To give you a better perspective of the differences between Crit Rating and Power...

 

Crit Analysis:

Crit Rating | HPS

443--------------7,378.77

364--------------7,386.21

285--------------7,389.34

206--------------7,387.90

127--------------7,381.58

 

The above analysis shows you that 285 will give you the most hps. This is of course based on the fact that you will have the minimum required alacrity (79*6=474) to allow you to use 12 casts in your rotation versus only 11 casts for being below 450 alacrity. If you have 474 alacrity then the maximum surge you can have is 316. So, with 316 surge, 285 is the sweet spot for crit to maximize your hps. However, seeing as it really doesn't change your hps THAT much, you could have a higher crit rating (perhaps you want to gain more energy from your Diagnostic Scan) and it wouldn't hurt your hps much.

 

If anything though, you should NOT have 0 crit rating...This is the worst of both worlds, since you neither gain more energy from your Diagnostic Scans nor do you have a higher hps. The only thing that 0 crit rating does is make you have a really big heal once in a great moon...I guess if getting a stupid record in one of those pvp threads for the single biggest heal for your class is your goal then by all means, go ahead.

Gotta love some proper reasoned and math-backed conclusions rather than just 'get 350 crit because, I dunno, it's a nice round number. Thank you for putting in the work.

The OP is also saying to use UW 4 piece. Why? The 5 plus in Energy seems rather pointless considering the class has little issue with Energy management. Using 63 2pc and 72/75 2pc for cheaper and more potent Kolto Cloud. Taking 63 4pc seems interesting considering Kolto Pack is actually useful now but the loss of Cunning may be too heavy.

PvP sets are useless and require too much of Cunning loss.

Wish to greeble as a scoundrel do you? Hmm? Simply going to war does not make one a War-Lord. The Grobble is my ally, and a powerful ally it is!

Much to learn we all have, much to learn.

Thus I declare The Grobble only to be satisfied when the rotation of Inifinite Greebling to be mastered.

Executive Greebling # 11. Your quickbars shall be in the shape of your nostromo keys so that your mental reflexes will not be grasping for that "skill over there." You will immediately recognize what keys need to be hit. This is to Visually put your mind into the right state.

Executive Greebling # 12. You will put all your activation timed things on the 1-12 quickbar and your INSTANTS on another quickbar (Shift 1-12).

Executive Greebling # 13; You will place your instants and activated skills in spots where you feel would be most greebly to achieve the "cast with 1 key, instant with Shift 1 key" combination.

EXAMPLE ; 1 key actives UW Medicine, Shift 1 activates E-Medpack. This has been done fast enough to bypass 33% of the usual global, AND has made it so you activate two skills without have to even change keys!!! This adds speed to your rotation!!!

Executive Greebling #14; You will recognize that our skills rotation DEMANDS a different approach than it did before 2.0. Specifically, your SPIKE heals are way more important now. While our typical UW medicine and E-Medpack would get through just about anything before.... such is not the case now.

You must recognize this and find a greebly rotation of skills. To you I shall impart some general rules;

A, Kolto Pack is essential now, in terms of raw heal output.

B. Diagnostic Scan with a high alacrity stacked with a crit adrenal = heals and power for The Grobble.

C, E-Medpack heals more than it did - or perhaps my stats back in the day were crapo. I don't know which.

I confess at this point I have changed my board layout and quickbars to allow myself ease of transition. Scoundrel is not 'the good healer but I wish it was a sorc" heals anymore. And if people are thinking of it that way now, its because they are running scoundrels that don't know yet.

Even when things are going bad, we can do amazing things.

Good greeblngs, May The Grobble be with you!!

GREEBLE GROBBLE!@!!

Hey! Love the guide, Im thinking about even making my main a Sawbones atm, this guide was just what I was looking for. I was curious if it wouldnt be too much trouble if either the OP could maybe post an "askmrrobot" guide to the gearing and augment choices. It would be awesome, that way we could see BiS and the correct way to go atm. Pre 2.2 of course. thanks

There are so many different ways to mod gear that putting up a "guide" on Ask Mr. Robot would lead to a lot of headaches for some people trying to get the "exact" mods I put up there. I had some examples before, but took them down. Instead, just try to mess around with your mods to reach the suggested numbers in the attributes section.

I know this is a PvE guide but I wondered if you could do some PvP calculations as well. For example the alacrity, instead of getting 79 on a piece of equipment you'll only get 64. Now you say that the key rating is 450 alacrity, however, with only 64 on an enhancement you'll need 7 of them to reach 448 or 8 to get above 450 which leaves you with only 3 or 2 enhancements for surge.

 

Now if it's not feasible to aim for 450 alacrity should I aim for the same ratio of enhancements? 6 alacrity and 4 surge? Or, since I heard somewhere that alacrity is only really good if you get a lot of it, sack alacrity much more and get more surge?

