I gotta say, played correctly IA healing is actually pretty amazing and fun. I don't normally play healers, and I don't stay healing spec on this character either. However, I do occasionally respec for flashpoints and surprisingly I find myself enjoying it. If you keep up hots and stim boost energy is almost never an issue. I can spam kolto probe on every person in the group (which also helps keep up TA btw) then just use big heals on the tank pretty easily without dropping below 60 energy. You also have a free instant cast heal with no cooldown as long as you've got TA. Granted it's not a huge heal, but it does do a decent amount. A lot of times with hots up, using DS and Surgical Probe, you can easily stay ahead of healing on the tank and not even need to cast your big, energy consuming heals. I find myself sitting on a full energy bar and helping with dps more often than not on trash. The only time I really have any issues is when more than one person is taking a lot of damage, and even in those cases you've got a lot of tools to keep yourself full on energy for a short time at least. With Recuperative Nanotech (which I don't have yet) I imagine it'll be even easier to keep up group healing. I think a lot of the complaints are from people who don't understand the mechanics or who expect to be able to heal with a dps spec. This isn't a class where you can just spam 1-2 buttons and expect it to work, but it does have a lot of tools if you take the time to learn what you're doing. My one issue with healing as an Op is that my character is constantly giggling....

The "sir" part is intentional. The "his" part I'm not sure about, but I would assume not.

That's not a rotation, that's an opener. Difference is it's a sequence to start a fight with, not a sequence that you mash out repeatedly. I wouldn't even recommend strictly sticking with that much in every situation. As I said before, pvp requires adaptability and using the right ability for the situation, which doesn't work with rotations. What happens when you can't get behind someone? You gonna run around mashing backstab until it hits so you can continue with your rotation? How bout if they're trying to cast something? Your rotation doesn't include an interrupt, so obviously you can't use it. Those are easy example and obviously not the only ones, but they get the point across. Other players don't follow the same pattern every fight like NPCs do and if you try to fight them like NPCs you will die more often than not. Using the same ability in the exact same order every time without adapting makes you predictable and much easier to counter. Basically you're fighting like a mob yourself. There is no "pvp rotation". Rotations are a strictly pve concept. If you don't like my advice that's fine, don't take it. But it's the same advice you're going to get from any of the better pvp players in any game.

There's no such thing as a good pvp rotation. By definition a rotation is something you do repeatedly without thinking. If you want to be good at pvp, you need to learn what your abilities do and when to use them, not an order to mindlessly pound buttons in regardless of the situation. Pvp is more fluid than that. Players are much smarter and more unpredictable than NPCs. Rotations are for pve and will only work in pvp against other noobs who are also trying to use rotations.

I'm working on setting one up, but I've been too focused on actually playing for the past week lol. Probably won't really get down to it until after the holidays. I'll post it here for sure if it ever gets finished. It'll depend on community participation to actually make it worth visiting in any case. I was planning on being a little less specific than just operative as well. I think it's going to be set up for all agents/smugglers with different sections for each AC/Role. Name's not set in stone, but I'm thinking "The Poison Pit" would be appropriate.

Why are you worried about the numbers? Ops have a LOT of things they can contribute that won't show up on the scoreboards. If you're helping your team win while the sorc in question is off somewhere screwing around getting into side fights constantly, of course he's going to have higher numbers. You still contributed more to the team. People get on this numbers kick and completely lose track of what's actually important.

Yea...the class is amazing, I won't argue with you on that point. However, we certainly do NOT need to raise awareness. I'm perfectly happy being one of the few. Less competition for gear and group/guild slots. Not to mention the more ops in pvp the more the likelihood of whining and eventual nerfs to the point of being the least popular class for a reason...

Wasn't trying to start an argument either, just justifying my statement. The fact that they have almost no range is a BIG part of the reason I'm playing an Op instead. I had originally been set on assassin. And a ranged ability that can't be used while moving doesn't really do much good as far as being kited lol, which is the subject at hand. Personally, I don't remember ANY of their abilities having more than 10m range, but I'll take your word for it since I haven't played one after all the changes.

