7.1 SGE is even worse than before

[MEagle]

7.1 SGE might be the worst job in current PvP. The patch everyone was waiting for to see some reworks or major changes. What did they give to Sage? Let's see the major changes, starting with damage:
* Phlegma lost 2K damage (10k > 8k)
* Phlegma increased CD by 1 second (15s > 16s), meaning you can use it less.
* Eukrasia increased CD by 1 second (15s > 16s), meaning you can use it less.
* Eukrasian Dosis (DOT) lost 1 tick and 1k damage per tick (15s > 12s, 4k > 3k; overall 20k > 12k)
* Psyche replaced the second charge of Phlegma, retaining its previous 10k damage. Despite that, it now has a trait that reduces its potency by (!!!) half for enemies 3y away from target, meaning it will only deal 5k damage. Old Phlegma dealt fixed 10k damage without any fall off. Psyche also has around 1.5s damage delay.
For no particular reason, the only strongest part of the job (its damage) was nerfed.

What about healing?
* Kardia from Dosis now heals for 2k more (2k > 4k)
* Pneuma lost 1 stack of Haimatinon shield (4 > 3; overall 15k > 12k)
For no particular reason, the only good teamwide shield ability was nerfed.

What else we got in 7.1? Bind on Phlegma and pull-in that becomes useless because by the time Psyche damage applies, enemies will just spread apart? All of this damage and healing was traded for that singular change? Are you kidding me?

Why does Scholar get a whole new LB and retains the old one, has everything that Sage can do, but better? Have you even seen the variety of SCH's toolkit? It has:
* insta cast shields for the whole team CONSTANTLY with DAMAGE REDUCTION
* movement speed buff paired with damage buff for the WHOLE team
* healing reduction you can spread on the WHOLE enemy team
* auto-purify from new LB
* anti-guard from Chain
* auto-heals and death saves from Seraph

What can SGE do with its toolkit?
* give less shields than before
* bind the target with a very small pull-in range
* give the same 10% damage buff on a single target from Toxikon if no other enemies are close
* LB that takes years to charge, especially if you die

What justifies Sage having almost no toolkit compared to other healers? Mesotes on 120s CD that you can barely even use more than 2 or 3 times in the game?

Why does Sage for the longest time doesn't get the changes it needs? Why is Mesotes is still on 120s cooldown, despite it being pretty much useless in high-ranked games and outside of overtime? Why does they nerf the job's damage? Why did they remove a stack from Pneuma? Why did the job essentially get extremely nerfed, when it was already performing much more worse than any other healer?

Playing SGE now is essentially griefing your team. Buff the job already or rework it, the core design obviously doesn't work.

[ThaCa]

I honestly expected them to at very least give SGE a personal shield when jumping to allies or enemies. SGE was a glass cannon, now it's closer to just glass.

[Loggos]

I don't understand why they gave the class with the lowest HP an AoE pull-in skill + bind that you have to cast from melee range. Even if you shield and haima yourself the people you pulled in will run away at best (as OP said) or just kill you on the spot at worst.

Sage changes are incomprehensible to me. SCh and Ast get even more damage, healing and utility (and mobility in AST's case) and SGE loses damage, gets a bit more single-target healing but also loses one stack of its AoE shield (so at best it "evens out", at worst it's...just worse now). All while being given a utility skill that is completely at odds with SGE's strengths and weaknesses and that may kill SGE players more often than help them.

[KageTokage]

The least they could've done is make Psyche actually snapshot fast enough to provide threatening burst and be guaranteed to get the strong hit on anyone the initial Phlegma struck, but you have enough time to just...move away in its current state.

[Teno]

The LB is also still as clunky as ever to use in FL, except under specific conditions (Node/Pull). And I doubt such a pull on phlegma is gonna help much on that front...

[AnotherPerson]

Phlegma CD technically improved if you look at Phlegma's follow-up attack Psyche. Instead of waiting 15s x 2 for 2 Phlegmas (30s), you wait 16s for Phlegma + Psyche.

