Introduction

Hey everyone. I am Classicks and I have been maining a Sawbones Scoundrel since launch. I was previously GM of the 16 player guild Level Capped (The Bastion) which became Intrepid (The Harbinger), and also healed in PvP guild Don't Panic (The Bastion). I don't claim to be a 'pro' but have been playing the class for some time now and would like to share some of the things that I have learned about the Scoundrel over time. This guide was put together as a result of some discussion in my pseudo-guide here. You can also find an old version of this guide on SWTORBOARD, along with other PvE class guides from members of the community.

The Sawbones Scoundrel

What do you offer the raid?

-Stealth revive

-Very effective raid HoTs (Heal over time abilities)

-Great single target healing, and “emergency” healing

-Effective group healing if appropriately used

-Moderate damage and burst for the raid when needed

Here is a

Class Changes

Crouch + Take Cover – No longer mitigates damage or prevents enemies from leaping to you. Take Cover should only be used as a gap closer now.

Relevant 2.7 Changes:

• Defense Screen has had its cooldown reduced to 20 seconds, its maximum duration reduced to 10 seconds, and now absorbs slightly more damage per cast.
   
  
• Scamper has been redesigned. Using Scamper will grant a charge that will allow Scamper to be used again before the ability goes on a 10 second cooldown, allowing for 2 rolls in succession.
   
  
• Scamper no longer costs energy to use.
   
  
• Emergent Emergencies can now only grant Upper Hand every 6 seconds.
  

Skill Tree

36/3/7

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#701MffrzGRRzcsZ0cZG0oz.3

Change points in Mortal Wound + Open Wound to Holdout Defense for fights with movement where you can use Blaster Whip on the boss/adds to gain speed and an Upper Hand.

A common alternative to this skill tree is 38/3/5. Individuals usually pick up the 'Smuggled Med Delivery' talent that generates 2 Upper Hand when exiting stealth. However, if you begin the fights with tanks hotted and build 1-2 Upper Hands before pull with a couple of Underworld Medicines + Diagnostic Scan, these 2 talent points are useless unless Stealth Rezzing.

The two points in Sawbones leading up to Kolto Cloud are usually spent in 'Med Screen.' However, I prefer 'Scramble' as Dodge is a much better cooldown, and this talent can be great for fights with adds. The Defense Screen heal is mediocre at best. Even though Defense Screen's absorb scales with the amount of healing power you possess, it doesn't with the heal (from my observation). Edit: Defense Screen has been buffed to a 20-second cooldown in 2.7, so taking the Med Screen talent is now more viable.

Abilities

Healing

Underworld Medicine – The Scoundrel's “big” heal. Can crit for almost 1/3 of a raid member's HP. Generates Upper Hand.

Kolto Pack – Requires Upper Hand. Use on cooldown, if possible. Energy efficient, heal up front + HoT afterward.

Slow-release Medpac – 18-second duration heal over time ability that stacks up to two times. Refreshing this HoT before it falls off will maintain the 2 stacks. This should be done on individuals that should take consistent damage (tanks). Other common targets include, but not are limited to, healer OR dps sages with low force (as they will surely be “noble sacrificing” to change hp to force), and melee DPS as they typically have more damage taken during fights. Generates Upper Hand (30% chance per tick, once every 4.5 seconds max, with proper spec).

Kolto Cloud – Very energy efficient heal if you can get 3-4 raid members that can benefit from this HoT. Casting this ability on a targetted ally will heal 3 others that are within 10 meters of said individual. Do NOT use this ability on cooldown. Doing so will lead to you not having it up when the raid really needs it. When the raid is taking damage, casting it on a melee dps, or yourself when you are in range of co-healer or other dps, are usually good opportunities.

