I made the mistake of resubbing to this game after being gone for many months. Worst 15 bucks I have spent in a while. I used to play a full heal spec'd sage but after 1.2 that wasn't really viable against even a couple people on a team who know how to interrupt. I was hoping pvp had improved somewhat but I see that it's essentially the same as it was (a huge dps cluster****). I even tried switching to a hybrid spec which did improve my survivability somewhat but gimped my healing. As someone who wants to heal and doesn't care about dps or utility this is an unsatisfactory solution. I see the advice for healing sages hasn't changed, either. Oh just run around like an idiot (even though you can't heal and run at the same time, no other class has to do that and you are constantly getting cc'd/pulled/knocked around like a pinata). If they want a dps-centric pvp game they should at least make it so that you don't take damage when you are not in control of your character. That would force people to either dps you OR cc you not both at the same time. Fastest sub cancellation ever. Yeah, I know "good riddance", "you suck" and all that. Enjoy the ***** pvp.

Full heal spec sage. 1. How do you think your Sage spec is perceived by other classes? PVE: I think most perceive us as having incredible AE heals with unlimited force so they don't understand how some fights with lots of AE dmg and/or movement make it very difficult to keep force up due to 1.2 changes. I also don't think people understand how long the cast times are for our main heals or that we have to stand in our own AE heal constantly to effectively manage force. PVP: I think most see Sage as the primary target because we are an easy kill (low survivability and HPS < DPS). 2. How do you perceive your own spec? PVE: I perceive the Sage in PVE as a bit clunky due to the force management issues but still workable. Raiding on the Sage is the only thing I do at this point. PVP: I think the healing spec Sage is essentially extinct in PVP as their ability to survive is not good. When people tell you to roll a hybrid spec to be an effective healer (so you can survive longer than 3 GCD) there is something wrong. There are some circumstances a healing spec Sage can still thrive in PVP but it's usually with multiple cross healers (that can't kill anyone) and/or guard and/or against unskilled players who have low dps/don't know how to interrupt heals. Force management is also not really an option in PVP since there is rarely a time that it's safe to take health off to gain force but that isn't usually an issue with the short TTK in PVP.

Numbers are interesting but just don't tell the complete story. Much like in certain circumstances Sages heal for 700k but in others can't keep themselves alive more than 2-3 GCD. I don't even know if any DPS class is *that* OP dmg-wise so much as the combination of high burst dmg + high survivability vs. classes with low survivablity makes it seem that way. If you gave more survivability to some classes (equal to what others get) or reduced survivability to some classes (equal to what others have) the DPS issue might work itself out because everyone would die quicker or survive a bit longer.

/agreed They need to rethink how healers work with the help of others. Currently healers are like God-mode with the appropriate help but helpless without it. This is stupid. It would be better if they made healers a bit more self-sufficient even if it means nerfing or changing how guard works. They could remove the damage mitigation and have guard allow X number of interrupts to be avoided over Y amount of time or something similar. This would make guard still useful but not create this huge gulf between guarded and un-guarded healers. I know BW won't listen, however. They seem content to ruin their own game. Personally, I'm sick of the PVP in this game and just bought Secret World to tide me over until GW2 because PVP in this game as a pure healing Sage is not fun at all unless you happen to be on a dominating team to support you. I think jamming a spork in my eye would be more fun. This game is on the fast track to F2P garbage.

^^ This is a good response to that post. I was going to respond to it as well but ti wouldn't have been as detailed and with more insults. It's mind boggling how uninformed some people are on the mechanics they are spewing nonsense about. I know most of these people are encountering Sages getting guard and massive cross-healing and just assuming the Sage is god-mode which is far from the truth. I did 625k healing the other day which sounds like a lot but when you consider I had guard and two other healers cross-healing (including another Sage that did 575k in the same match) that is not a very good indication of Sage healing. DPS was also not interrupting me so 2 Sages free-casting with guard makes for some seriously inflated healing numbers that don't mean crap. Oh and the match was a stalemate..we couldn't get through the first door because we had no DPS. Next match I got destroyed and couldn't hit 150k in healing. Healing and/or DPS needs re-balancing because it's broken.

