The most popular build is the DD Cardinal at 2/3/0 talent point distribution which wields Mighty Energy Beat (upgrade of energy beat), Arctic Blast (upgrade of cold bolt, stacks 3 times to a max -90% move speed) and Rainbow Field (AOE spell damages up to 7 targets).This configuration also includes max level. Blessing of Intelligence lvl 16; Blessing of Strength lvl 16.

Welcome to my Mercenary/Commando Healing Guide for PvP! FEEDBACK IS ALWAYS WELCOME! UPDATED for Game Update 5.8.I will keep this guide updated as best I can.Disclaimer: I definitely am not the best at my class in PvP.

I have however been playing it for a very long time and find it a highly enjoyable spec. I’d like to think I at least know a little bit about playing the class.Hopefully, this guide can help get you started with learning how the class works. There are other skill sets needed to excel at healing which I will highlight later.

But first, I can help by highlighting the most useful abilities and utilities for Mercenary/Commando healers.For reference: I always put the Mercenary ability first then the Commando equivalent.Contents.Abilities Key Healing Abilities. /: Basic heal, builds Supercharge charges. /: AOE heal. /: 4 target AOE heal. /: HoT, heals on damage taken. /: Instant heal, increases armor. /: With Proc from ES/BI is instant cast.

/: Filler heal, also builds Supercharge charges. /: Increases healing done by 5% for 10 seconds. Build 10 charges, using Med Kolto Shot/Shot and Rapid Scan/Medical Probe, then activate it off cooldown.Key Defensive Cooldowns.

/: Triggers at 35% health and heals you for 35% of your total health. /: Increases damage reduction by 25% for 12 seconds. /: Activates an advanced response system that absorbs all incoming direct single target damage for the next 6 seconds, reflecting 50% of the absorbed damage back at the attacker and healing you for 5% of your maximum health each time an attack is absorbed. Can be used while stunned.Additional Key Abilities.

/: Get away ability. /: Another get away /escape ability introduced in 4.0. /: Makes next ability (or 2) instant cast.

/: Makes next ability cost free. /: An ‘oh shit’ button for venting heat/recharging cells (over 3 seconds). /: Your CC Breaker. /: Your cleanse.

Can cleanse tech based CC’s (8 second stuns). /: 4 second stun.: A snare that reduces targets speed by 50% and does damage. /: Knocks back enemies away from you. /: AOE DPS ability with no cool-down to stop caps.Stance: Stances are now tied to Disipline.

So need to worry about it.Mercenary/Commando UtilitiesHere are the Utilities I use on my Mercenary and Commando. Mercenary Build. Utilities ExplainedI’m basically using a defensive/mobile build at the moment. It means I don’t have any interrupt immunity but the defensives make up for that to an extent. I’ve listed a couple of additional utilities that are good that could be used instead if you prefer interrupt immunity.Skillful.

Gyroscopic Alignment Jets/Paralletic Combat Stims: You Vent 10 Heat/Recharge 10 Energy Cells when stunned, immobalised, knocked down or otherwise incapacitated. You will get stunned quite frequently so it is worth taking advantage of this. Jet Escape/Tenacious Defense: Reduces the cooldown of Jet Boost/Concussion Charge by 5 seconds and Determination/Tenacity (CC Breaker) by 30 seconds. Reducing the cooldown of your CC breaker is always handy and the reduced cooldown of Jet Boost/Concussion Charge is a good bonus. (Additional useful) Improved Vents/Cell Capacitor: Vent Heat/Recharge cells now immediately vents/recharges an additional 15 heat/energy cells and grants 10 alacrity for 6 seconds. collapseSet Bonus: 6 Piece Combat Medic Set GearBarrels: 248 Legendary Barrel x2Colour Crystals: Eviscerating (Critical) x2Mods: Lethal Mod (248) x9Enhancements: Adept x4 / Quick Savant x3 (248)Augments.: Advanced Critical Augment x4, Advanced Alacrity Augment x10 (228)Relics: Devastating Vengeance & Focused Retribution 248Implants: 248 Adept x1, 248 Quick Savant x1Earpiece: 248 Quick Savant.In 5.6 two new Tiers of Augments were introduced into the game.

I have very slowly been upgrading my existing Augments to 236 level Augments. 236 Augments give you an additional +33 Power and +2 Tertiary Stat. Once I’m fully 236 Augmented, I will update my Stats accordingly. The main difference will be an increase in Power Stat with small increases in Critical Rating and Alacrity.For more information on how to get gear, see my.ResolveResolve is a system that mitigates the effect of impairing/crowd control abilities on a player. Even as a healer you need to understand how resolve works, how it will affect you and how your stun, CC (crowd control/mezz) and knockback (all CC effects) will affect resolve. When you stun, CC or use a knockback your opponent it will fill up their white bar incrementally.

