Sage: Media Tour Feedback

[AnotherPerson]

I think what frustrates me the most is that these changes to sage are slowly moving in the right direction to be a healer that DPS to heal, but then they buff tanks and DPS sustain so much after that it feels like healers as a whole are taking many steps backwards to their gameplay.

A lot of the healing skills become pointless and redundant because the party simply no longer needs it. These changes on party sustain/survival from non-healer roles forces healers on doing more Glare/Broil/Dosis/Malefic and just healing raidwides rather than prioritizing on unique skills and ways to dedicate saving the party. Tt becomes so monotonous and none of the new additions is enough to offset the monotony because a lot of those healing skills is just more healing that already been made redundant in a previous expansion. If the Dawntrail changes on Sage were made in Endwalker, I can say Endwalker gotten better compared to Shadowbringers (which also equally had a lot of monotony from strong tank sustain, but it somewhat balances it out better with more DPS tools). However, with the addition of increased sustain on all roles in Dawntrail with 'no change in difficulty', I cannot see how healers will feel better to play with so much of their actions just being unnecessary in the face of other roles contributing to the party sustain. Healers as a whole is just being pushed off from the trinity and powercrept by other roles. Part of the reason is because combat is not hitting frequently enough to warrant the need for those healing tools, thus constantly reducing the difficulty of the content. ILVL Sync after patches does not help this in any way. It just makes things worse because of how high ILVL sync is.

I could provide a lot of feedback to make Sage feel more coherent in its identity as a healer that DPS to heal while offering shield-healing playstyle to differentiate it from SCH --
1. Like saying Eudaimonia is affected by Soteria
2. Taurochole no longer provides mitigation or become a 700 potency heal, instead significantly raises max HP to the target (30%) for 8s and applies Eudaimonia on application for 12s
3. Kerachole no longer provides regen but turns into 25% mitigation that falls off overtime, returning to 10% with 1 stack remaining (5 stacks, losing 1 stack per 3s, 3% mitigation per stack)
4. Philosophia grants Eudiamonia to all allied targets in range and applies a stacking barrier to targets affected by Eudaimonia after each magic attack.
5. Toxikon triggers 2-3 activations of Kardion and Eudaimonia
6. Rhizomata doesn't have a lowered cooldown but gains an additional buff to use an addersgall action without being affected by its cooldown (Ninja's Kassatsu-type of skill), thereby 'augmenting' Addersgall skills as well
7. Pepsis no longer breaks shields, but turns Kardion and Eudaimonia healing into shields

But none of this matters if there's no damage to heal...

Just to reiterate. Again, Psyche and Eukrasian Dykrasia are great additions to the toolkit, but it just isn't enough. They neither interact with healing in any substantial way nor provide enough impact to blunt the Dosis spam alone when more and more of the healing toolkit just no longer matters. Making meaningful decisions as a healer and saving players is what makes me enjoy healer. Without it, all that's left is just maintaining DPS. For a healer that DPS to heal, having more DPS buttons feels good since that's a secondary source of engagement, but ultimately that enjoyment is still limited because the primary source of engagement simply does not exist in a meaningful capacity to make save players as a healer. None of the new healing skills work on 'saving' players due to the way it's designed, and a lot of the old skills also fail to do this. It just feels like glorified healing that does not improve what our current toolkit can already do.

AoE Kardia is a great concept. A lot of people have been asking for it because it supports the healer gameplay identity that many people asked for. But what good is that skill if it's just a very weak heal over time with no way to support its function, and on a super long cooldown of 180 seconds? In a precarious situation, it doesn't do anything to rapidly increase your party's HP. Compared to long duration healing over time, we have better alternatives like Physis II, and on a much lower cooldown. Instead of providing ways to support this skill concept, it feels neglected as a whole in the toolkit. That's my main gripe with the way Sage is designed in Dawntrail. The identity is there, but the gameplay execution to support the identity is still disjointed and lacking.

[Kissune]

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, 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.