Yea, I believe this is how I'm going as well. A hybrid heal/concealment spec ought to be good enough to heal most flashpoints/heroics up to the high level ones at least. It'll also give you a little less downtime since you can just HoT yourself and keep moving. I put my points in medicine up to kolto probe (lvl 20) since you can burn through the first couple of worlds content pretty quickly no matter what spec you are. Plus this should be enough points to heal most groups as you level. Then I put points into concealment when things start getting a little harder to kill. I go up to tactical opportunity in that tree (and pick up the 9% healing at the base of the tree of course). At this stage (level 37) I plan to start going back into the healing tree since it'll be getting harder to heal with just 11 points in healing. At 50, it'll have to be one or the other to be remotely viable, but I think this should work for leveling content. This is all theoretical and based on what I noticed up to the high 20s. It seems very logical to me, though, and it should let me level efficiently without needing to go respec every time a group needs heals. That's the idea anyway.

Yea, they have two abilities to help them close, but they need it because they have 0 ranged options. If those are on cooldown and a target is more than 10m from them there's NOTHING they can do. We still have options, that was my point.

First off, stealth is your biggest gap closer. After you open on someone you have plenty of snares/slows to keep them from kiting you. You have a 10m range on a lot of your abilities, and it shouldn't be hard to keep them within 10m if they don't see you coming. Secondly, you get a passive 15% speed bonus ALL the time, which helps considerably. Thirdly, we do have 30m ranged abilities (corrosive dart, grenade, rifle shot) that can be used while chasing someone. While those abilities don't do as much damage as our melee attacks, they are definitely not negligible and are enough to make someone think twice about trying to kite an operative. If they're constantly running from you, they're not going to be able to use their hardest hitting abilities either. Lastly, you have heals. You can stop chasing someone at any point, take few steps back out of their range and cast a heal or two on yourself, making it that much harder to actually kill you by kiting. Gap closers really are not an issue for us. Shadows/assassins are much worse off.

There is no effective ranged dps spec for operatives. Even if you go Lethality, you're going to need to be in melee range to do your best damage. You have no way to get TA from range unless you're healing specced and it is required for cull and stim boost, both of which are very important.

Operatives are not a ranged class. You will not get ANY new ranged abilities beyond the base ones once you choose Operative aside from the one in the lethality tree. The lethality tree still requires you to be within 10m to be effective, and quite frankly the tree sucks currently. You won't do anything close to the damage that a concealment op can put out and if you're trying to heal as well as dps then you're going to drop even further. Secondly, healing as an op requires a good deal of energy management. Trying to throw in dps skills is going to make that much more difficult to pull off. Combine that with the fact that you don't have all the healing talents and your healing is considerably less effective as well. I don't mean to burst your bubble, but I assume that the point of asking the question was to get information on whether this works well or not. Of course you CAN do it. If you want to sit in cover and mix snipes and heals, you're welcome to, but it's not going to be very effective at doing either damage or healing.

Operatives do not ever NEED to use cover. That said, all of our heals can be used from cover, so it's possible and frequently useful to heal from cover. Definitely not required though. I wouldn't think you'd ever want to be in melee range as a healer anyway. If you're taking an active healer role/spec you're not going to have the time or energy to be using attacks. (Backstab is only free if you spec concealment.)

1. Yes you have some ranged abilities, but you are a melee class. All of your GOOD abilities as an operative are 10m or less, which might as well just be melee range. Using shiv is VITAL because it's the only way to get tactical advantage at this level. Backstab becomes free once you get a few points in concealment, not to mention it's your hardest hitting ability. Overload shot and your standard rifle shot are your fillers when backstab and shiv are on cooldown (until you get lacerate). 2. Get that tactical advantage from using shiv (since you're not specced for healing) and use stim boost to up your regen rate. Secondly, we regen at different speeds depending on the level of energy we have. If you get below 60 energy, it slows down. This means you can't SPAM heals, you have to keep your energy above 60 or you will starve yourself. Best idea here is to start healing early and if you know it's going to be a tough fight, be conservative with your other abilities to keep yourself in the green. Your energy will regen VERY quickly if you can keep it above 60. You might have to slow down your abilities a bit to keep it there, but you'll have to slow down a LOT if you run out of energy. 3. We're not meant to be a ranged class. We have some ranged options, but you really shouldn't be using them unless there's a reason to not be in melee range.