Seer Sage
Last Updated: 5/31/21
Table of Contents
Overview
About the Class
Seer Sages are a strong healer class. They have strong single target heal combinations, two AoE heal abilities, a very efficient Force Armor shield, have arguably the most mobile healing ability set, and most importantly have the easiest energy management. All of this makes Sages a slightly easier healer class to learn for new players and position Sages as the best “triage” healer when someone is suddenly and unexpectedly low on health and needs immediate powerful healing.
Utility and Mobility
Sages have Force Speed and Phase Walk to quickly move around the battlefield, and can also pull friendly players to aid in movement or rescue from dangerous positions. Sages can off-heal, bubble, rez, and can CC any add type.
Survivability
As mentioned, most ideal Utilities for Sages boost healing received or damage resistance. Combined with a self-bubble, instant self heal, and a hard bubble to avoid many mechanics, a skilled Sage should be able to offset the disadvantage of light armor and also benefit from a variety of survivability buffs in their passive skill tree. This leaves Sage healers surprisingly hardy despite their paper thin armor.
Role in Operations
Seer Sages are well balanced healers and can handle either single-target healing or group healing as needed. All healer classes perform poorly when paired with the same class, so whenever possible Sages should look to pair with a Scoundrel or Commando healer. When teamed with Scoundrels and their exceptional AoE heals, Sages should focus on single target triage and the tanks. When teamed with Commandos, specific roles are less important as both are well balanced.
6.1.1 Impact on Discipline
Seer Sage healing was fairly weak in early 6.0 and 6.1 due to a very lackluster Revitalized Mystic set bonus and very poor tactical options. The discipline received significant buffs in 6.1.1 that increased base healing for most abilities and several passive buffs to heals, completely reworked both set bonuses and all tacticals. Net of these changes, it is expected that Seer will be much more powerful in sustained healing. Empowered Restorer makes your Force Armor provide a moderate healing benefit and the One for All tactical buffs healing from Wandering Mend by 20% by providing a fifth charge. Energy management will be somewhat more difficult and intensive but along with tweaks to other healing disciplines forthcoming (primarily a nerf to Commando healing), Sage should be back to being a solid sustained healer and an outstanding burst healer.
Utilities
I usually take some combination of the following Utilities, though the optimal combination can change from fight to fight. As of 6.0, the tiers have been reorganized.
Skillfull Tier
You must take 3 to advanced to Masterful.
Jedi Resistance - Increases damage reduction by 3%.
A straight boost to damage reduction is the best kind of damage mitigation. Take every time.
Pain Bearer - Increases all healing received by 5%.
A mandatory utility that provides a helpful survivability increase and synergizes well with other utilities that buff Force Mend as a powerful off-GCD self heal on a fairly low cooldown. I always take.
Mind Ward - Reduces the damage taken by all periodic effects by 15%.
Another helpful damage mitigation utility. I always take as a healer and usually take as a DPS unless I know the fight (1) has a lot of AoE damage potential; AND (2) does not have any DoT damage mechanics. In those cases, I will swap it for Tectonic Mastery.
Tectonic Mastery - Increases the damage dealt by Forcequake by 25%.
A situational utility that can be taken primarily for DPS disciplines where AoE DPS will be relevant to fight mechanics. That said, I usually do not take this utility as it requires sacrificing a survivability utility in the Skillful tree or a utility from a higher tier.
Masterful Tier
You must take 6 between Heroic and Masterful.
Valiance - Reduces the damage taken by the target of your Rescue by 25% for 6 seconds after you rescue them. Additionally increases the healing done by Force Mend by 30%.
This utility synergizes well with Valorous Spirit to buff Force Mend. The pull buff is nice but rarely useful in an operation, though it could be situationally used for big hitting mechanics where the pull’s aggro drop will not cause issues (i.e., either because the mechanic doesn’t follow aggro or because the boss can’t change targets mid-cast).
Blockout - Activating Cloud Mind grants Blockout, which increases damage reduction by 25% for 6 seconds.
This gives the class another defensive cooldown. A 6 second duration is fairly short, but when timed well for predictable unavoidable heavy/moderate damage can be very useful.
Telekinetic Defense - Your Force Armor crackles with Force Energy, blasting attackers for energy damage when it absorbs direct damage to you. This effect cannot occur more than once each second.
A situational utility. It is useful on any fights where you as a DPS or healer are likely to be directly attacked by adds or the boss to add incremental DPS. It is especially useful on fights where there is raid wide steadily ticking damage such that one shield can tick damage multiple times before collapsing. Only take if you know how to maximize its benefit. This is usually my third choice in this tier.
Force Wake - Force Wave unbalances its targets, immobilizing them for 5 seconds. Direct damage dealt after 2 seconds ends the effect prematurely.
A PVP utility that has highly situational use in PVE content. A few specific fights in Hard or Nightmare modes may benefit from this utility. The best example if Tyth in the Gods from the Machine operation, where using your knockback as a root is extremely helpful to root adds during the Inversion mechanic so they do not get cleaved by the boss. There are a few other examples and should only be taken when the root will be relevant to key mechanics.
If I need to take this utility for mechanics, I will let it replace Telekinetic Defense since I would rather maximize my survivability as a healer over dealing additional DPS.
Heroic Tier
A maximum of 3 utilities
Mental Defense - Reduces all damage taken while stunned by 30%. Also, reduces damage taken from area effects by 30%.
Another powerful survivability utility that should always be taken as very nearly every operation has AoE damage.
Force Mobility - Turbulence, Healing Trance, and Force Serenity can be activated while moving.
A mandatory utility. All Sage disciplines struggle at times to be mobile and this utility makes a big difference. Always take.
Valorous Spirit - Force Mend increases your damage reduction by 15% for 6 seconds. Also, reduces the cooldown of Force Mend by 5 seconds.
I like to take this utility whenever possible to synergize with Valiance. When combined with Blockout as well, that gives me two extra defensive cooldowns between Cloud Mind (25% damage reduction for 6 seconds) and Force Mend (15% damage reduction for 6 seconds and a buffed self-heal on a reduced cooldown).
Egress - Force Speed grants Egress, removing all movement-impairing effects and granting immunity to them for the duration.
A highly situational utility, I rarely take this utility in PVE except if a fight has a stun/root/slow. The best example is HM Underlurker where the adds AoE damage imposes a very powerful Slow debuff, and this utility lets me Force Speed behind a rock if the adds are still alive.
Example Utility Build
Here is what I run for most encounters, though I frequently take other situational utilities for specific fights.
Key Passives
Conveyance - Your Rejuvenate grants Conveyance for up to 15 seconds, which increases the effects of your next healing ability.
