Scoundrel/Operative healers need a buff.

[Wheem]

For a while now, I've felt that my Scoundrel (level 50, 476 expertise) had decent enough healing output (uselessness of Kolto Pack aside), but was "somewhat" lacking in the utility and survivability departments. After starting and leveling a Sage to the ripe old level of 27, I have to say that my previous feelings were quite the understatement - the Sage is very much superior, especially when compared to my Scoundrel at that level range (before 30-31, Scoundrel healing was actually quite bad in PvP).

 

The ability to remove Force-based snares is enormous just by itself, and I feel that I really can't overstate this point. How about changing Psych Meds to remove Force abilities as well? With the current level of damage output it's virtually impossible to tank any halfway decent melee class, and Scoundrels/Operatives can't really escape from them, either. My Sage, on the other hand, can Knockback/Stun -> Restoration (and possibly Force Speed) -> LOS and actually kite for a bit; the difference is really night and day.

 

Next up - ranged interrupts. I think this is somewhat of a secondary concern, but limiting enemy damage output is one way for a healer to significantly aid your teammates' (and your own) survival; running to within 10m of an enemy player will often put you right in the midst of their team (not to mention waste enough time that whatever ability they were using has probably already completed). I honestly don't see any reason why healing spec'd Scoundrel/Trooper interrupts should be inferior to the Sage's counterpart (though at least the Trooper version has a reduced cooldown).

 

Then there's the energy mechanic and lack of usable damage abilities. My Sage can do quite a bit of damage/healing mixed up in the same fight, which sort of helped me understand why some forum posters have claimed that it was actually easy to get medals as a healer - because for Sages, it is indeed pretty easy. I've never not gotten 2.5k heal and 75k healing medals on my sage, even when DPS spec'd. Coincidentally those are also the only two medals I'm ever guaranteed as a level 50 Scoundrel healer; I lost count of the amount of games where I've had 250-295k healing, and I've only ever crit 5k on Underworld Medicine once.

 

Due to the energy regeneration mechanic, my Scoundrel is rarely able to do much other than an occasional Vital Shot, Thermal Grenade (as much to interrupt bomb planting/turret slicing as anything), and perhaps dropping into cover for Charged Blast and Sabotage Charge when incoming damage is light. In those cases where I'm actually able to go into cover (which is exceedingly rare, since melee are often gluing themselves to me), I can do alright damage, but the energy drain is killer. Charged Blast seems roughly comparable to a Sage's Disturbance, except in the realm of resource consumption (and the fact that you have to go into cover, which requires more of a delay than just ceasing movement). However, my Sage can do quite a lot of Disturbance spamming before I feel any sort of Force crunch, whereas a few uses of Charged Blast on my Scoundrel really cripples my ability to do anything else, including healing.

 

TLDR version: I'd like to see Scoundrel healers get similar kiting ability/utility to Sages. With the current state of damage output, kiting is the only way to survive, and Sages are quite clearly head-and-shoulders above Scoundrels in that department. Secondarily, I'd like my Scoundrel to be able to do some modest damage without completely murdering my resource pool, and a ranged interrupt sure would be spiffy.

[Iheamylap]

I haven't played a sage, but I have played with (and against in Huttball) fellow sages and talked to enough guildies about comparing abilities to know there is something seriously lacking.

 

It is pretty frustrating to work as hard as I possibly can (as a lvl 44 Sawbones) in focusing just on healing to get up to 300k healing so I can maximize healing medals...yet the fellow Sage in my party gets that, plus kill medals, with out missing a beat.

 

If I want to do damage and get kills, I have to either be really lucky...or have to heal much less, since energy management prevents me from doing so.

 

I agree, we need some work. There has been a lot of talk on the Scoundrel boards about this.

[Jooji]

Having PvP'd at 50 as all 3 healers I'll agree with some of your sentiments OP.

 

1) Put a talent deep healing that makes all operative utility 30 meters instead of 10 meters(the slow, interrupt, stun) and makes any blaster shots 30 meters as well.

 

2) Make the upper hand from the hot an automatic proc instead of its current RNG. It really sucks when you're kiting someone and for 10 seconds you don't get a single upper hand proc.

 

3) Take away the healing penalty for vanishing. Vanish is 100% worthless for an operative healer because it doesn't remove dots so you get brought out of stealth nearly instantly, then have that healing debuff on you for 10 seconds.

 

Stealth utility DOESN'T=sorc utility

 

Vanish needs to be tweaked or operative healers need a knockback like the other healers, or maybe even a sprint.

Edited January 31, 2012 by Jooji

[belialle]

As far as farming medals goes, I've gotten better at it on my healing operative (tagging enemies with my "auto attack" helps), but in order for me to do a decent amount of damage, I have to sacrifice a LOT of healing or I end up starved for energy. The only way I'm able to do any respectable amount of damage is when our team happens to be steamrolling the other team or when we have too many healers and they aren't bothering to DPS, even though they could do so far more efficiently than me.

