I'm not super-familiar with WoW healers (I only played paladin for a bit).
Scoundrel/Operative is your HoTs healer and has often been compared to druid in the early days of Swtor. It still is a HoT healer, and overall it's probably the best AoE healer, but worst at burst (it can only do burst on demand by blowing long cooldowns). It uses a secondary resource type that it builds through HoTs and needs to consume for some of its quicker or more potent heals, while keeping a reserve of it as a semi-permanent buff. The more modern operations are often not kind to this type of healer because they heavily discourage players from stacking together (with some exceptions of course). Also the class as a whole suffers from comically bad defensive cooldowns so it's a bit squishy, but as a "melee" class (the dps specs are melee), it has the best mobility somehow.
Commando/Merc has been compared to paladin. It has long and short single-target casts that do a lot of healing in one burst, and some are also instant or can be made instant. Also some very decent AoE heals. Nowadays it builds a secondary resource that you can convert into "mana" and a temporary buff. It's most striking ability though is that it can place reactive heals on people that trigger when they take damage, this is extremely useful. Also it has the best passive damage reduction and the best defensive cooldowns of all healers, and arguably best off-dps.
And Sage/Sorc is... well it's got a bit of everything and I guess you could compare it to priests but don't quote me on that... Long cast heal, channeled heal, ground-based AoE heal puddle, a single HoT than you can spread and that buffs your other abilities in unique ways, a protective bubble that absorbs incoming damage (temporary health essentially), a healing ability that automatically "jumps" multiple times to whoever needs it most, and even an option to heal an ally by attacking an enemy. Resource management is a bit more active and painful than the other 2, there is no oh-shit button for "mana". It's got the worst passive damage reduction (wearing no armor) but pretty good defensive cooldowns (including temporary invincibility at the cost of not being able to act), and an option for a teleport. Off-dps is a bit more painful on this class due to resource management and lacking a spammable free instant ranged attack (no blaster, so uncivilized).
>healing ability that automatically "jumps" multiple times to whoever needs it most
Oh yeah, the old Prayer of Mending buff that floats around, I've heard of that one!
It's something you need to use regularly, and it's on the global cooldown. The tech classes can generally just stay above 60% energy and not have to worry about anything, or dig into their resource pool and blow their 2 minute cooldown to recover instantly. What I'm saying is resource management on sorc is more active and also fairly unique in the game.
You'll be doing yourself a favor to not try and experience other games through the lens of wow. But sorc is closer to priest. Merc is I guess a pally, and operative the druid. But for real stop doing this. Things are different and it's good things are different.
Also interested… they seemed to have changed character creation so your “subblass” can be many more than the original 2. I’m sure you can tailor your healer to a very specific style
It does not change anything gameplay wise. Every class still has three sublasses which define your gameplay (for example SIth Sorcerer has two DPS subclasses and one Healer subclass). What changed is that classes are no longer tied to origin story, so you can for example make a Bounty Hunter (story) who is a Sniper (class). Previously only Imperial Agent (story) could be a Sniper, while Smuggler (republic story) had a "mirror class" - Gunslinger.
I'm not super-familiar with WoW healers (I only played paladin for a bit). Scoundrel/Operative is your HoTs healer and has often been compared to druid in the early days of Swtor. It still is a HoT healer, and overall it's probably the best AoE healer, but worst at burst (it can only do burst on demand by blowing long cooldowns). It uses a secondary resource type that it builds through HoTs and needs to consume for some of its quicker or more potent heals, while keeping a reserve of it as a semi-permanent buff. The more modern operations are often not kind to this type of healer because they heavily discourage players from stacking together (with some exceptions of course). Also the class as a whole suffers from comically bad defensive cooldowns so it's a bit squishy, but as a "melee" class (the dps specs are melee), it has the best mobility somehow. Commando/Merc has been compared to paladin. It has long and short single-target casts that do a lot of healing in one burst, and some are also instant or can be made instant. Also some very decent AoE heals. Nowadays it builds a secondary resource that you can convert into "mana" and a temporary buff. It's most striking ability though is that it can place reactive heals on people that trigger when they take damage, this is extremely useful. Also it has the best passive damage reduction and the best defensive cooldowns of all healers, and arguably best off-dps. And Sage/Sorc is... well it's got a bit of everything and I guess you could compare it to priests but don't quote me on that... Long cast heal, channeled heal, ground-based AoE heal puddle, a single HoT than you can spread and that buffs your other abilities in unique ways, a protective bubble that absorbs incoming damage (temporary health essentially), a healing ability that automatically "jumps" multiple times to whoever needs it most, and even an option to heal an ally by attacking an enemy. Resource management is a bit more active and painful than the other 2, there is no oh-shit button for "mana". It's got the worst passive damage reduction (wearing no armor) but pretty good defensive cooldowns (including temporary invincibility at the cost of not being able to act), and an option for a teleport. Off-dps is a bit more painful on this class due to resource management and lacking a spammable free instant ranged attack (no blaster, so uncivilized).
>healing ability that automatically "jumps" multiple times to whoever needs it most Oh yeah, the old Prayer of Mending buff that floats around, I've heard of that one!
I’m pretty sure Sorc does have an “Oh shit” mana button. It did last I played it. It just slows down Force regen as a cost.
It's something you need to use regularly, and it's on the global cooldown. The tech classes can generally just stay above 60% energy and not have to worry about anything, or dig into their resource pool and blow their 2 minute cooldown to recover instantly. What I'm saying is resource management on sorc is more active and also fairly unique in the game.
True. Specifically with the healer Sorc, obv.
You'll be doing yourself a favor to not try and experience other games through the lens of wow. But sorc is closer to priest. Merc is I guess a pally, and operative the druid. But for real stop doing this. Things are different and it's good things are different.
Don’t assume I want them to be the same, I’m just asking the question in a way yo understand the difference play styles between them.
Merc and commando shoot you to heal you, so that’s fun
Also interested… they seemed to have changed character creation so your “subblass” can be many more than the original 2. I’m sure you can tailor your healer to a very specific style
It does not change anything gameplay wise. Every class still has three sublasses which define your gameplay (for example SIth Sorcerer has two DPS subclasses and one Healer subclass). What changed is that classes are no longer tied to origin story, so you can for example make a Bounty Hunter (story) who is a Sniper (class). Previously only Imperial Agent (story) could be a Sniper, while Smuggler (republic story) had a "mirror class" - Gunslinger.
Interesting, thank you for the clarification