My Idea of How To Buff Sage

[SomeoneElse]

I may be in the minority with my opinions, but I want to see what others think of my ideas on how to buff Sage. Feel free to share your thoughts on if you agree or disagree or other ideas you have. Overall I think SCH is better for being the dedicated shielder, but Sage is by no means a detriment to a party. My issues are mainly tied to the job's damage.

Rhizomata. Give this two stacks of Addersgall. As it is currently the ability has a long cooldown time while not being a great recovery tool so I think two stacks would make it much more viable. Pneuma. I think this should be a dps gain by about 70 potency giving a reason to use this consistently throughout a fight.

Eukrasian Dyskrasia, new interaction to put a dot on multiple enemies at once. That would make dungeons much easier in terms of spreading dots and it would still fit the Eukrasia identity. The MP cost would raise though. I'd probably have it cost about 800 MP, so doubling the cost similar to how Eukrasian Diagnosis doubles the cost of Diagnosis.

Pepsis is the only ability I'd say is not very useful. I've used it on occasion, don't get me wrong, but in general there's not really a situation I want to remove a shield to heal, and the time it takes to place a shield, use Pepsis, then add another shield is way too long so remove this ability and add a single target damage ability like a Phlegma for single target with higher potency (shares stacks with Phlegma) or a Toxicon for single target (dps gain with no cast time, thus giving us two abilities for Addersting). Those would be new abilities to replace Pepsis though so we'd have more options.

Soteria is really useful but I feel like it needs something to warrant a 90 second cooldown. I've seen the idea thrown around that it makes an AOE version of Kardia and that's a really interesting idea, you have an AOE Kardia that gives a 289 potency cure for 5 damaging abilities, making it very useful for group healing and dungeon pulls. This would not stack with Zoe.

Concerning Addersting, we'd need more ways of generating this if we're going to have a dps gain for using it so I would have Panhaima, Haima, and Holos all generate one Addersting on ability use (not on shield breaking like Eukrasian Diagnosis).This would provide a reason to use each ability consistently through a fight which is my primary goal with these SGE changes. If a new Addersting ability for single target is not added, Toxicon should receive a small potency buff of about 70 potency, similar to my suggestion for Pneuma, giving us an incentive to use it throughout a fight and not only for movement. Another idea I have for generating Addersting is to have both Panhaima and Holos provide one for each party member effected up to a total of three, but I'm not sure how broken that would make the abilities so I'm hesitant to make it more than one.

Let me know what you all think about these changes or if you have any other ideas!

[ForsakenRoe]

As somebody who has been known to occasionally play SGE for reclears (because everyone and their mother wants to play WHM in PF), my 2cents:

Rhizomata: Not the ideal solution imo as it'd cause even more overcap, Rhizo's problem to me is never 'it only generates one' but 'it gives one which can cause overcap', a lot of the time im just sat on it cos i'm at 3 stacks already, making it 'next spender is free' like Recitation would be a big help for it IMO, if it needs more it could just have the low hanging fruit of 'generates 1 Addersting' attached so we can generate Toxicon more reliably

Pneuma: Definitely not ideal, if it were damage positive in any way people would be dumping it in the 2m window for more DPS instead of using it as a healing tool (it even has a 2min CD). The fact it's a 600p burst heal (900 with Zoe) should be enough reason to consistently use it

Eukrasian Dyskrasia: Nice idea to allow multidotting, but the two words that make it's name are kinda contradictory, I had a similar idea but I went with Eukrasian Phlegma

Pepsis: We can remove it yes, it's not great as a skill. It's meant to be the equivalent to Emergency Tactics, but the devs who made it forgot that SCH doesn't have a 'pure healing' equivalent to Succor, thats why they have ET. SGE can use Prognosis or Eukrasian Prognosis, so Pepsis is kinda not needed. As for what replaces it, we have a singletarget Phlegma, it's called Phlegma, and a singletarget Toxicon, called Toxicon. Now the potency of Toxicon, that is a definite topic, but we'll come to that later

