Getting Into Sage & Need Advice

[Kacho_Nacho]

Hi everyone!

Lately, white mage feels a bit state. Glare mage is easy but also boring.

Needing a change of pace, I've decided to explore sage in depth. The guides on Youtube supply a lot of information to digest. Too much, in fact.

My head is spinning. It doesn't help that the names of the abilities are not intuitive.

So, I'm posting here for advice on how to be a good sage. I'd really appreciate it.

[Kacho_Nacho]

The best advice that I can give you is to read your tooltips, and maybe focus on one job mechanic at a time. You basically need to learn:

1. How Kardia and Soteria work (which is mostly just set and forget for easy content).
2. How Eukrasia and Toxikon work.
3. The heals available through Addersgall/Rhizomata. (Compare these to lily heals, you don’t get something like afflatus misery, but you do recover MP when you use these so you want to use these often).
4. The cooldowns available to you (Physis, Haimas etc). (Compare these to asylum and lilybell).
5. DPSing is similar, but Dyskrasia is instant so you can heal between Dyskrasia casts easily. SGE has a DPS cooldown, Phlegma, compare these to Presence of Mind and Assize.

The names are hard to remember, but a lot of abilities share effects with SCH, so I just remember them as Sage’s Lustrate and Sage’s Soil. If you’ve never played SCH before, you can try to remember them by icons. To build muscle memory, you can do early dungeons where you only need to focus on some of the job mechanics.

Momo’s healer guides are usually great, this one is a little more beginner/intermediate focused: https://youtu.be/UPjdwUgwncI?si=HGmTxO3zX7aXDKnN.

Thank you very much! I totally agree about needing to run lower level content, in increments, so I'm not overwhelmed by all the abilities. There are so many tooltips!

[IceBlueNinja]

Thank you very much! I totally agree about needing to run lower level content, in increments, so I'm not overwhelmed by all the abilities. There are so many tooltips!

There is a couple of things but it plays similar to sch but much more simple. I will give a lil bit of good it has but this is in dungeons under lvl 40 It has phelgma at lvl 26 an aoe which the 3 healers do not have and it does good damage on the main target and 50% less on the others. It has prognosis(similar to medica 1) so early aoe heal for low lvl dungeons even though it suffers a total of 90 seconds for 2 use. It also has its aoe shield at lvl 30 while sch do not get aoe shield till 35. Very mobile and is not punished hard for dying because addergall still goes up. 45+ now it plays similar to sch but at the same time some what different. Incarus(gap closer) its okish...imo it needs to be abit more fluent cause its range is yucky limited unlike blms one. pani/hami is the liturgy 90 spell of whm(which I would say whm took this from sage) like how we stole their medica 1 via prog. This nice thing gives a shield buff but if there is any of the shield left, burst heal 300(hami) 200(pani) which help on our famous squishy darknight.

I do notice people seem to think its hard or so but believe you me its easy, even easier and stressless than ast/sch which ofc those jobs takes alot of patience to master. I was an ast main but eh that job atm is giving me boring whm vibes atm too and I always did love shield healing(noct stance as ast) sage makes me feel am kinda playing noct ast again. Also at 50 + use kera always when its up, your not punished for spamming it + getting mp back and ofc its 76 trait gets regen like sch.

[rawker]

2. How Eukrasia and Toxikon work.

I have to emphasize on this. You literally don't need to cap on Addersting stacks (resource used to cast Toxikon whenever your Eukrasian Diagnosis breaks.. think TBN). Treat it like Ruin II from SCH. You only use it when you're out of place and you need to move out for a mechanic and still want to ABC. While it is good to have it at 3, it is not mandatory. If you know a tank will receive a tankbuster and you know that your Euk Diagnosis will break and is a bit low on sting stacks, don't hesitate to sacrifice a GCD to gain that stack.

Just keep in mind that you have Phlegma in your toolkit. If you are not that familiar with the content, maintain 1 stack for mobility purposes. It also applies to Toxikon, btw.

[Rongway]

If you know a tank will receive a tankbuster and you know that your Euk Diagnosis will break and is a bit low on sting stacks, don't hesitate to sacrifice a GCD to gain that stack.

Sage has so much mobility just from instant and slide casts that you don't need to waste GCDs just for an Addersting and you don't need to spend GCDs on healing a tank. Sage has so much oGCD healing it's ridiculous.

Addersting/Toxicon starts at 3 stacks whenever you restart a duty. Those three stacks are more than enough to get you through anything. They're not worth replenishing during uptime because Toxicon does, at best, the same damage as Dosis.

If there's downtime (running to a boss room; during a boss jump) you can shield three people so that the next raidwide AoE breaks all three shields and replenishes your stacks. In a light party the three people should be you and the two DDs because the tank won't need the extra healing anyway. If you're in a full party and your cohealer is a scholar, the three people should be you and the two tanks because the scholar will probably be Deploying a crit shield and the people who will miss that extra shield the least will be the tanks and you.

[Post]

As with any healer, just learn to use all your oGCDs. You have a lot so they're easy to forget about, and pretty forgettable. But, you have way more than enough if you use em all in rotation.

Honestly, SGE isn't that different from WHM if you're accustomed to using Temperance, Asylum, Liturgy, Aquaveil and Benison to avoid having to cast, the main difference is that you don't build up to any damage using your free time-generated heals, you just use them to keep your team alive.

Make sure you use everything you have spread out over time, generally use the shorter cooldowns first (cuz they'll come back sooner, and you can plan the big things for bigger issues), and let your damn regens (physis, Kardion, and your co healer) do their work.

