Sorc healing post 1.2

[Daayz]

Hi guys as you can probably guess I am a Corruption (Healing) Spec'ed Sorcerer. Just to give a bit of background - I have Infernal and Unyielding titles and do multiple nightmare clears on my main Sorcerer and my Bounty Hunter healing alt every week. I have already cleared the new HM flashpoint and the new Denova raid on story mode and plan to run HM Denova during next guild raid on monday evening. Furthermore, I am rank 78 in PvP with full BM. In other words I have spent a lot of time doing raids and engaging in PvP combat. I come from a medium sized server.

 

Experiencing the new content with the Sorcerer healing changes have been extremely underwhelming at best - Sorcerer healing has been gutted and Sorcerer's post 1.2 patch have absolutely no ability to burst heal / tank heal. Sorc's are reduced to spamming AOE puddle / shielding the tanks with a couple slow casted heals thrown in here and there.

 

I must be constantly babysat by the other raid healer in order to regain my force - we have no avenue to naturally regain our force post patch 1.2. We depend heavily on wasting GCD's life taping ourselfs and depending on the other raid healer to throw us free heals - making us a liability. Operative healers and Merc healers (to a lesser extent than Operatives) are able to heal endlessly while constantly regaining their energy without suffering any sort of penalty like we do.

 

Operatives and Merc's brought up the issue that their AOE heal is inferior to a Sorcerers - patch 1.2 brought significant buffs to mainly the Operative AOE heal but the Merc one was buffed as well. Both are insta cast compared to the 2 second cast of the Sorc one. This is fine, but both Operatives and Merc's have far superior burst/emergency heals along with sustained single target heals than the Sorcerer currently does. Removing the Sorcerer nitch of having the best AOE heals makes them more or less obsolete. Just to put things in perspective our 2.5 second cast heal heals for LESS than the Operative 2.0 second cast heal and is far less spammable. Our "emergency/quick" heal with a 1.5 second cast time is beyond pathetic - it crits for around 2800 and is force inefficient to the point that if we cast it more than once or twice during an entire fight we dig ourselves into a massive force deficit hole in which we will run out of force unless we heavily life tap and depend on the other healer to carry our dead weight and put the entire raid in jeopardy.

 

I remember Operatives posting that they lack burst healing and got the following dev response:

 

As for Scoundrels having no tools for short burst healing, we don’t agree with that assessment. A scoundrel, for example, is capable of producing rather significant burst healing output by using Upper Hand gained from Underworld Medicine or Kolto Injection to trigger an instant Emergency Medpack or Surgical probe when needed.

 

Operatives have burst/emergency healing head and shoulders above Sorc healing with this patch.

 

I am forced to pre-cast my 2.5 second heal on tanks now and interrupt it early if it does not need to hit - this is tedious and makes healing cumbersome. If I wait until the tank actually takes damage I cast my heal and then /pray that it will finish in time before the tank dies - this is not enjoyable and should not be how healing works.

 

Outside of the AOE puddle, I do not feel like I am actually any different than a DPS spec'ed sorcerer when it comes to healing. Especially with lightning infusion talent in the lightning tree, I actually feel like DPS sorc's can spam heals longer than healing Sorc's which is a massive oversight. I have no identity as a Sorc healer anymore - the entire Corruption tree has been gutted - this is a HUGE problem and oversight - which ultimately detracts from the enjoyment of playing.

 

I will not even touch upon PvP because WZ's are turned completely upside down now - burst DPS is through the roof and knight/warriors - namely marauders are god-like. Random marauders/sentinels in centurion / champion gear can burst me down as a fully BM Sorcerer without even touching their interrupt! Again Operative's reign supreme in the healing department here - they were the best healers pre 1.2 against people that knew how to focus/interrupt - they do not need to cast anything and have the best burst healing with Tactical Advantage procs - their AOE is insta cast and stronger than merc's. Against competent players who are in BM gear / use their interrupt I basically am insta-gibbed and have 0 chance to get any meaningful cast off - my best hope of survival is to /pray my 1min CD stun is up and run the opposite direction.

 

I am strong player, but for the first time, my class mechanics are so inferior to the other healing choices - namely Operatives - that no matter how good I am, they will be better. Hopefully some sort of identity is returned to the Sorc healing tree because currently it just plain not fun / is frustrating to play as a Sorc healer.

