Hey,

I've been working on analysing various techniques that people have been coming up with for PvE Force Regain for the Sage/Sorc. The more I look at them, the less good they actually look - especially when compared to simply idling and using base regen. This is an important relative comparison. When you're choosing what to cast for force regain, the most basic option is to do nothing and allow your base regen to refill your force. Any other approach needs to be better than idling to be really worthwhile.

I'm going to throw some of my thinking out there and would welcome people telling me where I've gone wrong or any things that I've missed. If you have other tactics that you use, I'll happily analyse their worth with you and then include those in this post and bring together the information in one place.

Summary

The summary is that there are three tactics that I think are both practical and generate a reasonable amount more force than idling would have:

Channel Proc, AoE and 2 Regains.

Good nett regain and much better than idling. Possible issues with positioning and mobility

Channel Proc, 2 Regains and Self-Healing (HoT > Main Heal)

Excellent nett regain but medium differential to idling. Dedicates a lot of casting time and CDs/AC buff to yourself, rather than to actual healing targets

Channel Proc, Regain + HoT to Self

Low nett regain and idling differential, but quick to cast and very mobile. Still loses CD/AC buff to yourself, rather than to actual healing targets

All three are quite dependent upon the channeled heal critting without having the Conveyance/Force Bending crit buff - if you don't get the crit then they're only just viable at all. The only one that really generates significantly more force than Idling (enough to do more than one heal) is the AoE one. Indeed, if you try to build these into actual rotations over longer periods of time, only the AoE one really supports a good level of casting of other heals for the actual purpose of healing other targets.

All approaches to Sage/Sorc healing will include quite a lot of free GCDs in order to maintain a fairly low level of healing without overall force drain. Indeed, if you want to manage force well, your main question should really be whether to cast or not to cast.

It's also worth noting that none of these approaches really benefits from taking Valiance/Dark Resilience. All of these calculations assume 3 points in Inner Strength/Electric Induction, which should be standard in all healer builds. Nett costs quoted include the base regen that you would gain while casting them or during the GCD for instants. I have not taken alacrity into account here - but it's my general impression that any level of alacrity will only worsen the out-comes.

I should note that there is an option I haven't included below, which is getting another healer in your group/raid to heal your Regain damage. This is OK as long as the heal that you get would not have been usefully and gainfully used on an actual healing target at the time. I haven't included this specifically in this break-down as working out the overall benefit to a raid of doing this - or the overall disadvantage - is too complex to model accurately - and of course, if there is not another healer in your group, then it's not an option.

Also, there are Hybrid builds that take advantage of the force regain abilities in the non-healing trees. But these really require you to sacrifice the AoE heal and so shouldn't really be counted as main endgame healers, although there are certainly options there for healing some high level Heroics as a secondary healer.

What works

Channel Proc, AoE and 2 Regains.

Channel (on tank) PROC > HoT (on tank) > AoE (on tank and self) > Regain (NS/Cons) > Regain (NS/Cons)

assuming that the proc on the channel fires

Nett Costs of this (assuming 3 points in Inner Strength/Electric Induction) are:

Channel -13 > HoT -15 > AoE -48 > Regain (on proc) +64 > Regain (off proc) +44

assuming that the proc on the channel fires

Total Nett = 32 Force.

Comparing this to using base Regen by idling, instead of NS/Cons - but keeping the same heals in as long as they are healing actual healing targets:

Channel (on tank)> HoT (on tank) > AoE (on tank and Self) > Free GCD > Free GCD

Total Nett = -52 Force

So this approach gives you a gain over idling of 84 Force and a nett gain of 32 force. This is a sizeable improvement and can supply you with a decent amount of extra force for casting (2 good heals) - while also providing you with heals CDs and buffs going to actual healing targets.

