PvP thoughts about Sage

I noticed in the 7.3.1 Patch notes about the Sage changes that the dev team was looking for a way to make the class more impactful, and they relegated that to increasing potencies. I think while that's not a bad change, when you look at Sage as what it is (a healer), you have to consider what you're losing by bringing a Sage into the game versus the other three healing classes.

Sustain is one of the biggest losses. White Mage, Astrologian, and Scholar have a dedicated heal button that can actually impact an engage without having to use an extra button to move Kardia and start attacking. Looking objectively at this, it takes two actions and a full cast timer of Dosis to effect a single 4k heal on a single target, whereas White Mage has two charges of Cure 2 with 12k healing each on a single button, Astro has an instant casting cure with Aspected Benefic that also gives a regen and/or a shield, and Scholar has an instant cast of a heal that also gives a shield and increased damage potency.

They're losing on action economy and dumping so much into damage that it almost doesn't even feel like a healer. Now, don't get me wrong- I love Sage, I think the design is awesome, I think it just needs some tweaks to make it more impactful as a healer.

One thing I think that might be a good change would be to make Toxikon and Phlegma have heals attached to them. Actually having healing going off when you attack (since those two buttons get so, so much mileage- arguably more than Dosis- would make Kardia a much more impactful button.

Pneuma being the only means of AoE healing is also stunting. It has pretty solid impact with Panhaima being attached, but again, its losing action economy to the other three healers. This one might be a stretch, but in the same way the Scholar can summon its Seraph every minute-ish? What if the Devs were to put Philosophia into the game mode on a similar timer, with some mitigation and the ability to effectively Kardia heal the entire party for a brief time? Actually making Sage able to compete in healing would be a huge step in improving its Win Rate, I think.

Devs, I love what you guys do, thank you.

Honestly, I agree with everything in this post including your suggestion at the end.

I think Sage is in a fine place at the moment.
Giving it anything more right now would probably tip it over the edge.

Even right now, most of its buttons out value the other healer’s equivalents. it’s just in the form of damage rather than healing.

So as much as I would like to see healing on the other moves, and it makes sense for it to do so, I’m not sure I want to give up anything for it.

But I don't think it's meant to be a healer like the other three.

From the get-go of the original rework it always seemed to be designed as a glass-cannon that was meant to apply shields and "stall" rather than heal; hence the nature of it's LB. The minor heals from landing Dosis aren't meant to do more than a minor sustain, and the main draw is putting up Diagnosis shields after using Eukrasia, because a fully used-up shield buffs your next Toxicon damage.

If you can look at it as more of a DPS (like it's designed to be) with minor heals as a byproduct of its kit, then it's actually very solid. If you want something with spot heals and other abilities to restore HP... that's what AST and WHM are for...

I know people like to hyper-fixate on the PvE trinity roles, but for this current iteration of PvP it's more important to identify jobs more by the archetype playstyles they're designed around.

I definitely agree with a lot of your thoughts. As much as I enjoy Sage and how much damage and function it contributes, it feels like you have to be playing so many steps ahead of the rest of your team just to barely function as a support, and you have no real way to help your team through close calls. In something too close to its current PVE version I think Philosophia would be a bit overpowered unless it were made an LB (and then I would terribly miss sage cage, which while wonky and slow in its animation is incredibly powerful), but I would absolutely kill to have something akin to Taurochole or Ixochole as a heal or cleanse for a teammate in trouble.

The reasoning would make sense, if White Mage would not have a Limit Break that charges around twice as fast as sage (or any other job pretty much), doing AOE damage, stun and heal at the same time.
Following the logic, the WM Limit Break should only provide healing since WM is supposed to be the healing job.

What sage needs is just replacing Kardia with its lvl 100 PvE version when it essentially becomes aoe for a while and call it a day. The healing would be still laughable but at least you dont lock out more than half of your team from receiving healing.

Lets face it, 99.99% of Sages slap Kardia onto 1 target and forget about it. Its way too problematic to change targets with it in a PvP scenario depending on who needs it because it dosnt provide that much value to begin with and its a cast time that could have been used more effectively. On frontline i straight up put it on myself and be done with it.

Even in PvE, most of us do not switch Kardia targets, we slap them on the main tank and forget about it, we dont switch it to some random DPS to heal them up.
The only thing that incentivize pressing Kardia again in the fight if the other tank has become the main tank seemingly for good.

So i think OP is right, sage is barely a healer in PvP compared to its counterparts and for not much reason except the devs desperately trying to cling to Kardia being the core part of Sage identity.

It's perfectly fine and should be left alone. It didn't even need the 7.31 buffs (but maybe it does in response to other 7.31 changes) but I'll give a cautious 'thanks'. If Sage is found to now be 'overpowered' under the current build, just revert the 7.31 change and do not put it in a blender.

I still think it's weird that Phlegma III is a melee attack though (including for PvE). It's kinda silly to have to use Icarus to gap-close just to use Phlegma III, just to then have to immediately run away to avoid getting pounced on. Remove the range requirement only for Phlegma III (PvP and PvE) or leave the entire job alone, cause enough stuff in this game is now broken and PvP Sage is one of the few joys I have left in this game (and thus reasons to sub).

