Does SGE need potency buffs?

[Archwizard]

I would like to preface by saying that no, I don't believe SGE is falling behind other healers or incapable of performing in the same content. I'm well aware that its personal damage is the highest among healers at the moment, and it is not hurting for buffs. I do however believe there is room for improvement, and given that SGE has a bit of a barrier to entry, increasing a potency value here and there can serve to reduce it.

The most obvious detriment of SGE is its lack of any "Oh Shit" tank heal - no Benediction, Essential Dignity, or even Excogitation. This puts SGE at a particular disadvantage when paired with a DRK, since without a full pool of resources and cooldowns we have no response to the activation of Walking Dead, besides simply watching the tank die.
However, I will also acknowledge that the challenges of Living Dead are failings of its own design that all healers are subjected to and DRK most of all, and this isn't a thread about DRK or its sustainability. Under normal circumstances, a SGE's ability to curb spike damage for tanks with its numerous mitigation effects means it should not have a great need for any specific tool to recover from it... at time of writing this.
(Though I wouldn't be shocked to see one provided next expansion, alongside a reduction to Pneuma's CD, a Pankardia effect and an extra charge of Rhizomata.)

The main issues I would bring up instead, are tied to SGE's core healing philosophy and relationship to its barriers.

First I want to bring up Soteria.
In theory, it's SGE's response to SCH's Aetherpact as a means to boost our constant, passive healing output into a focused healing stream while allowing us more uptime. Potency-wise, it's actually slightly stronger than Fey Union already.
But, I would also acknowledge that Kardia and Soteria only have an effect when the SGE is using its uptime to attack, while Aetherpact can also be used to double-down on focus healing. If you stop to put up a barrier or focus cast a heal, Soteria's effect is going to waste.
(This is also to say nothing of Soteria's effect window being affected by ping, and Aetherpact's advantages of being able to be stored, toggled at will, and extended by certain attacks even during its window.)

Which also puts SGE in an unusual spot of bother concerning its Addersting mechanic. Since Addersting can only be actively generated and consumes an entire GCD to generate each time, the fact that Toxikon is both A) the exact same potency on a single-target as Dosis and B) 5p weaker per-target than Dyskrasia on multiple targets, actually comes out to it being a slight damage loss - not even recouping partial damage lost to casting the barrier unlike Afflatus Misery - with its primary advantages being its instant cast time over Dosis and increased range over Dyskrasia. Given that we can already slide-cast and weave after each attack anyway, this is a relatively rare utilitarian benefit.

Lastly, I'd like to address Pepsis, SGE's response to SCH's Emergency Tactics.
While it's exceptionally good for group-healing when it consumes Eukrasian Prognosis, it's underwhelming when consuming the single-target Eukrasian Diagnosis.
On the one hand, it does not matter how much of the barrier it consumes; if there's only a tiny sliver of barrier left at the moment you activate it, it will give the full potency of the heal. It can also critical heal separately from the original cast.
On the other hand, it comes at the cost of Addersting, it has no effect on Differential Diagnosis, it's usable only half as often as Emergency Tactics, and its healing value doesn't increase at level 85 when the values of our barriers do. Even if it does get a critical effect, because it doesn't consume Differential, it will only give half the healing value of ET. Given the number of times I've gotten an Addersting off the first auto-attack of a boss fight, the luck and timing you would need to successfully get the value of "consuming a partial barrier for a full heal" is exacting.

So my instinctual thought is to ask to "increase Soteria's effect to 100% healing during its window (possibly on a stack system), increase Toxikon's base damage by 20-25% or reduce its falloff, and have Pepsis consume Differential for a bonus heal and return an Addersting if it consumes at least one Eukrasian Diagnosis," but I'm willing to defer to members of the community with more experience for their thoughts on SGE.

[YusiKha]

soteria isn’t fey union’s counterpart. Haima is. Which is weird to think, but if you consider it further it makes sense:
6x 300p barriers on a 2min cooldown
30 fey gauge generated every minute. (So 6x 300p heals every 2 minutes).
Both abilities received at level 70 (like how Consolation and Panhaima are similar and at 80)

It’s fine for SGE to have something it’s weak at, especially if it’s something the rest of the healers can solve well. This is a team game - lean on your cohealer a little bit.
It’s especially fine because sage is bonkers strong at healing everything else.

Addersting is also fine if you consider it as a mana recoup instead of a damage recoup (as toxicon has no mana cost, refunding the 400 you’d normally pay for dosis)

[Saefinn]

Personally? I'm leaning towards 'no'.

