SGE was designed to be the "dpsing healer" but sadly failed at it.

[Supersnow845]

They're right though. SCH is simply superior in Ultimate.

In Ultimate, mitigation is extremely important and Spreadlo is the strongest shield in the game. That's a massive advantage in a 18+ minute fight full of "mitigate or die" mechanics. There are also minor details like Succor being a little stronger, Emergency tactics not being rubbish like Pepsis, Fey Illumination and Expedient.

SGE is fine and can clear Ultimates. SGE is also perfectly fine in Savage. SGE and SCH is a great comp too.

But if you straight up compare SGE vs SCH in the hardest content, SCH is superior.

SCH and SGE as a comparison in any content except maybe the 70 ultimates will cause SCH to win, SCH is just incredibly powerful in all kinds of content, it has the strongest healer raid buff, it does great pDPS, it has mitigation and shields out the wazzoo, it is a fantastic distance healer, it’s AOE damage is huge, SCH just has an answer to literally every situation

[ForteNightshade]

AST just traded actual difficulty and game knowledge in 5.0 with artificial burst window APM and called it a day and it shows, the class feels absolutely dreadful to play

SGE feels like a fluid SCH but also like you said loses a lot of what makes SCH somehow still the most interesting healer by a country mile even though it’s been gutted like 5 times over at this point, I don’t like modern healers as an entire design but SGE and SCH compliment each other well as the “introduction fluid shield healer and the developed complex shield healer”, the regen healers are just a mess

It's funny. I've been practicing my healers recently in Savage and decided to meme on AST since it's the only one not yet at 90. I spent the whole of Orbonne complaining how downright awful it felt. I knew the job was bad since I have many AST friends who whine daily over Astrodyne alone but to actually try it out for myself. Good lord it's just... awful. It somehow manages to feel both incredibly unsatisfying to play despite being extremely busy yet also boring all at the same time. I'm still baffled just what they were even thinking with Astrodyne.

[WaxSw]

SCH and SGE as a comparison in any content except maybe the 70 ultimates will cause SCH to win, SCH is just incredibly powerful in all kinds of content, it has the strongest healer raid buff, it does great pDPS, it has mitigation and shields out the wazzoo, it is a fantastic distance healer, it’s AOE damage is huge, SCH just has an answer to literally every situation

It depends on what you look after and the content, Sage tend to be a more efficient healer while Scholar has more effective tools. If you wanna just survive through the content Sch can help more but there is a price to pay for that help, Sge on the other hand is more limited in how much it can mitigate (Around 4% less top mitigation and smaller shields) but it can do it more often without paying any price for it, resulting in the job being better suited for carrying the healing/mitigation in fights that demand a more extensive use of those tools

I think looking at healer combined damage is a good proof of that as past the 70th percentile Sage is present in the top damage healer comp of every single ultimate and the higher we go the more present it is being at the 95th percentile in 3/3 top damage comps in ucob, 3/3 in uwu, 2/3 in TEA and 2/3 in DSR

[Rilifane]

SCH and SGE as a comparison in any content except maybe the 70 ultimates will cause SCH to win, SCH is just incredibly powerful in all kinds of content, it has the strongest healer raid buff, it does great pDPS, it has mitigation and shields out the wazzoo, it is a fantastic distance healer, it’s AOE damage is huge, SCH just has an answer to literally every situation

I think what makes it sometimes difficult to see all this is that in Savage, most of it is a bonus nobody needs or even notices barring first week prog.

Spreadlo is the strongest shield and has the unique advantage of being able to benefit from single target heal increases like Minne or Krasis, turning them from "more bonus heal the tank didn't need" into valuable raid cooldowns. However you don't even need noodle GCD shields outside early prog in Savage, let alone megabuffed Spreadlos because oGCD shields do the job just fine. They look fancy but they are over the top.

Expedient is a party wide sprint in addition to mitigation and in Ultimate you have mechanics that are clearly designed for using Sprint. And Expedient is not only partywide, it's also more reliable because it queues properly; we probably all had that moment when we wiped because "sorry sprint didn't go off". And even mechanics that are not designed with Sprint in mind often have extremely tight timing where Expedient can make the difference. But in Savage it's mostly just a comfort button so something that's easy enough to without it is just comfier or it gets used as "I'm too lazy to use Sprint, just use zoomies".

