the problems with the medicine tree and the way operative heals start to become aparent in the 16mans and in the hm/nm operations.

the problem is not a particular skill, but how the whole skillset, along with energy regen, is made.

to start things off, operatives only have 5 heals:

the main 2sec cast time that builds TA

the main 1.5sec cast time that uses TA

the talented hot

the talented aoe hot

and the channeled filler.

when 3/5 of those heals are outright broken, then it is nearly impossible to do your job as well as the other 2 healers that for the most part work and have their roles (merc is the top tank healer atm, sorc has the best aoe, the best utility, and very good single target healing)

the whole concept of "but operatives have unlimited healing" is flawed by the simple fact that ALL 3 healers have unlimited healing. the whole point of "mobile healing" is flawed cause your instant heals cannot, on any situation, keep a tank alive through a boss.

now, to look at those 3/5 spells that are broken. imo, a few tweaks could fix a lot of the problems we have with healing:

problem 1: Kolto infusion/DS

kolto infusion is out best hps spell, by ~25% better than the next one (with my stats at least). It's downside is that it costs both a TA and energy, as well as having a cast time.

the simple fact that it costs a TA, and in no way refunds this TA, means that it is not spammable, thats ok, it is not meant to be. Imo, this spell is our "emergency heal" it is our way to counter spike damage.

but 20energy cost+TA actually means: 25energy for kolto injection+20energy for kolto infusion. With the FORCED alacrity through our gear (i will talk about that later) this circle takes 3 secs (1.7+1.3), in which we regen 18energy if we have already stim running.

simply doing the math, one can see that it is impossible to do more than 1 kolto infusion without dropping our energy regen.

because burn and spike phases are NOT 1 hit in this game, but somewhat sustained (~8-10sec), it means that we need to do about 2 circles in order to stabilize the tank. That means we are already on low energy and our only way to regen energy are a)DS or b)adrenaline rush

adrenaline rush has a 2min cd so it is out of the question

ds now...

ds meaans that we actually do close to 0 healing (with my stats again it is close to 280hps which is nothing) to gain ~ 1.5energy/sec more regen. given that we are already low on regen, this is not sustained.

this means that if we heal the tank though a spike phase, then the tank will be on the red again cause now we wont be healing him for 6sec+ in order to regen energy.

the solution imo:

a)change the talent that gives energy on DS crits to 5/10 from 1/2

b)make kolto infusion refresh the hot stacks on the target

again using my numbers i found out that if i do a kolto injection->surgical probe rotation, disregarding all other accounts (such as hots) i have a semi-sustained hps of ~1600 (losing 1.8energy/sec, which if you include hot refresh means 1 DS /16-18sec, which is close to what i do in real game)

if the talent that gives energy on ds crits changes to 5/10, and i change the sustain circle to injection->infusion->injection->infusion->ds (losing 2.2energy/sec on average) then ... my sustain would once again be ~1600.

so the only + of this change would be that we would be able to adjust our healing rate from steady to bursty then low then bursty then low and etc. Depending on the boss, this is neccessary and doesn't break our sustain healing.

the second change is because infusion needs SOMETHING to justify it's extremely high cost.

problem 2:nanotech

nanotech atm is the worst aoe heal of the game. it is expensive, has 4 targets max, heals for ~1/2 of what the sorc aoe heal does AND requires 50% more time to do so. but it follow the targets instead of being static.

seriously, for a 31point talent, it is pathetic.

imo it requires either of those changes:

"also shields the targets hit for equal amount to the heal" OR 30% to proc TA /tick with 6sec icd SEPERATE than the hot icd, or "able to stack up to 2, no cd"

the first change will make it more of a pro-active heal. In phases you know the party is going to receive some damage you could use it to prevent a tiny amount of that, or in phases where there is continuous aoe damage shielding a portion of that. It's hps will be close to the sorc one, but it will still require much more time to be full effective, will only hit 4 players, but will follow them instead of being static on the ground.

the second change would make it more like a utility spell for aoe healing, since the extra TA/6sec will mean ~2 TA /6sec which would be used for surgical probes for spot healing

the third change would be much more energy intensive, but would offer equal hps to the sorc healing in excange for empting your energy pool.

lastly, another thing is our aparent complete lack of healing CDs. changing med shield from "healing received" to "healing dealt" would give us one

tl;dr:

make patient studies restore 5/10energy /crit up from 1/2

make infusion refresh hot duration

buff recuperative nanotech

change med shield from healing received to healing done

Amen to that. It would be nice to have one of the devs to actually talk to us, so we can actually know if changes are comming or they are just going to leave it the way it is.

