Hello everyone. I have been playing a few years now and almost completely focused on pvp. I decided to try out pve and see if I enjoy it as much as pvp. I have a few lvl 60 toons but figured I didn't want to start flashpoints at endgame so I made me a sorcerer, healing discipline. I have done a few flash points so far and tell everyone I am very new to pve and always ask for advice. I have a few questions for the more experienced players though.

1: i have been given lots of differing advice on when to heal. Some peoples say as soon as a group member takes any damage start healing. While others are saying dps until group members are about 80% then heal. Any advice with this?

2: Is there a priority on who to heal? I mean if everyone is taking damage at once does tank get healed first then the dps?

3: In one flashpoint one of the dps would run into another room an start a fight before the first room is cleared and then get mad I didn't keep his health up. In situations like this should I stay with the main group and clear the enemies, run to the next room to heal the other guy, or run back and forth healing both?

4: Last one for now. Can anyone point me to a general pve healing guide? Not so much class specific with gear and rotations but more general beginer tips you have learned while playing.

Thanks for any help.

Healing depends on the situation a lot unfortunately but ill try and answer as best I can from my experience as a healer: Also for examples ill use my sages skills as that is my main healer char and the same class as yours just opposite faction

1: i have been given lots of differing advice on when to heal. Some peoples say as soon as a group member takes any damage start healing. While others are saying dps until group members are about 80% then heal. Any advice with this?

2: Is there a priority on who to heal? I mean if everyone is taking damage at once does tank get healed first then the dps?

3: In one flashpoint one of the dps would run into another room an start a fight before the first room is cleared and then get mad I didn't keep his health up. In situations like this should I stay with the main group and clear the enemies, run to the next room to heal the other guy, or run back and forth healing both?

4: Last one for now. Can anyone point me to a general pve healing guide? Not so much class specific with gear and rotations but more general beginer tips you have learned while playing.

Thanks for any help.

For No. 1 I usually don't dps at all on fights unless the group is slightly over leveled and is not taking much damage and even then its usually only non-channeled attacks and dots (Project, Telekinetic throw,the non-channeled DoT. A boss might get the channeled DoT at the start of a fight but that one isn't used much). Other times i might dps is if the group is not taking much damage at all and i can quickly heal them without them dropping to low healthwise.

No 2. Keep the tank alive. the dps shouldn't be getting hit very much when you get higher but the tank should be the one getting hit. If the tanks hp is high then heal the dps up so they don't die.

No. 3. Stay with the group is what I do. A dps shouldn't be running ahead of the group and pulling mobs. Letting them die or nearly die will teach them this so in hard-mode flashpoints and ops when they will die quickly if they do that they wont.

No. 4. I have not seen any general guides and I learned from watching other roles on my dps chars that I made first. As long as you say you are new to something most people will be happy to give you hints if you are not doing what you should be.

This is in general hints that ive gained from playing as a healer (sage lvl 60/merc lvl 43) but as I am just getting into a lot of the end-game stuff like ops and HM flashpoints there will be people who will be able to give much better advice then me. Also a good way to learn is by doing heroics as a healer as they are a lot more friendly then flashpoints and get you to know your class/role well in a group

Hello everyone. I have been playing a few years now and almost completely focused on pvp. I decided to try out pve and see if I enjoy it as much as pvp. I have a few lvl 60 toons but figured I didn't want to start flashpoints at endgame so I made me a sorcerer, healing discipline. I have done a few flash points so far and tell everyone I am very new to pve and always ask for advice. I have a few questions for the more experienced players though.

 

1: i have been given lots of differing advice on when to heal. Some peoples say as soon as a group member takes any damage start healing. While others are saying dps until group members are about 80% then heal. Any advice with this?

 

2: Is there a priority on who to heal? I mean if everyone is taking damage at once does tank get healed first then the dps?

