Of course I'll continue healing. Just not in this game. It was a nice distraction while WoW offered no new content and I can't say I didn't enjoy the first couple of months. However, what I enjoyed was the novelty - the new content and quests, figuring out new classes, etc. I've been rather bored since February, but kept subbing because my partner wanted to play and because I hoped things would be tweaked for the better. I leveled another 2 healers, leveled every profession, and made a lot of credits by playing the GTN. In the end, what bothers me so much is not just the nerfs, but the fact that the devs have a poor understanding of what makes healing challenging and the fact that they refuse to listen to the community. Ruqu and others have done good testing and number-crunching, and the fact that they went ignored is infuriating. Having to obsessively manage a resource bar via unimaginative mechanics like hammershot and struggling with an inadequate healing interface don't make healing hard. They make it boring and unfun. Complexity comes from spell interactions and having a good number of utility tools which allow for damage reduction or prevention if used at the right time and on the right person. The bottom line is that I don't have unlimited time to play, and I'd rather fill the time until MoP comes out with some single-player games. If between now and MoP they do something extremely cool, I'll certainly resub. Obviously, I'm speaking just for myself. I don't expect others to share my views and I won't criticize anyone who still enjoys the game.

Obviously, he had no idea it's a 2-person FP and that it's trivial even at level. I've soloed it at 11-12 with my sage healer, scoundrel healer, and gunnery commando. Not sure if it would be as easy for an AC without heals, but perhaps using the medpacks that heal both you and your pet would do the trick. I remember when I first did it back in December with my friend (Combat Medic and Vanguard tank) and we laughed that it was easier than Hogger.

Aim boosts - Ranged damage bonus and critical strike - Tech damage bonus and critical strike - Healing Power Cunning boosts - Tech damage bonus and critical strike Obviously, her healing can't be higher with Cunning instead of Aim. Her Cunning barrels are a mistake which they haven't bothered to fix. They probably intended to make her a Cunning-based healer, like all other healing companions, but then realized that it wouldn't go well with the Havoc Squad theme (which requires all our companions to be troopers as well).

If you mean Hammershot, I can do more DPS in 1 GCD as a healer than I can heal with HS (i.e. by using my HS offensively). Now let's think about how much more damage a DPS spec can do in 1 GCD versus how much HS heals.

I read your original post. Here's a quote from it: How exactly are you required to PvE in order to craft? You can sit at the Fleet spamming missions and queuing items. I've done exactly that on a level 14 alt, as an experiment, and made 1 million in a couple of weeks. I just spammed Archeology/TH/Slicing missions, sold most of the mats, and then dropped Slicing for Synthweaving. I had enough capital and leftover mats to max out Synthweaving and buy a bunch of orange patterns, which I'm currently crafting and selling. How much PvE do you think I did on a level 14? Starter zone and class quest on Coruscant to get my ship and Kira (since Kira has a Synthweaving Critical bonus). I could have achieved the same by doing the starter zone and then being dead weight in WZs till level 14, although I would have still had to do the class quest for Kira. Is the class quest too much PvE for you? Since a level 14 can't do HM FPs and raids, I'm obviously not crafting top-end items, but my orange shells are selling pretty fast, along with a few leveling blues. I'm also RE-ing bracers and belt for my Sage to use at 50, and which I'll be crafting to sell afterwards. Obviously, the fact that I'm not doing any PvE on that toon isn't preventing me from crafting.

1. Idiocracy (or the more commonly used idiosyncrasy) does not mean what you think it means. 2. End-game PvE is not required to craft, unless you want to craft top-end items. You are perfectly able to craft both leveling and 50 gear without setting foot in an HM FP or raid. I am not a hardcore player, I don't belong to a raiding guild (by choice, since I shift between games and I don't want to tie up a spot), and I can craft just fine. 3. Leaving WoW out of the equation is pretty strange, considering that it has the largest subscription base out of all MMOs. The main difference is that a lot of raid recipes are BoE, so non-raiding crafters can buy them. Rare mats have been BoP at times, BoE at others, and available from badge vendors. It's a bit less restrictive from this point of view. As someone who isn't currently raiding, I have no problem with raiders getting recipes and mats I don't have access to because they are doing something I'm not. The price for playing on my own time is not having every recipe in the game, and I'm fine with that. I do well enough working other markets.

