Healer DPS

[Risvertasashi]

It's good etiquette to quote entire messages because otherwise you are taking things out of context like in this case.

There is a big difference between a general statement such as "Sage is the most popular healer and it dethroned WHM" and "SGE is the most popular healer in EX at the moment".
To no one's surprise, Sage, Reaper and Summoner are the most played jobs in EX at the moment.

As I said, if we want to infer anything meaningful about popularity with all-encompassing statements, we have to wait.

Do... you really take that much issue with the term "dethroned?"

Sage is the most popular healer in the moment. White mage is "dethroned"/not the most popular. In endgame content is generally implied, because that's the only area where it's measured.

Nowhere was it ever said that this is expected to be permanent.

However, to me at least, it is very much a surprise. This is unprecedented; neither astro nor scholar managed to take the "most popular" spot from white mage at their releases. So I think it's pretty notable that SE finally released a healer that can take that spot away from white mage - without a situation like "white mage is dead last in balance and a difficult savage raid is pushing the meta more than usual."

Doesn't matter if it lasts a week, a month, or the whole tier. It's a new situation, and at least to me, that's interesting.

[rewd]

Do... you really take that much issue with the term "dethroned?"

Sage is the most popular healer in the moment. White mage is "dethroned"/not the most popular. In endgame content is generally implied, because that's the only area where it's measured.

Nowhere was it ever said that this is expected to be permanent.

However, to me at least, it is very much a surprise. This is unprecedented; neither astro nor scholar managed to take the "most popular" spot from white mage at their releases. So I think it's pretty notable that SE finally released a healer that can take that spot away from white mage - without a situation like "white mage is dead last in balance and a difficult savage raid is pushing the meta more than usual."

Doesn't matter if it lasts a week, a month, or the whole tier. It's a new situation, and at least to me, that's interesting.

When did I say I have issues with "dethroned"?

SCH was released together with WHM, as 1.0 and 2.0 really can't be considered the same game. AST was released two years after WHM and SCH, so people weren't really in need of another healer. SGE, however, was released seven years after AST and people were so desperate to feel something fresh in the healing department that they were willing to hype a job that plays the same but with lasers. Not to mention that 3.0 AST was terrible and SGE is not.

It was very obvious that SGE would end up being the most "popular" at the very start of an expansion, just like it was obvious Reaper and Summoner would end up being, respectively, the most played melee and caster. This is what I'm arguing.

[Risvertasashi]

When did I say I have issues with "dethroned"?

In the comment I quoted.

SCH was released together with WHM, as 1.0 and 2.0 really can't be considered the same game.

Even if you want to split hairs about 1.0vs2.0, there was still a lot of double-white mage for 2.0 and a fair bit in 2.x.

A pet healer was also pretty hype at the time. I mean, it's easy for it to seem mundate after we've had it for 8 ish years but "pet healer" is not something you see all that commonly in MMOs.

SGE, however, was released seven years after AST and people were so desperate to feel something fresh in the healing department that they were willing to hype a job that plays the same but with lasers.

I'm also pretty curious to see if this hypothesis is true. If we do see a sharp falloff in endgame population of sages, my money would be on this reason being a significant factor.

Not to mention that 3.0 AST was terrible and SGE is not.

Very true, but AST proved to be niche even long term. As the 5.x series especially highlighted but we saw even before that, even when AST is the strongest healer it stays niche. To force people onto AST, it doesn't just need to be the strongest - balance needs to be exceptionally bad.

So I guess there's the implied question of: if AST didn't have launch issues, would it have been the most popular for a bit? Well, it did cause 'DPS in need' in the roulettes for a bit even so, but whether that would have survived to endgame - first ex trials, then raids - is a... very uncertain hypothesis.

AST just doesn't have mass appeal. Mass here being relative to 'among healers' which is a niche category already.

It was very obvious that SGE would end up being the most "popular" at the very start of an expansion, just like it was obvious Reaper and Summoner would end up being, respectively, the most played melee and caster. This is what I'm arguing.

Even with DPS it doesn't always happen. Machinist, for example. Now one might say "launch machinist was very difficult and only the best players could pull good numbers from it", but that doesn't negate the point, that just explains why it happened.

That said, yeah, I had a feeling new summoner would be ultra popular with how flashy it is. Reaper I'd have expected to be the most played melee but perhaps not by such a wide margin.

But back to the main point. I don't think it's that obvious that sage was going to make an ultra strong showing. If anything, usually scifi stuff tends to be a bit niche relative to traditional fantasy options so I wouldn't have guessed "healer but with lasers" would be that strong (in other settings it typically isn't); and even if it's "6 years of waiting for something new" at work, I wouldn't have expected it to lead to a sage population that's just as utterly massive as it currently is in the current, albeit limited, endgame. Surprises all around for me.

If anything, I'd have expected SCH to do this back at 2.0; there's a strong tendency for people to get super hyped about pet jobs.

Anyways, I look forward to seeing how much of the population stays or goes and eventually discussing what the longer term results may imply.