i feel like i'm doing something wrong. i'm not new to healing, mind you, as i have a lvl 50 sawbones that's been my main healer for forever, but maybe it's because of my sawbones that i keep having this issue.

 

when i heal in FPs and whatnot, i feel like i run out of force too fast. i get really worried during long, drawn out battles as that's when i end up having to spam noble sacrifice to get enough force to keep everyone up. i am able to keep people up, it's just that their health drops a lot more than i feel comfortable with sometimes. i feel like i'm wasting force more than i should.

 

i try to keep people bubbled if i see them taking damage. rejuvenate and healing trance are the heals i use the most. i try and save salvation for only when a) there's more than one person in a general area that needs healing, and b) i'm 80% sure that the people i intend to heal aren't going to move out of the healing area for whatever reason. benevolence and deliverance i save for when i need to quick burst heal someone.

 

my sage is only level 41, so i might be missing some higher leveled heals, or it could be that i still have yet to put points in inner strength and mental longevity. i did kinda rushed the seer tree so i could get salvation at lvl 40.

 

so...any tips? what do you guys do to conserve your force, especially in longer battles?

Edited January 23, 2013 by happysister

Here are a few suggestions.

 

1. Force Armor is pretty expensive. I tend to use it only on the tank before the pull. During the fight I will use to as a reactionary solution if someone other than the tank is taking damage. But it can be overused. Anyone with a bubble that isn't taking damage is wasted force.

 

2. Rejuvenate -> Healing Trance is my main heal. Most of the time, the "free" Resplendence will proc during the Healing Trance. I will almost always use a Noble Sacrifice whenever Resplendence procs, unless I'm low on health. I even do it if I'm low on both health and force, and Force Mend is off CD.

 

3. If I lay down a Salvation, I try to do so that I can stand it in as well as my target. The effective area of the Salvation is actually wider than the animation would suggest. Try casting it near yourself, you can get an idea of how far away it can be and still be affect the target.

 

4. If I'm in an intensive fight, I will use Noble Sacrifice twice during a Resplendence proc, once for the free one, and a second one for 1 stack, which isn't too bad as far as force regen goes. I try to never get above 1 stack.

 

5. If I'm really in dire straits and I believe the situation warrants it, I'll cast NS to three stacks, Force Mend so as not to die, Force Potency for the crit, Deliverancex2, then try to cast nothing until the 3-stacks drop off. This will heal most players from the bring of death to 50% or more and hopefully give enough breathing room to recover.

 

6. I never cast a Salvation without Rejuvenate first. The 30% decrease in cost is very important.

 

Good luck.

Edited January 23, 2013 by Khevar

oh thanks. that will definitely help me out.

 

one other thing i just thought of...since sages aren't very mobile, should i be standing in a certain area whenever possible? like inbetween the tank and ranged dps or something? or if we have a lot of melee, get up close to the mobs too? i tend to stand back around the ranged dps so its easier for me to see when i pull agro.

oh thanks. that will definitely help me out.

 

one other thing i just thought of...since sages aren't very mobile, should i be standing in a certain area whenever possible? like inbetween the tank and ranged dps or something? or if we have a lot of melee, get up close to the mobs too? i tend to stand back around the ranged dps so its easier for me to see when i pull agro.

I would imagine that different healers would have different answers to this question.

 

Personally, I tend to stand just close enough so the edge of the Salvation will hit the tank and me. It has gotten me into trouble periodically but mostly it works out. Having that additional self-heal has let me use NS more often.

i feel like i'm doing something wrong. i'm not new to healing, mind you, as i have a lvl 50 sawbones that's been my main healer for forever, but maybe it's because of my sawbones that i keep having this issue.

 

when i heal in FPs and whatnot, i feel like i run out of force too fast. i get really worried during long, drawn out battles as that's when i end up having to spam noble sacrifice to get enough force to keep everyone up. i am able to keep people up, it's just that their health drops a lot more than i feel comfortable with sometimes. i feel like i'm wasting force more than i should.

