Due to diminishing returns on stats, you do want some alacrity, but not as much as the other stats. 300 surge, 200 alacrity would be superior to 500 surge, 0 alacrity. However, you generally get enough alacrity from non-modable gear (implants, ear pieces, belts, bracers).

Yes, that would be a bug if you are gaining the benefits of 3 of the 4 possible IA set bonuses. Currently, for some items, set bonuses are attached to the items while other set bonuses are attached to the armoring mod. When you place an armoring mod with a set bonus into an item whose set bonus is attached to the item, the item's set bonus is supposed to be overridden by the armoring slot. It sounds like a set bonus is not being overriden. Which items do have that are giving both the PvP and the PvE set bonuses? My guess as why set bonuses are like this is that BioWare couldn't give gear that had a set bonus prior to 1.2 an armoring mod with a set bonus without restoring the gear's default mods, which would mean mods and enhancements would be reset to their default mods. Just a guess as I can see no other reason why some set bonuses are attached to armoring mods and others are attached to the armor itself.

So.. what was the point of making a thread instead of sending a message to RuQu again?

This. Unless you are wearing a shield generator in your off hand (which you can't do as an Operative), you will have a 0% chance to shield an attack, no matter how much shield rating you have. And of course, if you aren't shielding attacks, Absorption doesn't do anything either. Defense only affects melee/ranged attacks. Most attacks in PvP are force/tech abilities, which are not affected by defense. Hell, even Shiv, Backstab, and Hidden Strike are all considered tech rather than melee. So the defensive relics really aren't worth much.

24 year gay guy checking in from Arizona, USA. I know of a few others playing on my team from my server, Hedarr Soongh. It never really occurred to me to identify a guild as LGBT friendly. I found this thread completely by accident.

Are you denying that Sorcs were extremely overpowered pre-1.2 and Operatives were weaker than the other healers? I find nothing wrong with the statement you quoted. The healers are in fact closer in balance (thus presumably closer to their target) after 1.2 was released than they were before 1.2. In warzones, healers aren't gods, but they are very useful, especially when paired with a tank. An undergeared healer is almost worthless against geared players, but a geared healer is definitely a benefit in PvP.

Mercenaries are simpler to play than Operatives. Yeah, Operatives have Diagnostic Scan to help restore energy faster. Operatives also have to manage their energy buff and their combo points to keep their energy in check. It's easier for the Mercenary to stay within their target of <40 heat than it is for Operatives to stay within their range of 60+ energy as the Operative has more things to manage than the Mercenary. Neither one is particularly difficult to manage, but hey, I'm not the one complaining about Mercenary heat here. Yes, I do play both an Operative and a Mercenary healer.

Medicine Operative: Naga Mouse: F1 - Kolto Injection F2 - Surgical Probe F3 - Kolto Infusion F4 - Diagnostic Scan F5 - Kolto Probe F6 - Recuperative Nanotech F7 - Interrupt ability F8 - Adrenal F9 - Countermeasures F10 - Toxic Scan F11 - Sleep Dart F12 - Slice Droid --- Keyboard: 1 - Stim Boost 2 - Adrenal Probe 3 - Shield Probe Q - Rifle Shot E - Shiv R - Backstab T - Corrosive Dart F - Fragmentation Grenade G - Carbine Burst Z - Escape X - Medpac ctrl+1 - Evasion ctrl+2 - Explosive Probe ctrl+3 - Snipe ctrl+4 - Cloaking Screen ctrl+5 - Battle rez ctrl+Q - Overload Shot ctrl+E - Debilitate ctrl+R - Flash Bang ctrl+T - Hidden Strike ctrl+F - Orbital Strike ctrl+G - Sever Tendon After writing this from memory, I'm almost embarrassed at how many skills that I don't even know what their proper names are still.. (aggro dump, battle rez, the 17 energy spamable 10m range ability, the AoE that consumes a TA proc).

Occasionally a mob will see you through stealth while your sleep dart has already left your wrist. The result is that the mob attacks you as soon as sleep dart wears off and when it begins to attack you, the entire group attacks you. You should see the mob that you slept as a red dot on your minimap when this happens, indicating that you are in combat with the mob, even though it is CC'd and cannot attack you. Other than that, no, I have not noticed anything peculiar about Sleep Dart.

This happened to me on Void Star just now as we lost the match. No idea if double credit for losing was given. Didn't have any quests for playing warzone matches and was a level 10-49 bracket warzone.