 

3: In one flashpoint one of the dps would run into another room an start a fight before the first room is cleared and then get mad I didn't keep his health up. In situations like this should I stay with the main group and clear the enemies, run to the next room to heal the other guy, or run back and forth healing both?

 

4: Last one for now. Can anyone point me to a general pve healing guide? Not so much class specific with gear and rotations but more general beginer tips you have learned while playing.

 

Thanks for any help.

I would also add that it just depends on what type of healer you are using. When I am on my operative healing, I pre HoT everyone with 2 stacks of kolto probe and try to maintain that as best i can throughout the fight, on my merc I obviously give everyone the kolto shell prior to the fight and build my 10 stacks of supercharged cells, on sorc you could bubble the tank before the pull, depending on the fight, maybe bubble everyone else in the beginning too.

Also one thing I would start doing now, would be to set the boss as the focus target and watch his cast bar. If its a channeled ability that does a lot of damage then as soon as you see it being casted, you can get a big heal started on the tank to give your self more of a chance to keep the tank as healed as possible.

If their is nothing to heal then it doesnt hurt to do damage as long as you can maintain your resources so when you do need to heal you can do it without issues.

Regarding dps wondering off, thats their own fault if they die. If its agreed that your group will split to clear things out faster, then thats one thing, but if its just a player doing his own thing then you should just stay with the group.

I think the more you play and run into different situations, you will be able to answer most of your own questions.

Healing depends on the situation a lot unfortunately but ill try and answer as best I can from my experience as a healer: Also for examples ill use my sages skills as that is my main healer char and the same class as yours just opposite faction

 

For No. 1 I usually don't dps at all on fights unless the group is slightly over leveled and is not taking much damage and even then its usually only non-channeled attacks and dots (Project, Telekinetic throw,the non-channeled DoT. A boss might get the channeled DoT at the start of a fight but that one isn't used much). Other times i might dps is if the group is not taking much damage at all and i can quickly heal them without them dropping to low healthwise.

No 2. Keep the tank alive. the dps shouldn't be getting hit very much when you get higher but the tank should be the one getting hit. If the tanks hp is high then heal the dps up so they don't die.

No. 3. Stay with the group is what I do. A dps shouldn't be running ahead of the group and pulling mobs. Letting them die or nearly die will teach them this so in hard-mode flashpoints and ops when they will die quickly if they do that they wont.

No. 4. I have not seen any general guides and I learned from watching other roles on my dps chars that I made first. As long as you say you are new to something most people will be happy to give you hints if you are not doing what you should be.

This is in general hints that ive gained from playing as a healer (sage lvl 60/merc lvl 43) but as I am just getting into a lot of the end-game stuff like ops and HM flashpoints there will be people who will be able to give much better advice then me. Also a good way to learn is by doing heroics as a healer as they are a lot more friendly then flashpoints and get you to know your class/role well in a group

This is good advice, and in my experience as a healer will result in a happy group. Additional general advice: Healing between battles is considered courtesy and usually contributes to a happy group. I recommend doing it, especially as a Scoundrel healer, as it also helps keep your buff stack at 3--a big help in energy conservation and crit chance.

My goal whenever I'm a healer is to keep everyone above 90% health simply because it becomes a game to me and has proven successful. If someone's below 80%, in many cases, I find it's already too late to salvage the situation. Then is not the time to start healing. I don't know where that fallacious idea came from, but it has led to so many wipes that I've literally shouted at friends who were DPSing instead of healing. It is extremely bad healing practice. If you want to DPS, you shouldn't be a healer. A healer heals. A DPSer DPSes.

That said, be flexible and adaptable. If you're seriously over-leveled and geared, and the HoTs are enough to keep the tank at 90-100%, add your voice to the storm, but remember your original role and keep those HoTs stacked up. If someone makes a mistake (we all do), be flexible and try to adapt as best as you can.

