New mercenary healer

[Mcfondles]

Alright so I just hit level 11 and got mercenary and my friend got powertech.. he is gonna be the tank and I am gonna be the healer..

 

I am just so confused what abilities I will be using.. Like attack ability wise.. I still have all the stuff i've been using to get up to this level like explosive dart and flamethrower and death from above..

 

Will I be using any attack abilities? Because I keybind and I already keybound a lot of those attack abilities I have.. If I am just gonna be healing I could get rid of them from my bars.. I just need some help figuring out what to keep or what to get rid of..

[Puzzlybox]

Keep them all.

 

Well.

 

I did get rid of Flamethrower.

[Kortobowden]

I did get rid of Flamethrower.

 

I still use it for fun... Solo and duoing in PvE stuff.

[Silomatic]

Keep your attack abilities on your hot bar. You're going to be using them. I bound my heals to my mouse. Even if you only have a few buttons on yours, say two on the side and the wheel bind your scans.

 

Get used to a good rotation and you will start to learn to weave in attacks as well as heals. BG's do alot more than heal. We pretty much control the battle in a sense. CC, stuns, and ofc healing. Main thing to get good at is heat management. Gl and have fun.

[BlownSi]

I keep all my healing/buff/defensive abilities on my left side bar and all my attack abilities on the main bar. For four man groups, for me at least it keeps the abilities close to the party pane so I can quick change between the people I am healing and get back to the ability.

 

You want your attack abilities, because even as a healer, you still can do some decent damage. You also have Concussion Missile for a 60 sec CC as you need it, especially to get a loose mob off of you. For single or two mobs, you can usually get away with helping to burn down the mobs if the tank and dps are using their defensive abilities properly.

Edited January 26, 2012 by BlownSi

[Mcfondles]

Ok so I checked out all of the upcoming abilities I will be getting.. so should i be keeping all of the following on my bars and keybinding? or is there any I should get rid of?

 

vent heat

rapid shots

missile blast

rocket punch

unload

explosive dart

rail shot

flame thrower

determination

death from above

power shot

electro dart

sweeping blasters

energy shield

jet boost

supercharged gas

fusion missile

concussion missile

chaff flare

kolto overload

shoulder slam

stealth scan

thermal sensor override

power surge

rapid scan

healing scan

kolto missile

cure

emergency scan

kolto shell

guard

[Puzzlybox]

Yeah you pretty much want those all.

 

You don't get Guard though...unless I missed something.

 

Can get rid of Chaff if you don't PvE. Shoulder Slam hits like a truck but it's so conditional (and not usable on any gold mobs or players) that you could afford to take it off. Flamethrower is kinda eh, haven't found a good use for it.

 

But you should probably keybind the rest. Use all of them regularly

[Mcfondles]

Yeah you pretty much want those all.

 

You don't get Guard though...unless I missed something.

 

Can get rid of Chaff if you don't PvE. Shoulder Slam hits like a truck but it's so conditional (and not usable on any gold mobs or players) that you could afford to take it off. Flamethrower is kinda eh, haven't found a good use for it.

 

But you should probably keybind the rest. Use all of them regularly

 

ooo whoops yea i accidentally wrote guard down.. alright thank you so much, this helps I'll get rid of chaff, shoulder slam, and flamethrower

[_Nyth]

Shoulder Slam is the only one that's really useless. (I just bound it to a key I'll hardly ever use)

 

Flamethrower is actually pretty powerful in close range; I personally kept it for some RP sake too, it looks neat.

 

I do suggest you try to find a place for everything though; not only are nearly all abilities useful in one way or another. It's also nice in case you respec.

For example my main action bar looks like this:

 

1 = Rapid Scan

2 = Healing Scan

3 = Emergency Scan

4 = Kolto Missile

5 = Determination

T = Rail Shot

Shift+R = Unload

R = Power Shot

Shift+E = Supercharge

E = Rapid Shots

Shift+Q = Flamethrower

Q = Rocket Punch

 

When I would swap to say Arsenal I could just exchange Emergency Scan with HSM and Kolto Missile with Tracer Missile.

Or maybe put Tracer Missile on R (which functions as my big attack key), and swap Powershot to Shift + E.

Point is that it keeps things relatively the same and makes for easy swapping.

 

I actually do the same across most of my characters. My sniper also has his melee abilities on Q keys.

[Mcfondles]

alright thanks guys i think i got my keybinds all figured out.. have a look see if you want. Only thing i don't have planned out yet is my adrenal.. any recommendations? And also.. I'm a little confused, we don't have an interrupt or did i just miss it?