What are you planning on using Armormech for? If all you want is orange recipes and augment recipes in 1.2, or just Rakatas for yourself, you can powerlevel it using only green Scavenging mats. If you don't intend to RE and use or sell blues/purples, you don't need UT. If you want to make yourself gear or sell any gear, having UT would be more cost-effective. I sell UT mats for far more than I spend on the missions, and that's particularly applicable to metals.

My suggestion would be to RE enhancements with combinations which are not available from Ilum dailies. A good example would be Power/Surge, which most healers prefer over Crit/Surge or Power/Alacrity.

I am guessing that you don't have a maxed out companion. Since you say you've run so many Rich missions, I'd imagine you're far past the point where they're orange, so skill shouldn't be an issue. If you do have maxed companions, then I don't know what to say, other than use the special missions. The blue ones have always returned purple mats for me, although fewer than the epic missions. I wish I had your problem, to be honest. Since blues sell so well, I haven't RE-ed much to purple, as the opportunity cost for bad luck streaks can be pretty hefty. I have stacks and stacks of purple mats I'm not using, but I'm always out of blues.

Regarding the Psych Aid test, I spammed it on my level 47 Sage on live. Her bonus healing is a whopping 397 and she has slightly outdated gear (lv 45 mods). These are my ranges: 331-466 regular, 547-681 crit. Seems like the CM one at 50 and in proper gear is a bit less, or the scaling is extraordinarily poor and mine will not go up much or at all when I'm maxed. *************************************************** What I would like them to tell us clearly is what niche they have in mind for Combat Medics. It's obvious at this point that not every healer is equally suited for each situation, and if they want to keep them different, that's fine. But what is it that a CM will be able to do better than anyone else in 1.2? At this point, we have the least amount of utility, with no interrupt, no slow, and no battle rez. That doesn't seem to be changing much, with the possible exception of the b-rez. With the changes to ammo, it seems to me that Scoundrels will be able to sustain single-target healing more efficiently via Underworld Medicine + Emergency Medpack spam, while having SRMP running. With UP stacks going up to 3, they might be able to toss EMs out to other people if they can afford the GCD. Being able to do 2 EMs in a row also ups their mobility. In terms of AoE healing, without Kolto Bomb and Kolto Cloud being smart heals, and with both being limited to 4 targets, I think it's safe to say that neither CM nor Sawbones will bring much to the table. Salvation is still the best AoE in the game, and combined with bubbles and Rejuv, it will allow Sages to continue being solid group healers. So if you're bringing 2 healers, why would you bring a CM, unless you have no choice? If the other healers can handle burst on tank, then you don't need SCS, and therefore you don't need a CM.

At least for techblades, the crafted one, especially with an augment slot, is better than the one you get from the Belsavis daily. It depends on how expensive they are on your server, but I sell them for 20-25K, which is basically a few dailies at 50. I haven't bothered RE-ing the Veracity epic because my own pet has an augmented blue and we can do the Ilum/Belsavis heroics just fine, so I don't see the point. Maybe after the patch. Regarding Elara, if she's your main companion, you should buy her an epic Reflex barrel the first or second day of dailies, since they only cost 8 comms. I know her weapons are always modded wrong, but you'd have remodded the blue anyway.

At tier 6, you have Moderate or Abundant (no Bountiful or Rich, which tend to crit more often, from my observations). While the Abundant technically should have a higher chance to crit, the Moderate ones have also crit for me. There are about 3 of those, so you should try to run all of them at the same time by resetting until they show up. Just make sure that all your pets are maxed out on affection and always send the one with a UT critical (if you have one) on the Abundant, with the others on the Moderate missions (including the fake Rich).

