SWTOR - Scholar Care (2.10)

Capacities match

I offer you an article on the Healer Scholar rather from a PvE perspective following Update 2.10 which has been particularly favorable to us. This article does not pretend to be complete and perfect, but I hope it will remind you of the important points to keep in mind when playing a Healer. And then, I'm frank with you, my first goal is to put pictures of my scholar on the site!

Summary:

• Introduction
• 2.10 update
• Talent tree
• Fighting style
• Powers and priorities
• Force management
• Equipment and statistics
• Last word

 

Introduction

The Scholar is one of three healing classes available and the only one with light armor. It is also probably the most played class in care. In operation you will certainly always have a Scholar with you. In a war zone (PvP), the Scholar should expect to be the preferred target for many reasons (healer, light armor, casting class), in short, you will be the rabbit and the enemy DPS the hunters. In Arena (Ranked PvP), prior to Patch 2.10, this was the worst performing healing class. This is also why this update brings changes mainly for PvP, but not only.

I consider the Scholar to specialize in protecting and healing his group of allies, and will be less effective for single-target healing. Suddenly, he must have a sense of anticipation, be responsive (he will often switch targets) and be familiar with the positioning of his group. In addition, it will be necessary to manage his Strength, because a Scholar without Strength is a useless Scholar, even if with update 2.10, this management is made easier. But let's be realistic, we treat with the Force and that's the great class! We don't throw stink balls (I'm told it's a Kolto cloud) or other probes on our allies (like a trauma probe that can traumatize you).

 

2.10 update

Regarding update 2.10, it will slightly change the way we play in PvE, making it more dynamic. The important points of the update are:

• First of all, beyond the fact that the PvP Set Bonus has been changed, we have a permanent increase in Armor Index of 20%. One of our peculiarities, that of being fragile and which required us to be very vigilant, is lessened, personally I find that a shame! In short, it is our Shadow colleagues who are now the most fragile!
• Expert Speed ​​(skill tree in the Protection tree) inflicts a 4 second annoyance effect on enemies damaged by Force flow. This Force hindrance does not enable or benefit from high mobility actions. For example no Force Jump ! Pleasant in PvP, even if 4 seconds in the end is not much.
• Clairvoyance allows you to have a 60% chance of obtaining a kindness instantaneous (under GCD). This effect is available every 10 seconds. This allows you to heal immediately which is interesting in many cases (especially in PvP to avoid being interrupted. kindness). We will not win in HPS for all that.
• With Amnesty, Strength Content, in addition to these effects, negates the cooldown ofMental acuity. Now it will always be necessary to activate Mental acuity before using Strength content. Note that as Mental acuity gives you 20% alacrity and not adds 20% alacrity, no need to hope for 40% alacrity!
• The use of Noble sacrifice with a unit of Resplendent no longer causes a general cooldown (GCD). This is good because we were already doing this before (to avoid losing 2 Force points / s for 10 seconds), which allows us to gain a GCD to immediately cast a healing spell behind. A gain in HPS certainly! Note that suddenly Noble sacrifice has a 1,5 second cooldown, which will avoid spamming 3 times with three Resplendent Noble sacrifice. Besides, no more using two Noble sacrifice immediately because this time we will waste time!
• Force Rectifier No longer causes a general cooldown. So, before the update, a Noble sacrifice followed by Force Rectifier We were blocking 3 seconds of play, now 0! Note that, suddenly, we no longer gain 24 units of Force (8 / s) without using Force. Be careful, it will drop a little faster than before.

This update brings dynamism (as well as HPS) to our game in the sense or Noble sacrifice et Force Rectifier becomes outside GCD. They can be used between two treatments without wasting 1.5 seconds. The management of the Force is then facilitated even if we will lose it a little faster.