That said, Psyche getting damage falloff from 3y onwards is a really weird distinction to make, it somewhat works since bind is 3s so it's actually a good contender to make someone burn purify. Overall not an entirely bad change. From my understanding, they want you to use Phlegma and Pysche together as follow up skills instead of using Phlegma and then holding Psyche for later so you can use Phlegma again with less delay (thereby creating a period of stronger AOE burst). The cooldown starts resetting after using Phlegma instead of Pysche, which is pretty big distinction to make. It's not entirely a nerf since pull-in/bind are two strong CCs when used in conjunction for the potency tradeoff, but an adjustment based on playstyle.

Eukrasian Dosis DoT got nerfed, really didn't need the nerf I agree.


Btw, Seraph no longer auto-heals. They do not apply auto-AOE excog. They just apply a layer of consolation. The current version of SCH also does not apply AoE Excog on their LB either. The potencies on SCH have been reduced significantly actually. Their shields and DoT took a huge hit in potency. The damage buff is not consistent anymore because the shields now apply mitigation rather than damage buff. Expedient applies damage buff, but it's also locked in a 30s timer. Recitation's effect, while unchanged, is actually nerfed significantly due to SCH's lowered potencies. What was once a regular SCH Adlo is currently a Recit. Adlo. The same applies to the DoT.

[Mecia]

Pneuma is arguably worse than Macrocosmos, Gravity has longer range and radius than Phlegma and doubling it is an oGCD. Then add Lord of Crowns, Epicycle and direct heals on top.

Hello??

[Loggos]

Btw, Seraph no longer auto-heals. They do not apply auto-AOE excog. They just apply a layer of consolation. The current version of SCH also does not apply AoE Excog on their LB either. The potencies on SCH have been reduced significantly actually. Their shields and DoT took a huge hit in potency. The damage buff is not consistent anymore because the shields now apply mitigation rather than damage buff. Expedient applies damage buff, but it's also locked in a 30s timer. Recitation's effect, while unchanged, is actually nerfed significantly due to SCH's lowered potencies. What was once a regular SCH Adlo is currently a Recit. Adlo. The same applies to the DoT.

I was curious after your comment so I just tested Seraph and she does autoheal!
I had someone reduce my HP to almost 0 and she healed me up with repeated heals in 2.5s intervals.

I would also like to respectfully disagree with some other points.

It's true that SCH doesn't apply Excog anymore. Instead you now have a frontloaded heal that you can press manually. So you actually have even more control over your heal and can time it better.
The new heal has the same potency as the old Excog (8k) but comes with an extra shield of 8k.
As with the old LB you still grant your party Seraphic Flight (nullifies status effects). Only this time it's a 30y AoE. In the past, if I remember correctly, only players who stood in the AoE circle during your initial LB cast received Seraphic Flight.
You also get a charge of recitation, as you did before 7.1.
On top of that you now also get an instant 8k AoE attack that you can cast repeatedly until your LB wears off.
The only thing the new LB doesn't have is Seraph's Consolidation (4k heal + 4k shield) which you could activate manually and her single target heals.

But if you add up the potencies of the old and new heals you can trigger manually it's more or less the same:

Old Excog + Consolidation = 12k heal + 4k shield = 16k
New Heal = 8k heal + 8k shield = 16k

So all in all the LB has been improved (bc application and reach are more practical now) and given extra gimmicks:

• Purify (30y Aoe)
  8k heal x1
  8k shield x1
  Recitation
  Spammable 8k AoE attack

As for Seraph, her heals have just been moved, not removed from the kit. She heals even more now with 6k heal + 6k shield. (Icy Veins says her old potency was 180 + 180 shield but that seems awfully low...)

On top of that, you can summon Seraph every 60 seconds vs. previously every 90 seconds when she was tied to the old LB. So, not only has her being separated from the LB made her usage more flexible (you can now place her a lot more strategically), you can also place her more often. So all in all, Seraph heals a lot more over the course of a game as well.

---

As for Adlo/Bio:

When it comes to Aldo, it's not actually worse under Recitation than before 7.1.

Old Adlo had 3k heal and 6k shield = 9k. Recitation increased the shield by 50%. So you had 3k heal + 9k shield = 12k.

New Adlo has 4k heal and 4k shield. So in its normal shape it amounts to 8k. That's not that much worse than before. Also it heals 1k more actual HP (even if it's not much, 3k >> 4k).

