Oz_OzOovo Posted August 14, 2013 Posted August 14, 2013 For that matter, so do all healing classes but tonight I rage on Sorc healing. I just started playing about four months ago. In that time Ihave the opportunity to level and participate my Sorc in end-game. I preface that I healed in end-game on a Paladin, Priest, and a Shaman in WoW so my viewpoint comes from over six years in that MMO. Sorc healing is lackluster at best. I will outline why I feel this way and provide possible remedeys but it is at least clear to me that healing on a Sorcn eeds to be revamped. 1. Static Barrier: Perhaps the only non-heal heal a Sorc has. But it is no WoW Priest shield. The absorption needs to be improved and heal for 1% of total health on the Sorc and party members. Unlike the Op, flashpoints and operations requiring constant movement prevents a Sorc from effectively healing. Placing a revivification down is unreliable under such circumstances and all a Static Barrier does is buy time but, unfortunately, can make a tough encounter even more difficult. Now, the best healing ability a Sorc has for single trget is Innervate (in combination with Resurgence) and the best AOE heal is Revivificationn. All remaining healing abilities suck. 2. Dark Infusion: Or Dark Suck is quite simple a joke. The healing it does compared even to Dark Heal makes Dark Infuction worthless. Of course Dark Heal is another story but seriously? Dark Infusion, for the time invested in casting it, does way too little healing. With heath averaging 30,000 and topping 35,000 or more, my preset Dark Infusion with about 2800 Willpower is a paltry 5500 healing. My gear is Crit and Alacrity oriented with about 250 power and a 5500 heal from Dark Infusion on a tank with 35,000 health ... well you do the math on that. This heal should be healing upwards of 10, 12, to 15,0000 health. It is strange the force cost is lower than Dark Heal but the healing is lackluster terrible. If requiring to get a tank up from about 5% health, the Sorc doesn't even have a way to do that without hoping a Static Barrier holds long enough to resurgence, innervate, and then start the long and arduous process of spamming Dark Baddie until nearly at half force power. This spell simply must, must be improved, raising the force cost and, for the time invested casting, raising the total heal. 3. Dark Heal: I don't get it - what a faster heal should cost more force powerand do even less healing? Where is the logic in that? Then there is the whole notion of it healing about 2000 less than Dark Infusion which costs less force power and heals slower. This should not be and clearly the force power on Dark Heal should be lowered, the heal improved, and it become useful for actual fast healing. A Paladin in WoW has two heals mirroring Dark Infusion and Dark Heal -- they are Holy Light and FLash of Light. The same with a Priest. WoW healing makes sense to me and, as one Who healed as a Paladin and Priest in end-game, the fast heals were appropriate in cost and power and the slow heals appropriate in poer and cost. 4. Innervate: Shaman anyone or even a Druid? This ability could so be better such as healing one target and jumping smartly to another for 1/3rd less and again for 1/3 less -- yeah I am referring to the Shaman chain heal. I would so like to see Innervate do that. It is just so lackluster when combined with resurgence on cooldown requiring me to use Dark Ugly or Dark Silly to heal with. Revivification is far too static but I will speak about that soon. Seriously, make Innervate more useful. Are Sorcs supposed to be Tank healers and OPs/Mercs raid healers? It is not clear to me the point of innervate, For one, channeling a heal is bad. If I need to get going, I have interrupted and put on cooldown Innervate while having spent all the cost for it. Seems so much of Sorc healing is just stand there and cast but problem is there is no fight mechanic in the game that caters to this style of healing all the time. And don't get me started on resurgence. A weak instant heal followed up by even weaker periodic healing. I am just unhappy about Sorc healing and I think it could be far better, more useful with more options for different situations, with better force management. Consumption is nice but I have discovered its use far too much in an effort to compensate for spamming bad healing abilities to keep folks alive. Anyway this is my opiion of Sorc healing from my perspective as a healer of many years. I am rolling an Op healer and a MErc healer to examine those classes.
Torcatoth Posted August 14, 2013 Posted August 14, 2013 So you only played wow with OP chars and Sorc is not OP enough fot you...ok.
