SWTOR Scoundrel Healing Guide

SWTOR Scoundrel Healing Guide by bshenkd

Introduction

First and foremost, Smuggler Scoundrel healing is the most fun healing class I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing! It combines the stealthiness and the energy of a rogue with the healing reminiscent of a Holy Paladin. As long as you manage your energy and cooldowns well, you could be the most versatile healer in the game.

The “Upper Hand”

The Upper Hand gives a couple % damage increase while active and allows you to cast certain abilities. When 3 points are put into Healing Hand, the Upper Hand also increases your healing output by 6%. It can stack twice, but the % healing/damage increase does not stack. IE: 1 stack of UH gives you the same stat bonus as 2 stacks of UH. It’s crucial to keep at least one stack of Upper Hand up at all times to give you that 6% healing increase and, in case of emergencies, allow you to use a faster cast time/instant healing ability such as Kolto Pack or Emergency Medpac.

Abilties

Diagnostic Scan: This is, in my opinion, a fairly useless ability. It’s a three second channeled cast that hardly heals your target. It doesn’t cost any energy, but the healing output of the ability makes it useless. Because I don’t use this ability, it also saves me 4 talent tree points that I would’ve put into Prognosis: Critical and Patient Studies. These 4 points would benefit you more if put into Scar Tissue and Sedatives.

Underworld Medicine: This is your “bread and butter” healing ability. When 2 points are put into Exploratory Surgery, it causes your UWM to grant you the “Upper Hand”. With a hefty price of 25 energy per cast, spamming this ability should only happen if you need to do some burst healing and if Cool Head is off of cooldown.

Slow-release Medpac: SRMP is your first single-target Healing-Over-Time (HoT) spell that you receive in the game. It stacks twice for double the healing which is a good and bad thing. It’s bad in that it requires you to use it twice in order to get the full effect out of the abilitity, but it’s good because after you get two stacks of SRMP rolling, you only need to use the ability once more in order to refresh it.

Kolto Pack: KP is the first Upper Hand exploitable healing ability that you receive. It has a 1.5 second cast time and a heal size that’s comparable to Underworld Medicine, but it slightly less. It costs 20 energy and can also eat away at your energy supply.

Emergency Medpac: This ability is pretty much an instant cast version of Kolto Pack. It does a slightly less amount of healing, but with no cast time and no energy cost. It consumes one stack of the Upper Hand.

Kolto Cloud: KC is the smuggler’s one and only AOE heal ability. It’s a HoT ability and only heals up to 4 members contained within the AOE. KC does not require nor consume a stack of the Upper Hand, but does have a 30 energy cost and has a 12 second cooldown.

Pugnacity: This ability consumes one stack of the Upper Hand and gives you an extra 3 energy every 3 seconds for 45 seconds. This is an ability you must have up 24/7.

Cool Head: On a 2 minute cooldown with no energy cost, Cool Head restores 50 energy over 3 seconds (66 energy if talented).

Talents & Stat Priority

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#701MffMdhoRdsZ0cZGb.1

The link listed above is my preferred talent tree. This tree does not use Diagnostic Scan at all and puts those points in, my opinion, much more beneficial places. I put 3 points into No Holds Barred because our healing is considered tech, so increasing the tech critical chance is a must. Also as a scoundrel healer, I find myself CC’ing much more often than I did in other MMOs. Because of this, I put two points into Black Market Mods to give me access to Dirty Escape which reduces my cooldown on Dirty Kick by 15 seconds.

As far as stat priority goes, here’s what I have come up with:
Cunning > Tech Power > Critical Rating > Surge > Alacrity

Strategy

Always try to keep your energy level above 60%. If your energy level is above that, you’ll gain the full amount of 5 energy per second (6 energy per second if Pugnacity is up). The less energy you have, the slower the energy regeneration is. The energy regen goes like this:

• > 60%: 5 EPS
• 60% > x > 20%: 3 EPS
• < 20%: 2 EPS

If you ever find yourself around 20-30%, you might as well drop yourself all the way down to zero and pop Cool Head. You’ll get the most out of this very important cooldown this way. The same can be done if burst healing is needed.

A great way to prep for a fight is to cast Underworld Medicine * 2 to get your Pugnacity and one stack of the Upper Hand before the fight even begins! It saves some energy down the road, which is crucial for scoundrel healing.

Single-target Healing

The way I start off my single target healing goes something like this:

• Cast Underworld Medicine * 2 to get 2 stacks of the Upper Hand.
• Cast Pugnacity (I now have 1 stack of UH left)
• Cast Slow-release Medpac * 2.
• Cast Underworld Medicine once more (if SRMP hasn’t procced an Upper Hand by now, I now have 2 stacks of Upper Hand)
• Switch between UW, KP, and EMP depending on the situation. Never let SLMP lose its two stacks. It’ll cost you an extra 15 energy.

Multi-target Healing

• Once again, get two stacks of Upper Hand with UW and cast Pugnacity.
• From there you can keep everyone topped off with SRMP HoTs. Note: You don’t have to give everyone two stacks. The only people that should be getting two stacks are the tanks and the people who are taking most of the aggro away from the tanks.
• Use UW/KP/EMP if needed. Also, if everyone needs to be healed, let your group know to gather up so you can toss your Kolto Cloud.

Conclusion

If you feel that I could improve somewhere in my guide or if you think my view on Diagnostic Scan is completely flawed, feel free to prove me wrong! I’m always open to suggestions and outside opinion and I would love to hear yours on this extremely fun, versatile healing class.

– Aiori <3