Devs were really talkative prior to lauch, I was really impressed, now it's black hole.

what!!!?? you don't think your 31 point talent HOT DOT that heals for 200 a tick is OP???

someone nerf this guy

Amen to that. It would be nice to have one of the devs to actually talk to us, so we can actually know if changes are comming or they are just going to leave it the way it is.

 

Devs were really talkative prior to lauch, I was really impressed, now it's black hole.

Yeah i dont really like the lack of communication

Its not like i want them to tell me who and what is getting nerfed/buffed two months before the actual notes, but at least "we are working on the disparity between healers" would be appreciated instead of... well, silence

what!!!?? you don't think your 31 point talent HOT DOT that heals for 200 a tick is OP???

 

someone nerf this guy

As opposed to the Sage/Sorcerer one that can heal any number of people in the radius for more health ? Erm no i dont think it is.

Ok Smuggler healer rather than Operative but other than the AoE I dont have that many issues.

Though I find it interesting OP that your 1.5 does so much more than your main heal when mine doesnt seem to do more to that degree, to the point that I found it not worth using and I would just use the Upperhand staks for the instant cast and power regens.

I'd just like to chime in here to say that it would also be nice if some of our talents functioned the way they were supposed to.

Evasive Imperative - Does this work at all? I'm fairly certain that it doesn't.

Medical Therapy - I've seen recent posts on the IA forums where people have tested this and confirmed that this doesn't work either.

I agree ops healers need help. Although I'm a still low level I think one of the core problems is that diagnostic scan is outright pathetic. It's healing is so pathetic like -80% of a injection over a longer period of time. Whenever I use it in pvp to allow my energy to regen it is close to a death sentence due to it's lackluster effects. Even the talents for it can't save it and are a complete waste of investment. I understand it's mainly there to allow you too regenerate energy, but it needs to actually do something as your wasting 3 secs to use it.

It needs to at the least get a heal increase to 50%-75% of injection. Other possible inprovements would be to make it a cone based hot to add some more AoE healing

or have it apply a short duration damage reduction buff.

Also like to note that our cleanse is broken as well: it will only remove certain dots, it seems to be really selective. For example, sever tendon can be removed which is an agent ability yet exact same debuff from another class cannot. Evasion is much the same, it usually removes everything but not all. Stuff like tracer missle stacks and such which is hit or miss.

Thing is Op, while some your ideas seem good...they would have to start fixing all our broken talents first. As if.

Here's another weird one:

Sedatives - When you have this talented, it causes mobs to aggro after your CC wears off.....but only if you let it wear off naturally. I had to figure this one out the hard way. It was painful.

Also, has anyone ever used Cloaking Screen.....only to have your companion keep you in combat and pull threat again, even when you are far, far away from the mobs you were trying to avoid......but only after you break stealth again? This happens a LOT.

Also, has anyone ever used Cloaking Screen.....only to have your companion keep you in combat and pull threat again, even when you are far, far away from the mobs you were trying to avoid......but only after you break stealth again? This happens a LOT.

Any sort of debuff on companion will do this without fail.

Here's another weird one:

 

Sedatives - When you have this talented, it causes mobs to aggro after your CC wears off.....but only if you let it wear off naturally. I had to figure this one out the hard way. It was painful.

 

 

 

Also, has anyone ever used Cloaking Screen.....only to have your companion keep you in combat and pull threat again, even when you are far, far away from the mobs you were trying to avoid......but only after you break stealth again? This happens a LOT.

Well yes it will do because on expire it applies a debuff, debuffs aggro, thats correct.

And yes any debuff on your companion will reveal you, if I can i dismiss then stealth.

Well yes it will do because on expire it applies a debuff, debuffs aggro, thats correct.

Yes, I understand this (I actually thought it was fairly obvious)....But it still seems wrong to me that it should do this. The inconvenience and annoyance it causes make this talent point considerably less valuable.

 

And yes any debuff on your companion will reveal you, if I can i dismiss then stealth.

