[Sage]: Feedback and Suggestions after 3 Months

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I agree that SGE seems to be their way of "accepting" DPS healer philosophy and there's evidence of good design in its kit, even if it's surface level.

Your bit about Eukrasia is interesting but it's really there as a way to save button space and give it a unique flare I suppose. To be it just feels like a practical SB Dark Arts SPAM without being too annoying. I don't really see them changing it though unless it effects oGCDs.

Rhizomata can stay oGCD but I do like it giving 1 addersting as you can use Toxicon for actual movement.

I personally can't see them adding more damage spells for SGE without the community busting into flames over it having a more engaging rotation but Idk I was shocked when they created Kardia so who knows.

As for Kardia, I think it's fine and even Soteria is fine. It's not meant to be the sole healing for tanks, just a reward for being able to balance oGCDs while dealing damage. I think Eukrasia can turn Soteria into an AoE spread of Kardia for a short duration with the same 90s CD. This way you have a choice between using it for MT or party sustain.

I personally like the animation for Holos but I hate that it's 120s when it could be 90s. It's meant to be a long-term mitigation tool.

Haima could be a 90s CD tbh since it's main purpose is for sustaining constant autos.

This is more of me thing but I find that Krasis is cumbersome to use as you need to apply it on a target before the skill to get the boosted healing. This requires weaving into tabbing to your ally and then weaving using the skill if you don't have a double weave window. Perhaps it could just increase the potency of healing on single skill used on the next target automatically or boost AoE healing action for half the potency.

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Originally Posted by elioaiko

I agree that SGE seems to be their way of "accepting" DPS healer philosophy and there's evidence of good design in its kit, even if it's surface level.

Your bit about Eukrasia is interesting but it's really there as a way to save button space and give it a unique flare I suppose. To be it just feels like a practical SB Dark Arts SPAM without being too annoying. I don't really see them changing it though unless it effects oGCDs.

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Well, like I stated, it's not actually all that effective as a way to save space since two of the three actions it alternates between are buttons that are almost never used at all in any circumstances outside of getting Sastasha as your leveling roulette. The only time I've used either Diagnosis or Prognosis at all is using Prognosis to top people off during a phase change, and I don't even need that realistically. We would have the exact same number of buttons simply having E. Dosis as a separate button and having Diagnosis/Prognosis upgrade into their Eukrasian counterparts. So is it really saving space as it stands?

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Originally Posted by elioaiko

Rhizomata can stay oGCD but I do like it giving 1 addersting as you can use Toxicon for actual movement.

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In all honestly, this is probably my most hated proposed change that everyone has stated thus far because it perpetuates this idea that Toxikon has to stay as-is, which as I mentioned above, is something I loathe with immense fervor. Toxikon is terrible objectively, and I cannot accept it as a dull, uninspired movement tool gated behind the illusion of good healing. How anyone could look at the possibility of it being a worthwhile reward for actually healing and say "mmm, no. I think I prefer this inoffensive version instead" is something I cannot mentally process as a thing people believe. I'm sorry, that's obnoxiously harsh, but I'm being harsh intentionally to show the level of hate I feel for the current Toxikon, and how much I vehemently believe it is a bastardization of game design.

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Originally Posted by elioaiko

I personally can't see them adding more damage spells for SGE without the community busting into flames over it having a more engaging rotation but Idk I was shocked when they created Kardia so who knows.

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GNB was created specifically with the mindset of creating a tank that felt like a DPS. There should be no reason SGE can't be the same for healers. I recognize that it's not fair to leave WHM, AST, and SCH in their state, but at the very least, we should allow SGE at least spread its wings so that people can more aptly show their desire to move healing in that direction more by playing the job that actually does feel like a DPS.

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Originally Posted by elioaiko

This is more of me thing but I find that Krasis is cumbersome to use as you need to apply it on a target before the skill to get the boosted healing. This requires weaving into tabbing to your ally and then weaving using the skill if you don't have a double weave window. Perhaps it could just increase the potency of healing on single skill used on the next target automatically or boost AoE healing action for half the potency.

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I forgot about Krasis to be honest. I'm not really sure what I'd do with it at the moment, but it definitely feels like fluff and doesn't seem to have a clear moment of use. It's really nice to give to SCHs before they use Deployment Adlo, but I'm more often paired with WHMs and ASTs because people actually believe that pure healing vs barrier healing is actually a thing and not a baseless label, and both of them have moderately stronger single target heals that often mean I don't really need to give the tank anything other than more Kardia.

I mean Toxicon is hard to gauge because it was put there as a way of "rewarding" you for using E. Diagnosis but of course in reality, you only used it during downtime or prepull. It's even more annoying when there isn't downtime. I get that but it lives in the same situation as Misery, only a DPS loss because they seem to be thinking that making it DPS neutral breaks the balance. I agree that Toxicon shouldn't stay as is, because it's almost never used outside of untargetable moments. But I personally don't think they will change much about it until next expansion. It's just one of those things that aren't important to them. I mean look at the state of WHM and they refuse to even mention much about it pass "whm will be getting adjustments" along with the recent announcement that the job adjustments will be small due to Ultimate. So thay either means WHM will get nothing or have usable MP recovery. I'm not expecting them to do anything about SGE since the reception behind it was "positive" aside from the doom and gloom in the initial release of being unable to heal enough in dungeons. Now it's a solid healer that people use more often than AST and SCH combined who are objectively stronger. SGE and WHM sit in this boat of being "solid" when the longer the expansion continues, the more powerful SCH and AST get.

Rhizomata change would just give them a free charge of movement every 90's and that would make worth using it on CD.

I, myself am also tired of them attaching healing to damage because it will never be used for healing but rather aligning with buff windows. But alas here we are. Perhaps they could allow adderstings through using using Taurchole (so it's not spammable) and encourage not being capped/and usage of Rhizomata would be meaningful.

While I would love for SGE to feel like an actual battle healer, SE has vehemently made it clear that they want healers to "heal" most of the time despite that dpsing is the only button that matters after prog. The fact that they took WHM's Aero 3 and nearly all of SCH's DPS kit and have yet to give them anymore DPS tools kinda shows how they really feel. And they don't care, people have been asking for a diverse DPS kit since they don't want to give "mandatory" support traits. So they will continue to do the one filler, one nuke, 1 dot across all healers with a few trinkets that they haven't deleted yet.

We need to keep pestering them until they actually sit down and think about how healers can benefit from a more diverse DPS gameplay.

They seem to have no problem with making tanks do plenty of damage in different forms so why are healers just relegated to Glare/Broil/Malefic/Dorsis spam?

