Rework sage

[ForsakenRoe]

point is it was only in FF3 and FFTA/TA2, it's not had that much of an appearance in the series compared to other stuff like BLM or RDM, so it's a lot more free to be whatever the devs want to make this version. Also what they did in FF3 is not the same as what they did in TA (where it had a weird mix of stuff like Water, Aero, Blind, Drain and a physical skill called Ultima Blow for some odd reason), so it's not like there's consistency, even between the two incarnations we've seen previously

you really want to add 'class that can use the best black magic, best white magic, AND best summons' and make it a healer? BLM WHM SMN and RDM mains would be livid, not to mention SGE themselves due to being 'the most powerful spellcaster' and being forced into healer DPS numbers. the devs have shown multiple times that they're willing to take creative liberties on 'identity' to make it fit an MMO better. RDMs dont use melee as much as they would in FF1 (due to MP limits), DRK uses MP instead of HP to fuel attacks so they dont spend before a raidwide and kill themselves, BLM doesn't use 'elemental weakness exploitation' as a thing anymore, etc. the only class that they're adamant must 'respect identity' seems to be BLU, and even then the 'identity' they are respecting (pick from a loadout) appeared in only one game, compared to 'there is a list of 20-25 skills, collect em all' from literally every other game with BLU in it

edit: i forgot tellah from 4 existed, i guess we should give SGE in 14 the ability to cast meteor, with the side effect of permanently deleting your character

[fulminating]

In TA it also had gigaflare and esunaga, which are undeniably black and white magic

I don't really see the harm - Amdapor's white mages in lore were supposed to be able to go toe to toe with Mhach's black mages but that doesn't come across in gameplay. Selene and Eos are still introduced as if they have two separate roles, As we've seen with the summoner rework, as long as the animations are sufficiently blinding people won't care (Also a job where they've suddenly picked up the respect identity torch). I think it is worth pointing out that the red mages, black mages, dark knights and even pre-rework summoner were far more true to the core of the job than sage is.

I think I remember reading that when Yoko Taro did the nier raids he wanted character deletion to be a possible consequence. It does seem a bit of an ask to have the main devs consider it seriously though.

[Kazemon15]

"I don't like the way this class is, so please change it to something I do like."

Sage is fine the way it is. There are other 18 other jobs for you to play. Go pick one of them if you don't like this one instead of asking to change it completely just because it doesn't appeal to YOU.

[fulminating]

They changed summoner into a joke, why shouldn't they change sage too?

And 18 jobs is a vast overstatement, particularly with sage being nigh identical to the superior scholar and the three warrior clones.

[AnotherPerson]

They changed summoner into a joke, why shouldn't they change sage too?

And 18 jobs is a vast overstatement, particularly with sage being nigh identical to the superior scholar and the three warrior clones.

Uhhh... it sounds like you're just projecting your unhappiness with SMN job changes onto Sage.

Sage could definitely use more DPS skills to further cement itself as a DPS-to-heal healer, but it certainly does not need it's lore concept changed. The concept itself is fine as is. Even SMN with the job changes still fits into its FFXIV lore (3 egis limit, trance playstyle).

[Desna]

They changed summoner into a joke, why shouldn't they change sage too?

And 18 jobs is a vast overstatement, particularly with sage being nigh identical to the superior scholar and the three warrior clones.

I run all four Healer jobs. I like each for different reasons. SCH isn't superior to Sage unless your playing the Sage like a SCH or trying to run it like a pure healer (WHM,AST) the class runs well, it's dang beautiful run alongside a pure healer the only Issue I see consistently is people running it like it's DPS heal generators are going to be anything more than the cheap bandaids they are, I see SGE players often who Kardia a tank and think that's it, they can now DPS and forget they qued as a healer. The class requires active thoughtful use of all of it's abilities to run well and can solo heal even through something like a Diabolos fight filled with sprouts as long as it's run right. I think the main issue healing faces right now is too much push for DPS and a design team lacking anyone who mains healers. It's made it so healers have lost their luster and identity across the board. They should never, ever have DPS as a priority in stat build and no raid or dungeons should need their DPS contribution, the raids and dungeons should hit harder, DPS and Tanks should have less mitigation so that nobody is clearing any current content (I mean dungeons and raids not MSQ things) without a healer...minimalizing an entire class of jobs and making people scramble to keep them useful through garbage DPS has been an issue with the design teams for a while now and it keeps getting worse instead of better. Yoshi even admitted it in a live letter that they needed to get someone into the design team that actually mains healers because they could see it was an issue.