Even if you remain stealthed for a long, long time -- long enough for any debuffs to expire -- this will occur. I'm not talking about dots breaking stealth here. It's wonky and should be looked at. It's not hard to work around it, but it's annoying, nonetheless.

Yes, I understand this (I actually thought it was fairly obvious)....But it still seems wrong to me that it should do this. The inconvenience and annoyance it causes make this talent point considerably less valuable.

 

 

 

Even if you remain stealthed for a long, long time -- long enough for any debuffs to expire -- this will occur. I'm not talking about dots breaking stealth here. It's wonky and should be looked at. It's not hard to work around it, but it's annoying, nonetheless.

hmm never had that, if if they havent been spotted soon after stealthing they havent been spotted at all.

hmm never had that, if if they havent been spotted soon after stealthing they havent been spotted at all.

It's not really a matter of the enemy aggroing us while we are stealthed.

What happens is this:

After vanishing, you remain in combat (you can still see the red dots on the map), but the enemy doesn't attack, and neither does your companion. If you decide to break stealth, the companion runs back to the enemy to beat them up.

I have tested it to see if I can walk a good distance away -- well out of range of the enemy, but the behavior remains the same. Once you drop stealth, the enemy starts running after you, and the companion runs to engage the enemy. Though I suppose if I went really, really far away, combat would eventually drop. It's annoying because it makes it so that you can't mount up and be on your way. You pretty much have to kill the mob to drop combat.

As opposed to the Sage/Sorcerer one that can heal any number of people in the radius for more health ? Erm no i dont think it is.

 

Ok Smuggler healer rather than Operative but other than the AoE I dont have that many issues.

 

Though I find it interesting OP that your 1.5 does so much more than your main heal when mine doesnt seem to do more to that degree, to the point that I found it not worth using and I would just use the Upperhand staks for the instant cast and power regens.

don't forget, sorc's aoe heal is broken cuz it doesn't give initial heal

don't forget, sorc's aoe heal is broken cuz it doesn't give initial heal

My observation with the sorcerer aoe heal is that the first tick is instant unlike usual hot's which are apply wait tick.

bump for justice

also about some of the issues mentioned:

the sedative talent imo is not thought out well.

it applies a 50%debuff to damage when the mez wears out, some would think "wow this is huge!".

in actual content what happens is this:

you can only mez simple elites, most mobs in operations are un-mezzable (imo ONLY bosses should get immunity, not 90%of the "boss" mobs that are in trash pulls.).

now lets say that there is a hard pull, say a pull with 5-6mobs that some of them are mezzable (very few trash pulls like those exist but whatever), now yo mez 2 targets with another person and the tank initiates on the non-mezzed ones, after the rest of the mobs are dead you start hitting the mezzed ones.

because you can only mez the easiest targets, and because now you have a whole operation hitting a single mob, and the tank only tanks a single mob,... the debuff is unessasary to say the least, the mob will die to 3-5sec either way.

what i would like to see in this talent would be a severe nerf on the actual percentage, say from 25/50% drop it to 5/10%, BUT allow the debuff to stick to unmezzable targets, targets already in-combat, and be used while not stealthed.

this would change the spell from being an out of combat mez that you can only use when you solo to an actual helpful HM/operation tool. this would give us some much needed utility.

about the cloaking screen: just let your companion die or cleanse his debuffs before you vanish. what happens i think is that when the companion gets damaged/debuffed/whatever he gets aggro (like a mob) from the mob. so even if YOU vanish, and the aggro resets, 0.0001 sec later he will regain aggro because he still has a debuff on him.

also yes, fixing medical therapy which DOES NOT WORK AT ALL would alleviate a tiny amount of our problems, but only a tiny bit. 10%more healing through our hots would be nice, but currently it is not our steady hps that is in desperate need of buffing, but our energy managment when we try to burst heal through spike damage. hots may keep a tank or a dps alive through some random damage, but in no way, 700-1100/3sec does anything worthwhile in a spike phase.

edit:

about our gear now.

it seems from the end game pve/pvp healer armors we are intended to use crit/alacrity.

i get the crit, we get some "surge" bonus from talents, we get energy through DS crits, etc.

the alacrity though is in serious need of change (as a stat, not as a choice imo)

i would usually try to stack crit/surge till the soft cap (i think ~40%crit and 80%crit damage correct me if i am wrong) and the rest to power which has no diminishing returns.

this is getting a hell of a lot costly though since i need two sets of armor to get the mods/enhancements to do so.

so i stacked the alacrity and did some tests.

alacrity WITH the pve tier 4 set is indeed nice. but the problem still remains and surge give us more return, simply because crit/surge benefits 100%of our healing spells while crit/alacrity is marginally better for only some spells and does 0 to MOST of our spells.

a SIMPLE fix for us would be to allow alacrity to lessen the time interval between hot ticks like it does with the channeled spells.

