Bioware, please don't close or redirect this thread! I've noticed that some posts re "1.2 and sorc healing" are redirected or, alternatively, deleted. I don't know why, but I would very much like to hear the thoughts of sorc healers in this thread Thank You.

 

Per title, I'm not interested in sorcerer DPS complaints related to 1.2 They are all over the place and have their time in the sun.

 

For the players who choose to heal on a sorcerer, what do you think of the two notable changes:

1) Force bending does not reduce cast time of dark infusion (it reduces force cost by 30%)

2) Innervate proc (force surge) no longer removes health cost

 

Boy, would I like to hear what pvp'ers think about these. I haven't played on the PTR so I don't have first-hand experience with the changes. I like to PvP- in that other game I pvp'ed successfully as, among other classes less similar to a cloth caster, a top 0.5% mage. (Same name here but with a J in the beginning and less a "t"; and please note- I've refrained from using the name of the "other" game with the hope that this thread isn't deleted.) To wit, I do try to do well in warzones and I like to understand the class I am playing.

 

For those of you who have played on the PTR or, in the alternative, anyone else who heals in PvP with a sorc, do you think that the increased crit chance of our smaller heal (60% to dark heal) will effectively offset the loss of the quick-cast big heal: dark infusion? I know what I think about this, but what do you think?

 

Also, I don't really know what to think of the innervate-proc removal. Unlike a lot of sorcs on the forum who claim to have no force issues, I do in PvP. It's already very hard to survive against a top-notch marauder, let alone multiple melee. The last thing I want to do is play really, really well against them only to starve for force. Again, I'm not going on point claiming that this change is game-breaking, but what do you think?

 

There is no qq in this post----> just an honest-to-goodness inquiry from a fellow Sorc healer.

 

Thanks.

Edited March 21, 2012 by Genttry

One thing to remember is many of the pvpr's are there til they get the gear they want, or til their friends move on. We (some friends and myself) call them locusts. They go from game to game following their friends. That said, wondering how the sorc changes will effect pvpr's, if they dislike them they migrate elsewhere. Some will stay and voice their opinions pro or con. Trying to use them as a basis for stopping certain changes will not hold much weight with BW.

 

My two cents..

Thanks.

 

I don't really care to try to influence Bioware to remove the 1.2 changes to Sorc healing. I am honestly just interested in hearing what other sorc healers think about the changes. There aren't that many sorc healers on my server- most every sorc is dps- so what better place to at least see if we can have civil, intelligent discourse?

 

Actually, now that I just typed this, this is probably the last place to ask an intelligent question looolo. Oh well, let's see what happens.

Edited March 21, 2012 by Genttry

A good place to go and check for information on up coming patches is here, Public Test Server Forum:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/forumdisplay.php?f=308

 

Most of what's there is currently PvE oriented, but I know there's been some PvP related material.

 

Also, many of the posts they've been deleting/locking is resultant of people trolling or getting out of hand - or because there is an extreme number of threads all about the same topic.

With the change to force bending...

Innervate is now sorcs bursty heal (which is very bad).

Innervate with bonus crit = higher healing over time than DI.

2.5 second casting time thats not reducible is very bad.

Dark Heal even with 100% crit isnt really cutting it. Especially at 50 force cost.

Dark Heal crit is < Dark Infusion none crit.

All other healing capable classes' main heal are 2.0 second cast and packs little more punch than DI.

And now if the sorc/sage tries to burst heal which is not possible now because innervate has a CD on it and DI is taking forever even with the lower average healing number.

 

Healing overall has become the following.

1. Merc/Commando healer is the new best burst healing class. They can burst heal very quickly but after a couple heals they now need to use vent heat to continue their burst heal.

 

2. Sorc/Sage healer remain the best AoE healer, with Single target heal and sustained healing pushed to the button of the chart. If the tank is taking spiky damage and innervate is on CD, you might have a dead tank by he time 2.5s DI finishes casting. Why? Force Bending from resurgence is most likely already used up by innervate. Now you have 2 choices... 1.5s Dark Heal (1.3k heal) or 2.5s Dark Infusion (2.5k heal).