That said, I do agree with you on your other point...summoner bothers the daylights out of me, why would they even have a heal on them if it functions at Level 90 with the same potency as it did at level 10? It's ranged magical DPS counterpart, RDM can manage to Off-heal and rez dead healers in a pinch because their heal has potency that scales with level. They can survive AOE being outside healer AOE range and Summoner can't because the SMNs heal wouldn't help a papercut... that should be fixed. And Carby shouldn't be an inactive placeholder following you around waiting for you to activate spirits, he used to be active, toss little smacks while you were rebuilding for another set with the spirits, now...he just sits there useless and that's...disheartening.

[fulminating]

Yeah you're probably not far wrong. I don't think the dev's hypocrisy nor that sage features in most of the ff games I'm familiar with as the pinnacle of magic helped in the slightest.

If it has to stay as it is a way of spreading kardia to the party would be good, and a guaranteed crit ruin 2 to get bigger kardia heals but not be spammed all the time (assuming it works the same way as nascent flash). Haima and panhaima seem very samey, maybe one could be the dark arts eukrasian version of the other to free up a keybind?

[Nizzi]

Here's my hot take, rework Scholar to have more of its old DoTs and toolkit back and then leave SGE as the Fisher Price bargain bin SCH clone for anyone who actually likes that

[Mithron]

I can sympathize with fulminating on this, I think having core relations to job fantasy of its roots is really important, and the state of healers is abyssmally bad right now.

I have to stretch with my thoughts on SGE as "a healer that can heal while DPSing" with the idea of classic FF being "can cast high level White/Black/Summon magic with limited MP" identity. They certainly aren't using any White/Black/Summon magic in FF14, but given they wanted to focus on healer identity with SGE as a barrier healer specifically, they tried to make it fit by saying "they can heal with Kardia while doing damage" which kinda' fits if you really push it, but I completely sympathize with why she isn't satisfied with that.

As for the Greek names being exclusive to Ascians/ancients, I never really considered that before but also is a good point.

[ForsakenRoe]

i'd consider the 'core identity' of the XIV incarnation of a job to be outlined on the fanfest reveal slides, ie 'sage is able to temporarily augment it's magic abilities'. it doesn't exactly fulfill that particular identity descriptor atm in my opinion, but if it DID, maybe it'd feel a bit more like the master-caster of previous games, realizing that job fantasy by being 'a master of healing and damage both, able to effortlessly keep allies alive by weaving healing side-effects into it's attacks'. Kardia is like, the bottom of the barrel lowest level of this idea being used, Kardia-but-AOE is the obvious thing we're missing. Maybe it'd have worked out better for SGE and the fantasy Fulminating would prefer to see, if SGE was a pure healer, being able to just juice up it's healing potencies, rather than applying barriers in various ways. Though I think an idea that allows the SGE to heal via it's damage (the one in the dropdown, the other two i don't like as much anymore), and amplifying it's damage skills in various ways via a variety of augmenting skills, would be better for the class to define itself in the XIV landscape than 'it can cast the best black, white and summon magic'.

At it's roughest times in prog, an idea like the one I posted would mean SGE would play similarly to now, prognosis shielding for safety as needed. But at it's 'best', when everything is going well, you know the fight enough to go for the clear, etc, SGE would become the healer that is keeping everyone alive without even looking at them, via juggling stacks of augments that combine together fluidly, eg allowing it to put up safety shielding for a raidwide, 'BY doing DPS' rather than 'instead of doing DPS'. I can envision a scene in my mind, a shot from a trailer for a hypothetical new expansion where the WOL is a SGE. Walking through a battlefield full of enemies and allies fighting each other, think of the original ARR one with the Garleans and the Eorzean alliance clashing at Carteneu. As he walks, without needing to react to anything around him, the nouliths shoot enemies, heal allies, project barriers to protect himself, all without breaking his stride. Of course, it's kinda harder to represent that in gameplay, but I think my idea pitch would be close. At least, closer than what we have now

maybe the greek means SGE is secretly derived from medical studies the ancients did, in the same way they're derived from old medical terms of the real world, plot of level 100 job quest leaked????