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

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I see where you're going and overall I think is nice but here's my feedback about some things I'd change:

2: The 24s would mean it only aligns with party buffs in the opener and at 4m, I think its fine but if the game is moving towards a 1m-2m rotations a dot that only aligns evey 4m the timer would have to be adjusted

3: The problem of high damage toxicon is that the damage scalation in AoE is always weird, in this case for example its not until you can hit 16 targets that 2xDyskrasia would be better than E!Diag->Toxicon and to balance it so its not a gain lets say past 3 enemies it would need to have over 70% damage falloff. Adding a timer to the action partially patches the problem but at the cost of hurting sage's mobility and capacity to double weave/use pots without clipping

Personally I dont see a problem with toxicon being a conditional slight dps gain as playing around those conditions would make the job more interesting, as example making toxicon give a status so the next Eucrasian diagnosis reflects damage equal to a dosis but after that status is consumed cannot be aquired again for the next 30s creating a pseudo rotation of diagnosis->toxicon->diagnosis on top of additional means to gain addersting

4:This is problematic, mitigation happens before the damage while healing happens after so usually they dont work too well combined. This works in Holos because the heal is small enough that makes the 10% somewhat competitive and allows for the party to be slightly damaged before a raidwide so it doesnt overheal much, Pneuma on the other hand is much stronger than Holos especially when paired with Zoe so the heal would be the dominant use and outside very extreme scenarios where the 10% may decide if the party survives or not it would be seen as side effect.

I would leave both skills as they are now and if anything merge krasis into soteria to get that space for new skills.

5:I agree that pepsis needs a change but this would work only as an ogcd, in a gcd we are talking about way too little heal and a generation of addersting less efficient gcd wise in battle than just waiting for the shield to break and that is almost as niche as today's pepsis. As an ogcd it would work nice and would add some control to the barrier generation of addersting

6: Same problem as Pepsis, this change would only work as an ogcd as its literally Eucrasian diagnosis but worse due to the lack of heal, if anything would work in scenarios were the damage is so low a shield doesnt break but those are kinda rare to see at max level. As ogcd I can see it working much better, would offer the same as the gcd version but without the shortcomings

7: A combo for Sage is an idea that I can get behind, however there are 5 problems/questions I see
-Assuming the GCDs are 1,5s this would leave sage with no room to heal if needed, which is problematic because...
-Its strict timewise, no charge system was mentioned so sage would have a window where either they go into the combo or lose dps that could conflict with the healing needs of the fight
-Doesn't align with 1m-2m raidbuffs
-What actions would break the combo?
-Button bloat, for this combo 2 buttons would be used (and 2 buttons would have to be removed to make it neutral), this is not a short term problem but in the long run can make Sage feel worse

Aside button bloat the problems can be solved easily with adding charges, reducing/increasing its cd to 60/120s and making cast times instant so this could work fine, however if I were to design a Sage combo I would make it so it augments dosis and dyskrasia like eucrasia, that way you solve to some extent the button bloat and keeping it gcd only allows for ogcd healing mid combo.

My biggest issue with SGE is that Square said it's meant to be a shield healer. What shields? I have E. Prog. Lol. E. Diag. Lol. Then I have Haima and Panhaima. I ask again, what shields? I spend 99% of my time casting direct healing. SGE is a mobility healer if anything.

Also, what's a toxikon? I seem to remember having a spell of that name somewhere...

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Originally Posted by Haadrak

Haima and Panhaima.

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More than SCH got at least.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

More than SCH got at least.

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Fair point. What was the point however of making this big distinction between shield healers and pure healers if all healers just do the same thing anyway? The only difference is SGE has roller skates on.

I'm going to be against removing Toxikon II for mobility reasons if only because it's currently the only skill that currently doubles as both a mobility and weaving tool without incurring a loss. Phlegma also fills this niche, but you also want to use this within raid buffs, so it's not always readily available as an on-demand weaving tool. Having more weaving slots and on-demand double-weaving slots to bank on is a good thing, but it shouldn't be the only thing in the toolkit.

Instead, addersting should just be more incentivized first and become the main gimmick of SGE DPS gameplay. Have addersting be more readily available and give SGE more skills that interact with addersting.

Let addersting charge in multiple ways with a new status buff [Addercharge]:
4 stacks of [Addercharge] gets consumed to give 1 stack of addersting.
1. On breaking Eukrasian Diagnosis shield, grant 4 stacks of [Addercharge]. This is still the same as current Sage getting 1 addersting when Eukrasian Diagnosis breaks.
2. On breaking Eukrasian Prognosis shield, each shield break grants 1 stack of [Addercharge]. Generates up to a maximum of 2 addersting in a party of 8 if all shields break.
3. Using addersgall healing abilities grant 2 stacks of [Addercharge].
4. Every Eukrasian Dosis grants 2 stacks of [Addercharge].

5. Leave Rhizomata as it is and let it be traited to give both 1 Addersgall and 1 Addersting.

Now you have multiple ways of generating addersting and the resource management becomes much more flexible to use.
Now you can introduce other skills like Eukrasian Toxikon II (AoE DoT) or Eukrasian Dykrasia (AoE DoT) that requires 1 addersting with their own unique caveats & additional effects if the sage does not need Toxikon II for more mobility & double weaves. Later down the line, there can even be an Eukrasian Pneuma to strengthen Pneuma as a healing tool by using 2 addersting to grant all party members Kardion up to 5 times - keeping it inline with SGE's capstone skills. It would reinforce using Soteria as a strong healing tool as well by giving the toolkit more synergy as a DPS healer.

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Eukrasian Toxikon
Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 450 for the first enemy, and 60% less for all remaining enemies.
Additional Effect: Restores HP to targets under the effect of Kardion granted by you
Cure Potency: 170
Addersting Cost: 1
Cast: 1s
Recast: 0.5s

Basically, you use 1s on casting Eukrasia, 1s casting Eukrasian Toxikon, and then jump straight back into your next GCD after that.
You sacrifice that weaving window for 120 additional potency. You're choosing between using your Addersting resource for damage or mobility.
It's not a full 330 potency reimbursement, so you're not forced to use Eukrasian Toxikon over regular Toxikon every single time, but if you don't have anything you need to double weave or any forced movement, then you can squeeze some extra dps out instead.
It also expands the uses of Eukrasia to boot.

I don't like the idea of merging Holos and Pneuma. You use Pneuma as your burst heal after taking a big hit, getting the 10% mitigation once the damage has happened and been healed makes less sense. I'm fine with Holos being a separate button, it means more flexibility in how we handle various situations.

Holos is great when Kerachole is not up (despite being availaible half of the time), extra mitigation or for the slight heal it produce.
I had a lot of good uses so I won't say it's superfluous.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Eukrasia Dyskrasia

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Something that is dyskrasian is literally literally not eukrasian.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Something that is dyskrasian is literally literally not eukrasian.

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Eukrasian Dosis should sound like a HoT rather than a DoT so naming sense is really meh. Sage could just get Eukrasia and Dykrasia as two separate toggles but that's not the gameplay we're given, and it seems like bloat at this point so... :shrug:

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Originally Posted by Haadrak

My biggest issue with SGE is that Square said it's meant to be a shield healer. What shields? I have E. Prog. Lol. E. Diag. Lol. Then I have Haima and Panhaima. I ask again, what shields? I spend 99% of my time casting direct healing. SGE is a mobility healer if anything.

Also, what's a toxikon? I seem to remember having a spell of that name somewhere...

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Aside from the GCD shielding, SGE is more of a flat percent mitigation-based healer with 10% mitigation spread across their kit and are stackable.

SCH should really have an oGCD shield. Replace Fey Blessing with a spammable (from Fey Gauge) 200 potency heal/shield.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

I'm going to be against removing Toxikon II for mobility reasons if only because it's currently the only skill that currently doubles as both a mobility and weaving tool without incurring a loss. Phlegma also fills this niche, but you also want to use this within raid buffs, so it's not always readily available as an on-demand weaving tool. Having more weaving slots and on-demand double-weaving slots to bank on is a good thing, but it shouldn't be the only thing in the toolkit.

