SWTOR 5.0 Medicine Operative PvP Guide by Hottie and Doc

SWTOR 5.0 Medicine Operative PvP Guide written by Hottie and Doc.

Intro to Medicine Operative

Definitions

  • LoS – Line of Sight
  • AoE – Area of Effect
  • HoT – Healing over Time ability
  • DoT – Damage over Time ability
  • HPS – Healing Per Second
  • DPS – Damage Per Second
  • CC – Crowd Control (Stun)
  • Hardstun – CC that doesn’t break on damage taken (Debilitate)
  • Mez – CC that breaks on damage taken (Flash Bang)
  • CD – Cooldown
  • DCD – Defensive Cooldown
  • GCD – Global Cooldown (1.5 seconds)
  • DR – Diminishing Returns; how quickly the amount of value you get out of a stat drops
  • Proc – When conditions are met for a passive ability to activate on your buff bar (Tactical Advantage)

Advantages

  • Fairly mobile
  • Sustained healing over time
  • Can self-cleanse DoTs/Roots/Slows
  • Best AoE healing in the game

Disadvantages

  • HPS is strongly affected by how you manage HoTs
  • Weak single target burst healing
  • Only healing class without damage reduction while stunned
  • Only healing class without Interrupt immunity

5.0 PvP Patch Highlights

  • Expertise stat removed from gear and rolled into Warzone Buff.
  • Warhero crystals for weapons stat have been converted from Expertise to Mastery Stat.
  • All PvP vendor gear on fleet is now removed; you can no longer buy your PvP gear.
  • After reaching lv70 and are subscribed to the game, you are able to gain “Command Levels” (lv300 cap).
  • 4.0 PvP warzone currency now converted into credits; conversion cap was 2 million credits (40K WZ comms) per character.
  • Everytime you earn a command level you receive a command crate which has random item rewards (gear, cosmetic items, pets, crafting materials etc). Gear in crates is tailored to the spec (Medicine, Concealment etc) you are in when you open them.
  • Command crates gear tiers scale with command levels; t1 = level 1-89, t2 = level 90-179, t2 level 180-300

Note: If you like to spend some time in a DPS spec any crates you are granted can just be opened later after you have changed your spec back to Medicine and you will get healing gear out of the crate.

Gearing in 5.0

The main thing you need to take from 5.0 is that you now have to level up to get gear. You no longer will be able to buy your PvP gear from a vendor. Gear is now only gained every time you open a command crate (rewarded when you level up). These crates have random items in them. If you do not like the items or they are not useful to you, you can disintegrate them into command experience to help get to the next level and next crate faster. Gearing is highly RNG but in a warzone bolster will help scale your gear so the main difficulty is managing the ratio of Crit and Alacrity.

When gearing keep in mind that because set bonuses are tied to armorings, there is more to what the best armoring in a slot is than just the rating of the armoring. Set bonus should always take priority over item rating. This means that if you have an old set bonus armoring, keep it until you get a better rated armoring THAT ALSO HAS THE SET BONUS. If you do not have an old set bonus, you can just worry about the item rating until you start pulling set bonus gear out of crates. When opening command crates you will receive gear pieces that will be greens, blues, or purples. For those who have modded gear, if any gear you receive does not have the ability to rip out the mods/enhancements, deintegrate it. The purple gear will contain your gear set bonus, this is important.

THIS NEW SET BONUS STACKS WITH YOUR OLD PVP GEAR SET (208s); THEY ARE THE SAME. That means if you get lv70 purple gear in your command crate the set bonus will stack with your old one. This is not the case for green/blue armorings. DO NOT REPLACE YOUR OLD SET BONUS ARMORINGS BECAUSE YOU WILL LOSE YOUR SET BONUS. Just replace your mods and enhancements in your gear until you get the purple set bonus gear from your command crates. Remember that means if you get 3 glove blues in a row, don’t be afraid to claim them just to rip out the mods/enhancements to put them into your chest and legs.

When you first start replacing all your old gear don’t be worry so much about stats and min/maxing until you have at least you get all the new mods/enhancements in your gear of your current level tier. Bolster will help even things out for the most part. Once you feel comfortable that you have obtained enough of the gear for your command tier you can start min/maxing the mods/armorings. Remember once you hit lv90 then 180 you will begin to do the same thing for the next tier of gear.

AT THIS TIME WE DO NOT KNOW IF OR WHEN BOLSTER STARTS TO DOWNSCALE YOUR GEAR TIER IN PVP WARZONES. ADDITIONALLY, IT MAY BE SOME TIME BEFORE THE EXACT DETAILS OF BOLSTER ARE WELL UNDERSTOOD.

  • Note: Green mods/enhancement and gear bolster lower in warzones than purple 208 pvp gear. Trash your greens and wait for blue/purple mods/enhancements and gear.
  • Note: Because Expertise is removed from PvP gear as a stat it makes PvP gear and PvE gear the same. This means there nothing wrong with buying enhancements/mods/gear from players or crafting your own. Again just be aware of the stat priority and armoring gear set bonuses.
  • Note: T1 bolster testing I have done: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=903890

Stat priority in 5.0

Stat priority goes as followed: Crit > Alacrity over Mastery and Power

I highly recommend a split Crit/Alacrity build because it will give you the best HPS output potential.

According to Bant’s calculations, Critical Rating and Alacrity Rating benefit you more in regards to HPS for Operative/Scoundrels than Mastery or Power. Crit and Alacrity continue to be better than Mastery and Power well beyond the stat caps of current gear. Essentially, it is impossible to actually have too much of them — it’s just a matter of maintaining a reasonable ratio between the two, which is discussed below (slightly more Crit than Alacrity).

Ideal Armor Stats:

  • Critical Rating: ~45% (~1900 rating)
  • Alacrity: ~15% (~1800 rating)

With bolster you will find there is a lot of wiggle room when it comes to stacking your two (2) priority stats (Crit/Alacrity). After you reach this ideal stat cap continue to keep stacking into Crit/Alacrity (with a greater leaning on Crit).

Here’s how you hit these numbers:

  • Mainhand/Offhand color crystals: +41 CRIT
  • Augments: Advanced Alacrity Augment 45: 65+ Endurance 96+ Alacrity
  • Advanced Critical Augments 45: 65+ Endurance 96+ Critical
  • Enhancements/Mods: Alacrity or Critical Rating, depending on what you get from crates and what you need to hit ideal stats.

Relics:

Picking optimal relics for healers for PvP is an easy choice. The two you should always pick from are the one which gives you a Mastery bonus and a Power bonus proc because these are the relics that will boost your HPS the most in combat. NEVER buy the Crit or healing relics, they are decidedly less valuable. Mastery and Power relics will work in warzones, other relics if you read their description, will not work in PvP. BiS are the Focused Retribution and Serendipitous Assault purple relics that you get in your current level tier. You will replace them once you get a better one (1-89, 90-189, 190-300).

Relic of Focused Retribution – Healing an ally or performing a damaging attack on an enemy both have a 30% chance of grant X of your Mastery Stat for 6 seconds. This effect can only occur once every 20 seconds.

Relic of Serendipitous Assault – Healing an ally or performing a damaging attack on an enemy both have a 30% chance of grant X Power for 6 seconds. This effect can only occur once every 20 seconds.

Note: If you get two of the same relic name, their procs will not stack in combat.  

Stat Analysis:

Critical Rating: Since the changes in 4.0, Crit has become one of the most important stats for DPS and healers because Critical Chance and Critical Multiplier are rolled both into the Critical Rating stat. That means stacking Crit not only increases how often you land critical hits but also increases the healing/damage bonus you receive when you land a Crit. Any stat which lets you double dip is extremely beneficial when gearing.

There is literally no debate regarding the value of stacking Critical Rating in your build. If you choose to not run a high Crit build it is a guaranteed HPS loss.

Alacrity: Alacrity gives you a reduction in your GCD (your GCD is 1.5 seconds with 0 Alacrity Rating), reduction in activation time, and a reduction in channeling speed. In order to understand how gear to properly, it’s important to understand what exactly Alacrity does, since it has several effects. A high-level way to describe the impact of Alacrity would be that it increases how quickly and how often you can use your abilities based on your Alacrity percentage.

Let’s use 10% Alacrity as an example. This will reduce the length of your GCD by 10% and increase your energy regeneration by 10% to account for the fact that you will be spending energy 10% faster. Your casts and channels will also go 10% faster to keep them in line with the 10% shorter GCD on your instant abilities. And finally, your healing abilities have their cooldowns reduced by 10%. When utilized correctly, Alacrity significantly increases your HPS, much more so than Power or Mastery. In ideal circumstances, you can think of 1% Alacrity Rating translating into roughly 1% HPS gain when gearing.

So how do you utilize your Alacrity effectively? You need to avoid gaps in between abilities to leverage the shorter GCD and you need to avoid letting your important heals sit off cooldown in order to take advantage of the shorter CD Alacrity provides. I’ll refer to doing these 2 things as maintaining “uptime.” Being stunned often and the dynamic nature of PVP will prevent you from having perfect uptime but as a healer you should be able to maintain fairly good uptime (it is much harder to maintain good uptime as a melee DPS, for example). As such, I strongly recommend the split of Crit and Alacrity build described at the start of the gearing section. If you are considering dropping some exchange it for Critical Rating because Master or Power will give you less of an HPS increase.

Be aware that while Alacrity does have some diminishing returns, they are fairly slight. Alacrity continues to provide reasonable benefit even at very high values.

Mastery: This is your main class stat. Mastery provides a static increase to your bonus healing and a small increase to your Critical Chance (but not your Critical Rating). Crit will always output more healing than Mastery and Alacrity typically will as well. I strongly advise running no Mastery augments. The increase to bonus healing is not subject to diminishing returns but the increase to your critical chance from Mastery does have some diminishing returns.

Power: Power provides a static increase to your bonus healing but Crit will always output more healing and Alacrity typically will as well. I strongly advise running no Power augments. Power is not subject to diminishing returns.

Note: You will notice that the more you are CC/Mezed the more stacking Crit starts to creep up in effectiveness relative to Alacrity because of severe loss of uptime. That is why some healers choose to run lower Alacrity in team ranked because they expect to have poor uptime verse certain teams.

Datacrons:

Datacrons are objects that can be found and collected around the many worlds of SWTOR. When collected you will gain a small stat increase (Mastery or END). In 4.0 there was a major change where the developers converted all the class specific stats into one called Mastery. This means that if you haven’t collected all the Datacons that used to be another worthless stats pre. 4.0 you are missing out on a significant free stat increase. The good news is datacons are now legacy bound. If you collect some on one toon all toons on your account will have max bonus to Mastery or END. If you want to min/max I really highly recommend you go out and search for them, there are many guides with instructions out there which makes it simple. If you choose to not get any datacons you are missing out on a 150+ stat bonus.

Companion Affection Bonuses:

You will notice that when you max out a companion’s affection you will gain a small buff to your character. This is also legacy bound meaning you only have to max out one group of companions to gain all the small bonuses.

  • Kaliyo: 1% Max HP
  • Vector: 1% Critical Damage*
  • Doctor Lokin: 2% Healing Received
  • Ensign Temple: 1% Critical Hit Chance*
  • Scorpio: 1% Accuracy

The only companions you really have to worry about maxing their affection is Kaliyo, Vector, Doctor Lokin, and Ensign Temple. If you are min/maxing I would recommend it.

Note/fun-fact: All datacons, companion bonuses and class buffs transfer across region (NA/EU). You now don’t have to be afraid of transferring a toon from NA to EU or vias versa and not having your bonuses you worked so hard to get.

Utilities

PVP Healing Utilities

best Op utility final2

Skillful

47822802_13272682912119863739_1640445828

SKILLFUL: Nanotech Suit – Reduces all area of effect damage taken by 30%.

SKILLFUL: Chem-resistant Inlays – Increases damage reduction by 5%.

I grouped these two utilities together because they are the only ones in your utility tree that are a passive damage reduction. One of Operative’s weaknesses is they are the only class without a stun damage reduction. This means when we are double hardstunned without a breaker, we are in an extremely vulnerable state because we have nothing in our kit that lets us mitigate damage. That is why these two passives are extremely important to take. They are our only passive damage reduction and help with our survivability.

1148607229_667747631

SKILLFUL: Imperial Weaponry – Noxious Knives deals 25% more damage.

DO NOT TAKE. This is a specific DPS utility and has no benefit for healers. The only time we should be using Noxious Knives in combat as a healer is when we are trying to help our DPS find a stealther.

2553053340_4204086370

SKILLFUL: Hit and Run – Attacking a target with Shiv grants Hit and Run, increasing your movement speed by 50% for 3 seconds.

DO NOT TAKE. Not a bad utility for escaping one target but if there are more than one enemy attacking you, it isn’t helpful. You can’t afford to take it anymore because the new skill tree design. There is better stuff to put your points in. I would say this is now more of a DPS utility to help stay in melee range then a kiting utility for healers.

Note: Operatives shouldn’t have issues kiting because of our kit: Evasion helps us get unrooted/slowed roughly every 20-30 seconds (Evasive Imperative utility greatly decreases the CD of your Evasion if you are constantly being attacked), Sever Tendon slows a target so we can create distance, Exfiltrate lets us roll twice away from enemies, and Holotraverse lets us teleport away. With all these abilities in our kit, it takes away the effectiveness of putting a utility point in ANOTHER kiting ability. We just don’t need it.