 

Same goes for crit rating, how many mods/enhancements with crit should I aim for to get t he most return? The high crit enhancements give 41 rating and the high crit mods give 46 if that's any help.

I updated the attribute section and hopefully it's able to answer your question better. Basically, alacrity depends on style (whether you revolve around Slow-Release Medpac or not). I'd say, in general, if you aren't following a similar rotation that revolves around Slow-Release Medpac then you're using scoundrel incorrectly. In that case though, the alacrity speeds up Kolto Pack and gives you more casts in between refreshing Slow-Release Medpac. Just a thought. I don't do PVP though, so the play style in PVP might be radically different. If emergency healing with big crits is important in PVP, then more crit and surge would be good, but I don't see any reason that PVP healing should differ greatly from PVE healing.

The OP is also saying to use UW 4 piece. Why? The 5 plus in Energy seems rather pointless considering the class has little issue with Energy management. Using 63 2pc and 72/75 2pc for cheaper and more potent Kolto Cloud. Taking 63 4pc seems interesting considering Kolto Pack is actually useful now but the loss of Cunning may be too heavy.

Believe it or not, the extra 5 energy gives me enough wiggle room where I noticed I was using Diagnostic Scan less to recover energy after I received the 4-piece bonus. I think this is substantial because I'm able to pull off a Kolto Pack now where I would normally throw another Diagnostic Scan.

Wish to greeble as a scoundrel do you? Hmm? Simply going to war does not make one a War-Lord. The Grobble is my ally, and a powerful ally it is!

 

Much to learn we all have, much to learn.

 

Thus I declare The Grobble only to be satisfied when the rotation of Inifinite Greebling to be mastered.

 

Executive Greebling # 11. Your quickbars shall be in the shape of your nostromo keys so that your mental reflexes will not be grasping for that "skill over there." You will immediately recognize what keys need to be hit. This is to Visually put your mind into the right state.

 

Executive Greebling # 12. You will put all your activation timed things on the 1-12 quickbar and your INSTANTS on another quickbar (Shift 1-12).

 

Executive Greebling # 13; You will place your instants and activated skills in spots where you feel would be most greebly to achieve the "cast with 1 key, instant with Shift 1 key" combination.

 

EXAMPLE ; 1 key actives UW Medicine, Shift 1 activates E-Medpack. This has been done fast enough to bypass 33% of the usual global, AND has made it so you activate two skills without have to even change keys!!! This adds speed to your rotation!!!

 

Executive Greebling #14; You will recognize that our skills rotation DEMANDS a different approach than it did before 2.0. Specifically, your SPIKE heals are way more important now. While our typical UW medicine and E-Medpack would get through just about anything before.... such is not the case now.

 

You must recognize this and find a greebly rotation of skills. To you I shall impart some general rules;

 

A, Kolto Pack is essential now, in terms of raw heal output.

 

B. Diagnostic Scan with a high alacrity stacked with a crit adrenal = heals and power for The Grobble.

 

C, E-Medpack heals more than it did - or perhaps my stats back in the day were crapo. I don't know which.

 

 

I confess at this point I have changed my board layout and quickbars to allow myself ease of transition. Scoundrel is not 'the good healer but I wish it was a sorc" heals anymore. And if people are thinking of it that way now, its because they are running scoundrels that don't know yet.

 

Even when things are going bad, we can do amazing things.

 

Good greeblngs, May The Grobble be with you!!

 

GREEBLE GROBBLE!@!!

Awesome. Agreed on all points.

Just some anecdotal stuff to pass the time...

I know how a lot of healers will sort of complain about lousy tanks and dps in PUG FPs, etc. Makes our job a lot more difficult when they don't know how to play their roles effectively. I totally get that. But part of what makes it for me as a healer, are all the times that I have queued up for a 55 FP only to find out I've joined up halfway through, or at the last boss because the previous healer bailed.

Some times it's for a legitimate reason and the group was doing fine, but more often than not it quickly becomes apparent why I am suddenly the replacement healer. That's when I roll up my sleeves and vow that no-one shall die on my watch. Sure, there are times when there is only so much a mortal Mirialan can do in the face of extreme ineptitude. But that's the challenge. And when you are triumphant, you usually get a whole lot of gratitude thrown your way.

One correction and one addation:

Skill tree

 

I believe this is this optimal skill tree to use. Your last 2 points can either go in Scramble in the Sawbones tree or Mortal Wound in the Dirty Fighting tree depending on whether you’ll need an extra speed boost or you’re contributing to some damage with Vital Shot.

 

http:// http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#701MffrzGoRzfsZ0cZG.3

Scramble no longer provides a speed boost. Talent was changed with 2.0.

Healing tips

 

Start in stealth

 

Starting in stealth will grants you 2 upper hand immediately after you break out of it thanks to a talent in the skill tree. It’s no longer necessary to build up upper hand before battle.

