Darth Hater

This is not a ‘What’s the best class’ or ‘what should I play’… Just trying to get a feeling for the differences between the two…

Anyway, decided to play either a Sith Inquisitor ‘Sorcerer’ or a Bounty Hunter ‘Mercenary’…

--Both are ranged… I want that…

--Both have a healing spec… want that too…

--Ones uses Blaser + Rockets and the other Light Saber + Lightning…

Other than that what are the major differences between the two?
(Also, who counters which class? Are there counter classes at all in SWTOR??)

Any help is appreciated…

Those are really the only differance except the mercs resource starts empty and runs out when it gets to full and has diminishing returns on its regen ( the higher your heat the slower it regens) Sorc starts with full Force (mana or actualy its more like a rogues energy in wow) and regen doesnt change. so Bh takes a bit more resource management.

Also Bh uses heavy armor sorc uses light.

Healing with the BH generates Heat... so you need to keep that heat low if you want to heal a lot...

There are not counter classes in SWTOR, but there are counter specs most likely.  However, endgame PvP has not been fleshed out enough, nor have I played it enough to say what spec of what class beats certain other spec of another class.

Both classes you've chosen have a very good straight healing spec.  Neither class is particularly mobile while healing(cast/channels).

THe Mercenary gets a knockback with snare effect on a 30sec cooldown.  Its better than the Sorcerer’s Overload ability, which can only have the same effect if spec'd through skills(talents). And you won't be able to spec for that if you go deep in the healing tree. 

The Sorcerer has a good bit of synergy between its healing spells at higher lvls.  And in PvP you can go all out without worrying about your force pool all that much as the battles won't often last that long.  However, should you run out of force, you're pretty worthless at that point(so evaluate the situation accordingly).

THe Mercenary has a much more restrictive mechanic, that dissipates at a slower rate the more heat you build. This takes a lot of management skills on your part to use efficiently.  You do however have a bailout skill that you may use once every 2mins in combat.

The Sorcerer has a shield that absorbs damage which it can keep up at almost all times if they are not being attacked. The Mercenary’s shield is on a much longer cooldown. The Mercenary does however get Proactive Medicine buff, which heals for an amount on being hit. Also, the Mercenary benefits from having higher mitigation due to heavy armor.

I hope that gives you a good overview of the classes.

PS - To insert my personal opinion, the Sorceror offers the best short-term fight(30sec or less) burst healing capability in the game. The Mercenary has the best survivablity of the healers in the game, and is capable of burst healing once every 2mins due to cooldown on Vent Heat. The Mercenary Energy Shield(2min cooldown) skill also will allow you to heal yourself un-interupted no matter how many people are beating on you, which gives your team extra time to peel them off of you.

I'm rolling 3 characters on release as I am an alt-o-holic, and it will be an accomplishment if I can limit myself to 3 as opposed to playing all 8!  I'm rolling a Assassin(TankHybrid), Operative(DPS), and Mercenary(Heals).  So it's possible there's some bias towards Mercenary in this post ;)

Some really good replies... SI seems really cool, but I'm starting to lean towards the Bounty Hunter :)

Thanks a lot!!

There's always the flavor of the story classlines Brannigahn. You spoke of their differences only in direct gameplay, but their stories and general feels are pretty different too, and one may be more up your alley than the other.

Ive been playing merc healer since early access.  here are my thoughts:

-The BH story is really interesting, at least to me.  I do not know anything about the sith storyline, but if you want to feel like the most powerful Bounty Hunter in the galaxy, BH may be for you.

-Healing.  Our two main heals are healing scan, wich is on a cooldown, and rapid scan.  Rapid scan has no CD, but does create heat (as does healing scan)so you cannot just spam it.  Our blasters can be fitted with "combat support" so that when you shoot your allies they are healed a small amount.  The amount if small, but can add up and while your shooting, your heat will decrease.  We also have Kolto Missile, which is a missile on 5 sec cd which heals a decent amount and also leaves kolto residue on your allies and boosts healing for 15 sec afterwards.  If I remember correctly the bonus to heals is like 10%.  Although I havent got it yet, we also get Kolto shell which you can put around someone and it heals them some amount everytime they get hit, but I havent used it yet so I cant make any educated comments on its' use.   Oh, and while you are shooting your healing blasters you are building up points.  When you have 30 points built up, you can use an ability (I forget its name) which lets you use healing scan repeatedly (its ussually on CD) for a number of seconds with less heat use. 

THis is the first time i've healed in an MMO and I like it.  I havent run into any issues completing heroics or Flashpoints as the only healer.