Keep him in tank stance. You'll get a dps companion on Tatooine to help speed up the killing, keep khem tank-geared to solo H2s and such

Pretty much this. I leveled my sorc as a healer, everything was easy sauce, just took a bit longer to kill things.

im currently leveling as a healer when you hit level 20 its a breeze i can dps as well with no down time so i think its faster than my dps characters. also getting almost instant flash-point groups helps a lot as well as being able to get into 4 man groups pretty easily! hope you enjoy!

Under 20 actually you get very little difference, at 20 dps gets either CL or DF putting them ahead in killing speed.

At 34, you'll catch back to to relative power of force storm upon getting it, versus thrash, but you'll still be rather behind in killing speed. However you'll have little to no downtime between groups.

But a dps sorc in pve wipes thrash groups in 3-4 second with his AoE, especially hybrids. Thats faster than a channel on FS

I leveled as full healer. It is tough until you get Ashara. She is quite honestly a better tank/threat holder then Khem. If you gear her up, she'll do enough melee dps to maintain threat, while you sit back and keep her upright and mix in some dot damage.

I find the tanks we get are terrible, not enough damage output to be worth keeping upright.

I leveled as full healer. It is tough until you get Ashara. She is quite honestly a better tank/threat holder then Khem. If you gear her up, she'll do enough melee dps to maintain threat, while you sit back and keep her upright and mix in some dot damage.

 

I find the tanks we get are terrible, not enough damage output to be worth keeping upright.

She'll do enough single target damage sure. But thats not true she can keep enough pressure on an whole group, nor will she beat khem single target threat if both have similar quality gear.

Sure speeds up the killing tough, you send her on the strongest mob, AoE the thrash, and then help her finish the strong. Overall very doable to level as a healer.

I didn't level my sorc as a healer. I kept Khem decentely geared up and just threw some offheals to him when needed. Or I just let them die to finish off the fight, lol

I just turned to healing once I got to 50

I am leveling as healer (my first TOR character). Pretty slow but... honestly, with some mind even H4 from your current lvl are doable solo. Not all, but some of them - yeah. H2+ I rarely even bother getting someone else to help. It's just as fast and easy to do them alone.

Sorc Helaer+Khem (dunno about Ashar) are pretty much unbeatable two-men army. He tanks, I throw heals and protection at him, disrupt and DoT enemies. Weaker mobs got trashed with whatever lightnings I got.

Only negative is that killing is slow. Really slow.

I think I respec and try to play DPS because, frankly, healer is so easy (and slow) that's actually boring.

Gotta Big boss? Khem, maul him. Zing and Khem is bubbled. DoTs. Waiting. Heal. Waiting. Heal. DoT. Waiting. DoT. Waiting. Heal. Heal. Bubble. Waiting. DoT... ok, he is dead. Now the long ride back to mission giver for XPs.

Wanna have it easy and boring - get helaer.

I leveled as full healer. It is tough until you get Ashara. She is quite honestly a better tank/threat holder then Khem. If you gear her up, she'll do enough melee dps to maintain threat, while you sit back and keep her upright and mix in some dot damage.

 

I find the tanks we get are terrible, not enough damage output to be worth keeping upright.

I haven't leveled my Sorc as heals, but I HAVE leveled a Scoundrel as healer, and this has been pretty much my experience as well - once I unlocked and started using a DPS companion, my net survivability stayed about the same, but my kill speed went up immensely. And as for threat, I found that all the mobs that weren't being actively focused on by my tank companion would make a beeline for me as soon as I started throwing out heals and the AoE taunt wore off anyway.

I haven't leveled my Sorc as heals, but I HAVE leveled a Scoundrel as healer, and this has been pretty much my experience as well - once I unlocked and started using a DPS companion, my net survivability stayed about the same, but my kill speed went up immensely. And as for threat, I found that all the mobs that weren't being actively focused on by my tank companion would make a beeline for me as soon as I started throwing out heals and the AoE taunt wore off anyway.

Scoundrel, or in my case operative, leveling as healer goes faster since the ressource positive above 60 energy allow better dps from you imo.

I simply use shiv/backstab, and if Kalyo's health start dropping take a step back and heal more actively.

