Final Fantasy XIV’s newest healing job, Sage, is a potent shield healer with a unique way to go about their duties. Sage’s abilities turn DPS to healing by applying a buff to a teammate, and uses its barriers and healing magicks to keep others alive.
In FFXIV, healers are still expected to deal damage to maximize the team’s DPS in hard fights. Sages excel at this, focusing a lot of their energy on dealing damage. A level 90 Sage has a varied toolkit to call on in order to keep their party alive without sacrificing their own damage output, applying barriers and damage mitigation as they go. This guide will help you break down the toolkit so you can press your buttons with confidence in any content you’re looking to conquer.
If you’re looking for a detailed guide for leveling a Sage, check out the full Sage job guide.
The basics of the Sage job
As a healer in FFXIV, you will always be expected to contribute to the party’s overall damage output. Endgame fights such as Extreme or Savage content have enrage timers that can be very strict, and your damage output, even as a support class, can mean the difference between victory or defeat. You should always try to apply as much damage as you can while keeping your party alive. Healers should DPS first, and only heal as much as needed.
Sage focuses on preventing or mitigating damage with barriers, rather than healing after the damage has already been done. This may sound intimidating, and it can be daunting when you’re unfamiliar with a fight. As you become more familiar with FFXIV’s content, you’ll also gain the needed insight to learn when to heal and when to DPS. Sages have plenty of strong healing spells and abilities in their arsenal, so don’t worry too much if something hits harder than you anticipated.
Sage's rotation
Single-target
As with all healers in FFXIV, the Sage doesn’t have a complex damage rotation. The very basics are focused on just three skills: Dosis III, Eukrasia, and Eukrasian Dosis III. You’ll be using Eukrasia to turn Dosis III into Eukrasian Dosis III, which is your damage-over-time ability. Make sure to always have your DoT up on your enemy, unless you think the enemy will die before the DoT has run its course. As long as your DoT is up and your party is healthy, you should keep your damage going with Dosis III.
Sage has an advantage over the other healers in terms of mobility. While the Scholar has a great movement skill with Ruin II, it does come with a DPS loss. Sage on the other hand, has Toxicon II at its disposal. This spell is a GCD, but has no cast time, meaning you can use it on the fly. In addition, it does area-of-effect damage to nearby enemies.
The catch is that Toxicon II uses a charge of Addersting. Addersting is a limited resource for the Sage. You can see how many charges you currently have by looking at your job gauge. The purple diamonds at the bottom indicate Addersting. These can be generated through use of your barriers. When a barrier from Eukrasian Diagnosis is broken, you gain one charge of Addersting. Additionally, when a barrier from Eukrasian Prognosis breaks on yourself, you also gain one charge.
Multi-target
When faced with multiple targets, your basic rotation will look a bit different. You’ll still want to apply Eukrasian Dosis III on as many targets as you can, generally while your party is running. Once the party settles, stand in the middle of the enemies and use Dyskrasia II. This is your basic AoE ability. It has no cast time and no gauge cost, allowing you to do substantial damage while staying mobile. This ability centers itself on the player, not on the player's target, so you’ll need to be in melee range for this to hit.
Sage's burst window
The burst window for Sage is similar to its general rotation. It doesn’t have any party buffs to provide or a big burst to go through. The only difference between the normal single-target rotation and the burst window is a single skill. Phlegma III is the most potent DPS spell in the Sage’s kit and has two charges. So, during the group’s two-minute burst window, you will want to make sure you have both charges of Phlegma III ready in order to take advantage of all the group buffs. To avoid a DPS loss, don’t let both charges sit idle outside of the burst window. When this skill’s second charge becomes available, use it to always keep one charge on cooldown unless your next burst window is imminent.
Sage opener
The Sage opener is one of the shortest openers you’ll find in FFXIV. However, before you begin your opener, it’s vital to apply Kardia to a party member, which will usually be your main tank. This party member will receive any healing you generate through your own damage output.
