I'm using Eclipse on a Seer/Balance Hybrid but I swapped mods out as I leveled to make it more Power buffs and less crit.

You are right Darlagon, Shadows get a bit of peripheral healing in their tanking stance and with some abilities. But they are tankish: you use them to get a heal trickle based on attacks you take, you don't throw them when low on health like a healer would, so I mixed up my semantics. Aehgo is also right: Sage is insane in PvP. I just turned 47 last night and running a Seer/Balance build I am get 2+ MVPs and 6+ Medals a warzone. Your healing and damage output more than make up for your paperyness... once you figure out how to shield, slow, and haste your way out of trouble :-)

I like my Sage as far as mechanics, I usually play healers or ranged DPS. BUT having a stat stick still sucks. How about changes to the animation and descriptions of some short range abilities? Instead of Force Wave being a screwy Mario shake the ground when you land jump, make it Whirling Saber, a 360 Force enhanced swat. Tumult can also be turned into something other than a Street Fighter inspired corkscrew kick. Like picking the target off the ground with the Force and whacking them with saber. And Assassin/Shadows get a great mix of zap and stab, I like my Assassin plenty as well. I can see how needing to use a double bladed saber could disappoint some folks though.

The Sage and Shadow are really, really different, so min/maxing stats to figure out a better one isn't going to work. The Sage is papery as all hell and can't move around while using a lot of their abilities, which are practically all ranged. BUT you can spec it anywhere you want from full healing to full DPS and until 1.2 shows up it's very good at either or anything in between. The Shadow uses stealth, to my knowledge in a big way no matter how they are specced. They are melee and have positional attacks that you use when behind an opponent. They can't heal at all, but can spec to tank or DPS. I play a Sage (43) and the Imperial mirror to the Shadow, an Assassin (30), and they have very little in common as far as gameplay. If you want more info on their abilities and how they play they were so different I made did a post about choosing each of them on my blog: Choosing the Jedi Sage Choosing the Sith Assassin

I was thinking about this just last night writing up a Tharan Cedrax guide for my blog - good timing :-) My decision was to leave them on, my logic being they are instant activation so they don't take him out of his healing for long. I DID however decide to turn off Holiday. She's channeled: so the whole time Tharan is stunning a single mob, he isn't healing. And in crowded areas, if she pops up on a distant ranged opponent, it can pull an adjacent group into the fight. That's what I came up with anyway. :-p Here's the rest of the Tharan Cedrax guide on the blog if you want to check it out. If you do please let me know what you think. Have a good one!

I've done a lot of bonus series and once I saw two enemies on Tattooine. Open World PvP may as well be non existent. The queued version is fun at least.

Willpower, then power, then alacrity. Even if you can't rely on a crit to happen when needed, Alacrity will always help you get the heal off in time.

You are good to go in PvP from 20 on. The problem is if you put all your points into healing in early levels it takes forever to burn down stuff in PvE. Split between balance and seer trees until you feel like its time for a respec.

As a level 37 Sage, so not that far out of low level, Deliverance and Force Armor are go-to skills from the moment you get them. Benevolence never. Rejuvenate once you get it as part of the rotation. I don't know if it's the best way to do things but I have no problems keeping appropriately leveled groups alive even if we are using companions to fill out the numbers. And remember your gear... You want lots of Willpower and Power buffs. Have you been doing any pvp? At level 20 you can get awesome armor for your PvP commendations from a Fleet vendor. It's the upgradeable kind and I'm still wearing some of it.

Awesome guide! The only difference I have (other than being level 37 and a Balance/Seer split lol) is that I try to get PoM to proc off Tk Throw before using Mind Crush. Is it worth taking that pounding for two seconds? Also I'll spam Forcequake if its a fight with a lot of weak mobs and I can just rush through without worrying about Force use. On Alacrity I find it ho-hum in PvE. You have a pretty good rhythm and know what is going to hit what when and when you need to start healing it, or you get overwhelmed/run out of Force and die. Maybe it's psychological but I love it for PvP though: getting that crisp heal off to the Huttball carrier can make the whole round. If anyone wants to see the build I'm using I've got a video of my Jedi Sage Leveling Build up.

I put points into the Deception tree since the Maul buff and the extra Force are great for burst DPS and the buff to stealth levels and speed help for PvP as well. At about level 20 I felt I was getting pulled apart too much and started putting points into the Darkness tree. I'm at 29 and enjoying it because you can do good DPS or tank depending on the situation.

