Sage Healing Rotation, Ability Priority, and Cooldowns — Endwalker 6.55

As with all healers, it is important to maximize the value of your healing to 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 fully utilize all the tools at your disposal.

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

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

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

The Addersgall Gauge is a surprisingly nuanced topic, but this should serve 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 to complete (to avoid reaching three charges, which stops the timer).
   • Pay attention to the times you have to spend charges just to avoid overcapping the gauge. Each of these instances means that you might instead be able to spend an extra charge on one of the previous mechanics.
3. As you become more familiar with the encounter, you will naturally learn when to spend an extra charge or save one.

 

The rigid nature of the Addersgall Gauge has a huge effect on how you heal. You cannot afford to let Addersgall charges go to waste because each Addersgall 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 soon as you reach three charges. That is why you should ideally never have three charges. If the timer for your third charge is about to complete, you should spend a charge to prevent the timer from stopping. Even if there is no need for the healing, spend a charge on Druochole (because it has no real cooldown) for the MP restoration.

Unfortunately, the way the timer works means that you really only have two charges 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 Addersgall deficit.

To efficiently manage your gauge, you must find the balance between these two challenges: look for regular opportunities to get meaningful value from Addersgall heals, but be very cautious about spending both your available charges at the same time.

 

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

When selecting a heal, it may help to focus on its additional effect. For example, think of Holos primarily as party mitigation and Physis II primarily as a healing buff. You can get the healing from 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 when and where you should use it.

The importance of these additional effects means that Sage's heals do not have traditional priority rankings (other than oGCDs having priority over standard GCD heals). Every heal is situational, and you have a heal for every situation. In the following usage notes, the spells and abilities are listed in no particular order.

It is worth noting that Kerachole, Physis II, Holos, and Panhaima all have a radius of 30y. No other healer has access to so many healing (or shielding) effects with such a large range, especially for instant heals or shields like Holos and Panhaima.

These abilities may allow you to heal or shield allies during mechanics that 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 shields at such a long range, if they have any at all. Most of the time, the extra range is just convenient, but you should keep it in mind for mechanics that force the party to spread out.

• Kerachole
  • Kerachole will likely be your most used AoE heal. Ideally, it should be before raid damage in order to mitigate the incoming damage. If the party is at full HP, you will want to use it right before the incoming damage in order 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 a single tick of the regen unless the incoming damage is very low.
  • The mitigation lasts 15 seconds, and the ability only has a 30-second cooldown, so you can usually mitigate almost every instance of raid damage in 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 far away.
 
• Ixochole
  • Ixochole is usually your second most used Addersgall heal, after Kerachole. Usually, you should only use Ixochole if you are unable to use Kerachole, either because it is on cooldown or because you need the healing immediately 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 by healing actions by 10%. Because the description says "healing actions" rather than "healing magic," the healing buff applies to both spells (GCDs) and abilities (oGCDs). You want to make use of this healing buff, so it is often paired with other AoE heals like Kerachole.
  • Keep in mind that it affects more than just your own healing. It will buff any healing done by your party members, including your co-healer's spells 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, while the regen lasts 15 seconds. This gives you a fairly small window to use another heal during the buff. If you intend to buff another heal with Physis II, you will need to use the other heal within the next few GCDs.
  • It has a fairly short cooldown, so it should usually be available for the start of every dungeon pull. If it is not back up in time for the next pull, your group most likely has enough DPS that it will not matter.
 
• Holos
  • Holos is a powerful on-demand defensive ability with two unique effects: a 20-second party mitigation buff and an AoE shield. This mitigation effect lasts longer than most party mitigation abilities, making it easier to cover multiple instances of raid damage with careful timing.
  • Holos stacks with other mitigation and shields (but not another Holos used by another Sage in the party), allowing you to increase the party's maximum effective HP by a large amount. The shield strength is based on the value of the heal, so healing buffs that affect abilities (oGCDs), such as Physis II, will also increase the strength of the shield.
  • In order to fully utilize the ability, you need to use it before the party takes damage to make use of the mitigation, but you do not want the party 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 would really prefer to mitigate both hits in the first place.
  • Ideally, you should avoid healing the party back to full HP when you intend to use Holos on an upcoming mechanic, but that is usually only possible in a coordinated group. In a less coordinated group, you often have to choose between the healing and the mitigation to some degree.
  • If you are unable to plan and coordinate its usage to ensure the healing is not wasted, just take advantage of any opportunity you see where the party is missing some HP right before hard-hitting raid damage.
 