Soteria is 'ok', but it really feels like it needs Krasis's effect alongside it to be noticeable. AOE Kardia is a very nice idea (and probably our level 92 skill, lets be real) but I don't know if axing Soteria to make it is a good idea, when we could just axe Pepsis and have both Soteria and AOEKardia (and have Soteria buff AOEKardia)

Addersting just sucks, to the point where if I had my way it'd be fully reworked. It's that bad in my view. If Toxicon is meant to be the 'refund' for the GCD spend on the Diagnosis cast, it's a pretty bad refund, as it only refunds 330 of the 660 potency spent to create the shield, and cast the Toxicon. I would go with making a new buff that allows one free use of Phlegma, making the refund 600p compared to the price of 660p, so not a 100% refund but close (possibly a gain in raidbuffs). Also I have beef with Toxicon because they deleted the trailer animation and replaced it with Toxicon 2 and that's a crime in my book.

Funny you should ask if the reader 'has any other ideas', it gives me an excuse to shill my idea for sage once again (the one in the dropdown quote box, the other 2 are old and suck). The beef with SGE's damage output can be remedied by SE at any time, it'd only take, eg, 'Eukrasian Dosis potency increased by 5 per tick' or such change, easy. The issue in my mind with the healers in general is their rotational feeling, and with SGE, I feel it missed the mark (big time) on the 'it heals when it does damage'. OFC when YoshiP said that, he was technically right, it does indeed heal when it does damage, but most people's minds jumped to Chloromancer or Disc Priest, so what we have here is a bit too basic for what we had anticipated.

[SomeoneElse]

Thanks for your reply! I went through your shill and thought it quite interesting. I'll comment on there with any lengthy thoughts though and will keep this focused on your response.

Rhizomata: Valid. Another option would be buffing our current addersgall abilities by 10% and giving us one free use. Thoughts?

Pneuma: You're completely right, but if the party doesn't need major healing for a long period of time the ability just gathers dust which is what I'm trying to eliminate the best I can. Being forced to use it in burst windows though would remove it's intended use (the fat heal) so what do you think could be added to improve the amount of situations the ability is beneficial in?

Eukrasian Dykrasia: Valid point on the wording, but that could be fixed with replacing the ability at a certain level as done with WHM's Stone - Glare. Eukrasian Phlegma was an idea I was seeing before, but that would remove the need to use Eukrasian Dosis as Eukrasian Phlegma would be better in every way. Nerfing Phlegma Eukrasian's damage to the point where that wouldn't be the case would make Phlegma lose the purpose that it serves in SGE's toolkit and there isn't anything currently that could take its place.

Pepsis: We do have a single target Phlegma called Phlegma lol. Toxicon for single target was more what I was thinking of adding.

Soteria: Valid thoughts, honestly. Not much to add.

Addersting: The animation change is actually preferred on my end. I like the giant lasers, and thought the original was very lackluster due to the quiet sfx. SGE sfx in general lack oomph though (looking at you, Pneuma) so I'd love to see some attention given to that aspect. Having the choice for different animations is valid though as it's all personal preference. Having it shorten the cast time on Phlegma is interesting. I saw that idea prior as well, but it would still be a dps loss (though much less so). More ways to generate Addersting would fix that for the most part, so maybe combine your idea with mine, generate Addersting with Haima, Panhaima, Holos, and Eukrasian Diagnosis, then on use of Toxicon generate one stack of a new gauge, and at three stacks you can cast a Phlegma without using up a stack like a combination of DRK's TBN (On TBN break you can use Flood/Edge of Shadow for free) and Ninja's free Mudra ability.

As said before, I'll give my thoughts on your idea for healers/SGE on your post and won't focus on it here. I'm in agreement with you on the statement "SGE heals by doing damage". One thing I'll add, SGE technically heals by doing damage, but 170 potency heal is basically kissing a broken leg to make it feel better. Nice thought, but it doesn't heal enough to really notice in a practical situation where healing is needed.

