[Sage] Fixing Toxikon

[ssunny2008]

a movement tool on the already most mobile healer. its purpose is already defeated

Toxikon is fine where it is for its movement reason.

There are fights where you need to be fast e.g. P2s/P3s. So in the start you gave the tank a busted shield, it broke and you get your stack to use toxikon later where you actually need it. Otherwise you would need to save a stack of Phlegma and it´s something you don´t want, because you want to use it in burst phases and you´ve to stay close to the enemy.

So far Toxikon is fine as it is. It´s a niche tool for damage / mobility - optimization. There is no need to fix or to rework it. It´s like SSS... useful niche-tools, no need to make use of every button 100% of the time.

[EnnCee]

I love my sage: run-and-gun healing! nothing better, BUT I rarely use toxikon because I don't have the time to pay attention to generating addersting. so, for me, it's just a wasted skill slot. I love all the rest and even with the server-tick/lag deaths that we all are suffering from, I don't really feel much need to complain.

fix toxikon?? yes, PLEASE!

[Archwizard]

I think the problem I see in a lot of discussions about Toxikon (and for that matter, Afflatus Misery) is that people complain about it being a DPS loss... because you can't fish for it.

Except, that defeats the point of such abilities overall. You're not meant to fish for a damage boost via healing, because encourage wasting vital tools overhealing your target for a damage gain (in this case, wasting large amounts of MP overhealing your tank in the hopes autoattacks will shatter the shield), over using such tools as they're needed.
At best they're supposed to recoup the damage loss incurred in a situation where you would need to use a GCD heal, a consolation reward for doing your job well.

That said, viewing them through this lens does highlight two issues:

1. Being the same potency as Dosis, Toxikon fails to recoup any of the damage lost from GCD healing. Outside an AoE scenario, there is no difference in following up an E.Diagnosis with a Toxikon vs with a regular Dosis, besides being an instant cast which needs to be charged on the GCD in the first place. Within an AoE scenario, it only offers a slight damage gain on your main target.

2. Since this is a game where even healer DPS is essential, using your GCDs healing instead of inflicting damage means you are "penalized" for doing the job you were brought in for.
This is especially noteworthy as a number of oGCD skills are equally or more potent for the purposes of healing than any available GCD heals themselves, so you're encouraged to burn through your whole repertoire before touching the core skills of your job -- which means tools and traits to build off of them tend to waste space.

But y'know, #2's more of a "general healer" concern really.

[ty_taurus]

I think the problem I see in a lot of discussions about Toxikon (and for that matter, Afflatus Misery) is that people complain about it being a DPS loss... because you can't fish for it.

Except, that defeats the point of such abilities overall. You're not meant to fish for a damage boost via healing, because encourage wasting vital tools overhealing your target for a damage gain (in this case, wasting large amounts of MP overhealing your tank in the hopes autoattacks will shatter the shield), over using such tools as they're needed.
At best they're supposed to recoup the damage loss incurred in a situation where you would need to use a GCD heal, a consolation reward for doing your job well.

That said, viewing them through this lens does highlight two issues:

1. Being the same potency as Dosis, Toxikon fails to recoup any of the damage lost from GCD healing. Outside an AoE scenario, there is no difference in following up an E.Diagnosis with a Toxikon vs with a regular Dosis, besides being an instant cast which needs to be charged on the GCD in the first place. Within an AoE scenario, it only offers a slight damage gain on your main target.

2. Since this is a game where even healer DPS is essential, using your GCDs healing instead of inflicting damage means you are "penalized" for doing the job you were brought in for.
This is especially noteworthy as a number of oGCD skills are equally or more potent for the purposes of healing than any available GCD heals themselves, so you're encouraged to burn through your whole repertoire before touching the core skills of your job -- which means tools and traits to build off of them tend to waste space.

But y'know, #2's more of a "general healer" concern really.

