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Seer PVE Healing Guide (1.3)


Aurojiin

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Note: This guide is largely a repost from Onager’s original Seer healing guide for 1.2, with some minor updates on the Conveyance bugfix in 1.3, Force Mend in 1.4, an expanded discussion of gearing, and a few of my opinions thrown in. At this point in time Onager is MIA, so I’ve taken the liberty of keeping his work up-to-date. The majority of credit for the content herein is owed to him; I’m simply trying to keep his work alive for the community.

 

Purpose:

At this point in time, it is probably fair to assume that everyone playing a Seer prior to 1.2 has now adapted to the nerfs, one way or the other. Consequently this guide is simply a discussion of what I believe to be the best approach to gearing and healing with a Seer as they currently stand.

 

 

Street Cred:

I’m 5/5 in TFB HM / 3/4 in NiM EC, which is honestly all I think needs to be said on the subject. I’ve seen and completed (nearly) all the content in the game, so I’m not offering advice on anything I haven’t done. You can (and should) take everything with a grain of salt and put the advice herein to the test.

 

 

Guide starts here:

In the words of Onager: We are a dual-resource healer. Playing a Seer well revolves around understanding the relative efficacy and efficiency of your abilities, knowing the encounters, and realising that your health is a resource that you need to be flexible with.

 

The Build:

 

32/7/2

 

Since the addition of Force Mend in 1.4, Valiance is absolutely better than Pain Bearer, so I consider the PVE Seer build to be standardised.

 

Priority Flowchart for Seer Healing:

 

  1. Before the fight, Force Armor everyone and Meditate.
  2. Are you unfortunately in the interrupt rotation? If so, Mind Snap as necessary, reserving the right to make known your protests for having been reduced to doing so. Otherwise;
  3. Does the fight have a stacking cleansable debuff mechanic? If so, Restoration. Otherwise;
  4. Does tank have Force Imbalanced debuff? If no, Force Armor. Otherwise;
  5. Does tank have Force Shelter? If not, Rejuvenate. Otherwise;
  6. Do you have Resplendence? Within reason, Noble Sacrifice (if you have 20% health left and you’re in an unavoidable raid-wide damage phase, don’t; but from here on out, I’ll leave the application of common sense to you). Is your force pool dipping (<75%)? Noble Sacrifice with or without Resplendence.
  7. AoE Damage of any kind affecting 2 or more players, OR have you used Noble Sacrifice twice? (Rejuvenate >) Salvation, placed where you can benefit from it as well. If you've freshly placed Rejuvenate on the tank and you need Conveyance, hit yourself, an offtank, or one of the melees who routinely take damage with it just for the proc.
  8. Someone need healing? Triage time!
    • Green (Minor)
      : Tank? Wait for yellow. You or a DPS? You and they should stand in Salvation to heal/pewpew. Heroes before Herps.™ I strongly advise going wherever your Salvation needs to be and stand in it. If damage is somewhat continual, Rejuvenate.

    • Yellow (Moderate)
      : (Force Armor > Rejuvenate >) Healing Trance. Alternatively, Force Mend if you're the target in question. Refer to no. 6 above for general Resplendence guidelines. Deliverance filler as necessary. Be conservative with your use of Force Armor, however; while reasonably efficient, you can burn through force at a disturbing rate, and they represent wasted healing if your target does not continue to take damage. If in doubt, save them for condition red.

    • Red (Severe)
      : If the burst healing phase is predictable (e.g. Foreman Crusher), have Salvation down on the tank first. Pop an on-use relic if you have one. Force Armor before the relic if it's Crit/Surge or Alacrity, after if it's Power. Force Potency > Deliverance x2 (or x1 and Force Mend if your own health is low) > Rejuvenate > Healing Trance. Wait till you're back to Yellow to spend Resplendence, unless you're about to cast another Conveyed Healing Trance or Resplendence will fall off without being spent.

[*]Does the fight have some kind of hard-to-avoid AE mechanic or one where the boss targets people at random? Force Armor whenever Force Imbalanced falls off.

 

Force Management: Rather than reinventing the wheel, I will simply point you towards XtremJedi’s excellent Sage/Sorc PVE Force Regain thread. TL;DR? Then you probably didn’t make it this far. Ignoring the inherent contradiction, however: Noble Sacrifice twice for each Salvation you stand in; virtually any other approach is usually inferior to idling. Some additional tips:

  • Triage section above applies to you, too, for damage not originating from Noble Sacrifice.
  • You're not alone. You don't have to bear the burden of your resource mechanic by yourself, especially if your other healer hero homey is doing fine on his resource or has a free heal to toss your direction, it significantly eases your usage of Noble Sacrifice.
  • Since 1.4, you now have Force Mend. While Salvation is still your primary health regen source, this ability offers an alternative for encounters where Salvation is not practical.
  • Noble Sacrifice is always a net gain in force, although triple and quad stacking of the Noble Sacrifice debuff puts you in a position where Noble Sacrifice itself becomes your regen and you better have some beefy healing income to compensate. This is more practical in 16-player content than it is in the rest, however, and great caution needs to be observed in its application. Certain encounters may offer excellent opportunities for this approach, such as stacking on the Pulsar Droids when fighting Warlord Kephess.

 

Some notes on Seer abilities: Whatever the specifics of your approach to Seer healing and resource management, there should always be one core element: the use of Rejuvenate on cooldown (on the tank for at least every second cast, in order to grant Force Shelter). Conveyance is vitally important, and you want to minimise the number of abilities cast without it, because all of your primary healing tools are greatly improved by it.

 

In terms of your main heals, Salvation is the strongest ability Seers have, for better or for worse. Use it and abuse it. It is HPF efficient for two targets, and becomes our strongest ability in terms of HPS done when applied to three targets or more. Prior to 1.3, a bug existed whereby Healing Trance would not consume Conveyance, allowing you to apply the benefit to two abilities; however, this has since been corrected. Therefore, (Rejuvenate >) Salvation is now your definitive priority. In practice you should probably be casting Salvation on cooldown more often than not (certainly in any situation where you can stand in it, since it is our best tool for healing the damage from Noble Sacrifice).

