Sorc Healing PvP Discussion

[cobb]

I have been messing around with a sorc pvp healer concept a bit, I am pretty I will end up playing that class as my main. The build I have been tinkering with (currently) is as follows:

http://torguild.net/calculator/jedi-cons...0000000000

I think that the 20% snare on weaken mind/affliction DoT is a must, and it has good synergy with egress (20% movement speed 6 sec when activating force shield). That will be huge for kiting and keeping melees out of range. There is no focus on AOE healing which grants a lot of other utility options and passive buffs that increase survivability. The tier 1 talents in the telekenitcs tree just look way too good to pass up as a healer. 100 to base force, and 9% less casting costs is huge for a healer- who's biggest weakness in just about every game is over reliance on mana (read- force).

Containment would be nice from the balance tree- but you have to take on too many useless talent points to get there. Pinning resolve looks good, as force stun (electrocute?) is clearly a very powerful ability that will be used as often as possible. This build focuses on direct healing, a powerful force shield (3sec disorientation when it breaks, 20% increase to damage absorbed, 20% movement speed bonus for 6 seconds, reduced time on debuff), high survivability for the healer (pain bearer 8% to healing received, 2x 2% damage reduction talents, and the beefed up force shield).

Weakness is obviously AOE healing, and damage output. But this build looks to be a real pest to take out of the fight, and can do major healing to keep single targets alive, while also serving the general utility role of CCing, snaring, and debuffing the enemy. I would consider putting 2 points in concentration, strictly for the force regen buff granted from casting disturbance, and the fact it stacks. Would probably do away with healing trance/1 pt of serenity if force regen proved to be a problem in longer pvp battles. Not really sure which would be better at this point.

I haven't played the game, don't have access to beta, but have been lurking this forum a lot, watching the pvp vids, and messing around with different builds while keeping up on the abilitiy and talent changes going on. Its all basically in theory for me now, so I would definitely appreciate any feedback from people who have played if they think this would be a viable pvp healing build.

[-IR-]

Since this hasn't been updated or talked about on this thread since October, I'll talk a little about the Corruption Sorcerer in PvP based on November beta play.

In the last beta, I only managed to hit level 16 on my Sorcerer but it allowed me to experience a taste of what PvP healing as this class is. It is a somewhat mobile role, and the playstyle has a lot of things combining together to become a force to be reckoned with for enemies, and someone that you always want by your side as an ally.

To me, looking at all the talents, abilities, and having experienced the playstyle of a Corruption Sorcerer, the class feels like a Jack-of-all-Trades healer and a powerful one at that. The primary abilities that I feel you will be using a lot at max level in PvP as a healer are:

-Extrication
-Purge
-Static Barrier
-Dark Infusion
-Dark Heal
-Innervate
-Resurgence

Dark Infusion seems to be your bread and butter casted healing ability because you can reduce the cast time on it a bit with talents and it easily heals for the most of all the casted heals. Resurgence is your main HoT combined with an instant heal, on a 6 sec. CD and obtained through talents. Innervate is a channeled heal that is on a 9 sec. CD. Between these three heals, you should be about covered once you add in religious use of Static Barrier. Purge is for cleansing other players of DoT's and debuffs while healing them in the process, and Extrication will be a rather useful utility ability in PvP, allowing you pull an ally across a distance up to 30 meters to you. Dark Heal is not as useful later game as it is early because of its' high force cost and small amount healed but it casts quickly so combined with Static Barrier and Resurgence, it can keep someone alive via stopgap until you have time to hit them with an Innervate/Dark Infusion.

One way I'm looking at PvPing as a Corruption Sorcerer is with this spec:

http://torguild.net/calculator/sith-inqu...0000000000

This build not only allows me to pick up Resurgence and Innervate which I think will be critical for a dedicated PvP healer, but also gives the ability to slow enemies down for a decent length of time with the combination of Conspiring Force and Exsanguinate. As soon as I pop an Affliction on an enemy, they are slowed by 20% for 21 seconds. With this, it could very well be possible to slow enemies with impunity until Resolve kicks in. There are also two floating talent points in the Corruption tree with this build, I threw them into Dark Resilience but you can just as easily throw them into Force Suffusion or Haunting Presence. The primary goal of this build is to be a dedicated healer but also be able to be mobile and have easy escape ability and as high survivability as is possible from talents, hence the choices to grab Conspiring Force, Exsanguinate, Sith Defiance and Life Surge when I could have put those points elsewhere.

The way that I think that this build will be played is to combine religious use of Static Barrier and Affliction while combining a HoT, a channeled, and a casted heal to keep others up while being as mobile as possible.

[Darklighter]

I think a more "hybrid" build will be the best for PvP. My plan is starting out with this build.

