What reasons to play SGE over WHM or SCH?

[ASkellington]

None.

Ok now that I got the most unhelpful answer out my system I don't play SGE because:

- I already play WHM w/ Cards and I have no desire to play SCH w/o Fairy
- Icarus is legitimately the only thing I find fun about it
- The aesthetic doesn't work for me

Personally, play the healers yourself and pick the one you like.

All the healers are viable.
All the healers have things about them that people either like or dislike (I hate how slow WHM is but that seems to be what WHM mains like and so I stick to high APM AST).
You won't know if you like it unless you play it.

[HyoMinPark]

I play all four healers, but I mainly raid on SGE. Here’s the reasons why I’d pick each one to play—some of them boil down to “what kind of content am I doing” and “what is my mood today”.

White Mage—I tend to play WHM when I want to completely turn my brain off and not think about anything. Compared to its direct competitor (AST), WHM doesn’t have anything to think about, so I can just mindlessly spam Glare until my controller button breaks. Exactly as the developers intended! With the changes to the Lilies and Misery now being DPS neutral, I am not punished for using them; I feel like they’re pretty comfy, and I always have them as an answer for raidwides. I don’t like playing WHM pre-76 because I have no idea why we need to wait that long for Afflatus Rapture, but what do I know. I’d rather a WHM in low level content over the other healers, I guess? I don’t know. None of them are that great to play below level 70, in my opinion. Even if they aren’t all that different, they tend to have more fun healing stuff at higher levels versus just GCDs at lower ones.

I do really like Assize’s animation, so another plus?


Astrologian—I tend to play AST when I want some mental stimulation from a healer. It’s the only one that requires any amount of thought put into how it’s played, and that’s usually in regards to card utilization and optimization. If I want to play card games, then I play AST. It also has a fairly decent healing toolkit that was the main reason I even bothered to look at it after ShB butchered the card system. I used to prog on AST because it was the healer I was most comfortable on—but now I take WHM or SGE for newer content/prog because I don’t want to have to think about the cards. However, AST’s current mana economy does make it a bit easier to recover from. I used it on my first run of Aglaia this patch, and I think the others would have struggled with mana from all the Raising I had to do. Plus, Lightspeed + Ascend was really handy for getting people up and getting them up quickly.


Sage—Uh, it has laser beams and how could you go wrong with that??? To be honest, the main draw for me when it comes to SGE is its aesthetic, and it’s why I swapped from physical ranged to healer in Savage. I play SGE in raids, and I tend to play it when I want oGCD answers to literally everything. SGE has a well-rounded oGCD healing toolkit, and Addersgall is a lot smoother system than SCH’s Aetherflow, in my opinion. I like how more controlled Kardia is over Embrace, and I like swapping it around to heal people when they stand in the bad/take avoidable damage. It gives me another small layer of something to do versus just using an oGCD on them and calling it a day.

However, I don’t like playing SGE in anything under level 70 because I don’t have any of my fun healing stuff, and Kerachole doesn’t have a regen under level 78 (much sadge). Ironically, I cannot stand the sound of Eukrasian Prognosis. Mostly because so many SGEs spam it like it’s the only button on their bars. (Don’t do that.)


Scholar—I tend to play SCH when I just want to meme it up because it’s the weakest of my four healers. I’ve never been the best at it, but I’ll play it on occasion when I want something “different”. I’ve always liked the fairy, and I wish it was less clunky/more expanded upon. Mostly, I think I go for SCH when I want an aesthetic change.



If I’m spamming content—like maybe the 24-man for my weekly drop, I tend to shuffle between the healers just for variety. But sometimes I just want my brain turned off, so I’ll opt to play SGE. Contrary to what some say, I personally don’t find it any more engaging than WHM. I think it’s pretty simple to play and doesn’t really require as much thought as other say it does. At most, you have to plan out oGCD usages, but that’s really not that difficult to do. After doing the dance for any encounter a few times, you’ll learn when and where things are available, and SGE will usually always have an oGCD answer to every raidwide if you manage them properly.

SGE’s damage and healing outputs are fine. Personal damage is higher than SCH/AST to account for the lack of any sort of raid buffs, and its healing isn’t anything to scoff at. I do more HPS than my AST co-healer in Savage raids on a very consistent basis (not to say they don’t heal—they do). It may not have the “recovery potential” that WHM has, but honestly, WHM’s recovery potential is lower this expansion than in the previous ones—mainly due to things like it’s mana economy not being bottomless like it was in SB and ShB. SGE isn’t meant to be a recovery healer, though—it’s a healer that mitigates/prevents damage by using its toolkit. It does have some reactive heals to it (Physis, Ixochole), so it’s not entirely proactive. Kind of a mixture of proactive and reactive.

I honestly don’t use GCD shields that often, so I’m talking more so about its oGCD kit: Haima, Panhaima, Kerachole, and Holos. E.Diag and E.Prog I rarely use in content (unless it’s the only thing I have due to something like level sync—or my party is that much of a mess that I’ve burned through all my Addersgall stacks), and I hardly never press Pepsis. My two go-to heals are Kerachole and Ixochole—one or the other will be up for virtually any raidwide in any piece of content in this game, so it can be just as “reactive” as WHM can be, in my opinion.




At the end of the day, I think it boils down to which healer aesthetic do you like, and which toolkit do you prefer. Healers are mostly all the same job with a different coat of paint on them. They’re all very strong and can do basically the same things as each other. They’re all ridiculously easy to play; they all have the relatively same DPS kit (you’ll spend most of your time using that over your healing kit, so that’s why I’m pointing it out). There isn’t much of a difference, in my opinion. At a basic/more casual level, they all more or less bring the same things to a party. Pick your favorite and go with it.

[Bonkleberry]

I agree that SGE seems lacking. I only played SGE to level 80 and I was already starting to struggle with large pulls in the Shadowbringers dungeons that are cake walks as the other three healers. WHM and AST have their HoTs to continue trickle healing the Tanks as they weave damage, move around, and perform healing. SCH has their fairy. SGE can only trickle heal reliably while doing damage, which you are not always doing while dodging mechincs, repositioning, and healing. They are at a huge disadvantage with their trickle heal mechanic compared to other healers.

[WaxSw]

I agree that SGE seems lacking. I only played SGE to level 80 and I was already starting to struggle with large pulls in the Shadowbringers dungeons that are cake walks as the other three healers. WHM and AST have their HoTs to continue trickle healing the Tanks as they weave damage, move around, and perform healing. SCH has their fairy. SGE can only trickle heal reliably while doing damage, which you are not always doing while dodging mechincs, repositioning, and healing. They are at a huge disadvantage with their trickle heal mechanic compared to other healers.

...No? Sage is actually the strongest dungeon healer, has damage neutral AoE heal that also mitigates and enough tools to keep attacking nearly 100% of the time, Haima and Panhaima literally trivializes wall to walls and when used properly are among the strongest heals every healer has, shielding between pulls become a gain thanks to toxicon and later on it unlocks Pneuma which is not only an AoE gain but can be a 900 potency AoE heal. In dungeons Sage is second to none

Sage for when you want to play the strongest solo healer or want a streamlined Sch experience, Sch is better for optimization and 8 mans if you have a decent cohealer and Whm is for when you want a slower gameplay not caring much about weaving

[AnotherPerson]

I agree that SGE seems lacking. I only played SGE to level 80 and I was already starting to struggle with large pulls in the Shadowbringers dungeons that are cake walks as the other three healers. WHM and AST have their HoTs to continue trickle healing the Tanks as they weave damage, move around, and perform healing. SCH has their fairy. SGE can only trickle heal reliably while doing damage, which you are not always doing while dodging mechincs, repositioning, and healing. They are at a huge disadvantage with their trickle heal mechanic compared to other healers.

1.At start of the wall to wall pull, do some damage until tank drops to 70% HP or lower. Run, tag mobs with Eukrasian Dosis or shield your tank with Eukrasian Diagnosis.
2.After tank stops and have less than 70% HP, Apply Physis II + Kerachole + Haima together OR Physis II + Kerachole + Panhaima together so your regens heal while the shield takes time to break
3.Watch as tank turn immortal as you DPS for the next 15 seconds
4.Apply an addersgall healing if needed (Taurochole/Kerachole), or Holos + Soteria and continue to DPS as you watch the HP drop to a slow crawl
5.Repeat steps 1 to 4.

