It'd probably help if I knew exactly which point you were demanding proof for? If it's this part, then yes, yes it did. I'd send you a picture that showed me smiling when I read it, but I don't think that's necessary. If it's this part, then there's anecdotal evidence on my part from playing both a Sage and a Scoundrel healer and leveling a BH healer. There is also mathmatical proof (mostly from RuQu) that explains the disparity as well. Scoundrels being weaker pre-patch was pretty much a foregone conclusion. We were viable, just not competetive. If it's this part, then I'm not sure what you're asking for proof for? Are you asking that I prove it's more beneficial for us to talk about the future rather than the present? There was no part of that statement that relayed any information for which I would require proof. I'm simply asking for a discussion on the impact this patch is going to have, rather positive or negative. I feel the impact is going to be mostly negative, but that's opinion. I base that opinion on the patch notes itself, as well as several threads from people in the PTS server expressing their distaste of the 1.2 patch. I also base it on discussions held in said thread the provide arguing points and math both for and against the patch. Are you doing as much? Or are you, as RuQu stated, simply demanding that everyone provide proof of everything that's wrong while you don't provide any proof that everything is right? If it's this part, well, here's the proof for that: http://i.imgur.com/UnP24.jpg Less than a day remaining. I'll be back when I'm convinced everything didn't just go to hell on me.

Not to mention that, by all accounts in Lileth and Saerith's testing threads, Scoundrel healers also got buffs to their HoT healing, which puts us further above Commandos. The only thing Commandos really had on us was that their utility buffs made for a great MT healer, but that just got slashed to hell, so it doesn't really leave them with much. It's disheartening.

Haha, this made my day. In reference to the actual post, though, all of this has been covered multiple times in multiple ways. There's an overwhelming consensus that Scoundrels/Operatives as a whole are underpowered, if not in healing output, then in utility that they bring to a group. Rather than discuss something we've drilled into the ground, it's probably more beneficial to discuss the impact this patch is going to have on healers in general, as well as how to stop it. I feel like I'm going to have to wear RuQu's old sig, but in reverse once the patch hits. "I'm a Scoundrel. Buff Commando/Mercenary healing." Of course, if this patch does hit as is and hits as badly as it looks like it's going to, I won't be around to change my sig.

Let us know how that goes. I unsubbed mostly in support of the very unnecessary Merc/Commando nerfs, but I don't really like the direction healing is going in general. It's becoming even more simple and dumbed down, which is never good. With TERA right around the corner (which I've already preordered) and other hard hitting games like GW2, it's going to make it very hard for me to want to come back if BW's mindset doesn't change soon.

Can I vote for this? Hell, I'll even pay to see something like this implemented. Saaaaay....$15 a month?

I did try to reroll. Not to DPS (I don't like DPS and I'm terrible at it anyway), but to other healing classes. I started as a Sawbones, then moved to Sage to better support my team ('cause that's what we do, support our team regardless of personal sacrifice), then I started building up a Commando Medic while I wasn't raiding, 'cause I liked the Medic's dynamic far more than I liked the Sage's. I have to say...these patch notes have been extremely disheartening. I really just don't have the drive anymore. I had big hopes. At one point, I wanted to level all of the healers up to 50 so that I could use whichever was more useful at the time. I kind of figured there would be a see-saw of balance in between them, but I thought I could deal with it. I never thought that they'd just crush healing in general. That's what disappoints me. The other thing that upsets me is the callous attitude with which our concerns are met. Healers in general tend to want to be helpful and supportive, to build the community up rather than shoot them down. I agree with RuQu, we're much more likely to be team-driven rather than competitive. We want everyone to succeed and we do our best in and out of game to ensure that. So having our concerns brushed aside so casually is more than a little cold. Having pages upon pages of helpful suggestions and feedback blatantly ignored doesn't instill much faith at all. I also unsubscribed today. Not out of hate, or rage, but out of sheer disappointment. If BW wants to ignore me, my voice, my feedback, then I'll have to speak to them in a language they understand. Hopefully I'll be able to muster up the will to return and see if anything got through, but I'm not sure I'll be able to. There's too much to look forward to on the horizon that'll keep me from looking back at what could've been.

