6.0 Corruption Sorcerer PvE Guide by Dark

Written by Dark. Edited by Dark and Xam Xam.

Last Updated – 12th April 2020: Corrected tactical description errors.


Intro

My name is DarkShieldSix. I have mained Sorc healing for my entire career while playing SWTOR.  I joined the NiM community two-and-a-half years ago and was thankfully trained by some of the best raiders at the time. Sorc Healing has always had an amazing foothold in every fight. Sadly, in this patch, Sorc healing is considered the weakest of the heal specs, BUT don’t let this stop you from using the force to heal your allies. As stated, Sorc healing is still viable, even for HM Dxun. Picking the correct target to heal is now more important than ever as our force regen is slightly less compared to previous patches. Remember, we bring one of the best abilities to the stage: Static Barrier.

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to send me a message on discord! bmaster1218#1181


Gearing and Stats

Amplifiers
NAME DESCRIPTION PERCENTAGE MAX
Force Harmonization
Increases the healing done by Force abilities
1.00%

Force Harmonization is the ONLY way to go.  It increases all healing done by force abilities and is everything you could ask for.


Set Bonus
GEAR 2 SET 4 SET 6 SET
Empowered Restorer’s Alacrity +2% Dark Heal’s critical chance is increased by 10%
Dark Heal heals more if you have a Consuming Darkness or Reverse Corruption stack and consumes 1 stack upon use
Revitalized Mystic’s Alacrity +2% Reduces the cooldown of Innervate by 1.5 seconds Healing a target with another ability while Resurgence is active on them has a chance to cause an extra Resurgence tick for half. Refreshing Resurgence on a target refunds some force
Name of the Gathering Storm Mastery +2% Force Speed makes your next Force attack deal 20% more damage and Force attacks deal 20% more damage while Polarity Shift is active Activating Force Speed reduces the cooldown of Polarity Shift by 10 seconds. Using Polarity Shift immediately after adds 10 seconds to its duration

Currently, two set bonuses exist for Sorc healing; Revitalized Mystic and Empowered Restorer. The set Gathering of the Storm is used by some healers. As with the other two sets available you will need to work with each one to find out what is best for your playstyle.

Revitalized Mystic

Let’s start with what I believe is the better of the two sets – Revitalized Mystic

The BIGGEST reason for this set being the most important falls on the 4-piece which is a 1.5-second cooldown reduction on Innervate.  Innervate is hands-down the core ability for a Sorc.  With this ability, we gain stacks of Force Surge when Innervate critically heals.  When the stacks are used with Consuming Darkness, it increases your force regen. 

The 6-piece is also slightly helpful as this allows you to use Resurgence on an ally more than once to gain a bit of the force used from the ability back.  Also, using any healing ability after on that target creates a slight chance that resurgence will tick for half of what it normally ticks for. 

Empowered Restorer

Our Second healing set – Empowered Restorer

The 4-piece and 6-piece effect of this set boost the powers of Dark Heal. The 4-piece makes Dark Heal have a 10% higher crit chance, while the 6-piece makes Dark Heal do 20% more healing while under the effects of Weary or Reverse Corruptions and consumes 1 stack of either.

The issue with this set is it relies heavily on Dark Heal as the primary way of healing. Dark Heal cost-effectiveness allows 11 casts from max force at its cost of 63 force. At the same time, all the healing is single target. Giving yourself Weary stacks reduces force regen by 2 per stack capping at 4 stacks. Normal force regen sits at ~9.2/s (with 1.3gcd), meaning you have 1.2/s force regen with 4 Weary stacks, effectively having no force regen for its duration. Cleansing all stacks requires 4 casts of Dark Heal, costing 252 force to accomplish while having the reduced force regen from the stacks. This leaves a lot of people Force deprived, as Innervate has a roughly 8-second cooldown to gain more force with consuming darkness and reverse corruptions.

Gathering Storm

The Gathering Storm set is meant to be used as the DPS set for the Sorc Class. However, some people believe this set to be extremely helpful in the end-game due to it allowing you much better off-DPS as a healer. Its a very situational build, and is not recommended for beginners as this focuses maximizing the usage of force speed and Polarity Shift. Due to this, it may be difficult to find when to correctly time Polarity Shift and will result in effective healing to become basically non-existent. A major side-effect of this set is the reduced force regen as Innervate is on the longer cooldown outside of Polarity Shift. I recommend to anyone attempting this build to practice in Hard Mode and possibly Story Mode to get used to the timing of Polarity Shift’s cooldown so it may be better used in tight spots consistently and not once or twice.


