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[TOR] 4.0 Sorcerer

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Intro to Lightning Sorcerer

 

The Lightning Sorcerer is a ranged burst dps class that offers some of the best utility for a dps class in the game.  With our ability to self heal, off-heal, and bubble allies, Sorcs are valuable additions to any raid group.  Although Sorcs are not the top parsing by any means, a well played Lightning Sorc is very capable of competing with other dps classes.

Ratings

Single Target Damage: 4/10

Lightning Sorcerer is not the strongest dps class out there being a ranged burst caster spec.  We gained more mobility in 3.0, but in 4.0 we did not gain a new damage passive like most other dps specs (including madness) did. Because of this as well as Reverberating Force getting decreased, our dps is not the strongest, but if played correctly it is still plenty strong.

AoE Damage: 7/10

Although our AoE is not as good as it used to be, Lightning Sorcs still boast some of the best AoE in the game among dps classes.  With Chain Lightning and Force Storm, we have incredible burst AoE, and with very little resource management we can spam Force Storm for a long time without having to worry about running out of Force.

Burst Damage: 8/10

Lightning also boasts some of the best burst in the game. We have an autocrit in Thundering Blast that benefits from Supercrit every 9s, and while we may not have an ability that hits for 20k+, we do have more frequent burst windows in our rotation that make up for this.

Raid Utility: 9/10

Sorcs bring excellent raid utility with them into any group.  We bring with us a copious amount of abilities including our pull (though used almost exclusively for trolling raid members it does have its niche uses), battle rez, cleanse, raid buff, force and AoEdebuffs, self and off heals, bubble, and the ability to completely mitigate some mechanics via our Force Bubble.

Survivability: 7/10

Even the Sorcs have Light Armor, we are not as squishy as one would think.  We have a bubble that lasts for 30s that is refreshable every 15s, our new passive allows us to have 9% additional damage reduction, and we have another shield that gives us invulnerability for 8s.  Additionally we have utilities that make our bubbles stronger and our threat dump grant damage reduction as well. All of this combined with our ability to heal ourselves in a pinch, allows us to survive well in fights.

Gearing

The following numbers are taken from Bant’s Optimal Stats thread on the SWTOR Forums.  In case there is any confusion E=Enhancement (these include implants and earpiece), A=Augment, and C=Crystal.  These stat distributions are based off of token gear.

216 Defiant Gear

  • 4969 Mastery
  • 2639 Power
  • 1213 Critical Rating (6xE, 3xA, 2xC)
  • 730 Alacrity (10xA)
  • 681 Accuracy (4xE, 1xA)

220 Exarch Gear

  • 5158 Mastery
  • 2779 Power
  • 1247 Critical Rating (5xE, 5xA ,2xC)
  • 772 Alacrity (3xE, 4xA)
  • 685 Accuracy (2xE, 5xA)

224 Ultimate Exarch Gear

  • 5372 Mastery
  • 2931 Power
  • 1287 Critical Rating (5xE, 5xA, 2xC)
  • 796 Alacrity (3xE, 4xA)
  • 701 Accuracy (2xE, 5xA)

Although I never doubt Bant’s numbers, I do like to differ a little bit, and since you won’t see a significant dps change within 200 stat either way, my gearing looks like this:

  • 1265 Critical Rating (4xE, 7xA, 2xC)
  • 818 Alacrity (4xE, 2xA)

This is preference, and I am sure there is no real difference between my way and Bant’s, but I tend to lean more towards alacrity than crit with Lightning, which will be evidenced more in the Set Bonus section.

Set Bonus

Ever since 3.0 Sorcs have been a little weird when it comes to set bonus. In 3.0 it was preferable to use the Revanite Force Master 2-piece with the now unobtainable Dread Master 4-piece.  After some preliminary testing, it is my opinion that this still holds true, substituting the Revanite for the Ultimate Exarch of course.  The increase is not crazy. On the low end it is about 50 points higher, but I have also had parses that were a difference of 250 dps with similar crits.  I will continue to test this as I am only currently 75% 224 BiS gear, though I do not expect this to change, and until hard evidence is given to the contrary, I would recommend using the Dread Master 4-piece with the Ultimate Exarch Force Master 2-piece, provided you obtained the Dread Master set pre 4.0 as it is no longer obtainable.  Part of the reason this works, in my opinion, is because of the way the new 6-piece interacts with Thundering Blast, which is to say that it doesn’t.  If Recklessness increased the crit damage of Thundering Blast, there probably would be no reason to not use it, but as it stands that 3rd charge of recklessness is often wasted on a lightning bolt, which is not enough of a dps increase to warrant it.

Utilities

Skillful

image001 Force Suffusion: Overload heals you and up to 7 affected allies for X-X. Situational. An ok utility if not taking Tempest Mastery.
image002 Chain Shock: Shock gains a 25% chance to produce a second Shock that deals 25% damage. Not worth taking, even if encountering long periods of high mobility.
image003 Sith Defiance: Increases damage reduction by 3%. Always take this. With Light Armor any free damage reduction is welcome.
image004 Tempest Mastery: Increases the damage dealt by Force Storm by 25%. Boss fight with adds? Take this utility. Works great with Storm Brewing passive.
image005 Empty Body: Increases all healing received by 10%. Does not affect stolen life. I often take this for the same reason as Sith Defiance.
image006 Sapped Strength:Targets stunned by your electrocute suffer Sapped Strength when Electrocute wears off, which reduces all damage dealt by 25% for 10 seconds. Extremely situational. This is mainly a PvP ability, but it is useful in mitigating damage from energy spheres in Brontes HM/NiM.
image007 Oppressing Force: Lowers the cooldown of electrocute by 10 seconds. In addition, your Whirlwind affects up to 2 additional standard or weak enemies within 8 meters of the target. PvP/leveling utility. Not worth taking.
image008 Dark Speed: Dark Heal increases the movement speed of the target by 50% for 6 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 12 seconds. This is more of a healer utility, and situational at that. It won’t do much for dps specs.

 

Masterful

image009 Suppression: Activating Cloud Mind grants Suppression, which increases damage reduction by 25% for 6 seconds. Very useful for mitigating large hits. I use this on most fights as an extra defensive CD.
image010 Corrupted Flesh: Reduces the damage taken from all periodic effects by 15%. Take this on fights with non-cleansable dots.
image011 Emersion: Force Speed grants Emersion, removing all movement impairing effects and granting immunity to them for the duration. Good for fights where you need to break out of slows. Can be helpful in Underlurker or Reaches phase in Brontes.
image012 Dark Resilience: Reduces the damage taken by the target of your Extrication by 25% for 6 seconds. Additionally increases the healing done  by Unnatural Preservation by 30%. Useful because of the increased healing to Unnatural Preservation. I take this on most fights to alleviate some of the healing on myself.
image013 Electric Bindings: Overload binds its targets in electricity, immobilizing them for 5 seconds. Direct damage dealt after 2 seconds ends the effect prematurely. Mostly a PvP utility. It does come in handy for NiMStyrak though.
image014 Lightning Barrier: Increases the amount absorbed by your static barrier by 10%. Very useful, especially if there is not a Sorc healer in your group.
image015 Conspiring Force: Targets affected by your Affliction are slowed by 30% for its duration. Also a PvP utility, but like Electric Bindings it is useful for NiMStyrak.
image016 Dizzying Force: Reduces target’s accuracy by 20% for 8 seconds after Whirlwind ends. PvP utility. Not worth taking.

