New 55 Medic - Questions about UI, Gearing etc

[Solloby]

Hi, I'm a newbie but my first character is now 55, so I figure it's time to get my stuff sorted out. Any help you guys can provide would be greatly appreciated.

 

Update:

Thank you everyone for your advice, it was very helpful! I have set myself up now and hope I can perform better in Warzones, and am going to try some Flashpoints too. Thanks for helping out a newbie! <3

 

TLDR:

1. Where can I move my Sedative points to for PVE/PVP Medic so they are more useful?

2. Post pics of your UI please.

3. Can you set up click casting for party/raid frames?

4. How do I gear up at 55? Max out Cybertech?

5. What FPs am I geared enough to queue for?

 

 

1. Spec

I levelled Concealment and am now Medicine.

This is my spec: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#401MffbdGRRzfsZ0cZG.

 

How can I improve it? The Sedative points seem like a bit of a waste. I specced for PVE but I like Warzones, is there anything I should pick up for that? Switch Sedatives to Med Shield maybe?

 

 

2. UI

I have too many abilities and really need to sort them out, my dps abilities are on action bar 1 so I have to toggle down to my heal abilities at the start of each WZ, quest area etc. I have 3 action bars visible - 2 bottom, 1 side. I am thinking of changing to 4 bottom, and maybe 1 small side for quick travel, mount, pet etc. Any tips for setting up my action bars, or if you could post pictures of your UIs, that would be really helpful.

 

Also, where can I move the Cartel Market icon to? I'm so used to it where it is, but it covers up the timer and other stuff in Warzones.

 

And can I change the raid frames so that In Range players stand out more compared to Out of Range players? It makes it easier to quickly pick a heal target in Warzones.

 

 

3. Keybinding

Is it possible to set up party & raid frames for click casting? So I can have the Tank targetted and keyboard heal him, and use my mouse to click other party/raid members to cast heals on them while still having the Tank targetted? In WoW I ran with XPerl, Clique & Decursive to achieve this, it made healing 10/25m raids so much easier.

 

In SWTOR, I'd love to bind Kolto Probe to either left or right click for the party/raid frames, is it possible to do that? I find myself keyboard moving & turning a lot in combat, I guess because my abilities don't all fit onto the main action bar, and my BF's companion is our party tank so I find it awkward to switch between party members via keyboard.

 

So help setting up click casting would be brilliant, otherwise any tips for using my keyboard & mouse more efficiently in party & WZs would be great.

 

 

4. Gear

What is the best way to gear up at level 55?

 

Should I wait until I'm maxxed out my Cybertech, then craft mods for my orange pieces? Or are there other gear paths I should be taking? I am working on the Matrix Cube and other Datacrons right now. I don't have augments yet but I plan to do some more questing for credits so I can buy some.

 

Apart from that, I'm not entirely sure how to go about upgrading the rest of my gear. I've no idea what type of randoms I am geared enough for in the FP group finder thing. I don't want to volunteer for something I can't heal. I'm in 50 purple mods from the planet comm vendor, two pieces black hole gear, one or two 53 blues I dug up with seeker droid, two pieces of partisan (ear/imp) and a classic comm relic. What do you suggest I queue for?

 

Also is this stat priority ok for both PVE & PVP?

Cunning > Power > Crit (to 30%) > Surge > Alacrity

Edit: Since Alacrity reduces the GCD, would this be better, or do I still need to prioritise Crit/Surge for PVP?

Cunning > Power > Alacrity > Crit > Surge

 

Thanks to anyone who can help out with any of these topics!

Edited June 14, 2013 by Solloby

[Gronkaarr]

1) Spec - you can move points from sedatives into med shield or chem resistant inlays. both of these will give you more survivability. or you can put them into slip away in the lethality tree, which is useful in pvp

 

2) UI - I use the two main bars plus the cover bar, and I also use the side bars, but resized them to be smaller and adjusted rows/columns to make them shaped as boxes. i group the abilities in a way that lets me see the cooldowns easily. also you should enable the view party frames as raid frames and then resize the party frames to see a large health bar with percentage value displayed. this helps you see the low hp targets quickly and also see which ones are below 30% for the free SP heal

 

