Guardian Slash/Crushing Blow have been slightly redesigned to deal AOE damage when striking a target with 5 sunder stacks (and now spread those stacks). This AOE damage is “smart” and will not hit enemies affected by control that breaks on damage. The AOE damage dealt by Slow Time/Wither is now “smart” and will not hit enemies affected by control that breaks on damage. Supercharged Ion Cell/Gas now cause High Impact Bolt/Rail Shot to trigger your Ion Cell/Cylinder on the target and on up to 4 additional nearby targets. This AOE damage generates a high amount of threat and is “smart,” meaning it will not hit enemies affected by control that breaks on damage. Note these three changes. They added smart targeting to tank AoE so you can safely use the AoE parts of your rotation with CC in place. This is a great change for tanks (and my Shadow would love it if I still played at all) in terms of quality of life, and shows they have the capability to do some smart-targeting programming. Note what is required for these abilities to work. These attacks, like the AoE heals, have a target limit. Slow Time hits up to 5 targets. Look at the possible situations: 3 mobs, 2 CCed: You can safely use ST for the debuff. 3 mobs, 1 CCed: You can safely use ST for the debuff, plus threat on both. 5 mobs, 1-4 CCed: Safe, trivial situation. 6+ mobs, 5 non-CCed: This is where it gets interesting (and someone should test). Do all 5 free mobs get the ST debuff every time? If not, that means CCed mobs are immune, but still targeted. If yes, that means that it queries the state of targets and their properties, and then decides if they are a valid target or not and, after ruling out all CCed mobs, it always arrives at the same list of valid targets, the 5 that are free. Why does this matter? It matters because querying target properties before deciding on targets is what is needed before you can have a smart-targeted AoE heal. That they have never provided that functionality to healers suggested that their design made doing so difficult or impossible. That they can now do so with an attack suggests that they have either changed enough of their design to allow it, or they always had the option. It also means that smart-healing on AoE heals is now just a matter of them being willing to do so, the capability is present. Of course, considering how long that has been a healer request, the fact that it is not part of 1.3 despite the abysmal state of healing is not comforting.

There was a thread with almost exactly this same title made during Early Access. It was true then, and it is true now. The primary cause, as you (new to this healing and SWTOR theory) immediately noticed, is the AoE. The imbalance is well known to everyone except BW, who have explicitly denied that it is a problem and also explicitly denied that the relative power of it scales with group size in a way that the other AoEs do not. We (the Healing Community) are, in general, completely baffled by their fundamental lack of knowledge about their own game, and the basic math that supports the imbalance argument. There is a good deal of math on this in one place in a thread I made. You can probably find it by doing a search for threads by me (there are a lot of them) with "Math" in the thread title. The bubbles aren't quite as powerful as what you've heard, and there is comparative math in that thread I just mentioned, but the mechanic is extremely useful in numerous situations. It is the only way to add a HP buffer, which is a powerful form of proactive healing. The long and short of it, though, is that Sages and Sorcs have always been, and remain, the most powerful. The only reasons to play something else are 1) if you prefer the feel of another class and 2) Scoundrels/Operatives have significant advantages in PvP. The reasons are obvious, even to new players/healers, but BW denies that a problem exists, so don't expect it to get fixed any time soon. And if/when it does get fixed, expect it to be via a nerf to Sages/Sorcs, not a buff to anyone else.

So it also looks like they are continuing to ignore the glaring UI complaints of the healing community. To be fair, their metrics probably barely show enough healers to register, so they may not even know we exist anymore.

Sadly, it seems that they are fully committed to the current state of healing, regardless of how the healers feel about it. Looks like I made the right choice in walking away. I'm having quite a bit of fun in TERA, compared to the frustration that came from dealing with BW's arrogance and lack of vision.