The problem with this mentality is that I never E. Diagnosis to begin with. I have so many other more prominent and useful single target heals that not only come first, but also have really short cooldowns, not to mention the very nature of Kardia often means I simply don't need to single target heal at all. I'll grant that I'm not finished with P3S and P4S yet, but unless I can't target the boss, the only times I've ever cast E. Diagnosis were last ditch efforts to try and survive in a desperate situation that never ended up in a clear anyway because there were too many mistakes to meet the DPS check.

E. Prognosis on the other hand does see a lot more value since it's great for giving you that added buffer right now when gear levels are low and some raid-wides are chewing through HP like it's nothing. It's a niche tool in the grand scheme of things, but worthwhile none-the-less.

[Silver-Strider]

I think the problem I see in a lot of discussions about Toxikon (and for that matter, Afflatus Misery) is that people complain about it being a DPS loss... because you can't fish for it.

Op isn't asking for a Damage boost though. They're asking for Toxicon to be made DPS neutral so that healers aren't punished for utilizing their GCD toolkit. A good 1/3 of most healer's toolkit revolves around GCD healing but it's the least utilized portion of our toolkit because the game's designs runs counter to using them. You can't beat a boss thru healing nor can you can't heal thru a hard enrage so the reasonable thing to do is ask how do you expand our GCD healing toolkit to be DPS neutral so that we can continue to do our jobs while also being aligned with the game's design.

Adding Skills and Traits that offer a way to make up for the deficiencies of our GCD healing toolkit is the only viable way to do so. You could argue that it creates button bloat but that argument only applies if you actually add in skills and not just utilize methods that condenses them. In OP's case, if Myorrhexis functions in a similar fashion to Seraph and Consultation, then you don't create button bloat because Toxicon would merely be replaced with Myorrhexis after using it. No button bloat, Toxicon is now DPS neutral and all is right with the world. From there, its just a manner of doing something similar for other healers and we can work from there. It would be a DPS buff only in the cases in which GCD healing was unavoidable, which is only really true when things go wrong and in regards to endgame, GCD healing in high percentiles are practically non-existent anyways (outside of WHM) so this would only really serve to raise the skill floor of healers and keeps the ceiling relatively unchanged.

[EaMett]

Am I the only one that thinks this mechanic works great as is? Yes, you NEED downtime to build the resource and a couple of fights don't have any (P1S/P4S). But generally speaking, you always have sufficient Addersting for every fight. And in the case of P1S you don't even need any. + In dungeons, you get them by the dozen.
I feel like Adderstings are in the perfect sweet spot right now. They give you almost exactly however many you need for each fight and it's down to you to manage them properly. If they made it any better sage would have infinite mobility.
It's really one of the few things I enjoy working towards on sage and that has made the skill ceiling nice to strive for.

[Archwizard]

They give you almost exactly however many you need for each fight and it's down to you to manage them properly. If they made it any better sage would have infinite mobility.

I don't think that's necessarily true, and I do think there are ways it could be improved without making it overpowered.

For instance, make Pepsis give an Addersting if you consume at least one E.Diagnosis on activation. That way you could use it to build a charge during downtime, and have actual value in Pepsis affecting E.Diagnosis in the first place. Not to mention it could be a niche tool if partied with a SCH or another SGE who might overwrite your barrier to build their own Addersting, ie roulettes.
Honestly, that could even be a QoL buff they could add to it in a .x patch.

Or -- again, for downtime purposes, and to save you a Pepsis -- have a spell (or ability that triggers GCD) that just generates an Addersgall, much like Umbral Soul, Meditate or Soulsow... though I would worry about this option since it would directly contribute to button bloat in the future.

Or, have Rhizomata give an Addersting outright, if they're feeling saucy. Could see that being a trait in the future, particularly if they ever made Toxikon outright stronger than Dosis to recoup some of the damage from barrier casting.

[EaMett]

I don't think that's necessarily true, and I do think there are ways it could be improved without making it overpowered.

