Hey guys, some of you may remember my healing 1.1 guide from January: Healing in 1.1. Well looks like just about everything I said to do is being nerfed and changed.

So I'm taking that video down when 1.2 hits live. I have a new guide on TORWARS for newer healers or people just looking for ideas on how to beat the nerfs in 1.2 or adjust their UI. It's unlisted on my channel right now, because it's a torwars exclusive. But here it is:

Healing in patch 1.2

Would you say that those two builds are the most viable? Primarily AoE healing or the Effusion build? Can't say that I particularly like either play-style.

I'd also be interested to hear what you suggest as being a build for levelling with. Clearly the AoE build is an end-game build pretty much and you don't get to effusion early enough for that to make a difference... what would your suggestions be for levelling?

X

Hey guys, some of you may remember my healing 1.1 guide from January: Healing in 1.1. Well looks like just about everything I said to do is being nerfed and changed.

 

 

So I'm taking that video down when 1.2 hits live. I have a new guide on TORWARS for newer healers or people just looking for ideas on how to beat the nerfs in 1.2 or adjust their UI. It's unlisted on my channel right now, because it's a torwars exclusive. But here it is:

Healing in patch 1.2

Wow! I can't believe someone is taking my wacky Corruption/Lightning effusion build seriously... maybe I should have!

I first posted about it back on the 6th of February: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=272435&highlight=effusion&page=2

And then again a few days ago. (can't find that one.) But no one has ever discussed it here.

I do have one comment about your video though. You're talking about triggering effusion through Force Lightning crits for that build. A better solution is to trigger it off Affliction crits so that non-healing time is minimized. This just requires 1 GCD every 21 seconds to manage. If it's not triggering often enough off Affliction crits (it should) you could always supplement it with FL.

Anyway.... did you actually try to main heal with this in the PTS or just support? I've thought that in Raids that have a spare slot (lol) this would be the ideal build for healing the (now) self-damaging Sorc healers.

Wow! I can't believe someone is taking my wacky Corruption/Lightning effusion build seriously... maybe I should have!

 

I first posted about it back on the 6th of February: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=272435&highlight=effusion&page=2

 

And then again a few days ago. (can't find that one.) But no one has ever discussed it here.

 

I do have one comment about your video though. You're talking about triggering effusion through Force Lightning crits for that build. A better solution is to trigger it off Affliction crits so that non-healing time is minimized. This just requires 1 GCD every 21 seconds to manage. If it's not triggering often enough off Affliction crits (it should) you could always supplement it with FL.

 

Anyway.... did you actually try to main heal with this in the PTS or just support? I've thought that in Raids that have a spare slot (lol) this would be the ideal build for healing the (now) self-damaging Sorc healers.

I hadn't read your post, but I'm not surprised someone else came up with this build. You're right about affliction being good part of a rotation to put on as an effusion healer. Not just for the lightning effusion but for the lightning barrage. However, I don't feel the crits from affliction alone are predictable or often enough enough for me.

In a situation where you need high throughput, like when the boss is really wailing on the tank pretty hard, an effusion healer has to give up on force lightning and hope the crits of affliction will come so that their power doesn't get out of hand. But that situation is less than ideal. The ticks-per-power-point of affliction is very high, making it great to use, but the low ticks-per-second mean many heals will have to be cast without the force-reduction benefits. If only affliction ticked as quickly as crushing darkness or force lightning.

The effusion healer build I did not get to test on PTS. My sorc wasn't transfered and my opportunities to play other people's characters on PTS and run tests are always limited. For this build I just did different healing builds against the same content that I know the difficulty of very well (solo'ing the dailys heroics, duo'ing black talon) and compared the two.

This required me to do content without all the sorc skills. I had to heal without training the force-bending talent to get a feel for how it will be when I can't double-dip 2 dark infusions in under 3 seconds. Force surge had to be clicked off manually in tests that included revification. That kind of thing.

It'd be harder to come up with dps comparison of the effusion build though. I can see immediately it's DPS is much lower than the hybrid builds, but I have no metrics by how much.

It's a build with some big weaknesses, honestly. When I tried to push the DPS harder by trying to make chain-lightning proc more often, I ran out of power. And yet when I healed exclusively with no damaging attacks I ran out of power.

