When Endwalker was first teased, Sage immediately captivated me with its visual design and initial promises of a healer made in response to the feedback from players wanting more DPS tools. Yet Sage's conservative approach to that identity has left it sitting in Scholar's shadow, and I want to continue expressing my feedback on the job and my hope for its future (despite my increasingly waning hope for the future of this game in general).
The Problems with Sage
Spamming Dosis ad nauseam is not enjoyable full stop. That was the main criticism players like myself had during Shadowbringers that was supposedly what Sage was designed to address. It has not gotten better since then.
- Sage's DPS is as shallow and miserable as every other healer's DPS.
The most unique ideas baked into Sage's skillset are also, unfortunately, the most underwhelming. Instead of utilizing Kardia And Eukrasia as Sage's main source of healing, they are largely outclassed by Sage's other healing resources, which leads me to the third point...
- Kardia and Eukrasia feel like an afterthought.
Many of Sage's most important and impactful healing actions are identical to, or extremely similar to actions found on Scholar, most prominently the Addersgall suite which is a nearly direct copy of Aetherflow.
- Sage copies too much from Scholar.
SolutionsI want to make it clear that I am not saying Sage needs a DPS rotation on par with DPS jobs. Instead, I would point to Gunbreaker, a tank with a greater emphasis on DPS variety than other tanks, but is still not as robust as a true DPS job. The same should apply to Sage. And I think there's room to take inspiration from PVP Sage with faster cooldowns, some frequent OGCD attacks, and an offensive version of Pneuma.
- Redesign Sage's DPS playstyle to something fresh and new for healers.
I think a very easy solution that would make a big impact would be to change what tools Addersgall is spent on. Instead of copy-pastes of Scholar's Aetherflow actions, why not spend Adderstall on Soteria as your single target heal, "Pankardia", a proper AOE Kardia effect as your AOE, and a new action that causes Kardia to apply stackable, smaller barriers for a set duration? Adding more DPS options also expands the range of resources that Eukrasia can potentially take advantage of as well.
- Make adjustments to Sage's healing that put more weight into Kardia and Eukrasia.
To tackle both sides of Sage's issues, consider a rework to Philosophia... Since "Pankardia" could be introduced much earlier, you could have Philosophia function similiarly to an Enshroud/Reawaken type effect that gives you a faster set of attacks, and adds another layer of Kardia healing during the duration of that attack string. The healing can also be converted to layered barriers through the new Addersgall action, allowing you to take advantage of the support better even if the party is healthy.
Final Thoughts
For me, Sage is a job where I really want to look and feel cool and stylish. It takes visual inspiration from sources like Gundam, but I do not feel cool, flashy, or heroic when playing as a Sage. Instead I feel slow, basic, and listless. Both because Sage fails to live up to the expectations of a proper DPS oriented healer, and also that the healing I do doesn't capture the thematic qualities that are supposed to set Sage apart. It's time this changes, and while I'm doubtful it will, all I can do is continue to put my feedback out there in a desperate effort to see Sage live up to the fantasy it deserves.
RE: Sage Design
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09-10-2025, 04:56 PMty_taurusRE: Sage Design
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09-10-2025, 05:24 PMCarin-Eri
Agree to some extent. Sage is my second most played class (Dancer being my first).
Generally I feel that, if I am on a team which (for whatever reasons) requires more focus on healing or shielding it feels pretty rewarding (for lack of a better term) to play.
However, if/when I'm on a team of experienced players who require minimal healing, I don't really feel as if I'm contributing much due to mediocre DPS. -
09-10-2025, 05:51 PMXenoviastar
I don't usually look into people's profiles but when i see someone talking about job design but they aren't even max level I am sceptical.
Sage has the most dps options in their kits compared to other healers, especially compared to SCH.
Sage already has the most OGCD's and they made pneuma dps positive already.(which I disagree with personally) I believe if you want/have to "heal" then you sacifice your "dps" casting, to HEAL, Rez, Etc.
PS. you are a support/healer. -
09-10-2025, 06:02 PMty_taurusBecause I refused to play Dawntrail. I did savage with Sage during EW. I know how to heal, and I know that an extra 60 second OGCD and a regen on a 3 minute cooldown ain’t gonna change shit about how the job plays.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xenoviastar
PS, you can be a healer and also have gameplay elements that aren’t just healing. If tanks can tank while having more than one basic attack, one DOT, and one cooldown, then so can healers. Yoshi P directly stated in lead up to EW that they were trying to respond to players asking for more DPS on healers. I would appreciate if at least one healer could actually be designed to make the game playable for someone like me so I can experience Dawntrail, but I will not touch the game until there’s a healer not burdened with miserable glare/broil/malefic/Dosis spam ad nauseam full stop. It’s bad design, and I will not tolerate it any longer. -
09-10-2025, 07:35 PMValence
Wait, GNB has a DPS emphasis? Because of what, more weaving than DRK? I guess?
