crinn beat me to it, but dps mercs have always had issues defensively, and not only did they not improve their survivability, it actually got worse. the fact that the only heals of substance they have are on cooldowns (relatively long ones at that) is a huge impairment. what other dps class has cooldowns on all their heals? pair that with the most helpful utilities being in the higher tiers so you'd have to pick one over the other really makes dps mercs painful to play. i mean i can understand the utility of casting while moving being in the higher tier, but i honestly dont think both the shield reduction utility and the 2nd charge of TO utility should be in the same tier. playing an arsenal merc just doesnt survive like it used to. to be fair tho, i think their offensive capabilities has improved by quite a lot. i mean come on, unload while moving is ******

pretty sure its F2, or F3? check your keybind settings.

Yeah without a doubt healing is *so* much easier (and more fun) than pre-3.0. the fact that you have to cast a minimum amount now compared to previously makes it a blast. tbh the only things that seem somewhat cumbersome and confusing is what they did to supercharge with the removal of the shield on kolto bomb and that they removed the cooldown on advanced MP during supercharge, despite the fact that they made advanced MP the long cast now. previously you'd pop supercharge and spam AMP cause it was the short cast, but now its just different. but with the instant procs the burst healing is way better than before. medical -> bacta -> medical -> AMP -> wow im in love all over again. not to mention the diverse utilities from all the previous skill trees makes the mando/merc healer way more survivable too.

let's be real here, mercs being fotm will only happen in our dreams (dps that is). crinn's totally got it right tho. they got totally gutted. i tried playin my merc the other day and it went from bad to worse :/ on the other hand, lets all be optimistic about jung ma's ranked goin strong once the season starts. i def plan on doin grouped and maybe some solos seeing as heal spec is more fun than ever. WTB a crinn on JM tho....

Lots of crucial info in this thread already for helping the OP out in arenas. Getting geared/aug'd is def the most paramount aspect when doing ranked in general. Then I'd say the other important aspect to YOLOing as a mando healer is kiting techniques (which was briefly discussed). I almost always never pop my DCDs during an opener, even if you get ganged on from 3 stealthers. I would advise cycling your CCs. Depending on the class (for example if theres a jugg on you), I'd start with the HTL to counter the leap and incoming ravage, then it's really about LOS dancing as much as possible. Use your knockback the moment before you round a corner. Also I like to use a juke-step with the knockback (i.e. run to the right like youre trying to flee, and as they get close, juke to the left, kb, htl, and you just bought yourself time to get a heal or two in). If theres someone sitting on top of you while you heal, stun them for an uninterrupted heal. Also one little trick you can do, is if a warrior is ravaging you w/o unstoppable, you can cast the concussion missile and make them decide between eating the mez or clipping their ravage. As far as YOLOs go, most of the time the name of the game is to survive 3 ppl's focus as long as possible. Even if you have to separate from your team (in which cause you arent getting peels anyway) to draw your enemies to your pillar dancing. If you can survive a 1v3 long enough for your teammates to win their 3v1, then you've basically won the round. And always *ALWAYS* use kolto bomb on cooldown and at your feet when kiting. I generally don't pop the defensive shield unless im white-barred, then you can just facetank for the duration. The CD on power surge was recently reduced, so use that whenever the opportunity arises, either defensively to get a quick medical probe on yourself or teammate while you're on the run, or use it for an instant concussion mez when you have ppl on you (CC break pending). You can use the net offensive or defensively as well, either to keep that leaper at bay, or to guarantee your team gets the kill on that operative healer. And believe it or not, hammer shot, hammer shot, hammer shot. hammer shot yourself and all of the things all of the time when youre not standing like a turret and casting heals. I actually havent played any ranked this season yet on account of a heavy work schedule, but once 2.8 hits, I feel like mando healers are gonna be really strong. Interrupt immunity after power surge? Thats a good amount of uninterruptable burst healing that doesn't rely on your shield. So i would say stick with it, and practice as much as you can. Even if you have to just Q regs and purposefully catch enemy aggro to see how long you can kite/survive under pressure, do it. TBH regs is a good place to practice kiting, so try and team up with some friends and make a thing out of. I do it all the time "Run head first into whole enemy team and see how long it takes to die". Just learning to heal yourself under pressure with a team of dpsers tailing you will go a long way to dealing with that same situation in ranked.

