Sage Healing Rotation, Ability Priority, and Cooldowns - Dawntrail 7.0 (2024)

Last updated on Jul 25, 2024 at 22:35by Wynn10 comments

On this page, you will learn how to best use your healing spells insingle-target and multi-target situations to keep your party members aliveduring fights. We also cover cooldown usage, ensuring the best usage ofthem, as well as differing damage levels, to allow you to adapt yourhealing as necessary as a Sage Healer in Final Fantasy XIV:Dawntrail (Patch 7.0).

As with all healers, it is important to maximize the value of your healingto ensure your party's safety while allowing you to contribute damage yourself.However, Sage's design makes it even more important to understand how to fullyutilize all the tools at your disposal.

Sage's most important and most frequently used heals all have additionaleffects like shielding, mitigation, or healing buffs. If you only ever make useof either the healing or the additional effect, the job can feel quite weak.For example, using Holos for the mitigation when the partyis at full HP completely wastes the 300 potency heal.

Many of Sage's other heals are also designed to be used before the partytakes damage. When you can safely do so, try to leave the party missing enoughHP that you do not waste healing from whatever mitigation abilities you intendto use for the next raid damage.

Your co-healer might heal the party to 100%, but that is usually out ofyour control unless you know them. However, you should at least try to makesure you do not cause yourself to waste healing.

The Addersgall Gauge is a surprisingly nuanced topic, but this shouldserve as a general guideline:

1. Try to spend one charge for every raid damage mechanic.
2. Spend a charge when the timer for the third charge is about tocomplete (to avoid reaching three charges, which stops the timer).
   • Pay attention to the times you have to spend charges just to avoidovercapping the gauge. Each of these instances means that you might insteadbe able to spend an extra charge on one of the previous mechanics.
3. As you become more familiar with the encounter, you will naturally learnwhen to spend an extra charge or save one.

The rigid nature of the Addersgall Gauge has a huge effect on howyou heal. You cannot afford to let Addersgall charges go to waste because eachAddersgall heal restores 700 MP when it is used. To avoid running out of MP,you must frequently spend charges to ensure you do not overcap the gauge.

You generate a charge every 20 seconds, but the timer stops as soonas you reach three charges. That is why you should ideally never havethree charges. If the timer for your third charge is about to complete, youshould spend a charge to prevent the timer from stopping. Even if there is noneed for the healing, spend a charge on Druochole (because ithas no real cooldown) for the MP restoration.

Unfortunately, the way the timer works means that you really only have twocharges at your disposal at any moment. Other than Rhizomata*, you are completely at the mercy of the timer.If you empty the gauge, it can take a long time to recover from that Addersgalldeficit.

To efficiently manage your gauge, you must find the balance between thesetwo challenges: look for regular opportunities to get meaningful value fromAddersgall heals, but be very cautious about spending both your availablecharges at the same time.

*Note: if you use Rhizomata when you have two charges, thegauge timer is reset as it gives you the third charge. This could waste almostan entire charge worth of the timer. Try to only use Rhizomata when you havefewer than two charges to avoid wasting gauge progress.

When selecting a heal, it may help to focus on its additional effect. Forexample, think of Holos primarily as party mitigation and Physis II primarily as a healing buff. You can get the healingfrom somewhere else, but you cannot replicate the additional effect so easily.That is the unique part of the ability, and that is often what determines whenand where you should use it.

The importance of these additional effects means that Sage's heals do nothave traditional priority rankings (other than oGCDs having priority overstandard GCD heals). Every heal is situational, and you have a heal for everysituation. In the following usage notes, the spells and abilities are listed inno particular order.

It is worth noting that Kerachole, Physis II, Holos, and Panhaima all have a radius of 30y. Noother healer has access to so many healing (or shielding) effects with such alarge range, especially for instant heals or shields like Holos andPanhaima.

These abilities may allow you to heal or shield allies during mechanicsthat require the party to spread too far apart for most abilities to reach.Other healers have very few abilities that actually restore HP or apply shieldsat such a long range, if they have any at all. Most of the time, the extrarange is just convenient, but you should keep it in mind for mechanics thatforce the party to spread out.

