I wish I had rolled merc. Why? Because sorc healers are garbage, plain and simple. We have far too few good healing buttons. The "buff" we recieved in 2.10 was a joke. It makes a button I never press now instant-cast. Too bad it's still a force hog that heals for practically nothing. You've only compounded my force issues. Healing puddle is too situational. Many fights involve people being spread out to avoid area damage. Well, that also makes them avoid area healing. My other heal is far too slow. Someone's liable to die before it ever goes off. That leaves me with two reliable, single target heal buttons, resurgence and innervate. Well, cool downs are a b**ch. So is channeling. A little launch from Grobthrok, an AoE under your feet, or anything that requires you to move puts innervate on CD without getting the full heal off. Not to mention the two good spells only maximize their effect if used on the same target. Wow, I can heal one person for a lot. Watch the operative heal THE ENTIRE RAID for the same amount in about the same time. It's just unfair. No nightmare team wants me, and why should they? Double operative = win. Operative + merc = win. Sorc + anything = gimp. The math doesn't lie. Guess I'll start leveling again.

I have all three healers at 55, geared and augmented for PvP.

I'll leave out Operatives for now, because we all know they are the better of the 3.

 

Yes.. Sorc is lacking in some areas, but there's no way I would say it's worse than Merc.

 

Yes, the lack of HoT is disappointing, but Innervate is probably my favourite healing ability. It's on a low cooldown, has a cool animation and heals a ton.

Being able to bubble your allies is also a huge, HUGE advantage over Merc and that allied pull is incredible for the likes of Huttball.

2 Stunbreakers also lets you easily prevent stealth capping.

Dark Heal is still pretty weak and it's hard to get a Dark Infusion off, but Dark Infusion when critted does a heap of healing.

 

The only time I enjoy Merc healing is when I'm carrying huttball. It feels really, really poor everywhere else.

Auto-attack heal is a nice filler and to build CGC stacks but Supercharged Gas is extremely underwhelming. It only vents a small portion of heat...

Supecharged Gas really needs a buff in my opinion. I would like to see either;

 

• Higher heat vent.
  
• Increased Alacrity
  
• Next Rapid Heal instant cast.
  

 

Emergency Scan is also very underwhelming for a 36 point trait. It's cooldown is far too long and doesn't heal enough. Kolto Missile is great, but always seems to crit on the wrong people and/or people move out of the HoT.

Mercenary heals basically all come from casts, and it's so easy to be locked down as a Mercenary..

 

Anyways, that's just my 2c.

Edited October 4, 2014 by Jayshames

I must admit, I have benched my Sorcerer after having run with her for all of the pre-Makeb and a lot of post Makeb content, because of the emphasis on AoE avoidance making her large heals and channels a bit of a liability. Alacrity didn't seem to really help at all, and though Sorcs have a range of good utility (pull, damage asorb shields and an eight-person puddle), I can be as effective (if not moreso, personally) on my Operative or my Mercenary.

 

I do run with Sorcerers as my second healer in raids, so they're not useless (sorry, OP), and the puddle's always a nice thing to have on hand. For all I know, my issue with Sorcs is a L2P thing, as they just feel slow compared to the other two healing classes. I don't like slow - I dropped Holy in favour of being Disc/Shadow when Cataclysm released because they made a strong party healer (there were "tank" and "party" healers at the time - big, slow heals for tanks, lots of HoTs/AoE for party) into something really, really slow, just so that it could also compete as a tank healer for raids.

huh... both my co-healers in my NIM teams are sorcs. heck, I used to play one myself, until my original operative co-healer developed scheduling conflict (and double sorc healing is... /shudder ) sorc healers are fine. you do need to utilize your shield a lot more, and holy hell its amazing on Grobthock. not to mention its literally the only effective thing you can do on Draxxus when people are under bulwark shields. since heals don't work there, but bubbles sure absorb a lot of incoming damage.