We all know in PvP being a healer means you WILL be focused. Maybe not in the first engagment but once they realize you are the healer they will keep you respawning. It holds true in both pugs and pre-made warzones, and also in world pvp. So it doesn't come down to just healing for large amounts, its equally important to be able to stay alive. Until back-up comes to save you or you can get away.

With the above spec you have all the basic goodies for healing: Lower cast time Infusion, a HoT, get a buff for every HoT cast, Channel heal, lower cooldown on Barrier and Purge. The only thing you really lose out on is the free Consumption on Innervate crits (not that important in PvP) and the top tier AoE heal. The AoE heal will not be as helpful in warzones/world PvP. Too much kiting and movement for it to true be effective. Only uses I see for it are fighting right on top of the nodes in Alderaan and next to doors in Voidstar. Outside of those 2 places I see it being lackluster in PvP.

The rest of the spec is chosen to keep yourself alive longer. Conspiring Force will help you escape those melee on you (Purge their slow off you, they cant do that to yours). Exsanguinate will provide a small boost to this as well. Electric Bindings will let you get away from enemies nearly anytime you want. And knockback with an added root effect is just plain sexy, especially against melee. Backlash is in my opinion an must have for any serious PvP build. While I'm not sure if it affects Barriers cast on other players, even if it only works on your own Barrier that will be a huge help. The single point in Lightning Effusion is optional, but I cant see a better place for a single point. The proc will be nice when it happens but not something you'll worry about, the lower cooldown on force speed is helpful though. Chain lightning is there because you can have periods when you dont have to heal anyone, so throw out some extra damage (AoE) and enjoy it.

Like I said, to me PvP healing is two part. Healing is of course one part but more importantly is being able to keep yourself alive to do that healing. Pre-mades vs Premade players are smart enough to kill the healers. Pug vs Pug you will have to rely on yourself to stay alive, because...well its a pug lol.

[moneda]

Despite time having passed since my time in beta I managed to PvP quite a bit as a level 50 Sorcerer. I can't imagine anyone getting much use out of Dark Heal; during the holiday weekend stress test I leveled my Sorc to 30 without even training it. The other abilities you have listed there will all probably be of use, some obviously more situational than others. I see Dark Infusion and Innervate being the go-to heals for actually keeping people alive during combat, so it's important to note that they both demand that you remain still, for casting and channeling respectively.

Also, the TORGuild calculator is out of date. This is your build via the TORHead calculator.

[-IR-]

(12-08-2011 03:51 PM)moneda Wrote:  Despite time having passed since my time in beta I managed to PvP quite a bit as a level 50 Sorcerer. I can't imagine anyone getting much use out of Dark Heal; during the holiday weekend stress test I leveled my Sorc to 30 without even training it. The other abilities you have listed there will all probably be of use, some obviously more situational than others. I see Dark Infusion and Innervate being the go-to heals for actually keeping people alive during combat, so it's important to note that they both demand that you remain still, for casting and channeling respectively.

Also, the TORGuild calculator is out of date. This is your build via the TORHead calculator.

If you got to 50 and did some PvPing at that level then I bow before your superior experience! Indeed, it was my experience as well that Dark Heal was nigh-useless but it at least served the purpose of having a quick cast heal to avoid death, if only by the skin of your teeth at the lower levels before getting Resurgence/Innervate. Also because of the continued and constant use of Dark Infusion and Innervate as primary heals and the caveat that you must stand in one place to use them does the 20% snare tied to Affliction with that build really shine through.

Thanks for the update on the site trees not being updated, I noticed that after posting myself.

(12-08-2011 01:03 PM)Darklighter Wrote:  I think a more "hybrid" build will be the best for PvP. My plan is starting out with this build.

We all know in PvP being a healer means you WILL be focused. Maybe not in the first engagment but once they realize you are the healer they will keep you respawning. It holds true in both pugs and pre-made warzones, and also in world pvp. So it doesn't come down to just healing for large amounts, its equally important to be able to stay alive. Until back-up comes to save you or you can get away.

With the above spec you have all the basic goodies for healing: Lower cast time Infusion, a HoT, get a buff for every HoT cast, Channel heal, lower cooldown on Barrier and Purge. The only thing you really lose out on is the free Consumption on Innervate crits (not that important in PvP) and the top tier AoE heal. The AoE heal will not be as helpful in warzones/world PvP. Too much kiting and movement for it to true be effective. Only uses I see for it are fighting right on top of the nodes in Alderaan and next to doors in Voidstar. Outside of those 2 places I see it being lackluster in PvP.