Once their bar is full they are immune to stun’s, CC’s and knockbacks for a short duration until their white bar gets reset to zero. The resolve bar appears under the character name. Resolve bar resetting (still immune to CC effects).If you have a full resolve bar most of the time, this generally gives you an advantage.

However good players can use the resolve system against you. If they know how much resolve an ability builds, they can time their abilities out to prevent you from getting white-barred. Or they can deliberately white-bar you (when they know you’ve used your CC breaker already) and potentially cap an objective.The Resolve Bar is divided into 4 sections which each have 4 parts totalling 16 parts.Here is a table that shows how much Resolve Stuns, CC’s and knockback builds.Resolve BarResolveCrowd Control13/16AOE Crowd Control10/16Stun13/16Knockback3/16The rate at which resolve diminishes is 1/16 per 2 seconds.Warzone Tips and Survival Strategies. Positioning – Make sure you position yourself towards the back of the pack. Stand near something like a pillar that you can use to ‘line of sight’ incoming damage. Use the environment to your advantage. Kite – Learn to move around while healing (yes you can do that) regularly even if it is not necessary so that when you do have to run away or run around pillars (eg.

Civil War Mid & Voidstar) you can keep healing. Find a Pocket Tank – If you can find one (good luck finding one who knows what they’re doing) you won’t know yourself!

Trust me, it makes a difference to your survivability having a tank around to taunt incoming damage, peel, stun and annoy anyone trying to kill you. Learn to not use your CC Breaker – you’ll find yourself white barred and stun locked pretty frequently. So save your CC breaker for only dire circumstances and only use it when you’re white barred except in exceptional circumstances.

Space out your defensive cooldowns – Never ever use more than one defensive cooldown at a time. When you’re being focused by multiple people and losing health fast, use Responsive Safeguards/Echoing Deterrence. Do not use it if you’re below 10% health as the first 2 seconds of damage won’t be reflected back and you’ll likely die anyway. AOE damage is not reflected back so keep that in mind when using this ability. Energy Shield/Reactive (if specced into Trauma Regulators/Trauma Stabilisers) is also good for burst damage if you can keep yourself above 40% health until you get to 10 stacks.

Once you hit 10 stacks you can click off the shield on your buff bar and get healed to full. Kolto Overload/Adrenaline Rush is a nice way to top up your health if you’re under pressure as well. Smart Healing – Accept that you’re not going to be able to keep everyone alive. This is the reality of healing. Don’t waste your time chasing after someone who is LOSing you or chasing a melee that is too far away from the node. Know your limitations.

If someone is close to death don’t waste your resources trying to get them back up unless you know you can do it without compromising you Heat/Energy Cells or if it’s crucial for keeping the objective. This is where playing other classes comes in handy (more on that below) as you can know the type of damage going out and then know what you can and can’t heal through. Node Guarding – Yes, this will likely happen on the odd occasion (but really, you shouldn’t be guarding unless there are 2-3+ other healers on your team). All you need to do is stand around 30 meters away from the objective and out of sight if possible. That way, it makes it harder for stealther’s to sap cap you.

Remember to call out as soon as you see someone coming. While you wait for reinforcements run around, LOS and stay alive for as long as possible while you wait for reinforcements.How To Improve your PvP GamePlaying Other Classes – Can help you to better play your own class by learning how to deal with other classes. Learning how to play other classes, especially in PVP, means you’ll know what they can do and in turn know how to counter their abilities, know how they can counter you, know what to interrupt and know roughly how much damage you will/can take!This is just one method that will help some players. Other players may learn better what other classes are capable of by specialising in one class in PvP.

But it doesn’t hurt to at least familiarise yourself with other classes abilities.Situational Awareness – This is also a very crucial skill. Not just being aware of your surroundings, there’s more to it than that. You need to be able to play your class/role while also knowing how many of their team there is and how many of your team is at a particular location.

You need to be asking yourself, where is my team? Where is the enemy team?

Am I needed here or am I more needed elsewhere? Make a mental note of who is guarding a node so if you notice their health drop you can help quicker (I discuss this concept further below).Practice!

Practice! When you’re healing being able to predict who is going to take damage, how much damage and judging the rate someone is taking damage so you know which heals to use on them and who get healing priority takes time and practice. Learning your optimal damage rotation for your class takes time and practice.PvP a lot. Don’t get discouraged by yourself or anyone else. Just keep at it and you will get better!

Situational AwarenessThis is an absolutely critical skill that you should work on if you truly want to master PvP.So what is Situational Awareness? Basically, it is the ability to be aware of your surroundings (what is happening around you) while simultaneously being able to perform your designated role within the ruleset of whatever environment you’re in.In PvP in SWTOR, this means simultaneously:. Being aware of the current circumstance of the Warzone. Is your team winning or losing? How many points does your team have?.

Constantly being aware of where your teammates are and where the enemy team is. Essentially, you should be asking yourself: Do I need to be here? Should I be elsewhere? Where is my team? How are they doing? AKA the numbers game.

