Healing in Swtor

[Blakjezus]

Hello all

I've decided to pick up swtor and have a few questions about healing classes.

first question is if any of the heals are miles ahead of the others or if its pretty balanced.

my favorite wow healer is resto shaman . is there anything similar?

i'm also kinda leaning towards republic . if that makes a difference lol

[Kelimbror]

No difference...classes are mirrors...so play what you will. There's really no healer close to a shaman. There's kinda the equivalent of a Druid and a Pally/Priest...that's about it. No totem like devices and whatnot.

[Blakjezus]

what healing class would you say has the most utility

[Potato Bus]

Check out this (OLD) thread:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...of-the-Healers

^^Note that some of this info is out-dated (Resurgence does not decrease the casting time of Dark Infusion anymore, but instead reduces its resource cost, and Consumption takes a % of your HP regardless (but there was a self-castable instant heal with a 30 sec CD added some time near 1.2)

I play a sorc (sage for republic), and I really enjoy the healing spec. You get a Riptide-like heal (Resurgence) and the best AoE heal in the game. I leveled an Operative (Smuggler for republic) to about 40, and while the healing isn't that bad, I'm just not a fan of the class in general (the dps specs vs sorc dps specs). Have yet to start a Mercenary so I don't have much to add there...

[Blakjezus]

Thanks a bunch

[Gereorth666]

Commando/Mercenary is a very interesting choise for healing. I'd say those are easy and effective.

[Deleted]

Sage/Sorcerer is the closest you get the classical priest in other mmo. You resource is Force which is very close to mana.
You get shield, ground aoe healing. Fast heal, slow heal. The basics stuff. You can convert health into force, similar to how Life Tap work for warlocks.

Operative/Smuggler uses energy to heal. Energy that works similar to the rogue. The regen is based on how much energy you have. High energy, faster regen. You have a free (but weak)heal, similar on the monk healing ability, that you try to mix into your other heals to not drop too low on energy. You basic heals are hot, aoe hot, instant heal, fast and slow heal. An operative uses something called Tactical Advantage, which is a buff that stacks up to 3 times. You use these stacks on certain heals(aoe, instant heals, fast heal).You gain these stacks from your main healing ability, and chance on hots.
I guess Operative is like a druid that uses energy instead of mana.

Commando/Mercenary healing is quite similar to operative. You use heat/ammo to heal, which works like energy. Heat builds up, so you want to stay at low heal as merc. Ammo goes the other way, and goes down, so you want to stay at high ammo to have decent regen as Commando. Your "white shots" gets turned into a free weak healing ability, and you get to shoot heals at your allies.
You get basic healing abilites, although their aoe heal is rather weak in my opinion.

[Potato Bus]

Merc also gets a healing shield ala Earth Shield, no?

And the Tactical Advantage for Operatives is kind of like Holy Power for Pallies in WoW. This all just reminded me how I like the resource mechanics for TOR healers compared to WoW pre-MoP (before mana was normalized and it was all "o hey, stack moar int!!")

[Gereorth666]

Your "white shots" gets turned into a free weak healing ability, and you get to shoot heals at your allies.
You get basic healing abilites, although their aoe heal is rather weak in my opinion.

I'd say Mercenaries and Commando's are better at "moved-healing". Those "white shots" are needed to built up your Gas Cylinders (also fills with your slow heal). When used it increases all your healing done removes/adds a little bit off heat/ammo and doesn't have a CD anymore on your fast heal. Oh! And your fast heal always applies a HoT.
For the AOE heal, it's pretty useful. Not realy as the AOE healing itself, for that it's decent. The CD is not too high and increases all healing recieved on the targets affected by the AOE heal. And when the Gas Cylinders are activated at 30 stacks it also gives a damage reduction. So, the actual healing isn't that great. But it's a very useful ability (and actualy better than the Operative/Scoundrel AOE heal in my opinion, as you have to be close for people to be affected by it).
I think you have to "try" them all to to see what you prefer after all. Or what class overall takes your intereset.