It is good that they finally acknowledged the flaws in the design of Alacrity:

And to make it even worse, Jedi, this result was completely predictable. Take any decent Sage/Sorc from 1.1.5 and tell them that NS will start costing health again, and one of their first questions will be about the cost and GCD efficiency of using X casts of NS while standing in Salvation. And the answer clearly is 'worthwhile at 2 NS casts.' If they had bothered to ask a Sage, any decent Sage, what these changes would do they would have foreseen the current negative state of affairs.

Someone said the same thing when I first tossed it up, back in February or so. I tested it again and still had the same problem. I assume it's an obscure bug.

I didn't follow this entire thread, and I'm not familiar with your posting history, the way I would have been a month or two ago. Your point here is an important one. There really is very little out there to help those who are still around. There are a number of causes: 1) Fewer people in general. 400k subs lost between February's figure of 1.7million and the end of Quarter reporting from the end of March showing 1.3million. That doesn't include anyone with long subscriptions, since a 3-month won't have expired during that window and a 6-month, with the free month, will last the next quarter as well. Many people, such as myself, are in that "subscribed but no longer playing" category just waiting on that time to expire. Fewer people in general means fewer groups and less data. 2) Fewer healers in particular. Patch 1.2 targeted healers in particular, so they have left the game or re-rolled in larger numbers than the other roles. Only a sub-population of players visits the forums, and with so many healers no longer playing this forum is largely a ghost town. 3) Posters who think there is nothing wrong and tend to call those who think there is a problem whiners or tell them to L2P. Any thread on how to heal post 1.2 has a high likelihood of someone saying "It's fine, you just need to L2P, so here's some advice on how to do that." The anti-1.2 camp sees the phrase "it's fine" or "L2P" and immediately dismisses the advice and derails the thread. 4) Ignorant optimism. Related to 3, some people say "It's fine, L2P" without knowing what they are talking about, or while making comparisons to classes they don't play/understand. This ignorance leads to a false sense that everything is fine, and is hard for the anti-1.2 camp to resist correcting the poster's misconceptions. 5) Most of the most helpful members, guide writers, theorycrafters, testers, and general advice request respondents are gone or on their way out. The people who would normally write the info on how to heal now and back it up with data and evidence no longer play, and can't be bothered to do so. If I had any faith in the Dev team, I would have muddled through this change and written quite a few threads on post-1.2 Commando/Merc testing, theory, simulation, and advice. However, I do not have any faith in them designing interesting healer gameplay or correcting the damage they did in 1.2, so I've done the only rational thing and moved on. Other's have done the same: bobudo, XtremeJedi, Soshla, ErrantMercenary, Ewert, TempestasSilva, Lileth, Raani....and those are just the names of prominent forum posters that immediately come to mind at 3AM who are no longer playing this game, and there are others who still play for now but have canceled (orideth, Xearth ShadowAx...) Some of those points are inter-related, but the key point is in #5. It is hard to get a good constructive discussion of how to heal in 1.2 going because the most avid testers and posters are all gone. This sub-forum had an amazing community there for a couple of months, but it is all but dead now.

Let me use this analogy, cause I think we are still arguing past each other. You have a steak knife, a butter knife, and a chef knife. Which one is best for eating ice cream with? That's the current state of burst healing in this game. Even if one class might be better at it after a substantial analysis, none of them actually have a proper set of tools for the task.

So let's just boil it down to the one point you are making, quoted above. What I am trying to say is that CM no longer have the option to get out of their sustained rotation in a meaningful way anymore. Keep in mind that max sustained HPS for Commandos and Operatives were very nearly equal in 1.2. The weakness of Operatives was that they couldn't afford to deviate from their rotation, and Commandos could. In 1.2, the changes amount to an ~24% reduction in max Commando HPS from the same simmed rotation conditions. The Operative's max actually increased slightly due to not losing KP procced TA charges if it procced mid-KI cast. The end result of this reduction is that the Commando must be actively healing nearly non-stop, when an Operative (and a pre-1.2 Commando) would have had free time to do utility, dps, or just assess the situation. Efficiency is absolutely essential, and they cannot afford to drop out of high regen at all. It is now even more punishing than an Op dropping below 60. It doesn't matter how it might look like a Commando could do burst, they can't afford to.

