Hi all, I am on the noobish side but enjoying slowly learning the game. I have played around with a few dps specs but I would like to try out the healing role. Which advanced class and spec would be best for a character that can fill the role of healer in heroics and flashpoints while also doing a lot of solo questing, without a lot of dying? Thanks for any advice you can offer.

There are a few options available for you Sage/Sorc, commando/Mercenary, or scoundral/operative. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. Sages for instance really excell at aoes.

 

I play a scoundrel healer, and love how mobile they are. They can really be a blast in pvp because of that. Plus stealth is pretty for skipping a lot of trash, and you have access to some nice ccs which make soloing heroics fairly easy if you can't find a group.

 

Don't get frustrated while leveling either. I think that some healing classes become more viable earlier on while some don't start to shine until later.

 

The best bit of advice I can give you though, is to keep your tank companion's armor up to date. If they have decent gear, you can kind of plow through everything. >

One thing to keep in mind is that most AC's ease into their roles as you level - some can't even perform their role until L14-16 - for example, tanks don't get a tank stance until 14, taunt at 16 and don't get an AoE taunt until 30 (that's all 3 types of tanks). At L12 a healer is going to have 2 heals that are not very effective and in many cases you don't really start getting effective until L20, when healers get their first talented heal, tanks get a defensive CD and DPS usually get some kind of attack. So you probably won't get a good feel for how the AC plays its role until you are at least level 20.

 

A second issue is your starting companion. Healers are probably best off with a melee DPS companion with a melee tank coming in second. This means that sages and sorcs have it made since they start off with a melee tank (an awesome one in the case of sorcs). Operatives and scoundrels are ok as they start off with a ranged tank, which takes a bit more work for them to keep aggro but are decent starters. Commando's start off with a ranged DPS companion which means they are going to have a tough time with aggro - however being a heavy armor class with good DPS even in healing mode helps with that. Mercs probably have the roughest start as Mako is a healer but you can probably get by since even a merc healer can dish out ok dps for PVE soloing and you can put mako on blaster stance instead of med watch.

 

The only healer I have run is a sorcerer and I can't really say how good/bad a soloer they are in the early to mid levels since I ran as a madness spec(DPS) until L35 when I could switch over to a mixed healer/lightning spec and have the following:

 

1. Resurgence (the instant cast hot) fully talented

2. The 20% bonus to lightning shield from the lightning tree

3. Force storm.

 

Force storm is a L35 sorc ability, not a talented one but I wanted it to replace death field from the madness tree, since sorc AoE sucks outside of those two abilities. The 20% bonus to the sorcerer bubble is sweet - because that provides a lot of your mitigation. The drawback to my mixed build is that I didn't get the bit AoE heal at the top of the healing tree until L47.

 

In general healing with a sorcerer (or sage) means bubbling everyone at the start of the fight, throwing the HoT on the tank as soon as it looks like the bubble is about to wear off, which gives the tank the added benefit of a 10% armor boost if you have invested the talent points in that. Then you leverage the boost provided from the HoT to either throw your big single target heal/AoE heal at reduced force cost, or your channeled heal at increased crit chance. You can generally drop your DoT's on hard targets in between healing, plus throw out the occasional force lightning/throw rocks (if you are a sage), at least in standard PVE groups. When my sorc heals in FP's I rarely need more than my bubble and HoT unless the tank is under geared/levelled, cannot hold aggro or its a really huge fight.

For soloing, hands down Scoundrel or Operative.

 

You'll have an easier time soloing heroics since you can skip the hard pulls and only worry about the easier ones. Or you can just stealth to the objective and stealth out. You can also drop combat when you get low whereas the others have to win or die trying.

 

With the Scoundrel/Op, you're gonna have a really hard time from about level 25-30. You only have a slow ticking HoT and a couple of really expensive big heals but the mobs are starting to get tougher. Once you hit 30 and get the instant cast heal which becomes free and spammable on targets under 30% at 31 everything changes. After that you just HoT up the companion (I use Akaavi on my Scoundrel because she's a Zabrak meat grinder), DPS until they get low, spam a few Emergency Medpacks and refresh the HoT when its about to run out.