Emergency Medpac – Requires Upper Hand. Instant cast heal that should not be spammed, but used when you have 2-3 stacks of Upper Hand, or Kolto Pack on cooldown, and want to top off tanks or raid members. Especially useful on raid members lower than 30% HP, as it will not require a stack when properly specced. Edit: 2.7 changes nerfed Scoundrel's "Emergent Emergencies" talent to have an internal cooldown of 10 seconds for restoring Upper Hand if used on a player below 30% HP. With these changes, saving Pugnacity is something to consider for emergency healing, as it generates you an Upper Hand stack that may be clutch for saving a raid member.

Diagnostic Scan – With adequate amount of crit and alacrity, Diagnostic Scan is a good filler ability. If tanks and other consistently damage-taking individuals are hotted, you should be using this ability to increase your energy, or Precast/Cast cancel Underworld Medicine, which I will cover later (“Healing Strategy” section). Cancelling this ability after 2 ticks is something I almost always do unless I am very behind in energy.

Situational

Triage – Cleanses an ally of up to 2 negative tech or physical effects. Spec also allows you to dispel mental effects. See the “Healing Strategy” section below for effective use of this ability in a raid setting [important].

Heartrigger Patch – Your in-combat revive reserved for targets that are a high priority for the fight (usually tanks and healers).

Disappearing Act or Disappearing Act + Revive – Disappearing Act can be used as a defensive cooldown if absolutely necessary. However, an important use of this ability is in combination with your out of combat “Revive” ability. Disappearing Act drops you out of combat allowing you to “Stealth Rez” a raid member. More info on this in the “Healing Strategy” section.

Cool Head – If you are digging yourself into a hole in terms of energy management, go ahead and burn through the rest of your energy and pop this cooldown. It restores 16 energy immediately, on top of 50 energy over 3 seconds. If you can make it back into energy efficiency (60+ energy) with some diagnostic scans, do that instead, as blowing your Cool Head cooldown can really hurt you if the raid is to take spontaneous damage.

Sneak/Tranquilizer (Trash only abilities)

Scamper - “Roll forward 12 meters. Can be activated a 2nd time within 10 seconds to roll again and go on cooldown for 10 seconds. While rolling, your chance to avoid melee and ranged attacks is increased by 30%." Pretty self explanatory. (Changed in 2.7 to cost no energy, with the 2-charge cooldown described above)

Buffs

Upper Hand – Try to stay above 1 stack of Upper Hand (max of 3 when specced). From the 2nd tier talent 'Healing Hand,' Scoundrels get a +6% bonus healing if >1 stack is active. Healing abilities that consume Upper Hand include Emergency Medpac and Kolto Pack. Abilities that generate Upper Hand that you will actually use in a raid setting are Underworld Medicine, Pugnacity, Slow-release Medpac (30% chance per tick, once every 4.5 seconds max, with proper spec), and Blaster Whip (though infrequently).

Pugnacity – Use when just under 60 energy, or when you need to do burst healing and/or have relics/adrenal running. Also Generates Upper Hand.

Important item to note is the Prototype (or Reusable) Nano-Infused Triage Adrenal. These are a healer's best friend during situations where your raid is taking moderate-high damage (15-second uptime).

Defensives

Defense Screen – Small amount of absorb (roughly 4-5k at 180 gear level). Again, this was buffed to be a 20-second cooldown.

Dodge – Purges removable effects and 100% dodges melee and ranged attacks for 3 seconds. Does not break Stealth.

Surrender – Drops your threat. Just like with DPS, using this ability preemptively can be helpful – especially if there are adds that may start attacking you.

Offensives

Orbital Strike – You will want to cast this when your heals will not suffer (long cast time, high energy usage). Do this before a fight's pull, or for AoE. Edit: WIth 2.7, this ability only costs 10 energy now, so use this when you can if raid is only minimally damaged.

Sabotage Charge – In-cover ability, high energy cost, large burst potential, can be used from range.

Vital Shot – A DoT that can be used on the boss when you have down time.

Back Blast – Must be behind target. Good ability for burst.

Blaster Whip – Use in combination with Back Blast to do good burst at melee range. Generates Upper Hand as well.

