Some Sage Discussion

[Saefinn]

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.

The request for more fun DPS rotations is mainly because most of the time we're not actually healing and the problem is that it is boring as heck. And it seems like the best way to handle that problem whilst respecting the game's design and healing difficulty. A lot of the time, we fend off people who make the fallacy "if you want to DPS play a DPS" and it's true, but we actually want to heal, DPS is just a part of it.

As one on the "we need better DPS" side of the argument, I am still game for busier healing, because ultimately my main complaint is that Broil and Art of War spams with 30% healing 70% DPSing ratio to be really, really dull, SCH used to handle this problem with a better DPS rotation, but the best version of SCH for me has always been 2.0 and finding similarities of it in SGE I think is going to make me want to hold onto it. I like that it feels weaker because it means I feel like I have more to do. But at the same time, it isn't actually weak, it just has a higher difficulty curve to learn and benefits from you reading encounters more.

But I think it is good that not everybody likes SGE. I think all healers should play differently and appeal to different healing styles, because if you don't like how SGE heals, you might like how WHM heals as an example. I find the big problem has generally been "healers should do this, healers should do that" whereas it should be a lot more job-specific...because otherwise what you get is a more homogenised approach.
SGE has more DPS tools and a weaker pure healing kit but shines with its shields and damage reduction? Great, that's the kind of kit that I want and missed from 2.0 SCH. Sure it's DPS tools are a step down from 2.0 SCH, how busy I've felt so far I feel compensates it. Though that may change but I hope not.

I feel like the danger with the complaints about it feeling week is that do what they did to 2.0 SCH, give it better heals and find suddenly it's OP. Because the people who've optimised it better will be able to output even more DPS.

[Kacho_Nacho]

After getting past the brutal solo duty, I'm finding my opinion of Sage has somewhat changed. I still feel the job is overly busy for a healer. However, it's not underpowered. Sage is fully capable healing job. It's just different.

I found the key to playing a Sage is to play it like the Scholar you always wanted to play. Without the fairy, of course. Sorry, Eos.

[Liam_Harper]

After some discussion with a healer main friend, we stumbled on a dead end: what is SGE’s answer to Living Dead?

Make your co-heal do it, Swift-Rez, make your DRK mitigate or bring another tank.

Living Dead is an issue with DRK more than Sage tbh. Even if you can solo heal it, it's a resource drain and a thorn in our side.

[HyperiusUltima]

Make your co-heal do it, Swift-Rez, make your DRK mitigate or bring another tank.

Living Dead is an issue with DRK more than Sage tbh. Even if you can solo heal it, it's a resource drain and a thorn in our side.

SGE's answer to Living Dead, at full resources: Throw on that 20% Heal Buff, Zoe+Pneuma for a giant heal before going to Ixochole/Taurochole. Physis if you have to or put Haima to prevent damage while you heal. Soteria also is important as people more often than not forget about it - especially with how strong it is per GCD. 4.5k per GCD means you can fit 17k worth of Healing just by rolling your GCD alone 4 times. It's resource intensive, but SGE has the tools to bring up Living Dead by itself if it must.

If it comes down to it, Pepsi(s) and Diagnosis spam may be your only choices of recourse if you don't have Rhizomata or any Addersgall ready(and even then that tells that either you screwed up or too many other people in the party screwed your resources by getting hit by avoidable damage).

[Endariel]

So, walking dead or living dead?
If wd, well krasis into physis into zoe e. prognosis into pepsis + druochole.

If it's just ld, well, kindly ask your drk to never use it again, and then just cast krasia/psysis + haima for dungeons or krasis /psysis + taurochole/kerachole + holos of it's really a lot

[Deceptus]

After getting past the brutal solo duty, I'm finding my opinion of Sage has somewhat changed. I still feel the job is overly busy for a healer. However, it's not underpowered. Sage is fully capable healing job. It's just different.

I found the key to playing a Sage is to play it like the Scholar you always wanted to play. Without the fairy, of course. Sorry, Eos.

I'd agree it's busy but it's "shield" which is what is supposed to be the core of it's gameplay is extremely weak.

[Makeda]

I still feel the job is overly busy for a healer.

That how I feel about Astrologian. The difference for me is everything a Sage does seems to directly relate to something tangible for them making for smooth intuitive gameplay. Astrologion is always interrupting itself with a wholly unrelated side game of card management.

[jojober]

I would like Holos better if it applied just a shield with the damage reduction. Would feel easier to use since i wouldn’t be wasting that healing for the damage reduction.

[Miziliti]

I feel like some DRK low key hate SGE. Every time doing a dungeon with DRK as SGE is a wild ride for me.

[HyoMinPark]

SGE's answer to Living Dead, at full resources: Throw on that 20% Heal Buff, Zoe+Pneuma for a giant heal before going to Ixochole/Taurochole. Physis if you have to or put Haima to prevent damage while you heal. Soteria also is important as people more often than not forget about it - especially with how strong it is per GCD. 4.5k per GCD means you can fit 17k worth of Healing just by rolling your GCD alone 4 times. It's resource intensive, but SGE has the tools to bring up Living Dead by itself if it must.

If it comes down to it, Pepsi(s) and Diagnosis spam may be your only choices of recourse if you don't have Rhizomata or any Addersgall ready(and even then that tells that either you screwed up or too many other people in the party screwed your resources by getting hit by avoidable damage).

In other words, too much of a resource drain. It would be better to just raise the DRK—you’d spend much less on them that way.

I would like Holos better if it applied just a shield with the damage reduction. Would feel easier to use since i wouldn’t be wasting that healing for the damage reduction.

I find Holos useful if you have back-to-back raidwides—it heals the first and mitigates the second, so you and your co-heal spend less resources healing the second. You can find more uses for the mitigation versus the healing, in my opinion. Multi-hit raid wides where you won’t have Panhaima (e.g., Ahk Morn, Neo-Exdeath’s punchies pre-enrage, E12S pre-enrage, E2S pre-enrage) are a wonderful place for the initial heal + mitigation for subsequent hits. In more casual content like dungeons, I personally use it on trash packs, since the initial heal gives the tank a top-off, and then there’s the mitigation for subsequent trash pack autos.

I don’t really think I’d want it to apply a shield though. Depending on the situation where you use it, the shield won’t be as beneficial as a heal top-off.

I feel like some DRK low key hate SGE. Every time doing a dungeon with DRK as SGE is a wild ride for me.

I think this is just a lot of DRKs not utilizing proper mitigation; or perhaps not even understanding their kits. I run in to WAY too many that think their only cooldown is TBN, and refuse to use much else. I’ve seen some that completely ignore things like Reprisal and Arm’s Length on trash packs in dungeons. Some that save Rampart and Shadow Wall for bosses. I had one in the level 90 MSQ dungeon that used Oblation twice. During boss fights. Never on trash. That same DRK also used Dark Missionary and Dark Mind on packs of all physical-hitting mobs. So you can imagine how much fun I had with them…