The challenge level has definitely been ramped up, no doubt about it. Although is it as bad as the massive amounts of exaggeration in the posts above? No, I don't quite think so. Of course there's going to be a period of readjustment, as everyone either ducks out and re-specs to Arsenal, or sticks with it and tried to relearn their class and new rotations. But from my experience of yesterday's changes, 1. PvP was mind-blowing. Compounding the reduction in effectiveness of Expertise healing and the reduction in basic BH healing effectiveness was simply staggering. I was barely hitting 150k healing in the new Novare Coast WZ, whereas Sorcs were still up there with their 250-300k healing. Now, I know that's massively distorted by the unspecific tickles from their AOE healing, but it's still a pretty big discrepancy. 2. PvE was manageable. Bear in mind your healing is also dependent on the gear and skill level of the people you are trying to keep alive. If their skill trees were altered or reset, then you've got to have some consideration for that having an impact on their gameplay. Personally, I'm with Jemz in that I'm gonna stick at it, juggle around a few specs and talent points and try and work with the 'new' class. If you're throwing in the towel now, then there's not much more I can say to you...

This is interesting, since it speaks to how I've been internally processing the upcoming Merc healer changes with Patch 1.2. When I first read the draft patch notes, I nearly fell off my chair in horror, since they did look like proper overkill and were certain to destroy Merc healers' viability at end game. But when I took a few days (and then some!) to reflect on the intent of the Devs' proposed changes, it kind of made some sense. And while I start donning my flame-retardant suit, let me explain why... While I'm healing end-game stuff -- be it HM Flashpoints or Ops -- I rarely have any resource management issues, and manage to keep the group alive fairly successfully. (This may be as much down the gear standards of the other people in the group, but let's keep this discussion simple for now). When you consider the spirit of the proposed Merc healer changes, this would suggest that the existing set-up was not as intended in respect of the current level of end-game difficulty. In order to keep it vaguely interesting for players, there needs to be some occasion during encounters when it gets a bit tense, either through resource management and/or response to spike damage -- and it's then the players' responses that have a measurable impact on the uncertainty of the outcome. At the moment, there isn't much that I have difficulty with, and I'm mostly only Columi-geared with a couple of Rakata pieces thrown in for good measure. And for me, it's good to see that this seems to be the current status of Operative healing, i.e. healing is effective and purposeful, but only when carefully managed. Now I know the healing methodology is vastly different between the two classes, but the outcome should be roughly the same == class balance. If 1.2 goes some way to impose some additional resource management requirement for Mercernary (and it's not completely over the top in practice), then I'm quite looking forward to the new challenge!

,,,Or I could do with a Drink! I didn't use him at all, but his crafting commentary does make me smile every time I hear it.

This. I levelled my Merc to 50 as pure Bodyguard/healer, and used Torian extensively from when I picked him up. I was intially a bit dubious over his potential survivability given that he's a bit of a gung-ho melee freak. But he can hold his own for a while against multiple mobs (and more importantly hold aggro from you) with Kolto Shell and the occasional top-up heal.

I'm afraid I'm with the majority on this one, and am terribly disappointed so far with the concept of Ashara companionship, and how it's been cobbled together. While the story of finding her on Taris and her agreement to come with you was unbelievably contrived, it really started to bug me when I was killing a whole bunch of Jedi Guardians, Protectors and Master on Quesh that I became a bit annoyed. Shouldn't this girl at least be slightly upset that she's cutting a swathe through her erstwhile brethren? It then became quite ridiculous when it was suggested I travel to Korriban. I initially thought that they would 'grey her out' as a possible companion for this planet, since she's like a Jedi, right?? Nope, all the masters and lords of the Sith Academy didn't blink an eye with me running through with a Jedi in tow; one blathering on about me not to try and change her from her Jedi teachings...! So either this is one of the most masterful creations of emotionally conflicted narrative, with a range of possibilities of philosophical debate between Sith Lord and Jedi Knight -- or it's just not. Hmmm...

Holy crap, thank god I just read this. I've been trying to RE a green vibroknife and was starting to go stir crazy because there was absolutely no success. Is there any ETA on a fix, or like everthing else, will it miraculously be picked up by patch 1.2?

I must admit, I've noticed a significant decrease in the success rate of getting a blue recipe from RE'ing a green item very recently. And this is across all crew skills on my alts. At launch, it didn't seem anywhere near as difficult as it is now -- but at the moment, RE'ing 25 vibroknives and getting no success seems a tad suspicious to me...