Ryluk_Shouja Posted August 14, 2013 Posted August 14, 2013 I play a sorc healer main, and while I agree with you that they are not perfect, and could use some work...that is as far as we agree. You post consisted of "this ability sucks" when relating to every ability. Methinks this is a L2P issue...the rest of us seem to have a fine time of it. Learn the mechanics (and for goodness sake stop stacking crit in your gear, no wonder your heals are lacklustre) and learn when you can move and when you can channel. Sorc healers are powerful when used correctly. If you don't like them, play a merc or op...and if you still don't like those, go back to WoW, since it is apparently perfect.
SandsS Posted August 14, 2013 Posted August 14, 2013 I just started playing about four months ago. In that time Ihave the opportunity to level and participate my Sorc in end-game. I preface that I healed in end-game on a Paladin, Priest, and a Shaman in WoW so my viewpoint comes from over six years in that MMO. Sorc heals need some looking at, particularly with some of the more movement-intensive mechanics, but I think it's still a bit radical to suggest that they need to be exactly like a WoW-style Shaman. TOR is a considerably younger game than WoW and is developing in its own direction. There's evidence of this gradual development in the older balance patch notes. At launch, Sorcerers were basically the single best healing class while Operatives were the worst (for a variety of mechanical reasons). The pendulum has shifted somewhat in the interim. I expect it will shift again.
Oz_OzOovo Posted August 14, 2013 Author Posted August 14, 2013 I play a sorc healer main, and while I agree with you that they are not perfect, and could use some work...that is as far as we agree. You post consisted of "this ability sucks" when relating to every ability. Methinks this is a L2P issue...the rest of us seem to have a fine time of it. Learn the mechanics (and for goodness sake stop stacking crit in your gear, no wonder your heals are lacklustre) and learn when you can move and when you can channel. Sorc healers are powerful when used correctly. If you don't like them, play a merc or op...and if you still don't like those, go back to WoW, since it is apparently perfect. I have healed on Sorc in end-game and discovered that in Cerka fps is where the weakness shines. There movement is a constant and the damage to player constant. The Sor c simply can't compete and it is strugle to heal requiring special strats to get by. Another problem is that healing gear is full of crit and I am prob going to have to change al my augments to power as a result.
Ryluk_Shouja Posted August 14, 2013 Posted August 14, 2013 I have healed on Sorc in end-game and discovered that in Cerka fps is where the weakness shines. There movement is a constant and the damage to player constant. The Sor c simply can't compete and it is strugle to heal requiring special strats to get by. Another problem is that healing gear is full of crit and I am prob going to have to change al my augments to power as a result. I hear you on the gear issue...I have finally optimized my gear (mostly) but it took probably 20 dropped pieces (set pieces included) and 10 bought pieces to get the mods/enhancements/armourings I wanted. And that's just my heal set... While mobility is an issue, it can be somewhat rectified by dropping your aoe on top of locations you know your group will be, such as on the generator during the sandstorm boss. It also helps me to keep my bubble on myself off cd to heal consumptions and to absorb damage when I have to stand still to finish a channel/cast.
