riiiiiiiiiiight... tell this to the dps that rudely ignores the tanks on my team and beelines it straight for me. yes healers can and will position themselves intelligently near pillars and on ledges, but in pvp no one worth their salt will attack an actual tank while there's a healer within range. in essence, healers are the tanks since they get the aggro when present.

ok, so i posted an unsub thread. to be fair, here's my resub thread. prophecy of the five or bust!!!

If the dps just dpses then yes, the healer should be able to live through that and heal his team. If the dps both dpses and cc/interrupts then no, the healer should be forced to focus on himself BUT should still be able to keep himself alive.

agreed. it really just comes down to fun. i like to play a healer, and after 1.2 healing became less fun. this coupled with the fact that the population is dwindling, making wz queues take forever has killed what was left of my desire to play swtor.

you're right. just let the game die, but keep the "communities" intact. god forbid they suffer.

I just read a couple pages of this thread... SO MUCH STUPIDITY. From my own experience, pyro and bodyguard mercs do just fine since 1.2. Arsenal is still more or less arsenal. You need one of the following to do well with it: (1) really bad enemy players that allow you to freecast without interrupting or LoSing; or, (2) really good teammates to help you position the enemy players out in the open where you can dps them down.

And i'm thinking, why am i even doing this. BW has totally ****ed me over this whole patch. 1) No rateds... lol gg BW, you are a master troll. 2) Merc healers (what I am) are getting hit hard with the nerf bat. 3) I've remodded/enhanced BOTH my healing set and my dps battlemaster set... and now BW is making me (at significant cost) go in, rip out the improvements I made just because they can't figure out how to program it otherwise. I'm not a violent person, but I'd like to punch the person who OK'd this choice. And in return, what are we (pvpers) getting this patch... a new Warzone and new gear. Not insignificant updates, but seriously BW. It's like one bad decision after the next and these all serve to annoy the **** out of the player base. Basically, **** you BW. I, honestly, need just one more thing like the above list to make me quit. For the amount of other games out there I feel like we've all given BW a lot of slack. And the only thing that is keeping me here still is the fact that I hate leveling with a passion. Anyways, rant over. Hopefully this message isn't lost on BW.

Just wondering if there are any healers out there who have tested he 1.2 changes to Merc healing, and if so how noticeable are they? Are you having a lot more problems with heat than before? I can honestly say that as a Merc healer, heat is typically never a real concern. Since I usually don't have to be constantly casting (like when I'm DPS) I have plenty of time to regen. And when **** gets crazy, I will almost always have either SCG or Vent Heat available. If I end up dying, it is 99% of the time because I'm getting interrupted a lot, or I have multiple DPS on me... hardly ever because I actually overheat. Anyways, just curious. Thanks!

ok, is it just me or is the way BW implemented the community forums completely cheap? it's like they read a "how to make user friendly forums that foster a sense of community" book, then threw it away and did the exact opposite. really BW? no server specific forums? and how much did you spend on the game, only to cheap out on something that a lot of people actually enjoy. i don't do forum rants a lot since i like the game, but i can't for the life of me think of a good reason to do something so stupid as what BW did with the community forums.

start dps'ing when your group is full health. it could be the difference between killing a ball carrier and not. throw in a death from above or fusion missile when you see a group, then start healing your team.

for the love of god... as a healer, players missing from the raid frames has to be the most annoying bug and it happens ALL ... THE ... TIME!!! edit: and focusing (alt+f) isn't a great workaround. the whole benefit of raid frames is their compactness and customizable height/width/position.

15% to rail. pyro is built for rail, not power shot. power shot is like last in the priority list of things to cast for pyros.

my damage went up when i started using unload as soon as it's up. this is cause of the rail procs. and like others have stated, use power shot only when everything else is on cooldown and you're just sitting there with no one on you. also, rapid shots does a decent amount of damage, and add to that the damage from the CGC dot and it's a really nice (and heat free) filler.

i messed around with HVC and pyro and overall i do what feels like more damage with CGC. i'll, of course, see higher crits with HVC but the CGC dot is pretty powerful and get refreshed with rail. nowadays, i'll use HVC if i'm going against a team with ops or merc healers that dispell a lot. as far as rotation goes, i used to use power shot a lot more than i do now and since i stopped using it except as a filler my damage has gone up. my rotation is basically incendiary -> thermal -> rail -> unload -> rail ... and after that i'll either rapid shots or power shots depending on heat until unload, rail or thermal is back up. getting rail reset procs is the best part of the spec imo. fusion missile is also in there if i have the heat or if there's a group clumped up. it's a pretty high dps ability (and it's elemental). usually though i'll wait for thermal override to use it.

pyro mercs do amazing damage, and when played well are quite bursty. sure, it's great for kiting and LoS, but if that's ALL you do then of course you're not going to do a lot of damage. also, you're not supposed to sit there and spam power shot; it's useful when no other cooldowns are up. rapid shots is used when you're moving... every second you're moving you should be rapid shotting someone if they're in range. incendiary -> thermal -> rail -> unload -> rail fillers: power shot and rapid shots (depending on heat) until the cooldowns are up for thermal/unload/rail. fusion is used when you need to burn someone down and have the heat, or have thermal override up), or you see a group of players clumped up. btw, fusion followed by death from above is a beautiful sight to behold lastly, when you're doing your whole rotation, you will do better to just let them beat on you whlie you're casting unload/fusion/power than to try and avoid all incoming damage by not using those spells and kiting. yes, you kite when casting incendiary, thermal and rail (and maybe rapid shots for the CGC dot), but after that just plant yourself and unload. rail procs are where your burst will come from that put you over the top. and, while we're on the subject, yes the numbers for everything are lower (rail shot, rapid shots, power shot) since you're not using HVC, *but* ... the damage from the CGC dot will more than make up for it. don't be discouraged when rail hits for 1000... on a well geared target. the OVERALL damage will be higher. edit: and for the record i have a bunch of screenshots of the average dps i'm able to put out... 400-700dps (in all wzs, not just vs).