I swaped 'Smuggeld Med Delivery' with 'Med Screen'. There is enough time to start the fight with two 'Upper Hands'. As long as you keep your "Disappearing Act' cooldown free for a second resurrection, you can only use this talent once on each (boss)encounter. 'Med Screen' provides a little bit more mitigation in form of an extra heal. Started to love this talent, when we faced the Dread Guard Commanders Nightmare. This litte heal saved me more than once just to die a few moments/minutes later *g*.

They also changed 'Browbeater' (second tree, first line). I've no chance to parse, if 'Browbeater' or 'Mortal Wound' does more damage. Dummies always reset. Still i'm curious, if 12% more damage and 2% more tech accuracy would beat the 25% chance of an extra tick. Does someone know, if there is a way to keep Dummies away from reseting, when they only take damage from dots?

 

I swaped 'Smuggeld Med Delivery' with 'Med Screen'. There is enough time to start the fight with two 'Upper Hands'. As long as you keep your "Disappearing Act' cooldown free for a second resurrection, you can only use this talent once on each (boss)encounter. 'Med Screen' provides a little bit more mitigation in form of an extra heal. Started to love this talent, when we faced the Dread Guard Commanders Nightmare. This litte heal saved me more than once just to die a few moments/minutes later *g*.

First off, you don't "swap" Smuggled Med Delivery for Med Screen or vice-versa. You should have both of those abilities to make the 36 points in Sawbones. If you think that 4% damage reduction for your healer, who barely takes any damage as it is, will be better than Smuggled Med Delivery, you are mistaken.

Obviously, you are going to start the fight with THREE Upper Hand stacks, not two.

Disappearing Act should be used as part of your rotation so you can get more use of Emergency Medpac or Kolto Pack casts. Disappearing Act is NOT going to be used for a stealth revive because first, you should have HoTs on raid member for the entire fight so it will take at LEAST 18 seconds after the person dies before you are able to revive them (perhaps you don't know that when a HoT ticks on someone else, it will put you back into combat, even in stealth) and second, 18s is just something that you cannot afford to do in the Dread Guard Nightmare fight because A, you are stressing the other healer while you are not healing to revive and B, not many teams can afford to beat the Kelsara enrage with a dead dps for 21s.

They also changed 'Browbeater' (second tree, first line). I've no chance to parse, if 'Browbeater' or 'Mortal Wound' does more damage. Dummies always reset. Still i'm curious, if 12% more damage and 2% more tech accuracy would beat the 25% chance of an extra tick. Does someone know, if there is a way to keep Dummies away from reseting, when they only take damage from dots?

As for Browbeater versus Mortal Wound , that is a pretty easy choice as well..choose Mortal Wound. If you are going to be putting points into boosting your Vital Shot, it should be Open Wound first and then Mortal Wound, not Browbeater. Here is why...

--- Open Wound gives you an extra tick of damage. If you didn't know, there are normally 5 ticks of damage for Vital Shot so Open Wound makes it 6 ticks. Think of that 1 tick as +20% total damage.

--- Mortal Wound gives the 12.5% chance to tick twice. 12.5%*5 ticks= 62.5% combined with Open Wound, 12.5%*6 ticks = 75%. That is a 75% chance. So going by the same principle above, 75% of the 20 above is +15% total damage.

--- Browbeater...the 1% accuracy is nothing. An extra 6% total damage by Vital Shot is +6% total damage...compared to 20% from Open Wound or 15% per point in Mortal Wound.

I don't know how you are managing in DG NiM but perhaps you should trust what this guide says. I have personally healed with Bayani and he knows his stuff. Honestly, he is by far the best PvE scoundrel healer I've come across on the Jedi Covenant server. My guild has been doing DG 8NiM and I've been averaging 5600 hps with upwards of 6k hps. Normally I can hit higher on most fights but given the severity and spikeyness of the heals in that fight, they drop some.

Here is a link for the combat logs I uploaded - Inovisible heals. There are quite a few pulls in there (link to each fight on left side if you've never used torparse before) since we wiped a lot but it gives you an idea of the potential for Scoundrels.

Just some anecdotal stuff to pass the time...

 

I know how a lot of healers will sort of complain about lousy tanks and dps in PUG FPs, etc. Makes our job a lot more difficult when they don't know how to play their roles effectively. I totally get that. But part of what makes it for me as a healer, are all the times that I have queued up for a 55 FP only to find out I've joined up halfway through, or at the last boss because the previous healer bailed.

 

Some times it's for a legitimate reason and the group was doing fine, but more often than not it quickly becomes apparent why I am suddenly the replacement healer. That's when I roll up my sleeves and vow that no-one shall die on my watch. Sure, there are times when there is only so much a mortal Mirialan can do in the face of extreme ineptitude. But that's the challenge. And when you are triumphant, you usually get a whole lot of gratitude thrown your way.