• Kerachole
  • Kerachole will likely be your most used AoE heal. Ideally, it should bebefore raid damage in order to mitigate the incoming damage. If the partyis at full HP, you will want to use it right before the incoming damage inorder to minimize the risk of wasting the first tick of the regen. However,if you are forced to choose, the mitigation is usually worth more than asingle tick of the regen unless the incoming damage is very low.
  • The mitigation lasts 15 seconds, and the ability only has a 30-secondcooldown, so you can usually mitigate almost every instance of raid damagein an encounter. Keep in mind that, despite its similarities to Sacred Soil, Kerachole is not an area-restricted ability.It simply applies a 15-second buff to allies in range when it is used.After that, everyone keeps the regen and mitigation even if they move faraway.
• Ixochole
  • Ixochole is usually your second most used Addersgall heal, afterKerachole. Usually, you should only use Ixochole if you are unable to useKerachole, either because it is on cooldown or because you need the healingimmediately and cannot wait for Kerachole's regen.
• Physis II
  • Physis II provides a strong regen, but when considering how to use it,you should focus on its additional effect: it increases the HP restored byhealing actions by 10%. Because the description says "healingactions" rather than "healing magic," the healing buff applies to bothspells (GCDs) and abilities (oGCDs). You want to make use of this healingbuff, so it is often paired with other AoE heals like Kerachole.
  • Keep in mind that it affects more than just your own healing. It willbuff any healing done by your party members, including your co-healer'sspells and abilities, your tanks' self-healing, and even things like Second Wind, Arcane Crest, and Everlasting Flight.
  • It is worth noting that the healing buff only lasts 10 seconds, whilethe regen lasts 15 seconds. This gives you a fairly small window to useanother heal during the buff. If you intend to buff another heal withPhysis II, you will need to use the other heal within the next fewGCDs.
  • It has a fairly short cooldown, so it should usually be available forthe start of every dungeon pull. If it is not back up in time for the nextpull, your group most likely has enough DPS that it will not matter.
• Holos
  • Holos is a powerful on-demand defensive ability with two uniqueeffects: a 20-second party mitigation buff and an AoE shield. Thismitigation effect lasts longer than most party mitigation abilities, makingit easier to cover multiple instances of raid damage with carefultiming.
  • Holos stacks with other mitigation and shields (but not another Holosused by another Sage in the party), allowing you to increase the party'smaximum effective HP by a large amount. The shield strength is based on thevalue of the heal, so healing buffs that affect abilities (oGCDs), such asPhysis II, will also increase the strength of the shield.
  • In order to fully utilize the ability, you need to use it before theparty takes damage to make use of the mitigation, but you do not want theparty to be at full HP when you use it since that would waste the healing.You can use it between hits of back-to-back raid damage, but you wouldreally prefer to mitigate both hits in the first place.
  • Ideally, you should avoid healing the party back to full HP when youintend to use Holos on an upcoming mechanic, but that is usually onlypossible in a coordinated group. In a less coordinated group, you oftenhave to choose between the healing and the mitigation to some degree.
  • If you are unable to plan and coordinate its usage to ensure thehealing is not wasted, just take advantage of any opportunity you see wherethe party is missing some HP right before hard-hitting raid damage.
• Panhaima
  • Panhaima is one of Sage's most unique abilities. When used, it providesthe party with an initial 200-potency shield and five stacks of "stored"shields. When the shield is broken by damage, a stack is converted into anew 200-potency shield. 15 seconds after the ability was used, thestacks expire, healing for 100 potency per remaining stack.
  • The party will almost never receive enough separate instances of damagein the short 15-second window to utilize all five stacks of shielding. Most ofthe time, the best you can hope for is that one or two stacks will be usedin addition to the initial shield. This means that in most cases, Panhaimawill provide 200-400 potency of useful shielding and then 300-400 potencyof healing.
  • Try not to focus too much on how many stacks are converted toshielding. The important thing to consider is that it provides a minimum of600 total potency, assuming the initial shield breaks. For each additionalstack that is converted, the total potency is increased by 100.
  • The final shield that is converted often ends up expiring withoutblocking damage, which is a little awkward, but there is not much you canrealistically do about it. Again, do not focus too much on its theoreticalmaximum potency. Focus on the value it can actually provide in a givensituation.
  • The most obvious use for Panhaima is a multi-hit or back-to-back raiddamage mechanic. Additionally, it is especially good at handling party-wideor multi-target damage-over-time effects because each tick of the DoT willoften go through one shield stack. This is one of the only ways you canrealistically get the maximum possible potency from the ability.
  • The difference as more stacks are consumed is only 100 potency perstack so it is often perfectly valid to use the ability just to get anextra 200-potency shield that stacks with Eukrasian Prognosis.