Scovina Posted August 15, 2013 Posted August 15, 2013 (edited) I have healed on Sorc in end-game and discovered that in Cerka fps is where the weakness shines. There movement is a constant and the damage to player constant. The Sor c simply can't compete and it is strugle to heal requiring special strats to get by. Another problem is that healing gear is full of crit and I am prob going to have to change al my augments to power as a result. Personally I think special strategies is the point. I was a healer for 5 years as a shaman in wow myself and 2 with a paladin. There was never a time that I really felt challenged. This game has some of that. Yes I know we aren't the greatest at movement and healing but that is why a great healer shines. They find strategies that work despite the encounter set up to kill you and your team. Now I do not do a ton of healing but I do have to agree the gear thing is a bit wack. However you should be augmenting power anyway as it is the best stat behind willpower for I think every class (without counting accuracy we all know we need that). Maybe not all of them but most of them I know need it so I don't see why augmenting power should be a problem. I am bummed on more than one spec I play that alacrity and crit are so lackluster. I wish as a healer they were a bit more involved. Oh and I had to add yeah you aren't the only one thinking dark heal should be renamed dark suck! Edited August 15, 2013 by Scovina
kennethdale Posted August 15, 2013 Posted August 15, 2013 For reference, I played WoW for 6 years, 3 of which were in a top US guild and all of it as a healer. I have many high-end, US first (US guilds could never compete with the EU for World kills) boss kills under my belt on a Paladin, Priest, and Druid and I also spent time on a Shaman though no where near as long as the other 3. In SW:tOR I have healed on a Mercenary and a Sorcerer (I tried leveling an Operative but just did not like it). I think, on all counts, you are 100% wrong. The only true issue with Sorc healing at the moment comes down to resource management and the fact that in order to regenerate any significant amount of force you must have a proc, spend health, and waste a GCD. Your problem boils down entirely to gear. Crit/alacrity with 250 power?! That is terrible and its on par with a Resto Druid stacking crit - completely wasteful. 0 crit, 5% alacrity, the rest power/surge with Willpower augments. Plain and simple. Getting into things a bit more, you mention specific heals so lets talk about them: 1) Greater Heal/Heal: Until Discipline was revamped and made actually viable in 3.0 these were non-factors for a priest, after which the main heal (Penance, which you failed to note is EXACTLY what Innervate is) was augmented by using other heals including Prayer of Mending, Binding Heal, Divine Hymn, and primarily Greater Heal due to its mana efficiency per heal. 2) Flash of Light/Holy Light: Most people never reached Full Tier 6 in Burning Crusade and are thus under the impression that for a very long time Holy Light was effectively worthless when in all reality, after 4set T6 Flash of Light became mana inefficient and was replaced by Holy Light rank 9. This was again changed later when the mana costs of both skills were revamped to bring the costs more in line with Priest heals. 3) Healing Wave/Greater Healing Wave: Pre-3.0 these were rarely used by Shamans except in very occasional situations. After which, again Blizzard increased the mana efficiency of GHW and decreased the efficiency on HW to bring it in line with Priests. 4) Healing Touch: Due to the insane inefficiency of this heal, pre-3.0 it was simply not used. A Druid used HoTs and that was it. However in later patches more direct healing was added and glyphs were added to increase the mana efficiency of this heal in order to give Druids a more active role in direct healing. 4) Dark Heal/Dark Infusion: At launch these were actually flipped in their resource efficiency however, akin to how all the healing classes in WoW were given a large, mana efficient but slow heal and a small but fast, mana inefficient heal they got swapped. Even so, in terms of pure Healing Per Second (HPS) Dark Heal will heal for more than Dark Infusion, but it will also drain you force in 9-10 casts. My Sorc (he is an alt) in decently optimized 69 gear will heal for 6-7k non-crit with DI and 10-11K crit. I'm assuming you come from the later days of WoW when health pools were utterly ridiculous and heals were equally insane (for reference there was a bug in Black Temple which caused the ToL buff to increase healing by 600% instead of 6% and I remember hitting a 70k FoL thinking that was crazy...until I saw a legit 70k heal) and insanely easy to play. Healing on a Sorc (or any class for that matter) requires a balance of knowing how much to heal and how much to simply wait out so you can use a much more efficient heal. For example, from what you say it sounds like you are probably not using Resurgence correctly (either in terms of who you are casting it on or how you are consuming the buff) - Since the HoT is longer than its CD you need to be rotating it onto many players including the tanks and yourself. You should never chain cast any one heal unless it is specifically necessary (EG: Jugg tank during the Thermal in Xeno HM) and instead should be using Force Bending to increase the resource efficiency of Dark Infusion when a large burst heal is needed and Innervate pretty much every other time. You should also never, save for specific situations, be using more than 1 or 2 stacks of Force Surge for Consumption at any single time. Ideally, these should be reserved primarily for burst phases or to shorten the cast time of Revivification (except that you should at most ever use 2 stacks unless necessary to cast it and move since doing otherwise will burn a GCD for no reason whereas consuming only 2 stacks will cast completely in a GCD leaving you 1 stack to use for Consumption). As for Static Barrier, I think it is EXACTLY as good as Priest Bubble. It absorbs 6-8k damage at a small cost and on yourself, heals you. I have never had problems on my Sorc healing on the move simply because you should not be maintaining a constant bubble on your tank but rather using it to pre-empt burst in conjunction with Resurgence to allow you the time to move into better position where you can then follow it with a Dark Infusion or Innervate depending on CDs and how much is needed. Overall, I think it is very clear that this is simply a L2P issue, and worse one that seemingly stretches back into WoW because based on your simplistic comparisons its clear you were not very good at healing in that game. I recommend reading up and trying to get better before you complain again.