 

Talent tree

37 / 7 / 2

Not too many reasons to linger in the Protection tree which will be well filled. In the Balance tree, we will look for Jedi Will to have 6% more Willpower to increase our healing bonus. Finally, in the Telekinesis tree, we will look for Inner Vigor (less Force spent per spell), Mental longevity (100 points of maximum Force, interesting for Noble Sacrifice) and Telekinetic Defense (gain 10% of the damage absorbed from our Force armor).

 

Fighting style

Taiga (actually Taiga-san), my careful Scholar Miraluka (please don't type it in BG), volunteered to illustrate this article. She uses the Force, yes I know it's class, suddenly she tries to save it as best as possible because to recover some, she will have to sacrifice herself and lose health.

In reality this is not a big problem because she has plenty of tips to regain some (unless you hit her, but it's dishonest to hit a disabled nurse!). Otherwise in combat, she keeps an eye (Miraluka joke) on the positioning of her group to always be within range of healing. She never says "it's smart, you were too far" but "sorry, I lost sight of you (ha the Miralukas ...), I was too far". As a Scholar, she often needs to concentrate (spellcasting), so she avoids moving around too much (Taiga also wears a long skirt in operation, not super practical for galloping everywhere!). Then she does her job of careful and it's in the pocket (the bag ... no pockets on a skirt come on!). In fact, his game will be to use two abilities wisely (Assignment et Resplendent) and above all to optimize these priorities of care, protection and Force management as well as possible.

 

Powers and priorities

To best assess the healing power of our powers, I offer you this summary table for information only. For this I use the characteristics of Taiga (correct equipment in 180) and lots of little formulas taken from the late MMoMecanics and Torhead. I reassure you these formulas perfectly match the reality of the game.  In this table :

• Total average healing of the spell: this is the average healing (or protection in the case ofForce armor) of your powers. The first line does not count the excess of healing due to critical hits.
• Total average care / time of use: this is the average care (critical included) reduced to 1 second of use. Powers without incantation are under GCD, i.e. 1,5s without alacrity. We therefore take everything into account, criticism rate, influx, and even alacrity. I'm bringing this back to the spell's usage time since that's the time Taiga can't cast any other healing spells.
• Average Total Healing / Use Time / Strength: I just divide the value on top by the strength needed to cast the spell. This allows me to see if my spell is profitable in relation to the Force consumed.

Force armor

Protects an ally from a certain amount of damage for 20 seconds. Coupled with New youth and the Force Shelter talent, your target will have 10% more armor rating. Force armor + New youth on your tank (s) to the maximum! In addition, as can be seen from the table, Force armor protects your allies very effectively (around 6400 health if Taiga lands a Force armor on you, lucky boy!), it's even the second most profitable spell in terms of Force consumption. In addition, you do not overheal (unnecessary care)! In short, abuse it if you are sure that your target will lose health. Be careful though, it will not have priority over New youth et Healing trance. Since the latter two have a cooldown, this shouldn't be a problem. Do not hesitate to put a Force armor on yourself, beyond the fact that it will heal you a little (+ 1% health / s), it will prevent your casting spells from being slowed down if you take damage. In some cases, think about it.

 

New Youth

Heal over time to obtain the Cession buff, which will give you a bonus on your next healing spell (available for 10 seconds). This bonus is very important and must be well understood to optimize this care. This is why the painting is split into two parts, with and without Assignment. Note that New youth is the most profitable spell and still heals effectively over time. Basically, use it as soon as possible but on different targets since it is effective over 15 seconds. Obviously on your two tanks (with Force armor of course). Note that the availability of the Assignment is 10 seconds.

 

Healing trance

This is our main spell, 4 heals during the 2.5 second cast. The first is instantaneous and the last at the end of the cast. For each critical heal, you will have a Resplendence buff (stackable 3 times) allowing you to obtain a bonus on your next heal. This buff will allow you in priority to recover a maximum of Force and since update 2.10 not to have a general cooldown on Noble sacrifice.  As the table shows, Healing trance is the most effective healing spell, and even more so with Cession thanks to its 25% additional critical strike bonus. That's good with 25% criticism, we go up to 50% or 2 Resplendences on average! So the priority to use the Cession is with Healing trance.