 

Heroic

image017 Backlash: Static Barriers you place on yourself erupt in a flash of light when they end, blinding up to 8 nearby enemies for 3 seconds. This effect breaks from direct damage. PvP utility.
image018 Surging Speed: Polarity Shift increases your movement speed by 50% while active. Force Speed lasts 0.5 seconds longer, and when Force Barrier ends, the active cooldown of Force Speed is reset. Even in high mobility fights this is not worth taking. Too little benefit to use a utility point.
image019 Shapeless Spirit: Reduces all damage taken while stunned by 30%. Situational. Useful on fights where the boss will switch targets and stun like Brontes.
image020 Force Haste: Reduces the cooldown of Force Speed by 5 seconds, Force Slow by 3 seconds, and Force Barrier by 30 seconds. The reduced CD on Force Barrier is nice, but I find that there are other utilities that provide more than this.
image021 Force Mobility: Thundering Blast, Innervate, and Force Leach may be activated while moving. This should be taken on every fight. Increased mobility is always a good thing.
image022 Corrupted Barrier: Your Static Barrier, Force Barrier, and Enduring Bastion heal you for 2% of your total health every second for as long as they last.  This healing scales up to 8% with the charges of Enduring Bastion. This is good in fights where Shifting Silhouette’s damage reduction won’t get used. This will help out your healers as well so take this in fights with little AoE damage.
image023 Haunted Dreams: If your Whirlwind breaks early from damage, the target is stunned for 2 seconds. In addition, Whirlwind activates instantly. This can be helpful in fights like Revanite Commanders or Colonel Vorgath (minefield assassin droids) but is not a must take.
image024 Shifting Silhouette: Reduces all area of effect damage taken by 30%. In addition, using Phase Walk to return to its marked location grants Shifting Silhouette, keeping you from being lept to or pulled and making you immune to interrupts and ability activation pushback for the next 6 seconds. With 4.0 Sorcs finally have an AoE damage reduction. Always take this if there is any AoE in a fight. We have light armor, any extra damage reduction is always welcome.

 

Here are some example utility selections. These are not all of them, but I feel that they illustrate what I often do in fights. Keep in mind that these are my personal preferences. They are only here to give people ideas and starting points and are far from rules by which to live.

w/ or w/o AoE damage

image025image027

Adds w/ or w/o AoE damage

image029image031

Passives and Abilities

 

Lightning Discipline Passives

image033 Lightning Storm – Lightning Strike, Lightning Bolt, Thundering Blast, and Force Storm grant Lightning Storm when activated. Lightning Storm immediately finishes the cooldown on Chain Lightning and makes your next Chain Lightning activate instantly and consume 50% less Force. Cannot occur more than once every 10 seconds.
image034 Storm Brewing – Increases the critical chance of Force Storm by 15% and its critical damage bonus by 30%.
lightningeffusion Lightning Effusion – Direct Force attacks grant Lightning Effusion when they critically hit, reducing the Force consumed by your next two non-channeled Force attacks by 75%.
subversion Subversion – Reduces the pushback suffered while activating Chain Lightning, Lightning Strike, Crushing Darkness, Thundering Blast, and Lightning Bolt by 75%. Additionally, you have a 25% when taking direct damage to gain Subversion, which causes your next Lightning Strike or Lightning Bolt to activate instantly.  This effect cannot occur more than once every 8 seconds and lasts up to 15 seconds.
image037 Forked Darkness – Crushing Darkness has a 25% chance to tick twice and makes its targets vulnerable for 45 seconds. Vulnerable targets tak 5% more damage from Force attacks. In addition, when you activate Thundering Blast, there is a 25% chance the ability will produce a second blast that strikes the same target for 25% damage.
image038 Lightning Swarm – Increases the maximum range of your Force attacks by 5 meters. Additionally, Chain Lightning immobilizes all affected targets for 0.5 seconds and slows all affected targets by 50% for 6 seconds.
convection Convection – Force Speed gives 2 stacks of Convection, which allows Lightning Strike and Lightning Bolt to be activated instantly.
image040 Forked Lightning – Lightning Strike, Chain Lightning, Lightning Flash, and Lightning Bolt have a 25% chance to produce a second arc of lightning that strikes the same targets for 25% damage. Additionally, Chain Lightning overwhelms its targets for 45 seconds. Overwhelmed targets take an additional 10% damage from area attacks.
image041 Focal Lightning – Damage dealt by Chain Lightning and Lightning Flash has a 100% chance and damage dealt by Lightning Strike and Lightning Bolt has a 50% chance to grant Focal Lightning, which increases alacrity by 1%. Stacks up to 5 times. Lasts 15 seconds.
image042 Chaos Nexus – Forked Lightning is twice as likely to trigger while Polarity Shift is active. Additionally, increases the duration of Polarity Shift by 5 seconds and reduces its cooldown by 15 seconds.
image043 Reverberating Force – Increases the critical damage dealt by Chain Lightning, Crushing Darkness, Thundering Blast, and Lightning Flash by 10%.
conduction Conduction – Each Forked Lightning and Forked Darkness reduces the active cooldown of Polarity Shift by 1 second. In addition, being interrupted grants unshakable for 4 seconds. This can only occur once every 15 seconds.
image045 Charged Reaction – Direct damage dealt by your Crushing Darkness and Chain Lightning abilities refreshes the duration of your Affliction on affected targets. In addition, Lightning Bolt increases your Force regeneration by 10% for 10 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times.
image046 Fulgurous Fortification – Lightning Bolt increases your damage 3% for 10 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times.

Rotational Abilities

image047 Crushing Darkness [CD]- Summons a dark cloud of energy to crush the target, instantly dealing X-X kinetic damage and an additional X kinetic damage over 6 seconds.

 

Range: 35m, Activation: 2s, Force: 36, Cooldown: 15s

image048 Affliction [Aff]- Casts a powerful Force affliction that deals X internal damage over 18 seconds.

 

Range: 35m, Force: 32

image049 Thundering Blast [TB]- Sends a thundering blastwave at a single target that deals X-X internal damage. Thundering Blast automatically critically hits targets affected by your Affliction.

