so apparently Sage dealing a raid wide Aoe to his group is working as intended

tl;dr:
Sage's Eukrasian Prognosis/Diagnosis can overwrite Scholar's buffed Galvanize shield, even if it would provide a 99% lower shield

https://abload.de/img/bildschirmfoto2022-01z6jxm.png

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I opened 2 bug reports, one was moved to insufficient information (ok, makes sense, my bad https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...olars-Barriers)
and the second one was moved to "working as intended"
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...vanize-shields

The steps to reproduce this are really simple and everyone can ruin his co-healers life try it out:
1. Scholar uses "Recitation" + "Adloquium" + "Deployment Tactics", granting the whole Group a boosted effect of "Galvanize"
2. Sage uses Eukrasian Prognosis
3. Group gets hit by a raid wide AoE from the Sage (lul), aka magicked barrier overwrites boosted Galvanize effect of the Scholar, resulting in a much smaller barrier.

The problem is that only stronger Scholar Shields can overwrite Sage Shields, while Sage can overwrite Scholar Shields with (much) weaker ones, which results in wasted cooldowns, indirect damage (or if timed poorly direct damage) to the whole party.

e.g.:
- 1 to 8 player(s) in your group eat some dmg and fall to 5k HP. the boss begins to cast a raid wide AoE dealing 10k HP.
(Players at 5k HP)
- Scholar begins casting his usual "Recitation" + "Adloquium" + "Deployment Tactics" combo with maybe some additional heal boosting buffs, spreading a 7k HP shield to the whole group, enough to survive the incoming raid wide AoE
(Players at 12k HP)
- The Sage casts Eukrasian Prognosis, mostly unbuffed, overwriting the Galvanize Shield with a 2k HP shield. Effectively dealing a 5k raid wide AoE to his group.
(Players at 7k HP)
Boss finishes his raid wide AoE cast and deals 10k HP. everyone dies
(Players at -3k HP, aka ded)

I know this example is extreme and would rarely occur in real situations, and that in a single target case the scholar would cast buffed Adloquium on the player who made the mistake, which would then also heal him and give him another shield which cannot be overwritten (at least not from the E.Prognosis) and that E.P also heals a bit, but the example shows how a Sage can in 100% of situations where he is paired with a scholar and the scholar uses his go-to 90s CD AoE shield, deal a raid wide AoE to his own group. and this is working as intended.

Real Gameplay Example in the first comment as it's too long to include here apparently.

real gameplay example:
Pandaemonium 3rd Circle.

I (Scholar) get matched with a Sage. Before the Fight starts I cast my usual buffed combination of "Protraction" + "Fey Illumination" + "Recitation" + "Adloquium" + "Deployment Tactics".
Sage immediately casts E.Prognosis afterwards, reducing shields of everyone, requiring earlier and more heals, wasting more oGCDs (next to the 60s, 2x 90s and 120s oGCDs wasted already) and reducing dmg output of both healers.

Phoinix readys a raid wide AoE, I again cast my "Protraction" + "Fey Illumination" + "Recitation" + "Adloquium" + "Deployment Tactics" to shield the group. Sage again overcasts it by E.Prognosis.
I now wasted 4 oGCDs again and have to top up the group as instead of the shield eating the dmg, they got "HP-DMG" which needs to be healed (and the Sage dealt "Shield-DMG" to the group, by reducing the shield to a fraction)

This happened throughout the whole fight on every occasion.

This is how it has always been, that's why you didn't see SCH/N.AST pairs in previous expansions. I can see why they wouldn't want to change this, as they ideally want to keep one barrier and one pure healer per party.

That being said, SGE/SCH is still very viable and content so far, perhaps with the exception of P3S/P4S, doesn't actually require GCD shielding. So you should never really be in that predicament. It probably is very annoying though, but it is what it is.

scholar + sage is gaining an increasing lead over other healer combinations as gear levels increase so, on the one hand, I definitely don't think SE should do anything to 'buff' the combination. It's really strong and just getting stronger.

