Does the Sage have a 1.5s GCD like the Astrologian?

[Asdif_Laoeg]

After watching the reveal trailer for the Sage i got the feeling that die GCD of the Sage was short. The first ability (the normal heal i think) feels more like an Astrologian than an White Mage from the casting time.

If that is true could we say that the Sage is the shield version of the Astrologian and get an oGCD heavy mechanik like the Astrologian?

That would be nice.

[ItMe]

It would be nice, but it's too early to tell.
As far we we know they simply cast that spell using something like lightspeed.
We probably won't know until the Fanfest.

[Deceptus]

AST doesn't have a 1.5s GCD. They still have a 2.5s GCD, but their cast time is 1.5s on many spells giving them time to weave.

[Sathona]

They said Sage has the ability to improve their skills, its possible one of these abilities reduces their casting speed but we wont know before closer to launch, unless they invite people to play the classes[which is doubtful this year]

[Saefinn]

Call me cynical, but I am worried it'll be Nocturnal AST in new robes.


But with that said....

They said Sage has the ability to improve their skills, its possible one of these abilities reduces their casting speed but we wont know before closer to launch, unless they invite people to play the classes[which is doubtful this year]

I missed this. So, colour me (skeptically) interested. I used to play FFXI's SCH, which had a system like this and I loved it. It's also a feature of DRK I miss.

[Connor]

All healers’ basic heal (Cure/Physick/Benefic) has a cast time of 1.5s. It stands to reason that Sage’s basic heal was what’s being shown in the video, hence why it seems to go off faster than spells usually do.

It does seem like the Sage uses an instant-cast or off-GCD barrier spell though.

It’s not what I’d prefer but when the devs said ‘temporarily strengthens its own magics’ I immediately assumed they meant DPS (because what else would a healer have to strengthen lol). I can’t imagine them giving Sage its own Lightspeed for healing spells, since fast-casting has gradually become Astrologian’s thing (to facilitate card weaving).

Considering the demand for a dps healer I bet Sage will be their attempt to appease that demand. It’ll be extremely light on healing and only have a few shields but everything else will be pure dps rotations and self-buffs for damage. They’ll probably make Scholar have a billion DoTs and it’s own Fester so it can compete

Lastly I’m predicting that as soon as raids drop in 6.0 there’s gonna be huge balance issues because everyone will be running Sage/Scholar for the extra dps boost. Either that, or Sage/Scholar will be less overall dps than White Mage / Astrologian and nobody will touch them with a barge pole because shields are functionally redundant in all content, so a healer can really only be judged on their dps output (including party dps boosts like cards or Stratagem of course)

[YusiKha]

I was curious about this too so timed it.
The first healing spell we see does have a 1.5s cast time, like cure1, benefic1, and physic
However, the first dps spell we see them using has a full 2.5s cast time so they’re unlike AST.

[Brandedblade]

Honestly, I don't care anymore, if there's one thing that should be homogenized across the board across the 3 healers, it should be the filler nuke being a 1.5 cast time, too be honest way
too many of the issues that plague WHM and SCH are the lack of, or how punishing, their weaving space is. I get the argument of "but it gives us something to optimize" but at the same time actively punishing 2 out of 3 of the healers for healing when 1 is nigh devoid of the same punishment is just bad.

For all of the flaws with FFXIV's pvp system, the fact all 3 healers have the 1.5 gcd nukes feels super good in my opinion.

[ZedxKayn]

Honestly, I don't care anymore, if there's one thing that should be homogenized across the board across the 3 healers, it should be the filler nuke being a 1.5 cast time, too be honest way
too many of the issues that plague WHM and SCH are the lack of, or how punishing, their weaving space is. I get the argument of "but it gives us something to optimize" but at the same time actively punishing 2 out of 3 of the healers for healing when 1 is nigh devoid of the same punishment is just bad.

For all of the flaws with FFXIV's pvp system, the fact all 3 healers have the 1.5 gcd nukes feels super good in my opinion.

Hard disagree, optimizing around limited weave spaces is fun and AST's punishment for this is overall lower potencies. I also feel like it's a core aspect of AST's identity and flow.
Healing shouldn't feel punishing if you're not trying to parse.

[Brandedblade]

Hard disagree, optimizing around limited weave spaces is fun and AST's punishment for this is overall lower potencies. I also feel like it's a core aspect of AST's identity and flow.
Healing shouldn't feel punishing if you're not trying to parse.

Healing being inherently punishing to optimize around is why we have the issues of SE not knowing what to do with SCH's Aetherflow, and why we have issue's with the WHM's Lilly system. It's why people complain that AST is capable of so much free healing. I get it. I truly do, because you gave the exact same statement I said, "It gives us something to opimitze around." but it's also part of the issue everyone seems to be having with SCH and WHM to begin with.

Just think, for SCH for example, they can get rid of Ruin II and potentially give us back Miasma, that way we have our multiple dots to manage, while still keeping the same general amount of buttons to manage. People are always complaining that Ruin II will always feel bad to use, so giving sch the 1.5 treatment means we don't have to utilize Ruin II and we can replace it's optimization with something else like having actual dot maintenance.