 

All 3 get plenty of AoE but the Sorc/Sage spammable one is the best for trash clearing since it stuns/knocks down weak and normal mobs. The other 2 have this on an AoE but it has a CD. That said, an Orbital Strike will usually clear out the trash in 1 go, although I prefer the Scoundrel version since it stuns instead of knocking them back. I still have trouble getting all 3 ticks to land on my Sniper.

 

If you do decide to start grouping, its much easier on a Sage/Sorc. Bubble and AoE is pretty much all you need for most fights. Refresh the HoT on the tank whenever you can for the added armour and Innervate/Healing Trance when more healing is required. The other healers use a variable regen mechanic so you need to be tighter on your resource management but on the plus side, they can both keep healing forever and very little changes from a resource perspective when you go into 8 or 16 man content. That change is a bit tougher on a Sage/Sorc but their AoE hitting 8 people helps.

My advice to you as a new player would be Sage/sorcerer.

 

They have the most strait foward class mechanic, very good dps and are ranged which helps, both ACs first companions are good melee tanks ( one f the best companions for a healer) and they are the first healer to become good at his job. Around lvl 14 you gt your shield bubble and then healing becomes a walk in the park.

 

The other healers only get the shaft until they can buy their next healing ability via talents. Operatives/Scoundrels are great healers and stealth is sweet but until u buy your HoT talent at 20 something life is hard. While they are probably the best healer in game they are not good for much else. They have the worst dps in pve of all the classes and their mechanic feels clunky as hell.

 

Commamdo/Mercenary ...just dont. They have good dps but if you want to be a healer this is your worst choice. They have to work harder to do what the other two do with a hand behind their back. Bioware hitted this guys with the nerf bat recently and they have not yet recover AND you have the worst choice of first companions for a healer.

 

Disclaimer: I have both 3 classes around lvl 35 but have not gone to end game with them yet.

Thanks for all the info, I appreciate it! I will ponder.

Hi all, I am on the noobish side but enjoying slowly learning the game. I have played around with a few dps specs but I would like to try out the healing role. Which advanced class and spec would be best for a character that can fill the role of healer in heroics and flashpoints while also doing a lot of solo questing, without a lot of dying? Thanks for any advice you can offer.

 

Having twice as many healers as non healers at 50 so far (one of each republic side and a Sorc) I'd say they all have good strengths and weaknesses that make it more personal preference then anything.

 

Sage/Sorc is going to feel the closest to a traditional caster healer from other games, while the bubble is a nice fire and forget tool (allowing you to pre-bubble and be.more freed up to actually dps during fights, while the lack of accuracy on the classes dps side frees you up to dual-purpose a lot easier (I.e. buy field respec, level as dps respeccing for free when a flashpoint pops). I'd say it has the lowest learning curve to the healing rotations as well.

 

The bad-- force mechanic is less resource friendly the longer a fight stretches out, is the squishiest of the healing classes with bubble and self heal the only defensive cooldowns

 

 

Merc/commando- the best aoe in healspec for dealing with those

3-4 regular mob pulls while leveling. Good personal survivability makes them a bit low maintenance for soloing with and can handle a bad multi mob pull very well.

 

The bad- feels like the worst single target damage and resource efficiency, meaning you will run out of ammo fast doing both healing and dps while.questing, but recovers faster so I'd say comes out roughly equal to a sage in terms of downtime. Also dps rotations while healspec feel a bit clunky and awkward to me comparatively speaking.

 

 

Scoundrel/operative- is my favorite of the three. It is great for soloing because you can skip mobs you don't want to deal with and has the best opening burst while healspecced. Also is built on a whole lot of instant abilities both for healing and dpsing that keeps you mobile whole the heal-over-time aspect is great for keeping a tank companion alive while still dealing damage. Is very versatile with the biggest toolbox to work from (things like dodge, combat stealth, etc.).

 

 

The bad- probably requires the most activity and awareness of the three types, I like that because I think it keeps yoy more engaged but for someone new and just learning to heal might feel a bit more involved. Dps is also very position dependent- take away shoot first and back blast (both require you be behind the target, one also is only.opening from stealth). I think also you tend to feel it more when they are undergeared compared to the other two, but with a nicer payoff once geared (a two stack of my heal over time for.example now Crits for 1520ish per tick).

Edited December 17, 2012 by paul_preib