 

i try to keep people bubbled if i see them taking damage. rejuvenate and healing trance are the heals i use the most. i try and save salvation for only when a) there's more than one person in a general area that needs healing, and b) i'm 80% sure that the people i intend to heal aren't going to move out of the healing area for whatever reason. benevolence and deliverance i save for when i need to quick burst heal someone.

 

my sage is only level 41, so i might be missing some higher leveled heals, or it could be that i still have yet to put points in inner strength and mental longevity. i did kinda rushed the seer tree so i could get salvation at lvl 40.

 

so...any tips? what do you guys do to conserve your force, especially in longer battles?

 

The force resource mechanic is a bit trickier in a lot of ways then the other two. It plays closest to the traditional mana/power resource mechanic used in a lot of MMO without any of the standard resource pool or regen rate upgrades that can be part of the gearing process.

 

Compounding this is the lack of a filler heal, those non resource using small heals that the tech users have, taking away that ability to top-off. This isn't meaning to harp on the class as they are very strong healers, thanks to salvation probably the strongest raid healer of the three, but just to point out some of the weak spots they can have.

 

Before you hit 50 this will probably be increased significantly, much of the force-efficiency for sages (healing or dps)comes out of the lowest tiers of the telekinetic tree (garnering 100 extra force, 9% force cost reduction on heals,). You won't be able to have your full 31 points in the seer tree along with these until level 45.

 

That said, after outlining the issues onto what can help.

 

****Force Armor

 

I like to use pro-actively on tanks, reactively on dps-- meaning I basically re-up it on cooldown on the tank, but only use it on dps if they are taking damage. The exception to this would be a fight that I know has guaranteed aoe damage.

 

Force speed to buy time-- Bubble up everyone then force speed right past them all, lands you at the pull two seconds ahead of everyone where you can get a quick meditation in to top yourself off. Alternately when a group likes to chain pull you can pop two seconds of meditation the second combat ends then sprint to catch up.

 

 

***** Don't be afraid to see health dip

 

Sages have a lot of high-output healing at their disposal. Healing trance on my sage for example crits at over 2,000 per tick (and with conveyance buff pretty much always get at least two crits ticks each time). The flip side of this is the lack of small healing. Rejuvenate and Benevolence just have terrible force-->heal ratios meaning that one you will virtually never use and the other you pretty much only use in order to grant the conveyance buff.

 

What does all this mean? It means that if someone is at 90% there is not really a need to top them off. This way you are not needlessly expending force on excessive overhealing. Force Armor is a great oh-___ tool that you can use if that person you left at 90% suddenly takes spike damage . Just force armor, rejuvenate, healing trance (if on cooldown Deliverance).

 

 

**** When to sacrifice

 

Noble sacrifice is a touch pill to swallow, the health cost compared to the amount of power received is feels a bit... off. This is compounded by the fact that it also temporarily slows how fast you regenerate force. Because of this you have to be extremely mindful of when you will be using it and how. If you know you will have a few seconds pause for example (having just topped people off, force armored, etc.) then you can use it knowing that you'll likely not have to throw out a heal until that degeneration is over.

 

Another good time is when you throw out salvation as its healing will help top you off while healing those that need it (letting you save force mend for another time)

 

Finally, most important, is to note the talent "resplendence" which means your healing trance critical hits (of which you should be guaranteed at least one using the channel with conveyance) remove the degeneration debuff.

 

 

Edit: As to your second positioning question-- this one really depends on the situation/fight. Normally on my smuggler I'm right up in the action, on my sage however I tend to hang back a bit so as to avoid taking incidental aoe damage. The only situation where I'd need to be up in with everyone would be to get the healing benefits of salvation on myself (be it that you need healing or merely to be able to use noble sacrifice). Sitting at just over 20 meters you can easily use force speed to run in, get the salvation benefits and back out, no need to remain in the fracas the whole time unless you'll be using salvation frequently.

Edited January 24, 2013 by paul_preib

1) respect with 3 points in the Telekinetic tree for the 9% off sale ~ it makes a huge difference, drop the AoE heal if you have to.

 

2) don't ever use Benevolence.....just don't, if it's got to that point ~ you screwed up a long time before then.