 

Also, the healing penalty for vanishing is just horrible for my healing operative. HORRIBLE.

Edited February 24, 2012 by belialle

[Yeldarps]

I agree completely OP

[Jooji]

Also, the healing penalty for vanishing is just horrible for my healing operative. HORRIBLE. I can't even begin to express how horrible it is. I think I might make a sorcerer just to see how it compares to my operative. I suspect it will be a depressing revelation.

 

I promise you'll never go back to your healing operative after rolling sorc. Shoot, even my undergeared trooper is more enjoyable than my operative was.

[Wheem]

I think I might make a sorcerer just to see how it compares to my operative. I suspect it will be a depressing revelation.

If your experience is anything like mine, it will be quite depressing indeed; the Sage/Sorc just feels like a noticeably superior class. Stealth is nice and all, but it doesn't even come close to making up for the advantages that Sages have.

[Sikihiro]

agree on healers they r weakest healers in game in pvp

[Evuke]

sages/sorc healers are VASTLY superior to op/scoundrel healers in every way.

[alanisUDL]

sages/sorc healers are VASTLY superior to op/scoundrel healers in every way.

 

If you took all the good abilities of a Sorc and Operative healers and combined them both, then split them up in half, you would have a pretty decent healer class...

 

...unfortunately, they gave 90% of them to the Sorc.

[Evuke]

If you took all the good abilities of a Sorc and Operative healers and combined them both, then split them up in half, you would have a pretty decent healer class...

 

...unfortunately, they gave 90% of them to the Sorc.

 

tbh if they just took bubble away from sorc and gave it to ops it would probably balance things.....nothing like a 3-4k insta-cast spammable shield to help with healing.

[bkizz]

I support this thread. Please for the love of huttball give op healers some love. I actually love the difficulty of managing energy based healing. It is amazing to me. Resource management is one of my favorite aspects of healing and one major reason this game is better than WoW atm.

 

But why play an op healer in rated huttball when there will be nothing but sorcs knocking everyone every which way and sprinting to victory.

[Wheem]

The more I level and PvP with my Sage, the more depressing it is to PvP on the Scoundrel. I opened up with Champion +Power Trinket -> Shoot First on a Marauder last night in an Alderaan Warzone and did ~960 damage, after which he spun around and hit me for a tad over 3k.

 

Since the most recent Scoundrel damage nerfs (which I think were certainly needed for Scrapper, by the way), I've not even been able to get the 2.5k damage crit medal. I'm not undergeared either, since I have:

Champion - hat, gloves, boots, pants, 2x relics, earpiece, 1x implant, belt, bracer

Centurion - scattergun, blaster pistol, 1x implant, chest

No battlemaster yet, since ranking up as a healer is godawful slow (I'm at 55 or 56 now, and my Sage is already ranked in the 40's).

 

'Course even if our per-ability damage got ramped up a bit, there's still the issue of energy usage - against any decent-to-good team it's hard to spare energy for anything other than an occasional blaster whip (for EMP) or Thermal Grenade (to interrupt capping). Still, one single press of a Tracer Missile key from a lone player is enough damage to send me ducking out of LOS to heal (600+ expertise be darned). All my 1v1 fights consist of panicked self-healing with an occasional Vital Shot, Blaster Whip, and MAYBE a Quick Shot or Back Blast if they're pretty bad and/or woefully undergeared.

 

We really do need some better ways to escape/survive, and man oh MAN would I love a ranged interrupt - playing Huttball on my Scoundrel really makes me miss my Sage.

[Tzou]

cba to read all but if i answer only to the topic il lsay this:

 

 

NO no and NO.

 

roll a healer-learn to kite and u will be more than ok.

[Wheem]

cba to read all but if i answer only to the topic il lsay this:

 

 

NO no and NO.

 

roll a healer-learn to kite and u will be more than ok.

Waste of keyboard strokes. Unless of course you want to post a video of you playing a level 50 Scoundrel/Operative healer and successfully kiting people who aren't bads.

[Boreus]

cba to read all but if i answer only to the topic il lsay this:

 

 

NO no and NO.

 

roll a healer-learn to kite and u will be more than ok.

 

Not all healers are sorcerers you know. Even if we manage to get some distance on a melee (after using our cooldowns) they can easily close the distance again unless it's a dps operative. In Huttball, the other healers both have a knockback available for use on the upper levels to give them a breather, Operatives have nothing. I actually prefer going after operatives on my Juggernaut because I know they can't knock me away and I can wail on them with impunity.