Are you sure you don't mean BT4 for females? That one is the same height as BT2, but with some fancy curves (and washboard stomach, unlike the male counterpart). BT3 is a lot taller and well, manlier. I ran a dungeon with a female BT3 trooper, and my BT4 looked tiny next to her. As a matter of fact, especially since she was Zabrak and had no hair, I thought she was a dude toon until she won a convo roll and I heard her voice. I'd say that in real measurements, a BT4 would be a good 6'0-6'2" and built like a football player. I'm 5'10" and used to towering over other women, but next to someone like that, I always feel small and insignificant. In my opinion, for female troopers, BT2 and BT4 are probably the best - big enough to support that armor, but not manly in any way. My bf has a BT3 Vanguard, and while the rifles look kind of puny on him, I think his toon looks pretty awesome. For male troopers, probably BT2 or BT3, unless you're going for a funnier look.

That's kind of silly considering that both Risha and Zenith use sniper rifles, and at least Risha is a pretty popular companion. Granted, they come with orange weapons and you can get them new ones from comm vendors or the Belsavis daily, but it will make it harder for people to get a specific model they want or even a free upgrade while leveling. They should have done away with the Aim scatterguns instead, since I don't think anyone Rep side has a companion who uses them.

There are no moddable techblades and techstaves, but that doesn't mean the blue or epic versions aren't decent. Even if you can't find one for the level you want, you can see who posts the other techblades on the GTN and write the crafter directly.

I do not believe for a second that you'll return to your Commando because there is no reason to return to your Commando. The biggest Sage nerf is to single-target healing, and that wasn't the main reason why they were brought in the first place. Since absorption and AoE healing have been left untouched, Sages still have their niche. I'm not going to argue that the nerf to Deliverance via Conveyance is not heavy-handed and rather unnecessary (fixing the bug would have been enough), but the sky isn't falling. By contrast, CM does not even have a niche anymore because the buff to KB is minimal and single-target efficiency is getting nerfed into the ground. While Scoundrels don't have a major throughput CD, they can sustain single-target healing ad infinitum and can contribute more to group healing. Scoundrels didn't get buffed enough and not in interesting ways. As a healer who plays all 3 (although my Scoundrel is a bit behind), I am extremely unhappy with how they decided to approach healing. If encounters were too easy, they could have buffed boss damage and introduced unforgiving damage mechanics which require people to contribute to their own survivability. Making healing unfun for those of us who do nothing but heal is not how you keep subscriptions.

Main stat: Aim Secondary stats: Power/Crit/Surge/Alacrity. Armoring type: Reflex (more Aim than Endurance) Mod type: either Aim/Power or Aim/Crit, although I personally prefer Aim/Power. Enhancements: mix of Power/Surge and Crit/Surge should be ideal. The interesting thing about pets is that they don't seem to run out of resources, so I don't think Alacrity is bad for them (and she does have some casted/channeled heals). If her Surge is hitting DRs badly, you can use some Power/Alacrity or Crit/Alacrity enhancements for her. For non-OJ pieces, probably anything that has Power or Crit. The nice thing about Power is that it buffs her heals at all times, while Crit is obviously ruled by RNG. Try to balance them out.

Patch 1.2.1 notes: Guard cannot be used in warzones anymore Hate to jynx it, but it's the next step in the systematic discouragement of healers. While Blizz devs get accused every patch of playing a different healer, at least they play healers. I'm not convinced that BW devs do.

I regularly buy rank 2 UT missions because even the blues yield Alusteel. I get 2 pieces from a blue mission (3 on crit) and 4 from a purple mission (5 on crit). With all maxed companions, it's rare for them not to come back with Alusteel from a Rich mission (and especially Tanno, who has the UT critical bonus). In addition to companion affection, it seems to me that outleveling the mission may also increase chance to crit. I'm only saying that because mine seem to crit a lot more frequently on lowbie missions than on top-end ones.

