Lots of views. No advice at all?

Been away for awhile and came back for the expansion. What's the situation with gear these days? Starting off with Basic 60 gear will be a big upgrade for me right now. Should I just go with a standard full suit w/skill augs, or is mix/matching still the order of the day? Focus on power/surge/alacrity with less emphasis on crit? Also, what utilities are you putting points into. Looking for a balance between PvE and PvP with an emphasis on PvE. Thanks!

Man, I really do miss OS. It was a fun ability, but also a nice AOE when solo. Now it's just Thermal Grenade and Blaster Volley. But yeah, I will concede that as a healer spec, swapping OS for KW was the right call. Hard to scoff at two AOE heals, one instant and one channeled.

Can you post directions, at least after getting off at Redwood Shores Parkway? It's a relatively big campus.

I just posted about this in the bug report forum. I've been experiencing the same thing but have noticed that if there are NPCs within the 10m range, it will apply the HoT to some of them instead of all players in range. It is repeatable too. For example, last night I was with a group of 4 out collecting data for tauntauns. All of us were right around a nest. I applied KC on myself and everyone was well within 10m of me. Myself and one other group member got the HoT, but the other two did not. Instead, it was applied to two of the baby tauntauns in the nest. I did this several times and it was the same every time. Nobody was moving out of range when KC was triggered. None of the times were all 4 getting the HoT. The ONLY thing I can think of that I didn't notice or check for is maybe if a player is at 100% health, the HoT will not apply and randomly hit an NPC. But that doesn't quite make sense as I can have no NPCs in range with everyone at 100% and the HoT will still tick on everyone. It's not all the time that this situation will come up, but I have noticed it enough, especially in FPs, that it is annoying and detrimental. It needs to be fixed.

I haven't seen this in the known bug list, but it is something that I think needs to be addressed asap. While some NPCs are within the 10m radius of Kolto Cloud, the HoT will will apply to some of them and not all group members within the radius. I see this all the time. Like last night for instance, I was out with a group collecting data for Tauntauns. Standing around the nest with everyone within 10m, my KC only applied to myself and one other group member, while also ticking on two of the baby tauntauns in the nest. The Kolto Cloud should ignore all NPCs except for companions. Will this ever be addressed?

The latest Razer Naga(2014) edition comes in both left handed and right handed flavors. The company even says that they decided to make a left handed version at a loss, just because they know how frustrating it can be to be a left handed player. I'm not left handed myself, but I can sympathize. I have the new Naga and the new, raised mechanical side buttons are great. I also use an Orbweaver. I don't think they make a left handed version of that one(yet?). They are a great combination though.

Yeah, I'm in agreement with you two. Also, along with reducing the GCD, it increases the rate of energy regeneration, as inocelda has already mentioned. That allows you to compensate for the extra heals you'll be doing.

Yes, you can change the size of the buff/debuff icons. I believe you go into the interface editor and click on the area that you want to affect, like the Ops window. There should be scale sliders for both buffs and debuffs. Also experiment with changing the sizes of those frames, like the spacing, text/health size and length, etc. The UI editor isn't perfect but it is pretty flexible. Play around. I always save the current layout with a new name so I have something to fall back on in case I screw something up.

I haven't tried going the zero crit route. My build is a bit more balanced right now. Can't recall the exact numbers but with all buffs and nano-stim puts me around 29% crit, ~70-71 surge, ~6.8 alacrity, and ~984 power(all tech of course). I'm not into doing all the parse work on my toon. Just going by how I seem to perform in both raids and pvp, I'm doing quite well. I don't wear a stitch of pvp armor when pvp'ing. I consistently rank at the top in heals. But that isn't my main goal. I try to heal to win the round. I also do a fair amount of damage when needed which takes away from my heal numbers. For raiding I don't try to do any damage and just concentrate on healing. Not to toot my own horn, but whenever I heal I am usually very appreciated when all said and done. It's not just about the raw numbers, but HOW you heal that can make the difference.

It's not hard to grasp. I understand it quite fine. Do you understand what the word semantics means? Yes, this grant was exclusive to subs because only subs got it. That's the literal meaning. I'd wager that a lot of us took the meaning of exclusive to be more like unique. I guess that's our fault. But it was a missed opportunity. It's like a kid who gets an allowance. The parents notice their kid has been extra helpful around the house and decide to reward them with something special. The kid gets excited at all the prospects of what that might be, but it turns out that they end up just giving them a few bucks extra. It's a build up and a let down. Sure they got a few extra bucks, but it's not exciting. There's no surprise. There's no going around showing friends the cool new thing they got. Sure some people may be quite happy to get the money. But others were expecting something different. There's no meaning behind it. No effort. If people were clamoring for some sort of appreciation for being subs and putting their money where their mouth is to help support this game, it's like BW literally just tossed a few coins their way to appease them. They took a prime opportunity to make some kind of cool little item as a way of saying thank you, and turned it into a cold lackluster gesture. It's a matter of how you interact with your valued player base. Is that so hard to grasp?

Yes it is, but you're kind of missing the point or being facetious. Can't tell. Cartel Coins in and of themselves are not exclusive items. Anyone can obtain them. Again, it comes down to semantics and what one would normally expect of something considered exclusive.

I don't usually side with those who think they are entitled to something but I'm actually going to agree with the OP on this one. Maybe it's just about semantics but when they say they are going to be gifting something EXCLUSIVE to subs, to me that means that it is an item or title that you can ONLY get by being a sub. As subs we already get a monthly allowance of CC. There is nothing on the CM that can't be bought by anyone with current CC or $. You remember that mount that could only be acquired by referring a friend? THAT was an exclusive item. You can't buy that from the CM. It's not about being ungrateful or entitled. It's more a disappointment in the way that BW represented the gift. They didn't have to do it in the first place and I'd be fine with that, but handing out additional CC just seems like a cop-out with very little thought behind it. It's like giving someone a gift card for a present instead of actually putting some thought into a gift that might have a more personal meaning. I don't know if this whole thing was initiated by BW or they were just responding to a lot of chirping from subs on the forums to get some appreciation. Either way, it is the word exclusive that sticks in my craw. Next time(if there is one) that word is used, it really should be something that can't be obtained without subbing. Otherwise they should just be upfront and say we are going to get some bonus coal, err CCs in our stockings.

