Boardwalker Posted May 14, 2015 Share Posted May 14, 2015 I just started playing SWTOR yesterday, and I'm wondering if it's possible to play a pure healer and be a viable group mate. I'm not really interested in dps'ing or being a hybrid dps'er/healer, so any advice is appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ialuddington Posted May 14, 2015 Share Posted May 14, 2015 (edited) I just started playing SWTOR yesterday, and I'm wondering if it's possible to play a pure healer and be a viable group mate. I'm not really interested in dps'ing or being a hybrid dps'er/healer, so any advice is appreciated. Yeah for sure, for Jedi's you can roll a Seer Sage and be pure healer. My main character has that spec, it works very well and is fun to play. Not sure about all the other classes though. Healers are very valuable to groups as they keep everyone alive. Oftentimes groups wait for awhile just to get a healer in their group I find! Edited May 14, 2015 by ialuddington Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nafu Posted May 14, 2015 Share Posted May 14, 2015 I just started playing SWTOR yesterday, and I'm wondering if it's possible to play a pure healer and be a viable group mate. I'm not really interested in dps'ing or being a hybrid dps'er/healer, so any advice is appreciated. You can play as a pure healer of course. You can even do your quests as a healer with help of your companions. Healers are always needed like in all other MMO's. So feel free to play as one. If you have any questions about your class, you can first read appropriate class guides in Dulfy.net I am sure they will clear everything for you classwise. You can look at Healer Empire and Healer Republic sections on the upper 3.0 Class Guides menu in that website. Hope this helps for starters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boardwalker Posted May 14, 2015 Author Share Posted May 14, 2015 Great advice, thanks to both of you. I'll definitely check out Dulfy.net. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phalczen Posted May 14, 2015 Share Posted May 14, 2015 I will give you this piece of advice though. Some operations, or even just world bosses, are so tuned that they more or less assume that even a group's healers are contributing to the overall raid dps. Its certainly not a huge contribution, but in cases where the so-called "dps check" is very high or very tight, taking the second to apply your instant, low resource cost DoT and keep it active, or using your damage abilities during "burn" phases, can always help the group. In the end, its more important that you defeated the boss than you let one of your comrades become incapacitated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nafu Posted May 15, 2015 Share Posted May 15, 2015 I will give you this piece of advice though. Some operations, or even just world bosses, are so tuned that they more or less assume that even a group's healers are contributing to the overall raid dps. Its certainly not a huge contribution, but in cases where the so-called "dps check" is very high or very tight, taking the second to apply your instant, low resource cost DoT and keep it active, or using your damage abilities during "burn" phases, can always help the group. In the end, its more important that you defeated the boss than you let one of your comrades become incapacitated. I don't think healers should do anything other than their job. They don't need to contribute to dps. Fights are already hard on them while purely doing their job. If your group's overall dps is low enough to rely on even healers then you should definetely check your group's DPS efficiency, change or improve your dpsers instead of pushing healers more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Methoxa Posted May 15, 2015 Share Posted May 15, 2015 I don't think healers should do anything other than their job. They don't need to contribute to dps. Fights are already hard on them while purely doing their job. If your group's overall dps is low enough to rely on even healers then you should definetely check your group's DPS efficiency, change or improve your dpsers instead of pushing healers more. So progression teams have bad overall dps Good Healers contribute dps in phases where current healing is sufficent. There is no need in healing a raid that is already at 100% and there is no reson to sit around idly to wait till someone falls underneath 100%. This however was only needed in NM content and is needed in current HM content. But for SM content or flashpoints and other stuff only healing is viable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psandak Posted May 15, 2015 Share Posted May 15, 2015 (edited) So progression teams have bad overall dps Good Healers contribute dps in phases where current healing is sufficent. There is no need in healing a raid that is already at 100% and there is no reson to sit around idly to wait till someone falls underneath 100%. This however was only needed in NM content and is needed in current HM content. But for SM content or flashpoints and other stuff only healing is viable. Just to get specific: There are fights where sites like Dulfy actually state that healers SHOULD contribute as much DPS as they can spare in certain stages (HM Walkers is one such example). Edited May 15, 2015 by psandak Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mithros Posted May 15, 2015 Share Posted May 15, 2015 (edited) I don't think that there is such a thing as a "pure" anything. Tanks deal damage, some DPSers can off-heal, healers can throw out some damage now and then, and both DPSers and healers have, at minimum, some HPs to soak up a little damage. Watching the DPSers health bar fall to zero may not be tanking by the book, but if the enemy is hitting them then they aren't hitting you, so the net effect is the same. Some fights the healers will be expected to heal, heal, and heal. It may be taxing enough for them to try and keep the team up and running. Other fights, though? Might be time to throw a little damage down range. Especially if you are running solo with a companion. It's your time, but you might want to give your companion some help to speed things along. Edited May 15, 2015 by Mithros Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gonalius Posted May 15, 2015 Share Posted May 15, 2015 My only experience as a healer is in Flashpoints whilst levelling, and I've got to say, I do stay almost pure-healer throughout those, as experience tells me that as soon as I attack anything someone's health will drop dramatically, and I'll be scurrying to keep up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JediQuaker Posted May 15, 2015 Share Posted May 15, 2015 (edited) I just started playing SWTOR yesterday, and I'm wondering if it's possible to play a pure healer and be a viable group mate. This sounds as though you may have just come from GW2 where things are not so defined. SWTOR uses the classic "trinity" of Tank, Healer, DPS. In most cases the healer is expected to just concentrate on healing, but there are places such as Tactical Flaspoints where you can, and probably should, do some damage. Also, you may find that, while (solo) leveling, you'll want to do DPS because it's easier to work with your companion that way. However, you can still be