Channel Proc, 2 Regains and Self-Healing (HoT > Main Heal)

With the Resplendence/Force Surge Buff you get:

Channel (on tank) PROC > Regain > Regain > HoT (self) > Main heal (self)

Which works out as:

Channel -13 > Regain +64 > Regain +44 > HoT -15 > Main Heal -16

Total Nett = +64 Force

Comparing this to using base Regen by idling, instead of NS/Cons - but keeping the same heals in as long as they are healing actual healing targets:

Channel -13 > Idle 7 seconds +56

Total Nett = +43 Force

So using the Proc with this approach actually gains you an extra 21 force over what you would have gained by idling and the overall nett gain is high at +64. At the same time, you still have the down-side of losing the HoT CD and AC buff and includes long casts reducing mobility. This approach may be situationally useful - perhaps more in PvP?

Channel Proc, Regain + HoT to Self

Using a Resplendence/Force Surge proc to do Regain and then healing yourself with HoTgives:

Channel (on tank) PROC > Regain > HoT (on self)

assuming that the proc on the channel fires

Channel -13 > +64 > -15

Total nett = 36 Force

Comparing this to using base Regen by idling, instead of NS/Cons - but keeping the same heals in as long as they are healing actual healing targets would be:

Channel -13 > 3 seconds Idling +24

Total nett = +11 Force

This approach gives you +25 force compared to Idling and is quick and so can be used when pressed for time. But it only has a +11 nett force gain - not enough for a heal of any kind.... and you do lose the HoT CD and AC buff. But at least you're gaining a good bit more than idling when you can't use the AoE variant above, which will usually be due to mobility or AoE positioning issues.

What doesn't really work so well...

Using Regain and not healing yourself

The approach here is to manage your health like another resource. So you allow a certain amount of damage to yourself from using your Force Regain ability, without healing it back up yourself. This can seem a better proposition than it actually is.

You must actually be sure that you don't heal yourself for the damage done by the Regain. If you try to heal yourself with a healing ability, then you're essentially just using one of the other approaches that are listed below. So for example: if you use Regain and take the damage... but at a later point in the same fight, you heal that damage with your HoT... then you have essentially just used Regain > HoT (spread out over time) and this is not an efficient manner of regaining force compared to simply idling.

You can of course later heal yourself with a channel procced AoE... but then you must ensure that you only use one Regain ability during that AoE - essentially using the workable AoE tactic above. If you use a Regain and then later do the AoE + 2 Regain tactic mentioned above, then you're really doing the AoE + 3 Regain tactic which doesn't really work out

So... that to one side... in any given fight you can obviously afford a given number of Regain uses - depending upon how happy you are with the level of health that this leaves you with. So if you decide you are happy carrying a health level of 70%, then you can afford to use Regain twice in that fight without healing yourself. If it's a very long fight and you have enough time to regen 15% health in combat from base regen... then you could fit in another.

Note: this approach does benefit from the Valiance/Dark Resilience spec and from the restore from equipment set bonus. You could then get 3 Regains to the 70% level and your base in-combat health regen would potentially get you another more quickly.

3 Regains within the AoE

A variation on the AoE approach is sometimes suggested, which is to include more Regains while in the AoE - but supplement the healing with another heal. This ends up with something like:

HoT (on tank) > AoE (on tank and Self) > Regain > Regain > Channel (self) PROC > Regain

assuming that the proc on the channel fires

This translates to:

HoT -15 > AoE -48 > Regain +44 > Regain +44 > Channel -13 > Regain +64

assuming that the proc on the channel fires

Total Nett = +76 Force

Comparing this to using base Regen by idling, instead of NS/Cons - but keeping the same heals in as long as they are healing actual healing targets (so not including the Channel):

HoT -15 > AoE -48 > Idle for 7.5 Seconds +60

Total Nett = -3

So this approach gives you a gain over Idling of 79 force, which is less than the actually good AoE variation and you're also using your Channel on yourself, wasting an important CD and one of your cheapest heals, for what turns out to be relatively speaking a worse result. You're better off sticking to two NS within the AoE than going for more.

2 Regains and then Self-Healing

Another approach that I had viewed quite positively until recently, was the following - without Resplendence/Force Surge:

Regain > Regain > HoT Self > Main Heal Self (Dark Infusion/Deliverance on Proc)

This works out as:

Regain +44 > Regain +44 > HoT -15 > Main Heal -16

Total Nett = 57 force

Comparing this to using base Regen by idling, instead of NS/Cons - but keeping the same heals in as long as they are healing actual healing targets would be simply idling for 7 seconds.

