Relatively large concern about new Healer: Sage

[EaMett]

Aetherflow needs to go back to lvl 30.

edit: nvm I'm a dumb. I thought we were talking about ED. (previously said they would remove ED next expansion.

[AnotherPerson]

They specifically said Sage would be self-buffing in the announcement.

I wouldn't be surprised if we got some form of Cleric Stance just for Sage. Something like "Increases magic damage dealt by 10% while reducing healing done by 30%. Effect ends upon reuse. Recast time: 6s". The loss of Cleric Stance has been one of the largest laments of healer mains for years and the devs know this.

Hard pass on Cleric Stance. If it's something about augmentation, I rather they made the Nouliths more interesting by making them work in parallel. Nuoliths come in sets of 4, so why not just let each Nuolith be able to work individually - aka you can use one to heal, one to barrier, and use one to dps. However, using more for the same task will augment the strength of the attack or the heal (such as using 2 will make the effect of the spell 1.5x stronger and using 4 will make it 2x stronger - diminishing gains). You can also set them to do something like ressing, but unlike other jobs you don't have the ability to swiftcast ress, instead you can instant cast a ress command, but one Nuolith will be casting for 8 seconds to ress. You can use multiple Nuoliths to speed up this cast timer up to a maximum of 4 seconds. Doing this will make the gameplay fairly interesting in terms of variation and control imo. After all, while you do lose the ability to pick people up instantly, you do have the ability to pick up multiple people at the same time (albeit doing so will probably empty out your MP very fast), so it'll bring some MP management focus to the job.

[DreadCrow]

They'll be not so good healers that quickly abandoned the class when they realize they aren't good with the role... But considering that it starts at 70, by the time they get to level 80 and can do the 6.0 story... They'll either get used to the role and at least be able to handle small pulls, or they'll give up... And really, at the worst, you'll have to worry about a bit of overhealing.

But considering there's level 80 tanks that don't use any cooldowns, level 80 white mages that don't realize casting Regen before Holy spam is usually smart, and sometimes even level 80 DPS that don't use AOE... Well, I'm not that concerned.

[EaMett]

Hard pass on Cleric Stance. If it's something about augmentation, I rather they made the Nouliths more interesting by making them work in parallel. Nuoliths come in sets of 4, so why not just let each Nuolith be able to work individually - aka you can use one to heal, one to barrier, and use one to dps. However, using more for the same task will augment the strength of the attack or the heal (such as using 2 will make the effect of the spell 1.5x stronger and using 4 will make it 2x stronger - diminishing gains). You can also set them to do something like ressing, but unlike other jobs you don't have the ability to swiftcast ress, instead you can instant cast a ress command, but one Nuolith will be casting for 8 seconds to ress. You can use multiple Nuoliths to speed up this cast timer up to a maximum of 4 seconds. Doing this will make the gameplay fairly interesting in terms of variation and control imo. After all, while you do lose the ability to pick people up instantly, you do have the ability to pick up multiple people at the same time (albeit doing so will probably empty out your MP very fast), so it'll bring some MP management focus to the job.

This would be great but I doubt we'll get anything close to it lol.

[Mikaeus_The_Lunarch]

While your points are true, this is already happening. You can create a character today and purchase both story and level skips, then be playing tiered content inside a few days as 70-80 isn't all that hard. I've run plenty of level 80 content with people who have no concept of their class.

All added jobs have started at higher levels, folks figuring out the job through recent content isn't exactly new either.

I *wish* the jobs would start at level 1, certainly no higher than 20. Then not allow level skips for them. Players as a whole would be more likely to learn the class.

im inclined to disagree with starting stuff at lv1. levelling it easily one of the most boring and tedious things in the game imo and doesn't really teach you much depending on the role. i remember levelling up MCH in StB and all throughout the levelling process i had no inkling of how i was supposed to be playing at all. sure that example is prolly an anomaly, but i straight up wouldn't touch sage or the other dlc jobs if they started at 1 now. forcing these restrictions isn't gonna magically make em better, they're still not gonna read tool tips, and they're not gonna care.

not to mention the business model of it all. idk how other mmos do new expacs/jobs, but i'd be pretty annoyed to get the new expansion and have to grind out ARR content just to get the job caught up to play the brand new story content.

[ItMe]

im inclined to disagree with starting stuff at lv1. levelling it easily one of the most boring and tedious things in the game imo and doesn't really teach you much depending on the role. i remember levelling up MCH in StB and all throughout the levelling process i had no inkling of how i was supposed to be playing at all. sure that example is prolly an anomaly, but i straight up wouldn't touch sage or the other dlc jobs if they started at 1 now. forcing these restrictions isn't gonna magically make em better, they're still not gonna read tool tips, and they're not gonna care.

This isn't a reply to the bit I'm quoting, but I'm kind of sprig boarding off it to make a reply to the thread in general.

I like those restrictions.
I like starting a new job at level 1.
So when I get a job that starts at a higher level I que info Sastasha or PotD and move up through newer content as I feel comfortable.

The game is set up to accommodate both those that want to ease into Sage, as well as more experienced healers that feel comfortable doing more with it right away.
There will be some misjudging their abilities.
Some will do Quarn when they could be pushing themselves further, and there will be some that hop straight into Holm Switch unprepared.

Can't stop players from making mistakes.
And the game is set up so no one is forced into the deep end if they don't wanna.
SQEX wants to have new jobs start at high levels so when the next expac drops people CAN jump into them.
If you want to do something to test players to ensure they're capable and qualified to use the full kit of their new job... that's not much different than just putting gates on content.

[EgilTheStressedMage]

How do you think that is going to go?

The same as the healers who have played them all without skipping and still absolutely suck.

[Rhais]

This happened before in HW with DRK and AST.

This happened again in ShB with GNB.

I have no doubt it's going to happen with SGE.

There exist so many players in this game that have 1) no idea how to play and 2) don't want to learn how to properly play.

It also has happened and continues to happen with every job that starts at level 1. Starting level has no impact on player ability and being forced to run leveling dungeons that have no difficulty while not having most of the jobs kit does not make a skilled player.
The job starting at level 70 is not an issue.