Thanks! I'm glad you thought it was helpful. I was planning to get into the trees, but didn't really know enough about them at that point. I'm at 33 now and have a build that is working to my liking so between that and your suggestion I think I'll do my next post on the three trees and leveling up. Thanks again for taking the time to read and comment!

As a 33 Sage that got there via a lot of PvP, if you want to get a lot of healing done (six figures, admittedly not godly territory yet), it's position more as visibility than LoS. At several points in the thread people mention the enemy figuring out they are healing and ganging up on them, and others mention that they focus on healers, especially light armor ones. Don't stand with the guy you are healing (ie don't be on the turret or right at the door or next to the huttball carrier) and avoid high visibility areas. As the maps are all symmetrical this isn't that tricky. Everyone will see you gearing up a heal and interrupt then thwump you. Hanging out of to the side of the fight makes you easy to ignore. If and when you want to throw damage, use one of your DOTs. People often don't even notice being hit by them. Project isn't bad since the rocks are kind of camo'd to the background, Disturbance is a flare, and TK Throw is a road to your door with a sign that says Squishy Sage That is Going to Spam This Until You Kill Him in neon letters. PS that resolve guide is awesome and will change how you play. Now where the heck did it go?

Hi Everyone, I've prepared a brief guide that I hope will be of use to people choosing, or thinking about choosing, the Jedi Sage as an Advanced Class. Read more of Choosing the Jedi Sage. I'd love to hear any of your comments, suggestions or questions. Thank you kindly!

I've been happy leveling my Balance/Seer build (currently 12/0/12 at 33) and was dreading that I'd need to go one way or the other or leave group mates dead on the battlefield. Glad to hear you've made 47 and are still healing your buddies effectively while laying smacks down. I find the Seer/Balance build is great for PvP, even at lower levels, since you can get damage and kill medals without sacrificing too much healing.

I'm playing a Sage, which is the Sorcerer's Mirror, and an Assassin. The caster type is indeed far easier to PvE with. My Assassin spends a lot of it's time tanking while soloing, and you are pretty papery outside of the tank stance, at least up to level 28, where I currently am. It's not that I don't like my Assassin, it's just that the Sorc/Sage is easier to level.

Well said!

Tee hee Qyzen needs to understand personal space lol

Oh yeah we zap all kinds of stuff... not as much as Sorcs but more than whatever we are zapping would prefer.

I'm playing a Sage and Assassin as well. To begin with, the Sage and Sorcerer are mirrors so that would be boring. The Assassin absolutely rocks the storyline: you are power-mad, manipulative, and make no qualms about destroying anyone that so much as looks askance at you. Actually I just wrote about this. in a blog post I did about the first Sith Inquisitor Companion you get. I also did an intro guide to choosing a Sith Assassin which would let you know what you are in for. Let me know if those raise further questions, but short answer. Story feels right as long as you play evil. I've heard it's hard to play them as Light Side, but no personal experience on that.

You have an off hand item called a focus that serves the purpose of buffing stats as well. But yeah if you are low on force or want to particularly humiliate a pvp opponent with an up close death blow the lightsaber is still there. It's more of a way to identify yourself as a Force user than anything ;-)

Slow on way in, then hit with little rocks, by the time they close range you'll have a good chunk out of them. Knock back, stun, then rocks. Sage is ranged: if they get you close up via steal or clever terrain use a stun then Force Speed to reposition somewhere safer.

Balance has pinning resolve, which by virtue of stunning a strong or higher ranked opponent along with a few of his standard/weak buddies, is hugely helpful in PvE. And you can max it only 7 points into the tree. Also, I didn't start having issues with running out of Force until my late 20s the first tier of TK didn't appeal to me. On the leveling front I like Balance a lot, and I haven't reached endgame yet so happy for now.

I like Balance more than TK at early levels largely because you don't run out of Force very often so the first tier of TK isn't that hot. As bosses get tougher/you're able to last longer in PvP that first tier of TK that improves Force costs becomes more attractive.

LOL it's not thaaaaaaat bad. Ok it is. But still it's fun to tell a civil war pug group that you are going to run past a turret and they should move in after some guards leave to chase, and the WHOLE GROUP of guards chases you, leaving the tower undefended for the easiest ninja cap ever. I call it Buzzing the Tower... and with a good group I think I could not only pull guards off the tower, but lead them into a trap :-)