For instance, make Pepsis give an Addersting if you consume at least one E.Diagnosis on activation. That way you could use it to build a charge during downtime, and have actual value in Pepsis affecting E.Diagnosis in the first place. Not to mention it could be a niche tool if partied with a SCH or another SGE who might overwrite your barrier to build their own Addersting, ie roulettes.
Honestly, that could even be a QoL buff they could add to it in a .x patch.

Or -- again, for downtime purposes, and to save you a Pepsis -- have a spell (or ability that triggers GCD) that just generates an Addersgall, much like Umbral Soul, Meditate or Soulsow... though I would worry about this option since it would directly contribute to button bloat in the future.

Or, have Rhizomata give an Addersting outright, if they're feeling saucy. Could see that being a trait in the future, particularly if they ever made Toxikon outright stronger than Dosis to recoup some of the damage from barrier casting.

At the very least, there isn't a fight in the current content that requires more Adderstings than you can get. You can already cover 100% mobility for all fights. So in that sense, there doesn't seem to be a need to improve it.
We'll see what the future has in store for us. But right now, if you feel like you don't have enough Addersting and you need more mobility, then that means you most likely messed up somewhere along the way.

[ForteNightshade]

At the very least, there isn't a fight in the current content that requires more Adderstings than you can get. You can already cover 100% mobility for all fights. So in that sense, there doesn't seem to be a need to improve it.
We'll see what the future has in store for us. But right now, if you feel like you don't have enough Addersting and you need more mobility, then that means you most likely messed up somewhere along the way.

This is simply untrue. P4S has a plethora of movement without any downtime. Act II, IV and Finale alone all require running around the arena quickly, thereby making it extremely tight or straight up impossible to slide cast. This gets worse if you're doing uptime Act III since healers are literally going from one side of the arena to the other. Although, Icarus does help here. Nevertheless, Scholar has Ruin II at only a 95 potency loss, Astro has Light Speed and even White Mage has Lilies for the heavy AoE spam portion which actually works in their favor since they need to heal anyway.

Sage is the only healer in P4S that just takes a giant L.

[EaMett]

This is simply untrue. P4S has a plethora of movement without any downtime. Act II, IV and Finale alone all require running around the arena quickly, thereby making it extremely tight or straight up impossible to slide cast. This gets worse if you're doing uptime Act III since healers are literally going from one side of the arena to the other. Although, Icarus does help here. Nevertheless, Scholar has Ruin II at only a 95 potency loss, Astro has Light Speed and even White Mage has Lilies for the heavy AoE spam portion which actually works in their favor since they need to heal anyway.

Sage is the only healer in P4S that just takes a giant L.

ACT II can be covered with sprint, one Phlegma, one Toxicon and one Icarus (and some slidecasting). You also get an e.Dosis window towards the end.
ACT IV will depend on where you start from but it can generally be covered with one Icarus, one Phlegma, one Toxicon, and some good placement + slide casting. You essentially only need a movement tool for every other tether (so two total).
For Finale, you can pick whatever skill you want from everything you have left since you won't need any Toxicon for the rest of the fight (IIRC). So feel free to Toxicon, Phlegma, Icarus, etc. etc. You'll most likely only need two options, maybe a third if you're really unlucky.

And I haven't even mentioned swift + dosis. That's another item you have available if you want to save Phlegma for burst windows or something unexpected happened and you're low on mobility options.

P4S phase 2 lasts ~ 8mns. If I round down all the options we have, that's anywhere between 22 and 49 GCDs of movement depending on whether you can leverage Icarus and/or e.Dosis for movement (5 Swiftcasts + 16 phlegma + 3 Toxicon + 8 icarus + 15 e.dosis). For the record, I also assume you might want to use a couple of Swiftcasts for easy pneuma healing. That's roughly 2-6 options per minute. You can absolutely get 100% mobility on the fight. And the door boss is similar.

I will agree that the last section is a bit of a pain on sage but that has nothing to do with movement.

Edit: And ACT III uptime doesn't change much compared to the more traditional strat for movement. It just shifts when you use your "movement" gcd from using it to go take the earth shaker to using it to get the second tower.