I can agree with the OP alittle bit that the healing tree for Ops needs a buff, but we have the best mobility healing. One thing to note is that we are not the HoT healing class like a druid is in WoW. Yes we have HoTs, but they arent ment to keep the tank alive, its the counter to the shield of a sorc and the health proc of a merc. One thing to also consider is that we have a heal that is instant cast and cost us no energy and heals for a good amount, only thing it requires is a TA to be used.

Now before you say anything about the sorc shield and the merc Kolto Shell being better then our hots, yes they are better if you look at just numbers of each tick/abosrb amount.

So lets look at the actual numbers of these skills. Kolto probe lasts on the target for 18 seconds and heals ruffly every 2 seconds, depending on gear, can tick for up to 600 (non-crit) and can be placed on multiple people. were as the sorc's shield only absorbs about 4k damage also putting a debuff on the target making him unshield able for 15 seconds, and the merc's Kolto Shell heals for about 1-1.5k every 3 seconds and can only be placed on 1 target at a time.

So within a 5 minute fight Kolto probe can, heal one target for ~90k, can be placed one the entire raid. Merc's Kolto shield can heal just one and only one target for about ~100k if being attacked for the entire fight. Sorc's shield can absorb ~80k damage on a single target if you apply it every time its available.

With the way our heals work together we can be just as effective as a merc and sorc healer. just always keep those HoTs up, only use the aoe heal when it will effect 3 or more targets, never use kolto infusion cause the heal per energy cost is just too much, and it requires a TA which could be used for a surgical probe that will heal just as much as kolto infusion and not cost us any energy.

Besides who doesn't like to have a healer that laughs while he/she heals. that alone puts a smile on my face everytime. most of my guildies couldnt figure out why they kept hearing someone laugh while fighting a raid boss

I agree we need a little help. Especially Recuperative Nanotech needs a boost. With the 2p PVP set bonus it's on the very low end of okayish and that sucks for the 31 point talent.

If Kolto Infusion is supposed to be used by mainspec healers the TA requirement needs to go or the energy cost reduced by 50%.

If we could cast our shield on other players that would be nifty too.

Otherwise i like our mechanics and the way we work alot.

I can agree with the OP alittle bit that the healing tree for Ops needs a buff, but we have the best mobility healing. One thing to note is that we are not the HoT healing class like a druid is in WoW. Yes we have HoTs, but they arent ment to keep the tank alive, its the counter to the shield of a sorc and the health proc of a merc. One thing to also consider is that we have a heal that is instant cast and cost us no energy and heals for a good amount, only thing it requires is a TA to be used.

 

Now before you say anything about the sorc shield and the merc Kolto Shell being better then our hots, yes they are better if you look at just numbers of each tick/abosrb amount.

 

So lets look at the actual numbers of these skills. Kolto probe lasts on the target for 18 seconds and heals ruffly every 2 seconds, depending on gear, can tick for up to 600 (non-crit) and can be placed on multiple people. were as the sorc's shield only absorbs about 4k damage also putting a debuff on the target making him unshield able for 15 seconds, and the merc's Kolto Shell heals for about 1-1.5k every 3 seconds and can only be placed on 1 target at a time.

 

So within a 5 minute fight Kolto probe can, heal one target for ~90k, can be placed one the entire raid. Merc's Kolto shield can heal just one and only one target for about ~100k if being attacked for the entire fight. Sorc's shield can absorb ~80k damage on a single target if you apply it every time its available.

 

With the way our heals work together we can be just as effective as a merc and sorc healer. just always keep those HoTs up, only use the aoe heal when it will effect 3 or more targets, never use kolto infusion cause the heal per energy cost is just too much, and it requires a TA which could be used for a surgical probe that will heal just as much as kolto infusion and not cost us any energy.