• Panhaima
  • Panhaima is one of Sage's most unique abilities. When used, it provides the 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 a new 200-potency shield. 15 seconds after the ability was used, the stacks expire, healing for 100 potency per remaining stack.
  • The party will almost never receive enough separate instances of damage in the short 15-second window to utilize all five stacks of shielding. Most of the time, the best you can hope for is that one or two stacks will be used in addition to the initial shield. This means that in most cases, Panhaima will provide 200-400 potency of useful shielding and then 300-400 potency of healing.
  • Try not to focus too much on how many stacks are converted to shielding. The important thing to consider is that it provides a minimum of 600 total potency, assuming the initial shield breaks. For each additional stack that is converted, the total potency is increased by 100.
  • The final shield that is converted often ends up expiring without blocking damage, which is a little awkward, but there is not much you can realistically do about it. Again, do not focus too much on its theoretical maximum potency. Focus on the value it can actually provide in a given situation.
  • The most obvious use for Panhaima is a multi-hit or back-to-back raid damage mechanic. Additionally, it is especially good at handling party-wide or multi-target damage-over-time effects because each tick of the DoT will often go through one shield stack. This is one of the only ways you can realistically get the maximum possible potency from the ability.
  • The difference as more stacks are consumed is only 100 potency per stack so it is often perfectly valid to use the ability just to get an extra 200-potency shield that stacks with Eukrasian Prognosis.
  • The shields are affected by healing buffs, and the buffs for all subsequent shields are snapshot upon the initial application of the skill. If you use Physis II right before Panhaima, all the shield refreshes will be buffed even after the healing buff has expired.
  • Despite being an AoE ability, Panhaima is still an extremely powerful tool for healing the tank because the auto-attack damage they take should ensure that they use up most or all of the shield stacks. In dungeons, it should be a regular part of your healing cooldown rotation during trash pulls.
  • You usually would not use Panhaima just for the tanks in a raid environment, but it can be worth keeping in mind that it provides more value to the tanks if they are taking auto-attacks during a raid damage mechanic.
 
• Pneuma
  • Pneuma is your strongest AoE heal. In fact, it has the highest immediate healing potency of any heal in the game, especially when combined with Zoe. Zoe only affects GCD heals, so it should usually be used on Pneuma.
  • As a powerful heal with a relatively long cooldown, Pneuma's usage should be deliberately planned if possible. Outside of planned uses, it is your strongest recovery tool when things go very wrong (one of the only ones 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 important to keep this in mind because this means you can only cast Pneuma if you have an enemy targeted, and that enemy must be within the 25y cast range.
  • Despite the damage effect being a line AoE, the healing is a circular area centered on you like any other standard AoE heal. The healing range is actually 20y from you, which is considerably larger than the 15y range of your other AoE heals.
 
• Eukrasian Prognosis
  • As a GCD heal, Eukrasian Prognosis should be avoided when possible. It should mostly be used to fill in gaps that cannot be covered by your oGCD heals (and your co-healer's oGCDs).
  • Otherwise, it may be used for the safety provided by the shield. In Savage raids and Extreme trials, the shield may be necessary to prevent damage that would kill the party from full HP. During progression, the shield is valuable simply as a safety net and an HP buffer to guard against mistakes or unexpected damage.
  • When attempting to prevent lethal damage, you can pair Eukrasian Prognosis with Zoe and/or Physis II to increase the strength of the shield, especially if the party is lacking in other mitigation.
  • When the shield from Eukrasian Prognosis on you is broken by damage, you gain a stack of Addersting which may be used to cast Toxikon II. Since Toxikon II does not cost MP and replaces a cast of Dosis III, it offsets the cost of Eukrasian Prognosis by 400 MP. This makes it an extremely cheap AoE heal as long as the shield is consumed by damage and you get the chance to cast Toxikon II.
 
