Scoundrel Healing 101

[Sydth]

The reason I have that stat priority is because you can't really stack tech power. It only comes from your main-hand and offhand and you aren't really actively searching for it, because it cannot be improved beyond your mainhand/offhand.

 

Oh i see makes sense now.

[Cordo]

Just wanted to thank the poster for making this thread. Well done. I am rolling a smug now, and this convinced me that healing is the way to go for me

[Surhammer]

Baller! Thanks.

[Henset]

I just started my journey as a level 50 healing scoundrel and i have a tad different build I'd like to share - simply because I didn't see it mentioned before.

 

Power Hog

 

Why such name? Generally I play Scoundrel as a kiting style class - that means a lot of running around and precasting HoT on people - since Kolto Cloud is eating through power like old lady through cheesecake I dropped it to get Street Tough - It now changes Pugnacity to smaller version of coolhead so even if i will drop on my Energy to around 30% i can quickly raise it to 50% again and go on healing - without a break and to be honest - without a moment of thought - this cuts my healing ability - since kolto cloud is not available, but on the other hand it is not very usefull when it comes to pulling out your allies from below 30% of total hp.

 

As you can see I also dropped the Med Screen which theoretically grants You 15% healing bonus when under your own bubble - truth be told this effect should be very useful when someone decideds to hammer you with damage and you need to immediatelly heal yourself bursting with green light. To be honest - so far I used this bubble in two different scenarios:

 

1) Evac - Your enemies just opened nuclear weaponry silos and pull out everything best they can use to kill You so You just need to vanish in thin air to not get killed - this is useful when You have no time to think and need to disappear right here and right now without moment or two to use Triage. This prevents You from leaving stealth due to dots or some of weaker AoE skills.

 

2) Long Range/Damage Over Time - Enemy decided they will annoy you with their damaging abilities - annoy is a good word because You can outheal dealt damage, but You need to stop Healing your allies to do so. Poping bubble in such moment allows You to continue healing others while being under attack.

 

Usually Defense Screen does not work well against Marauders, Burst Juggernauts and power hungry sorcs - not mentioning stalking operatives which will be threat to You.

 

Everything else including stats priories is the same - because having 65% to crit with UDM and Kolto Pack is neat when in need of burst - It sure does not get You to the top of board when it comes to the end of Warzone - but it allows You to be effective single target healer with ability to maintain his service even in very demanding conditions. Also: Dirty Escape kicks ***!.

[Aetou]

Defense Screen lasts for 1-2 hits. If it lasted for 15s then what you're saying about it would be useful but as it is I find its best use is usually pre-emptive - it stays up for a while and so if I activate it just before a fight I at least benefit from it. The other use for it, saving it for after you've already run away and are healing yourself up, could be nice but 15% isn't much. So, losing Med Screen is nothing to lose sleep over. Actually, I don't use it ever - not even as full Sawbones.

 

Losing KC is a much harder sell, though. At 22 energy (talents + set bonus) and with the 15% increase (also set bonus) it is actually a very efficient way to keep people alive (mixed with SRMP and EMP.) Often if you're being heavily focused then all you can do is kite around with SRMP on your and your tank (plus maybe 1-2 others), using EMP as it procs and then KC getting the two of you plus any nearby DPS... it's hard for me to overstate how important it is for keeping a group of people clustered around an objective alive. With average crits it does around 3k healing on 4 targets - that's a steal for less energy than a single UWM.

 

As far as it not helping keep people alive, I find it hard to imagine how I'd keep people alive without it against a good team. You cannot rely on UWM-EMP spam because any halfway competent team is going to interrupt and lock it out almost permanently. EMP alone won't keep people up, but throwing KC onto somebody when they are at 40% then having it tick over the next 6 seconds while you also have SRMP and then going to EMP - that is enough to keep somebody alive while 2-3 people focus on them.

[bshenkd]

 

1/7/13: Made some changes, additions, fixed talent tree link, corrected typos, added in "Cover" section

 

 

I will be adding many more screenshots and I hope to start video recording again. The game's been out for a year and the gameplay has changed drastically! I can't wait to see what the new year brings for SWTOR!

Edited January 7, 2013 by bshenkd

[Darminiam]

1/7/13: Made some changes, additions, fixed talent tree link, corrected typos, added in "Cover" section

 

I will be adding many more screenshots and I hope to start video recording again. The game's been out for a year and the gameplay has changed drastically! I can't wait to see what the new year brings for SWTOR!

 

Thanks for updating this. Made a scoundrel as my first republic side character (and just started an Operative as well) and was trying to look into healing as something new to try.

[thendrix]

I just started my journey as a level 50 healing scoundrel and i have a tad different build I'd like to share - simply because I didn't see it mentioned before.

