swtor healers

Dcully

So ive always had a healer as my main in mmos,its like a drug :P
My limited experience with the beta [total of about 5 hours last weekend] didnt teach me much about whats on offer for us healer types.
I did manage to get my bounty hunter to lvl 13 but didnt get far enough to get see the dual pistols shooting out green heals,i saw a video of it briefly and it looked great.
Im just wondering what sort of healers are on offer and what sort of mechanics are in place?
Ive searched healer videos on youtube and its very hit and miss,im keen to see some of the healers in action, it may sound silly but to me choosing a healer has a lot to do with how the animations and spells/skills actually look.
Any knowledgeable folks willing to educate the uneducated ? :P or point to some videos or text info.

ZeitgeistGlee

Haven't played one myself yet, usually play tanks, but I know the Trooper-Commando has the Combat Medic tree, Consular-Sage has the Seer tree, and the Smuggler-Scoundrel has the Sawbones tree all of which are healing.

Shidosha

I got an Imperial Agent (would be Smuggler on Republic side) up to 19 in the Operative healer spec, it was a lot of fun. It's mostly a melee-based healer, which I found a breath of fresh air. You spend a lot of your time behind the enemy stabbing them in the back, which gives you a "Tactical Advantage" - you can then blow the Tactical Advantage to use special abilities such as a short-term buff that increases your energy regeneration (pretty much essential to keep this buff up so you can keep healing) and to pop off faster, more powerful heals than your standard one. I assume more stuff comes online later on too.

You put out pretty decent DPS between heals too, since the Operative has some vicious backstabbing skills and has a decent damage-over-time option too.

In terms of animations, the Operative shoots people with drug-filled darts, scans them with a tricorder thingie and sends probes out to spray healing gas at people (the probes in particular look very cool). I also really enjoyed the animation and sound effects of the melee attacks, all very meaty and vicious.

Blowfish

From what I've read, though they don't match anywhere near perfectly, the closest WoW healer equivalents would be:

Imperial Agent/Smuggler - Resto Druid largely, though has some high cost spammable stuff for burn phases.
Consular/Inquisitor - Lots of tools, similar to Holy/Disc Priest.
Trooper/Bounty Hunter - Holy Paladin with a bit of Disc.

I haven't played nearly enough to confirm that though.

The other thing to take into consideration though is that apparently the UI really isn't all that great for healing at the minute. It's missing stuff like showing incoming heals, mouseover healing, highlighting removable buffs, no scalability etc.

ZeitgeistGlee

As far as I know you will be able to edit the UI at launch, quite a bit of stuff has been disabled for the last few betas. Definitely agree with the need for mouse over healing and and the other stuff.

Dcully

Thanks guys, food for thought for sure.

red_ice

Blowfish wrote: »

Imperial Agent/Smuggler - Resto Druid largely, though has some high cost spammable stuff for burn phases.
Consular/Inquisitor - Lots of tools, similar to Holy/Disc Priest.
Trooper/Bounty Hunter - Holy Paladin with a bit of Disc.

Thats exactly what i was hoping to see. I played my priest to death as shadow and in my final throws switched to disco before i cancled my sub. My main was feral and resto for pve, but i didnt find the imperial agent to be that interesting to level.

The inquisitor however is really where its at for me. Still think that im going to have to level him as DPS tho. I really need to see some good videos explaining what the 2 DPS tree's are all about because i really am lost with what to do when i hit level 10.

Dermighty

ZeitgeistGlee

I wonder when that poll was taken. Traditionally the Empire and its classes have been dominant over the Republic ones and the Sith Inquisitor at one point had over 40% votes as main class.

TheDoc

It seems to healing classes are lost on most people.

Did a flashpoint last night where the Jedi Sage, a healer, was more interested using his lightsabre then healing me.

Ran into a Inquisitor who was healing ( dont know advanced class name) and he was literally making his team win the Warzone.

Next game got into a match where we had a smuggler healing ( I think) and he was keeping me up while I was bossing imperial scum.

Makes a world of difference, if you roll a healing class, dont be worrying about hitting stuff, make sure you heal first?!?!

Blowfish

TheDoc wrote: »

It seems to healing classes are lost on most people.

Did a flashpoint last night where the Jedi Sage, a healer, was more interested using his lightsabre then healing me.

Ran into a Inquisitor who was healing ( dont know advanced class name) and he was literally making his team win the Warzone.

Next game got into a match where we had a smuggler healing ( I think) and he was keeping me up while I was bossing imperial scum.

Makes a world of difference, if you roll a healing class, dont be worrying about hitting stuff, make sure you heal first?!?!

The first few flashpoints are deliberately made relatively easy so you don't actually need a defined healer or tank. Later on though, you naturally will.

red_ice

TheDoc wrote: »

Ran into a Inquisitor who was healing ( dont know advanced class name) and he was literally making his team win the Warzone.

Its amazing how retarded most people are in a BG tho. If you have 1/2 people on wsg in the middle fighting randoms it can ruin the whole game for everyone.

Im going inquisitor for the soul fact that its been coupled with a disco priest for heals. Im going to pvp the pants out of this chap.

jeawan

TheDoc wrote: »

It seems to healing classes are lost on most people.

Did a flashpoint last night where the Jedi Sage, a healer, was more interested using his lightsabre then healing me.

Ran into a Inquisitor who was healing ( dont know advanced class name) and he was literally making his team win the Warzone.

Next game got into a match where we had a smuggler healing ( I think) and he was keeping me up while I was bossing imperial scum.