New Adlo under Recitation doubles the barrier. So it's 4k heal + 8k shield = 12k.


Bio does indeed become a bit weaker. From 3k to 2k per tick. And under Recitation from 4,5k to 4k per tick.

But SCH also gets lots of direct AoE damage during its LB, which it didn’t have before. I don’t know if the burst damage evens out the slight damage loss of the new Bio wrt the damage total at the end of the game.
But unlike before it now has a phase where it possesses actual direct and controlled burst damage. (If you mess up your spread-Bio you wasted a precious resource. If you blast 8k into a shield you can just blast 8k again some seconds later during your LB.) And concentrated burst damage can be more valuable than steady low damage ticks to secure kills and resolve situations/turn fights around.
But not only that. SCH has more (de)buffs than before so I think all in all that Bio decrease doesn't really weaken SCH in the grand scheme of things.

First, before 7.0 the Bio debuff was 8% decreased damage. Now you can AoE 20% healing reduction. That's almost mummification on steroids. Sure it's 20% and not 25 like the old mummification. But you can spread it a lot further now and you don't need to get into melee range to hit people.

The damage reduction that you can apply every 12s is new too.

And in some way these Adlo/Bio effects "mimic" the old effects but in reverse.

10% damage reduction on Adlo means your enemy team deals less damage to you. (Reminiscent of Bio’s 8% damage output reduction on your enemies.)
20% healing recovery means you get to kill someone faster because they can't replenish their HP as efficiently anymore. (Reminiscent of Adlo’s damage increase on your team.)
(I know the actual calculation of the damage reduction/increase doesn't translate 1:1 between the old and new effects. But they are similar "in spirit" if you will.)

And then you get an extra 10% damage bonus every 30 seconds on top of that.

Plus Chain Stratagem every 20s, to debuff a single target (10% damage reduction and guard reduction).

So tbh, all in all SCH seems more powerful than before.

Regarding the new Phlegma and Psyche:

I agree that in itself draw-in and bind are very good in terms of utility but imo (and that's just my personal opinion of course) to maximise their potential you might want to use them differently than what SGE is built for.
Before 7.1 SGE didn't really need a draw in to assasinate people with Phlegma because its damage went off so fast, it hit them instantly. You also have double dash, so if someone tried to escape you could just stick to their feet like gum and hit them with a second Phlegma charge just one GCD later.
At the same time, since Phlegma was only damage, not using it (on CD) was forgivable because you'd still do lots of damage from afar.

In the end, you only used Phlegma for extra damage in very calculated moments where you could take the risk of entering melee range.
But if that situation didn't arise you could still be effective from your ranged position.

Now, at least for me, it feels like I should use Phlegma not only in those specific "assasination" moments but also in moments where drawing people in and binding them would be beneficial for the whole team, more like DRK does.
Not using Phlegma often now feels like wasting what is in itself a very good utility tool.
But those are situations that are often completely at odds with SGE. Pulling in several players and binding them in place are (imo) the type of high-risk moments that you'd normally avoid because the chances of surviving being pummeled by 2+ melees as a super squishy are quite low.

If the draw-in and bind are supposed to be for a single target you try to pick off then it wasn't really needed because you could easily chase them with double dash.
I'll admit though that a bind for the person you are attacking is useful when somebody from your team assists you. Then the added utility makes it easier to finish somebody off together.


Also, replacing the second Phlegma charge with Psyche ironically feels less oppressive even though it's available more often than the second Phlegma charge because Psyche's animation takes so long until it deals damage. Before you could very quickly throw 20k damage on your opponent(s), two instant hits of 10k that were only separated by one GCD. This quick activation time and follow-up (plus your dash for chasing) made it easier to kill low health targets because it left them less room to recover or run.

Now your first, fast Phlegma charge only does 8k damage and its follow-up spell takes so long that you can't really attack in quick succession the same way you could before. Now your attacks aren't just separated by a GCD but by a GCD + Psyche's long animation. This gives opponents more time to react.
So you lose this kind of high-risk-high-reward instant impact "double whammy" gameplay.
Psyche's only saving grace is that you can save it and cast it from afar but personally speaking it's just not as satisfying as the old double Phlegma for me.