 

Anyways, my operative and sorcerer have both been 50 for a while now (more than a month) and the sorcerer just blows the Op out of the water in terms of healing. I still prefer to heal on my operative though, just because I like the healing style and aesthetics better than sorcerer, which feels just too much like a traditional magic user/caster.

 

Of course, I prefer my Juggernaut to both because of how easy it is to farm medals on him. I hope they scrap the medal system sometime soon, it does nothing positive for the warzone experience.

[Alundo]

Scoundrel/Ops dont need a healing buff, they need more utility if you ask me.

 

I can keep someone up with 3 people beating on them, most main heals I do crit for 5k. (600+ Expertise on my scoundrel) However I don't have much else apart from that and dispel.

 

No gap closes, no gap makers. (groin kick and run hardly counts) Our own shield protects you for 1 measly attack, normal or otherwise.

Edited February 11, 2012 by Alundo

[Leszor]

I support this thread. Please for the love of huttball give op healers some love. I actually love the difficulty of managing energy based healing. It is amazing to me. Resource management is one of my favorite aspects of healing and one major reason this game is better than WoW atm.

 

But why play an op healer in rated huttball when there will be nothing but sorcs knocking everyone every which way and sprinting to victory.

 

Absolutely

I actually like the resource management, you have to actually *gasp* pay attention to your energy bar, really shows who is good at playing the class and who isnt

 

But as you said it, why the hell someone should play a char who not only is far less effective (especially in huttball) but also harder to use correctly?

I rerolled a healer sorc recently (rank 59 as of now) and i was disgusted by the force mechanic

Innervate > consumption on cd and you are guaranteed to NEVER run out of it, its just ridicolous

 

Scoundrel/Ops dont need a healing buff, they need more utility if you ask me.

 

I can keep someone up with 3 people beating on them, most main heals I do crit for 5k. (600+ Expertise on my scoundrel) However I don't have much else apart from that and dispel.

 

No gap closes, no gap makers. (groin kick and run hardly counts) Our own shield protects you for 1 measly attack, normal or otherwise.

 

I agree, i'd just rework Kolto Pack and maybe diagnostic scan? Im not sure BW intention was to have a completely useless skill unless you invest 4 talents points

 

But what we really need is more utility, we bring nothing to the table that a sorc/sage doesnt

Edited February 11, 2012 by Leszor

[XKone]

I only play scoundrel.

 

I'm against us being able to 'triage' force dots and snares, but some class should be able to remove force dots to make Voidstar tolerable.

 

I agree we don't do much damage, but I'm okay with it. It's mostly a factor of our not having enough energy resource to do damage and not that the abilities don't do enough damage individually.

 

"Kolto Cloud" costs too much energy for using in WZs or FPs. In the Ilum 30v30s and 60v60s we have on our server, "Kolto Cloud" is fine as is. And it's fine in the little bit of pve OPs I have done. But for WZs and FPs it's bad. Perhaps all scoundrels can get "Kolto Cloud" as a base advanced class ability with 15 second CD, and Sawbones top tier skill simply lowers the cooldown to 12 seconds, which it is currently, and lowers the energy cost of it.

[XKone]

 

3) Take away the healing penalty for vanishing. Vanish is 100% worthless for an operative healer because it doesn't remove dots so you get brought out of stealth nearly instantly, then have that healing debuff on you for 10 seconds.

 

Stealth utility DOESN'T=sorc utility

 

Vanish needs to be tweaked or operative healers need a knockback like the other healers, or maybe even a sprint.

 

Oh yeah, forgot to mention our 'disappering act' problem. On my server for whatever reason the Imperials can pull me out of stealth after a 'disappearing act' at least half the time. They all have some aoe hotkeyed it seems. Whereas when I watch an assasin or melee agent stealth in combat, they ALWAYS get away. Even when dotted they get around a corner.

 

And we get detected in stealth too often as well. I have 3 points in 'Sneaky' skill as a healer, and I ALWAYS get spotted if I don't have "Sneak" on boosting my stealth.

 

I don't mean to whine on stealth. But in WZs it just underperforms as others have mentioned. And in Huttball I will use a disappearing act maybe twice a game, and that's only time I use stealth. I love Huttball btw and have found ways to compliment many teams as scoundrel heals. How about make it so a 'dirty kick' coming out of stealth hits thru cc immunity?

[Zunayson]

Having PvP'd at 50 as all 3 healers I'll agree with some of your sentiments OP.

 

1) Put a talent deep healing that makes all operative utility 30 meters instead of 10 meters(the slow, interrupt, stun) and makes any blaster shots 30 meters as well.

 

2) Make the upper hand from the hot an automatic proc instead of its current RNG. It really sucks when you're kiting someone and for 10 seconds you don't get a single upper hand proc.

 

3) Take away the healing penalty for vanishing. Vanish is 100% worthless for an operative healer because it doesn't remove dots so you get brought out of stealth nearly instantly, then have that healing debuff on you for 10 seconds.

