Rework sage

[Semirhage]

is simply the BLM of healers whose selfish DPS is several steps above the other healers.

Which is further insult to injury for WHM, whose identity is now "zero utility, but is still outdamaged by the other zero-utility healer, because lol get rek'd WHM your only identity is mediocrity".

[ty_taurus]

Which is further insult to injury for WHM, whose identity is now "zero utility, but is still outdamaged by the other zero-utility healer, because lol get rek'd WHM your only identity is mediocrity".

WHM is meant to be a part of that "the other healers who have utility worth the exchange of offense." I've said many many times the entire healing role needs an overhaul which does include WHM. I only bring up SGE here because it's a SGE conversation.

I just don't feel like I need to explain the nuance of every change I want to see for every healer every time.

EDIT: To expand on this, I've mentioned before that I like the idea of WHM having the ability to instant cast multiple raises back-to-back at reduced MP costs, which is quite a handy form of utility. My raid group would certainly appreciate having that and we do have a WHM, for example. Yes it's very prog-focused utility, but most players are not speed clearers. Even having cleared P7S multiple times, our group still fucks up Famine's Harvest from time-to-time, where being able to get 2-4 people up really fast would save the need of healer LB3.

I also think, seeing as Determination has been buffed recently, that WHM could appreciate a party Det buff. It may not be as powerful as flat damage or crit, but WHM can stay ahead of AST and SCH in personal damage, gain some offensive support with a Det buff, and Det also increases healing output slightly which falls in line with WHM's identity as a nifty bonus.

If debuffs ever actually become a thing that happens, I think a party esuna cooldown fits WHM better than with SCH, and SCH's Expedient is already such a powerful piece of utility. That of course means esuna needs to be something that is helpful.

[Mithron]

Which is further insult to injury for WHM, whose identity is now "zero utility, but is still outdamaged by the other zero-utility healer, because lol get rek'd WHM your only identity is mediocrity".

WHM's identity has always been baby ez mode healer for those who don't want to play real, better, serious healer jobs :^)

/endFireMageGag

[Allegor]

WHM's identity has always been baby ez mode healer for those who don't want to play but still get rewarded :^)

FTFY
/10 char

[Rithy255]

In general I'd agree with a "sage rework" but I would keep a lot about current sage (general feel and gameplay is fine), my main issues with sage is in general it's just Scholar that looks different and doesn't bring the speed buff, in general Sage just suffers from copying, In general both healers are very similar to each other and could both use some general adjustments, but I believe all healers could generally.

WHM's identity has always been baby ez mode healer for those who don't want to play real, better, serious healer jobs :^)

/endFireMageGag

Even though this is a joke (I think?) I see people argue that white mage should be the pickup and play healer, which mind you isn't a bad thing. I do want more for White mage in general they need to get earth and wind spells back, they should get procs and some more DPS buttons in general (most healers should get a little more), I think white mage generally gets called the "easy healer" but sage and scholar aren't exactly that much harder from white mage, In general I think it's just a problem with how healers don't really feel fun enough right now. Ideally healers should both about "healing" and "damage", I think its way more fun to optimise when you should do damage vs when you should heal, even in normal content (Think of your average dungeon) recently the healing requirements aren't just there.

It feels like Supports (tanks/healers) generally are getting less and less complexity and more similar with each expansion. I believe we should be focusing on making what support jobs offer more unique and strong, I love how scholar brings a speed boost, It's a great ability, but then sage doesn't really bring anything other then a personal gap closer? (like it woulda been interesting if you gave sage something more impactful), I like how warrior gets a unique 30% CD, how PLD gets two raid wides (even if both of them should generally be less annoying to use), ect. I like differences between the Jobs in general kits, but right now Support all feel pretty similar, with exception to Astro's feeling pretty busy and different (but was a lot more intresting in SHB) and PLD's (until 6.3). I dunno in general it feels like every job is becoming the "ez" job, theirs no real interesting differences between a lot of them, the ones that do feel different are just going to be reworked, I feel like they really need to rework a lot of Jobs to just feel exciting and different, while I understand balancing should be important the main issue is that it shouldn't cost identity of a job

[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]

I actually disagree quite a bit with your first paragraph: raising healing requirements only raises the minimum acceptable competence for healers. This is completely antithetical to the rest of the dev team’s actions and presumed vision for combat. Abyssos has increased the skill floor demanded from healers and has compounded issues sown in shadowbringers (ie no one wanting to heal). That said, removing healer dps from the enrages will also lead to issues because groups with healing only healers will inherently be less desirable that those who can dps and keep everyone up.

At the end of the day despite being highly similar, sage doesn’t have chain stratagem or recitation or deployment tactics. It’s not unusable, but really that’s damning with faint praise.

I put together a gearset for summoner physick maximising the mind available. It was still not very impressive it must be said.

[Allegor]

I certainly would welcome more healing needed, but with the way the game is structured, they might as well give RDM an aoe heal and call it the 5th healer

[Naoki34]

SGE is just perfect, just learn to play.

[Nizzi]

SGE is just perfect, just learn to play.

SGE is hot garbage lmao