 

Range: 35m, Activation: 1.5s, Force: 45, Cooldown: 9s

lightningflash2 Lightning Flash [LF]- Blasts the target with a quick flash of lightning, which deals X-X damage and grants Force Flash, which reduces the activation time of your next Crushing Darkness by 0.5 seconds. This effect lasts up to 12 seconds.

 

Range: 35m, Force: 45, Cooldown: 15s

image051 Chain Lightning [CL]- Delivers an arc of lightning that deals X-X damage to up to 8 targets within 8 meters of the primary target.

 

Range: 35m, Activation: 2.5s, Force: 45, Cooldown: 6s

lightningbolt2 Lightning Bolt [LB]- Hurls a bolt of lightning at the target, dealing X-X energy damage and slowing the target by 30% for 3 seconds.    Replaces Lightning Strike.

 

Range: 35m, Activation: 1.5s, Force: 30

Non-Rotational Abilities

image053 Force Storm – Calls down a Force Storm over the target area, consuming 60 Force and dealing 1402 energy damage to up to 8 targets within 8 meters over the duration of the channel. Standard and weak targets have a 33% chance to be stunned by the storm each second.

 

Range: 35m

image054 Shock – Shocks the target for X-X energy damage. Standard and weak targets are additionally stunned for 3 seconds.

 

Range: 35m, Force: 36, Cooldown: 6s

image055 Dark Heal – Heals a friendly target for X-X health.

 

Range: 30m, Activation: 1.5s, Force: 50

image056 Resurgence – Immediately heals the target for X-X, plus an additional X over 9 seconds.

 

Range: 30m, Force: 27, Cooldown: 6s

image057 Unnatural Preservation – Immediately restores X-X health to you. Cannot be used on others.

 

Cooldown: 30s

image058 Expunge – Cleanse a friendly target of up to 2 negative mental or Force effects.

 

Range: 30m, Force: 12, Cooldown: 12s

image059 Extrication – Lowers the target’s threat by a moderate amount and, if the target is a group member, pulls the target to your location.

 

Range: 30m, Force: 27, Cooldown: 1 minute

image060 Force Speed [FS]- Increases movement speed by 150% for 2 seconds. Does not break stealth.

 

Cooldown: 30s

image061 Phase Walk – Activating this ability marks your current location for 10 minutes. When this ability is activated again, if you are within 60 meters of the marked location, you instantly return to the marked location
image062 Reanimation – Revives an incapacitated ally. This ability is usable while in combat. When used, all group members can neither use nor be the target of an in-combat revival for the next 5 minutes.

 

Range: 30m, Activation: 1.5s, Force: 27, Cooldown: 5 minutes

Offensive and Defensive Cooldowns

image063 Polarity Shift [PS]- Your connection to the Force shifts, granting 20% alacrity and immunity to pushback and interrupts for 15 seconds.
image064 Recklessness [Rck]- Grants 2 charges of Recklessness, which increases the Force critical chance of your direct attacks and heals by 60% and increases the ranges of Force Lightning and Depredating Volts to 30 meters.  Each time a direct Force ability critically hits or a channeled Force ability is activated, 1 charge is consumed. Lasts 20 seconds.

 

Cooldown: 1m 30s

image065 Unlimited Power [UP]- Increases mastery, endurance, and presence for you and your Operation group members within 40 meters by 10% . Lasts 10 seconds

 

Force: 45, Cooldown: 5 minutes

image066 Force Barrier – Projects a Force Barrier around you, granting immunity to all control, damage, and negative effects while channeled.  This ability does not respect the global cooldown and can be used while controlled.  While you are protected by Force Barrier charges will build up and grant you Enduring Bastion, a shield that absorbs an amount of damage based off the charges that are present when Force Barrier  ended. Enduring Bastion also grants immunity to interrupts.

 

Cooldown: 3 minutes

image067 Static Barrier – Surrounds the target in a lightning shield that lasts 30 seconds and absorbs a high amount of damage.  The target becomes deionized and cannot benefit from Static Barrier again for 20 seconds.
image068 Cloud Mind  – Wipes enemies’ thoughts, instantly lowering your threat by a moderate amount.

 

Additionally grants 25% damage reduction for 6 seconds. (with Suppression utility)

Cooldown: 45s

image069 Advanced Anodyne Attack Adrenal – Increases Power by 750 and decreases all healing done by 20%. Lasts 15 seconds.

 

Cooldown: 3 minutes

Rotation

 

Opener

This opener applies regardless of whether you are using the Dread Master 4-piece and Ultimate Exarch 2-piece or the Ultimate Exarch 6-piece.

CD -> PS, Aff -> UP, Adrenal, TB -> FS, LB ->Rck, LF -> CL -> LB -> LB -> LB -> TB -> CL -> LB -> CD -> LF -> LB -> TB -> CL -> Priority System

image070

One thing to note is that in the opener I use Polarity Shift before casting Affliction.  This is done because the increased alacrity increases the tick rate of the DoT. This carries over whenever Crushing Darkness and Chain Lightning refresh Affliction as well. This allows us to squeeze a little extra damage out of Affliction. With the increased tick rate, Affliction can now tick right before a refresh from Crushing Darkness and Chain Lightning, which will then cause it to tick again, thus gaining just a little bit more damage from Affliction.

Priority System

The nice thing about Lightning Sorcerer is that it is a priority system. Because of this you don’t have to worry about where to pick up if you experience downtime due to boss mechanics. You simply use the ability with highest priority and work from there.

There are really only 5 abilities that factor into the priority system, but the caveat to that is Affliction must be on your target. That being said, the priority is as follows:

  1. Thundering Blast
  2. Crushing Darkness (with proc)
  3. Lightning Flash
  4. Chain Lightning (with proc)
  5. Lightning Bolt

Thundering Blast must always be used on cooldown. It is an autocrit every 9 seconds (with no alacrity) and therefore must take priority over everything else. This leads us into Crushing Darkness, which should be used only with the Force Flash proc.  Lightning Flash is next due to its decent damage and because of the Force Flash proc. Although Chain Lightning hits rather hard, its proc’s 10s internal cooldown pushes it rather low on the priority provided the proc is not about to fall off, which it never should.  When everything else is on cooldown, Lightning Bolt is your primary filler. I say primary because there are times when movement is a higher priority.  In cases such as these it is acceptable to use Shock while moving provided that none of your rotational abilities are available for use.

AoE Rotation

There are a few ways of going about this depending on the priority of the group of adds that are being killed. However, regardless of the scenario you want to prioritize Chain Lightning and Force Storm. If they will die pretty quickly this is all you want to do. If there is a higher health add in among lower health ones, then you can throw in Affliction and Thundering Blast and the continue with Chain Lightning and Force Storm. You should not be using Lightning Flash, Lightning Bolt, or Crushing Darkness though.