...but on the flipside, having weird shield overwriting mechanics - IMO - is not the way to do it. I think the stronger shield should stay, and if SCH+SGE synergy needs to be reduced (which, yeah, it's just crazy good right now) SE should find other ways to do it. Ways that don't feel quite so janky as this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kabzy

This is how it has always been, that's why you didn't see SCH/N.AST pairs in previous expansions. I can see why they wouldn't want to change this, as they ideally want to keep one barrier and one pure healer per party.

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this explains my confusion about why it was labelled "works as intended", thanks, but with AST you could just use your other buff and not run nocturnal, soo it wasn't really an issue. on SCH+SGE you dont have that option

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kabzy

This is how it has always been, that's why you didn't see SCH/N.AST pairs in previous expansions. I can see why they wouldn't want to change this, as they ideally want to keep one barrier and one pure healer per party.

That being said, SGE/SCH is still very viable and content so far, perhaps with the exception of P3S/P4S, doesn't actually require GCD shielding. So you should never really be in that predicament. It probably is very annoying though, but it is what it is.

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Just because that's how it's "always been" doesn't mean it's good design. . . That excuse is the height of white knightery.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Just because that's how it's "always been" doesn't mean it's good design. . . That excuse is the height of white knightery.

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I'm not saying it is, I've slated the developers enough times for how terrible they are when it comes to healers. But in this scenario, I think having some repercussions to ignoring the pure healers is good.
Or at least I'd much rather they focus on the actual things about healers that could be improved, rather than something like this which isn't even much of an issue if you know how to play your job. But to each their own.

For me as a Scholar, I just entirely forgo any kind of gcd barriers (including Deployment which is painful) if I’m paired with a Sage. I mean, you shouldn’t be using them anyway because it’s a 300p dps loss, but even if you do I’ve met Sages who will literally wait for me to cast Adloquium/Succor then immediately overwrite it with their weaker Eukrasian Diagnosis/Prognosis. At least they can’t delete Catalyze and Seraphic Veil lol.

I want to say Sage gets shield priority because of Toxicon, but we all know it’s because it’s the new job lol.

Maybe I’m wrong but can’t White Mage and Astrologian stack their regens? It seems a little unfair that barrier healers have to deal with barrier overwriting but pure healers face no such repercussions when stacked. And I mean Astrologian can produce it’s own powerful barriers anyway so they basically get the best of both

Of course, barrier stacking would be way too OP, but at the same time why even create a dichotomy between healer types of it’s only going to apply to 2 out of 4 of them?

That’s not even considering the fact that barrier healers are pretty much not allowed to use their barriers because dps loss.
So we have pure healers with powerful barriers, barrier healers who shouldn’t be using their barriers (not that Astrologian doesn’t lose dps from Aspected Helios but at least they have cards lol), issues like this whether shield strength isn’t taken into consideration for overwriting.

I think it works like this because Sage's shields are tied to a resource with Toxicon and Scholar's aren't. Granted, I don't think this is a good justification for why a Sage should be able to overwrite more powerful shields, but I think it at least makes sense why it's happening if it's the case.
IMO, let Sage's single target overwrite a Scholar shield but make it where Sage's AoE shielding can't overwrite more powerful shields and that's a fair compromise if this was the intended thinking.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

I think it works like this because Sage's shields are tied to a resource with Toxicon and Scholar's aren't. Granted, I don't think this is a good justification for why a Sage should be able to overwrite more powerful shields, but I think it at least makes sense why it's happening if it's the case.
IMO, let Sage's single target overwrite a Scholar shield but make it where Sage's AoE shielding can't overwrite more powerful shields and that's a fair compromise if this was the intended thinking.

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it worked like this even when AST could go Nocturnal so Resources aren't the reason, it's just how it's programmed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

I think it works like this because Sage's shields are tied to a resource with Toxicon and Scholar's aren't. Granted, I don't think this is a good justification for why a Sage should be able to overwrite more powerful shields, but I think it at least makes sense why it's happening if it's the case.
IMO, let Sage's single target overwrite a Scholar shield but make it where Sage's AoE shielding can't overwrite more powerful shields and that's a fair compromise if this was the intended thinking.

