Sage healing is fine in 1.2

[Ruuprect]

I have 4 lvl 50 char. sage (was the 1st lvl 50), commandos, scoundrel and sentinel. My commandos and scoundrel can heal better than sage post patch with an additonal survivability. Sages are so squishy post patch that it's beyond ridiculous and only effective when completly left alone.

Recentl I created marauder and joined pvp arena at lvl 10 w/ no gear and 3 skills crushed lvl 49 sage. There are ppl who would claim that sage "is working as intended", but sage need to have more cc or burst dmg to be effective in PvP situation.

 

In addition I hear numerous ppl claiming that sage can do 5k+ crit w/ one spell, that's utter bs. I have full warhero gear and my highest crit was 3k max, so I'm not sure where they are getting this imaginary number from.

 

The only way you can get the 5k is if you heal yourself before you get the trauma buff. But yeah, my crits are usually around 3k with full BM.

[Slipfeed]

Lol... well that's a point of view I suppose.

 

X

 

I know that sounds like an odd thing to say, but , your absolute best HPS and resource efficiency comes from a conveyance buffed healing trance.

 

With the way the cooldowns land right now, using rejuvenate to proc a conveyance and then using that conveyance on anything but healing trance puts you into a really bad place.

 

When you get there you see that you must either... wait for rejuvenate to come back up before casing healing trance... leaving you with no conveyance on any other skill or...

 

Continue on with healing trance and no conveyance, which leaves you in a reverse CD cycle, where in your rejuv is always poping up when HT is on CD.

 

The only way out of that is to not use either till both are up.

 

The only conclusion for max HPS / FE is to wait for HT to pop before you use rejuv.

 

Now obviously there will be situations where you have some time to cast a 1.5 second heal, but no time to channel HT, (moving fights). In those situations some healing is better than none, and most of the time you will still be moving long enough to make it worth while to use a rejuv / conveyance on a benevolence.

 

But if you're timing is off you're going to find yourself standing there with no conveyance for your healing trance and a full CD on rejuv. Like I said before that's a bad place, both for your force bar and your party's health bars.

 

Of course all this goes out the window in PvP. Im not even going to start into that.....

 

If you're currently playing a healer sage in PvE to it's maximum possible capability's, for all intents and purposes, you have a 2 button rotation.

 

Of course im leaving out stackups. Obviously because stackups are built in "you must drop salvation" mechanics. I don't count it as a choice when the game holds a gun to my head (or a rocket volley).

Edited April 26, 2012 by Slipfeed

[XtremJedi]

HoT and Channel have to be a core part of any rotation, yes. And yes, if you only did HoT > Channel and left everything else free until you could do HoT Channel again, then you'd have a slightly force positive rotation. But there's just no way that you can heal everything with just that.

 

Then of course you say... well of course you chuck a bubble on the tank and put up an AoE from time to time and you want to cleanse debuffs in some situations and if you're really in a scrape then you might chuck out one of the other heals etc etc... and how exactly do you go about funding that? Presumably you'll be wanting to use NS at some point in there?

 

Indeed, the goal certainly isn't to end a fight with a full force bar, so you want to build into your play at least a level of force drain. My suggested rotation can include Bubble, AoE, 2 Rejuvenates, 2 Healing Trance and 1 Deliverance, while maintaining a ~10 point per rotation force drain.

 

There have been a lot of suggestions about good ways to manage force regain around the forums, and they've nearly all worked out to be worse or only marginally better than just choosing to Idle for the time spent trying to regen. What my thread does is to disprove some of those bad approaches and also work out clearly, which is the very best route to go.

 

Don't get me wrong, I quit the game shortly after 1.2 went live. I could see that the play-style had been gutted and there was little else keeping me in the game, so I left. I still have subscription days credited which I can use if I return though, so I'm keeping in touch with how it's all developing and doing my bit to help out players still struggling with a tool-set that seems to be designed to work against you, rather than with you.

 

So I'm no cheer-leader... but there are better approaches than 'just hitting two buttons' - and using such exaggeration doesn't really help anybody.

 

X

Edited April 26, 2012 by XtremJedi

[Slipfeed]

HoT and Channel have to be a core part of any rotation, yes. And yes, if you only did HoT > Channel and left everything else free until you could do HoT Channel again, then you'd have a slightly force positive rotation. But there's just no way that you can heal everything with just that.

