Sage quick mechanics overview

[Sighearth]

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.

The most important thing you are forgetting is the duration of the shields, TBN is 7s duration while diagnosis is 30s. Not only that but TBN still have a cd. With a 30s duration with no cd, you don't need "well timed shields" at all, just keep shielding the mt for free sustain with no dps loss, 1 auto is enough to break a shield. That sustain would make tb/autos irrelevant. Also, free movement 100% of the time would make healers optimization boring. No risk vs reward, another healer depth removed, it would get old super fast. In the case of DRK the window is tight enough that is a risk of potency loss by using TBN but also the shield itself is huge, way harder to break than adlo/diagnosis. With dps neutral toxicon, we get TBN for babies with no risk + free movement + free sustain all for the price of nothing.