Honestly, I was pretty sceptical at first because the only reason for me to level a merc was because of their stylish animations.
But with the complete change of healing mechanics since patch 1.2, healing with my sorcerer feels not quite right now, it doesn't feel fluid anymore. While healing with the merc is just plain fun. *pew pew*
The best way to describe it is, when Praven went into his first warzone with level 11 I felt completely useless. I had no hot, no shield and no force bending that allowed me to shorten my dark heal to 1,5 secs. And now healing with him feels like that at level 42. I mean yes, he has the shield, the force speed, the AoE heal and the channeled heal but still... it feels static and clumsy.
It's not so much the fact that I can no longer heal myself against 3 bad DD's but I feel so squishy and helpless most of the time, it's frustrating. And I hate to see my guildies die because I don't have a fast heal anymore. The only warzone I still have fun playing him is huttball because of his utilities (force speed, shield, pull). The rest is just... meh. :/
With Shytra I'm not a fan of huttball but I love each and every one of the other warzones. True, if I come up against a good DD I'm also dead and there is no way for me to survive on my own. But usually I can get the attacker down to 50% before I hit the ground.
And with Shytra it was amazing to heal at a low level (14). I couldn't believe how useful she felt compared to Praven when he was little.
That was one of her very first warzones at level 14, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that she put out that much healing.What did my guildleader say, "Welcome to the world of real healing!". I wouldn't really call it "real" healing. It's just different from healing with a sorcerer. And while yes, you might heal more with a sorc, it's just because of the shield and the hot the sorc has that gives you a higher amount of healing. Take that away and I'm sure the numbers would be quite equal.
Sorc healing to me feels (or felt before 1.2) like healing with a disc priest and a druid. You throw your shields around, hot every one in sight and then use your other spells.
With the merc I need to have my 30 charge stacks up and then heal as much as I can before I have too much heat. It feels a bit like healing with a paladin so it's obviously different from a sorc but not that much harder.
However as people seem to be obsessed with the amount of healing they put out (I'm not! I said it before, I rather heal like 75k in a game that we win than heal 300k in a game that we lose.) my newest challenge is beat sorcs in healing!
But I need to watch it and not to lose myself in that challenge, otherwise I will be of no use as a teamplayer.
And it's not an easy challenge either, I know that if I could play an identical warzone with Shytra and Praven, my Praven would always outheal Shytra by far. But hey, I need challenges.
I felt really bad for this sorc healer, he healed more than me and did more damage than me, yet it was my little Shytra who got more MVP votes in the end. And the one he got was from me. ^^
That's better, more healing and equal damage. ;D
Hehehe, that's a screencap from yesterday. The sorc was amazing, I basically healed more but he had a decent amount of damage. Got praise from him that I'm an amazing healer and gave it right back, he was really good but so was the whole team.
And finally it happened again and this time I have the screencap to prove it! 6 MVP votes from my teammates (7 being the highest you can get).
It's not the highest amount I have healed in a voidstar game. I think the highest was 243k or something but I was really close to the Republic sage that's why I kept this screencap.And as a bonus, here is my little Shytra, she's level 24 right now:
