Yet another SGE change proposal...but probably not like most you've seen

[Renathras]

Post 2, coming up: Healing and Utility

Heals:

Kardia System:

This version of SGE is meant to flex the Kardia system for the majority of healing needs, feeding into the sense of SGE as a “heals by doing damage” healer. While it will still have backup heals for emergency, the bulk of its healing and mitigation should be provided by its DPS rotation, with tools available to flex THOSE abilities as needed. Ideally, your healing should chiefly come through the various Kardia systems, with spot healing or additional healing being for more demanding heal check situations to augment the Kardia healing and additional effect incidental healing and mitigation from your single target spells, or if you’re not in the “right” part of your rotation when the heal check comes up, though Rhizomata is also available specifically FOR such situations.

I also have no idea why Kardia (the buff placed on the SGE themselves when using the Kardia ability, not Kardion, which is the buff placed on the target) even exists, honestly. All the healing is based on the target having Kardion, but I don’t know of any specific reason for Kardia (again, the buff) to exist as it does today. So I gave it a reason with Diagnosis just so it has SOME reason to exist. Not sure if it’s required somehow on the game’s backend, but honestly, I don’t know why it’s there, if it would cause issue with additional Kardion targets, or if it could be safely removed without any weird bugs popping up.

Kardia: Remains as it is today
Cast Time: Instant
Recast: 5s
Range: 30y
MP Cost: 0
Grants self the effect of Kardia [or not?] and a selected party member or self the effect of Kardion, restoring HP after casting certain magic attacks.

Hypokardia:
Cast Time: Instant
Recast: 60s
Range: 30y
MP Cost: 0
Grants a selected party member or self the effect of Hypokardion, restoring HP after casting certain magic attacks.
Duration: 10 seconds / 4 GCDs

Note: This is effectively AST’s Synastry, just for SGE. Also note this COULD be used on the Kardion target to simply double the healing they take. Useful for big pulls in 4 mans.

Hyperkardia:
Cast Time: Instant
Recast: 60s
Radius: 30y
MP Cost: 0
Grants self and all party members in range the effect of Hyperkardion, restoring 50% of Kardion effect HP after casting certain magic attacks.
Duration: 10 seconds / 4 GCDs

Note: This is an AOE version of Kardia for partywide healing THROUGH DEALING DAMAGE, the whole point of SGE and a thing it has no tool for right now. Along with Sestos and Pneuma, this is how you deal with party damage. Unlike Sestos and Pneuma (outside of using Phizomata), this can be used any time to add AOE healing to the party anywhere in your rotation. Used in the earlier part of your single target rotation, it will do less healing, but the tail end has Pneuma with a bomb cure anyway, so it’s not like you need it as much then at any rate. But you can optimize for throughput (if somehow FFXIV suddenly needs it…) if you really wish to, or use it at any point in your rotation to keep your rotation going while also healing the party.

Soteria: Remains as it is today except the CD
Cast Time: Instant
Recast: 60s
Grants 4 stacks of Soteria, each stack increasing the cure potency of Kardion effects granted by you by 70%
Duration 15s
Note: I’m reducing the CD by 30s from today’s 90s to grant more use since this ability will be somewhat making up for the removal of Addersgall single target spot healing. While Diagnosis is being reworked to partly fill in that gap if needed (see below), Soteria should be the go-to tool for extra tank healing, Hypokardia for off-tank or spot healing, with Diagnosis being more of a backup for when those aren’t sufficient or are on CD.

Summary of the Kardia changes: Where right now you have a largely slap on and forget “healer tank stance” Kardia, which you can in theory move around for spot healing, this changed SGE has a second Kardia for off-tank/split tank damage situations or spot healing party members, as well as a party-wide Kardia for leveraging your damage kit into AOE party healing. Both are on CDs so they’re more akin to abilities like Plenary Indulgence, Whispering Dawn, or Collective Unconscious. As stated at the start, all numbers are subject to change (both potencies and cooldowns), these are just the core ideas of “how it should generally work” and “what tools it should have”. The single target can be thought of as WHM’s Tetragrammaton, SCH’s Lustrate/Excogitation, or AST’s Essential Dignity.

I’ve felt since SGE hit with 6.0 that Kardia was a neat system that is underutilized, and I feel really leaning into it would enhance SGE’s core identity, theme, and gameplay. By adding a short duration second Kardia for spot healing and off-tank healing, and a group Kardia for party-wide healing, it allows flexing into that role in a way current SGE really misses the mark on.


Global Cooldown (GCD) Heals:

Diagnosis:
Cast Time: 1.5s
Recast: 2.5s
Range: 30y
MP Cost: 400
Cure Potency: 450
Additional Effect: Next action that would gain a combo bonus and additional effects from Dosis or Dyskrasia will gain them from Diagnosis, and increases that spell’s damage potency by 150.
Additional Effect: Heals your Kardia [self; NOT Kardion] with a cure potency of 100 [“Physicial, heal thyself.”]

NOTE: What this means (since I’m not sure the BEST way to word it) is that ANY DOSIS in your rotation may be replaced with a Diagnosis. You’ll be losing out on Dosis’ damage, but Diagnosis used this way WILL NOT INTERRUPT your rotation, as you can follow it with Stegnos or Ugros without missing a beat. This allows Diagnosis to be woven in as part of your rotational flow (in specific spots where you’d use Dosis) for spot healing with a minimal DPS loss. Note this is in addition to the Kardia additions that I will list later.

Eukrasian Diagnosis:
Cast Time: Instant
Recast: 1.5s
Range: 30y
MP Cost: 900
Cure Potency: 300 to target
Additional Effect: Erects a magicked barrier which nullifies damage equaling 180% of the amount of HP restored. When critical HP is restored, also grants Differential Diagnosis, nullifying damage equaling 180% of the amount of HP restored.
Duration: 30s
Effect cannot be stacked with Eukrasian Prognosis or Scholar’s Galvanize.

Prognosis:
Cast Time: 2s
Recast: 2.5s
Range: 0y
Radius: 15y
MP Cost: 800
Cure Potency: 350 to self and all nearby party members

Eukrasian Prognosis:
Cast Time: Instant
Recast: 1.5s
Range: 30y
MP Cost: 900
Cure Potency: 100 to target
Additional Effect: Erects a magicked barrier which nullifies damage equaling 320% of the amount of HP restored.
Duration: 30s
Effect cannot be stacked with Eukrasian Prognosis or Scholar’s Galvanize.

The main difference here is Diagnosis can be used for spot healing in the single target or AOE damage rotations at a minimal DPS loss. Otherwise these spells remain unchanged and are your “fallback” abilities in cases where your other tools have not kept up with the damage situation or things have generally gone horribly wrong in a more general sense.
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Off-Global Cooldown (oGCD) Heals/Healing Modifiers:

Zoe: Remains as it is today
Cast Time: Instant
Recast: 90s
Increases healing magic potency of your next direct healing spell by 50%
Duration 30s
NOTE: Does not apply to the HoT from Sestos is really the only modifier here. Works on any other spell with a direct healing component (not Kardia, that’s boosted by Soteria)

Pepsis: Either remove or Remains as it is today
Cast Time: Instant
Recast: 30s
Radius: 15y
Restores own HP and the HP of nearby party members by removing Eukrasian Diagnosis and Eukrasian Prognosis effects granted by you.
Eukrasian Diagnosis Cure Potency: 450
Eukrasian Prognosis Cure Potency: 350
Targets not under the effect of Eukrasian Diagnosis or Eukrasian Prognosis will not be healed.
NOTE: This remains a clutch backup heal to boost healing in emergencies.

Haima: Remains as it is today
Cast Time: Instant
Recast: 120s
Range: 30y
Erects a magicked barrier around self or target party member that absorbs damage equivalent to a heal of 300 potency.
Additional Effect…blahblahblah, you guys know how Haima works.

Holos: Remains as it is today
Cast Time: Instant
Recast: 120s
Radius: 15y
Restores own HP and the HP of all nearby party members.
Cure Potency: 300
Additional Effect: Reduces damage taken by self and nearby party members by 10%
Duration: 20s
NOTE: This is your emergency mitigation button for when Kruo is out of reach in your rotation and Rhizomata is on CD OR if you just need the additional damage reduction/mitigation. The heal is largely vestigial, but it’s in the current version, so why not? I’ve also considered rolling this effect into Hyperkardia instead, but I’d rather Hyperkardia be available a bit more often, if that makes sense.

Panhaima:
Cast Time: Instant
Recast: 120s
Radius: 15y
Erects a magicked barrier around self and all party member near you that absorbs damage equivalent to a heal of 200 potency.
Additional Effect…blahblahblah, you guys know how Panhaima works.

Krasis: Either remove or Remains as it is today
Cast Time: Instant
Recast: 60s
Range: 30y
Increases HP recovery via healing actions for a party member or self by 20%
Duration: 10s

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Utility:

Egeiro: Remains as it is today
Cast Time: 8s
Recast: 2.5s
Range: 30y
MP Cost: 2400
Resurrects target to a weakened state.

Icarus: Remains as it is today
Cast Time: Instant
Recast: 45s
Range: 25y
Rush to a targeted enemy’s or party member’s location. Unable to cast if bound.

NOTE ALSO: We COULD add some kind of buff spell here (since we have the hotbar space) akin to Chain Strat to facilitate that whole “every healer needs a damage buff” thing if the Devs decide they want to go that route and give WHM and SGE one.

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Role Actions:

SGE would retain the healer role action set, same as today, of Repose, Esuna, Swiftcst, Lucid Dreaming, Surecast, and Rescue, or whatever the other healers are getting in 7.0/whenever this change/rework would be made.

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Actions Removed:

Durochole – Effectively folded into Hypokardia

Taurochole – Effectively folded into Eukrasia Dosis

Ixochole – Effectively folded into Pneuma

Kerachole – Effectively split and folded into Setos and Kruo

Physis/Physis 2 – Effectively replaced with Hyperkardia

Phlegma1/2/3 – Effectively replaced with Eukrasia Dosis; could use the name for Eukrasian Dyskrasia, but would still be the combo action of Dyskrasia

Pepsis and Krasis are kind of on the potential chopping block as they SHOULDN’T be needed in this kit. They don’t really synergize all that well with current SCH, and I don’t see it likely they’d synergize any better with this one. Pepsis is a reverse Emergency Tactics or limited Plenary Indulgence which only works with two spells, neither of which you generally want to be casting. It can be used as an emergency backup for AOE healing, but if you get to the point you need it and have expended all your other AOE tools, you’re probably in a really bad situation where everything has gone wrong anyway. Krasis is Protraction for SCH in a way that it can make bigger shields, but unlike SCH which has Deployment Tactics, SGE does not, and Krasis is only for single targets. In practice, it can boost a clutch healing stream (several GCDs) on a single target, but we already have Soteria for the tank, Hypokardia for spot healing boosts to a party member, and Zoe to boost healing for a target anyway. As such, Krasis is generally going to be redundant vs all those other tools, and you’d go through those other tools first with higher priority anyway since they allow you to maintain rotational uptime while healing through dealing damage.

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Actions Retained, but removed as separate buttons:

Pneuma – Now takes the place of Dosis when ready like Scorch does to Jolt 2 for RDM and is a core part of the single target rotation as the finisher.

Toxicon – Now takes the place of Dyskrasia when ready like Scorch does to Impact for RDM and is a core part of the AOE rotation as the finisher.

The -chole effects above folded into other abilities.

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Action Conclusion:

The single target damage rotation is now a ROTATION.

The AOE damage rotation is not also a rotation, albeit a short one consisting of 2 buttons and 4 abilities.

The total number of buttons (including Role Actions) for one’s hotbar would be 26:

Eukrasia, Dosis, Stegnos, Ugros, Dyskrasia, Rhizomata, Kardia, Hypokardia, Hyperkardia, Soteria, Diagnosis, Prognosis, Zoe, Pepsis, Haima, Holos, Panhaima, Krasis, Egeiro, Icarus, Repose, Esuna, Lucid Dreaming, Swiftcast, Surecast, and Rescue.

