From a merc healer point of view, we got a buff with the snare added to kolto missile, that should help us escape powertechs at least for a few seconds. I can see it being really handy in a lot of situations including slowing down the huttball carrier. The self heal kolto shell thing might be nice but I'm not sure I'd spend the skill points for it because there's not a lot I'd want to give up. I will probably not use the interrupt in pvp since I'm mostly targeting friendlies. I agree however the arsenal and pyro mercs were the ones that really needed the fix and it will be interesting to see if the root makes a difference. Probably not.

I am one mod shy of full campaign with black hole optimizations and I run as much alacrity as I can without sacrificing surge, here are my stats (buffed and stimmed), fully augmented with reflex and overkill: aim: 2289 power: 952 (bonus healing 738.1) crit: 235 (40.90% tech healing chance) surge: 342 (77.36) alacrity: 228 I tried swapping in more surge for alacrity but gain so little I went back to running more alacrity. IMO at the end of the day its about keeping ppl alive. During tough stretches you are going to need to rely on rapid scan, if you get an additional .1 seconds due to alacrity it can make the difference. Alacrity won't cause overheating problems, because you just rotate in free heals more than a merc with no alacrity, overall net gain in HPS and better reaction time on cast time heals. BTW I mostly use aim mods because with the 9% aim bonus specced I gain so much additional critical chance I can swap in more power mods instead of crit.

Bodyguard spec (PvP and PVE) 1. How others perceive our class PVE: The weakest of the healers, mox parser tells them so. PVP: Can be a good healer, can stand in the fire more than the other healers. Won't top the charts in healing though and operative healer widely regarded as the best for PVP. 2. How I perceive my class PVE: Mercs healing output was clipped much lower than the other classes in 1.2. SCG isn't used much because all the benefits were cut to 5%. In high damage situations, Mercs weaknesses show because Rapid scan is the only non-rs heal without a cooldown and at 25 heat we hit the heat cap quickly. I have concern that as newer content finally arrives that we're all starved for, merc healers will be perceived as liabilities compared to the much higher raw healing output of a sorc or op and lose their spots in leading edge raid groups. Ask the 16man competitive guilds how many merc healers they run with right now. PVP: The situation is better for merc healing in PVP. Heat isn't as much of an issue it seems like. Our heavy armor and shield give us some survivability that makes up some for our low mobility. I wish we had one more escape tool.

Yep this bugs me the most also. BTW I mostly see DPS sorcs guilty of this. They are simply padding their medal count at the expense of the team.

Speaking from a personal POV I see powertechs differing from marauders or snipers. I can get away from the latter two and survive. If a PT gets me on on one I can't escape and will die.

Making someone invisible while they're capping doesn't sound like something the devs intended to let happen considering in all other cases capping pulls someone out of stealth.

That's raw healing of course. Probably a whole lot of overhealing from the circles. But that raw output can keep people at higher health which reduces risk of a raid fail, which is extremely important. When someone doesn't get out of a circle on time or something doesn't go smoothly that adds some forgiveness that makes a big difference. On a smooth run, merc heals from a geared player are sufficient to hold up their end of the deal but smooth is unusual until you really outgear an operation or you've done it so many times with the same players it's on farm mode. Apparently force is not an issue for the sorc. But yea, point taken. I gave up Muzzle Fluting in 1.2 and put the point into Improved Vents, plus power shot damage was nerfed 10%, so I rarely use this. Would rather have the SCG on hand to handle any emergency burst healing situations, but that's my conservative play. On Kephess, the fight has so many stages that can be wrecked by one death I stay on the conservative side.

I run with a sorc in my 8-man and he can heal over 2000 HPS and he out damages me on Kephess walker phase easily by dropping crushing darkness, affliction and force lightning. PVE heal Mercs are very far behind sorcs except maybe in single target healing. We probably out damage operatives but they can spam hots with no energy issues, surpassing us in raw healing output significantly. Not saying we can't pull our weight but we will always be well behind sorc or op healers of similar gear/skill.

Agree completely unless operative is a healer, in that case I'd bump up op to above sorc.

Here's mine from solo healing KP Story. Both of our highest HPS came on Jarg and Sorno. You topped me in HPS but I topped you in EHPS http://www.torparse.com/a/3619

The big difference between merc healers and the other healing classes is rapid shots. Its free and can be cast on the move and can be used for healing or damage. There are times when it makes more sense where rapid shots on the enemy makes more sense. e.g. all friendlies out of range, everyone full health etc. Otherwise all healing classes have damage capabilities that have utility and should use them if necessary, e.g. using an AE to stop a cap, slowing/killing the ball carrier in huttball etc.

True, I was with a strong group who know what they're doing, not a lot of stepping in purple circles etc. BTW if you have that 1600 hps parse I'd like to check it out. Guessing a lot of Kolto missiles on ppl who could use them?

HM Denova on The Bastion tonight. Lag-o-rama.

I clear EC HM weekly on a merc healer but I don't like being the weakest healer by such a wide margin, and the mini game of resource fail isn't all that fun, but I agree it's never a dull moment and if my main was another class that bored me it could feel exciting. We always run mox parser so I know how much healing I'm doing an it's soo much less than sorc or ops. I have almost maxed my gear, bonus healing is around 730 buffed; my parses stack up favorably to other Mercs. To test my top end I solo healed KP story the other day, averaged around 1300 HPS. Yet this output is so far less than the other healing classes can crank out, by more than 20%. I'm concerned when the next content comes out I might not be invited to go because I hurt chances for success because my raw output is just so much lower than the other healing classes.

I think you need to look at the healing classes separately. 1. Operatives were actually buffed in 1.2. They can cast most of their good heals on the move and have a lot of ways to escape. This makes ops fairly strong healers with high survivability even against the 'overpowered' DPS classes. 2. Sorcs lost cast speed on their big single target heal making it mostly impractical to use in PVP. DPS has increased since 1.2 so sorc survivability has gone down. They can still put up big numbers on maps where they can drop a circle with a lot of players around, which is 3/4 of the maps. In general survivability and flexibility are down for sorcs. 3. Mercs had their output cut essentially in half in 1.2. Their AoE was increased to 4 targets and can be cast on the move, offsetting the nerf a small amount. Also the fact respawning resets heat offsets the resource nerf a little compared to PVE. DPS for merc healers (DFA, power shot) decreases, further reducing flexibility. Survivability under fire is still pretty good for Mercs exempt when facing Vanguards/PTs whose attacks pretty much negate heavy armor. Mercs don't have much escapability so they really benefit a lot from guard. In general I'd say that now operatives are still big difference makers but sorc and merc far less so except situationally. I would say healing in PVP is not as fun any more with sorc and merc either due to the reduction in options they have. I wouldn't say healing is totally broken but would like to see sorc and mercs empowered a little to better match the far superior healing/survivability of the PVP operative.