New healer: Sage. Barrier healer.

[Gemina]

Alright, so I wanted to watch the footage a couple dozen times times or so, slow things down and really take a look at things. I saw what was likely a ST heal, ST barrier, ST attack, and an AoE attack; as well as bpose and vpose. Very, very basic demonstration, but very impressive visually for sure. Super, super Gundam inspired, which of course will make peeps like me screech like a giddy little girl.

I feel like my character went to Cid and said, "Yo Cid, I would like my hands to be free in battle to concentrate better on healing. Do you think you can develop orbital devices that help me heal that uses my aether so I can manipulate them in battle as I see fit?" I hand him over a sketch given to me by the Skysteel Manufactory, and he says sure, and when done he surprises me with a feature I didn't even ask for, smiles and then says, "Oh, I also modified them so they can fire lasers!"

Never in a million guesses would I have predicted they would use this theme for a new healer. I am not complaining, believe me. But had SE just showed just a picture of the job in its AF along with their Nouliths floating about, and told us to speculate and all will be revealed later; I think most would have guessed a ranged DPS and put a mortgage on it. "No way they would limit such a job to just a healer" would be heard without doubt.

It does make me wonder if SE is going to open offensive capability a little bit more for healers, and there is still much to see. I am going to guess to bring a pair of shades for their LB3. In any case I am excited to see more, and that's a good thing.

[Raikai]

I was kinda disappointed for it not being Chemist/Apotechary as a tech-themed healer, to go hand in hand with GNB and MCH jobs, but after the dust settled down and looking back at the previews, Sages - at least visually - appear to fit on that shoe.

Given we don't know anything about the job's lore yet, or how it functions with aether. Are Nouliths considered machines? Alphinaud's at least look like some advanced Mecha thing...

In the end, the job flavor might just fit in that tech-themed shoe somehow. The branding "Sage" is kinda meh in that regard, though, especially considering that the previous incarnations of "Sage" job has nothing to do with this, thought they should've had a different name, but anyways... I'm excited to hear more.

[Raikai]

I saw what was likely a ST heal, ST barrier, ST attack, and an AoE attack; as well as bpose and vpose.

Don't forget that the offensive ability Alphy used in the Teaser might also be something, given that Alisaie used specific RDM skills as well.

[Rilifane]

stone iv for me love rocks going up tower style and making that nice smash sound.

I hate the animation when finishing the cast. This awkward folding at the hip. It reminds me of female gymnasts doing hip bounces on uneven bars when they were still close enough for such movements... just far, far less graceful. It looks like the WhM is just awkwardly dangling mid-air. Doesn't do it for me one bit and is a huge turnoff when you see it on 80%+ of your hardcasts.
Looks even weirder when you wear a robe, got knocked/ incapacitated during a cast animation and then have a huge board attached to your wildly dangling legs because you don't get proper skirt physics again until after relogging.

exactly and not all the time double regens seem viable to me

Double regens are not only viable but generally superior to shields unless you get oneshot at full HP without a shield. In which case someone should either use that free mitigation button they love to ignore or respect mechanics. No unavoidable damage one-shots you in regular content and by the time someone is able to prog savage so fast they're standing at the last boss with mostly crafted gear, they should've learned what mitigation is.
Thing is: fights in this game simply aren't designed to heavily rely on shields just to survive regular damage. Which is why experienced healer comps without a SCH go double regens first chance and even comps with SCH will avoid the excessive use of even oGCDs shields because of the fairly high opportunity costs (like double weave for Seraph Consoloation), nevermind GCD shields. They're mostly niche for some speedkill/ uptime strats that will balance out the dps loss of the healer with the dps gain from everyone else.
Although SE made sure to limit that by slapping a damage down instead of vuln up on most avoidable mechanics.

[Sighearth]

Well I hope they make shields relevant again? Aside from week 1 and some parts in ultimate, shields are useless

[LadyKairi]

But maybe that's about to change, I saw on another topic they were differencing the two subroles in healers even in DF, is it true ?

Sorry if this has been responded to already (late to the party). I can’t say for the actual encounter design, but the matching for parties it’s true. Koji’s translation was:

“And this will extend into our matching in the raid finders, to make a distinction between barrier healers and pure healers”

[Deceptus]

Sorry if this has been responded to already (late to the party). I can’t say for the actual encounter design, but the matching for parties it’s true. Koji’s translation was:

“And this will extend into our matching in the raid finders, to make a distinction between barrier healers and pure healers”

They wanted to do the same thing with MT/OT and look how well THAT turned out. As always, keeping my expectations low.

They can do that all they want in the DF, but player statics will always choose the optimized jobs.

[Lyth]

They wanted to do the same thing with MT/OT and look how well THAT turned out.

They actually didn't, and abandoned the idea. It would be interesting to see if it gets implemented this coming expansion.

[elioaiko]

Sage looks fun so far but I will hold my expectations low as well since this is the first time they've added a job since HW and given their track record, it wouldn't shock me if Sage will either be OP or very weak like AST was in 3.0.

To me, having played all the ff tactics games, it's strange that they would call Sage as it wasn't really anything tech related in ff history.

Also I'm 50/50 on the weapon design, it looks cool and I think that they went for this simply because it looks more appealing to those outside the role. Ex. One of the dps members in my static really wanted to try it. It seems like SE designed it's aesthetic to appeal to other players as a "cool healer with a dps flair" rather than being a traditional healer like the ones we have now.

What I am worried about is the dictomy that they're going back to. 5.0 they wanted all healers to be viable so they homgenized their kits to have both shields and regens. But now with Sage they want a distinction between them. This could be good or bad.

1. Shielding is not that useful outside of prog and once you have said content on farm, GCD shielding is hardly ever needed. People get better gear and have more HP and less likely to get one-shotted. At this point, regens are infinitely better because they are MP-friendly and they passively heal everyone back to fill HP, which is why Diu. AST is generally the better of the two.

2. This could lead to AST being worse or better than WHM bringing us back to SB where WHM could be neglected by the community. This would heavily depend on what they do to AST and if they intend on changing WHM. The same thing will happen to Sage and SCH as well.

3. For better or for worse, healer balance is decent right now. All three healers are being used and no one job is neglected. Yes, SCH is in a bad place right now but it's not absolutely ignored and downright judged upon (SB WHM, early 3.0 AST). Going to a 1 shield/1 regen split might disturb this balance as people will find the best pair (inevitable) and push them in statics. Thus people will meme the worst two healers until SE buffs them into infinity.

4. A positive outlook of this is that they could feel more distinct as each healer can have a niche (though that will hurt balance im the long run).

Overall, I'm happy they finally are giving us a new healer. Though I am wary about the idea that they might delete Noct Stance (though it would be heathy for the future of AST).

Also please give us our time magic/elements back since you didn't add Geomancer or Time Mage!

[Ultimatecalibur]

exactly and not all the time double regens seem viable to me

Only as long as those regens can stack. If AST and WHM regens can not stack AST+WHM will likely have lower total healing output than AST/WHM+SCH/SGE.

I fully expect Regen/Diurnal Benefict and Medica II/Durnial Helios to overwrite each other rather than stack as they currently can.