Yup, by taking the Light Armour costume, you lose all the benefits you would have had by wearing Heavy Armour. The 1.2 promo video seemed to suggest that cosmetic outfits might be coming soon... [tm]

I have a Seer l.50 and a Merc Bodyguard l.45. Haven't tried Smuggler/Operative healing mechanics yet. In normal Flashpoints, healing is pretty simple with both classes -- providing your teammates are reasonably well-geared and not completely stupid. Healing in some of the hard-mode Flashpoints though is completely different kettle of fish... Obviously not tried them as Merc yet, but we'll see soon enough. In terms of PvP Warzones, I found that until recently, my healing output on Merc was really low, and I struggled to have any meaningful impact or ability to keep people alive in focus-fire situations. I never had that problem at any point while playing as a healing Seer. The Seer effectiveness was never an issue. But my impression is that the scaling of Merc healing has caught up in the past 2-3 levels, which when added to their pretty good armour and mitigations, makes them a real pain in the *** to take down. 1v1 (sub-50) no one can really take down a Merc Bodyguard if they play it correctly. Now that's not to say you can actually DPS them out of the game either...but that's class balance for you, I guess

I must admit, I haven't geared up Nadia and was pushing through with Lt. Iresso -- but for the dailies, it can be terribly slow. With the current sub-par gear I've given to Nadia, she needed an awful lot of healing, so I ditched her in favour of one of the tanky companions. But given what some ppl have mentioned above, I might look into getting better kit for Nadia, and giving her a second chance.

That trailer was fantastic. While the new content looks amazing, I thought the soundtrack in particular was great -- something Star Wars continuously gets right every time.

Yup, as Lugh says, using Noble Sacrifice while standing in your own Salvation circle is a good way to regen while waiting for a Healing Trance crit (which procs a free Noble Sacrifice).

This is almost the same as my build -- I don't bother with 2pts in Valiance, but take the Pain Bearer talents instead. The only comment I would make is that when ever I think about doing DPS to help out a little, I immediately get behind on the healing. And when ever I concentrate just on healing, then it all works out fine. Essentially, you're in the group to keep everyone alive -- not DPS, even a little. Let the others take care of that.

I must admit, I didn't know about the companion-switching possibility -- but part of me thinks that's a bit like cheating, and the other part of me begrudges the fact that I didn't think of it myself! It took me 2 attempts of this as full Healing Seer/Sage spec with Nadia. Like my first attempt on Lord Vivicar with no prior read-ups on the fight, I failed miserably, with Nadia dying very quickly, and me following shortly thereafter. As someone mentioned earlier, our boss fights all seem to be about managing the interrupts and knowing which of our skills are direct and indirect interrupts. Lots of line of sight too. Very frustrating fight, but very rewarding at the end to know you've won in what is actually a really difficult fight for all JC specs -- despite what some individuals have claimed earlier in this thread...

Not necessarily. It largely depends on your Affection level with your individual companions. Given that you're Dark V, I'm guessing not many of your companions were entirely thrilled with your conversation choices and decisions, so probably weren't very fond of you. As far as I have been able to tell, the companion quests were only unlocked once you reached a certain threshhold of Affection with a companion, like +3,000 or +5,000, etc.

So the "fix" to Salvation obviously hasn't negatively impacted your ability to pump out respectable healing numbers -- despite what the posters above you are complaining of. I'm assuming your comments are more in relation to the relatively low number of medals you received for such a huge amount 'healed'?

Hi one-shot ability -- if not interrupted -- will hit for over-9000. No, seriously. Well, it hit both Qyzen and me for those amounts in the first run-through of the fight. His skill induction is really rather long, so in your second run-through its much easier to spot -- and to interrupt. Even at level 40, I'd hazard a guess that if you don't interrupt him, you'll still be one-shotted. What would life be like if we all didn't learn something new every day...?

As a healing Sage, I never have any need to use Theran, so am thankfully immune to his cowardice and weird dialogue. I've been so used to Qyzen being able to hold his own against multiple mobs, switching to Zenith was a huge wake-up call. Can safely throw the dinosaur a force Shield and the occasional Hot 'n' Heal and he's good to go. I probably need to upgrade Zenith's gear a little, but he can't hold aggro and drops like a stone. My first excursion to the front door of the Hutt's palace in Quesh ended is a disastrous and messy death. But after having Qyzen as my only companion for 25+ levels, I was quite looking forward to a change...

Too many other games have become so simple that they are nothing more than a DPS race, i.e. no appreciation for CC, or aggro-control, or off-tanking, etc. it's the only reason I can think why some players are such bad team players.

It's impressive the number of players who top their charts in all their WZ... Ah well, some people (like the OP) have to come last I s'pose...

How depressing. The game is barely launched 1 day, and already the 'Build/Spec Nazis' are out in full force. "There is no attempting new builds or specifications; there is only the cookie cutter..."

The Lore-master class in LOTRO uses both his Staff and Sword for actually very powerful melee attacks. Refer to Gandalf in the defence of Minas Tirith -- he's kinda awesome, but clearly no healer!

As Xellfish alludes to, it's pretty dangerous to jump to emotive conclusions with only knowing half the story. If the Sage had been brought into a group as a Healer, but then admitted they were actually spec'd for DPS, then I would say the group had every right to drop them.