 

Stealth utility DOESN'T=sorc utility

 

Vanish needs to be tweaked or operative healers need a knockback like the other healers, or maybe even a sprint.

 

Evasion removes debuffs, and all operatives get it. Ops can spec it to increase movement speed, but I don't see exactly how that's really useful

[Zunayson]

Not all healers are sorcerers you know. Even if we manage to get some distance on a melee (after using our cooldowns) they can easily close the distance again unless it's a dps operative. In Huttball, the other healers both have a knockback available for use on the upper levels to give them a breather, Operatives have nothing. I actually prefer going after operatives on my Juggernaut because I know they can't knock me away and I can wail on them with impunity.

 

Anyways, my operative and sorcerer have both been 50 for a while now (more than a month) and the sorcerer just blows the Op out of the water in terms of healing. I still prefer to heal on my operative though, just because I like the healing style and aesthetics better than sorcerer, which feels just too much like a traditional magic user/caster.

 

Of course, I prefer my Juggernaut to both because of how easy it is to farm medals on him. I hope they scrap the medal system sometime soon, it does nothing positive for the warzone experience.

 

dps op's Sever Tendon roots for 2 seconds first. The CD is as long as the duration. But yeah any moron would just Tox Screen it.

 

If you don't use Tox scan, kill yourself or roll a sage since you know you want to

 

And having Tox scan remove Force would mean that the Sorc version would have to remove Tech.

 

Tech is to Physical as Force is to mental

 

And therefore Tech is to Force as Physical is to Mental

 

etc.

 

It's fine the way it is, as far as that, although I agree my op healing is bad. But consider using Kolto Probe for TA generator, then spam Infusion, and if more TAS are available, use injection > The spam probe. The spam probe's only use is life support. Infusion does more HPS, seeing as you have to wait 1.5 sec GCD, but 1.5 sec cast time is only bad when you first cast it. After that, the HPS rises greatly.

[Wheem]

dps op's Sever Tendon roots for 2 seconds first. The CD is as long as the duration. But yeah any moron would just Tox Screen it.

 

If you don't use Tox scan, kill yourself or roll a sage since you know you want to

 

And having Tox scan remove Force would mean that the Sorc version would have to remove Tech.

 

Tech is to Physical as Force is to mental

 

And therefore Tech is to Force as Physical is to Mental

Sure, a Scoundrel/Operative healer can remove a snare from their fellow advanced class members - but that melee spec'd player can do the same; ergo, you can't really kite them. And while that's the only melee snare that a Sage/Sorc healer (or hybrid) can't remove, they can still kite them better than a Scoundrel or Operative healer can. They can snare for the same 50%, then use a knockback and/or force speed to get some necessary distance, where they can use LOS and/or ranged stun/cc to keep kiting for a bit.

 

You can say, "tech is to physical as force is to mental" if you want, and while it's true in a sense, that's not a perfect comparison for PvP. The reality is that Restoration is significantly superior to Triage in the current state of the game, and its relevant talent is one tier lower in the healing tree as well, making it easier to get for hybrids.

Edited February 11, 2012 by Wheem

[Senseistar]

The ability to remove Force-based snares is enormous just by itself

 

This is such an important issue for the other healing classes(trooper and smuggler). Not being able to remove force-based cc is such a panhandling to sages. Other healing classes have to have this too and i really c no reason y they shouldnt have it, considering we have no bubble or sprint to get away. And don't give me that crap about troopers having heavy armor, armor in this game is way OVERRATED due to elemental and internal damage being everywhere.

Edited February 11, 2012 by Senseistar

[Wheem]

So I took http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb50/Wheem_NewbAlert/Screenshot_2012-02-14_22_51_20_765625.jpg on my Sage, a couple hours after hitting 50 (and rank 49 Valor, LOL MEDALS SO EZ). My Scoundrel is much better geared, but couldn't even put up those kind of numbers by cheesing with a Shrap Bomb hybrid spec a while back; and most of that damage wasn't particularly useful (except for interrupting bomb planters). On the other hand, my Sage is quite capable of killing someone with the hybrid spec that I'm running, and when I get jumped by one of the people that can ~4 shot me (which in my current gear seems like almost everyone), I actually stand somewhat of a chance of escaping; my Scoundrel just has to panic-heal and hope one of the PUGs decides to try and peel off me (I think I stand a better chance of getting run over by a leprechaun riding a unicorn, irl).

 

Seriously - Scoundrel/Operative healers need some damage and utility comparable to what Sages/Sorcerers get (with comparable specs). Though to be completely honest, I think Scoundrels and Operatives should probably get a tad less than Sages and Sorcerers have now (which is still a buff from their current state), and Sages/Sorcs may need to have a stare down with the nerf cannon.