Being aware of your own situation. If you’re taking a lot of damage, pop a defensive cooldown or LOS the damage. Melee DPS in particular need to be mindful of if they’ve strayed too far from their team. A good melee DPS will go back to their teammates for healing when their health starts to drop real low. Healers generally will not chase after melee DPS who stray too far away and don’t have the smarts to come back into range of healing.To further expand on the second point, here a few strategies you can use to help you be more situationally aware. If you are not defending, at the very least, note who is.

That way, if you see their health drop, you know they’re under attack! Yes, the person defending should call out but most of the time this does not happen or they call too slow or too late. Being aware of who is defending and being able to get to them to help them quickly could mean the difference between winning and losing a match. One way to help you keep a better eye on who is defending the node is to have them on ‘Focus Target’. That way, you can see if they’re get sapped as well as more easily monitor their health.

Yes, you literally should constantly count how many teammates are with you versus how many enemies there are. For example, if you’re in a Civil War or Yavin Ruins and there are 6 of you verses 4 of the enemy team at a control point, then you should be asking yourself, where is the rest of the enemy team? Am I needed elsewhere?

Depending on the enemy teams composition, the answer will definitely be yes.If you can master situational awareness then you will absolutely excel at PvP. It does take time to master as it does take time to learn all about the various things you need to be aware of simultaneously.UI, Settings and Keybinding TipsSWTOR’s User Interface is very highly customisable. You can move any UI element to anywhere you want on the screen and show or hide just about any UI element. Note unlike other MMO’s, SWTOR does not allow Add-ons (click on the image to enlarge). Quick UI Customisation Menu.From there you can click on any element to change its settings. You can move any element to anywhere you want on the screen and change each elements individual size.

Each element has its own additional specific settings you can customise.Be sure to spend some time playing around with the various settings in the Interface Editor. Especially for the Operations frame and Player Frame. You may want to increase the size of player buffs and debuffs in the Player Buff Tray and click Show Health Text to get health to show up as a percentage. Note any UI elements that show up in Red in the Interface Editor are not enabled and you have to click on them and tick Enable to get them to show up.

Generally, when it comes to PvP UI’s, it’s better to be more minimalistic. After all, you don’t want too many UI elements to distract you. But personally, I’m lazy and find it easier to just have one UI for all the content I do. But in the end, it’s all up to personal preference. As long as you have all the information on the screen you need in a configuration you like, you’ll be fine. Essential and Useful Settings OptionsEnable Focus TargetThis will allow you to have a target focused. This is useful for tanks and healers to focus each other as well as for keeping an eye on who is defending the off-node.

Enabling Focus Target.How it looks: Focus Target use in PvP.To set someone as your focus target, all you have to do is select who you want as your Focus Target and hit ALT+F. 12 side buttons.Here in the screenshot below, you can see how I tailored my UI to mimic the 12 key layout of the Logitech G600 Mouse.The Logitech G600 Mouse while it only has 12 side buttons allows you access to 12 more keybindings by holding down the (extra) far right button (G-shift button) on your mouse (keybinds show up as C+1, C+2 etc. The G7 key on the top of the mouse (s+B on UI) is my Cleanse button.I have my defensive cooldowns, stun, interrupt, knockback, an AOE ability in the exact same spot on all of my characters. Also, remember to have Medpacs and Adrenals within easy reach.Prioritise your important abilities to the easiest to press positions. You do not need every single possible ability you have for your class on your quickbars so be smart. You should not have to use every single quickbar slot in all 6 quickbars, ever. You’ll notice that I have only 5 quickbars and 2 of them are almost entirely filled with fluff.Take your time to play around with all the UI elements and your keybinds.

Set up your UI in a way you feel is comfortable with your play style. It does take at least a week of gameplay to get used to keybinds so stay focused and keep at it!

Trust me, once you get into keybinding, you won’t know how you played without them!My PVP ExperienceI have a Warlord Commando (96) and an Elite Warlord Mercenary (100). I’ve been playing Mercenary/Commando heals at max level since 1.x days. I have experience PvPing on almost every Advanced Class and Discipline. Some more than others. Division 2 gameplay.

I’ve levelled most of my alts through PvP (or predominately PVP). Other classes, I have experience with include Carnage Marauder, Sage/Sorc DPS & Heals, Scoundrel/Operative Heals. I do not claim to be the best PvPer, PvP is a game mode I really enjoy and I’m always looking to improve and be a better PvPer.Final ThoughtsThe key to being a good player is knowing which abilities are useful to your spec, when to use the ones that are useful and how to best use all your abilities. As a healer this involves knowing when and who to heal, predicting incoming damage and knowing when to use your secondary abilities/utilities. Most of that comes with experience and practice.Thank you for reading my guide! If you have any tips, suggestions or questions about my guide, let me know/ask!