The best +power enhancements are the following: Advanced Adept Enhancement (power+surge) Advanced Initiative Enhancement (power+accuracy) Advanced Quick Savant Enhancement (power+alacrity) The adept enhancement 25 is only found in a republic troopers assualt cannon. The adept 24 can be found in agent columi and champion gloves and headgear. The Initiative Enhancement 25 can be found in a ton of different rakata and battlemaster gear while the savant enhancement can be found in sorc healing battlemaster and rakata gear. From a healers perspective, it is probably better to get adept 24's as opposed to the savant 25's as alacrity is not really a good stat for us.

You only need to re-cast KP once to refresh the 2x stack. This is an extremely important mechanic that will save you considerable energy over the long run. Regardless of what the model animation looks like, always go by what your buff bar reads.

1. Yes, it amazes me how often people do not cancel channeled/casting abilities. It is extremely necessary when mixing DS in as a filler when everyone is topped off or to regen energy, especially if someone takes burst damage and you have to stop to throw a heal their way. 2. I would actually very much recommend against this. If you are saving your adrenals & relics for extra energy regen than you aren't doing something right. Personally, I roll with the HM/NM healing relic and a power adrenal. Power adrenal is much more beneficial, especially with the new 1.1.3 patch coming soon and the healing relic is an extra 400hp every 20s. Assuming the worst that all fights last till the 6:30 enrage timer that's approximately ~7600hp free HP healed. More importantly that's HP healed that doesn't cost any energy or TA procs. 3. While what you are saying does work, I would strongly advise against it if it is the tank who needs healing. I will often throw SP on someone 30% or below to get a TA back, but I rarely, if ever, purposefully let someone go below 30% just so I can get my TA back. Maybe I'm too cautious, but I want my tank above 50% at all times, especially in nightmare mode. 4. Indeed, operative healers need to be dispelling more tech. There are a number of debuffs/DoTs throughout different HM FPs and operations that do considerable damage. Rather than try to heal through this, take the time to cast toxic scan. its an instant cast and will save you significant energy over trying to heal through the debuff/dot. 5. The ONLY time I use infusion is when I know the tank is going to be taking a lot of incoming damage, my energy is high, and the damage to the rest of the raid/group is fairly low. Even then, I use it very situationally if at all. I'm also 10/10 16man nightmare.

My current heal-spec since hitting 50: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#401McfrzGoRdsZ0cZGb.1 I use this for both PvE and PvP as I've tried different specs for both and only saw a slight increase in PvP damage with a more focused spec. The breakdown: Chem-resistant inlays: less damage done to you is less damage that needs to be healed which is more healing that can be done to your party. #1 rule of being a healer: a keep yourself alive first, a dead healer can't heal anyone. Patient Studies: The energy regen isn't great and the healing is even worse, but quite frankly there isn't really anything better to put the points into. For most HM FP and 8man operations you won't need DS much, if at all. It's only in some situations during 16man operation content where you might find yourself burning energy faster than anticipated. Med Therapy: Doesn't work now, but hopefully they fix it and I already had the talents there before we realized it was broken. Med Shield: A lot of people underestimate this one. Even in operations this is extremely useful. If you start taking damage, just pop shield probe, instantly mitigating a ton of damage while you heal yourself back up. The extra 15% will get you back to a safe zone quicker, which will in turn get you back to healing your group faster. RN: extremely situational in PvE and not quite as bad as people think in PvP. Survival Training: 3% might not seem like a lot, but with Med Therapy broken, I'll take the extra percent anywhere I can. Deadly Directive: A lot of alacrity isn't good, but I find enough to get my KI cast time down to 1.8s to be plenty. This speeds up how fast you get there, which means less alacrity in your gear, which means more power, crit, surge. Slip Away: A must have in PvP and very useful in HM FPs and some operations in which trash can be CC'd. I've healed all 16man nightmare content and am valor rank 71 with full battlemaster gear with that spec btw for anyone who might ask how far it can go.