 

In the time between Salvation casts, Healing Trance is our bread-and-butter single-target heal. With or without Conveyance it is our best HPF ability, and exceeds the HPS of essentially everything bar Force Armor and Salvation on 3+ targets. Thus, after Salvation, (Rejuvenate >) Healing Trance is your next priority, and your go-to combination for anyone taking significant damage.

 

Deliverance is your primary filler. You are essentially limited by the 6.5s (with 2-piece PVE set bonus) cooldown of Healing Trance, so in between Conveyed Healing Trances/Salvations, use Deliverance if additional healing is required. Despite the quicker cast, do not bother with Benevolence; simply put, the ability is close to useless without Conveyance (it is effectively our worst skill by both output and efficiency), and Conveyance is better spent on Healing Trance. Essentially the only time you should use Benevolence is when a target is close to death, Force-imbalanced, and taking trickle damage that will kill it before Deliverance hits. An evaluation of how often this situation actually occurs I shall leave to the interested reader. As a final note, whenever you use Force Potency, your sole priority for spending the charges should be Deliverance. With one exception...

 

Force Mend. Everything I said earlier was a lie, in some respects: this is your (in fact, the) strongest single-target heal in terms of HPS, HPCT, and HPF. It blows everything else in the game out of the water. Unfortunately, its status as a self-heal only with a 30s cooldown is a bit of a killjoy. In practice, you have two primary ways to use it, and these depend on the nature of the fight. If you can manage your force regen by standing in your own Salvation, then save Force Mend as an emergency self-heal for when you've taken a large hit. If the fights mechanics are such that you have to cast a Salvation you can't stand in, or you can't get anyone else with it, then Force Mend should be your primary method for covering the damage from Noble Sacrifice. Wait until you've tapped enough to avoid excessive overhealing, and consider using Force Potency if it's available and someone else can use a guaranteed crit Deliverance.

 

The best usage of Force Armor is basically covered in the flowchart above; I will simply note that it is the only 'heal' that can be applied to a full-health target without overhealing, and the only heal that can be applied to a target with 1% health remaining yet end up overhealing. Use it accordingly. That being said, I would advocate its use more often than pre-1.3, since one cannot abuse the Conveyance bug to include Conveyed Deliverances regularly (in the absence of Conveyance, Force Armor is more efficient than Deliverance). Nevertheless, given the preceding cautions and the Force Imbalanced lockout debuff, exercise judgment.

 

Finally, remember that maximum healing is achieved based on HPCT (Healing Per Cast Time). While the healing done by a skill like Rejuvenate may seem relatively insignificant, when totalled and weighed against the instant (1.5 second) cast time, it actually does more healing than Healing Trance for each second spent casting (Healing Trance will, obviously, do much more healing in absolute terms). This is the justification for the recommended approach to predictable burst damage phases like Foreman Crusher: applying Rejuvenate and dropping Salvation under a target then launching into your single-target heals will provide much higher HPS than could otherwise be achieved.

 

Overhealing:

 

(Note: all figures in this section are untouched from Onager’s original post; you can expect to see higher numbers on current BiS gearing, but the principles certainly hold.) This is the concept of wasting resources healing someone for more health than they needed. For all the comments I make in this guide about us being a dual resource healer and how to properly manage Force, if you're overhealing a lot on your single target heals, all this talk of force economy is basically for naught. You eventually develop a feel for how much you can heal for with a given heal.

 

If you don't trust your feelings on that, a simple equation is to find out what actual increase to your base healing comes from your crit/surge by taking your surge multi and dividing it by 100, then multiply that by your raid buffed crit chance. That number is the actual average amount your heals are increased by your crit/surge combined. In my case, my Surge multiplier is 77%, and my crit chance raid buffed and stimmed is 40%. [77/100]*40=30.8, so my crit/surge combined multiply the noncrit base healing of my heals by 1.308 on average. If you're calculating Benevolence or Healing Trance under Conveyance or Deliverance under Force Potency, make sure to take their increased crit chances into account during these calculations.

 

You then multiply your noncrit base healing amount by that number to find the rough estimate of how much you can expect that heal to be good for on average to avoid overhealing. For example, my Healing Trance buffed but not stimmed heals for 938 a tick, or 4908 average across four ticks after being multiplied by 1.308, without Conveyance. With Conveyance it heals for 5630 average across all four ticks. So if I was going to Trance someone with Conveyance, I'd optimally wait until they were about 6k health down before doing it to avoid overhealing. Even with lucky crits the chance of overhealing him and how much I do overheal is much lower than if I just launched into Trance at the sight of a dropping bar.

 

Gearing: Most of your equipment at endgame that's designed for healers specifically (Including set gear) is going to have a lot of power/alacrity enhancements. In order to achieve (more) ideal gear, you will need to mix and match armourings, mods, and enhancements; at present, your primary source for these will be items from the Black Hole gear vendor.

 

In terms of set bonuses, the 2-piece should be considered compulsory (a reduction on the cooldown of our bread-and-butter ability is invaluable), while the 4-piece is optional. The extra 50 force points provides a small buffer, and also makes Noble Sacrifice regain slightly more force (since it returns a fixed percentage of your force pool), but if you manage your resources effectively you should have no issues without it. You can acquire the set bonuses two ways: by wearing tier 1 gear (Tionese/Columi/Rakata), or by using Campaign armourings (which have the set bonuses attached to them). It is important to note that two of the Campaign armourings are not BiS: namely, the head and chest ones, since they are both Force Wielder armourings (Endurance>Willpower) rather than Resolve (Willpower>Endurance). To achieve true BiS, while retaining cosmetic flexibility, you will need to use one tier 1 shell (presumably the head slot, since it can be hidden) and the armourings from the Black Hole Force-lord chest and headpiece.

