into it. Maybe try Holminster Switch with your Trust buddies, to get a feeling for the job. (Avatar, not Story. Thancred is sturdier than Exarch)

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Set the Target Nearest NPC or Object keybind to something really easy to reach like V so you don't have to click your NPC pseudoparty members. Also Focus target them if you have overhead health bars turned off.

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Originally Posted by Sililos

Given it a try, im not a healer main, nor do I even have much experience.
This job just feels like total garbage.

WHM I was ok at, Pop Medica 2, DPS, maybe a targeted heal or two, win.

Sage has so much target switching its total chaos and both the barrier's and heals feel like they do barely anything, so far have only been trying to heal the NPC and she always drops dead pretty much the moment i target the enemy to start DPSing.

it feels chaotic, it feels unintuitive, it feels like theres just too much going on for this to be fun. Oh right thats healing in general.

Just what Am i supposed to do to get this job/job role to bloody work?

And my god, all the damn target switching, having to know where my cursor is at all times with everything going on so i can click elsewhere/the NPC meanwhile AOE's everywhere and having to also heal yourself.

I mean damn SE, Were humans, we have limits ands this just feels like there is too much going on at once and no time to react!

I seriously dont get it at all!

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I recommend making macros with <tt> (target of target) such as this

/micon Dosis
/ac Dosis <tt>
/ac Dosis <ft> (focus Target)
/ac Dosis

I mostly do this because it seems that to DPS is also to heal as sage, and it makes sense for me to target tank at all times and for my DPS abilities to target the tanks target.

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Originally Posted by Morzy

I recommend making macros with <tt> (target of target) such as this

/micon Dosis
/ac Dosis <tt>
/ac Dosis <ft> (focus Target)
/ac Dosis

I mostly do this because it seems that to DPS is also to heal as sage, and it makes sense for me to target tank at all times and for my DPS abilities to target the tanks target.

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I do this for AST, because cards necessitates swapping between party members.
It's one thing to switch from enemy to tank, but to be constantly scrolling through the party list as well makes for bad times.

However on Sage, with healing linked to dps spells, I wouldn't want to risk it. Macroing GCDs slows you down, and in turn slows your kardia heals down. So I've forced myself to learn to swap targets.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Morzy

I recommend making macros with <tt> (target of target) such as this

/micon Dosis
/ac Dosis <tt>
/ac Dosis <ft> (focus Target)
/ac Dosis

I mostly do this because it seems that to DPS is also to heal as sage, and it makes sense for me to target tank at all times and for my DPS abilities to target the tanks target.

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If you wan to play well, it is recommended not to use macro because they have built-in cool-downs so you end up losing quite a lot of spells during one fight.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hysterior

If you wan to play well, it is recommended not to use macro because they have built-in cool-downs so you end up losing quite a lot of spells during one fight.

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The <tt> effect the macro does should be a built in UI effect for Healer DPS spells in general.
Healers are the only role that has to be constantly switching from party to enemy and back again through an entire fight and blasting yourself with an oGCD because you hit the heal a fraction of a second before the target switch registers feels crap.

There are a lot of players who do not feel comfortable with the excessive target switching required of a DPSing healer.
Encouraging the usage of DPS spells through a built in <tt> effect would subtly nudge even those who currently refuse to DPS into making a habit of sending spare GCDs into damage.

As it stands though, DPS loss be damned. I will keep using the <tt> macros on Dosis, Toxikon and Phlegma because it makes the role less of a ballache to play. Until the day they give me what i ask for at least. The moment they do that is the moment i stop using the macro, lol.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sililos

Given it a try, im not a healer main, nor do I even have much experience.
This job just feels like total garbage.

WHM I was ok at, Pop Medica 2, DPS, maybe a targeted heal or two, win.

Sage has so much target switching its total chaos and both the barrier's and heals feel like they do barely anything, so far have only been trying to heal the NPC and she always drops dead pretty much the moment i target the enemy to start DPSing.

it feels chaotic, it feels unintuitive, it feels like theres just too much going on for this to be fun. Oh right thats healing in general.

Just what Am i supposed to do to get this job/job role to bloody work?

And my god, all the damn target switching, having to know where my cursor is at all times with everything going on so i can click elsewhere/the NPC meanwhile AOE's everywhere and having to also heal yourself.

I mean damn SE, We’re humans, we have limits ands this just feels like there is too much going on at once and no time to react!

I seriously don't get it at all!

TY I will later once I have calmed down. 25 times seeing the NPC in the first story dungeon lose 95% HP in one blow while shielded, then lose the rest after an instant heal but before you get a chance to pop any others, gets a bit.... well Its pushed my desire to play at all too an all time low lol.

So i think some calming down is in order for now.[

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These posts could have been written by me. I'm a healer main and I have never felt so helpless as that duty made me feel. Sage has managed to completely elude me.

I'm hoping the tips in this thread help me wrap my head around playing Sage because it looks cool as hell.

I get tunnel vision when healing even with whm occasionally, I'll probably level my sage through trusts and that's it lul. I don't like healing ;-;