 

3. Operative/Scoundrel is very balanced overall healer. They dont burst heal as well as Merc and dont AoE heal as good Sorc BUT they are perfect in movement heavy fight new Operation EC might have heavy movement fight where operatives stacking hot and instant heals shines. With proper rotation they can still sustain very decent single target damage.

 

Anyways despite that in PvP burst healing is king where sorcs lack sorcs healers are also not looking so hot in pve.

 

Hopefully you find some of the points useful.

Unfortunately I really think the increase in cast time to Dark Infusion are going to hurt pure healing spec'd pvp sorcs quite a bit. The thing that everyone seems to overlook talking about sorcs issues with healing is that we have to be stationary. It does not matter how many "escape" abilities we have , we have to be standing still to do our job outside of our one HoT. As it is now, against most of the decent premades on my server, who actually attack healers, it can be difficult to survive. The spike damage on assisting dps is manageable somewhat with the 1.4 sec dark infusion casttimes we have now. Once we loose that, our ability to realiably keep up team mates is going to be next to impossible. I dont think that even with 100% crit on dark heal that it will be even remotely comparable to what we have now. It just does not heal for enough. The amount of damage out there is just insane.

 

I can deal with being a paper thin armor favorite target. I just do not think its wise to nerf healing, because as it is all the other team has to do is focus target the healers. Bioware already made it easy mode by letting the OPs leader mark healers, if people just attacked what they were supposed to, then they would see how vulnerable sorcs really are.

 

Balancing a games mechanics and classes based off of whines is not a good way to run a successful MMO. I can not stress this enough. I am willing to give the changes a chance, and see how it goes. I am not going to rage quit because I have always been able to make the class I choose in whatever game I play work. I just think taking tools away from healers, is really really illogical. I dont mind the fixing of force bending, but changing our big spike damage recovery heal is game breaking and will make my job even more difficult.

 

On a side note. I dont know about other people, but the amount of sorcs/sages in warzones has dramatically changed in the last month or so of game play. I have seen alot more marauders and Jugs which when played really well are really difficult for me to deal with, especially when there are 2 or 3 of them on me the whole warzone.

 

I know its to late but Bioware really should rethink some of these changes to the healing tree.

Yeah, i agree with the above poster

 

Force Bending double dipping was overpowered, theres no doubt about it, THAT should have been removed and the free tap toned down (but not removed completely)

 

Think about it: How many times do you use the free tap in a middle node fight or a voidstar? Yep, a lot, the class was intended to be used like that, sure the net gain was too much, so tone it down? Make the free life taps only give 50% force or something like that?

The corruption tree has now NO force regen talents other than the -30% to DI on resurgence wich obviously end up becoming not viable in pvp

 

Lets face it, in pve, it doesnt really change THAT much, you just have to pay more attention, in pvp is potentially class breaking, sure time will tell and deal with it etc etc, the experience i racked up with the class just makes me worried

I like to think of myself as an avid PvP player. I've got a Battle-Master Corruption Sorcerer (Main) and a near Battle-Master Rage Juggernaut. I feel that, without some buff, we will not be competitive for ranked war-zones come 1.2.

 

For the players who choose to heal on a sorcerer, what do you think of the two notable changes:

1) Force bending does not reduce cast time of dark infusion (it reduces force cost by 30%)

2) Innervate proc (force surge) no longer removes health cost.

 

At first, the change to force surge had me very worried. If I'm sapping 15% of my health at regular intervals it wont help with the survive-ability. I don't know where this myth of sorcerers being hard to kill came from, but Sorcerers are the least tough of the healers. Now that we are cutting our wrists just to maintain our force pool its not helping.

 

Initially, I wasn't worried about the Dark Infusion (DI) cast time, but the more I though about it the more is seems like the dealbreaker. I am not interested in casting 2.5 second heals, I will get interrupted. Now that I've ran some sims, I don't really see how we can get close to the same heal output Dark Heal (DH). The heals/cost is horrible. Coupled with consumption, it compounds the issue.

