Some Sage Discussion

[rewd]

By XIV standards, Sage is complex.

That's a super low bar though. Excluding cooldowns, of which I had a dozen of varying purposes and timings that almost all had optional synergy between them, I was still slamming 8+ rotational buttons as a resto shaman in Legion.

Care to elaborate? I struggle not only to see how Sage is complex, but how it can be considered more complex than AST or even SCH. I'd agree with you that we can barely talk of complexity and difficulty about FFXIV healing, though.

[Corbeau]

Care to elaborate? I struggle not only to see how Sage is complex, but how it can be considered more complex than AST or even SCH. I'd agree with you that we can barely talk of complexity and difficulty about FFXIV healing, though.

AST at least has something to juggle on the DPS side, but complexity-wise pretty much every healing kit in XIV has at most one piece of interconnectivity. Heals are almost entirely oGCDs of varying potency that you press in priority order in total isolation from each other. Sage at least has % output buffs to consider. Even it's HoT being tied to offensive GCDs is a step up in interconnectivity - as laughable as that is when compared to Discipline Priest or Mistweaver Monk.

If you instead wanted a rant on how much more interesting WoW healing was though... boy would I be happy to slam a wall of text into the forums. I've done it before. The TLDR still comes down to kit interconnectivity though; there was a metric ton of inter-cooldown synergy in WoW healer kits, and fights were designed appropriately to demand a wide variety of use patterns. Though mana being an actual resource is also a factor driving that diversity.

[rewd]

AST at least has something to juggle on the DPS side, but complexity-wise pretty much every healing kit in XIV has at most one piece of interconnectivity. Heals are almost entirely oGCDs of varying potency that you press in priority order in total isolation from each other. Sage at least has % output buffs to consider. Even it's HoT being tied to offensive GCDs is a step up in interconnectivity - as laughable as that is when compared to Discipline Priest or Mistweaver Monk.

If you instead wanted a rant on how much more interesting WoW healing was though... boy would I be happy to slam a wall of text into the forums. I've done it before. The TLDR still comes down to kit

As far as interonnectivity is concerned, WHM has Asylum and Temperance that provide healing buffs and Plenary Indulgence which adds potency to Afflatus Solace and Afflatus Rapture.

AST can use Helios and Aspected Helios to give Horoscope more potency and a longer duration, Neutral Sect to get a healing buff and to add a shield component to Aspected Benefic and Aspected Helios. Lastly, Synastry can be used to share a portion of the potency of your single target healing spells to another target.

SCH can use Protraction, Fey Illumination and Dissipation to get healing boosts, Recitation to force a crit on some oGCDs and GCDs healing skills and save resources (be it MP or Aetherflow). Lastly, it can use Emergency Tactics to convert the shields from Adloquium and Succor to raw healing and Deployment Tactics to spread the Galvanize effect of Adloquium. It was rather funny to see that you described Sage as complex and SCH as "intro healer" because a popular complaint about SCH is that it allegedly needs to use more buttons and all these "gigabrain combos" to do what AST and WHM do with one button.

SGE's interconnectivity is not exclusive to it and it has a rather straightforward and intuitive kit with little to no caveats attached to it. The biggest "annoyance" would be the fact that Taurochole and Kerachole can;t stage their mitigation. AST has some tricky tools to use (Earthly Star, Horoscope, Macrocosmos) that require more awareness to use properly while SCH has to deal with some caveats like Dissipation being the only healer skill that can actively punish you if misused, several abilities not working together and so on.

As a whole, SGE really doesn't even enough on its plate to be considered 'complex' (which is not inherently a bad thing), not only because of FFXIV's low bar, but also because there are at least two healers this term would fit better.

[AnotherPerson]

SCH can use Protraction, Fey Illumination and Dissipation to get healing boosts, Recitation to force a crit on some oGCDs and GCDs healing skills and save resources (be it MP or Aetherflow). Lastly, it can use Emergency Tactics to convert the shields from Adloquium and Succor to raw healing and Deployment Tactics to spread the Galvanize effect of Adloquium. It was rather funny to see that you described Sage as complex and SCH as "intro healer" because a popular complaint about SCH is that it allegedly needs to use more buttons and all these "gigabrain combos" to do what AST and WHM do with one button.

SGE's interconnectivity is not exclusive to it and it has a rather straightforward and intuitive kit with little to no caveats attached to it. The biggest "annoyance" would be the fact that Taurochole and Kerachole can;t stage their mitigation. AST has some tricky tools to use (Earthly Star, Horoscope, Macrocosmos) that require more awareness to use properly while SCH has to deal with some caveats like Dissipation being the only healer skill that can actively punish you if misused, several abilities not working together and so on.

As a whole, SGE really doesn't even enough on its plate to be considered 'complex' (which is not inherently a bad thing), not only because of FFXIV's low bar, but also because there are at least two healers this term would fit better.

Personally, they both play very different as barrier healers once you get used to them, so it's not easy to give a 1-1 direct comparison in which one is more difficult. Some players find it more easier to have healing and DPS be separate, some players find it a step up in complexity when they have to factor in dynamic healing potencies and mitigation together.

I find SGE slightly more complex because it's easy to get benefit out of their healing %, but more difficult to hit the ceiling and reach optimized levels since you have to think / adjust your healing plan every 20 seconds as opposed to SCH who has aetherflow and other skills to plan around every 60 seconds. For me, SCH is easier since I just know what skills I need to mix together to reach a certain amount of heal, and then I can just throw away the excess aetherflow every 60 seconds into Energy Drain. I'm also able to hold off from healing until I need it within 60 seconds without losing anything, so there's a lot more leeway towards pacing for SCH than for SGE.

That being said, I find SGE more fun because it also has more mobility earlier on and feels more engaging since I have to pace myself on addersgall and take into account both Kerachole and Taurochole doesn't stack, so my healing % potencies have to make up for that difference if I want to separate my healing plan into different phases like SCH naturally does with Seraph and Fey Union.