Sawbones, and likely the Imperial Equivalent, though I have never played an Operative. We have 0 defensive capabilities, weak HoTs, and only 2 direct heals, one of which can't be cast without a Proc the other gives.

Interruption: We have no protection against this. Our HoTs are far too weak to counteract the sheer levels of burst -any- class can put out. This leaves us spamming Underworld Medicine or Kolto Packs. Underworld Medicine is a 2 second cast time, and if it gets interrupted, you're SoL until it comes back, or you're blowing a GCD on Pistol Whip so you can cast a weak Kolto Pack in the meantime, or begging the RNG gods that your ticks of Slow Release Med Pack are proccing Upper Hand.

Self Protection: Once again, you've left us with nothing. Defensive Screen blocks maybe 3k damage, which is simply 3-4 seconds of damage for any class in the game. Dodge's only purpose is to clear debuffs. It doesn't "dodge" half the incoming attacks, doesn't stop reapplication of DoTs, and doesn't stop interruption. Vanish is equally worthless. For the cost of breaking combat, we become more useless than a Lemming in a factory, unable to heal or be healed for 10 seconds. Furthermore, any halfway intelligent monkey knows to just instantly hit an AoE or Stealth Detection ability, and you're coming right back out of stealth, achieving only a temporary target drop and now unable to heal anything they do for 10 seconds.

Distance Breakers: You must have them against Melee. We don't. We have a stun in a 30 second (talented) CD, and permanent spammable snare. Neither does us any good, as almost all snares in the game that Melee use are Force, and we can't dispel those, not to mention that gratuitous amounts of gap closers they have. I understand why they have them. They have to stay in range of classes with Knockbacks (See every class except Smuggler). We don't have Knockbacks. We have a Flash Bomb. That breaks on damage.

So what does that leave us with? Well we're a one trick pony. Emergent Emergencies. Free Emergency Med Packs sub 30% health. Clutch healing at its finest. Too bad one stun (which generally last 5+ seconds) at sub 30% health is death knocking at your doorstep.

Maybe it's a gear issue. I'm only sitting at 8% Expertise because how abysmally outnumbered the Republic is on my server, making it impossible to do the new Ilum dailies or win 75% of our PvP matches. I've just been healing MMO's for a long long time, and all the tools that a healer needs are not there. At the end of the day, a DPS should be able to kill a healer. They just shouldn't be able to do it so lopsidedly.

smuggs/ops are by far the worst healers in the game, especially in pvp, tbh there's really no point rolling one.

as a smug my biggest heal heals for ~1200 non-crit and is on a 2.5 second cast (1.9 with skills) and i'm being hit by everyone for 2k+ insta casts non-crit.

the hots are worthless and use far too much energy to be worth using on people.

just don't bother, only decent healer is sorc/sage thanks to the bubble and ground heal

just don't bother, only decent healer is sorc/sage thanks to the bubble and ground heal

And how is the reactive heal and ground heal of Mercs/Commandos any worse? Ugh, I don't know why I bother arguing balance stuff anymore. Sometimes its legit, sometimes its a matter of playstyle. Some people just are meant to play different classes but won't...

I'm pretty sure that commando healers would have a word with you.

Yup.

Its not that Scoundrels/Operatives are underpowered when it comes to healing, is that Sages/Sorcs are WAY overpowered.

I'm pretty sure that commando healers would have a word with you.

Commando healers actually have defense.

I agree 100% with the OP. I rolled Scoundrel as my first toon because I wanted a healer ... knowing then what I know now, I would have just rolled a Sage. Sawbones is useless.

Commando healers actually have defense.

 

I agree 100% with the OP. I rolled Scoundrel as my first toon because I wanted a healer ... knowing then what I know now, I would have just rolled a Sage. Sawbones is useless.

Commando/Merc healing numbers always seem a shade lower than mine (Ops) -- all speculation of course. They make up for raw output though in defence and utility (Lets Play Huttball!).

Sorcs/Sages can well outheal me (not even counting shields!), while putting out 10-20x my DPS AND have way more utility (Lets Play Huttball!) than I do.

So the next patch will be very telling -- hopefully Sorcs/Sages are tuned down and/or Ops/Scoundrel are tuned up, or it looks like a reroll...

Commando healers actually have defense.

 

I agree 100% with the OP. I rolled Scoundrel as my first toon because I wanted a healer ... knowing then what I know now, I would have just rolled a Sage. Sawbones is useless.

What defence? Heavy armor? Negligible. My gunslinger 80% dmg ignores it anyway.

Cryo nad on 1 min cd? AoE knockback?

Sawbones have all of that and can spec for 30sec stun with 30% speed boost for 4 sec, flash nade, single target 5sec root, in combat stealth.

The thing is sorcs/sages overperforming in general, not other two being bad.

smuggs/ops are by far the worst healers in the game, especially in pvp, tbh there's really no point rolling one.

 

as a smug my biggest heal heals for ~1200 non-crit and is on a 2.5 second cast (1.9 with skills) and i'm being hit by everyone for 2k+ insta casts non-crit.

 

the hots are worthless and use far too much energy to be worth using on people.