Either way, I do wish you good luck in your uphill battle with the devs. -
09-10-2025, 08:52 PMRein_eon_OsborneQuality over quantity, I'd say.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xenoviastar
At the end of the day you are still spending majority of your time 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 on all four healers. It's ridiculous and beyond lazy. They can do better, they had been better. They SHOULD be better.- Sure they have Toxikon II, but they are treated very similarly as Ruin II/Lily management and thus isn't part of a SGE's routine.
- Sure they have E.Dyskrasia which no other healers had its equivalent in their present iteration, but realistically speaking, when do you even use this outside dungeons that has bajillion targets to DoT - which also amounts even less? While in theory you can E.Dyskrasia first pack then spams Dyskrasia, how many times do you think we'll miss them due to location desync? In the end, running together with tanks as you E.Dosis III targets one by one is still more reliable; the same routine you do with their siblings as well.
- Sure they have Pneuma, but not only it's not a dps gain (just to correct you there mind you) it's also treated as "Cure III but DPS neutral" unless you're cleaving multiple targets, which is also a rarity in 8-mans...
- Phlegma is the oddball (pun intended), but in practice they're still too same'y as combination of Assize and Afflatus Misery given how suspiciously close they are in potency to the latter and its cooldown being adjusted at the same time as when Assize got knocked down to 40s.
- I personally could even go one step further by considering Psyche to Aetherflow's equivalent as "another button I press every 60s, no buts", except Psyche requires no thought while Aetherflow requires conscious decision from my end to spend them for EDs when not needed. But this is just me-thing.
P.S. SCH still holds the top spot on having the most number of oGCDs amongst all healers, just to correct you a bit there. I'm not even counting how Summon Seraph changes into Consolation here. -
09-10-2025, 11:57 PMCarighanI mean, that a movement ability is used for movement sounds smart design to me? A big issue of most DPS jobs is how they use their movement tools rotationally instead of for movement ,after all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne
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09-11-2025, 01:41 AMty_taurusIt’s an uptime management action in theory; you use it to avoid losing damage you would otherwise lose if you have to run far and don’t have a reason to cast your DOT. But outside your initial three casts, you only get it after you’ve already lost damage by casting your barriers which is a bit counter intuitive.Quote:
Originally Posted by Carighan
If barriers are a necessity then sure, it can help you avoid losing even more damage, but Sage is designed to heal almost entirely with their OGCD. Every other heal except Pneuma is weaved, and Pneuma is DPS neutral, so in practice, you really shouldn’t need your barrier spells in a lot of encounters. I’ve heard DT has gotten faster with its mechanics, so perhaps in harder difficulties it sees more use, especially when progging.
Toxikon being an uptime tool wouldn’t be so unremarkable if you generated Addersting in more ways than casting heals you rarely ever need. Make your DOT generate 1 each time you reapply it for example. That would feel thematic since Toxikon is a reference to poison-tipped arrows, and that would raise Toxikon up significantly in my opinion. If Sage also needed it for weaving OGCDs, that would also give it a lot of interesting use cases, but since Dosis just had to have a 1.5 second cast and every cast is a weave window, we can’t have spells designed for enabling weaving since there’s no point. -
09-11-2025, 02:07 AMty_taurusYou do have more tools to weave with, yes, but also your cartridge system has a priority system to it. You don’t just dump it into Fell Cleave, for example.Quote:
Originally Posted by Valence
It’s not the deepest pool out there, I’ll grant you, but there’s more going on for it than the other tanks, and it was designed as a sort of “tank that feels like a DPS.” You can argue with how successful that was if you’d like, but it’s satisfactory enough for me that I think it’s worth referencing. Of course, I don’t mean Sage should have Gunbreaker’s rotation. It’s DPS should still feel like a caster, and should have the flexibility to pivot to healing smoothly. -
09-11-2025, 08:15 AMRein_eon_OsborneMobility tools that are tied to GCDs will always have secondary values attached to them, i.e. weaving. If Toxikon II exists in a world where we never received Trashologification to our filler spells, then they would have significantly more inherent value and I'd have less issue with them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Carighan
We have seen how this happened to early EW WHM. The moment our filler became 1.5s without Lily adjustments (except the 20s part, I think they should've stayed 30s), people become more inclined to avoid them than not, thus giving birth to the early EW WHM 'mana issue'. The difference was WHM didn't had the absurd HPS from the rest of their kits to offset the avoidance of Lily spells unlike SGE's bloated oGCDs, which 4 of them also encourages you to use them. But because I can already do that anyway with 1.5s cast time, that also means I'll be pressing more 1 2 1 1 1 1 while trying to minimize Toxikon II usage - one from my already small list of DPS options.