I think SGE is the correct healer model while the other ones, at least AST and WHM have way too much healing stacked in their toolkit, which tends to make the design too lopsided toward sustain and recovery, allowing teams to make mistakes when the team that doesn't have them on the other side isn't allowed any. SGE is a lot less oppressive with over the top healing but still provides options.
Perhaps there is a good middle ground to aim for that heals a bit more than SGE, but definitely less than WHM/AST (when you can literally deny entire LBs with things like macrocosmos or entire synced bursts by spamming aspected benefic... no thanks). I'd like the devs sometimes to stop buffing jobs on places where it's not actually needed and when it still doesn't provide solutions they keep doing it again and again until the job becomes so lopsided that it introduces further problems: see for example VPR that has always been subpar until they buffed scales so much that it became an instant S tier pick, because the job's sole cornerstone is scales and that's it.

I am not including SCH into this observation because SCH has very different mechanics and it's OP-ness comes from elsewhere, notably having essentially access to 2 LBs and a game breaking button at high level being Chain Strat.

I am also strictly speaking within the context of Crystalline Conflict, around which jobs are supposed to be balanced.

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Originally Posted by Cidel

I know people like to hyper-fixate on the PvE trinity roles, but for this current iteration of PvP it's more important to identify jobs more by the archetype playstyles they're designed around.

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Why? trinity roles is what made me pick up this game, the slow removal of them makes me not wanna play it anymore

They fail to make jobs more impactful according to their identity, because they made everyone a damage dealer with selfheal.

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Originally Posted by Commander_Justitia

Why? trinity roles is what made me pick up this game, the slow removal of them makes me not wanna play it anymore

They fail to make jobs more impactful according to their identity

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Trinity roles in PvP is what caused lopsided Feast queue times. This was their attempt at creating a mostly role-agnostic queue system that doesn't entirely rely on whether enough of an equal number of tanks and healers are queued-up at the same time, or making it a matter of which team got the stronger healer. Is this new system perfect? Of course not. And I still see the queue system attempting to distribute tanks and healers between both teams, with mixed results, but that often comes down to which team has more of the "meta" jobs. But at least now if 9 DPS and a tank are queued, a match can be formed.

Ironically, I've frequently heard praise about how the reworked PvP jobs have more of an "identity" than their constantly homogenized PvE counterparts. Almost every job is some kind of damage dealer, yes, but how they go about it or what strategy they have to employ to function and synergize with their teammates varies. Some jobs are bruisers, others are burst-heavy executioners, some are more set-up focused, while others lean harder on support or constant pressure.

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Originally Posted by Commander_Justitia

...because they made everyone a damage dealer with selfheal.

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And they made every PvE healer a job with a single-target heal, an AoE heal, a DPS button, and a DoT button. /s

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Originally Posted by Cidel

This was their attempt at creating a mostly role-agnostic queue system that doesn't entirely rely on whether enough of an equal number of tanks and healers are queued-up at the same time, or making it a matter of which team got the stronger healer.

But at least now if 9 DPS and a tank are queued, a match can be formed.

Ironically, I've frequently heard praise about how the reworked PvP jobs have more of an "identity" than their constantly homogenized PvE counterparts. Almost every job is some kind of damage dealer, yes, but how they go about it or what strategy they have to employ to function and synergize with their teammates varies. Some jobs are bruisers, others are burst-heavy executioners, some are more set-up focused, while others lean harder on support or constant pressure.

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Yeah I hate it, I prefered 4vs4. Instead of losing roles and have rng 5vs5.
I rather sit longer in queue than get a weird matchup, that only exists because SE thought PvP was too dead because of forced roles. I think frontline should have gotten forced roles too in the past. Now it is a mode where team strategy and aoe buffs/healing/synergy either dont exist or don't really matter as much anymore.

You can still have self heals, but not this MP regen potion.

Having no roles might be fun and okay for casual games, but not for ranked and competitive mode.

Yeah there is praise, but I would want this system applied to more skills than just the 5-10 each job has. But they are afraid of doing this, because of balance issues, well maybe in 8.x they make an attempt on it.
You are basically saying some deal moderate damage over longer time, some deal high dmg over a short time - yeah they are all damage dealer lol. I want tank identity to be that they are doing most of the crowdcontrol effects, to do most of aoe and single target mitigation, to help with small heals, to only have a small burst and vulnerability up debuffs. But now we have tanks that deal the most damage in a whole match. Can make their blue icon red, it wouldnt make a difference.

Many times people cried over Sage and DRK how bad they are when in reality these are classes that still retained their high skill ceiling function. DRK didn't need buffs at all, it was OK for its thing and MP changes these patch already buffed the class. So doing salted earth changes wasn't really needed but okay let's make it easier and more spammable class in CC. We all remember how Season 9 went with it. Monk buffs weren't needed but square cannot hold one minute without this class being in meta. Machinist didn't deserve buffs but hey let them go because why not. Why not let them do now 16k with shotgun and they are already an overpowered job that everyone spams in every single CC match.