Yeah, not really trying to convert you to TERA, I just saw that quote yesterday shortly before reading your post, and thought you might appreciate it.

Quick answer this question: What is the purpose of discussion and debate, to arrive at the correct answer or to convince everyone that your answer is correct? Step away from the entrenched position, and reread my post. Then reread your post. In my previous post I explicitly say this about the Sage rotation: That's the first of only two sentences on Sages. You were too busy trying to find ways to "win" that you stopped actually attempting to have a conversation. To take what I thought was obvious in that quote and make it more explicit, you can only cast Force Armor once per 21s, so don't try and cast it as the first of three spells in a rotation, recast it only when the debuff is gone. Don't keep spamming the Rejuvenate button....use it only when it is off of cooldown. Fill in any free GCD in your burst due to those cooldowns and debuffs with Benevolence. And yes, obviously Force burn is an issue, but that is the trade-off of burst vs sustained. They are not without tools, they can cast Rejuv->Salvation->NSx4 while standing in the Salv to heal themselves. As for Operatives, it isn't about KI/Kinf vs AP/MP, it is about KI/Kinf vs KI/SP. Burst vs Sustained. You have a standard rotation which is sustainable indefinitely if you stay above 60 Energy. You have two options for Burst, replace SP with Kinf, or stay with KI/SP but don't worry about the 60 Energy level, just burn right through it. The first option is not efficient, but it does have much higher HPS than KI/SP. You also have a tool with semi-fixed bonus regen, DS, so you have an option to Burst-Recover, if your burst HPS can cover the burst DPS incoming. So long as the burst DPS is followed by a lull, you can afford to switch to DS and KP refresh with SP for TA proc consumption. If there is no lull or your burst HPS doesn't match the burst DPS coming in...then you are in trouble if these phases happen more then every 2 minutes. The second option isn't really burst, it is chain healing your sustainable rotation in an unsustainable manner. You didn't break out a new tool, your HPS simply couldn't math the DPS coming in and you had to heal out of your efficiency zone. This was the very design complaint that lead to Sc/Op saying they had no burst pre-1.2. This is now the exact situation that BG/CM are in, their "burst" isn't doing anything different except ignoring Ammo limits and hoping they aren't completely screwed after the run out of Ammo. As for your dismissal of weaving SP into burst, you are a) clearly just being dismissive because winning is all that matters to you and b) being internally inconsistent since you seem to not consider Kinf worth using at all and appear to favor the second method of burst described above: unrestricted KI/SP spam. Again, if you set aside the need to win and look back at what was actually said, the point was that you can weave in SP to consume TA procs in lieu of a double KInf to strike some middle ground in burst. If you use KI/KInf with KInf for every TA proc from KP, you will burn energy far faster than if you use Ki/Kinf with SP using your RNG TA's. That is a situational decision, but both of those are higher HPS, for a shorter duration, than KI/SP with SP for KP TA consumption. And finally, if you look at my post after the one you responded to, I do admit that burst in general is poorly designed, overly punishing, and clearly designed against in this game. I'm not saying that either of the other two ACs are the "New King of Burst" because BG/CM were nerfed. I'm saying that all 3 have options, and none of those options are good, but BG/CM certainly have no advantage in burst capability after Patch 1.2.

Maybe this interview quote will help: link

I should note that while I point out how the other two ACs can do burst and the BG/CM burst was destroyed, I am not claiming any of them actually have well-designed burst ability. The Devs have made it clear that they don't like burst healing, possibly related to their dislike of PvP healing and how burst HPS counters burst DPS.