 

Not even mentioning the fact that I'm geared for crit/surge and now I've got to replace a ton of mods.

 

It seems like everybaddy was jealous that sorcerers had a heavy hitting fast-heal, all the while ignoring the FACT than any competent DPS can take us out. Sorry you couldn't click interrupt on your quick-slots fast enough, that doesn't mean you get to have us gutted.

 

I think that all they would have had to do was make force bending harder to get (Higher-up) and fix double dipping to bring us in line with everyone else. What theyve done is blatant over-kill...

Edited March 22, 2012 by dutch-master

With that out of the way... i've been looking at potential new pvp specs:

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201GGMRbd0zZf0rr0MrZ0z.1

 

The first one has lightning effusion, subversion, bubble blind, 6s jolt, kb root and 20s force speed, while keeping corruption up to innervate, unfortunately had to sacrifice 1 point in WotS and penetrating darkness, so you end up having roughly 40ish less bonus healing... in current gear

 

 

The second one... i dont have it yet: I wanted to check if something could be done with Sith Efficacy so we could spam FS during low burst periods to regain some force but i cant seem to make out anything decent that does not lose stuff here and here

With that out of the way... i've been looking at potential new pvp specs:

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#201GGMRbd0zZf0rr0MrZ0z.1

 

Probably going to be pass-able with dark heal's crits. The thing is, were not better than a bounty hunter in any way like that. We will also lack an AoE heal. The class is broken for PvP heals if these changes go live. I don't see it working out well.

 

If your going to sacrifice Revivification, you might as well go AoE DPS hybrid, you will be more productive. It still works, it's just a bit convoluted, and you wond have to punch yourself in the face to get force back.

Probably going to be pass-able with dark heal's crits. The thing is, were not better than a bounty hunter in any way like that. We will also lack an AoE heal. The class is broken for PvP heals if these changes go live. I don't see it working out well.

 

If your going to sacrifice Revivification, you might as well go AoE DPS hybrid, you will be more productive. It still works, it's just a bit convoluted, and you wond have to punch yourself in the face to get force back.

 

To be honest i feel Revivification is grossly overrated in pvp - i mean, its extremely powerful, especially in a Voidstar, but with my current 27/12/2 i can reach the KB root that improves my survivability _drastically_

 

But yes, you are right, we will probably be overall less effective than a BH, even if they get nerfed aswell

Edited March 22, 2012 by Leszor

Bioware, please don't close or redirect this thread! I've noticed that some posts re "1.2 and sorc healing" are redirected or, alternatively, deleted. I don't know why, but I would very much like to hear the thoughts of sorc healers in this thread Thank You.

 

Per title, I'm not interested in sorcerer DPS complaints related to 1.2 They are all over the place and have their time in the sun.

 

For the players who choose to heal on a sorcerer, what do you think of the two notable changes:

1) Force bending does not reduce cast time of dark infusion (it reduces force cost by 30%)

2) Innervate proc (force surge) no longer removes health cost

 

Boy, would I like to hear what pvp'ers think about these. I haven't played on the PTR so I don't have first-hand experience with the changes. I like to PvP- in that other game I pvp'ed successfully as, among other classes less similar to a cloth caster, a top 0.5% mage. (Same name here but with a J in the beginning and less a "t"; and please note- I've refrained from using the name of the "other" game with the hope that this thread isn't deleted.) To wit, I do try to do well in warzones and I like to understand the class I am playing.

 

For those of you who have played on the PTR or, in the alternative, anyone else who heals in PvP with a sorc, do you think that the increased crit chance of our smaller heal (60% to dark heal) will effectively offset the loss of the quick-cast big heal: dark infusion? I know what I think about this, but what do you think?

 

Also, I don't really know what to think of the innervate-proc removal. Unlike a lot of sorcs on the forum who claim to have no force issues, I do in PvP. It's already very hard to survive against a top-notch marauder, let alone multiple melee. The last thing I want to do is play really, really well against them only to starve for force. Again, I'm not going on point claiming that this change is game-breaking, but what do you think?