I tilt my hat to you sir. I also enjoy the challenge of a good FP heal with random pugs Though recently, I usually don't queue for the 55 FPs unless I have a dps friend who can queue as a "tank." Since you don't really need a tank for any of the FPs, I think it goes a lot smoother with 3 dps and 1 healer and it is certainly more challenging than over-healing a group with a tank.

One of my more recent entertaining adventures involved 2 dps looking for a group. One was well geared and the other was low and needed the FP gear. I told them I would heal for them if they found another dps. We went on to run all 4 of the 55 FPs back to back because it went so fast with the extra dps haha lots of fun!

First off, you don't "swap" Smuggled Med Delivery for Med Screen or vice-versa. You should have both of those abilities to make the 36 points in Sawbones. If you think that 4% damage reduction for your healer, who barely takes any damage as it is, will be better than Smuggled Med Delivery, you are mistaken.

This is a great idea. I played almost only pvp until Bioware broke it with all those Bolster-bugs. For me it was always a 'must have'. I primarily try to find out things myself, until i look out for suggestions from other players. Elbmuh invested two skillpoints in 'Scar Tissue', too (as you can see in my first post). I think, this should be corrected then.

... (perhaps you don't know that when a HoT ticks on someone else, it will put you back into combat, even in stealth)

No, i never noticed that. Thank you for the information.

As for Browbeater versus Mortal Wound , that is a pretty easy choice as well..choose Mortal Wound. If you are going to be putting points into boosting your Vital Shot, it should be Open Wound first and then Mortal Wound, not Browbeater. Here is why...

 

--- Open Wound gives you an extra tick of damage. If you didn't know, there are normally 5 ticks of damage for Vital Shot so Open Wound makes it 6 ticks. Think of that 1 tick as +20% total damage.

--- Mortal Wound gives the 12.5% chance to tick twice. 12.5%*5 ticks= 62.5% combined with Open Wound, 12.5%*6 ticks = 75%. That is a 75% chance. So going by the same principle above, 75% of the 20 above is +15% total damage.

--- Browbeater...the 1% accuracy is nothing. An extra 6% total damage by Vital Shot is +6% total damage...compared to 20% from Open Wound or 15% per point in Mortal Wound.

Thanks for the math. I was just suprised, when i realised, that Encounters seem to resist my attacks quite more than i expected. 9% less accuarcy than required does not sound much.

I don't know how you are managing in DG NiM but perhaps you should trust what this guide says. I have personally healed with Bayani and he knows his stuff. Honestly, he is by far the best PvE scoundrel healer I've come across on the Jedi Covenant server. My guild has been doing DG 8NiM and I've been averaging 5600 hps with upwards of 6k hps. Normally I can hit higher on most fights but given the severity and spikeyness of the heals in that fight, they drop some.

Here is a link for the combat logs I uploaded - Inovisible heals. There are quite a few pulls in there (link to each fight on left side if you've never used torparse before) since we wiped a lot but it gives you an idea of the potential for Scoundrels.

Right now, we are unable to beat Kelsara's enragetimer. That's the reason, why i was looking for ways to make damage myself and keep my group alive. I'm going to use Torparse tonight against DG NiM and see, how i do compared to you. I'm still learning the PvE-ways.

I tilt my hat to you sir.

Likewise. Some great information in your post. I had previously posted asking about using DA to rez in combat and wasn't provided the info that HoTs on players triggered combat. It's essentially futile to try it in a HM+ Op.

I'm curious, did you take Open Wounds/Mortal Wounds in your spec? I opted to take Dirty Escape for the 30s Dirty Kick. What are your thoughts on that route?

Likewise. Some great information in your post. I had previously posted asking about using DA to rez in combat and wasn't provided the info that HoTs on players triggered combat. It's essentially futile to try it in a HM+ Op.

 

I'm curious, did you take Open Wounds/Mortal Wounds in your spec? I opted to take Dirty Escape for the 30s Dirty Kick. What are your thoughts on that route?

I wouldn't say that Dirty Escape is bad but it's purely a PvP skill. Since bosses are immunity to stuns, the only time you would use that is MAYBE on a mob trash pull. However, something is seriously going wrong if you need to do the dps players' job by using dirty kick on trash instead of healing the group. I am usually strongly against any healer having to dps since having more HoTs on people is better for future preventative damage versus the very minimal damage that you can put out as heals. However, the DG NiM fight is the most difficult fight in the game currently and the dps in my group don't pull their weight, forcing me to throw an occasional Vital Shot and Flyby so we can squeeze out every bit of dps possible... When I'm not in the DG NiM fight, I do just like Bayani suggests and use the Scar Tissue skill in place of Open Wound/Mortal Wound

This is the skill tree that I personally use.