 

3) don't ever cast Deliverance, HT, or Salvation without first casting Rejuvenate. Treat the Conveyance proc from Rejuvenate just like Upper Hand on your sawbones ~ only Conveyance doesn't stack, and your abilities will work without it. You have to have some discipline about this.

 

4) HT is super inefficient if it gets interrupted by boss knockbacks, because it deducts it's force cost when it's activated. Deliverance on the other hand, doesn't deduct it's force until the cast is completed. If you're too reliant on HT, it will cause you force management problems. Deliverance isn't really a burst heal. Force Potency + Deliverance x2 is your burst heal.

 

5) Keep Force Armor on the Tank just as soon as the lockout debuff falls off ~ keep as much uptime as possible. Don't use Force Armor on DPSs unless they're about to get slammed by an enormous AoE hit from a boss.

 

6) try to land the rejuvenate casts on the tank to refresh the armor buff from Force Shelter, just like how you keep the stack of HoT refreshed on the tank with your sawbones.

 

7) Interrupt is free, cleanse costs force ~ don't cleanse if the effect is close to expiration.

 

8) If you're going to dps between heals, use TK throw. Watch out for Mind Crush & Project ~ those 2 will bleed you dry.

 

9) Burn a medpack every fight if you have to.

 

Noble sac needs to planned, here's what I use on longer fights. If the incoming dps is too large, I drop to 3 sacs.

Bubble>Rejuvenate>Salvation>Noble Sac>Noble Sac>Noble Sac>Noble Sac>

Self Heal>Bubble>Rejuvenate>Interrupt

 

Then Idle till the "sac stack" falls off. Use a relic, medpack, or adrenal to eat 1.5 seconds of the stack, if you're going to have to cast before the stack falls off, or if your going to have to do some heavy healing right after it falls off.

Edited January 24, 2013 by Cleet_Xia

Force management as a seer is all about Noble Sacrifice usage. The other healing classes have a shallower resource pool and more passive resource management. Sages have a very deep resource pool, but active management. Depending on how much incoming damage there is to your party, you should be shifting gears between rebuilding, staying in a holding pattern, and controlled drops in your force pool. You can also go into a free fall, but you want to avoid it. You're just going to have to learn the fights and read the situation at hand to know to switch effectively. Below are my thoughts on a sage's arsenal of healing abilities.

 

Rejuvenate on CD. You do this more for the Conveyance buff than the HPS, but this ability is fairly force efficient by itself. Conveyance is good for Healing Trance and Deliverance and pretty much required for Salvation.

 

Healing Trance is always your choice ability for single target healing. It has the highest single target HPS and is very force efficient. This also grants the Resplendence buff to really help out with force management under Noble Sacrifice.

 

Benevolence is terrible. A crit of Benevolence heals for about what Force Armor absorbs. Force Armor is cheaper to cast, is instant, and both use up exactly 1 GCD without alacrity. The only time I use Benevolence is if Rejuvenate is on CD, HT is on CD, cannot use Force Armor because of debuff, and I don't think I have the extra 1 second to cast Deliverance.

 

Deliverance is actually quite good once you take the talents to reduce cast time. This should be your goto when HT is on CD. Don't be as afraid to cast it without the buff from Rejuvenate when under stress. This ability is by far your best way to consume Force Potency.

 

Don't use force armor until you have spent your 2 points in Telekinetic Defense and 2 points in Perseverance. Don't try to bubble your whole team before running into a fight. I see far too many sages do this. Less than half of the absorption will get used up before the effect expires. So, all you accomplish is starting the fight out with a reduced force pool to work with. I really only like casting Force Armor on the tank because its the only ability we have that can effectively over heal a damaged ally. Some fights have a lot of splash damage going around that make it OK to cast on the raid.

 

I generally consider tank + anyone "good enough" to throw down Salvation. It takes a third person to come out ahead in force efficiency from Salvation alone, but the HPS from even a 2 person Salvation is usually good enough to allow yourself to go back into a force rebuilding rotation for the duration. Don't forget that you can make yourself that 2nd or 3rd person by standing in the salvation and using Noble Sacrifice.

thanks all for the great info (and yes, i read every bit of it). i put it all to practice while duoing a bunch of heroics with a guildie, and felt like i did much, much better. ^_^ i think it all came down to properly utilizing conveyance, making sure resplendence was up before using NS, and only force armoring those who absolutely needed it. i also had to watch my buff bar more so i could see if conveyance and resplendence were up, lol. on my sawbones, i don't have to do that as much since there is a sound effect that plays when i get UH stacks. i didn't notice any sound effect for the sage's triggers. is there a visual notification that appears on my toon whenever resplendence and conveyance pop that i haven't noticed?