3) keybinds - i use a razer naga mouse which makes it so easy. for targeting i mostly use tab targeting but its sometimes unreliable so I also will left click my target from the raid frame when needed. with the naga mouse, it's just left click target and then another mouse button click to heal, very fast and easy. don't use the keyboard to turn, it's so slow. learn to use the mouse to turn, especially in pvp. just unbind the keys that let you turn and you'll learn to use the mouse quickly

 

4) gear - it's so straightforward now, just grind comms. read the dulfy.net guide if you can't figure it out. if you do operations you can get the better gear that has set bonuses, from the boss drops. if you dont do ops then just run the weekly quests in sectionx, makeb and black hole and do your FP/Group finder dailies and FP weekly. you'll quickly get a lot of basic and elite comms and you'll get black hole and black market drops too from the HMs. if you don't raid, this is pretty much the top end of pve gear you'll be able to get, and it's pretty much all you need

[Hasdrabul]

I recommend checking out noxxic.com. A great, basic guide (stat priority, gear, talent build, etc).

 

Using a Naga makes everything, as the above said, so much easier. I run a Med/Lethality Hybrid, so I can have my Corrosive Dart/Corrosive Grenade DoTs, along with Cull, and give BHs the ability to have their Rail Shot available almost constantly. Using the raid frame and simply clicking left button, then the mouse button to heal works wonders, as mentioned above.

 

I also use the quickbar swap function, wherein my first bar and second bar house my most important functions. Using the "E" button bound for Quickbar Swap from QB1 to QB6 makes everything easier.

[Kufuffelupagus]

1) I would agree with what Gronkaarr said.

2) For my scoundrel I use three bars at the bottom- top is for heals, middle for DPS, bottom for things like interrupts, cc breaker, stealth etc. I keybound them to be 1 to = for top, then Shift+1 to Shift+= for middle, Control+1 to Control+= for bottom. An extra box to the right for vanity items, and a side bar for mounts, buffs, and other abilities. Here is a screenshot for you (ignore that it's a PvP board, it was an average game at who knows what level so I'm not trying to say anything about my PvPing ) My "cover bar" is exactly the same as my normal bar, I did that on purpose because I've found that as a healer, there's no reason for them to be different.

 

Perhaps put the Cartel Market icon in the bottom left corner? Or on the left-hand side of the bar at the top, unless it interferes with chat.

 

I don't think you can change anything to make in range and out of range players easier to differentiate; you'll notice out of range characters are faded in the Ops frame compared to ones in-range. Unfortunately there's no way to tell if those in range are Line of Sighting you.

 

3) I'm not familiar with "XPerl, Clique & Decursive" so I'm not sure how to replicate that. I've been meaning to set up bindings on my Logitech G300 mouse but haven't been bothered to yet, so I only have the keyboard bindings I've outlined in point 2 above.

 

4) As Gronkaarr has said, grinding comms is the way to go. I recommend doing flashpoints as well; if you've got all or mostly 61s/ 63s, you should be geared enough to run 55 Hard Modes.

[Timurra]

You can set your key bindings to select group and next group members, I have them on "Y" and "U" respectively. it is good for strafing heals but harder for targeted heals. In slower paced i just use the mouse.

[Solloby]

Thanks for all the super help guys! I spent a couple of hours today setting up my UI properly, and adjust my spec a bit. Thanks for pointing out Slip Away Gronkaar, it's a neat talent. And thank you for the UI pic Kufuffelupagus, it was very helpful to look at a screenie to get some ideas. I also made my cover bar the same as my normal bar ^.^

 

I'll start working on the Dailies and FPs, I found in the group finder thing recommended gear item levels, so now I know which ones I am ok for.

 

I have a Razer Deathadder so only 2 side buttons, I tied Kolto Probe & Surgical Probe to them so I can instant cast heal while running. I would have preferred to tie Vent to one of them to free up my casting hand (I have tiny hands and can't reach past 6 with my pinky on Shift to talk on Vent) but my mouse driver is bugged and I couldn't fix it so, instant cast heals it is.

 

 

 

The only thing I couldn't fix was my propensity to Stupid moments. I just called West in Voidstar and wondered why nobody came to defend the door while they were capping... then saw the great big 'there's a bomb on the East door' text on my screen. I really wish they'd label the Blast Doors, I always get confused there for some reason, I feel like the map picture is back to front or something >.<

 

Thanks again everyone for helping me! I hope all my changes will make me a better player