Charged Burst? – Very rarely used except during phases where you might not have much healing to do.

Others

Escape – Standard remove-movement-impairing-effects ability (PvP stunbreak but useful in Ops on occasion – Cartel Warlords' Vilus Garr, Titan 6 stomp, etc.)

Dirty Kick – Brief stun, useful on gold adds.

Flashbang – Instant (minus the travel time) 8-second stun with a small radius. Not 30-meter range like Gunslinger's, but still useful on gold adds that are on your raid, or for interrupts.

Healing Ability Usage

Healing is very circumstantial, but here are some general rules/priorities.

1. Maintain Slow-release Medpac x2 on tanks, Sages, melee dps or other frequently damage-taking players.

2. Use Kolto Pack if you have 2+ stacks of Upper Hand.

3. Underworld Medicine if you see players with (generally) >25% HP missing.

4. Emergency Medpac if Kolto Pack on cd and you have 2+ stacks of Upper Hand. This ability should be prioritized if you see players in danger at <30% HP.

5. Kolto Cloud on targetted ally if there are multiple people within 10 meters that can benefit from this HoT.

6. Diagnostic Scan if you ever see yourself dipping into inefficient energy regeneration range (<60%).

For sustainable burst healing, Underworld Medicine + Emergency Medpac!

More notes coming soon...

Stats

For reference: 2.0+ DR Curve

Power or Crit?

Both. I try and keep around 255-317 critical rating if possible, the rest is power (at the 180 level, 1 mod and 3 enhancements will give you 255 crit, 2 mods and 2 enhancements will leave you at 262 crit). Your Accomplished Sawbones talent in the second to last tier of the tree gives you a static 30% surge bonus to your Underworld Medicine, Kolto Pack, and Kolto Cloud abilities when fully specced in the talent (3/3). Since the benefits of surge are only seen when you crit, it makes sense to pick up some critical rating as a Scoundrel healer – just not too much so as to avoid being at “DR” (diminishing returns). Not to mention, your Diagnostic Scan gives you energy back each tick of the channel when it crits. Yes, this ability can be used as a filler even if not for the full duration.

When min/maxing almost never do you want to look at the % rating (for something like crit). What it takes for a Scoundrel Healer to get 25% crit is a lot less than it would be for, say, a combat sentinel.

Firstly, Scoundrel Healers pick up both a crit % talent AND a % cunning talent in the tree. This mean you will get to 25% crit without too much work. However, crit % is NOT something that hits diminishing returns, but actually the crit rating.

When people say get around X percentage, it is my impression that it is a lot more ballpark, and subject to class-specifics (and a lot less exact than talking about the actual rating in this way). Keep in mind that at lower gear levels, getting upwards of 250 crit or 400 alacrity might be a lot more painstaking and unrealistic than it would be at the 180+ level.

Surge or Alacrity?

Both. Alacrity has become a fairly useful stat for Scoundrels. It increases our energy regen per second, makes cast times and GCDs shorter, and also speeds up our channel on Diagnostic Scan which returns energy when it crits. Additionally, our pugnacity's effectiveness scales with the amount of alacrity we have got. It essentially speeds up each and every one of our heals.

Surge is also a useful stat for us. Since picking up some critical rating is a good idea based on the dynamics of the class (see above), supplementing that with some surge rating before the diminishing returns mark is smart.

Keep in mind that to stay in a range that is energy efficient (upwards of 60 energy), or in other words, to refresh SRMP and UM+EMP effectively, you want at minimum ~450 alacrity.

Set Bonus

4-piece Field Medic's PvE

(2) Increases the healing done by Recuperative Nanotech or Kolto Cloud by 15%.

(4) Increases maximum energy by 5.

Gear

This is the optimal set up from solely the unassembled tokens.