---------- Post added 2013-03-14 at 10:40 PM ----------

Merc also gets a healing shield ala Earth Shield, no?

And they do, yes. Except that Kolto Shell doesn't give extra armor or something. Just a 'shield' that heals on damage taken.

[Orderken]

Any healing class is viable for PVE or PVP. That said, Sorcerer|Sage can usually achieve the most healing done. First, Sorcerer|Sage has the largest resource pool relative to ability cost on which to draw for burst-healing situations. Second, Sorcerer|Sage has the most powerful AOE heal. If you'll primarily PVP, however, Operative|Scoundrel is certainly the way to go. Without a doubt the most mobile and challenging to kill in 2.0. It's nearly impossible to kill a good Operative|Scoundrel healer without timing a stun so that he can be killed while stunned. A Sorcerer|Sage may usually edge out an Operative|Scoundrel for total healing done in a warzone, but you'll never match the utility of stealth or a spamable roll or the damage taken per death of an Operative|Scoundrel of comparable skill.

[Deleted]

ive played sorc and operative in the nightmare and hardmode ops, both have positives and negatives

the sorc can pretty much put out a constant blanket heal, with the most powerful aoe in the game, shields etc
problem is that there big heal is long cast and will hit for less than the other two even if you crit and are stacked power
so "panic" moments can be difficult to get through, really have to make great use of the shield and the aoe

operative is the most mobile and fluent healer, if your rotations are good you can almost constantly spam you big heal, which can crit for about 11-15k, possibly the strongest big heal in game is your stats are right, everytime you cast the big heal you can use the free heal, so if you cast big then use the free heal, you have virtual not used any energy, so you can spam this, whilst keeping dots rolling. they can also cast the free heal over and over on a target with less than 30% health, making then amazing at saving people, main weakness is there aoe which you place on someone and it heals only 4 people who are near that target,

i havent played merc/commando so i cant comment, but the two heal classes i played at endgame pve, both were viable and easy to learn/ make work with any group set up, Operative can be awkward at first but once you get how it works it just becomes awesome, throwing out big heals constantly. If you are a new player looking to raid, then i would suggest sorc because its as slightly easier to play, but there will be alot of competition on gear as loads of people play sorc dps, when i play my operative it isnt uncommon to be the only person who uses cunning in the operation

good luck

[Psychlon]

ive played sorc and operative in the nightmare and hardmode ops, both have positives and negatives

the sorc can pretty much put out a constant blanket heal, with the most powerful aoe in the game, shields etc
problem is that there big heal is long cast and will hit for less than the other two even if you crit and are stacked power
so "panic" moments can be difficult to get through, really have to make great use of the shield and the aoe

operative is the most mobile and fluent healer, if your rotations are good you can almost constantly spam you big heal, which can crit for about 11-15k, possibly the strongest big heal in game is your stats are right, everytime you cast the big heal you can use the free heal, so if you cast big then use the free heal, you have virtual not used any energy, so you can spam this, whilst keeping dots rolling. they can also cast the free heal over and over on a target with less than 30% health, making then amazing at saving people, main weakness is there aoe which you place on someone and it heals only 4 people who are near that target,

i havent played merc/commando so i cant comment, but the two heal classes i played at endgame pve, both were viable and easy to learn/ make work with any group set up, Operative can be awkward at first but once you get how it works it just becomes awesome, throwing out big heals constantly. If you are a new player looking to raid, then i would suggest sorc because its as slightly easier to play, but there will be alot of competition on gear as loads of people play sorc dps, when i play my operative it isnt uncommon to be the only person who uses cunning in the operation

good luck

I played my lvl 50 operative yesterday for the first time after..... some months and I found a single dps sorc which was doing the Heroic quest for the Gree event and I threw him a heal while he was attempting to take on the champion roboter. We ended up doing the event together, I never ran out of "energy" and just kept throwing heals at him. I feel the only downside to this class would be large group heals as your own group heal is gimped to 4 people, which is ok for flashpoints but lacking in raids.