[Guide] Mercenary Healing

[Crookers]

Best thing about this is that stat prio for an arsenal merc is:

Aim>Accuracy (to 108% I think)>Power> Crit>Surge

Remove accuracy and it's teh same for a bodyguard healer, means all i need to do is swap any +acc mods for +power/crit mods when I respec and I can use one set of gear (until i start collecting tier sets). All this respeccing and mod shuffling will get expensive though

[Chob]

Aim is ofcourse the highest prio for any merc, since it's the primary stat. The secondary stats is where it gets interesting. But you're technically right since heat management is just as much a problem for dps as it is for healers.. you want to focus on increasing the size of your hits, not the frequency.

[torftw]

Great guide, thanks.

To add to the stat discussion I use this, http://sithwarrior.com/forums/Thread-SWTOR-formula-list, website to theorycraft stats priorities. Which means that crit, surge and haste (and crit from aim) do not scale linearly. Might want to change that part of your OP that says aim adds a linear amount of crit. But power is linear so you can stack it forever.
So it looks like our priority would be something like what you all have posted, with an emphasis on balancing the numbers. Stacking crit or surge is actually counterproductive since you get less benefit the more you stack.

[Chob]

Thanks for the link I will definitely incorporate that into the guide this weekend!

[Hibbo]

My Goals are:

300 Crit
200 Surge (this are the points where DR will start to factor in really hard)

and after that i try to get a mix of Power/Alacrity

[leetsushi]

<< feels like his 477 crit seems a bit excessive now
It stills feels like, even at 42% crit unbuffed, that the scaling doesn't seem to be that bad.
I still think it'd be best to reach 50% crit buffed, and then start stacking power.

[philefluxx]

Very nice. I plan to start collecting gear for healing and giving it a shot. Looks like a lot of fun.

[Calypsà]

For heavy Single Target healing:

Super Charged Gas | Healing Scan > Rapid Scan > Healing Scan > Rapid Scan > Healing Scan > Rapid Scan

The reason you don't spam healing scan is because rapid scan does about 40% more healing that Healing scan. Rotating the two will give cost you
16 heat > 9 heat > 16 heat > 9 heat >16 heat > 9 heat and will heal for 1900 > 2600 > 1900 > 2600 > 1900 > 2600

This will be a total heat cost of 75 and healing (assuming no crits) of 13500 which would be an efficiency of 180 HP/H

The way you had it costs 96 heat and only does 11400 healing assuming no crits which would be an efficiency of 118 HP/H

16 heat > 16 heat > 16 heat > 16 heat > 16 heat > 16 heat and would heal for 1900 > 1900 > 1900 > 1900 > 1900 > 1900

I thought I would add some insight into this. You need to look at the Effective Heat Cost, which factors in the current venting rate.

For a casted ability, the EHC = Cost - (Activation Time * CVR).
For a instant ability, the EHC = Cost - (1.5*CVR)

Let's assume you start at 0 heat and without the 2 pc bonus,

First HS -> (16 - (1.5*5)) = +8.5 heat
Second HS +8.5 -> Total = 17.
Third +8.5 -> Total = 25.5
Fourth +8.5 -> Total = 34
Fifth +8.5 -> Total = 42.5 At this point your CVR drops from 5 to 3 heat per second.
Sixth (16 - (1.5*3)) = +11.5 -> Total = 54. This totals to 9 seconds giving you one last Healing Scan till it goes back on cooldown without the 2 piece.
Seventh -> +11.5 Total = 65.5 heat Assuming you healed for exactly 1900 each time, your total heals would be 13300.

13300/65.5 = 203.05 HP/H

With the 2 pc bonus you get 9 HS instead of 7.

Eighth +11.5 -> Total = 77
Ninth +11.5 -> Total = 88.5 Assuming you healed for exactly 1900 each time, your total heals would be 17100.

17100/88.5 = 193.22 HP/H

Now if you followed a HS>RS>HS>RS>HS>RS rotation, assuming you start at 0 heat without the 2 pc bonus,

First HS +8.5 -> Total = 8.5
First RS ((25-16) - (2.0*5)) = -1 -> Total = 7.5
Second HS +8.5 -> Total = 16
Second RS -1 -> Total = 15
Third HS +8.5 -> Total = 23.5
Third RS -1 -> Total = 22.5

Your final total would be 22.5 Heat, and 13500 Healing.

13500/22.5 = 600 HP/H

If you had the 2 pc bonus you would be able to get one additional HS and one additional RS

Fourth HS +8.5 -> Total = 31
Fourth RS -1 -> Total = 30

Your final total would be 30 Heat and 18000 Healing.

18000/30 = 600 HP/H

[target563]

I feel like I just read an elitist jerks thread... Good info in here, can we get it stickied?
Thanks for keeping it updated Chob

[devidoll]

I feel like I just read an elitist jerks thread... Good info in here, can we get it stickied?
Thanks for keeping it updated Chob

It is stickied via the "guides" sticky.


Thanks for posting this math Calypsa. I have it in excel and wanted to dumb it down a bit because a lot of healers make the mistake of thinking that spamming HS just because you can is a good idea. Almost every guide I've read advises this and they shouldn't because it's bad. Heat dissapation is an amazing mechanic and I love my bounty hunter because of it. It allowed my inner math nerd to get excited at figuring all this stuff out.

[Arch3lau5]

When you get into stats: Alacrity is going to be huge for us, as it affects our heat dissipation as well as cast times.

I've wondered for a while why there seems to be so much (about 250 alacrity on the rakata gear set) alacrity on BH gear. Is there any truth to it affect heat dissipation? I have never heard this before and have not been able to find anything to back this up.