Total nett = 56 force

So Idling would gain you 1 less force, but you also gain the HoT CD and AC buff being available for the tank. All in all, then... this approach is considerably worse than simply idling. Nevertheless, the actual nett force gain is very good. This approach may be situationally useful - perhaps more in PvP?

Unprocced Regain > HoT to Self

Another approach that people have suggested is to simply use:

Regain > HoT Self

This works out as

Regain + 44 > HoT -15

Total Nett = +29 Force

Comparing this to using base Regen by idling, instead of NS/Cons - but keeping the same heals in as long as they are healing actual healing targets would be 3 seconds of Idling

Total Nett = 24 Force

So this approach only gives a +5 force gain above idling but at the same time you lose the HoT CD and AC buff. Not really worth the trade-off.

Regain > Channeled Heal to Self

This approach gives the following:

Regain +44 > Channel -13

Nett Gain = +31 Force

Comparing this to using base Regen by idling, instead of NS/Cons - but keeping the same heals in as long as they are healing actual healing targets would be

Idle 4.5 seconds = +36 Force

So this gives 4 less Force than simply idling for the same time period. It also uses the main tank healing ability, wasting its CD entirely and ties you up casting a long heal on yourself, leaving you less flexible to react to other situations. On the other hand, you can react better than if you were using the Main Heal, since the channel is at least front loaded. Either way... you're better off simply idling.

Subversion/Concentration Buff

This approach attempts to use the Force Regen buff from Subversion/Concentration stacks which are procced off Disturbance/Lightning Strike. Unless you are refreshing a 3 stack with your Disturbance/LS, this is not noticeably force positive.

Single Dist/LS cast nett cost = -15.3

Benefit from Subv/Conc stack = +8

Nett cost = 7.3

Refresh of a two Stack nett cost of Dist/LS = -15.3

Benefit from Subv/Conc 2-stack = +16

Nett gain = 0.7 Force

Refresh of a three Stack nett cost of Dist/LS = -15.3

Benefit from Subv/Conc 2-stack = +24

Nett gain = 8.7 Force

Idling for the 1 GCD involved = +12 nett gain.

So, even in its most optimal refreshing assuming perfect timing, you gain less force than you would have gained by idling. This is an option for providing some added DPS at a very low cost though.

Focus on using Bubbles (Force Armor/Static Barrier)

Some people have suggested using bubbles more as a way of dealing with the changes. This seems counter-productive, as the bubbles are not at all force efficient. Even fully specced they still cost 33 nett force which is more than twice as much as the Main Heal (with proc) or the Channel for similar sorts of healing.

Some have suggested that Force Bubbles remove the chance of over-healing as a counter-argument... but if the bubble target doesn't take enough damage to use up the shield before the shield times out, then that is essentially also an overheal.

After being asked by somebody whether I could recommend a steady-state rotation as a result of this research, I did put one together. I've just chucked this together, so it's possible that I've made an error in there somewhere... but it does represent a fairly steady state rotation, all in all.

{Edited 29/06/12} to reflect conveyancing bug fix and put in more explanation.

Your basic shape for end-game healing should follow the following basic advice:

• Always bubble the tank, because it's a great HPF heal as long as the whole shield is used - but only if it's all used.
   
  
• Your HoT should go on the tank, so that he also gets the Force Shelter AC buff.
   
  
• You use conveyanced AoE to heal 2 x Noble Sacrifice worth of damage, placing it so that it also heals at least the tank. You encourage DPS to stand in the AoE whenever possible - Sage healing is now too slow to reliably use singe target heals to heal multiple player and since the AoE is the basis of the best force regain approach, you should slap it down regularly and advise DPS to take advantage.
   
  
• Refresh the HoT on the tank, to keep the AC buff, follow again with the channel to take advantage of the buff... and then if you need to, use the conveyance on Deliverance. You may stop-cast the deliverance in order to ensure that it doesn't over-heal.
  