The rest of the spec is chosen to keep yourself alive longer. Conspiring Force will help you escape those melee on you (Purge their slow off you, they cant do that to yours). Exsanguinate will provide a small boost to this as well. Electric Bindings will let you get away from enemies nearly anytime you want. And knockback with an added root effect is just plain sexy, especially against melee. Backlash is in my opinion an must have for any serious PvP build. While I'm not sure if it affects Barriers cast on other players, even if it only works on your own Barrier that will be a huge help. The single point in Lightning Effusion is optional, but I cant see a better place for a single point. The proc will be nice when it happens but not something you'll worry about, the lower cooldown on force speed is helpful though. Chain lightning is there because you can have periods when you dont have to heal anyone, so throw out some extra damage (AoE) and enjoy it.

Like I said, to me PvP healing is two part. Healing is of course one part but more importantly is being able to keep yourself alive to do that healing. Pre-mades vs Premade players are smart enough to kill the healers. Pug vs Pug you will have to rely on yourself to stay alive, because...well its a pug lol.

Oooh, that's an interesting build that I had not thought of before.

I went ahead and tweaked it for my own purposes and it came out looking like this:

http://www.torhead.com/calculator/skill#...MrzMbZ0z.1

For my version of your build, I started out by moving the points from Haunting Presence to Dark Resilience because I personally like having cheaper Consumptions. Next, I moved the 3 points that you had in Convection and put them in Reserves and Lightning Spire. I understand why you put the points into improving the damage of some of your DPS abilities but I would rather have the longer range on those abilities and the extra 100 Force. Simply a personal preference. I took the 2 points that you had in Subversion out because I had talented for longer range so I don't think that pushback of those two abilities will be that much of a problem. I put those points into Suppression to improve my CC and interrupt ability but I could also put them into Lightning Barrage. I put that last, roving point that you stuck into Lightning Effusion into Will of the Sith in the Madness tree, another 3% Willpower never hurt anyone.

All in all, I think that's an awesome build, thanks for sharing it! I'm definately going to have to try it after launch. After looking at yours, I came up with another hybrid heals/dps build in collaboration with a roommate of mine. Here it is:

http://www.torhead.com/calculator/skill#...ZcMcRsMz.1

Basically, I went up the Corruption tree for the sole reason of grabbing Innervate. You could just as easily put the 2 points that I put into Dark Resilience into Haunting Presence to help your solo play and interplay with your companion or into Force Suffusion to improve your Death Field if you were so inclined. Instead of putting the other hybrid points into Lightning, I threw them into Madness. The goal of the build was a) to be a hybrid dps/healer build and b) to use the snare of Force Lightning instead of using the snare from Affliction that Conspiring Force gives you. The critical talent for that goal is Madness which allows your Force Lightning to be cast back to back without a CD. I also went and picked up Death Field because why not and Haunted Dreams in order to have instant Whirlwinds. I also put another 2 points into Reserves because I really like having an extra 100 Force but if you don't need/care to have that extra Force, you could throw them into Conspiring Force to give you the double whammy of having the Affliction snare and using Force Lightning liberally. I doubt they would stack but it is something to consider.

[Petrus]

Quote:For my version of your build, I started out by moving the points from Haunting Presence to Dark Resilience because I personally like having cheaper Consumptions.

I question the use of Dark Resilience in any build. While I suppose you could make a valid argument saying that 2% less life lost each consumption is worth 2 talent points, (I disagree) I think the key point is that you should never be using consumption in any circumstance other than with a force bending proc.

Since critting with innervate makes your next consumption take no HP away, and, more importantly, removes the 25/50/75/100% force regeneration debuff, using consumption without a dark mending proc is just inefficient.

Using consumption once gives you 48 energy (with 600 energy) and reduces your energy regen by 2 over 10 seconds. That means using consumption without force bending is only going to give you a total gain of 28 energy.

The only time I can see it being useful is if you're in a pinch, and NEED that extra force to keep someone alive. But since 1 consumption gives you (roughly) the force need for 1 spell, it would essentially take 2 globals to cast 1 heal. (1 for the consumption, 1 for the heal.) If you're so pressed for force that you need to use consumption like that, I'm not sure if you'll have the time to regain enough force to make yourself useful, and that's not even mentioning what a prime target you'll be by knocking your own health down 30 - 60%.

So in the end, I think it comes down to the fact that Dark Resilience is a useless talent - mostly because if everything goes according to plan you'll *never* lose health from consumption, but also because if shit does hit the fan, those 2 talent points could be used better elsewhere.

[-IR-]

(12-09-2011 03:01 AM)Petrus Wrote:  I question the use of Dark Resilience in any build. While I suppose you could make a valid argument saying that 2% less life lost each consumption is worth 2 talent points, (I disagree) I think the key point is that you should never be using consumption in any circumstance other than with a force bending proc.

Since critting with innervate makes your next consumption take no HP away, and, more importantly, removes the 25/50/75/100% force regeneration debuff, using consumption without a dark mending proc is just inefficient.

Using consumption once gives you 48 energy (with 600 energy) and reduces your energy regen by 2 over 10 seconds. That means using consumption without force bending is only going to give you a total gain of 28 energy.