GCD shields are more common in Ultimate so Fey Illumination has more value and it's seperate from healing via Fey Blessing while Holos is both at once. In Savage, Fey Illumination is usually just a noodle mitigation and likely the first button someone forgets about. Seen enough SCH that don't use it in Savage at all and they're completely fine without it.

Protraction with it's 10% HP increase evens out the survivability among dps if a hit is purely physical or magical. The only time I can remember when I was screwed on a caster in Savage was e7s tethers because they were physical. On BLM I had MW. RDM doesn't have the same luck but Protraction would've been enough in this situation. Ultimate has more hits where the difference in HP pool and MDEF/ PDEF matters.

ET is on a shorter cooldown, can be used in advance and Succor has higher total potency than EProg. You generally don't spam this many back to back heals in Savage outside turn 4 heal checks, Ultimate has more of them and it goes from a button you forget about in Savage to something that is part of a mapping.

SCH has beacon healing but Savage only has very few "everyone stand in Narnia" mechanics with heavy damage simultaneously while they're more common in Ultimate.

Ruin II is unlimited low-loss mobility but it's far easier to cover all or almost all movement in Savage with slidecasts, Phlegma and 3 Addersting charges than in Ultimate, leaving SCH to have overall worse loss-less mobility because its advantage doesn't really come into play in Savage once you know the fights a bit better.

SGE doesn't have these things but since they're largely meaningless in Savage anyway and what remains is the signifcantly higher comfort. No dps loss on Addersgall, both GCD shields instant, more loss-less mobility, no capstones locking you out of part of your toolkit, no ground targets and "Get in my SS or die! :c".
I'm not surprised SCH is preferred in Ultimate if you want to survive but it's also not always easy to see it's advantage from a Savage experience because many things are fancy but unnecessary there. And, as Wax said, SCH pays a price for most of these advantages.

[Supersnow845]

It depends on what you look after and the content, Sage tend to be a more efficient healer while Scholar has more effective tools. If you wanna just survive through the content Sch can help more but there is a price to pay for that help, Sge on the other hand is more limited in how much it can mitigate (Around 4% less top mitigation and smaller shields) but it can do it more often without paying any price for it, resulting in the job being better suited for carrying the healing/mitigation in fights that demand a more extensive use of those tools

I think looking at healer combined damage is a good proof of that as past the 70th percentile Sage is present in the top damage healer comp of every single ultimate and the higher we go the more present it is being at the 95th percentile in 3/3 top damage comps in ucob, 3/3 in uwu, 2/3 in TEA and 2/3 in DSR

True, I guess it comes back to what I said earlier (I can’t remember if it was in this thread or not), the shield healers from a design perspective are just infinitely better than the regen healers currently Even if all healer design is collectively crap right now

[Deceptus]

SCH and SGE as a comparison in any content except maybe the 70 ultimates will cause SCH to win, SCH is just incredibly powerful in all kinds of content, it has the strongest healer raid buff, it does great pDPS, it has mitigation and shields out the wazzoo, it is a fantastic distance healer, it’s AOE damage is huge, SCH just has an answer to literally every situation

As usual, Emphasis mine

I mean this as respectfully as possible but SCH has 2 shields (Adlo, Succor, 3 if you're counting Seraph) and 2 mitigation (SS and Expedient).

While sage has 4 shields (Adlo / succor equivalents, Haima, Panhaima) and 3 mitigation (Durochloe, Taurochloe, Holos).

Hardly "out the wazzoo" for the SCH.

That's not to say SCH isn't strong because Recitation exists in a category of it's own, Fey union exists (which IMHO is just Kardia / Soteria with extra steps while losing other fairy utility) and they have Protraction (Krasis is the equivalent without the 10% HP bump)

it’s AOE damage is huge,

Regarding this: Sage has higher aoe damage output than SCH by a large margin. It's basic AoE (Dyskrasia) does 5 pot more damage with zero cast time, with the added benefit of having 2 other hard hitting AoE's. Pneuma at 330 w/ 40% drop off (down to 200 after first enemy), and Phlegma at 510 (down to 250 after first)

SCH simply doesn't have an answer to that and I wish they did. SMN's Painflare would be an excellent addition on a 2 charge system and would make it comparable to Phlegma

True, I guess it comes back to what I said earlier (I can’t remember if it was in this thread or not), the shield healers from a design perspective are just infinitely better than the regen healers currently Even if all healer design is collectively crap right now

Shield based healers are usually better in early content where survival is top priority but once you get it on farm where efficiency is a bit more of a priority and you can survive mechanics w/o the extra affective HP of shields then Regen healers shine.