Ye gods, man... No. Opportunity cost is not the 'cooldown'. For example, sacred soil has both an opportunity cost of damage (100 potency you lose by not pressing energy drain), healing (could have been spent on any of the other aetherflow spenders) and a seperate cost of a cooldown (30s). Opportunity cost is the cost you pay *specifically by choosing to do one thing over the other*. Cooldowns are completely irrelevant, charges are irrelevant. I am purely talking about what you lose by pressing toxicon over dosis, or pneuma over dosis. Currently, at EW live, you lose nothing. Your dps profile remains completely unchanged. You gain something, either mobility or a burst heal, at no cost to your overall output. Whereas something like ruin 2 gains mobility at the cost of some dps potency. Or if you wanna use charges as an example, indomitability has an opportunity cost of 100p, since you could have spent a stack on energy drain instead. Toxicon would only have an opportunity cost in endwalker if you could spend the charges on anything but toxicon, but you can't. Since its neutral to dosis, you don't gain or lose anything by pressing it. Functionally, it's just an instant cast dosis. It gains an opportunity cost in two+ target scenarios, however, but those are infrequent enough in actual relevant content that I can mostly dismiss it. 'Losing your ability to nuke heal' is not an opportunity cost, it's just a cost. The opportunity cost for pressing pneuma is not the long cooldown on it, it's the loss you take by not pressing something else. So if pneuma was a loss, and you press it, the cost of a huge burst heal is the cooldown, and the opportunity cost is the difference in damage between pneuma and a dosis.

I beg of you, please learn to distinguish what opportunity cost is vs a regular cost. Everything in this game has one or both, but the former forces you to think more and rewards you more for optimization rather than simply 'using your tools'. The only point in which a dps neutral toxicon with no 2+ target scenario would gain a cost is if you absolutely needed one for movement, and had to use a shield to make it happen. But that just... in my experience? Doesn't happen. Sage has enough movement tools between phlegma, swiftcast, DoT refresh, and icarus.

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.

I do every bit of content from dungeons to ultis, and no, I've never 'spammed my shields on cooldown' yknow why? Bc I lose damage and go mana negative that way. If pneuma was a gain over dosis, I would use it on cooldown as much as I possibly could. It's sort of like how WHM is forced to have a misery under buffs to be optimal, since misery goes from dps neutral to a gain under 2min raid buffs.

A dps positive pneuma would be more comparable to something like earthly star or assize, where the goal is to maximize your uses in the fight by using it on cooldown, while also being happy if it just so happens to catch healing. Assize is a short enough cooldown that if you have a good idea of your kill time you can mess around with it a bit, and earthly star mitigates a lot of its issues by having a 10 second window where it can be detonated, while also being able to manipulate the times it comes up at during the initial prepull by choosing when you set it. Pneuma would be more like assize if it was positive, where you use it on cooldown, and the only real manipulation you have on its timings is when you use it in your initial opener, which sets up when you can recast it later. If its neutral, it just... sits on your bar until its needed, and is no more interesting of a skill than ixochole (in fact I'd argue it's less interesting, apart from the interaction with zoe). If its negative...then suddenly you need to pick out choice moments where you absolutely need the healing, and the ability becomes a lot more interesting. The big giant sage laser feels better to me when I'm not just using it on cooldown, yknow? It's like neutral sect, or deployment tactics, or something. The BIG button that costs some damage in return for a very powerful effect. And before you ask, yes, I also think macrocosmos should be dps negative.

[ty_taurus]

Well like I was explaining, a DPS positive pneuma doesn’t need to have the healing be a “hope it’s needed at the right moment” upfront heal. You could lock the heal behind a second cast like in my first example, have it be long duration mini barriers like my second example, or a ton of other options. What about a party-wide excogitation style effect? Or instead of Pnuema having a healing or barrier effect on itself, it could give you Addersgall. Or something ForsakenRoe has talked about, the gain on Pneuma could be small. If Dosis III has to have 360 potency, if Pneuma’s was something like 400 potency, then yes it is a gain, but because the gain is so small, you can afford to drift it around your rotation. You want to use it rather than sit on it, but you also can afford to wait for the next healing moment. There are a lot of options, and we can sit here and list them by the dozen, but the point, that myself and I think others feel as well, is that Pneuma right now feels a bit lackluster compared to its animation. The heal is significant, but it’s underutilized due to the lack of need for it, yet there is a desire to see that animation and for it to feel like the right choice to use it.

[Kissune]

Well like I was explaining, a DPS positive pneuma doesn’t need to have the healing be a “hope it’s needed at the right moment” upfront heal. You could lock the heal behind a second cast like in my first example, have it be long duration mini barriers like my second example, or a ton of other options. What about a party-wide excogitation style effect? Or instead of Pnuema having a healing or barrier effect on itself, it could give you Addersgall. Or something ForsakenRoe has talked about, the gain on Pneuma could be small. If Dosis III has to have 360 potency, if Pneuma’s was something like 400 potency, then yes it is a gain, but because the gain is so small, you can afford to drift it around your rotation. You want to use it rather than sit on it, but you also can afford to wait for the next healing moment. There are a lot of options, and we can sit here and list them by the dozen, but the point, that myself and I think others feel as well, is that Pneuma right now feels a bit lackluster compared to its animation. The heal is significant, but it’s underutilized due to the lack of need for it, yet there is a desire to see that animation and for it to feel like the right choice to use it.