I already qualified for situations where you cannot stand still to channel, so we agree.

Then of course you say... well of course you chuck a bubble on the tank and put up an AoE from time to time and you want to cleanse debuffs in some situations and if you're really in a scrape then you might chuck out one of the other heals etc etc... and how exactly do you go about funding that? Presumably you'll be wanting to use NS at some point in there?

Bubbles don't really do much. We use them, yes, because they are instant, CHEAP, and THERE. All in all though, its basically a pre-emptive non-critable version of a skill no one ever ever EVER used before 1.2 (benevolence).

 

Indeed, the goal certainly isn't to end a fight with a full force bar, so you want to build into your play at least a level of force drain. My suggested rotation can include Bubble, AoE, 2 Rejuvenates, 2 Healing Trance and 1 Deliverance, while maintaining a ~10 point per rotation force drain.

If you're goal is to have some fun, and not be bored out of your mind, that's good advice. If your goal is to heal to the maximum capability of your class, you're not doing it with that.

There have been a lot of suggestions about good ways to manage force regain around the forums, and they've nearly all worked out to be worse or only marginally better than just choosing to Idle for the time spent trying to regen. What my thread does is to disprove some of those bad approaches and also work out clearly, which is the very best route to go.

Its a good thread. But you have to remember how we got here in the first place. Most of us didn't even know we where on the chopping block till the 1.2 notes hit, and our lack of counteracting the social engineering occurring on these forums gave the developers a false picture of what the overall player base wanted. It was actually a very small very vocal group of bad PvP'rs that got our entire class bent over a bar stool and publicly violated in an uncomfortable place. Any indication, even imply'd that our class is anything but broken from a gaming standpoint, even "how to survive" type threads like this one, just reduces the chances that we will ever be anything but a two button wonder in PvE and a free kill in PvP.

 

I am like you. I quit right when 1.2 went up. I stopped playing when the patch notes went live, and the only response from devs to the outrage was 1 post by George in a cheerleader thread.

 

I've been trying to play since. I've actually deleted my sage after healing nightmare EV up to SOA post 1.2. We always had problems with SOA though and they are not really healing related.

 

So I did it sure. Or did I? NO. My gear did it. The background math did it. I made no decisions in that entire instance that changed the outcome of anything.

 

I actually deleted my sage the next morning. Some folks where pissed.

[shadowflit]

The only way you can get the 5k is if you heal yourself before you get the trauma buff. But yeah, my crits are usually around 3k with full BM.

I haven't gotten a 5k combat heal in 1.2 yet. I have gotten a 49XX combat heal. It was probably with both my Champion (really? I know...) power relic and Rakata power adrenal active, but I don't actually know since I only saw the number from the final scoreboard. With a bit more surge or a better relic - which I'm working on, I imagine I will be able to hit 5k. I could also probably hit it if I used an expertise adrenal instead of a power adrenal.

 

Re: Two-button rotation / No thought healing

How did this change exactly? Except for the removal of deliverance cast time with conveyance, our healing really didn't change. Force regen puts pressure on us beyond simple GCD wastage, but it works the same. Hit NS if you have the proc and won't die shortly if you cast it (almost all the time in PvE, or about half the time in PvP). Regen with NS actually got mildly more interesting, because now I sometimes use a small downtime to stack up 4 or 5 NS where before I just always hit the button when the buff popped up. NS usage also forces more situational awareness to gauge good times and some obvious positioning (sit in HoTs).

 

With the across-the-board buff to dps, less skilled players can now pressure us more easily. So we need to move around more, and with the deliverance change it means we're not casting deliverance as often. But if you were fighting good premades before 1.2, that was already the case, so no huge change. If I get a lull in dual-lightsaber wielding pressure, Deliverance still gets plenty of use.

 

Basically, I don't understand the complaint. I liked healing before 1.2, I adjusted, and now I like healing after 1.2. It was nice being more invincible before, but the core healing didn't actually change that much.