There's no such thing as a fixed rotation for healing... you'll always react to the situation in front of you and there will be times when Purge, Stun, Interrupt and DPS may be better options. But using the patterns described above, which are generally best practice, you end up with a guide-line rotation for optimised, sustained pure healing that looks like this:

0s        Bubble Tank
1.5s     Channel (usually tank)
4.5s     HoT Tank
6.0s     AoE   (At least self and tank, preferably also DPS)
8.0s     Regain     
9.5s     Regain    
11.0s   HoT  Tank
12.5s   Channel  (usually tank)
15.5s   Deliverance (usually tank)
18.0s   Free
20.0s   Bubble Tank etc

This rotation averages around -20 to -25 force per rotation, so you can maintain it for a goodly period. If you leave the Deliverance out and replace it with idle time, it can actually work out as force positive. It is overall, the best healing that you can make, with a relatively low force drain overall.

You then tack in your favoured emergency healing routines as required and there's advice on that elsewhere. But you may notice, that many other people suggest similar patterns to those already found in the above rotation such as Bubble > HoT > Channel and HoT > Channel > Deliverance (>Deliverance)... so really a lot of healing is already built into this rotation, with very low force drain. You'll add in relic boosts and force potency for burst healing too, of course.

Force Armour is useful for emergency healing multiple targets when you're sure that they'll all take enough damage to use up the shield... things like predictable AoEs that you know the melee group rarely gets out of the way for - then you may want to bubble the melee group in advance where possible.

This is using the optimal force regain scenario which is the AoE one. There are of course issues with positioning for this. The Sage/Sorc needs to be closer to melee range than they'd probably like... and in some boss fights where lots of movement is required, it may not be possible to use the AoE for its full 10 seconds, so you may end up with some health drain for the ticks that you miss. And of course, the moment you do anything else your force drain will increase considerably.

On the up-side the rotation does include a decent healing output and most of the healing is going on actually healing real targets, rather than healing yourself.

Again though... I'll stress that there can not be a fixed rotation for healing. There are certain casting patterns that represent best usage of the mechanics of the tool-set though. You should see such guide-line rotations as just that... guide-lines. If you're wanting to optimise your healing output while minimising your force drain... then aiming at a pattern that looks like the above, will take you in generally the right direction.

As I said... just throwing it out there because somebody asked for it and I thought it might contribute to the discussion.

X

I still firmly believe the devs intended Sorc/Sage to get a stacked HoT from the Op/Scoundrel healer or green pew-pew from the Merc/Commando.

It would be interesting to see how the health sacrifice relates to the other healer classes as well in that regard.

I just want to say thanks for your input, insight, and hard work over the calculations.

I've agreed with you from the beginning that sorc/seer healing just really isn't that much fun anymore. Everything I've read in here about how "Everything is fine" and I just need to "L2P" or "Adjust" seems to assume that there's the ideal situation, the ideal group composition, and the ideal awareness is always happening. The reality is that most fights are quite far from ideal.

Bottom line ... you are correct, sir. Healing and resource management is possible. But all in all, the biggest nerf that I really believe healers got (with maybe the exception of the Op/Smuggler) was that our fun was removed due to it being overpowered in PvE & PvP.

Bottom line ... you are correct, sir. Healing and resource management is possible. But all in all, the biggest nerf that I really believe healers got (with maybe the exception of the Op/Smuggler) was that our fun was removed due to it being overpowered in PvE & PvP.

Our laugh was removed.

Other than that there wasn't much fun with Op/Scoundrel healing to begin with.

So, as a more general question, when would you advocate the use of Force Armor/Static Barrier in one's general healing approach? Aside from in your steady-state rotation.

Also, in your theoretical rotation, it still seems better to use the HoT before the channel at the beginning. At present (possibly a bug) Innervate/HT does not use up FB/Conveyance if targeted on anyone other than yourself. With the two-piece PVE set bonus, your channel will still cooldown before you need it again in your rotation.

About 15s before the tank goes into normal fights, bubble him and meditate to regain the force. Before heading into a big fight - bubble everything that moves and then meditate. Bubble the tank early in that routine, so that his immunity has already almost dropped by the time he starts the engagement. That's free defence and not too troublesome to organise - and meditating restores force pretty quickly.