[ty_taurus]

I have my own thoughts on SGE on another thread, but on these ideas:

Rhizomata is fine as is. As has been said, just 1 is more than enough, but I don’t want it to generate Addersting. attaching an offensive resource to Rhizomata means you’re forced to burn Addersgall in order to optimize its use, which SGE already has to waste enough of.

Here’s a more simple take on Pepsis, what you could do is, when SGE barriers break, they apply a buff for 10 seconds or so that Pepsis activates and that’s how Pepsis works rather than consuming the barriers. It would retain the barrier break concept which is something that should be removed from Addersting.

Adding DPS incentives to healing tools is a really bad idea because all it does is now make buttons like Haima and Peuma tools you use on cooldown whether you need their healing or mitigation effects or not, because now it’s optimal to just use Pneuma immediately. It’s the same issue assize is in.

Addersting just needs to be reworked into an actual DPS gauge. It can double as a refund system, but it should be more about having actual gameplay.

[ForsakenRoe]

when SGE barriers break, they apply a buff for 10 seconds or so that Pepsis activates and that’s how Pepsis works rather than consuming the barriers.

Wasn't that how old Plenary Indulgence worked, in SB, the one everyone hated? Apply buff to people by AOE healing, then pop the buff with PI to do a middling bonus heal effect that usually ended up as just overheal due to needing to AOE heal to even apply the stacks, iirc it started out as 'apply confession stacks via single target healing' which was even worse

[ty_taurus]

Wasn't that how old Plenary Indulgence worked, in SB, the one everyone hated? Apply buff to people by AOE healing, then pop the buff with PI to do a middling bonus heal effect that usually ended up as just overheal due to needing to AOE heal to even apply the stacks, iirc it started out as 'apply confession stacks via single target healing' which was even worse

My mistake, I didn’t mention anything about diagnosis/prognosis. I also go by the logic that some way to use e.diag/e.prog and earn Addersting with it being a DPS neutral return in this use.

As I had it, when you trigger kardion effects, you gain 2 points to a max of 100, when at 50 or greater, your diag/prog and e.diag/e.prog grant 1 Addersting. So in that world, Pepsis would work better.

Regardless I don’t think the comparison is accuracte. Confession stacks were proc chances. It’s more like Horoscope where you can activate an extra OGCD heal after a party heal. In dungeons it’s still useless but so are most of your heals. Casual fights hit like a down feather and SGE is drowning in Addersgall.

That said, I’m also fine with cutting fringe healing tools in favor of reducing unnecessary healing buttons.

[AnotherPerson]

What they have to do to sage is to first properly make DPSing as a Sage to be a worthwhile way to heal. To make this change, Sage should have more skills trigger and affect Kardion to reinforce its "magic strengthening" idea. That way, they can change the addersting gauge to be a proper DPS gauge.

There are ways to adjust Sage's skills to work within this method. 170 potency kardion heals isn't very powerful on its own, but with enough amplification, they can be useful when the skills align. This is an example of the skills that can be adjusted to improve Kardion interaction (potencies and scaling can be adjusted):