Tactical Information
TACTICAL DESCRIPTION
All for One Revivification heals more the less allies it affects.
One for All Revivification heals more for each ally it affects.
Healing Volts Damaging an enemy with Volt Rush causes your ally closest to the enemy to be healed, scaling with how many Energized charges you have.

Of these tacticals, I use All for One 100% of the time.  Revivification has always been an extremely powerful healing ability and is always used on at least 3-5 people. Having the extra healing based on the number of people affected by the ability can have a huge effect on your raid healing.


Stats

Now, the moment you have all been waiting for.  Stats are a huge part of the game and it changes how much a player does.  I will be giving the Best-In-Slot gearing:

  • Stim: Advance Kyrprax Proficient Stim (Accuracy + Crit)
  • Hilts: Superior Versatile Hilt 80
  • Armorings: Superior Versatile Armoring 80
  • Mods: Lethal Superior Mod 80R-2. While the Mod 80R-2 are an extremely rare drop, using regular Mod 80 is just as fine until you can replace them.
  • Enhancements/Tertiary Stat Pieces:
    • Alacrity: 2x Superior Nimble 80 enhancements and 1x Superior Nimble 80R-14 + 6x Advanced Alacrity Augment 74 + Sha’tek Quick Savant Earpiece and Sha’tek Quick Savant Implant (2x)
    • Crit: 4x Superior Adept 80 enhancements + 8x Advanced Critical Augment 74 + 2x Crit Crystals for Lightsaber and Offhand
  • Relics: 
    • Focused Retribution and Serendipitous Assault Relics (new content)
    • Devastating Vengeance and Primeval Fatesealer Relics (old content)

Overall Stats with all Mod 80 is as follows (Please note this includes you having all Datacrons across the planets and fleet):

  • Mastery – 12,316
  • Endurance – 16,330
  • Power – 9,616
  • Critical – 2,779 – 43.63%
  • Alacrity – 3,206 – 15.39%
  • Accuracy – 264 – 102.73%

This set-up of stats goes well with the Revitalized Mystic set and runs at a 1.3 GCD. Force regen base is 9.2/s.

This set-up works for players who like good control on force management while still pumping out top heal numbers in fights. The extra chance to crit is not as massive as people realize when you’re able to continuously heal throughout a fight without stopping. 


Utilities

This guide is for PVE, so I will not be talking about PVP Utilities.

As a Sorc healer, there are 9 Utilities you will always take every single boss fight except for two fights; Styrak and Warlords, both bosses found in SnV.

Firstly, the 9 Utilities you will always take:

Skillful
UTILITY DESCRIPTION COMMENT
Force Suffusion Overlord heals you and 7 affected allies.
This utility allows you to damage enemies and heal your allies; very helpful.
Sith Defiance Increase damage reduction by 3%.
DR is extremely important especially when you have to Sorc Tank.
Corrupted Flesh Reduces damage taken from all periodic effects by 15%.
Again, DR is important because you are a light armour user.
Empty Body Increases all healing received by 5%.
The second part of this doesn’t matter as you don’t steal life. I think this stands for itself.

Masterful
UTILITY DESCRIPTION COMMENT
Suppression Using Cloud Mind increases damage reduction by 25% for 6 seconds.
It’s one of 3 DCDs we have, extremely important.
Dark Resilience Reduces the damage taken by the target of your Extrication (pull) by 25% for 6 seconds (In raiding this rarely takes place). Additionally, increases the healing done by Unnatural Preservation by 30%.
This is massive for self-healing when you find yourself in a pinch.

Heroic
UTILITY DESCRIPTION COMMENT
Shapeless Spirit Reduces all damage taken while stunned by 30% and reduces damage taken from area effect by 30%.
When raiding you will be rarely stunned, however, a lot of bosses have Area Effect damage and again, DR is extremely important.
Force Mobility Thundering Blast, Innervate, and Force Leech may be activated while moving.
Having extra mobility during a cast as a healer is amazing and is 100% a must.
Unnatural Vigor Unnatural Preservation increases your damage reduction by 15% for 6 seconds. Additionally, reduces the cooldown of Unnatural Preservation by 5 seconds.
This is another one of our DCDs as a healer.

