I'm writing this for a couple of guildies but thought I could share it here so that experienced healers could share/comment/criticize my article here, making it more productive and helpful for future healers. Most of us dismiss Sage healing as "extremely easy", "don't have to think twice", but this guide is mainly for those who are just starting out or want to better themselves. Introduction I have not personally played a Scoundrel healer, but I have a Commando healer and I can safely say I prefer my Sage over it. I have played a Sage as my main since this game began, and I can appreciate the synergies between all healers, but I feel Sages have one of the most to offer. We have excellent Single Target heals, excellent AoE heals, excellent energy management... .. . But wait!? They MUST suck at something? Where's the catch? Okay basically we do not excel at "Oh *****" moments. So let me take you through quickly what we can do. Skill Trees The standard PvE build I run with, with the last point on empowered throw being optional. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600GorbdRMorGukZbc0MZzM.3 The optional point gives you a lot of flexibility. Personally, in fights like Dashe'roode where ads tend to slow you and kill you if you fail to react correctly, another level of insurance would be to spec into "Egress" (I usually take another point away from Master Speed for this) For PvP I usually run something like http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600GorddRrkbGhkZbc0MZ0M.3 It may or may not be optimal, but I run it that way for survivability. Throw a Stun, Weaken Mind, and a Slow while speeding to safety, kinda saves me quite a fair bit from certain death. Basic Rotation for PvE Before I begin gonna lay some skill tree stuff here so you can understand what I'm saying Conveyance - Rejuvenate has a [50 / 100]% chance to grant Conveyance, which increases the effect of your next healing ability: Benevolence: Critical chance increased by 60%. Deliverance: Force cost reduced by 30%. Healing Trance: Critical chance increased by 25%. Salvation: Force cost reduced by 30%. Resplendence - Healing Trance critical hits have a [50 / 100]% chance to grant 1 charge of Resplendence, which improves the effectiveness of your next Noble Sacrifice or Salvation. Noble Sacrifice: Activates without degenerating your Force and consumes 1 charge. Salvation: Activates 33% faster per charge and consumes all charges. Life Ward - Your Force Armor and Force Barrier heal you for [0.5 / 1]% of your total health every second for as long as they last. So, back to rotation This has been simplified so much now due to the way procs work. For starters, before experimenting with other rotations, always Rejuvenate (On Cooldown) -> Trance (On Cooldown) -> Anything else Rejuvenate procs Conveyance, which in turn gives you a much higher chance to proc Resplendence, which gives you a wealth of energy management and Instant Salvation Tools. Several Tips on the "Anything else": -Deliverance - Do not be afraid to cast/pre-cast Deliverance. It is a very force efficient big heal. The only downside is that it is slow, hence do not be afraid to cast it before damage even hits. -Benevolence - Over using Benevolence could result in force depletion. I highly do not recommend using Benevolence unless during emergencies and final boss phases where it is more or less okay to burn through force -Force Armour - Force Armour is probably your only instantaneous emergency heal other than Rejuvenation. You do not want to use it often for two reasons. 1) Force Depletion 2) Lockout period, you may end up needing to bubble your raid member at a later time more urgently than now. -Salvation - Do not be afraid to use it on single target heals (just your tank). Think of it as a HoT if you will. Advanced Skills for PvE I would not call these "rotations" anymore, but once you've gotten the hang of basic you are free to explore better ways to heal. Here are some tips. -Pre-cast and be rewarded. Predict incoming damage by learning the mechanics of the fight and watching the boss. Kill tunnel vision! -Communicate with your tank. You guys should be best buddies. Go out for coffee or a date. When to use defensive cool-downs, when to use med-packs etc. should be well coordinated with the healing resources at hand. This is even more important for Sage healers because a Deliverance could take time. "Could you pop a med pack? Big heals in 3 seconds" -Rejuvenation should be used on Cooldown. It is powerful in a sense it applies (small) periodic healing, an armour buff, and Conveyance. -Force Potency + Mental Alacrity = 2 Big and rather fast (not always, but highly likely) Crit Deliverances. -Managing Resplendence Procs - So I like to always keep my force up near full, and I will bite into these Procs (Noble Sacrifice) every time I can. But there is a 2nd Application, for your highest HPS rotation At 3 stacks these give you an instant-cast Salvation. So, Rejuvenate -> Healing Trance -> (Instant) Salvation) -> Another Heal. This healing tops up pretty damn fast. But it is not sustainable. So force management is a LITTLE bit tricky here, because I'm SURE not everyone will use instant-cast Salvation all the time. This was meant for PvP I felt. -Here's another way to emergency heal: Rejuvenate -> Mental Alacrity -> Benevolence -> Force Potency -> Benevolence -> Benevolence -Rescue those pesky DPS who just can't keep their threat down. Rescue does reduce threat. Or, alternatively, wipe a raid group that refused to give you loot by Rescuing the tank. That works out too. So as you get more familiar with Sages, you realize that they are a LOT better than they were last time. We used to totally SUCK at dishing out emergency heals. Gearing Bottomline, all power and no crit is what I like to gear. Alacrity:Surge about 1:2. All augments Willpower. There are many different versions out there now, but I find this way of gearing less confusing and easier to keep up with. There is some evidence that this may be optimal, but there is simply no way to theorycraft this because of the 101 possible rotations as I've described in the previous section. Nibbin has done some EXCELLENT work, I suggest you check his thread out http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=647711 PvP Who says fun should be confined to PvE? Sage healers are very fun in PvP, but you do find quickly that force management becomes a BIG issue unlike PvE because you will be dishing out more bubbles and instant Salvations than ever before. Some key tips: -LOS LOS LOS. I think you must have heard this so many times. Find good spots that allow you to heal without being seen. -Force Barrier shouldn't be abused. If there isn't another healer around and standing there like a complete !diot serves no purpose, then well you just wasted it. If you are standing there to stall a cap, buy time that is fine. -Once you've nestled somewhere comfortable don't be afraid to dish out Deliverances! -If you're out in the open and running around for dear life, instant Salvation and Bubbles are your best friend (unfortunately you find yourself doing that a lot sometimes lol) -Rescue teammates to safety! I hope everyone who has rolled a Sage and want to heal get to learn something and most importantly, enjoy playing the class!