Scoundrel / Operative

Using that skill tree as the best for PvE, the are only a few possibilities that you can change before you lose effective healing. Below are a few "optional" abilities that you can choose.

Med Screen / Med Shield

Scar Tissue / Chem-resistant Inlays

Scramble / Evasive Imperative

Holdout Defense / Hit and Run

Mortal Wound / Corrosive Microbes

Open Wound / Lethal Injectors

Of the above "optional" abilities, you will have to put at least 2 points into top 3 skills in order to make 36 points in the Sawbones / Medicine tree for your AOE heal. Of the bottom 3 skills, if you are going to spec into the Vital Shot / Corrosive Dart at all, just keep in mind the following...

Open Wound / Lethal Injectors > Mortal Wound / Corrosive Microbes

...

Hi, first of all I'm realy amazed by your parse and the almost complete lack of using Underworld Medicine. I'm fairly new to the Scoundrel/Operative and healing in general because it isn't my main.

Any generell advice on skill usage / rotation?

And what gear(stat distribution) are you using? This is my current setup: AMR Profile

Any pointers?

thx in advance

Hi, first of all I'm realy amazed by your parse and the almost complete lack of using Underworld Medicine. I'm fairly new to the Scoundrel/Operative and healing in general because it isn't my main.

Any generell advice on skill usage / rotation?

And what gear(stat distribution) are you using? This is my current setup: AMR Profile

Any pointers?

 

thx in advance

Underworld Medicine..that comes up quite frequently actually because not too many people are familiar with Scoundrel healers and their purpose in raids..I'll explain.

Yes, many people are confused on what all the healers are capable of and how each one should be played. Just ask around and I'm sure 9 out of 10 people will tell you that Sages are "the AOE healer." All healers have their purpose...I suppose..and each play a different style. I personally think the Sage is the weakest of the 3 healers, when each is played to its maximum capabilities.

Scoundrels are and have always been THE aoe healer. Since Scoundrels have much more aoe capabilities than Sages or Commandos do, they should be focusing on aoe healing in raids while the other healer focuses on their burst and spot healing. For many fights that don't have too much burst, you can just solo heal it. Underworld Medicine is actually a horrible ability for resources and should only be used in true emergency situations. If the other healer is failing to do their burst healing and someone is truly about to die, I suppose it is okay to use Underworld Medicine but that is only if you feel that losing one person would wipe the entire raid because having you use Underworld Medicine may deplete your energy, forcing you to drop your 2 stacks of Slow-release Medpac from people.

Kolto Cloud on a single target heals much more than Underworld Medicine and costs less anyways so why wouldn't you just use Kolto Cloud to heal someone? Kolto Cloud will even hit multiple people and regardless of whether or not they need the heals at the moment, having that HoT on the other people will heal them for any damage they take in the next few seconds.

Kolto Pack also heals more than Underworld Medicine and the HoT is much better than casting a big heal and wasting potential heals by over-healing.

Underworld Medicine is the last ability on my priority list. I would much prefer an Emergency Medpac over Underworld Medicine as well. Not to mention, that I can cast many more Emergency Medpacs in the time it takes to cast Underworld Medicine without the over-healing of Underworld Medicine and wasting precious energy.

I could go more into why Underworld Medicine should be your last resort but I think my numbers should speak for themselves.

I checked out your gear and it looks nice. You are almost BiS As for pointers, just read Bayani's guide (the first post of this thread) and you will get everything you need to know. If you want more details on numbers, you can check out my spreadsheet in my signature block. You'll find the Scoundrel healing in the Sawbones tab.

Hey there! Nice parses. I wanted to stop by to join the discussion about what is possible in healing. Mostly I hang out in the Operative class forums, but I wanted to offer up an alternative strategy that has been working for me for a long time through high-end PvE content.

What Inovisible has been describing in this thread is "optimally efficient" Scoundrel/Operative healing, using the juciest and highest HPS of our abilities.

An alternative: "Interval" healing.

It's primarily defined as keeping up a few high-HPS abilities on the highest incoming-damage and most vulnerable raid members in preparation for incoming burst. This style of healing anticipates burst, keeps available resources and cooldowns at maximum, and is prepared to drain all of them in order to prevent a wipe at any time. It relies heavily on the use of K.Injection/Underworld Medicine and Diagnostic Scan. It has roots Pre-2.0 and has only been buffed by the 2.0 changes.

For reference, 2xKP(SRMP) is on both tanks at all or nearly all times.

Purpose: High-end (HM/NiM) PvE raids with calm (if short) "intervals" between bursts of high incoming single-target or raid-wide damage.

"Interval" healing is significantly inefficient in PvP (because of the long channel time of K.Inj/UM) and functional (though a bit overkill) in SM Operations and HM FPs.