I tend to regard my healing style as "situational." I'm constantly reading what's going on and who is taking damage, and what kind. Are they being burst down or did they just take a single direct hit or AoE dmg? When I look at my parses, my heals break down like this: KC>SMP>KP>EMP>UM>DS. One may look at that and assume that UM and DS are not very useful. On the contrary. As you said, DS is a valuable and useful ability to increase regen which is vital in a heavy fight. Having all your HoTs going means that you are dealing out lots of heals without actively casting anything. That leaves DS wide open to recoup energy should you need it. UM can be a very useful burst heal as well, especially if it is well timed. For example, I use a Serendipitous Assault relic that gives a boost to power when it procs. Watching out for that and instantly casting a UM+EMP will benefit from the additional power. If you manage to crit on either one or both, you are doing a serious heal. I'm talking about the 15k+ range. That's what I love so much about this class. You can be bursty if you need to while doing great single target heals AND awesome AoE heals. Energy management is easy and you can still jump in and do some decent damage while healing FPs and SMs.

Likewise. Some great information in your post. I had previously posted asking about using DA to rez in combat and wasn't provided the info that HoTs on players triggered combat. It's essentially futile to try it in a HM+ Op. I'm curious, did you take Open Wounds/Mortal Wounds in your spec? I opted to take Dirty Escape for the 30s Dirty Kick. What are your thoughts on that route?

That's great to hear. If you are still monitoring this thread, I'd like to make a request when it comes to patch notes. It seems that most of the time(except for specific hotfixes) that patch notes tend to only list the highlights of the patch. I'm sure often times there are many smaller fixes that may seem inconsequential but would really be helpful to know about. Some people call these stealth fixes. I don't know what your internal policy is on what you want to disclose when it comes to patches, but the more info the better I think. I want to make sure any and all minor or QoL fixes make it into the patch notes, no matter how trivial it may seem. Or maybe put out a highlight one and a more robust one for those that care. Is this possible?

Thanks for all the replies. Good to know that I'm not doing anything wrong aside from having poor timing and/or bad luck. I'll still work on it though. This kinda stemmed from getting a bit of grief once in a GF SV SM run for not rezzing multiple people on a boss fight. So F-them. Modesty aside, I'm actually a very good healer and get compliments all the time, especially from low-gear, inexperienced pugs. It's by far my favorite AC I've played so far and the one that, for some reason, came to me naturally. I just find it very rewarding.

Ah ok, so it IS theoretically possible. I guess I've just had bad luck getting sucked back into combat. Will having active HoTs going trigger combat? I get that direct damage or splash damage from an aoe would. What about debuffs? Would any of them do it or just any DoTs? If anyone has any tips on this I'd appreciate it.

I've heard some stuff that led me to think I'm not understanding this correctly. Please correct me if I'm wrong. As Sawbones, we have Heartrigger Patch which can rez someone while in combat, but using it locks the ability to rez again for 5min. So even if another heal spec has a combat rez, they won't be able to use it during that time either. That's it. There's no other way to rez someone during this lockout period. Is this correct? I got confused because I thought I heard someone say that by using Disappearing Act, perhaps along with Triage first and Dodge, and maybe even Sneak, that you could effectively exit combat for enough time to rez someone. Is this possible? I've tried it a bunch of different ways and always get forced back into combat before I can cast revive. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong. I'd surely like to know if there is another way to rez other than HP so I can be as affective as possible.

<disregard>

Just some anecdotal stuff to pass the time... I know how a lot of healers will sort of complain about lousy tanks and dps in PUG FPs, etc. Makes our job a lot more difficult when they don't know how to play their roles effectively. I totally get that. But part of what makes it for me as a healer, are all the times that I have queued up for a 55 FP only to find out I've joined up halfway through, or at the last boss because the previous healer bailed. Some times it's for a legitimate reason and the group was doing fine, but more often than not it quickly becomes apparent why I am suddenly the replacement healer. That's when I roll up my sleeves and vow that no-one shall die on my watch. Sure, there are times when there is only so much a mortal Mirialan can do in the face of extreme ineptitude. But that's the challenge. And when you are triumphant, you usually get a whole lot of gratitude thrown your way.

Can it be confirmed that deleting a toon will instantly free up that name? I've experienced in other games that once a name is taken, even after the toon is deleted, it is left in a state of limbo until either a certain amount of time passes or it is manually purged. Again, just wondering how TOR handles this and if names of deleted toons instantly become available to everyone.

If you are really strapped for cash, I'll pay you a million credits if you learn to write proper English.

Um yeah, sucks but suck it up. I was on Darth Sion since launch and when it was rolled into Harbinger I had to change my name because it already existed on that server. I didn't like it because I didn't get a choice, but I understood it. If I had started out on Harbinger I would be equally pissed if I had to change my name because someone else with the same name had been transferred over. Bottom line, get creative. Learn to use special characters. BW is actually very lenient when it comes to what special characters you can use. I'm sure you can figure out something very similar to what your name was

You betcha! That's why it is important to have pretty much all three going on CD. It really is kind of ridiculous how many ways we have of generating UH though. You got HoTs, popping out of stealth, UM, Blaster Whip, Pugnacity, just for killing a dude, and not to mention a freebie for every EM under 30%.