Yes, the Legacy system is very odd in this regard. It's looking like it will take over a year to reach level 50 Legacy, but if you ever decide to roll a character on another server, well that new toon is just out of luck, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You'll need to spend yet another year re-leveling Legacy from 1 to 50. Benefits I'd receive of re-rolling on my main server and not another server: * Rocket Boost * 200 Presence (from Level 50 Human + 10 companion stories from 2 toons - this perk is amazing at lower levels) * 24 minute cooldown Quick Travel * More race options (Chiss, in my case) * Level 10 tier 1 speeder (After 1.3) * Faster Sprint (After 1.3) It's almost as if BioWare wants to discourage people from re-rolling on another server, which makes absolutely no sense. I had a plan to make 1 Empire server and 1 Republic server so that I could experience every advanced class on both factions, however, the Legacy system discourages this. I am more limited in race options and lose out on 200 Presence from companion stories (which cannot be bought, so there is no other way to get this perk), not to mention, perks need to be bought twice, 7 million credits just for Rocket Boost to get it on both factions. It's simply dumb that right now my Republic toons have 200 less Presence than my Imperial toons because Legacy is server bound instead of account bound. Legacy level and perks really does need to be account bound and not server bound.

The parser that my guild uses shows the Merc healer at about the same level as our 2 Operative healers. They're very close. The Sorc AoE inflates their numbers, making their numbers much, much higher. Heck, if the Operative AoE is also inflating their numbers to a lesser extent than the Sorc AoE, that should indicate that Mercs are superior single target healers, even despite the 1.2 nerfs.

Every class can write a script for their class. If (target.getKoltoProbeDuration() < 3 seconds) activate("Kolto Probe"); else if (player.getStimBoostDuration() < 3 seconds) activate("Stim Boost"); else if (raid.getNumOfDamagedRaidMembers() > 2) activate("Recuperative Nanotech"); else if (player.getTacticalAdvantageStackCount() > 1) { ... if (player.getEnergy() > 90) activate("Kolto Infusion"); ... else activate("Surgical Probe"); } else if(player.getEnergy() > 75) activate("Kolto Injection"); else activate("Diagnostic Scan"); There, a script for Operative healing.

About time someone with sense posted in this thread.

Sage and Commando healing is fine. Pick whatever you want to heal as OP, there's a lot of butt hurt people who aren't being reasonable right now because they were nerfed. If animations are important to you, when leveling my level 20 Scoundrel, I just had to laugh at how ridiculous their equivalent of Shiv is, believe it's called Pistol Whip. It rather looks like an angry teen girl slapping someone.

I haven't been real active in the healer forums, but I stopped coming here for awhile because I got tried of all the whining after the 1.2 PTR notes were released. "OMG! SORCS MUST HEAL THEMSELVES MORE THAN THE TANK!" "OMG! MERC HEAT SUCKS!" "OMG! BIOWARE DIDN'T FIX OPERATIVES!" It got pretty annoying real quick, so I just left. I'm hoping people got some sense by now.

Other than the first boss of 16-man HM Denova due to the raid wide DoT and after the red circle spam fest phase, Sorcs don't really shine compared to the other healers like they did in EV. It was the mechanics of EV, which made Revivification essential and thus made Sorcs superior healers. Even then, the damage from Toth and Zorn doesn't seem grave enough that a Merc or Operative couldn't handle healing the raid in the Sorc's stead (haven't actually tried it without a Sorc, so I could be talking out of my *** here). I might actually argue that Sorcs are the worst healers for General Kepess as the final phase is the only phase of the fight where healing requires any thinking and it's all tank damage. For the second boss, at least for my guild, we prefer 2 Operative healers (Sorcs are a second choice) for taking the Double Destruction due to their mobility and HoTs, especially when "Defensive Positions" is called out immediately after a Double Destruction. The Firebrand healers can be anyone as the healing is light over there.

Sorcerer, Operative, or Mercenary. And it's Imperial*, not empirial.

I'm saying that using the argument "Kolto Shell takes forever to heal a DPS player!" is stupid given that the ability is intended for someone who is taking consistent damage, like a tank. Umm.. you realize that Kolto Shell can crit as well, right? 4.5k healing is if all 10 procs do not crit, which is unlikely to happen (Rakata gear level, even more with Campaign / Black Hole gear). Kolto Shell is roughly 50% more healing than Rapid Scan, not 50% more than the non-crit healing of Rapid Scan. So you're saying that Kolto Shell is better than your spamable heal, but you're just not going to use it because it doesn't 'feel' good? OK, Chuckles. I'm sorry if you don't want to use your class to its fullest, but that's on you.