 

Since 1.3, all fourteen pieces of gear can now be augmented. Always use Resolve augments. On a 1:1 basis, Willpower is your dominant stat, given that you will hit diminishing returns on Critical Rating, Surge, and Alacrity with your mods and enhancements. A common myth is that Power is better than Willpower due to the slightly higher bonus healing (0.17 vs 0.1554 after the Consular buff and Will of the Jedi in your spec tree). Willpower, however, contributes to critical chance, and it is here that the misconception arises: you may hear statements to the effect of “well, my crit chance is so high that diminishing returns means more crit is useless”. In actuality, crit chance contribution from Willpower is on a separate curve from that of Critical Rating. Point for point, Willpower contributes much less to critical chance than Critical Rating, but also has an extremely low rate of diminishing returns, relatively speaking. Unless you can gear for 6,000 or more Willpower, the effect of the added critical chance will outweigh the impact of Power's higher bonus healing.

 

Aside from augments, gearing a Seer is a tug of war in two separate categories: Power vs Critical Rating, and Surge vs Alacrity. The ‘ideal’ amounts of each are not as clear cut for healers as they are for DPS Sages. It is important to understand that healing is not DPSing. Your goal is not to maximise your healing output, but rather to effectively meet the healing demands of an encounter, and the burden can vary dramatically at different stages. Surge will make your crits hit harder, while Alacrity lets you respond to spike damage slightly faster. Diminishing returns, of course, limits how much of either you want to stack. Simply put, if you find yourself taking a more rotational approach to healing with sustained casting, favour Alacrity over Surge; if you take a slower and more considered approach, then vice versa. I personally run equal Surge and Alacrity. YMMV.

 

For Power and Crit, there are two primary options (imho). Mathematically speaking, about 205 Critical Rating is optimal, with the rest stacked as Power. Personally, I choose to stack Critical Rating higher until I reach a total unbuffed critical chance of 35%; combined with Lucky Shots and Force Potency, I can guarantee immediate crits on Deliverance in emergencies, which I feel plays to the situational needs of healing.

 

For relics, two War Hero Relics of Boundless Ages are BiS. You may run a Campaign Relic of Boundless Ages for more burst flexibility (which plays to the argument for the situational needs of healing), although I am less in favour of them since the burst nerfing in 1.3. If you do not wish to PVP, however, the Campaign relic in conjunction with a Matrix Cube is probably your best option. Mending Relics are crappy, and I have nothing more to say about that :p

 

A parting note: never use lettered (i.e. 26A or 26B) mods. You give up too much of the secondary stat (Power or Critical Rating) for the Willpower you gain.

 

 

Changelog:

  • 4/23/12 Found a discrepancy in my Triage priority thanks to Aurojiin.
  • 4/24/12 Added notes/clarifications about the build (Aurojiin, Gruddy) and Consumption/Noble Sacrifice always being a net gain in force (Daellia). Added section on Campaign gear. Fixed some of my custom Englishin' on some *****.
  • 4/26/12 Finally caved on the Telekinetic Defense thing, including a low crit and a high crit build. Stopped being a moron about the wording on the Triage section, resulting in a significant amount of deep cleansing thereof.
  • 4/27/12 Dropped minimum number of damaged targets for Salvation/Revivification down to 2 instead of 3 due to finally getting around to working out the math on its HPF under Conveyance. (XtremJedi )
  • 4/29/12 Adding notes about Benevolence usage and overhealing. (schmidtyfi)
  • 7/7/12 Updated the guide from Onager’s last revision. (Aurojinn)
  • 7/11/12 Updated the Build section after feedback. (RickAdams, AngelFluttershy)

 

That's about it. Feel free to comment on and/or criticize my work, and if you point something out that can be blatantly improved upon, I will certainly be grateful.

Edited by Aurojiin
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Regarding the choice of relics, I understand that from an output point of view, the warhero relics would give better HPS over the other contestants. I am currently still running with the campaign boundless relic and matrix cube and am undecided if I should spend the time PVPing to get the PVP relics given that I don't really enjoy that aspect of the game.

 

My guild is currently running 3/4 HM EC 16m and we are still sorting out our strat for Kephess, but I find that I don't really have any issues with healing even without popping the campaign boundless relic. In fact, I frequently forget about using the relic because of how infrequent I have to resort to it when things go bad :o

 

My question is, how important really is the extra power from the PVP relics when there isn't much issue with maintenance healing, and when you really need that extra oomph for burst healing for when things go bad, would the 315 power from the clicky relic be better? When I do remember to use the clicky relic, I usually pop it when the bosses are entering soft enrage or when things go wrong and lots of people take big hits from sticky grenades/AoEs and what nots (I find that things tend to go downhill quickly when you have more people crowded together eating AoE effects in 16m.)

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think you need to fix that, (32/7/2) its not pointing to the right page.

Thanks for pointing that out. I could have sworn I fixed it, but there you go.

 

My question is, how important really is the extra power from the PVP relics when there isn't much issue with maintenance healing, and when you really need that extra oomph for burst healing for when things go bad, would the 315 power from the clicky relic be better? When I do remember to use the clicky relic, I usually pop it when the bosses are entering soft enrage or when things go wrong and lots of people take big hits from sticky grenades/AoEs and what nots (I find that things tend to go downhill quickly when you have more people crowded together eating AoE effects in 16m.)

You raise some good points, so let me see if I can offer a few thoughts.

 

First, the War Hero relic is definitively better than the Matrix Cube, so if you can stomach the PVPing it's an outright upgrade. That being said, you could wear a Rakata set from the vendor and heal everything in the game, so if you don't want to PVP there's no massively compelling reason to force yourself.

 

So yes, as it stands, irrespective of your second relic choice, you're not going to have any issues with maintenance healing. And when you do hit a phase when the healing demands spike, for 30 seconds the Campaign relic will effectively be much more useful than having the War Hero version. It's just a shame than 1.3 reduced the efficacy of the relic at filling this role; 405 Power for 20 seconds was that much nicer.

 

Still, my experience on Kephess is largely similar; I never used the Campaign relic nor my Rakata Adrenal after progression attempts. On that basis, the War Hero relic is the more attractive pick, because if you're not using the clickie you might as well take the passive boost and give yourself more headroom in general.

Edited by Aurojiin
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Good guide. Unfortunately, I've already given up hope on the Sage I had geared out. BW just nerfed it too badly. I don't feel like adapting. Good read though.

It's much more painful for those of us who played prior to 1.2 and enjoyed the godmode that was Sage/Sorc healing.

