Need a Sage starter guide? Well you found the right place. If you found yourself here, you probably need advice on one of these – Making sense and setting up the Sage initial skills, or help with exactly HOW to use them (“rotation”). BTW, SGE unlocks in Limsa.
Sage can be overwhelming when you first start out. There’s a bunch of skills, and it all feels a little technical. Don’t worry, I’ll help you out the best I can while yer’ here.
I PLACED THE LEVEL OF THE SKILL BESIDE THE SKILLNAME SO YOU CAN EASILY FIND THEM!
While I could list the initial Sage skills by level, I think discussing them by logical “grouping” is better.
Sage Systems and Basics – a short rundown
Here’s a quick summary on the sage subsystems that will help give you context on the skill discussions to come.
Addersgall: You gain a stack of this every 20 seconds. It’s like an automatic Aetherflow I suppose. You can spend Addersgall on powerful healing and utility skills that all restore a little bit of your MP, while also being free (they only cost Addersgall, and have a short cooldown).
Addersting: When a barrier you apply gets completely consumed, you get Addersting. You can only use this on Toxikon
Kardia / Kardion: Gives “free healing” to a selected party member whenever you DPS. Why not.
Eukrasia: CONVERTS other skills into their Eukrasian counterpart. Sounds weird, but essentially it’s a way to save hotbar space. It’s pretty cool once you get to use it.
Sage DPS Skills
Forgive me for discussing DPS first, but you will be pressing this most while leveling up (or most other things). In terms of preparation, Kardia (L4) should always be up, especially in group content. I suppose your Chocobo is the very minimum target for this, lol.
Sage Single Target DPS skills
Dosis (L1) is your basic pew pew spell.
Eukrasia (L30) Converts certain skills to have different effects (saving hotbar space). Eukrasia should have a very accessible keybind.
Eukrasia + Dosis = Eukrasian Dosis (DoT). Keep this up on enemies that will live for a while.
Phlegma (L26) instant OGCD with charges. It’s AoE, but you should still use it for single target.
Toxikon (L66) instant AoE (uses Addersting). Single target usage ONLY if you’re busy moving.
Sage AoE DPS skills
Dyskrasia (L46) is your basic AoE spell.
Phlegma (L26) instant OGCD AoE with charges. Preferably used in AoE, but OK for single target.
Toxikon (L66) instant AoE (uses Addersting). Preferably AoE, but great for to use while moving.
Sage Healing Skills
Addersgall Spells
These 4 spells all require Addersgall stacks. I’ll list them here first, and in their respective categories again later. Again, you get a stack of Addersgall every 20 seconds in combat. All of these skill restore MP as an added effect.
Druochole (L45) Heavy single target instant heal.
Ixochole (L52) Heavy AoE instant heal.
Kerachole (L50) AoE Damage Mitigation (and regen later on).
Taurochole (L62) Heavy single target instant heal WITH damage mitigation.
Finally, Rizomata (you’ll get this at 74, though) grants you 1 Addersgall via a CD.
Sage Single Target Healing
Diagnosis (L2) Is your el basic of the basic “Cure I” type heal. Weak but efficient.
Eukrasian Diagnosis (L2) Heavy single target shielding. Gives Addersting when shield consumed. If it isn’t obvious by now, you need to “modify” Diagnosis with Eukrasia to get this spell.
Pepsis (L58) Instant OGCD spell that STRIPS all of your shields from allies, in exchange for healing. The heal is stronger from Diagnosis shields, compared to your AoE shield.
Haima (L70) Long Cooldown, ultra heavy long duration shielding. This is a pretty awesome CD that essentially shields your target up to 5 times. If some of these are unused, you get a scaling heal at the end.
Sage AoE Healing
Prognosis (L10) is your basic AoE healing.
Eukrasian Prognosis converts it into an AoE shielding spell.
Holos (L20) Instant OGCD AoE heal with a moderate cooldown.
Physis (L20) Instant OGCD AoE heal over time with moderate cooldown.
Pepsis (L58) Instant OGCD spell that STRIPS all of your shields from allies, in exchange for healing.
Physis (L60) Instant OGCD spell that lightly heals, but adds a buff to healing done.
Sage 70 other Cooldowns and Utility
Kardia (L4) is discussed earlier. Gives your DPS spells a free little heal on your selected “beacon”.
Soteria (L35) Doubles the heal of Kardion effects. Eh, not bad. It’s “free healing” and gives you 4 or 5 DPS spells worth of Kardia healing without “guilt or worry”.
Icarus (L40) Mobility spell that jumps you to a friendly target.
Zoe (L56) Doubles the effectivity of your next healing spell.
Eukrasia (L30) is discussed earlier, yeah technically this spell also falls in this category.
Sage L70 ‘Rotation’
I guess I can place a little ‘how to play SGE basics’ here, as there really isn’t a rotation to speak of for the most part as healer… Lemme update this in a bit.
Summary & Outro
Sage seems a little daunting when you’re setting it up… and it probably is haha. But, just remember, if you’re learning… “DONT WASTE TOO MUCH, AND DONT HOLD ON TOO LONG”. Use your utility and cooldown skills “when you need ’em”. As you gain human experience, your ways to gauge this will be more refined.
Welp, I hope you took our “Sage advice” to get you started right up. Careful out there, and don’t drop ‘yer tank!