 

There is no qq in this post----> just an honest-to-goodness inquiry from a fellow Sorc healer.

 

Thanks.

 

 

They are nerfing the sorcers because there are to many, and thats it

Thanks for the feedback so far. Good stuff.

 

I'm mostly thinking about these sorc healer changes with respect to my rated team. We will use 3 healers, all of a different class. The biggest nerf, to me, is the loss of a fast cast big heal. When you play against competent teams, they will interrupt you. Further, they will focus you down. The big, fast heal was a great tool. I agree that two procs was too much, but to remove the proc entirely is meh. At least it costs less to cast the spell now...

 

Force goes fast, especially when you tab target shield people and cast the aoe heal. The force surge change is definitely noteworthy, but with 2 other healers I am hoping that I can either consume and catch a heal or, in the alternative, have enough time to get out of combat to seethe some force.

 

The forum talk of quitting the class because it is broken seems ridiculous to me. I admit, though, that I don't run with a full dps spec, so maybe it is pretty bad for them. Still, why come to the forums and cry about quitting before even trying it out on live?

 

Sorc healers are still very useful. Extricate is such an awesome tool. Our force slow, stun and whirlwhind are very nice too. If you are a cybertech, the grenades add another cc tool. For those of who who have fought against a very good marauder, the changes will make survivability even harder. In fact Marauders (and their republican counterpart) actually got some lovin in 1.2 which is baffling to me. The caveat, however, is that I am thinking only about how quick they can take a sorc healer out if that healer lacks a few cooldowns. Maybe marauders were hurting in other situations.

 

Someone in this thread mentioned that the rationale for these changes was merely to decrease the sorc population. Based on how many people claim to quit post 1.2, maybe it's mission accomplished? Thanks again for the replies. Anyone else have input?

Tbh these nerfs seem overkill. Speaking from a PVP point of view one of these nerfs would have been enough, but the DI change is gonna really, really hurt. If a decent Marauder goes on me at the moment it's pretty hard as is to survive (cooldown dependant). I'm pretty much out of the match until there dealt with. A better solution would have been making the force surge proc less frequent i.e. 50% and keeping the 1 sec off DI. I really hope these changes don't all make it live because a Sorc healer will be a sitting duck in PVP and in high damage situations they will be a 30 second healer.

 

Healing overall has become the following.

1. Merc/Commando healer is the new best burst healing class. They can burst heal very quickly but after a couple heals they now need to use vent heat to continue their burst heal.

 

2. Sorc/Sage healer remain the best AoE healer, with Single target heal and sustained healing pushed to the button of the chart. If the tank is taking spiky damage and innervate is on CD, you might have a dead tank by he time 2.5s DI finishes casting. Why? Force Bending from resurgence is most likely already used up by innervate. Now you have 2 choices... 1.5s Dark Heal (1.3k heal) or 2.5s Dark Infusion (2.5k heal).

 

3. Operative/Scoundrel is very balanced overall healer. They dont burst heal as well as Merc and dont AoE heal as good Sorc BUT they are perfect in movement heavy fight new Operation EC might have heavy movement fight where operatives stacking hot and instant heals shines. With proper rotation they can still sustain very decent single target damage.

 

Anyways despite that in PvP burst healing is king where sorcs lack sorcs healers are also not looking so hot in pve.

 

Hopefully you find some of the points useful.

 

 

I suspect most of what we will be seeing in ranked matches for the good teams are going to be operative healers. Even pre 1.2 there isn't much point in playing a sorc against people who know what they are doing due to susceptibility to interrupts.

 

Given competitive play....

 

Pre 1.2

 

Merc > Sorc > Operative

 

Post 1.2

 

Operative > Merc > Sorc

 

Luckily I have all three, heh.

I suspect most of what we will be seeing in ranked matches for the good teams are going to be operative healers. Even pre 1.2 there isn't much point in playing a sorc against people who know what they are doing due to susceptibility to interrupts.

 

Given competitive play....