Whilst I get there is a higher barrier to entry there are other jobs if people find SGE too difficult to get into. The devs refuse to do the one thing that'll raise the skill ceiling whilst keeping the skill floor low, so when we have a job the has a greater learning curve and a little more complexity than ones, then naturally it is better for those who are looking for exactly that. SGE is a step in the right direction here and potency buffs I feel would be a regression. But then I made a thread a while back saying shield healers should have their potencies nerfed in favour of a greater shield focus, because shield healing is a healing style. You suggest that you don't believe SGE is falling behind, then I think that's fair argument to not increase potencies. And if they did, we also run into the risk of 3.0/4.0 SCH, where it was overpowered, because 2.0 SCH was perceived as weak and had more of a learning curve than WHM but in practice was already well balanced, but just had something it was weak at like SGE does now. I don't want them to repeat the same mistakes they made with SCH on SGE.

And if SGE gets potency buffs then it lessens what makes SGE appealing IMO.

The main adjustment I would make are to Toxicon so we have more of an incentive to fish for it.

Also we can handle DRK and part of the argument is we can also avoid needing DRK to pop Living Dead, though I realise there are mechanics that may require it (like back in Zurvan EX) and this can be mitigated with better planning or by your co-healer. Maybe it should be treated as a DRK problem, WAR has Bloodwhetting which can help a lot with getting their HP up, PLD has Clemency. DRK could probably do with a better self-heal to mitigate Living Dead issues.

[Archwizard]

soteria isn’t fey union’s counterpart. Haima is. Which is weird to think, but if you consider it further it makes sense:
6x 300p barriers on a 2min cooldown
30 fey gauge generated every minute. (So 6x 300p heals every 2 minutes).
Both abilities received at level 70 (like how Consolation and Panhaima are similar and at 80)

I can see the argument, but that still leaves the question of what - for the sake of comparison, at any rate - that makes Soteria. Kardia is our response to the faerie, so Soteria is...?
Because I would have considered Seraph the response to Haima, with Consolation specifically as a Panhaima.

The main adjustment I would make are to Toxicon so we have more of an incentive to fish for it.

If anything I'm of the opposite mindset. While I still think it should recoup some of the damage cost by the barrier so it's not a total loss to use, fishing for it on a job where your barriers can be overwritten by your offhealer or while we still have Pepsis consuming the barrier without giving an Addersting is a dangerous game, especially for a healer whose management of its healing effects would be in the service of damage rather than the other way around.

It’s fine for SGE to have something it’s weak at, especially if it’s something the rest of the healers can solve well. This is a team game - lean on your cohealer a little bit.
It’s especially fine because sage is bonkers strong at healing everything else.

Also we can handle DRK and part of the argument is we can also avoid needing DRK to pop Living Dead, though I realise there are mechanics that may require it (like back in Zurvan EX) and this can be mitigated with better planning or by your co-healer. Maybe it should be treated as a DRK problem, WAR has Bloodwhetting which can help a lot with getting their HP up, PLD has Clemency.

I'm also considering common parlance scenarios where you only have one tank, not just EX trials and Savage raids. Wall-to-walls in dungeons come to mind, considering how much of a gamble it is with a DRK these days. Or if your offhealer dies, or you're paired with another barrier healer...

[Saefinn]

If anything I'm of the opposite mindset. While I still think it should recoup some of the damage cost by the barrier so it's not a total loss to use, fishing for it on a job where your barriers can be overwritten by your offhealer or while we still have Pepsis consuming the barrier without giving an Addersting is a dangerous game, especially for a healer whose management of its healing effects would be in the service of damage rather than the other way around.

Coming from an enjoyment perspective, I like the mechanic itself and would like to use it more and unfortunately as it stands using a GCD over an oGCD is considered less efficient, so the more efficiently you're playing the less you're going to use it. I also think it pushes a wider use of your kit if we did improve Toxicon, because you're using both your GCD's and oGCD's together, instead of falling back on GCD's where you're out of oGCD's. And I think that lends better to a shield healing experience as it's another shield you can use and has the potential to crit, but is not powerful enough to be used on its own (thus other parts of your kit come in)

With the shield overwriting scenario, I feel like it would only truly be an issue in a SGE/SGE setup where you might be fighting for Toxicon procs.

A SGE/SCH set up is complementary and your SCH would ideally be making their GCD shields a low priority.

But shield overwrites aren't the end of the world, but will always be somewhat of an issue in a dual shield-healer set up and that's a small price to pay for enjoying the job role.

I'm also considering common parlance scenarios where you only have one tank, not just EX trials and Savage raids. Wall-to-walls in dungeons come to mind, considering how much of a gamble it is with a DRK these days. Or if your offhealer dies, or you're paired with another barrier healer...

I don't see it as that much of an issue.
For wall-to-wall pulling: it usually means your healer is struggling to keep up or your tank is squishy. That to me is the issue not Living Dead. And chances are, if you have this problem, the next pull will likely kill the tank anyway and thus should probably be doing smaller pulls. It's also rare for me to see an invuln used when this sort of thing happens.