The only time I can see it being useful is if you're in a pinch, and NEED that extra force to keep someone alive. But since 1 consumption gives you (roughly) the force need for 1 spell, it would essentially take 2 globals to cast 1 heal. (1 for the consumption, 1 for the heal.) If you're so pressed for force that you need to use consumption like that, I'm not sure if you'll have the time to regain enough force to make yourself useful, and that's not even mentioning what a prime target you'll be by knocking your own health down 30 - 60%.

So in the end, I think it comes down to the fact that Dark Resilience is a useless talent - mostly because if everything goes according to plan you'll *never* lose health from consumption, but also because if shit does hit the fan, those 2 talent points could be used better elsewhere.

You do bring up a good point, I'd just like to say two things. First, that build doesn't include any points into Force Surge as there are not enough points to get that far into the Corruption tree while still picking up Backlash which was the point of the build. So my Consumptions would never be free in that build anyway.

The second thing is where would you suggest that I put those two points? There's only three places that I can see to put them, either in Dark Resilience to make the Consumptions that you will have to hit in a pinch that much cheaper, in Haunting Presence which you'd have to spend 2 points to get all of 1% increased healing done although I could see it if you were planning on doing a fair amount of soloing with the build as the Presence that it gives is a decent amount or in Force Suffusion which would only really benefit Overload which is really a utility ability anyway and Chain Lightning.

[Petrus]

In that particular build I'd probably put it into haunting presence. Not that 1% healing is a ton, but I think in the end it's going to mean more than 2% reduced hp loss.

I was aiming my comments about Consumption towards a full Corruption build, and honestly in your particular build it might not be the worst place to put the points... but I don't know.

When you really get into the math of consumption, unless you use it 4 times in a row (removing 60% of you HP untalented, 52% talented.) it's actually a negative force gain. You need to minimize the length of time that the debuff is up. If you tap all 4 at once you'll gain force, but you'll practically kill yourself, and 8% HP won't change that.

Alternatively, if you spread out your consumptions so you have a chance to regain your life, you can extend your debuff to 40+ seconds, meaning that if you'd just waited that long anyways you'd have regained that much force naturally.


What it comes down to, I think, is that using consumption (without force bending) in pvp is probably a bad thing. If you're in the thick of things and need the mana so bad that you'll toss 15% of your health away, chances are 48 force isn't going to change anything.

On the other hand, if you're away from the battle a bit and just need some quick force before the next encounter, using seethe is going to be the better choice.

I'm sure there will be that one time where you'll use consumption, and if it had cost 2% less HP you'd have won the fight, but I think that overall any other option you had would be better for those two points - although admittedly not by much.

[-IR-]

Point taken. Honestly, I think that the best way for that particular build to be played would be to put those two points into Force Suffusion to add 10% damage increase to Chain Lightning

Chain Lightning
Sith Inquisitor (Sorcerer)

Force: -50
Range: 30m
Activation time: 3.0 secs
Cooldown: 6 secs
Damage Type: Energy
Mirror: Telekinetic Wave

Delivers an arc of lightning that deals [?] damage to up to 5 targets within 8 meters.

and play the build as a little more aggressive. So rather than sitting back and healing while being able to have tricks up your sleeve to escape and cc more ways, play it as dps first, heals second.

Another possibility with that build is to take the point out of Chain Lightning

Chain Lightning
Sith Inquisitor (Sorcerer)

Force: -50
Range: 30m
Activation time: 3.0 secs
Cooldown: 6 secs
Damage Type: Energy
Mirror: Telekinetic Wave

Delivers an arc of lightning that deals [?] damage to up to 5 targets within 8 meters.

all together and take the point out of Will of the Sith and put both of those into Lightning Barrage. With that, you're not going out of your way to do aoe damage with Chain Lightning

Chain Lightning
Sith Inquisitor (Sorcerer)

Force: -50
Range: 30m
Activation time: 3.0 secs
Cooldown: 6 secs
Damage Type: Energy
Mirror: Telekinetic Wave

Delivers an arc of lightning that deals [?] damage to up to 5 targets within 8 meters.

, you can take the points out of Force Suffusion and put them into Haunting Presence.

As a sidenote, I think the TORHead talent trees may be a bit broken right now as I don't think that they are including all of the talents' information and bonuses in their individual tooltips.

[Darklighter]

Glad to see you found the build interesting -IR-! The reason I went with the choices was for three things-
1.) Still maintain solid healing in a PvP setting
2.) Allow for some of my survivabilty to be in my own hands, not the hopes my guild can peel the enemy off in time
3.) and I will spend most of my time in a Premade setting, and the rest in a partial pre-made/world PvP group setting. DPS isn't my concern lol. If the situation comes up and I can throw out a force lightning/chain lightning or something, I sure will but that isn't high on the list for me with that build lol.