Startibg Sage?

[XeroXelence]

I have Sage unlocked but haven’t started yet.

I have not healed in forever and that use to be whm.

What’s a good starting resource to learn Sage and look up some basic healing or what to do when starting as a Sage.

I’ve read some of the skills and feel overwhelmed just reading.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I have Sage unlocked but haven’t started yet.

I have not healed in forever and that use to be whm.

What’s a good starting resource to learn Sage and look up some basic healing or what to do when starting as a Sage.

I’ve read some of the skills and feel overwhelmed just reading.

If you prefer to read:
(Skills Overview) https://www.thebalanceffxiv.com/jobs...ills-overview/
(Leveling Guide) https://www.thebalanceffxiv.com/jobs...eveling-guide/

If you prefer a vid (15m long): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPjdwUgwncI

[Renathras]

I have Sage unlocked but haven’t started yet.

I have not healed in forever and that use to be whm.

What’s a good starting resource to learn Sage and look up some basic healing or what to do when starting as a Sage.

I’ve read some of the skills and feel overwhelmed just reading.

Probably the single best resource I could point you to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JHi...mIovFT&index=2
"FFXIV: Endwalker Sage 1 to 90 Leveling Skills Guide" - by user WeskAlber.

Wesk Alber has great intro guides to every Job in the game. What I love about them is he goes through the abilities from 1-X, breaking it down by level caps (for SGE, it's where you start, what you have by level 80, then what you have by level cap 90). He gives examples of how to use things, explains some nuanced concepts like weaving and stuff, openers to help you get your level 90 muscle memory even while you're leveling so that when you hit level cap, you don't have to unlearn too much, etc. He breaks abilities down and so the confusing ones are easier to understand, which I think is a pretty big deal for new players. And he gives recommendations of how to use abilities, both alone and together (e.g. "Use Hamia for the first wall to wall pull after the boss, then use Panhamia on the second; this will help you in keeping your tank up").

All around, the best guides I've seen.

Balance tends to assume you already know a lot of things you don't, and their descriptions or explanations aren't always for a new player.

So my recommendation - now for you specifically on SGE but also in general to people - is to watch Wesk Alber's video on the Job you're interested in, then maybe hop into the game and do some FATEs or dungeons or Bozja with it, and then come back to the Balance Guide (and maybe watch Wesk's video again now that you've had personal hands-on experience with the Job since some things may click with you even more).

The Balance guides are really best for when you're already at level cap (they tend to use the highest level versions of abilities, and sometimes that changes optimal use as well, like when your AOE ability is a damage gain vs DoTs and so on), and so it's better once you've played the Job some and maybe are at level 90.

Alber's guides are good from the moment you pick up/unlock a Job.

[ForsakenRoe]

I'd recommend running something low like Alliance Roulette (unequip your gear for CT if you want, since it can still be done for now) and doing Wondrous Tails, etc. Just to get to 71. Once you're there, you can do Holminster Switch with Trusts, and get a feel for how the class works there. I levelled it in Bozja from 70-80 and it taught me very little about the class, my knowledge was mostly from 'this tool looks like SCH's X skill, so this is probably similar', and a run of Holminster once I could do it was where I completely botched the first pull (new class awkwardness), but after I had managed to recover the pull, second third etc onwards for the dungeon became smooth as butter, to the point where the tank was surprised that someone was 'so good at the new class already' or some such.

SGE is very intuitively designed, I think, for new players to jump into and do well with despite it starting at 70

[Renathras]

The trick with SGE is not being afraid of oGCDs. More than any other healer, SGE wants to use oGCDs all the time. All the healers, when played optimally, use oGCDs more than GCDs, but SGE's GCD kit is narrow and, when you're starting out, somewhat shockingly weak. It's roughly the same strength as other healers, but it's losing out on SCH's Embrace when using it (no Kardia when GCD healing) and it doesn't have the stronger GCD heals that WHM and AST do.

SGE is very intuitive for people that have been playing FFXIV healers for a while, particularly for SCH mains, but it's not very intuitive for new healers that have not and are thinking in terms of "Where's my Cure 2?" or that haven't learned how powerful, cheap, and high uptime abilities like Physis 2 can be, or things like Soteria or Krasis.

Learn to use those oGCDs and keep the Addersgall gauge filling, slipping things like Physis 2 into your rotation during pulls that need it, using Kerochole and Taurochole (NOT at the same time, they do not stack) to keep the tank in a near-permanent 10% damage reduction state, and using Panhamia (even just on the tank) and Hamia, alternating, for the two sets of wall-to-walls you do between each boss. And unlike SCH, you have no reason to not spend AG on heals, and in fact you need to to keep your MP regen going.