Some Notes on Offensive Cooldowns

Polarity shift is by far your best offensive cooldown.  I always try to use this right before a Thundering Blast. However, I will uses it earlier if a Lightning Flash will benefit from its use sooner than a Thundering Blast would. The reason is a combination of your Chaos Nexus and Forked Lightning Passives. You want to make sure you can fit as many of your hardest hitting abilities into a Polarity Shift block so don’t just use it on cooldown, but never delay it longer than one Thundering Blast cycle.  While talking about Polarity Shift, it is also worth talking about ability usage during the time that it is active. Traditionally, it has been considered important to prioritize Lightning Bolt over Crushing Darkness during Polarity Shift because Chaos Nexus doubles Lightning Bolt’s chance to proc. I have found, however, that it is still not worth delaying Crushing Darkness.  If you look at how much damage is done by each ability, Lightning Bolt would be better, when it procs, as far as instant damage goes. However, when you consider how much additional damage Crushing Darkness does with its DoT, that is still for only a 1 gcd cast, CD comes out ahead in damage even if it doesn’t proc once and Lightning Bolt does. This is under the assumption that they are critting more or less equally. Because of this, and what I have seen in my own parses, I find it more beneficial to never use Lightning Bolt over Crushing Darkness.

Next we come to Recklessness.  I try to use Recklessness when under the effects of Polarity Shift as often as I can, partially because of the reduced cooldown the increased alacrity brings me, but also because with the increased chance to proc on abilities we are making an almost guaranteed crit. As far as ability usage goes, always try to use a Recklessness on Chain Lightning and Lightning Flash. The next highest priority for a Recklessness charge is Crushing Darkness, followed lastly by Lightning Bolt. Always be careful when using Recklessness following Thundering Blaster however. Because of its travel time, Thundering Blast can consume a Recklessness charge even if Recklessness is used after.  This is why I often buffer these two abilities with a Lightning Bolt, as is shown in the opener above.  Using Recklessness is always a little bit of weighing your options with what you will have available. Delaying it for a short time is okay, if you will get your hardest hitting abilities to align, but like all your offensives, too long of a delay will make you lose dps. Each situation is different and it just comes down to knowing the fights and knowing your class in order to determine what to use and when.

Unlimited Power should not be used in the opener if you will need it later for a tight burn phase.  It is always important that you use your offensive cds appropriately for the maximum potential dps, instead of just when they are available. That being said, you don’t want to over delay these abilities either, and some discretion on the player’s part is necessary.

One final note for Force Speed is that there is no dps gain to use it on cooldown since you are simply making the damage of the Lightning Bolts come at the beginning of the gcd instead of the end. Where this does have use though is within proc windows, the most relevant being relic procs. When a casted Lightning Bolt would fall outside of the proc, but an instant wouldn’t, you would use Force Speed for the instant proc.

Sample Parse and Video

 

Here are links to a parse and the corresponding video for said parse. These are by no means perfect, but they do illustrate what the class can do in decent gear with good crit. I am using the Dread Master 4-piece, but the rotation really doesn’t change either way.

How to Analyze Your Parse

The most important part you should look is if you are using Thundering Blast, Crushing Darkness, and Lightning Flash on cooldown.  The way to check this is to look at the ability usage section and then look at the Avg Time. At the very minimum this should be the same as your abilities cooldown, heavily varying by alacrity. As a note, Thundering Blast’s cooldown only starts once the cast finishes.  This means with no alacrity, the average usage of Thundering Blast should be 10.5 seconds. While talking about Thundering Blast, the crit % should 100%. If it is not you have messed up somewhere.

As far as damage profile goes, Lightning Bolt should be your highest damage because of its high usage, followed by Thundering Blast, Chain Lightning, Affliction, Lightning Flash, Crushing Darkness (crushed) which is the DoT, and Crushing Darkness which is the initial hit per cast. What follows will be your Forked Lightning and Forked Darkness procs. Due to large amounts of rng, the amount of damage, and their occurrences, will vary heavily.

Visual illustration based on the above parse:

image071

Acknowledgements

 

I just want to thank Bant for his amazing work both on his Optimal Stats, but also in helping me editing this and telling me a few things that I didn’t know about Affliction. A special thanks to Vladishun as well for helping me edit the rambling mess that this guide originally was.

I owe a big thank you to all the other guide writers, without which this guide would have far less structure.

I also want to thank everyone in my raid group in Psy-ops for helping me to become a better player and for putting up with my shenanigans.

Finally, I want to give a special shout out to Apries, without whose particular skills as a test dummy, I would never have learned so many ways to kill someone with Extricate.

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Introduction to Corruption Sorcerer

 

Welcome to the 4.0 Sorcerer healing guide. The goal of this guide is help new players better understand this class/role and its intricacies in regards to PvE encounters. Unlike Dps, where set rotations provide the best Dps output, healing is subjective and not as ridged. There are many ways to accomplish your goal and this guide will outline only one of them. My aim is to provide enough information so that we steer clear of bad habits, as urgency in healing is more important than proper gearing. However, combining good healing practices along with optimized gear will give you the best chances in holding your team together when they need it most.

Terminology & Jargon

  • Bubble – Static Barrier
  • Puddle – Revivication circle
  • God Bubble – Force Barrier
  • GCD – Global Cool Down
  • Buff – An effect that is desirable (Power up)
  • Debuff – An effect that is undesirable
  • Adds – Additional enemies spawned during a boss encounter
  • HoT – Heal over Time
  • DoT – Damage over Time
  • Pull – Extrication
  • Ops Frame – Operation Group Frame (User Interface)
  • Cool Downs – Anything that increases Healing/Damage output or raises Defensive

4.0 Changes

  • Main stat (Strength/Willpower/Skill/Aim) is now Mastery stat.
  • Critical rating is now a combination of Critical and Surge rating.
  • The introduction of Phase Walk to sorcerer’s world and the passive abilities it brings along with it.

Stat Explanation

Primary Stats

  • Mastery: This is your character’s main stat. It is found on almost every piece of gear you will attain. Having a lot of it is good as it raises your character’s base performance, however, it does not always take priority in your distribution as you already inherently get a solid amount of it without trying.
  • Endurance: This denotes how much health your character will have. 10 points of endurance add ~100 HP points. Similarly to Mastery, obtaining this stat is not difficult, in fact, commendation (or crystal in 4.0) bought gear heavily favors Endurance over Power. Healers do not need an abundance of Endurance, as we should not be taking a lot of enemy hits. However, it is important to have enough Endurance so that should you get hit, you remain alive. Generally, the rule of thumb is put Endurance on a lower priority than every other stat as you get too much of it as it is.