[schmidtyfi]

Aside from the minor niggle that Toth didn't exist prior to 1.2, this is a good post that underscores a lot of my feelings as well, and also give insight into the reasoning behind the nerfs in PVE. Sage/Sorc healers were capable of compensating for sloppy play, and the sloppy players started blaming us when that was no longer the case.

 

You're absolutely right about Toth -- what I wrote didn't make any sense.

 

What I meant: there were many bosses pre 1.2 (Bonecrusher, Garj) and now similarly post 1.2 (like Toth) where DPS can take a lot of avoidable damage before they die. We can temporarily heal through these things, but it puts us under a lot of pressure post patch. I suspect that's by design on the part of Bioware, because they want people to learn the mechanics that they built.

 

Unfortunately, the way they went about it makes the healers look (and feel) as if they're not keeping up when, in fact, it was poor execution on the part of DPS. Instead of making the damage more severe, for example, they gimped our ability to heal it. At least for me, that can make for a very frustrating and decidedly un-heroic experience.

 

I often hear that healers are in short supply. By accentuating the un-fun aspects of it (being unfairly blamed for wipes, running out of force, waiting for cool-downs, watching your cast bar as your target is dying), I suspect they made the shortage worse post 1.2.

 

I, for one, am still healing with my sage because I'm RL friends with my crew. And, we are making ops progress, despite being casual players. But, I can very well understand why some are frustrated enough to quit healing, quit their toon, or even quit the game.

Edited April 26, 2012 by schmidtyfi
typo

[KamujinKravshera]

 

With the across-the-board buff to dps, less skilled players can now pressure us more easily. So we need to move around more, and with the deliverance change it means we're not casting deliverance as often. But if you were fighting good premades before 1.2, that was already the case, so no huge change. If I get a lull in dual-lightsaber wielding pressure, Deliverance still gets plenty of use.

 

Basically, I don't understand the complaint. I liked healing before 1.2, I adjusted, and now I like healing after 1.2. It was nice being more invincible before, but the core healing didn't actually change that much.

 

Core healing changed considerably. Your spike healing ability is gone. At the same time you are taking significantly more damage. As such, We have to move around near continuously. This stops you from doing any meaningful healing while you're moving. Our HoT, bubble, and talented cleanse all heal for less than a GCD's worth of damage. The healing you do that exceeds damage taken for the same amount of time comes from long cast time abilities that are trivial to interrupt and that no amount of alacrity is going to change.

 

This is also why Smugglers and OPs are kings of PvP healing right now. They have great tools to be able to kite and do meaningful healing at the same time.

[shadowflit]

Core healing changed considerably. Your spike healing ability is gone.

Agreed, spike healing gone. But if I get some free time (and I do get some), I can pop a potency and two Deliverances and accomplish similar results albeit slower. People at low health die more often since I can't slam a Deliverance at them in 1.3s, but bubble+relic/adrenal+trance saves a lot of people.

 

At the same time you are taking significantly more damage. As such, We have to move around near continuously. This stops you from doing any meaningful healing while you're moving. Our HoT, bubble, and talented cleanse all heal for less than a GCD's worth of damage. The healing you do that exceeds damage taken for the same amount of time comes from long cast time abilities that are trivial to interrupt and that no amount of alacrity is going to change.

The average amount of movement required increased, yes. But against good opponents pre-1.2 we had to be doing just as much moving. That didn't change. Healing on the go is doable, even if the scoundrels are better at it.

 

That was my point about small changes to core healing, the only thing that changed for me was the burst. I replaced the burst Deliverances with more Trance and a clicky relic instead of the proc relic (for pvp) and went on my merry. I guess I can see how people would see the entire game play changed if the opponents let them be healing pillars before. I had some games where a good tank + me could hold against most of the enemy team, and that's gone, but plenty of other matches I was forced into moving around to stay alive.

[Ashyra]

That was my point about small changes to core healing, the only thing that changed for me was the burst. I replaced the burst Deliverances with more Trance and a clicky relic instead of the proc relic (for pvp) and went on my merry.

 

You have not noticed that casting Healing Trance on yourself consumes conveyance on the first tick, making it considerably weaker when used on ourselves?

 

I guess I can see how people would see the entire game play changed if the opponents let them be healing pillars before.