 

Power Hog

 

Why such name? Generally I play Scoundrel as a kiting style class - that means a lot of running around and precasting HoT on people - since Kolto Cloud is eating through power like old lady through cheesecake I dropped it to get Street Tough - It now changes Pugnacity to smaller version of coolhead so even if i will drop on my Energy to around 30% i can quickly raise it to 50% again and go on healing - without a break and to be honest - without a moment of thought - this cuts my healing ability - since kolto cloud is not available, but on the other hand it is not very usefull when it comes to pulling out your allies from below 30% of total hp.

 

As you can see I also dropped the Med Screen which theoretically grants You 15% healing bonus when under your own bubble - truth be told this effect should be very useful when someone decideds to hammer you with damage and you need to immediatelly heal yourself bursting with green light. To be honest - so far I used this bubble in two different scenarios:

 

1) Evac - Your enemies just opened nuclear weaponry silos and pull out everything best they can use to kill You so You just need to vanish in thin air to not get killed - this is useful when You have no time to think and need to disappear right here and right now without moment or two to use Triage. This prevents You from leaving stealth due to dots or some of weaker AoE skills.

 

2) Long Range/Damage Over Time - Enemy decided they will annoy you with their damaging abilities - annoy is a good word because You can outheal dealt damage, but You need to stop Healing your allies to do so. Poping bubble in such moment allows You to continue healing others while being under attack.

 

Usually Defense Screen does not work well against Marauders, Burst Juggernauts and power hungry sorcs - not mentioning stalking operatives which will be threat to You.

 

Everything else including stats priories is the same - because having 65% to crit with UDM and Kolto Pack is neat when in need of burst - It sure does not get You to the top of board when it comes to the end of Warzone - but it allows You to be effective single target healer with ability to maintain his service even in very demanding conditions. Also: Dirty Escape kicks ***!.

 

 

So since you just started your sawbones and you think you should make a post on how to heal? Losing KC is the dumbest move you can make. It is the heart of healing for scoundrels. Also at no point should you be going under 60% energy unless there is a moment that requires spamming uw, but those moments are usually pretty far apart and should be complemented with cool head. As any spec of scoundrel you are useless if you dont know how to manage energy. IF you parse more than 500 HPS with your build I will be astounded.

 

Also KC is extremely effective at pulling teammates up from low health. Do some math.

 

Sawbones is also not a kiting class. If you want to kite with a scoundrel then use the Scrapper tree. Scrapper is very good at controlling enemy players. Sawbones is relatively useless as a kite model.

[Crawelc]

Read the whole thing four times. Where is the scripts/loop macro section?

[Crawelc]

OMG and its a STICKY!! My joy redoubles!! I am the happiest man in the swtor universe at this moment.

[Andar]

Read the whole thing four times. Where is the scripts/loop macro section?

 

Perhaps your energy would be better spent offline, it will do wonders for your personal skills.

[Crawelc]

Perhaps your energy would be better spent offline, it will do wonders for your personal skills.

 

My personal skills are fine, but thanks for your concern.

[lordkhouri]

My personal skills are fine, but thanks for your concern.

 

No one respects you or anything you have to say. Stop posting pls.

[Crawelc]

No one respects you or anything you have to say. Stop posting pls.

 

Not quite. You and your guild dont respect me, because of what I say. There is a fine line between HT and everyone in your mind I suppose. Lets keep this on topic though please. When are you adding the scrip/loop macro section OP? If you are trying to help new scoundrel healers get on a level playing field you have to tell them how to really get on a level playing field.

[bshenkd]

Updated for 2.0!

[Logan-won]

You're right, the stat priorities are a mess right now. It's tough to tell with boster being a disaster and being in the middle of a gear grind. I"m still struggling to work things out. In 1.7, I prioritized crit to about 37-38% buffed and put up amazing numbers, no epeen talk here but honestly my WZ numbers were among those of the top tier players on the server. But that also included PvE armorings and barrels and 960 expertise. I guess I'm just having a hard time letting go of the crit.

 

No one has been able to clarify yet, but I think the DR unbuffed is around 25% at this point, which means you should be getting up to a little over 30% crit buffed? Reading your guide, you have crit at the end of your priority list. Maybe it's a difference in playstyle?

 

Alacrity too is more confusing than anything. I put on several pieces and my UWM drops from 1.9 to.....1.9. Why am I wasting surge on 3/4 pieces to gain a hundredth of a second? But people are swearing by it.

 

You put up 2.4 million in Hypergate? That's insane. Is it really your stat priority that's putting up those numbers? Are you full mid-maxed conqueror? How is that possible?