The other issue from a design perspective is that "Shield" healer and "Regen" healer in FFXIV is pretty much an illusion as WHM's and ASTs have substantial shields and SGE/SCH have substantial regens.

But that's a completely different topic.

[Supersnow845]

As usual, Emphasis mine

I mean this as respectfully as possible but SCH has 2 shields (Adlo, Succor, 3 if you're counting Seraph) and 2 mitigation (SS and Expedient).

While sage has 4 shields (Adlo / succor equivalents, Haima, Panhaima) and 3 mitigation (Durochloe, Taurochloe, Holos).

Hardly "out the wazzoo" for the SCH.

That's not to say SCH isn't strong because Recitation exists in a category of it's own, Fey union exists (which IMHO is just Kardia / Soteria with extra steps while losing other fairy utility) and they have Protraction (Krasis is the equivalent without the 10% HP bump)



Shield based healers are usually better in early content where survival is top priority but once you get it on farm where efficiency is a bit more of a priority and you can survive mechanics w/o the extra affective HP of shields then Regen healers shine.

The other issue from a design perspective is that "Shield" healer and "Regen" healer in FFXIV is pretty much an illusion as WHM's and ASTs have substantial shields and SGE/SCH have substantial regens.

But that's a completely different topic.

You are completely forgetting what actually makes SCH have good shields and that’s deployed adlo, nothing SGE has even comes close to deployed adlo, SCH also has a third mitigation in the form of fey illumination and I’m not counting single target here (though if find it strange you add seraph as an afterthought but include taurochole and haima without a thought)

so SCH has three mitigations, the more usable of the 2 oGCD Shields that also heals, a much easier ability to pump up that deployed adlo because of it relying on single target healing buffs which gives it an unparalleled ability to just ignore mechanics in certain situations. That is far more useful than what SGE offers from a practical sense and it shows in combat, SCH’s damage reduction ability dwarfs SGE’s

And shield healers are just better overall because the regen healers gain nothing from getting better at the fight, shield healers rarely rely on their shields (except situations where you intentionally deploy adlo) but they shine in mitigation which is far more important than anything the regen healers offer

I agree the dichotomy is mostly garbage though

[Liam_Harper]

As usual, Emphasis mine

I mean this as respectfully as possible but SCH has 2 shields (Adlo, Succor, 3 if you're counting Seraph) and 2 mitigation (SS and Expedient).

While sage has 4 shields (Adlo / succor equivalents, Haima, Panhaima) and 3 mitigation (Durochloe, Taurochloe, Holos).

Of course you count Seraph, in a lot of cases it's better than Panhaima since you can choose where to place the fairy, it has a 7 second longer duration, and the shield lasts 30 sec.

Haima is comparable to Aetherpact. Even though Haima is amazing itself, being mitigation isn't much advantage because tanks just don't need extra mitigation this expansion on anything.

You forgot Fey Illumination. Druo isn't much better than Excog for the same reasons mentioned above, tanks don't need mitigation that much. But really it's all about Spreadlo. SGE and SCH are roughly comparable, but then SCH has access to the largest raid shield in the game. Fights like Ultimate are rarely about speed runs, you just want to clear and the shield healer with the largest GCD shield in the game is at a big advantage.

As mentioned, SGE isn't bad at all. It's very strong. Kera is straight up better than Soil, Pneuma is a great ability and SGE will probably be king in the new Savage dungeons. But when it comes to the hardest content, SCH pulls ahead.

[IceBlueNinja]

While I value everyone comparison views at the end of the day it goes back to the recite spread crit alco making it seem sch is the much better healer and without it succor is just as weak as e prog and alco about the same strength as e diag though we can say since zoe is at 50 i say content below 80 makes e diag best alco if it crits. I know that aint much but overall se dont balance things right.

At stormblood sge has its pani for third mig while sch stuck to just succor and alco without recit till 74 so ya shadow bringer and ew shb doms and arr hw and sb sge doms. Imagine if pepsis just behave like recite/dt in one. sge probably for sure now win. heck noct ast become dom in old stormblood content when shadow bring rework oppo base on stance and ast won until sch hit 74. Note am just talking e pog and e dig vs suc and alco. other abilities like kera vs soil aont even worth it as we know what wins already.