 

yeah, that insta heal is underwhelming (though I still use it on movement heavy fights) and yes energy management is trickier (but as long as you stay on top of it - its also fine). but sorcs most certainly do NOT suck

The merc is just so much more flexible than the sorc. He isn't a turret healer. He doesn't rely on people running to the purple circle on the ground, said people holding still for duration, or a lot of people being in one place, which is usually a bad thing to begin with. His casts are faster. He has a free heal. He has a healing shield, which while not a bubble, is still quite nice, and he has more tools in general at his disposal.

 

Once upon a time, the sorc healer was king, but that was a long, long time ago and we've never recovered from that nerf even remotely. Nightmare healing with sorcs is doable, but entirely unnecessary and rarely worth the effort. Find an operative/operative or operative/merc combo and suddenly healing seems so much easier. Reroll healing sorc to madness and profit.

My first toon was a healer sorc, and is still my main. I've not had a bit of trouble. If you want the easy "I win" button, go back to WoW. Playing a healer sorc takes micromanagement, common sense, and planning. if talents are spent right, you have two area heals: one that heals over time with Revivification, and an instant with Overload. expunge can give you an instant heal as well for a single target. Get a rotation down, keep the area HoT centered around the melee people or on the attack target itself since they'll be the ones taking a brunt of the damage. Keep rotating your resurgence on the various players, and toss up a shield on someone when they get low to give you that extra time you need. If you keep running out of force power, dip into some of the early talents of the lightning tree. there's some there that will help boost force power pool and lessen the cost of force powers, as well as increase damage on some of your attacks for when the time is needed. Edited October 4, 2014 by mynxvablid

(and double sorc healing is... /shudder )

 

Thank you for the proof that healing Sorcs / Sages are bad - because if they weren't, then "double sorc healing" wouldn't provoke such an emotional reaction from you.

Edited October 4, 2014 by AlrikFassbauer

Thank you for the proof that healing Sorcs / Sages are bad - because if they weren't, then "double sorc healing" wouldn't provoke such an emotional reaction from you.

 

Lol. Thank you for further proof to ignore most everything you say. Sage healers are solid, not bad. Double sorc healing has always been not the greatest due to their lack of burst heals. However for all content they are very very good healers. Watch a few videos, do some research then come back with a less uninformed post.

Firstly I would like to point out to the OP that the 2.10 changes are for PVP not PVE. Secondly I would like to point out that before DP/DF sorc healing was the best by a long shot, and in DP/DF their healing is still amazing(your bubble is not counted as healing in most parsers so it's all even). So essentially your QQ post is about how x2 sorcs isn't the win strat anymore and that the other healers are useful.

Not to mention the two good spells only maximize their effect if used on the same target. Wow, I can heal one person for a lot.

 

What the frick do you even mean by this? You do know Force Bending is a buff on yourself, not the target you cast it on?

 

And anyway, if you can't make a Sorc healer effective, the fault isn't in the spec, it's entirely in you.

snip.

I completely ignored the Dark Heal buff. The more important ones were the 20% armor and the buff for healing spec that makes Recklessness make Polarity Shift available again effectively giving the player 40 seconds of +20% alacrity. 2 Sorc healers is a bit of a pain(which doesn't mean Sorc healers overall are trash), but I'd still say Sorc+OP is probably the best set up. You completely ignored static barrier, the pull, force speed and the fact that their cleanse can remove force debuffs.

 

If you hate sorc healing fine, but don't say it's because they're garbage.

Thank you for the proof that healing Sorcs / Sages are bad - because if they weren't, then "double sorc healing" wouldn't provoke such an emotional reaction from you.

 

way to twist my words.