  • The shields are affected by healing buffs, and the buffs for allsubsequent shields are snapshot upon the initial application of the skill.If you use Physis II right before Panhaima, all the shield refreshes willbe buffed even after the healing buff has expired.
  • Despite being an AoE ability, Panhaima is still an extremely powerfultool for healing the tank because the auto-attack damage they take shouldensure that they use up most or all of the shield stacks. In dungeons, itshould be a regular part of your healing cooldown rotation during trashpulls.
  • You usually would not use Panhaima just for the tanks in a raidenvironment, but it can be worth keeping in mind that it provides morevalue to the tanks if they are taking auto-attacks during a raid damagemechanic.
• Philosophia
  • Philosphia provides two bonuses. The first is a party-wide heal on everyGCD use. This acts like a party-wide Kardia, but with the added benefit ofalso working with GCD heals. It also provides a 20% bonus to GCD heals.
  • Philosophia can be used on its own for the party-wide Kardia effect. It canalso be used in situations where you needed to GCD heal anyway. It can alsoact to boost Pneuma's heal alongside Zoe.
• Pneuma
  • Pneuma is your strongest AoE heal. In fact, it has the highestimmediate healing potency of any heal in the game, especially when combinedwith Zoe. Zoe only affects GCD heals, so it should usuallybe used on Pneuma.
  • As a powerful heal with a relatively long cooldown, Pneuma's usageshould be deliberately planned if possible. Outside of planned uses, it isyour strongest recovery tool when things go very wrong (one of the onlyones you have, for that matter).
  • The healing from Pneuma is actually listed as its additional effect.The primary effect is that it is a damaging line AoE. It is very importantto keep this in mind because this means you can only cast Pneuma if youhave an enemy targeted, and that enemy must be within the 25y castrange.
  • Despite the damage effect being a line AoE, the healing is a circulararea centered on you like any other standard AoE heal. The healing rangeis actually 20y from you, which is considerably larger than the 15y rangeof your other AoE heals.
• Eukrasian Prognosis
  • As a GCD heal, Eukrasian Prognosis should be avoided when possible. Itshould mostly be used to fill in gaps that cannot be covered by your oGCDheals (and your co-healer's oGCDs).
  • Otherwise, it may be used for the safety provided by the shield. InSavage raids and Extreme trials, the shield may be necessary to preventdamage that would kill the party from full HP. During progression, theshield is valuable simply as a safety net and an HP buffer to guard againstmistakes or unexpected damage.
  • When attempting to prevent lethal damage, you can pair EukrasianPrognosis with Zoe and/or Physis II to increase the strength of theshield, especially if the party is lacking in other mitigation.
  • When the shield from Eukrasian Prognosis on you is broken bydamage, you gain a stack of Addersting which may be used to cast Toxikon II. Since Toxikon II does not cost MP and replaces acast of Dosis III, it offsets the cost of Eukrasian Prognosisby 400 MP. This makes it an extremely cheap AoE heal as long as the shieldis consumed by damage and you get the chance to cast Toxikon II.
• Pepsis
  • Pepsis is a fairly situational ability that is mostly used for recoveryor emergencies. If you have already cast Eukrasian Prognosis and you stillneed more GCD healing, you can use Pepsis to "convert" the existing shieldsinto healing. This allows you to cast Eukrasian Prognosis again withoutwasting the shields.
  • It does not directly convert the value of the shield to healing.Instead, it removes the shield buff and delivers a heal with a set potencydepending on the shield that was removed. When it removes a shield fromEukrasian Prognosis, it heals for 350 potency, but the shield itself was320 potency.
    • This means that if the shield from Eukrasian Prognosis was the resultof a critical heal, that increased value is not transferred to the Pepsisheal. However, the Pepsis heal itself has its own chance to crit.Similarly, if Eukrasian Prognosis was affected by a healing buff when itwas cast, that increased shield value does not carry over to the Pepsisheal. The Pepsis heal will be affected independently by any existinghealing buffs when it is used.
    • It has little practical use, but it also means that even if a shieldhas absorbed some damage, as long as it has not been broken, Pepsis willheal for the same amount when it removes the weakened shield.
  • A more obscure use for Pepsis is to intentionally remove shields thatare about to expire. This can be useful if you need to shield an upcominghit, but there are pre-existing shields from a previous cast of EukrasianPrognosis that will expire shortly before the damage hits. You would onlybe able to overwrite those shields with a new cast if the new shield valuewere larger than the existing shield, which would be subject to standardheal variance. You might overwrite some of the shields with a new cast, butprobably not all of them. Pepsis can be used to clear away those shields soyou can apply a fresh shield to everyone.
• Prognosis
  • In some ways, Prognosis is just a less powerful AoE GCD heal thanEukrasian Prognosis. However, unlike Eukrasian Prognosis, it can be castrepeatedly without worrying about a shield going to waste. If you need moreGCD healing after you have cast Eukrasian Prognosis, you would normally usePepsis and cast another Eukrasian Prognosis. If you still need more GCDhealing after that, you can resort to Prognosis.
  • If shields are not useful in the current situation (for example, Doommechanics that require the party to be healed to 100% HP), you would resortto Prognosis after the initial Eukrasian Prognosis + Pepsis.