You always get the Conveyance proc following a Rejuvenate once you have spent the 2 skill points and it always get used by the next Healing Trance/Salvation/Deliverance/Benevolence . So, you shouldn't need any queues there.

 

If I feel like using Noble Sacrafice, I flick my eyes down to my buff bar. The Resplendence buff really stands out one you know what it looks like. I guess you could also just watch the healing numbers thrown out by Healing Trance to try and see a crit that way. When I get home, I'll look to see if there are any audio and visual queues.

I took a couple months off from the game and I am just getting back into my Sage Seer. There is a lot of info floating around and this thread has helped me remember a bunch of things so thanks. I did have one question that I figured you guys/gals could help with. Have there been any major skill tree changes/tweeks in the last 3 or so patches? I just want to make sure my spec is still about right. thanks.

 

EDIT: This is what I am running right now. torhead link

Edited January 24, 2013 by theborch

...

 

EDIT: This is what I am running right now. torhead link

That's the same one I run with. I still like it.

There is a subtle "wha" sound effect right when you pick up the Resplendence buff. Not seeing or hearing anything after that.

EDIT: This is what I am running right now. torhead link

that's pretty much what my skill tree will look like once i hit 50.

Others have already given good answers, I'll add a couple of points for your level.

 

First, make sure you get mental longevity (+100 to force pool) and inner strength from the telekinetics tree. 20% more force means 20% more regen from noble sacrifice when you use it, and making force attacks 9% less expensive speaks for itself. If you have to lose salvation and clairvoyance to get these, do so. Salvation is less useful in most FPs anyway, and is always major investment of force. It can be quite awesome when used appropriately, but if nobody stands in it, it just turns into a huge waste.

 

Never use benevolence. It has a use as an emergency heal (or even as a main heal in PvP), but in most cases it isn't going to help anyway. It is too little healing for too much force.

 

If you need to put out some major healing, don't forget about force potency. It will nearly guarantee criticals from your next two skills (probably deliverance).

 

Finally, be wary of overhealing. If everyone is above 90%, feel free to stand there and do nothing while force regens, or for rejuvenate or healing trance to come off cooldown.

 

When you get to 50, the 4-set bonus from your Tionese gear should give you an extra 50 force and reduce the cool down on healing trance. Both of these make force management much easier, since healing trance is both very efficient and can proc resplendence. And again, extra force means more returns from noble sacrifice.

Nice thread, thanks posters

 

All the above reinforces a lot I've already read - and reminds me to use Force Potency (I keep forgetting).

 

Following what's up there, I've not run out of force power yet and that's without the 4 set bonus. (The day I do run out is the day I start wearing that ugly armour set).

 

And I'm running that build as well - I can't see how it could be improved upon.

... (The day I do run out is the day I start wearing that ugly armour set). ...

If you can get enough Black Hole comms to buy Campaign armoring for your set bonus, you can do this:

 

1. Head piece with set bonus (hidden so you don't look like a peacock)

2. Chest piece of your choice (with Campaign armoring for set bonus)

3. Leg piece with set bonus (color matched to Chest piece)

4. Gloves of your choice (so you're not wearing oven mittens)

5. Boots with set bonus (color matched to Chest piece)

 

This will give you the full 4-piece set bonus, and you can still have your look.

Edited February 6, 2013 by Khevar

A fair amount of the bh pieces have the endurance heavy armorings. So, you might as well buy the campaign armorings to correct your stats. You'll pick up the set bonus in the process.

This is the spec I use.. It's a little less standard.