 

There's no question in my mind that the class needed nerfing (although in a perfect world the other healing classes would be been buffed and content made harder), but the stripping of our burst healing and the general reduction in choice and flexibility was very disappointing. Ultimately the class is less dynamic and engaging for the changes, imo.

 

Frankly, though, it's still definitively the best PVE healing class.

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If you're not going to adapt you won't last long in any MMO. Changes will happen and they will happen constantly. Every time there's a patch people are crying about nerfs but nerfs are never so bad that you can't adapt. When 1.2 came around people said they nerfs were so bad that the class was unplayeable (this was before they changes even went live mind you). But look at the class now, people are still saying the class is the best healing class, even with the "unplayable" nerfs.

 

I also want to comment on the build above and not going 3/3 in penetrating light or taking this point from Pain Bearer. I take the point from Valiance. My feeling is that the damage from Noble Sacrifice is something you regulate and plan for. You know when you can safely do this and heal up the damage (usually standing in salvation). I don't usually have a problem healing to full after a NS. With Pain Bearer, this helps in emergencies when I'm all of a sudden in threat of dying. The extra healing is essential just to keep myself alive. I just feel that the extra 1% crit chance is worth more than saving some health loss from NS when you almost never have any issues healing this damage anyway.

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You raise some good points, so let me see if I can offer a few thoughts.

 

First, the War Hero relic is definitively better than the Matrix Cube, so if you can stomach the PVPing it's an outright upgrade. That being said, you could wear a Rakata set from the vendor and heal everything in the game, so if you don't want to PVP there's no massively compelling reason to force yourself.

 

So yes, as it stands, irrespective of your second relic choice, you're not going to have any issues with maintenance healing. And when you do hit a phase when the healing demands spike, for 30 seconds the Campaign relic will effectively be much more useful than having the War Hero version. It's just a shame than 1.3 reduced the efficacy of the relic at filling this role; 405 Power for 20 seconds was that much nicer.

 

Still, my experience on Kephess is largely similar; I never used the Campaign relic nor my Rakata Adrenal after progression attempts. On that basis, the War Hero relic is the more attractive pick, because if you're not using the clickie you might as well take the passive boost and give yourself more headroom in general.

 

This makes sense. Given that once you have gone pass the learning phase, there probably isn't going to be much use of the clickie relic since most of the damage would be rather predictable and you can plan ahead for them. I'll probably keep the clickie relic while we're still progressing through HM Kephess, and once we get that down, change to one of the PVP relics for the passive power boost.

 

I also want to comment on the build above and not going 3/3 in penetrating light or taking this point from Pain Bearer. I take the point from Valiance. My feeling is that the damage from Noble Sacrifice is something you regulate and plan for. You know when you can safely do this and heal up the damage (usually standing in salvation). I don't usually have a problem healing to full after a NS. With Pain Bearer, this helps in emergencies when I'm all of a sudden in threat of dying. The extra healing is essential just to keep myself alive. I just feel that the extra 1% crit chance is worth more than saving some health loss from NS when you almost never have any issues healing this damage anyway.

 

I agree with the point that usually when you use NS, you plan for it and healing back the damage is not an issue. I personally run with 2/2 Pain Bearer and 3/3 Penetrating Light with no points in Valiance and I don't have any issues. The decrease in health spent is kinda lack-lustre too at 2% per point, which amounts to 400hp if your max health is 20000 (the average amount you should be hitting in BH/campaign level gear).

 

Having said that, it still amounts to personal preference and I can understand wanting to take up Valiance to take smaller health hits so that you feel safer just in case you end up taking spike damage for whatever reasons.

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You can argue for the situational benefit of Pain Bearer or Valiance, imo. Pain Bearer is beneficial when you're taking damage from any source. Valiance gives you more leeway to utilise Noble Sacrifice when you're getting pressured by incoming damage, on the other hand.

 

Ultimately, at BiS gear levels you're going to have about 20k health, give or take. Each point in Valiance means 400 less damage taken for every NS. You'd have to take 10,000 in healing from other sources for every NS (20,000 if you drop two points) before Pain Bearer becomes more mathematically advantageous.

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Hey everyone, this is a very nice thread and I am liking the conversation between some of you on the specs. I have been a Sage/Seer since Early Access and am currently 4/4 HM EC 8 man and 4/4 SM EC 16 man. I just have a question or two about the original post and wanted to get some feedback from you all on some of my ideas and practice.

 

First, the "Priority Flowchart" seemed contradictory, or I'm just reading it wrong?

4. Does tank have Force Imbalanced debuff? If no, Force Armor. Otherwise;...

Green (Minor): Tank? Wait for yellow...

Yellow (Moderate): ...Be conservative with your use of Force Armor, however; while reasonably efficient...

It's instructing the healer to keep Force Armor on the tank at all times but then states to save it until the tank is in the "yellow" zone of healing. With 20 seconds of Force-imbalance I can't see Force Armor always making it into the rotation for the tank. Out of practice, I find it better to save Force Armor for when you know a heavy hit is coming for any player (like the Baradium Bomber's Rocket Launcher), or if a player drops to around 25%, this depending on the fight of course.

 

Second, step one of the flowchart I see Seers doing all the time, and honestly I don't think it is necessary.

1. Before the fight, Force Armor everyone and Meditate.

In most PvE encounters, Force Armor will wear off before most players even take any damage because of the time it takes for the encounter to even begin. The Sage first must buff everyone, Meditate, and then the tank must initiate the encounter. There are only a few fights where DPS and healers may be taking damage off the bat and even then it may not be for a few moments. Step one isn't bad practice for PvE, it just eats up time in my opinion. Force Armor the tanks and anyone you know that may initially pull lots of threat. Other than that I don't think everyone needs a safety bubble. Now for PvP it is definitely a great idea to armor everyone right before or after the doors open seeing as anyone and everyone may end up being targeted off the get-go.

