Some Sage Discussion

[rewd]

I like the fact that Sage is really busy. Feels like HW Dark Knight on a healer. Such a fun job.

It's the least busy healer after WHM, though.

[Atamis]

Something minor that has bugged me as I get comfortable with sage is that the auto attack is melee. Shouldn't the flying lazers just pew once in a while? It just looks silly doing a monk impression during the rare times I'm stacking in melee range. Would it truly be game breaking and sacrilegious for the healer equiped with flying guns to do ranged auto attacks?

[Averax]

Having played sage for longer i'm getting more comfortable with Eukrasia.

However my current gripe is with Toxicon, i'm not sure when to use it as it doesn't seem to really beat out a dosis or dyskrasia, at least not at my level (81). Should i just consider it my "ruin 2" and use it to cast while moving? If so i don't really think it warrants a resource cost the way it does.

[Seraphor]

I'm going to borrow a quote from Mr Happy here.

"If Sages were given any buffs, what's the point of even using any of the other 3 healers?"

We are in an excellent spot, there's just a learning curve to adhere to when it comes to them.

That said I'd absolutely make Toxikon an OGCD, it's a movement button sure (we already have Phlegma for that to be fair) but the fact it costs addersting, is only damage neutral except when used as an opener and is a GCD makes it a very clumsy resource spender.

Phlegma isn't a movement skill because of how potent it is, you need to use it on cooldown, not save it for movement.

[AnotherPerson]

Phlegma isn't a movement skill because of how potent it is, you need to use it on cooldown, not save it for movement.

Untrue, you have 2 charges for a reason. You either choose to use both for a big attack, or you can choose to use one charge and then save the other for melee movement/double weaving. The flexibility is there depending on what suits your needs at the time without stopping your GCD throughout the whole fight. If you can optimize and use both charges for damage in burst windows, go for it. If doing that would cost you a GCD when you have to move and slidecasting with Dosis can't cover it... then you didn't optimize your Phlegma /Toxikon stacks well enough and ended up losing more than if you had just saved Phlegma for movement.

[Rilifane]

Exactly. Phlegma can serve well as a movement tool and with its 45s cooldown per charge, it won't naturally align with every 2min burst anyway.
And the 6y range is fairly lenient for a "melee skill" because you can use it even when halfway out and still cover enough distance to get at full range within the GCD. Not every movement can be covered with slidecasting, some Lilies, Ruin IIs, non-burst Phlegmas and even Toxikons will be necessary. Better that than doing nothing because "burst optimization".

[Miziliti]

In many of the high-end fights, we have many situation where each healer heals their own respective portion of the damage and have to heal separate objective such as ST/OT. I have already seen parties that deny SGE by locking the spot to SCH.
IMO the bare minimum adjustment for Sage healing is the following:

• Diagnosis to 700 potency without changing E. Diagnosis: this is to quickly bring up hp of the revived party member. I had many situations where I have nothing but E. diagnosis because my addersgall is for the next incoming party aoe/tank buster. I have to pray that the downed is healed by co-healer. No boss is really gonna wait for me to cast multiple cure 1. (WHM/AST/SCH laughing with their fat heal) Hell, I sometimes couldn't even save myself after I get revived. It is just stressful.
  
  
• Rhizomata to 60s cooldown: addersgall feels harder to preserve even though it charges up after some time. SCH aetherflow is 3 stacks right away per 60s for multiple uses.
  
  
• Holos and Panhaima to 90s: this would make boss heavy constant damage situation much more manageable without taxing the co-healer.
  
  
• Haima to 60s at least: Consider SCH Exocogitation is 45s. Haima on the other hand with similar usage is a harsh 120s for no reason. I hated the idea that I must save Haima for tank buster and no other use when SCH can throw Excog on revived party member as well as constantly throws it at the tank on ANY situation.

[gumas]

sage is ok for me so far, love the funnel lol

- icarus being 2 charge is fine by me, but considering we heal from range, is there any point being 2 charge? unless it has additional effect like instantly heal the target party member who we charge to, then yeah flying to someone is going to be a habit.

- i take soteria skill want to be the "plan ahead" skill, so when tank aggro a lot, you pop soteria and hope the extra heal from kardia can help you more, but it kinda fall flat for me since extra 50% effect for 130 potency is heal is not a lot at all.

in my mind, i want soteria to become a skill when you active, the kardia effect will trigger by itself every 3 seconds or something like that, basically when it active, it become temporary auto regen.

- i feel like eukrasian diagnosis and prognosis should be pure barrier only skill, i always use this as opening skill for my tank, so the direct 300 potency heal feel kinda wasted since the tank is usually still at full hp, if the tank drop to half or something, i just use the "addersgall" heal or just normal heal.

- dyskrasia (our aoe attack) should be on range? i mean its funnel, its flying around, why we need to get close to our enemy? lol

[Dearche]

I feel like I'm on the opposite side of the fence for a lot of people regarding sage.

Frankly speaking, most of its kit is reasonably strong, and there's a surprisingly little anti-synergy with SCH. Sure, our shields overwrite, but if you're together with a SCH, just don't use them. SGE mostly relies on damage reduction and regen in the first place.

While we won't know for sure until savage drops, I think SGE's only real weaknesses is on the single target heals, pepsis being crap, Icarus and Rhizomata needing a second charge, the anti-synergy regarding addersting generation and usage, and soteria's weirdly long CD.

Overall, I've found use for pretty much every skill SGE has, and had no real trouble doing either EX trials.

SGE feels a bit weak, but I don't think it play weak at all.

[NobleWinter]

I really like Pepsis in particular because it changes the timing of your shielding to be more intuitive with the way a Scholar plays to avoid overwriting each other. Scholar has bigger shields so they are the logical choice to use a GCD shield for the party before damage comes out if needed. Once a cast bar for a raid wide starts a Scholar who still needs to GCD heal is going to use Emergency Tactics to transform their next Succor or Adlo into raw healing. A Sage in the same party would use Eukrasion Prognosis/Diagnosis to burst heal AFTER damage goes out to take advantage of Pepsis and convert their barriers into more healing. Emergency Tactics tells a Scholar to Shield before damage happens. Pepsis tells a Sage to Shield after because if the shields are absorbed by damage Pepsis can't be used. If you understand both toolkits you shouldn't ever be overwriting GCD shields and this entire situation assumes that both healers are completely out of oGCDs to begin with. I'm actually very pleased by the shield healers synergy. Pepsis is clever in that regard although it feels very odd for anyone coming from Scholar since it's the reverse of what your habits are.