 

honestly? I'm not a fan of healing with co-healer of the same AC regardless of what I'm playing. operative/operative means I lose efficiency either trying to figure out which probes are mine or not even trying and refreshing way before I should or letting them drop and starting over. double merc healing has the same issue as double sorc healing. neither shields, nor colto shells stack. it can be done. I've done it. I've healed as an operative with another operative, I've done hard mode DF/DP on my merc with another merc (was subbing in and my other healers were locked out at the time, so it had to be merc), and for some time, back when I exclusively healed on a sorc - my co-healer was another sorc. but its not pleasant. its not optimal. diversifying your healing combination tends to work out best. and since I just to happen to run all three and enjoy them nearly equally, more often than not, I end up switching to another healer to make it smoother. and in personal experience, while merc/operative works out splendidly, I actualy kinda like sorc+tech, becasue again - diversifying your healing.

 

sorcs, unlike other healing AC's require a bit more care with resource management. once you get that down? you are pretty golden.

Edited October 5, 2014 by Jeweledleah

Thank you for the proof that healing Sorcs / Sages are bad - because if they weren't, then "double sorc healing" wouldn't provoke such an emotional reaction from you.

 

I couldn't find 1 emotional part in his post. I guess that tells more about you than about others.

 

Anyways, just like jewe is saying; Sorc healers are fine. Personally I really like having 1 in my raidteam to heal me since if properly used it can save my *** like no other class can. Basically force armor is a 6.5k instant heal. Unless I am very mistaken not even merc instant heal heals for that much uncritted.

And don't forget the rescue functionality for Grobthok NiM which can prevend death when attacked by those annoying midgets. Or Raptus NiM during the roadrunner phase.

 

Regarding going double operative; Downside is that you don't have any armordebuffs and that most heals are smaller than merc/sorcs. The last part is debatable ofc but I prefer to have at least 1 class who has some bigger heals.

 

Regarding the Salvation issue .... 'ask' your guildies to pay more attention since there are not many fights where you can't have at least 4-5 people in it.

 

Nefra - 7 as minimum (8 if the kiter is good or not available)

Draxus - 3 as min (but than again .... force armor ..... )

Grobbie - 8 as min (although this will be hard, in theory its possible)

Czero - 6 as min (only need 2 outside for NiM mines(

Brontes - 3 as min (3rd phase) or 7 as min (2nd phase)

 

Bestia - 6 as min (add tank + tentacle dps) (although in theory even the tentacle dps could stand in your AoE)

Tyrans - don't know but at least 4-5 should be possible

Calphy - 6 as min in the present and 100% coverage in the past/future

Raptus - 8 as min

Council - not 100% sure what the minimum is there

 

So .... yeah .... it seems that your group is not paying attention and/or you dont have the balls to convince them to stand in it. Please note that being ranged dps does not mean standing in range. It means you CAN stand in range. At times ranged deeps are better off stacking on the boss.

I play all 3 classes of healers in end game pvp and pve. The most import aspect is to play the class that suits your personal play style. For me I do the most pvp heals on my sage as I'm used to the ranged positioning and utilization los. Main point is if its bad for you doesn't mean it's the worst class just not the right one for you.

 

Sent from my phone sorry for any errors

 

Goauld/Zombiesalmon

. Playing a healer sorc takes micromanagement, common sense, and planning. if talents are spent right, you have two area heals: one that heals over time with Revivification, and an instant with Overload. expunge can give you an instant heal as well for a single target. Get a rotation down, keep the area HoT centered around the melee people or on the attack target itself since they'll be the ones taking a brunt of the damage. Keep rotating your resurgence on the various players, and toss up a shield on someone when they get low to give you that extra time you need. If you keep running out of force power, dip into some of the early talents of the lightning tree. there's some there that will help boost force power pool and lessen the cost of force powers, as well as increase damage on some of your attacks for when the time is needed.

 

Do you have a link to this build?

 

My first healing toon is a Sorc healer, I have never had a problem with levelling her and completing OPS with her especially when coupled with another Sorc or Merc/Operative. I find 16 man easy, probably as the weaker healing abilities of the sorc is "carried" through. On 8m I generally focus on the MT and ask the other healers (unless they are Sorcs) to take the group.