During combat, on the tank is the obvious one and I think I'd still go for that. It's a great heal for any target that will reliably use all of the shield - even though it's still expensive in heal per force - and it allows you to create real bursts of healing when used in conjunction with another heal. I like the channel to follow it for burst healing, because it is front-loaded.

In my steady state rotation, you'll notice that there were a bunch of free GCDs at the back end of it, so my expectation would be that the tank would be needing a burst when the rotation restarted, that's part of the reason why I started with Bubble > Channel > HoT.

If you'd asked me a couple of weeks ago, I'd have said that when a DPS pulls aggro my first response is to go for the bubble. Quick, front-loaded big heal - it's the obvious choice. Now I'm less convinced. It's expensive in terms of heal per force and is still susceptible to over-heal, especially if it's just an aggro flicker. Also, the AoE is so crucial now to force regain, being streets ahead of the other options, that it has to be the heal you're wanting to use for as much of your DPS healing as is possible.

There are going to be some specific instances when movement and fight mechanics make the AoE heal less useful for the DPS. Even then, I'd lean towards HoTs/Channels first... and then only if nothing else was going to work, would I pre-bubble DPS.

So, that pretty much leaves situations where a DPS's health is in real danger of killing them if they take a few more hits. So when thing are going badly wrong, tank is struggling to hold on to things and you're struggling to hold on to the healing.. then splashing some bubbles around the group may give you and the tank enough breathing space to get things back under control.

This is all play-style preferences though. Others will no doubt have different opinions. But for me:

1) Pre-bubbling before fight + Meditate

2) For the tank - especially to form burst healing

3) Hail Mary to DPS. Only when they're on the edge of going down or when incoming AoE damage is obviously outstripping your AoE heal.

I should say though, that I'm one of those healers that cancelled shortly after 1.2, so I'm not still actively playing. It's possible that there are other approaches and information I'm just not aware of. That's partly why the first post in this thread has an open invitation asking for other tactics and issues to be brought up.

X

Also, in your theoretical rotation, it still seems better to use the HoT before the channel at the beginning. At present (possibly a bug) Innervate/HT does not use up FB/Conveyance if targeted on anyone other than yourself. With the two-piece PVE set bonus, your channel will still cooldown before you need it again in your rotation.

Dealing with this separately.

Yes... I'd forgotten about the bug at the moment with the Channel not eating the Conveyance/Force Bending buff. Like I said, I like the channel after the bubble - but I don't think it would make too much difference to switch them around. You could then also switch the HoT > Channel around in the later part of the rotation without much of an issue and it would help guarantee the Resplendence/Force Surge proc. I'll edit that post to reflect that.

I haven't really included much in the way of the set bonuses. Yes that might alter things in timing and you may be able to get a leaner rotation out. I'm honestly not going to do that extra work though. As I said, I haven't been playing the game for some time and spent a long time pulling together the first two posts here.... I just don't think I've got much energy left for messing with more.

X

Note: At present (25th April 2012) there is a bug which causes the Channeled Heal to not eat the Conveyance/Force Bending proc buff.

Edit: I can't reproduce the bug right now. I am currently testing ingame, but as soon as I start to cast Healing Trance, the Conveyance buff is eaten. This makes me wonder if the buff now only affects the first tick of the heal, only the direct healing portion, or the entire spell.

Essentially, it's still the double-dipping bug that's present. The channeled HoT only eats the buff at the very end (like it did pre-patch) so if you cast fast enough, you can make it affect 2 spells instead of 1.

It's funny that they put so much effort into destroying the bug in this specific case, but not consider the general mechanic behind it that's causing it. For instance, Troopers can also abuse a double-dipping bug with Reserve Power Cell and I am sure there are more instances where it applies.

Generally, a double-dipping bug occurs when the following conditions are met:

- The first and second spell being cast are "chained" (i.e. no room between casts, the player is mashing buttons to get the spells of as soon as the GCD ends);

- The first spell cast is a spell for which the buffs' effect is resolved when casting ends;

- The second spell cast is a spell for which the buffs' effect is resolved when its cast is started;

The reason for this is simply lag between the game server on one side and the game client on another. After the first spell, the game server is cancelling the buff but before it can tell the game client that the buff is gone, the game client has already begun casting the next spell, under the benefits of the buff.