Secondary Stats

  • Power: Mods come with either Power or Defense now (new to 4.0). Power increases bonus healing and, out of the two choices, should be your priority. It also takes priority over Endurance. Lower Endurance/ higher Power mods benefit healers better than the opposite.
  • Defense: As a healer, you are not a tank and do not equip a shield generator. Defense is useless to your class. Do not equip it under any circumstance.

Tertiary Stats

  • Critical Rating: This is now the combination of Critical and Surge (pre 4.0). This decides how often heals will critically heal and, when they do, how much they will critically heal for. Because it hosts two stats in one, the return you get by equipping more Critical hugely outweighs other stats. Although it is still too early to conclude how much Critical you can stack before you hit diminishing returns (accumulating anymore has no benefit), it is still never a bad thing to have a healthy amount of.
  • Alacrity: This stat has made its presence increasingly more known with every major update and has now got to the point where balancing it with Critical rating is important. Alacrity speeds everything up, it decreases your cast times allowing you to get heals off faster and increases your force regeneration to balance out that faster use of heals. It also decreases your GCD (global cool down). Since the beginning, SW:ToR has had a 1.5second window of inactivity in between the use of each ability; Alacrity now decreases that down time between abilities.
  • Accuracy: This stat is used to account for enemy defensive chances. Operation bosses have a static 10% defensive chance meaning you need 110% percent (force/tech) accuracy rating to compensate for that. This is incredibly important to Dps classes but not relevant to healing classes, as your teammates do not dodge your heals, so don’t waste your allocation on a stat that serves you no purpose.
  • Shield: This is the chance that the tank’s shield generator (off-hand) activates. This is tank related and not necessary to any healing classes.
  • Absorption: This is how much damage the shield protects the tank from when the shield is activated. Absorption is like the surge for tank classes but again, is not important to healing classes.

Stat Distribution

Depending on the item level of your gear, you have an allotment of stat points. Allocating these points in different stats (Critical, Mastery, Power, etc.) spend your available points. This means you have to balance your allocation in a way that compliments your healing goals. Below I have listed the general idea of gearing:

General Approach:

  • Mastery = As much of it as you can
    • This excludes augments and crystal/commendation bought lettered mods that sacrifice Power for Mastery
  • Endurance = As little of it as you can
    • This is unavoidable in augments which is even more reason to avoid it everywhere you can.
  • Power = As much of it as you can
    • This excludes augments. Augments will be discussed more in another section.
  • Accuracy = 0%
  • Critical rating = 1534-1753 (38.29-39.76%)
  • Alacrity = 999-1153 (10.23-11.46%)

* Includes all class / companion buffs

Gear Break down

6-piece Force Mystic Set bonus

Earpiece:

  • Quick Savant Device (Alacrity) -OR-
  • Adept Device (Critical)

Implants:

  • Quick Savant Device (Alacrity) -OR-
  • Adept Device (Critical)

Relics:

  • Focused Retribution (Mastery Proc)
  • Serendipitous Assault (Power Proc)

Augments:

  • Advanced Alacrity augment 40 -OR-
  • Advanced Critical augment 40

Advanced Discussion

Use your earpiece, implant and augment tertiary stats to accomplish your allocation goals. If you have Alacrity in your earpiece and your implants and have reached your chosen Alacrity %, augment in Critical. Note that the Quick Savant and Adept pieces are the optimized pieces. The un-optimized pieces (vendor bought) are named Savant (Alacrity) and Efficient (Critical) as they have less Power and more Endurance. Optimized and un-optimized pieces have the same amount of tertiary stat for each gear level.

How stats are allocated vary person to person and there will be some objections to this specific allocation. Alacrity should remain constant through the gearing process because it creates muscle memory. Choosing an Alacrity percentage depends on preference. 999 points of Alacrity equal 10.23% and I would not recommend going anywhere above 11%. If a player feels they want it faster and are willing to sacrifice Critical rating, that is their choice. Theory crafting makes the argument that 1351 Alacrity is the most optimal allocation. The choice to follow this should bring in factors like latency (server connection), personal reaction time, and overall healing style.

The long time argument for “Sorcs against Crit” is that Static Barrier cannot crit so you’re wasting your allocation. The truth is, in very hardcore progression, critical heals save lives. This topic is less controversial now as Crit in 4.0 is the “God-stat” but even before, critical heals save teams from wipes. Similarly like B mods (high endurance) save tanks from death. Theoretically they are not optimal, as theory crafters will elude to, however theory crafting does not include the unknown variable that plagues every team, human error.

Higher Critical values also yield an amazing amount of Force Surge stacks Making force management easier and instant cast Revivication puddles more frequent / not as taxing to use.

Augments

Many have opinions on what stat is the most important and debate over which stat you should augment in. Through theory crafting, it has been determined that tertiary stats are king. Augmenting in Alacrity and Critical is more beneficial than choosing Power or Mastery. Augments should be used to do exactly that, augment. If most of your enhancements, implants & earpiece have alacrity on them, augment in critical to balance it out and vice-versa.

Utility

Its important to know exactly what you have at your disposal so reading and understanding your skill points is vital. The combination of utility points is never set in stone and they change encounter to encounter. What one person chooses will be offset by what another decides. The overall goal of selecting your talents is to compliment your healing style with the tool that will help you perform the triage you need most effectively. Because there are so many situational talents to choose from, it’s important to understand the encounter so that you can load up your talents with what will give you the most success. I’m going to explain these from a PvE viewpoint as some of the skills heavily favor PvP or Dps specs.

Skillful

Utility Point Description Explaination
Force Suffusion Overload heals you and up to 7 affected allies for 769-1319. Marginally OK in very few instances in the game. Overall, it’s worthless.
Chain Shock Shock gains a 25% chance to produce a second Shock that deals 25% damage. Dps Talent
Sith Defiance Increase damage reduction by 3% This one is important. Sorcs have light armor and any help in survivability is appreciated.
Tempest Mastery Increase the damage dealt by Force Storm by 25% Dps Talent
Empty Body Increases all healing received by 10%. Does not affect stolen life. This talent is also important. Like Sith Defiance, this talent helps balance out our paper armor by making our heals to ourselves more effective.
Sap Strength Targets stunned by your Electrocute suffer Sapped Strength when Electrocute wears off, which reduces all damage dealt by 25% for 10 seconds. PvPww Talent
Oppressing Force Lowers the cooldown of Electrocute by 10 seconds. In addition, your Whirlwind affects up to 2 additional standard or weak enemies within 8 meters of the target. PvP Talent
Dark Speed Dark Heal increases the movement speed of the target by 50% for 6 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 12 seconds. As the other talents are PvP or Dps oriented, you have a choice between this one and Force Suffusion. Although trivial and slightly geared to PvP, I have found that this provides good utility in the right situation.