 

Hello

Our AoE healing spell that makes healers jealous. As you can see in the table, if our target is not very mobile and remains in the area of ​​the Hello during the 10 seconds, it is the spell that provides the most healing in terms of its use time (in the table, this time is equal to one GCD). Indeed, you will make the best use of Hello with 1 Resplendent. I remind you here that the casting time is reduced by 33% by Resplendent. For example, for 1,8 seconds of casting the Hello Without Resplendence, the casting time will decrease to 1,2s (1 Resplendences), 0,6s (2 Resplendences) and 0s (3 Resplendences). Be careful, all of the Resplendent buffs are consumed! More like Hello is under GCD, it is not advisable (except PvP) to use more than 1 Resplendence for this power. Better to use Noble sacrifice forward to spend 1 Resplendent. So if your tank stays still long enough and is going to take a lot of damage, provision a Hello using 1 Resplendence and if possible under Abandonment to avoid losing too much Force. Personally I use it very often under the bosses thus healing, over time, the tank, the melee DPS and my little Taiga which is also placed not far because on the 10s it will use Noble sacrifice.

 

Délivrance

It is the most powerful direct spell in terms of healing produced, but has a fairly long cast time. On the table we see that it is not very profitable. It will still be useful to you with Strength Content to reassemble the life of a tank without Cession. No cooldown for this spell.

 

kindness

Another spell with no cooldown, so it will come in handy many times over, especially since Update 2.10. With Cession, it remains quite effective (see table). Use if your Healing trance and your Hello are not available.

 

Mental acuity

Allows you to have 20% alacrity for 10 seconds. This will not increase alacrity by 20% as you might expect from the description. We are immune to interruptions, very interesting in PvP. To be used when a lot of care is required and since update 2.10, always before Strength Content.

 

Force Rectifier

Restores you health, that's good we lose it regularly with Noble sacrifice. It is off GCD as Noble sacrifice (with Resplendissement) and that's really very interesting.

 

Strength Content

Grants two stacks available for 20 seconds, increasing the critical hit effects of direct healing spells (kindness et Issuance). These charges are consumed as soon as the critical spell is effective.

 

Force flow

Allows you to push back your enemies (and with the update 2.10 to put a discomfort) and to heal your allies. Avoid using it on bump-sensitive enemy packs, as this may hamper your allies for area damage spells and your melee DPS. The interest for us is that it heals the group in the area of ​​effect without using Force.

 

Points to remember :

• New youth to the maximum to have Cession, available every 6 seconds, in general to pose on your two tanks and on yourself.
• Force armor + New youth = 10% more armor index. In short, always on the tank (s).
• Trying to keep Assignment for the Healing trance (every 7,5s, if you have the first set bonus, otherwise ... but if you don't, don't make that bad joke!). This is the most powerful spell and on top of that we will really need to have quite a bit of Resplendence. This buff remaining 10s, the use ofForce armor see from a Force flow (does not consume Disposal) will time out to wait for the end of the cooldown of the Healing trance if necessary. If the Healing trance is not available soon, prefer a kindness or a Hello under Assignment (if you are low in Strength for the latter).
• Force armor to provision the damage of your group because it is efficient, profitable and does not overheal.
• Wait until you have 1 Resplendent for your Hello, you will waste time otherwise. No need to use the Hello with Cession since the update, because the management of Force no longer wastes healing time.
• As soon as you have more than two Resplendences, use a Noble sacrifice between two spells (unless your Strength is at its highest!)
• Protect yourself with a Force armor to receive continuous care and position yourself in your Hello, your health will drop faster than before!
• Don't forget to use Force flow because it allows you to perform area healing without using Force.