- Benevolence: Critical chance increased by 60%.
- Deliverance: Activation time decreased by 0.5 seconds.
- Healing Trance: Critical chance increased by 25%.
- Salvation: Activates instantly.
- Wandering Mend: Immediately roams to and heals each target without waiting for the target to take damage first.
Most important passive to the class as it defines the buffs to Rejuvenate.
Force Shelter / Reconstruct - Increases the duration of Rejuvenate / Resurgence by 6 seconds. Also, Rejuvenate / Resurgence grants protection to its target for 45 seconds. Protected targets have their armor rating increased by 10%.
A very powerful buff especially to tanks, make sure you keep full uptime of this buff on tanks and any DPS taking consistent damage.
Resplendence - Healing Trance critical heals grant 1 charge of Resplendence, which improves the effectiveness of your next Vindicate, causing it to restore 5 additional Force and consume 1 charge. Vindicate does not make you Weary when used with Resplendence.
The second most important passive ability, Healing Trance should be used very nearly on cooldown as it is your most powerful heal and stacks of Resplendence are critical to energy management.
Amnesty - Force Barrier now purges the Weary effect caused by Vindicate. Aso, spending a charge of Vindicate on grants Amnesty, increasing your Force regeneration rate by 2 for up to 10 seconds if you are not Weary or removing a single stack of Weary otherwise. The Amnesty effect will be lost early if Vindicate is activated without a charge of Amnesty.
This ability is key to spread out uses of Vindicate to maximize Force regeneration, or enabling a 4th spam of Vindicate to Force regen during down times of a fight.
Renewal - 1 second after refreshing your Rejuvenate on a target, the target will be healed for a low amount plus any healing that remained from the previous Rejuvenate.
Refreshing Rejuvenate will cause any remaining healing from an earlier Rejuvenate to be granted 1s later. This essentially means you don’t have to worry about clipping Rejuvenate and wasting healing as a result.
Altruism - Mind Crush, Disturbance, Deliverance, and Salvation grant Altruism, which causes Benevolence to be an instant-cast, consume no Force and increase its healing by 50%. This effect may not occur more than once every 10 seconds.
This passive makes your Benevolence ability a powerful combo when it is procced by this passive. This also helps energy management significantly.
Soothing Protection - Force Armor grants 10 stacks of Soothing Protection to the target. Target loses 1 stack each time you heal them. If Force Armor ends early, target receives healing per remaining stack.
This passive buffs the effectiveness of Force Armor by causing it to heal the target if it expires without being fully used to absorb damage. The heal is not enough to make bubbling targets worthwhile if you do not expect them to take imminent damage but is helpful in reducing the waste of an unused bubble.
Gearing in 6.0
Gearing Stat Allocation
Please see my Gearing Guide for a detailed overview of gearing in 6.x in SWTOR. Please also see my Alacrity Guide for a much more in-depth look at alacrity.
For Seer Sage, I gear as follows:
Set Bonus: Empowered Restorer (I still have my Revitalized Mystic set and would swap to it if co-healing with another Seer Sage so we had better synergy and I could let my co-healer handle the bubbling)
Tactical: One for All (I will run All for One in 16m operations with high AoE damage)
Amplifiers: Force Harmonization
Mods: Unlettered Lethal Mods
Relics: Devastating Vengeance & Primeval Fatesealer (Serendipitous Assault & Focused Retribution for Dxun/PVP)
Stim: Proficient
Adrenal: Critical (Triage for Dxun only)
For Seer Sage, I allocate my tertiary stats as follows:
Accuracy: 264 (Heals don't miss! However I run a Proficient Stim in capped content so get some Accuracy, and may occasionally run a bit more Accuracy for a few prog fights like Revan where healers need to get an interrupt and want to avoid their interrupts missing.)
Alacrity: around 3,400, a secondary option is around 1,450 if adding Accuracy Rating to add DPS or have a reliable interrupt (around 2,000 will work in either scenario if the Zeal guild perk applies)
Critical: all remaining tertiary points go into Critical
Shield: None
Absorb: None
Set Bonus
Empowered Restorer
Increased drop rate from conquest.
(2) +2% Alacrity rating
(4) Force Armor leaves a heal over time on the target for 12 seconds after being applied.
(6) Force Armor immediately heals the target when applied.
Analysis:
The Empowered Restorer is a nice set bonus that provides a much stronger healing buff compared to the old set bonus or the old Revitalized Mystic. It primarily buffs Force Armor, which is a very powerful and very energy efficient shield that adds another 50% in overall benefit via these heals on top of its existing damage shield. It does require a little more skill to fully benefit as compared to its peers in Concentrated Fire for Commandos and Tactician for Scoundrels. Those set bonuses provide a flat critical chance benefit to all healing that is fairly easy to maintain and Tactician provides even more benefits. Sages will need to be very skilled in judging when to use a Force Armor and doing so as often as is appropriate to get the full benefit.
In terms of healing output, the total healing from the 4/6 piece set bonuses adds up to around a little more than half the healing by an unbuffed Benevolence (but at less than half the Force cost). Force Armor already shields for around 110% of the healing provided by Benevolence. Adding the extra healing elevates Force Armor to doing more combined healing/shielding than any other healing ability prior to buffs. When considering the APMs since Force Armor takes up 1 GCD while Deliverance and Healing Trance take more than one, Force Armor is even better. When you consider the healing buffs from Conveyance, Force Armor more beneficial to healing per second (including shielding) than any other heals except for Healing Trance with Conveyance or the procced Benevolence with Conveyance.
The key to this set bonus though is making sure to apply Force Armors as often as possible to players that will benefit from the healing.
Impact on Rotation:
No change, you should continue to be shielding often for predictable damage on tanks and other players when AoE or mechanic-related damage is predictable.
When to Take:
Recommended in all cases for healers.
Revitalized Mystic
Increased drop rate from conquest.
(2) +2% Alacrity rating
(4) Refreshing Rejuvenate on a target refunds 5 Force.
(6) Healing a target with another ability while Rejuvenate is active on them has a 15% chance to cause your Rejuvenate to provide an additional, unscheduled tick of healing.
Analysis:
This set was significantly changed in patch 6.1.1. The changes essentially spread out the previous 6-piece set bonus and removed the 1.5s cooldown reduction on Healing Trance.
The new set bonus is not very powerful. Rejuvenate should be used on cooldown every 4th ability, or every 3rd if after Rejuvenate you channel Healing Trance and then cast Deliverance with its normal cast time. That provides fairly high uptime on the 4-piece set bonus refunding 5 Force. However, Vindicate provides 45 Force with Resplendence. This means over the course of a fight the 4-piece set bonus will save you a Vindicate once per minute that can be replaced with another healing ability.