That said, the healer is not a miracle worker, and shouldn't be the one to take the brunt of bad DPSers or tanks that decide they're dying because of a bad healer. The group should stay together. If a DPSer is off grabbing unnecessary aggro for whatever reason, leave him to die. Do not leave the tank to go chase down a rogue. Let the game take its course and prepare for the sometimes inevitable storm of insults and anger. Keep in mind the levels are designed to be beatable if everyone plays in a good way. If the group is bad, it's not the role of the healer to make up for it.

tl;dr:

Healers should give priority to healing. < 80% heals = 100% nonsense.

If your heals are unnecessary, add some DPS, but not at expense of heals.

And, finally, even the best healer can't save a group of really bad players.

Another good thing to know, which differs from PVP, is threat generation. Your heals generate 50% of the threat that a similar attack would, but your heals generate this threat on EVERY mob in the group. So, unless a mob is attacked by tank or dps YOU will draw it's aggro! This is true of adds that appear during a fight as well.

My main is sorc healz and I have learned that when the tank pulls a group of mobs, it is smart to wait a GCD or 2 before you begin heals. This gives tank and dps time to tag each mob at least once, which will generate more aggro than your 50% heals will, and keep them off of you! If you "pre heal" or even bubble the tank before the pull, you will find that every mob except the one(s) that tank aggroed with the pull, will be shooting at/jumping YOU!

I have had a handful of FP runs where the tank and dps were so good that I literally had zero repair bill. Did not even take one hit! This is what every group should strive for! Undamaged healer = excellent group!

As far as priority goes it's very simple....

1.) Yourself (can't heal tank or dps if you are dead!)

2.) Tank

3.) DPS

Healers have the best view to see if a group is doing it right. If everything is going right and everyone is doing their job correctly, then you should only be healing that tank. No one else will even be taking any damage! If DPS is taking damage and you need to heal them, then that tank is not holding aggro properly. If you are taking damage then DPS and/or tank are not doing their job properly. If only tank is tanking damage and you still cannot keep him alive then your healing sucks or you are out of your league.

Other sorc tips:

-Positioning is key. You must keep los on everyone in your group, but try to stay as far away from mobs/boss as possible. This will help to avoid taking damage from aoe's, cleaves, etc.

-Try NOT to use your Overload (AOE knockback), unless you are gonna die from mobs and no one is coming to your rescue, or to knock mobs off high places to their death (one of my fave things to do!). IF mobs are on you and dps is gonna get them with an aoe or is rushing in to help, and you Overload the mobs away, the dps will not be happy at all.

-Sometimes it is better to use your Revivification puddle (aol heal) on yourself, so you can heal everyone else and not worry about making up your HPs.

-Use "Recklessness" (two stacks of auto-crit) only for Unnatural Preservation and Innervate. And really only when you have an "oh crap" moment where you need to heal large amounts fast!

Hello everyone. I have been playing a few years now and almost completely focused on pvp. I decided to try out pve and see if I enjoy it as much as pvp. I have a few lvl 60 toons but figured I didn't want to start flashpoints at endgame so I made me a sorcerer, healing discipline. I have done a few flash points so far and tell everyone I am very new to pve and always ask for advice. I have a few questions for the more experienced players though.

 

1: i have been given lots of differing advice on when to heal. Some peoples say as soon as a group member takes any damage start healing. While others are saying dps until group members are about 80% then heal. Any advice with this?

 

2: Is there a priority on who to heal? I mean if everyone is taking damage at once does tank get healed first then the dps?

 

3: In one flashpoint one of the dps would run into another room an start a fight before the first room is cleared and then get mad I didn't keep his health up. In situations like this should I stay with the main group and clear the enemies, run to the next room to heal the other guy, or run back and forth healing both?

 

4: Last one for now. Can anyone point me to a general pve healing guide? Not so much class specific with gear and rotations but more general beginer tips you have learned while playing.

 

Thanks for any help.