 

What I really struggle with however I Lvl 55 HM, especially the big droid on Czerka flashpoint! My Force gets zipped up straight away now matter how is managed it! Any tips/ tricks would be appreciated!

Edited October 7, 2014 by JediDFitton

There's a sage/sorc PvE healing guide on Dulfy, you can google that if you really want all the details.

 

I don't know the Imp side ability names but:

 

The basics are to HOT the target, use your channeled heal to get 2-3 stacks of buff, then trade health for force to consume 1-3 stacks of the buff. I usually use the free self heal after that to recover health, but others favor using the heal from their bubble and standing in their own AOE heal to regen (with extra self heals as needed).

 

In adequate gear that should keep you at 50 to 75% force pretty much indefinitely. Exceptions are if you're also throwing in a lot of DPS or if the DPS and/or tank are taking insane amounts of avoidable damage (ie, DPS aggros and doesn't drop threat plus the tank is in DPS stance, PvP gear, and forgot to equip their shield).

 

A week or two ago during the whole DDS disconnect fest I was running HM Athiss and I wound up soloing the final boss for about 10-12 min while people reconnected and I was never stressed due to lack of force. (Sage tanking is a mix of Force Armor, kiting the boss around, and self heals. Sage healer DPS while tanking is not so great, I think I was averaging like 1% of boss health per minute).

Thank you for the proof that healing Sorcs / Sages are bad - because if they weren't, then "double sorc healing" wouldn't provoke such an emotional reaction from you.

 

Double anything is bad (except dps). Double assassin tanks is problematic, double juggernaut tanks is problematic, double sorcerer/sage healers is problematic. Raids are about teamwork and equality in classes--Bioware made each class to be useful in xyz situation. Utilize the classes your guild has and pug the others. I'm not saying double sorcerer heals is impossible--it's just redundant. With the instant heals (no HoT's except resurgence), the two healers often waste force healing the same person because their heals are fast compared to those of an operative.

 

Moving on, sorcerer healers are obnoxious in warzone because of their kiting abilities. Yes, an operative can kite too but if they're dying, they either stealth out or die. They have limited instant casts except for surgical probe. Mercenaries are interesting--good armor, medium heals. Good for a first healer I suppose. I haven't played one so I apologize on the lack of information I can provide here.

 

In summary, sorcerers aren't bad healers. You probably aren't utilizing your abilities (Polarity Shift by the way).

I completely ignored the Dark Heal buff. The more important ones were the 20% armor and the buff for healing spec that makes Recklessness make Polarity Shift available again effectively giving the player 40 seconds of +20% alacrity. 2 Sorc healers is a bit of a pain(which doesn't mean Sorc healers overall are trash), but I'd still say Sorc+OP is probably the best set up. You completely ignored static barrier, the pull, force speed and the fact that their cleanse can remove force debuffs.

 

If you hate sorc healing fine, but don't say it's because they're garbage.

 

My main is Sorc Healz and I not only love playing it, but have had no troubles at all. So far only done HM FPs and HM Ops, so cannot speak to NiM stuff, but....

 

I love the new insta-cast Dark Heal. Nice heal when it crits. I use it as my "OMG, the DPS went from 85% to 5% in one hit" heal. Pop Recklesness, unless you have Force Bending procced, then Dark Heal, Innervate, then Dark Heal again! I'm routinely healing over 50% with this combo. All four clicks takes about 4 seconds, or a bit less with lots of Alacrity stacked

Well, I do enjoy my Sage much more than my Commando, partly because Nadia is a super beast and an easy companion to run with while my Commando waffles between companions even though they are all super geared I am not having much luck with any of them. I am constantly getting the aggro and healing myself while my comp whittles away the trash.