Sage is all about layering regens/mitigations/barriers together so damage comes very slowly (or none at all) and they can DPS to heal the remaining amount. If you can remember to stack skills together, you won't run into this issue at all because waves are designed to be cleared within ~60 seconds between wall to wall pulls, so Physis II and Kerachole will always be up to start, followed by a rotation of Haima, Panhaima, Holos & Soteria. If your team is doing above average DPS, then you can apply a Taurochole instead of a Kerachole while waiting for Physis II to be off cooldown.

With the new change to Soteria, now you heal 20% more per Kardion activation, so attacking the enemy is not an issue unless you're moving a lot more than needed. If you need to, you can always start moving between casting Dosis (1.5 second cast, but you have roughly ~1.5 seconds rather than 1 second to move since you only need to wait 0.8 seconds before the cast is guaranteed to finish). Alternatively, for heavy movement phases, use your Phlegma III. The more instances where you have to move and cannot attack, the more instances you lose healing and damage (which is worse than not using Phlegma in DPS buff windows), so just think ahead of where you want to position yourself and use Phlegma, Dosis, or Icarus to move quickly before optimizing your Phlegma casts for DPS. If you're heavily struggling for movement optimization to the point you can't keep up with healing, you can always use Toxikon I for movement too.

At level 90, you simply do the same steps, but add Krasis before using Physis II.

If you did all the above suggestions correctly, it's a gear issue or your tank's just not mitigating.

[Shuuli]

When I heal I play SCH if I want to do something that needs to be relied on. - the meme skill is actually a super powerful tool in many cases with the speed boost and mitigation. Scholar has a very good kit but it does take a bit of time to get the feel of when to use what.

I play SGE when I am leveling with some friends and I ALWAYS find it lacking. I just don't know what the fudge am I doing wrong but in all situations where if I would take a scholar, I would be able to do a bits of dpsing in between, with SGE I cannot do dpsing even though it should be good enough as a heal, it isnt... Maybe if I reach 90 my opinion will change.

Astro is good heal, good buff to the party. LOTS OF BUTTONS. But I really like the feel of it though. I like it much better than SGE.

WHM: I am leveling it, I cannot really form opinion on the job so far. But I met so many WHM with "interesting" mindsets... this made me reluctant for a long time to even touch this job.

[EusisLandale]

I play SGE when I am leveling with some friends and I ALWAYS find it lacking. I just don't know what the fudge am I doing wrong but in all situations where if I would take a scholar, I would be able to do a bits of dpsing in between, with SGE I cannot do dpsing even though it should be good enough as a heal, it isnt... Maybe if I reach 90 my opinion will change..

Haima/Panhaima (Alternate between pulls, I generally start with Pan so it's up for bosses that might want it) + Kerachole, Taurochole (+Physis II sometimes), Kerachole. Most if not all trash should be dead before that set of mitigation buffs fall off. If something's going wrong, you've still got Holos, then Kerachole, Taurochole, Kerachole again before you hit a period where there's no mitigation up. Just short of two full minutes of -10% damage, and a minute overall of regeneration on top of your Kardia. Generally the only reason you'd need to heal directly is if your tank isn't mitigating right or has just grabbed more than the group's gear can handle.

[ty_taurus]

If we're talking about healer performance, I see no reason to choose WHM over any of the other healers, let alone SGE. The Misery buff really helped WHM catch up with the healing capabilities and DPS uptime as the other healers, but WHM still lags behind every other healer in overall lack of damage, limited mitigation tools, and utter lack of utility.

AST, SGE, and SCH all feel more balanced with nuance, and any combination of these 3 has its own merits.

SGE also lacks utility like WHM does, but actually does have numbers to back that up. Play it well, and SGE is able to edge out SCH and AST in damage by a fair chunk. It also offers the most consistent sustained healing, largely invalidating the need to worry about chip damage on the main tank, and has lots of mitigation to keep up with hard hitting raid-wides.

SCH shares some of SGE's strengths in mitigation and sustain, though offers lower total damage. Chain Stratagem helps to a point, but a good SGE will still outperform SCH. Instead, SCH offers some elements of utility that can help parties that may continue to have difficulty with specific mechanics. Expedient helps for position-heavy mechanics, and deployment critlo is the largest party barrier in the game, enabling a team to survive through really busy mechanics or messy performance. Neither of these are necessary, but they add a layer of safety that SGE does not provide.