2289162421_3635850666

SKILLFUL: Slip Away – Reduces the cooldown of Debilitate by 15 seconds.

This is a good utility when you want to run solo as an Operative healer. The reduced cooldown on your hardstun can help you kite/create distance and stun a player to get important cast heals off. You can choose to replace Med Shield utility for this one (putting three (3) utilities in Skillful and one (1) in Masterful). Keep in mind, the only way to get the most out of this utility is if you are constantly using your hardstun. If you don’t like that playstyle, it isn’t worth putting a utility point into it. Also if you choose to play with a group of players particularly with a tank, I wouldn’t recommend this utility because you would only be using it for survivability and for emergency stunning to get a cast off. You wouldn’t need it if you have guard, support, and peels.

Note: With all of that being said I would recommend this utility for experienced Operatives, particulary duos with a DPS friend. When I say “experienced” I mean an Operative who can maintain extremely good HoT and heal uptime while being focus fired, knows when you have opportunities in your healing rotation to sneak in some DPS on a target, while helping control healers and having a good understanding of all offensive classes to CC them at the right time. I personally spec into hardstun reduction when I’m duoing because it fits with my aggressive healing style and with my understanding of how to control as well as mitigate burst of different classes my team is fighting against. With hardstun reduction you could easily duo against 4 players if you know when to heal verse doing damage and how to effectively use your CCs properly. The hardstun helps you be able to get important heals off by stunning a dps who is constantly interrupting you, it also acts as another interrupt for healers as well as stopping their healing to create windows for you to help add little burst dps with your duo to help down an enemy.

4132421714_1831132198

SKILLFUL: Infiltrator – Increases movement speed by 15% and effective stealth level by 3.

DO NOT TAKE. This utility is only useful for DPS Operatives who are looking for an aggressive playstyle. For a healer it would be a waste to spec into this utility because we aren’t stealthing and re-stealthing often in combat.

Masterful

3544649224_1949700538

MASTERFUL: Curbing Strategies – Overload Shot and Noxious Knives reduces the movement speed of the targets they damage by 40% for 6 seconds. In addition, when Flash Grenade ends it leaves behind Flash Power that reduces the target’s Accuracy by 20% for 8 seconds.

DO NOT TAKE. The first part of this utility is DPS specific and pointless for healers. Both DPS abilities it refers to use a lot of energy to cast in addition to requiring close proximity. We also already have a slow, Sever Tendon, which has a short CD and is a 50% movement speed reduction. The second half of this utility is part of a new 5.0 utility merge. “Flash Powder” in 4.0 used to be a utility in Skillful and was worth taking for healing Operatives as another way to mitigate group damage or cleave because of the Accuracy debuff. Now this new merge with another strictly DPS oriented utility makes taking this utility as a healer not optimal.

446729619_547623580

MASTERFUL: Precision Instruments – Reduces the energy cost of Debilitate and Tendon Blast by 5 and makes Sever Tendon immobilize the target for 2 second.

DO NOT TAKE. This is a DPS specific utility and useless to take as a healer.

1708291493_2666879618

MASTERFUL: Advanced Cloaking – Reduces the cooldown of Cloaking Screen by 30 seconds. In addition, activating Cloaking Screen increases movement speed by 50% for 6 seconds.

DO NOT TAKE. This utility isn’t worth taking because it doesn’t lower the cooldown of your combat stealth enough to be useful. Also, the 50% increased movement speed addition is pointless because every time you stealth out you roll anyways which is just as effective. I personally don’t like putting utility points on a long defensive cooldown that are situational. Some games you will use it a lot while others you barely utilize it. I would rather spend a point on something I get often, consistent use out of (like Med Shield) than a small buff to a last-resort cooldown that I will often not need.

4218020749_2637499415

MASTERFUL: Med Shield – Your Shield Probe heals you for 5% of your maximum health when it collapses.

This utility used to be second rate in 3.0-4.0 but its usefulness has slightly been increased with the having Escape Plan Defenses being more accessible in the utility tree. These two utilities together would allow you to get your Shield Probe 5 seconds faster as well as giving you a 5% heal for your maximum health more often. With the increased effectiveness of these two utilities used together, it will be worth taking for healers to increase their survivability.

759959818_1523318311

MASTERFUL: Endorphin Rush – Adrenaline Probe now immediately restores 15 additional energy.

DO NOT TAKE. This utility isn’t worth spending a point in. The default Adrenaline Probe as an ability is good enough to do its job, there is no need to spend a valuable utility point to make it slightly better. If you use the healing priority system I outline in the healing section of the guide you shouldn’t be running out of energy often. The only times you should be running out of energy are when you are never being CCed/Interrupted or you are forced to cast healing Kolto Injection repeatedly (shouldn’t happen often).

3835267973_3385130153

MASTERFUL: Fortified Kolto – While your Kolto Probe is active on yourself, your damage reduction is increased by 3% per stack (6% total with two (2) stacks).

This is a great utility to take in the Operative tree. Any passive damage reduction is extremely important for Operatives because like I said before, we are extremely weak when we are stunned without a break since we have no stun damage reduction. This is a must-have.

Heroic

808512675_2335755240

HEROIC: Imperial Tactics – Sever Tendon will now grant a Tactical Advantage.

DO NOT TAKE. This is a DPS Operative utility and pointless for healers. We already can sustain a healthy amount of Tactical Advantage by just healing.

2393190061_2929250619

HEROIC: Evasive Screen – When activated, Cloaking Screen grants 2 seconds of Dodge.

DO NOT TAKE. This utility isn’t bad but isn’t worth putting a point in. The goal in this utility is to make it safer when you use your combat stealth by gaining 2 seconds of Dodge therefore, you evade damage and cleanse DoTs so you can safely get away. You can literally do the same thing by stealthing out and using your Evasion ability then rolling. This utility isn’t that great for being in a higher tier which makes it worthless to consider. Again, like I said before, I personally dislike putting points in abilities that are situational with long cooldowns, I would rather save my utility points for shorter CD abilities that I use often because it increases overall effectiveness of the utility point I put in.

259554577_2078005715

HEROIC: Evasive Imperative – Every time you get attacked, the active cooldown of your Evasion is reduced by 3 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 1.5 seconds.

This is one of the best utilities in the Heroic tree and should be a priority for Operative healers. If you are constantly being attacked in PvP you can theoretically get your CD of Evasion reduced from 1 minute to just shy of 20 seconds. Even if you are attacked only once every 3 seconds the CD is cut in half to 30 seconds. Evasion is an extremely important ability in your kit because it lets you dodge all white damage for its duration and when activated cleanses all slows/dots/roots.

Note: This ability not only procs for single target attacks but also DoT ticks. If you are constantly being DoTed the CD of Evasion will reliably reduced to nearly 20 seconds. More DoT ticks means it will be easier to cleanse them off with Evasion.


Note: Just think about what this utility does with the new combination of Blow for Blow, you will have a 3 second 150% single target reflect theoretically every 20 seconds. That is crazy!

3400129020_3593730726

HEROIC: Cunning Competencies – Countermeasures will also purge all movement-impairing effects when activated. Additionally, when Sleep Dart wears off, the target is struck by Sedatives, reducing all damage dealt by 50% for the next 10 seconds.

DO NOT TAKE. This utility is good for Concealment DPS but isn’t as useful for healers. It’s just not good enough to take for healers and with the addition of Sedatives buff in 5.0 (which is a dueling specific utility before), it gives us literally no extra benefit for us healers. One of the main reasons I personally wouldn’t take it is because we can root break with Evasion extremely often which reduces the value of this utility. We also never really get into situations where a root is what kills us; double hardstun is what kills us the most often and this utility can’t help with that. I just personally wouldn’t recommend this from a survivability standpoint because it’s not good enough to take verse the other utilities in the Heroic tier.

2482095468_2305768092

HEROIC: Escape Plan – Reduces the cooldown of Escape by 30 seconds, Shield Probe by 5 seconds, and Infiltrate by 60 seconds.

This is the second best utility in the Heroic tree. It’s a must-have for Operative because it gives us two things that are very beneficial for us: it decreases the CD of your Shield Probe and your breaker. This utility syncs well with the Med Shield utility in the Masterful tree. Our weakest moments for an Operative are when our breaker is on cooldown since we only have one true escape. A 30 second reduction on your breaker as well as a decreased CD on Shield Probe increases your survivability greatly. This utility is a must-have in 5.0.

1518249253_1677920328

HEROIC: Jarring Strike – When used from stealth, Backstab knocks down the target for 3 seconds. If the target is a player, they will be interrupted and immobilizing for 3 seconds.

DO NOT TAKE. This is a DPS utility and has no benefit for healers.

Legendary

1527183839_1271952258

LEGENDARY: Circumvention – Reduces the cooldown of Holotraverse by 10 seconds and Holotraverse can be used while immobilized and purges movement-impairing effects when used. Additionally, Holotraverse grants a Tactical Advantage.

DO NOT USE. Holotraverse is a very buggy and broken ability which still only works 50% of the time as intended. Its design is supposed to let you create distance, kite, or travel to an ally to heal. Instead, because of bad coding, much of the time it doesn’t teleport you anywhere, teleports you past your location, and/or almost always doesn’t teleport you properly upstairs. With how this ability is not working as intended, putting a utility point into it in your legendary tree isn’t worth it. The only thing you would gain is another root break which, like I said before, isn’t really needed because of how fast Evasion gets off CD. Even with the new addition in 5.0 of it also gaining Tactical Advantage, it’s still not even close to being good enough to use.

710096943_1530084022

LEGENDARY: Mobile Assailer – Exfiltrate grants a charge of Mobile Assailer, reducing the energy cost of your next Overload Shot by 100%, allowing it to be used at 30m, and making it knock the target back. Each use of Overload Shot consumes a charge of Mobile Assailer and grants 10 energy.

DO NOT TAKE. This is a DPS focused utility and pointless to take for healers.

1191990268_649728397

LEGENDARY: Revitalizers – Stim Boost now additionally grants Revitalizers, restoring 5% of total health every 3 seconds (equals to 25% hp healed) and reducing damage received by 20% for 15 seconds.

This utility turns your Stim Boost into a DCD. I recommend putting a point into this to increase your survivability in combat.

3578116381_314239385

LEGENDARY: Curative Agent – Countermeasures grants Curative Agent, causing your next Kolto Probe to immediately grant two stacks. Additionally, Countermeasures heals you for 1% of your maximum health every second for 10 seconds and Kolto Infusion delivers its heal instantly, no longer healing the target over time.

DO NOT TAKE/SITUATIONAL. I personally would not recommend this utility for a PVP healer. The “buff” to Kolto Infusion is easily nullified by interrupts, it actually reduces the overall healing output of the ability, and ultimately does extraordinarily little to alleviate the difficulty in getting our burst heals out. This utility is meant to help give us some breathing room when we need to burst heal but does very little to actually accomplish that because you still have to cast to get the burst out. The instant double stack of Kolto Probe is only moderately helpful as it only saves you a single GCD, assuming you actually need a double stack in the moment. And the 10% self heal over 10 seconds is very fluffy. To make matters worse, this utility suffers from the issue of providing multiple, not necessarily overlapping benefits. The 10% self heal might be nice in a moment but the double stack of your HoTs useless and vice versa. The bottom line is that Blow For Blow and Revitalizers are almost always superior choices in the Legendary tier.

Tip: For advanced players, I would spec into this for group ranked if you are forced to face a mez comp. Specing this utility will be better running than two (2) DCDs if the enemy team is not actually attacking you. For solo ranked it’s iffy. If you know there are tanks in queue you can run with this utility but if you are forced to play 3 DPS matches, specing into two (2) DCDs in legendary would hands down be better just in case you are tunneled.

Note: Currently in 5.0 there is a bug(?): the double stack of probe is healing instantly for a huge heal. I do not believe this is intended.

179294669_3399127155

LEGENDARY: Augmented Shields – Increase the amount of damage absorbed by Shield Probe by 30%.

Since this utility was moved around it is now worth taking as a DCD improvement.This will improve the effectiveness of your shield that you are popping very often to absorb damage. Just keep in mind that Revitalizers/Surprise Comeback is BETTER than this utility overall. Using them together is fine but do not remove Revitalizers/Surprise Comeback to take this utility. It is NOT worth it.

128838422_4193450629

LEGENDARY: Blow for Blow – Evasion grants a charge of Blow for Blow, returning 150% single target Tech or Force damage while Evasion is active for 3 seconds.

SITUATIONAL.This is a new 5.0 utility which is extremely powerful. Since you spec into Evasive Imperative/Scramble which reduces the cooldown on your Evasion/Dodge, it makes this utility even more powerful. With this utility you will have a reflect for single target Force/Tech damage, sending it back at the attacker. This means that DPS have to be more careful continuing to tunnel you through your Evasion/Dodge because it can be reflected back. If you have good awareness you could easily send a Backstab or Heat Seeker back at the enemy who cast it for 150% of it’s damage. This utility is great if you are being tunneled. It makes DPS think twice before attacking you. I have personally killed players with this utility (or they have killed themselves lol) and been in many situations where I have reflected over 40K+ damage back at my attackers.

Note: I personally feel like this is a great utility to take for solo ranked or group ranked because many of the games come down to who can get the most damage out as fast as possible. People will blindly tunnel through your reflect and/or you can easily catch tech/force abilities to reflect back. It might be enough damage for your team to get a kill as well as make them extremely unsure about whether or not tunneling you is truly the best strategy.