 

Masterful

Utility Point Description Explaination
Suppression Activating Cloud Mind grants Suppression, which increases damage reduction by 25% for 6 seconds. This is a great utility in fights where you know you’ll take significant damage as a light armor healer. Especially if the damage output is high on others, this reduces the time you have to focus on yourself allowing you more time to tend to your team.
Corrupted Flash Reduces the damage taken from all periodic effects by 15%. Situational. Important to know what encounter have mechanics that are classified as periodic effects. An example is Brontes NiM picking up each member of the raid and knocking them back.
Emersion Force Speed grants Emersion, removing all movement-impairing effects and granting immunity to them for the duration. This is another situational choice. It does wonders on Underlurker when Dps can’t kill adds fast enough but can mess up mechanics (Blaster) where you depend on these effects to survive.
Dark Resillience Reduces the damage taken by the target of your Extrication by 25% for 6 seconds after you Extricate them. Additionally increases the healing done by Unnatural Preservation by 30%. This talent is also very useful. I tend to switch back and fourth between this and Suppression. This helps your teammates out when they need it and gives you a substantial boost to your self heal. Because it heals you, it benefits from your 10% increased healing received.
Electric Bindings Overload binds targets in electricity, immobilizing them for 5 seconds. Direct damage dealt after 2 seconds ends the effect prematurely. Mainly a PvP talent, although useful in heavy add phase fights that do not have boss immunity like Revanite Commanders.
Lightning Barrier Increases the amount absorbed by your Static Barrier by 10%. This is Essential as a healer. Your “bubbles” contribute to a good portion of the overall effect you have on a fight. Giving your shields a bump saves lives.
Conspiring Force Targets affected by your Affliction are slowed by 30% for its duration. PvP Talent
Dizzying Force Reduces target’s accuracy by 20% for 8 seconds after Whirlwind ends. PvP Talent

 

Heroic

Utility Point Description Explaination
Backlash Static Barriers you place on yourself erupt in a flash of light when they end, blinding up to 8 nearby enemies for 3 seconds. This effect breaks from direct damage. Mainly a PvP talent, although useful in heavy add phase fights that do not have boss immunity like Revanite Commanders.
Surging Speed Polarity Shift increases your movement speed by 50% while active. In addition, Force Speed lasts 0,5 seconds longer, and when Force Barrier ends, the active cooldown of Force Speed is finished. PvP Talent – Useful for dealing with heavy pressure to yourself.
Shapeless Spirit Reduces all damage taken while stunned by 30%. PvP Talent – Although it can provide some benefit in some operations. Ex. KP Fabricator droids.
Force Haste Reduces the cooldown of Force Speed by 5 seconds, Force Slow by 3 seconds, and Force Barrier by 30 seconds. PvP Talent – Situational uses for PvE encounters do exist. Ex. Master laser absorbed by Force Barrier.
Force Mobility Thundering Blast, Innervate, and Force Leech may be activated while moving. Strongly recommend this talent. Sorcs are very mobile already but your ability to maintain healing depends on your stacks, which come from Innervate. It is possible to live without this talent as we have had to for so long but in high level raiding, mobility is very important meaning this talent should be one of your first picks.
Corrupted Barrier Your Static Barrier, Force Barrier, and Enduring Bastion heal you for 2% of your total health every second for as long as the last. This healing scales up to 8% with the charges for Enduring Bastion. This keeps a self heal on you as long as you have a bubble up. It is one of the talents I would like to spec into but because there are better options, I typically don’t.
Haunted Dreams If your Whirlwind breaks early from damage, the target is stunned for 2 seconds. In addition, Whirlwind activates instantly. PvP Talent – Good for some PvE encounters.
Shifting Silhouette Reduces all area of effect damage taken by 30%. In addition, using Phase Walk to return to its marked location grants Shifting Silhouette, keeping you from being leapt to or pulled and making you immune to interrupts and ability activation pushback for the next 6 seconds. This is the new 4.0 Talent. The phase walk perks are fairly decent but overall they’re trivial. The big-ticket item here is the AOE Reduction. There are many instances in PvE encounters that you inadvertently experience AOE damage. Many other classes have this effect and the ones that do typically have a higher level of durability.

Abilities

 

Healing Abilities

Through the coarse of the game you acquire many skills. Some are essential and are used very often and others are for certain situations. Some are also more helpful in PvE, and others in PvP. I will list the most important, and most used abilities with an explanation of each ability with a focus on Sorcerer PvE healing.

staticbarrier Static Barrier

 

An instant cast shield that absorbs a large amount of damage. This is not a heal.

  • Because it absorbs, it does not benefit from Critical rating
  • Does not benefit from the Absorption stat
  • Applies a Deionized debuff that locks the target from receiving another Static Barrier for 15 seconds

The Deionized lockout is something to be wary of. Static Barriers can only take so much damage and if all the damage happens in the first 5 seconds, your target is unshielded for another 10 seconds. How to properly use Static Barriers are discussed more in the Useful Tips / Reminderssection.

resurgence Resurgence

 

This is your most used ability as a Sorc healer. It is an instant-cast heal that applies a HoT (Heal over Time) that lasts 15 seconds (periodic healing ever 3 seconds) and an armor increase on the target you used it on. It also activates your Force Bending. Force bending grants you extra perks to what ever heal is used next. The five heals affected are:

  • Dark infusion
  • Dark Heal
  • Roaming Mend
  • Innervate
  • Revivication

Having Force Bending available is always preferred as it allows your abilities to be more effective so use Resurgence as often as you can.

Resurgence also uses Renewal if it used on a target that is already experiencing healing from your HoT. When Resurgence is reapplied, it combines all the remaining HoTs not realized from the previous Resurgence and adds them to the new Resurgence that was just applied. This means if you reapplied Resurgence on a target early on in the 15 seconds your second Resurgence would have some valuable HPS that could be realized in 1 second. In circumstances where one or two teammates (ie. Tanks) are taking a concentrated amount of damage, revolving Resurgence between them for Renewal is very beneficial. However, in scenarios where many members of the team could vastly benefit from Resurgence’s HoT and Armor increase, it’s recommended that this move be spread around.

darkinfusion Dark Infusion

 

This is your big cast big heal. Force Bending decreases the cast time for this heal and your set bonus gives this an automatic critical heal once every minute. It also proc’s your instant cast Dark Heal. Casting both heals in a row provides significant burst healing, especially if Dark Infusion uses the Force Mystic 2-piece set bonus critical effect. Although it has many positives, the cast time, even shortened, is still sometimes too long. I find the time you need this heal most is when someone is very low (they need to be burst healed back up). The problem is that using this long cast heal leaves your target in a dangerous health level for longer. Because it has no cool down lockout, It is my last resort or my preemptive strike. I will also use it if only one target needs healing and innervate is unusable.

darkheal Dark Heal

 

Dark heal is your smaller version of Dark Infusion. It has a shorter cast time and smaller heal. It receives an instant proc (allows you to use it without casting) from Dark Infusion, Revivication, Lightning Strike and Crushing Darkness. It also benefits from Force Bending, which increases its critical chance to 60%. I very rarely cast Dark Heal, as I rely on the instant cast proc most often.

roamingmend Roaming Mend

 

Roaming Mend is the pinnacle of Sorc healing. This is your smart heal, meaning it automatically chooses to heal who needs it most. If you cast this without Force Bending, you place 4 charges of Roaming Mend on your target. When that target takes damage, it consumes one charge of Roaming Mend and sends the remaining 3 charges to another target. The same process is repeated until there are no charges left.