Edited April 14, 2012 by Daayz

[sergiopitanga]

I am retiring my sorc healer and starting an ops one. I will wait until they make some changes if ever to bring him back.

[nissanmaxima]

I come from an OP healer and I also play a sage seer healer. Both seem fine to me, and by no means does the OP aoe heal and there insta cast medical probe heal for that much to begin with. Their AOE heal, Recoup nanotech, cost a butt load of energy to cast, and the emergency med probe that uses tactical advantage does not heal for hardly anything, unless you get luck and get a crit with that. I think my sage healer is doing great post patch. Just my opinion though

[SDANCSEC]

I agree Completely!

 

PvE- I was the most valued person in the op, now im nothing

 

PvP- I have full bm & mixed rakata and did around 300-500k on average per pvp match with 6-7 medals and now I can barely make 100k, I get interrupted nonstop and cant get my main heal off which is ridiculous, my class is a healer and I CANT HEAL???? wth i dont want to dps i want to heal and they ruined the class... and now wz's are obsolete because everyone leaves the wz's now... *** !

 

they broke my class and my subscription has ended

[Rotoroot]

Experiencing the new content with the Sorcerer healing changes have been extremely underwhelming at best - Sorcerer healing has been gutted and Sorcerer's post 1.2 patch have absolutely no ability to burst heal / tank heal. Sorc's are reduced to spamming AOE puddle / shielding the tanks with a couple slow casted heals thrown in here and there.

 

I will not even touch upon PvP because WZ's are turned completely upside down now - burst DPS is through the roof and knight/warriors - namely marauders are god-like. Random marauders/sentinels in centurion / champion gear can burst me down as a fully BM Sorcerer without even touching their interrupt!(

 

You're not the only one having these issues. A lot of people are quitting over it. SWTOR will be down to a couple servers in a month or two at most.

[g-lok-ta]

I am strong player, but for the first time, my class mechanics are so inferior to the other healing choices - namely Operatives - that no matter how good I am, they will be better. Hopefully some sort of identity is returned to the Sorc healing tree because currently it just plain not fun / is frustrating to play as a Sorc healer.

 

 

Not sure if its server specific but my experience has been that the decent-good sorc healers are still routinely outperforming operative healers in terms of raw output or pure numbers post-patch. The front-loaded heal in the form of the bubble combined with the broader aoe healing from the sorc has always been the key to that and from what I am seeing it hasn't really changed. If you are just looking for scoreboard then sorc heals is still the easier path.

 

As for burst, one of the key complaints of non-sorc healers in the past has been that we lacked clear burst/focus healing advantages compared to sorc heals while also being less effective in the aoe department. BW needs to find a path in this regard and stick with it . You should know going into a game whether or not the class you are playing is going to be more effective in the aoe area or focused-burst healing and not be bent out of shape if it can't do both well.

 

The playability/mechanics issue also needs to be kept in perspective. Energy management pain and general healing flow clunkiness was something that was an exclusive affliction of operative healing for the first 4 months of this game. Going from operative healing to sorc healing was like going from coach to first class. I think Mercs had it easier than all classes in that regard, but they got hit pretty hard accordingly. I haven't played my sorc since 1.2 to see how significant it really is, but if you only healed on a sorceror in end game content prior to 1.2 and never ran as an operative, than yeah I can see how it might really feel bad. If BW went overboard than that will come out in the wash eventually, but consider that BW has been dealing with a perception issue that there was not much point in healing on anything other than a sorc prior to 1.2.

Edited April 14, 2012 by g-lok-ta

[Daayz]

Not sure if its server specific but my experience has been that the decent-good sorc healers are still routinely outperforming operative healers in terms of raw output or pure numbers post-patch. The front-loaded heal in the form of the bubble combined with the broader aoe healing from the sorc has always been the key to that and from what I am seeing it hasn't really changed. If you are just looking for scoreboard then sorc heals is still the easier path.

 

As for burst, one of the key complaints of non-sorc healers in the past has been that we lacked clear burst/focus healing advantages compared to sorc heals while also being less effective in the aoe department. BW needs to find a path in this regard and stick with it . You should know going into a game whether or not the class you are playing is going to be more effective in the aoe area or focused-burst healing and not be bent out of shape if it can't do both well.