 

I doubt that is the case, because now there seems to be even less of a reason to pay much attention to the healer as long as there are two or more decent dps assisting each other, which you must have noticed too by now.

[Lugh]

Wooo woo you got someone that guarded you and stayed near you helping you stay alive.!!! Good for you johnny

 

[KamujinKravshera]

Agreed, spike healing gone. But if I get some free time (and I do get some), I can pop a potency and two Deliverances and accomplish similar results albeit slower. People at low health die more often since I can't slam a Deliverance at them in 1.3s, but bubble+relic/adrenal+trance saves a lot of people.

 

The average amount of movement required increased, yes. But against good opponents pre-1.2 we had to be doing just as much moving. That didn't change. Healing on the go is doable, even if the scoundrels are better at it.

 

1) If you're getting free time, you're fighting terribads. (Not just bads)

 

2) Pre 1.2 you could take it for the few seconds needed to get off your heal. Now, if you try to do anything but a bubble or hot (worthless) while kiting, you die. You actually die either way, but slower if you give up all pretense of being there to heal and just kite / pillar hump.

 

 

That was my point about small changes to core healing, the only thing that changed for me was the burst. I replaced the burst Deliverances with more Trance and a clicky relic instead of the proc relic (for pvp) and went on my merry. I guess I can see how people would see the entire game play changed if the opponents let them be healing pillars before. I had some games where a good tank + me could hold against most of the enemy team, and that's gone, but plenty of other matches I was forced into moving around to stay alive.

 

The increase in DPS is so unbelievable that I can't believe you're playing the same game as me. Heals just don't keep people up. You can refill people, but you're not keeping anyone alive if they are getting beat on by 2 people. And YES, I most certainly think that if I am left to free cast, I should be able to slow/stop the damage of 2 players on one of my teammates. That's why everyone has 5 interrupts, to stop me from doing it! That's why I get focused first. To stop me from doing it! As it stands, you can spam heals on people, it hardly slows down their death at all.

 

That really get's to the point of it all. Interupts were supposed to be our counter, but people fail at using them, so our healing was nerfed to oblivion. Fine! then take away interrupts. Make our heals instant, like operatives.

[shadowflit]

You have not noticed that casting Healing Trance on yourself consumes conveyance on the first tick, making it considerably weaker when used on ourselves?

I had not noticed, though now that you pointed it out I played with it. It seems like the buff applies to the full duration of Trance, just gets consumed at the start? I ran it 10 or 20 times, and looked to be getting way more crits than a simple 40% crit rate should have given me, but hard to know for sure. And apparently the double dipping bug is still present for everyone that's not you. I thought that was fixed

 

1) If you're getting free time, you're fighting terribads. (Not just bads)

 

2) Pre 1.2 you could take it for the few seconds needed to get off your heal. Now, if you try to do anything but a bubble or hot (worthless) while kiting, you die. You actually die either way, but slower if you give up all pretense of being there to heal and just kite / pillar hump.

 

The increase in DPS is so unbelievable that I can't believe you're playing the same game as me.

From all of this it sounds like your team isn't supporting you. The enemy team should be focusing you, and your team should be protecting you. With Guard I have a lot less trouble absorbing hits. With people peeling for me and liberal use of my own cc, I get breathing room. In that scenario, I have no trouble healing people and keeping (most of) them alive. What you described there sounds like when I solo queue and the entire team goes durrrr who needs healing and leaves me all on my own. Then when I get a Mara or two chasing me I run in circles for a while healing no one but myself and then die horribly just to repeat the cycle. Sometimes I'll be able to do some healing out of corners and move around, but not against the good premades.

 

Since I've had plenty of experience fighting (and often, losing) to some of my server's better pvp guilds, I don't think I'm fighting terribads, I think your team's cooperation and support for the healers is probably bad. Otherwise, we must indeed be playing a different game with the huge skill disparity between our servers (and by extension I must suck as much as the rest, so feel free to ignore everything I say)

Edited April 27, 2012 by shadowflit

[Slipfeed]

I haven't gotten a 5k combat heal in 1.2 yet. I have gotten a 49XX combat heal. It was probably with both my Champion (really? I know...) power relic and Rakata power adrenal active, but I don't actually know since I only saw the number from the final scoreboard. With a bit more surge or a better relic - which I'm working on, I imagine I will be able to hit 5k. I could also probably hit it if I used an expertise adrenal instead of a power adrenal.

