Sage: Media Tour Feedback

[Kissune]

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'How can I not use this' is in fact more thought than 'I'm gonna use this'. Not to mention that the extra thought is 'what am I using if not this, and how does that affect the rest of the fight'. Its such a strong ability that it's better off not being neutral, bc it really just is something you can't ignore. Making it dps positive does not make it any more skill expressive than 'press it on cooldown'. Holding it for healing later would be a one time decision, and you would only do it if it was absolutely required. Star is a good example of this, bc star has a 10s window that can be manipulated. Pneuma is genuinely too strong of an ability to just call it a gain it leave it at that. People will take any gain and run with it, and at that point you can compare it to star. But at least star has a 10s window you can manipulate, with predictable uses throughout the fight. You don't use star to heal most times. You use star to do damage and heal by proxy. That's what pneuma would become. You complain about pre-neutral misery but you want pneuma to turn into that? Idk about you but I use neutral sect plenty, and that's healing with a dps loss. I don't mind it. I don't actually want my strongest healing tools to be unpunishing to use, and I definitely don't want them to be mandatory to use due to a higher dps potency.

A 500p HoT over 15s is basically negligible. I don't do prog in pf, bc I prefer actually being in the fights instead of waiting in pf after looking for t/h for a half hour, doing two pulls, and having someone leave bc someone else wiped. Maybe it's a different world there, but it's not a world I care about. Seraphism is a recovery tool, sure, but it's roughly comparable to just... doing zoe+pneuma+ixo. Which is roughly the same amount of weaves as seraphism+ET+succor 2 or whatever it's called. And this might be a hot take but I think big party wide emergency heals should come at the cost of damage.

[Teno]

Please look up what opportunity cost means. Toxicon and pneuma do not have opportunity cost in EW, as you are not losing anything (ie, you are not losing the value of a dosis) by using them.

This is not how toxikon works. You've got 3 and then have to find windows to get more back. And pneuma is a -capstone- cast gcd with a well defined utility, you don't just use it out of nowhere, there's always a cost attached to it, and that's the long cd on your heal nuke.

Also remember that this is media tour info, there were incorrect potency numbers in previous media tours as well. So numbers might be patched once the expansion drops.

[Kissune]

This is not how toxikon works. You've got 3 and then have to find windows to get more back. And pneuma is a -capstone- cast gcd with a well defined utility, you don't just use it out of nowhere, there's always a cost attached to it, and that's the long cd on your heal nuke.

Also remember that this is media tour info, there were incorrect potency numbers in previous media tours as well. So numbers might be patched once the expansion drops.

"An opportunity cost is the value of the option not taken when a business makes a decision."

As an example the opportunity cost of using ruin 2 would be the potency difference between broil and ruin 2.

Toxicon having the same potency as dosis means that you are losing nothing by using it, apart from a potential use of it later... which if a fight is mapped out, becomes negligible. With a lower potency, it gains a cost of the difference between dosis and toxicon, meaning one is better to use to optimize damage, but one is better to use for smoother mobility, instead of the latter just being the neutral/better at both. The method by which it is obtained is irrelevant. It's a similar thing of scholar. Every single aetherflow ability comes with the tagline of '-100dps' bc by using an aetherflow heal, you are losing damage. With toxicon, you are losing nothing and gaining mobility.

With pneuma, you are again, losing nothing and gaining a high potency heal. Your dps will never suffer for using or not using pneuma of toxicon. If the only downside is 'it has a cooldown', then... that's not really a downside. That's just a mechanic. Opportunity cost is what makes healing take thought. By forcing you to weigh options, you have to come up with your preferred method of dealing with the situation instead of just throwing the heal tool at it and going back to business as usual.

Toxicon is meant to be an ability that offers you a consolation prize for having to shield, not a reward for shielding at all. Pneuma is meant to be an incredibly powerful burst heal, and as such should come at a cost. Neutral sect is insanely powerful, but has the opportunity cost of being forced to use gcds to proc it. Same with seraphism, deploy, and dissipation. White mage doesn't have much in the way of opportunity cost after the loss of lilies being a dps loss (once that happened WHM should have gone back to a 2.5s gcd at that point).

Maybe I'm just weird, but I don't actually like my healing toolkit being a bunch of fire and forget abilities I do not have to think about ever beyond the first initial consideration of placement. I'm glad sage is getting both opportunity costs (as it stands, I dont expect it to stick to live, and even so not for long), and an interesting dps 'rotation' between the double DoT and psyche.

[ty_taurus]

Pneuma should be a gain, and rather than have upfront healing, it can enable follow-up healing or shielding instead. It's supposed to be the apex of Sage's power, yet all throughout Endwalker it was just a glorified Cure III that had no DPS loss.

[Kissune]

Pneuma should be a gain, and rather than have upfront healing, it can enable follow-up healing or shielding instead. It's supposed to be the apex of Sage's power, yet all throughout Endwalker it was just a glorified Cure III that had no DPS loss.