 

Pre 1.2

 

Merc > Sorc > Operative

 

Post 1.2

 

Operative > Merc > Sorc

 

Luckily I have all three, heh.

 

But sorcs still have some way cool abilities, inter alia, extrication and force speed,. I'm excited to see the synergy between the three healers (on the same team) in competitive play. I do agree that operatives are a neat class too, and I watch my buddy pvp tank on his Merc quite often. I don't agree with people who already claim that sorc pvp healing is dead post 1.2 though. In competitive play, things like peels count and extrication is such a powerful spell in huttball.

Edited April 22, 2012 by Genttry

 

 

1) Force bending does not reduce cast time of dark infusion (it reduces force cost by 30%)

2) Innervate proc (force surge) no longer removes health cost

 

 

2) this is a nerf, especially in pve encounters.

 

/i'm k with that

 

 

1) this is how to kill a class especially in pvp encounter.

 

/you lost one more hardcore pvp gamer.

Thanks for the feedback so far. Good stuff.

 

I'm mostly thinking about these sorc healer changes with respect to my rated team. We will use 3 healers, all of a different class. The biggest nerf, to me, is the loss of a fast cast big heal. When you play against competent teams, they will interrupt you. Further, they will focus you down. The big, fast heal was a great tool. I agree that two procs was too much, but to remove the proc entirely is meh. At least it costs less to cast the spell now...

 

Force goes fast, especially when you tab target shield people and cast the aoe heal. The force surge change is definitely noteworthy, but with 2 other healers I am hoping that I can either consume and catch a heal or, in the alternative, have enough time to get out of combat to seethe some force.

 

The forum talk of quitting the class because it is broken seems ridiculous to me. I admit, though, that I don't run with a full dps spec, so maybe it is pretty bad for them. Still, why come to the forums and cry about quitting before even trying it out on live?

 

Sorc healers are still very useful. Extricate is such an awesome tool. Our force slow, stun and whirlwhind are very nice too. If you are a cybertech, the grenades add another cc tool. For those of who who have fought against a very good marauder, the changes will make survivability even harder. In fact Marauders (and their republican counterpart) actually got some lovin in 1.2 which is baffling to me. The caveat, however, is that I am thinking only about how quick they can take a sorc healer out if that healer lacks a few cooldowns. Maybe marauders were hurting in other situations.

 

Someone in this thread mentioned that the rationale for these changes was merely to decrease the sorc population. Based on how many people claim to quit post 1.2, maybe it's mission accomplished? Thanks again for the replies. Anyone else have input?

 

As healers, sorcs have lowest survivability, lowest damage output for self-defense, slowest natural resource regen by double the next, and the fewest resource regain/mitigation abilities of all healers.

 

With 1.2, we're going to be all that, but:

 

- only resource mitigation will hit a moderately geared 50 for ~3000 HP per use and return only 48 force.

- Slowest, most interupptable burst heal in the game

 

 

So, to make up for being the weakest damage and defense healers we get ... worse heals? There's no point to healing sorcs any more. None. Ops and mercs do it all the same or better.

 

Hell, just look at merc healers - they get the exact same 4 sec, 60 sec, and AOE knockback abilities, plus heavy armor, plus two "cast it instant or free" abilities, plus WAAAAY more DPS potential, plus the free ranged dmg/heal ability.

 

There's another huge (going on 4K posts) thread going in PTS forum, but as far as how many people playing the class, well:

 

Every RPG is built off the 4 basic character types. There's the guy who can take the biggest beating, the guy who does the most physical damage, the guy who uses magic to heal, and the guy who uses magic to hurt thing. Pretty basic, right? Thank you, Tolkien.

 

If you go into swtor with that mindest, Sorc and Sage represent 50% of the RPG character archtypes with one class. Look at something like FFXI - if you wanted to be a mage of some kind, you could be:

 

White mage

Red mage

black mage

summoner

bard

scholar

 

SWTOR? You can be "Sorc" or "Sage" and have different abilities. I'm not saying that's bad - but when people say "OMG DERS TO MANY SORCS NERF DEM!!!1!!1!" it doesn't account for the fact that anyone who wants to play *any* kind of "wizard" is forced into Sorc and sorc alone.

