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Which healer


Martyrofsand

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So tried posting in the new player thread but didn't get much response beyond answering a few questions about servers so I figured I might try here.

 

TL: DR I'm looking to come back to the game but I never really made it to max level in the past and I'm considering giving it a try now. At max level I would play a healer, and I don't really care if it's "best healer" as long as it's reasonably viable and fun.

 

What I'm looking for is a healer with a solid amount of utility, CD management is a plus both raid CDs but also for managing mana, I like having a pretty big toolbox in terms of actual usable spells that I would routinely use.

 

I guess easiest way to say it is the healer I enjoyed the most while playing MMOs was my Priest in WoW during BC, watching for procs, timing it with trinket/Inner Focus CDs and exploiting the 5SR while picking from a variety of spells and ranks based on the situation.

 

Is there anything remotely close to that in this game? If not what are the healers like over, their styles and mechanics?

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First up: I main tanks so take anything I say with a certain grain of salt. I do have all 3 healing classes at max level. I also never played wow (swtor is my first and only mmo) so I can't really speak to that either. I also rarely pvp on a healer as we have at least 3 people that main pvp healers (2 sages and a mando for whatever that's worth).

 

My main healing class is my scoundrel/operative. It is a hot based class, with good aoe. The burst leaves much to be desired as both large, non aoe heals are pretty hefty in terms of time to cast and energy management. The stim boost insta cast does help this, but it's a pretty long CD.

 

Prior to the nerf, sage was undoubtedly the best healer. I haven't played mine since the nerf but having played with a buddy who mains one (and is very awesome at it), it seems to have become a bit more bursty, at the cost of a lot of sustained potential both in terms of healing and energy management. In pvp at least sages still seem to be less squishy than operatives (well either that or the sorcs I helped kill were infinitely better than the operatives).

 

Merc heals I know the least about as it's the one I play least (literally I only play my mando when both scoundrels and both sages have been used, so when I do something more than 4 times in a week). It is a CD based class with very good defensives as well. Beyond that, I truly prefer to leave answering to the experts.

 

I hope I helped and that a healer main can give you far better insights. If you want to ask about guardian tanking I could be far more useful lol (though even then I'm sure there are far more qualified people than me wandering these forums).

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I find it hard to make class recommendation cause it pretty much depends on personal preferences.

No idea how a priest compares to any of the swtor healers, cause I never played wow.

At least for sm and hm ops all healer classes are viable right now, haven't tried any nim ops yet so can't really say anything about that.

For pvp I still prefere sorc/sage over scoundrel, haven't really done commando/merc healing so far in pvp but I've seen them do okay as well.

All healing classes have raid utility in the form of a raid buff.

And they all have stuff like cc, stuns and dcd. Commando have probably the best dcd atm, but they might get the nerf hammer soon.

Not sure what you mean with big toolbox, think all healing classes have about 8 or so main healing abilities and also ofc dps abilities, dcd and other utilities.

I main a scoundrel healer, so that's what I personally like best. It depends mostly on hots and doesn't have a lot of burst. Scoundrels are probably the best aoe healers, but the group needs to be grouped up for it so it's not always that usefull.

Sage is probably easier to get into, cause it's pretty strait forward, but they did get nerfed in the last patch and force managment got a little harder in healing intensive fights.

Commando/merc healing has good burst but is probably a bit weaker in aoe healing that the other two. I personally never got into it, but some ppl prefer it over the other two.

If you wanna level as healer, sage or commando are probably a bit faster cause they do more dmg but with scoundrel you can stealth past a lot of mobs. If you level as dps and switch later it doesn't really matter much anyway, you just have to figure out what everything does at level 70. :)

Not sure if this helped you, cause like I said it depends pretty much on personal preferences.

So you might have to try them all out to find out which you like best. :)

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So tried posting in the new player thread but didn't get much response beyond answering a few questions about servers so I figured I might try here.

 

TL: DR I'm looking to come back to the game but I never really made it to max level in the past and I'm considering giving it a try now. At max level I would play a healer, and I don't really care if it's "best healer" as long as it's reasonably viable and fun.