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Kinda this. E.diagnosis overwriting is normal (always has worked like that) and I'm of the mind that it's desired and IS a good justification. E.Prognosis doing the same isn't ideal but also not a huge drawback. The game never really sets you in a setting where overwriting higher shields is an issue anyways. Hell, there are only a handful of places where you actually need shields at all. At min ilvl might I add. And in those few places, you'd be expected to communicate with your cohealer anyways.

I just started leveling my sage the other day. While doing an alliance roulette I noticed my shields were overwriting a scholars. I ended up apologizing to the scholar because it would happen so many times on accident. He said he didn't even notice but I did. It actually made me feel bad for using my shields. I hate the term "bad design" but it really felt bad...as in it shouldn't be this way. There's got to be a better way to handle this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Connor

For me as a Scholar, I just entirely forgo any kind of gcd barriers (including Deployment which is painful) if I’m paired with a Sage. I mean, you shouldn’t be using them anyway because it’s a 300p dps loss

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E Prog is a 330 potency loss. If you're paired with a Sage and the group needs a GCD heal, you're on Succor duty.

This is buggy behavior. It's also a bug that's been around for a long time, and Square doesn't seem keen on fixing it.

That being said, GCD shields shouldn't stack for a multitude of reasons. They block application of a lot of debuffs. eHP is a much more powerful effect than a regen that can't take you over max, etc. etc. The barrier healers already have a crapload of damage and utility and are both meta, but that's never enough.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

E Prog is a 330 potency loss. If you're paired with a Sage and the group needs a GCD heal, you're on Succor duty.

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You mean ET > Succor or Indom?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

This is buggy behavior. It's also a bug that's been around for a long time, and Square doesn't seem keen on fixing it.

That being said, GCD shields shouldn't stack for a multitude of reasons. They block application of a lot of debuffs. eHP is a much more powerful effect than a regen that can't take you over max, etc. etc. The barrier healers already have a crapload of damage and utility and are both meta, but that's never enough.

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Girl, nobody said they want them to stack. Chill out. They said a smaller shield shouldn't overwrite a bigger one.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Connor

Maybe I’m wrong but can’t White Mage and Astrologian stack their regens? It seems a little unfair that barrier healers have to deal with barrier overwriting but pure healers face no such repercussions when stacked. And I mean Astrologian can produce it’s own powerful barriers anyway so they basically get the best of both

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Nobody said they should stack did they?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Nobody said they should stack did they?

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I was talking about the developers decisions not the players. They don’t seem to have thought the barrier/pure healer split through very well

Yeah as a SCH with a SGE co-healer I try to avoid shielding at all costs, just focusing on my fairy heals and OGCDs. If I do need to heal for a raid wide it's much easier for me as a SCH to Emergency Tactics a Succor than for a SGE to apply a shield and then Pepsi it.

https://media.tenor.com/images/98116...2718/tenor.gif

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

You mean ET > Succor or Indom?

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It means that IF someone has to GCD heal, the duty falls to the healer with less personal DPS - which would be SCH.... so good old Succor :p
There are exceptions, e.g. heavy movement phases that need additional GCD shields for safety but SCH can't SC it, so EProg it is or other healer is very low on MP. But in general: less dps loss per GCD = GCD heal duty, enjoy.

But I don't understand how is that shield granting less?

Adlo nullifies damage equaling 180% of the amount of HP restored.
While Succor creates a magicked barrier which nullifies damage equaling 160% of the amount of HP restored

Meanwhile:
Eukrasian Prognosis erects a magicked barrier which nullifies damage equaling 320% of the amount of HP restored

So it makes sense that it should be higher potency shield.

So technically what could happen is that a sage is lower item level or materia is not equipped so you would grant higher final numbers based on the original %. But in theory, if both of you has the same item level and materia setup, Sage numbers should be higher... or am I missing something here?