You are quite right I've tested all 3 specs I do think that DF is more challenging than the hybrid now. I find energy management and target switching to be incredibly challenging. THat used to be the case for hybrid but for some odd reason not anymore now! I find it incredibly easy to keep good energy using hybrid o.o I literally grew up with DF, I'm gonna stick with my inferior DPS for a bit... see how things go

Hi guys, 4 piece set bonus is up and I can achieve about 2500 on the dummy and that's just about the maximum this spec could go. (Nanotech Stim, some 72s, full 69, no adrenals (yet ) ) I am pretty much satisfied, but knowing that my peers on sab can pull a LOT higher, and so can sharp shooter with the ability to change targets without too much penalty (well it depends on what kind of fight), I am forced to start learning how to do another spec. I think full Sab is the way to go as my off-spec, but learning it is not easy. And I have a feeling they'd fix the all-bombs-land-on-spot thingy. If they never fix it then Sab will unequivocally be the best spec to run.

Hi guys just a quick update: Using the rotation I have learnt from you guys, upgrading my earpiece to Verpine MK1 and Implants to BM, a pair of set bonuses, with a nano-infused stim, I managed to see some improvement in DPS, up to about 2300 ~ 2500. However I still have issues with energy and as long as I use quickdraw on cooldown, I cannot sustain the rotation for much (that's why I can't give an exact DPS figure for now) I think maybe 4 piece is absolutely essential for full DF? effectively halving quickdraw's energy cost and allowing us to use it on cooldown? I'm not too sure, but I'm hanging on a little to hope. I started off with full DF when I first raised my gunslinger tons of patches ago, and I find it hard to let go

I have to agree with Kitru's ideas... I feel very inferior now... Saber reflect I feel its a little o/p, maybe its just me. It changes the entire balance between tanks I know a Guardian tank who tanked endgame content with nothing but full 63 gear. Try getting a Shadow tank to do the same *sigh*

sorry to post again, have some questions for the more experienced guys 1) I read somewhere that claimed flourish shot is mostly unncessary since it doesn't help with most skills on a full DF's rotation. Is this true? 2) if 1) were true, then illegal mods is solely for energy regen? Thanks!