Godly_CzL Posted August 19, 2013 Posted August 19, 2013 OP I'll try to be nice. it is clear that you have no idea how to handle your character. It is clear that you have no idea how to gear your character. Your description of the different heals and the situations where they are "horrible" only highlights your ignorance of healing in general. I don't have the willpower or energy to correct your plethora of errors, just know that you are wrong in almost everything you said.
Tazmynn Posted August 20, 2013 Posted August 20, 2013 First off dark infusion is a pretty good heal, it heals for a big chunk of health. Second: Resurgence may be weak, but the important part of it is that it procs Force Bending, improving your next heal by a lot. Third: in PvE we have great resource management. All we have to do is get 3 force surge from innervate then 3 consumption and unnatural preservation and we're back to full health with a lot more force.
RevanKun Posted August 20, 2013 Posted August 20, 2013 I only PvP on my sorc heals and I find the limited mobility can be rectified with los. Resurgence procs are crucial for the aoe heal (forget the name). Polarity shift helps everything and using the pull is an underused ability outside of huttball. Static barrier will keep you competitive with op healers in wzs and will stretch the survivability of teammates, especially with 2 heals in a group. Force speed, force slow, knock back and positioning are crucial. In so far as fps, I've never had a problem.
lironBD Posted August 20, 2013 Posted August 20, 2013 except nightmare TFB \ S&V I healed with sorcerer on all content in the game. doable and easy.
dscount Posted August 22, 2013 Posted August 22, 2013 except nightmare TFB \ S&V I healed with sorcerer on all content in the game. doable and easy. This totally. I agree that HM Content is "workable", but once you hit NiM content we have issues with Healing, force management and keeping ourselves alive. Partially a L2P issue I agree, but we have a big disconnect between other healers in some of the highest end content for healing. Some minor tweaks in Regen and burst heals (Tank healing) and we might be in a better place.
Godly_CzL Posted August 23, 2013 Posted August 23, 2013 I also agree SM/HM is very easy for healing in general. When you consider NiM content you have to first make sure you are properly geared. I haven't cleared all the content yet but healing has only been an issue on Thrasher, Kephas is also difficult but in a challenging and fun way. If you are struggling to heal the early bosses this is either a gear issue or a L2P situation. As a Sorc it is 100% necessary to optimize your gear in 72's before moving on to NiM. Not fully, but the standard 72 drops with crit will get you no where fast.
dscount Posted August 23, 2013 Posted August 23, 2013 (edited) Totally agree with Godly_CzL on getting your 72 Min/Max done before walking into Heal any NiM content. (SORC's especially - worst case at least have your Main/Off 72's if you don't want to listen) Our team has downed 16man NiM DW and that is a great Heal/DPS check. Dropping down to an 8 man and you are like "is this HM?" compared between the two. DASH and Titan are more Mechanix based, but can be healing intense (Depending on RNG of Lost and Grenade on Healers). REGEN is still the big issue. We need that buff BUG fixed and maybe a tweak. We have 500 pool, but no CD like Merc/OP healers to instantly provide 50% back to us. (Consumption could, but you trade HP) Edited August 23, 2013 by dscount
Godly_CzL Posted August 23, 2013 Posted August 23, 2013 I think its a tactic change to compensate. That 50% instant regen can only happen every 2 minutes right. now i have never played an OP or Merc healer but heres' my thoughts: If we can regen every 20-30 seconds as a part of our rotation (which it should be) wouldn't that put us on a "relatively" equal playing field? Especially considering that we can consume 2 charges or more if we have to. And have a HoT that also protects us from incoming damage in our shield.