Note: The AoE oGCD heals listed above should be used to supplementyour single-target healing if they are not needed for anything else, which isalmost always the case in dungeons trash pulls.

• Kardia
  • Kardia is your source of passive single-target healing, similar to theScholar's faerie. Unlike the faerie, however, you can choose who getshealed. The cooldown for placing Kardia on a different target is only fiveseconds, which makes it an incredibly flexible tool for spot healing. Donot be afraid to move Kardia around for any necessary single-targethealing. It is not only for the tank. Just remember to put it back on thetank afterward.
• Taurochole
  • Taurochole is your strongest single-target heal, but it competes withthe more frequently useful Kerachole and Ixochole for Addersgall charges. When you need an immediateburst of single-target healing for the tank, this is the first ability youshould reach for.
  • It is rarer than it is useful on non-tanks because the mitigation israrely useful on them after they have already taken damage. The most commonsituation in which you would use it on a non-tank is if there is upcomingraid damage and one person is missing a lot of HP (often after they havebeen raised).
  • It is most commonly used during trash pulls in dungeons, but itsmitigation does not stack with the mitigation from Kerachole. Taurocholeheals for 200 potency more than Kerachole, but it is usually more practicalto use Kerachole first in a trash pull.
    • This is because you will usually apply healing buffs from Krasis and Physis II at the start of the pull,which would bring the instant potency of Taurochole to 924. At thebeginning of the pull, that much healing would be mostly overheal. UsingKerachole first allows you to snapshot the healing buffs on the regen,spreading the healing out to keep the tank healed for the next 15 seconds.By the time Kerachole expires, the tank is more likely to be missing enoughHP that you can use Taurochole without overhealing. When using them thisway, you can often keep 10% mitigation on the tank for the entirepull.
• Druochole
  • Druochole is a slightly weaker version of Taurochole, healing for 100potency less and lacking the mitigation effect. The primary reason it isuseful is that it has essentially no cooldown. It can be used multipletimes in a row, or it can be used instead of Taurochole in order to avoidputting Taurochole on cooldown if the extra potency and mitigation are notneeded.
  • It is also used to spend excess Addersgall charges for the MPrestoration without putting any of your important Addersgall heals oncooldown.
• Haima
  • When used, Haima gives the target an initial 300-potency shield and fivestacks of "stored" shields. When the shield is broken by damage, a stack isconverted into a new 300-potency shield. 15 seconds after the ability wasused, the stacks expire, healing for 150 potency per remaining stack.
  • Unlike Panhaima, Haima will almost always provide itsmaximum possible potency because it is almost always used on the tank. Theregular auto-attack damage the tank takes should ensure that most or all ofthe stacks are used, bringing the total to an incredible 1800 potency.
  • This ability can single-handedly make a tank nearly impossible to killin a dungeon pull of any size, at least for a short time.
  • All the shield refreshes are affected by the snapshot of the healingbuffs that were present when the skill was initially used. Just using Krasis before applying Haima brings the total potency to2160.
• Krasis
  • Krasis increases HP restored by healing actions by 20%. Thephrase "healing actions" means that it affects both abilities (oGCDs) andspells (GCDs). It will increase the healing on the target from anything youdo, and it will also affect any healing on that target from any othersource.
  • It has the same cooldown and duration as the healing buff from Physis II, so it should usually be available for the start ofevery dungeon pull. If it is not back up in time for the next pull, yourgroup most likely has enough DPS that it will not matter.
  • Its relatively short duration means that it is not very practical to useit every time it is available to buff passive healing like Kardia. Instead,it is most useful for snapshotting abilities like Kerachole,Physis II, Haima, etc.
  • It can also be coordinated with your group to assist your co-healer orbuff a tank's self-healing.