You generally want to keep everyone topped up. When they start taking hits for real, that will make it easier for you. You certainly always want yourself and the tank at 90%+ health! That said, don't be a healbot. Oftentimes, especially in lowbie content or if you have an excellent tank, everyone will be in the high 90s most of the time. No use healing over 100%! As others have said, keep up your buffs and a hot at least on the tank, depending on your class, but also do damage when you have nothing else to do. Make sure you don't run out of energy while doing your damage rotation, however -- a sorc shouldn't have any problems there, but a merc or operative needs to watch himself. Your main responsibility is healing, after all, and you never know when you're going to need that energy for some emergency healing.

Priority is generally Yourself -> Other healers -> Maintank -> Offtank -> DPS. This one's tricky, though. The difference between a decent healer and a great one is not technical acumen, generally, but knowing whom to heal when and how. If your tank is at 90% and a DPS at 30%, healing the tank first while the DPS dies would be what experts call a Bad Idea. Similarly, if you have both a tank and a DPS at 50% and you know the DPS is going to take damage in the next few seconds, but the tank has thrown up his immunity DCDs / has lost aggro / doesn't take damage due to mechanics, you want to heal the DPS taking damage first. Use your judgement.

That DPS is a jerk, and you should feel free to tell him so. It's the tank's job to initiate combat with new groups (due to initial aggro), and good tanks will try to pay attention to the group's health and resources. In this case, if it's unfeasible to stand in the middle and heal both, heal the tank and the sensible DPS. The three of you finish the first group, the second group kills the DerPS, then comes to you slightly weakened, and you finish it with three men. Then you give the DerPS a right thrashing in chat.

Don't know any guides, but one thing that helps a lot is building a heal UI that works for you. Set your preferences to using Ops frames for 4 man groups, and make the health bars as tall as possible. Make buffs on the ops frames as small as you can and debuffs large, so you can see when to cleanse / reapply your Static Barrier. You want the (now large and convenient) ops frames somewhere in the bottom middle of your screen, directly in your field of vision, with your hotbars arrayed around it so you can see at one glance a) your cooldowns b) the status of your allies c) what's going on around you (i.e. **** to move out of).

The tip about adjusting the UI was great. I now have a huge bar showing health and debuffs. Lot easier to see peoples health. Also started making a game like suggested keeping everyone above 90%, much easier keeping health up than the 80%. Then when the get a hard hit I don't stuggle as much. Also did no dps at all. Striclty healin. I feel I did much better tonight only one person died, and that was from standing in a bad colored circle at the wrong time. .

On a side note I always hear the pvp community is toxic but I guess asking to watch the cut scenes brings out the worst in people. All kinds of insults then I got kicked out of group for the reason of wasting time. Oh well it worked out in the end because the next flashpoint had an incredible tank. Once I said I was new he said just follow him and heal. He said if anything attacks me run towards him so he could take aggro if his taunt was on cool down. Always good to be grouped with proficient people. The tank also recommended avoiding tacticals for a while since they tend to draw the worst kind of players. So I guess just like pvp there are jerks and good people.

You have to know the fights at the same level than tanks or even better. Don't hesitate to watch multiple POV to know almost everything. Since you come from pvp, you should be able to handle stress heal situation quite correctly and your movement-imparing is fine. As a sorc, you have to shield tanks on CD, use resurgence on CD, innervation almost on CD, and roaming mind on CD when heal gets challenging. You don't have to refresh your resurgence on CD on tanks, because the armor increased lasts 45s now so dont forget yourself and other healer or dps with less armor than others. You have to stay calm in every situations and be attentive to announcements to adapt your healing. You also have some dps windows (beginning of fights mostly) so don't hesitate to help your raid when you can; you'd be a better healer if you know when you can do it than if you don't and stay "stressed" on your heal and lifebars. And of course you prioritize tanks over dps at the exception they are about to take large amount of damages.

http://dulfy.net/2015/01/05/swtor-3-0-corruption-sorcerer-healing-guide-by-orderken/

1. Don't DPS unless things are going very easily. Take note of who is receiving damage, and if it's repeating, At times a party member may take a bit of aoe damage, but then be OK, so you can ignore them until you are re-charged. Percentage-wise, it also involves how much healing you can do with x skill and x energy.

