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Ilith

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  1. Options I would specifically recommend to a healer are the +15 energy boost to Cool Head. The other options tend to be good for everyone and can be somewhat situational. From the first tier I choose 5% DR and 30% AOE reduction. Third choice is optional. If you foresee yourself killing a lot of trash the damage boost to Blaster Volley might be worthwhile, otherwise you might go with the boost to stealth and stealth movement speed. From the second tier I choose the +15 energy boost to Cool Head. My next pick is situational. For HM Underlurker I get the improvement to Dodge that purges movement impairing effects. Otherwise I like the 5% health boost from Defense Screen since I use this on cooldown. However, there are other decent choices so it comes down to personal preference and your needs at the moment. From the third tier I choose the 30% improvement to Defense Screen, because as mentioned I use this on cooldown, and generally also the improvement to Pugnacity which adds a defensive cooldown. If I'm in a situation where I need to use Pugnacity, a defensive cooldown is usually a good idea too. At any rate, most of the other options are not that compelling. As a healer your job is to heal. Unless a fight is on farm you won't spend much of your time DPSing. In HM FPs, most people are currently undergeared so you will spend most of your time trying to keep them alive. Your Flash Bang is a useful tool to help keep your group or yourself alive in a crowd of angry trash. If you have any worries about keeping your tank alive, you're probably better off focusing on heals. Let the DPS worry about killing things. I would stay at range unless it's clear the run is going to be ridiculously easy and you have plenty of time to DPS. Just remember, if you're DPSing and someone dies because of it, as a healer you have failed. When you do have time to DPS, you can hit things with Vital Shot if you have energy. Thermal Grenade is a great ranged AOE. You can Sucker Punch and Back Blast if in melee range. You can Blaster Volley if you have multiple adds in AOE range and Upper Hand is available. Always keep a stack of Upper Hand for healing. Dath Cody posted a good introductory guide that explains some healing rotations for different situations. Generally, you want to maintain 2 stacks of Slow Release Medpack on your tanks and anyone else who is taking consistent damage. Use Kolto Pack on tanks who are about to need a larger heal. Use Recuperative Nanotech (the instant 4x AOE) on cooldown. Use Kolto Waves on at least 3 people. It heals for a lot so don't be afraid to use it. If the group is taking a lot of damage encourage them to cluster up for AOE heals. If you have the 2 piece new set bonus, use Underworld Medicine when you have the Field Medic's buff and it will auto crit. Otherwise you probably have better things to use. The best healers keybind their abilities because it's much faster than clicking abilities with the mouse. How to do this is a matter of preference but it's helpful if your keybinds are similar on all your alts. I generally keybind healing abilities to shift+Number keys and put defensives on alt+Number keys. DPS abilities for me are 1-5. I also use QERTFGZXV for abilities and shift/alt. Macro keys are great if they're convenient for your fingers. If not you can put less frequently used abilities there. As a healer you'll generally heal from the Ops frame, by clicking a person in the Ops frame and then activating a heal ability with the keyboard. I also have Mouse Wheel Up bound to 'Next Ally', which I use more frequently in Warzones. (Similarly Mouse Wheel Down is 'Next Enemy'.) Occasionally I click on people to select them... more often in Warzones. Personally I find the F1, F2, F3 keys too far away and slow to be useful for targeting, so I rebound them to lesser used abilities like turning on target markers. In the GUI editor, you'll want to turn on the Ops frame for all groups. Scale up debuffs so you can see them easily. Also turn on the option to only show removable debuffs. As a healer it's very important to be able to see debuffs on group members. I also scale up my Ops frame by about 20% when I'm healing. Personally I keep my Ops frame off to the left because I like to use the same UI on all my alts. I sometimes DPS and tank and the Ops frame would be too distracting if it were in the center then. In addition, you sometimes will want to DPS or rotate the camera with your mouse, so it's nice to have empty space in the middle. As far as