SWTOR PvP Operative Healing Guide

Written by Le’zette @ The Shadowlands, member of
Solo Queue Soldiers / The Darkness Reborn

Contents show

Introduction

Hello, and welcome to the operative healing guide, by the end of this guide I plan to teach you that Operative is still viable to compete for healing in PvP and how to make it so. Lets go over some common questions I think will arise.

What are some pros to operative healing?
A) We are one of, if not the fastest class in game when it comes to other healing classes, with our ability to roll combined with evade and countermeasure(More on this later) combined with escape we can be and are, very, very hard to catch. Committing is also less of an issue as a quick retreat and reposition is never too far away.
B) Group utility; we can stealth our group to the front lines allowing for a sneak attack, choosing when and where from to engage the enemy is worth its weight in gold(in certain situations, a exposed group is worse than 1 cloaked healer and 3 visible allies). We also have a group soft stun, that can even be used for single target, very useful. And our hard stun has a mean 30 second cooldown(less with alacrity) when specced into.
C) Our “emergency button” can last, as short or as long as we need while not fully negating our heals due (plus the ability to gain TA to instantly bounce back and refresh HoTs as well!) to our variety of powerful HoTs. (As compared to a Sorcerer’s Force Barrier or a Mercenary’s Kolto Overload)
Who put you in charge?
A) I have been healing operative since patch 3.0 came out hardcore(I mean like 5 hours a day) and tend to be on par at least with other healers in Regular WarZones and on several occasions in Solo Ranked Que. I can boast a low average healing of 1700 HPS(Healing Per Second) up to a 3500 in an ideal situation, 2000 HPS is not uncommon by any means and I believe room for improvement is still here, making it even better with feedback in the near future.
Isn’t healing operative lackluster in comparison to other healing classes?
A) Well, no, its still a better ranked healer when played right and

In this guide I will go over

Class understanding – Abilities and Class handling
(^^^If you don’t read anything else, read this^^^)
Situation rotation – What abilities in a flexible order for situations
Improving your game – tips to improve your practice
Ranked Theory
Final Comments and Contact info for questions

Now! Time to practice Medicine!

Class Understanding

Lets go over some of our abilities so we know what we’re dealing with.

Damage

Backstab(BS) – This is where your gonna get your 6k damage medal in, this from stealth does pretty great damage, even so when out of stealth, always try to use this if you somehow need to be doing damage.

Poison Dart(PD) – This is a good damage over time ability if you need to contribute just minorly to group damage, apply to what targets need it and move back to healing. Reapply as needed. Always have up in damage fight.

Shiv – Does damage, grants Tactical Advantage(TA), has cool animation, use off CD in damage fight.

Overload Shot(OS) – Ranged, quick, small burst damage, good filler, combine with next ability for filling rotation.

Snipe – Ranged, charged, burst damage with no CD, hits for OK damage, use with Overload Shot to fill rotation before re-applying Poison Dart and shiv/backstabbing.

Frag Grenade – Hits hard and stops group caps, use liberally in AoE situations if needed to stop caps.

Healing

Kolto Probe(KP) – A good HoT, no, a great HoT and should always be on primary heal target and any secondaries(like oneself) if need be. Can grant TA on tick, 30% chance. Apply liberally to gain TA on rate limit.

Recuperative NanoTech(NT) – Pretty much a shorter, but faster to apply, group Kolto Probe, but it stacks(with KP). Use on cooldown. 2 or more people unless you really don’t have time to give someone a more proper single target HoT. Can grant TA.

Kolto Infusion(KI) – A burst heal with minor HoT afterwards, a important part of our burst healing kit.

Surgical Probe(SP) – The lifeblood of ranked healing while being an amazing way to refresh KP, use when possible to refresh KP and use a TA(which it does) to give the healing buff.

Kolto Injection(KInj) – The second and largest part of our burst healing kit, is long a long cast so be careful to watch for interrupts, coordinate with stuns as need be and watch for our set bonus making it a 100% crit and use with TA Heal boost(From KI for a great burst healing). 100% chance to grant TA, rate limit or no.
Kolto Waves(KW) – The sustain part of our group healing kit, its basically a channelled HoT that allows you to not have to give everyone SP, pop NT or even KP on all the targets and then channel this and watch the healing go. 3 or more targets recommend, don’t do it on less than 2. Do not use under 65% energy without adrenaline probe being ready to go.