I want to be incentivized to press less of 1 2 1 1 1, not discouraged.
Now if (general) you do really need Toxikon II that much as a mobility tool, be my guess I suppose. But when that day arrives, are we still a spellcaster if we need that much of a mobility? -
09-11-2025, 11:49 AMXenoviastarYou've seem to misquote me everywhere...Quote:
Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne
When I say dps positive, it means you don't lose dps which can be equal to your normal attack. So dosis is the same dps as pneuma. Not an increase.
While toxikon is also a dps positive being the same damage as dosis. But ruin 2 for scholar is a dps lose.
Also I said sage has more dps OGCDs not overall OGCDs. Scholar only has energy drain and Baneful Impaction as OGCD dps options.
Yes I know scholar is the best damage but thats all coming from ruin and energy drain. You think im enjoying this? No.
Yes they should do better than 1211111. -
09-11-2025, 02:24 PMSupersnow845That’s not him misquoting you. That’s you using the words incorrectlyQuote:
Originally Posted by Xenoviastar
Pnuema is DPS neutral. DPS positive would be something like misery under raid buffs -
09-11-2025, 02:54 PMty_taurusA misunderstanding of words then. To expand on snow's response and why we've used the terminology that way: we generally look at "DPS positive" to mean a gain over Dosis (or whatever other flavor of DPS slop each other healer has). Since Dosis can be cast in potentially every GCD from start to finish, we compare actions to how much damage is gained or lost compared to just casting Dosis. In that sense, we can look at Dosis as a 0, healing spells as a -1 and other attacks like E. Dosis or Phlegma as +1. Since Pneuma is the same potency, it also is 0, thus "DPS neutral" as snow explained.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xenoviastar
I take your meaning is that anything that isn't a -1 is "positive" because you're still gaining the same amount of damage. Regardless, the reason why I do not consider Pneuma to be a part of Sage's DPS arsenal is because it being neutral means there is no reason to consider the damage of Pneuma (outside of AOE which isn't a particularly important part of FFXIV's design anyway). That means for what it's worth, Pneuma is effectively just "Cure III" only without the opportunity cost of damage. I wouldn't necessarily call Toxikon "DPS neutral" for the record except for your initial three casts, because any cast beyond the third requires you first lose damage by casting a barrier, and while there will be times where casting a barrier is necessary, those are extremely rare in most content because of how Sage's healing is loaded almost entirely onto its OGCD.
I think Toxikon would be a lot better if we gained an Addersting from something like casting E. Dosis instead. -
09-11-2025, 05:18 PMXenoviastar
it's a neutral in damage and positive by providing healing. just like toxikon provides movement.
its a matter of prespective I suppose. My bad that i didnt use the word that the Forum gods perfer. -
09-11-2025, 05:51 PMty_taurusWe don't need to have an attitude about it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xenoviastar
Healing does not generate damage. That's not to say that it's useless because that's obviously false, but the point of saying whether something DPS negative, neutral, or positive is to signify where it stands in relation to your neutral game, and that applies to every job. Why cast Phlegma when you could cast Dosis instead? Because Phlegma is DPS positive: It deals more damage than Glare. Why minimize uses of Prognosis in favor of Dosis? Because Prognosis is DPS negative: It costs you a cast of Dosis and should be reserved to situations where other resources are unavailable, or you don't have time to heal through multiple weaves and need to layer an OGCD with Prognosis to heal faster. Why not cast Pneuma on cooldown rather than wait for a situation that best utilizes the healing? Because Pneuma is DPS neutral: you neither gain damage nor lose damage when casting it, thus there is no need to use it as often as possible.