The 6-piece set bonus is fairly weak due to the low chance of it proccing. A regular tick of Rejuvenate healing is between 1-2% of max health so that incremental heal once every 7 healing abilities is not a significant benefit as compared to predictable healing.
By comparison, Empowered Restorer provides about the same heal in its 6-piece except that it is guaranteed when applying Force Armor and it can be applied to multiple targets, and its 4-piece provides around double the healing of Revitalized Mystic's 6-piece but is again guaranteed and can be applied to multiple targets (and doesn't have an additional condition like here and needing to refresh Rejuvenate versus just applying it). The marginal Force regeneration of the 4-piece set bonus here just is not nearly close enough to offset that consistent healing buff.
Impact on Rotation:
No change. Healers should already be trying to refresh Rejuvenate on targets for the additional Renewal healing, primarily to the tanks.
When to Take:
Not recommended. I suggest swapping those Force Harmonization armorings and augments to an Empowered Restorer set.
Gathering Storm
Increased drop rate from operations.
(2) +2% Mastery
(4) Force Speed makes your next Force attack deal 20% more damage and Force attacks deal 20% more damage while Mental Alacrity is active.
(6) Activating Force Speed reduces the cooldown of Mental Alacrity by 5 seconds. Mental Alacrity's duration is extended by 5 seconds.
Analysis:
This set bonus was nerfed in patch 6.1.1 primarily to discourage healers from taking the set. The previous logic to using Gathering Storm was that it enabled a very high uptime on Mental Alacrity and its very powerful alacrity buff that usually reduced the GCD by 0.2s (so from 1.4s to 1.2s or 1.3s to 1.1s) or sometimes 0.3s depending on gearing. This increase in APM could more than offset the healing buff provided by Revitalized Mystic or Empowered Restorer as they were previously designed.
Now the uptime on Mental Alacrity is far lower due to the changes in the 6 piece set bonus. Before you could have Mental Alacrity up 25s out of every minute, or 42% of the time. Now it works out to 20s of uptime every 80s, or 25% of the time. Absent the set bonus you get 15s of uptime every 105s or 15%. So the increase is nice but far lower.
The rest of the set bonus is great for DPS but not healers. RIP for Gathering Storm as a healer set bonus.
Impact on Rotation:
Use Force Speed on cooldown unless it is absolutely necessary for movement mechanics or to cheese certain slow/root mechanics. Use Mental Alacrity as close to on cooldown as possible unless major burst heal phases are present.
When to Take:
Not recommended in any circumstances for healers.
Tactical Items
One for All
Increased drop rate from flashpoints.
Wandering Mend receives one additional charge.
Analysis:
One for All was reworked in update 6.1.1 and provides a much stronger tactical healing option as compared to the previous tactical options. Wandering Mend is a very powerful AoE heal for half the group and getting a fifth charge is really powerful. Given how Wandering Mend operates and that charges can bounce back to someone who received an earlier heal, this makes Wandering Mend flexible to provide more heals to just 2, 3 or 4 people or to add a heal to a 5th player.
Impact on Rotation:
Use normally in the rotation.
When to Take:
Recommended for all situations.
All for One
Increased drop rate from operations.
Salvation's pool concludes with a burst of light Force energy, healing up to 8 allies within it.
Analysis:
This tactical was reworked in 6.1.1 to provide a fixed per person healing buff at the end of the ability duration. Per testing and inquiry with the developers, it has also been clarified that the tactical's extra heal is triggered automatically once 8 people have received a HoT from the ability. As such, casting Salvation on a group of 8 people will immediately trigger the additional heal. Otherwise, the timer counts down 10 seconds and then triggers consistent with the ability tooltip description.
Testing of the heal shows that it is reasonably powerful and will provide a larger increase to healing per cast than the buff to Wandering Mend via One for All in any situations where the heal burst can affect 4 or more players. As such, it is a viable option for AoE heavy fight and is likely a preferred option for fights with high uptime on raid-wide AoE damage.
The primary weakness of the tactical is the timing requirement. I would feel more strongly about the heal if it triggered immediately upon casting Salvation. 10 seconds is long enough than in some situations players will be unable to stand in the puddle long enough to benefit from the burst AoE heal.
Another weakness in my opinion is that Salvation is less useful for burst healing. Sustained healing is rarely a major concern so losing tanks or healers to burst damage is always my biggest worry as a healer. One for All provides a fifth tick that is a smart heal that prioritizes towards the players on lowest health, which will outweigh the tick that same player gets from All for One (if they are standing in the circle in the first place, which if a tank will not usually be the case). Thus, even in situations where All for One provides a larger benefit to total sustained healing I still would prefer One for All in most situations outside extremely heavy AoE encounters (such as the Red encounter in Nature of Progress or Colossal Monolith or a few others).
Impact on Rotation:
Try to place your Salvation in such a way that as many people can stand in it as possible. If communicating in voice comms, make sure to remind people to stand in Salvation for the extra heal.
When to Take:
Recommended for very heavy AoE encounters.
Metaphysical Mender
Increased drop rate from Onderon and Mek'sha daily missions.
Damaging an enemy with Telekinetic Blitz causes your ally closest to the enemy to be healed, scaling with how many Empowered charges you have. Each charge of Empowered reduces the amount of Force that Telekinetic Blitz consumes by 30%.
Analysis:
This tactical was adjusted in 6.1.1 to be more useful. Now Telekinetic Blitz provides a smart heal that goes to the friendly player who has the lowest health within 20m of the boss and its heal has been significantly increased. When combined with the Endless Offensive set bonus that buffs the damage (and healing) of Telekinetic Blitz and makes it more frequently available, the combination is decent and can be preferred in some circumstances. The best application of this set bonus and tactical combination will be situations where there are two Sage healers, where one Sage can focus on shielding using the Empowered Restorer set bonus while the other mostly focuses on non shield heals.
Impact on Rotation:
Telekinetic Blitz can be substituted as a filler heal or when needing to heal on the move and instant abilities are not available.
When to Take:
Primarily recommended when healing alongside another Sage healer with Empowered Restorer. Can be useful and even perhaps optimal in some fights, though generally I recommend Empowered Restorer instead. It is worth noting that getting Endless Offensive is rather difficult since Nature of Progress is the only consistent means of obtaining it.
Amplifiers
Force Harmonization
All Seer / Corruption healing abilities are Force-based heals so this is an easy one.
Key Abilities
Telekinetic Blitz NEW IN 6.0 - Deals energy damage to your target and energizes you for up to 5 seconds. The Energize effect can stack twice, with each stack increasing Telekinetic Blitz damage by 30%. The ability has 3 charges and recharge timer of 10 seconds.