  • Force Bending automatically uses all four charges on the four targets that need it most. This is the strongest and most effective burst heal in the game.
  • This ability also places Resistance on the targets it heals and lasts for 45 seconds granting them an internal and elemental damage reduction of 3%.
  • Roaming Mend is my favorite ability to combine with the two charges of Recklessness as it provides instant relief to high-pressure situations.
innervate Innervate

 

This is your main single target heal that heals your target 4 times (4 tics) over the channeled duration. When it is used with Force Bending, it has a higher chance to critically heal, which not only heals your target for more but also grants you stacks of Force Surge. You can get a maximum of 3 stacks. These stacks serve two purposes:

  • They are consumed to regenerate your force
  • They speed up your cast time for Revivication.

Gaining stacks is incredibly easy in 4.0 because the crit values have increased as we gear a lot more in critical rating.

consumingdarkness Consuming Darkness

 

This is your force management tool. Using this takes your life in return for force. If you consume while you have stacks of Force Surge then you do not experience any negative effects for doing so. If you do not have stacks when you use it, you will consume life as well as slow your force regeneration rate. Before 4.0, crits on Innervate would vary and bad luck would sometimes affect your force management. However, 4.0 crit values do not yield this situation. We are now at a point where you will have an excess of stacks to consume with or use on Revivication.

revifification Revivication

 

This is your AOE heal. It heals up to 8 targets and your targets do not need to remain in your “puddle” to receive healing. They only need to tag the puddle for a second and they will gain a periodic healing buff that follows them wherever they go. Revivication also uses stacks of Force Surge:

  • 1 stack = Reduce cast time by 0.25 seconds
  • 2 stacks = Reduce cast time by 0.5 seconds
  • 3 Stacks = Instant cast

Revivication is fairly costly, especially if you use 3 stacks of surge (that are meant to regain your force). Force Bending decreases the force cost of Revivication.

unnaturalpreservation Unnatural Preservation

 

This is your self heal. It is off the GCD and has a 30 second cool down. If the Dark Resilience utility point is chosen, this ability also gets a 30% increase to its healing done. I’ve met healers (and was one myself) that save this for emergencies. I would recommend planning to avoid emergency situations, not planning for what to do when you get there. Use this heal to keep on top of your raid frame damage as saving it only wastes it.

expunge Expunge

 

This cleanses a friendly target of up to 2 negative mental, physical or force effects. It also heals for a small amount. This ability is vital in some fight’s mechanics (ie. Revan). Most the time it is used to decrease DoT damage on tanks. Depending on the damage a DoT is doing on one of your teammates, you can choose if it warrants the use of a cleanse or if its easier just to heal through it.

Cooldown and Survivability Abilities

polarityshift Polarity Shift

 

This ability increases Alacrity by 20%, and grants immunity to interrupts and pushback for 10 seconds. The best use is when your raid frame needs several points of attention to get it back in a healthy shape.

Another, more advanced, use of this cool down is on your opening Dps rotation. Many of the NiM fights in 4.0 have significant Dps checks and not as hard healing ones. Using your Unlimited Power raid–wide buff with Polarity Shift at the start of a pull on a boss can help your team make a Dps check more attainable.

recklessness Recklessness

 

This ability provides you two stacks that grant your next direct heal (or force attack) a +60% critical chance. The stacks last for 20 seconds or until they are used, which ever comes first.

  • HoTs/DoTs, and Static Barrier do not consume these stacks.
  • Heals with more than one heal in the ability will consume them.
    • Innervate has 4 ticks of healing, 2 stacks of Recklessness can be consumed on any of those 4 ticks.
    • Roaming Mend has four charges and 2 recklessness stacks can be used in the 2 of the 4 charges.

With the amount of Critical rating on Sorc gear in 4.0, the Critical multiplier is fairly high. For this reason, it is recommended that Recklessness stacks be used with Roaming Mend (with Force Bending). This recommendation is further discussed and outlined in Advanced Practices Discussion.

unlimitedpower Unlimited Power

 

This is your Raid-wide buff that provides anyone within 40m of you a 10% Mastery increase for 10 seconds. Sorcs are the only class that does not need to spend any type of resource to use this buff. This means we are the only class that has no argument as to why it can’t be used, so use it. It’s recommended that it be in your team’s openers as that’s typically the highest amount of cumulative damage output. It can be saved for tight phases as well (both Healing and Dps).

cloudmind Cloud Mind

 

This ability is off the GCD and reduces your threat with each enemy by 25%. If Suppression is taken as a utility point, it also provides you with a 25% increase to damage reduction for 6 seconds.

extrication Extrication

 

This ability pulls a friendly target from within 30m to your relative location; it also reduces that targets threat by 25%.

  • Useful in addressing treat issues of teammates who have already used their threat drop.
  • Also incredibly useful in saving teammates from very dangerous situations.
  • If the Dark Resilience utility point is chosen, Extrication provides its target a 25% damage reduction for 6 seconds.
forcebarrier Force Barrier

 

This ability has an 8 second channel time and a cool down of 3 minutes, unless spec’d differently. It protects you from almost any negative effect but cannot be used while moving. As the 8 second cast continues, you gain stacks of Enduring Bastion.