How-to:

A. During "Normal" Raid Damage

1. Maintain 2-3 stacks TA/UH.

2. Keep 2 stacks of SRMP/KP on tanks, unless their lives are in imminent danger.

3. Use KC/RN at or near cooldown. It is permissible to use it even if it only targets one tank, though preferable to place on a group member "near" and in radial range of the tank.

4. Keep KInf.(K.Pack) on the tank that is currently taking the most damage.

5. Use K.Inj(UWM) as your primary heal to build TA/UH during "normal" raid damage in combination with EMP/SP immediately following (to use the TA/UH you just built).

6. Use Diagnostic scan as needed to keep your energy at or near cap. DScan is an active regeneration tool. By using it, your energy regeneration rate is much higher than if you either chose to keep healing or waited around. This part is somewhat tricky to master, but active use of DScan is what allows for liberal use of KInj./UWM.

B. During "Burst" Raid Damage

1. Identify the target in most danger.

2. Heal the living crap out of them with your best-judged combination of adrenals and cooldowns. Examples include:

• RN/Kolto Cloud + Adrenal -- for a group
  
• Stim Boost (Pugnacity) + Adrenal + KInj (UWM) + KInf (or EMP/SP) -- for a single target going down fast
  
• KInj (UWM) + KInf(K.Pack) + KInj + KInf. + (repeat....) -- for a tank who has run out of protective cooldowns during a dangerous phase.
  

3. Repeat, for as long as you have cooldowns and resources, using your best judgment.

C. Recovery Interval

1. Diagnostic scan to full, if the burst was brief and your tanks are at a comfortable >75% HP.

OR

2. Use Cool Head (Adrenaline Probe) if you have drained your resources and need more burst on demand. Be mindful that you can't go quite so low again for another three minutes. Two CDs in one fight is about all you'll get, if you use one "early" and another "late."

D. Notes and Caveats

Interval healing requires intimate knowledge of fights and communication with tanks about cooldowns in order to perform optimally. Inovisible's style is far higher overall HPS/EHPS and is generally approachable. An "interval" healer's goal is to keep everyone spot-healed to full health while maintaining maximum resources -- and then knowing, based on fight mechanics or phases -- when extreme burst healing might provide more security for the raid. "Interval" healing is NOT for maximizing EHPS or HPS -- but for minimizing the chance of "healer preventable" wipes due to spike damage in HM/NiM content.

Inovisible is also perfectly correct that using UWM/Kolto Injection indiscriminately would result in a lot of overhealing. However, if you set your priority to begin channeling UWM/KInj around the time a target is missing about 5-7k health (~5-10% in current gear tiers), you'll find that you cut down your overhealing by a significant margin.

The general strategy is to hold your stacks of UH/TA, effectively using them only to cast KInf (KPack) on the tank, to use EMP/SP as a spot heal, and to use them as instant emergency OH CRAP heals below 30%. It is especially useful to hold stacks when there are multiple people at or below 30% and -- as humans do -- you might accidentally use your free one on a guy who just made it over 30% and it ate your TA/UH.

My logs are available on TORParse for examples of what this style "looks" like and how it acts. I've found it a highly useful -- if occasionally stressful! -- way to heal. Operative/Scoundrel is a flexible enough class to allow for both "styles" of play.

Cheers. - Scyras

Edit: Probably my favorite example for the strength/viability of interval healing is this 8M HM TC kill. Interval healing's advantages come into play with the split group (ergo impossible to keep 2 stacks SRMP/KP on all eight people), the high spikes of damage, the defined phases, and the opportunities for recovery. Even one death is potentially disastrous because the DPS check is so high -- you can't take chances on anyone dying, and sometimes very high HPS wouldn't have been enough to guarantee my group's survival. I was the "add party" healer for this fight.

I tend to regard my healing style as "situational." I'm constantly reading what's going on and who is taking damage, and what kind. Are they being burst down or did they just take a single direct hit or AoE dmg?

When I look at my parses, my heals break down like this: KC>SMP>KP>EMP>UM>DS. One may look at that and assume that UM and DS are not very useful. On the contrary. As you said, DS is a valuable and useful ability to increase regen which is vital in a heavy fight. Having all your HoTs going means that you are dealing out lots of heals without actively casting anything. That leaves DS wide open to recoup energy should you need it. UM can be a very useful burst heal as well, especially if it is well timed. For example, I use a Serendipitous Assault relic that gives a boost to power when it procs. Watching out for that and instantly casting a UM+EMP will benefit from the additional power. If you manage to crit on either one or both, you are doing a serious heal. I'm talking about the 15k+ range.

That's what I love so much about this class. You can be bursty if you need to while doing great single target heals AND awesome AoE heals. Energy management is easy and you can still jump in and do some decent damage while healing FPs and SMs.

That's what I love so much about this class. You can be bursty if you need to while doing great single target heals AND awesome AoE heals. Energy management is easy and you can still jump in and do some decent damage while healing FPs and SMs.