Makes a world of difference, if you roll a healing class, dont be worrying about hitting stuff, make sure you heal first?!?!

the same can be said for protecting the healer though the amount of time i have seen healer getting ganked and not getting protected really annoys me always protect ya healer if you a tank/dps it does work both way

red_ice

jeawan wrote: »

the same can be said for protecting the healer though the amount of time i have seen healer getting ganked and not getting protected really annoys me always protect ya healer if you a tank/dps it does work both way

bind a key to /yell GET AGGRO OFF ME!

If the group you're with doesnt help, dont heal em, try another group. In BG's you are a complete fool if you dont protect the healer as they are without a doubt the backbone of the group.

jeawan

red_ice wrote: »

bind a key to /yell GET AGGRO OFF ME!

If the group you're with doesnt help, dont heal em, try another group. In BG's you are a complete fool if you dont protect the healer as they are without a doubt the backbone of the group.

This is true man but the amount of BG's in wow then people never healed the healer was insane .
I play a tank or healer and if i in a BG as tank i protect my healer always doing that you are unstoppable but you'd be surprised the amount of people don't know that.

red_ice

jeawan wrote: »

This is true man but the amount of BG's in wow then people never healed the healer was insane .
I play a tank or healer and if i in a BG as tank i protect my healer always doing that you are unstoppable but you'd be surprised the amount of people don't know that.

yup, i was feral and nix was shammy/priest for arena, in BG's it was impossible to get us down. Even when i played my disco priest with blue gear in cata it was a huge benifit to anyone around me.

Cant wait to play my inquisitor.

jeawan

red_ice wrote: »

yup, i was feral and nix was shammy/priest for arena, in BG's it was impossible to get us down. Even when i played my disco priest with blue gear in cata it was a huge benifit to anyone around me.

Cant wait to play my inquisitor.

I was feral too but healed in tree allot. I have or will have a trooper healer played one in beta liked the class

red_ice

I
cant
phucking
wait
to
play
some
sort
of
arena

Chuey

Blowfish wrote: »

Trooper/Bounty Hunter - Holy Paladin with a bit of Disc.

Worth pointing out the Trooper/Bounty Hunter also has an Earth Shield (WoW Shamen) like ability too.

http://wearenex.us/forum/m/2934557/viewforum/758444
Here's a website I found useful. The healers are all Republic (Combat Medic, Sawbones and Seer) but the mechanics are the same for their Empire counterparts (Bodyguard, Medic and Corrupt).

KINGPIN

anyone else finding targeting , a big ass pain in the hole atm ?

Or is it just me and my **** fps ?

nesf

KINGPIN wrote: »

anyone else finding targeting , a big ass pain in the hole atm ?

Or is it just me and my **** fps ?

I'm finding it ok and very reminiscent of Vanilla WoW. The faster I get mouseover macros the better though...

Chuey

Missing my Healbot alright but as you say, back to Vanilla. Dont mind. Addons just make ya lazy

nesf

Chuey wrote: »

Missing my Healbot alright but as you say, back to Vanilla. Dont mind. Addons just make ya lazy

Yeah I think a lot of healers from WoW are going to be in for a nasty shock as to how hard healing the old way was.

That said the default UI in SWTOR is an awful lot better for healing than the Vanilla WoW one was. PvP healing without addons is going to be *interesting*.

Kiith

I've only done a bit of healing, but i just use f1-f4 to select party members, and than hotkey all my heals. Not that bad.

nesf

Kiith wrote: »

I've only done a bit of healing, but i just use f1-f4 to select party members, and than hotkey all my heals. Not that bad.

HoT management is going to be a bitch. Though even the HoT classes aren't really putting that many of them.

It's fine, but healing Operations is going to be a lot tougher than it would be with mouseover macros or click to heal addons.

Kiith

Speaking of addons, are EA/Bioware allowing people to create their own, like Blizz did with Warcraft?

nesf

Kiith wrote: »

Speaking of addons, are EA/Bioware allowing people to create their own, like Blizz did with Warcraft?

They've promised UI customisation. How much or how little this might be is not yet clear. I just want a decent macro system (addons would be nice but I could get over not getting major game changing ones since I think Bioware will, like Blizzard, scale content according to the UI as much as anything else). I hate having to retarget to heal my companion in solo play and similar.

Dcully

Ive changed my unitframes to look like vuhdo and grid from wow,moved them to my preferred position.
Im healing no problems at all,theres a lot less heals compared to other mmos so its just a matter of clicking on my new unitframes and hit hotkeys for said heals.

Kiith

Any chance of taking a screenshot of your UI Dcully? I've always just copied the good ones i've seen rather than create my own :P

Dcully

Kiith wrote: »

Any chance of taking a screenshot of your UI Dcully? I've always just copied the good ones i've seen rather than create my own :P

Popped on there and took a quick screenie in huttball.

Here is a link that shows you how to improve your UI

Link

I'm playing an Inquisitor Healer. So far so good, at 22 with a HOT and a proc that gives me a fast big heal or a cheap small heal I'm finding things are working quite nicely. Flashpoints and mana regen aren't causing any great concerns like they were before 20.

PvP I'm pumping out 200k+ per match. I find that people are totally unaware of healers, don't make any attempt to keep us alive, and run off after targets whilst we are getting pummeled. I never **ever** get any MVP votes despite topping healing for the entire match by 150k or more.

When I run with guild groups things are better - but in pugs, I'm thankful that my efforts lead to a higher win rate, but people generally suck.

I do find that clicking on people and targeting isn't great, there seems to be a non lag related delay for some reason and fluency in PvP needs to be worked on.