The new ability in 6.0. It offers lackluster damage so is not highly useful in most situations. It can be used on the move so represents a useful ability when other abilities are on cooldown. It is best to use all 3 charges consecutively to ensure the 2nd use does +30% damage and the 3rd use does +60% damage.
Restoration / Expunge - Cleanse
Vindicate - Recovers 40 Force (in addition to Force regeneration during the GCD of the cast). When cast without a stack of Resplendence (granted by a crit of Healing Trance), it adds a stack of Weary that reduces Force regeneration by 25% for for 10s.
The Seer Force management ability that should be used steadily through the fight. The ability should never be used without charges of Resplendence to avoid the Weary debuff (unless you can afford to do no healing for 8-10 seconds). It is much more efficient to use the ability consistently every 5-7 GCDs to maximize the Force regeneration benefit from Amnesty. Spamming Vindicate to consume all stacks of Resplendence should happen only infrequently during down times.
Force Armor - Applies a force shield around the target that absorbs a high amount of damage and lasts up to 30 seconds. The target becomes Force-imbalanced and cannot benefit from Force Armor again for 20 seconds.
The signature Sage bubble shield, the factor that most distinguishes highly skilled players from newer players is their use of the shield ability. It is a unique ability for which Scoundrel and Commando healers have no comparable ability as they have reactive heals but no preventative shields. With the Empowered Restorer set bonus, your shield applies a small immediate heal and a moderate HoT that heals for about half the amount of a Benevolence.
Best At: With Empowered Restorer set bonus, Force Armor is your best overall ability to heal/shield damage.
When to Use: Use as often as necessary to apply shields to every player that (1) will mostly/fully utilize the shield for future damage; and (2) will benefit from the heal. It is also your best reactive tool when players get unexpectedly low on health to ensure they survive long enough for more powerful cast heals.
When Not to Use: Be strategic about applying shields to players at full health unless you are sure they will take a lot of damage soon. That wastes some healing and energy and the class needs to be more careful with energy than pre-6.1.1.
Rejuvenate - Grants a small immediate heal, a small HoT, a 10% armor buff to the target via the Force Shelter passive, and 1 stack of Conveyance.
In nearly every situation, you should look to use Rejuvenate on CD to maximize the benefits of its buff to your next ability. Conveyance is the key to the Sage healing rotation, and is discussed further below.
Best At: Your best healing ability overall. It is super powerful in terms of its total heal, energy cost, armor buff for tanks, the increases heal from Renewal when refreshing it, and Conveyance.
When to Use: Use on cooldown to keep the HoT active on the tank (and others if possible) and to gain the Conveyance buff as often as possible to buff other healing abilities. Try to refresh it before expiration if possible got the extra Renewal heal.
When Not to Use: In stressful healing situations where your target may not survive beyond 1 GCD and DOES NOT ALREADY have Rejuvenate ticking, skip it for a more powerful heal and use it again as soon as you can. If you are refreshing Rejuvenate on cooldown on the tank, this is among your best heals in any situation.
Healing Trance - Channels 4 ticks of healing over 2.7s prior to Alacrity. Costs 10% of Force pool over duration of cast, making it very Force efficient.
Healing Trance received a bit of a nerf in 6.1.1. It is still quite powerful and does the most healing per activation, and especially with Conveyance is critical to generate stacks of Resplendence for energy management. That said, its importance to the rotation is diminished greatly due to buffs to Rejuvenate, Deliverance and the procced Benevolence. It should be used often but not necessarily always on cooldown.
Best At: Providing large healing that begins ticking immediately rather than at the end of a cast, Force Armor > Healing Trance your best emergency combo to recover someone from very low health.
When to Use: Combine with Rejuvenate/Conveyance frequently to maintain high stacks of Resplendence for use with Vindicate to manage energy. Use as your heavy emergency heal if a player gets really low on health (together with Force Armor).
When Not to Use: Try to avoid using on cooldown. It is good but not significantly better unbuffed than Deliverance, and is flat-out weaker than Force Armor or Rejuvenate when applied correctly. For Conveyance priority, its EPS impact is weaker than all options except an unprocced Benevolence. Use primarily for emergencies and for energy management.
Wandering Mend - Ability will tick 4 times, each adding a heal to another target and healing each existing target. As such, 1st tick heals 1 person, 2nd tick heals 2 people, 3rd tick heals 3 people, and 4th tick heals 4 people. Each tick is triggered by the target taking damage. Lasts 30s and costs around 9% of Force pool.
Wandering Mend is a very cool burst AoE heal ability for Sage healers. It will provide a range of burst heals from very high on the main target ranging to moderate heal on the last target.
Best At: Combining burst healing on 1-2 targets with partial group healing.
When to Use: Should be used with Conveyance when you need to burst heal 3-4 players, should be used without Conveyance when the healing target (usually a tank) is taking consistent damage and will trigger its heals consistently.
When Not to Use: Wandering Mend is an expensive heal so try to avoid using it except when needed. Also try hard to only use it with Conveyance if absolutely needed, as the buff makes Wandering Mend bounce instantly but does not buff its healing (unlike the effect applied to all other abilities that universally does buff their healing impact).
Deliverance - Grants a large immediate heal and costs ~7-8% of Force pool with a 2.0s cast prior to buffs from alacrity or the Conveyance passive.
Deliverance is a very Force efficient heal than Benevolence (does most healing for less Force cost) so when in doubt this is a good ability to use as a filler. With Conveyance it becomes a very powerful heal due to the cooldown reduction.
Best At: Great filler heal due to its low energy cost outside Conveyance and is critical to use to proc Altruism to provide a massive buff to Benevolence.
When to Use: Use every 10s to proc Altruism for a free and massively buffed Benevolence, primary filler heal when Conveyance is not available. Use with Conveyance when Altruism is not available to buff Benevolence and Healing Trance is on cooldown or already at 3 stacks of Resplendence. If Conveyance is not available it is your go to filler heal due to its low energy cost.
When Not to Use: Make sure not to use Rejuvenate on Deliverance when using it to proc Altruism for Benevolence. Also be aware the ability is very Force efficient without Conveyance but rather expensive with Conveyance so be mindful of energy.
Benevolence - Grants a medium immediate heal and costs ~10% of Force pool.
Benevolence is a spammable heal but in practice will not be used very often. An important exception is to try and proc Altruism passive as often as possible to get a free instant cast of Benevolence.
Best At: With the Altruism proc available every 10 seconds, a procced Benevolence is a very powerful heal that is free and buffed. Combine that with Conveyance's +60% critical chance and a fully buffed Benevolence is by far the discipline's most powerful healing ability.
