so apparently Sage dealing a raid wide Aoe to his group is working as intended

[genbatzu]

tl;dr:
Sage's Eukrasian Prognosis/Diagnosis can overwrite Scholar's buffed Galvanize shield, even if it would provide a 99% lower shield



---

I opened 2 bug reports, one was moved to insufficient information (ok, makes sense, my bad https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...olars-Barriers)
and the second one was moved to "working as intended"
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...vanize-shields

The steps to reproduce this are really simple and everyone can ruin his co-healers life try it out:
1. Scholar uses "Recitation" + "Adloquium" + "Deployment Tactics", granting the whole Group a boosted effect of "Galvanize"
2. Sage uses Eukrasian Prognosis
3. Group gets hit by a raid wide AoE from the Sage (lul), aka magicked barrier overwrites boosted Galvanize effect of the Scholar, resulting in a much smaller barrier.

The problem is that only stronger Scholar Shields can overwrite Sage Shields, while Sage can overwrite Scholar Shields with (much) weaker ones, which results in wasted cooldowns, indirect damage (or if timed poorly direct damage) to the whole party.

e.g.:
- 1 to 8 player(s) in your group eat some dmg and fall to 5k HP. the boss begins to cast a raid wide AoE dealing 10k HP.
(Players at 5k HP)
- Scholar begins casting his usual "Recitation" + "Adloquium" + "Deployment Tactics" combo with maybe some additional heal boosting buffs, spreading a 7k HP shield to the whole group, enough to survive the incoming raid wide AoE
(Players at 12k HP)
- The Sage casts Eukrasian Prognosis, mostly unbuffed, overwriting the Galvanize Shield with a 2k HP shield. Effectively dealing a 5k raid wide AoE to his group.
(Players at 7k HP)
Boss finishes his raid wide AoE cast and deals 10k HP. everyone dies
(Players at -3k HP, aka ded)

I know this example is extreme and would rarely occur in real situations, and that in a single target case the scholar would cast buffed Adloquium on the player who made the mistake, which would then also heal him and give him another shield which cannot be overwritten (at least not from the E.Prognosis) and that E.P also heals a bit, but the example shows how a Sage can in 100% of situations where he is paired with a scholar and the scholar uses his go-to 90s CD AoE shield, deal a raid wide AoE to his own group. and this is working as intended.

Real Gameplay Example in the first comment as it's too long to include here apparently.

[genbatzu]

real gameplay example:
Pandaemonium 3rd Circle.

I (Scholar) get matched with a Sage. Before the Fight starts I cast my usual buffed combination of "Protraction" + "Fey Illumination" + "Recitation" + "Adloquium" + "Deployment Tactics".
Sage immediately casts E.Prognosis afterwards, reducing shields of everyone, requiring earlier and more heals, wasting more oGCDs (next to the 60s, 2x 90s and 120s oGCDs wasted already) and reducing dmg output of both healers.

Phoinix readys a raid wide AoE, I again cast my "Protraction" + "Fey Illumination" + "Recitation" + "Adloquium" + "Deployment Tactics" to shield the group. Sage again overcasts it by E.Prognosis.
I now wasted 4 oGCDs again and have to top up the group as instead of the shield eating the dmg, they got "HP-DMG" which needs to be healed (and the Sage dealt "Shield-DMG" to the group, by reducing the shield to a fraction)

This happened throughout the whole fight on every occasion.

[Kabzy]

This is how it has always been, that's why you didn't see SCH/N.AST pairs in previous expansions. I can see why they wouldn't want to change this, as they ideally want to keep one barrier and one pure healer per party.

That being said, SGE/SCH is still very viable and content so far, perhaps with the exception of P3S/P4S, doesn't actually require GCD shielding. So you should never really be in that predicament. It probably is very annoying though, but it is what it is.

[Risvertasashi]

scholar + sage is gaining an increasing lead over other healer combinations as gear levels increase so, on the one hand, I definitely don't think SE should do anything to 'buff' the combination. It's really strong and just getting stronger.