Oh man I have to work during the tourneys! PLS PLS PLS tell me someone will be streaming/recording these for later viewing!

Ohh me me! Im still out of town for the rest of the week, but ill def hit u up when i get back, and we can get some more peeps for a team.

What if, perhaps, taking damage reduces its active CD? Much like healing ops get for their evasion and dps mercs get for their shield?

As far as commando healing goes, I think it's in a great place atm. The only thing that I feel would greatly benefit us in ranked (besides the disengage that we've been talkin about) is interrupt immunity. Our shield is really helpful, but that's only for that moment when we need to shield to mitigate the burst and H2F. Outside of that, there's really no way to reliably cast. I've lost plenty of matches because I get chain interrupted at that crucial moment when you *need* to heal to stay up. Having someone sit on you, interrupt your AMP, and then another enemy interrupting your MP, is a really easy way to shutdown the commando down indefinitely. I've always loved the idea of decoy granting interrupt immunity for the first few seconds, seeing as both dps specs have defensive perks tied to decoy.

So I've only recently started taking screens of arenas, but this should be enough to get on the highest single heal list. Gregill, Commando, <REGULATORS> Biggest Single Heal - 9036 http://i.imgur.com/QuaPxDi.jpg Also, shouldn't Warr'machine's biggest heal be #1 on the list?

hmmm yeah that's what i figured. it just bugs me that after i've applied all my trauma probes, if someone else is applying it, i'm still suck doing the animation even tho im usually building SCC stacks or w/e.

So say there are multiple combat medics on the same team in a WZ. Medic #1 applies Trauma Probe to the entire team. Medic #2 also applies it to the entire team after #1 has finished. While #2 is applying TP to each team member, #1 is performing the TP application animation. Anyone else notice this? I know multiple medics only refresh TP, but the medic who initially applied it will continually perform the animation as if he is still applying it, regardless if #1 is doing anything at all.

...we throw a party! http://imgur.com/3ZAnkUW http://imgur.com/z8Vi8sW http://imgur.com/VuvNYk6

When I'm playing my assassin, I have plenty of LOLworthy moments using Phase Walk. Most memorable for me is when I was fresh 51 and still playing with it. I'm in a Voidstar, and we're attacking and at the bridges in room 2. We extend the bridges and there's 2 pubs chasing me down. I run in the middle between the bridges and at the ledge, drop a PW/shroud, and wait a few ticks to bait them to getting close. As they're closing in, I speed off the ledge, taking a suicidal leap into that death pit, and pop PW, teleporting me back up. Turns out they ran to the ledge after me to perhaps confirm that they actually saw me jump off, and I PW'd behind them...and well...then I overloaded. I LOLLED so damn hard I had to cloak out and step afk to control my laughter.

There was this one time where i was on my gunslinger and got thrown into an arena in lowbies. Turns out to be FOUR smash monkeys vs just 2 pubs (sab gs and a medic commando) on the orbital map. We reluctantly take to.the catwalks knowing were exrewmely outmanned. Lo and behold, gs and commandos make a great kb tag team. Im dpsing the maras down quick while we take turns knocking the others down. The amount of time it took them each time to get back up to us was so long that we picked them off one by one. The commando threw great heals after we ate a minimal amount of smashes, and we absolutely demolished them despite being outmanned 2:1. We serioudly could not stop rofl and lmao emoting it was too funny. The next round we got a full team and it was over in like 30 seconds. Moral of the story, sometimes arenas are just awesome.

I wouldnt be mad if you could resist low slash with force shroud...

I wonder how more effective mando healers could be if they got a channeled heal. We get our green love beam to do quick spot hots on a target with our auto attack, what if commandos, even if only during SCC, could use FULL AUTO to heal? during SCC if would be free anyway, so you blast your allies with total kolto goodies. commando healers are already healing turrets, but that would totally cement them as solid healers.