• Pepsis
  • Pepsis is a fairly situational ability that is mostly used for recovery or emergencies. If you have already cast Eukrasian Prognosis and you still need more GCD healing, you can use Pepsis to "convert" the existing shields into healing. This allows you to cast Eukrasian Prognosis again without wasting 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 potency depending on the shield that was removed. When it removes a shield from Eukrasian Prognosis, it heals for 350 potency, but the shield itself was 320 potency.
    • This means that if the shield from Eukrasian Prognosis was the result of a critical heal, that increased value is not transferred to the Pepsis heal. However, the Pepsis heal itself has its own chance to crit. Similarly, if Eukrasian Prognosis was affected by a healing buff when it was cast, that increased shield value does not carry over to the Pepsis heal. The Pepsis heal will be affected independently by any existing healing buffs when it is used.
    • It has little practical use, but it also means that even if a shield has absorbed some damage, as long as it has not been broken, Pepsis will heal for the same amount when it removes the weakened shield.
  • A more obscure use for Pepsis is to intentionally remove shields that are about to expire. This can be useful if you need to shield an upcoming hit, but there are pre-existing shields from a previous cast of Eukrasian Prognosis that will expire shortly before the damage hits. You would only be able to overwrite those shields with a new cast if the new shield value were larger than the existing shield, which would be subject to standard heal variance. You might overwrite some of the shields with a new cast, but probably not all of them. Pepsis can be used to clear away those shields so you can apply a fresh shield to everyone.
 
• Prognosis
  • In some ways, Prognosis is just a less powerful AoE GCD heal than Eukrasian Prognosis. However, unlike Eukrasian Prognosis, it can be cast repeatedly without worrying about a shield going to waste. If you need more GCD healing after you have cast Eukrasian Prognosis, you would normally use Pepsis and cast another Eukrasian Prognosis. If you still need more GCD healing after that, you can resort to Prognosis.
  • If shields are not useful in the current situation (for example, Doom mechanics that require the party to be healed to 100% HP), you would resort to Prognosis after the initial Eukrasian Prognosis + Pepsis.

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

• Kardia
  • Kardia is your source of passive single-target healing, similar to the Scholar's faerie. Unlike the faerie, however, you can choose who gets healed. The cooldown for placing Kardia on a different target is only five seconds, which makes it an incredibly flexible tool for spot healing. Do not be afraid to move Kardia around for any necessary single-target healing. It is not only for the tank. Just remember to put it back on the tank afterward.
 
• Taurochole
  • Taurochole is your strongest single-target heal, but it competes with the more frequently useful Kerachole and Ixochole for Addersgall charges. When you need an immediate burst of single-target healing for the tank, this is the first ability you should reach for.
  • It is rarer than it is useful on non-tanks because the mitigation is rarely useful on them after they have already taken damage. The most common situation in which you would use it on a non-tank is if there is upcoming raid damage and one person is missing a lot of HP (often after they have been raised).
  • It is most commonly used during trash pulls in dungeons, but its mitigation does not stack with the mitigation from Kerachole. Taurochole heals for 200 potency more than Kerachole, but it is usually more practical to 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 the beginning of the pull, that much healing would be mostly overheal. Using Kerachole 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 enough HP that you can use Taurochole without overhealing. When using them this way, you can often keep 10% mitigation on the tank for the entire pull.
 
• Druochole
  • Druochole is a slightly weaker version of Taurochole, healing for 100 potency less and lacking the mitigation effect. The primary reason it is useful is that it has essentially no cooldown. It can be used multiple times in a row, or it can be used instead of Taurochole in order to avoid putting Taurochole on cooldown if the extra potency and mitigation are not needed.
  • It is also used to spend excess Addersgall charges for the MP restoration without putting any of your important Addersgall heals on cooldown.
 
• Haima
  • When used, Haima gives the target an initial 300-potency shield and five stacks of "stored" shields. When the shield is broken by damage, a stack is converted into a new 300-potency shield. 15 seconds after the ability was used, the stacks expire, healing for 150 potency per remaining stack.
  • Unlike Panhaima, Haima will almost always provide its maximum possible potency because it is almost always used on the tank. The regular auto-attack damage the tank takes should ensure that most or all of the stacks are used, bringing the total to an incredible 1800 potency.
  • This ability can single-handedly make a tank nearly impossible to kill in a dungeon pull of any size, at least for a short time.
  • All the shield refreshes are affected by the snapshot of the healing buffs that were present when the skill was initially used. Just using Krasis before applying Haima brings the total potency to 2160.
 