...but on the flipside, having weird shield overwriting mechanics - IMO - is not the way to do it. I think the stronger shield should stay, and if SCH+SGE synergy needs to be reduced (which, yeah, it's just crazy good right now) SE should find other ways to do it. Ways that don't feel quite so janky as this.

[genbatzu]

This is how it has always been, that's why you didn't see SCH/N.AST pairs in previous expansions. I can see why they wouldn't want to change this, as they ideally want to keep one barrier and one pure healer per party.

this explains my confusion about why it was labelled "works as intended", thanks, but with AST you could just use your other buff and not run nocturnal, soo it wasn't really an issue. on SCH+SGE you dont have that option

[Deceptus]

This is how it has always been, that's why you didn't see SCH/N.AST pairs in previous expansions. I can see why they wouldn't want to change this, as they ideally want to keep one barrier and one pure healer per party.

That being said, SGE/SCH is still very viable and content so far, perhaps with the exception of P3S/P4S, doesn't actually require GCD shielding. So you should never really be in that predicament. It probably is very annoying though, but it is what it is.

Just because that's how it's "always been" doesn't mean it's good design. . . That excuse is the height of white knightery.

[Kabzy]

Just because that's how it's "always been" doesn't mean it's good design. . . That excuse is the height of white knightery.

I'm not saying it is, I've slated the developers enough times for how terrible they are when it comes to healers. But in this scenario, I think having some repercussions to ignoring the pure healers is good.
Or at least I'd much rather they focus on the actual things about healers that could be improved, rather than something like this which isn't even much of an issue if you know how to play your job. But to each their own.

[Connor]

For me as a Scholar, I just entirely forgo any kind of gcd barriers (including Deployment which is painful) if I’m paired with a Sage. I mean, you shouldn’t be using them anyway because it’s a 300p dps loss, but even if you do I’ve met Sages who will literally wait for me to cast Adloquium/Succor then immediately overwrite it with their weaker Eukrasian Diagnosis/Prognosis. At least they can’t delete Catalyze and Seraphic Veil lol.

I want to say Sage gets shield priority because of Toxicon, but we all know it’s because it’s the new job lol.

Maybe I’m wrong but can’t White Mage and Astrologian stack their regens? It seems a little unfair that barrier healers have to deal with barrier overwriting but pure healers face no such repercussions when stacked. And I mean Astrologian can produce it’s own powerful barriers anyway so they basically get the best of both

Of course, barrier stacking would be way too OP, but at the same time why even create a dichotomy between healer types of it’s only going to apply to 2 out of 4 of them?

That’s not even considering the fact that barrier healers are pretty much not allowed to use their barriers because dps loss.
So we have pure healers with powerful barriers, barrier healers who shouldn’t be using their barriers (not that Astrologian doesn’t lose dps from Aspected Helios but at least they have cards lol), issues like this whether shield strength isn’t taken into consideration for overwriting.

[Nizzi]

I think it works like this because Sage's shields are tied to a resource with Toxicon and Scholar's aren't. Granted, I don't think this is a good justification for why a Sage should be able to overwrite more powerful shields, but I think it at least makes sense why it's happening if it's the case.
IMO, let Sage's single target overwrite a Scholar shield but make it where Sage's AoE shielding can't overwrite more powerful shields and that's a fair compromise if this was the intended thinking.

[RinaShinomiya]

I think it works like this because Sage's shields are tied to a resource with Toxicon and Scholar's aren't. Granted, I don't think this is a good justification for why a Sage should be able to overwrite more powerful shields, but I think it at least makes sense why it's happening if it's the case.
IMO, let Sage's single target overwrite a Scholar shield but make it where Sage's AoE shielding can't overwrite more powerful shields and that's a fair compromise if this was the intended thinking.

it worked like this even when AST could go Nocturnal so Resources aren't the reason, it's just how it's programmed.