Note: Be aware that even though this returns 150% damage back at the attacker you still receive the initial damage.

Discussion:

Augmented Shields vs. Revitalizers – If you want to run a legendary utility that is not either of these two I’d like to explain why I highly recommend dropping Augmented Shields rather than Revitalizers.  Ask yourself, what is more valuable in PVP: A Shield Probe that absorbs slightly more damage (it comes out to about 4% of your total health) or a Shield Probe that absorbs slightly less damage AND an entirely new, powerful defensive cooldown? The PVP environment is very dynamic and situations where an improved Shield Probe/Defense Screen is not enough to save you, while Revitalizers would save you, are very common. Does a 30% increase in Shield Probe outweigh 20% damage mitigation and 25% of your health back in clutch moments? No. It’s just not good enough to replace a powerful defensive cooldown utility like Revitalizers.

Healing Overview

Operative healing revolves around instant heals, HoTs, and superior AoE heals to keep target(s) alive. The majority of your healing rotation will include: Kolto Probe, Surgical Probe, and Recuperative Nanotech. These are all instant cast and instant heals. Your healing is also built around generating and spending procs that stack three (3) times called Tactical Advantage. With these procs, which are gained by casting most of your heals successfully, you can cast other abilities such as Surgical Probe, which is another instant heal, and Kolto Infusion, which is your small cast heal.

In my personal opinion, Operative heals do not focus on rotations in PvP but have a healing priority. Interrupts and CC can have significant impacts on how you heal in current fights. PvP battles are constantly changing and you as a healer have to be fluid in your healing because you rarely will get opportunities to stand still and cast a full rotation. That’s why you should value having a priority focused versus a rotation focused mind set in PvP.

Your healing priority should be:

Two (2) stacks of Kolto Probes on four (4) targets -> Recuperative Nanotech -> Kolto Infusion* -> Kolto Injection or Kolto Wave

image003

Note: Remember with the addition of the new passive Curative Jolt in 5.0 you will have an auto-crit boosted Surgical Probe after casting Kolto Injection. Just keep that in the back of your head when you need a quick burst heal on a target who is dropping fast.

Note: Remember that Stim Boost gives us a free Kolto Injection or Kolto Infusion for a burst heal as needed.

Note: In most battles your overall healing distribution will be roughly: 40% Kolto Probes, 30% Recuperative Nanotech, and then your “fillers” which account for roughly 15% which includes Kolto Infusion, Kolto Wave, and Kolto Injection. Remember also that you are using Surgical Probe to refresh your HoTs and it will account for around 10% healing as well.

In a strictly AoE fight the healing distribution is shifted slightly: 35% Kolto Probes, 25% Recuperative Nanotech, 20% Kolto Wave, 15% Surgical Probe then your other fillers, <10% Kolto Infusion, Kolto Injection. You can see that still the bulk of your healing doesn’t change: your single target HoTs and AoE HoT still account for a large portion of your overall HPS. That’s why having good HoT uptime is so imperative when attempting to reach your highest HPS potential.

Important Abilities & Passives

730254179_3162454750

Tactical Advantage (Passive) – Proc gained by successfully casting healing abilities. Stacks three (3) times.

You should never run out of stacks if you are maintaining HoTs on four (4) targets and using Recuperative Nanotech on CD. This alone should always give you three (3) stacks to be used to cast Surgical Probe or Kolto Infusion.

Note: When you use your combat stealth then unstealth or get unstealthed, you passively gain two (2) Tactical Advantages to use as you like.

Note: This is why you see Operative healers before combat, stacking HoTs and Recuperative Nanotech on allies in spawn. Not only are your allies going to go into combat with HoTs ticking but it also allows you to enter combat with three (3) Tactical Advantage ready to go to use as you please.

Note: You have a passive called Tactical Medicine that states once you consume a Tactical Advantage with a healing ability all your healing is increased by 3% for 6 seconds. This means every time you use Surgical Probe or Kolto Infusion you will receive a small healing bonus of 3% for 6 seconds after. This is super important if you want to Min/Max your HPS.

The good thing is, if you follow the healing priority as stated previously you will have 90%+ uptime with Tactical Medicine.

Note/fun-fact: If you listen closely you will notice that every time your character laughs in combat, that is an indication you just gained a Tactical Advantage.

72275889_3784936007

Curative Jolt – Kolto Infusion grants Curative Jolt, increasing the critical chance of your next Surgical Probe by 100%. This effect can only occur once every 18 seconds.

This is a new passive ability added in 5.0 that is unlocked at level 68. This will allow you to have a guaranteed critical hit with your Surgical Probe after every other Kolto Infusion (if you use the ability on cooldown because of its internal cooldown). Also be aware of what 100% Crit Chance means. In 4.0 there was a change that stated if an ability is an automatic critical hit your crit chance will be added as extra bonus damage in addition to the usual critical multiplier. This passive ability gives us a slight increase to our burst potential and is something you should be aware of every time you use Kolto Infusion.

442319028_19638184

Tactical Superiority – Consumes a Tactical Advantage to Stack the Deck for you and your Operation group members within 40 meters, increasing critical chance by 10% for 10 seconds. Does not break stealth.

This ability works in 8 man warzones and not arenas. This means you will not be able to use it in regular warzone arenas, solo ranked, or group ranked. I try to use Tactical Superiority off cooldown.

Note: Good combos include;

Tactical Superiority -> Recuperative Nanotech -> Kolto Wave for AoE healing.

Tactical Superiority -> Kolto Infusion -> Surgical Probe -> Kolto Injection -> Surgical Probe for single target burst healing.

Tactical Superiority -> Diagnostic Scan if you are in a desperate situation and you need energy back. Diagnostic Scan in your passives gives energy back every time you crit heal on a target.

759959818_1523318311

Adrenaline Probe/Cool Head – Recovers 50 energy over 3 seconds.

This is your emergency energy regeneration; use it sparingly as it’s on a 2 minute cooldown. It could be the longest two minutes of your life if you are energy starved.

Tip: If you spend a utility point on Endorphin Rush, it will increase the energy restored by 15. I would recommend this if you are struggling with energy management.

2333529044_3911180341

Diagnostic Scan – Channeled healing ability that costs no energy on the move for small amount for 3 seconds. When it crits it restores 2 energy.

In your Operative passives you will notice you have an ability called “Patient Studies” which buffs your Diagnostic Scan to restore 2 energy per Crit heal, making it your secondary energy regeneration. Since 3.0 you can do this on the move. This should be used to try to keep your energy above 60% to keep a healthy passive energy regeneration rate.

You will have to use this ability in the healing priority rotation I provided, every 1-2 cast heals or after a channel of Kolto Wave. I tend to use it anytime I have a window where I don’t need to single target burst heal or AoE cleave to save a player(s). Always be actively looking for opportunities to sneak it in especially when you know.Adrenaline Probe/Cool Head is on CD. If you are constantly getting CC/Interrupted you will notice your energy doesn’t suffer as much and you will see yourself not using this ability that often.

Tip: If you are really low on energy and Adrenaline Probe/Cool Head is on CD there are only two options. Wait for energy to come back by spamming Diagnostic Scan or activate Stim boost + Tactical Superiority and spam Diagnostic scan. The Alacrity bonus will increase your channeling speed as well as your increased Critical Rate from Tactical Superiority.

Tip: The HPS of Diagnostic Scan is pretty much worthless (it was an HPS decrease pre 3.3 then the healing was nerfed again) and should only be used for energy regen. There are situations when you are kiting and you have no procs for Surgical Probes, left and you can’t afford a cast heal, use it on the move to restore some HP. That is the only situation you should use it as a heal, when you have NOTHING left.

Note: Your base energy regen of 6 per second significantly drops off below 60 energy. Be aware of this threshold so you can maintain a healthy energy regeneration rate. The more time you spend above 60 energy, the more energy you generate, and consequently the higher your potential HPS because you don’t have to spend the GCDs frantically trying to stabilize your energy when you should be healing.

2523247229_4218182360

Stim boost – Grants a Tactical Advantage and increases Alacrity by 10% for 15 seconds.

This is the only ability in our kit that can increase the rate at which we heal. Keep in mind what an Alacrity bonus does: it decreases your GCD, lowers the time between ticks of your HoTs, helps you cast heal/channel faster, and lowers the CD of your abilities. Use this ability’s Alacrity increase in combination with cast healing to burst heal someone or burst heal a group of targets with Kolto Wave.

Tip: Keep in mind that new Eternal Commander purple gear has a two (2) piece bonus which gives you an proc making your next Kolto Injection a critical hit.. It procs around every 30+ seconds. When combined with the Enduring Kolto/Prolonged Prescription passive after popping Stim boost, your next Kolto Injection will be a big Crit and cast instantly.

Note: Since 4.0 when activating Stim boost you will receive Enduring Kolto/Prolonged Prescription which will let you cast your next Kolto Infusion or Kolto Injection instantly. I would recommend using it with Kolto Injection. Always go for your biggest heal because you should be activating Stim boost to burst heal someone in majority of situations. The only time I use Stim boost instant cast on Kolto Infusion is when the player I was going to burst heal has his HP back (if he popped CDs or got healed by another source). If there is no other low player to use the instant ability on before the proc runs out, use Kolto Infusion on yourself or an ally you think will get bursted later. Since Kolto Infusion has a small HoT/small damage reduct, in this particular situation it is more beneficial use the instant cast like this versus your big heal which would be less effective since the player’s HP is full.

Note: If you activate Stim Boost remember that you don’t have to use your instant heal right away! You have the 15 seconds duration to use your instant. Sometimes you need to activate your Stim Boost for its damage reduction or a situation changes like a target you wanted to use your instant on is healed up – don’t be afraid to wait to see if another healing opportunity comes up so you can use it more effectively. Another example is I sometimes activate Stim Boost to use it in combination with my Kolto Wave. I wait to see who is the lowest HP target is after my Kolto Wave before using my instant.

Note: If you spec into the utility Revitalizers this turns your Stim boost into a DCD which decreases incoming damage by 20% and heals you for 5% of your maximum hp every 3 seconds. This is a great utility but the downside is you sometimes need to pop Stim boot in situations to mitigate burst on yourself verse saving it to pop during situations you need to burst heal an ally and use your instant cast proc. It unfortunate that if you spec into this utility you have to use your only real CD in two very different situations. Just do the best you can.

Healing Abilities

1530966614_3523266997

Kolto Probe – Heals for X amount over 21* seconds.

This ability is the foundation of your healing. Maintaining two (2) stacks of HoTs on four (4) targets is your goal. I would not recommend trying to keep HoTs on your entire 8 man in warzones because it’s virtually impossible. It would leave you no room for any other healing ability throughout the game. Rotating HoTs on four (4) targets who are taking damage or burst helps you stabilize your group healing and also allows you to cast/channel heal in between HoT refreshes. The success and skill of an Operative lies in how well they maintain their HoT uptime even while kiting, being CCed, and cast healing. Remember that HoTs are your number one priority in your healing because they mitigate sustained DPS over time which is the strength of this healing class.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to not let your HoTs drop. Re-stacking HoTs takes time and numerous of GCDs (8 GCDs to be exact) where you are better off cast healing or doing other things. It will also be a heavy HPS loss since almost half your healing in a warzone comes from your HoTs. The better you become at remembering to refresh your HoTs, the higher your HPS potential will become and consequently your ability to save players.

Kolto Probe accounts for roughly 40%+ of your overall within a warzone. Just think about what that means: that is almost half of all the healing you will do in a warzone. Not only will their healing stabilize the players who are being damaged allowing you to cast heal but serve other benefits as well.

Kolto Probe help you generate Tactical Advantagess and help reduce the amount of energy you expel during fights. If you are consistent in maintaining good uptime with your HoTs, each heal tick on a player has a chance of gaining a Tactical Advantage. Tactical Advantage not only gives you the opportunity to cast Kolto Infusion which can be a life saving heal but also allows you to cast Surgical Probe which also refreshes your HoTs.

Since 4.0 with the addition of Surgical Probe being able to refresh your HoTs it slightly changed the Operative play style allowing them to control their energy output. Let’s explore why that is: There are only two ways you can refresh your double HoT stack which is using Kolto Probe or using one of your Tactical Advantage stacks to cast a Surgical Probe. There are very specific differences between these two methods. Kolto Probe costs more energy to use (10 energy) while Surgical Probe costs a TA/UH + 5 energy and heals for a small amount in addition to the refresh. It’s more energy efficient to cast Surgical Probe when refreshing especially when your target is low HP. There is more bang for your buck. Just be aware that you shouldn’t refresh strictly with only Surgical Probe because you will run out of TA/UP stacks and which you also need to spend casting Kolto Infusion which is part of your healing priority rotation. So the main thing to take away from this is the better your HoT management, the better the TA/UP gain, the better your HPS potential (because this would allow you to heal and refresh with Surgical Probe/Emergency) and the less stress you put on your energy output.

Tip: Your HoTs can be refreshed (if stacked twice on a target) by Surgical Probe. A good refreshing rotation is two (2) refreshed by pressing Kolto Probe , while the other two (2) refreshed by Surgical Probe. This will save some of your Tactical Advantage procs for emergencies as well as give those players who are refreshed by your instant a 5-10k heal as well as restacking their HoT. If I’m in a group taking heavy damage I refresh with Kolto Probe once and three (3) times with Surgical Probe, focusing my three instant heals on the players taking the most damage.

