I am available for consultation on the drafts/revisions of Sorcerer questions. I served in a similar advisory/editorial capacity for Paowee in the Sniper forums. PM me your shortlist or link me to your planned compilation, and I can either edit privately or suggest revisions in a public forum. Language is somewhat more my specialty than game mechanics, though I'm no slouch in either domain.

Sorc heals need some looking at, particularly with some of the more movement-intensive mechanics, but I think it's still a bit radical to suggest that they need to be exactly like a WoW-style Shaman. TOR is a considerably younger game than WoW and is developing in its own direction. There's evidence of this gradual development in the older balance patch notes. At launch, Sorcerers were basically the single best healing class while Operatives were the worst (for a variety of mechanical reasons). The pendulum has shifted somewhat in the interim. I expect it will shift again.

Right -- I've been an endgame operative healer since launch. That 'hold' in my threat until the five second mark? That's deliberate. I don't like taking chances and I don't count on my tanks being (a)experienced, (b)skilled, or ©attentive. A lapse in any of those elements at some point in the fight generally results in my tanking or kiting mobs or adds for a fairly extensive amount of time. I don't really blame tanks for that in the same way that I'm not always 100% on my game. Part of my method involves habitually making any situation "easier" for my tank to handle -- when it's in my power to run that sort of control, anyway. My life is easier when my tank's life is easier and vice versa. I am pretty stern with new tanks about "when" to cooldown in order to keep either of us from going into cold sweats and nervous convulsions. The people who wait until 50% health to pop a CD in PuG HMs are the worst.

I understand your skepticism about the process. It's a far-off bet and -- as you pointed out -- there are no guarantees that the developers will do anything. It's easy to see the questions as a "sop" or a pittance for a population who feels otherwise ignored. While I fully support your right to be offended by the gesture, I suggest attempting to make the most of the opportunity rather than either (a)scoffing at or (b) squandering it. Both approaches are unproductive. Making an analogy between players-serfs and developers/emperors is also misstating the situation. We are customers and they are professionals providing a service. Nothing more. This is our opportunity to collaborate on a list of "top three concerns" and to restate what we believe are the most glaring issues.

Well said. The paragraph I've cited here is probably the one to incorporate into the question, proper. The longer (but thorough!) explanation that comes before would need to be somewhat compressed.

It's a perfectly viable healing build, but while you're leveling make sure you go for your healing skills first (aka: Medicine tree). You'll want to tweak it a bit if you plan on healing operations or harder content, but for leveling that's just fine. Typical choices for PvE operations healers: Deadly Directive (2 points for Alacrity bonus) Chem-Resistant Inlays (2 points for 4% damage taken reduction -- nice in terms of reducing unavoidable raid damage) And people go back and forth about Med Shield and Evasive Imperative. Personally, I'm a fan of Evasive Imperative and find it useful when running PuG HM FPs.

The easiest way to revise the question would be to analyze your own "defensive" CDs, admit and acknowledge their strengths, then point out their weaknesses and construct a situation in which none of your currently viable cooldowns is working. You kinda have to illustrate the "situation gap" in order to frame the issue. It's not just that you have no defensive cooldowns (though in some ways this is the truth) -- the problem is more that you encounter situations for which none of your defensive cooldowns are usable, practical, or not otherwise easily countered. I believe you'll have more success getting the question answered by emphasizing the latter point of absence rather than the former point of "not enough." You might use Eric Musco's basic framing and include these or similar questions in series after the illustration: "What is your analysis of Sorcerer defensive cooldowns, general cooldown balance with respect to other classes, and the possible existence of a cooldown "gap" for the class?" Edit: Can additionally include notes on being "on the GCD" in the main body of the question.

That's actually really useful. The graph lines up with my experience of hard-bursting fights and does underlie some of my native timing choices. For comparison on healer threat, I'd like to offer this example of an 8m NiM Writhing Horror kill. The largest spikes in my TPS are where I'm using an adrenal or power-click relic after casting Recuperative Nanotech but before launching into my next Kolto Injection / Kolto Infusion round. My threat increases quite rapidly in this situation and in most cases draws the new spawns directly at my head. I cannot even tell you how often the Jealous Males make a beeline for me if the off-tank isn't snappy on that taunt. My average threat generation is somewhere in the 1.3k-1.5k/sec range mid-fight. The useful part here is knowing that a threat-drop will reduce my threat directly on the new mob and send it scurrying off somewhere else. You can get into some trouble as a healer if you do things with slightly off timing or in a "too aggressive" order -- and end up generating "mid-fight" levels of threat at the beginning. Too Aggressive 1. Adrenal (before pull) 2. Precast (before pull) 3. Burst Heal (at pull) In this situation the healer gets a jump on threat generation over the tank on any target not immediately taunted. This is especially true of HoT healers. Just Aggressive Enough 1. Precast (before pull, no adrenal - small heals) 2. Adrenal (at pull) 3. Burst Heal (after pull). This order of events makes sure that the tank has the jump on threat over you. If any other mobs approach, run into melee range and threat-drop to sync with the tank's rising threat beyond the three-second mark. IMPORTANT: Adrenals/power-click relics immediately apply to ALL YOUR HEALS including any HoTs that are already ticking on other targets! There is therefore no downside to waiting to pop an adrenal until after your HoTs are up and running but before you cast a channeled or instant burst heal.