 

Re: Two-button rotation / No thought healing

How did this change exactly? Except for the removal of deliverance cast time with conveyance, our healing really didn't change. Force regen puts pressure on us beyond simple GCD wastage, but it works the same. Hit NS if you have the proc and won't die shortly if you cast it (almost all the time in PvE, or about half the time in PvP). Regen with NS actually got mildly more interesting, because now I sometimes use a small downtime to stack up 4 or 5 NS where before I just always hit the button when the buff popped up. NS usage also forces more situational awareness to gauge good times and some obvious positioning (sit in HoTs).

 

With the across-the-board buff to dps, less skilled players can now pressure us more easily. So we need to move around more, and with the deliverance change it means we're not casting deliverance as often. But if you were fighting good premades before 1.2, that was already the case, so no huge change. If I get a lull in dual-lightsaber wielding pressure, Deliverance still gets plenty of use.

 

Basically, I don't understand the complaint. I liked healing before 1.2, I adjusted, and now I like healing after 1.2. It was nice being more invincible before, but the core healing didn't actually change that much.

 

I don't want to be insulting, so im not going to point out my perception of the product of your reasoning. You might, however, if you're interested, check out the first and second posts I made in this thread. You can probably infer.

[kieler]

heal sage at least for random pvp is totally broken please fix this dear BW

[shadowflit]

I don't want to be insulting, so im not going to point out my perception of the product of your reasoning. You might, however, if you're interested, check out the first and second posts I made in this thread. You can probably infer.

Oh, yes, I can infer fine. But I'm still genuinely curious so I'll try again. Let's try to assume for the duration of this post that I'm not terrible, and anything in here that points to the contrary is just my upbeat perception of the Sage (ie: yes, we lost godmode, but we don't need godmode to be awesome).

 

You assert that, aside from using Bubble/Purge/Salvation when it makes sense to do so, the Sage has a two-button rotation consisting of HoT and Trance. I don't disagree with that assessment (though I would have phrased it differently).

 

I assert that all of this was true pre 1.2, except for the addition of Deliverance. Assuming double dip, Deliverance was tacked on after Trance whenever additional burst healing was required (and not otherwise, due to force issues). In PvP, Deliverance could be used without double dipping off Trance to save people, but you'd run out of force much faster.

 

So my first question is, do you agree with my assessment? If you don't, I'm curious why not (can be a short explanation). If you do, I'm curious how you think the Sage went from fun to unfun with that change.

[Samaul]

The real bads will tell you "It's not that bad" or "We're fine learn to play" because they barely notice the limitations placed on maximum effectiveness. They where nowhere near it to begin with.

 

Weak argument, very weak. So, you can see how good I am at playing a sage, remotely, over the internet, through my client? Get over yourself. You deleted your sage? Really? How sad.

 

In fact, healing is still the most powerful ability in any MMORPG. A good Sage healer can turn the tide in most battles. Ok so we got nerfed. You act as if we cant heal and if we can, we cant make a difference. I have been healing in Warzones with great effectiveness since 1.2. Yes, things have changed but I adjust. In most WZs, I am far and away the top healer and my team wins or does very well.

[Fomby]

I had not noticed, though now that you pointed it out I played with it. It seems like the buff applies to the full duration of Trance, just gets consumed at the start? I ran it 10 or 20 times, and looked to be getting way more crits than a simple 40% crit rate should have given me, but hard to know for sure. And apparently the double dipping bug is still present for everyone that's not you. I thought that was fixed

 

 

From all of this it sounds like your team isn't supporting you. The enemy team should be focusing you, and your team should be protecting you. With Guard I have a lot less trouble absorbing hits. With people peeling for me and liberal use of my own cc, I get breathing room. In that scenario, I have no trouble healing people and keeping (most of) them alive. What you described there sounds like when I solo queue and the entire team goes durrrr who needs healing and leaves me all on my own. Then when I get a Mara or two chasing me I run in circles for a while healing no one but myself and then die horribly just to repeat the cycle. Sometimes I'll be able to do some healing out of corners and move around, but not against the good premades.