AST offers both incredibly burst healing and sustain healing. SCH and SGE is a powerful combo, but can at times struggle with burst healing where AST can resolve it entirely with Macrocosmos by themselves. Their biggest weakness is their low total damage contributions, but since a part of that stems from party buffs, even moreso than SCH. For statics, healers are typically lowest priority on raid gear, but AST's buffs will be further enhanced when their party's DPS get new gear, making them that much more valuable in the early stages of a raid tier. This is true for SCH as well and hurts WHM and SGE.

[IceBlueNinja]

fReason I play sage

Whm= bad mp management and mobility. Sage can easy fix big damage with powerful ogcs like physis +kera to things like zoe that can increase heals.

Sch= shields is caster and sages are instant. E diag or least mine covers mine or entire dps bar or half tank bar( i can show pics) and again is instant. Sage kardia is better than silly slow fairy heals. sages are not locked out of anything unlike sch clunky pet stuff.

Sages shields can beat schs both party and single wise cause again zoe krasis increasing spell potency of heals. hamia and panima not only does good migi it does big burst heals per shield stack, something sch weak shields cant do so theres a reason to shield more. sage mp management is excellent ever worry on mp issue. Books as weapon is so silly imo, I rather my lovely flying weapons like ast telekensis globes or rdm floating thingies.

Ast= got boring into a mobile cheaper whm and the lore of the job is totally lost its still good am sure but meh. Like sge is called copy paste ofc sch ast is same thing with minor differences just like how sage have some minor differences to sch

Few things too I didnt mention is holos and incarus. Am glad I got a dream to got a gap close as a healer and sage as a poweful aoe early at 26 both good in trash and boss fights event something the other 3 do not have. phelgma is a nice 550 pot hit on boss so the reduce 50% damage is pointless which only would apply on trash mobs clearing.

Idk why sch shields are priclaim better when e diag and alco is both powerful the same. Hamia and pani migi then big burst heals and kera and holos reduce 10% each and stack. only time sch party shields are better imo is that extra annoying step.of recite with dt else by itself succor is weak. Noct ast still had better party shields than sge or sch to me still lol and dirunal shields and noct shields all could stack. Miss you sb ast.

[IceBlueNinja]

1.At start of the wall to wall pull, do some damage until tank drops to 70% HP or lower. Run, tag mobs with Eukrasian Dosis or shield your tank with Eukrasian Diagnosis.
2.After tank stops and have less than 70% HP, Apply Physis II + Kerachole + Haima together OR Physis II + Kerachole + Panhaima together so your regens heal while the shield takes time to break
3.Watch as tank turn immortal as you DPS for the next 15 seconds
4.Apply an addersgall healing if needed (Taurochole/Kerachole), or Holos + Soteria and continue to DPS as you watch the HP drop to a slow crawl
5.Repeat steps 1 to 4.

Sage is all about layering regens/mitigations/barriers together so damage comes very slowly (or none at all) and they can DPS to heal the remaining amount. If you can remember to stack skills together, you won't run into this issue at all because waves are designed to be cleared within ~60 seconds between wall to wall pulls, so Physis II and Kerachole will always be up to start, followed by a rotation of Haima, Panhaima, Holos & Soteria. If your team is doing above average DPS, then you can apply a Taurochole instead of a Kerachole while waiting for Physis II to be off cooldown.

With the new change to Soteria, now you heal 20% more per Kardion activation, so attacking the enemy is not an issue unless you're moving a lot more than needed. If you need to, you can always start moving between casting Dosis (1.5 second cast, but you have roughly ~1.5 seconds rather than 1 second to move since you only need to wait 0.8 seconds before the cast is guaranteed to finish). Alternatively, for heavy movement phases, use your Phlegma III. The more instances where you have to move and cannot attack, the more instances you lose healing and damage (which is worse than not using Phlegma in DPS buff windows), so just think ahead of where you want to position yourself and use Phlegma, Dosis, or Icarus to move quickly before optimizing your Phlegma casts for DPS. If you're heavily struggling for movement optimization to the point you can't keep up with healing, you can always use Toxikon I for movement too.

At level 90, you simply do the same steps, but add Krasis before using Physis II.

If you did all the above suggestions correctly, it's a gear issue or your tank's just not mitigating.

Only time I struggle with dungeon pulls is with dark nights, else I never really struggle specially out dated shadow bringers issue.