So I wouldn't try to out-heal the Foreman's frenzy move in KP or try to heal for the jumping puzzle against Soa, because you'd run out of power. And I wouldn't try to go full-out DPS with it either, because you run out of power. For raid healing, I find power is more of an issue, so I can't honestly recommend the effusion build for raid healing. Maybe 16 mans there's a spot for this build? I'm not doing 16 mans, so I have no clue on that.

what would your suggestions be for levelling?

 

X

For leveling, things go much faster with DPS. Otherwise you'll just be healing Khem Val as he slowly kills things. It's viable, but just very slow. As far as healing while leveling up, if you choose to level while in corruption spec you'll find that you don't have a lot of wiggle-room on what to choose in your tree or how to heal. At first you just spam your 1 heal over and over on the tank. Later you spam Dark Infusion over and over. Then when you get high enough to use innervate, you use that as often as possible and use Dark Infusion while it's on cooldown.

Basically, if you want to level faster, go DPS. If you want to heal mid-level flashpoints, get all the healing talents first. It's easier and simpler. I don't know how tough the leveling or lower-level flashpoints will be with the new healing nerfs. I remember some of them being really tough to do on-level. But I also remember they were more about having big enough heals fast enough than end-game where the fights will really drain your power by the end.

I should say that the effusion build is more difficult to play, because you really have to stay on top of your buffs to be able to keep it up. But the AOE healer is a little simpler and easier to play. That one is more about character positioning than proc's and buffs.

None of it sounds particularly exciting. The Effusion build has a bit more interest in it, for game-play - but whether it will really make a viable PvE end-game main healer is a whole other question. No AoE, long casting big heals and needing to intersperse DPS for the crits.... doesn't add up too well.

We'll see what happens when it hits live I guess.

X

None of it sounds particularly exciting. The Effusion build has a bit more interest in it, for game-play - but whether it will really make a viable PvE end-game main healer is a whole other question. No AoE, long casting big heals and needing to intersperse DPS for the crits.... doesn't add up too well.

 

We'll see what happens when it hits live I guess.

 

X

The build, as stated in her video is more of a questing/4 man build. So not meant for raiding what so ever.

Wow! I can't believe someone is taking my wacky Corruption/Lightning effusion build seriously... maybe I should have!

 

I first posted about it back on the 6th of February: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=272435&highlight=effusion&page=2

 

And then again a few days ago. (can't find that one.) But no one has ever discussed it here.

 

I do have one comment about your video though. You're talking about triggering effusion through Force Lightning crits for that build. A better solution is to trigger it off Affliction crits so that non-healing time is minimized. This just requires 1 GCD every 21 seconds to manage. If it's not triggering often enough off Affliction crits (it should) you could always supplement it with FL.

 

Anyway.... did you actually try to main heal with this in the PTS or just support? I've thought that in Raids that have a spare slot (lol) this would be the ideal build for healing the (now) self-damaging Sorc healers.

Like you're the first person to come up with a spec.

I hadn't read your post, but I'm not surprised someone else came up with this build.

I always assumed several others would also have come-up with it. The surprising part was seeing it billed as a post 1.2 coping build. Frankly, I've never had much hope for that build as anything other than a daily grinder.

It's a build with some big weaknesses, honestly. When I tried to push the DPS harder by trying to make chain-lightning proc more often, I ran out of power. And yet when I healed exclusively with no damaging attacks I ran out of power.

Yeah I noticed that after the speeded-up part of your video.

Maybe 16 mans there's a spot for this build? I'm not doing 16 mans, so I have no clue on that.

Maybe in a 17-man? I wasn't really serious about raiding with this. It was more of an ironic jest about reserving a spot in a raid to heal the self-consuming post 1.2 Sorcerer Healers.

I've posted elsewhere about how all that was really needed to bring our force regen under control was to add a 50% force regen penalty to consumption when used with the current, no health lost, Force Surge Proc... but what do I know? I just play the game... (If interested, see: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=383054)

I should say that the effusion build is more difficult to play, because you really have to stay on top of your buffs to be able to keep it up. But the AOE healer is a little simpler and easier to play. That one is more about character positioning than proc's and buffs.

Yeah, I liked the AOE one.

Cheers.

The build, as stated in her video is more of a questing/4 man build. So not meant for raiding what so ever.

Aye that was rather my point. Neither sound particularly interesting in terms of game-play... and the more interesting of the two is unlikely to be viable for raiding.