If it's a gain, you'll just use it on cooldown. It won't be the 'apex of Sage's power' itll just be a third stack of phlegma with a cure lmao.

[ty_taurus]

If it's a gain, you'll just use it on cooldown. It won't be the 'apex of Sage's power' itll just be a third stack of phlegma with a cure lmao.

So the apex of their power should be a button you don't even use in most content because it's far more excessive than what you actually need and isn't attached to Addersgall which you need to spend anyway to get MP back before you start exploring other options to heal with? I would rather have a large burst cooldown that I use consistently in my gameplay than "Cure III laser"

PVP does it perfectly. Not only is it your most powerful source of damage, but it provides a lot of protection for your party when you engage in a fight. In PVE, timing of healing is far more important, which is why its hard to attach healing to DPS gains. But there is a midpoint that we could achieve where both the damage and the sustain granted could feel worthwhile.

[ty_taurus]

I added my own feedback of Sage over on General in a more in-depth anaylsis. Please take a look here.

[kosmos_heals]

Thanks for posting this, and yup, this just seems like they forgot about it. Just hoping they fix before release/savage and not in .3/.4 like they have done with other changes/buffs.

[Teno]

"An opportunity cost is the value of the option not taken when a business makes a decision."

As an example the opportunity cost of using ruin 2 would be the potency difference between broil and ruin 2.

Toxikon costs one stack, and pneuma is a long cd heal nuke, what is that you don't understand about their opportunity cost ? The only way you're getting toxikon stacks is with botched phase transitions or something like that. It goes back to pressing a gcd heal, plain and simple. And you lose your ability to nuke heal once you press pneuma. And it's certainly, certainly not as you described. The opportunity cost has always been there... And ruin 2 should have followed suit in potency with added mp consumption like it originally was.

AND IF ANYTHING, toxikon should be an ogcd like in pvp. High mp consumption to shield and generate stacks, tweak the numbers a bit for the 2-min window, maybe even give the stack generation an internal cd or whatever. The shield also still needs to break. This is the type of gameplay that's not just fire and forget.

If it's a gain, you'll just use it on cooldown. It won't be the 'apex of Sage's power' itll just be a third stack of phlegma with a cure lmao.

Do you spam the shields on cooldown though ? I don't know what kind of content you play, but if it's anything like what taurus suggested, you won't just fire it off cooldown.

[ty_taurus]

Do you spam the shields on cooldown though ? I don't know what kind of content you play, but if it's anything like what taurus suggested, you won't just fire it off cooldown.

If Pneuma is a DPS gain, then yes it would be used on cooldown because the aim is to maximize its uptime. That said, why I specified replacing the burst heal with a follow-up effect would be that Pneuma itself is the precursor that would give you a resource that you'd have time to use at a more apt moment.

One very simple example would be to divide Pneuma into: Pneuma and Proto-Pneuma:

Pneuma:
Deals unaspected damage to all enemies in a straight line before you with a potency of 720 for the first enemy and 60% less for all remaining enemies.
Additional Effect: Grants Pneumatic for 115 seconds.

Proto-Pneuma:
Deals upaspected damage to all enemies in a straight line before you with a potency of 360 (based on Dosis III's potency at level 92) for the first enemy and 40% less for all remaining enemies.
Addtional Effect: Restores HP to self and all nearby party members.
Cure Potency: 600

^ This example enables you to have a prominent attack to use every 2 minutes (though I'd prefer a shorter cooldown personally), and allows Pneuma's effect to still exist. You do need to cast Pneuma first, but that shouldn't be an issue since it's cast on cooldown anyway. You'll be able to cast Proto-Pneuma for Pneuma's current effect at any point between each cast of Pneuma.

Now, that's not personally what I'd like to see, but it is the most straightforward solution. What I'd rather see is perhaps something like PVP Pneuma, where Pneuma replaces Panhaima as an action. It would look something like this:

Pnuema:
Cooldown: 85 seconds
Deals damage to all enemies in a straight line before you with a potency of 720 for the first enemy and 60% less for all remaining enemies.
Additional Effect: Erects a magic barrier around self and all nearby party members with a potency of 120 for 60 seconds.
Additional Effect: Grants 5 stacks of Pneumatinon to self and all nearby party members for 60 seconds.
Pneumatinon Effect: Consumes a stack to replace the barrier when it is broken. When the effect duration expires, a healing effect is applied..
Cure Potency: 80 per stack.

^ This effect, while it would be cast on cooldown, provides a long duration of small barriers that soften incoming damage for the next minute. The barrier effect is weaker, so how much damage is reduced isn't always going to be significant, but I think can still be interesting. You could then do more interesting things with those stacks rather than just having them sit there passively. For example, maybe you have one action that consumes all stacks to provide a larger barrier to the party that has a lower total potency, but can block a larger amount of damage and another action that consumes 1 stack to cleanse 1 dubuff on all party members with a cleansable debuff. Or perhaps something different.