Yeah, I pretty much concur. I'm not really impressed at all. Healing in this game was pretty unimaginative to begin with and these changes don't help. Not really certain what direction they're going in, but I don't think I'm willing to stick around long enough to see it, not with all of these other games on the horizon. Think I'll just take a break until something else comes out. As for this. Already done. I have two days remaining and I'll keep following this thread, but I'm just disinterested now. You guys are great, though. This has been an entertaining thread with a lot of good feedback and discussion. I've actually found that I enjoy coming to the forums to talk about the game much more than I enjoy actually playing the game, which should really say something. It's the community, this one in particular, that really made the game for me. Unfortunately, it was the devs not listening to said community that destroyed it. If you happen to catch 'Oracle' on the Tera healing forums at some point, feel free to wave.

Glad you finally decided to stop by! I've been following your posts in this thread: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=348278 Otherwise known as the George Zoeller troll thread, and I've found your posts to be very pleasurable to read. I couldn't agree with this more. For a long time everyone believed our 'niche' was 'mobile healer' but that's since been debunked. I would love if they moved things in this direction. I played a Warden Cleric in Rift for awhile and found that I loved the idea of HoT healing. It took a lot more effort and you had to constantly be rolling and refreshing HoTs, but you were pretty much unstoppable once you got a good rhythm going. No joke. Would be nice to actually have a reason to make a healing rotation longer than Underworld Medicine -> Emergency Medpac. This is the crux of the whole thing. It's really frustrating. Honestly, I just wished the extra effort we have to put into healing was rewarded in some way. I don't care if we're the most complicated and confusing class in the entire game, as long as it's actually rewarding to play. Which means being competitive at least. I played a Blood Mage for awhile in Vanguard: SOH. They were widely believed to be simultaneously the most complicated AND most powerful class. They were also one of the least played classes, simply because they were very hard to learn, but anyone who knew what they were doing just blew everyone out of the water. People were okay with this, 'cause they figured if someone had to put that much effort into being effective, then they should be damn effective. They also had a fun and interesting healing mechanic, something that SWTOR lacks, really. In all honesty, the healing between each of the classes is basically the same. We all have HoTs, instant heals, long heals, short heals and such. It just feels like they decided to take a few tools away from some of the classes, give a few extra tools to a few classes, and screw Scoundrel/Operatives in the whole mess.

This thread's a tad old, but regardless, I'd like to direct you to this thread: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=224675 A lot of people seem to think that group make-up really affects which loot drops. It's very prevalent with people who tend to run with the same exact group (like myself).

OMG! Commando is OP! NERFNERFNERF!!!!

^ This. I got a Razer Naga just a little bit ago 'cause I liked the idea of having my heals bound to the mouse while my attacks were readily accessible to my other hand. Just recently, though, I fractured my hand, so I've been forced to play one handed, so I do everything with the mouse. It's a little obnoxious since I like to PvP and can't do that so well anymore, but I do fine in PvE. I actually find it more comfortable to auto-run when I'm going places, though, and only use the 'left-click+right-click' for short distances and on the spot movement. I'd recommend any of the healers. I play all three and I find that I do perfectly fine with all of them. I'm obviously not as mobile, but for most PvE content, you don't need to be. I've found that binding my three main heals to the '1-3' buttons on the mouse and some of my utility abilities to '4-6' work well, since I can just click the rest when needed If you want to do DPS, I definitely second the mage/ranged route. Anything with a casting time is helpful, but you can pretty much just target an enemy and click through your entire rotation without worrying too much about it. I find that I can easily keep up with things on my Sage while using very little/no movement and just using my abilities. Sage/Sorc/Mercenary/Commando are probably your best bets. I personally main as a Scoundrel healer, which works fine except when I want to DPS. I have a few long range abilities I use, but for the most part I don't DPS right now 'cause it's a pain trying to position myself behind the enemy. Honestly, the game is easy enough that you can probably use most classes pretty efficiently by clicking. The most annoying part of this whole thing for me is how long it takes to type one handed. :\

I would've been ready. Been doing nothing but primarily PvPing since I started playing really. Unfortunately, just fractured my hand while sparring in Jujitsu (real life PvP!!!), so now I'm basically out until that gets healed. Hopefully I'll be all better by the time rated WZs come out. If not....well, I did just buy one of those Razer mice, so I might just have to try to get good at playing with one hand. :\

^ This. In answer to your question, come 1.2, there won't be a point to getting Valor above 1. There're taking away valor requirements (with the exception of cosmetics, I guess) and making everything purchasable purely through comms (Merc/Warzone/Warhero). Valor is really just going to become a measuring stick for how much time you spend queueing WZs.