Sound - I know this isn't necessarily PVP specific but it seems especially bad in Warzones. Considering how important sound is for competitive play..it's worth adding this to the list. Plus, considering how long this issue has been going on without resolution..BW apparently needs any and all motivation to get this fixed. Ops channel - randomly not able to talk in /ops channel. This used to just happen periodically but seems to be getting worse. I continuously see people talking in /1 general stating they can't talk in /ops. Kind of ruins the whole team communication thing if you have to talk in general. You: 2 left rest mid! Enemy: Thx info!

I will generally try to win until one of the following happens: -it becomes essentially mathematically impossible to win (Alderaan) -the team I'm on reveals that they have no concept of objectives or team play and therefor winning is not feasible. This isn't always clear and is usually a judgement call. If the other team is highly organized/geared/skilled I will probably go for defensive medals sooner. If they are not I will continue to try despite my team doing everything it can to lose (against a weaker team even a couple people doing the right thing can win). Sometimes it's just clear that people either don't know *** they are doing (or supposed to do) or don't care (farming kills/meals and ignoring objectives). IMO there is little difference between someone essentially giving up and going for defense medals and those who are still actively trying but only trying to farm kills/medals and aren't contributing to the objectives that lead to a team win. Who cares if you are "trying" if all you are doing is running around like an idiot trying to rack up kills instead of passing/scoring/planting bombs/protecting the healer etc..I play a squishy healer which requires team play to be even remotely effective so I'm not going to repeatedly throw my corpse at the other team for no reason. That is not fun or productive.

^^ This. I think this is one of the best descriptions of the problem with healers now that I have read. They are doing well in certain circumstances but fail miserably in others. They are just not self-sufficient in any way unless maybe spec'd as hybrid. Pure healers are non-functional without heavy support. It's also amusing hearing the OP and others talk about how much trouble they have killing healers when the output X amount of dmg. Dmg output is one thing but the key to killing healers is interrupts not dmg output. If you have multiple healers cross healing each other and you can't kill a healer..that's as it should be. It's no different than multiple DPS on a single healer. You don't expect a single healer to withstand multiple DPS for long..why should a single DPS be able to overcome multiple healers? If it's multiple DPS vs. multiple healers it gets more complicated of course.

This was good for a laugh. Thanks!

I would like to point out that the same argument can be made for Sages pre 1.2 but I'm guessing you were one of the people crying about OP Sages..am I right?

Thank you for bolstering the argument that healing spec sages are not viable in PVP. I accept your apology.

Hybrid spec = heal + dps Healer spec = healing Hybrid is supposed to be REDUCED healing but with DPS. If i'm trying to spec for dps and healing that's fine to go hybrid. Pure healer spec should be better at healing but have little DPS. If I'm trying to spec for pure healer and have to go hybrid JUST TO HEAL that is broken. Saying that a hybrid spec is needed for HEALING is absurd (primarily because hybrid can survive not because they are better healers). And yes, they need to have dual specs in place if the intended design is for some specs to be worthless in PVP but required in PVE. This is a huge design flaw either way you look at it.

So what you are saying is the heal tree is an invalid spec for PVP? That makes no sense and again only serves to bolster the argument that fully heal spec'd Sages are broken in PVP. If a DPS class couldn't use it's DPS tree to deal dmg effectively and was told to respec to a hybrid spec nobody would put up with that for a second. Again, nice try but you are wrong.

You don't play a full heal spec'd Sage so nice try. Some of us raid in ops and need to stay fully heal spec'd. The fact that you have to use a hybrid heal spec to survive only provides further proof that healing Sages are completely broken post 1.2.

Since you can't seem to read..I'll post what I said to you a few posts up..AGAIN. Sage healing is far from fine. Just because you saw some Sage put up 600k healing doesn't mean they are fine. The power of Sage healing wasn't changed other than the fix to the double dip bug. This is a big misconception with the healing changes. Sage healing power (the power of our heals) is still there essentially. However, they made it harder to cast heals by increasing the cast time of our main heal and giving brain dead DPS a larger window to interrupt heals while simultaneously buffing damage. When playing against terrible players who let Sages stand there free-casting..Sages look fine. Even one person with half a brain can take out a Sage easily..with minimal skill. That is NOT fine. You should go play a Sage in PVP before making wildly uninformed comments on the state of the class.