 

The build of a spec is always in debate to the last point, but I have just been taking the point out of Valiance because I don't think the difference from Pain Bearer and Valiance is that significant. Pain Bearer is a live saver on fights where heavy AOEs or directed attacks are wailing on me (like Kephess). I can see where having 2/2 in Valiance can be more advantageous, but I generally don't have a difficult time maintaining over 75% Force with 85% health while even in the grit of my rotation. I just keep Rejuvenate on myself or stand in Salvation. I may try moving that point for the week and seeing where it goes, but in Ops, especially HM EC, you're going to be taking a lot of damage no matter what and having Pain Bearer on call has saved my buns quite a few times, and my Force Regen. Right now I crit for around 7.2k with Deliverance on myself and 6.75k on other players (with Consular + Knight buff but no stim) that don't have any increased healing received. That 8% difference saves me Force and time from dropping another heal on myself most occasions. No one is wrong where that last point goes because it will always be beneficial in one way or another, it just depends on what you do more and what the situation. To each their own. :)

 

Gearing, this is what I have been working a ton on recently and am still ironing out the fine details, so I have a lot of input here and even learn. Before I go on, just like this guide and what anyone says here, try to take everything here in bits. We all have our own ideas about healing and knows what works best for us personally, and what works for us may not work for you.

 

Onager, as said in his guide, has a personal preference of having a higher then average crit, around 35% unbuffed. I lean towards a heavier Power build with an unbuffed crit of 25%. Why so low of crit? Allow me to explain.

 

Lucky Shots, the Smuggler class buff, provides 5% crit automatically putting it up to 30%. Force Valor, the Consular buff, takes it up to 31%. Add just a Prototype Resolve stim (+104 Willpower) and fully buffed that's nearly 32% crit with already 1910 Willpower for my stats. Now that amount of crit may be on the low side for some of you but it seems to work out fairly well for me. I have a 73.64% Surge chance at the moment so when I do crit is well worth it. My bonus healing fully buffed is also 764.8 boosting my base heals by a seriously large amount making those crits all the sweeter. With enough power the versatility of Seer healing is endless because when you do need an "uh-oh" button you have Force Armor and Force Potency to throw that player back into the upper bracket of their health no sweat. I firmly believe that Seer healing is pivotal for Ops just because we are the most versatile healers and preform best when having to maintain large groups of players. Other healers shine with single-target healing or maybe four people at a time, but the Seer is the only one that can easily cover an entire 8-man Ops group no sweat. I feel that Power fills in as a better stat for maintaining the group than crit just because I don't need to rely on a chance of a critical to be effective. High crit, on the other hand, plays a huge role in single-target healing and an emergency heal, but as I said early, that's what Force Potency is for. I don't find myself using Force Potency often so it is nearly always ready to go in case a little burst healing is needed.

 

In the guide it said to stack Resolve augments no matter what. If you are favoring a crit build and already nearing or hitting diminishing returns (DR), then I would say go for it. Primary stats like Willpower, Strength, Aim, and Cunning don't start hitting "significant" DR until 2000, and even then the scale for DR is less than Surge and Crit. Personally, I use whatever augments compliment my gear make-up. At the moment I am using Overkill (Power) augments, but that may change soon in order to add a small amount of Alacrity so I can drop an Alacrity enhancement for some more Surge. As I said, I'm still itemizing my gear and will probably be at it for another week or so. Just to quell some worries, I am looking into boosting my crit a bit more, so I'm not that stubborn with my "unlimited power" build. :p

 

As for the four-piece being optional or not, it isn't vital, but why not get it? 50 extra Force is pretty darn nice and the only reason to sacrifice a four-piece bonus is to get the two-piece bonus from the other set. The two-piece for Force-Master's being 2 points reduced cost of Disturbance and Telekinetic Throw you're better off just getting the 50 extra force.

 

As I said before, sweet guide and I hope that Aurojiin is able to change and expand it in the future as patches alter Seer healing and new gear starts popping up.

Edited by AngelFluttershy
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You can argue for the situational benefit of Pain Bearer or Valiance, imo. Pain Bearer is beneficial when you're taking damage from any source. Valiance gives you more leeway to utilise Noble Sacrifice when you're getting pressured by incoming damage, on the other hand.

 

Ultimately, at BiS gear levels you're going to have about 20k health, give or take. Each point in Valiance means 400 less damage taken for every NS. You'd have to take 10,000 in healing from other sources for every NS (20,000 if you drop two points) before Pain Bearer becomes more mathematically advantageous.

 

To say that it is mathematically more advantageous is kind of misleading. Its a benefit that is hardly ever realized because standing in salvation will you heal you to full anyway. I mean I get it. If you're taking a lot of damage I can see it being useful when you still need to NS. But to me, pain bearer is not only useful when healing up NS damage but it's also useful for healing ANY damage you take. It's a small benefit either way. You basically weigh 4% more healing on yourself over taking 400 more damage that is going to get healed anyway at no cost to you (usually).

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First, the "Priority Flowchart" seemed contradictory, or I'm just reading it wrong?

 

It's instructing the healer to keep Force Armor on the tank at all times but then states to save it until the tank is in the "yellow" zone of healing. With 20 seconds of Force-imbalance I can't see Force Armor always making it into the rotation for the tank. Out of practice, I find it better to save Force Armor for when you know a heavy hit is coming for any player (like the Baradium Bomber's Rocket Launcher), or if a player drops to around 25%, this depending on the fight of course.

The tank is always taking damage, so having force armor up on the tank on CD is a good idea. Force armor is a very efficient heal. Rejuvenate is also a good idea for the armor buff as well as the heals which leads into healing trance with the increased crits. Now that being said, if you can outheal the damage with a rejuvenate and a healing trance then Force Armor isn't strictly necessary but it does help pause the incoming damage so you can top off the tank.

 

Second, step one of the flowchart I see Seers doing all the time, and honestly I don't think it is necessary.

 

I agree, all this does is usually make you start off with less than 100% force while 80% of the people you bubbled don't get any benefit from the bubble anyway (how often does everyone in the raid immediately take damage?).

 

Onager, as said in his guide, has a personal preference of having a higher then average crit, around 35% unbuffed. I lean towards a heavier Power build with an unbuffed crit of 25%. Why so low of crit? Allow me to explain.

