Practical SWTOR tips

[Faardor]

Healing tips

• If you aren't healing your Heals per second (HPS) goes down
  
• Effective heals per second (EHPS) is more important than HPS
  
• Healing someone with full health will increase your heals per second but wont increase your EHPS, avoid doing so
  
• Cleanse whatever you can cleanse, that said don't cleanse a DOT effect if its about to expire, Cleanse priority is tanks > healers > DPS
  
• DOTS you can cleanse will have an orange border around them
  
• Make sure you do NOT have ''Show only removable debuffs" activated. Sometimes for a boss or tanking mechanic you need to know who and what could possibly take damage.
  
• Learn how to burst heal. For a merc the entire class is pretty much set up for burst healing (except kolto shot and kolto shell), For a sorc you will be reliant on amplified wandering mend, innervate and dark infusion. An operative only has kolto injection (altough this is getting buffed 3.3)
  
• If everyone is near full health either prepare for your DPS to take damage (for a merc that means placing kolto shells, for an operative place HOTs, for a sorc place barriers) or help DPS yourself.
  
• Energy management is everything. A Sorc will have to manage his consume stacks (this mechanic is getting changed 3.3 to something more forgiving btw) a mercenary wants to keep his heat below 40 (around or above 40 you want to use kolto shot to get it down a bit or use something like thermal sensor override or super charged gas, alternatively keep casting until 70 heat and then use vent heat ability) an operative much the same as a mercenary, keep energy above 60% and below that use diagnostic scan and stim boost or use adrenaline probe around 40% energy
  
• DO NOT COMBAT REVIVE ON ADDS, ONLY EVER COMBAT REVIVE ON A BOSS FIGHT
  
• DO NOT HEAL OR INTERACT WITH A PERSON WHO IS DOING A STEALTH REVIVE
  
• To stealth revive make sure you try to communicate with the grou that youre gonna do one (so they dont heal you or intercede etc) and make sure that you click away any HOTs, HODs, static barriers etc. Wait for any DOTs to dissipate, locate the persons body you are trying to revive and then activate your combat stealth (cloaking screen for operatives, force cloak for assassins) In order to not Ffff up the next part make sure to use the revive ability instead of right click a persons corpse. Especially if a boss or adds are nearby, this will prevent you from attacking an add.
  
• Reaching 440-550 surge is priority, after that stack as much alacrity with power that you can.
  
• Comm gear is trash and should be replaced by BIS gear.  (either crafted 186 enhancements, certain 192 enhancements from HM 60 flashpoints, or from Ravagers / Temple of sacrifice Story and hard mode.
  
• Gear smart. Higher ratings might not always mean more EHPS. Don't be afraid to ask for help if you arent sure what to do with your gear, comms, stats, augments or unassembled gear.
  
• Rule of thumb: Set bonus (new or old) will usually lead to a higher EHPS. The differences armorings make on your EHPS are ignoreable. That said this isnt true for all Healer sets. Ask for help if you aren't sure.
  
• Always be stimmed for boss fights
  
• Consider using adrenals for oh shit moments.
  
• Healer aggro sucks so if an opener of a fights leads to lots of your HODs (merc) or hots (operative) or barrier being used then you will have to threat drop a few seconds into the fight.
  
• DO NOT KNOCK BACK ENEMYS AWAY FROM YOURSELF OR THE DPS UNLESS REQUIRED TO SAVE YOUR OWN OR ANOTHERS LIFE
  
• Figure out your healing procs, they can mean the difference between ruining your energy or several hundred EHPS.
  
• as a healer in 186 gear or above you need to be able to do around 3000 average EHPS but should be able to do 4000 in certain heated fights (underlurker for example) If you arent then a few things can be wrong: Stats, Rotation or energy management. Figure out your procs and energy management and possibly use a set bonus to get there.
  

Damage dealers tips

• If you arent casting abilities, don't have DOTs ticking or are simply just pausing in the middle of battles your DPS (damage per second) will suffer, always be casting, there is not a single DPS spec that is supposed to pause and stop DPS. If its a energy issue, look for solutions, if there isnt a solution use your energy free casts. Either way looking on dulfy or looking at someones rotation on the parsely leaderboards might help.
  
• be smart with your defensive cooldowns, if you notice that your entire operations groups is taking a lot of damage then consider using one, on the other hand if the entire operations group is full health try to avoid using a defensive cooldown since the healers (if competent) will heal you up. There are of course mechanics that become easier with a defensive cooldown or are actually required to be done with one, feel free to do so. If confused about such a mechanic consult with your healers / operations leaders.
  