 

The playability/mechanics issue also needs to be kept in perspective. Energy management pain and general healing flow clunkiness was something that was an exclusive affliction of operative healing for the first 4 months of this game. Going from operative healing to sorc healing was like going from coach to first class. I think Mercs had it easier than all classes in that regard, but they got hit pretty hard accordingly. I haven't played my sorc since 1.2 to see how significant it really is, but if you only healed on a sorceror in end game content prior to 1.2 and never ran as an operative, than yeah I can see how it might really feel bad. If BW went overboard than that will come out in the wash eventually, but consider that BW has been dealing with a perception issue that there was not much point in healing on anything other than a sorc prior to 1.2.

 

 

I have a merc healer alt and post patch my merc is head and shoulders above my sorc - burst/emergency heals is not even a question - merc excels so largely in this field it is almost a joke. The AOE of merc is instant cast and is also better than our puddle given it's low CD and low heat cost.

 

I have gotten feedback from fellow Operative healers in my guild along with a Sorcerer healer that has an Operative healer alt. Post changes Operative healers are significantly better than Sorcerer healers. They can heal forever without issue and have better tank healing and emergency heals. Their AOE is insta cast and is comparable to Sorc AOE given people do not need to stand in the same spot for the duration.

[Reikok]

I agree Completely!

 

PvE- I was the most valued person in the op, now im nothing

 

PvP- I have full bm & mixed rakata and did around 300-500k on average per pvp match with 6-7 medals and now I can barely make 100k, I get interrupted nonstop and cant get my main heal off which is ridiculous, my class is a healer and I CANT HEAL???? wth i dont want to dps i want to heal and they ruined the class... and now wz's are obsolete because everyone leaves the wz's now... *** !

 

they broke my class and my subscription has ended

 

i don't like these changes but you mentioned you using rakata gear

 

one of the changes they made was to make it so pve gear sucks in pvp

[kazeen]

I have yet to try healing again since 1.2

 

It doesnt sound good and most of the sorcs in my guild have left the game

 

I assume these changes were made because people dont attack healers first in wz's

 

I know in wz's no would attack me they would just let me heal everyone

 

 

So will bioware fix this or will this be the downfall of swtor

[Cassp]

Just did 4/4 HM Denova with 2 sorc heals.

[Daayz]

Just did 4/4 HM Denova with 2 sorc heals.

 

Ya I am clearing the content as well. That is not the point though. It's not fun and easy mechanics are artificially made hard because you have healers that cannot heal.

[e_EmC]

I agree Completely!

 

PvE- I was the most valued person in the op, now im nothing

 

PvP- I have full bm & mixed rakata and did around 300-500k on average per pvp match with 6-7 medals and now I can barely make 100k, I get interrupted nonstop and cant get my main heal off which is ridiculous, my class is a healer and I CANT HEAL???? wth i dont want to dps i want to heal and they ruined the class... and now wz's are obsolete because everyone leaves the wz's now... *** !

 

they broke my class and my subscription has ended

 

L2FakeCast, ogh no! You don't even know what's that.

[VVyrdo]

L2FakeCast, ogh no! You don't even know what's that.

 

Fake casting only works when you are playing against idiots. What if they were to wait until the cast was almost fully done until they hit their interrupts or stuns? 99% of the people who do fake-casting, me included, don't wait until the heal is fully cast until we cancel, that would be pointless and would just lead to them interrupting it anyways.

 

I will quote you something I read on the forums a few days ago, can't remember who said it but if anyone recognizes it please let me know so I can give credit where it is due.

 

Went something like this "Trying to heal in pvp with a 2.4 second cast time gives even the most unskilled players enough time to open their skill pane, drag their interrupt to an action bar and hit it."

 

Rather than taking the mick out of the people on this forum, how about you just go outside and get some sunshine. Sitting under that bridge must get very lonely.

 

 

And fyi, to the above poster. What use is fake-casting? When I do actually manage to get a heal off, between FC, it's for anywhere between 2-4k. However the whole time you are trying to lure an interrupt they have been nuking you to hell critting 6-8k every few seconds. So tell me, how the hell can you say "L2FakeCast" when doing so reduces survivability even more.

 

Enough said.

Edited April 15, 2012 by VVyrdo