RE: Sage Design

[ty_taurus]

I forget how much time I have remaining before I'll get locked out of the forum, so before I go, I want to add what I'll refer to as a practical assessment of what Sage needs.

What I mean by "practical assessment" is... Usually when I talk about job design and change, I resort to more significant rework ideas that put an emphasis on what I believe job design lacks. For healers, that's things like decisions between resources, more dynamic MP management, etc. But realistically, something of that caliber is unlikely. So when I say "practical assessment," I'm referring to suggestions that can better address the issues with the job's design while working within the structure that the devs like. With that in mind, allow me to share these suggestions before I leave again:

Healing

As I said before, Sage lacks a strong identity in how it approaches healing because most of its core healing arsenal is a direct copy of Scholar's, most prominently Addersgall. Sage's Addersgall healing is nearly identical to Scholar's Aetherflow. It is powerful, abundant, and available at almost every healing check, and I believe an easy and simple way of injecting more of Sage's identity into its gameplay is changing Addersgall to be spent on Kardia enhancements instead of a set of copy-paste Aetherflow heals.

In other words, replace Druochole with Soteria, add a proper AOE Soteria effect (colloquially "Pankardia") and a couple other tools that interact with Kardia. One suggestion I made previously was an action that changes Kardia to apply a stackable barrier (with a cap) instead of a heal, and allow this to stack with Soteria and Pankardia.

Pankardia does overlap with Philosophia in a sense, and a suggestion I have for Philosophia is to rework it into an Enshroud/Reawaken type Fast GCD phase. It could have a shorter cooldown and perhaps charges so you have more control over timing rather than hitting it on cooldown, but it'd let you proc Kardia more quickly while attacking with a couple new animations that temporarily replace Dosis and Dysraskia. This combos with the new Addersgall options nicely, and if a burst window overlaps with damage taken, you have a fairly comfortable time handling it.

DPS

I've rather shamelessly glazed PVP Sage's kit many times. Those who know me are probably sick of hearing it, but I do think it accomplishes a much more satisfying "rotation" without actually adding anything new in terms of action volume. Shorter DOT, shorter cooldowns, and more offensive uses for Toxikon and Pneuma turn something otherwise monotonous and dull into something that feels active and lively. But here's the thing...

For PVP, I don't necessarily want to go into melee for Phlegma twice as often. In harder fights we often spend most of our time in Melee anyway, but in situations where I'm not, I'd like my "go in" moments to stay at 40 seconds. I also think there is value in Toxikon staying an uptime tool provided we can generate it outside of simply casting barriers, so changing it into the OGCD version of PVP Sage would cost that. And obviously we want Pneuma to retain the function of being useful for a heal. So here's what I think we could accomplish instead:

• A new OGCD - I believe having an additional weaved attack would help the pacing of Sage's offense feel better, something with a shorter cooldown and charges. Let's say 20 seconds or so. Psyche's animation seems too intense for something like this, but if we wanted to conserve on hotbar space, we could have this new action upgrade into a free use Psyche after a cast of Phlegma. This mirrors PVP Sage's kit somewhat and keeps Sage's offensive weaving limited to one button.
• Eukrasian Pneuma - If we change Pneuma into a purely offensive cooldown, we can retain the current healing effects by introducing a Eukrasian Pneuma that can be cast regardless of Pneuma's cooldown. It would not have a cooldown of its own, but a high MP cost to compensate for the new open availability of the spell. Zoe could gain the effect of reducing your next healing spell's MP cost to compensate for this if needed, but having the option to burn a bit of MP for extra burst healing does give Sage an extra option to consider. But if that MP management element is too 'out there,' then it could simply retain having a separate cooldown of its own.
• Something new to fill "the space" - If we keep the cooldown on Phlegma and don't shorten the DOT, then I believe we still need to find something to break up the drawn-out windows of Dosis spam. One suggestion I recall from ForsakenRoe was giving Sage a Reaper style Gibbet and Gallows type pair of actions. Having something like that on a short GCD cooldown and charges would round out the action list nicely. To conserve on hotbar space, you could also make them the same button, but one is accessed through Eukrasia, and perhaps make the reward of alternating these attacks a stack of Addersting to give Sage a much-needed method of obtaining Addersting outside of barrier usage.

The Result

In total, this specific set of ideas would result in two new healing buttons (Pankardia and a barrier-generating Addersgall spender) and one new DPS button (The Gibbet/Gallows action). We could drop the -chole actions since they would be replaced with Soteria and the other new spenders, ultimately reducing our action count by 1 despite the new additions, although any amount of the -choles could be retained and simply changed into more standard cooldowns as well based on what feels necessary.

Of course, the final solution doesn't need to be these exact changes either as long as goal of a more identity-driven healing style and more varied offense are achieved. But I think these aren't that drastic of a change, and since they resemble something familiar to Sage already, aren't creating a case of whiplash either.

At the end of the day, All I want is to express my hope that one day this job will achieve the job fantasy it hasn't yet been able to live up to, and while I'm doubtful 8.0 will deliver, I can at least say I tried my best to offer feedback and suggestions.