Instead, addersting should just be more incentivized first and become the main gimmick of SGE DPS gameplay. Have addersting be more readily available and give SGE more skills that interact with addersting.

Let addersting charge in multiple ways with a new status buff [Addercharge]:
4 stacks of [Addercharge] gets consumed to give 1 stack of addersting.
1. On breaking Eukrasian Diagnosis shield, grant 4 stacks of [Addercharge]. This is still the same as current Sage getting 1 addersting when Eukrasian Diagnosis breaks.
2. On breaking Eukrasian Prognosis shield, each shield break grants 1 stack of [Addercharge]. Generates up to a maximum of 2 addersting in a party of 8 if all shields break.
3. Using addersgall healing abilities grant 2 stacks of [Addercharge].
4. Every Eukrasian Dosis grants 2 stacks of [Addercharge].

5. Leave Rhizomata as it is and let it be traited to give both 1 Addersgall and 1 Addersting.

Now you have multiple ways of generating addersting and the resource management becomes much more flexible to use.
Now you can introduce other skills like Eukrasian Toxikon II (AoE DoT) or Eukrasian Dykrasia (AoE DoT) that requires 1 addersting with their own unique caveats & additional effects if the sage does not need Toxikon II for more mobility & double weaves. Later down the line, there can even be an Eukrasian Pneuma to strengthen Pneuma as a healing tool by using 2 addersting to grant all party members Kardion up to 5 times - keeping it inline with SGE's capstone skills. It would reinforce using Soteria as a strong healing tool as well by giving the toolkit more synergy as a DPS healer.

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I agree with the sentiment of this post generally. SGE needs more addersting interactions. I wouldn't mind this particular implementation, either.

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Originally Posted by Haadrak

My biggest issue with SGE is that Square said it's meant to be a shield healer. What shields? I have E. Prog. Lol. E. Diag. Lol. Then I have Haima and Panhaima. I ask again, what shields? I spend 99% of my time casting direct healing. SGE is a mobility healer if anything.

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We also have Kerachole. I.e. the only shield I remember to use beyond E. Diag.

An interesting thread, though I disagree on Holos, it's a very good standalone spell, looks good and feels like right at home in many portions of the current savage tier fights, where you just top off people before a second raid buster coming, or to make up for some blunder. My main request : please improve Toxikon.

Toxicon is honestly my only issue with Sage that i care about.
I could also complain about Prognosis / e. Prognosis being very weak & Pepsis not being really worth using after the level 85 trait but i don't care about these buttons too much.

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Originally Posted by Teno

An interesting thread, though I disagree on Holos, it's a very good standalone spell, looks good and feels like right at home in many portions of the current savage tier fights, where you just top off people before a second raid buster coming, or to make up for some blunder. My main request : please improve Toxikon.

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I agree that Holos should stay, it looks good and I personally use it for mechanics where the party has to split and you need to throw mitigation in there.

Plus, SGE shines in its ability to apply mitigation near constant, taking away Holos as a standalone only makes it feel worse. At times it feels like SGE is the AST counterpart where it picks up on the extra healing that say, a WHM can't provide because it has an answer for damage for nearly every situation. SCH has this ability too just punished for using Indom, Sacred Soil, Excog because of the whole healing vs energy drain problem. SGE doesn't suffer from this as its MP recovery is linked to using oGCDs so you have a reason to not cap on Addersgall.

SGE is my least played healer so I lack any meaningful insight to offer aside from nodding and shaking heads.

… I am however, still bothered by their decision to just clone SCH’s spammable AoE.
• WHM gets 8y point blank AoE with slow cast time.
• AST gets 5y targeted AoE with fast cast time.
• SCH gets 5y point blank AoE without cast time.
• Why SGE’s not frontal laser cleave or line AoE?? Why it has to be a cheap copy paste of SCH’s??

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Why it has to be a cheap copy paste of SCH’s??

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Because this is a significant part of SGE's "identity".

If I had to offer some sage things

1. Rhizomata should absolutely generate an addersting, 3 when out of combat. I said this before launch and I will say it again until it happens
2. I would suggest doubling Pneuma's healing power or halving its cooldown and changing Zoe to be a buff that increases mp regen rate and makes Dosis instant cast for its duration. For a self buffing healer its sure got a lack of offensive buffs
3. Like others said Eukrasia dykrasia or phelegma
4. I would offer a combo of two earlier suggestions- making Toxikon 1 and 2 separate. 1 can remain as is, a mobility tool but its potency doubled to 2x dosis. Make Toxikon 2 a slight dps gain but cost 2 addersting and put it on a 0s cooldown
5. Add more addersting generators. Ideally one that rewards dps, and another more consistent one that rewards healing.
6. Double the strength of pepsis and diagnosis

Ideally Sage will get a decent rotation with more toxikon 1 and 2, eukrasia dykrasia as an aoe dot and if possible more than 1 pneuma every 2 minutes.

So having read through a lot of people's comments and I do think there are good points here, so I want to update my thoughts on SGE:

1. Normally, I'd say that I'm fairly open-minded and agreeable on design topics. I am not the one who has the vision, and others can very well have better ideas or perspectives than I do. I have the humility and humbleness to see when others have made good points. That said, there is one area where I will become an unreasonable, bigoted tyrant: Toxikon. Toxikon must be DPS neutral and this is not negotiable. No, it is not okay just being a mobility tool. This makes it a disappointingly flaccid mechanic that is nothing more than a convenient afterthought and nothing else. If it's DPS neutral, it allows for so much better opportunities for SGE to grow. In this particular topic, I am right. That is not an opinion, it is gospel truth. Yes, this is a egregious and arrogant statement, but sometimes there are hills worth dying on.

To combat the issue of mass healing in order to pump out Toxikon II, we can just give the spell a cooldown of 20 or 30 seconds. This means you are advantaged for using some GCD healing, but spamming it does not work.

In order for Rhizomata to generate Addersting in this example, it must be moved to the GCD or it becomes a button you always use on cooldown and we end up in the SCH dilemma where Addersgall generation will go to waste in casual content. But I was under the interpretation that we were all looking for more things to do on the GCD instead of Dosis, so I'm surprised more people wouldn't be on board with that.

2. People make great points on Holos. It's hard to reap the benefits of the mitigation when a very prominent heal is attached, and I'd almost believe that thought was why it changed from the media tour and wasn't just convenient circumstance. Having said that, I do feel like not just SGE, but all healers would benefit by consolidating on healing buttons in some fashion. This game doesn't have enough damage to warrant the shear number of healing tools we have, and by giving things charges or adjusting how things work, we could make the tools we have feel more compelling to take advantage of. For example:'

We could convert more OGCD healing buttons into GCD heals which would let Eukrasia augment them. This would both make Eukrasia a more active tool for SGE gameplay and also create choice in the tools you use. We could accomplish this as well by making those tools generate 1 Addersting to compensate for the loss of Dosis, a feature that only works if Toxikon is DPS neutral, I might add. Perhaps instead of Pneuma, Physis II Could be moved to the GCD with 2 charges and have Eukrasia allow you to choose between mitigation or increased HP recovered along with getting 1 Addersting. Mitigation would be the more frequently used choice, but I also can think of several situations where the added HP recovered is more advantageous as well, like when mechanics forcibly drop the party to 1 HP. That would perhaps be a better way to merge Holos into other buttons, though I'm not married to any of these choices specifically.