It's pretty obvious from their wording: "Its [Conveyance's] effects have been slightly redesigned. It now increases the critical chance of Benevolence by 60% and reduces the Force cost of Deliverance by 30%." It's clearly a substitution. Otherwise, it would have been a pretty fat buff and no one would have complained. Plus, they would have said "in addition, Conveyance now reduces the Force cost," rather than mentioning a redesign. I don't think it's debatable, so while they may come out and clarify at some point, I think all of us know what they mean. Regarding not playing a Sage, I don't think you'll have much choice if you want to heal. CMs are getting gutted by this patch, and Scoundrels aren't being buffed enough. I don't know how things will pan out in PvP for all healers (looking bleak right now), but I think we'll be the strongest PvE healers. The whole CM shtick was high, cheap single-target burst. With that gone, I don't know *** they're supposed to be doing. I suspect that the Sage/Scoundrel combo will become very powerful, with the Scoundrel on tank and the Sage on group.

For one, they are eliminating the double-dipping, which was unintentional and likely a result of the heal-queuing system. While that's unfortunate, I don't think anyone didn't see this coming because it was clearly not "working as intended." Secondly, they are redesigning the buffs provided by Conveyance. The force-cost reduction buff for Benevolence will be replaced by a Crit buff. The cast-time reduction buff for Deliverance will be replaced by a force-cost reduction buff. The reason people are upset for PvP is because you can't cast a 2-sec heal in someone's face, especially in battlegrounds. Juking works in WoW because it's done mostly in arena, where you have a set number of opponents and an addon which allows you to monitor their interrupts. The problem with battlegrounds is that you have a lot of people focused on you, no way to keep track of who has their interrupt up, and a steady stream of fresh rezzes. Unless you get amazing peels (which you won't in a pug) or really stupid opponents, you get hounded a lot. Between pillar humping, kiting, and the occasional juke, you need a fast, powerful heal. We won't have that now, because Benevolence is weak compared to how much people hit for and Deliverance will never get cast. It's a much bigger nerf for PvP than for PvE. Definitely an HPS nerf for PvE, but stacking more Alacrity can mitigate some of that, and bosses don't sit on your back interrupting your 2.0 sec heal. Imho, they need to add a talent lowering the cast time of Deliverance to a more manageable 2 seconds, after which Alacrity could take it to 1.5-1.6 secs, or whatever people find comfortable.

Let's not ignore the fact that Deliverance will get a 30% force cost reduction from Conveyance. This is clearly meant to offset the changes to Noble Sacrifice. Note that Resplendence will still remove the force decay debuff, which is a pretty big deal. The health loss can be covered via your own aoe or someone else's aoe, since hitting NS once doesn't drop you to 2%. It also means that with Conveyance buffing the Crit chance of two heals (Benevolence and Healing Trance) and reducing the Force cost of two heals (Deliverance and Salvation), Alacrity becomes more valuable than before. The upside of the cast speed nerf to Deliverance is that it can be at least partially mitigated by reitemization. The fact that people are considering rerolling CM is hilarious. They are gutting ammo efficiency and nerfing SCS, as well as reducing the buffs from Kolto Bomb, without a significant AoE buff. I have 3 healers right now, but if the changes go live, my CM will go Gunnery without a question.

From Investigation, I got the following kinds of schematics: - Armstech (blue scatterguns and vibroknives, which sell very well because the trainable ones can't be RE-ed; also some random blaster rifle and sniper rifle schematics) - Synthweaving - Armormech - Biochem (implants) - Artifice (off-hand) One of the synthweaving recipes I got was a nice moddable circlet that I think my friend will make tons of money off of after the patch. Non-ugly helms = win, especially for companions, whose headslots can't be hidden. From Underworld Trading, - Synthweaving - Armormech From Slicing, - Cybertech (earpieces and ship parts) From Treasure Hunting lockboxes, I think I got some Synthweaving recipes. I occasionally get unmodded orange items, but I don't remember getting an orange recipe yet. I haven't had the profession that long, though, even if it's maxed.

