Hey all, I have a quick question for ya.

I just got to level 10 with my consular and I picked Sage. Dual-sided lightsaber was quite tempting, but I like having the option to heal.

So anyway, now I am torn between the three talent trees. I prefer healing as my role in dungeons/raids (flashpoints?) but I like to quest as a damager. I have been told that unlike WoW, a damage-specced Sage doesn't suck at healing, he's just not as good. On the flip side, a healing-specced Sage can heal very well, and can still do damage, just not as much. Is this true?

Ultimately, I'd like advice on this. Should I devote my talents to one tree, or would I gimp myself in spreading my talents between the healing tree and one damage tree? Expanding on that last question, in your opinion, which damage tree would be a good fit for my character? Telekenetics seems to be pure ranged force damage which is nice, and balance seems to be 1/2 lightsaber and 1/2 force damage.

Any help you can give this Padawan would be greatly appreciated!

Hey all, I have a quick question for ya.

 

I just got to level 10 with my consular and I picked Sage. Dual-sided lightsaber was quite tempting, but I like having the option to heal.

 

So anyway, now I am torn between the three talent trees. I prefer healing as my role in dungeons/raids (flashpoints?) but I like to quest as a damager. I have been told that unlike WoW, a damage-specced Sage doesn't suck at healing, he's just not as good. On the flip side, a healing-specced Sage can heal very well, and can still do damage, just not as much. Is this true?

 

Ultimately, I'd like advice on this. Should I devote my talents to one tree, or would I gimp myself in spreading my talents between the healing tree and one damage tree? Expanding on that last question, in your opinion, which damage tree would be a good fit for my character? Telekenetics seems to be pure ranged force damage which is nice, and balance seems to be 1/2 lightsaber and 1/2 force damage.

 

Any help you can give this Padawan would be greatly appreciated!

A damage-spec'd Sage is probably worse at healing than, say, a Balance Druid or Shadow Priest. This is because the Druid and Priest are healer classes first, with talents that improve them in their alternate roles. You usually get most of your core healing mechanics through the base class. By contrast, the Sage is a damage class that specializes into healing.

The difference is that the content explicitly calls for off-healing, off-tanking, and off-damage at times, which is very rare in WoW and usually is a sign of someone failing to do their job right. A healing spec'd Sage does just fine at damage for the purposes of leveling and doing some off-damage in flashpoints, but the damage difference will become very notable around L30+.

Ok, so what I gathered from that is that I should really just pick on tree and stick with it?

If so, then I guess I'm still undecided on whether to take Seer for healing, Telekenetics for ranged force damage or Balance for 1/2 force 1/2 lightsaber.

I played a Balance spec Sage to 35 in the last Beta, and I can tell you from experience that you will be fine in any situation. I ripped through almost everything when soloing, and never had a problem keeping my group alive and always almost topped off healing with a full force bar afterwards.

The trick is to learn to love your bubbles, and know that a dead enemy is one you don't have to heal your group over. In fact, there were a couple of times that throwing up a bubble on the main tank, and letting loose with your pebbles cost less energy and kept more health than sitting back and trying to heal everything.

It takes practice, and fortunately you have Qyzen for this, as he isn't the world's greatest tank here, but you will eventually get the hang of killing to mitigate damage. Again, love da bubbles! They keep you from wasting force, and make you appreciated as a Sage. And yes, stick to one tree, with the exception of taking two points for the +100 force. Everyone needs a little more force, no?

Disclaimer: YMMV - I do not claim to know end game how this works, as I ran out of time on the last build. Those with better experience, please chime in.

Ok, so what I gathered from that is that I should really just pick on tree and stick with it?

 

If so, then I guess I'm still undecided on whether to take Seer for healing, Telekenetics for ranged force damage or Balance for 1/2 force 1/2 lightsaber.

Balance is not half lightsabre half force. That's the shadow balance. The balance tree is self healing and DPS.