There are quite a few 4 man instances for levelling/questing that can stretch a corruption sorc, especially given variable group skill levels. After 1.2, we have to tackle them with lower healing throughput, slower casting and required longer stretches of time casting DPS in order to get hybrid force cost reductions that will help us cope with force regen, rather than being able to actually use the actual healing tree itself..

It all just sounds peachy keen to me.

X

Great guide for those out there who are new to healing with a sorcerer and it even gave me some handy tips, so I know it's useful for experienced healers aswell.

Keep up the great work, looking forward to the next video (1.3? )

I will look over your guide, but I have one question for you and BIOWARE.

Why does every class except ours get a free ammo/reduce heat, energy back button?

Our's does not have a cooldown, but it takes away health, and then they nerf the holy hell out of our spec?

That is one thing I really HATE about MMO's is that the whiners get listened to because they come on the forums. The people who come on the forums the most of the time are the ones who can't play at all.

I am getting sick and tired of major class changes in MMO's and I like others might just quit...

Actually, the old build is just fine. But you can immediately feel the lack of emergency heals. I have played an Assassin Tank together with my friend who is a Sorc Heals.

We just completed a run of Lost Island and it was hard.

For the first boss, the lack of a quick Dark Infusion means that majority of the time, the heals can only keep up with the incoming damage and not be able to top me up to full health. It is good for constant incoming damage, but once the damage spikes and the entire party takes damage, it is pretty much a wipe.

And the 2nd boss, healer OOM-ed just as we kill the boss due to the damage taken during the phase the boss was up on the pillars.

I wouldn't say that it is impossible to heal in 1.2 but it probably will have to take a few wipes to make it right.

The main issue with the Lightning Effusion build, as far as I can see, is that the healer will be constantly switching targets. Mind you, Dark Infusion cast time can not be further reduced. Precious time which is going into switching targets and getting a Force Lightning on the boss. Time which I feel can be spent topping the party up or sometimes, to just keep up with incoming damage.

I just don't see how this Lightning Effusion build can be viable.

I will look over your guide, but I have one question for you and BIOWARE.

 

Why does every class except ours get a free ammo/reduce heat, energy back button?

 

Our's does not have a cooldown, but it takes away health, and then they nerf the holy hell out of our spec?

 

That is one thing I really HATE about MMO's is that the whiners get listened to because they come on the forums. The people who come on the forums the most of the time are the ones who can't play at all.

 

I am getting sick and tired of major class changes in MMO's and I like others might just quit...

Major class changes are definitely part of MMOs, but yes they are difficult to get used to.

Every MMO I've played for more than a year has nerfed some classes and buffed others at different times. From their point of view, they're always improving upon the balance or fun-factor with every nerf.

They see tracer-missile over and over is a strong (but repetitive) rotation. They nerf it so that you will have to re-learn how to play, and ultimately they hope that what you re-learn is less repetitive and more fun.

In this case, I believe we Sorc's were nerfed because they want different healers good at different things. Mercs have the best throughput now, because our double-dip throughput was completely nerfed and dark-infusion's activation time can't be reduced. Massive throughput nerf leaving Merc's as the throughput experts. For HOTs, it's operatives.

But neither of those classes can AOE heal the way a Sorc can. That's what we're left good at in 1.2, and you still need AOE healing in fights.

"Why does every class except ours get a free ammo/reduce heat, energy back button?"

They could ask, "Why can't I trade health for heat reduction?" From the Dev's point of view, they want to make different classes feel different so that when you have more reason to play more than 1 healing class.

Does that explanation make it suck less? No, probably not. We raid all week to feel strong from getting +10 willpower, losing some of our best tools won't feel good. But believe me, it's not as bad once you get used to it. My guild just beat Karagga and Soa on HM tonight with a Sorc and merc healer combo, and we complimented each other well.

.

Like you're the first person to come up with a spec.

Someone has to be, Bioware didn't give them to us.

Put out a great Sorc Healing 1.2 Guide keep up the good work and will love to hear from you in the future!

Regards,

xFadeProGaming

Put out a great Sorc Healing 1.2 Guide keep up the good work and will love to hear from you in the future!

 

Regards,

xFadeProGaming

Thanks. I also write an article called Inquisitor Weekly for TORWARS.com which publishes every Friday. My latest one was on soft caps and diminishing returns formulas.