Haha, I know, I just wanted an excuse to post random cute animals in clothing. To be fair, though, there would've been a time when Rakata would've also thought, "Hey, we're the only species that SHOULD be wearing clothing." Then they came across some other sentient races who thought that Rakata clothing was the shiz-nit, so the Rakata started making clothing for them with modifications and basically made 'Rakata Style' clothing for the other races. It would be like if cats suddenly became sentient creatures with equal intelliigence to us and decided that human clothing was superior. We'd make adjustments to our clothing to fit the different aspects of a cat, then just say the cat was wearing human style clothing. We'd probably still refer to OUR clothing as just clothing, though, kind of like how Americans refer to American Football as just 'Football.'

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jennyintheskywithdiamonds/animals-that-you-would-not-expect-to-wear-clothes-7x

I know what the Rakata called their gear. They called it.... .... Gear. I mean, come on, do we go calling our clothes 'human clothes?'

I hope this isn't the case. I want a Chiss Inquisitor. D: Miraluka Sniper would be pretty awesome as well. Oh well, I can dream.

This. I play a heal specced Scoundrel. This is just another nail in her coffin. The ONLY defensive contribution I could make, besides sub-par heal botting, was dotting nodes while on defense. Now my only options are heal botting (which a Sage/Sorc is MUCH more capable of doing), or tossing out my paltry AoE thermal grenade every few seconds (during which time I'm NOT heal botting) and waiting to get focused down (BTW, Sage/Sorc can accomplish that much easier as well). At least I can coast my way to War Hero now, though, with the changes to Valor.

In that case.... BUMP!!! Haha, but seriously, last time I'll post in this thread. Promise.

Very true. My server is drowning in tanks. Healers are still a little rarer, but we find ourselves looking for DPS more often than not, since most tanks usually come pre-paired with a healer. Roll a Smuggler. Play through that story. You'll meet all sorts of fun type. Agreed. Thank goodness for that 'hide sith corruption' option. I like to keep my dark side tendencies to myself. Keep those sadistic feelings in your heart and off your face! YESH! Look at any Sage tier gear! If you want to have a golden sun permanently setting behind your head, then this is the place to be. And he WILL rip arms off. Don't roll Rep on my server (Sanctum of the Exalted). We outnumber Imps by a ton. So, pick your server wisely. I find myself in Huttball about 7 out of 10 matches. I'm too lazy to comment on the tips also, so I'll just skip to this: I have to agree with this. Republic on our server has an amazing community. We're constantly setting up events ranging from massive take-overs of Imperial bases, to swoop racing, to cross-faction RP nights at the Nar Shadaa cantina. You really get to know a lot of these people. Honestly, though, I just rolled an Imperial.

I don't see anything wrong with acknowledging how much of an asset RuQu is to the healer community and showing appreciation. I'm sure it's nice for him to hear that people actually read, understand, and enjoy his work and what he's done for us. Haha, saying that, though, I do think threads like this are a tad over the top.