I get that you're saying Pneuma offers more than Dosis because it also heals, but the point I'm trying to make is that extra healing doesn't matter when calculating damage, which is primary the purpose of the negative/neutral/positive language. That's why we don't typically count Pneuma as a true DPS action, because we choose to cast it for when the healing is needed, not the damage. If the damage were higher than Dosis, that would make it a true DPS action, because then you're incentivized to use it on cooldown, but that would also conflict with the healing effect since you won't always need it every 2 minutes on the dot. But that's also why I'd suggest changing how it works in some way to allow Pneuma to serve both the functions of damage and the function of healing when appropriate. For example, make Pneuma a raw damage burst on a cooldown, but make Eukrasian Pneuma a DPS neutral heal with no cooldown but a steeper MP cost. That not only retains the current function, but gives you more agency over how often you want to utilize the burst healing effect. You can be greedy with it, or you can be frugal with it. Letting you choose is something the game could stand to do a lot more of. -
09-11-2025, 06:20 PMCarighan
In fact you could make the opposite argument easily (that Pneuma is net negative):
* Pneuma deals no more damage than Dosis.
* It costs the same amount of time.
* Using it as a damage dealer "wastes" the healing that is free on top.
Hence from a damage perspective it's negative. Just continueing to cast Dosis provides the exact same damage and keeps the strong healing of Pneuma for when it is needed for healing reasons.
That's of course a somewhat silly argument, but it's just to illustrate that this is very much subjective. But also besides the point, we all know what is meant when someone compares Pneuma to Dosis for damage. -
09-12-2025, 07:19 PMty_taurus
It also costs more MP slightly, but who’s counting, right?
Basically, Sage’s DPS arsenal looks like the following:
E. Dosis 2 casts per minute
Phlegma 1.5 casts per minute
Psyche 1 weave per minute
Dosis up to 20.5 casts per minute
And that’s it. We can give Toxikon a slight mention, but in many cases, you only have 3 casts per fight. -
09-16-2025, 04:23 PMty_taurus
I forget how much time I have remaining before I'll get locked out of the forum, so before I go, I want to add what I'll refer to as a practical assessment of what Sage needs.
What I mean by "practical assessment" is... Usually when I talk about job design and change, I resort to more significant rework ideas that put an emphasis on what I believe job design lacks. For healers, that's things like decisions between resources, more dynamic MP management, etc. But realistically, something of that caliber is unlikely. So when I say "practical assessment," I'm referring to suggestions that can better address the issues with the job's design while working within the structure that the devs like. With that in mind, allow me to share these suggestions before I leave again:
Healing
As I said before, Sage lacks a strong identity in how it approaches healing because most of its core healing arsenal is a direct copy of Scholar's, most prominently Addersgall. Sage's Addersgall healing is nearly identical to Scholar's Aetherflow. It is powerful, abundant, and available at almost every healing check, and I believe an easy and simple way of injecting more of Sage's identity into its gameplay is changing Addersgall to be spent on Kardia enhancements instead of a set of copy-paste Aetherflow heals.
In other words, replace Druochole with Soteria, add a proper AOE Soteria effect (colloquially "Pankardia") and a couple other tools that interact with Kardia. One suggestion I made previously was an action that changes Kardia to apply a stackable barrier (with a cap) instead of a heal, and allow this to stack with Soteria and Pankardia.
Pankardia does overlap with Philosophia in a sense, and a suggestion I have for Philosophia is to rework it into an Enshroud/Reawaken type Fast GCD phase. It could have a shorter cooldown and perhaps charges so you have more control over timing rather than hitting it on cooldown, but it'd let you proc Kardia more quickly while attacking with a couple new animations that temporarily replace Dosis and Dysraskia. This combos with the new Addersgall options nicely, and if a burst window overlaps with damage taken, you have a fairly comfortable time handling it.
DPS
I've rather shamelessly glazed PVP Sage's kit many times. Those who know me are probably sick of hearing it, but I do think it accomplishes a much more satisfying "rotation" without actually adding anything new in terms of action volume. Shorter DOT, shorter cooldowns, and more offensive uses for Toxikon and Pneuma turn something otherwise monotonous and dull into something that feels active and lively. But here's the thing...
For PVP, I don't necessarily want to go into melee for Phlegma twice as often. In harder fights we often spend most of our time in Melee anyway, but in situations where I'm not, I'd like my "go in" moments to stay at 40 seconds. I also think there is value in Toxikon staying an uptime tool provided we can generate it outside of simply casting barriers, so changing it into the OGCD version of PVP Sage would cost that. And obviously we want Pneuma to retain the function of being useful for a heal. So here's what I think we could accomplish instead:
- A new OGCD - I believe having an additional weaved attack would help the pacing of Sage's offense feel better, something with a shorter cooldown and charges. Let's say 20 seconds or so. Psyche's animation seems too intense for something like this, but if we wanted to conserve on hotbar space, we could have this new action upgrade into a free use Psyche after a cast of Phlegma. This mirrors PVP Sage's kit somewhat and keeps Sage's offensive weaving limited to one button.