While Combat Medic is my specialty, I think I can competently discuss the other healer classes, and I am aware of their abilities, competencies, and capabilities. When I say that the changes make Combat Medic burst non-existent, I am not engaging in hyperbole and I don't really mean "it got weaker but is still there." The changes to SCC and AP/MP make the burst spam ~30% less efficient. The changes to AP/MP combo cost make spamming AP actually stronger so long as you swap targets. This completely breaks a 3 point talent. The overall reduction in Ammo efficiency also means engaging in any burst at all, any period of low-efficiency, is extra punishing. It is harder to recover, and burst healing should be absolutely avoided at all costs. It isn't a viable strategy to use as needed, it is what you do as a last ditch to avoid a wipe and then hope that they kill the boss in the 10s of healing you have before you are completely spent (if your Recharge Cells is on its 2-min cooldown). The ability to burst once every 2-minutes is not burst capability, because fights are not designed with 2 minute delays between mechanics. Instead, look at the other two classes, since you said I ignored them. With the increase in UH/TA stacks, you can now feasibly use Kolto Infusion to increase your HPS. It is, obviously, less efficient than SP, but it is definitely higher HPS, and the efficiency/throughput trade is what defines burst. Kolto Infusion still has a bad rep, but if you have your set bonus it has a very high crit rate, and K.Inj / K.Inf spam is quite high HPS...for a cost. They also increased your ability to regen by making DS more usable, and the extra UH/TA means fewer procs lost from SRMP/KP, so you could also try a semi-burst rotation of KInj/KInf/SP for a medium cost - medium HPS burst. For Sages, of course they have their bubble, followed by their HoT, then the huge crit buff on their flash heal, and repeat those until out of Force as cooldowns and debuffs allow. That would burn force like made (because Benevolence is too expensive to be really useful), but it would also make for high burst, and their large pool allows for it to be sustained longer than a CM could ever hope to keep up with the new AP/MP. They need far more than QoL changes. This won't be fixed by giving us 15 Ammo or making SCC only need 15 charges. They broke the design of the class. The abilities do not work together anymore. The synergy is gone. That is what offended everyone so much. If they simply slashed the coefficients, people would compare the HPS logs and complain, but they wouldn't have all left the game. I'd still be playing.... The changes they made weren't nerfs, they were a ham-fisted redesign, although probably unintentional since it is clear they put no thought into it and the people who made the changes to BG/CM had clearly never actually played one. Ever. There is no way you could suggest those changes if you had any concept of how the abilities worked together.

Except that BG/CM always did AoE through high efficiency single-target spam, like a BC-era Holy Paladin due to the unreliable low target AoE heal. KB is still an unreliable low target heal, we just no longer have high efficiency spam as an option. In practice, the changes actually amount to a net BG/CM AoE healing nerf.

First, I said nothing about the relative numbers of classes. I put the changes in efficiency in terms relevant to your class. I think we have two primary sources of miscommunication going on. 1) Different definitions of burst. BI is not a burst heal, it is an instant heal. Even if it heals for 6k, it has a 21s cooldown. Assuming that you sat on it and waited for the right moment, you could use it once. Even accepting the 6k number without bothering to check how reasonable that is, you could heal 6k once per 21s. That is a spike, a crit on the tank. It isn't burst. Burst is a phase or window in which a sudden increase is needed, such as the frenzy on Gharj or Foreman Crusher. Burst is where you do heavy, but unsustainable long-term, healing for a short period and then recover. That is not BI, that is the ability to chain AP/MP and recover. 2) I think you are suffering from a serious case of "Grass is Greener" with little idea of how a class actually plays. You see these things ("Oh wow, look at that instant heal! And that 2-min cooldown instant! Oh the places I would go if only I had those!") and think of them in isolation, out of the context of how the class plays at all. BI is a core part of the Combat Medic rotation, and is used to stay above 8 Ammo. BI should be used any and every time someone needs a heal and you have less than 11 Ammo (because you regen 0.9 while on GCD). The 2-minute cooldown instant ability is, actually two abilities, one that makes it free and one that makes it instant. The free ability is used as part of Ammo management, or held in reserve for a last ditch heal after unsustainable burst leaves you empty but another heal is still needed. The instant cooldown is handy, I won't deny that, but a 2-minute cooldown can hardly be called an enviable part of the toolkit when it is used at most twice a fight, and many healers often forget to use it at all. Looking at BI in isolation is the same mistake Georg Zoeller made that got him laughed at by every Op/Sc out there when he said that SP was a burst healing capability, demonstrating complete ignorance of how an Operative heals (maintaining 1 stack of TA and spamming KI/SP). A single (fairly weak) SP on top of your stock rotation while sacrificing a % Healing buff is not exactly burst. Commandos and Mercs were amazing burst healers before, especially in high levels of gear when the amount of Power and Crit on their gear outstripped the damage coming in from bosses and they could swap to an Alacrity heavy build. None of their old burst healing potential came from BI or those two cooldowns, it was entirely centered around the power of SCC and AP/MP. To say that Mercs are still good at burst is to demonstrate ignorance of both how they play and the source of their burst power pre-nerf.