These 9 Utilities will grant you the best chance in a raid for every boss with the 2 exceptions of Styrak and Cartel Warlords.


Additional Utilities

Cartel Warlords

During Cartel Warlords in SnV NiM it’s important to take:

  • Emersion [Heroic] – Using Force Speed removes all movement-impairing effect on you and grants immunity to them for the duration. 

During the First Phase of Cartel Warlords, the boss Captain Horic throws out a grenade that places a green debuff on you.  This debuff slows you and deals damage. With Emersion, you give yourself a second CC break, as it will remove this debuff. You must sacrifice Unnatural Vigor for this, but as a healer, in this fight, you should take very small amounts of damage.

Styrak

During Styrak in SnV NiM you may be asked to knock back adds that spawn during the Lighting Manifestation phase, requiring you to take: 

  • Electric Bindings [Masterful] – Using Overload binds its targets, immobilizing them for 5 seconds. 

With 6.0 this strategy comes with great risk, as its difficult to run 110% accuracy.  However, it is still possible so long as you stun an add that resists your bind. You must sacrifice Dark Resilience.  Most of the fight you spend grouped with allies, so you can get AOE healed, making the increased healing from Unnatural Preservation not needed.


Abilities and Passives

Healing Abilities

As a healer we have 7 main abilities:

ICON ABILITY DESCRIPTION
Revivification
Heals up to 8 targets in the area with a healing over time buff for 10 seconds
Resurgence Heals one target and places a healing over time buff for 15 seconds.
Innervate
While channelling heals a target and consumes 60 force over the duration.
Roaming Mend Places a healing buff on target and heals them once they take damage. The buff then transfers to a new ally within range. The buff will bounce 3 times for a total of 4 heals.
Dark Heal After a quick channel heal a target
Dark Infusion After a slightly longer channel then Dark Heal, heal a target for a significant amount.
Static Barrier Surrounds the target in a lightning shield that lasts 30 seconds and absorbs a high amount of damage. Protected targets become deionized and cannot benefit from Static Barrier again for 20 seconds.

Corruption Discipline Passives

Tree Buffs that are important to mention:

Force Bending – This Buff affects your healing abilities after using Resurgence based on the ability:

  • Dark Heal: Critical chance increased by 60%.
  • Dark Infusion: Activation time reduced by 0.25 seconds.
  • Innervate: Critical chance increased by 25%.
  • Revivification: Force cost reduced by 20%.
  • Roaming Mend: Immediately roams to and heals each target, without waiting for the target to take damage first.

Reconstruct – Increases the duration of Re25surgence by 6 seconds. In addition, Resurgence increases the target’s armor rating by 10% for 45 seconds.

Force Surge – Innervate critical heals grant 1 charge of Force Surge, which improves the effectiveness of your next Consuming Darkness or Revivification:

  • Consuming Darkness: Restores an additional 5 Force and consumes 1 charge and does not make you Weary.
  • Revivification: Consumes 5 less Force per charge and reduces activation time by 0.25 seconds for each of the first two charges, or makes it activate instantly with the third charge. Consumes all charges.

Dark Concentration – Crushing Darkness, Lightning Strike, Dark infusion, and Revivification grant Dark Concentration, which causes your next Dark Heal to activate instantly and consume no force.  This effect has a 10-second cooldown.

Reverse Corruptions – Force Barrier now purges all Weary stacks. In addition, spending a charge of Force Surge on Consuming Darkness grants Reverse Corruptions which increases force regen by 2 for up to 10-seconds as long as you are not affected by Weary, otherwise it removes a stack.  Using Consuming Darkness without a Force Surge stack removes Reverse Corruptions buff early.

Twisted Force – Innervate channels and ticks 10% faster, and Roaming Mend now gives 3% internal and elemental damage reduction to its targets for 45 seconds.

Sustaining Darkness – Static Barrier grants 10 charges of Sustaining Darkness to its target.  Directly healing a target with this buff removes one stack. When static barrier ends or when the barrier is broken the target is healed by an amount multiplied by the number of stacks remaining.


How to Heal Effectively

This part of the guide is extremely important on the player side. Healing effectively all comes down to experience in fights. Knowing when damage is going to be coming out and when to start executing the heals needed. What can be helped is how to use abilities effectively and timely, so they do more when used.