 

Force management

Noble sacrifice allows you to regain 8% of your maximum Strength or 52 Strength points if you have 650 points. Here, an interest in having the 2nd PvE set bonus. What you don't have? ... in this case you will only earn 48 points that's smart! On the other hand, you will lose a little of your health and 2 points of Strength over 10s without Resplendent and none with. With Resplendissement, no penalty and in addition, Noble sacrifice is outside GCD. In short, avoid using as much as possible Noble sacrifice without Resplendent. Honestly, it won't be a problem, you will have enough. Otherwise, well, we must avoid being at the end of the Force, and to know the course of the combat well to know the moments when the regeneration of Force is possible. In this case, tell your second healer and your tanks. With this update I don't think this is a problem because with a Noble sacrifice outside of GCD, Force regeneration is easier to do continuously. In the event of a hard blow, remember that Force barrier purges the effects of Force degeneration (Amnesty).

 

Equipment and statistics

A Scholar must immediately inspire confidence by her appearance in order to reassure these allies of her seriousness in care. If you see a dirty doctor, would you trust yourself? Good after, next to a Thief and a Commando, it is not insurmountable either! Taiga wears the white consular hazmat stuff, it is beautiful, elegant and in PvP, she does not hide her consular origins as well! What do you care? ... it's smart she is sulking now!

Regarding the equipment and the statistics to be privileged, as the bonus of healing is proportional to the Will (0.14), to the Power (0,17) and to the Power of Force (0,17) it is preferable to increase these statistics. With a bonus of 11% of Willpower, it is necessary to increase the willpower as a priority because it also increases the critical rate.

Although Potency brings slightly more healing bonuses, the critical rate gained through Willpower slightly increases total possible healing (although Force armor is not sensitive to the critical rate). So your upgrades will be Willpower and your Will / Power modifications. Indeed it will be necessary, after the Will, to increase the Power to the maximum. Note that the Force Power is increased thanks to the hilt of your lightsaber and the armor of your catalyst. They both have a strong influence on your healing bonus. It's not difficult to get good catalyst armor (purchasable with accolades), so this will be your priority when it comes to Force Power.

There remains the alacrity, influx and criticism indexes which will depend on your sophistication, implants and atrium. The following curves show the changes in rates with regard to the index (excluding base value).

It will be noted that the inflow rate increases rapidly with the inflow index and becomes less and less interesting. In general, beyond 25% (ie 75%, because the base is 50%), putting the inflow index is no longer really profitable. On the contrary, the criticality and alacrity curve does not suffer too much from this decrease in power. Suddenly we note that intuitively, increasing your inflow index too much does not become too profitable.

However, as with all other classes, many bonuses modify the impact of these rates on our ability to heal or damage. Since the evolution of the HPS is multiparametric, it is therefore necessary to modify these three parameters in parallel to find an optimal one. Here is a theoretical curve of the evolution of these three parameters with regard to the number of points available.

Now, these theoretical calculations are not too bad, but would also be questionable, so they give a better idea of ​​what is better to increase, but they should not be taken at face value either. Let us only remember that the alacrity is to be privileged as well as the influx without raising it too much because it "saturates" quickly.

As an indication, these calculations, for 1000 points available (equipment index 180 approximately), privileges in index 80, 310 and 610 respectively in critical, inflow (68.5%) and alacrity (9.8%).

Taiga is running at 8.2% alacrity and 73% influx and 25.6% crit (crit rating of 41, his crystal white) and no one has ever complained. Of course, she has the 2 PvE set bonuses that are important to us, if you've read this entire article you know why (say, you're brave aren't you?).

But let's face it, it's our ability to string together the most relevant healing spells at the right time that will make us good healers and much less our equipment.

 

Last word

I find that this latest update reinvigorates our game thanks to the Noble sacrifice and Force Rectifier excluding GCD. On the other hand, I'm a little disappointed to have 20% armor index, the Scholar is no longer the most fragile, so a little nod (yes another thing from Miraluka ...) to fragile Shadow !