If you think Sage is boring, you should try a Scoundrel. Underworld Medicine --> Emergency Medpack; Underworld Medicine --> Emergency Medpack; Underworld Medicine --> Emergency Medpack; Underworld Medicine --> Emergency Medpack; Underworld Medicine --> Emergency Medpack; Underworld Medicine --> Emergency Medpack; Underworld Medicine --> Emergency Medpack; Underworld Medicine --> Emergency Medpack; Underworld Medicine --> Emergency Medpack. Yep, they have other spells too, and of course I try to use them when the need arises, but once I hit 30, I realized that what Scoundrels have been saying all along is true. The aforementioned combo is so much more powerful and efficient than anything else they can do, that the rest is just situational. Commando would be the same way if Advanced Medical Probe didn't have a CD. When you have SCS up, it is the same - AMP --> MP X as many times as your Alacrity allows in that time frame. Since Kolto Bomb is not a smart-heal, it's often not worth the ammo if the 3 most injured people aren't clumped together. It's definitely nicer with the shield, but you only have that during SCS. Trauma Probe gets chewed very fast, and while it's a HoT with no overhealing, it's considerably more annoying to keep up than Earth Shield. I'd say it's closer to Water Shield than Noble Sacrifice. I like my Commando, but I started leveling Sage and Scoundrel alts, and my Sage felt the most fun to level, the smoothest, and most polished. The fact that Conveyance buffs all your heals leads to some meaningful situational choices, rather than a preset combo as with the other two. I don't regret starting with a different healer, as I like all of them for different reasons, but this is the most finished healer, in my opinion.

Earpieces Mastercraft earpieces (derived from the level 49 greens) can already be superior to Rakata ones from dailies. I don't know if that's not the case for your spec or if you haven't compared numbers, but for mine I'm looking at both more primary stats and better itemization in terms of secondary stats. Mastercraft Columi earpieces are BiS, as far as I understand. However, these will not be competitive anymore once they introduce a new raiding tier, so the easiest solution would be to give us a set of green level 50 earpieces with more stats, which we could again RE to various purple versions. I think they are preferable to the Rakata items other professions get because those are not very customizable. Stat priorities evolve with gear, so it's nice to be able to switch versions as your gear gets better. Already, some people with Armormech/Synthweaving have been using mastercraft BoEs instead of their Rakatas because they give better secondary stats. Modifications I do agree that both armorings and mods need a buff - a new level 50 version which we can RE and which would be better than whatever you can get from dailies and maybe slightly worse than what you can get from raiding HMs. Or, since modifications ripped from raid pieces will carry bonuses, the crafted ones could have more raw stats. It's very hard for stats to compete with bonuses which extend a certain buff or add a fair damage/healing/mitigation bonus to your key abilities, but it would allow alts and people new to raiding to jump right in. And, for those who don't intend to raid, there could be a meaningful amount of gear progression. One thing that needs to be added is tanking mods. I also think that mat requirements per armoring/mod need to be dropped to 2 pieces of Mando Iron, while for earpieces they could be increased to 4. The other way around doesn't make a lot of sense. Droid parts, ship parts, and vehicles are just filler and they're fine as they are. You can make a decent income if you specialize in them, and they aren't critical to character progression. I'd prefer it if they gave us droid pets, and not the boring mouse droid kinds, but fun ones, like a serenading droid that works, robotic animals, or anything that would have an interesting animation and do something every now and then. As far as speeders go, they should diversify the models and give us something for everyone: cheaply made speeders, which could be sold (at a profit) for less than the vendor ones, and expensive collector items.