4. "Eukrasia Dyskrasia" does indeed not make sense in terms of naming. For the sake of simplicity, I think it communicates the intent accurately for the purpose of discussion, but if put into practice we might need to retheme Dyskrasia.

5. In regards to whether or not the SGE continuation suggestion, there is the topic of it not lining up with party buffs. It's weird because I feel like 60 seconds is too frequent for SGE to be doing a continuation combo, but 120 seconds is too long also. I get why we've been streamlining party buffs more and more, but I was thinking about if having it intentionally not line up could have pros and not exclusively cons. I'd much rather it be 60 seconds than 120 though, so perhaps it could be less of a DPS gain on the shorter cooldown.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

In order for Rhizomata to generate Addersting in this example, it must be moved to the GCD or it becomes a button you always use on cooldown and we end up in the SCH dilemma where Addersgall generation will go to waste in casual content. But I was under the interpretation that we were all looking for more things to do on the GCD instead of Dosis, so I'm surprised more people wouldn't be on board with that.

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Because Kardia doesn't make sense if Rhizomata & more healing abilities goes on the GCD. We don't want the toolkit to fight itself. Creating healing depth only goes so far because there's never enough damage for all the amount of healing optimization to take place. It doesn't solve any issue with ... never using the healing skills to gain addersting because there's not enough healing required. Being forced to overheal to access your addersting feels even worse since then the healer is just... proactively wasting resources just to get a different GCD gameplay. It's basically what happens when you don't need healing as a WHM but you decide to throw away your lilies during combat.... It doesn't actually do anything to your engagement. It's not being more proactive to gameplay.

Plus, it makes the healing skill floor higher for sages if more abilities go on the GCD. This is also an accessibility issue - as now Physis II will have to fight a GCD for Eukrasian Prognosis. If you add Rhizomata in there as well, then one of your addergall healing ability no longer actually becomes oGCD heal - but is traded for on the GCD. The goal is to keep a low skill floor and a high skill ceiling, not shrink the skill ceiling by raising the skill floor.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

Because Kardia doesn't make sense if Rhizomata & more healing abilities goes on the GCD. We don't want the toolkit to fight itself. Creating healing depth only goes so far because there's never enough damage for all the amount of healing optimization to take place. It doesn't solve any issue with ... never using the healing skills to gain addersting because there's not enough healing required. Being forced to overheal to access your addersting feels even worse since then the healer is just... proactively wasting resources just to get a different GCD gameplay. It's basically what happens when you don't need healing as a WHM but you decide to throw away your lilies during combat.... It doesn't actually do anything to your engagement. It's not being more proactive to gameplay.

Plus, it makes the healing skill floor higher for sages if more abilities go on the GCD. This is also an accessibility issue - as now Physis II will have to fight a GCD for Eukrasian Prognosis. If you add Rhizomata in there as well, then one of your addergall healing ability no longer actually becomes oGCD heal - but is traded for on the GCD. The goal is to keep a low skill floor and a high skill ceiling, not shrink the skill ceiling by raising the skill floor.

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In other words, it's best to have Rhizomata stay the same and not generate Addersting at all, is what you're saying. That's perfectly fine with me as I feel like it has a strong enough identity as-is.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

In other words, it's best to have Rhizomata stay the same and not generate Addersting at all, is what you're saying. That's perfectly fine with me as I feel like it has a strong enough identity as-is.

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I'm saying Rhizomata remains as an oGCD ability, but can generate both....

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

I'm saying Rhizomata remains as an oGCD ability, but can generate both....

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If it generates both then it turns into a DPS button you use on CD rather than stay a backup Addersgall which creates a similar issue that Aetherflow is in.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

If it generates both then it turns into a DPS button you use on CD rather than stay a backup Addersgall which creates a similar issue that Aetherflow is in.

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Shouldn't be an issue if addersting skills are mainly Eukrasian DoTs and if other sources also work towards generating addersting naturally (e.g.: applying Eukrasian Dosis grants 2 stacks of addercharge and 4 is required for addersting, addersgall generating some addercharge for addersting, Eukrasian Prognosis & Eukrasian Diagnosis generating addercharge). If need be, Dosis can be changed to generate addercharge every 3 casts Dosis. That way, even if you do have excess addersting beyond your addersting DoTs, Toxikon II is still the main purpose skill of being DPS neutral + for weaving for addersting, but doesn't make it a must to generate as it's not DPS positive.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

Because Kardia doesn't make sense if Rhizomata & more healing abilities goes on the GCD. We don't want the toolkit to fight itself. Creating healing depth only goes so far because there's never enough damage for all the amount of healing optimization to take place. It doesn't solve any issue with ... never using the healing skills to gain addersting because there's not enough healing required. Being forced to overheal to access your addersting feels even worse since then the healer is just... proactively wasting resources just to get a different GCD gameplay. It's basically what happens when you don't need healing as a WHM but you decide to throw away your lilies during combat.... It doesn't actually do anything to your engagement. It's not being more proactive to gameplay.

Plus, it makes the healing skill floor higher for sages if more abilities go on the GCD. This is also an accessibility issue - as now Physis II will have to fight a GCD for Eukrasian Prognosis. If you add Rhizomata in there as well, then one of your addergall healing ability no longer actually becomes oGCD heal - but is traded for on the GCD. The goal is to keep a low skill floor and a high skill ceiling, not shrink the skill ceiling by raising the skill floor.

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I think you're really blowing the Kardia issue out of proportion. It's just 170 healing potency every 90s (persumably) and you yourself mention that there isn't enough damage to heal anyway. I'd hardly call it toolkit fighting itself.

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Originally Posted by RinaShinomiya

I think you're really blowing the Kardia issue out of proportion. It's just 170 healing potency every 90s (persumably) and you yourself mention that there isn't enough damage to heal anyway. I'd hardly call it toolkit fighting itself.

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It's more like, why would you make a skill like Kardia, then a skill like Soteria, but then start adding tools that doesn't make the toolkit work together? It's very counter intuitive to its gameplay. Not to mention, if SGE was supposed to heal by DPSing, but then gets skills on the GCD that heals rather than DPS to heal, then they're moving farther from what they're being designed as. It's basically pigeon-holing them into a design choice that doesn't mesh well with its identity in the long run, assuming we're still going to get new skills for another 2-3 expansions.

Also, I realize if that SGE really does go on the path of just naturally generating addersting, it might be better for Toxikon II to be a slight DPS gain like GNB's powder gauge rather than be DPS Neutral. We shouldn't want healers to simply be playing to reach DPS Neutral efficiency when playing optimally, but give beneficial rewards from managing their gauge well outside of simply healing. That should go with all healers - WHM, SCH, and AST included.

Would be nice if this vision actually came true for healers though.

Wouldn't a dps neutral (660 potency or so) Toxicon create a situation where you always bank 3 charges for your 2 min burst window?