Rhizomata - It adds 1 addersgall and then applies an enhancement to Kardia, guaranteeing your next 4 Kardion heals to crit.
One low cooldown oGCD DPS skill that activates Kardion - to make Kardia healing different from Scholar's Embrace and have it activate quicker between GCD (This can just be Toxicon I animation and unlocked at ARR level).
Toxikon II - 3 charge instant-cast GCD skill that no longer requires addersting - will be the movement and double weave tool. This will be the replacement to Toxicon I at level 64.
Krasis - skill removed and effects added to Soteria.
Soteria - 2 charges, 60 second cooldown. Will now target an ally to apply Krasis buff. Additionally applies Soteria buff to self (4 stacks per use, up to a maximum of 8). This change is made to reduce the amount of weaving required and make room for other oGCD skills and increase the impact of Kardia itself.
Zoe - Gains an additional effect: the next 3 Kardion heals will also apply a shield to allies with Kardion with the same potency as the Kardion heal.
Addersgall healing skills - will apply a temporary Kardion effect for 10 seconds, and the maximum duration can go up to 20 seconds.
Pepsis - Gains an additional effect: All existing Sage shields will fuse and become the new shield Pepsisakos - the recalculated potency of all shields combined. Ex: Haima loses 1 stack and preserves the rest, Holosakos is removed, Pepsisakos becomes the total potency of both shields. Eukrasian shields are digested, so they can't be used to make Pepsisakos. If there are no existing shields, Pepsisakos will do nothing. This is to both consolidate the number of shields on the buff bar and simultaneously allow stacking shields to get a bit more value in big heavy attacks.
Pneuma - Will temporarily apply AoE Kardion healing effect for 10 seconds, refreshes the duration up to 20 seconds (or removed and adjusted to be a mitigation skill since we have a lot of healing from Kardion changes)
Eukrasian Diagnosis / Eukrasian Prognosis - Additionally apply a temporary Kardion effect to all affected party members. At the moment, Sage has the most to lose when needing to GCD shield because they can't activate Kardion, so there needs to be a way for them to balance the GCD healing slightly while maintaining their mindset to heal by DPSing playstyle.

Now the addersting gauge can be designed like a DPS gauge without any drawbacks on sage's healing potential. Likewise, Eukrasian shields are now incentivized by applying Kardion effect without taking any problem of a healer that DPSes to heal while remaining the weakest, yet possibly most efficient skill to heal when sage runs out of oGCD healing skills or needs to force AoE Kardion on the party.

Unlike SCH with straightforward big Crit Adloquium GCD shields, Sage goes the route of stacking shields instead through various sources. With Kardia, they can theoretically have Pepsis, Rhizomata, and Soteria maximize the next Kardion heal crit and also apply a shield for that same value. This cannot be done in 1 GCD, but Sage can continuously layer barriers up with different skills as long as they won't instantly get deleted. It plays towards Sage's amplification strengths barrier layering gameplay. Plus, they have more micro control over how strong they want the whole thing because the amplification is affected by different skills. Not sure how balanced this would be in terms of healing though, but it's an idea I can see would help separate SCH and SGE better.

[Llynethil]

Soteria is basically sage version of machinist overcharge.

Soteria should be time based, not charge based, while overcharge should be charge based and not time based, and yet devs just don't want to change neither of them around.

[Rongway]

I'm confused as to why so many people in this thread sound like they don't have enough Addersgall and they don't have enough movement tools. I'm often slightly low on MP because I've been sitting on three stacks of Addersgall because sage has so many free oGCD heals. And as for movement, slidecasting, one reserve charge of Pneuma, and three starting Adderstings (plus three more when there's downtime) should be enough mobility for any Lv90 content outside of Savage, and in Savage things should be planned out well enough that you can manage without other tools.

I'm not saying sage is perfect but the only thing I feel is really missing is an AoE Kardia (Echokardia?) on a 90s or 120s cooldown.

[ty_taurus]

I'm confused as to why so many people in this thread sound like they don't have enough Addersgall and they don't have enough movement tools. I'm often slightly low on MP because I've been sitting on three stacks of Addersgall because sage has so many free oGCD heals. And as for movement, slidecasting, one reserve charge of Pneuma, and three starting Adderstings (plus three more when there's downtime) should be enough mobility for any Lv90 content outside of Savage, and in Savage things should be planned out well enough that you can manage without other tools.

I'm not saying sage is perfect but the only thing I feel is really missing is an AoE Kardia (Echokardia?) on a 90s or 120s cooldown.

Since Druochole doesn't have a cooldown, its a good idea to use it to prevent your addersgall from overcapping. Honestly, you really shouldn't need this MP most of the time, but I find that it's something I needed to develop as a habit in case I did end up low on MP, especially when I was playing SGE in savage (because even savage couldn't keep my Addersgall in use--at least not the first tier. P8 definitely seems like it'd be keeping Addersgall busy based on what my party's SGE is doing). Yes, it feels like shit tossing out useless heals just to get MP back, but that's what healer design is in this game.