For raids/trials, it's rare that I see tanks using their invuln outside of planned mechanics. And with a good enough healer, it's not really an issue because they'll quickly get the tank back up whilst keeping everybody else alive. I've pulled many clutches like this when the tanks have died for whatever reason.


I think it's a small issue. Even then, you can still get people's health up. You get a window of 4 GCD heals and any oGCD's you can fit in that. SGE has the bonus of spending some of that on a shield and 2 heals that add damage reduction to mitigate further incoming damage. And if we're talking about our GCD heal, if we account for the shield it has a higher healing potential than Cure II and Benefic II.

But again, if Living Dead must be better accommodated for, don't make it a healer design issue, make it a DRK design issue. If they're willing to give Clemency to PLD and Bloodwhetting to WAR, I am sure they can give DRK something too.

Heck I am sure many DRK's might appreciate being able to have more control over whether they live or die from it rather than relying on their healer's skill. And there is the scenario where your healer has died and you need to make that clutch and for other tanks their invuln skill can be a life-saver whereas for DRK they only have 10 seconds to kill the mob(s). A WAR could pop Holmgang whilst waiting for Bloodwhetting to be free and get their own health up quickly and pull through, a DRK would die in 10 secs regardless of what they do.

[RinaShinomiya]

Panic buttons

Taurochole is SGE's Excog, it's only 100 potency weaker but doesn't have the 50% HP down requirement making it usable in more situations. I don't think Panic buttons are a good mindset to have as a healer, esp OGCD dependent one like SCH or SGE. You rotate your OGCD's most of them even give a 10% damage mitigation. Use healing buff ability visely, like Physis or Krasis and most situations shouldn't pose an issue. If that's not enough then just GCD heal. This isn't WHM where we can pull a 100% HP heal out of thin air. As for Walking Dead that has been a problem child since forever and will be a problem child for the rest of DRK's life.

Soteria

That... not the skill to compare to at all! Soteria has no equivalent on SCH and that's not even a tool that really makes SGE stronger over SCH because like you said SGE will miss one or two attacks by GCD healing Soteria can make up for that lost Kardia uptime. And that's fine.
The skill that compares directly to SCH's Aetherpact is Haima.

Dyskrasia

You'd need at least 32 mobs for Toxicon to be weaker than Dyskrasia. Yes the AoE is 5p weaker than Dyskrasia but don't forget that one of the mobs gets hit for the full 330 potency. Needless to say this amount of targets never comes up so in most cases Toxicon is a slight DPS gain, assuming you cast it prior to a pull / downtime. Yeah in single target fights it's not that great but so is Afflatus misery. I think both need a buff. even if they buff Toxicon to have Phlegma numbers, that'd be a DPS gain in situations where you can prepare it during downtime and feel more rewarding while still being a DPS loss when compared to 2 Dosis casts.

Pepsis

So Scholar gets a 840 potency heal with E.tictacs with the potential to crit and Sage gets 750 with the potential that some of that barrier sponges damage before going to get transformed into HP and the potential of erecting a Secondary barrier with crits. That's again just a difference of 90 potency and whatever we're losing on which isn't an incredible amount. I honestly don't see the issue and esp with Toxicon being the exact same potency right now losing out on it is just non-consequential. Not to mention according to Momo you can pop Pepsis right as the shield is breaking and still get the heal although i didn't pull it off myself yet

For all these comparisons i'm actually surprise you didn't mention Krasis, which is a 10% max HP heal weaker than Protraction. But i'd say even that doesn't need to be buffed because we have stuff like Pneuma a 600 potency heal (900 if used with Zoe) that Scholar just doesn't have an answer for. And that's fine. These two classes are already nearly identical, they don't need to resemble each other even more.

[Archwizard]

Taurochole is SGE's Excog

I do have some objection to this interpretation, since you can Recitation Excog for a fairly beefy oGCD crit heal that can only be activated when the tank is already low (the essence of a panic heal), where Taurochole's main pull and distinction is the 10% mitigation effect that you would rotate in fairly early into the pull (provided that you're not overhealing, or overwriting Kerachole) and is "only 100p" stronger than Druochole to boot. The potencies are similar but the use-cases are very different...

in most cases Toxicon is a slight DPS gain, assuming you cast it prior to a pull / downtime. Yeah in single target fights it's not that great but so is Afflatus misery. I think both need a buff. even if they buff Toxicon to have Phlegma numbers, that'd be a DPS gain in situations where you can prepare it during downtime and feel more rewarding while still being a DPS loss when compared to 2 Dosis casts.

So what I'm getting from is "not for the same reasons, but yes to the conclusion that it should be bumped up"?