I agree the current form of Toxicon really isn't great, but it feels like we're looking at this backwards and trying to create a mixed up version of the WHM Lily system with Toxicon as a smaller Misery. Misery is by far the most problematic ability in the WHM toolkit and restricts the class design a lot, so I'd rather keep well away from anything resembling it. There's so many things WHM can't have or ideas that won't work because of Misery.

But basically the ideas seem to be "We need dps neutral toxicon so we GCD heal more and have variety but since there's very little to heal lets make more of our heals GCD so we need to turn to GCD's more but that would feel bad so let's add Toxicon stacks to them but we don't want to encourage GCD heal spam so lets add cooldowns to them" ...which is messy and a series of bandaids on bandaids when the real issue is there's nothing to heal. We need more to heal in encounters.

Sage is already the healer that encourages using your toolkit to heal. It has a wide range of oGCD's that feel good and unlike SCH there's no dps tax on any of them. E Diag every 30 sec won't make it fun. I'd look at reworking Toxicon into something else entirely, rather than clinging to SE's concept of "button to press for using E Diag".

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Wouldn't a dps neutral (660 potency or so) Toxicon create a situation where you always bank 3 charges for your 2 min burst window?

I agree the current form of Toxicon really isn't great, but it feels like we're looking at this backwards and trying to create a mixed up version of the WHM Lily system with Toxicon as a smaller Misery. Misery is by far the most problematic ability in the WHM toolkit and restricts the class design a lot, so I'd rather keep well away from anything resembling it. There's so many things WHM can't have or ideas that won't work because of Misery.

But basically the ideas seem to be "We need dps neutral toxicon so we GCD heal more and have variety but since there's very little to heal lets make more of our heals GCD so we need to turn to GCD's more but that would feel bad so let's add Toxicon stacks to them but we don't want to encourage GCD heal spam so lets add cooldowns to them" ...which is messy and a series of bandaids on bandaids when the real issue is there's nothing to heal. We need more to heal in encounters.

Sage is already the healer that encourages using your toolkit to heal. It has a wide range of oGCD's that feel good and unlike SCH there's no dps tax on any of them. E Diag every 30 sec won't make it fun. I'd look at reworking Toxicon into something else entirely, rather than clinging to SE's concept of "button to press for using E Diag".

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My original post has a few things that aren't entirely necessary, or aren't the correct way to go about adjusting some of the things, however, what I recommended in order to counter a DPS neutral Toxikon is just giving it a cooldown. You can't burn 3 Addersting during a buff window if the cooldown is 30 seconds. Additionally, I was also suggesting reorganizing a tool or two to be GCDs that also grant Addersting, such as Physis II. This also gives us the ability to give it a Eukrasia form and further take advantage of Eukrasia, which currently is not really taking advantage of the potential that it has. That might not be exactly the move to go with, but having more to work with on the GCD that can generate Addersting at intervals also lessens the need to just use E. Diagnosis every 30 seconds.

In practice, what you'd get would be more decision-making with your tools because the goal is to use them as efficiently as possible. You don't just want to cap out on Addersting immediately, but try and maintain 1 stack and look for opportunities to generate more without necessarily feeling the need to use them if they aren't necessary.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

1. Normally [...].

Rhizomata to generate [...]

2.
We could convert [...].

5. SGE continuation suggestion

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1-I agree toxicon has to be a dps neutral, AT LEAST. With resources like toxicon that are not time gated but resource gated a smart designer can afford to put dps gains there without breaking the flow because you hardly lose potential uses by delaying its usage, thats why toxicon would be a great conditional dps gain, because it can be delayed, thus not conflicting with the healing needs of the encounter and allows for gameplay optimizations rather than just movement.

The problem with your idea of the cd gated toxicon as I said is that for AoE you would not avoid that issue of being a gain which matters in normal mode and ultimates (all of the have some multi target phase) and there it would be a restrictive "press on cd or take the dps loss" cd, would cripple sage long distance movement capabilities (which matters in P3s nados for example) and the double weaving potential of the job would suffer.

About Rhizomata, its true we want to do different things than Dosis, but before anything those actions have to be meaningul. Rhizomata on the GCD would not make any sense because its a straight up worse version of a gcd heal, if you want that addersting why bother with that when you can simply use Eukrasian Diagnosis and get the addersting+heal?

2-The idea of Sage is dpsing while healing, giving more tools a gcd would only make the job feel worse, kardia less impactful and the job less flexible. It would also create problems with toxicon as the majority of its uses would be to compensate for the loses those tools create and since it would have a cooldown basically those gcd heals would held sage's long range mobility tool hostage.

5-With the combo the main problem imo is how it lacks any flexibility, it shares a problem with dissipation in how it locks Sch out of healing resources but in a much augmented way, in Dissipation's case the 180s cd is long enough that a small drift may not cause a lost of potential uses, at the same time it doesn't completely lock the Sch of free healing thanks to the use of recitation or protraction, the combo on the other hand with a 60s cd is more likely to see potential loses if it drifts due to healing needs and in the way you described it it would completely lock Sage out of GCD and oGCD ways of healing

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

If it generates both then it turns into a DPS button you use on CD rather than stay a backup Addersgall which creates a similar issue that Aetherflow is

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The real issue with aetherflow its not the button but how Energy drain predates its heals, adding 100 to the oportunity cost of any aetherflow action, Rhizomata being an ogcd would be mainly used for the dps gain (as there is not much to heal now and the extra addersgall is not that useful even in savage) but would not share the same problems since addersting and addersgall are not attached to each other.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

My original post has a few things that aren't entirely necessary, or aren't the correct way to go about adjusting some of the things, however, what I recommended in order to counter a DPS neutral Toxikon is just giving it a cooldown. You can't burn 3 Addersting during a buff window if the cooldown is 30 seconds. Additionally, I was also suggesting reorganizing a tool or two to be GCDs that also grant Addersting, such as Physis II. This also gives us the ability to give it a Eukrasia form and further take advantage of Eukrasia, which currently is not really taking advantage of the potential that it has. That might not be exactly the move to go with, but having more to work with on the GCD that can generate Addersting at intervals also lessens the need to just use E. Diagnosis every 30 seconds.

In practice, what you'd get would be more decision-making with your tools because the goal is to use them as efficiently as possible. You don't just want to cap out on Addersting immediately, but try and maintain 1 stack and look for opportunities to generate more without necessarily feeling the need to use them if they aren't necessary.

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But what would you do with the remaining addersting though if Toxikon has a 30 sec cd? The current implementation allows a lot more flexibility in double weaving and giving mobility to SGE. What if you want to bank on that extra mobility for hard movement? Putting a hard 30 sec limit inhibits a lot of flexibility imo as generating extra addersting stacks doesn't change the fact that you wouldn't be necessarily be able to use them all when you want to.

I don't think it's a problem to have Eukrasian Diagnosis generate Toxikon and that this specific interaction is not DPS Neutral at 660 potency as long as Toxikon's potency is greater than Dosis (350+ potency) and there are frequent ways to generate Addersting that doesn't directly compete with Dosis.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

But what would you do with the remaining addersting though if Toxikon has a 30 sec cd? The current implementation allows a lot more flexibility in double weaving and giving mobility to SGE. What if you want to bank on that extra mobility for hard movement? Putting a hard 30 sec limit inhibits a lot of flexibility imo as generating extra addersting stacks doesn't change the fact that you wouldn't be necessarily be able to use them all when you want to.