 

Lucky Shots, the Smuggler class buff, provides 5% crit automatically putting it up to 30%. Force Valor, the Consular buff, takes it up to 31%. Add just a Prototype Resolve stim (+104 Willpower) and fully buffed that's nearly 32% crit with already 1910 Willpower for my stats. Now that amount of crit may be on the low side for some of you but it seems to work out fairly well for me. I have a 73.64% Surge chance at the moment so when I do crit is well worth it. My bonus healing fully buffed is also 764.8 boosting my base heals by a seriously large amount making those crits all the sweeter. With enough power the versatility of Seer healing is endless because when you do need an "uh-oh" button you have Force Armor and Force Potency to throw that player back into the upper bracket of their health no sweat. I firmly believe that Seer healing is pivotal for Ops just because we are the most versatile healers and preform best when having to maintain large groups of players. Other healers shine with single-target healing or maybe four people at a time, but the Seer is the only one that can easily cover an entire 8-man Ops group no sweat. I feel that Power fills in as a better stat for maintaining the group than crit just because I don't need to rely on a chance of a critical to be effective. High crit, on the other hand, plays a huge role in single-target healing and an emergency heal, but as I said early, that's what Force Potency is for. I don't find myself using Force Potency often so it is nearly always ready to go in case a little burst healing is needed.

 

In the guide it said to stack Resolve augments no matter what. If you are favoring a crit build and already nearing or hitting diminishing returns (DR), then I would say go for it. Primary stats like Willpower, Strength, Aim, and Cunning don't start hitting "significant" DR until 2000, and even then the scale for DR is less than Surge and Crit. Personally, I use whatever augments compliment my gear make-up. At the moment I am using Overkill (Power) augments, but that may change soon in order to add a small amount of Alacrity so I can drop an Alacrity enhancement for some more Surge. As I said, I'm still itemizing my gear and will probably be at it for another week or so. Just to quell some worries, I am looking into boosting my crit a bit more, so I'm not that stubborn with my "unlimited power" build. :p

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but the class buff to crit isn't effected by diminishing returns (or very little). So having a higher than average crit with the added buff is a huge help when healing.

 

Now, having looked at similiar threads in the gunslinger and trooper forums, it seems that it is almost always beneficial to stack your primary stat over power. Your primary stat benefits from plus 6% willpower from talents and +5% from buffs. Power does not. This negates most of the benefit of the bonus healing from power. Your primary stat also adds to crit which I think is also not subject to diminishing returns the way crit rating is. So unless you're short on a stat, I think your best bet is to stack willower augments.

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It's instructing the healer to keep Force Armor on the tank at all times but then states to save it until the tank is in the "yellow" zone of healing. With 20 seconds of Force-imbalance I can't see Force Armor always making it into the rotation for the tank.

I have plenty of feedback on your other comments, but I'm pressed for time right now, so I just wanted to address this point. I'll be back ;)

 

The yellow priority use of Force Armor is intended to apply to everyone other than the tank. Given that FA is powerful and reasonably efficient, I refresh it on the tank whenever possible, since tanks by definition take regular damage, and by virtue of having high mitigation they're not going to get spiked or melted as fast as the rest of the raid.

 

I agree, all this does is usually make you start off with less than 100% force while 80% of the people you bubbled don't get any benefit from the bubble anyway (how often does everyone in the raid immediately take damage?).

Um, "and Meditate"? Free healing is free healing.

 

Your evaluation of Willpower vs Power is right on the mark, though.

Edited by Aurojiin
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There's a question of timing with pre-bubbling.

 

I reckon that you should always have tank bubbled nicely in advance of his engaging. The benefit to having the shield absorb a load of damage and then be able to refresh it almost immediately, because the immunity had already largely worn off, is considerable.

 

Bubbling the whole group is more difficult to time well. You may not get all the way through the bubbles and find that your tank has already engaged... or you may find that the group you're playing with doesn't wait long enough to allow you to meditate back to full. It can be a pain trying to educate them about it too... not least because in some situations it will slow down a group, if they have to wait for you to cast the bubbles and meditate.

 

With a group that you know well and who understand the dynamic though, bubbling all group members and then meditating to regain all the force, has the potential to be advantageous. Bubbling all and meditating makes particular sense for more difficult fights, especially when there's likely to be early AoE damage. Bubbling melee and meditating is more often useful than bubbling all.

 

But if you have a group that doesn't mind the few seconds extra taken in preparation for a given fight, then there's no downside to bubbling all group/raid members and meditating back to full force.

 

X

Edited by XtremJedi
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Better start responding now before Aurojiin hits me with a wall-of-text back! ;)

 

The tank is always taking damage, so having force armor up on the tank on CD is a good idea. Force armor is a very efficient heal. Rejuvenate is also a good idea for the armor buff as well as the heals which leads into healing trance with the increased crits. Now that being said, if you can outheal the damage with a rejuvenate and a healing trance then Force Armor isn't strictly necessary but it does help pause the incoming damage so you can top off the tank.

I definitely see the benefit of keeping Force Armor up at all times. Its buffer allows the healer to keep the tank topped off, as you said. Since it can absorb so much damage I just imagine it as a buffer when I need the extra help which doesn't typically include my normal rotation. Healing Trance with Rejuvenate is enough for me to keep the tank topped off on most occasions and, as the guide said, Force Armor does like to eat up Force even with the cost reduction we get. Don't get me wrong, I still use it very frequently, but keeping the tank with a constant Force-imbalance debuff isn't necessary in my case.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but the class buff to crit isn't effected by diminishing returns (or very little). So having a higher than average crit with the added buff is a huge help when healing.

You're right, never said class buffs factor into the DR or that having a higher than average crit is a bad thing. I was just trying to outline my case of having a lower crit isn't a bad thing due to the compensation from the other class buffs and stims you can receive. Now if you're talking about a primary stat for a class, like Willpower, it does receive DR overtime but it is very small, especially in comparison with Crit and Surge, as I stated in my post.

