Upgrade path for Consular Armor

[Borgbunny]

So I've been playing my Sage for a while, and trying to stack Crit and Surge to get healing numbers up enough to be useful in hard mode. No easy feat that, when almost all the heals are single target, and weak, and the AoE is a tragedy. Not to mention that Benevolence can crit higher than the typical cast of Deliverance (***!?!?!).

 

The goal was to struggle through until I could get my Columi gear (meaning trying to keep up with ridiculous spike damage in modded orange gear). Yes, I know. You can't fathom how that could be a problem, but it is for me. I do have a couple of pieces of Centurion, and a level 50 crafted relic. Along with this came some limited success in hard modes, and some accumulated commendations. So, not surprisingly, I can now buy some gear that will penalize me in the two areas I need it the least: crit and surge. "Upgrading" to Columi gear from where I am now, for every slot except focus, penalizes me in crit, or surge, or both. Some also cost me power. This is true of some of the Rakata gear as well.

 

My question, then, is what should I be trying to do with end game gear for a sage spec'd to top of tree seer? With the healing nerf, the requirement that I stop to channel every heal except one, and the squishiness built into the class, and the overall weakness of the heals, is there any path for upgrade/improvement?

Edited March 27, 2012 by Borgbunny

[Cormacus]

Hard Mode is supposed to be difficult but it's more about tactics and learning how to do it. If you feel it's hard to keep up with healing you might just need to try and get slightly better gear. It's also down to your team mates and not just your fault if it doesn't succeed. The first time you try a hardmode instance you got to expect to wipe a lot of times. We all have!

 

I would probably make sure to have full purple lvl50/49 on all slots before doing hardmode though. Your orange modable gear is fine as long as you have purple lvl49 armor, mods and enhancements in them. To get that really isn't difficult at all. You can do dailes or the bonus quest lines, the rewards from those are all purple upgrades. Or simply by them on the AH.

 

I wouldn't concentrate too much about how much Crit and Surge you have, once you got full Columni or Champion/Battlemaster then yes you might want to play around with it.

 

Another important point is that you're aiming for the two stats that are very random, hoping that your crit will help you through. Power is probably better overall for you as healer as it's gives you a constant bigger heal. There is also a softcap to watch out for, aim for max 30% Crit and 70% Surge.

 

Sage heals are actually very strong, I've played both as Commando Healer and Sage Healer, out of the two I'd choose the sage every time. The AoE healing ability we have is extremely powerful, not sure why you found it so bad. You just have to make sure your team members know where to stand when you cast it. Your channelled heal might also seem week but actually it's very good, each tick can crit!

 

 

In short though, to me it sounds like you haven't got good enough gear. OR your team mates don't have good enough gear. (Remember if your tank only have green gear he will be taking a great deal more damage.)

[Borgbunny]

All of my gear is orange moddable with purple inserts from dailies, or Centurion gear.

 

The AoE heal is fine, if everyone stands still. Given the dynamic nature of combat, though, that isn't often a reality, particularly 2 seconds after you started casting it. It ticks for 300 to 600, over a decent period, but the bosses have damage output that easily exceeds it (Hail of Bolts, for example). I'm at 35% and ~68% now for critical chance critical multiplier, respectively, don't see a lot of Deliverance crits. When it does crit, it hits for about 4k, give or take, at 1.88 seconds per. More commonly it hits for 2.3 to 2.7k. Right around 10 seconds to get a well geared tank back to half his health, assuming no one else is taking damage, and all the casts crit.

 

The question remains, though. What gear should I be looking for to boost the stats I need? Why do you recommend power over crit or surge?

[Cormacus]

All of my gear is orange moddable with purple inserts from dailies, or Centurion gear.

 

The AoE heal is fine, if everyone stands still. Given the dynamic nature of combat, though, that isn't often a reality, particularly 2 seconds after you started casting it. It ticks for 300 to 600, over a decent period, but the bosses have damage output that easily exceeds it (Hail of Bolts, for example). I'm at 35% and ~68% now for critical chance critical multiplier, respectively, don't see a lot of Deliverance crits. When it does crit, it hits for about 4k, give or take, at 1.88 seconds per. More commonly it hits for 2.3 to 2.7k. Right around 10 seconds to get a well geared tank back to half his health, assuming no one else is taking damage, and all the casts crit.

 

The question remains, though. What gear should I be looking for to boost the stats I need? Why do you recommend power over crit or surge?

 

Are you using Healing Trance? My rotation or standard heal for a tank would be:

 

Rejuvenate -> Deliverance -> Healing Trance

or

Rejuvenate -> Healing Trance -> Deliverance

 

That with your crit + power etc should heal up a tank from half health to full easily. Healing Trance really is your saviour, you can also swap around Deliverance with Healing Trance.. depending on the situation. But you must make sure to ALWAYS open up with Rejuvenate. And then try and use Healing Trance when it's available. Remember each tick of both Rejuvenate (I think) and Healing Trance can crit... vs Deliverance can only crit once. So if Healing Trance ticks 3 times, that means there are 3 chances it can crit and heal for more.

 

I personally don't use AoE heal in my build because I do a lot of PvP. But it's only really useful and worth the Force cost if everyone makes use of it and only in certain situations. Problem is a lot of "bad" healers use it as a "get-out-of-jail-card", something to make up for their lack of skill. I really don't mean that in a bad way, I'm in no way the greatest of healers myself. But once force use gets nerfed in the next patch it will be a lot harder to spam it. Also you should never use it as your main healing for your tank, it's too slow and doesn't heal for enough.

 

In terms of stats. From what I understand there is a softcap, or diminished returns past a certain point. So you get less and less from stacking crit above 30% and surge at 70% (unbuffed). When you're at that level you want to put the rest into Power or possibly Alacrity. But normally you never have to worry about Alacrity as there is far too much of it on our gear already. Personally I go for power because it's constant and always gives you a boost to every thing you do.

Edited March 29, 2012 by Cormacus

[Borgbunny]

The AoE isn't my get out of jail free card, but it is my best "We're all getting hit, I need to mitigate" cast.

 

 

Here's an example: I successfully healed The False Emperor HM last night, running it for the first time. Great tank, with nearly 20k hit points, and a really good grasp of the mechanics. Those big Elite droids would open up on him, and it was all I could do to stay even with the damage. Those heat beams just cut right through him.

 

Now that I'm getting Columi, I'll start to focus and power, and see where I land. Thanks for the comments.