switching targets, your own name is in the Ops frame so it's easy enough to select yourself for a heal. You can always use Tab and Shift+Tab to select next enemy/ally, or (for me) Mouse Wheel Up/Down, or click on them. You can also explore other targeting abilities like "Select Nearest Enemy/Ally" and "Select Center Enemy" and experiment putting them on different keybinds. Skillful target switching will help make you a beast DPS but for healers the Ops frame is usually sufficient. My final bit of advice is to PVP as much as you can stand. If you have the time, roll a new alt and level it through PVP as a healer. You'll gain a solid understanding of each of your abilities, learn how to heal on the move, and how and when to use defensive cooldowns. All these skills translate directly to PVE. If you can't stand PVP your next best way to improve is to queue for HM FPs and SM Ops with the worst players you can find. Nothing else will make you strong like healing through stupid. Yes, even the most undergeared and inexperienced players are fodder for you as a healer. Best of luck on your healing endeavors
  2. Our guildship is gone as well. And our Guild Stronghold on DK has completely disappeared, as though it never existed. I don't know how to get the stronghold back. It's all extremely vexing. Thanks to the tips in this thread we are able to access the guildship for a few minutes at a time. While I do think the main problems started after I gave an invitation to someone, I should note some problems began even before that. For example, we had a guild member switch to a different guild, and after that he was unable to access our guildship in the public listing, even though everyone else could. He said our guildship was not in the list. Harbinger / Chaotic Awesome
  3. Best CM toys: McRevan HoloTrainer Malak/Satele HoloProjector Disguise Kick The Huttball Music Therapy Probe Orbital Kolto Strike Ball Toss Add another vote for Sparkle Powder. More colors, reusable would be great too. I also like fireworks, but I'm paranoid about using them all up. I'd really like Holo Skill Trainers. Obviously some would be more popular than others (Biochem). I also really like disguises. I would like to disguise as a jawa!
  4. Guild name: Quorum Guild website: http://quorum-tor.enjin.com Faction: Imperial Raid: S&V Raid size: 16M Difficulty: NiM Dash'roode (one shot! hah) Titan 6 Durasteel Dogs is Quorum's 16M progression group. This week there were 3-4 alts present that aren't in Quorum, though most have alts in Quorum. Steezus <Most Excellent> Cedaa/Zanah <Maelstrom> Ennick <Dendarii Mercenary Fleet> Kalis'el <Malevolence>
  5. Ok that's enough meta. How about An Actual Epic WarZone Idea: You spawn into the Epic WarZone as a member of one of 3 factions: Jawa, Ortolan, or Ewok*. What follows is no holds barred objective-based combat. You play as a member of one of these races and have a stock generated NPC appearance. Much like in Huttball, you get a special ability to further the WZ objective, but here it's tied to your faction. Jawas can scavenge junk and resell droids on the gray market, Ewoks have mastery of armor-penetrating slings and hoopaks which totally devastate conventional military technology, and Ortolans play the xylophone. (I don't want to stereotype but according to a Hoth side quest Ortolans are also pretty good at maintaining machinery). Each faction has its own base and will attempt to overrun the others, or whatever else sounds good, you guys have all played more PVP than me. I can't wait to play this in 3.2! Some notes: 3 factions = win Restrict everyone to faction abilities only and remove their PC skills. Separate PVP and PVE skill trees = win Jawa vs Ortolan vs Ewok arenas? = EPIC WIN PVPers need to smile more * If you want to substitute some other tiny NPC race that's cool too. But no Urgnaghts. ** I can't claim full credit for this idea. It was originally suggested a couple of weeks after launch by someone on reddit whose name I've long forgotten. In the original version the warzone involved objective play between 3 distinct factions, hence the different races. But if it would take too much development effort to do a scenario with 3 factions, you could have 2 teams but assign people to each team as follows: 2x Jawa, 2x Ortolan, 4x Ewok. OMG look, no more griping about "their team has more healers!". *** I like the idea of an objective where your base has a droid or turret you can repair or guard while other people try to destroy it. That's not my original idea either and it could probably be done without Jawas or Ortolans, but it would be nowhere near as epic.
