I had planned to get a level 10 consular on the PTS but I cannot since my download is about 50kb/s and it would have taken me weeks to finish the download. If anyone gets there, please take a screen and post it here.

I have, however, found a good thread on TOR forums, from a level 50 Seer who actually tested the new stuff out (Kudos for being 50 on PTS), and it also got a Bioware response, which is not exactly useful, though. Here is a link to the thread but I will copy the important part because I can't blame you if you want to avoid TOR forums. If you ignore the obvious troll posts the whole thread is a very interesting read.

Saerith wrote:

After I read the patch notes, I was so ready to get in here and start whining about how terrible the sage healing had become. Free noble sacrifices will be missed, surely, but after playing on my 50 sage for the past 2-3 hours on the PTS, I can say force management isn't going to be THAT bad. More on that in a bit.

The much more significant change is to rejuvenation, which now reduces deliverance's force cost by 30% instead of that skill's activation time by 1s. Instead of my beautiful 1.3s 5k+ heal, I'm now stuck with a 2.3s cast time 5k+ heal or a 1.3s 2.5k flash heal with benevolence. To be honest, it was always a little too easy to kite people around in warzones on my sage, and while it grieves me to kiss the easy days goodbye, it's probably more balanced.

When it comes to PvE (specifically operations), my wow-big-heals-incoming rotation now takes 7.5s instead of 6s and still heals for 13-14k (rejuvenate + force potency + double deliverance). Single target healing will be slightly worse, but once again, it's a relatively minor change. On the plus side, the -30% force cost for deliverance saves 17 force (51 down to 34) during that rotation, and the extra cast time saves another 12 force or so. All in all, this rotation now requires (28 + 34 + 51) 113 force to cast instead of 130 force, and natural force regen accounts for 60 force instead of 48. Take out force potency and the numbers change slightly, but the results are about the same. Verdict? This change results in less burst healing, but it can still be pretty impressive.

Now back to force management. It's not all one-sided as you might believe about the PTS patch notes. What they fail to convey is that since sage healing is slower overall, there's far less reliance on noble sacrifice to start with. Remember, these are just initial impressions, but I found myself using noble sacrifice about half as often as I did on the live servers, and the life cost can easily be made up with a single rejuvenate.

On a side note, Valiance is a pretty weak skill under the Seer tree, Bioware. 2 skill points for a ~350 less health cost for noble sacrifice? I think making it an additional 2-3% less health or 2% additional force return would make it worthwhile. Additionally, Egress is a pretty weak tree. 20% movement speed increase for a 3s duration for 2 skill points. I like that we don't have to spec Valiance to unlock Egress now, but it's still not worth those 2 points. A slight buff to 30% speed buff for 5s duration would place Egress more in line with similar skills, like the Sentinel skill Agility Training, which boosts your speed by 40% for 5s after using zealous leap. Conversely, the Seer Tree skill Confound slows targets by 20% for 15s unless they cleanse themselves. Compared to those skills, a 20% speed buff for 3s seems pretty weak, doesn't it?

TL;DR version: Sage healing is slower, and force management is a bit more tricky, but sages weren't nerfed too badly in this initial sampling of 1.2 we've experienced.

Bioware wrote:

Thank you for actually testing things in the game before posting. It's feedback from people like you we are interested in.

Games are not balanced on paper and actual gameplay impact of changes is not easily determined from patch notes, especially when so much of the surrounding game logic has been modified.

It is impossible to capture every element of change in patch notes, and it's even more impossible to prevent people from reacting to patch notes without taking the time to actually test.

We will be monitoring the game data coming from PTS, as well as guild feedback and constructive feedback based on gameplay on PTS and make adjustments and changes for the PTS period of the patch and beyond where necessary.

Maybe it won't be that bad

I'll still miss my spam heal. I knew energy wouldn't problem due to the longer cast time but I'll just have to get comfortable with the new style. New style as in more Benevolence.

I'm still not gonna put my Dark Heal onto my bar.
If someone needs a heal within 1.3 seconds he can just have a Resurgence and Innervate.

That guy there wrote:

We're just talking about opinions here, and my opinion from PVP healing, dueling, and generally just running through my healing rotation for 5+ minutes is that healing requires a bit more concentration

So basicly he did nothing that requires a lot of healing and acts like it's all gonna be allright.

That guy there wrote:

We're just talking about opinions here, and my opinion from PVP healing, dueling, and generally just running through my healing rotation for 5+ minutes is that healing requires a bit more concentration
So basicly he did nothing that requires a lot of healing and acts like it's all gonna be allright.

PvP healing is tougher than ops, since you are focused by 2-3 idiots interrupting your every move. Also simply going through your rotation as fast as possible is a good measure of resource management, I do that all the time and my actual rotation in ops does not really change much from my testing rotation, the only difference is force armour every now and then. In my test rotation I also use Salvation as soon as it is off cooldown which is not something I do in ops or PvP, meaning I actually use up my force faster while testing than normally.

There is no denying that the healing output will be lessened and a possible better solution would have been buffing Commandos and Scoundrels to balance them out. But it may not be as black as it seems from the patch notes.

I am not looking forward to those changes and sincerely hope that the developers either change their mind or that there is some under-the-bonnet change we are all missing which off sets the nerf. I just do not feel like giving up at the first hurdle.

Nor have I taken a side in regards to this issue yet. Here is evidence, from the same thread, that it IS actually pretty bad change.

