Sage quick mechanics overview

[Recon1o6]

When yoshida said go play sage if you want to do damage and heal, like any healer whose followed the hall of the novice does or even realised that the party hp is topped off, he wasn't joking

Adderssting: this is your dps stacks. You get a stack every time your eucrasian diagnosis is completely broken
You spend these on toxikon. Since eukrasian diagnosis has a galvanise effect you ironically DONT want a crit shield here as it will delay them

This means you actually have a dps rotation that varies depending on your tank's CD usage and how much the boss decides its gonna be untargetable.
Since you don't want them using mitigation as you can get your toxikon stacks out more from your shield busting. However, it does cost a gcd to get that shield on and toxikon only returns equal potency as a dosis 3. In other words...use dosis 3 on the boss unless the tank's a bit soft rn

So in raids its not worthwhile to shield someone outside of when the boss is away. In dungeons and alliance raids however, toxikon is better as it might be a slight dps gain on aoe.

idk i don't optimise to that degree.

Addersgall: you get one every 20s automatically and 1 every 90s from rizomata. You use them on druo/taurochole, ixochole and kerachole which are your mp restores and ogcd heals. As usual these are just better versions of the same buttons in other jobs.

Self buffs: Zoe, krasis and soteria. Zoe is your "I need to top off living dead" buff because it affects healing SPELLS. Of which you have...2 (4 if you count eukrasia version) which are your cure and medica equivalents. (which change to adloquim and succor)
Use it on diagnosis for a 900p heal on living dead which STILL hasn't been fixed.

Eukrasia: Turns your cure into adlo, medica into succor, your nuke into your dot
Pop eukrasian prognosis then pepsis if you want to top everyone off quickly

everything else is your standard stuff

[Laphicet]

When yoshida said go play sage if you want to do damage and heal, like any healer whose followed the hall of the novice does or even realised that the party hp is topped off, he wasn't joking

Adderssting: this is your dps stacks. You get a stack every time your eucrasian diagnosis is completely broken
You spend these on toxikon. Since eukrasian diagnosis has a galvanise effect you ironically DONT want a crit shield here as it will delay them

This means you actually have a dps rotation that varies depending on your tank's CD usage and how much the boss decides its gonna be untargetable.
Since you don't want them using mitigation as you can get your toxikon stacks out more from your shield busting. However, it does cost a gcd to get that shield on and toxikon only returns equal potency as a dosis 3. In other words...use dosis 3 on the boss unless the tank's a bit soft rn

So in raids its not worthwhile to shield someone outside of when the boss is away. In dungeons and alliance raids however, toxikon is better as it might be a slight dps gain on aoe.

idk i don't optimise to that degree.

Addersgall: you get one every 20s automatically and 1 every 90s from rizomata. You use them on druo/taurochole, ixochole and kerachole which are your mp restores and ogcd heals. As usual these are just better versions of the same buttons in other jobs.

Self buffs: Zoe, krasis and soteria. Zoe is your "I need to top off living dead" buff because it affects healing SPELLS. Of which you have...2 (4 if you count eukrasia version) which are your cure and medica equivalents. (which change to adloquim and succor)
Use it on diagnosis for a 900p heal on living dead which STILL hasn't been fixed.

Eukrasia: Turns your cure into adlo, medica into succor, your nuke into your dot
Pop eukrasian prognosis then pepsis if you want to top everyone off quickly

everything else is your standard stuff

And a quick addition. Addersting's dps spell is not a DPS gain in Single Target, only DPS neutral and with instant cast time. It is also only a marginal gain in AOE (Mathmatically it's just the AOE spell with your first target being hit twice, as after the first target the damage falls off to 50% of original damage). Meaning that you're encouraged to not go for addersting at all if your OGCDs can cover for the damage.

[KDSilver]

Toxicon is not even DPS neutral.
It's a dps loss.

It becomes DPS neutral if you had nothing else to move with.

[ty_taurus]

I've went over this in depth in a deleted thread, but Toxikon is entirely useless even in AoE. The damage drop off is so severe that it's actually DPS neutral to just lose a GCD cast. If you have no sting and you need to move, you're actually better off just overwriting your Eukrasia Dosis DoT than you are using Eukrasia Diagnosis for a barrier unless you feel like you need that barrier, which will be pretty rare given how plentiful and powerful Sage's OGCD healing is. Even in harder content, I imagine you'd more likely prefer Eukrasia Prognosis for the group barrier if you really need some healing.

Even in AoE it's useless. Get the pre-pull proc off it, but because of the 50% drop off on secondary targets, the damage is just worse than 2 uses of Dyskrasia. The math on Toxikon is just garbage.