Before your party pulls, it’s also generally expected for a Sage to pre-shield everyone. Since most harder fights, like Extreme or Savage content, start out with party-wide damage, applying barriers before the battle starts saves on resources during the fight. Your mana replenishes very quickly outside of combat, so don't be afraid to spend some of it during the countdown.
How to pre-shield depends on the fight. Zoe is one of your bigger cooldowns. It increases the potency of your next healing spell by 50%. If you know you won’t need it for the first 90 seconds of the fight and there is a hard hitting party-wide hit near the start of the fight, it can be a good idea to use Zoe and Eukrasian Prognosis prior to pulling. If you think you will need Zoe before it would be off cooldown, hang onto it and pre-shield with just Eukrasian Prognosis instead, applying a Kerachole before the actual hit happens if necessary.
- Tincture of Mind (- 3 seconds)
- Dosis III (- 1.5 seconds)
- Eukrasia
- Eukrasian Dosis III
- Dosis III
- Dosis III
- Phlegma III
- Phlegma III
- Dosis III
Sage healing skills priority
Since you want to maximize the time you can spend contributing damage to the fight, you’ll be prioritizing oGCD healing over GCD healing. This means that you’ll be trying to weave heals, barriers, and mitigation in between your base damage dealing spells. As a Sage, you have a lot of oGCD abilities available, so let’s go over them.
Skills using Addersgall
On the job gauge referenced earlier in this guide, you can see blue ovals and a bar that slowly fills up. Every time the bar fills up you gain an additional blue charge, up to a maximum of three. These are called Addersgall, and they fuel some of your more potent oGCD healing abilities. This set of skills include Kerachole, Taurochole, Druochole and Ixochole. Be sure to get familiar with these four. Kerachole and Taurochole mitigate damage as well as provide healing, while Druochole and Ixochole are both powerful oGCD healing abilities.
Spending Addersgall is also part of a Sage’s mana management, as each charge spent gives you back seven percent of your maximum mana. So don’t sit on charges too long, they are an important part of your toolkit. If you find yourself out of Addersgall when you really need a charge, you can get a free one once per 90 seconds by using Rhizomata.
Free skills
The second set of oGCD abilities are completely free to use. These skills don't use mana or Addersgall, making them great choices for quick fixes.These are some of your longer cooldowns, so you may have to plan when to use them. The abilities in this set are Physis II, Holos, Haima, Panhaima, Zoe, Krasis, Soteria, Rhizomata and Pepsis.
GCD spells
Most GCD healing spells should be avoided if you can help it, with one notable exception. Pneuma is a powerful heal that also damages enemies, so using it has no negative effects on your damage output. Outside of that, you’re left with Prognosis and Diagnosis, both pure healing spells. These can be changed to Eukrasian Prognosis and Eukrasian Diagnosis through the use of Eukrasia, changing their main effect to applying a barrier rather than just healing. These are a last resort, since using them eats up a GCD and reduces your DPS.
Sage tips
- Pairing Zoe with Pneuma is an excellent way to heal up your party without sacrificing damage when you need a big heal and don't want to sacrifice a GCD. Pneuma is an AoE damage spell that also heals allies in its range. It has a 600 cure potency as a base, going up significantly when used with Zoe.
- Icarus is a fantastic way to quickly get yourself out of a bad position, allowing you to either fly to a party member or an enemy. Being greedy on a cast doesn’t have to spell doom if you remember you have Icarus at your disposal.
- Try to use Panhaima in situations where your party is about to take several hits in a row to get maximum value out of the skill. It’s a unique way of applying repeated barriers with minimal effort and can make several difficult mechanics a lot easier to deal with.
- To prepare for a fight, it’s a good idea to fish for charges of Addersting. When running from fight to fight, applying Eukrasian Diagnosis to your tank is a good way to farm up these charges. This also applies for downtime during a fight. Applying this spell in combat just to get charges however, results in a DPS loss.
Sage is a very solid healer with a lot of tricks up its sleeve. Don’t be afraid to try them all out, and get a good feel for what each and every ability does. It won’t be long until you’ve found your groove. Now grab your nouliths and go fire off some lasers - for healing with, of course.