Argorash wrote:

I've been on the PTS. I've ran the new hard mode flashpoint two times with sorc healers different sorc healers.
A few points:
1)The entire group was wearing full rakata and have cleared all content on live however the sorc healers still struggled to keep me up in an instance which drops columi gear.

2)The sorcs have noticably lost alot of throughput dispite already being dead last on single target healing

3) Healers seem to get a fairly raw deal in pvp already. They work all game to get 4 medals and i can just aoe taunt in the middle of a zerg and instantly get 4.

Darth Dreselus wrote:

Also simply going through your rotation as fast as possible is a good measure of resource management, I do that all the time and my actual rotation in ops does not really change much from my testing rotation, the only difference is force armour every now and then.

Yeah should have explained that that wasn't the problem I was referring to. I know resource management isn't gonna be as bad. What is gonna be bad is the 1 extra second it'll take to heal someone. That's 1 second in which said person or another player can easily die during intense fights (like Karagga).

Yup, it now has to be Benevolence with a lot of surge and Deliverance instead used for topping off and as the main efficiency heal (which used to be Healing Trance).

It just bugs me that Surge for Sages is now pretty important. I stack Power + Alacrity so it messes with my current build quite a lot.

Fluttershy wrote:

It just bugs me that Surge for Sages is now pretty important. I stack Power + Alacrity so it messes with my current build quite a lot.

I can imagine, makes me glad I waited for 1.2 to re mod my gear since ill craft things with augment slots, anyway. ATM I'm saving up Columi commendations and gear until I know what stats I actually need and buy gear with according mods.

On related note if anyone wants orange gear with augment slots just hit me up after the patch, atm I have schematics for top, bottom and headgear (which is a tiara so it does not look stupid)

I hope they add wrists and waist schematics at least as drops or Crew Skill rewards. I have head, chest, and pants for some medium armor on Gooey but bracers and belts would be the icing on the cake. Boots too.

Darth Dreselus wrote:

Fluttershy wrote:

It just bugs me that Surge for Sages is now pretty important. I stack Power + Alacrity so it messes with my current build quite a lot.

I can imagine, makes me glad I waited for 1.2 to re mod my gear since ill craft things with augment slots, anyway. ATM I'm saving up Columi commendations and gear until I know what stats I actually need and buy gear with according mods.

On related note if anyone wants orange gear with augment slots just hit me up after the patch, atm I have schematics for top, bottom and headgear (which is a tiara so it does not look stupid)

-hits you up for the tiara-

Another thing makes me glad I have not yet changed the mods in my gear. (And also another slap in Shy's face).

antonmb wrote:

The itemization/mods inside Rakata gear on the PTS are MUCH better. However, will we be allowed to trade in our current Rakata gear for the new ones then?

Right now, the Rakata mods I already have (some pulled out) are NOT retroactively affected by this change - however, the Rakata pieces on my companion for example, whose mods I didn't change, WERE affected by the new itemization. If this is the case, then it's like we'll have to work on grabbing our sets all over again just because 1.2 Rakata mods > 1.1.x Rakata mods. So I do hope there will be retroactive change, even if the mods have been pulled out.

Secondly, the Battlemaster Mods/Enhancements have the same stat budgets as Rakatas, but with +expertise. So, it feels like you can just grind WZ commendations, pull out the BM mods, and slot them in and get Rakata-level/equal stats +expertise. Is this intended? Or do the devs intend to reduce the secondary stat budgets on the BM gear because of the added expertise on the mods/enhancements?
Hey, some answers.

BW wrote:

1. Yes, we have updated the stat distribution on Rakata gear with 1.2.

2. If you have not modified your gear, it will seamlessly update the mods inside when you log into the game the first time after the patch has been applied.

3. If you have modified your gear, it will retain any changes you have made. Any mods you didn't change out will update.

4. Restoring the original mods into the item, before 1.2, will cause them to upgrade at the time of the patch.

The problem, of course, is that if you hand modified your gear, we ultimately have no way of knowing what your intention was. Maybe you wanted to use the mod you removed somewhere else, maybe you just wanted to replace it. We cannot make any assumption as to the intention of individual users when modding the item, preventing us from upgrading already modified items post fact.

TL;DR: Any 'original' mod in an updated item will upgrade with the patch. Any 'foreign' mod added to an item will be left untouched.

EDIT: Thread moved to a more appropriate location.

Double posting in order to bump.

Below is my current skill tree and 3 main rotations. I have tested them out and they all lead into one another very well (i.e. Rejuvenate is just gone off cd when either rotation is finished)

Skill Tree

Throughput: Rejuvenate-HT-Noble Sacrifice-Rejuvenate on self-Deliverance-Benevolence (if needed).

As far as Force Potency goes I am still doing it with Deliverance but not as an emergency heal, I use it to top up people instead, generally two different targets, calling those out to the other healer.
Burst Healing: Rejuvenate-Force Potency-Deliverance-Deliverance

Emergency: Rejuvenate-Benevolence-HT (HT will not be off cd for the next throughput rotation, I suggest a Deliverance/Benevolce in the meantime if required other wise you can pick up the throughput rotation halfway to regain force; NS-Rejuvenate on self-Deliverance)

When possible I also NS in Salvations to negate the health cost.

The throughput healing rotation now stands at around 1 200 - 1 400 HPS (at 572 bonus healing, 33.3% crit, 61.39% surge and 13.94% ala) and every time you are only losing 2% of resource per rotation. When used without Benevolence the health and resource loss are completely negated, not sure of HPS yet.

Obviously those are ideal numbers, in a raid when you are taking damage those number will vary massively.