Tip: If you can, try to refresh your HoTs at the last moment before they fall off because you won’t be clipping their healing. You should try to effectively use all the time in between refreshes for cast healing/channeling and popping instants. This doesn’t mean however it’s wrong to refresh HoTs early. There are times when I know I am going to go through a double hardstun or double Mez rotation so I make sure I prioritize refreshing my HoTs early so they will be healing while I am sitting in CC. Always make sure you have your HoTs healing if you are being CC chained because it is one of the strengths of Operatives to be able to keep heals up while stunned. This all comes with experience, awareness, and practice.

Tip: Who should you prioritize your HoTs on? For starters, yourself because you will most likely get heavy focus fire, possibly a tank, and two (2) other players taking damage. If you specced into Fortified Kolto/Supplement Medpac which gives you damage reduction while self HoTed, you should prioritize HoTs yourself at all times.

Tip: StarParse has a function that lets you do a Ops Frame overlay to help track Kolto Probe. I tested this myself and it works great! I really suggest all Operative Healers to use this in PvP. It will let you know how many HoTs are stacked on each target in your frame as well as a timer indicating when they are about to drop.

StarParse Website: http://ixparse.com/

How to step up Starparse to display raid HoTs:

Step 1: Open the program.

Step 2: Click “PARSE” on the top right. It show green when you click it.

Step 3: Click “INTERFACE” then “SETTINGS” and set a hotkey for “lock hotkey”. This will let you lock or unlock the Raid HoT overlay on your ops frame. The default is Ctrl + Shift + Z.

Step 4: Click “INTERFACE” make sure “Raid Hots” and “Lock Overlay” are checked.

Step 5: Go into your game and use the hotkey you just set to show your overlay (should appear somewhere to the left side of your screen. Drag the overlay and resize it to fit your ops frame.

YOU ARE SET TO GO!

My Ops Frame when overlayed:

clip_image002

IMPORTANT: To input the names correctly in order on the overlay you need to make sure that first the overlay has no names input into it. Unlock your overlay and clear the names out by clicking the white “x” button on the right side of the frame when hovering over the frame. Second, HoT everyone once in spawn before the match starts (healing a target will put them in your overlay), going from top left -> down the left side then top right and down the right side.You can unlock your overlay at any time to make sure the names line up with the names in your ops frame. If they don’t, don’t panic! Just drag, drop, or delete to fix the overlay errors.

Tip: Correcting overlay mistakes does take some time to make sure everything is perfect. Make sure you give yourself some time before every match to reset everything. Trust me, it’s worth it!

Note: If someone leaves your group after you’ve already set everyone in their proper place in the overlay, this will mess up your overlay. It’s a pain. Normally I just ignore it and if I have time I try to move the person and add the next one by healing and moving their name to the proper location.

Note: There are also times where the overlay is buggy and no matter what you do you cannot have get the players name to show up. This happens and you just have to deal with it because remember, this wasn’t designed for PvP where players are constantly leaving and joining your ops group.

1922343160_1444720541

Surgical Probe – Instant heal for X amount, requires and spends a Tactical Advantage proc.

This is your emergency heal as well as a way of refreshing your Kolto Probe. It heals for around 5k-10. It’s a good spamming ability if someone is at 20% and you don’t feel confident that you can have enough time to get a cast heal off to save them. But you will mostly be using this ability as a HoTs refresher. This ability accounts for roughly 10% of your overall healing within a PvP match. Most of the time it will be your third highest heal, unless you are in AoE cleave spamming Kolto Wave.

Note: In 5.0 there is a new passive,Curative Jolt, which grants you an auto Crit Surgical Probe for the passive proc duration. This gives you an instant slight burst heal every other Kolto Infusion (based on the passives internal cooldown of 18 seconds).

3428250870_3265083845

Recuperative Nanotech – Heals up to 4 allies within 10 meters for X over 9 seconds.

This an instant AoE heal. This should be always used on CD and is the second best way to generate Tactical Advantage procs. Should be placed on a target close to three (3) other players to get the best HPS benefit. This ability, used on CD, will account for roughly 20-30% of your overall healing within a PvP match.

Tip: Before entering combat with your group activating Recuperative Nanotech helps stack your procs as well as helps you heal the beginning burst of combat.

Tip: Even in 1v1 duels you should be using this ability on CD to maintain Tactical Advantage.

Note: In your skill tree you will notice Recuperative Nanotech gives a 3% healing increase to all sources for 45 seconds. Keep this in mind when you are casting this ability to get the best spread as possible in your groups because all those people it touches will get a 3% increase in healing.

Note/fun-fact: This ability is a “smart heal” which means it prioritizes players who are low HP over ones with more HP.

4258479851_2809329414

Kolto Wave – Heals up to 8 allies that remain within 8 meters of the targeted area for X health over the channel duration.

This is your channeled AoE healing ability. It cannot be used while moving so be aware of your positioning when using it. It is an amazing ability and Crits often (sometimes up to 60% on my healing parses). Never underestimate the strength of the AoE healing. That all being said the only disadvantage to this ability is that like I said before, you have to stand still and cast it in a desired location. In PvP it is sometimes hard to get proper placement positioning with your Kolto Wave because it is extremely easy for players to just walk out of it or for you to be pushed back, interrupted, or stunned during its channel. Even though Kolto Waves HPS potential is high using it effectively in PvP is an annoying struggle that we just have to deal with. This ability can account for >10%-20% of your overall healing in a warzone. This healing percentage highly depends on whether or not you are in large AoE fights or using it for a filler in between cast healing.

Tip: It’s worthwhile to be using this ability when you have 3+ players in the wave healing range. This might be hard because it requires you to place it somewhere and players to not walk out of it. Just do the best you can with the placement.

Tip: You can either place it manually (drag and drop) or double click the ability while targeting a player. Be careful of how you place this ability as it’s not always wise to double click because you could get more players if you drag and place it manually in some cases. Optimizing the placement will take practice.

Note: Since Kolto Wave is a placed AoE ability it is very easy to have players run out of it or be pushed out of your heal radius. If player(s) leave your AoE radius, cancel the channel (you can do this by just moving). Don’t continue to heal no one hoping the players are going to come back.

Note: Don’t forget about Tactical Superiority, which increases your group’s Crit chance by 10% for 10 seconds. If there is intense AoE battle I time it with my Recuperative Nanotech, Kolto Waves, and even my Stim boost for high HPS.

3530208373_1958816423

Kolto Infusion – Uses a Tactical Advantage to heal a target for X and X over 9 seconds.

This is a low cast time single target heal which also places a HoT on your target. It costs a Tactical Advantage proc and also has a base cooldown of 9 seconds. You should be using this ability on CD because it has overall better single target HPS than Kolto Injection, triggers the healing buff you get by spending a TA/UH, and the HoT on the end can generate new TAs/UHs. It also gives the player Resistant (since 3.0) which gives a 45 second resistance to 3% elemental and internal damage (effective when fighting against Assassins/Shadow, Powertechs/Vanguard, Pyro Mercenaries/Commando, and Operative DPS).

Tip: It is smart to use this ability like a “buff”. Buff yourself and your tank or other players before combat. 3% might not seem as much but over time it is worth it.

Tip: This is a good ability to bait interrupts with if you really need to get out a Kolto Injection or a Kolto Wave. This means casting the ability for the sole reason of trying to get the enemy to waste their interrupt so you can cast something else freely right after.

Note: In 5.0 there is a new passive,Curative Jolt, which grants you an auto Crit Surgical Probe for the passive proc duration. This gives you an instant slight burst heal every other Kolto Infusion (based on the passives internal cooldown of 18 seconds).

Note: Adding the initial heal and the HoT healing of this ability, the overall healing is greater than Kolto Injection. It is also more reliable healing than your other big cast heal because it has more crit opportunities (because part of the healing is split into a HoT). So it not only heals for more on average, it is less reliant on a single lucky crit to be effective. The HPS and healing per energy of non-critical Injectionss is very poor. Unless you are concerned about your target dying very soon, Kolto Infusion is a better heal.

3248110389_2449054030

Kolto Injection – Heals a friendly target for X amount.

This is your big cast heal which heals for around 8-25k~ with a 1.8 second cast time. Unlike Kolto Infusion, Kolto Injection does not have a cooldown and is spammable in single target burst healing situations.

Tip: The long cast time of this ability (about 1.8 seconds with a standard Alacrity value) makes combining it with the 10% Alacrity buff on Stim Boost an effective way to get the ability out much faster.

Tip: When healing single target burst with Kolto Injection, it is best to try predict burst before it happens. I know this is hard and takes some getting used to but it really helps you save players. Start casting your single target burst rotation at 80% of the players health if you hear someone is about to, for example, get Commando bursted or a Carnage Marauder is setting up a burst combo. The more awareness you have in situations like this the better of a healer you will be because in the current state of the game if you start healing exactly when the burst is going or slightly after, there is no way an Operative to out heal it.

Tip: Burst healing for an Operative isn’t our strong point. To help with that it is really imperative that you have HoTs rolling a target before cast healing. It helps make up for the long cast time since it will be ticking while you are casting. By stacking your instants on a target this will help you put the most HPS on a target who is getting bursted.

Tip: Try to use a Surgical Probe right after Kolto Injection because if it Crits with HoTs it all adds up for a great burst heal. If it all crits that’s 20k (cast heal) +10k (instant heal) +5k (HoT heal)= 35k+ heal. Not only is it a good burst heal but it’s also a way of reducing the energy loss from spamming Kolto Injection. By sneaking in a Surgical Probe you can refresh your HoTs on a target, has a nice burst heal potential while also managing your energy output.

Note: When you get your Eternal Commander purple gear you will have a set bonus that gives you a proc (Field Medic’s Critical Bonus) making your next Kolto Injection an automatic critical hit. This proc looks like a purple icon on your buffs bar. Be aware of this buff so you can save a Crit heal for a player who really needs it. Used in combination with the new Stim boost passive it will make your next Kolto Injection an instant Crit heal.

Healing Strategies

Burst Single Target Healing:

First I want to say that, again, I do not like giving a set rotation for PvP because situations change so much that you can’t rely on one rotation all the time. With that being said, I do like to put information on abilities and factors that you should be thinking about when you attempt the challenging task of single target burst healing a player.

Before engaging to burst heal, consider these factors first:

What class does the player play? (Squishy like Sorc or meaty like a Jug?) If you ask yourself this question you can roughly get an idea how the player will approach being tunneled and how large of a healing window you have before you will be overwhelmed.

Has the player used their DCDs? Which ones are left? Know how many DCDs they have and what they used or using. This takes awareness, class understanding (not only your own),and practice.

How fast are they being bursted? This will tell you if you have GCDs you can spend on filler abilities.

Are you being attacked? If you are being attacked or CCed this plays a large part into how you handle a burst healing situation.

What is your positioning? Make sure you aren’t out in the open when burst healing a target. With how weak the healing is in Operative any interrupts can severely impact your ability to save a target.

KEEP ALL THIS IN MIND.

HoTs and Burst healing:

When you are attempting to single target burst heal HoTs are very important. Keep in mind how long our single target cast heals are. HoTs play a big part in easing the pain and maintaining HPS while cast healing. Start off with two (2) Kolto Probess on a target before they are being bursted in the most ideal situation. This is because you can start cast healing and sneak in Surgical Probess to maintain a high single target HPS without needing to find windows where you can waste a GCD or to reapply your HoTs.

What about Recuperative Nanotech? It would be ideal to already have this on the target before you start your burst rotation because it gives you a 3% healing buff as well as a small heal. If it isn’t on the target, you can try to sneak it in when you feel you can spend a GCD without the target getting melted. Sometimes you just can’t afford it; you will have to judge the situation as it happens.

The strength of having your HoTs up when you’re burst healing is that you will be gaining HPS over time but the benefit isn’t felt right away. That’s why, depending on how badly a player is being nuked, you might not be able to afford the GCDs to HoT the player because they may not be alive long enough to actually feel the impact of your HoTs. In this scenario, stabilize them first and then get your HoTs up for long term HPS output.

Remember when I told you to keep up two (2) HoTs on four (4) targets at all times? Well, in single target burst healing situations, if you really need to save a target, you might have to let your HoTs drop on everyone but the target you are healing. This is because you will probably not be able to waste GCDs on re-HoTing other targets. You need to spend the time cast healing, which sucks. Your HPS overall will suffer if you are forced to heal single target the whole game. Our class just isn’t designed to work like this but you will get into these situations regardless so learn to react accordingly.

What if I’m under pressure? If you are under pressure especially without a guard, it is extremely hard to burst heal your focus target properly. This is because you need to maintain HoTs on yourself, your target, and cast heal yourself and your target all while being potentially interrupted and CCed. If you’re under pressure you need to do all of the following: LoS any ranged damage you can, keep using Surgical Probe on yourself and your target to refresh your HoTs, stun and/or Holo away from melee to get cast heals off, and rotate your DCDs to minimize the amount of time you need to spending healing yourself, allowing you to focus your attention on your teammate being bursted. With enough pressure and no guard in your warzone you won’t be able to successfully burst heal yourself and a target for a long time. Just do the best you can.