What they did to "fix" it was simply to change the Sage's spells that were affected by it, to have them resolve at the start of casting. The exception here is Healing Trance, which gets affected by it every tick - including the very last one, which is when the spell ends. They left all others untouched, like the case of the Reserver Power Cell for Troopers, but I am sure there are more one-shot-only buffs which affect more than one spell, that have this 'ability'. I didn't perform a survey of all one-shot buffs that are available to players to see which ones can be abused.

On the topic of healing: the main reason people say that Healing Rotations are a silly concept is because healing is needed when it's needed, where it's needed. You can cook up all kinds of healing rotations, but in the end the only thing that matters is if you achieve the amount of HPS that is needed to offset the encounter's DPS (including all forms of damage done to the party during it). Based on those requirements, a healer has to be flexible and adaptive, to squeeze the most out of the resources available to make it till the end of the encounter. Those are parameters that cannot easily be caught in any rotation or formula - hence, people generally state that healing rotations are useless as they completely ignore situational and circumstantial effects which are present in any encounter.

On the topic of healing: the main reason people say that Healing Rotations are a silly concept is because healing is needed when it's needed, where it's needed. You can cook up all kinds of healing rotations, but in the end the only thing that matters is if you achieve the amount of HPS that is needed to offset the encounter's DPS (including all forms of damage done to the party during it). Based on those requirements, a healer has to be flexible and adaptive, to squeeze the most out of the resources available to make it till the end of the encounter. Those are parameters that cannot easily be caught in any rotation or formula - hence, people generally state that healing rotations are useless as they completely ignore situational and circumstantial effects which are present in any encounter.

You clearly haven't played as an Op/Scoundrel healer, and, if the 1.2 nerfs are any indication, it's painfully obvious to the majority of the healer community that rotational healing is exactly where the devs want this game.

Metrics aren't too good at measuring "flexible and adaptive" play, unfortunately.

Essentially, it's still the double-dipping bug that's present. The channeled HoT only eats the buff at the very end (like it did pre-patch) so if you cast fast enough, you can make it affect 2 spells instead of 1.

 

It's funny that they put so much effort into destroying the bug in this specific case, but not consider the general mechanic behind it that's causing it. For instance, Troopers can also abuse a double-dipping bug with Reserve Power Cell and I am sure there are more instances where it applies.

Your description of the double-dipping bug is correct.

This is not said bug. I must make the disclaimer that I haven't logged on *today*, so I suppose there is always the possibility of some server-side ninja change, but still. The channel does not eat the buff *at all*. You can cast HT/Innervate, sit around, twiddle your thumbs for a GCD, and Force Bending/Conveyance will still be there (unless it expires, obviously).

On the topic of healing: the main reason people say that Healing Rotations are a silly concept is because healing is needed when it's needed, where it's needed.

The rotation was designed on request, but it's a good rotation. If you add in the extra Main Heal towards the end of it, then you have what a lot of the guides actually recommend anyway - bubble tank, focus on AoE for healing and regen, Channel as your main heal, HoT for a small fast heal/AC buff for tank and the main heal as your big basher. The rotation has all of those elements with most of them on or near CD (or losss of immunity for the bubble).

The real point of the rotation is for it to act as a Reference Point. That is, you can design your decision making around the basic skeleton of the rotation. And of course you'll come away from the rotation as situations require it... but then you know that returning to it after the situation is over will be a steady state and balance your play again. The rotation is basically the best healing you can do with a neutral force drain.

You can happily add a Cleanse in for fights that require it, substituting it for one of the HoTs and in a free GCD for example. Or you could cast less than is in the rotation, leaving more Free GCDs to make more force back. Or add a Main Heal as I said, taking into account the drop in force as you do so. Or whatever... but the basic rotation is the best steady-state we've come up with so far and so represents a great skeleton on which you can flesh out your healing tactics.