Already started, he's level 33 right now

Seeing the patch notes like everyone else today, I was greatly concerned for operatives after reading them. I personally play a medicine spec'd operative and surge is a HUGE part of our game. It is arguably the one thing that makes us appealing as healers: to hit 7k+ single target heals and KP ticking for 1.3k+. I tried not overreacting to the patch notes without some definitive numbers, and fortunately the guys over at SithWarrior.com have already crunched out the updated Surge formula according to the 1.1.3 patch notes... it's not pretty. In fact, it's down right terrifying. Currently, a level 50 with a 250 surge rating has roughly 82% surge. Using the proposed changes in patch 1.1.3, the same level 50 with a 250 surge rating will have a 73% surge. Here is my spreadsheet for those who want to plug in their own surge rating and see what it will be if the proposed changes in 1.1.3 are pushed to the live servers: Patch 1.1.3 Surge Spreadsheet You don't need to be a math PhD to know surge is far weaker than before according the to the proposed 1.1.3 changes. Operatives, specifically healers as I can speak from experience, are going to see a MAJOR decrease in total healing output. I'm somewhat at a loss for words right now and the lack of developer response to the operative/scoundrel community is truly worrisome. Right now we can only hope for the best and continue to try to maximize our effectiveness through things like increase individual player skill; especially if this nerf to surge comes to the live servers.

This is crazy, operative healers are already the weakest, and now they are nerfing our best quality. Good thing I already started working on leveling a sorc healer.

Just FYI with the Medical Consult talent, you also receive a 6% increase to all healing done while TA is active. A lot of operative healers burn their TAs instantly, however, if you can afford (i.e. no one needs immediate heals) to not use it, the 6% increase is definitely noticeable. In fact, to maximize HPS & HPE all operative healers should always have TA active to receive this 6% buff. The problem with this is, however, that we're restricted with 2 stacks of TA regardless of level or talent spec. I know I have trouble keeping at least 1 TA active at all times without burning it for SP during our guild's 16m nightmare raids.

Do you know when the timer for this starts? Is it when you first enter instance, first trash pull, first engage annihilation droid, or when you first kill the droid? Going to probably do a speed run next week as we brought some lower geared players along this week.

My apologies then for assuming you haven't done 16m nightmare from your post. As someone else has said though, I'd love to see video of how you guys did clearing it without a sorc healer, especially jarg and sono.

Ok where to start... So you have cleared all 16man nightmare content? As far as I know, there are only 22 guilds who have cleared it. If you haven't even attempted it, you shouldn't be talking like an expert. 8man is a joke compared to 16man, even on nightmare. 16man hard > 8man nightmare as far as difficulty goes. If you have HoTs on anyone in combat, you will be put back in combat as you try to rez someone like this. Thus, making it extremely dangerous for operative healers to wait till all their HoTs are off to attempt to try this, especially in 8 man. Furthermore, any aoe of any kind will immediately put you back into combat. As previously stated, I don't care how the loot drops, 8man hard is an absolute joke compared to 16m nightmare. So the truth is, you're coming on here talking about stuff when you can't even clear the hardest content in the game. On 16m nightmare this is not possible. If the entire raid does not stay out for at least 1 missile phase (preferably more), you will hit the enrage timer. Also, the missiles hit for substantially more in 16man nightmare. A single tick of the lightening ball does 4k on 16man nightmare. The explosion itself is substantially more than that. I actually don't know what it is without defensive CDs because sorcs always shield someone and I always have shield probe + sorc shield on me when it explodes. Also, Evasion does work on different things during raids. If you are ever targeted by the annihilation droid's missile thing (red target comes on your character), pop evasion 3-4 seconds afterwards. You will take 0 damage. I hate to sound like a broken record or condescending, but please don't come in here talking like an expert when you blatantly skip the hardest content in the game just because you want to get loot easier. Yes it gears you up, but you are clearly not playing the game at the highest difficulty.

