Some Sage Discussion

[Saefinn]

I am fairly curious about my experience with SGE. Just because of some of the comments I've read and I think the experiences sound mixed. On the one hand, I read comments about how heals feel weak, and of course the above query about handling Living Dead. This is all stuff that falls in line with my experience, which to me is positive because my experience has been closer to what I've asked for. Then on the other hand we've had comments on the forums that describe SGE in a similar manner to 5.0 SCH in relation to oGCD's and shields. I've not ran it in much pre-EW content (aside from grinding 71-80 in Bozja) and it sounds like you can play the job mostly using just its oGCD's and not much of its GCD shields. But I feel like I'd run out of oGCD's too soon in pretty much every group I've ran with a couple of exceptions. My experience of 5.0 SCH was that I'd very rarely use my GCD shields because oGCD's were enough and made me remark how I was more of a shield healer on Diurnal AST because of Neutral Sect, which suffices for how frequently I'd comparatively use GCD shields on SCH and because Celestial Opposition was an oGCD shield.

But on SGE:
I've got decent gear, whilst I'm not yet fully geared, but nearly there...I mean by yesterday's standard, now that the new patch is out, I have the next tier to get.
I've ran SGE through all EW dungeons and trials
I've ran SGE through all post-MSQ dungeons and doing expert roulettes
I've cleared the first EX trial on SGE and have progged most of the second

And I've found I need to use my GCD shields a lot more than I've seen some suggest. So I am cautious to state, "this balance is great, I am happy with this" if further down the line I realise what I could be doing better and find that it offsets that balance and great feeling and find my feedback was in fact not very good, hence my curiosity.

[Kacho_Nacho]

My admittedly limited experience with Sage has been negative. The job feels weak and overly busy. You have to use multiple abilities together to achieve what other healers do with a single ability.

I genuinely feel sorry for any individual who decides to check out what healing is like and chooses Sage as their first healer. The job is not user friendly and is bound to drive a would-be healer away from the role.

[AnotherPerson]

Sage feels strong to me and is strong. Numerically, the healing values are good. A big factor on whether Sage feels weak or strong is if you are using the mitigation and healing % increase effectively - optimizing this aspect, and using Kardia + Soteria will make SGE's heals feel strong. Using them incorrectly will make SGE feel a lot weaker in comparison overtime.

After playing SGE for a while now in pre-Endwalker and Endwalker content, I think a big issue for people thinking Sage feels weak is also because they haven't changed the way they prioritize their healing compared to other healers. The priority on healing abilities really changes as Sage level up, but this is largely due to whether you have access to Rhizomata (an addersgall meaning you spend more healing abilities using the gauge first to avoid overcapping and losing MP), access to Holos (another mitigation, which means you can spread out your healing more), access to Kerakeia (Lv 78 trait) and access to Panhaima. The priority of healing on Sage really evolves as you get higher in level, and it matters a lot more than other healing jobs because SGE just has a lot more synergetic healing skills, so it requires more thought on your part to play Sage effectively.

[Hysterior]

what is SGE’s answer to Living Dead?

hope you have resources saved up and spam DuoChloe or a Zoe > Euk/Diag > Pepsis

Yeah... I think best option is: Living Dead > Dead Dead
Just raise and use your cooldowns later

SGE really struggles to get HP back up, but I think it might be the same with SCH.
Death is very punishing for barrier healers

[Saefinn]

My admittedly limited experience with Sage has been negative. The job feels weak and overly busy. You have to use multiple abilities together to achieve what other healers do with a single ability.

I genuinely feel sorry for any individual who decides to check out what healing is like and chooses Sage as their first healer. The job is not user friendly and is bound to drive a would-be healer away from the role.

This is the problem 2.0 SCH had and it wasn't weaker, it just had a certain way of being played and it was just harder as result. Then they tried to make it less "weak" and it became OP. If anything, I like SGE this way, a variety in difficulty has been something I've been asking for and YoshiP suggested SGE would be harder to learn during the demonstration in the live letter. I think I am understanding why. Normally for people completely new to healing in this game, I've always recommended White Mage but am generally willing to help people get started with the others.

Sage feels strong to me and is strong. Numerically, the healing values are good. A big factor on whether Sage feels weak or strong is if you are using the mitigation and healing % increase effectively - optimizing this aspect, and using Kardia + Soteria will make SGE's heals feel strong. Using them incorrectly will make SGE feel a lot weaker in comparison overtime.