Diagnostic Scan(DS) – Want to move and cast but not use TA and HoTs are applied? This does the job! Combine with TA Healing boost whenever possible, use after KI and KInj or KW to regain energy.

Utility abilities and Passives

Exfiltrate(Roll) – This roll is the best thing that’s ever happened to healing operatives, the ability to catch up and get away from at will is amazing. Will not break stealth.

Stealth/Cloaking Screen – Speaking of, this is not as much important to healing operatives as say to a concealment damage operative but it has a lot of uses. More on that later. Grants 2 stacks of TA, which is pretty great. Cloaking screen allows you to end combat and immediately enter stealth while being invisible pretty much for a short amount of time. More on this later as well.

Infiltrate – Gives, 8, count em, 8 group members(including you to clarify) stealth just by standing close to you. Coordinate with group to make sure they know where you’re going with it so they can stay close.

Sever Tendon – Slows enemy, minor damage, can grant TA when specced into, if you wanted that, I don’t recommend that, more on that later.

Shield Probe(SP) – Resists incoming damage until the timer runs out or it absorbs its max amount of damage, very useful to give you bit of a healing breather.

Stim Boost(SB) – An instant TA grant with alacrity boost for some time, use to increase burst healing or recover from HoT downtime.

Evasion – DoT Purge and ranged and melee defense boost for short time. Use to avoid things like ravages, blazing bolts, and demolishes most importantly

Countermeasures(Root cleanse or RC) – Cleanses movement impairing effects, i’m looking at you creeping terror and ravage. With this you just pop it and roll away, with ravage your safer bet is to evade however, as it can tend to apply its root magically before you roll away, somehow.
(Technically I shouldn’t list this because it requires being specced into to be actually useful, but it’s pretty much always on select for me. More on this soon)

Adrenaline Probe(AP) – Massive energy buff and regen increase, more so when specced into. Energy management with AoE healing when you use a lot of kolto waves can be rough.

Flash Bang – An amazing soft stun, second only to a Warrior’s, an amazing defense against melee that your group isn’t/can’t handling at the moment. Used well if after a broken debilitate. Can also be used to stealth cap if the person in question doesn’t have a CC Break.

Tactical Advantage(TA) – Allows the casting of certain abilities, some of which are essential in our healing kit. Granted by shiv, or defeating an enemy, KP and NT also have a 30(ish)% chance to grant it every tick.

Tactical Medicine – When you use a tactical advantage to heal, you get increased healing for a short time! This is great for making lackluster heals stronger or already good heals even better!

Handling

How does the Operative Healer work in practice? Well lets find out!

Utilities

Making the best use of your Utilities

(Just some sample situations to show how these points fit in)

Gear

The gear given to us by the PvP Ranked Vendor(Which should be your end goal and when you start min-maxing anyhow, don’t worry about the WarZone set, just replace it and then optimize)

gives stats I am more or less OK with.

5-6% Alacrity

Around 70% Crit Multiplier

1000+ bonus healing, 1100+ would be fantastic

25-27% Crit Chance…
Now, some of you may be asking “Isn’t 27 a bit high?” and I will tell you it’s like I run my DoT spec toons, we don’t have long cast(well we have KI) big hits, we have lots of HoTs, so we need slightly more crit to make sure our HoTs are ticking critically more often.

Run with power augments with most pieces to shoot for that 1100 bonus healing(Power will help more than cunning for heal power), you may want some cunning, get that crit up.

If you have more of those stats than viable, then sort it around, try to get some more power if you can maybe shoot for more of another stat that is more lacking.

Situation Rotation

Alright, healing is not a rotation it’s a practice of triage with what’s available but here are some general guidelines I follow or at least should be able to give you a good idea on stuff could go ideally, be always checking on how to prioritize for and create more efficient healing.