Sage buffs are OK. Sage was never a pure healer but more of big dps + shields. Main issue arrives when your team doesn't know how to play and you find yourself playing with 4 anchors, here is where other healers will be simply better than you because its easier to heal a bot that is afk than not. Sage in a good hands and decent team can be pain. It doesn't need any more buffs but it should at least get some rework or thing because devs them alone don't know what to do with this class. They constantly buff / nerf it over and over again in an endless loop.

The amount of damage might not feel that much when you are against Scholar which is currently the best healer and other 2 just got hit hard for no particular reason. In any other situation, you will do good if you can play it. Your LB is also strong, specially when its overtime and enemy team has to stand in crystal. You can also bait Samurai's LB to fail.

Yeah no, I'm not going back into Feast hell where 95% of the weight in teams was on the healer. Or in FLs where the team with nobody eating the bullet and going healer would automatically lose. Haha no. You can keep this in the trashbin of history where it belongs.

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Originally Posted by MayuAmakura

Many times people cried over Sage and DRK how bad they are when in reality these are classes that still retained their high skill ceiling function. DRK didn't need buffs at all, it was OK for its thing and MP changes these patch already buffed the class. So doing salted earth changes wasn't really needed but okay let's make it easier and more spammable class in CC. We all remember how Season 9 went with it. Monk buffs weren't needed but square cannot hold one minute without this class being in meta. Machinist didn't deserve buffs but hey let them go because why not. Why not let them do now 16k with shotgun and they are already an overpowered job that everyone spams in every single CC match.

Sage buffs are OK. Sage was never a pure healer but more of big dps + shields. Main issue arrives when your team doesn't know how to play and you find yourself playing with 4 anchors, here is where other healers will be simply better than you because its easier to heal a bot that is afk than not. Sage in a good hands and decent team can be pain. It doesn't need any more buffs but it should at least get some rework or thing because devs them alone don't know what to do with this class. They constantly buff / nerf it over and over again in an endless loop.

The amount of damage might not feel that much when you are against Scholar which is currently the best healer and other 2 just got hit hard for no particular reason. In any other situation, you will do good if you can play it. Your LB is also strong, specially when its overtime and enemy team has to stand in crystal. You can also bait Samurai's LB to fail.

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I'm sure I can ask any player in the top ranks what they think of DRK in CC and they'll reply it's still the worst tank out of the 4, or that MNK actually needed something (we'll see if it is too much or not), or that MCH also needed something (even though we may disagree on what).

I love sage and main it in PvE and want to play it in PvP (frontlines) but it's just pure garbage. Low damage, poor sustain healing. It's LB is just pointless when you get pushed or pulled so far out of it that you're double it's diameter away now. IMO, You should be immune to the push/pulls while in it.

Either way, my frontlines roulette is always the last thing I do before I log out of the game because I always just leave angry and annoyed at how bad job balance is with that.

So my thoughts on Sage "as it is," I like the design and would like to keep to Kardia and having it being geared toward damage ramp. I don't think that aspect of it is bad.

My issue is that if I queue into a game and randomly get sorted into a team, if I'm the only healer, I don't have the same impact as a team with any of the other healers. They have the ability to sustain a team fight for like 10 seconds before Panhaima is gone, but no healing beyond that.

White Mage gets healing on its own button, Cure 3 when Seraph Strike is used, damage reduction on the same button, Aquaveil to reduce damage on a target, and their LB gives passive regen.

AST has on demand healing and a heal that compiles damage taken (that can literally eat a burst and heal it back).

SCH can drop the faerie for shields, has heals and shields in its LB, an on demand heal that also gives damage ramp and a Shield that can be spread to multiple targets.

Meanwhile I get Kardia and Dosis, which has very little sustain impact against bursting. It doesn't have Regens, the shield is relegated to the DoT that's independent of the heal. If the game matches based on classes at all, and it considers me a healer, my team is at a relative disadvantage. That's what I'm saying here. Sage needs more dedicated healing or some equalizer that makes it not objectively weaker at doing what it's supposed to do based on the job color.

Sage in FL is a beast if you can kardia a reliable, competent tank/DPS. I see most sages kardia themselves which is a waste of the job.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I'm sure I can ask any player in the top ranks what they think of DRK in CC and they'll reply it's still the worst tank out of the 4, or that MNK actually needed something (we'll see if it is too much or not), or that MCH also needed something (even though we may disagree on what).

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+2 on DRK, +2 on MNK, -2 on MCH.

MCH players get inflated elo because low ranks don't know how to guard LB. When you start running into people who can watch for LB and guard it on sight, MCH needs to start using its other tools to stay competitive. Which you aren't taught how to do when you can cheese people in metal ranks. If we had to give MCH anything, it could probably use a faster walk speed while casting. That's about it.

DRK is still hot garbage in 5's, and likely always will be so long as Plunge exist in its current state. MNK *probably* didn't get enough, but that's probably fine because MNK has a very frustrating play-pattern to begin with. If MNK is ever "good" in the way VPR and DRG are "good", everybody but the MNK is going to be miserable.