Man... yknow what? I am realizing now I really do not care enough to argue about this. I'm just gonna leave the thread. Im not healing this expansion anyways, so if people want sage to once again play itself with no thought or reason, without any kind of decision making beyond 'use X when Y happen'... go nuts. It's not my class. I'm not a sage player, just a bitter ex-healer main. Hope you all enjoy.

[EaMett]

Toxicon and Pneuma having an opportunity cost doesn't seem like a consistent design choice. I wouldn't be surprised if this was an oversight. Even more so now that you have a new 30s melee skill. History would indicate that if it is, it will be adjusted before the second savage tier.
I personally think the only people who really care to work around a 30 potency opportunity cost are speed runners, and healer combined parsers? (maybe week one groups?) Parsers will probably either find ways of going lossless or will sandbag to go lossless, other players probably won't care much either way. With that in mind, Toxicon and Pneuma for the majority of players that care are just going to be skills to avoid. So, bad design IMO.
I might be inclined to change my tune if healing were more challenging and lossless was overall impossible. But I don't see that happening.

[ty_taurus]

Man... yknow what? I am realizing now I really do not care enough to argue about this. I'm just gonna leave the thread. Im not healing this expansion anyways, so if people want sage to once again play itself with no thought or reason, without any kind of decision making beyond 'use X when Y happen'... go nuts. It's not my class. I'm not a sage player, just a bitter ex-healer main. Hope you all enjoy.

Alright, go off.

[Zaytex]

Man... yknow what? I am realizing now I really do not care enough to argue about this. I'm just gonna leave the thread. Im not healing this expansion anyways, so if people want sage to once again play itself with no thought or reason, without any kind of decision making beyond 'use X when Y happen'... go nuts. It's not my class. I'm not a sage player, just a bitter ex-healer main. Hope you all enjoy.

Ironically I'm getting to that point now. Window licking casuals gaslighting me into trying to say the AST rework is great and fantastic, and I just don't care anymore. I've gone through the five stages of grief yet again, and come out the other side getting excited to play PCT and a few other DPS jobs.

From a fellow AST enjoyer to another, it was fun while it lasted.

[GrimGale]

If healing and damage skill is DPS gain, it will be used for DPS 100% of the time, either saved for Burst phases or used on CD.

If healing and damage skill is DPS neutral it will be used for healing whenever the healer feels like it.

If healing and damage skill is DPS loss it will be used for healing as a very last resort and often ignored in favor of free opportunity cost healing skills (of which healers have plenty.)

[ty_taurus]

If healing and damage skill is DPS gain, it will be used for DPS 100% of the time, either saved for Burst phases or used on CD.

If healing and damage skill is DPS neutral it will be used for healing whenever the healer feels like it.

If healing and damage skill is DPS loss it will be used for healing as a very last resort and often ignored in favor of free opportunity cost healing skills (of which healers have plenty.)

I do think Roe has a point, though, that if the gain on DPS is relatively small, there’s very minimal loss when holding that action to try and benefit from the healing at the next opportunity. Like if the difference is a difference of 40 potency, sure you can min max that, but the difference between someone who used it on cooldown vs someone who’s delayed it a few GCDs is so small that there’s realistically little-to-no difference in the outcome of any given scenario, as far as damage output is concerned. I don’t think that’s the right move for Pneuma, to be fair, but that’s more because of a conflict of interest with Addersgall. Sage is already trying to spend the Addersgall that they have way too much of, and since there’s no energy drain equivalent, Addersgall just generates a disgusting amount of overhealing in the pursuit of MP. Adding more heals that want to be used in a game that rarely delivers damage just isn’t a healthy playstyle to have.

[Teno]

snip

No idea why you don't distinguish. And don't know how best to explain it. The point of toxikon is movement. You lose x potency by not using it during movement. If you use it during movement, you lose one stack. Stacks are a very finite resource or a straight dps loss. And no, sage doesn't have "enough" movement tools, the movement tools are made so that you can do your stuff in melee range, or move around melee range, including the new aoe dot. Which is fine.

I agree that a dps positive pneuma would just be a fire and forget thing, which I find boring, but honestly I don't care too much about pneuma. The point is it's fine as a dps neutral tool, it's made so that you press a gcd heal for once, which I guess if they want us to use them, they should do them all like that. Or rework it if it's to be dps positive, or adjust other numbers to compensate, whatever.

And they already have ways to make this more fun and engaging. As I said, see pvp. Also there's no animosity even if I may sound too direct.