I've said it before on these forums and it's been said in this thread: you don't truly understand how much better healers sorcs (and to a lesser extent BHs) are than operatives until you have run 16man operations. My guild has cleared all 16 man nightmare operation content and we roll with 1 sorc and 1 bh and 2-3 operatives depending on the fight. The amount of overhealing done is ridiculous. Since our AoE healing sucks, we're left with KI+SP to heal the raid and if I happen to hit a 7k crit after another operative hit with his KI on the exact same target, mass overhealing ensures. Furthermore, while this overhealing is happening, the rest of the raid remains vulnerable since mass single target KI->SP spam is the best HPS+HPE healing we can do on a group. Add in Sorcs ability to shield someone (especially useful against soa) and life grip to drop threat for a dps taking damage, and operatives really start seeing their limitations in 16man content.

Anyone who thinks stacking Alacrity on their operative is a good idea is extremely mistaken. The stat priority for healing operatives to maximize HPS & HPE (heals per second & heals per energy) is the following: cunning > power > surge (minimum above 70%) > crit (no more than 40%) > alacrity. As detailed in this post: http://sithwarrior.com/forums/Thread-Scoundrel-Operative-Healing-Compendium and this spreadsheet: http://sithwarrior.com/forums/Thread-Operative-HPS-Spreadsheet ... alacrity has an extremely minimal effect on HPS/HPE compared to power and surge (assuming you already have crit maxed to where it needs to be). That is not to say you shouldn't have any alacrity. I prefer enough to keep KI down to around a 1.8s cast, however, you should never stack alacrity over power or surge. Ever. Also, power is 100% ahead of crit and surge in the stat priority once you've brought crit up to at least 33% and surge to at least 70%. The ideal stack after that is 40% crit/ 80% surge and as much extra power and surge you can get after that.

<Anomaly> 5/5 16(m) Nightmare EV, 5/5 16(m) Nightmare KP: 2/6/12 http://www.anomaly-guild.us/ Prophecy of the Five server - PvP - Empire Server progression thread: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=255058 Server first

The primary problems with operative healing in pve (pvp is more complicated): 1) The "HoT" healer really only has 1 HoT: Kolto Probe. KP is only effective double stacked and even then its HPS (heal per second) and HPE (Heal per energy) make it inefficient to use on anyone besides a tank as overhealing or not quick enough healing will ensue. 2) Our AoE heal Recuperative Nanotech is even worse HPS and HPE than Kolto Probe, only targets 4 people, all targets must be within 10m, and does not obey raid frame restrictions. Thus, RN is an extremely situational heal and not very useful when a group of people are taking steady significant damage damage. You are better off KI->SP on the group for more efficient HPS+HPE. 3) Our energy system is utter crap. A skilled operative knows how to keep his energy up, always making sure stim boost is active etc, however, there are times, especially in 16 man operations on hard and nightmare modes, when you will get energy burned. We have 1 CD to assist with energy regen, and compared to sorc's its laughable. 4) We have 3 heals: KP, KI, and SP. Kolto Infusion is arguably the worst heal in the entire game, scan is only useful for energy regen and as a filler if the group is already topped off. As previously mentioned, since KP really only is effective double stacked on the tank, that leaves operatives will two heals to use in between refreshing KP, activating stim boost, and scan. 5) We have no utility. We have no shield to put on party members to help absorb damage or life grip to help drop threat. Sorcs/Sages have both these things. 6) Our talents are broken and/or do not flow well. Medical Therapy doesn't work. A double stack of my KPs crit for 1.3k. An additional 10% to that would be nice. Additionally, a lot of our talents, including higher end ones such as Evasion, are pretty bad when compared to a Sorc/Sage healing tree. 7) Good operative play is too reliant on the correct crit/surge/power stat split, yet all our tiered gear comes with alacrity which does not increase the ticks of our only HoT or the amount of ticks within the duration. This requires operatives to go out and farm enhancements from other gear to truly maximize their effectiveness. At the end of the day operatives aren't bad healers, they simply require significantly more skill to keep up with sorcs. Even then, if you put an equally skilled person for each class in the same situation, the sorc will come out ahead in the amount of healing and utility provided. One can only hope bioware is looking into fixing/buffing operative healers.