 

4000 posts in or so, and the nutshell from the other thread has been that Force Slow and Force Speed are really the only "unique" things sorc/sage has going for it (because the bubble is a healing spell with some parallels in the other classes - not direct copies, but similar effect).

 

So ... do force speed and force slow *alone* make the class worth playing since, with 1.2, you'll do inferior healing, inferior damage (as a healer or DPS), have the lowest survivability, have the slowest "mana" regen rate in the game, and be asked to bleed out 3K health to recoup it in combat (something no one else has to do ...)?

 

Do they? I don't think so.

 

Rerolling.

Edited March 23, 2012 by Akiva_IC

Just thought I would point this out if people dont know, but force bending isn't even working correctly with dark infusion right now. Not like it makes a difference now, or after the patch but I have a 2.3 second DI cast time without bending. With bending I should have a 1.3 cast time but it's shows up as 1.38.

 

Which reminds me, I'm going to cancel my sub right now and wait for D3 to come out.

As healers, sorcs have lowest survivability, lowest damage output for self-defense, slowest natural resource regen by double the next, and the fewest resource regain/mitigation abilities of all healers.

 

No. Just no.

 

When you say lowest survivability I assume you mean higher-than-average survivability. You currently get a shield (every 20s), an AoE knockback that can also snare its victims (every 20s), constant force regeneration (completely unlike heat or energy), consumption which regenerates your force whenever you need it (for free if you are specced correctly), and force speed (totally unique to sorcs, every 30s).

 

When you say slowest natural resource regeneration and fewest resource regain abilities, I must assume you are specced incorrectly because consumption should take away any worries regarding how much force you have. Additionally, Bodyguard Mercs only have Vent Heat and Medicine Operatives only get Adrenaline Probe. Every class has one ability to give them back some of their resources. Consumption is the best of the three, hands down.

 

Granted every two minutes Bodyguard Mercs are impossible to kill for about 20 seconds, and every two minutes a Medicine Operative can vanish (although vanish doesn't even count because if they are stealthed then they aren't healing). But out of all three healers, Sorcs have the most "Get out of jail free cards" available to them more of the time, comparatively.

 

Certainly some of these changes may be going a little far (that's what happens when you make sweeping changes all at once), and I didn't intend on turning this into a flame war, but the information you state simply is not accurate.

Edited March 24, 2012 by Osirys

No. Just no.

 

When you say lowest survivability I assume you mean higher-than-average survivability. You currently get a shield (every 20s), an AoE knockback that can also snare its victims (every 20s), constant force regeneration (completely unlike heat or energy), consumption which regenerates your force whenever you need it (for free if you are specced correctly), and force speed (totally unique to sorcs, every 30s).

 

Quick Corrections, although you are right, Sorcs have a very good survivability in WZ's. The AoE snare is another spec thing which is actually in the lightening tree, not Corruption. A free Consumption goes off of Innervate which you have to crit for it to actually work. Also Static Barrier is on only 17 cooldown if you have more than two of the PvP Force mystic gear set. You survivability is really on you to have the right spec. The problem is that you aren't going to have consumption as a really viable option in PvP anymore. This is one of the leading reasons people are upset over 1.2, but as of now Sorc survivability is quite good.

I personally do not think these changes have so much to do with balancing as a heavy handed attempt of forcing us, the most numerous character type, to "experience" the other character story lines. It's pretty obvious with all the legacy gimmicks. They spent so much time, effort, money on 1-50 at the expense of endgame and pvp that they simply won't let up.

 

Having said that, coming from a 100% PVP corruption sorc I wholeheartedly agree that the double dip fix would have been sufficient for balancing purposes as we are a very rotation intensive healing class that needs to be stationary. As it stands we will get rocked in ranked WZ. In the meantime I'm leveling a merc... hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Edited March 24, 2012 by Surlkon

Just read this on the latest community Q&A this is what the devs had to say about the nerfs

 

Sometimes it's hard to hear this, but the change to healers you're referring to was, quite simply, a result of them being too good. When one healer is close to target performance and the others aren't, it's natural to think that the logical course is to buff the underperformer and leave the over-performers alone. I want to dispel that notion and explain why it isn't always possible.