After playing SGE for a while now in pre-Endwalker and Endwalker content, I think a big issue for people thinking Sage feels weak is also because they haven't changed the way they prioritize their healing compared to other healers. The priority on healing abilities really changes as Sage level up, but this is largely due to whether you have access to Rhizomata (an addersgall meaning you spend more healing abilities using the gauge first to avoid overcapping and losing MP), access to Holos (another mitigation, which means you can spread out your healing more), access to Kerakeia (Lv 78 trait) and access to Panhaima. The priority of healing on Sage really evolves as you get higher in level, and it matters a lot more than other healing jobs because SGE just has a lot more synergetic healing skills, so it requires more thought on your part to play Sage effectively.

Thanks for the perspective. I was wondering if it was something like this, I've been trying to make use of them with my other abilities, but I probably just need to get the balance right. So it's later dependence on oGCD's is less 5.0 SCH where you don't have to give forethought but instead better planning of how you synergize your skills, that to me is a lot better, because I still consider damage reduction as a form of shield healing. But as I expressed with the above, I feel like this is the way it was with 2.0 SCH, I remember people thinking it felt weak but after a time I was able to optimise it and do crazy carries with it where it definitely was not weak and I feel is why it was OP when they gave it more ability to pure heal. I just need to find that spot with SGE.

In which case, I am happy to say I am satisfied with SGE. At the moment, the only changes I would make would be to Toxicon, I want a reason to use it more, I like the mechanic. Anything else, time will tell as I get more efficient. But it feels like they've made the steps in the right direction with it that I want, which I've expressed before with cautious optimism. And I am starting to understand maybe why YoshiP's response in that one interview was "try SGE" when it came to complaints about that lack of engagement.

I feel like what would change this is if I find myself healing 30% and DPSing 70% again, because I don't think SGE's DPS kit is enough to make 70% DPS uptime engaging, especially if we're not getting much use out of Toxicon.

[ty_taurus]

One thing that I do find a little odd with Holos is that it's an AoE flat heal + damage reduction on a long cooldown. You kind of need to use it at very specific moments to get the most out of it. I can't use it before an attack like Kerachole because then I lose all of the healing rather than get that healing from a regen that ticks after the hit goes off, but the damage reduction won't reduce the damage you're immediately trying to address. More optimal use of it will come down to fight knowledge and using it right after the first hit of a high damage phase.

[Aelin_Ashryver]

Sage feels weaker in healing output than the other healers still, a bit annoying. It is harder to recover a death from yourself or another player than other healer as well imo. Gcd heals last resort for me but they are so weak without a Zoe that if you hit the point where you need to gcd heals it feels awful. All 3 addersgall on healing 1 dps to reasonable hp from a rez, so rip me if I have a raidwide to heal soon or tank buster or more dps make mistakes which they always do.

There is so much small mitigation in the kit but it also comes with heals so you dont want to waste them, why can they not have excess heals convert into shielding or something? That would be nice. Given we cannot guarantee crit shield like a scholar can, something to help us have a chunkier shield when needed would be nice, zoe makes a very small difference and again its another wasted heal at times.

[Scorbutic]

I've got to say I'm a little disappointed with how Sage turned out. I will admit that this is due to my expectations for the job though. As someone who mained and loved the playstyle of a Discipline Priest in WoW, that's more of what I was hoping for when I heard about Sage. For me, one of the most satisfying parts of a heal-through-damage class is getting that buff (Kardia in our case) on the group and then throwing a heavy hitting ability on something or a powerful dot and watching those delicious green numbers shoot out of all your teammates as their bars fill up.

That's not really a thing for ours here. Imo Kardia doesn't even feel like a main piece of our kit, rather it's just another extra bit of healing that helps smooth things out. The fact that we don't even have an aoe buff application to get Kardia on our teammates shows me that this really isn't the focus of the class. Again, this is fine and I'm still having fun with it and it's still enough to get through content, I was just hoping for something a little different than what we got.

[FoxCh40s]

Honestly, Sage requires you to be a bit of a paranoid Healer, and prepare for damage rather than react to it. It is very much like 2.0 Scholar where you prepare and null damage before it happens rather than following the White Mage/Diurnal Mindset.

Funny enough, your Ex Diag is where you get your punch of healing. The job very much does evolve its priorities as it gets higher on in level, requiring you to shift your focus from Dro to Kerachole and Physis as your go to combo. Terachole is your bread and butter, and you should basically have those on cooldown at all times in dungeons.

Sage doesn't really struggle with getting hp up fast, but the methodology is very much different than the other healers. Sage definitely does require a more practiced hand from a veteran healer to use effectively out of the gate, as knowledge of previous mechanics and healer Spidey Sense help as well.

[Szylver]

I kinda feel the devs don't understand us or maybe players from Asia are very diferent from NA/EU. All i see in the forums are people wanting better DPS rotations or more fun DPS rotations. But they gave us SGE a healer with Healing Rotations... idk SGE isn't really my style. To many buttons for cheap healing, "clicking 3 rotations" to keep tanks alive... the spells look cool at least.