This is a bit strange of a topic because you can only prove your numbers to them if you log your fight data while working with a sage... but logging data is "illegal"... sooooooo. Hard situation.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shuuli

But I don't understand how is that shield granting less?

Adlo nullifies damage equaling 180% of the amount of HP restored.
While Succor creates a magicked barrier which nullifies damage equaling 160% of the amount of HP restored

Meanwhile:
Eukrasian Prognosis erects a magicked barrier which nullifies damage equaling 320% of the amount of HP restored

So it makes sense that it should be higher potency shield.

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You need to read the full tooltip
Succor restores 200 potency HP and erects a barrier scaling 160% of the restored amount, meaning the barrier erected is 200 x 1.6 = 320 Potency Barrier.
E.Prognosis restores 100 potency HP and erects a barrier scaling 320% of the restored amount, meaning the barrier erected is 100 x 3.2 = 320 Potency Barrier.
They're both the same Shields.

Adlo is 300 x 1.8 = 540 potency barrier
If you crit heal you get an additional 540 potency barrier.
With Deplo that's a AoE shield of 540 potency since Catalyze isn't being transferred but since we're using crit heal values that's a really strong 540 potency shield.
In comparison best thing SGE can do for AoE shielding is Zoe E.Prognosis which is 150 x 3.2 = 480 which can still crit but its unreliable so despite almost matching Adlo+deplo potency its still a weaker shield.

When in 8/24 man normal content with another shield healer (sage or scholar) I just never use GCD shields. If the other healer wants to use shields or not its up to them. Either neither of us is wasting GCDs with an over written shield or neither of us use them.

In harder content I am usually healing with the same dude so we just co-ordinate.

I would love for them to update it so that a stronger shield cannot be over written.

At worst add a cap on GCD shield amounts and let them stack up to that amount where the shield casted last gets the brunt of the cap. (But I wouldn't care for this anyway).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by genbatzu

this explains my confusion about why it was labelled "works as intended", thanks, but with AST you could just use your other buff and not run nocturnal, soo it wasn't really an issue. on SCH+SGE you dont have that option

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Thing is a good Sage doesn't use GCD heals at all outside of prepull or dire emergencies.
If there's a predictable raidwide comingn you use one of your many mitigation oGCDs, or a Panhaima.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by genbatzu

tl;dr:
Sage's Eukrasian Prognosis/Diagnosis can overwrite Scholar's buffed Galvanize shield, even if it would provide a 99% lower shield

https://abload.de/img/bildschirmfoto2022-01z6jxm.png

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I opened 2 bug reports, one was moved to insufficient information (ok, makes sense, my bad https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...olars-Barriers)
and the second one was moved to "working as intended"
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...vanize-shields

The steps to reproduce this are really simple and everyone can ruin his co-healers life try it out:
1. Scholar uses "Recitation" + "Adloquium" + "Deployment Tactics", granting the whole Group a boosted effect of "Galvanize"
2. Sage uses Eukrasian Prognosis
3. Group gets hit by a raid wide AoE from the Sage (lul), aka magicked barrier overwrites boosted Galvanize effect of the Scholar, resulting in a much smaller barrier.

The problem is that only stronger Scholar Shields can overwrite Sage Shields, while Sage can overwrite Scholar Shields with (much) weaker ones, which results in wasted cooldowns, indirect damage (or if timed poorly direct damage) to the whole party.

e.g.:
- 1 to 8 player(s) in your group eat some dmg and fall to 5k HP. the boss begins to cast a raid wide AoE dealing 10k HP.
(Players at 5k HP)
- Scholar begins casting his usual "Recitation" + "Adloquium" + "Deployment Tactics" combo with maybe some additional heal boosting buffs, spreading a 7k HP shield to the whole group, enough to survive the incoming raid wide AoE
(Players at 12k HP)
- The Sage casts Eukrasian Prognosis, mostly unbuffed, overwriting the Galvanize Shield with a 2k HP shield. Effectively dealing a 5k raid wide AoE to his group.
(Players at 7k HP)
Boss finishes his raid wide AoE cast and deals 10k HP. everyone dies
(Players at -3k HP, aka ded)