When to Use: Proc Altruism as often as possible. Make sure to learn the rotation and how some abilities that take longer than 1 GCD (Healing Trance, unbuffed Deliverance) impact how many GCDs apart you should cast Deliverance to proc Altruism.
When Not to Use: Do not use Benevolence outside of Altruism unless there is no other option. Only use is Force Armor can't be re-applied, Rejuvenate and Healing Trance are on cooldown, and you don't think the player will live long enough to cast slightly longer unbuffed Deliverance.
Salvation - AoE healing bubble costs ~12% of Force pool and casts a HoT on up to 8 friendly targets within an 8m radius of its cast location. Lasts for 10s and a friendly player can run into the circle after it is cast to receive the HoT.
Seer uses this ability for large party healing. The HoT provided by the ability is strong but typically sustained AoE healing will require an instant proc of Wandering Mend as well as bubbling and single target burst healing. The ability was reworked in 6.1.1 so that Conveyance no longer reduces its Force cost but makes it an instant cast, and Resplendence no longer affects Salvation at all. This makes Salvation much easier to use rotationally without messing up Force management.
Best At: Your only ability that can heal an entire 8 person group and does so via a HoT that can minimize over healing.
When to Use: Anytime the entire group is taking heavy AoE damage to fully utilize the heal on all affected players and at least 3-4 players can benefit from the healing.
When Not to Use: When 3 or fewer players need AoE healing it is very inefficient for its energy cost.
Force Mend - Instant off-GCD self heal. 25 second cooldown.
Yet another useful skill in the Sage tool kit for survivability, Force Mend provides a free off-GCD self heal on a very low cooldown. When combined with shielding oneself, this gives Sage healers amazing survivability for low to moderate frequent damage. The self heal can be buffed considerably through utilities and can even function as a low duration, low CD defensive as well.
Force Barrier - Force bubble channeled ability that makes you immune to most damage and controlling effects for 8 seconds. 3 minute cooldown (prior to utilities).
The "God bubble" that is also unique to the class, it makes the player immune to the vast majority of mechanics in the game. It is most useful to cheese various mechanics in progression encounters, such as purge/cleanse of debuffs/DoTs that are otherwise not cleanseable.
Mental Alacrity - Grants 20% alacrity and immunity to pushback and interrupts for 15 seconds. 1:45 cooldown prior to any reductions to passive abilities.
One of two powerful healing cooldowns available to the Sage healer, its powerful alacrity buff will typically reduce your GCD by 0.2s or more and enable you to get 2 or so extra healing abilities over its duration.
Force Potency - Grants 2 charges of Force Potency, which increases the Force critical chance of your direct attacks and heals by 60%. Each time a direct Force ability critically hits or each time a channeled Force ability is activated, 1 charge is consumed. Lasts 20 seconds. 1:30 cooldown.
The second of two powerful healing cooldowns, Force Potency will make your next two healing abilities far more powerful through a nearly guaranteed critical chance.
Cloud Mind - Threat drop for all enemies. 45 second cooldown.
Your threat drop, it can also become a useful defensive ability via the Blockout utility that causes it to grant 25% DR for 6 seconds. This is very powerful when used smartly in combination with shields and your self heal.
Rescue - Lowers the targets threat by a moderate amount and pulls them to your location. 1 minute cooldown.
The Sage pull. For fights with positioning or movement phases, it can be helpful to save a teammate from standing in a bad position to avoid damage. And of course, it is most famous for trolling your teammates...
Rotation
Ability Priority
Net of class balance changes in update 6.1.1, the healing abilities for Seer Sage have dramatically changed in their priority. The changes that affect the discipline include the new Empowered Restorer set bonuses, buffs to Renewal healing for refreshing Rejuvenate, a massive buff to Altruism's benefit to procced Benevolence, buffing the healing impact of Deliverance with Conveyance, and overall changes to class ability base healing and energy costs.
Net of all these changes, a relatively clear ability priority comes into focus for Seer Sage. These are discussed below. HOWEVER, please note that THERE IS NOT A DEFINED ROTATION for healers. In a dummy parse world there likely is an optimal rotation, but healing is reactive. Therefore, I discuss below the rotational priorities to help you decide in the moment which specific abilities to prioritize over others, and then further below go over much smaller level mini-rotations or combos that are probably more useful to healers to use in an actual operation.
Note this discussion only considers single target healing abilities so does not consider the use of Wandering Mend or Salvation, as they should generally not be utilized for sustained singlet target healing. That said, both abilities will be necessary periodically (or nearly on cooldown in some fights) depending on the situation. The quick version is that when AoE is more important, prioritize those abilities on cooldown versus all others here as energy permits. Generally Rejuvenate is not as relevant for use on either ability, so typically Healing Trance will take on more importance for Conveyance for energy regeneration purposes.
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Force Armor
Special Buff (Empower Restorer 4-piece): Force Armor leaves a heal over time on the target for 12 seconds after being applied.
Special Buff (Empowered Restorer 6-piece): Force Armor immediately heals the target when applied.
Comments: Force Armor provides the highest net healing (healed damage + shielded damage) per GCD for the discipline with the Empowered Restorer set bonus. At full 306 gear rating with augments, it should shield around 21k damage. The Empowered Restorer set bonus applies an initial heal and HoT that combined will heal for around half that much, so combined each Force Armor can mitigate up to 30k damage through healing and shielding. Combine that with an energy cost almost half that of Rejuvenate or Deliverance and less than half of Healing Trance and its ability to be applied to multiple players at once, and you have an incredibly powerful ability.
The key to using Force Armor effectively is making sure both the shield and HoT are utilized. Shielding every player might waste shielding and healing and healers should be careful not to over-shield. Applying a shield on cooldown to a tank will waste some of the healing but is still probably a good idea given they should be taking fairly steady damage so over-healing should be minimized. For non-tanks, I would generally recommend only shielding in anticipation of big hit damage either for specific players (e.g., DPS picking up a Dismantler in the Dread Fortress Draxus encounter) or for high damage AoE phases. Doing so might waste the initial heal but the shield will be fully used and most of the HoT.
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Rejuvenate (with or without Renewal)
Special Buff (Renewal): 1 second after refreshing your Rejuvenate on a target, the target will be healed for a low amount plus any healing that remained from the previous Rejuvenate.
Special Buff (Conveyance): Grants Conveyance
Comments: Rejuvenate is your most important healing ability, top priority other than Force Armor and should always be used on cooldown. The ability does a lot of awesome things between being highly energy efficient, granting an armor buff and granting Conveyance.
