SE FINALLY ANSWERED THE HEALERS COMMUNITY LONG ANSWERED QUESTION

[HappyHubris]

I think to bear in mind is that, maybe with the exception of WHM the core of the healer complaints have been in Shadowbringers with some in Stormblood, at least from an enjoyment perspective.

I disagree entirely. Healing has been fundamentally light and poorly designed since ARR. *You personally* may have accepted say ARR healing, but that's not universal.

[Charganium]

you are giving healers additional responsibility by adding more offensive skills.

I don't understand why that would be. There are already lots of casual healers that clear content while doing low damage or ignoring their DPS skills entirely and I don't see why adding more DPS skills would change that.

[Amaya-dono]

But does Sage really have that different of a playstyle? Are you not going to be spamming Dosis III or whatever ad nauseum because there's little to no healing to do once people learn how to avoid the bad? People claim it does... and maybe it's true. I won't really know till I play it myself, but at the moment... once you take the shiny laser lights away, it doesn't seem to be anything too different.

Sage really isn't that different, and I don't understand why SE is insisting that it's a different healer for people who want more interesting DPS on healers. If you're already spamming Glare/Broil/Malefic all day, you're just going to be spamming Dosis on Sage. The only difference is that you'll get some healing equal to Embrace on your Dosis spam. All it has is a DoT, Dosis, and Phlegma on the GCD. It has no oGCD DPS. It's similar to DoT, Malefic, Star and DoT, Glare, Assize and DoT, Broil, Energy Drain. Toxicon is just Ruin 2 or Misery.

[Nizzi]

Sage really isn't that different, and I don't understand why SE is insisting that it's a different healer for people who want more interesting DPS on healers.

It seems as if they think people are complaining about having to stop DPSing to heal, or that people are saying that it's a pain to do both, because I really can't imagine anyone genuinely thinking that Sage is the solution to the problem that a lot of healers don't like about DPS downtime. It does have Phlegma as an oGCD DPS though, but it looks like it will be used the same way WHM uses Assize, except it has two charges and is 510 potency, so I supposed you could save it for movement if you desired and have it not be a DPS loss since it's 510 potency.
Regardless, that's all it's got in terms of DPS other than Toxicon (which is DPS neutral so ideally will be saved for movement it seems, unless I'm looking at this wrong and Toxicon is oGCD like Energy Drain), and it's not impressive in any way.

[Amaya-dono]

It seems as if they think people are complaining about having to stop DPSing to heal, or that people are saying that it's a pain to do both, because I really can't imagine anyone genuinely thinking that Sage is the solution to the problem that a lot of healers don't like about DPS downtime. It does have Phlegma as an oGCD DPS though, but it looks like it will be used the same way WHM uses Assize, except it has two charges and is 510 potency, so I supposed you could save it for movement if you desired and have it not be a DPS loss since it's 510 potency.
Regardless, that's all it's got in terms of DPS other than Toxicon (which is DPS neutral so ideally will be saved for movement it seems, unless I'm looking at this wrong and Toxicon is oGCD like Energy Drain), and it's not impressive in any way.

Just to clarify, Phlegma is a GCD! It'll still be used on CD for DPS since it's a gain, and I think whether it's a GCD or not doesn't change it from the other healers much. But yeah, I agree with the rest of your post completely. It feels like SE have a fundamental misunderstanding of what we're asking for if they think Sage is an answer to our requests.

[Nizzi]

Just to clarify, Phlegma is a GCD! It'll still be used on CD for DPS since it's a gain, and I think whether it's a GCD or not doesn't change it from the other healers much. But yeah, I agree with the rest of your post completely. It feels like SE have a fundamental misunderstanding of what we're asking for if they think Sage is an answer to our requests.

Dang, here I was thinking Phlegma was an oGCD, that's somehow even more disappointing! Thanks for clearing that up, I had been thinking that it was at least one oGCD damage skill, but somehow Scholar manages to beat the supposed "DPS healer" in that regard and it didn't even gain anything new DPS wise this expansion. My biggest worry now with Sage is that because of this misunderstanding I think they have in regards for what a lot of healers want; if Sage does poorly, they'll see it as an affirmation that their current healer design is working and what the majority of people want, and if Sage does well and loads of people flood to it, they'll believe they've fixed the problem and keep telling people who complain about other healers DPS downtime to "just go play Sage, that's the healer we designed for you!"

[BooPoo]

But does Sage really have that different of a playstyle? Are you not going to be spamming Dosis III or whatever ad nauseum because there's little to no healing to do once people learn how to avoid the bad? People claim it does... and maybe it's true. I won't really know till I play it myself, but at the moment... once you take the shiny laser lights away, it doesn't seem to be anything too different.

It technically only has 2 extra charges of Phlegma and 1 optional single target movement tool that is toxicon 2.

But on a thematic level I believe they tried to design SGE as a dps healer, proven by the base line passive heal tied to using dps skills. It's not a big step forward, but at least it's better than the other 3 at the moment.

[Sani2341]

(which is DPS neutral so ideally will be saved for movement it seems, unless I'm looking at this wrong and Toxicon is oGCD like Energy Drain)

I might be wrong, but isn't Toxicon a hefty dps loss as it requires casting a gcd shield?

currently, outside of AoE situations, toxicon has the same potency as dosis, so it would appear dps neutral at first brush, but when you consider that addersting comes from a gcd shield breaking, it means you use 2 GCDs to get the same result as 1.

Which means that if my napkin math is not to far of, using toxicon is a dps loss compared to refreshing your DoT early for movement, as that would still end up with potency equal to dosis and a bit extra.

[BooPoo]

I might be wrong, but isn't Toxicon a hefty dps loss as it requires casting a gcd shield?

currently, outside of AoE situations, toxicon has the same potency as dosis, so it would appear dps neutral at first brush, but when you consider that addersting comes from a gcd shield breaking, it means you use 2 GCDs to get the same result as 1.

Which means that if my napkin math is not to far of, using toxicon is a dps loss compared to refreshing your DoT early for movement, as that would still end up with potency equal to dosis and a bit extra.

Instead of thinking it's a loss, toxicon is more like a make up mechanism for putting on shields, because we will be putting shields on people all the time.

[Sani2341]

Instead of thinking it's a loss, toxicon is more like a make up mechanism for putting on shields, because we will be putting shields on people all the time.

Really?
because I can count the times I put shields up on SCH this expansion on my two hands.
Granted I don't do savage, but if I need to play content I have no interest in, to enjoy the role (and class) I liked before ShB, I'd say that'S a good reason to assuem the design is bad.