 

The Sage has some very powerful self preservation skills, and if you spec for it you can lift two enemies with force lift (or could, I haven't examined all the new trees). In any case, I am leveling up a Scoundrel and it seems as though it will be nice to avoid fights I don't want to do, but at the same time he feels weaker than my Sage, but until I get everyone to the same gear level I just can't tell for sure. I do know that my Commando, as it stands, really feels weaker than my Sage.

There's a sage/sorc PvE healing guide on Dulfy, you can google that if you really want all the details.

 

That's an ok guide for basics if you dont know anything, but it isnt the best guide out there. I would prolly go with orderken's guide, or you can read both (or all three if you want to check out my old outta date guide) and see what works for you.

 

Since I dont care what the imp names are, ill call them by description. Use the small instant with a hot to start, follow it up with the channel, you can do an instant noble sac/consume thing at the end with it being off cooldown (basically do this EVERYTIME). And use bubble as filler until your next instant hot so you can use the buff on your ground aoe heal. Then when position makes sense, use your aoe knockback that heals ON COOLDOWN since it heal for 0 force meaning you have a net positive when you cast it. Also you can use force mend whenever you want now since it is kinda off the global cool down. Keep using your bubble as the main filler heal on tanks between your good abilities. And also try an alternate which tank is getting your small instant hot so that they both keep the armor buff. The short cast time, now sometimes instant heal is a little more tolerable to use since you can kinda get force back off the GCD . I still dont use it a lot, and the super slow heal almost never gets used now. (unless you use mental alacrity and your crit bonus to the next two abilities ability). A well played sage is the best 16m healer around, and I would rather have one than a commando in 8m assuming the same ability level on both healers.

That's an ok guide for basics if you dont know anything, but it isnt the best guide out there. I would prolly go with orderken's guide, or you can read both (or all three if you want to check out my old outta date guide) and see what works for you.

 

Since I dont care what the imp names are, ill call them by description. Use the small instant with a hot to start, follow it up with the channel, you can do an instant noble sac/consume thing at the end with it being off cooldown (basically do this EVERYTIME). And use bubble as filler until your next instant hot so you can use the buff on your ground aoe heal. Then when position makes sense, use your aoe knockback that heals ON COOLDOWN since it heal for 0 force meaning you have a net positive when you cast it. Also you can use force mend whenever you want now since it is kinda off the global cool down. Keep using your bubble as the main filler heal on tanks between your good abilities. And also try an alternate which tank is getting your small instant hot so that they both keep the armor buff. The short cast time, now sometimes instant heal is a little more tolerable to use since you can kinda get force back off the GCD . I still dont use it a lot, and the super slow heal almost never gets used now. (unless you use mental alacrity and your crit bonus to the next two abilities ability). A well played sage is the best 16m healer around, and I would rather have one than a commando in 8m assuming the same ability level on both healers.

 

Are you trolling here? I think that advising a sorc to use AOE Knockback (Overload on imp side) "ON COOLDOWN" is a big mistake. I also run a Jugg tank and it is a kickable offense to overload all the mobs away from me and out of my aoe. You get one warning then you leave or I do. I think this sentiment is shared by all tanks, especially melee tanks, as we usually have a specific reason for positioning ourselves just so among the mobs and when a sorc blasts them all away we must scramble and gather them up again, sometimes not before friendlies die. A sorcerer needs to be very aware of exactly what his knockback will do and make sure not to move mobs out of position.

 

Having said that, overload is great fun to toss mobs from high places to their death (False Emperor of Hammer Station) , or to get adds off of you for a few seconds before you can be saved by tank or dps (CZ198 Labs droid fight or Vigilant fight), or for aoe healz on your group between fights. Just don't be surprised if you grab tank-rage when you use it near them during a fight.

Are you trolling here? I think that advising a sorc to use AOE Knockback (Overload on imp side) "ON COOLDOWN" is a big mistake.

.

 

I think they are talking more about raiding situations where Overload is great for that instant, free AoE heal (especially when it crits) and most mobs have CC immunity anyways. It is annoying for flashpoints etc where mobs get knocked all over the place but it is hard to kick the habit once you get used to it.