 

just don't bother, only decent healer is sorc/sage thanks to the bubble and ground heal

I don't have the ground heal at level 30 and your 1.9 sec cast is faster than my Skilled 2.0 cast and the fact that it hits so low is probably due to the trauma buff in PvP which I agree is frankly stupid.

The Hots are the same for us.

We are not really a healing class either, we are bubbling class.

Wow, seriously? I almost NEVER die in pvp, between dodge, defense screen, disappear, hots, and emp < 30%, its ridiculous how long I can kite - by the time I need my CDs, they're all up again. Nor do I run out of energy - certainly not more than every 2m. Lrn2manage energy efficiently?

I don't even know what to say other than ./boggle

Edit to add: I also don't need to go to a corner and cut myself to boost my healing numbers. I take great pleasure in finding these little MVP-cheaters and hotting them constantly.

i can never run out of energy

i can vanish

i can evasion

i can spam a free, fairly large heal on myself on the move every GCD

i can drop 2 different hots, one an aoe

i can shield myself

i can cover

i can LOS and use my 1.75s cast big heal to drop 2.5-6k healing on myself, depending on buffs.

to be blunt, i think you're doing it wrong.

haha, QQ....The best PvP healer I play with is an Op and he can keep me up thru a lot of stuff, but in WZ's heals are 30% nerfed, so you are expected to be killed when 5 people are on you, good healer or not.

As for defense, Cloaking Screen does wonders when everyone turns to get you, with the HoT's and the like, they can run around, keep people HoT'd up and hide/use terrain to there advantage and go POOF if needed, makes focusing down the healer hard, which keeps them focused on me.

Wow, seriously? I almost NEVER die in pvp, between dodge, defense screen, disappear, hots, and emp < 30%, its ridiculous how long I can kite - by the time I need my CDs, they're all up again. Nor do I run out of energy - certainly not more than every 2m. Lrn2manage energy efficiently?

The problem in my mind is that Energy has to be managed 100% efficiently just to be even remotely competitive. If an Op and Sorc are each healing a target, and have to each drop 5 Big Heals, the Sorc is in a much better spot when he comes out. The Operative will be at 5 Energy and have to pop a CD just to recover, and the Sorc can just stand there with his linear force regen and continue as normal.

My very first character was a scoundrel. I promptly deleted that one, not my thing. Hats off to anyone who stuck it out, youve got moxy.

wouldn't be much of a smuggler if ya didn't =p

The problem in my mind is that Energy has to be managed 100% efficiently just to be even remotely competitive. If an Op and Sorc are each healing a target, and have to each drop 5 Big Heals, the Sorc is in a much better spot when he comes out. The Operative will be at 5 Energy and have to pop a CD just to recover, and the Sorc can just stand there with his linear force regen and continue as normal.

If you're able to drop 5 big consecutive heals in PvP on any class, then you're already playing against scrub baddies, so who cares in any event?

i can never run out of energy

 

i can vanish

 

i can evasion

 

i can spam a free, fairly large heal on myself on the move every GCD

 

i can drop 2 different hots, one an aoe

 

i can shield myself

 

i can cover

 

i can LOS and use my 1.75s cast big heal to drop 2.5-6k healing on myself, depending on buffs.

 

to be blunt, i think you're doing it wrong.

"I can never run out of energy" if the other team doesn't know how to focus fire.

"I Can vanish" only to have it immediately broken by one of the 5 dots on you that you can't dispel.

"I can evasion" for 3 seconds/minute.

"I can spam a free, fairly large heal on myself on the move every GCD" except I can only spam it twice and it crits for ~2k.

"I Can drop two different hots, one an aoe" which is the least resource-efficient spell in the entire game and may or may not actually land on the targets I intended.

"I can shield myself" for 3k damage every 45 seconds.

"I can cover" to no point or purpose.

"I can LoS and use my 1.75s cast big heal to drop 2.5-6k healing on myself, depending on buffs." I can then proceed to run out of energy after that cast if I was doing anything to help my team. I can then proceed to be hit for 2.5-6k damage by the bounty hunter or sorc who was tailing me and caught up easily because I have no defense against slows.

To be blunt, your anecdotal experiences in the low-level bracket against horrible teams is not an accurate judge of how a class fares against players who actually know what they're doing. If the opposing team sees you are an operative/smuggler healer and does not proceed to train you every time they see you, then they are terrible.

The thing is sorcs/sages overperforming in general, not other two being bad.

Perhaps.

Commando/Merc healing numbers always seem a shade lower than mine (Ops) -- all speculation of course. They make up for raw output though in defence and utility (Lets Play Huttball!).

 

Sorcs/Sages can well outheal me (not even counting shields!), while putting out 10-20x my DPS AND have way more utility (Lets Play Huttball!) than I do.

 

So the next patch will be very telling -- hopefully Sorcs/Sages are tuned down and/or Ops/Scoundrel are tuned up, or it looks like a reroll...

Reroll for a more straight up healer, Sorc is just a great healing class all around, if they get nerfed then thats fine its still probably going to be easier to heal on a sorc imo. Ops are great dps, and bad heals in PVP