 

All specs for all roles have a target performance. This is what drives the balance of the game: soloing, Heroics, PvP, Flashpoints, Operations... everything. When those targets aren't hit, we can't just ‘bring everyone up’ to the highest performer without negatively impacting the balance of the game and creating unsustainable inflation in our combat system. Frankly, it's also a lot more work to change all end game content in the game to compensate for an over-performing role than to bring the role back in line. The hard but simple truth is that Sorcerers and Sages had better Force management than we intended (e.g. a well-played Sage was almost incapable of running out of Force) and Mercenaries and Commandos were significantly over target in their healing performance.

 

After considerable testing, we're more confident than ever that all healing roles are both closer to target performance and closer to one another than ever before, leading to a much tighter balance on end game content. The community will be able to confirm this using the new combat logging feature in Game Update 1.2.

 

I know trying to ‘sell’ a downwards adjustment (AKA nerf) to anyone affected is like selling the need for a tax increase to people. When you are on the receiving end of it, you're not going to be happy about it. It may appear massive to you, even if the overall impact is limited. You likely won't care that it's 'for the greater good of the game' and, if you decide to disagree with our action, there's little we can do to sway you.

 

Based on the feedback brought to us so far from testers playing on PTS along with metrics and combat logs gathered from our guild testers, we are going to make additional adjustments before Game Update 1.2 is promoted to the live servers. For example, we reopened the internal debate about having an in-combat resurrect ability for Mercenaries/Commandos based on PTS feedback regarding the new Operations, in light of the higher utility value this ability brings to the table in 1.2. We're listening to your feedback, too, and rebalancing some of the changes made to healing based on data gathered from PTS. Look out for a future update to PTS for more details.

Just read this on the latest community Q&A this is what the devs had to say about the nerfs

 

 

Pretty much expected, and I agree with him. I have 3 healing characters - Sorc/Merc/OP, and despite playing each well, when it came down to it people wanted a Sorc>Merc>>>>>>>OP in that order for Operations. A Sorc healer just makes things so much easier, and 2 Sorc healers is completely overkill for anything that has AoE and people can group up closely. It trivialized OPs, taking one of the other healers only added difficulty to a operation.

 

Merc healers have weak AE heals but thats been buffed some. Their single target heals are getting nerfed since they really were insanely good compared to a Sorc at it, and they left Operatives in the dust since a OP trying to spam heal a tank could last for...10 seconds at most ? And after that 10 second spam healage they have 0-10 energy and useless for a good while [this is also 1 reason Force and heat are being nerfed]. So if people want to be "mad" then be mad at the Operative class, it was the gimp under performing healer class that everyone is being dragged down to.

Edited March 25, 2012 by peonyu

The only real nerf I am thinking will really affect sorc healing is the change to our big heal. Having a 60% crit chance on it doesn't mean its any more of a viable then normal casting it. A better change would make it straight heal 30% more when force bending is active. This would still allow us to have the ability to crit and would be effective every time. Now with that said the corruption "nerf" is a well deserved considering with pvp gear it would end up being a free heal often times and completly negated another talent option.

 

As far as everyone complaining about corruption hurting us face the fact that a good sith sorc would never run out of force unless innervate was chain inturrupted for like 10 times.

 

As far as gearing goes we are gonna shift from crit surge to surge alarcicty I believe because we can now almost auto crit on innervate of dark infusion.

 

Also as a side note for pvp I think its best to note I used to play a consumption free spec (went hybrid into lightning for AOE roots and mezmerize bubble. With a spec like that I would die maybe 3 times in a game and never oom unless I had to bubble/heal my entire team. Only changed because pve healing seemed to make me oom faster the pvp healing due to the ability to stand and actually heal

Edited March 25, 2012 by Boshlord