Lasty, generally speaking I agree with the sentiment that SGE's LB feels even less impressive now that every class got more damage and/or more healing but Mesotes hasn't gotten any improvements.

Every other healer has seen damage increases to their LBs (even though WHM's LB has only been increased by 2k). But the DPS healer whose LB can be trivialised so easily already sees nothing? Tbh here I would have liked some kind of added utility. Be it a draw-in+heavy effect and/or a debuff that reduces guard by 50%. The thing that SCH and PLD have as normal skills. Like that people just popping guard to negate SGE's LB's DoT would be less effective for them.
(I think SGE's LB is a different story than say DRG or SMN because those classes have one big frontloaded hit. So given the high impact being tactical wrt opponents not guarding makes sense for me. But SGE has a DoT (which is already easier to heal through) and the DoT falls off shortly after you leave the field, all while nullifying Mesote's invincibility. So you can run in, run out, and attack while dealing with the DoT.)

[MEagle]

Just try playing against the combo of good, high-ranked AST and SCH. Pair it along with PLD in their team and the game just turns into endless boring fight where you might literally be incapable of finishing anyone off. Compared to them, SGE is so, so much more worse.

[AnotherPerson]

I was curious after your comment so I just tested Seraph and she does autoheal!
I had someone reduce my HP to almost 0 and she healed me up with repeated heals in 2.5s intervals.

I would also like to respectfully disagree with some other points.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I'm referring to the Excog effect (Auto-heal under 50%), not Fairy constantly targeting someone with healing. The Fairy still casts Seraphic Veil on single target, but she doesn't apply the Excog effect on summon that instantly heals your team the moment you dip under 50% HP. We originally had a frontloaded heal we can use (Consolation) as an ability in addition to being given Auto-Excog on SCH pre 7.1. This makes it a very strong burst heal prevention tool. The removal of Auto-Excog gives us less survival control even with Accession (8k heal/shield) simply because it competes on your other GCD actions. Current Seraph's Seraphic Veil on Summon Seraph is an auto-trigger ability that is cast a couple seconds after being summoned, but only on one random target at a time. She's basically an uncontrollable strengthened Adlo and a heal amplifier every 60s. 6.1 PvP SCH also provided Seraphic Veil, but it just applied a 4k shield.

SCH lost Seraph's party-wide excog for a stronger but uncontrollable ST heal & a portion of your Biolysis DoT damage is moved over to your Nuke during your LB. The skill replacement feels very incomparable to prevent instantaneous burst, but technically stronger potency assuming you can get the full potencies out of every spell. However, the previous healing spell (Adlo) also have a higher potency, which was far more readily accessible (15s) than using Seraph's improved potency healing (60s). It's really a mixed bag, but also feels like a significant nerf to me.

New LB skill Accession with 8k heal/shield is a spell (GCD lockout) as opposed to an ability (Consolation was a 4k shield/4k heal). It offers far less burst healing flexibility than you think because it can't be used in conjunction with Adlo to magnify your shields quickly and also fights the GCD for Seraphic Halo. You have to pick either one. This is also where the Excog "Auto-heal" (8k Excog auto-trigger) really show its differences when handling against a targeted burst as it provides up to a 8k eHP without fighting on your GCD with 4k shield & heal flexibly. You can delay Seraph to time it with your LB to maximize Accession's potency healing, but delaying a skill for 30s is extremely detrimental with the current low cooldown cycle of various job skills, Not to mention the already low healing output on SCH without LB & Seraph getting nerfed further.

So Overall SCH is stronger numerically over the course of multiple GCDs, but feels comparatively weaker in handling both burst healing and burst DPS in a moment to moment decision to me.


I do agree, SGE does feel far less impressive now because it doesn't feel like their overall damage went up to compensate for their nerfed toolkit elsewhere (change in positioning, nerfed aoe shields). I've been testing SGE, and I also noticed the delay between when Psyche activates and Psyche hits a target is quite slow. Even with a 3s bind, the timing with Psyche and Phlemga is not ideal. Maybe if Psyche hit faster, the bind will feel somewhat better. That being said, it does feel more restrictive since Phlegma only works if you go in close range, so SGE has to stay in close range to be able use their combo.