A change to the discipline in 6.1.1 is the buff to Renewal causing it to do extra healing when refreshed on a target. When applied and continually refreshed on a tank, this provides a sizable burst heal every 4 GCDs. As such, as of 6.1.1 I generally do not recommend trying to spread Rejuvenate around lots of targets. Use it on cooldown and try to keep it focused on the tank taking the most damage. If both are taking damage, prioritize whichever tank is your primary responsibility.
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Benevolence (with Conveyance & Altruism buffs)
Special Buff (Altruism): Mind Crush, Disturbance, Deliverance, and Salvation grant Altruism, which causes Benevolence to be an instant-cast, consume no Force and increase its healing by 50%. This effect may not occur more than once every 10 seconds.
Special Buff (Conveyance): Increases critical chance by 60%
Comments: Benevolence without any buffs is a really weak and very expensive healing ability that should never be used outside really rare "player is going to die in 1 GCD and everything is on cooldown" situations. That changes dramatically when considering Benevolence with both the Conveyance and Altruism buffs. That makes the ability free, instant, increases its critical chance by 60% (making it a guaranteed crit for most players given current gearing levels) and increasing its healing (including critical healing) by 50%. Wow!!!
Based on my research, Benevolence with both buffs up is your best healing ability by far and is the best use of Rejuvenate's Conveyance buff. Using round numbers, I found that Benevolence with all its buffs did around 80% of the heal of Healing Trance with Conveyance but over 1 GCD (and instant and free) instead of the nearly 2 GCD duration of Healing Trance. Thus, its incremental healing effect on HPS is huge and should be utilized as close to every 10 seconds as possible.
10 seconds is slightly awkward timing as it doesn't line up neatly with the GCD and Healing Trance and Deliverance (without Conveyance) have cast/channel times greater than 1 GCD as well. Fortunately, there is an easy way to keep track via the cooldown of Rejuvenate since it is needed for its buff anyway. Every other Rejuvenate should be used to buff an Altruism-procced Benevolence. This leads to the rotation of Deliverance -> Rejuvenate -> Benevolence being used every other time Rejuvenate comes off cooldown.
Another cool part to this buff is that it has a duration so can be "banked" for a few GCDs and used when helpful. Benevolence should never be used otherwise, so it's not like you will need to use it otherwise!
4
Healing Trance (with Conveyance buff)
Special Buff (Conveyance): Increases critical chance by 25%
Comments: Healing Trance suffered the most in the 6.1.1 class rebalancing as it is no longer the top overall priority ability. It is still a powerful heal that starts healing immediately rather than at the end of a cast, so it remains an amazing option for emergency reactive heals. The ability must be used frequently to maintain stacks of Resplendence for use with Vindicate to recover energy. The main changes in 6.1.1 were that other healing abilities were buffed more and stacks of Resplendence are now easier to maintain as Salvation does not consume them any longer.
As noted above with Benevolence, every other Rejuvenate should be used on a procced Benevolence for its amazing free burst heal. Healing Trance should be used for the alternating Rejuvenates in most instances. That will maintain plenty of stacks of Resplendence for energy regeneration while providing a big heal.
The main question for Healing Trance outside of its use in energy regeneration is how it compares to Deliverance, considering them both with Conveyance and without Conveyance. Deliverance on average should do around 60% or so of a full Healing Trance channel but over either 1.33 GCDs or 1 GCD depending on the presence of Conveyance.
Overall I feel that Healing Trance with Conveyance is the best heal as it does slightly less healing per GCD than Deliverance with Conveyance but is far more energy efficient. This is reversed when considering use without Conveyance, as Deliverance does both more healing per GCD and is more energy efficient. Either ability is better with Conveyance than the other without, as seems obvious.
5
Deliverance (with Conveyance buff)
Special Buff (Conveyance): Activation time decreased by 0.5 seconds (from 2.0 to 1.5s without Alacrity).
Comments: All abilities are really good with Conveyance and Deliverance is no exception. That said, it doesn't benefit as much as the others and thus is at the bottom of the priority for buffed abilities. Deliverance does the same amount of healing with or without Conveyance. Using Conveyance for Deliverance increases its HPS by doing the same healing over 1 GCD instead of 1.3 GCD.
The downside to this buff has a few elements and leave it at the bottom. As noted, it does not increase raw healing output, so despite it technically helping HPS it does not feel as helpful in stressful healing situations. A buffed Deliverance provides less raw healing output per activation any higher priority ability. Also, if you really need a burst heal immediately then there are many faster options than Rejuvenate -> Deliverance, including Deliverance being hard cast.
Also, it's worth noting Deliverance with Conveyance has a significantly negative impact on your energy usage versus Healing Trance with Conveyance. Deliverance becomes less energy efficient due to the shorter cast time and less natural Force regeneration, while Healing Trance with Conveyance generates Resplendence stacks on crits that are the key to energy regeneration. As such, it really is not recommended to use Deliverance with Conveyance in most circumstances.
6
Deliverance (without Conveyance buff)
Comments: Despite being the lowest priority healing ability to consume the Conveyance buff, Deliverance jumps back up as your best filler healing ability outside Rejuvenate windows. This swap is due primarily to how Deliverance changes as a healing ability due to the increased cast time. It reduces Deliverance's HPS impact due to it taking up more time, but it remains a powerful cast healing ability and becomes extremely energy efficient. It provides the highest level of healing relative to its energy consumption of all unbuffed healing abilities (excluding Force Armor). As such, it is your preferred filler heal for most purposes.
7
Healing Trance (without Conveyance buff)
Comments: Healing Trance also changes a lot without Conveyance (see a trend?) due to the reduced critical chance. The loss of 25% critical chances takes Healing Trance from typically getting a critical heal on 2-3 out of 4 ticks of the channel to typically 1 or maybe 2, so the loss of 1-2 critical healing ticks is very substantial. It makes an unbuffed Healing Trance much less reliable to generate Resplendence and far less energy efficient. In comparison to Deliverance, it is less powerful in terms of HPS impact and is noticeably less energy efficient.
A notable exception to this priority is that an unbuffed Healing Trance would be a better use of Force Potency when needing emergency heals or low on energy and needing a full 3 stacks of Resplendence.
8
Benevolence (without Conveyance buff)
Comments: Benevolence costs 58 Force in comparison to 60 for Healing Trance and 45 for Deliverance. It typically will do around two-thirds of so of the healing of either alternative. So that makes it technically more powerful than Healing Trance by compressing the healing into a shorter window. However, the Force cost is horrifically bad when you consider natural energy regeneration.
Healing Trance does slightly less healing per second but at barely more Force and over nearly 2 GCDs, meaning net of natural energy regeneration it is significantly cheaper. Deliverance is flat out a more powerful heal, way cheaper overall and also generates from some bonus Force regeneration over its 1.33 GCD cast time.