If there's no more damage coming, or the damage isn't going to kill someone, then it doesn't need to be healed immediately. This lets you save spot healing tools like Addersgall (or Soteria/Krasis if your creative) to save that one guy that keeps getting hit by dodgeable stuff in a pinch.

Edit: oh, and Haima. See? I'm forgetting them too. No, your tank doesn't have to be the target of Haima. Most fights your tank can honestly keep themselves alive better than anyone else. And compare level 78+ Kerachole to Ixichole. Kerachole does 10%miit and 500 potency over 15 seconds while Ixo is just 400 all at once. Unless you really need the burst healing (or may as well cuz you're gonna cap on Addersgall anyways), there's a clear winner here and it's not healers that like to have to make interesting decisions.

One more thing, in dungeons, only your tank really gets hit for trash packs, so use your AoE oGCDs just for the tank if it saves you from having to hard cast. Panhaima/Holos are just sitting there, otherwise.

[Zeastria]

If you learn more by doing, i would advice you to do low level dungeons ( with npcs or players).
It's easier to learn/practise/test your abilities in a down-scaled environment.
- You also have The Palace of the Dead as an option.

[Kacho_Nacho]

As with any healer, just learn to use all your oGCDs. You have a lot so they're easy to forget about, and pretty forgettable. But, you have way more than enough if you use em all in rotation.

Honestly, SGE isn't that different from WHM if you're accustomed to using Temperance, Asylum, Liturgy, Aquaveil and Benison to avoid having to cast, the main difference is that you don't build up to any damage using your free time-generated heals, you just use them to keep your team alive.

Make sure you use everything you have spread out over time, generally use the shorter cooldowns first (cuz they'll come back sooner, and you can plan the big things for bigger issues), and let your damn regens (physis, Kardion, and your co healer) do their work.

If there's no more damage coming, or the damage isn't going to kill someone, then it doesn't need to be healed immediately. This lets you save spot healing tools like Addersgall (or Soteria/Krasis if your creative) to save that one guy that keeps getting hit by dodgeable stuff in a pinch.

Edit: oh, and Haima. See? I'm forgetting them too. No, your tank doesn't have to be the target of Haima. Most fights your tank can honestly keep themselves alive better than anyone else. And compare level 78+ Kerachole to Ixichole. Kerachole does 10%miit and 500 potency over 15 seconds while Ixo is just 400 all at once. Unless you really need the burst healing (or may as well cuz you're gonna cap on Addersgall anyways), there's a clear winner here and it's not healers that like to have to make interesting decisions.

One more thing, in dungeons, only your tank really gets hit for trash packs, so use your AoE oGCDs just for the tank if it saves you from having to hard cast. Panhaima/Holos are just sitting there, otherwise.

I really like your post because it reflects my experience and decision making while healing with a Sage. People keep telling me that the job is just as easy or easier than white mage. But, it sure doesn't seem that way.

Frankly, Sage feels like a hyperactive scholar, without a fairy, with weaker shields. Is it supposed to be so busy?

My tanks died a couple times yesterday and I don't think that would have happened if I had been on white mage. But, that's part of the learning process, isn't it?

If you learn more by doing, i would advise you to do low level dungeons ( with npcs or players).
It's easier to learn/practise/test your abilities in a down-scaled environment.
- You also have The Palace of the Dead as an option.

Palace of the Dead is an interesting option because I been wanting to reach floor 200 for a long time. Does Sage do enough damage to solo PoTD?

[IceBlueNinja]

I really like your post because it reflects my experience and decision making while healing with a Sage. People keep telling me that the job is just as easy or easier than white mage. But, it sure doesn't seem that way.

Frankly, Sage feels like a hyperactive scholar, without Eos, and weaker shields. Is it supposed to be so busy?

My tanks died a couple times yesterday and I don't think that would have happened if I had been on white mage. But, that's part of the learning process, isn't it?

This can factor into several things. Are the tanks even using cool downs properly? Are the tanks gear properly? Is it a darknight? cause honestly gnb/paladin and ofc warrior have so much crazy self heal you never really have to be in a spot to press heals on them unless its very low lvl dungeon content like 45 or below. You can pop soteria during trash pulls to increase your aoe potency by 70% (use kerachole always if its 76+) dungeons with physis and time pani/hami as well. Remember do not be afraid to use pani/hami even if some how all the shields did not got eating up. Once more just take your time and experiment with the ai if needs be like Post suggested.

[Supersnow845]

I really like your post because it reflects my experience and decision making while healing with a Sage. People keep telling me that the job is just as easy or easier than white mage. But, it sure doesn't seem that way.

Frankly, Sage feels like a hyperactive scholar, without a fairy, with weaker shields. Is it supposed to be so busy?

My tanks died a couple times yesterday and I don't think that would have happened if I had been on white mage. But, that's part of the learning process, isn't it?



Palace of the Dead is an interesting option because I been wanting to reach floor 200 for a long time. Does Sage do enough damage to solo PoTD?

The best way I can describe it is that WHM feels different from the other 3 in that WHM focuses very strongly on brute forcing your healing with strong heals that hit in one shot and shoot the Health of the tank back up while the other 3 take a “stem the flow” approach

SGE rewards you stacking regens onto the tanks over time rather than doing big hits, so instead of you casting cure 2/afflatus solace and watching the tank go from 30%->70% you instead have 3 regens ticking on them so their HPS is either not dropping at all or is only dropping very slowly

If your comparison is WHM then yeah try not to imagine that kinda big on hit healing because that’s really not what SGE does, in general it shouldn’t be terribly high APM, SCH is the more complex of the 2 shield healers so if you are feeling SGE is more complex you might not have gotten a proper hold of the skills yet