Hey guys. Just curious on what my sage needs to focus on here. Fyi- I'm a 100% healer. I know willpower is my main stat. But, I heard you should only focus on willpower to a certain point. When I reached my willpower "cap" (how many points is it?), what should I focus on next? Crit or surge or power? and then what? Thanks for all the help in advance!

Here is what I do for my end-game healing:

 

1. Crit between 35%-40% (this way Force Potency gets you guaranteed crits)

2. Surge about 75%

3. Alacrity about 9% cast time

4. Everything else in willpower and power.

5. Use unlettered mods (e.g. Aptitude 26 instead of Aptitude 26A)

 

One thing that will make your gearing choices simple is that willpower doesn't compete with power on mods and enhancements. For example, every single sage mod ALWAYS has willpower, and no enhancement EVER has willpower. So the only time you're forced to chose is with augments. Either resolve and overkill augments will be great for you. Resolve is better as you get a bit more crit.

 

You can build out your character with http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character and pick and chose your gear and see what it will do to your stats.

One thing that will make your gearing choices simple is that willpower doesn't compete with power on mods and enhancements.

 

This isn't actually true. While Enhancements never have Willpower on them, Mods do and, with each of the variants of the given mods (standard, A, and B), there are different total amounts of Endurance, primary stat (Willpower, in the case of Consulars), and secondary stat. It's for this exact reason that you specifically recommend using the standard Mod variant (low Endurance, high primary, high secondary), as opposed to the A variant (mid Endurance, very high primary, very low secondary) or B variant (high Endurance, medium primary, medium secondary), specifically because it provides you with the highest combination of primary stat and secondary stat (A variants have the most primary but almost no secondary and B variants have too much of their itemization spent upon Endurance).

@Kitru, of course, you are correct on this.

 

Once you eliminate all lettered mods, though, the competition is between power and some other secondary stat, not willpower.

I am an endgame player playing a Sage and I have the same questions. Is 2k willpower to much or not enough? I also have full BH gear should I sacrifice the hit points for Rakata gear? I have 23k hit points with buffs should I really go with the willpower buff or endurance buff? What is the cap on willpower is 2k too much? All my augments, and I have augments on everything, are resolve. Should I spend more on alacrity or surge or power? Any information would be helpful.

 

Thanks

All of your augments should be willpower, period. As a healer you want to go pure power, alacrity is meaningless to you. All of the other stats will come from just your gear.

All of your augments should be willpower, period. As a healer you want to go pure power, alacrity is meaningless to you. All of the other stats will come from just your gear.

There have been many lively debates about the benefit of Alacrity in healing, such as:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=540122

 

Many end-game healers, myself included, have had a good benefit from a moderate amount of alacrity ~285.

Your main stat is the "best" well past current gearing levels. Power is effectively your second best statistic because it has no diminishing returns curve. Critical rating would be third, with surge and alacrity after that. It is important to note, however, that you need to balance these stats. So if you have very low critical rating, you might want to drop some power for crit rating even though as a general rule power is better.

 

Main stat is most important because it affects BOTH your bonus damage/healing and your critical rating. Even though power gives you more bonus damage/healing point-for-point than main stat, your main stat will also increase your critical chance which also improves your DPS/HPS. The only time you are choosing between main stat and power is in your augments (which should always be main stat) or when choosing lettered mods over normal ones. You want to choose normal mods because even though lettered mods give you higher main stat, you are sacrificing secondary stats at a greater than 1:1 ratio. Put simply, main stat is better than power point-for-point, but with a lettered mod you might sacrifice 30 power for 15 main stat. At 2:1, you are better off taking the secondary stat.

 

At level 50, you want your critical rating somewhere between 250 to 350 depending upon your spec and role. Your surge should be around 300. Everything else should go into power and alacrity. The issue with critical rating and surge is that they both give you diminishing returns, which means that the more points you stack, the less benefit they give you. At very low levels, you want to stack critical rating as the additional critical chance it gives you is worth more damage or healing per second than power. But at some point, the bonus you get from one point of crit rating or surge becomes so low that it is no longer beneficial to put points there. Power does not suffer from diminishing returns.

 

Main stat does have diminishing returns on critical chance, but the curve is so slight that main stat still gives you better DPS/HPS than power past current gear levels.

There have been many lively debates about the benefit of Alacrity in healing, such as:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=540122

 

Many end-game healers, myself included, have had a good benefit from a moderate amount of alacrity ~285.

 

All of the healing sages in my guild have gotten rid of their alacrity, finding going pure power more beneficial when healing tanks with large (27k+) HP pools, but it could just be a matter of preference.

All of the healing sages in my guild have gotten rid of their alacrity, finding going pure power more beneficial when healing tanks with large (27k+) HP pools, but it could just be a matter of preference.

That's a very interesting point.

 

Perhaps a Shadow tank that favors mitigation over endurance would pair well with a moderate Alacrity healer, and a Shadow tank that favors endurance over mitigation would pair well with a 0 Alacrity healer with a higher power stat. Just a thought.

All of the healing sages in my guild have gotten rid of their alacrity, finding going pure power more beneficial when healing tanks with large (27k+) HP pools, but it could just be a matter of preference.

 

They're gimping themselves. Only a couple of pieces with alacrity will give you 5-6% alacrity. Going with extra surge will not nearly be as beneficial when you're already 76%+.

 

Oh and power comes with alacrity, so does crit and alacrity -- so there is no reason or even a way to drop alacrity for power.