Things to utilize when burst healing one target:

  • Stim Boost: This is a 2 minute CD which lasts 15 seconds that increases your Alacrity by 10% and when activated grants you have an instant Kolto Injection or Kolto Infusion.
  • Field Medic’s Critical Bonus (gear set bonus buff): When proced, makes your next Kolto Injection an automatic critical heal. Knowing that your next Kolto Injection is a potential crit lets you plan ahead.
  • Curative Jolt (Passive): This new passive grants you an autocrit Surgical Probe after you cast Kolto Infusion. This can occur every 18 seconds; after every two (2) Kolto Infusions. Start practicing this combo.
  • Countermeasures (Utility)*: If you are speced into this utility within the Legendary tree your threat drop becomes a healing cooldown. When activated your next Kolto Probe grants two stacks with only one use and Kolto Infusion loses the HoT portion of the heal in exchange for giving it a better frontal heal (think of it as a shorter CD Kolto Injection). This could be a clutch heal in chaotic moments.

*Need to be speced into the utility Curative Agent to make it function as a healing ability.

Healing conclusion:

Being an Operative healer is about being a mobile healer. You aren’t supposed to be standing in the same place the majority of the fight. Your healing style should be mobile and flexible and you should always be adjusting positioning depending on how the fight is turning out. As an Operative healer you should never be in the middle of cleave damage or AoE damage (unless you have a tank). Always try to be healing a safe distance away from the fights. It’s extremely important for you to always be in a position that you can LoS by a pillar, building, or tree. This will ensure you will always be able to LoS any range damage at all times. Work on your positioning, being mobile, rotating through your defensives correctly, healing under pressure and you will be a successful Operative healer.

Other Abilities

Operative Defensive Abilities

Let’s talk about some of the ways you can react if you are taking damage or being pressured.

3858926688_731083593

Shield Probe – Absorbs a moderate amount of damage over 10 seconds. Does not break stealth.

This ability has a low cooldown and is one of your main DCDs. When you are taking any form of damage not hesitate to pop it.

Tip: Sometimes when I need to escape quickly and my Evasion isn’t up, I use the combo Cloaking Screen -> Shield Probe. This lets me absorb whatever DoTs or projectile damage are coming toward me for a short time when I combat stealth. This helps to not be popped out of stealth right away. Again, this is only if I Evasion is on CD – otherwise use Evasion.

Note: Your shield should be used to mitigate burst damage versus dot damage. Dot damage should be mitigated by your Evasion and/or your HoTs.

Note/fun-fact: Your shield can get boosted by your relic procs (Master and/or Power) which makes it absorb for slightly more when you activate it.

Note/fun-fact: Any ability that absorbs damage in this game gets converted into healing. So for example if your Shield Probe absorbs 10K damage in combat that turns into 10K healing in the warzone statistics.

2179446386_482411044

Evasion – Increases the chance you dodge melee and ranged attacks by 200% for 3 seconds. Doesn’t break stealth.

One of the most overpowered abilities you possess, use it wisely. When activated it cleanses all DoTs, roots, and slows and causes you to dodge all incoming white damage (melee and ranged attacks) for 3 seconds.

Tip: If used in combination with Cloaking Screen it will let you stealth out safely by cleansing all DoTs and other effects that might pop you back out of stealth.

Tip: Don’t be afraid to use Evasion sometimes to break roots or any movement impairments on yourself. I mostly do it when I see myself out of position. I use Evasion so I can double Exfiltrate to get into a safer position to heal.

Tip: Prioritize using your Evasion to cleanse or dodge:

Crushing Darkness/Mind Crush DoT – Sorcerers/Sages

Note: You know when this ability is on you by looking at your debuffs or just by listening. When it is casted you will notice a loud sound like a heart is beating; when you hear this cleanse it.

Ambush/Aim Shot – Snipers/Slingers

Note: You know when a Sniper/Slinger is channeling this ability on you have red square on your character. Really easy to notice and counter. Not only will you dodge this ability and reduce its incoming damage to 0 but also the follow-up Followthrough/Trickshot, which comes next in the Sniper/Slingers rotation because it is also ranged (white) damage.

Railshot/High Impact Bolt – Powertech/Vanguard

Note: Main PT rotation is similar to: Thermal Detonator -> Retractable Blade -> Rail Shot -> Magnetic Blast -> Rail Shot. Be ready for it because it is instant cast. This also removes the tech damage debuff applied by their Thermal Detonator.

Note: There is a bug(?) that if you use Evasion and are stunned right after white damage mitigation does not work. You will eat all of the damage. Just be aware of it…it sucks.

Tip: With the new reflect on Evasion utility there is an entirely new element to using the cool down effectively. Here’s a brief rundown on some of the best abilities to reflect.

● Heatseeker Missiles/Demolition Round – Mercenary/Commando

Note: Heatseeker Missiles/Demolition Round is one of the best abilities in the game to catch with your reflect. It often comes after their Blazing Bolts/Bolstorm channel due to its long channel time or their Tracer Missile/Grav Round filler. Additionally, this ability has a travel time so if you are observant and quick you can react to the animation of the ability in flight and pop your reflect.

Thermal Detonator/Assault Plastique – Powertech/Vanguard & Mercenary/Commando

Note: This ability will usually come from Powertechs/Vanguards but it is also part of the much less common Innovative Ordance/Assault Specialist specs of Mercenary/Commando. It is also one of the easiest abilities to reflect in the game, due to the fact that you can see it (on your debuff bar) and hear it ticking down until it detonates. Simply watch your debuff bar to know when it will go off and pop Evasion accordingly. I would recommend not waiting until the very last moment, however, as you may be hard stunned in an attempt to prevent the reflect.

Volatile Substance/Blood Boiler – Operative

Note: This ability has a “settle in” time before it can be triggered by one of their DoTs to go off. So if you see this ability applied to you and one of their DoTs is active, you can expect it to actually go off in about 3 seconds, making it very easy to reflect their biggest hit.

Thundering Blast/Turbulence – Sorcerer/Sage

Note: This is the biggest hit in the Lightning and Telekinetics specs. It has a 1.5 second cast time, making it another easy, big reflect. Because it is a cast and can be canceled (and also may be followed up with an instant ability) I would recommend waiting until the cast has almost been completed (but not too close, leave yourself some room for error) if you want to reflect it, making your reflect much harder to react to.

Force Leech/Force Serenity – Sorcerer/Sage

Note: This is another 1.5 second cast that is therefore easily reflected. It is only a moderately big hit but reflecting it comes with the added bonus of preventing the self heal they get from it and cleansing the DoTs that are most likely sitting on you already from their opener. Again, reduce the time available for them to react to your reflect by letting the cast go a little bit before you pop Evasion.

1721795656_1734423952

Exfiltrate – Roll forward 12 meters. Activating the ability a second time within 10 seconds allows you to roll again, but puts the ability on cooldown for 10 seconds. While rolling, your chance to dodge melee and ranged attacks is increased by 30%. Does not break stealth. Cannot be used while immobilized or hindered.

This is another very strong ability that Operatives have. It lets you roll two times while giving you a 30% damage to dodge incoming white damage.

Tip: Stagger your rolls. It isn’t always wise to roll twice right away. When kiting it’s best to bait abilities such as Force Speed from an Assassin or Leap from a Marauder with the first roll then roll again to successfully gain distance from melee.

Tip: Roll can also give you the ability to go farther if rolling off edges. If you are kiting or want to get to from point A to point B faster, try to roll off cliff sides or ledges.

Tip: If I really need to get a cast heal off I sometimes will use the combo, Roll -> Cast heal if they interrupt that, Roll -> Cast heal again.

Note: Never forget the 30% chance to dodge white damage. If you have nothing left and you can’t LoS time your roll to dodge an Ambush or a Railshot. It’s random if it works but sometimes worth trying.

1467527819_1686725518

Holotraverse – Supercharge your stealth generator, quickly moving you to a friendly or enemy target and increasing your movement speed by 75% for 3 seconds. Does not break stealth, cannot be used against enemy targets in cover, has a 45 second cooldown, and is off of the Global Cooldown.

Great kiting ability, helps you get into range to heal or fall back to reposition. It works like a teleport or a leap to a friendly target who is in range. So this means if someone is up or downstairs it will teleport you to their position. So this means jumping and leaping up to a ledge is possible now! You can use this either in combination with Exfiltrate or use it defensively to create distance when your roll is down.

Picking a good target to teleport to during battle is extremely difficult. It depends on your positioning as well as theirs. Most of the players you will find have terrible positioning which makes it hard to decide on the spot to defensively teleport to. The better you get with thinking under pressure the better you will be at quickly identifying a good target to teleport to. A trick that I use now is whenever I am being focused or I’m taking any damage, I take a quick scan around my group. I am constantly planning who I will teleport if the damage is too much for my CDs to handle. Always try to be one step ahead with this ability, it will help you use it in the most effective way you can.

Tip: This ability is also good for getting away from a melee who is interrupting/stunning to get a cast heal off fast.

Tip: I tend to use this a lot if I’m AoE healing and enemies constantly push me back from the fight. I just teleport back into the group to continue healing.

Tip: If the enemy team is trying to separate you from your tank this is a good ability for you to teleport back in range of guard by using your tank as your teleporting target.

Note: This ability is extremely buggy. You will notice that it only really works if you and your target are on flat ground. It’s very easy to get caught on rocks or objects in between the player you are teleporting you and only go half away. It also sometimes doesn’t even teleport you. Be aware of this and hopefully it will be fixed soon (lol).

Note: Be aware that when you use this ability on a target to get to their location, it teleports you behind the player facing their back. Be careful if you are, for example, on a bridge because it could easily disorientate you if you continue to move forward. You might be walking off a cliff or in another direction that you didn’t want to go.

2289162421_3635850666

Debilitate: Deals X amount of damage and stuns the target for 4 seconds.

This is your hard stun. I use it defensively, offensively, and even to get cast heals off. It really depends on the situation you are in. A defensive situation is when you are taking a lot of incoming damage or are under a lot of CC or interrupt pressure. Use your hard stun to mitigate some of the damage by stunning a target and create the distance you need. In an offensive situation, I would use it to CC a healer or DPS that is free casting or help your DPS secure a kill. For the last scenario, sometimes you are in a situation where you really need to get a cast heal off yet a melee is doing everything he/she can to interrupt your casting. Sometimes it really helps to stun the melee and cast heal right away to ensure you will get the cast off successfully.

1446082215_1516217139

Sever Tendon – Deals X kinetic damage and slows the target’s movement speed by 50% for 12 seconds.

This is your slow which will help you kite melee. I use this ability more in duels than warzones. It’s a great ability for kiting but I find I don’t use it as often in warzones because I don’t want to waste a GCD on just slowing a player. This is my personal preference. In my opinion, normally as a healer you will get peels or the melee won’t stay on you for a long period of time. If a melee is truly harassing a healer I would suggest slowing him on CD to discourage him until he switches targets.

3141251268_680637151

Flash Bang – Flash grenade that blinds the target for 8 seconds. Damage causes this effect to end prematurely.

This is your AoE Mez. This will help you reduce AoE damage if you throw it into a group of people. I also use this Mez for CCing healers and helping my team get kills.

Tip:I like using the combo Holotraverse -> Flash Bang to quickly teleport to an allie’s location to save them from a group of DPS who are about to kill him/her. I have gotten a lot of clutch saves, don’t be afraid to try it.

1708291493_2666879618

Cloaking Screen – Overloads your stealth generator, immediately exiting combat and entering stealth mode. For 10 seconds, you become virtually undetectable.

This ability is your combat stealth out and should be your last resort. It lets you stealth out in combat but be aware that if you have DoTs or projectiles shooting you when you combat stealth they will still hit you in stealth and may immediately pop you back out. This is where I suggest using Evasion right before you stealth, which ensures you will escape without your stealth being broken by damage.

Tip: Be aware that using combat stealth puts you out of combat. That means it resets the cooldown of Warzone Medpac which can only be used once per combat cycle. Try to use your Warzone Medpac before being forced to use your combat stealth. This means you will be allowed to use it again after you stealth (if it’s not still on CD). There are many situations where sometimes the best option is to stealth out so you can use your Warzone Medpac to save yourself from incoming damage. Always remember you have that option.

Tip: This tip is for advanced Operatives. If you are being interrupted constantly or focus target modifier interrupted (even worse) and a position where you really need to get a critical heal off, use your stealth out to remove focus on yourself, reposition or just pop back out doing a cast heal on an ally. By stealthing out, it makes the enemy(s) have to tab back to you to interrupt or CC you to stop your cast and also makes players who have you focus targeted for interrupts, have to reset their focus target modifier to be able to interrupt you on time.

Note: When you exit stealth you will automatically gain two (2) Tactical Advantagess. This helps when you are kiting away and get knocked out of your stealth for you to continue to spam Surgical Probe if you are in a life or death situation. With that being said I have also used this passive as a way of saving allies in critical moments. If I am in a position where I think I can save them by using the two (2) extra Tactical Advantages on two (2) Surgical Probe or for casting another Kolto Infusion, I have stealthed out to do it. Just be aware that this is just for critical life or death situations; don’t get in a habit of using your combat stealth for another healing opportunity. It’s still one of your best escapes for survival.

2523247229_4218182360

Stim boost DCD* – Grants a Tactical Advantage and increases Alacrity by 10% for 15 seconds.

Utility Legendary – Revitalizers turns your Stim boost into a DCD which decreases incoming damage by 20% for 15 seconds and restores 5% of your total health every 3 seconds. As stated in the utilities section of the guide, this is a must-have utility. Unfortunately this creates a situation where using it for the instant cast may waste the damage reduction on you. Ideally pop it in moments where you’ll get use out of both the damage reduction on yourself and the instant cast. Obviously sometimes you’ll want the instant cast but have little or no need for the damage reduction; just be careful that it’s really worth using the instant cast in these moments.