Head 131 crit / 94 alacrity

Chest 131 power / 94 surge

Hands 131 crit / 94 alacrity

Legs 131 power / 94 surge

Feet 131 crit / 94 alacrity

Belt 69 power

Bracers 69 power

Mainhand 172 power / 94 surge

Offhand 172 power / 94 surge

Earpiece 130 power / 94 surge

Implants (2) 130 power / 94 alac

Running the above - full Field Medic's except Field Tech Ear and Professional's Implants - will get you:

Total = 1,134 power, 397 critical, 470 surge, 470 alacrity.

You will need to drop some of this crit as you currently have 3 set pieces with critical rating (3 mods and 3 enhancements). Replace a Head, Gloves, or Boots with an Oriconian one. From there, you can put a BiS 69 cunning/power mod (from Ultimate comm belt), and a BiS Power/Alacrity enhancement (from Ultimate comm Jedi Knight dps legs) to be at: 262 critical rating, 470 surge, 470 alacrity. Notes on adjusting your gearing for your playstyle can be found in the “Healing Strategy” section below.

If you are looking for things to buy with ultimate comms until you have the appropriate token pieces, the Oriconian Power/Alacrity Earpiece helps until you have an adequate amount of alacrity rating.

Relics

There are a few options for relics:

Ephemeral Mending, Serendipitous Assault, Focused Retribution, Boundless Ages.

Currently I roll with 1) Dread Forged Relic of Serendipitous Assault and 1)Dread Forged Relic of Boundless Ages.

I always do Operations with Nano-Infused Triage Adrenals, but they're on a 3 minute cooldown and only have 15 seconds of uptime; if you want to be a healer that can dig your team out of a hole, the 30-second uptime Boundless Ages is your friend [just make sure to use it in anticipation of heavy damage phases (e.g. Titan 6 soft enrage)]. For fights that don't have phases designed for overwhelming damage output:

1) Dread Forged Relic of Serendipitous Assault and 1) Dread Forged Relic of Focused Retribution

Ephemeral Mending's effectiveness is completely RNG (random), and should not be used unless you have no better options.

Augments

We get a bonus 9% cunning as Scoundrels in the first tier of the Sawbones tree. Makes Advanced Skill Augment 28 an obvious choice.

User Interface

This is what I use for my quickbars: http://i.imgur.com/POS9aaA.jpg

This “mash” of abilities may seem haphazard. However, all of my characters have a similar setup – defensive abilities, AoE abilities, etc. bound to specific keys, in specific parts of my quickbars, across all toons. This helps me personally, but you may have your own methods. The healing abilities I have bound to gaming mouse buttons (Logitech G600).

Here are some other things to note for healing purposes:

Preferences

Controls → Camera Max Distance: 100%

Controls → Enable Focus Target

User Interface → Show Cooldown Text: Enabled

User Interface

Focus Target: Enabled

Show Information Text

Operations Frames

Here are some numbers that I use here...

Increase Debuff Scale to .5 or .6

Buff Scale .3

Health Width and Health Height are at: 174, 22.

Show Health Text

Healing Strategy

All of the following examples can be viewed in the youtube link

Focus Target and Acquire focus target's target keybind

Setting your focus target to the boss or enemy and using a keybind for 'Acquire Focus Target's Target' under 'Preferences' → 'Targetting' will make your reaction time much better. It can help tremendously for anticipating raid damage. This is especially true for bosses/enemies that cannot be taunted. Some examples of this are NiM S&V Olok Phase 1: Wealthy Buyer and Heirad's lightning in NiM TFB Dread Guards. It also lets you know when the boss is casting certain abilities.

Precasting/Cast Cancelling

With practice you will be able to precast Underworld Medicine on your tank in anticipation of spike damage. This is especially important for boss fights that have heavy single-target tank damage. If no damage is given to the tank near the end of your cast, simply press one of your movement keys to stop the cast.

“Hotting up” the raid

In phases of fights that have heavy damage output to the entire raid, anticipate the damage and cast SRMPx2 on each raid member. Maintaining these, along with some of your other heals here and there, will be extremely beneficial. Make sure your raid is using their defensives/medpacs/gunslinger bubble/etc. too! Some examples are: Fingers in HM DF Brontes and S&V Titan 6 final phase, as well as Thrasher.