 

Since I've had plenty of experience fighting (and often, losing) to some of my server's better pvp guilds, I don't think I'm fighting terribads, I think your team's cooperation and support for the healers is probably bad. Otherwise, we must indeed be playing a different game with the huge skill disparity between our servers (and by extension I must suck as much as the rest, so feel free to ignore everything I say)

 

This. This. This so much. And sentinels, with their super short cool down interrupt will face roll a healer in no time. 2 dents you say? Quickly cast rejuvenate... Cast healing tran- INTERRUPT... Force wave to get them away from you...Cast benevolenc- STUN... Cast.... Oh wait, you're dead.

[Anysao]

THANK YOU...

 

Gosh. The heavy "nerfs" where In the public TEST server. Keyword- TEST. if you need a hint about what this post is about, heres a good hint: TEST.

 

It's not a big deal. I think the only reason they changed it, is to try and avoid self/healing.

 

I thank you for not being blinded by the confusing jargon that starts with:

"we changed the Jedi sage's..."

Past that, people say "what the ****en toaster?! You nerfed me bioware?!"

 

There's no problem.

[Brittaany_Banks]

Only a resource nerf... fine

Only a burst healing nerf.... fine

Only an expertise healing nerf.... fine

 

All 3 nerfs = over nerfed plain and simple. I've already stated how healing nerfs hurt the game overall as they artificially raise DPS across the board 1) by lowering the total amount of healing and 2) reducing the amount of healers in pvp to begin with.

 

healing got nerfed, and Marauders/Sentinels got buffed. That along with the Damage expertise increase AND healing expertise nerf and OMG look at that. People are now calling for a nerf to them when it was the direct nerf to healing which made them OP in the first place.

[CapNkill]

With the change to Conveyance >Benevolence in 1.2, I am seeing alot more sage healers stack Alacrity more then pre-nerf. 12-15% depending on gear + mods/augs/enha ect.

 

Im was wondering if Alacrity has a cap and at what point will it be detremetal to other stats.

[Ashyra]

Only a resource nerf... fine

Only a burst healing nerf.... fine.

 

Except these two directly led to a fourth nerf to the synergy between core mechanics of the spec, versatility and effectiveness, imbalancing the whole spec in favor of heavy bubble and aoe use - something that no amount of adapting is going to make challenging or fun.

[KamujinKravshera]

Only a resource nerf... fine

Only a burst healing nerf.... fine

Only an expertise healing nerf.... fine

 

All 3 nerfs = over nerfed plain and simple. I've already stated how healing nerfs hurt the game overall as they artificially raise DPS across the board 1) by lowering the total amount of healing and 2) reducing the amount of healers in pvp to begin with.

 

healing got nerfed, and Marauders/Sentinels got buffed. That along with the Damage expertise increase AND healing expertise nerf and OMG look at that. People are now calling for a nerf to them when it was the direct nerf to healing which made them OP in the first place.

 

Very well said.

 

Some things are an IQ test. This situation is one of them. Sage healing is not "fine". It is not "fine" by such a huge margin that if you can't see the problem, you will likely never be able to see the problem or any problem in an MMO.

 

To those who say "your teaming isn't doing it's job", I say. My teammates play classes that get better when I do my job. I play a class that get's playable when they do their job. If that's your idea of balance, we are unlikely to ever agree.

[Slipfeed]

Now that these changes have basically been rolled back, two years after the fact, I NECROMANCER SLIPFEED hereby declare victory over the idiots that argued for the changes made back then.

 

Devs knew the changes where crap almost instantly, and for some reason took this long to straighten it out.

 

 

SO GLAD THEY DID.

 

My sage is fun again.

 

Thank you Bioware.

 

Also N-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n- NECROTHREAD.

 

P.S. R.I.P my old sage, Hotstreak. Your predecessor Slipfeed carys on your legacy.

Edited August 1, 2015 by Slipfeed

[Grimyd]

Holy Walking Dead Batman!!

[theBrayn]

P.S. R.I.P my old sage, Hotstreak. Your predecessor Slipfeed carys on your legacy.

 

I do not think this word means what you think it means. The word you are looking for is "successor".

 

Also, why not just create a new thread with a link to the old instead of a useless necro post?