*Only a DCD if you spent a Utility point into the Legendary tier.

2685798293_663618634

Countermeasures DCD* – This is your PvE threat drop.

By putting a point in the Cunning Competencies utility you can turn this ability into a DCD for a root break every 45 seconds.

*Only a DCD if you spent a Utility point skill tree.

 

Warzone Medpack and Warzone Adrenal – You will always have the option to use these in a warzone as well if you buy them from the PvP vendors. I use them as CDs and have them in my defensive rotation.

I use Warzone Medpack as one of my emergency heals. If someone is about to burst you, use your Medpack so you have enough HP in your pool to not die.

Warzone Adrenal grants 15% damage reduction for 15 seconds. Don’t underestimate this cooldown because any damage reduction option will help you catch up in healing yourself and others.

Tip: Try the combo Adrenal + Stim boost DCD, it will increase your damage reduction to 35%. If you are about to die to incoming burst pop these together for a large damage reduction.

Tip: In a situation where your tank is low on HP and you are taking a lot of his guard damage use your Adrenal. I sometimes use my Warzone Adrenal to reduce 15% of my incoming damage since 50% the damage is transferring to my tank.

Cooldown Conclusion:

Try not to use all your defensives at once. You need to spread them out in combat and use them wisely. If you have a good rotation you will always have something back up when you need it. Always be thinking of ways to use your defensives to maximize the largest amount of damage reduction. With practice you will be able to use all your cooldowns effectively even under heavy pressure.

Tip: If you put a utility point into Masterful: Fortified Kolto you should have two (2) HoTs rolling on yourself at all times. This utility gives you 3% damage reduction per HoT on yourself. Damage reduction is 6% if double stacked so TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT.

My CD rotation priority goes:

Shield Probe -> Evasion -> Stim boost DCD* -> Adrenal -> Medpack -> [Anything else that is back up] -> Cloaking Screen -> Repeat.

Don’t forget to also be using Holotraverse and Exfiltrate to kite melee and LoS ranged damage.

Remember that this rotation is generic and you may need to adjust it based on what kind of damage you are taking. For example, if you are taking Sorcerer DoT damage you would use Evasion before Shield Probe because there is no need for you to absorb DoT damage when you can just cleanse it with Evasion.

Tip: If you know you are about to get attacked and take large amounts of damage, maybe you see 3 players about to jump you without having a guard for example, and you can’t Flash them, use your Stim Boost DCD + Adrenal. That will be a 35% damage decrease and you will most likely survive. It’s really smart to use these abilities prematurely in case you get stun-locked and aren’t able to break.

Misc Abilities

2685798293_663618634

Countermeasures– This is your PvE threat drop. This ability is off the GCD. It becomes useful for PvP when you upgrade it through your utility tree.

Note: You can turn this ability into a DCD. By taking Cunning Competencies this ability will act as another root break every 45 seconds.

Note: You can turn this ability into a healing utility. By taking Curative AgentF this ability will let you HoT a target as a double stack saving one (1) GCD, heals you for 1% over 10 seconds, and grants the permanent ability of giving your Kolto Infusion have a bigger frontal heal (without its HoT). Uptime is 10 seconds, with a 45 second cooldown.

903623776_1654864405

Resuscitation Probe– Revives an incapacitated ally in combat.

This is your combat revive. Please put it on your bar and use it. The majority of healers in warzones don’t know what this ability is, don’t use it, or don’t even have it on their bar. Don’t be that guy!

2416085290_3168963058

Distraction – Interrupts the target’s current action and prevents that ability from being used for 4 seconds. This ability is off the GCD.

I typically use my interrupt on healers to help my DPS down a target. It has a small range which is 10 meters. If you have an opportunity, do it. It’s a great habit to get into. You can also macro this ability so you don’t have to switch targets to interrupt a healer using focus target.

Note: For experienced Operatives you can hook this ability up to a focus target modifier on your Naga or keyboard. After setting your target on a player you want to interrupt, anytime throughout the game, if you are in range, by clicking one button you could interrupt that player without physically tabbing to them and without switching your target. Focus target modifier gets used a lot in solo ranked and group ranked because it increases the speed at which you can react to a healer casting and interrupt them as fast as possible.

1664633279_342532601

Infiltrate – Cloaks all group members within 10 meters of you in a temporary stealth field that lasts 15 seconds. Only able to be used in stealth.

I use this a lot in arenas to stealth my group into combat. It helps my team be the first to engage from stealth or get good positioning against an enemy team. I use it sometimes in regular warzones to stealth up to the node or sneak a couple players to an off-node for a surprise attack.

909692328_2212511410

Sleep Dart – Puts the target to sleep for 8 seconds. Breaks on damage. Can only be used on targets that aren’t in combat and only one target can be incapacitated at a time. Can only be used in stealth.

This is a good ability to go into combat with if you are alone or trying to Mez a healer going into combat for your DPS. The only other time I use this is if I go try to cap a node. This is a very situational ability as a healer and is more for DPS Operatives.

Damage Abilities

Be aware that your main priority in PvP as a PvP healer is to heal. It is not energy or HPS efficient to DPS and heal. If you are DPSing it will decrease your HPS output greatly because DPS abilities have heavy energy cost as well as have a GCD cost. That being said for experienced Operative healers, it’s alright to DPS if you find windows where you can afford to do it, if for example, everyone is already healed up or the other enemy players are about to die.

My personal DPS rotation:

Shiv > Backstab > Overload Shot [x3*]

I use Shiv when I am swinging around to target their back. Then Backstab when I am at their back or in a position to use it behind them. After that spam Overload Shot however many times I need to. I try not to go above three (3) unless I really am sure I am going to kill the player because it is a serious energy investment at that point. I also tend to throw a grenade if the player decides to run if needed.

1701869134_2517430052

Corrosive Dart – Fires a dart at the target that deals X internal damage over 18 seconds.

DO NOT USE. Mostly useless as a healer because it costs 15 energy and takes a long time to deal all of the damage. I typically use it to put on a stealth class if my group is chasing for a kill to pop the enemy out of stealth.

2553053340_4204086370

Shiv – Attacks target for X kinetic damage.

Close range melee ability that deals moderate damage. Also builds a Tactical Advantage. This is your best ability for helping to do damage aside from Backstab.

1791000739_1656310534

Backstab– Ambushes enemy for X kinetic damage. Only usable while behind target.

I used this in combo with Shiv for a for around 20k~ damage if they Crit. Don’t use it unless there is nothing to heal.

2423064251_2521710662

Overlord Shot – Blasts a target for X weapon damage.

This is your spammable close ranged damaging ability. Can’t be used multiple times in a row because it costs 15 energy. Normally I use it to finish off a target if there is nothing to heal and have already used Backstab and Shiv.

1233562080_2311994203

Fragmentation Grenade – Deals X kinetic damage to the primary target and X amount of kinetic damage to up to 7 enemies within 5 meters.

This is your main AoE damage attack. Its best use is to stop node caps or a ranged attack for an enemy who is running away

2404542925_4086204075

Noxious Knives – Hurls envenomed knives in a 10-meter cone in front of you, damaging up to 8 targets for X kinetic damage and X internal poison damage.

DO NOT USE. Most of the time I don’t touch this ability. Really the only use for this ability is that it can be spammed to knock Assassins/Shadows and Operatives/Scoundrels out of stealth for your team to take care of.

503234674_614649014

Toxic Haze – Executes your Tactical Advantage to hurl a canister that fills the target area with poisonous gas, dealing X internal damage to up to 8 enemy targets within a 8 meter over 6 seconds. The haze stuns standard and weak enemies for 6 seconds. Requires and consumes Tactical Advantage.

I use this ability to stop node caps and to pop out stealthers if I can predict their location. Majority of the time I don’t use this ability.

Strategies

Cleansing

By using Toxin Scan you can cleanse all tech/physical/mental hardstuns, mezes, slows, and roots. Unfortunately the game doesn’t prioritize hardstuns/mezes over slows and roots. This means if you try to cleanse a Flash Bang on a player, it might cleanse a root or a slow instead. Be aware of this, it happens and it sucks.

Most of the abilities you can cleanse come from Operatives/Scoundrels, Mercenaries/Commandos, Powertechs/Vanguards, and Snipers/Slingers. You can also cleanse Warrior AoE mezes.

Stunbreak

Knowing when to break a stun is something that is incredibly important when playing a healing class. Something that might be a force of habit is to break the first time you are stunned but you have to try to never break your first stun. The only time you should break your first stun is if you are 100% certain you are about to die or when you want to save a friend.

Why shouldn’t you break your first stun? Simple: good players will remember you don’t have your breaker and then stun-lock and kill you. I would say 70% of the time I die is when I am being stunned and my breaker isn’t up. Stuns are what can kill healers, so be careful when you use your break. It will increase your survivability if you are patient with it. Awareness is also very important with stun breaking. Knowing who is attacking you and if you can survive the damage without stun breaking takes practice.

Normally a good healer will use break when they are completely white-barred. Meaning, they are immune to stuns for a short time and cannot be stun-locked. There is no point to break a stun unless, I will repeat, you are 100% about to die or to save someone who will die if you don’t heal them.

Tip: Please don’t break first stun over one DPS. For example, if a shadow popped out of stealth, stunned you and started a burst rotation, don’t freak out and break that stun. Let him burst you then break the second stun and stun him, heal up and roll away. If, for example, two shadows open on you, they could and will probably kill you before your stun breaks so, quickly break and stealth out, then use Evasion so you don’t break stealth. Even while stealthed DoTs can break your stealth and force you back into combat. By using Evasion it will cleanse any dots as well as help you get away without putting you back into combat.

Tip: Let’s talk about Mercenary/Commando’s Electro Nets. Once this ability is casted on you by an enemy player it will slow you and if you move you will take heavy stacking DoT damage. Every time you move you will gain more stacks of DoT damage. It also prevents you from using Exfiltrate and Cloaking Screen. Don’t panic, by stun breaking the Electro Net you will be able to use Exfiltrate and Cloaking Screen but remember that the stacking uncleansable DoT damage will still be ticking if you move. Sometimes it’s best to save your stunbreaks for Nets if you know you will be a target. Remember also that there is another option which is to not even break. If you feel safe you can just stand still so the DoTs don’t stack and wait out the net.

Positioning

When I see Operative in warzones and want to quickly get a good idea of their skill level, I look at two things: HoT management and positioning.

Positioning is extremely important, but is overlooked by a lot of Operative healers. Good positioning can be life or death as a healer and has to be in the back of your mind whenever you enter a warzone. This really is one of the characteristics that separates good and great healers and you won’t know that until you take it seriously. Position is also super important to specifically Operatives because one of our class biggest weaknesses is we have little to protect ourselves when we get hardstunned (other than to use our breaker). Unlike the other two healing classes we do not have stun damage reduction which makes us super weak when we are caught with our pants down because where we can’t mitigate the damage being laid into us by abilities such as Shield Probe or Evasion. That means if you aren’t paying attention and end up being swallowed by their whole enemy team, you will surely die. These situations could be completely avoided by having positioning constantly on your mind.

The good healers have awareness as well as use their environment to their advantage. You should always be near something to line of sight (LoS) ranged (could be a box/object/tree/wall/pillar) and far enough back where you aren’t in the mess of enemies. This will also help with not being in range of their entire team for them to constantly range CC, push you, or interrupt you. This also keeps you away from the main damage of the enemy team which puts less stress on you so you can purely focus on healing your team. If you are in the middle of a field healing someone, you are out of position. Always be around a structure you can dance around and make a DPS’ life a living hell. Try to keep as far back from the action as you can while still in range of healing your targets. Anyone who over-extends to kill you is a target for your team to pick off easily in your back-line. If someone doesn’t peel for you, kite back and stun the DPS, then double roll back to heal.

In PvP I am constantly behind or around objects where I can quickly strafe to evade incoming burst. I am also constantly adjusting my positioning depending on the enemies positioning and movement; we can do this easily in Operative because our healing is HoT/instant based. When you see the battle getting hairy there is no harm in tactical retreats; instead of dying as they all converge to your backline, just back up and reposition to continue healing.

Positioning slightly changes if you have a tank or are playing in a premade but regardless is still important in all the situations you will get yourself in, in PvP.

Guard Mechanic

What is Guard? Guard is an ability all SWTOR tanks have, so that translates to Juggernauts/Guardians, Powertechs/Vanguards, and Assassins/Shadows. In 5.0 these classes can now use guard regardless of their stance when they previously needed to be in the tank stance or form. When an ally uses this ability on your character the animation looks like a blue bubble. When you take damage you will see a stream of energy tethering you to your tank which exchanges damage.

What does Guard do?

Guard: While active, the guarded player takes 50% less damage and generates 25% less threat. In addition, so long as [your tank] remains within 15 meters of the guarded player, 50% of all incoming damage from enemy players is transferred back to [your tank].

Playing with a tank versus playing solo is something that a healer needs to know how to adjust to. While guarded and in range, you will receive 50% less damage taken. In PvP that is huge.

Guard Icons:

clip_image001

Orange Icon: You are being guarded by a player.

Note: Even if the tank is all the way across the map you will still see the guard animation on yourself as well as the icon. This does not mean that if you get attacked the damage reduction is working (this is because your tank is out of range). So keep that in mind.

Blue Icon: You have guard but it’s out of range of your tank, and you will not get the 50% damage reduction. When you see this icon quickly notice where your tank is and make your way back into guard range.