Cleansing in Ops

Any DoTs (damage over time) or debuffs that look like tech abilities (Smuggler/Agent or Trooper/BH abilities) you can almost guarantee are cleansable and should be cleansed as they usually tick for quite a bit of damage.

This is not always the case. However, it is a good indication of an opportune time to use Triage. An example of when you might get thrown off: the grenade in S&V's Olok the Shadow fight that looks like a cleansable corrosive grenade dot (http://i.imgur.com/gxrdsbn.jpg).

Stealth Rezzing

The Revive ability should absolutely be hotkeyed, as right clicking a dead body is almost always a bad idea for reviving. There are two things to consider for Stealth Rezzing:

1. Assure that you do not have any HoTs OR DoTs/AoE rolling on ANY targets, as this will pull you back into combat.
   
2. The phase of the fight will allow for you to get off a long cast time, and will not pull you back into combat.
   

Notes on Reviving

Never use your in-combat revive “Heartrigger Patch” on a DPS unless absolutely necessary, or if the fight requires intense burn. Alternatively, you should opt to save it for later on in the fight, and go for a Stealth Rez instead, if one of these members dies early on in the fight and you can manage to get it off.

Healing Partner and Playstyle

In general, the two biggest things that affect your healing role are your co-healers, and the group's DPS composition.

You might want to play differently, and therefore, gear differently, depending on the healers you run with.

I agree 100% with this comment in my other thread, from Anivra of <Severity Gaming>

To add to the discussion here, alacrity/surge is also somewhat based on your role as a healer and your healing style. My 16m group runs 2 scoundrels and 2 sages, with the scoundrels usually on tanks. As such, I'm typically using more casted abilities (UW/KP) than if I would be assigned to raid healing, where I would use instants (EM/KC/SRM). The more casted abilities you use, the better alacrity becomes. It may not seem like a lot, but .15-.2 seconds off the cast of UM over the course of a 5 minute fight is (at best) 16 more UM casts, which at my average UM is more than 100k more healing. That's a generous estimate, as I won't be chain-casting UM, but it makes the point that I'm going for.

Since most people play in an 8-man setting, here are some things to think about:

If you heal with a Commando, you might consider swapping out an alacrity enhancement for a surge one, since in this scenario you will more than likely be playing the role of a proactive HoT healer.

In contrast, if you heal with a Sage, you might consider swapping in an alacrity enhancement, as you will be more casting focused.

An 8-man composition with >2 melee, or a 16-man with >4 melee, would most likely require a change in approach to healing assignments and potentially gearing as well. Maybe you want your Sage to focus on puddles at the melee level, in which case you do more raid healing on ranged and healers instead of prioritizing tanks. Keep all of this in mind.

Measuring Heals

HPS vs. EHPS

Heals Per Second (HPS) is the rate at which you heal – how many green numbers you put out into the raid per second. Effective Heals Per Second (EHPS), however, is the best measure of your “effectiveness” as a healer – the amount of healing output that is actually a heal, and not an overheal. Thus, EHPS is the best thing to look at. Take this statistic with a grain of salt, though, because a lot of other factors besides your own button-clicking can impact your EHPS. How much damage is the raid taking – are people standing in stupid? How geared are your tanks? Are you actually cleansing debuffs/DoTS? How good/geared is your co-healer(s)? All of this, and more, will alter your EHPS.

To see these values in a raid setting, here are some popular parsers (make sure you have combat logging enabled in your in-game preferences):

In-Ops Analysis

MOX – Original parser. Shows HPS but not EHPS.

Parsec – Personal Favorite. Tracks EHPS. I believe it maintains your EHPS when you use Disappearing Act during a fight.

Torparse Client – Also tracks EHPS.