That was something I suspected as well, 4 pieces aren't easy to get these days... I've done a few tests, with my gear and payload, full DF gets me 2200 DPS tops, and Hybrid gets me 2350 DPS. For unsustainable rotations, DF gets me to 2300 DPS tops, and this only lasts for at most 1 minute. I guess this is still viable for end-game but it would be nice to have more still =\ Thanks for the help, will report back again when 4 pieces of set bonus are finally obtained!

I have been talking to guildies as parsing Dirty Fighting and it seems to output very poor damage these days. One problem I faced is that I cannot use Quickdraw on proc because I don't have the set bonus. If I am able to weave quickdraw into my rotation on cooldown always, will that help buff it up a little? My current rotation on DF is flourish -> Both Dots applied -> Hemorrhaging blast -> wounding shots -> Speed shot -> aimed shot -> quickdraw -> wounding I feel I am doing something wrong here, and I am open to suggestions. Flyby to replace aimed shot when it coolsdown of course But all in all should I just dump the spec and head on to Sharpshooter already? I get laughed at when I insist I like Dirty Fighting but I really like the spec a lot. Everyone claims that it is dead and uncompetitive =\

Thanks for your inputs Kindran and Nibbon! Yes TK Sage you're quite right, I can't even pull it off on cooldown =\ But I remember pre-2.0 some people were saying that for balance 2pvp was the way to go. So I was just wondering if that's relevant now. But I guess the points both of you raised makes perfect sense, don't bother testing it unless you have time ^^

I have to concur with TK being more bursty for Operator, that I've personally checked it out.. Nibbon I wanted to ask your opinion though, is it a good idea to use a pair of PVP set bonus? It reduces mind crush cooldown by 1.5 seconds, but sacrificing a pair of 72 armorings for 65 pvp armorings you trade off 40 willpower. My question then is that, is that tradeoff worth it?

woo thanks for this! high time i stepped out of dirty fighting too lol

on dummy, with stims and adrenals 69s mostly, 66 enhancements, Verpine offhand, can get about 2450 for balance and strangely 2350 for TK lol But in ops, the utility of TK outweights the high single target of balance, and I have to say I'm loving it

I have a tank because others suck at tanking

I have both a Sage (Sorcerer) and Commando (Merc) Healer, the Sage being my main. Let me offer some insight, although KBN should be able to give you a much better view Sages vs Commando Healing are two completely different worlds. Sages excel at keeping the raid up, efficient big heals, but not so much at emergency healing. Basically when you hear a Sage healer saying "oh *****" your raid is likely to wipe -.-". We only have Force Bubbles (which locks you out of multiple use) and Benevolence (which is very force ineffective. Since this is my main I have since adapted to it and pre-empted damage from bosses, and with mental alacrity I feel this is no longer too much of a problem post 2.0, although others may not feel the same. Commando Heals I am able to very quickly, in very little GCDs, top a tank up back to full pretty efficiently. I usually use a Advanced Medical Probe followed by a Medical Probe and a Bacta Infusion following one of those, and with the increased alacrity from the crits (which is almost on all the time if you Kolto Bomb enough people) allows you to work even faster. As for Energy management, don't be afraid to use the basic heal (Hammer Shots). The only time a Commando Heals says "oh *****" is when the entire raid gets hit. Scoundrel is still an unknown territory to me. All in all, I have worked side by side with all combination of healers, and I love all of them EXCEPT Commando/Commando combo -.-"

Thanks once again Kit! Noted with thanks