I've healed 8/10 nightmare 16man and what this man said is absolutely true. All HM flashpoints are a joke for any decent healer, but when you start healing 16man operations, even on normal mode, you'll start seeing some of the big weaknesses of operative healers compared to sorcs.

AoE CC breaks on damage, is on a minute CD, and requires you to be in 10m range to cast. Vanish breaks on any DoT or AoE damage, and most importantly, its on a 3 minute cooldown. 3 minutes in a WZ is forever, making it a very costly escape. Op healers also can rarely use normal stealth out of combat as our HoTs continually put us in combat.

I'm just going to go ahead and say most people here have not played against a really skilled operative healer before. While we lack the overall healing and utility of sorcs and the survivability of commandos, we have our own niche when played correctly. Ask anyone who has queued with or against me in WZs frequently, I'm a tough sob to kill.

operative/gunslinger healers are the hardest class to play in my opinion. They are significantly weaker healers than sorcs (who isn't right?) without anywhere near the utility (knockbacks, force speed, etc) of sorcs. Mercs also have more utility (shields, knockbacks, etc) than operatives and wear heavy armor, generally making them harder to kill. You want a challenge, play an operative/gunslinger healer in a warzone.

No, what I'm saying is that good players should invariably win out (as either healers or concealment operatives) regardless of the changes in 1.1.1. Concealment operatives are still very dangerous due to their ability to stun lock someone and their burst damage is still quite significant. The other thing I think a lot of people are forgetting is how quickly a team jumps on the target of a concealment operative. 90% of the time I die to a concealment operative was not directly due to the operative's attacks (although they did help), it was the assistance/interrupts of their teammates. If not being able to kill a healer 1v1 in 4 GCDs from full life (although still possible against certain less-geared targets) is too much, I hate to remind you WZs are a TEAM activity. No healer can win a WZ by himself, nor can any concealment operative. If you are unable to leverage the combined skills and talents of your team, regardless of your role, you will lose. The last thing I will say is a concealment operative dying to a healer in a 1v1 when the operative started the fight above 50% is not a reflection on either role being overpowered or underpowered. It's simply a reflection of how bad you are as a player. And if for some reason you are bad enough to be losing to healers in a 1v1 fight, then I suggest you man up and run. Lord knows healers are good at three things: (1) Healing ourselves (2) using line of sight and (3) running to our teammates for assistance.

Very disappointed to not see anything for med spec'd operatives. Beyond actually giving us some buffs to make ourselves a little comparable to sorc/sages, how about they fix one of our highest tier talents to actually work?

I would contend to say most of you have not faced a highly skilled operative healer before. We are extremely hard to kill when played right. Pre-patch a concealment operative had 3 GCDs to kill me providing I didn't CC break or it was on cooldown. After that, the only way I was going to die was if I made a mistake or was attacked by another person. Now after 1.1 ops/smugs don't even concern me. The point I'm trying to make by telling you this is while gear matters to a degree, skill will ultimately cause the better players to rise to the top. Sorce/sages might be a better healing class than operatives due to all their utility and, simply out, better abilities, but I can out heal most of the sorcs I meet. I have no doubt the truly skilled operatives will learn and adapt their play because of this patch.

you should get your crit to about 33-40%. after that, you'll really start seeing diminishing returns and should stack power and surge as much as possible

/signed I can only hope and pray a buff to operative healers is coming sooner than later.

The lighting balls can no longer be taunted so this will not work.