So to summarize, do not ever use Benevolence unless there is no other option. No other option would mean that Rejuvenate and Healing Trance are on cooldown, you can not apply Force Armor yet due to the 20s debuff and you do not think the target will live long enough to hard cast an unbuffed Deliverance. In any other situation I would not use an unbuffed Benevolence at all, though ironically it is my favorite ability when buffed with Conveyance and using an Altruism proc.
Healing Combos
Healing is a very reactive class compared to tanks (defined high threat rotation intermingled with taunts) and DPS (very defined rotation/priority system). As such, it is easier to think in terms of healing “combos” that will vary depending on the situation. Here are some of the most common situations and how a Seer Sage might generally approach them.
Combo #1 - Maximum Burst Heal
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Force Armor - Cast to mitigate damage and provide initial heal and HoT
Rejuvenate - Applies armor buff, HoT, if refreshing will grant large burst heal 1s later
Healing Trance - +Crit% from Conveyance, big heals, grants Resplendence w/ crit
Deliverance - Force efficient single target heal, used to proc Altruism for Benevolence
Rejuvenate (refresh) - Refreshing will grant large burst heal, grants Conveyance
Benevolence - Free and powerfully buffed, will end combo with a huge burst heal
Conclusion - This is your "opener" that will provide some massive burst healing over a relatively short time. It will use up around a fifth of your energy pool so will need to use Vindicate either before or after.
Combo #2 - Light Energy Management
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Rejuvenate - Applies armor buff, HoT, large burst heal if refreshing, grants Conveyance
Healing Trance - Powerful channeled heal, crits will grant Resplendence (usually 2-3)
Vindicate - Consume to regenerate Force and grant the Amnesty Force regeneration buff
Conclusion - This combo should be used every other Rejuvenate to maintain Resplendence stacks. If you energy level is high, you can replace the Vindicate with a cast Deliverance. That said, with the current discipline setup you will need to use Vindicate every 7-8 GCDs to avoid burning through Force too fast.
Combo #3 - Heavy Energy Management
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Force Armor - Very energy efficient to shield and heal and give some buffer to regen energy safely
Vindicate - Begin combo with energy regen and applying Amnesty Force regen buff
Rejuvenate - Applies armor buff, HoT, large burst heal if refreshing, grants Conveyance
Healing Trance - +Crit% from Conveyance, big heals, grants Resplendence w/ crit
Deliverance - Energy efficient cast heal, also lines up cooldown for Rejuvenate next, may proc Altruism
Rejuvenate - Refreshes HoT and applies a large burst heal 1s later, applies Conveyance to Benevolence
Benevolence - Used if Deliverance procced Altruism, free powerful buffed
Vindicate - More energy regen, refreshes Amnesty right at or just after expiration
Conclusion - This is a little move involved combo rotation to mostly focus on energy regeneration with an upfront shield to give us some leeway to regen, 2 Vindicates for energy and very energy efficient healing with 2 Rejuvenates, a free buffed Benevolence, a buffed Healing Trance and a highly energy efficient unbuffed Deliverance.
Combo #4 - Buffed Benevolence
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Deliverance - Force efficient single target heal, used to proc Altruism for Benevolence
Rejuvenate - Applies armor buff, HoT, large burst heal if refreshing, grants Conveyance
Benevolence - Free and powerfully buffed, will end combo with a huge burst heal
Conclusion - This combo is already inside of #1 and #3 but will sometimes be off on its own. As discussed above, always use Rejuvenate on cooldown and every other time you should be able to proc a free Benevolence the GCD before you use Rejuvenate so you can combine the Conveyance and Altruism buffs for a very powerful and free burst heal.
AoE Healing
AoE healing is even more difficult to advise for strategy because each fight is different, each healer team is different and different players have different levels of experience with fights and overall philosophies towards healing. As such, I think it best to primarily give some high level points about AoE healing to supplement the single target discussion above and below.
Be careful about using Conveyance with either Wandering Mend or Salvation. Neither are actually buffed by Conveyance but instead get situational benefits (instant proc for Wandering Mend's bouncy ball heal, instant cast for Salvation). Those may be situationally useful and necessary to consume a Conveyance buff when not doing so will mean players get less AoE healing. That said, it sacrifices raw healing output so be thoughtful when doing so.
Be pro-active with Force Armor when its shielding and healing are effective. Seer Sage remains the best triage healer but weakest sustained AoE healer. As such, Force Armor is amazing to stabilize players for a few GCDs to provide time for AoE healing or single target burst healing to bring them back up. When the group is taking consistent AoE damage, I try to fit in a few shields in between Wandering Mend and Salvation to stabilize players that get a bit low. That said, be careful only to use Force Armor when both its healing is needed and the shield will be used against future AoE damage. Do not lean on Force Armor coming out of an AoE damage phase but only entering or during an AoE damage phase. Wasting the shield makes Force Armor a terrible option but fully utilizing it makes it incredibly useful.
Coordinate with your co-healer. Seer Sage is a strong healing class but remains likely the weakest sustained AoE healer in comparison to Sawbones Scoundrel and Combat Medic Commando. When healing with another class, let them lean on stronger AoE healing while you use your unique kit of shields, AoE healing and strong burst to focus healing on stabilizing the players with lowest health. Seer Sage is a great companion for Sawbones Scoundrel in particular since they excel at massive raw healing output but can struggle to do so while providing burst, so play to your strengths!
Prioritize Rejuvenate -> Healing Trance and Vindicate for Force management. Prioritizing Wandering Mend and Salvation on cooldown can get very expensive for energy management. As awesome as a Conveyance/Altruism Benevolence is, Healing Trance becomes more useful in this context since it is also a good heal but is more relevant to energy management. You don't have enough GCDs to spare to regularly do the Deliverance -> Rejuvenate -> Benevolence combo as often, so sacrifice that for Rejuvenate -> Healing Trance when needed to keep stacks of Resplendence up.
Keep refreshing Rejuvenate on cooldown on the player taking the most damage. Rejuvenate being refreshed provides a decent additional heal via Renewal and causes its remaining healing to come at once. This makes Rejuvenate great to maintain a cheap burst heal on the main tank. Combine that with a buffed Healing Trance on cooldown and a Force Armor should be plenty to keep the main tank up for a little bit during heavy AoE phases.
Unique Buffs - Conveyance & Resplendence
The Seer Sage has two unique and very important buffs to track while playing. These are Conveyance and Resplendence. The first, Conveyance, is used to provide a buff to your other healing abilities, with the buff applied different for each ability. The second, Resplendence, is utilized as the key element to Seer Sage energy management to regenerate Force. We will discuss each of these in turn to make sure you are super comfortable with what they are, what they do, and a few additional tips on priority and strategy to maximize the benefit you get from these abilities.