Triage

The essential guidelines;

HoT uptime is crucial for making sure you can swap to the more important heal targets and keep up with Single target heals and TA uptime.
The person closest to causing the most damage to team power in general by dying or having to go on defensive is your priority to heal first, use HoTs and AoE to manage multiple targets like this.
Defensive CDs are best used pro-actively because heal downtime is bad and causes damage to team power more often than not.

What to do in… single target heals?

I apply the scan maneuver in this situation which uses high energy abilities on rotation while keeping HoTs up and using scans for filler. Lets look at the single target on in depth

Maintain TA healing buff and HoTs! Do not use scanning abilities without the buff! Use SP when at all possible in place of other abilities except when noted below
Do not go under 1 TA during the maneuver, if low, use KInj to regain! If not, step 3 with buff for next step
If TA allows(don’t go under) and it’s needed to maintain, use a KI, its great for single target heals with buff active, follow up with KInj and one cast of DS and repeat rotation/perform triage check
Use DS! Reposition if need be, use this filler to gain breathing room without mindlessly spamming SP or any other big heals, gets good energy management. Keep in mind HoT uptime is more important so you won’t be using this too often and don’t use without buff.

(ALL group healing involves having 100% NT Uptime and is considered a primary HoT)

What to do in…. small group heals?(4 or less)

Same story as above but no KInj trading with constant KP uptime on all friendlies and some KW when filler needed(keep in mind it can grant TA but is energy heavy) refresh KP with KP instead of SP to conserve TA(if need be) to stay in rotation.
Be constantly aware of energy! Use DS and recheck what’s going on/reposition to regain energy after most KW casts.
Be watching to switch back into single target healing, its very easy to slip and have someone die in a group healing mentality when you needed to be doing single target. No healing rotation is exact or lasts long, be always watching.

What to do in…. large group heals?(more than 4)

Same as above! Just drop the constant KP and work on a who needs it basis, as always maintain HoTs(where needed) be watching to switch the way you triage as always! I swap from this to single target during a WarZone allot!
Be more willing to cast KW with a DS, still try not to cast without TA buff.

What to do in…. high pressure heals?

High pressure will be short-term burst heals only, no room for scanning for most situations like this. So don’t scan.
You can still use KInj and KI and should still be attempting to keep TA up and buff going.
SP/KInj spam is ok here, always maintain KP on everyone to keep TA going. Its hard but necessary for good management for burst heals.

Dammage Fight

“Dammit Jim! Im a doctor, not a fighter!”

Don’t try to be in these situations, but sometimes its unavoidable, there is enough healing with lacking DPS or we need to defend ourselves, when that’s the case, follow these rules.

Your debilitate is on a low cooldown(with utility point) and is your greatest help to an ally that doesn’t need healing, use flash bang as well but more sparingly!
Always have PD up

Shiv and Backstab are your priorities, use off CD
Overload shot if up close followed by 2 blaster volleys then repeat
Snipe if far followed by 2 blaster volleys then repeat.
Rinse, repeat.

Improving your game

In this section I will go over the bits and pieces of improving your gameplay that don’t really fit into the other sections. Such as UI setup, keybinds and advanced theory.

UI Setup

If you don’t want to use a cookie cutter UI, I recommend following these guidelines.

OPS frames front and center! This should be in the middle of your screen for easy access to a readout on all allies status and current health. I recommend showing buffs and cleansable debuffs only. Have health readout with percentages to increase your ability to quickly assess someone in Triage. The bars tend to be inaccurate.
Focus Target, use it, often. Good for tanks and/or often damaged allies have it near the ops frames
Have a couple(1-2) quick bars for important abilities, especially DCs(SP and SB) that are large to make sure you can quickly read how long until you can pop them.

This was meant to be short and sweet, just the crucial info, please refer to
this video, for more info

This(soon!) will link you to a screenshot of how I manage my setup.

Keybinds

Have KP, KI, Kinj, and NT easy to get to(1-5)
I follow this to an almost exact

Not much more to it.

Ranked Game

Just don’t? See burst healing for now, will update if good ranked play becomes a thing on shadowlands, the utility setup I noted works for ranked as well.

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Need to contact me with questions, concerns or suggestions?
Longer ones can be directed to my email at

[email protected]

As for short quick questions for faster response feel free to hit me up on
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@The_TechPunk on Twitter

Thank you very much for reading!