 

Besides who doesn't like to have a healer that laughs while he/she heals. that alone puts a smile on my face everytime. most of my guildies couldnt figure out why they kept hearing someone laugh while fighting a raid boss

stop trolling pls if you haven't played operations.

first of all:

you cant hot a whole operation, you dont have enough energy.

second of all, you can hot 4 people, use a DS and ~2 SP if you want to keep "lots of hots up", this would also be your entire rotation.

secondly: SP "good healing" ? really? lets see why we are NOT mobile healers:

i)you can put you hot while on the run. check!

ii)you can WAIT ~9 secs for a TA proc and use a sp for ~1300-2200(crit) healing on the move. check!

iii)the tank just died. check!

we need to STAND STILL ~60% of the time in order to use the ki->sp rotation (2/3.5secs) or else tank dies.

about the "good healing" of sp: it heals for ~1300non crit and 2300on crits. GCD is 1.5sec. your main healing spell needs ~1.7secs and heals for 2.6non crit 5500on crits.

infusion heals for ~2200non-crit and 4600on crit with 1.3casting time

the hps of the 3 healer's main healing spells is the same, so that means that sp heals for ~50% LESS.

so, if you have played operations you would know that SP is ONLY for steady, low damage phases, or when you need to regen some energy, or when a dps goes below 30% cause then it costs nothing.

in all serious SPIKE phases, using it causes your tank to die/get really low.

now, lets see this "shield" you say. it is a ~3.4k shield that can be put on the same target once /17sec but can be spammed to all the operation if you expect raid wide damage.

so you can put, with 35energy, a shield that absorbs about the same as a double stacked hot would have healed in the same duration (you can refresh shield every 17secs, you refresh hots every 17-18secs).

counting double consumption for sorcs they have ~16regen/sec. counting stim for operatives they have 6 energy/sec. shield costs 35/600, hot costs 15/100 (out of 40really but whatever).

so net loss of energy/gcd for sorc is 11/600 and for operative 6/40. do the math to see who can sustain this longer before running OOE.

edit: also the hot doesn't tick every 2 sec, it ticks every 3 secs. the only hot-like spell that doesn't follow this rule is sorcs aoe that ticks every second.

stop trolling pls if you haven't played operations.

 

first of all:

you cant hot a whole operation, you dont have enough energy.

second of all, you can hot 4 people, use a DS and ~2 SP if you want to keep "lots of hots up", this would also be your entire rotation.

 

secondly: SP "good healing" ? really? lets see why we are NOT mobile healers:

i)you can put you hot while on the run. check!

ii)you can WAIT ~9 secs for a TA proc and use a sp for ~1300-2200(crit) healing on the move. check!

iii)the tank just died. check!

 

we need to STAND STILL ~60% of the time in order to use the ki->sp rotation (2/3.5secs) or else tank dies.

 

about the "good healing" of sp: it heals for ~1300non crit and 2300on crits. GCD is 1.5sec. your main healing spell needs ~1.7secs and heals for 2.6non crit 5500on crits.

infusion heals for ~2200non-crit and 4600on crit with 1.3casting time

 

the hps of the 3 healer's main healing spells is the same, so that means that sp heals for ~50% LESS.

 

so, if you have played operations you would know that SP is ONLY for steady, low damage phases, or when you need to regen some energy, or when a dps goes below 30% cause then it costs nothing.

 

in all serious SPIKE phases, using it causes your tank to die/get really low.

 

now, lets see this "shield" you say. it is a ~3.4k shield that can be put on the same target once /17sec but can be spammed to all the operation if you expect raid wide damage.

 

so you can put, with 35energy, a shield that absorbs about the same as a double stacked hot would have healed in the same duration (you can refresh shield every 17secs, you refresh hots every 17-18secs).

 

counting double consumption for sorcs they have ~16regen/sec. counting stim for operatives they have 6 energy/sec. shield costs 35/600, hot costs 15/100 (out of 40really but whatever).

 

so net loss of energy/gcd for sorc is 11/600 and for operative 6/40. do the math to see who can sustain this longer before running OOE.

 

edit: also the hot doesn't tick every 2 sec, it ticks every 3 secs. the only hot-like spell that doesn't follow this rule is sorcs aoe that ticks every second.

I have cleared 9/10 nm bosses as an op healer, and as far as i can tell you are correct!

I love op healing but it needs to be fixed!