• Krasis
  • Krasis increases HP restored by healing actions by 20%. The phrase "healing actions" means that it affects both abilities (oGCDs) and spells (GCDs). It will increase the healing on the target from anything you do, and it will also affect any healing on that target from any other source.
  • It has the same cooldown and duration as the healing buff from Physis II, so it should usually be available for the start of every dungeon pull. If it is not back up in time for the next pull, your group most likely has enough DPS that it will not matter.
  • Its relatively short duration means that it is not very practical to use it 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 or buff a tank's self-healing.
  • Otherwise, it should be used to buff Taurochole/Druochole when you need a large burst of single-target healing or to buff Eukrasian Diagnosis when you need a large single-target shield.
  • It can be useful to increase the healing on a particular party member when you are AoE healing, either because the tank needs more healing or because 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 to 289. This results in an additional 476 healing potency over those four casts. It is not especially powerful, but it is completely free and requires no special circumstances to work. The extra healing can be further increased by Physis II, Krasis, and other healing buffs.
  • You can use Soteria any time you need a little more healing on the tank. It can also be used to speed up any spot healing you do by switching Kardia targets, healing the target with fewer casts so you can move Kardia back to the tank sooner. Overall, it is a very flexible cooldown that is almost universally useful for any kind of single-target healing.
 
• Eukrasian Diagnosis
  • Eukrasian Diagnosis provides a 300-potency heal and a 540-potency shield.
  • The critical heal interaction can be incredibly powerful, but it is not reliable in any way. In reality, it is a welcome bonus when it happens, but it is not something you actively consider when healing. With that said, you usually only cast Eukrasian Diagnosis when you are falling behind on healing, so it is a very welcome surprise.
    • On a critical heal, a second shield is applied, stacking with the base shield. Both shields are affected by the critical hit multiplier. The exact multiplier depends on your stats, but using a reasonable estimate of a 1.5x multiplier, the combined shield strength would be equivalent to 1620 potency. That is in addition to the base heal, which would be equivalent to 450 potency on a critical heal.
  • Eukrasian Diagnosis should be used when you do not have enough time to spot heal someone with Kardia and you cannot afford to use Addersgall charges 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 for a tank buster or someone has vulnerability stacks. When trying to prevent lethal damage, healing buffs such as Physis II, Krasis, and Zoe can make a significant difference.
  • Pepsis is very rarely useful for Eukrasian Diagnosis. If you are in a situation where you had to cast it on the tank, they are most likely taking so much damage that the shield will be broken before you can apply another one. In that case, it would be pointless to use Pepsis, especially considering that the base shield potency is 540; Pepsis only heals for 450 potency when used with a shield from Eukrasian Diagnosis.
    • The only time Pepsis is likely to be useful for Eukrasian Diagnosis is if you are desperately trying to restore a lot of HP to a single person who is not currently taking damage.
  • When the basic shield (not the special critical shield) is broken by damage, 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 to make up for the damage lost by casting a GCD heal. Even in a multi-target situation, it is a relatively small DPS gain; it is not worth casting Eukrasian Diagnosis during a fight just to gain access to Toxikon II.
    • However, it is a useful mobility tool since it is an instant-cast spell. It also has no MP cost, which offsets the cost of Eukrasian Diagnosis by 400 MP.
    • It can sometimes be worthwhile to cast Eukrasian Diagnosis on one or more party members during downtime in order to stock up on Addersting charges that can be used as needed for mobility. During downtime, this is not a DPS loss, but it can cost quite a bit of MP. This is also done on the tank before the pull to ensure you will have at least one Addersting from the start of the encounter.
 
• Diagnosis
  • Diagnosis is your absolute last resort for anything. It should only be used if you have no other options at all. If shields are not useful because there are already shields applied or you specifically need raw HP, Diagnosis may be your only option. As a Sage, you should endeavor to make sure you never find yourself in a situation so dire that you need to cast this spell.