dscount Posted August 23, 2013 Posted August 23, 2013 Good point Godly, but it still costs us to REGEN in that manner. Yes slapping a HoT on ourselves works and we get positive force regen after all that, but it's a Band-Aid. Why are we even in this model is mind blowing to me. Requiring healers to kill themselves (Yes I've fundamental problem with this approach). While it's the way BW had decided to go and that's just life, we at least need to keep it on even playing field. OP's can regen energy with one healing tool (Granted its a little weak), but Merc's can also do free heals with rapid shots. WE... don't have that. (Force Slam doesn't count as Merc's have a free healing KB of those as well and I think they have 360 even) Other classes have a "Free" button they click and it's all good and they continue. At the same time during healing intense fights (NiM Titan 6 BURN Phase for example) - You just can't tap into your health w/o dying and that doesn't exactly help the team. Give us an increase in REGEN or an "Oh ****" give me force back button that doesn't kill me in the process. HECK give me an ADRENO that does that even. I'll pop that during final phase right next to the other Adreno.
Godly_CzL Posted August 23, 2013 Posted August 23, 2013 adrenal with that type of effect. I like the thinking outside the box there. I think we can agree to agree that a change would be useful if done correctly. 1-2% less health taken per consumption, or 1-2% more force given by consumption. But Nothing to drastic. I personally take a good bit of pride in my ability to manage my Sorc's health and force while still putting out good healing numbers and performing all other duties a healer has. People seemed to look down on Sorc healing in 2.0 because a "decent" OP/Merc healer will still do fine in SM/HM. Where a not so good Sorc healer can easily wipe a raid. There are not a whole lot of people who can play Sorc healing well, but those of us that can bring very useful tools to the table from a healing perspective.
Gren-Aluren Posted August 23, 2013 Posted August 23, 2013 Learn to play. They are the best PvE healer just a lot harder to master compared to the other healing classes.
Radikan Posted August 28, 2013 Posted August 28, 2013 If you are aug power for any other class then a mara you are doing it wrong.
KevMeup Posted August 28, 2013 Posted August 28, 2013 This game is not WOW. If you want to play WOW, go play WOW. Consider Healing and Tanking to be advanced classes in SWTOR. They are made to be challenging and require skill. I'm sure if you stop mentioning WOW in your posts you could get plenty of people to give you tips or help you play it better. Sorc and Operative are the best heal classes, Merc if well played can do just fine in Ops but I would consider it painful. Sorc is the easiest of the 3.
KeyboardNinja Posted August 30, 2013 Posted August 30, 2013 (edited) This totally. I agree that HM Content is "workable", but once you hit NiM content we have issues with Healing, force management and keeping ourselves alive. Strange that other sage/sorcs don't seem to have this problem. Nearly all of the nightmare clears have included a sorc/sage healer, generally paired with an op, but sometimes a merc. My own raid group uses a sage/scoundrel pair, and it works fantastically well. We've also had success with commando/scoundrel, but the sage more than holds his own (even on movement- and burst-heavy fights) and definitely deserves his spot. We actually have a sage healer in guild who has successfully healed Nightmare Dread Guard multiple times in 69 gear without the 4pc set bonus. Edited August 30, 2013 by KeyboardNinja
thecoffeecup Posted September 18, 2013 Posted September 18, 2013 4) Healing Touch: Due to the insane inefficiency of this heal, pre-3.0 it was simply not used. A Druid used HoTs and that was it. However in later patches more direct healing was added and glyphs were added to increase the mana efficiency of this heal in order to give Druids a more active role in direct healing. Small correction: Healing Touch was used but only as an emergency heal. I think most of us had our NS+HT macro for that purpose. Regrowth was both direct heal and a HoT and was also used (I often had to use this for tank healing). Finally, Swiftmend was an instant direct heal you could use on HoTed targets. Still, the vast majority of healing came from HoTs. When you overgeared things, you could often heal just by lazily throwing your HoTs around while your mind was elsewhere.
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