 

What I'm looking for is a healer with a solid amount of utility, CD management is a plus both raid CDs but also for managing mana, I like having a pretty big toolbox in terms of actual usable spells that I would routinely use.

 

I guess easiest way to say it is the healer I enjoyed the most while playing MMOs was my Priest in WoW during BC, watching for procs, timing it with trinket/Inner Focus CDs and exploiting the 5SR while picking from a variety of spells and ranks based on the situation.

 

Is there anything remotely close to that in this game? If not what are the healers like over, their styles and mechanics?

 

Very easy to answer your question if what you are looking for in SWTOR is what would be most akin to the preist class type healer. There is really only one healer that is anything like that and that is Corroption Sorceror.

 

They don't have spells persay, so it wouldn't be exactly what you are use to as a priest. There isn't choices of spells that you can deciede to take instead of certain others, and thus lacks the sort of fine tailoring spell choices might give based upon what type of content your about to do.

 

You have set powers and abilities. You have some utiliity options that can add or change certain aspects of a given ability or attack, but they won't let you change the direction or intent of the power or ability.

 

A priest might be able to take some spells that will allow him to paralysis an opponent, or have an enemy help you for a short amount of time and than take spells for a different mission that have nothing to do with those sorts of effects, but that's not really how it works in this game, and a one Sorc of the same spec is going to have essentially all the same powers and abilities as another one, there is as much room for variation as you may be accustomed to with a spell caster.

 

A merc or Operative healer, while their healing might be just as effective, possibly more in some situations that a Sorc, they are nothing like a priest, thier healing and abilities are tech based, nothing at all magical or mystical in flavor.

 

Sorc is literally the only class in the game that has that sort of devotion to mystical powers, rituals, and other worldly manifestations that would be akin to your priestly concept sort of character.

 

Mercs and Operatives carry Firearms and use them quite visually while healing, if that would break your immersion to the concept, they aren't a good choice than. If you are only concerned in what is most efficient and it doesn't matter what sort of feel a character has, than they are fine choices, but you stated that wasn't a qualifying factor.

 

Sorcs also bring a tremendous amount of utility, more than a Merc for certain. Operatives also bring a great amount of utility as well.

 

Based on everything you said, if I had to make one suggestion based on the info you provided, I'd say Corruption Sorceror is the closest to what you are looking for, all things considered.

 

Best of luck.

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Ok when I used the word "spells" I wasn't really referring to anything in the mystical sense so much as just abilities that classes use, and when I talk about a toolbox I am generally referring to the classes entire set of abilities that they use, which would be like total number of unique healing spells/shields/damage reduction abilities/dispels/CC/buffs/debuffs/etc.

 

 

Thanks for the responses and so far if I had to compare I would say Sorc/Sage or Merc/mando sounds most likely as I'm really not a fan of HoT healing.

 

So the merc/mandos are based more around CD management with their healing while Sorc/sage are more akin to a standard healer is what it sounds like so far. How do they handle mana mangement, is it also CD based or are there specific stats they build for that?

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So the merc/mandos are based more around CD management with their healing while Sorc/sage are more akin to a standard healer is what it sounds like so far. How do they handle mana mangement, is it also CD based or are there specific stats they build for that?

 

There is not really mana management cause there is no mana in swtor ;)

There is force, energy or heat management depending on class.

 

All 3 healer classes have abilities that give you back some of your energy or force.

For scoundrel and commando that abiity has a cd.

The sorc/sage ability you can spam, but it gives you a debuff that decreases force generation over time if it's not proced.

To proc it, your big channeled heal has to crit, which gives you charges of force surge or resplendence.

You can use these charges for an instant cast of your aoe heal or to use your force regen ability without penalty.

 

You can check out: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=918622

for stats and you can find detailed guides for corruption sorc and seer sage on dulfy under 5.0 class guides.

 

Think you might be over thinking it a bit, just pick one and try it out. Level up some, run a couple of fp or sm ops and see if it feels right.

Try to keep an open mind and don't be too dissapointed if they are not exactly like your priest. ;-)

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