Tanks are there to soften burst damage on specific targets with guard and the healers are there to heal off that damage.

The better the tank is in your group, the better your HPS potential. The tank can keep the damage in your group spread evenly with his guard protection which enables you, as the healer, to heal everyone up in a more efficient manner.

Tip: Make sure to stay in guard range which is 15 meters. Try to make it a habit if you are being guarded to look where your tank is and your icons. Remember, just because you see a pretty blue bubble around your character does not always mean you are getting any damage reduction.

Tip: If there are multiple tanks in your group keep track of who has Guard on you. If Tank A decides to run off to the other side of the map and still has their Guard on you, click it off your buff bar. Why? So Tank B can rotate their Guard on you. If you have a Guard on, regardless of where the tank is, another tank cannot put their Guard on you.

Tip: MAKE SURE YOU HEAL YOUR TANK. I can’t stress this enough. Don’t forget that 50% of the damage you are taking is being transferred to your tank via the Guard mechanic. He/she is taking your damage to help you survive. Please prioritize keeping HoTs and single target healing on them.

Tip: Just because you have a tank does not mean you are invincible. If you or your tank are being tunneled you should still be mindful of positioning. Don’t stand out of the open and expect to heal through all the damage. If you and/or your tank are running out of CDs go to a pillar to LoS ranged damage or start to kite slightly (be mindful of guard range). When I notice my tank is under heavy fire I make sure I use DCDs even though I might not be that low just to mitigate my damage being transferred to him as I heal him back up.

Tip: Start to understand and know your tanks defensive cooldowns as well as abilities. I make it a habit to tell my tanks to communicate if they are running out of defensives so I can rotate my healing more effectively. If you do not have the luxury of being in the voice chat with your tank you really need to learn to pay attention to their abilities that benefit you as well. For example, Riot Gas/Oil Slick decreases Accuracy of enemies within the AoE by 15% and movement speed by 70%. If you are getting attacked and your tank throws that on top of you.. don’t run out it. lol

Keybinding and Settings

Keybinding

I know this is a very controversial topic in MMOs/PvP but I wouldn’t bring it up if I didn’t personally benefit from switching from clicking to keybinding. In my personal opinion and from my own experience, I would suggest that all Operatives healers keybind; at least keybind all your healing and DCD abilities. What sets Operative healers in PvP apart from one another is your reflexes, reaction time, and HoT managment. Keybinding is extremely helpful in ALL these departments because it increases your overall awareness and allows you to get those clutch HoT refreshes with 1 second left. I am a prime example of how keybinding improved awareness and had a serious positive impact on my overall HPS.

Another argument for keybinding is that it benefits healers the most because of “uptime”. I talked a lot about uptime in regards to Alacrity (in the stat analysis section under gearing) which goes hand-in-hand. Alacrity is one of the best stats for healers because it decreases your GCD and the times between your abilities. This means when trying to squeeze all the benefits out of Alacrity you need to use your abilities on CD and consistently string your GCDs together with no gaps between them. Keybinding helps you in this regard because you are able to be kiting and looking at your Ops frame while spamming your healing keybinds in a timely matter. It helps you to use your abilities on cooldown and maximize the uptime of your heals, making the most of your Alacrity.

All that being said I am not trying to say you can’t play this healing class without keybinding. But I am saying that this is one of the classes that benefits the most from keybinding. With my statements about the importance of uptime and the benefits of Alacrity, keybinding will leave you with less room for error in your rotations and is an easy way to get the highest potential HPS gain from Alacrity.

Tip: If you plan to keybind you don’t need to start from scratch. Talk to your friends who keybind or ask other Operative how they keybind. Ask them to send you a screenshot to see how they layout their abilities and what keys they use. When I started keybinding I asked one of the best Operative healers I could find at the ti me to see his keybindings. After I looked at them I setup binds that were a combination of what he used and other ones which made more sense to me. I suggest seeing what other layers use and revising those binds to fit your playstyle.

Tip: Don’t forget about Q, E, R, and T as keybind options. These are some of the most accessible ones because they are close to WASD (default for moving ingame). Q, E, R, and T are all easy to use while kiting and I personally set them as my spammable healing abilities and my two spammable defensive cooldowns.

Tip: If you seriously consider and commit to keybinding I would recommend getting a Naga/mouse that has keybindable keys on its side (where your thumb rests). It’s hard to keybind everything strictly to your keyboard and that’s where a good gaming mouse comes in. It will let you spread your binds from your keyboard to your mouse. There is a slight adjustment period when learning to use binds on a Naga but in the end it is well worth the effort.

Note: There is going to be a small adjustment period when switching from clicking to keybinding. This period ranges from person to person but is roughly about a day to a week (depends greatly on how often/much you play). It personally took me 2-3 days to get to the peak of my old healing ability and to start to mentally register what keys did what. The more you practice the faster the new binds the faster they will become second nature. Today I pop my DCDs and heals without even thinking about it; I don’t know how I lived without keybinding.

UI and Misc Settings

Having a good UI is really important no matter what class you play or even what game you play. I advise you to always look for ways to update and make your UI better. Here are my personal suggestions. There are also other player suggestions here : http://www.swtorui.com/addons.php

1) Camera Max Distance

Preferences -> Controls -> Scroll down to “Camera” -> Set to 100% -> Apply -> OK

This is pretty self-explanatory. This setting lets you zoom out all the way for a better view of the terrain. A good healer is one who can read the whole battle. You will not be able to do this unless you are able to zoom way out.

Tip: If you still aren’t comfortable with the camera distance even at 100% you can increase it by going into your UI file. Steps on how to do this: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=205633

2) Show Cool down Text

Preferences -> User Interface -> Scroll down to “Cool down Settings” and click “Show Cooldown Text” -> Apply -> OK.

This will make it so every time you cast an ability, if it has a cooldown it will give you a countdown on his cooldown icon on your bar instead of just a blue animation. I have no idea why this isn’t default setting in the first place. Every healer should have this enabled. It will make timing cooldowns and healing abilities much easier.

3) Ability Action Queue Window

Preferences -> Controls -> Scroll down to “Combat”. You will see a droll box with options.

I believe default of this is .5. This means that 0.5 seconds before the next GCD is available you can queue up the ability you want to use for that GCD. I personally switched this to 0.0 because of my reaction time. This means there is no ability queue time and I manually have to use abilities whenever my GCD is up again. The advantage to running no queue time is that I am never locked into using an ability that I’ve changed my mind about using because I already queued it up for the next GCD and I have good enough reaction time to avoid gaps between my GCDs as a result of not having a queue time.

The only issue with no queue time is if there is server lag you might miss clicking your GCDs on time. Just be aware of this. Overall, this is a personal choice but I would recommend the lower the better in this setting.

4)Showing HP/Energy values on your Player/Target Frame

Interface Editor -> Click on your Player or Target Frame -> Scroll and check “Show Informational Text” -> Save

Another settings that I wish was default. This lets you see the exact percentage of your HP/Energy.

5) Highlighting Buffs/Duration/Effect Sort Type

Interface Editor -> Click your Player Buff Tray -> A/B/C/D -> Save

A) Scroll down check “Highlight Effects”

B) Under “Effect Highlight Max Duration” put 1 minute and below

C) Check “Personal Effects”

D) Under “Effect Sort Type” choice “Apply time”.

This makes it so your buffs are highlighted on your toon’s buff bar. If there is another Operative healer in your group, you can set your HoTs apart from another players HoTs because yours would have a golden highlight around the buff. All the other settings will help you reduce clutter and make your buffs easier to see.

6) Highlighting Buffs/Duration/Effect Sort Type for your Target frame

Interface Editor -> Click your Target Frame ->

A) Increase the buff size

B) Click “Show Informational Text”

C) Click Highlight Buffs

D) Under “Effect Highlight Max Duration” put 1 minute and below

E) Under “Sort Options” check “Personal Buffs”

F) “Buff Sort Type” click “By Time Remaining”

G) Uncheck Personal Debuffs

7) Ops frames settings

Interface Editor -> Click your Ops frame -> A/B/C/D/E/F

A) Decrease the size of debuffs (.5)

B) Increase buff size (.6)

C) Increase Health size (144)

D) Increase Health height (32)

E) Click “show Health Text”

F) Click “show Only Removable debuffs”

These sizes are just personal suggestions, take them as you will. This will make your Ops frame buffs and health easier to see.

8) Ops Frame/Buffs/Action Bar

Setting up a good UI for healing is tough. This is something you will really have to play around until you find a UI that fits all your needs. My advice is try to put the Ops Frame as close to your target’s frame as possible. This will make it easier for you to see their buffs (HoTs) so it will be easier to refresh. I also try to put the Ops Frame/Buffs of your Target and Action Bar close to together so in one view you can see your cooldowns, players taking damage, and if HoTs need to be refreshed on the target.

My current UI set up as an example:

clip_image002[7]

I went through many UI changes until I settled with this one. This UI is extremely beneficial for healers because it does one thing extremely successfully, it reduces the amount of eye movement you need to do when healing. If you have to look at four (4) different locations on your screen to see your DCDs, Healing abilities, Ops Frame and other important abilities, I would implore you to explore other healthier UI options. Trust me when I say this, this UI greatly increase my reaction time in using my heals on CD.

You will notice my Ops frame (what you will be staring at majority of the game) is very close to my bars which hold my most important healing ability CDs and DCDs. This is important to know what’s up to effectively use all your healings on CD and know what DCDs are up so you can rotate them under pressure. I also ended up flipping my character portrait to be closer to my CD bars and Ops frame. Everything is located in the same area which reduces the amount that I can make mistakes since the timers are close together.

Note: You will notice that I have smaller bars to the bottom right. Those are my hot keys to my healing abilities and DCDs. I ended up putting the abilities again on another bar (which is closer to my ops frame) as a personal preference and also to help me with distractions. I have a bar with other abilities which are less important located to the bottom of my ops frame. EVERYTHING IS HOTKEYED.

Acknowledgements

First and foremost I like to thank Doc for spending the countless hours spell checking, theorycrafting, testing, and revising every part of this guide. Thank you so much for the hard work you put into my guide, I couldn’t have gotten this far without your wonderful support.

I want to thank my guild STI (Sick Twisted Individuals) for your theorycrafting, testing, and bountiful support. I am blessed to have such good friends.

Last but not least, I want to thank Dulfy for giving me the opportunity to host my guide to get more viewership so it can help as many players as possible. Thank you!

About the Author

Many people know me as “Hottie” on Harbinger. I have written three guides (including this one) on Operative PvP healing. I am extremely passionate about gaming, PvP, and Operative healing. I have thousands of reg matches under my belt and hundreds of hours in group ranked and solo ranked. I love to stream on twitch my strictly Operative healing gameplay and give tips to Operatives who want to increase their HPS in warzones. I also am passionate about giving back to the community and running my own SWTOR charity events. With the help of my guildies, friends, and the SWTOR community, we have managed to raise over two thousand dollars for several charities such as American Cancer Society and AFSP (American Foundation for Suicide Prevention).

If you are interested in supporting me and learning to become a better healer, check me out at:

twitch.tv/kissingaiur

Co-author:

Most people call me Doc after my operative’s old character name. I’m pretty good at words and maths. I play every class on Harbinger – if you know any of my toons it would probably be my Assassin and Shadow, which are called Tanktunnelme. Being in a guild with Hottie doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for Operative healing but I make a point of keeping comfortable with the spec and it will always have a special place for me as the first spec I was really good at in PVP. I stream occasionally at twitch.tv/dr_dirtybird

  • Lithari

    Cool, i look forward to the other classes getting their guides.

  • Matias Javier Fabressi

    Thanks for the guide.

  • Ramzzess

    Much-needed guide. Thank you. Now we need some of the other nerds to make a guide. Hoping for an Atox Deception guide (if he can put aside the salt), or Jalgo Pt

    • Git Gud

      “Now we need some of the other nerds to make a guide”. Really dude cause only nerds make guides *sigh*. Anyways thanks to Hottie & Doc for making guide and also Dufly for keeping us updated ^_^.

      • Scott Heisel

        I call my internet bros nerds as a term of endearment. I think he’s doing the same.

        Hope you like the guide

        • Ramzzess

          Yeah, pretty much this. Lol

          • Git Gud

            Ramzzess (with two zz and two ss) is the type of person that agrees with everything Scott says to make him believe they are best friends aka “internet bros” 😉

            • Paulo Gomes

              Woke up on the wrong side of the bed today, didn’t you?

              • Git Gud

                Nah someone ate my cheerios 🙁

        • Git Gud

          Last time I checked there isn’t such a thing as “internet bros”. Cool story bro but you prob meant you guys (I’m assuming you are all male) are in a true bromance relationship since you are so close to call each other nerds as a term of endearment. You guys prob bro fist each other every day ;). Don’t know who you are Scott since it’s a guest account and I could’ve said that I made this guide as well. So I TOLD you about the stairs, bro.

  • prdc

    Nice guide, but is there a way that PvP can be added to the title?

    • Hottie

      Oops! You are absolutely correct! That should have been in the title! Sorry for the confusion. I will email Dulfy for the correction.

  • JediJulius

    I hope guide writers in the future look to this guide as a good example of going and reviewing just about every aspect of a class and its utilities and abilities (in my opinion.) I do wish there was a bit more PvE info (if possible.)

    Fantastic read, I love the depth and coverage of all abilities and utilities. I found it interesting even though I do t play a healer very often.