So, I did it today. With great sadness, I shelved my Scoundrel. Hopefully she'll see the light of day again after 1.2, but things are still looking dark. These two gems are mainly the cause of it, the final nails in the coffin, if you will: The first one SEEMS like a buff (and it basically is), but in actuality, all it does is turn us into WZ healbots (which some people like). On it's own, I'd honestly be ecstatic, but coupled with the other note, well, words can't express my anger (well, actually they could, but it wouldn't be appropriate for these forums). PvP was kind of my last bastion of hope, where I felt I was actually making a difference. I knew exactly what my role was, how to play it, and how to succeed with it. My main contribution in WZs is defensive. I would spot heal, then pop AoE Tech dots on everyone trying to cap (tech dot cleanses are hard to come by), then proceed to just do pot shots with other dots and continue to heal as needed. My goal was basically annoyance, but it was extremely effective. However, due to PvPers not knowing how to cleanse a DoT BEFORE they start capping, that's gotten taken out. So, now I'm a glorified heal bot. With these changes, people will EXPECT me to be a heal bot. And we all know, nobody heal bots like a Sage/Sorc heal bots. I've basically become sub-standard in every possible arena. I can't PvE better than a Sorc. I don't have the defensive tools I used to be able to fall back on for Voidstar/Alderaan and I sure as hell don't have the offensive tools to do anything. I don't have the movement and utility needed for Huttball. I'm dead weight everywhere I go. I know these changes seem small and not that bad, but on top of everything else...well, I'm just tired of underperforming everywhere. I'm tired of constantly having the few arenas where I can succeed be pulled out from under me. I honestly think that, up until this point, I've been a part of the problem. I've been trying to stick with my Scoundrel despite the adversity, 'cause I honestly love her as a character and I love her playstyle. The thing is, though, that by doing that, BW is still being shown that people are playing Scoundrels/Operative, and thusly they throw their blinders on saying 'People are still playing them and they're still completing the game content, so all is fine." I don't think they'll get the picture until Scoundrel/Operative healers are extinct....and by that time, as has been stated earlier, it may be too late. So I've decided to stop perpetuating this mindset that everything is alright and play my Sage full time. I'll keep healing, 'cause that's what I love to do, but I think this might be the only way to get BW to finally recognize the huge disparity. I've got a BH in the works, too, 'cause I like their style, but I'll probably hold off on playing her until 1.2+ also. Wouldn't want anyone to get any ideas about Mercs/Commandos not needing love, also.

Haha, yeah, I was in a bit of a mood that day. My guild leader even commented on it in a kind of humorous way, ‘cause he knows that I’m usually pretty even-tempered. Woman scorned and all that, I guess. I've mostly edited out the rage from those posts, 'cause it wasn't helpful. Anywho, I agree. I kind of like having this little oasis of relatively hate/troll/flame/attack free-ness in a forum that's typically frothing at the mouth with BW hate, nerf calls, and just generally awful behavior. I mean, it's not terrible compared to some other forums, but it's still a little disheartening. Especially when I see people that are relatively new trying to make a suggestion here or there, only to get thrown to the wolves within the first few seconds of a thread being up. It's not a really good way to foster a community, so I'm happy for what we have at least. Something like this would be pretty useful, I think, especially for the ones that don't frequent the forums as much. I know when I'm visiting other forums for information, if they have a rep system, I usually expect people who have high rep to be more informed and helpful about the subject I'm interested in. When coupled with a post count, it's good to see who's been more constructive and active over long periods of time. At least we have a thread rating system (which most people don't use), even if it’s pretty limited and doesn't really give you any info about the people actually posting in the thread.

Things similar to these have already been suggested on our massive, stickied, healing request compilation tread that you can find at the top of these forums. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=283200 RuQu's been keeping things organized so that Devs have a kind of one stop shop for knowing the kinds of things us healers are looking for. Your ideas would probably be better posted in that thread to keep things organized and also to get added to the list of other potential changes we're looking for.

I've played through the whole Smuggler story...and I'm kind of iffy about Corso, honestly. I started out hating him. Even though I was a light side Smuggler, all of his holier than thou speak and general naivety actually turned me off. I spent many a hour b****ing about him in guild chat. Then I got Bowdaar and switched the second that I got him. I was fine for awhile....but then I found myself missing the human element in my adventures. Even though I hate his little quips, his random nonsense, and how he would berate me every single time I tried to sleep with another character...I missed them when they were gone. I noticed that he grew on me quite a bit and I actually started enjoying his company.....then I got Risha, turned dark side, left Corso digging up plants on backwater planets and never looked back. One of these days I'm going to complete the Corso romance, 'cause he IS sweet in a really old-fahioned sort of way, but it just doesn't fit my smuggler at all. If I could, I'd romance Risha, simply 'cause her style and outlook completely fit mine. Not to mention her sarcastic demeanor does wonders as a foil to my typically inflated ego. I want to do all the romances at some point, but so far I only have a Consular and a Trooper alt, and I already despise Aric and I haven't received the romanceable companion for my Consular yet. Hearing that the romanceable companion for female bounty hunter is voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch makes me want to roll one right now, though. I'm totally in love with that man's voice.