 

ATTACKS

1 - rapid shots

2 - missile blast

e - rocket punch

3 - unload

4 - explosive dart

shift + 3 - rail shot

shift + 5 - death from above

t - flamethrower

r - power shot

shift + 4 - sweeping blasters

shift + 2 - fusion missile

shift + v - shoulder slam

 

STUNS/KNOCKBACKS/SLOWS

5 - jet boost

c - electro dart

v - concussion missile

 

TEMPORARY BUFFS

` - supercharged gas

shift + q - energy shield

shift + t - chaff flare

shift + f - thermal sensor override

shift + e - power surge

shift + r - vent heat

 

HEALS/SELF HEALS

mouse5 - rapid scan

mouse5+shft-healing scan

mouse4 - kolto missile

z - cure

mouse4+shft-emergency scan

q - kolto shell

f - kolto overload

 

RANDOM

x - stealth scan

midmouse - determination

g - medpac

 

Only one that I find uncomfortable is fusion missile (shift + 2)... kind of makes it so i have to take my finger off the w key... I usually don't like to do that but i ran out of options..

Edited January 28, 2012 by Mcfondles

[DukSaber]

If you want to go one bar you can. I do. I keep some attacks on the bottom bar but i dont use them often. I just do pve though. My only two attacks i keep in bar are Death from above and Powershot. I keep those in slot 1 and 2. Healing abilities i keep from 3-8..then leave shield..electricute for the last few. I also make sure my supercharge is easy access and next to my main spamming finger.

 

if you pvp alot this wouldnt work. But for pve if your focusing mostly on FP and operations this is fine.

 

 

good luck

[DukSaber]

didnt see another post you made,,,people telling you that you need all those abilities is just wrong especially for pve. For hardmode flashpoints 98% of your time is healing. Only exception is i generally will throw in a death from above on trash or on bosses with enrage timers. Even power shot i rarely use in flashpoints as healer. Someone telling you that you need missle blast/fusion/flamthrower/unload/rail shot is just wrong. Hell you should never use unload/rail as healer. Whats the point.

 

Operations you need attack abilities even less. Karagas palace i think the only thing i did was death from above. Zero point to keeping other attack skills in your bar.

 

Even for dailies i use those two attacks,,thats it. I use blizz.

 

I put thermal and concussion in bottom bar and just click if needed.

[Mythree]

take out missile blast. it is not heat efficient. i used it for a long long time and always have heat problems. i took it out of my rotation and there is no more problem with it

[Strifegambit]

didnt see another post you made,,,people telling you that you need all those abilities is just wrong especially for pve. For hardmode flashpoints 98% of your time is healing. Only exception is i generally will throw in a death from above on trash or on bosses with enrage timers. Even power shot i rarely use in flashpoints as healer. Someone telling you that you need missle blast/fusion/flamthrower/unload/rail shot is just wrong. Hell you should never use unload/rail as healer. Whats the point.

 

Operations you need attack abilities even less. Karagas palace i think the only thing i did was death from above. Zero point to keeping other attack skills in your bar.

 

Even for dailies i use those two attacks,,thats it. I use blizz.

 

I put thermal and concussion in bottom bar and just click if needed.

 

Unload & Rail shot still do good damage as a healer specced merc, even if you are just PVEing then your not contributing to the flashpoint/operation other than raw healing.

 

To me that makes you basic player, any good player will throw in as much DPS as possible inbetween healing, helps you beat enrage timers to

[MagnisLupus]

To me that makes you basic player, any good player will throw in as much DPS as possible inbetween healing, helps you beat enrage timers to

 

Helps cause wipes when the healer thinks he is a dps and forgets to heal.... i rather a healer concentrate on healing, let the dps do their jobs.

[Strifegambit]

Helps cause wipes when the healer thinks he is a dps and forgets to heal.... i rather a healer concentrate on healing, let the dps do their jobs.

 

Im not saying DPS becomes priority, but when i am standing there with everyone full health and my resource is fine, then course im going to through DPS in, you would be stupid not to

[MagnisLupus]

Im not saying DPS becomes priority, but when i am standing there with everyone full health and my resource is fine, then course im going to through DPS in, you would be stupid not to

 

I guess it depends on the situation.... i've seen healers get cockey and dps when they should have been healing, and then the inevitable wipe..... i get a little nervous when i see healers dpsing more than just a little.

[Chaqen]

Helps cause wipes when the healer thinks he is a dps and forgets to heal.... i rather a healer concentrate on healing, let the dps do their jobs.

 

Once you get use to healing in Operations, you will noticed that majority of the encounters can be solo healed when doing 8 man, but you always bring two cause you need to because of mechanics (not because of the damage that is being done to players).

 

So you can have your healers between the need to heal to do one of two things; dps a little (dots work great), or sit around and twiddle their thumbs.

 

If you are finding that your healers need to be constantly healing in a operation, they are either crappy healers, or the tanks are crap, or you are ignoring strats.