[GrimGale]

I've went over this in depth in a deleted thread, but Toxikon is entirely useless even in AoE. The damage drop off is so severe that it's actually DPS neutral to just lose a GCD cast. If you have no sting and you need to move, you're actually better off just overwriting your Eukrasia Dosis DoT than you are using Eukrasia Diagnosis for a barrier unless you feel like you need that barrier, which will be pretty rare given how plentiful and powerful Sage's OGCD healing is. Even in harder content, I imagine you'd more likely prefer Eukrasia Prognosis for the group barrier if you really need some healing.

Even in AoE it's useless. Get the pre-pull proc off it, but because of the 50% drop off on secondary targets, the damage is just worse than 2 uses of Dyskrasia. The math on Toxikon is just garbage.

Taurochole, Soteria, Krasis, Ixiochole, Haima. All these abilities are better options than to lose a GCD to Eukrasian Diagnosis to apply a barrier. Jeez, another kit that fights itself.

[ty_taurus]

Taurochole, Soteria, Krasis, Ixiochole, Haima. All these abilities are better options than to lose a GCD to Eukrasian Diagnosis to apply a barrier. Jeez, another kit that fights itself.

Literally all they need to do is double the potency to 660 and suddenly, even though it's DPS neutral, you're still getting a heal and barrier out of that which is increasing healer DPS indirectly and thus ultimately something you want to prioritize. Would actually make a significant difference in Sage's playstyle that not only would help in giving veterans more skill expression, but also doesn't pressure casual play in any way.

[GrimGale]

Either that or make it an oGCD. So long as the damage gain is enough to offset the price of the GCD.

[Sighearth]

Literally all they need to do is double the potency to 660 and suddenly, even though it's DPS neutral, you're still getting a heal and barrier out of that which is increasing healer DPS indirectly and thus ultimately something you want to prioritize. Would actually make a significant difference in Sage's playstyle that not only would help in giving veterans more skill expression, but also doesn't pressure casual play in any way.

I don't think it can be dps neutral, if so SGE would have basically free gcd shields (that can be buffed with zoe and etc) + free movement most of the fight. They should do it like ruin 2 is for sch a slight potency loss. Something like 580 potency (80 potency loss) so you can move, weave and have a nice shield but you can't spam it.

[ty_taurus]

I don't think it can be dps neutral, if so SGE would have basically free gcd shields (that can be buffed with zoe and etc) + free movement most of the fight. They should do it like ruin 2 is for sch a slight potency loss. Something like 580 potency (80 potency loss) so you can move, weave and have a nice shield but you can't spam it.

That's not entirely true because in order to get the sting in the first place, the barrier must break. The system was taken directly from the Dark Knight. To explain it briefly, DRK uses their MP on OGCD actions for added damage and maintaining a self DPS buff: Flood of Shadow and Edge of Shadow, both of which costs 3000 MP. They also have The Blackest Night, which is a single-target barrier they can place on themselves or an ally. Since it consumes 3000 MP as well, that means it's a DPS loss on its own, but if the barrier breaks, their next Flood of Shadow or Edge of Shadow is free. Since this is all OGCD, that makes The Blackest Night DPS neutral with a barrier as the cherry on top, but if you use it at the wrong time, the barrier wont' break before the buff timer runs out and you don't get that free FoS/EoS.

In other words, the system rewards well-timed barriers with a DPS return, and the same could be true for Toxikon. Keep in mind you also don't want to overwrite that barrier or you've lost your Adder's Sting before you've gained it, and I imagine Pepsis will also prevent you from gaining a Sting. Eukrasia Diagnosis is also MP expensive. This isn't a big issue now because SCH almost never actually casts Adloquium/Succor, but if you're trying to maximize uptime on barriers for that purpose, it could end up drying your MP up. We can't say this will or won't be a concern yet since we don't know how regularly you'll be able to realistically trigger a String, but it's worth keeping in mind.

Now, if we do make it DPS neutral, than that actually opens up a very important door for Sage gameplay in a way where everyone wins. It makes casual play more forgiving because even if you're not using your barriers optimally, you will at least gain some Stings to recoup your lost DPS (even if you don't care about that, it is still benefiting you). Meanwhile more experienced players are now actively looking for opportunities to use a GCD over DPSing which is exactly what so many people want since you have only to gain from a well-timed E. Diagnosis.

This kind of experience is literally what everyone wants, developers included. If they can recognize that and buff the damage, we'll be on a fantastic road forward.

[baklava151]

There's one minor change I think they could make to improve SGE. Eukrasia seemed interesting at first but ultimately it's just an ability for saving hotbar space, there's nothing really to it. Instead, what if it was a spender for Addersting stacks and would change or buff another ability. For example they could make Toxicon SGE's Ruin II equivalent but when it's buffed with Eukrasia it does more damage than Dosis. That on its own isn't a huge improvement but I think it would be a good base to build off of (I'm not creative enough to come up with other ideas for what else Eukrasia could modify )