[Absurdity]

SGE is very intuitive for people that have been playing FFXIV healers for a while, particularly for SCH mains, but it's not very intuitive for new healers that have not and are thinking in terms of "Where's my Cure 2?" or that haven't learned how powerful, cheap, and high uptime abilities like Physis 2 can be, or things like Soteria or Krasis.

Which is partially the fault of the leveling experience. Since Conjurer is the only healer starting job a lot of people will have started with that and learned to rely on Cure/Cure 2 during their leveling process, because the job has barely anything else for 49 levels.
But that reliance creates bad habits. You see it again and again, healers that just spam GCD heals and completely ignore their oGCDs since that's simply what their gameplay has been for the entirety of ARR.

Now put those healers on a job that relies on using oGCDs and you have a disaster in the making.

[Supersnow845]

Which is partially the fault of the leveling experience. Since Conjurer is the only healer starting job a lot of people will have started with that and learned to rely on Cure/Cure 2 during their leveling process, because the job has barely anything else for 49 levels.
But that reliance creates bad habits. You see it again and again, healers that just spam GCD heals and completely ignore their oGCDs since that's simply what their gameplay has been for the entirety of ARR.

Now put those healers on a job that relies on using oGCDs and you have a disaster in the making.

Another reason why WHM is actually the worst starting healer and is actually a massive new person trap

Starting with a shield healer that encourages passive regen which is super powerful at level 1 is the best way to learn the right habits on healer day 1

[Absurdity]

Another reason why WHM is actually the worst starting healer and is actually a massive new person trap

Starting with a shield healer that encourages passive regen which is super powerful at level 1 is the best way to learn the right habits on healer day 1

Even just making Scholar a starting option would already be a massive improvement, the other would be giving both Whitemage and Scholar their oGCDs (or a weaker version of them) during the 1-50 leveling process to get people used to them early on and prevent those bad habits from forming.

Just take AST as an example, it has Essential Dignity at level 15 so even in Sastasha it has access to an incredibly powerful oGCD heal on a relatively short cooldown.

[IceBlueNinja]

Sage does have prognosis at lvl 10 which is a medica 1 equivalent so it dont fall off too short in even low lvls but god do I wish we have an option to get certain lvl duty finders, nothing turns me off when I get some low lvl dungeon , healers dont get anything fun till at least 40+ or least in terms of sch/sage they at least get their gc shields while ast/whm is ugh. I also wonder why cant we just have our aoes at lvl 10 even if it means making it only do very mere damage.

[Renathras]

Which is partially the fault of the leveling experience. Since Conjurer is the only healer starting job a lot of people will have started with that and learned to rely on Cure/Cure 2 during their leveling process, because the job has barely anything else for 49 levels.
But that reliance creates bad habits. You see it again and again, healers that just spam GCD heals and completely ignore their oGCDs since that's simply what their gameplay has been for the entirety of ARR.

Now put those healers on a job that relies on using oGCDs and you have a disaster in the making.

Another reason why WHM is actually the worst starting healer and is actually a massive new person trap

Starting with a shield healer that encourages passive regen which is super powerful at level 1 is the best way to learn the right habits on healer day 1

(At the risk of derailing the thread...):

What you have to remember is ARR was off the heels of 1.X, and launched around the time of, what, Mists of Pandaria/Warlords of Draenor in WoW? Recall that Yoshi P had his team play those games to consider changes from 1.X to 2.0.

In ARR, all healing (just about) was GCD healing. SCH had 3 Lustrates per minute if it wasn't using any other AF abilities such as Energy Drain (this tug-of-war was still a thing back then) or Soil. This was still LARGELY true in HW for WHM and debatably true of AST. In that era, oGCD heals were much more limited, so when WHM level 1-50 was designed, and even when the level cap was raised to 60, it actually WAS a good introduction and training on healing in FFXIV. This was debatably still true in SB, but much less so for SCH and AST.

The game was originally designed around the idea of GCD healing, not oGCD healing.

Moreover, it's not TERRIBLE to heal that way on WHM - just shift to using Solace/Rapture once you get them.

Honestly, I'm not sure which healer Job would be the best to learn on (from level 1) at this point.

.

I DO agree that lower level oGCDs earlier in the leveling process is a good idea, though.