CONVEYANCE
Conveyance is granted each time you cast Rejuvenate. As noted above, Rejuvenate is a great ability that applies a small HoT, applies a 45s armor buff of 10s to its target and grants Conveyance. The armor buff is often overlooked as a nice mitigation benefit to tanks but the real power is the charge of Conveyance, which is consumed on the next healing ability to which Conveyance can apply.
These are the abilities to which Conveyance can apply and its applicable buff, ranked in approximate order of priority and with discussion on when to use Conveyance for that ability.
Note that the discussion here is primarily related to the situational use of Conveyance with AoE healing abilities, as single target healing priority is discussed above under Ability Priority.
Salvation: Activates instantly.
When to use Conveyance: Only when healing on the move to place a puddle where the group will run into it and get the HoT.
Comments: Salvation used to be ideal to use with Conveyance in group AoE situations since it would reduce its Force cost noticeably. Patch 6.1.1 changed Conveyance and simplified it to remove Resplendence from impacting Salvation and moving the instant proc from 3 stacks of Resplendence to Conveyance. This makes using Conveyance for Salvation a poor decision in most cases since it does not increase its healing. It is only advisable if you have to provide AoE healing on the move, in which case you can apply Wandering Mend without Conveyance (as it should proc through regular AoE damage) and instant place Salvation where the group is moving. Otherwise avoid using Conveyance for Salvation and save it for abilities that will actually do more healing via the buff.
Wandering Mend: Immediately roams to and heals each target without waiting for the target to take damage first.
When to use Conveyance: When burst AoE healing is necessary to stabilize several players but you cannot be sure that damage will come quickly enough to trigger all 4 (or 5 with tactical) bounces of the healing ball.
Comments: The buff to Wandering Mend does not increase its healing ability, so it is only really useful if it lets you get its healing faster when you can't wait for it to trigger over time or when you wouldn't otherwise get all of its charges to trigger.
I suggest trying to primarily cast Wandering Mend on the tank, as in that case you will nearly always get all the charges to trigger. In that scenario, you only should use Conveyance for burst phases to get a powerful burst heal to 2 players and a light to moderate heal to another 2 players.
I do think it's worth noting that if damage is not coming regularly enough to consistently proc Wandering Mend without Conveyance, in those cases you likely will be better off combining Salvation, Force Armors and rotating single target heals to heal up everyone in a more efficient manner than wasting Conveyance. That said, sometimes it's better to inefficient in order to top people off when you know heavy damage mechanics are imminent.
Benevolence: Increase critical chance by 60%
When to use Conveyance: Every other Rejuvenate to proc Altruism every 10 seconds.
Comments: See Ability Priority discussion above. Benevolence with Conveyance and Altruism is your best and most powerful healing ability.
Healing Trance: Critical chance increased by 25%
When to use Conveyance: When Benevolence's Altruism proc is on cooldown, low on Resplendence stacks and/or energy is below 500.
Comments: See Ability Priority discussion above. Healing Trance is fairly close to Deliverance in terms of its healing ability when buffed by Conveyance, but Healing Trance gets the nod due to (1) being necessary to maintain stacks of Resplendence for energy regeneration via Vindicate; and (2) it is much more energy efficient than a buffed Deliverance and so will require less frequent use of Vindicate.
Deliverance: Activation time decreased by 0.5 seconds (from 2.0s to 1.5s without Alacrity)
When to use Conveyance: When Benevolence's Altruism proc is on cooldown and energy is fairly high
Comments: See Ability Priority discussion above. Buffed Deliverance does slightly more healing per GCD than a buffed Healing Trance but is less energy efficient. When you have plenty of stacks of Resplendence and energy is in a decent state, you can opt to use Deliverance instead for a slight increase in healing output.
RESPLENDENCE
Resplendence is a stacking buff for which one charge is granted each time Healing Trance crits. You can have up to 3 stacks of Resplendence at any time. Healing Trance ticks 4 times during its full channel, so it is possible to go from 0 stacks to 3 stacks in a single usage.
Vindicate restores 5 additional Force and consumes 1 charge of Resplendence. Vindicate does not make you Weary when used with Resplendence. Using Vindicate to consume a charge of Resplendence grants Amnesty which increases Force regeneration by 2 for 10 seconds.
The Amnesty Force regeneration buff is very helpful to your energy management, so the ideal strategy is try and keep nearly constant uptime on the buff. This leads to using Vindicate once every 8-9 GCDs, which should be enough in most instances when you consider the combination of natural energy regeneration, the buffed regeneration from Amnesty and the energy regeneration from Vindicate.
Energy Management
Force management is much easier for Sages than Scoundrels or Commandos because a Sage’s Force regeneration is the same whether at 10% of Force pool or 90% of Force pool. As such, the overall key is balancing efficient Force usage and regeneration whenever possible so that you can go through a “burn phase” of maximum healing without negative consequences unlike other classes. Some key tips and tricks in this regard are below.
Whenever possible try to spread out uses of Vindicate for around 8-10s. This is because of the passive ability Amnesty granted by a buffed Vindicate, which boosts Force regeneration after its use.
Don’t be afraid to over heal if it helps your energy. If I enter a low damage phase and don’t have stacks of Resplendence, I will use Healing Trance even if everyone is at max health to get stacks so I can spam Vindicate to top off my energy before entering a high damage phase.
If you can follow the Amnesty buff granted by a buff Vindicate, an optimal strategy is to let it tick down until about to expire then use Vindicate again. This will consume the Amnesty buff to buff Vindicate. Put differently, with 1 stack of Resplendence you can use Vindicate to recover 45 Force, receive a Force regeneration bonus for around 8s, then use Vindicate again. This makes Force regeneration really easy and places less pressure on using Rejuvenate solely to buff Healing Trance to grant you Resplendence stacks.
As an exception to the above rule, when in heal-intensive fights and you have a “down period” feel free to spam 4 Vindicate (3 stacks of Resplendence and 1 stack of Amnesty) to quickly recover a lot of Force.
Make sure to always take advantage of a procced Benevolence via the Altruism passive ability. Benevolence isn’t a huge heal but instant and free are very nice, and doing so will make it easier to cast expensive Aoe healing abilities like Wandering Mend and Salvation.
As discussed above, Deliverance is your best single target filler heal anytime you do not have a Conveyance buff from Rejuvenate. It is highly Force efficient, so make sure to use it whenever the healing pressure is low. Be careful though to coordinate its use with Rejuvenate so that if you proc Altruism to buff Benevolence you can use Rejuvenate to massively buff Benevolence and turn an energy efficient filler into the opener in a powerful burst combo!