MACROS Examples are using Operative abilities: Mouse-over macros. A macro that allows you heal whoever your cursor is hovering over instead of your current target. There should also be options so that it will only heal if you are mousing over a frame and not mousing over someone in the open world. /use [target=mouseover] Kolto Injection; /use [target=mouseoverframe] Kolto Injection; /use [target=mouseoveravatar] Kolto Injection; Friend / Enemy. A macro that allows you to heal if your target is an ally or use a damaging ability if your target is an enemy. /use [target=friend] Kolto Probe; Corrosive Dart; /use [target=enemy] Rifle Shot; Diagnostic Scan; Stealth / Nostealth. A macro that changes which ability is used based upon if you are in stealth or not. I do not want to change the entire main action bar if I am in stealth, I only want to change one or two abilities that may not even be on the main action bar. /use [stealth] Hidden Strike; Backstab /use [nostealth] Stealth; Sneak; Cover / Nocover. A macro that changes which ability is used based upon if you are in cover or not. I do not want to change the entire main action bar, I only want to change one or two abilities that may not even be on the main action bar. /use [cover] Snipe; Overload Shot /use [nocover] Backstab; Explosive Probe; Combat / Nocombat. A macro that changes which ability is used based upon if you are in combat or not. /use [combat] Cloaking Screen; Stealth; /use [nocombat] Revive; Resuscitation Probe; As an additional note about the macro system, I do not believe that abilities should be chained together in a single macro unless there are obvious conditionals like the ones I listed above. For instance, I would not want to see: /usesequence Kolto Injection, Surgical Probe; /usesequence Shiv, Cull; Even though Cull can only be used after gaining a Tactical Advantage proc from Shiv, I believe that sequence macros like this take out too much thinking of what abilities the player should use, even if you need to press the button twice to activate both abilities. The conditional macros simply reduce the number of keybindings the player needs, it does not remove thinking. Sequence macros, however, does reduce thinking. Additionally, the suggested conditionals should be allowed to have multiples within the same macro, such as: /use [stealth] Sneak; [combat] Cloaking Screen; Stealth; Activates Sneak if you are currently stealthed, otherwise, if you are in combat, you will activate Cloaking Screen, and if you are not stealthed and not in combat, you will enter stealth mode. /use [target=mouseover,friend] Kolto Injection; [target=friend] Kolto Injection; Backstab; If you are moused over an ally, it will heal the mouseover target with Kolto Injection, otherwise if your target is a friend, your target will be healed by Kolto Injection. If your target is an enemy, however, the enemy is hit with Backstab. /use [stealth] Hidden Strike; [cover] Snipe; Backstab; Uses Hidden Strike if you are in cover, Snipe if you are in cover, or backstab if or are not in stealth or cover. /use [target=mouseover,friend] Kolto Injection; [target=friend] Kolto Injection; [stealth] Hidden Strike; [cover] Snipe; Backstab; Combines the two macros above so that if you target an ally (either mouseover or by target), you cast Kolto Injection on them, otherwise, a damage ability is chosen if you are in stealth (Hidden Strike), in cover (Snipe), or otherwise defaults to Backstab.

OK, you win this argument. Kolto Shell doesn't heal players who aren't taking damage. You've clearly won this argument. /sarcasm Seriously, if you're going to bring up arguments that involve not using the ability as intended... that's just a waste of time. "Why are we wiping? I keep spamming myself with Rapid Shots when the tank is taking damage. What am I doing wrong?!? HALP!" I also love how you shrug off 50% extra healing (with 33% less heat/ammo cost) as if it's nothing. Very compelling argument indeed.

As much as I disagree with the perception of Merc imbalance, this point I do agree with. When Mercs were brought down to the Operative level in 1.2, I switched back to my Operative from my Merc not because Mercs were underpowered, but because Operatives are just more fun to play as they are more dynamic with random procs from our HoT granting a Tactical Advantage (combo point). Mercs, on the other hand, use a bunch of abilities as soon as they are off cooldown, and that's it. Every healer right now could probably use more dynamic gameplay, but Mercs have the worst of it.

Yes, let's completely ignore that Kolto Shell heals in this doomsday scenario. If you cast Rapid Scan directly after Kolto Shell, Kolto Shell may have already procced twice before Rapid Scan goes off, giving 900 - 1.8k healing, about 1/3 of a Rapid Scan, and it will continue healing. 4.5k non-crit healing is not a trivial amount, even if it doesn't occur all at once. It's about 50% more healing than Rapid Scan, plus it cost 33% less to cast Kolto Shell than Rapid Scan.