Post-Ops Analysis

Torparse Uploading – Create an account with the wonderful peeps at Torparse.com. If saved to default location, you can upload your logs from Documents → SWTOR → Combat Logging. Find the date/time of the log you wish to upload. The larger file size is usually the appropriate log. Keep in mind the more competitive guilds will require you to upload these when you apply.

Conclusion

Thanks for taking an interest in Scoundrel healing. It's a very fun and versatile class/role to play. If you have any constructive feedback or discussion to add, please do.

Changelog:

4/21/2014 - formatting and 2.7 updates.

As a scoundrel healer I found your guide very informative. I really like that you mentioned such important things like UI and Healing Strategy, and many other tips and tricks. Plus hotkeys is a MUST for all healers for sure

I am also switching 1 enhancement from surge to alacrity from time to time (I am running usually with ~310 crit, 470 surge and 470 alacrity) if I have to focus more on a single target, but to be honest I don't really ...eh... feel the difference. According to calculations, the cast time of UW decreases only by ~0.03 seconds. I'd prefer +2% of crit multiplier rather than -0.03 sec cast time. But of course it is important to mention so people could make their own choice.

And also about HPS vs EHPS. As far as I remember it is ok for scoundrels to have EHPS at about 70% (+-7%, depends on how heavy healing intense fight), all because of HoTs

Don't even know what else I could add to what you wrote here.

Will try to spread your thread among my healing friends. Thank you a lot for such a great job!

As a scoundrel healer I found your guide very informative. I really like that you mentioned such important things like UI and Healing Strategy, and many other tips and tricks. Plus hotkeys is a MUST for all healers for sure

I am also switching 1 enhancement from surge to alacrity from time to time (I am running usually with ~310 crit, 470 surge and 470 alacrity) if I have to focus more on a single target, but to be honest I don't really ...eh... feel the difference. According to calculations, the cast time of UW decreases only by ~0.03 seconds. I'd prefer +2% of crit multiplier rather than -0.03 sec cast time. But of course it is important to mention so people could make their own choice.

And also about HPS vs EHPS. As far as I remember it is ok for scoundrels to have EHPS at about 70% (+-7%, depends on how heavy healing intense fight), all because of HoTs

Don't even know what else I could add to what you wrote here.

 

Will try to spread your thread among my healing friends. Thank you a lot for such a great job!

Hey Vollt. Thanks for the feedback! It is greatly appreciated. I am glad to hear you like it. I agree, the enhancements are fun to play around with to get to that point where you feel most comfortable.

Btw, are you going to make any changes in rotation because of upcoming 2.7 "Emergent Emergencies" (UH regrants only once in 6 seconds if you heal someone who is below 30% health) ?

It will definitely change what abilities to prioritize in high-damage instances. I have to say... I don't know about you, but I have never really 'spammed' Emergency Medpac much; a couple EM's and you've already let 3 seconds go by where an individual might still be below 50% hp and where a bigger heal could be used. These changes are significant in circumstances where there is widespread damage or frequent target switching (pre-nerf NiM 16 Wealthy Buyer ) since the "lockout" does not have any regard for who you recently Medpacked.

I have not yet taken much of a look at it on the PTS, but it does add a bit more complexity to Scoundrel Healing - moreso in PvP where you might have two or more targets dropping below 30% frequently. I think we might see some Scoundrels considering more alacrity with this change, since our "emergent emergency" healing won't be as quite as powerful and will require more Underworld casts.

I've released a model for PVE Scoundrel healing (link in my signature). It confirms the recommendations of the OP regarding stats. That is, a decent amount of Critical from gear is optimal, and Alacrity is very beneficial.

Since not every Scoundrel has the same rotation, assignment, or co-healer, I encourage you to personalize the data on worksheet "Boss Fights" so that my model tailors stats for your healing. My model analyzes the effect of gear on your EHPS rather than on a single, fixed rotation's HPS.

Any guides on how to set up and use key binds? I have never done this even after playing wow for like 6 years lol.

But I enjoy my little 22 Scoundrel so i'd like to get the most out of the class

Thanks!