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????