I know this example is extreme and would rarely occur in real situations, and that in a single target case the scholar would cast buffed Adloquium on the player who made the mistake, which would then also heal him and give him another shield which cannot be overwritten (at least not from the E.Prognosis) and that E.P also heals a bit, but the example shows how a Sage can in 100% of situations where he is paired with a scholar and the scholar uses his go-to 90s CD AoE shield, deal a raid wide AoE to his own group. and this is working as intended.

Real Gameplay Example in the first comment as it's too long to include here apparently.

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Thank you for bringing this up! I'll now watch out for this when I play Sage.

I was wondering if weaker shields remove stronger ones. but since SGE can cast shields quicker, i can only suggest waiting till the very last second... but this of course is an issue since SCH takes longer to cast them, and because SGE has the equivalent of a 1s cast shield (due to double 0.5s animation locks), they are more likely to not play proactively, but reactively when they see the cast bar, and just shield reflexively.
(essentially i play SGE as my replacement to shield AST, solely due to my poor memory, and needing a quicker cast shield, excluding swift cast shield, as SCH would be quicker, making it effectively a 0.5s cast. So ive been guilty of this, though id rather not be, its just too hard to break the habbit in the heat of the moment)

It’s the pepsis priority.
In HW->ShB, Galvanise and Nocturnal Field would overwrite each other regardless of sizes. Since SGE can consume eukrasian diagnosis/prognosis for pepsis, and gain stacks of toxicon from eukrasian diagnosis, those effects have priority over galvanise.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by genbatzu

real gameplay example:
Pandaemonium 3rd Circle.

I (Scholar) get matched with a Sage. Before the Fight starts I cast my usual buffed combination of "Protraction" + "Fey Illumination" + "Recitation" + "Adloquium" + "Deployment Tactics".
Sage immediately casts E.Prognosis afterwards, reducing shields of everyone, requiring earlier and more heals, wasting more oGCDs (next to the 60s, 2x 90s and 120s oGCDs wasted already) and reducing dmg output of both healers.

Phoinix readys a raid wide AoE, I again cast my "Protraction" + "Fey Illumination" + "Recitation" + "Adloquium" + "Deployment Tactics" to shield the group. Sage again overcasts it by E.Prognosis.
I now wasted 4 oGCDs again and have to top up the group as instead of the shield eating the dmg, they got "HP-DMG" which needs to be healed (and the Sage dealt "Shield-DMG" to the group, by reducing the shield to a fraction)

This happened throughout the whole fight on every occasion.

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Have you by chance thought to talk with your cohealer when pairing with a Sage? I won't say you haven't, but I feel like if you just communicate with your cohealer in a raid, even a short message when you enter the fight--something like "Hey, <name>, can you let me handle raidwide barriers since our barriers don't stack?"

Quite literally any problems that SCH/SGE could possibly encounter together could just be resolved through a little bit of player communication, and the benefits both jobs offer should drastically outweigh the entirely avoidable negatives.

And as others have put, SCH/SGE is an incredibly powerful duo. I've been progging savage as a Sage (I've gotten up to A3S at the moment), and I have to say, I probably feel the most comfortable with a SCH who's access to Expedient, equally prominent mitigation tools, and colossal barriers have been making healing feel a lot smoother than even AST. Not that AST is in any way lacking in its ability, especially with Macrocosmos that can just undo nasty raidwides, but with a SCH, party HP just doesn't drop like it does when I'm partnered with an AST or WHM.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Have you by chance thought to talk with your cohealer when pairing with a Sage? I won't say you haven't, but I feel like if you just communicate with your cohealer in a raid, even a short message when you enter the fight--something like "Hey, <name>, can you let me handle raidwide barriers since our barriers don't stack?"

Quite literally any problems that SCH/SGE could possibly encounter together could just be resolved through a little bit of player communication, and the benefits both jobs offer should drastically outweigh the entirely avoidable negatives.