Mostly from a 16-man raid healing perspective: BUFFS AND DEBUFFS Give the ability to re-size buff / debuff icons. I want larger buff and debuff icons without larger raid frames, but this is currently not possible. Give the ability to customize where debuffs and buffs display. Within raid frames, buffs and debuffs currently display right on top of each other, which I find to be very confusing and annoying. I would like the ability to choose from which corner of each frame buffs and debuffs display, independently from one another. Make it easier to identify my buffs and debuffs from others' buffs and debuffs. It's currently difficult to identify how long my HoT or DoT has remaining. Either allow my buffs and debuffs to be separated from others' buffs and debuffs, allow my buffs and debuffs to appear larger than others' buffs and debuffs, or give players the option to disable buffs and debuffs not applied by me from displaying. Preferably all 3 options so everyone gets what they want. Color the borders around debuffs to indicate what type of debuff it is. It is currently frustrating knowing which buffs are dispellable and which are not. Color the borders based upon debuff type to make this easier. For example, white: undispellable, red: physical, light blue: mental, yellow: tech, purple: force. For Operatives and Scoundrels, give the Tactical Advantage and Upper Hand buffs their own indicator. TA and UH is a resource for Operatives and Scoundrels. It's difficult to keep track of this buff when it keeps moving around as buffs are applied and removed all the time. TA and UH should have their own independent indicator, such as 2-3 icons within the energy bar. Remove stance, class buff, and stim icons from raid frames. With 16 raid frames, these buffs lead to 90+ icons that I could care less about and make it more difficult to see buffs and debuffs that I do care about. Similar to above, remove the battle rez debuff from the raid frames. I doubt this will come to pass, but ideally, there should be a way that I can disable the icon of any debuff or buff that I don't care about, such as right-clicking the icon and selecting "disable icon". A menu should be available somewhere in preferences if you wish to re-enable the buff or debuff. There are many buffs and debuffs that simply don't affect how I play, thus trying to sort through all of these buffs and debuffs becomes annoying. Sample abilities that I would like to be disabled from raid frames for me personally: 1) Mercenary +3% healing received buff. 2) Mercenary +5% damage reduced buff. 3) Sorcerer debuff preventing them from casting Electric Shield (I'm an Operative). 4) The 5-day debuff that is received after killing Nightmare Pilgrim. 5) The battle rez debuff. 6) The debuff received when standing on Stormcaller or Firebrand. PLAYER AND TARGET FRAMES Give the ability to disable portraits from player, focus, target, and target of target frames. Adjustable health bar height and width. Currently, only raid frame's can have the health bar height and width adjusted. Player, focus, target, and target of target frames currently do not have adjustable health bars. Give the ability to disable the display of resource bars. I never pay attention to how many resources party/raid members currently have. Seeing the resource bars in the raid frames is currently a waste of space. Give the ability to customize health bar text between current health, health deficient, and health percentage. Currently we can only see current health, and health percentage on SOME frames, but not all. The ability to see health in a text format should be available on all frames. Health deficient should also be an added option as many healers prefer to see how much health they can potentially heal. Option for raid member names and buff and debuff icons to display directly on the health bars instead of above them. I find that the name plates above 16 health bars on the raid frames takes up a lot of vertical space. I would like to see raid member names display directly on the health bar instead of above it. Similarly, I'd like to see buff and debuff icons displaying directly on the health bars instead of above the health bars, where they are easier to notice. Give us the option to remove borders from all frames. While some frames can have borders removed, the player cast bar and the main action bar cannot have their borders removed currently. INTERFACE EDITOR Give us the option to move frames by every 5 or 10 pixels instead of every 1 pixel. It's somewhat difficult to line up frames horizontally or vertically if the frames are not right next to each other. Moving frames by 5 or 10 pixels instead of 1 pixel at a time will make lining up frames easier to do. ACTION BARS Give the ability to quickly toggle an action bar on or off. I prefer a minimalist UI, so that I only see what is necessary. I have the action bar containing Quick Travel not visible, but at times, I would like to quickly check the cooldown remaining on the ability. It would be nice if we could either make action bars visible only when we mouse over them, change the alpha value when we mouse over them, or have a button similar to the quest tracker to show / hide an action bar. Give the ability to move companion abilities around on the companion hot bar. I would like to adjust the companion abilities so that companion stances are next to each other and companion AoE abilities are next to each other to make it easier to switch a companion's stance and to enable/disable companion AoE abilities when their is crowd control going around. Toggle on/off the icons for the action bar lock and the action bar changer from the main action bar. MINI-MAP Give the ability to rotate the mini-map based upon the direction our character is facing. I occasionally get confused which way I'm supposed to be going ("Is South to my left or right right?"), making the mini-map rotate based upon which direction I'm facing would help immensely. BUG Ctrl + f2 and Ctrl + A cannot be correctly bound to the action bar at this time. While you can bind these buttons to the action bar, trying to use any ability that you assign to it cannot be used. These are both keybindings that I would like to use, but cannot for some inexplicable reason.

This logic would only work if people are dying within two global cooldowns, other than 1-shot mechanics and avoidable mechanics. That's currently not happening. It takes 3.2 seconds to cool off the heat from a single use of Kolto Shell. That means that if you cast Rapid Scan right after using Kolto Shell, the heat cost for using Kolto Shell will already have cooled down by the time Rapid Scan goes off.