Firstly, people will say hard casting Revivification is not helpful. This is wrong.  Revivification is fine to be hard cast. The important thing to note about Revivification is you need to hit 3 or more people in it. It’s not useful when it hits less than that amount of people. Also, Resurgence with Revivification helps, as it reduces the cost of the ability. 

Secondly, Resurgence is the second most important ability you have as using it buffs all your other healing abilities. The best Combos for Resurgence in priority is as follows:

Resurgence + Innervate – The increase crit chance on Innervate makes getting Force Surge easier

Resurgence + Roaming Mend – Roaming Mend focuses its bounce on people who have a less HP.  Using this on low HP targets grants a huge AOE burst heal.

Resurgence + Revivification – the lowered force cost helps but isn’t as important as the others.

Using Resurgence with Dark Heal or Dark Infusion is ill-advised as the extra buffs to both are not important and waste the buff given for lesser output. Remember, Resurgence boosts the armor of the target, so keeping this buff up on tanks is extremely helpful to them for DR.

Thirdly, Roaming Mend, while a powerful ability alone, its true power comes from being able to bounce freely after Resurgence is used. It’s highly recommended using Roaming Mend after Resurgence.

Fourth, using Dark Heal alone is not very cost-effective.  Dark Infusion, while on a slightly longer channel, heals for a significant amount more and costs less. Also, Dark Infusion allows Dark Heal to be free casted. Combining these two abilities together can be a strong burst heal as well.

Fifth, remember we take the improved Overload Utility and using this during AOE healing moments is very helpful. While that’s when it’s used most often, the heal and damage is very cost-effective to use when multiple people need a slight touch-up.

Sixth, Using Static Barrier is a huge boost to effective healing and can be used in two important ways. The first way being shielding a tank from incoming damage. This reduces the overall damage they take, and it heals them once the barrier pops. This is a great Two-for-One ability. Secondly, you can shield a DPS or yourself when there’s incoming damage, or when the damage has to be taken and you can’t afford healing in that moment. 

Seventh, we’ll talk about Force management. As a Sorc, we have a large pool of resource, and if you’re not careful after about 3 rotations of healing, you’re out for the count. Controlling your force during the course of a fight will increase your healing and will allow you to heal endlessly in moments where healing is supposed to be stressed. During the normal parts of the fights without too much damage output, keeping track of your force is essential.

Between 600-450 Force you are in a position that allows you to heal nicely without much backlash if things get hairy.

Between 450-200 Force your position becomes a bit more stressful. Being brought this low means people are either taking damage that’s not needed, or it’s meant to be a stressful part. If unneeded damage is being taken, speak up! It is your job to keep track of raid damage as a healer. If it’s meant to be stressful, go into Force Management mode. Use 2 stacks of Force Surge on Consuming Darkness to replenish force.  If you have 3 stacks of Force Surge, keep the last stack for when the buff of Reverse Corruptions about to end to refresh it. This will give you excellent force management while still allowing you to do your job in stressful moments.

Between 200-0 Force is the worst moment you can find yourself in. The only time you should be this low is during a burn phase that comes with massive raid healing. To deal with this, using Polarity Shift and Recklessness will help.  Recklessness will make your first 2 heals crit and hit harder. It is best to use on Innervate to get some Force Surge stacks and use Consuming Darkness to get a Reverse Corruptions stack. Polarity Shift boosts alacrity and, in turn, increases force regen. After you have done that, it is best to use Resurgence into Revivification. The reduced cost will be extremely helpful here and the hard cast will be reduced by Polarity Shift. Now, if you find yourself this low on force and it’s not a burn phase, using Resurgence into Innervate into Consuming Darkness on ALL Force Surge Stacks. and you repeat until Force is back to 450+. It’s important to keep your resource together so that you are an asset to the team rather than a sandbag. 


In closing remarks, Sorc healing is fun and right now it’s more so because it’s currently “weaker” than other specs. Sorcs still have the ability to pull more healing on most fights if abilities are used correctly and you preemptively prepare for the damage that comes out. Sorcs play a vital role in team comps with Static Barrier protection, high burst heals and good AOE healing with All for One, low cooldowns, and easy force management for sustained heals as well. On top of this, Sorcs have the ability to do it all continuously. Remember my fellow healers, never be afraid to tell your DPS to stop standing in stupid. It’s your job. Now it’s finally time to say: May the Force be with You, Always!

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