And as others have put, SCH/SGE is an incredibly powerful duo. I've been progging savage as a Sage (I've gotten up to A3S at the moment), and I have to say, I probably feel the most comfortable with a SCH who's access to Expedient, equally prominent mitigation tools, and colossal barriers have been making healing feel a lot smoother than even AST. Not that AST is in any way lacking in its ability, especially with Macrocosmos that can just undo nasty raidwides, but with a SCH, party HP just doesn't drop like it does when I'm partnered with an AST or WHM.

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yes. on my example you quoted (the phoinix one) where it happened the first time to me. After i applied my barrier and it got overwritten by the sage (start of fight), I immediately asked him to please not overwrite my barriers with E.D. he never replied in chat and kept overwriting my barriers, i asked him again but he continued overwriting every single time and never wrote a word in chat.

on the flipside, iirc it was last week, i had the exact opposite experience with a sage (4th circle, iirc). as I wrote "friendly reminder that E.D. overwrites scholar's galvanize shields" in the party chat on fight start, he replied with "ok wont use gcd shields, ty"

although I had mixed results and SCH/SGE is a strong combo, i still never join a PF where a SGE is already present and when i open one myself, I always exclude SGE and only search WHM/AST.

Agreed that the strongest shield should override the weaker one

I don't think you can just rely on healers "communicating" to make up for a strange design decision (We don't all have a static and/or use voice)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by genbatzu

yes. on my example you quoted (the phoinix one) where it happened the first time to me. After i applied my barrier and it got overwritten by the sage (start of fight), I immediately asked him to please not overwrite my barriers with E.D. he never replied in chat and kept overwriting my barriers, i asked him again but he continued overwriting every single time and never wrote a word in chat.

on the flipside, iirc it was last week, i had the exact opposite experience with a sage (4th circle, iirc). as I wrote "friendly reminder that E.D. overwrites scholar's galvanize shields" in the party chat on fight start, he replied with "ok wont use gcd shields, ty"

although I had mixed results and SCH/SGE is a strong combo, i still never join a PF where a SGE is already present and when i open one myself, I always exclude SGE and only search WHM/AST.

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Another thing to remember as SGE is if you're going to E.Diagnosis during downtime for extra Addersting stacks. Don't apply them to the SCH or the MT/OT. As those are generally the most likely players to get deployed shields from. Just shield yourself, and dps.

I just had a random thought I with respect to SGE and SCH healing together. SCH can effectively turn off most of their shields via emergency tactics since that replaces the shield portion of their heals into additional healing. SGE on the other hand has Pepsis which largely serves the same purpose of turning shields into healing, but with the requirement that the shield must be applied first.

I wonder if this is the reason for SGE shields overriding SCH shields. Of course, there's also the matter of Addersting. It really seems like in a SGE + SCH pairing, a SCH could troll a SGE and shut down part of their toolkit if SCH shields could override SGE shields.

Of course, it's a fair point to argue that the current situation effectively makes deployment tactics useless, too.

I get why shields don't just simply stack as the total amount of shields you could get from a SGE + SCH combination or even a SCH + SCH combination would be pretty crazy and possibly allow for cheezing some mechanics not possible with other healer combinations.

I wonder if they could change shields buffs to apply cooperatively. Maybe something like this might work.

SCH casts Adloquium and it crits for 1000, Galvanize and Catalyze both apply for 1800 each.
5 seconds later, SGE casts E. Diagnosis for a normal 650, shield applied for 1170.

The recipient shows all 3 shield buffs, but a total shielding of 3600. Why? Galvenize and E. Diagnosis are from the same group of shield types, and the strongest cast so far is 1800. Catalyze is in its own group and is also 1800. The game still keeps track of what E. Diagnosis was applied for, but it doesn't show immediately.

Now let's say that was a waste of a shield and for 25 seconds the target takes no damage. At this time both Galvenize and Catalyze would drop of. What happens to the shield? It drops to 1170 since E. Diagnosis has 5 seconds left.

