I understand your thought process but consider that raiding is ALL about min/maxing. This means that the concept of hybrid does not exist in a raid context (at least as raids are currently designed). If you are assigned a DPS role, your job is to kill the target faster than a) an enrage mechanic or b) a mechanic that wears down a healers resource pool. If there is someone that can do that job significantly better, you have no place in a progression raid. Consider that WoW went through this debate with Paladins for years and ultimately their devs there reached the conclusion that the concept of hybrid does not work in a min/max raid. There used to be fights that required a bit of extra healing or another off tank - I assume this was meant to allow hybrids to shine. Instead, raid groups that had difficulty merely brought an extra "pure class" for that single fight and subbed people in and out accordingly. In terms of "Utility" - the ONLY utility skill that is effective in EVERY fight is held by sents/maras. Every other utility skills use is sporadic and gimmicky at best. It took "other games" years, to figure out the "hybrid question". I hope this game and this community gets it right much earlier. Bottom line: As long as enrage timers are meaningful on progression raids - you cant bring a dps that does "other things" at the cost of not hitting certain dps marks.

I don't know if the current log output supports this, but is there any way to count shields as part of amount healed? (Or even just to see how much damage the shields are preventing)

Just a thought - and I have no evidence to support this other than the clear concept that they want slower and more sparse healing as opposed to spam healing (see medpack and healer changes). Is it possible the changes are not to our characters but rather to the attack speed and damage output of mobs?

This is in the class changes for 1.2 - I am curious how other people read this? If I think I am reading this right I am very worried. If anyone can post a screen of the new talent trees (and any changes to offset this) I would be much obliged.

Is the goal to have 1.2 live by early April or is the goal to have 1.2 on the PTS by early April (the presentation at the guild summit left uncertainty between these two options).

You didn't listen to the entire cast did you? IF Bobba Fetts father was force sensitive then all of the sudden it makes a lot of sense. (Father Fett was not force sensitive thus Bobba could not use the force). With the LEGACY system, if you put a force sensitive as a relative, then it makes PERFECT sense to have all ppl in that family tree be force sensitive.

There are more or less two ways to feel powerful in this game. You described one, I described the other. Is it good game design to cut 50% of perceived progression out of the game?

Agreed. Which again promotes a horrible design. It is great that they are setting it up so you don't have to wear the end tier raid gear if you don't want to. However, penalizing players who do is counter intuitive to a genre that survives on looking (and thus feeling) more powerful with each iterative update.

The CHOICE to change the look is welcomed. This is NOT a choice. Anyone staying in the sage look starting in 1.2 will be looked down upon. Anyone wearing the next tier of gear will be looked down upon. I am all for giving armor crafters some special benefit but this (at least on the information given) does not seem that great. One person in a guild will bite the bullet and go synthweaving and one person in the guild will bite the bullet and go armor mech. They will provide the gear to the rest of their guild and then the look of the next raid gear will disappear from that guild. I am all for creating design choices that promote choice, this is not choice.

I will ignore the jab. I have read the Q + A very carefully. The incentives you talk about are in future patch, likely not 1.2. My comment pertains to 1.2 and sans "incentives" the gear issue is in an incomplete state that poses a serious problem. I don't know how much money it costs to develop end game tier looks but this system is essentially throwing that money down the tube. People will WANT to get rid of the look as soon as possible as anyone SEEN with that look will be considered an inferior player.

I really don't understand Bioware's thinking at all. Basically you are saying that the min/max'er will HAVE To ABANDON their top tier pve look. CHOICE is one thing, what you are setting up is a person wearing the top tier pve look will be viewed as stupid while the person looking EXACTLY like a lvl 30 is smart. You are FORCING a path instead of creating CHOICE.

I feel like this post should get some kind of troll award.... Of course will will only answer questions they CAN answer.... if they don't have info to give you, the CAN'T give it to you...

The situation I am thinking of would be you have used rejuv + deliverance and then healing trance. Hit noble sac. Rejuv and healing trance are now on cool down for a few more seconds. Your target needs more healing - do you use a cheap heal costing 2.7(adjusting for alacrity) or a 1.5(adjusting for alacrity). I am starting to think this is when benevolence will be useful, as a 2.(lets say 2) heal is just too long in certain ops encounters. Of course sometimes you might have time to use that 2.2 second cast heal but I am betting (especially in hard/nightmare) you just dont have the time. After benev is used, rejuv and heal trance should be back up.

I wonder if this change will mean that benevolence has an actual use again. I agree that the new priority system will probably be Rejuv --> Deliverance --> healing trance (assuming the particular sage has enough crit chance). However, in situations where that rotation is not enough to top people off, and rejuv is still on cooldown, will people be more inclined to go for another 2.x deliverance or a 1.5 (costly) benevolence? Curious what other sages are thinking.

Any eta on combat log and /roll feature?