  • Cozizel Cortex

    For the companion affection bonus, wasn’t it a “complete all convos with said companion” instead of maxing out affection?

    • Hottie

      Correct. That section was written a while ago after I got all my companions affection to max. It was slightly more confusing for me to figure out if the bonuses were given when maxing out the rep or just the story line conversations. 😛

      In hindsight, I should have updated it to be more clear.

  • Xandryah

    with that UI i could never play…
    Do you play in random no-guildies-groups with that UI too?

    • Hottie

      What? .. What difference would it make?

      • Xandryah

        don’t you need to evade attacks and see your surrondings too in pvp especially? there are always people talking about situational awareness… that’s also important. Anyway , if it works for you, it’s ok for me. Thank you very much for sharing all this info with everybody:) <3

        • Hottie

          Full screenshot: http://imgur.com/a/gIL0j

          I’m still confused how I have no “situational awareness” with this UI? Is it because you are judging it from a cropped point of view?

          • Xandryah

            Oh yeah ! 🙂 LOL

            life is good again 🙂
            Sorry for upsetting, Hottie^^

            • Hottie

              Not, upset just slightly confused :P.

    • John Kosto

      Haha, a guy writes a 278 pages long awesome guide to help out others with no personal gain, and you’re questioning his healing abilities based on his own personal preferred UI setup?

    • Paulo Gomes

      Well, It obviously works for him… Is that really relevant for the subject here?

    • GudGudGudGudITSGUDJUSTACCPETIT

      then L2P!

  • guest

    Ok, but what how do u get set gear,etc after sub runs out ?

    • Hottie

      From what we can tell, if you are not subbed you will not be able to level up your command rank. You will not be able to get command packs for gear. You can still buy them from GTN though.

      • Hottie

        Excuse me, I made a mistake. Getting your set bonus can ONLY come from command crates (as far as we know). If you do not sub, you cannot level and do not have your full set bonus, you cannot get it till your level with command ranks. You can however, buy everything else from the GTN (other players) such as mods, enhancements, hilts etc.

        • guest

          Think i will cancel it next month. I remember your old (4.0) guide where you mentioned some kind of bonus or better stats with old set bonus. In my case i have 208 set gear from the last season on my op healer. Is it good to stay only with 208 amor, and replace rest (aug, mods, enh, relics, ear, implants) ?

          • Hottie

            If you refer to my T1 calculations SWTOR forum post, it basically says 208s scale extremely well. The only thing you really need to replace in T1, is your main hand/off hand barrel, 230 blue enhancements and your left-side (implants/ear piece). The blue 230 mods if they are high end (which you will find in your crates) are trash, same goes with green gear you get. Green gear bolsters worse than 208s. Convert everything to command points that isn’t blue (trash blues after you get your barrels/leftside/enhancements) or purple 230s.

  • GudGudGudGudITSGUDJUSTACCPETIT

    OMG you guys are still around! salute! I just can’t stand 5.0. It’s sad that they do this.

    Anyway, nice job pal 😉

  • Um I am pretty sure guard in pvp gives you 5% damage reduction and not 50%

    • Hottie

      No, no. It’s still a 50% damage reduction regardless if it’s PVE or PVP. You can test it yourself.

      • Dandyconejellos

        Guard provides 5% damage reduction and redirects 50% of damage FROM PLAYERS if within 15 meters of the guarded target. The only thing you get in PvE is lower threat and the 5% DR.

        • Hottie

          I stand corrected. Guess i’m just the classic PvP tryhard who doesn’t know anything about PvE mechanics :P.

          • Paulo Gomes

            The guys at BW don’t make it easier. Yes, the 50% dmg reduction is only in pvp, in pve it doesn’t work.

            But the wording could be much better. To add to the confusion they changed the wording again in 5.0, making it even more confusing.

            Go figure…

      • I am confused :S Isn’t it 50% redirected damage and 5% damage reduction?.

  • Operative PVP FTW

    Pretty sure the only PVP rotation Operatives need/use is:

    Roll, Roll, Grab Huttball, Roll, Holotraverse to baddie, Roll, Score, Cloak

    Repeat

    • Hottie

      I’m pretty sure you are confused between Concealment Operatives and Medicine Operatives. For healing Operatives it goes something like this:

      Roll, Roll, Get the Ball, Get Rooted, Get Jumped by 3 Melee, Try to Holotraverse but it bugs out, Get Double-Hardstuned, Die.

  • Dude

    Thanks for the guide

  • Aleksander Boguta

    Thanks for the guide, awesome work really. The only thing I’d disagree is the infiltrator passive. 15% movement speed is always a good choice and since you mentioned only seven abilities worth taking, it’s a no-brainer. Since positioning is key on a scoundrel/operative healer, being able to reposition 15% faster is priceless. And yes, I’m fully aware you can just roll where you need to be, but there’s a cooldown on that ;).

  • TempTemp

    The guide says do not take curative agent is bad but with a 10% passive heal every 45 seconds if used off CD and from what I work out is around a 40% instant heal from the double stack “bug(?)” why is it not worth it? If used on yourself that’s 50% heals + the 6% damage reduction from fortified kolto. I get that kolto infusion loses out on heals but I’m only losing a tiny amount of heals surely the 2 other heals makes up for that? Right? (another note to add, the instant 40% heal only seems to happen when the target doesn’t have any of your probes on them; not sure if this happens when another persons probes are on them. And considering that this has been a thing since KotET launch I’m doubtful it’s a bug.) Hope this all makes sense.

    • Hottie

      It’s a bug. Don’t get attached to it.

      • TempTemp

        Hate to be that guy, but is there a Dev thread somewhere about it? I’ve been looking around can’t find anything except from the community reactions and even then people are torn on what to think.

        • Hottie

          There is a lot of bugs, class related skill tree bugs and blunt class imbalances since 5.0 launch. It’s a little silly to assume everything that gets released was intended. lol

          Remember when 4.0 launched the new arena map was instantly killing players? This was happening in regs, solo ranked and group ranked. It took them over a month to even think about fixing that. With your logic that bug was intended, just think about that.

          After 5.0 release the developers like usual, don’t comment on any of bugs or imbalances. We just have to trust they read our tickets and pray things get fixed.

    • Fred Garvin

      “And considering that this has been a thing since KotET launch I’m doubtful it’s a bug”

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7fedbdf9417bccc4c8e5cfbf568af2bbd05b2761b0cea4d50dac232dc6ae139e.png

  • Drago SWTOR

    I think the operative only laughs if you gain an initial TA, so only if you gain a stack when you don’t have one.

    • Hottie

      I stand corrected. Honestly I didn’t remember how it worked. I knew you laughed for a TA gain. I have been playing the class so long I don’t hear my toon laughing anymore. I just mentally know I have some. 😛

  • Harb

    Hottie, have you ever considered using old 186/180 set bonus for 15% more crit from reccuperative nanotech/kolto cloud. With it i found operative a lot more mobile and close to pre 3.0 gameplay

    • Hottie

      I do not know how 186/180 armorings bolster. I am guessing they probably bolster badly but that is something you would have to educated me on because I don’t believe I have 186/180 to test the bolster.

      Correct me if i’m wrong here but 186/180 set bonus is a two piece set bonus, correct? If so, what you would be really comparing (disregarding how it bolsters) is, 15% crit on Recuperative Nanotech vs. 3 seconds CD reduction on Recuperative Nanotech. 3 second CD reduction on the ability translated into a 20% reduction CD on Recuperative Nanotech which is a 20% HPS gain to the ability.

      So does a 15% critical increase on Recuperative Nanotech outweigh a 20% HPS increase to Recuperative Nanotech? I would take an educated guess and say it doesn’t. Unless the armorings are bugged by bolster (bolsters extremely well), I wouldn’t consider trading them out because 208+ armorings are superior in stats and set bonus.

      Hope that helps!

  • Hottie

    5.1 Patch Update:

    -Curative Agent/Sly Surrender – Bug fixed.

    -“Clickly” relics can now be available in PvP.

    -Bolster now only effects item rating only below 232 (down from 250).
    Every gear piece above 232 should be scaled up in PvP depending what it says on the gear (not 100% confirmed; assumed).

    I will be updating/editing my two guides as soon as I work out these new changes.

    Thanks!

    • Nill

      Was curative agent a bug? First it could give an instant 40k heals and now nearly 8k

      • Hottie

        I don’t understand your point. They addressed the utilities ability full healing allies when there wasn’t a double stack. Therefore concluding it was an unintentional mistake in their coding or any other way to say this is a “bug”.

        -Hottie

  • Artthy Dharus

    Hey Hottie, Artthy here from TRE, I use a different tactic of healing (obviously). It may be useful your utility build, but I find for pvp its better this weird combo
    I use
    Skillful: Chem-resistant Inlays + Infiltrator
    Masterful: Fortified Kolto + Curbing Strategies (in some cases) or Advanced Cloaking (faster medpack use) or escaping an anticipated CC.
    Heroic: Escape plan + Evasive Imperative
    Legendary: Blow for Blow + Revitalizers.
    In most cases I find it’s most useful to lose LoS and run more, while keeping stacks of K probe on group. Using Nanotech suit seems more useful for Operations.

    • Hottie

      Interesting set up :).

      For me, I tend to run a very defensive style in my set up because I get tunneled hard within every one of my matches. I would always suggest Operative Healers to go the most defensive as possible because it helps relieve pressure on yourself when needing to cast heal other people. This is a weird statement but this is the mindset I have, the more defensive you are with your utilities, the less you have to heal yourself. This leaves majority of your energy to focus on cast healing others in your group and not yourself. Since our cast heals are RNG with how much HPS they can produce at a give time and with the long cast time, you sometimes can’t afford to heal yourself if you want to save someone.

      With that being said, I would have to disagree with dropping Med shield. With the accessibly of Augmented Shields now within the tree, I would argue it is hands down better than Blow for Blow + Curbing Strategies/Advanced Cloaking (though I would say it’s fun to see people dying to their own damage reflected from time to time :P). I would argue this because of how much utility you get from Med Shield + Augmented Shields. You essentially double dipping with an ability you use on CD in many situations. You get heal after your Shield Probe ends, fast CD and 30% more absorb. I don’t understand logically, how anyone would want to give that up in any situation unless you know for a fact you won’t be tunneled. I use Shield Probe in a lot of situations so I don’t need to heal myself so I can cast heal another target. It’s too much of a large damage reduction to pass up.

      It’s funny how you talk about dropping the AoE reduction. I was thinking about this every now and then but I am always hesitant to do so (yeah, I’m a nerd. lol). Like I said again, I get tunneled a lot so that is why I always go as tanky as I need. My mindset always falls upon this: I ask myself, when do I die the most? The answer is when I’m being tunneled by 3-5 people or I’m in a stun lock chain with no breaker. Let’s be frank, the Skillful tree is pretty bad for Operative healers and it’s even worse with dealing with the two situations I mentioned above. Reasons being, you realistically won’t be able to kite 3-5 people so Hit and Run is out of the question. With Slip Away, this utility doesn’t really help in this situation as well because CCing one target is wasting a GCD where you desperately need to get out healing and CCing one opponent doesn’t help you with the other 4 targets going ham. So to me, it comes down to taking a flat damage reduction to AoEs; if someone decides to cleaving, this utility will reduce some pressure (even can be helpful when hardstuns as well).

      Thank you for your post and your suggestions. I love going back and forth on these things because it helps me question and opens up about why I use the set up I do as well gives me opportunities for change up how I do things.

      Have a good one!

      -Hottie

      • Artthy Dharus

        AAA, now I see your true point. You’re very right. Well, dunno, but when I got tunnel, I always have most single target attacks (1-4 sniper’s ambush/ 1-4 merc’s heatseeker missiles at once, which is merc party on enemy team, almost everytime I join a warzone SIGH), of course, so that’s why I drop aoe 😕
        Still, by much experience with a weak supposed class- Sorcerer Madness, I feel losing LoS seems to be best way to avoid a Set Spike ( many 20k hits on your ass/ Overburst) is to run like hell.
        U’re top right with your shield probe, It’s most useful in your recommended situation/ good built for ranked imo, but still its a 25 sec cd to it, haha.
        Cheers, Hottie! Big operative love.

        • Hottie

          To be honest dealing with range classes during this meta (5.0-5.1) isn’t that big of an issue for me (even though engineering aoe is a pain for kiting). With good positioning you should always be safe side-stepping into an LoS point. It’s the mass melee up my butt that seems to hurt a lot more because you are forced to stand there and take it while attempting to cast healing.

          The great thing about this game is there is nothing wrong with doing your own utility build. There are always going to be more defensive or offensive styles to build your utility trees around but overall it’s all just based on how you like to play and your preference. My personal preference is always be prepared for the worst case scenario but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try other things if you feel they help your perform better or it’s more fun :). But if you are struggling verse certain classes or in different situations, investigate where the problem lies and try to adjust your tree to help in those areas.

          In the end its all about enjoying yourself and having fun.

  • Megacode

    Will you be updating your site with recent needs/buffs??

  • jimbojazz5000

    Yo! Thanks for such a comprehensive guide! I have wanted to improve my UI for an age but this is the first guide I ah e seen showing me some ideas – thanks for all the hard work, I plan to implement the lot!
    (One thing I did wonder on tho – I read in another guide that they found ‘show only removable buffs’ is somewhat misleading as it would rhyme hide a few buffs that are cleanse-able, so they don’t check that box – do you find this could be true? I can ref that guide, can’t remember now without checking! 😁)

Back to Top