I'm sorry, but this is simply not true. Their burst is absolutely terrible. The changes to SCC to only restore 1 Ammo and to Field Triage to only reduce MP by 1 (instead of 2 in both cases pre-1.2) essentially removed any and all burst capability. You took a resource pool (for Mercs) that was essentially identical to yours as an Operative, and with the same cost for the sustained rotation (25%). Our burst before was 'do the sustained rotation as a chain, with no pauses to regen.' Now, our cost has increased to 33%, and we lost regen capacity. Look at it this way. Your Surgical Probe now costs 8 Energy, and Stim Boost now restores 1 Energy per 3 seconds (you had higher net regen before the SCC nerf from Stim Boost alone, even ignoring the scaling regen of DS). How much burst could you do chaining KI/SP together under those conditions? They are almost exactly identical to the current state of Mercs (because class design is very simplistic and not actually very different except for cosmetics between Merc/Op/Sc/Commando). As for the utility, they slashed almost all of that as well. KB healing buff got slashed, KB DR shield got slashed. And let's not forget that you still have little control over who KB heals and it doesnt smart heal. We still have the armor buff from AP. Sages bring that exact same armor buff plus a substantially larger set of utility tools. As for flexibility, with all of the hits to efficiency, you can't afford to deviate from a fairly fixed rotation. Mercs and Commandos now have just as little flexibility in their rotation as Op/Sc do. I guess that's what they meant by "improved class balance." On the plus side...lack of deviation means more reliable metrics. Everyone loves some good solid metrics!

My guess is it probably has more to do with distribution licensing. There are three versions of TERA, and each has a different publisher. En Masse has rights to distribute the game in NA, and two other companies cover K-TERA and EU-TERA. I haven't seen the licensing agreement they signed with Bluehole, but it's possible that as an Asian game, BHS didn't want to give up rights in what they considered their own native market.

Amusing though it may be, it's probably not true. Most of those they have lost have moved on. We are invested elsewhere. If our new games prove unable to keep us entertained AND they make substantial changes, they might get people back. Changes alone won't do it if we have no reason to leave our new games.

I think the more important point is that there is zero point in attempting a discussion with someone like you who immediately lashes out at any perceived criticism with a mixture of insults, trumped up arrogance, and a preemptive dismissal of any counter-argument. SWTOR is a fairly simple game, and I think I have a reputation for knowing a thing or two about how it works. You are wrong, but you clearly have no interest in actually having a discussion and learning or improving, so it is not worth my time to attempt that discussion. Enjoy your Sorc.