• Doing DPS is one half of the battle, mechanics are the other half. If you fail either try to read DPS guides or watch videos of fights. If you still cant cut the grade consider the fact that operations might not be your thing.
  
• More endurance does not make for more DPS, nor does it make you more desireable over someone with less health.
  
• Reaching the accuracy cap (100% melee / ranged and 110% force / tech) is first gearing priority. Second priority is 440-550 surge. After that if you have any space left for gearing then 1 piece of crit and 1 piece of alacrity. Alacrity preferred over crit)
  
• Comm gear is trash and should be replaced by BIS gear. (either crafted 186 enhancements, certain 192 enhancements from HM 60 flashpoints, or from Ravagers / Temple of sacrifice Story and hard mode.
  
• Gear smart. Higher ratings might not always mean more DPS. Don't be afraid to ask for help if you arent sure what to do with your gear, comms, stats, augments or unassembled gear.
  
• Rule of thumb: Set bonus (new or old) will usually lead to a higher DPS. The differences armorings make on your DPS are ignoreable. That said this isnt true for all DPS sets. Ask for help if you aren't sure.
  
• Always be stimmed for boss fights
  
• Consider using adrenals during burst phases
  
• If you can self cleanse things then you should self cleanse things (even if this requires a defensive cooldown)
  
• Threat drop several seconds after your opening blows if you have a strong opener.
  
• DO NOT KNOCK BACK ENEMYS AWAY FROM YOURSELF OR THE DPS UNLESS REQUIRED TO SAVE YOUR OWN OR ANOTHERS LIFE
  
• Use your offensive cooldowns (if any) to great effect. A marauder never using beserk is wasting a lot of potential DPS. The same goes for a sorc not using recklessness or a merc not using power surge, etc etc.
  
• Figure out your DPS procs (if any, and all DPS classes have procs) as they can mean the difference of several hundreds of DPS.
  
• In 186 or higher gear DPS need to be able to do an average of 2500 to be able to beat underlurker. You should however be aiming between 2500 to 3500 DPS. If you aren't able to get around 3000 then your rotation need works.
  

 

Tanking tips

• Don't open fights with taunts.
  
• If there are multiple adds do not focus on just one use your AOE rotation and move to other adds to get their attention, your DPS getting the aggro of one add is fine, but with the way aggro works is, is that if you or the DPS leave an add untouched then that add will go to the healers. Healer aggro is generated on everyone while DPS and tank aggro is just generated on a single add or boss. You basically aren't tanking if your full threat rotation is focus on just one add or a small part on a group of adds. (I see this happen way too much people. Jump to an add and cast a spell or two and then focus on getting the attention from the other adds. Focus back on the original adds if they are still alive since they might require a taunt or two)
  
• Taunt stacking or spamming is a very bad idea for most boss fights. Simply because a lot of bosses have threat drop mechanics or attacks that require you to taunt after (or during) a cast. Generally you only have to taunt somewhere during the start of a fight.
  
• DO NOT KNOCK BACK ENEMYS AWAY FROM YOURSELF OR THE DPS UNLESS REQUIRED TO SAVE YOUR OWN OR ANOTHERS LIFE
  
• Gather adds and bring bosses to adds or other bosses if possible. Allowing yourself to do your AOE threat generation and your DPS to do AOE damage / DOT spread will make it easier to not only DPS but also to keep aggro as AOE rotations usually have high amounts of threat building and you will have all adds in range to AOE taunt if necessary.
  
• Figuring out a single target threat rotation and a multiple add rotation is key to keep aggro and not having to use taunts.
  
• Figuring out how to get the most of out of your spec DPS wise will lessen the DPS burden on your DPS and shorten fights, not to mention with how threat works more DPS leads to more threat generation.
  
• Figure out how your class handles its temporary defensive mitigation procs, getting the most out of them can mean life or death.
  
• More health is not worth less mitigation, there is only ONE fight in the game that requires you to actually have an X amount of health and that is Revan hard mode (55-56k to be exact) do NOT worry about reaching 56k unless its highly likely that you will be tanking him in the future. Instead focus on getting the most mitigation as possible (again BIS enhancements and mods are preferred over higher level comm gear ones. You'll get more out of 186 Bis enhancements than 198 ones.)
  
• as a rule of thumb a Tank in 186 or higher gear CAN and SHOULD be able to do between 1000 to 2000 DPS, Averaging 1500 DPS, this is all possible if you do your rotation right, you aren't then you aren't generating threat properly.
  

 

This is a Work in progress, ill add more to over the following days most likely.

Edited July 4, 2015 by Faardor