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What do you do the remaining Toxikon charges once its on cooldown? ...Use them when they come off cooldown. You don't have to generate Addersting within every 30 second window.

If you know you've got a heavy movement segment in a fight, then what you should do is prepare yourself to have no Addersting going into that segment, then using E. Diagnosis as your movement tool, then burn through your Toxikon uses over the next 90 seconds rather than generating Addersting as needed. That's 4 GCDs you can squeeze from this system, plus a potential E. Dosis and/or Phlegma (maybe 2 in very rare circumstances if you've been saving the first). All fights in this game are heavily scripted, so once you start getting familiar with the fight, then you should have no problem preparing your resources in advance and offers an aspect of skill ceiling that will make your life easier when a lot of movement is necessary.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

I don't think it's a problem to have Eukrasian Diagnosis generate Toxikon and that this specific interaction is not DPS Neutral at 660 potency as long as Toxikon's potency is greater than Dosis (350+ potency) and there are frequent ways to generate Addersting that doesn't directly compete with Dosis.

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Well it is a problem.

Fire burns. The earth is round. humans require oxygen to live. Toxikon as a DPS loss is bad game design.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

What do you do the remaining Toxikon charges once its on cooldown? ...Use them when they come off cooldown. You don't have to generate Addersting within every 30 second window.

If you know you've got a heavy movement segment in a fight, then what you should do is prepare yourself to have no Addersting going into that segment, then using E. Diagnosis as your movement tool, then burn through your Toxikon uses over the next 90 seconds rather than generating Addersting as needed. That's 4 GCDs you can squeeze from this system, plus a potential E. Dosis and/or Phlegma (maybe 2 in very rare circumstances if you've been saving the first). All fights in this game are heavily scripted, so once you start getting familiar with the fight, then you should have no problem preparing your resources in advance and offers an aspect of skill ceiling that will make your life easier when a lot of movement is necessary.

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Did I misunderstand something? I thought you meant that Toxikon can only be used once every 30 seconds even if you have addersting, so there's no point in using E. Diagnosis consistently as you can't dump all your Toxikon stacks anyway in a small window when you need them with the cooldown attached. You can't really use Eukrasian Diagnosis consistently to generate addersting or movement either in that regard as it has to break the shield or else it incurs a DPS loss, and generally autos don't hurt enough to instantly pop it (especially if it critical hits). I don't really see Eukrasian Diagnosis as good for a weaving tool as freely being able to use multiple Toxikon charges either as you can't double weave with Eukrasian Diagnosis.

Fights are scripted, but people are not. The issue I'm having with your design of Toxikon isn't the scripted fight with optimization. It's the issue in where things go bad that Toxikon here doesn't have as much flexibility to use multiple double weaves if there's a 30 sec cd between uses in that sense. It feels more punishing to use Eukrasian Diagnosis here as you can't even access Toxikon whenever you want to with the 30 sec cd lockout. Simply put, it feels too statically locked if SGE generate excess addersting stacks with no way of properly spending them.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Well it is a problem.

Fire burns. The earth is round. humans require oxygen to live. Toxikon as a DPS loss is bad game design.

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See, this is where our opinions differ. I see Toxikon can be a DPS gain if you use it normally and have sources that generate addersting without directly fighting for Dosis with some potency increases to it. Doing this allows flexibility in the skill while keeping some ceiling for optimization and a mini burst window.

I don't see it's a good design to have Toxikon be doubled the potency of Dosis to incentivize spamming Eukrasian Diagnosis to gain addersting just to make it DPS Neutral. Doubly so if there's a cooldown attached so now there's multiple ways to never finish spending your gauge.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

Did I misunderstand something? I thought you meant that Toxikon can only be used once every 30 seconds even if you have addersting, so there's no point in using E. Diagnosis consistently as you can't dump all your Toxikon stacks anyway in a small window when you need them with the cooldown attached. You can't really use Eukrasian Diagnosis consistently to generate addersting or movement either in that regard as it has to break the shield or else it incurs a DPS loss, and generally autos don't hurt enough to instantly pop it (especially if it critical hits). I don't really see Eukrasian Diagnosis as good for a weaving tool as freely being able to use multiple Toxikon charges either as you can't double weave with Eukrasian Diagnosis.

Fights are scripted, but people are not. The issue I'm having with your design of Toxikon isn't the scripted fight with optimization. It's the issue in where things go bad that Toxikon here doesn't have as much flexibility to use multiple double weaves if there's a 30 sec cd between uses in that sense. It feels more punishing to use Eukrasian Diagnosis here as you can't even access Toxikon whenever you want to with the 30 sec cd lockout. Simply put, it feels too statically locked if SGE generate excess addersting stacks with no way of properly spending them.

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I think you're going off the assumption that your excess Addersting fades over time? I'm really confused about where the issue is because sure, if you use E. Diagnosis twice and generate 2 Addersting within 30 seconds, then you can only use one of them right then, but you'll be able to use the other one after the cooldown finishes. That extra Addersting isn't going away unless you're overcapping on stacks, but there's no reason you should be overcapping.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

See, this is where our opinions differ. I see Toxikon can be a DPS gain if you use it normally and have sources that generate addersting without directly fighting for Dosis with some potency increases to it. Doing this allows flexibility in the skill while keeping some ceiling for optimization and a mini burst window.

I don't see it's a good design to have Toxikon be doubled the potency of Dosis to incentivize spamming Eukrasian Diagnosis to gain addersting just to make it DPS Neutral. Doubly so if there's a cooldown attached so now there's multiple ways to never finish spending your gauge.

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The whole point of the cooldown is to deincentivize spamming E. Diagnosis though, as well as deincentivize storing and dumping during buff windows. You can use it a limited number of times in quick succession for future DPS gains at timed intervals, but since there's no pressure to spam the action, you have time to find the right moments to use it. There's absolutely no positive value to making a partial DPS refund when you can instead make a full refund but create some restrictions so that it's not just a free-for-all. Look at the lilies. Look at Ruin II. Do you feel that either of those are in any way satisfying tools as they currently are?

I feel like it's a bit odd to be worried about the mobility aspect of Toxikon if it were given a cooldown but also be in favor or DPS loss mobility tools, because that's not rewarding you for managing your resources effectively. You are still punished for having to move, just punished marginally less. Yay.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

I think you're going off the assumption that your excess Addersting fades over time? I'm really confused about where the issue is because sure, if you use E. Diagnosis twice and generate 2 Addersting within 30 seconds, then you can only use one of them right then, but you'll be able to use the other one after the cooldown finishes. That extra Addersting isn't going away unless you're overcapping on stacks, but there's no reason you should be overcapping.

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It's possible I'm misunderstanding this.. but The problem with having a 30 second cooldown being an issue is mainly also caused by the way you go about gaining the DPS-neutral effect of Toxikon II. Eukrasian Diagnosis doesn't instantly generate addersting, only when the shield breaks. This creates a very big time-delay if there will be future skills that expend addersting - which limits the development of addersting skills. If Physis II and Rhizomata is also on the GCD, but generate addersting, this no longer makes it a flexible healing skill since they'll be used on cd for your other burst addersting skills to align with the cooldown. Assuming Physis II and Rhizomata has a lower cd to compensate for this fact and to be used as primarily a healing tool, it also means you'll start generating more addersting overtime, which doesn't make Eukrasian Diagnosis as a mobility tool for holding onto in case you need to double weave as you'll naturally start overcapping. Toxikon II would simply not be as flexible to use as a DPS-neutral tool or holding it for a double weave window since the cooldown will be naturally delayed while your other skills that work on generating addersting won't be, so you're always going to spend the Toxikon II on cd or you'll run into overcapping issues on addersting if you intend on using Eukrasian Diagnosis as your mobility tool.

