I recently ditched my Shadow and made a Sage, I have to redo 1 1/2 chapters but that's fine, the Sage is infinitely more fun to play than Shadow.

 

So I was wondering if it's possible to play the story as a healer while my companion does the damage role without many problems. Would I come across later parts of the story where my companion will be incapacitated and I have to actually solo a boss?

 

I was struggling a bit with this during the Temple of Assassins story on Hoth on my Inquisitor, without any healing from my companion, I couldn't use Heroic Moment and stims barely helped me on my 4th attempt to solo that Ancient Assassin Droid or w/e they're called. Though I forgot I had the Static Barrier ability, sure that would've helped me greatly.

 

Will I come across something similar in the Consular story if I went full heal? Or would I be just fine as long as I don't mind fighting enemies longer?

Edited February 3, 2017 by The_Lost_Bean

in a general sense. this is doable.

 

my very first character, way back when was a sith/sorc healer ..i ran Khem Val as a tank all the way through 1-50 content.

 

That being said, realize this will present some challenges. And also. just because you're "heals" doesn't mean you can't DPS. In fact, it behooves you to learn/practice ways to toss in some DPS or assistance during combat, regardless of whether it's other live players or your companion doing the fighting. As a force healer, you should have CC spells. which you can use to lock down 1 mob, or stuns and interupts to disrupt what any particular mob is doing.

 

--as an additional bit of advice. Focus target is a great feature to learn/use. with it. can be focused on healing your comp or doing other stuff, and still see what a boss or whatever you asign as focus is doing/casting

 

champion/elite mobs sometimes are immune to these. but sometimes even tossing a simple DoT spell, or the ocasional dps spell at something helps.

 

I always tended to use my companion in tanking mode, to keep as many things off me as possible... when things come after you. remember you have those same stuns/CC spells. as well as knockback... and force speed. to get away from things. and bubbles/protection spells to protect yourself with... this is called "kiting" or... making it so something that's after you, can't get at you. if the mob is ranged. this is harder. but if it's ranged. line of sight becomes more useful. where you hide behind something, forcing a ranged attacker to have to move, or come closer to you. all these things

 

 

that all being said. if you're at some part of the game. where you're denied access to your companion. boss fight, or something. (if your companion is stunned or knocked down or whatever. you have a cleanse spell.. that removed that stun/cc/knockdown usually) but it can be difficult fighting a tough boss without a companion. it's at these times, really using all your available skills is important. using whatever bubble, or defensive spells you have. self heals. positioning. and dps spells. you can solo things, even as heals. but it takes some finese. my advice. ...practice this a little. set your companion to passive. take on weak mobs, then silvers, then a gold, see how it feels to play alone. so you're not shocked or caught off guard on the rare times the game forces it on you.

 

I can remember fights, where all i did was slap DoTs on a boss. run around some object. ...putting a slowing effect on them. and dropping some AOE and instant attacks when possible. The poor stupid boss could only chase after me crippled. as i force sped away. turned around and blasted it. bubbled up. Dot-ed the boss back up, and repeated the process. --the idea i guess is just thinking differently and utilizing anything and everything at your disposal.

 

when in doubt. ask for help. if the content allows a party. even story quests. sometimes allow you to make a group and bring friends.... doesn't do much for them, but they can certainly help you kill something you're having trouble with.

 

medpacs, stims, etc. also can help in a pinch if you're fighting something tough.

 

Or as a last ditch option, can switch out your spec to dps. for a key fight. if need be... then go back to being heals

Edited February 3, 2017 by louisfriend

It's doable, but try to jack up your companion's influence to at least 20. Even then, as said above, you may find it easier to switch to DPS in some cases.

 

Also, it's best, if you want to heal, to use a companion that is melee to keep the enemies off of you. (Lana, Bowdaar, Jaesa, for example) Set then to DPS, not tank.

Edited February 5, 2017 by JediQuaker

It's doable, but try to jack up your companion's influence to at least 20. Even then, as said above, you may find it easier to switch to DPS in some cases.

 

Also, it's best, if you want to heal, to use a companion that is melee to keep the enemies off of you. (Lana, Bowdaar, Jaesa, for example) Set then to DPS, not tank.

I prefer to set my companion to tank, not dps, when playing a healer character. I find companions get and hold aggro much better as tank than as dps (no surprise there). And when I'm playing a healer character, I just really don't like getting aggro. (Unfortunately, there are some places where it seems that the instant I have my companion attack, the target and/or other mobs instantly come after me, even before I do anything myself).

 

I just give my companion the "attack" command, and then join in after that. For easier fights, I mostly dps stuff and toss a few heals from time to time, usually just a HoT while moving on to the next fight. For more difficult ones, I'll focus on just healing my companion, and occasionally dumping aggro, and maybe even have my comp occasionally switch targets, if needed to keep the aggro off me.

 

I also usually turn off my companion's "mass pull" ability, to force them to "charge in" at the mobs, instead of pulling everything on top of me/us. And if I get too much aggro, I can always target the mob(s) on me and manually hit the companion's "pull" to at least temporarily get their attention off me.

 

Having a companion with influence 50 helps, too (and I do have Lana at 50), though for most content, I find around 20, or even just 10, is good enough.

--the idea i guess is just thinking differently and utilizing anything and everything at your disposal.

 

A (scoundrel) healer was my main for a long time...

I agree with everything louisfriend said, but what I've quoted above is the crux of it all.