configured and spec'd for healing. Once you get to end-game and are into high-level FPs and OPs, a group will expect pure healing. Edited May 15, 2015 by JediQuaker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nafu Posted May 15, 2015 Share Posted May 15, 2015 So progression teams have bad overall dps Good Healers contribute dps in phases where current healing is sufficent. There is no need in healing a raid that is already at 100% and there is no reson to sit around idly to wait till someone falls underneath 100%. This however was only needed in NM content and is needed in current HM content. But for SM content or flashpoints and other stuff only healing is viable. Yeah, a progression team has a bad overall dps and a bad leader if it relies on healers to do dps too. Your comments may only be appliable for farming teams which have already finished operation contents, not for progressing teams. There is no sitting and waiting idly in no operations for healers. Almost always someone gets damage. Even if not I wouldn't suggest healers to contribute dps at all to save their resources for damage spikes. But obviously you want to see your dpsers sit and wait idly while pushing healers. Typical. Do little thing and blame healers and tanks after all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halinalle Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 (edited) Yeah, a progression team has a bad overall dps and a bad leader if it relies on healers to do dps too. Your comments may only be appliable for farming teams which have already finished operation contents, not for progressing teams. There is no sitting and waiting idly in no operations for healers. Almost always someone gets damage. Even if not I wouldn't suggest healers to contribute dps at all to save their resources for damage spikes. But obviously you want to see your dpsers sit and wait idly while pushing healers. Typical. Do little thing and blame healers and tanks after all. So you rather stand there idle while waiting someone to take damage enough to get healed? Good healer knows when is good time to dps. When you do same content many times you learn when healing is required and when you can throw few damage abilities like Force Lightning, Backstab, Unload, etc. But you have to remember that healing is still your highest priority. DoTs and channeled abilities like Force Lightning are perfect for this. Even if it's only 20k total damage dealt during boss fight it's still damage dealt to boss. When you level your character you get used to refresh your instant DoT so it's kinda difficult to get rid of that habit later. Edited May 17, 2015 by Halinalle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobs_YourUncle Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 I leveled an operative healer all the way through. Once you get a companion,especially a tank, always send them in first and keep their health up. If they are full do dps and keep an eye on their health. By the time you do your first real fp, you'll be comfortable dosing as you can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sidicous Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Be sure to find a regular group to run with. It seems to me most play the game as dps and just want to RUN through to get the shiny at the end. Turns into a real job for healer, literally a job, not any fun. It's why I stopped running FP's at all as healer (I will enter as dps and assist heal if needed). As always 2 specs get all the blame, tank and healer, alas only 1 takes the blame for fails, the healer. And it's usually being blamed by and for the stupidity of the dps that will simply not take the time to compose a strategy (they have their max dps rotation and ain't breaking that ever /facepalm). So, good luck. Pure healer is viable, can be fun, can be rewarding. Just feel free to bail without notice on the ******s, they won't fail to rag on you without notice after all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nafu Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 So you rather stand there idle while waiting someone to take damage enough to get healed? Well, who said anything like this? You are making up your story and reacting to it In contrary I said "There is no sitting and waiting idly in no operations for healers." Maybe you should actually read before writing. None of our healers in my guild are contributing DPS in our guild. Everyone doing their job perfectly. So we have no problems about progression at all. No one dies, no bosses remain unkilled. We can do just great. Do I have to believe otherwise? This is my opinion and it has been tested since very first operation in this game. You may not believe it, you may disagree with it and do things differently but healers can be played purely in this game which was the original question of OP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CloudCastle Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Being a pure healer in a group shouldn't be a problem, since that's what most people expect you to do. Just make sure you check the "healing" box as your spec when you enter group finder to lock you into that role. You can solo as a healer too, and while it's a bit slower, it's good practice. In this case, your companion becomes your weapon, essentially, and you should gear them as such. I leveled my operative as a healer, used Vector (melee DPS) and made sure to keep him as highly geared as a could, especially his main hand. Throw any buffs or initial HOT's on your comp, send them in, and heal away. For groups of trash mobs though, you might find it more efficient to do some DPS yourself too once in a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tharbison Posted May 18, 2015 Share Posted May 18, 2015 Pure healer is totally viable! And fun. Be prepared to tank as a healer too When grouped with inexperienced tanks, or dps who don't follow the kill order, healers can quickly find themselves swarmed with mobs in big pulls. That part is fun, and can add additional challenge and flavor to the healing role. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlixMV Posted May 18, 2015 Share Posted May 18, 2015 (edited) I don't think....~snip~ Thank you for at least suggesting up front that this is your opinion, and not the truth you later go on to preach. Every raid team is different, and not all raid teams are so l33t as to ask people to leave if the collective DPS isn't up to your pure standards. To the OP: Once you get to end game, you can definitely go 'pure healer', but, in the off chance you do make your way into progression content, you might be asked to throw some DPS in, even if it's just an insta-cast DOT, if you have any spare cycles. Progression content is a team sport, and you do what you need to for the team. Edited May 18, 2015 by AlixMV Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nafu Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 (edited) Thank you for at least suggesting up front that this is your opinion ~ blah blah blah ~ Another troll trying to pop up a message that was already answered several times. Yeah, yeah your ops group is different blah blah blah whatever... Edited May 19, 2015 by nafu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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