Likewise, for an unplanned eventuality, you lose the freedom to reserve your Toxikon II stacks by needing to heal more and are required to spend your Physis II (ergo generate more addersting stacks) unless you plan on delaying the skills that generate addersting to prevent overcap, which just means you naturally lose addersting over the course of a fight (thereby no longer making your GCD skills DPS Neutral) unless Eukrasian Diagnosis is the only way to generate addersting. This is what I mean by loss of flexibility.


If E. Diagnosis is the only skill that can allow you to gain addersting stacks, but designed in a way that also decentivizes the use of E. Diagnosis, it means you'd use up to 2-3 per min if you're using it on cd for efficiency, or less if you plan on reserving stacks for double weaving. Possibly more if you want to spend it on other addersting skills in the future. However, there's still the big time lag delay between when your shield is applied and when the shield breaks. Not to mention, Eukrasian Diagnosis can crit and thereby extending the time it takes for the shield to pop. That's not so good if you decide to place an addersting DPS rotation.

Also, by starting to spam E. Diagnosis a lot more than usual to generate addersting for all addersting skills, Kardia is starting to sound more clunky down the line with Kardia losing more and more mileage per minute to accomodate for those changes rather then synergizing and meshing well with the toolkit. It's not a big problem, but there's certainly better ways to go about it.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

The whole point of the cooldown is to deincentivize spamming E. Diagnosis though, as well as deincentivize storing and dumping during buff windows. You can use it a limited number of times in quick succession for future DPS gains at timed intervals, but since there's no pressure to spam the action, you have time to find the right moments to use it. There's absolutely no positive value to making a partial DPS refund when you can instead make a full refund but create some restrictions so that it's not just a free-for-all. Look at the lilies. Look at Ruin II. Do you feel that either of those are in any way satisfying tools as they currently are?

I feel like it's a bit odd to be worried about the mobility aspect of Toxikon if it were given a cooldown but also be in favor or DPS loss mobility tools, because that's not rewarding you for managing your resources effectively. You are still punished for having to move, just punished marginally less. Yay.

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For the third time, if there were additional ways to generate addersting frequently outside of simply using Eukrasian Diagnosis or any skill that specifically shares our main GCD DPS skill (Dosis), then there would no longer be an issue with requiring Toxikon to be double the potency to make GCD healing DPS Neutral. Bumping up the potency to Toxikon higher than Dosis will already make it a DPS gain over Dosis as long as you can get addersting consistently enough outside of hardcasting GCD skills like Eukrasian Diagnosis. At the same time, it becomes a mobility tool and a double weaving tool on high enough demand, but still requires some optimization as you can't spam it 24/7.

DPS Neutral DPS skills is only major a problem with healing for WHM because WHM relies on GCD healing with lilies and lacks oGCD healing tools in general compared to the other 3 healers.

However, SCH, AST, and SGE does not have this issue where they are forced to depend on GCD healing.
SCH suffers from Ruin II not being a proper mobility tool and a double-weaving tool as it's only a partial DPS-refund, which has to be addressed, but that's for making it easier to chain their oGCD abilities together because the only time SCH needs to use Ruin II is to use multiple healing abilities in quick succession and to move. They don't need to pay the tax to use Ruin II otherwise because their main skill is already giving them free weave slots. It doesn't need Succor or Adloquium to be DPS Neutral. It's not a GCD-focused healer like WHM.

This also applies to SGE. The current Toxikon is already DPS Neutral under the assumption you can gain addersting outside of combat. Not being able to gain addersting during combat is the main issue of Toxikon currently from stopping it to be DPS Neutral. Bumping the potency up over Dosis and giving more ways to gain addersting during combat outside of Eukrasian Diagnosis completely eliminates the issue needing DPS Neutral entirely as it introduces alternate sources of gaining addersting over the course of the encounter without fighting for Dosis on the GCD.

SGE is predominately a healer that relies on their oGCD healing abilities. Having GCD healing is more of a fall-back plan for SGE rather than a requirement to use doesn't make Toxikon inherently more rewarding because all you are doing is playing catchup and giving more healing to a job that doesn't lack healing tools. A big reason why healing is unrewarding is because there is a huge disparity between not needing to heal due to a lack of damage. The current Toxikon is good for its niche, but it's too niche in its usage since there's nothing else in the toolkit other than Dosis and Phlegma. That's the main issue of Toxikon and healers in general. Forcing E. Diagnosis to heal doesn't negate healing when you don't need to as well.

Sorry if I wasn't clarifying enough. When I'm saying Toxikon, I'm referring to Toxikon II being already DPS Neutral. Toxikon I itself is problematic and needs a buff to its potency to be at DPS Neutral or slightly above as it's currently only beneficial at 2 targets, outside of paying DPS-tax to use.

Apologies for not replying with quote, I'm being a little lazy. Also, for the record, when I say "Toxikon" I really just mean whichever version you're used based on content, so sorry if that made anything confusing. At level 90, this means Toxikon II.

The issue with needing E. Diagnosis to break for Addersting really only exists for your opener when needing 2 of them to use both Toxikon and SGE Continuation. You can very easily get Addersting very quickly by putting E. Diagnosis on the main tank prepull since autos in any fights where a perfect opener matters have bosses that auto hard enough to pop the barrier quickly, in which case using one alternative source for your opener does exist. It also pops very quickly everywhere else, even in dungeons, when placed on the main tank. Once you get passed that point, the idea is that you'll prepare your Addersting ahead of time using E. Diagnosis rather than only using it as the cooldown is coming off. How much you'll prep your Addersting will depend largely on the fight. P3S, for example, has a few movement-heavy phases where you will want to have an empty tank to afford the E. Diagnosis uses that will work in favor of your mobility. Beyond your SGE Continuation, though, you really don't need to use Toxikon on cooldown outside of burst windows since it's net neutral. The only time where it becomes a problem is if you end the fight before spending all your Addersting because it means the uses of E. Diagnosis or other gainers ultimately did result in a loss. I'm sure there could be anecdotes about someone who hit enrage at 0.1% where that could've been avoided through more apt use of Toxikon, but that would be an incredibly rare occurrence, and if you cleared the fight, then you still cleared the fight.

That stays true for other GCD gainers as well since it's DPS neutral. So long as you're able to generate some of your Addersting from E. Diagnosis, which isn't hard to do when you don't have the pressure to do it constantly, then you don't need to use those gainers on cooldown. You only are pressured to if you've neglected to gain a single Addersting from E. Diagnosis use once per SGE Continuation timer. Even if that ended up being 60 seconds, is it really that much to ask that someone use E. Diagnosis once a minute or less based on coincidental generation used from your other sources?