It takes a different way of thinking, creative/careful use of all your tools, and tends to require patience.

But it's doable.

It's a good way to learn how to heal, and I've enjoyed it. My main is Sorcerer healer and I completed the Inquisitor's story first back in 3. something, I layed as heals and with companions being either tank (Khem) or DPS (Andronikos and Ashara). Throwing your DoT-spells will help the fights a lot, and can do sufficient damage to enemy. I do admit that playing as healer can be bit tricky: the last battle with Vaylin at the end of KotET, I went through it as healer, and it took long. I was able to keep myself alive more or less with Sorc's healing spells but I wasn't able to do much damage. Either way, its your preference in the end: many seem to prefer to be a DPS with companion as healer, though playing as healer can reward you with new playing experience and be a start on path to healer.

I was struggling a bit with this during the Temple of Assassins story on Hoth on my Inquisitor, without any healing from my companion, I couldn't use Heroic Moment and stims barely helped me on my 4th attempt to solo that Ancient Assassin Droid or w/e they're called. Though I forgot I had the Static Barrier ability, sure that would've helped me greatly.

It's possible to call a "real" companion to help you with that fight while Geekboy messes with the door. You have to be quick, but you *can* do it. (It's how I did it back in the day, before 4.0, when my Sin was used to fighting without a healer companion, but wasn't used to fighting without a companion.)

I prefer to set my companion to tank, not dps,

The problem with setting your companion to Tank is that they do much less damage, so it takes longer to kill enemies.

A Sage healer has enough offensive skills and self-heals/defence to withstand some agro, so that's generally not a big problem in PvE. When I was taking a Sage healer through the game (pre 5.0) I ended up doing as much DPS'ing as healing. Much of the time I ended up switching my companion to heals and just DPS'ing, even though the Sage was configured as a healer. (I haven't used that Sage in 5,x)

I leveled my Operative in healer mode primarily using tanking companions from 1-50 at launch, and it was definitely doable. For most of the easier content, a DPS companion would be faster, but eh, I had fun. And the tanking companion definitely let me solo a lot of harder content that a DPS build would have had more trouble with. However, I didn't let my companion do all the damage. Any time healing wasn't needed, I did damage instead. And certain things, like keeping the DoTs up was a bit of a priority. So it worked.

 

With the current leveling system, it's probably even easier now, as long as your companion is ranked up.

You are talking about classic storyline content right? The one that has maybe 10 elites in an entire story? This should be easily done with you as dps and companion as dps. If you are healer it's still easy. No need to keep companion on tank, learn how to defend your self in easy situations first, so you won't panic in flashpoints or operations. Companion influence helps, but it's not essential. It'll build up as the story goes.

I'd imagine the OP will be doing the Heroic +2 missions as well, since that's an easy source of blue gear while leveling. So that would mean a lot more heroic mobs than 10. That said, they're trivial to solo these days, especially when you've got 2 levels on them, which will be the case most everywhere (Nar Shadda on the Republic side being one exception). So even those shouldn't give much trouble.

Dont level as a healer unless you want to do flashpoints. Its only painful.

Dont level as a healer unless you want to do flashpoints. Its only painful.

 

I find being a healer fun and I have like 3 or 4 healers and my main is a healer so it is fun to level them and 2 of them were made way before all the changes so it was fun leveling then.

Edited February 8, 2017 by casirabit

I started my first healer with my free kotfe token. Was painful through kotfe with a sorcerer as healer. 2nd healer was my sage, managed to finish the first chapter as damage, then switched to healer for additional flashpoint leveling. Third healer was again a sorcerer, this time from lvl1 instead from lvl60. I leveled the story and makeb as damage and then switched for the last levels to healer in flashpoints and H2.

 

Its just frustrating with the limited companion AI that cant tank properly and you have to do additional damage or have a mike tyson on crack and you get bored if your companion is damage dealer. I dont find either method appealing.

Never had that problem with finding it boring, personally. Though it is worth mentioning that I ran an operative, which added stealth to the gameplay dynamic, allowing me to skip a lot of trash mobs. Well, that and I generally prefer a support/tanking role over that of DPS.

With all this talk about maining healers, I wonder why I never see any. I struggle doing uprisings as the only tank of the group while everyone else is just damage. I don't how anyone can get through them without someone pulling all the aggro if they're all DPS.

 

Which is the main reason why I made a Sage though I also have an Inquisitor who will also be a healer. I assume I'm getting near the end of the Hutt Cartel DLC on my Inquisitor and wondering about just switching my discipline to healer at this point before starting the Revan stuff.

With all this talk about maining healers, I wonder why I never see any. I struggle doing uprisings as the only tank of the group while everyone else is just damage. I don't how anyone can get through them without someone pulling all the aggro if they're all DPS.

 

Which is the main reason why I made a Sage though I also have an Inquisitor who will also be a healer. I assume I'm getting near the end of the Hutt Cartel DLC on my Inquisitor and wondering about just switching my discipline to healer at this point before starting the Revan stuff.

 

My Consular had been a Sage healer since launch. Recently (less than a month ago), I switched him to DPS. On the server I'm on (Jung Ma) finding groups to heal is painfully slow or impossible, at least at the hours that I play, and while it's *completely* doable to PvE as a healer and have your companion do all the heavy lifting, it's much, much slower. I miss being an awesome healer, but I don't miss spending twice as long to dispatch a group of enemies alone because of it.