I just let Blizz tank him. I believe it took me three or four stealths before he dies while Bodyguard spec. As long as a companion grabs agro first you won't need to deal with the debuff. The fight requires some lateral thinking, but is otherwise not that bad. The adds are laughable; Admiral should be your focus whenever he's able to be punished.

I'm still not a fan of taking all the alacrity talents in endgame. The ~20% (with crit reaction) on T2/T3 sets & 4 talent points is just wasteful for a couple of reasons: -Just one point in Critical Reaction will save you 3 talent points and only be a loss of 4% alacrity--it will always be up in a build with some crit in it. -The difference of casting time in your heals between the crit/surge routes (7.5->11->16.5) vs. 20%+ doesn't seem tempting. It's not worth missing the thresholds for your other stats. If you can do both, great. You are, however, just trading the cast time at a point when the extra healing you're getting is less powerful than what other stats could offer in the same place. -BH's already have access to some of the quickest heals and reactionary abilities. I wouldn't say we're hurting for fast casts. -Overhealing vs. Underhealing is a tricky debate. I could easily say Overhealing is infinitely more preferable than underhealing given the BH energy budget and ease of itemization. If you overheal, you can heal someone else with the next heal in the rotation. If you underheal, you need to heal that person again and/or leave them and others vulnerable to death. This is very critical in NM level healing, where there are encounters that require people to be almost full life at all times. e.g. The Jarg and Sorno fight can easily deal 18-20k damage every railshot. That leaves a small window of HP that needs to be topped off constantly. -PvE doesn't really require reactionary healing; it isn't exceedingly chaotic in its damage distribution like PvP. Alacrity lets you cast faster, but a healthy crit/surge can mean you cast less. I'm not saying alacrity is bad, but it shouldn't be stressed over all other stats. Not when they're all so accessible. I have run with both 20%+ alacrity builds and crit/surge builds. I stick with my crit surge since it keeps me at 16% alacrity, and I get stronger crits more often with the option of 50% crit rate for up to 35 seconds. Most of the differences between endgame players just comes down to a few talent points, relics/adrenals, and a couple of 140 gear inserts anyways. This is a nice guide, and I'd recommend it to new players.

It's nice to break out of the healbot every once in awhile and give your Powershot some love. http://img542.imageshack.us/img542/4254/doingitwrong.jpg

I haven't noticed this problem in PvP since the past few patches. Button hanging USED to occur everywhere, and it did seem linked to instants, but the latest rung of patches focusing on button response and GCD control seem to have fixed them. I'm not sure of a good use for it in a PvE setting--DPS wise. I use it for emergency heals with my bodyguard. In PvP it gets indispensable. Instant Concussion, Tracer Missile, Rapid Scan, Power Shot. Whatever your flavor of burst needs to be. It's also very useful for maintaining mobility. If I'm chasing someone for a kill as an Arsenal an Explosive Dart->Instant Tracer + HSM/Rail is better than nothing.

I think the issue with FP healing in greens/blues comes down to a couple things. 1. You're in a PUG. To fix this: Play with people you can depend on. 2. Dynamics may be new. Positioning, pot/adrenal/relic/stim use, interrupts, cleanses, CD use, etc. 3. BH and OPs without decent crit+surge have to make up for it with a high cost spam heal in a landslide energy system. Sorcs don't suffer as much in this department. In crappy gear you aren't just racing the Enrage, you're racing your healer's energy. Our energy systems allows for sparse mistakes and are incredibly punishing if you pass the threshold with no CD's up. It's certainly a "crucible" to start people out on trainer content, however it stresses basic concepts necessary for raiding AND awards T2 gear. If it's too tough, there's always Normal raids. I understand how difficult it can be, and can surmise how hard it might be for newcomers with the new changes. The good news is that it probably lasts for less than a week or more. The time it takes to gear up in this game is pretty small in PvE, and the stat increase from T2->T3 is small as well. Very effective gear is available to every class of player. What I don't understand, however, is that people might actually be using T1 gear now. When the game came out by the time you had enough commendations for a piece of Tionese you already had close to a full set of T2. It may make content easier, but may be making it longer as well.

