Why does Sage punish you for using your healing spells?

[lisaa]

um maybe I'm just playing it wrong but I also felt the single target healing was a bit weak? It's hard to notice because it felt really strong in dungeons and is great when everything is going smoothly but if you run out of cds I felt it was a bit hard compared to Sch

For example Pepsis isn't affected by the healing+ trait so at high levels it doesn't even convert all of the shield into hp, and also can't be affected by Zoe. Compared to Sch which can Recite Emergency Adlo and convert even the bonus critical shield into hp.. losing Kardia while Sch can still Embrace or Fey Union just feels like insult to injury

But well maybe you can just say it's balanced by other things? like being instant cast and also having lots of AoE heal. Well, that is just what I felt but I am not very good with shield healers so idk

[Sylve]

um maybe I'm just playing it wrong but I also felt the single target healing was a bit weak? It's hard to notice because it felt really strong in dungeons and is great when everything is going smoothly but if you run out of cds I felt it was a bit hard compared to Sch

For example Pepsis isn't affected by the healing+ trait so at high levels it doesn't even convert all of the shield into hp, and also can't be affected by Zoe. Compared to Sch which can Recite Emergency Adlo and convert even the bonus critical shield into hp.. losing Kardia while Sch can still Embrace or Fey Union just feels like insult to injury

But well maybe you can just say it's balanced by other things? like being instant cast and also having lots of AoE heal. Well, that is just what I felt but I am not very good with shield healers so idk

Pepsis isn't converting the shield into a heal the same way ET does.
It's taking the shield buff and using it as fuel to trigger a 450/350 potency heal. Its not a Spell so Zoe and Krasis dont affect it. It's affected by the basic Mend/Maim Trait though not the Enhanced Healing magic one, Which just brings Diagnosis up to the potency of Pepsis. Pepsis actually stronger by default than raw Prognosis' 300p AoE heal.

Another mechanical difference that serves as a bonus is that Pepsis only consumes the Eukrasian Diagnosis Shield effect, NOT the Differential one from a crit.
If you need to burst some healing in:
Zoe+E-Diag = 8k HP restored, 14400 Shield.
Pepsis E-Diag = 8k HP restored
Followup E-Diag = 5500 HP restored, 9900 Shield.
Process takes about 2.5 seconds.

If a Gunbreaker had just used Superballache, You'd be dumping 30k EHP onto that tank in the span of 2.5 seconds, whcih is around 40% of a Tanks total HP. And thats without using Krasis or ANY direct healing oGCDs and without factoring in crits. Which is more than enough to oull them out of any danger they might happen to be in.

Recite-ET-Adloq provides a very similar amount of raw healing as the Sage Zoe-EDiag-Pepsis does in EHP.

Sage has a ton of tools to prevent the emergency situation from happening, while the Scholars tools are better at recovering from said emergency situation.

Similar tools used differently to achieve similar results.
Personally, I love Sage. It really clicked with me, more so than the other 3 Healers I'd been maining throughout Stormblood and Shadowbringers. Theres a lot you can do with its tools once you get to grips with the mechanics of them.
I'm not trying to convince you of anything, Just trying to help you better understand the tools

[Juun]

but it's not so bad as long as your tank knows what they're doing and the dps isn't low enough for the fights to last too long. From the little I have used of sage I am so far inclined to agree.

Lol. Always assume people don't know what they are doing.

[Packetdancer]

Apparently not, because I have to focus heal too often. I can't even attempt to use a damage ability or some of these tanks are probably going to die on some pulls.

So, being serious here... as a WHM main who is deeply enjoying SGE, and who has been talking to some friends who've struggled with the new job, there's something I know they stumbled with that I feel like it's worth noting. I don't know whether it's where you're having issues, Sturm, but it might be more generally useful to other folks even if not.

Nearly all of sage's AoE mitigation/buff options are entirely viable for single-target scenarios, such as dealing with the tank's damage during a big pull.

Already used Haima, so it's on cooldown? Panhaima makes a great backup! Yeah, Panhaima's only 6 stacks of 200 potency mitigation (the initial shield, plus the five 'backup' charges it puts on as a stacked buff to reapply the shield when it's depleted) instead of 300 potency, but that's still 1200 potency of mitigation on the tank for up to 15s, which honestly is a respectable single-target shield.

(As a bonus, it's also mitigation on all the DPS, in case they stand in the bad.)

Kerachole's just flat out 15s of 10% damage mitigation -- it's the same mitigation as Taurochole, as an AoE. (Minus Taurochole's up-front healing, replaced with a regen.)

Physis II is 650 potency of AoE regen healing over 15 seconds, but it also gives a 10s buff that increases all incoming healing by 10%; tossing that down for a little extra 'oomph' when a tank's seeming a bit squishy can really help buff your other healing.

Holos is only 300 potency of AoE heal, which seems pretty tiny... but it's also 20 seconds of 10% damage mitigation, which isn't nothing during a trash pull. You can throw that one down even if only the tank will benefit from the mitigation.

The fact that I have this veritable buffet of mitigation options -- even if some are AoEs rather than single target -- makes me feel like I have more than enough kit on sage to deal with basically anything. Possibly beyond what's reasonable.

[Miracle_Diva]

A lot of people don't really understand that SAGE is not a reactionary healer. You need to preplan your healing and skill usage. There're so many mitigation skills in job's toolkit, all you need to do is to get familiar with them and rotate properly without using everything in one go.
(yes yes if tank melts anyway, might be a tank problem and not healer)

[Merrigan]

Am I the only one to regret the lack of dps capabilities on this job? (no, I guess).

I think it's a shame they wanted to make a healer based on his dps... And that we still have ONE main key to spam.

[kizumiayamame]

Am I the only one to regret the lack of dps capabilities on this job? (no, I guess).

I think it's a shame they wanted to make a healer based on his dps... And that we still have ONE main key to spam.

This is one of my problems too. For Sage being advertised as such an amazing Healer DPS, they play like the other healers in the sense that they only have one button. Why advertise Sage as that meanwhile it plays the same as the other healers regarding DPS?

[HyoMinPark]

Am I the only one to regret the lack of dps capabilities on this job? (no, I guess).

I think it's a shame they wanted to make a healer based on his dps... And that we still have ONE main key to spam.

I mean, SGE actually has more reliable damage options than AST; who still only has Fall Malefic. Since the retconned Lord of Crowns is RNG and not reliable. My issue is that it’s not worth farming Toxicon stacks outside of downtime because they’re DPS negative otherwise. They’re only DPS neutral if you can proc them when a boss isn’t targetable; and DPS positive in cleaving situations, which aren’t all that prevalent usually in single-target raids. Pneuma being nerfed to be the same potency as Dosis III doesn’t surprise me, since it would have the Assize problem of never being used as a heal, but purely for damage. As it is now, it’s DPS neutral and a gain if you’re cleaving more than one target.

This is one of my problems too. For Sage being advertised as such an amazing Healer DPS, they play like the other healers in the sense that they only have one button. Why advertise Sage as that meanwhile it plays the same as the other healers regarding DPS?

Were you expecting more? After playing this game for any considerable length of time, that’s an issue with your expectations. “DPS healer” or no, the developers’ stance on healer DPS abilities and combos is quite clear. I was more pleased to see that SGE actually had more than just 1 DoT, 1 nuke, 1 AOE. Now if they could adjust Toxicon to make it more worth farming, that would be lovely. But I won’t hold my breath for such an adjustment.

[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

[MitsukiLily]

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

So much this, if they shuffled around the potency of Toxicon and Dosis it would feel SO much more rewarding.