  • You gain one stack of Enduring Bastion for activating Force Barrier and one stack for ever 2 seconds you spend channeling it to a maximum of 4 stacks. Meaning, you only need to channel Force Barrier for 6 of the 8 seconds to receive the 4 stacks of Enduring Bastion.
  • Enduring Bastion provides you a shield that absorbs incoming damage and immunity to interrupts and pushbacks for another 5 seconds.
  • The amount of damage Enduring Bastion can absorb is reliant on the amount of stacks accumulated while channeling Force Barrier.
forcespeed Force Speed

 

This ability increases your movement speed by 150% for 2 seconds. Unfortunately, it has seen a cool down lockout increase to 30 seconds in 4.0. It is a great way of getting somewhere quick. Because of the lockout and the fact that it provides no healing, it should be used sparingly. That does not mean save it for emergency, it means use it to help negate negative situations.

overload Overload

 

This is your knock back ability. If the Force Suffusion utility is chosen, this heals your team when used. However, it really is only worth it if everyone on the team needs healing and you have to knock something back. The only instance I’ve found this useful is on Revan when he spawns blades and no one on your team can knock back. Performing a vital mechanic in the fight and healing people as you do it is a win-win. In any other case, your mulit-target heals will outshine the heal on this ability. I only chose this utility as there were no better options pre 4.0. Now you have another option and the team utility it provides is better then an insignificant heal.

phasewalk Phase Walk

 

Last, but certainly not least, Phase Walk is our new ability for 4.0. It’s actually mirrored after the Assassin’s Phase Walk, meaning it does the exact same thing. This ability sets a pre-determined drop point, that you choose, and when you activate it, brings you back there instantly. This is a massive increase in survivability in PvP but in PvE it’s trivial. Its uses are similar to Extrication, lifesavers if used properly in very specific situations. Using it can help you escape somewhere you don’t want to be. Just be mindful of where you dropped it, teleporting into fire (or another mechanic) might do the opposite of your intention.

Contributing Damage

There are many instances where healing is not very intense and may require only one healer to heal. As opposed to fighting over the scraps with your co-healer, contribute to your team’s success by doing Dps. The one definite truth is that every encounter is easier with higher Dps. The makings of a great healer is one that can distribute damage while maintaining the passive buffs (armor increases, HoTs, etc.) in low healing scenarios and kick it up to match the damage output of hard healing phases in an instant.

The six main Dps abilities are:

  • Affliction
    • Instant cast DoT lasting 18 seconds
  • Crushing Darkness
    • 2 second cast DoT, provides moderate damage as a healer
    • Procs Dark Concentration (instant cast Dark Heal)
  • Shock
    • Instant cast attack useful while moving
  • Force Lightning
    • Channeled attack immune to pushback (unlike Crushing Darkness)
  • Lightning Strike
    • 1.5 second cast
    • Procs Dark Concentration (instant cast Dark Heal)
  • Force Storm
    • 3 second cast, 8m radius AoE Attack

Tips and Advanced Discussion

 

Tips & Remainders

  • Remember your Static Barrier (bubble) can only take a certain amount of damage, it’s important to time your application of them to be in line with incoming damage. An example of this would be a few seconds before the fire vents against Torque come up. Bubble your tanks or melee Dps to help protect them from their own slow reaction time. Or right before your tanks take a knock back from Blaster and are out of your range for a short period of time. If you “Deionized” your target (lock them out of receiving your bubble) trying to negate trivial damage that can be healed through, you won’t have the option to apply the shield before a substantial hit. Timing your bubbles can save your team’s lives, use them wisely.
  • Be sure to use Recklessness after you queue up Force Bending with Resurgence as you don’t want one of your Recklessness Charges wasted on the small Resurgence heal.
  • As past guides have alluded to, fine-tuning a healing UI in the UI editor is extremely beneficial. Putting the operation frame in a spot that is accessible without blocking your view as it’s important to see what’s going on around you. Also be sure to include /turn on non-cleansable debuffs. Many people turned that off when 3.0 came out and all the class buffs cluttered the ops frame. Bioware patched this and made sure the most important debuffs are shown first. The reason this is important for sorcs is that we need to know when are targets are no longer Deionized so we may place another Static Barrier on them.
  • It is very easy for a healer to “get lost in the frame” or “tunnel”. Your number one job as a healer is staying alive then healing your team. You’re of no help dead, so doing things that allow for more raid awareness will define you as more than just a competent healer, but a great one.

Advanced Practice Discussion

Renewal vs. Spread

The bottom line is that this choice is based on situational factors. The Renewal heal provides and extra burst to an already burst-type healing class to match the damage centered on a few targets. Spreading Resurgence’s HoT and Armor increase around the team is more beneficial in an AoE heavy phase where all teammates are taking consistent damage (ex. Burn phase in Dread Council).

Recklessness on Roaming Mend

With the rise of the almighty Critical rating in 4.0, using Recklessness on any heal that already benefits from a critical buff is questionable. Dark Heal with Force Bending has an increased 60% critical chance (in addition to the Critical on your gear). Innervate with Force Bending has a 25% increase to critical chance. Dark Infusion benefits from the Force Mystic set bonus, which increases its critical chance by 100%. The only significant heals worth left using Recklessness on is Roaming Mend and Unnatural Preservation. Unnatural Preservation has a 30 second cool down and only benefits the health of your raid frame if you yourself are taking damage. That leaves Roaming Mend. Apart from the process of elimination, Mend does the target switching work so you don’t have to.

Example:

If three targets take damage from a boss cleave (Main tank, Off tank & Melee Dps) but the main tank is still getting pummeled by boss damage, Roaming Mend, with Recklessness, used on the main tank first will crit to respond to the cleave damage and then crit on the person who needs healing the second most. While the charges of Mend go about the targets doing the healing needed, I remain targeted on the main tank as that is where the damage profile is currently being distributed.

The critical heal of Roaming Mend helped address past cleave & continuous boss damage and eliminated my need to target swap. Because I did not have to click the frame (target swap), I am more freely available to keep my eyes on the field, providing me raid awareness.

The only other abilities I would recommend Recklessness on is Dark Infusion (with Force Bending) followed by the instant-cast Dark Heal. This would be if you needed to focus on one target but PvE encounter’s single target damage is manageable without a cool down (ie. Recklessness). Not to mention the fact that if a single target needs that much healing, the long cast time leaves them in a dangerous place for way to long. More often than not, the situation you’ll find most pressure intense is when several targets require immediate attention, Roaming Mend does that for us, why not give it a boost.

Key Binding

Key binding important abilities is the most performance-increasing step you can take. Combined with an efficient UI, key binding allows a massive reduction in your reaction time to healing damage taken. When individuals send me videos to coach them, it is usually the first thing I’ll say if they aren’t already doing it. Now, I have met amazing players that mastered the art of clicking and to them I tip my hat. However, in my experience the majority of individuals cannot perform at an optimum level without them.

About the Author

 

In swtor, I go by Kalizo. I am currently one of the healers in Provectus and although I can play all three roles, my strength and passion lie in the sorc healer. It was my first end game character and the role I returned to after a short exploration into Dps, where I differentiated myself as one of the few Jugg Dps to obtain the Deposer of the Dread Masters title. I have raided on 4 different servers in both North America and in Europe, with some of the best players in the world. My philosophy towards healing is strongly accredited to my time in Zorz where I learned to never waste a gcd. I am lucky to have learned from the best and in turn, want to pay it forward.

Introduction to Madness Sorcerer

 

Coming Soon.

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