Brand new to the game, decided to play with a group of friends. By no means am I'm look for the 100% effectiveness solo raid healer awesomeness, just a little confused by all the abilities and looking for some advice.

Need some help on what my quickbars should look like as I am the solo healer for a 1 healer 1 tank 2 dps group

DISCLAIMER: I don't heal group content often, but I do play sawbones as my main spec and have used it while doing all solo content in the game.

Well I'm assuming you mean at the level you have all your abilities? I guess some general advice might be helpful. I don't remember what any of them are called, but I can give you what information I have. make sure you have your HoT on an easy to remember key (the one that puts a slow release medpack on your target). keep in mind most of our heals are a cast time so be sure to cast the low energy one in advance of needing it. I believe one of those casted ones will also proc another ability to become an instant heal, so be sure to utilize that in heavy damage scenarios. For group damage be sure to have the aoe healing ready as well.

I believe a "basic" healing rotation can be as little as 4 keys, but "basic expanded" would be 7 (to include aoe and cleanse). I recommend keeping the direct channel heal ready too, this is sort of my default heal when the tank is taking damage but I already have a HoT on them and they don't need bigger chunky heals. Our roll gives us stacks of upperhand (I think), which enables a powerful heal (instant I think) to be used, so keep that in mind if things get too dicey.

Sorry I can't be more help, perhaps someone can give you more specific pointers but this should at least get you started. I can only say experiment, and find what works for you, the above is more of guidelines rather than rules. I am currently not much of an authority on sawbones healing sadly, but I'll be playing it a lot over the summer so I might be by the time the xpac launches lol

DISCLAIMER: I don't heal group content often, but I do play sawbones as my main spec and have used it while doing all solo content in the game.

I think you've confused merc/mando heals with scoundrel/ops a bit. Scoundrels have no direct channel heal (outside of the channeled aoe that should rarely be used in small groups), just instant and activated heals.

Re: quickbar setup- it varies with everone, depending on how much keybinding vs clicking you want to do. The main thing is that you want to be able to use your instant cast abilities (kolto probe, kolto cloud, emergency medpack) while moving.

I recommend Vulkk or Dulfy for class guides - the 5.0 and up are still relevant.

http://dulfy.net/2017/03/27/swtor-5-0-medicine-operative-pve-guide-by-mac/

For quickbar set-up: I can't help you there. I do a mix of keybinds and clicking that works for me, but would probably make the NiM/Ranked healers cringe.

Hey, since this thread is already 1.5 months old you may not need any advice, but it can‘t hurt if I still reply.

Quickbar setup is totally up to personal preference, but here is how I do it: I have 3 horizontal quickbars with 12 slots each in the middle and 2 little blocks left and right for skills I don‘t need in battles like quicktravel or my mounts. In my top quickbar I have all my healing skills + my anti movement purge ability. In the 2nd one I have my defenesive cds, my stealth abilities and my warzone medpacks. In the 3rd one I have my cc‘s and attack skills.

I only got into keybinds very recently. First I started with only 4-6 keybinds and slowly got into more over time. My operative is my first one with all skills I usually use on keybind besides my 3rd bar (the attack skills). When I don‘t know my class very good and don‘t know which skills are used regulary I just keybind the 4-6 most important ones and slowly add other abilities when I notice I use them regulary untill I basically don‘t have to click any more ones. I very much struggled to get into keybind, but now that I am here I am very satisfied and would never go back to clicking.

Some very basic Operative heal advice: Keep your 2 stacks of kolto probes on all of your team mates and refresh them with surgical probe. Always keep reoccupied nanotech (or however that ability is called) on cd. Your best panic button is probably stim boost and then an instant kolto infusion followed by the auto crit surgical probe (if you have chosen the legendary utility). For healers I found it best to get info on the basics and then work your way from there untill you find the best fit for all ability usages.