2. Keep the tank healthy first, then the DPS - the DPS can (or should) back off the battle until you can heal them and/or they can heal themselves, if they are in serious trouble.

3. You can often run into players like that, but usually, it's their own fault. Stay with the tank until the room (or mob) is cleared. However, make sure that the room is truly cleared before you move on. I've had instances where the tank and healer have moved on leaving us DPS to battle the mobs the tank failed to hold agro on.

4. I got nothin' other than - For a Sorcerer, if it's like a Sage, you should have something like Force Armor, which you should try to maintain (re-apply) on everyone, to mitigate damage.

1: i have been given lots of differing advice on when to heal. Some peoples say as soon as a group member takes any damage start healing. While others are saying dps until group members are about 80% then heal. Any advice with this?

2: Is there a priority on who to heal? I mean if everyone is taking damage at once does tank get healed first then the dps?

3: In one flashpoint one of the dps would run into another room an start a fight before the first room is cleared and then get mad I didn't keep his health up. In situations like this should I stay with the main group and clear the enemies, run to the next room to heal the other guy, or run back and forth healing both?

4: Last one for now. Can anyone point me to a general pve healing guide? Not so much class specific with gear and rotations but more general beginer tips you have learned while playing.

1. When you get much more comfertable with your healing class you can start to throw in DPS but, at the beginning I wouldn't recommend it at all.. As you get better and know your class better you can, especially right on the pull, put out some DPS (in many of the new HM ops it's extremely helpful for both healers to throw out 50k-100k DPS over the fight.. but you have to be good with energy management as well as knowing the fights top to bottom so you know when spike damage is coming..)

2. For me I will focus the tanks over anything, including myself.. BUT this is because I know my class and i'm comfertable at 30% HP and know I can get myself back up.. for now I would say keep yourself up first, tanks get second priority, I usually prioritize DPS based on class honestly.. classes with good CDs i'll leave low for a min but thats only if you know them and they know how to use those CDs..

3. If a DPS gets ahead of the group let em die, hands down.. Also if a DPS pulls before a tank I let them die.. teach em a lesson about their role..

4. Experience... Experience.. Experience.. Experience... You can watch guides all day long and i will agree it's good to know some basic things but, most of those basic things have been said in here.. (UI setup is HUGE, if it's setup well it makes it much easier..).. Read everything about your class.. know exactly where each buff you apply comes from (you have a single target armor increase buff and a 4 target AoE internal/elemental dmg reduction buff on a sorc/sage). Know exactly what procs what, and what each proc does... Your instant cast HoT procs 5 different heals for you... you need to know what each does.. you also have 2-3 other procs I can think of off the top of my head.. probably a few more.. But, learn the class inside out and know everything that happens.. all your passives, procs etc.. then go heal... Do things that are hard to heal.. For instance I was trying to relearn sage heals from 3.0 during last week, did a bunch of HM 60s (which are a ***** to heal without a really good group.. the two DPS were 42k HP and just couldn't get outa stupid..) and did some SM ops with the other healer barely doing anything.. Solo heal an op or something.. In my experience the best way to learn how to heal well is not to heal something easy breazy.. it's to push the class to it's absolute limit (as well as YOU to your limit, which if you PVP you'll be good in those OH SH** situations..). So, do hard content. or make it hard (I've run stuff with my whole left side taken off, told the other healer to just DPS.. told people to purposely stand in stupid etc etc.. just so that I can push the class and see how much it can really heal..)

So.. to sum up, your best off learning healing through experience.. it's a very situational role and there is no way to "Practice" it.. you just have to jump into the ocean and learn to heal those fishy before the sharks eat they're a**.. Study your class, learn everything it does.. The three diff healers in this game are (IMO) very different in healing styles and you just gotta know what that class can and cannot do..