Sep 21, 2011

Posted by in Halls Of Healing | 3 Comments

Halls Of Healing: Healing In The Sith Empire

Each week or thereabouts here at Ask A Jedi, we’ll meditate on the finer points of the healer’s role in Star Wars: The Old Republic. No matter where your allegiance lies, you’re sure to find guidance here in the Halls Of Healing!

Last week we dissected the healing advanced classes on the Galactic Republic side, this week we will take a closer look at the Sith Empire.

The advanced classes have been confirmed to be mirrored with the opposite side, however, it has not been confirmed how much mirrored they will be. Looking over the known abilities for each class you can see a pattern of abilities that are similar or identical to everything  but the name and animations however there’s some abilities that are entirely different. How BioWare will handle this will be very interesting, on one side you have the lore and story of each class and on the other pure balancing and gameplay mechanics. It’s going to be very difficult for them to balance the classes if they are entirely different on each side.

Sith Inquisitor – Sith Sorcerer – Corruption

“The Sith Sorcerer draws energy from the forbidden depths of the Force, mastering techniques that sap and drain enemies as they invigorate allies–or simply wreak utter devastation.” – SWTOR.com

  • Healing Type – Force Powers
  • Resource – The Force
Known Skills
Analysis

The Sith Sorcerer, or is it Sorcerer? Is the mirror of the Sage on the Republic side.  The Sorcerer doesn’t have as many known healing abilities as the Sage, but it’s likely that they have a very similar toolbox, with a large variety of healing skills ranging from Heal over time to direct healing. Looking from a lore perspective and the few skills announced so far we can also assume that the Sorcerer will come with more offensive skills than the Sage, for example, the Lightning Drain skill deals damage while restoring force, and the Sacrifice skill allows you to kill your companion’s life to restore your own.

The Sorcerer is similar to the Sage in that it follows some of the normal established mechanic designs from MMORPGS and will likely be easier to learn to play and be more familiar than the alternatives. If you’re looking for a healer advanced class that feels familiar and traditional, then the Sorcerer is the choice for you!

Pros
  • Big resource-pool
  • Many supportive abilities
  • Traditional mechanics – Short learning curve
Cons
  • Low armor
  • Lower adaptability due to bigger resource pool and lower regen

Bounty Hunter – Mercenary – Bodyguard

“A pair of blasters, deadly heat-seeking missiles, and heavy armor make the Mercenary a mobile weapons platform. There’s no problem extra firepower can’t solve, and no one with sense gets between a Mercenary and their target.”- SWTOR.com

  • Healing Type – Probes
  • Resource – Heat
Known Skills
  • Improved Kolto Bomb – Improves the Kolto Bomb skill, possible AoE Heal
  • Kolto Shell – Healing skill that heals passively when the target takes damage.
  • Interceptor Shield – Likely to reduce threat on all attackers that is attacking the Bounty Hunter.
  • Determination – Removes movement impairs, great for escaping.
Analysis

The Mercenary is the Empire equivalent of the Commando, it uses the same resource mechanic as the Commando does, however has a different visual representation. The Trooper class uses Ammunition where as The Bounty Hunter uses Heat. From a lore perspective the Heat seems like a more accurate representation of the mechanic, since the heat is slowly reduced over time, similar to how Ammo is slowly increasing. The Determination skill might be an alternative to the Escape skill that the Scoundrel and Operative, but being a less effective one due to the heavier armor the Bounty Hunter is wearing.

Pros
  • High adaptability
  • High survivability
  • Group crowd control abilities
  • No passive regen
Cons
  • No passive regen.

Imperial Agent – Operative – Medic

“Whether ambushing enemies from stealth or using advanced medical technology to keep colleagues in the fight, the operative will do whatever it takes to advance the agenda of the Empire.” – SWTOR.com

  • Healing Type – Med packs
  • Resource – Energy
Known Skills
Analysis

The Operative is the Empire equivalent of the Republic’s Scoundrel, something that is slightly different compared to the other mirrored advanced classes is that a very big portion of the currently known abilities are identical in the mechanics. Similar to the Scoundrel the Operative has the energy resource which regenerates over time. Something that can be seen in the more recent footage from gamescom and PAX Prime is that energy seem to regen slower the more you have spent, which means that the healer will be punished to spend a lot of energy in a small time window, this is a nice addition to the energy resource, which could be either incredibly overpowered or underpowered depending on the power of the skills and would be very hard to balance without this addition. Healing output needs to be scaled depending on how much resource you currently have, for example in a game with mana, you would be more careful how many heals you throw out when your heals are lower and you can be more reckless when you have more.

Reactive Healing is one of the first skills that makes a difference depending on a specific stat, depending on the different critical hit varieties you can attain with different gear I suspect this skill will be a something important for theorycrafting discussions, such as pure regenerative stats (if they even exist) versus regen from this skill and critical hit.

The Operative is starting to look like a very cool healer, and with these newer changes it looks like it’s going to be very viable as well, time will tell whether this is the case or not.

Pros
  • High adaptability
  • Escape abilities
  • Good defense from cover mechanic
Cons
  • Emergency healing abilities have cooldowns.
Reedyn is the chief nerf-herder over at Force Heal, the healing community for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Artwork by strawbeki.
  1. Not a bad article. Very handy overview. I would have liked to have seen some inclusion of abilities “officially demonstrated” (if not named and described) in some of the game play and operations footage Bioware has released. Damage absorption shields for Sorc healers look like they might be a big deal. Agent AoE healing was demonstrated, too.

    I plan on playing a sorcerer at this point in time, but the heat mechanic (bodyguard) really interests me. It is something I will absolutely have to try.

    • Heat is the exact same mechanic as Ammunition for the Trooper, except in reverse:

      Heat
      – Starts empty
      – Dissipates slowly
      – A long-ish cooldown to empty it entierly
      – A short cooldown to empty it partially

      Ammunition:
      – Starts full
      – Regenerates slowly
      – A long-ish cooldown to refill it entierly
      – A short cooldown to refill it partially

  2. Another interesting read, Reedyn. Thanks for the overview of imperial scum.

    Sincerely,

    Republic Filth.

    :)

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