 

This thread accents gearing towards a heavier crit, as is the author's preference, so I have to be careful when supporting my current lower crit build. :p

 

Now, having looked at similiar threads in the gunslinger and trooper forums, it seems that it is almost always beneficial to stack your primary stat over power. Your primary stat benefits from plus 6% willpower from talents and +5% from buffs. Power does not. This negates most of the benefit of the bonus healing from power. Your primary stat also adds to crit which I think is also not subject to diminishing returns the way crit rating is. So unless you're short on a stat, I think your best bet is to stack willower augments.

I have no argument with you here. Power gives more than Willpower off the bat, but after all the additions Willpower can be more advantageous. Despite all the buffs though, Power still gives more Bonus Healing than Willpower (tested this by swapping identical gear with different Power and Willpower levels) but with the Power I obviously lose the benefit of extra crit chance. Plus, after all is said and done, the difference in Bonus Healing between Power and Willpower isn't that large. It just comes down to what you think is best for you, I'll play around with my Augments until I get something I like so I'm not shutting down the idea of stacking Resolve Augments. Now with Smuggler Skill Augments are amazing due to the huge passive increase they get above other classes (9%). But that's a different topic so I won't derail. ;)

 

There's a question of timing with pre-bubbling.

 

I reckon that you should always have tank bubbled nicely in advance of his engaging. The benefit to having the shield absorb a load of damage and then be able to refresh it almost immediately, because the immunity had already largely worn off, is considerable.

 

Bubbling the whole group is more difficult to time well. You may not get all the way through the bubbles and find that your tank has already engaged... or you may find that the group you're playing with doesn't wait long enough to allow you to meditate back to full. It can be a pain trying to educate them about it too... not least because in some situations it will slow down a group, if they have to wait for you to cast the bubbles and meditate.

 

With a group that you know well and who understand the dynamic though, bubbling all group members and then meditating to regain all the force, has the potential to be advantageous. Bubbling all and meditating makes particular sense for more difficult fights, especially when there's likely to be early AoE damage. Bubbling melee and meditating is more often useful than bubbling all.

 

But if you have a group that doesn't mind the few seconds extra taken in preparation for a given fight, then there's no downside to bubbling all group/raid members and meditating back to full force.

 

X

Now that's what I was trying to say with fewer words. My guild has all the Operations down to a farming level so they just want to get through them most of the time. This doesn't leave me with much time to Force Armor every player as we have a tank that tends to pull everything any time he feels like it. As Xtrem said, as long as you get the tanks and melee DPS you should be alright.

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Personally, I don't like to keep force armor up on the tank at all times. I rather prefer to keep it to times when the tank has taken a big spike and needs to be healed up quickly to compensate for the comparative lack of burst healing for our class, and for times when I know that the tank is going to take a big hit soon and I might not be able to make it into position to heal him fast enough - e.g. when the tank is jumping back onto stormcaller.

 

I find that keeping force-imbalanced on the tank at all times means that in the event that he ends up taking unexpected big spikes, there's this risk that I might not be able to bring his hp up in time. Having force armor ready to put up on the tank when I need to also means a few more seconds to heal up another toon that might be low and in risk of dying from another hit.

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Personally, I don't like to keep force armor up on the tank at all times. I rather prefer to keep it to times when the tank has taken a big spike and needs to be healed up quickly to compensate for the comparative lack of burst healing for our class, and for times when I know that the tank is going to take a big hit soon and I might not be able to make it into position to heal him fast enough - e.g. when the tank is jumping back onto stormcaller.

As I note at the beginning, take it all with a grain of salt, and ultimately exercise your own judgement.

 

That being said, the only situation where I'd consider not using Force Armor in rotation on the tank is during Kephess' final stages with two Sage healers in 8-man. There's nothing else in the game where I'd worry about spikes enough to deliberately exclude it. YMMV.

 

If we're presuming a high HPS situation (as Angel says, this is somewhat irrelevant if it's low-burden maintenance healing), refreshing Force Armor on the tank has some solid advantages:

 

2. It doesn't put Trance on cooldown.

3. It's more force-efficient than un-Conveyed Deliverance (which is going to have to be your filler otherwise).

2. It's an instant, which leaves you more time to NS/heal someone else. Ultimately you'll be doing more healing too.

 

I have no argument with you here. Power gives more than Willpower off the bat, but after all the additions Willpower can be more advantageous. Despite all the buffs though, Power still gives more Bonus Healing than Willpower (tested this by swapping identical gear with different Power and Willpower levels) but with the Power I obviously lose the benefit of extra crit chance. Plus, after all is said and done, the difference in Bonus Healing between Power and Willpower isn't that large. It just comes down to what you think is best for you, I'll play around with my Augments until I get something I like so I'm not shutting down the idea of stacking Resolve Augments.

I'm afraid I have to strictly disagree with you here. The bottom line is that point for point, Willpower will increase your healing output by more than Power will. Willpower is simply better, and how much crit rating you're chosen to stack is irrelevant here.

 

I concur with you on the issue of Pain Bearer vs Valiance, inasmuch as both choices have benefit in different situations. Pick your poison. Personally I prefer to have a lower Noble Sacrifice penalty to afford me more leeway when I'm already pressured by incoming damage. As far as the counter-argument that Valiance has no real use when you're not taking damage, since Salvation will cover it anyway, well... I would submit that Pain Bearer has no relevance when you're not taking damage either. I'm going to adjust the builds to 3/3 Penetrating Light and put up both options.

 

And I did originally had a wall of text worth of thoughts, but I decided to be succinct for a change :p

Edited by Aurojiin
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As I note at the beginning, take it all with a grain of salt, and ultimately exercise your own judgement.

 

That being said, the only situation where I'd consider not using Force Armor in rotation on the tank is during Kephess' final stages with two Sage healers in 8-man. There's nothing else in the game where I'd worry about spikes enough to deliberately exclude it. YMMV.

 

If we're presuming a high HPS situation (as Angel says, this is somewhat irrelevant if it's low-burden maintenance healing), refreshing Force Armor on the tank has some solid advantages:

 

2. It doesn't put Trance on cooldown.

3. It's more force-efficient than un-Conveyed Deliverance (which is going to have to be your filler otherwise).

2. It's an instant, which leaves you more time to NS/heal someone else. Ultimately you'll be doing more healing too.

 

I agree with your points, but it is my personal preference to heal up small damage with Rejuvenate and throw in a conveyance-HT if the health difference warrants that rather than just throw up Force Armor once Force-Imbalanced is off. Having said that, throwing down Force Armor as soon as I can does allow me to slack off on the healing to help dps or idle to regen force. For situations calling for high HPS, I do keep Force Armor up as soon as possible.