My "for free" suggestions, so take 'em for what they're worth: Add a bit more situational context and some specific examples to your questions. You're trying to tell more of a story, so adding background information will make it easier for anyone reading the questions to approach them from the same starting "viewpoint" as yourself. Let's take giving feedback / writing a letter to a grocery company as an example: Example 1 I ate an apple and it had a sour taste because of the worm in it. I don't think I'll ever eat an apple again unless the taste improves! Example 2 I ate a Golden Delicious apple from Springdale Farms in California. There was a worm in this apple and it tasted awful! What steps are you taking to prevent worms from invading apples during the growing and harvesting process? How might those steps have been insufficient to prevent a worm from getting into my apple? Where might the process change in the future to prevent me from finding another worm? Summary Comparison In the first example, we're dealing with what the writer would view as a pretty straightforward situation. There's a worm in an apple and this is a BAD THING. From the company's point of view, there's not enough information to address the complaint and what they'll probably send is a form letter of the 'we're-sorry-for-the-inconvenience' type. In the second example, there's quite a bit of specific context regarding the precise type of apple, the nature of the issue, the scope of the information that is wanted as a response, and the opportunity for a courteous -- and possibly both informative and extensive -- reply. The second example is more likely to get the desired response, and the company is more likely to find it easy and even rewarding to give the desired response to the customer. *** TL;DR -- Takeaway for Vanguard Questions 1. (PVP) The community feels that Vanguards lack both survivability and utility in comparison to the other two dps/tank classes ... etc. How to Revise The different number of cooldowns is apparent, but there's little context for the specific strengths and weaknesses of the individual abilities. What precisely (other than number) do you find weak about your cooldowns? Ask the developers if they share your concerns about weaknesses -- preferably in a specific area as compared to another class with specific strengths in that area -- and how they evaluated that balance. If you want an even more detailed response, provide a specific example of an encounter or situation that you view as particularly problematic or stacked against you. Providing imaginary but realistic scenarios for the audience to imagine -- in their own turn -- is extremely useful in order to successfully communicate a point. 2. (PVE) With the nerfs following 2.0 currently in PVE the highest parsing spec is a hybrid dps spec with assault and tactics, is this intended to be the case? If not what changes could be made to ensure each tree is capable on its own in a PVE setting? How to Revise Recap what nerfs exactly (i.e. crit rating was reduced on [sKILL]) happened in 2.0. Provide a link to the specific hybrid spec. Provide evidence of these parses (possibly with another link). Is the problem that "hybrid is very strong" or "Pure specs are weak"? These are two different questions. If the top-tier talents in the pure trees are weak and there is no "tax" involved in going hybrid, that situation needs to be illustrated and explained (i.e. [THIS SKILL] gives us these benefits, but they aren't enough to prevent many people who play the class from going for [THESE SKILLS] in the [RANDOM] tree, instead. The end result is that people who take [THIS SKILL] are weaker when doing [THIS THING] in [THIS SITUATION]). Successfully filling in those blanks for a PvE encounter will go a long way toward providing an appropriate amount of context. At the end, you could add something like: Do you share the community's concern about this hybrid spec? What are your views about the strengths and weaknesses concerning the performance of [sKILL] and [sKILL] in the pure trees, and are they in a good place right now? 3. (Other) With the nerfs to assault spec in 2.0 and the redesign of the top tier talent assault plastique the vanguard community feels that vanguard DPS is now suffering heavily in PVP lacking burst, is there anyway in the near future the assault spec weaknesses and the overall weaknesses of the spec could be addressed so assault vanguards could stack up to other DPS classes like guardian smashers and infiltration shadows? How to Revise Same as above. Outline the changes to Assault spec and the redesign of Assault Plastique. Outline exactly how PvP burst has suffered (and your feeling about the reason). Provide a specific example of weakness. Provide a specific situation in which smash guardians and infiltration shadows are outperforming and where you feel Assault is lacking (i.e. opening damage salvo on a player, bursting down a healer, etc.). Ask about views on strengths and weaknesses, whether or not perception of "weak burst" is shared, and what might be done to fix the issue. The mantra here is 'context, context, context.' Hope this all helps a bit. Good luck with your questions!

I'm willing to do some work on the phrasing for Shadow questions if you PM me a shortlist. I filled a similar advisory/support role for Paowee in the Sniper forums. My specialty is language rather than class mechanics.

Oh, I'm definitely guilty of this. I'll be good and warn people about potential pitfalls before they pull, but if they ignore me and do everything wrong, anyway? I'm gone. No stupidity-based repair bills!

This guy has all the details from the tanking perspective that I dealt with in a more general fashion in my own post. Listen to him. He knows whereof he speaks and he gave you an excellent breakdown. Healing and tanking is indeed more of a dance in those first few seconds.

Thank you for your service and god bless.

*pat!* You did an excellent job Paowee. Thanks for running the show.

HAH. Yeah I know, but if it's what people want? SO BE IT.