For sorc at that level, which ressource pool is based on how deep it is and not how fast it regen, you have to consider a force investment in dps is force you ain't getting for healing, possibly reducing the overall dps you can throw. Mostly healers will be using affliction very carefully, crushing darkness and force lightning when its an harder fight such as those you encounter in H2s (read longer fight). Ironically, such fight is where healer addind his dps would be nice, but also where its less practical to do so since it can compromise healing later in the fight.

It is true that healers sometimes solo H4, I managed hunger of the vr(something), last H4 of Nar Shadaa solo, howeer it was pre-1,2 when DI cast was actually 1,5 sec with force bending (no double dip tough, never approved using game bugs as a rotation) but if you have your legacy high enough and the cred for it, field respec is a priceless tool to subscriber playing an heal-able class, allowing them to freely go from dps for thrash cleaning to full heals for harder fight.

For those who are f2p or simply don't have access to that legacy perk, well its nit exactly that longer, but you will be far from the AoE burst dps does (on a thrash twoshot, where 3 level 50 normal mob died on a CL/DF crit, I got a reported 35k dps on MOX, since it was 13k damage aoe wise over 3 targets within 0,3 seconds from CL first hit)

For the record, dps can more than solo H2s as well, since they'll most likely have burned at least one strong before the shield fails. And you still have DH and DI to help out your companion. I normally keep recklessness availaible for such situations.

She'll do enough single target damage sure. But thats not true she can keep enough pressure on an whole group, nor will she beat khem single target threat if both have similar quality gear.

 

Sure speeds up the killing tough, you send her on the strongest mob, AoE the thrash, and then help her finish the strong. Overall very doable to level as a healer.

I'm not suggesting that she's a better overall threat generator. What I'm saying is, Khem even geared does considerable less damage per healing required.

I was literally able to handle you know who at the end, and subsequent champions today by just letting her do all the work. Her damage to healing required ratio is much better then either Khem or the 'other' tank you get later

She actually generates more threat then HK-51 even though their damage output is similar. I attribute it to melee versus ranged. Still, I tend to use HK-51 for normal dailies just because he's new and shiny, and played right you can essentially have 5 stacks up (i.e. assassinate) for any particular scenario you need it for "cc" in a heroic 2 or 2+ situation.

Of course, it helps that I'm very well geared these days in all augmented WH gear with the elite saber.

If one really wanted to use Khem, I'd level up by ascending the madness tree. You'll be able to do quality damage at level 21, and serious damage output as early as level 26 once you get death field.

I'm not suggesting that she's a better overall threat generator. What I'm saying is, Khem even geared does considerable less damage per healing required.

I was literally able to handle you know who at the end, and subsequent champions today by just letting her do all the work. Her damage to healing required ratio is much better then either Khem or the 'other' tank you get later

 

She actually generates more threat then HK-51 even though their damage output is similar. I attribute it to melee versus ranged. Still, I tend to use HK-51 for normal dailies just because he's new and shiny, and played right you can essentially have 5 stacks up (i.e. assassinate) for any particular scenario you need it for "cc" in a heroic 2 or 2+ situation.

 

Of course, it helps that I'm very well geared these days in all augmented WH gear with the elite saber.

 

 

If one really wanted to use Khem, I'd level up by ascending the madness tree. You'll be able to do quality damage at level 21, and serious damage output as early as level 26 once you get death field.

You actually wrote "threat" and not damage on your earlier post.

She also handles damage less well, which makes a difference agains some champions at level, altough she does it decently enough and the time gained is always nice. She does require more healing however, and bursting champions (mostly tech based since you cannot clear explosive probes) can be an issue at level without end-game gear, since sorc lacks the fast response tools if you don't plan on it and the shield debuff's on.

You are still SAFER with khem. Hope you got a good book at hand's reach tough

Eh, I don't know, I guess it hasn't been my experience. I suppose when I said threat, I meant I've had no problems with her maintaining single target threat off of me - which in most cases is all I worry about.

Although I haven't tested Khem or the other guy since turning 50, I saw enough of his lack of damage dealing to turn me off.

You may be right, and as you said, you'll definitely be more bored. He seems much better for DPS spec sorcs.

I've leveled sorcs and sages to 50 a few times. My last sage was leveled as a Balance/TK dps hybrid, and my last sorc as full Corruption. I can say that without a doubt leveling as dps makes things go much quicker, although you're pretty unstoppable as a healer -- it all depends also on if you want to pvp and what role you hope to play there.

