Why does Sage punish you for using your healing spells?

[Connor]

I feel like the ‘DPS Sage Healer’ the developers described is what we have now. The issue people are having is that they didn’t realise when developers said ‘dps healer’, they meant with the added caveat of being a dps healer in ffxiv. Which looks like current Sage.

Not saying that this invalidates anything said here but at the same time I do feel like perhaps if they were clearer about Sage being ‘ffxiv’s answer to a dps healer’, there would be less disappointment.

As someone who’s been a healer main since 4.0 (when I gave up on Bard lol)I can’t say I found it particularly surprising that it’s designed the way it is. Every healer has always had to have the same core so none can ever be left behind in content (theoretically).

Then when it came to the DPS, I think they intended to design it around constantly deciding whether to use Dosis, Phlegma or Toxicon to maximise dps as appropriate; no current healer has to make decisions on which dps skill to use outside of maybe White Mages neglecting Misery because lilies are a dps loss. The most glaring issue with that of course being that Toxicon requires using a GCD on Eukrasian Diagnosis even though it’s the same potency as Dosis III, which requires using a GCD on nothing but itself.

I think Sage makes a lot more sense if you think about it as being more of a supporter than a damage dealer or standard healer. It has weaker healing but supplements it with buffs, focuses more on damage than standard healer but less than tank or dps, and is able to provide additional effects whilst dealing damage (healing). Off the top of my head I think one way to make Sage’s dps more engaging would be to increase the potency of the Kardion effect based on the spell. So like Pneuma could remain as the big AoE heal with Kardion effects similar to Cure I. Toxicon could increase to a stronger Kardion effect, like maybe Cure II or something. Lastly Dosis would remain as the current Embrace-like potency for Kardion heals. I’m not sure about Phlegma, maybe higher than Dosis but lower than Toxicon?
That way, when it comes time to heal, you’ll be just as likely to consider your dps options as you would Addersgall, which would make the job feel more like it’s ‘healing through dealing damage’ as many expected it to.

And of course please increase the damage potency of Toxicon II. Having Addersting proc from shields is a cool way to have healing feed into dps and incentivises using shields (something Scholar hasn’t really done in a while). But the potency of Toxicon means that anytime I try to prepare Toxicon, I end up leaking damage because I had to use GCDs on Eukrasian Diagnosis (diagnoses? lol).. Honestly, I’d support if the developers just decided to make Toxicon II 660 potency for the first target to make it completely dps neutral. I worry that that’d maybe make it too strong though lol, so maybe even just 510 potency like Phlegma so it’s not as big of a dps loss