  6. Defensive cooldown should be the #1 request for PVE sages. PVPers have kiting tools but those are irrelevant in PVE. We do not have a true GCD. Every single one of our so-called defensive abilities suffers from a deadly drawback: they are interruptible and/or on the GCD and/or cost resource and/or self-stun and/or lock us out of our own skill talents when we're the victim of someone else trying to 'help' (bubble). Go look at Saber Ward, Dodge, etc. They do not cost resource, they are not channeled, and they are not on the GCD. At the very least move Unnatural Preservation off the GCD. As soon as a DPS sage takes heat in a raid, they are screwed and every single other DPS class will pull ahead because they can pop a cooldown, but we have to waste GCDs. What you can output on a parse dummy is irrelevant. Go look at actual results on bosses and you'll see other classes pull ahead because of this simple, stupid issue. Huge amounts of AOE raid damage on the final bosses in operations means DPS classes with channeled abilities do far worse DPS than those with instants. Pushback is stupid in PVE. In PVP it's fine and makes sense. Madness/Balance force management. Still. No one who DPSes in PVE wants to waste time off-healing, but even if you wanted to, Madness/Balance can't because they still have no Force to spare. Raid utility is really lacking. This wouldn't be as big an issue if sniper shield had some sort of group lockout like Bloodthirst. Our off heals are slow and puny. You can't help with Force Bubble because of the lockout, because your bubbles are worse than a healer Sorc's, because it costs so much force and is on the GCD. No real utility compared to sniper/mara, far worse off-healing than merc, extricate/pull that can't be used on tanks, and your 1 big 'survival' cooldown is a big "F*** YOU LOL" to the rest of your group since you can't DPS or heal while it's on, and now you better keep it channeled the entire 8s duration or lose what little so-called improvement you got in 2.7. (A bonus for channeling the full 8s? Encouragement for even more self-stun? Seriously?)
  7. Guild name: Quorum Guild website: http://quorum-tor.enjin.com Faction: Imperial Raid: TFB Raid size: 16M Difficulty: NiM Writhing Horror Durasteel Dogs is Quorum's 16M progression group. This week there were 2 alts present that aren't in Quorum, though most have alts in Quorum. Deanllo <Most Excellent> Steezus <Most Excellent>
  8. Guild name: Quorum Guild website: http://quorum-tor.enjin.com Faction: Imperial Raid: Dread Palace Raid size: 16M Difficulty: HM Dread Council Achievement dates are CST. Congrats to everyone in our Durasteel Dogs and Chaos Legion raids. Durasteel Dogs is Quorum's 16M progression group. This week there was 1 alt present that isn't Quorum. He probably has an alt in Quorum, though. Porthios <Dark Lemming> In addition we took some screenshots of DF HM 16 clears for validation: Nefra Draxus Grob'thok Corruptor Zero
  9. Guild name: Quorum Guild website: http://quorum-tor.enjin.com Faction: Imperial Raid: Dread Fortress Raid size: 16M Difficulty: HM Brontes We will work on providing screenshots of the earlier bosses, I keep forgetting to take them. Achievement dates are CST. Durasteel Dogs is Quorum's 16M progression group. This week there were 4 alts present that aren't in Quorum, though most have alts in Quorum. Scrum <Dendarii Mercenary Fleet> Icefang <Imperial Northwestern Front> Huiyun <Dark Lemming> Porthios <Dark Lemming>
  10. Guild name: Quorum Faction: Imperial Raid: Dread Palace Raid size: 16M Difficulty: HM Bestia Tyrans (already had the achievement so this is with the UTC clock) Calphayus Raptus Achievement dates are CST. Chaos Legion is normally an 8 man ops group in Quorum. We quite enjoyed running 16M content tonight. There were 4 alts present that aren't in Quorum, though most have alts in Quorum: Porthios <Dark Lemming> Narcdim <Sin After Sin> Huiyun <Dark Lemming> Sev'row <Project Shadowfury> Quorum also has a 16 man progression group that's currently working on Brontes. We look forward to going back and getting screenshots of DF clears for that group.
  11. This post makes vividly clear the issues many people have with requiring this playstyle of a tank. Assassin tank play is more like a DPS rotation where you are forced to monitor multiple, similar-looking buffs and procs. The difference is that when a DPS does this poorly, they simply output less DPS. When a shadow tank does it poorly, they are more likely to cause their group to wipe. Their survival is at stake. And they receive little compensation for this risk. Shadow tanks are both more difficult to play and not as good as tanks with better innate mitigation. In addition, a shadow tank staring at their buffs has less ability to monitor the fight, make adjustments, and react appropriately to novel situations. This decreases their QOL compared to other tanks, who are accustomed to being able to do this. KPN's "stress free" guide makes clear out exactly how much monitoring and micromanaging is necessary to not die as a shadow tank. Thank you for the interesting guide.
  12. I guess this is true if you're running EV HM and never challenge yourself. In actual raids, **** happens. You need the ability to react appropriately. 12s means the class becomes more fragile at the worst possible times. Telling people they only need to be perfect -- with 1.5s to spare -- when you get knocked back at the drop of a hat is not that helpful in PVE, and irrelevant to PVP. If we also lose stacks due to resist that's a whole other can of worms...