Eukrasia adds the additional abilities for Dosis (Eu Dosis), Stegnos (Sestos), Ugros (Kruo), Dyskrasia (Eu Dyskrasia), Diagnosis (Eu Diagnosis), and Prognosis (Eu Prognosis). Additionally, Pneuma takes the place of Dosis and Toxicon takes the place of Dyskrasia.

Collectively, this generates a tremendously good hotbar economy (e.g. controller players, rejoice!), and makes Eukrasia a button you’ll press frequently in your rotation, rather than the current case of using it once per 30 seconds to refresh your Eu Dosis DoT and otherwise not touching it except maybe during downtime application of Eukrasian Diagnosis. The one extra button of Eukrasia is granting us an additional 6 abilities on our hotbar unlike the current game’s 3, and 4 of those (Eu Dosis, Sestos, Kruo for single target and Eu Dyskrasia for AOE) are common use parts of the player’s rotation.

Changing Eukrasia to include spell speed will prevent the devaluation of the spell speed stat for SGE. Additionally, allowing Diagnosis to substitute in for Dosis/Dyskrasia actually gives the button a reason to be on your bars outside of leveling dungeons or downtime application of the Eukrasian Diagnsosis shield, and allows spot healing for a relatively minimal DPS loss and no disruption to your rotation in cases of needing a minor spot heal but either wanting to save Hypokardia or it being on CD, effectively allowing it to function as Durochole does today at a relatively minor DPS loss. It also might make the SGE themselves slightly less likely to die in situations they must use it due to the self-heal functionality, which also gives the Kardia self-buff a purpose.

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NOTE ALSO: Again, we COULD add some kind of buff spell here (since we have the hotbar space) akin to Chain Strat to facilitate that whole “every healer needs a damage buff” thing if the Devs decide they want to go that route and give WHM and SGE one.

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Overall:

I’m not sure if people will like or hate this. But it might at least generate some interesting discussion. People have been talking about SGE as a healer that should heal primarily by doing damage, and these changes would allow that. Further, ditching the Addersgall system would make it more distinct and less prone to being accused of being a SCH clone, and ditching Addersting in favor of the combo system grants it a more meaningful rotation, both in single target and AOE, that isn’t based on DPS loss or downtime only shield application.

It still has ample movement tools, and instead of coming up with entirely new systems, flexes the class’s existing systems (Eukrasia and Kardia) to greater effect, making them more core to the Job’s gameplay and identity rather than underutilized additions that seem destined for more but falter before reaching their potential.

The Job also has a futureproof setup here, as the combo could in theory be extended or future CDs grant alterations to it (like RDM’s), and there are ample openings in the hotbar now for additional abilities to be added without overwhelming the player’s hotbar with button bloat.

So, now that I’ve rambled on for what seems like hours, the ball’s in your court, dear internet friends, enemies, and frienemies:

What do you think?

Are there changes you would make?

Do you think this isn’t perfect but is heading in the right direction?

Do you think it’s hot garbage that would be even worse than the current iteration?

What do you think? (Please be gentle… XD)

[Irenia]

As a concept, I probably would not play it but would be happy that it is in the game.

It took me awhile to figure out the basic loop because I was trying to translate it as button presses so I kept going back up to cross reference it, haha.

If I'm reading everything right, this sage has two three-step combos, with the third step being Eukrasia'd second step, which also needs the second step buff from the opposite combo on top of following after its own second step...? So 1 2 1 3 x3 1 3 1 2 x2 1(finisher).

Yeah, it is a good thing that Rhizomata exists on this particular build; the buffs being on a strict timer when played well is... awkward, and I wonder how strong the primary buffs should be, given that they both are a "Regen" and a buff to use in response to mechanics.

Besides that everything is fine, though I wonder about aesthetics. Particularly the aesthetics of the rotation. You mentioned the four humors, but it never feels like you are building up to it? It is probably a nitpick for a theoretical class that I'm not sure I'll gel with, so that that with a grain of salt.

One thing I would love to see; what is the level 50 toolkit? The essentials of the essentials. Even though this job starts at 70, an early level that feels good is still important.