Ashara is definitely my favorite companion, as a couple of others have said. I started using her on my full corruption sorc as soon as I got her and it made a huge difference. I later geared her out in full rakata, when I used to raid back until 1.2 or 1.3, and she is an absolute beast.

Give her a try if you end up going heals.

I leveled my Inq as a healer. It was really easy as long as I focuses solely on healing (duh) and used the right companion. Khem is can take you until endgame if you really like him and keep him geard, but I used sommething like this:

30 levels of Khem

15 levels of Ashara

5 levels of Xalek

Rough estimate^

It worked really well, much easier than leveling my Guardian tank (even though I like him more )

It's a bit painful- but, if you have a lot of maxed alts and thus a big presence bonus, putting in a high dps companion will work wonders for the first thirty levels because they'll vastly out-stat you.

That's before going possibly into Biochem and making the Presence Stims.

Leveled a sorc as pure corruption, leveled a scoundrel as pure sawbones. They are and have been my dedicated healers, and they were the easiest time leveling ever ever. Think I finished the inq story at 47-48, he was only my third 50 so I didn't even have the same benefit with heroic moment/legacy powers that my scoundrel did (he was 50 #7). I am by nature more inclined to tanking/dps but the dynamics for these two classes really clicked for me with respect to their ability to heal as well as the mechanics they use to do so.

Whatever you decide, best of luck to you.

/salute

I used Khem as my only companion and went full Lightning spec from 1-40, switching to full heal spec once I could talent Revivification. This works out pretty well I think, since below 40 you don't need healing that much, but once you hit Belsavis Lightning becomes less viable for solo'ing with Khem since "tank" pets really can't tank anything beyond 40 without healing to keep them alive.

If you wanted to go DPS all the way to 50, then you'll have to gear up your healer companion to deal with the major boss fights at least. People perceive heal spec as a little slower to plow through things, but it's not by much when you factor in all the Seethe downtime you avoid by ending every fight at 100% HP instead of 50-80%.

I have my own crafting alts, so I kept myself and Khem fully geared every two levels with blue gear all around. After 40 I also started slapping in blue augments to buff things up a bit more, which helped. Augments are not required, obv, just give you more margin for error / laziness.

I always went with Might hilts, armoring and mods rather than the "tank" (Guardian) ones, because as heal spec you don't need to pimp Khem's HP so much, and you will appreciate his higher damage. He also has a small self-heal that comes from his AOE attack, and Strength will buff that up, somewhat offsetting any loss of HP. For him I ran Immunity or Sturdiness (shield / defense or shield / absorb) enhancements all around, and for me it was Rage or Quick Savant (power or power / alacrity).

Since I have some 50 alts, I started out with about +200 presence from the human species and other legacy presence buffs, and to make the most of that I also used blue command stims and the cantina buff, which will further help to raise Khem's HP and damage. If you don't have the legacy presence buffs, then you may want to use resolve stims instead to buff your own healing (and damage).

Don't forget you have DPS abilities as well. I usually set Khem up with Static Barrier, then send him in, hit Resurgence once and drop Revivification on him (and stand in it myself, depending on what's going on). After that I'll either just spam Force Storm if it's a pack of standard mobs, or for golds and silvers alternate between Affliction / Crushing Darkness / Force Lightning and refreshing Static Barrier and Revivification to keep Khem at 100%.

For really hard hitting bosses, I may have to hang back and just heal him, while he slowly wears them down. For "single target" fights like that, I tend to still drop Revivification and then spam Resurgence / Innervate, with Dark Infusion as needed if I'm falling behind. If I can throw Affliction / Crushing Darkness on the boss as well without losing ground on the healing, then I'll also try to keep those up.

So far it works well, and I only have had to pop the Heroic Moment for a couple bosses that do stuff like spam Force Storm or chain stun you the whole fight.

30 levels of Khem

15 levels of Ashara

5 levels of Xalek

I still haven't figured out what they were thinking with Xalek. He's a "tank" in light armor, and is supposed to be our "ranged" tank pet, but he's got a double saber. He seems like the worst of all possible choices; a melee tank that's not as tough as our "other" melee tank (even with the 42% armor buff from his tank stance), or a melee DPS that doesn't have the DPS talents of our "real" melee DPS companion.

I know the concept of "ranged tank" doesn't actually exist in this game, since 50-80% of the mobs you fight are melee anyway; but this guy just seems like he fell off the wagon somewhere and never really found his way home.