Edited April 23, 2013 by Logan-won

[bshenkd]

You're right, the stat priorities are a mess right now. It's tough to tell with boster being a disaster and being in the middle of a gear grind. I"m still struggling to work things out. In 1.7, I prioritized crit to about 37-38% buffed and put up amazing numbers, no epeen talk here but honestly my WZ numbers were among those of the top tier players on the server. But that also included PvE armorings and barrels and 960 expertise. I guess I'm just having a hard time letting go of the crit.

 

No one has been able to clarify yet, but I think the DR unbuffed is around 25% at this point, which means you should be getting up to a little over 30% crit buffed? Reading your guide, you have crit at the end of your priority list. Maybe it's a difference in playstyle?

 

Alacrity too is more confusing than anything. I put on several pieces and my UWM drops from 1.9 to.....1.9. Why am I wasting surge on 3/4 pieces to gain a hundredth of a second? But people are swearing by it.

 

You put up 2.4 million in Hypergate? That's insane. Is it really your stat priority that's putting up those numbers? Are you full mid-maxed conqueror? How is that possible?

 

The thing about crit is.. the DR doesn't really exist. After looking at the stat curves and formulas for 2.0, crit is pretty linear.. It's just not giving a decent amount of % per rating to be worth it in my opinion. It's definitely my personal playstyle and I've had a good amount success with my current stat priority. I'd like to attribute the top healing games to my playstyle, my stat priority, and my knowledge of the class. I've spent all of my time playing this game mastering the class and knowing how to prepare myself against other classes.

 

On the topic of alacrity, it really comes down to playstyle and preference. The cool thing about alacrity in 2.0 is that it lowers GCD and increases energy regen as well. Right now I'm playing at around 4.6% alacrity and the rest into surge and I'm liking the results. As far as the 2.4 million, it's the combination of low endurance/high power/mainstat mods, partisan min/max, keeping the old 2pc WH set bonus (15% extra healing on Kolto Cloud), keeping Kolto Cloud on cooldown, and spamming the living daylight out of HoTs on everyone.

[ArcherOrant]

Just wanted to thank you so much for doing this thread for everyone in the community! I currently have a level 36 scoundrel and have done 610k at level 33. With this new information I have learned here, I think I can squeeze out 800k : D

[IInox]

I agree about crit and other stats but Surge.... Mm. I'm not sure.

 

Surge depends by crit, right? Cause when u crit damage is boosted for surge, so less crits makes surge less important imho.

 

So imho if you play with low crit rating, you can lower your surge a bit. More or less at 350.

 

My 50 cents

[ronara]

Do you have any youtube videos, to learn how to play sawbone in PVP, i am new with this class i want to know buy seeing how to apply what you wrote in the guide

[bshenkd]

Do you have any youtube videos, to learn how to play sawbone in PVP, i am new with this class i want to know buy seeing how to apply what you wrote in the guide

 

My last day in the semester was today so I should have some extra time to make one. I'll make one here in the next week or so

[Buckwildjoe]

Awesome guide Aiori!

[ace_boogie]

Awesome guide Aiori!

 

+1

 

I'm sort of a new healer and mainly pvp, but after reading this I was topping 1 million heals around level 40ish. Just got to 55 and when i get some free time, I'm anxious to see how I fare with the big boys.

 

Definitely a must read for scoundrel and operative healers.

[Arrma]

Hey, I'm playing a scoundrel and following this guide for warzones, but I need some help.I've always sucked at organizing my quickbars.Can you tell me the way you organize yours ? The shortcuts, I mean.

[Kufuffelupagus]

Hey, I'm playing a scoundrel and following this guide for warzones, but I need some help.I've always sucked at organizing my quickbars.Can you tell me the way you organize yours ? The shortcuts, I mean.

 

I use combined clicking and key binds for my scoundrel healing, so I have three rows one on top of eachother, with heals on first row, dps and assorted on second, ccs, stealth, interrupts etc on third. (Mounts, buffs and misc on the left vertically.) Putting the lengthy text in a spoiler tag:

 

 

Quickbar one from 1- =: slow-release medpac, underworld medicine, kolto pack, emergency medpack, kolto cloud, environmental shield (for SnV, so could have anythign there), cool head, triage (cleanse), disappearing act, escape, dodge, diagnostic scan

Quickbar two from 1- =: flurry of bolts, charged burst, sabotage charge, thermal grenade, vital shot, dirty kick, backblast, tendon blast, shoot first, scamper, XS flyby, blaster volley

Quickbar three from 1- =: defense screen, surrender, pugnacity, flash grenade, slice droid, sneak, stealth, tranquilizer, distraction (interrupt), then warzone adrenal, warzone medpac, optimized medpac or better

 

 

I will not say at all that this is the best layout- each to their own- but the main reasoning behind it is to have my most-used abilities from 1- 6 because I can reach them easily, with quickbar two being shift+(key) and quickbar three being control+(key). Good luck with yours.