I would take a look at his parses and see how much of that was from AoE. If he drops that circle, he will be getting credit for every person who runs through it, even if they aren't hurt, while you will be spot healing. This makes your HPS capped by the incoming DPS (with some over-heal from Op HoTs), while his AoE may be heavily over-heal, and its indiscriminate nature removes the inc-DPS cap on his healing numbers. Trust me, I'm certainly not one of the 'healing is fine' people around here, but healing logs are not as simple as DPS logs. They require review and analysis and correction beyond just looking at one number. They are also a team effort, so unless both of you are taxed to the limit, class balance discrepancies are unlikely to show clearly.

I think you are missing what he is getting at. He isn't comparing the game to D&D. He is comparing the Devs (or some key Devs) to the sorts of antisocial Dungeon Masters who would get upset at any criticism and take it out on the players. I have to admit this has crossed my mind on occasion, but I generally dismiss it. It is natural to view the world through a 'me' centered lens, since you (obviously) do experience the world through yourself. As such it is natural to tend to think that anything that negatively affects you was targeted at you, even when it wasn't. While this is a natural thought, the rational mind will normally see that this is not necessarily the case and rationalize away any feeling of victimization. That said...I have a bit of a reputation, and it is quite possible that the Devs do know who I am. I have multiple stickied threads (or did, I've asked one to be taken down). I've had multiple threads with Dev responses in them, although rarely responding directly to me. These responses usually result in people being upset that the responses didn't address the core of my topics. There was one thread where AP accused me of trolling due to some sarcasm and was rapidly piled on by the other posters laughing at the very idea...On the PTS there were people saying they would believe my results over a direct quote from GZ due to difference in reputation. So yeah, it's possible they know who I am. And I know this post probably sounds a bit arrogant (which is why I've never said anything like it before now). I'm a pretty humble guy, and while it may sound arrogant the above are all facts. In light of those examples, which are only a sample, above, it has certainly occurred to me that some of these changes were directed at me in particular. It was my favorite class, the Combat Medic Commando, that was inexplicably nerfed with a remarkable lack of subtlety or design consideration. Judging by GZ's various responses and public appearances I've seen, I wouldn't be surprised if he was that sort of person. That said, we should come again to my first paragraph. It is natural to think these things. Our worlds are innately self-centered, and that is how we first perceive every event. But we are rational creatures, and as we look up, and expand our view, we can usually gain a measure of context that shifts the center of events away from us and towards a broader epicenter. The odds of any given large scale disaster, even a man-made one, being targeted at one person or group is unlikely. On the other hand, we have seen absolutely zero evidence for a more compelling reason than spite, so perhaps it is true.

You are correct, they have said and done nothing that would suggest that they are aware they made a mistake. It's obvious they made one....they are either not discussing it, unaware, or willfully ignorant / in denial. You are also correct, that since they are not admitting (publicly for sure, privately maybe) that there was a mistake, there is little reason to continue suggesting solutions. If you can't accept that it's broke...don't fix it? That's why so many of us have simply moved on. 400k (400,000!) subscriptions lost in the Q4 of last year, which ended at the end of March for EA. That means anyone who bought a 3 month sub but unsubscribed was still counted for Q4, they don't expire until Q1 of 2012. People like me with a 6month sub (plus the free month) don't expire until Q2. We aren't playing anymore...but we are still on the 'active subscription' rolls. How many people do you think fall into those two categories? Those two + month-to-month players who will leave in the next 2 Quarters? I won't be surprised if Q1 ends with them at 1.1 million, and Q2 has them down under 1 million. Sad, but not surprised at all. How low do you think it will have to fall before someone says "Maybe we made a mistake somewhere?"

I had the same experience. My shadow was already 50 anyway and we had a second Sage wanting to heal, so I swapped out to tanking. To help the healers I maintain all my buffs and debuffs, but those aren't needed for threat. For threat...just hit it? I don't know, I've never lost threat. Tanking was way too easy, and required no real thought. Seems unfair to knock consoles, though. 4-6 abilities can be plenty, especially if the behave differently when combo'd or if there are real choices to make between them. It isn't the lack of useful buttons that is the problem, its the lack of decisions on which to use.