For modelling you also need a Burst Healing rotation, that you can switch on when needed. That's where the variety will tend to really make itself most felt. But even then, you could probably choose one that is going to be your go-to burst healing approach. My own burst heal approach after 1.2 came out was Bubble > HoT > Channel, which is incidentally pretty much built into the rotation. Others might prefer HoT > Fast Heal or whatever.

People who create simulations for these games, include the option for choosing which burst healing method to go for and they model variations in incoming damage that require that from time to time. There are still obviously variations beyond that, which are not included and could not be included. If you lean toward a more tool-box/support playstyle, you'll gain less from a reference rotation... but if you know and understand that background to why the reference rotation works, then you'll generally make better decisions about what to do in a given situation too.

I was honestly surprised at how easy it was to create a basic rotation that fits most of the advice in guides well. I tried to create a rotation way back in beta and it was really not possible. It is a measure of just how deep the changes in 1.2 have bitten into the class. They created a couple of fixed points because of their clumsy changes to force management - and they reduced available flexibility and the relative value of heals worsened, which makes the rotation possible.

I don't play any more, but I'd bet that this rotation can tank heal a lot of the encounters in this game and still give some AoE DPS healing alongside it. Add in a burst healing rotation for emergency situations and I'd bet that you'd be good to go for a lot of the content in the game.

X

Edit strike that.

Lol

X

The rotation was designed on request, but it's a good rotation.

My comment wasn't intended as criticism . It was more a general remark on how encounter mechanics (as well as faults on the side of the participants) can dictate the healing needed. Personally, I'd say an encounter is properly tuned when you have to tax your resources, but not into the very deep red in order to barely survive (for encounters designed around your gear tier). I agree with you that healing has had its tools bent and twisted, giving a rather bland taste to it all.

My own healing style is pretty much based on intuition; I know what spells I have and I try to heal on intuition, based on the demands of the current situation - one that can rapidly change within just a second or stay fairly controlled for a long time. It's the way I healed way back in EverQuest, how I healed in WoW and now in SWToR. As such, I am not really a rotation type healer, even though I can see the benefits as you detailed them. But, as someone else said as well, you can't incorporate encounter events (especially the unexpected ones) into metrics .

Call me crazy, but in HM's I still use a lot of Deliverances, simply because it is the biggest bang for buck, and we manage to survive the encounters. Lost Island HM is still on the chew list, though, and I guess Ops require a different healing tactic altogether (which was the same in EQ as well as WoW).

Yes indeed. I think that the Sage/Sorc still has some of its ability to support varied play-styles, even if less than before. I think that they're also still comfortably the best healers all round, so you'd expect them to be able to stray from the norms.

I'm not much of a healing rotation kind of player myself, oddly enough... but I do pay attention to successful tactics. Perhaps I'm somewhere in the middle between the very rotation oriented players and yourself.

X

I think there is too much talk about healers not having rotation in this thread. It is true there isnt one load out or correct rotation. For a guide giving an example at least of ur current load out is paramount for helping new players such as myself. That's the point of a guide.

I am not sure what a rotation is honestly but here is what I am using currently. I am level 31 June 7 2012. Please correct me. I use retro interface so I have the numbered bar below. Right now

1) saber strike

Doesn't use force attack

2) deliverance

Low heal low activation

3) rejuvenate

This heals my fav. I can heal while running.

4) healing trance

Heal over time

5) disturbance

Low force low activation for roughly 350 damage

6) force slow

Low force 250 damage & slows down an add

7) telekinetic throw

Does 900 damage, slows enemy 50% for 30 force

8) force stun

Stuns target 4 secs, 20 force, 170 damaged

9) force wave

Does 250 damage to surrounding a enemies pushes them back & down sometimes.

0) force armor

Sheild for 30 secs.

-) force lift

Take an enemy out of combat for a minute

=) double strike

Idk why I have this there but I do use it.

So above interface this what I have

Revive companion- not sure why i have this one. if my companion dies I follow suit,

Rally-just in case

Noble sacrifice- I like this move. Gives me force for health. Good in heroics

Tumult- I love this move. 1000 damage after u melee force stun a guy. One of my few crappy combos. Also works good with force lift.

