This post continue the Sage and Sorcerer healing guide from the previous post. I'll concentrate on healing abilites and skills and only mention others when they directly apply to the healer responsibilities or play style.
Abilities:
General abilities:
Overload: knock back, very useful when you get agro to give your party a chance to take care of the mobs while keeping you alive and healing
Whirlwind: general cc, make sure you use it often, there's no excuse not to help your party with cc when needed
Electrocute: 4 seconds stuns, I find it often better to use this as a stun\interrupt when doing so prevent more damage than casting another heal
Recklessness: 2 charges of 60% crit bonus, each crit use up a charge. Great for emergencies when extra healing is needed quickly
Force Speed: 2 seconds sprint, use it to get quickly to your healing target when they get out of range or to escape when you need to.
Jolt: the Sorcerer interrupt, use it often, remember, preventing damage is often more useful than healing it
Consumption: uses health to give you force. This is very expansive and should be used rarely without Force Surge proc. It costs a lot of health and lower your force regen rate for 10 seconds. Use it only if you need a bit of extra force for the last heal or 2 before combat ends or you get into a less intensive healing phase.
Cloud Mind: lowers your threat, don't forget to use it when you get agro to help your tank and dps grab the mobs away from you
Healing abilities:
Dark Heal: a quick and expansive weak heal, you shouldn't use it often if at all. The only situation it's worth it is when you have 1.5 seconds to heal someone, your other spells are on CD and you don't have 2.5 to cast Dark Infusion, or when Force Bending proc which makes it 50% cheaper to cast.
Dark Infusion: your standard slow casting big heal, 2.5 seconds with skills, 1.5 seconds with Force Bending.
Static Barrier: a damage shield, probably the spell you'll be casting more than anything else. Shield your target for high amount of damage, skills remove the CD and increase the amount absorbed significantly.
Purge: remove debuffs, don't forget to use it on yourself and your party when needed.
Extrication: lower target threat and pulls him to you. Great to save that dps who grabbed agro or forgot to move away from a dangerous area during a fight.
Reanimation: the general combat res each healer gets. It share CD with all other combat res abilities, so make sure not to waste it.
Resurgence: Cheap instant heal plus HoT, also procs Force Bending so it should be cast on CD or very close to it, the buffs it applies to the next spell is the main Sorcerer mechanic.
Innervate: channeled big single target heal, very useful to keep up your tank or someone who received major damage, used with Force Bending to raise each tick crit chance by 25% and proc Force Surge for the extra force.
Revivification: your AOE heal, very useful and very expansive. Try to use it with Force Bending proc to lower the cost significantly.
Talents:
This is the skill tree I use: talents there's 1 point you can pretty much use wherever you like.
Dark Mending: reduce Dark Infusion cast time, you'll be casting Dark Infusion often, making this very useful.
Seeping Darkness: higher crit chance equals bigger heals
Haunting Presence: 2% more healing, plus making your companion stronger which is always nice when soloing.
Lucidity: reduce pushback and lower threat, every healer should take one.
Empty Body: increase self healing, the only reason I took this is to advance the tree, it's nice but you shouldn't be the one taking damage normally. Feel free to use these points somewhere else.
Force Suffusion: 10% AOE healing increase, making your Revivification even stronger.
Resurgence: mentioned above in healing abilities, one of your most useful healing spells.
Force Bending: make resurgence improve all your healing spells, like I already mentioned. This is the main Sorcerer mechanic for more efficient stronger heals.
Efficacious Currents: making your Static Barrier much cheaper and remove it's CD, a must
Dark Resilience + Fadeout: these talents are linked. Personally I'm not a fan of either of these, 2% less health reduction on Consumption isn't important in my opinion because you rarely use Consumption without Force Surge proc and as for Fadeout the speed increase is very situational and minor so it's not worth the 4 skill points to get there. If you disagree you can take off points elsewhere, but I feel you'll be giving up more than you'll earn by doing so.
Sith Purity: Make sure you can remove any debuff plus a small heal when you do.
Reconstruct: Increase the duration of Resurgence HoT plus give the target an armor increase effect, very useful.
Innervate: a big channeled single target heal, very useful to keep your tank alive, also great to use for more force with Force Surge
Life Surge: higher crit chance, plus a self healing buff which is always nice.
Force Surge: your main resource management mechanic, don't forget to use it whenever it proc to get free force through consumption. Don't just remember it when you are low on force and struggling to be able to keep healing, instead use it early to make sure you don't get low on force to begin with.
Penetrating Darkness: bigger heals, also the +hit can be useful on occation.
Revivification: you AOE heal, very strong, very expansive. Use it mostly with Force Bending procs to avoid running out of force.
Lightning tree:
Electric Induction: cheaper heals, very important skill to avoid running out of force.
Reserves: 100 more force, a total must have skill to be able to keep healing.
Lightning Barrier: stronger Static Barrier, one of your most important spells now 20% stronger
A word about the lightning tree: the skills here, especially the first 2 are critical ones for a healer, many people argue that you should first take these 2 before advancing the healing tree. It's something to consider if you find yourself running out of force often when you level.
Madness tree:
Will of the Sith: Willpower increase, which makes your better at anything you do.
What to expect from a Sorcerer healing tree: the sorcerer is a very versatile healer, with a good answer to every possible situation. The strong barrier makes it feel similar to WOW's Discipline Priest, also Force behave very similar to mana, so if you have experience healing in WOW or other games, you'll feel right at home with the Sorcerer. I also find the Sorcerer the most relaxing healer, with less things to juggle constantly relative to the other healers in SWTOR. Don't get me wrong, you have many skills and abilities and if you won't use them skillfully your group won't survive, this is just a personal observation and might be effected by the fact I was healing in MMOs for years and the Sorcerer is the most similar one to other games.
If you like shielding group mates and have a big array of abilities to use for every situation, the Sorcerer is the class for you.
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