  13. I agree that self healing was worse than the current system, but telling people to "refresh in time" is as ridiculous as H2F... and for some of the same reasons, come to think of it. 1) In PVP, it just doesn't work. 2) In PVE, you now have almost zero margin of error for anything that happens in a fight. Need to react to a situation, someone dies or pulls threat, add spawns, whatever: you are SOL. And the situation goes from bad to worse at the worst possible time. Which of the other tanks suffer from this? I agree that played perfectly under perfect conditions, sin tanks are slightly better than juggs and still worse than PTs. But even when you play perfectly you don't always get perfect conditions. And that means less mitigation while still being spikier, with a merciless rotation that a lot of people have agreed isn't very fun.
  14. As a healer I've found the optimal Huttball workout routine requires a lot of disciplined self-reviving. This is something a lot of healers try to avoid. But the truth is, your ability to quickly revive after death really makes a big difference in your effectiveness on the field. Along with a solid nutrition plan and entirely legal supplements and stims*, any healer can achieve lasting results in their skill at dying. Of course, in order to practice how to revive you first have to kill yourself. Therefore my recommended workout routine consists of the following: 1) Get smashed in the face 10x, returning to medcenter each time for revivification. Do 3 sets. 2) Get sniped in the back 10x. Return to medcenter each time. Do 3 sets. 3) Get electronetted and tracer missiled. Only 1 rep is necessary here. 4) Get stunned, flashbanged, whirlwinded, and/or sleepdarted 10x, then get whittled down until necrosis sets in. Note: After repeated exposure I've found your standard 60-second sleep dart only affects me for 8 seconds on the field. That's some pretty amazing progress! Do 30 sets. 5) For a cooldown, stick your finger in a power converter socket to mimic the effects of Force Lightning. This isn't really death-inducing, but it's good for conditioning. Endure 5 minutes. * Now on sale at my HoloNet site
  15. I'm not a forum warrior. But I feel compelled to add my response. I agree with the points made about sorc/sage DPS in this post. The issues are low survivability and low DPS based on objective, real world measures such as Torparse. And there are worrying signs on the horizon. Sorc DPS specs such as Madness/Balance have resource issues that do not permit the use of heals. Those of us who play DPS sorcs at a high level know that "H2F" is simply not acceptable. It displays a worrying level of ignorance. Other DPS classes have true defensive cooldowns that do not consume resource and do not cost a GCD, much less a lengthy, interruptible channel. Sorc self healing and their sole defensive "cooldown" serve only to reduce their barely competitive DPS output to unacceptable levels. Low survivability is fine. A hybrid tax inflicted on random ACs is not. And the introduction of Arenas makes class balance a serious concern. I pay more attention to deeds than words. This game has a track record of making significant changes based on PVP that negatively impact PVE gameplay. Since I focus on PVE, this is of major concern to me. I already know I disagree with BW's perspective about my primary class. Even if BW did signal changes to sages/sorcs, given the evidence they're more likely to damage the class further than help. (How about a new defensive cooldown that prevents you from moving when your only PVP survivability lies in kiting and LOS?) BW's dev response displayed a lack of analysis and insight compared to classes that are widely acknowledged to be Flavor Of The Year. More importantly, it showed their views on sorc/sage diverge wildly from that of people who actually play them. Even if they agreed changes were needed, we can't trust them to make the right ones. I seriously regret the fact I've geared my DPS sorc to the extent I have. I regret winning rolls for gear that could have gone to a class BW actually intends to support. I regret my part in not making my progression raid stronger. It's a shame I can't transfer this gear to an alt that would actually be worth playing. I know that sorcs were extremely popular at launch, and BW knows people will continue to play them no matter what they do. It's just a shame those people will end up with 55s with no future. And sorcs are hardly the worst class out there. They simply have issues BW is completely blind to. To conclude: I'm not interested in words. I'm interested in actions. BW has made clear they intend no class changes until at least 2.5, and they see nothing that needs to be changed anyway, and more importantly their judgment can't be trusted. Therefore there's no reason to anticipate any action on their part. They can check my sub status to see the action I have taken. I encourage those of you who agree to take concrete steps. Actions, not words. The only thing that works.
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