I played a sorc healer for a long time and was my main from ver 1.5 through 2.3. It is a tough call between merc and sorc, but ops is light years ahead of both. It is not even remotely close. Sorc healer is stronger in PvE than PvP, because dark infusion and aoe heal do not work in PvP. In addition, sorc is the weakest healer in terms of survivabiliity. In contrast, merc do not have sorc burst healing, and sorc is a bit more mobile. Stupidly enough, ops is the most mobile, strongest aoe in PvP and in some situations in PvE, strongest overall healing capacity, strongest hots by 5378743874% margin and highest survivability.

 

If you are a PvEer, sorc is quite alright. If you are a PvPer sorc is okay, but if healing is your thing, do your self a service and roll ops.

Are you trolling here? I think that advising a sorc to use AOE Knockback (Overload on imp side) "ON COOLDOWN" is a big mistake. I also run a Jugg tank and it is a kickable offense to overload all the mobs away from me and out of my aoe. You get one warning then you leave or I do. I think this sentiment is shared by all tanks, especially melee tanks, as we usually have a specific reason for positioning ourselves just so among the mobs and when a sorc blasts them all away we must scramble and gather them up again, sometimes not before friendlies die. A sorcerer needs to be very aware of exactly what his knockback will do and make sure not to move mobs out of position.

 

Having said that, overload is great fun to toss mobs from high places to their death (False Emperor of Hammer Station) , or to get adds off of you for a few seconds before you can be saved by tank or dps (CZ198 Labs droid fight or Vigilant fight), or for aoe healz on your group between fights. Just don't be surprised if you grab tank-rage when you use it near them during a fight.

 

All the mobs? Are we talking about healing during trash mob pulls?

This was in reference to boss fights where you cannot knock back a boss. Not using force wave is just playing the class wrong. It is needed if you are going to do the high end content. Im not talking about sm that any competent healer can solo heal, I mean the nightmare stuff.

 

I played a sorc healer for a long time and was my main from ver 1.5 through 2.3. It is a tough call between merc and sorc, but ops is light years ahead of both. It is not even remotely close. Sorc healer is stronger in PvE than PvP, because dark infusion and aoe heal do not work in PvP. In addition, sorc is the weakest healer in terms of survivabiliity. In contrast, merc do not have sorc burst healing, and sorc is a bit more mobile. Stupidly enough, ops is the most mobile, strongest aoe in PvP and in some situations in PvE, strongest overall healing capacity, strongest hots by 5378743874% margin and highest survivability.

 

If you are a PvEer, sorc is quite alright. If you are a PvPer sorc is okay, but if healing is your thing, do your self a service and roll ops.

 

Im not going to speak about PVP since Im not an expert on it. No one on the server is going to out heal my scoundrel in 8m content. Scoundrels are just that much better. But when it comes to 16m, you will be hard pressed to find a fight where my sage doesnt out heal said scoundrel. On top of that, the sage will spread the healing around more consistently instead of the group that the scoundrel is rolling hots on. The biggest disadvantage with scoundrel is they do not prevent any damage with armor buffs so they have to heal for more. The do a bit more healing that is really required to close that gap however, making them top for content with 8 or less players. But scoundrel is also the one class you can double heal with and do well. Commando double heal sucks because of trauma probe, and sage double heal sucks because of force armor.

Learning how to sage heal, for me at least, involved a lot of guides and talking to other good healers because it's very easy to do it wrong without realizing it. Scoundrel healing seemed a lot more intuitive, and I haven't given commando a try yet so I don't know what the difficulty curve is. It really comes down to your playstyle: if you want to be a mobile HoT healer then you should probably roll a scoundrel/operative. Sages/sorcs are turrety by nature and if that doesn't appeal to you then of course you're not going to enjoy the class. I enjoy being a heal turret and balancing life/force so sage is very fun for me.

 

Grob'thok can suck a fat one, though.