Mind crush-meh not sure why this here. Testing it.

Surgical medpac- heal thy self!

Heroic moment- I like this one just for the instant force stun cool down. It seems helpful when soloing stuff.

Force speed- I wanna run faster sometimes.

Project- there are times doing damage & spending force doesn't matter because sometimes no heals need to go out.

Long spur stap- my ride

Force potency- extra damage & heals. Great instant.

Force valor-it's a buff.

I have 3 more unfinished load outs I can switch to but I really stink at this game. I don't really have a true rotation as much as familiar places I loaded the moves into,

Ty for any help.

I really believe healers got (with maybe the exception of the Op/Smuggler) was that our fun was removed due to it being overpowered in PvE & PvP.

Sorcerors are much less fun to play since the nerfs, not because we aren't OP (I would argue we were pretty balanced with mercs/ops but whatever) but because they just completely changed the play style. I wish they would've just lowered the numbers/gains/etc. on the skills but left them the exact same, even with the dual cast bug.

It's soooo boring to sorc heal now but TSW out in a couple of weeks, so I'm willing to overlook it

Adjusted guideline rotation to reflect reported fixing in 1.3, of the bug which caused the Channel to not eat the Conveyance/Bending stack.

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Most of this is now negated by the new free, instant cast self heal. I suspect this will get nerfed in future and make this information once more important but it may be worth updating the thread in the mean time.

Thanks for all the hard work X.

after i red aoe heal on tank and you stoped reading

Somehow I don't feel a great sense of loss.

Force regain has received a rather large buff with 2.0.

The nature of this is...

1) Resplendence now stacks. And because of the way that HT works when cast using the Converyance buff from Rejuvenate, it now averages twice as many Resplendence buffs per Rej>HT cast that is made. Without changing the way in which we normally use HT,

2) The Sage talent tree now includes a talent that reduces the duration of the debuff from Noble Sac without Resplendence by 30%.

3) The New ability Force Barrier cleanses the stacking debuff from using noble Sac without Resplendence.

4) Alacrity now increases the regain rate & Mental alacrity provides a +20% boost for 10 seconds every 60 seconds. This instant ability does not activate the GCD & simply clicking it on CD will provide you with an extra 16 force every 60 seconds. Not a lot ~ but enough to make a difference for some players & situations. All sources of alacrity now boost the native rate of regen.

So I couldn't get through some of your technical speak...but speaking from personal experience and going off of what you seem to have missed...your bubble now heals you for 1% per second as long as it's up. Which essentially is a hot that protects you from adds. The way that I've found works is really entirely situational, and requires a combination of everything you've said.

Sorc heals strike me as more force-intensive than they used to be, so resource management has been made harder. But with 600 force (getting the set bonus at 2.0 for the extra 50 force is a nightmare now...it's all I can do to keep my 2-set bonus for innervate), you have a lot of cushion. For fights that don't have a lot of targeted aoe, such as in flashpoints, I have found it best to just gather the ranged dps and drop my aoe on the 3 of us, then drop my hot on the tank for force bending and channel innervate. Depending on the tank's health and how many crits I hit, I can use consumption 1-3 times. If the dps are melee, I will usually keep my aoe on them and the tank, and keep my bubble on myself as much as possible.

When there is nothing to heal, in longer fights, you can idle for a bit, or use consumption and eat the force regen debuff. Or eat four consumptions and use your barrier to purge the debuff, then drop an innervate on yourself or, as is my favourite, save your unnatural preservation for your consumptions. Some fights can be very busy, but you will almost always have time to slip a few consumptions in to keep your force up.

Just a few ideas...hope this helps. Unfortunately there is no "best" way to increase your force regen, because healing is entirely situational. Which makes it fun! It comes down to this: most people can be a mediocre healer. To excel, you must pay attention to your surroundings, watch everyone's health and know how much damage they are taking, and when they will take spike damage, and play a fine line with your own health and resource management. There is a lot going on...but that's what you signed up for. Every fight you get into will be different, and you will learn tricks every time you heal.

All in all...learn from your mistakes and don't be afraid to try new things! This is how the little tricks are discovered.