  • Otherwise, it should be used to buff Taurochole/Druochole when you needa large burst of single-target healing or to buff Eukrasian Diagnosis when you need a large single-targetshield.
  • It can be useful to increase the healing on a particular party memberwhen you are AoE healing, either because the tank needs more healing orbecause a non-tank has less HP than the rest of the group.
• Soteria
  • Soteria increases the potency of the next four Kardia heals from 170 to289. This results in an additional 476 healing potency over those fourcasts. It is not especially powerful, but it is completely free andrequires no special circ*mstances to work. The extra healing can be furtherincreased by Physis II, Krasis, and other healing buffs.
  • You can use Soteria any time you need a little more healing on thetank. It can also be used to speed up any spot healing you do by switchingKardia targets, healing the target with fewer casts so you can move Kardiaback to the tank sooner. Overall, it is a very flexible cooldown that isalmost universally useful for any kind of single-target healing.
• Eukrasian Diagnosis
  • Eukrasian Diagnosis provides a 300-potency heal and a 540-potencyshield.
  • The critical heal interaction can be incredibly powerful, but it is notreliable in any way. In reality, it is a welcome bonus when it happens, butit is not something you actively consider when healing. With that said, youusually only cast Eukrasian Diagnosis when you are falling behind onhealing, so it is a very welcome surprise.
    • On a critical heal, a second shield is applied, stacking with the baseshield. Both shields are affected by the critical hit multiplier. The exactmultiplier depends on your stats, but using a reasonable estimate of a 1.5xmultiplier, the combined shield strength would be equivalent to 1620potency. That is in addition to the base heal, which would be equivalent to450 potency on a critical heal.
  • Eukrasian Diagnosis should be used when you do not have enough time tospot heal someone with Kardia and you cannot afford to use Addersgallcharges on them.
  • The shield can be useful to prevent lethal damage on a single target.This is especially common when a tank does not have defensive cooldowns fora tank buster or someone has vulnerability stacks. When trying to preventlethal damage, healing buffs such as Physis II, Krasis, and Zoe can make asignificant difference.
  • Pepsis is very rarely useful for Eukrasian Diagnosis. Ifyou are in a situation where you had to cast it on the tank, they are mostlikely taking so much damage that the shield will be broken before you canapply another one. In that case, it would be pointless to use Pepsis,especially considering that the base shield potency is 540; Pepsis onlyheals for 450 potency when used with a shield from EukrasianDiagnosis.
    • The only time Pepsis is likely to be useful for Eukrasian Diagnosis isif you are desperately trying to restore a lot of HP to a single person whois not currently taking damage.
  • When the basic shield (not the special critical shield) is broken bydamage, you gain one charge of Addersting, which is used to cast Toxikon II.
    • Toxikon II is not a DPS gain on a single target, so it does nothing tomake up for the damage lost by casting a GCD heal. Even in a multi-targetsituation, it is a relatively small DPS gain; it is not worth castingEukrasian Diagnosis during a fight just to gain access to Toxikon II.
    • However, it is a useful mobility tool since it is an instant-castspell. It also has no MP cost, which offsets the cost of EukrasianDiagnosis by 400 MP.
    • It can sometimes be worthwhile to cast Eukrasian Diagnosis on one ormore party members during downtime in order to stock up on Adderstingcharges that can be used as needed for mobility. During downtime, this isnot a DPS loss, but it can cost quite a bit of MP. This is also done on thetank before the pull to ensure you will have at least one Addersting fromthe start of the encounter.
• Diagnosis
  • Diagnosis is your absolute last resort for anything. It should only beused if you have no other options at all. If shields are not useful becausethere are already shields applied or you specifically need raw HP,Diagnosis may be your only option. As a Sage, you should endeavor to makesure you never find yourself in a situation so dire that you need to castthis spell.