This would actually make how many Addersting you're holding onto and what's ideal for any given point in a fight very fluid, which would be very unique to any job in FFXIV, and not a bad thing either. And because it's all net neutral for Toxikon, someone who chooses not to generate or use it throughout a fight outside of maybe getting it through your other methods like Physis II is only really going to lose a small amount of DPS exclusively from ignoring burst windows which is something people already do all the time, even in Savage. The only real demand to use it stems from the SGE continuation concept. Toxikon is more about offering skilled players a way to express mastery without actually performing that much higher than someone who isn't, but you'd be a more effective healer for doing so.

And sure, the healing requirements of FFXIV are rock bottom, but making situational use of E. Diagnosis a good strategy rather than an objectively terrible one 99% of the time is something I'd argue works well in favor of giving SGE more to do with their GCD--something that is very largely a choice.

I can't agree with you there. The problem is not "Giving something to do on the GCD". The problem is "DPS GCD options are sorely lacking" because damage isn't always prevalent in all content, and the alternative is to just heal more - which is no alternative at all.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

The issue with needing E. Diagnosis to break for Addersting really only exists for your opener when needing 2 of them to use both Toxikon and SGE Continuation. You can very easily get Addersting very quickly by putting E. Diagnosis on the main tank prepull since autos in any fights where a perfect opener matters have bosses that auto hard enough to pop the barrier quickly, in which case using one alternative source for your opener does exist.

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This is something I take offense to and immediately raises red flags. I don't want healers to only be fun and be tuned "where a perfect opener matters have bosses that auto hard enough to pop the barrier quickly," because that suddenly neglects the fact that healers also do all the story content, duty roulette, and solo instances in the game. Healers should be fun in all content - and that means making a DPS toolkit that fits the paradigm of actually using it for all content, not just for high-end where damage is higher.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

It also pops very quickly everywhere else, even in dungeons, when placed on the main tank. Once you get passed that point, the idea is that you'll prepare your Addersting ahead of time using E. Diagnosis rather than only using it as the cooldown is coming off. How much you'll prep your Addersting will depend largely on the fight. P3S, for example, has a few movement-heavy phases where you will want to have an empty tank to afford the E. Diagnosis uses that will work in favor of your mobility. Beyond your SGE Continuation, though, you really don't need to use Toxikon on cooldown outside of burst windows since it's net neutral. The only time where it becomes a problem is if you end the fight before spending all your Addersting because it means the uses of E. Diagnosis or other gainers ultimately did result in a loss. I'm sure there could be anecdotes about someone who hit enrage at 0.1% where that could've been avoided through more apt use of Toxikon, but that would be an incredibly rare occurrence, and if you cleared the fight, then you still cleared the fight.

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Here's the biggest kicker I got so far with your SGE design. Currently, SGE rarely needs to GCD heal, if any, in normal content once the content has been out for a while. The ways I found to optimize my aoe in dungeons is to place 4 Eukrasian Diagnosis pre-pull. A good team can pop all 4 shields in a big pull, and if I'm unlucky, then only 2 pops (Eukrasian Dosis pulls mobs to sge which pops the Eukrasian shield due to Kardion aggro, but sge is next to the tank, so tank immediately grabs aggro back with aoe as a result of Icarus letting the sge stay close by, resulting in the second addersting). To be utterly honest, the amount of times I use addersting in a normal dungeon is higher than what you proposed because SGE continuation combo has a 90 sec cd whereas the Toxikon has a 30 sec cd. However, interestingly enough, Krasis and Physis II generally comes back up before the next big pull, or are slightly under cooldown (which means it's always 55 to 65 seconds between pulls, and that has been very consistent in all dungeons I've done so far). This means you can only use SGE's continuation combo every other wall to wall pull, then overcap on Toxikon as a result. The SGE continuation combo also won't align perfectly in dungeon bosses as a result of this. Meanwhile, the current Toxikon allows me to spend 2 or more GCDs consistently in every big pull, which enables me to get more uses of addersting by the end of the dungeon compared to your current implementation. It gets even better if I need to move to the next big pack as I can just empty out my Toxikon stacks while running to the next big pull after using Eukrasian Dosis to tag all the enemies, thus keeping my GCD always rolling. With all that in mind, it feels like your SGE suggestion for DPS options is actually a downgrade unless it's strictly for bossing and trials.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

That stays true for other GCD gainers as well since it's DPS neutral. So long as you're able to generate some of your Addersting from E. Diagnosis, which isn't hard to do when you don't have the pressure to do it constantly, then you don't need to use those gainers on cooldown. You only are pressured to if you've neglected to gain a single Addersting from E. Diagnosis use once per SGE Continuation timer. Even if that ended up being 60 seconds, is it really that much to ask that someone use E. Diagnosis once a minute or less based on coincidental generation used from your other sources?

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Bro, in your first post, you literally listed: Physis II, Pepsis, Holos, Rhizomata going into the GCD. Pepsis is supposed to work with Eukrasian Prognosis or it becomes a DPS loss anyway, so now you have 6 skills including Eukrasian Diagnosis. I took the liberty to remove Holos, but even then, that's still 5 GCD skills that are strictly related to healing. 170*5 = 850. That's not a small amount of Kardia healing potency, especially if you're using that under Soteria. That's nearly the levels of Dissipation Fairy's embrace levels of bad, except Dissipation is a 30 second lockout per 180 seconds and all these skills are definitely UNDER 180 seconds cd. Granted, you don't have to use all of them at once, but if you need that healing for whatever reason (everyone messing up and getting some vuln stacks), not only are you using them to save the party, you're going to be constantly overcapping addersting as a result of the Toxikon 30 second cooldown lockout. Hard pass from me.

GCD-heal gameplay works for WHM and really just WHM with the introduction of Afflatus Spells and Afflatus Misery, as well as its support healing abilities like Temperance (scales off spells), Plenary Indulgence (scales off aoe spells), and asylum (scales off all abilities, but also can boost healing spells). The toolkit is naturally designed to heal with spells. It would only make sense for it to do so and double down by making spells DPS-Neutral or DPS-Positive to heal in that regard.

However, GCD-heal by DPS gameplay works for SGE only because SGE has Kardia and Soteria, as well as having Pneuma, Phlegma, Dosis, Dykrasia, Toxikon and Eukrasian Dosis to activate Kardion. It's still a low number and incomplete like WHM, but the starting foundation can be developed with a clear vision as the heals are all oGCD based otherwise.

Eukrasian Diagnosis doesn't introduce any new elements into this, nor does Eukrasian Prognosis, Pepsis + Physis II + Rhizomata if they become on the GCD. In fact, Pepsis being the only skill that deletes barriers to grant addersting based on the number of barriers eaten actually just makes this skill overcap Toxikon easily since you just fill up and can't spend them all with that 30 second cooldown. If it only grants one as long as it eats a barrier, it's a complete DPS loss of a skill as it now takes 2 GCDs to grant 1 addersting. It just fully screams of backward design to me by trying to convert SGE to WHM rather than make SGE as SGE.

Making DPS Neutral-healing in hindsight is good, but it really makes no sense to give it on healers who are heavily oGCD focused and doesn't want to use GCD healing. And this is a hill I will die on.
Eukrasian Diagnosis and Eukrasian Prognosis can definitely get some support, but dammit, changing the job from GCD heal by DPSing to GCD heal TO DPS is the wrong direction for SGE to develop in.