I'm not really seeing such a large drop in healing. My PvE crits are 5-6k (rapid scans). Here's a game post-nerf that should show they're still possible in PvP as well. I'd rather avoid analysis of the game. I have plenty of other pictures where I've gotten them, but didn't hover over the healing stat to view the max heal. Not all games are great, and this one was kind of a dud. We went through maybe two or three teams on each side as people would dodge every time a point was scored. 5k Heal Medal I do find it difficult to nab the medals because once I pop my shield any other healer gets boosted. I can get topped off so fast I've found I need to lose enough health so that I'll have at least three tries at a crit available. I usually wait until I'm <10k/20k to pop it.

I'm not seeing any real discrepancies at the 50's level. You'll want to work on filling out your talents so you can have access to your full healing stable. I wouldn't recommend mando warheads early on. Kolto missile heals for a very small amount (2.5kish crits) so it's not imperative to boost its heal. The only time it would be nice is if you're picking up Muzzle Fluting for PS spam (very helpful when leveling as a BG) and need the extra talents to progress in the tree. I'd recommend swapping Vent Hents for kolto residue. With Residue, SCG, and protective field you should have no problems breaking the 5k healing medal--when you're properly geared at least. After that Cure+Reactive Armor and into Warden->Emergency Scan. Very straightfoward, and it lets you pick up Ironsights at levels 40-43. A nice enough time for it as any. The talent gets stronger as you level up, and is much more effective at higher levels with all the stats you begin accruing.

Neat videos, but why do you play with your camera so close? Zoom out!

Then comes companions.

It does need the debuff. You can keep people up just fine, and there are ways of dealing with it. If they did remove or soften it, they'd need to increase the heal debuff skills in the game to 50% instead of 20%. It would also make those classes necessary for dealing with healers. As a bodyguard I can expertise pot, Kolto Missile shield, and Energy shield. This gives me ~60+% damage mitigation (30% base + 25% shield + 10% shield + difference in expertise) and, as long as I'm healing myself with shield up, about +30% to healing. So BH's have: -30% pvp debuff +10% armor Expertise +15% consumable +10% SCG +5% Kolto Residue +20% Shield = 30% increase to healing at optimal. Since T2 gear will land you crits in the 5-6k's, you'll easily get your 5k medal. When other classes take their +healing talents, like Arsenal Mercs, you can also get higher heals. This does rely on CD's, but true burst from a DPS class does too. I usually nab the medal and then rely on the expertise pot for tanking with SCG shield, while keeping Energy Shield for serious focus moments. If you catch a Bodyguard without their CD's up they're dead. Nothing they can do against competent DPS except try and keep their head above water until somebody saves them.

They do get augment slots. Yes, they're BiS for PvE. Or at least I haven't seen any better.

If you aren't a healer but ARE a Mercenary or Operative and have a Physical/Tech dot on you: cleanse it by your damn self. Don't be a dirty person. Cleanliness is next to win.

I think it's funny that you'd complain about an Ops sustained DPS in a Mercenary forum.

This is so two patches ago.

This is straight up bull on a realistic level. I fully understand the theoretical argument from a "it's healing so it should be on the agro table" standpoint, but its counterpart (shield) suffers none of the drawbacks, uses the main healing stat (+heal x 327% + 1127), and has very solid pros in addition. Static Barrier guarantees optimal output, gives it instantly, doesn't suffer overhealing, isn't reliant on crits, is a base skill, has no target limit, can be effectively used more often on the same target, has variants of talents for healing and DPS, and it has no aggro generation for all of the damage it mitigates. All for the price of having it cost force in a very easily managed & traditional power scheme. The heal from KS is very nice given time. Especially when you consider it's a "free" heal. I will consider it a win as long as it remains broken. It's STILL able to heal twice as fast as intended, as it unintentionally and uncontrollably exploits the same mechanic that double resurgence exploiters (Sorc/Sage) have been using to get x2 procs. This often lets it get better numbers than one barrier cast--if they cast two barriers within 15-18 seconds it's game over for BH apologists.