QUOTE=pumpsw;3928192]It's very hard to get the heal/dps balance right because of all the variables out there.
I wonder though if they did sufficient healing sage testing versus competitive players? A 1.2 sage is still "fine" when against a pug but against ANY decent players without guard they are very hard pressed and with guard, still marginal.
Anyways, I thought I'd share this educated point of view from another post in this thread:
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=406858&page=14
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Reality check since I play a operative healer, a merc healer, and a sorc healer.
I feel the changes for my merc were pretty decent and even handed. I never had the raw healing output of a sorcerer, but the fact that I could heal far better under fire and was vastly more tanky more than made up for it. The changes alone, sans the expertise change, would have been pretty fair.
My sorcerer before the changes was a puggers worst nightmare because I could dish out serious healing numbers and most puggers had no clue how shut me down. Against competent players though in competitive matches, outside of huttball my sorc was a completely and total liability because of how much of a draw on guard he was and due to the fact that he was stupid easy to shut down with interrupts. Post 1.2, there is no reason to continue playing my sorcerer. The sorc changes to 'viable' healing output were grossly heavy handed. I say viable healing output because sorcs lost the ability to cast their biggest heal quickly. Rather than simply fix the bug allowing it to be double cast quickly and see how it played out, the end result was making the class unplayable (as a healer) against anyone even remotely competitive. You literally need a guard chained to your hip following you around to survive, and even then you can still be shut down easily via interrupts.
My operative healer was completely viable before the patch both pugging and in competitive matches, and I would even go so far as to say was probably the best healer in competitive games. Sure bad players had issues healing with this class, but a good player was really able to excel with it in competitive play. Post patch, I must admit it is pretty stupid. I played 10 matches last night pugging, seldom had guard, and died once... and that death was my own fault. I feel borderline OP.
Post 1.2 conclusion:
Sorcs Healers - Completely and totally unviable
Merc Healers - Fairly ok
Operative Healers - Borderline OP[/QUa
a full geared sage in war hero gear can put out 500k heals and 200k dps a full war hero geared sorc can do the close to the same in heals CLOSE but they can not dps at all which is bull **** sages need to be nerfed some how