 

As you have mentioned, it's up to personal preference and deciding which way to go fits your playstyle and group more.

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I'm afraid I have to strictly disagree with you here. The bottom line is that point for point, Willpower will increase your healing output by more than Power will. Willpower is simply better, and how much crit rating you're chosen to stack is irrelevant here.

Ignoring Willpower's benefit to Critical chance and speaking solely on Bonus Healing, Power still has a larger increase on Bonus Healing. I just swapped out Augments on my PvP gear (which has much less Willpower than my PvE gear) from Overkill to Resolve and I lost 0.3 Bonus healing per augment when I went to Resolve even with Will of the Jedi and class buffs. I'm not trying to argue that Overkill augments are better to use than Resolve, I'm just stating the math of their effects on Bonus Healing.

 

EDIT: Just to add to the this, I do now realize that Resolve augments are better than Overkill augments have seeing and doing the math. I'm just clarifying that the Bonus Healing itself still gains more from Power than Willpower, but the overall healing is increased more from Willpower.

Edited by AngelFluttershy
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Personally, I don't like to keep force armor up on the tank at all times. I rather prefer to keep it to times when the tank has taken a big spike.

 

This is one of those things that twists my brain a bit... but does it really make that much difference?

 

Bubbles in their nature can't over-heal unless they run out before being used up - which should never happen on a tank. So whenever you cast the bubble, that amount of healing will be done - at whatever point it happens. The spikes in ToR aren't usually big enough to kill a decent tank outright, so the tank will only die if he already had some unhealed damage before the spike... or if he continues taking unhealed extra damage after the spike.

 

1) If you cast the bubble early, then it absorbs damage in the period leading up to the spike, so your tank is more likely to be at high health or even 100% when the spike hits - which means that there will be less healing required to heal back up to 'OK'.... so you need less of a burst.

 

2) If you cast the bubble after the spike, it absorbs the steady incoming damage, giving you some space to heal back up to 'OK'... so you need less of a burst.

 

In both situations, the bubble is absorbing 'standard' incoming damage in order to help reduce the need for burst healing. It's really just a question of whether that standard damage is absorbed before or after the spike, which shouldn't actually have an effect on the outcome.

 

You might say, that normal damage in advance of the spike would be covered by your normal healing anyway, so you didn't need the bubble. But if you look at it that way... then you're also using heal CDs on normal healing before the spike - which means that you have less ability to react with heals when the spike hits, because some abilities are more likely to be on CD.

 

All in all, I'm not sure that the 'save it for spikes' argument is as compelling as it seems. There may be a small benefit in some situations to holding back with it... but that benefit would be generally countered by losing an amount off your standard healing output throughout the fight as a result of holding back the bubble and so not using it as much as you could have been.

 

It's a tough one. Certainly not as clear as it may have seemed at first.

 

X

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This is one of those things that twists my brain a bit... but does it really make that much difference?

 

Bubbles in their nature can't over-heal unless they run out before being used up - which should never happen on a tank. So whenever you cast the bubble, that amount of healing will be done - at whatever point it happens. The spikes in ToR aren't usually big enough to kill a decent tank outright, so the tank will only die if he already had some unhealed damage before the spike... or if he continues taking unhealed extra damage after the spike.

 

1) If you cast the bubble early, then it absorbs damage in the period leading up to the spike, so your tank is more likely to be at high health or even 100% when the spike hits - which means that there will be less healing required to heal back up to 'OK'.... so you need less of a burst.

 

2) If you cast the bubble after the spike, it absorbs the steady incoming damage, giving you some space to heal back up to 'OK'... so you need less of a burst.

 

In both situations, the bubble is absorbing 'standard' incoming damage in order to help reduce the need for burst healing. It's really just a question of whether that standard damage is absorbed before or after the spike, which shouldn't actually have an effect on the outcome.

 

You might say, that normal damage in advance of the spike would be covered by your normal healing anyway, so you didn't need the bubble. But if you look at it that way... then you're also using heal CDs on normal healing before the spike - which means that you have less ability to react with heals when the spike hits, because some abilities are more likely to be on CD.

 

All in all, I'm not sure that the 'save it for spikes' argument is as compelling as it seems. There may be a small benefit in some situations to holding back with it... but that benefit would be generally countered by losing an amount off your standard healing output throughout the fight as a result of holding back the bubble and so not using it as much as you could have been.

 

It's a tough one. Certainly not as clear as it may have seemed at first.

 

X

 

Hmm... the point I was trying to make is that I'll rather use my other heals to keep the tank up while I am capable of doing so, i.e. HT off CD, within range, not having to move, etc.

 

Allow me to give an example. When doing 16m Firebrand and Stormcaller on HM, during defensive systems and the SC tank is running around dropping the lightning spires, I prefer to save force armor till right before the tank jumps back onto SC after the end of the phase. I know that shortly after he jumps back on, he'll take a massive hit from the frontal aoe of SC and that brings him down to 40-50% from near 100% even with force armor on. In this case while running back from the shields on the ground, I'm not in a position to throw out heals immediately. Had force armor been used earlier, the risk of the tank dying increases, especially if the tank wasn't topped to near full health while dropping the spires and taking mortar volleys.

 

I have to admit that such cases are rare and few and in other situations, keeping force armor up on the tank may end up being more beneficial. Having said that, I'm not always healing the tank alone and having force armor ready on demand for the tank is helpful when there is a need for healing.

 

My usual healing rotation for the tank is to use Rejuvenate when hp is at the high 80%s, HT when it falls down to 70%s, and a follow up with Deliverance if necessary after the HT. Force armor if tank hp is still not above 70% after that before HT comes off CD.

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For one or two very unusual situations, then yes you may be right. The situation would generally have to be, where your target is taking very little damage in the period before a very predictable spike. Then yes you might want to hold back a bit.... but only marginally.

 

X

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