So Scholar gets a 840 potency heal with E.tictacs with the potential to crit and Sage gets 750 with the potential that some of that barrier sponges damage before going to get transformed into HP and the potential of erecting a Secondary barrier with crits.

I'm still not fully convinced to the value of Pepsis considering the Addersting loss and the lack of interaction/healing with Differential Diagnosis.
Especially since unlike ET, you can actually see if the barrier had crit before you use it without needing a CD to guarantee it... though I suppose at least with Differential that's an issue of preference at worst, since you'd at least know if there's a barrier left behind...

Either way, I still think it should at least return an Addersting if it consumes a single-target barrier, though.

For all these comparisons i'm actually surprise you didn't mention Krasis, which is a 10% max HP heal weaker than Protraction.

Why would I need to bring up Krasis? I don't want to see the jobs homogenized.
It's also a 10% boost in healing over Protraction, so they're already even in my book.
Though admittedly, if the two jobs had swapped them it would be a different story, since an argument could be made about whether either would work better in the other's kit.

[RinaShinomiya]

I do have some objection to this interpretation, since you can Recitation Excog for a fairly beefy oGCD crit heal that can only be activated when the tank is already low (the essence of a panic heal), where Taurochole's main pull and distinction is the 10% mitigation effect that you would rotate in fairly early into the pull (provided that you're not overhealing, or overwriting Kerachole) and is "only 100p" stronger than Druochole to boot. The potencies are similar but the use-cases are very different...

And my point about panic buttons still stands, you shouldn't be letting your tank falling that low. Crit-Excog is a double weave and a DPS loss in most situations since you're gonna clip GCD. And even then Taurochole can still crit itself, we just don't have a button that forces a crit.

So what I'm getting from is "not for the same reasons, but yes to the conclusion that it should be bumped up"?

Yeah. Toxicon is very underwhelming in bossfights and the very reason why losing one to pepsis isn't a big deal right now. It's most useful in dungeons (which coincidentally is also Afflatus Misery's strength).

I'm still not fully convinced to the value of Pepsis considering the Addersting loss and the lack of interaction/healing with Differential Diagnosis.
Especially since unlike ET, you can actually see if the barrier had crit before you use it without needing a CD to guarantee it... though I suppose at least with Differential that's an issue of preference at worst, since you'd at least know if there's a barrier left behind...

And i'm not sure why you value Addersting so highly. Even if we use Toxicon instead of Dosis we're not getting the 900 MP back we used on Diagnosis. We're still negative 500MP from that interaction and the DPS is lost on the Diagnosis cast either way. Leaving a barrier behind for 30s is essentially the same as healing the same amount with the difference that we can't overheal that barrier amount. If you use Diagnosis and Pepsis to top someone off and you end up critting that's just a net positive in my book while on SCH all those HP would go to waste in the exact same situation.

[Recon1o6]

I personally think sage needs 3 small buffs and 1 nerf

Nerf- remove the aoe regen from kerachole so it stays a mitigation tool
Buff- Zoe buffed to guarentee crit on next heal. Currently the only time this is used is with cure 1 diagnosis on the rare occasion you need to heal a single target up and dont want to blow an addersgall, a crit guarentee will give it some synergy with pepsi which is otherwise rarely used
Buff- Toxikon to a higher potency of 660 or higher. That way its not a loss to use
Buff- Rhizomata and Pneuma generates an addersting when used so you dont go entire encounters with only a single toxikon

[WaxSw]

I personally think sage needs 3 small buffs and 1 nerf

Nerf- remove the aoe regen from kerachole so it stays a mitigation tool
Buff- Zoe buffed to guarentee crit on next heal. Currently the only time this is used is with cure 1 diagnosis on the rare occasion you need to heal a single target up and dont want to blow an addersgall, a crit guarentee will give it some synergy with pepsi which is otherwise rarely used
Buff- Toxikon to a higher potency of 660 or higher. That way its not a loss to use
Buff- Rhizomata and Pneuma generates an addersting when used so you dont go entire encounters with only a single toxikon

A few notes

-If you remove the aoe regen from kerachole it usage will drop in favor of ixochole almost all the time as it gives more hp advantage, similar cooldown, share resources and its a burst heal, right now you can pick between kerachole if you have time to let the regen tick and the damage is coming or ixochole for fast paced healing

-Zoe is used with pneuma to make it a 900 potency AoE heal, using it with diagnosis (not even eukrasian) is simply using it wrong and a buff + a crit would simply make it a 1260, basically a stronger essential dignity party wide with a 2m cd, let alone how then eukrasian prognosis would be very close to a deployed critdlo a feat that in order to do it consistently a Sch not only has to burn a gcd and deplo but also recitation

I agree however they must make addersting generation not always such a dps loss, its laughable that there are some scenarios like P1S where you get 1 at the beggining and you dont get more for the entirety of the fight