- Eukrasian Pneuma - If we change Pneuma into a purely offensive cooldown, we can retain the current healing effects by introducing a Eukrasian Pneuma that can be cast regardless of Pneuma's cooldown. It would not have a cooldown of its own, but a high MP cost to compensate for the new open availability of the spell. Zoe could gain the effect of reducing your next healing spell's MP cost to compensate for this if needed, but having the option to burn a bit of MP for extra burst healing does give Sage an extra option to consider. But if that MP management element is too 'out there,' then it could simply retain having a separate cooldown of its own.
- Something new to fill "the space" - If we keep the cooldown on Phlegma and don't shorten the DOT, then I believe we still need to find something to break up the drawn-out windows of Dosis spam. One suggestion I recall from ForsakenRoe was giving Sage a Reaper style Gibbet and Gallows type pair of actions. Having something like that on a short GCD cooldown and charges would round out the action list nicely. To conserve on hotbar space, you could also make them the same button, but one is accessed through Eukrasia, and perhaps make the reward of alternating these attacks a stack of Addersting to give Sage a much-needed method of obtaining Addersting outside of barrier usage.
The Result
In total, this specific set of ideas would result in two new healing buttons (Pankardia and a barrier-generating Addersgall spender) and one new DPS button (The Gibbet/Gallows action). We could drop the -chole actions since they would be replaced with Soteria and the other new spenders, ultimately reducing our action count by 1 despite the new additions, although any amount of the -choles could be retained and simply changed into more standard cooldowns as well based on what feels necessary.
Of course, the final solution doesn't need to be these exact changes either as long as goal of a more identity-driven healing style and more varied offense are achieved. But I think these aren't that drastic of a change, and since they resemble something familiar to Sage already, aren't creating a case of whiplash either.
At the end of the day, All I want is to express my hope that one day this job will achieve the job fantasy it hasn't yet been able to live up to, and while I'm doubtful 8.0 will deliver, I can at least say I tried my best to offer feedback and suggestions. -
09-16-2025, 06:22 PMCarighanSupporters actually spending actions on support instead of something that's not the main reason for their role (damage) sounds... smart design to me? A big issue of most healing in FFXIV is how you never really heal, but that's a fight-design problem not a class-design one. The classes have fairly deep and expansive healing kits that they never need.Quote:
Originally Posted by ty_taurus
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09-16-2025, 09:53 PMty_taurusI didnt say anything about not wanting casts to be spent on support. If you saw my more in depth theorycrafts, you’d see I actively try to give healers more reasons to cast non-DPS actions, including Cure 1 of all things.Quote:
Originally Posted by Carighan
What I was saying was that, as Sage is now, Toxikon doesn’t make a lot of sense. The point of Toxikon is to prevent DPS loss, but you only generate it when you’re already losing DPS to the opportunity cost of casting a heal. Casting a heal is sometimes necessary, and even when it might not be can feel comfortable and better to prevent a wipe. I healed P1S-P4S and I was happy to be more liberal with casting heals as Sage during Curtain Call because we already made great DPS and I would rather play it safe than risk an unnecessary death. There’s value in that. But if the point of an action is to maintain DPS uptime and not lose it, it’s silly to only generate it from a method of healing that loses you DPS. Even if you want to argue that it’s 0 MP cost so it’s good for MP management, the spells that generate it also cast twice the cost of Dosis so you’re not gaining ground there either.
I’m not even saying we should remove the Addersting generation on barrier breaking either. All I’m saying is add a way to get extra Addersting without casting a barrier. I made a suggestion for a new action above, but we can also generate an Addersting from casting our DOTs, or Psyche. Anything really. I don’t see why that’s such an evil thing to want. -
09-17-2025, 02:53 AMCrafoutis
:< I like the way Sage plays. I don't have room for more DPS abilities on my controller while also still having all of my healing tools, please no more DPS abilities.
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09-17-2025, 05:13 AMty_taurusNo room? Where?Quote:
Originally Posted by ty_taurus
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09-17-2025, 08:50 AMSupersnow845
SGE is just filled to the brim with redundancy
Why does a shield healer need FOUR regens -
09-17-2025, 05:14 PMCarighanWDYM? They got a PBAoE damage reduction and a PBAoE heal increase.Quote:
Originally Posted by Supersnow845
... and devs then running out of ideas for 100 levels so they added traits that add regens to this stuff. xD
(really we need a level/ability/class squish, urgently)