QFT! I have a republic Scoundrel alt that I plan to level this double-exp weekend ...

The reason I list "interval healing" as a separate style is that UWM/KInj. makes up almost a fourth of my heals and sometimes even more than that.

Take this 8 NiM Writhing Horror Fight as an example. UWM/KInjection actually makes up the majority of my heals. Inovisible has the top parse by a fairly wide margin, but a vastly different graph and healing profile. Both profiles resulted in kills.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to advise against using UWM/KInj so strongly when it is a clearly viable (and sometimes preferable) option.

Take this 8 NiM Writhing Horror Fight as an example. UWM/KInjection actually makes up the majority of my heals. Inovisible has the top parse by a fairly wide margin, but a vastly different graph and healing profile. Both profiles resulted in kills.

 

I think it's a bit of a stretch to advise against using UWM/KInj so strongly when it is a clearly viable (and sometimes preferable) option.

That fight you linked where I had the 3270 ehps / 6162 hps also depends a lot on your group. During that particular fight, I had a Sage healer who focused on the tanks and I just stuck to doing what Scoundrel healers do best - AoE healing (they've always been THE AoE healer in this game whether you believe it or not). Now, even with my AoE rotation (SRMx4, EM, SRMx4, EM, KC, EM, repeat) the tank still receives a little above 2k hps (all of my EMs and KCs hit the tanks), which is plenty for most fights and apparently, the other Sage healer focusing on the tanks still put out his 3k or whatever hps solely on the tanks. It balanced out because nobody died.

One thing that I failed to mention earlier and I'll have to add to my guide later is that the AoE rotation that I listed above cannot be used for every fight. Even though I strongly advise against UWM, I do have to use it in some TFB NiM fights. For example, when doing Kephess NiM, I really only keep SRMs on the tanks, use KC and KP on CD, and fill in with the UWM / EM combo. This is especially true when someone gets targeted by Kephess' fire blast thing that knocks down the pillar. The moment I see the name targeted, I switch to that person and cast the following -- SRM, SRM, KC, KP, UWM, UWM/EM, UWM/EM. Kephess usually won't start hitting that person until the 4th GCD so the 2 SRMs and KC are being applied as preventative damage. KP is also working as preventative damage and then the UWMs or EMs, depending on how fast they are taking damage, will bring them up quickly.

So, depending on the fight, I do use UWM but only when there is lots of burst damage (usually only found in the NiM content). I pretty much do something similar to your "interval" healing technique, just keeping KC and KP used on CD. Even if KC hits 1 target (the tank) it is still the biggest heal in your arsenal. KP is the second largest total heal in your arsenal.

Well, if I was to actually break it down...

2xSRM is 10,681

KC is 9,922

KP is 8,614

UWM is 6,594

EM is 3,675

and your DS is 1,731

However, looking at the time that it takes each one to heal, you can figure out why I do what I said above.

One thing I would add to your "interval" healing is that when the tanks are above 90% HP, you should probably throw a SRM on someone. I think that is one of the problems that a lot of people forget. Overhealing is not a bad thing and it works as "preventative damage healing." So, when tanks are close to max health, just spam some SRMs on people. As you said though, you really have to have a deep understanding of every fight to know what your best options are at the given time. Also, depending on the dps in your group, you may need to throw a Vital Shot out there instead of an SRM on someone else when the tanks are at full health. My group didn't have that problem though...we actually dps'd Kephess too fast when I was throwing out Vital Shots or a Back Blast after the pillar fell on him. That is how I learned to not dps for that fight and to just throw out more SRMs when tanks were at full health.

As you probably hear a lot of people say, "healing is very situational"...I really hate hearing that. I'll let the other healer be "situational" and stick to my perfect rotation. I guess if I was solo healing something, I would have to use my UWM more frequently too but it's still going to be majority SRMs. I would break down every fight and list the perfect rotation for each but the vast majority of them would be my AoE rotation that I described above.

I guess the MOST important part of Scoundrel healing is to not let your 2 stacks of SRM fall of people...any time that happens is bad. It would be better to refresh it 3 or 5 seconds early than to let it fall off and have to cast 2 SRMs to get it back on. You lose serious energy and thus hps when you do that. I have had a lot of practice so my SRMs are always refreshed exactly 0.11s before they are about to fall off. If you start counting your casts, eventually, you'll get used to when it needs to be refreshed.

Quite insightful, Inocelda, thank you for the addition.

To add to that conversation -- although SRMP/KP is one of your largest single potential healers, it breaks that healing up over a much longer timeframe. The nice thing about UWM and the way it lines up with EM is that you can channel UWM and be able to transition directly into EM with the next CD (effectively having them land at the same time and producing a very large heal). The tricky part, of course, is to know when to start channeling UWM in the first place.