What happens if the target does take some damage? To simplify things, let's ignore Catalyze since it has a different priority and focus on the interaction between the other two. Let's say of the original 1800 shield the target takes a hit reducing that by 1000 so that 800 remains.

Now again, time on Galvanize runs out and it drops off. What happens to the shield amount? Nothing. It remains 800 since that's less than the 1170 E. Diagnosis originally applied.

Effectively, it changes the rules for these buffs and shields to work like this:

• If you apply shield to an unshielded target, the target gets the normal amount of shielding and the corresponding buff.
• If you apply a shield to an already shielded target (but not shielded by you), the buff applies. The shield amount changes to what your shield would apply if it is larger, but if it is smaller, the shield doesn't immediately change though the game tracks the value.
• If you apply a new shield to a target already shielded by you using the same buff and the new shield is weaker than the current value of your buff, then nothing happens. If it is stronger, then it applies exactly the same as the first two points above by ignoring the existing shield you previously cast.
• If the target takes damage that reduces the currently active shield below that of other shield buffs, all shield buffs part of the same priority group are reduced to the same amount (without reducing the real damage). So if you have 2 shields of 1000 and 800 and take 500 damage, both shields are now at 500.
• If the currently active shield falls off due to time or because of some other non-damage mechanic (e.g., Pepsis), the target's shield changes to the next highest-value shield and that buff then takes over shielding the target. For example, if you have 2 shields of 1000 and 800 and the 1000 shield is removed without damage, you would then have a shield of 800.

This would allow both sets of shields, even from two players from the same job to apply at the same time while not allowing for more (or less) shielding than what we can already get today. The big difference is that both shield healers could then play as normal without worrying so much about stepping on each other's toes. It'd be a nice QoL thing, sure, but hardly necessary. A SCH deploying such a strong team shield is cool, but sadly won't be required for any fight ever since that would give SCH a mandatory slot on teams for such content and I'm pretty sure almost no one wants that.

That said, outside resolving of the OP's specific concern, I doubt the devs would put much effort into implementing something like the above unless it turned out to be rather trivial to do. After all, if you're in a situation where that many heals are applied in such a short time span, you're either bored (boss is spending 30 seconds on a phase change kamehameha) or you're trying to go for record HPS no matter how bad your overheal % ends up being.

They do this to discourage 2 shield healers meta. Because shield healers are completely stronger than pure healers in a controlled raid environment and if they let them reign freely they'd have a really nasty situation on their hands.

I'm fairly sure they just overlooked it and don't want to fix it.

It's not a case of class balance. We're not talking about stacking shields and it works 100% fine if the SCH shields and the Sage doesn't unless asked to. Anyone who cares about meta, in content where GCD healing matters, will communicate with their co-healer. It doesn't discourage decent players from bringing 2 shield healers at all.

It just discourages inexperienced players from bringing 2 shield healers. Except in Duty Finder they literally don't have a choice. The system will happily pair a SGE and a SCH together for Normal raids and trials.

It's an oversight. A small shield shouldn't overwrite a large one. It should simply do nothing.

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Originally Posted by EaMett

Another thing to remember as SGE is if you're going to E.Diagnosis during downtime for extra Addersting stacks. Don't apply them to the SCH or the MT/OT. As those are generally the most likely players to get deployed shields from. Just shield yourself, and dps.

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If I am in a raid roulette or whatever as SGE and find myself paired with a SCH, I tend to find a tiny bit of communication helps.

Like, "Hey, SCH, do you mind if I pre-pull shield these three folks, so that I get a full set of Addersting off of the first raid-wide?" or "When the boss is untargetable before adds, I'm going to shield myself and the two ranged to refill Addersting if needed, just so you know; I'll leave the tanks for you to shield and deploy from if needed." Generally the SCH is like "Sure!"

And then I do what I said, and otherwise I focus on direct healing and mitigation or regen; though SGE is a "barrier" healer, we have a stupid amount of options other than just simple shields.