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600GhdRrdrzGzZf0bM.2

 

1. I no longer take Will of the Jedi from the Balance Tree because my augments offset that much willpower. I was in the endgame long before a "full house" of augmented gear was normal. (Keep in mind that +6% Willpower if you're stacking 1400 Willpower is only +84 ~ augments give you +252)

 

2. I dropped Wisdom because 2% of a 5K heal is 100 health.... I'm stacking so much presence from alts the +6% to presence is lost in the crowd. This talent is "Cast 49 Deliverances & get the 50th FREE". Properly using the Conveyance proc gives you a free Deliverance every 3.33 casts. .............the Wisdom talent is basically worthless.

 

3. I've got 2 points in Confound because the ranged slow can mitigate a hit or two from melee mob & give me some room to kite. It's great for PvP. (This is where my Will of The Jedi Points went)

 

4. I traded my 2 points in Serenity for 2 in Egress because root immunity during speed ends up having much greater utility when I'm already stacking a healthy amount of crit.

 

5. The bizarre part of my heal spec is the 2 points in Concentration over in the TK tree. I find that by keeping a 3 stack of The proc from Disturbance & confining myself to dpsing mostly with TK Throw ~ my rate of force depletion drops low enough that Noble Sac & the Resplendence proc are not needed nearly so much.

This is the spec I use.. It's a little less standard.

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#600GhdRrdrzGzZf0bM.2

 

1. I no longer take Will of the Jedi from the Balance Tree because my augments offset that much willpower. I was in the endgame long before a "full house" of augmented gear was normal. (Keep in mind that +6% Willpower if you're stacking 1400 Willpower is only +84 ~ augments give you +252)

 

2. I dropped Wisdom because 2% of a 5K heal is 100 health.... I'm stacking so much presence from alts the +6% to presence is lost in the crowd. This talent is "Cast 49 Deliverances & get the 50th FREE". Properly using the Conveyance proc gives you a free Deliverance every 3.33 casts. .............the Wisdom talent is basically worthless.

 

3. I've got 2 points in Confound because the ranged slow can mitigate a hit or two from melee mob & give me some room to kite. It's great for PvP. (This is where my Will of The Jedi Points went)

 

4. I traded my 2 points in Serenity for 2 in Egress because root immunity during speed ends up having much greater utility when I'm already stacking a healthy amount of crit.

 

5. The bizarre part of my heal spec is the 2 points in Concentration over in the TK tree. I find that by keeping a 3 stack of The proc from Disturbance & confining myself to dpsing mostly with TK Throw ~ my rate of force depletion drops low enough that Noble Sac & the Resplendence proc are not needed nearly so much.

 

This advice is terrifble for operation or even flashpoints healing. You're basically dropping 6 points from talents that will increase the effectiveness of all of your heals to put into talents that do little to nothing for you as an ops healer. You're not going to get rooted, you won't be getting attacked enough let alone dpsing enough to worry about pushback on attacks, and the only targets you bother to weaken mind are bosses and they are immune to the slow. The force regen from confound might sound like a benifit, but you just won't have the GCDs to maintain it for progression level content. I also suspect that you still spend more on disturbance than the buff returns in increased force regen. Having all of your heals hit harder/crit more just gives you more

 

This seems like a perfectly fine build for pvp though and I don't want to discourage people from trying it there or for solo content. I still think I'd prefer to take will of the jedi over concentration though.

Edited February 7, 2013 by -Sirus-
grammer

A couple of points for consideration.

 

1. You can't have Conveyance up for everything; the cooldown on Rejuvenate is too high. Salvation is your top priority for using the proc; otherwise, save it for Healing Trance.

 

2. Rejuvenate actually does very good healing for the force cost; it just doesn't do much healing in absolute terms, so in practice you're mainly using it for the proc.

 

3. The issue with Force Armor is actually not that it's innefficient or expensive: quite the opposite, in fact. What's problematic is that with no cooldown you can burn through your force pool very quickly splashing bubbles around too liberally. Always maintain it on the tank, and don't be afraid that use it on DPS - just try to be sure they're going to take damage. It can be a reactive measure, but it's better to be proactive with it.

 

4. One can debate the finer points of resource management as a Sage until the cows come home, but ultimately it boils down to using Noble Sacrifice with enthusiasm. Got Resplendence, and you're not about to die? Use it.