"Precasting" is kinda the answer, though that also takes experience/knowing the fights (at this point, this is as much a reflex for me as counting casts between SRMPs probably is for Inocelda -- we are both respectively applying methods that are intuitive to us). Your tank may not need that UWM heal right now but they might need it 1.5 seconds from now. It's hard to be sure. Rather than finishing the cast and wasting the energy/heal, you can cancel or strafe partway through and then start casting again. APM and HPS will both take a hit, but it's another useful method to manage UWM and mitigate its weaknesses while taking full advantage of its strengths. Add to that the fact that you can cast EM on any target as an instant spot heal and the "UWM the tank" followed by "Spot heal someone else" combination becomes highly attractive (this was in fact the most common healing method pre-2.0, though my aggressive "interval" priority takes it to somewhat more of an extreme).

I can empathize with disliking the phrase "healing is situational" -- but healing tends to be much more situational than, say, a DPS rotation. I do still firmly believe that your multi-target rotation is the best way to maximize HPS/EHPS, but I am not quite willing to call it "perfect," yet!

Unfortunately there is no one-size-fits-all approach to making it through a NiM fight.

Using UWM is not particularly efficient, I grant you -- but it is extraordinarily good, in combination with Kolto Pack, at being sure that no one dies. One of the single most powerful burst series I know involves using UWM+KPack in a continuous series. It will drain your energy in about six GCDs ... combined with Pugnacity/Stim Boost, I guarantee the target of your heals won't die while you're still standing.

Anyhow: In my parse I was also working with a Sage (in my case, Sorc) healer who likes to keep tanks topped up. The problem with relying on only one person to burst heal is that they can get interrupted (moving or strafing to avoid a mechanic), be in between CDs before they can burst again, etc. Writhing Horror is one of those fights where both tanks will occasionally take spikes, and sometimes they will spike at close to the same time. Our method for that fight has involved him using an instant bubble, me bursting, and then him following up with another burst. I'm of the mind that if one burst healer is good, two is even better -- and there's not much raid-wide damage in Writhing Horror to begin with, so little call to roll full probes until Jealous Males arrive (and perhaps even later). A well-placed Kolto Cloud (RN) will usually take care of most of the necessary topping off in the early part. I was also the primary debuff cleanser for that fight (it has been my role on many occasions), so I ended up taking an HPS hit on that as well.

Go a step further, make DPS aware that Horror does AoE raid damage after popping out of the ground, and advise them to use a CD after the dig = cool, overall raid-wide damage is now even lower without healers having to do anything (this sort of thing, along with positioning changes, is my favorite way to simplify fights).

As healers it may be occasionally useful to return to this (much simpler) question:

Is there any way I personally could have prevented a wipe?

(Small addition, for Inocelda: I figure you've got the multi-target healing advocacy covered, so someone has to speak up for the benefits of Scoundrel/Operative burst -- despite the lower HPS, and despite the somewhat less numerically visible benefits! You've been very kind and I much appreciate the thoughtful response. You'll notice that I actually do a lot of the SRMP/KP precasting you mentioned during my "recovery" periods on that 8 HM TC, while I have energy and CDs to spare. I think it's safe to say that we agree: precasting SRMP/KP if you have the energy/time is ALWAYS a good thing and should be regarded as an Op/Sawbones "best practice.")

Hmm i find the 5 energy from 4set bonus rather useless so i went with a minor decrease in cunning by using 2 set bonus from old dreadguard gear. that way i have 15% bonus healing for kolto cloud and 15% reduced cost from kolto cloud.

these do stack and work just fine btw. This also means i rarely have to use diagnostic scan at all.

on another note i can highly recommend you get a razer naga mouse for healing. switched to it about ½ a year ago and must say it is awesome. the reason i love it is because it means i can put all my dps abilities in my main 1-0 hotbar and then place all my healing abilities in a 3x4 hotbar (so it has same layout as the mouse) and then just make the binds to the numpad.

Using this mouse means i never ever have to move the mouse away from my operations interface which in tight situations saves a lot of time. Using the naga mmo mouse also enables me to do dps while not healing to help dps beat enrage timers.

I just wanted to bump this post.

It is the best guide on Scoundrel/Operative healing I have found to date and it is still very relevant.

WARNING: This guide is very outdated and I've learned a lot about healing since it was written. There have also been several changes with the inclusion of new relics and new boss mechanics. I suggest you read another guide, while some of this information is still useful, Classicks's guide is very good and some of the other guides in this forum.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=716417 is the one by Classicks. I use a little of both. I learned from this guide, but Classicks has good points as well (though I use UWM significantly less and run higher crit). Good to read over both guides and see what works for you.

I just wanted to bump this post.

 

It is the best guide on Scoundrel/Operative healing I have found to date and it is still very relevant.

This. Proud to have this guy on our team.