I played when the game was first released then took a break. I played a commando before and am doing so again. Before I leveled as a healer and just used my DPS companion. Is this a complete waste of time? If not, could you help me with some possible builds? Should I go into DPS before I go into heals at all?

Any help would be great thanks.

I do not have a Commando, but my main is a Mercenary. I levelled using the Arsenal tree (The mirror of Gunnery for a Commando) up until 40, where I respecced into Bodyguard (Combat Medic to you).

Levelling as a healer is much slower in my experience, so if you want speed, then your best bet is to level as a DPS. I personally find levelling healers more fun, and it also allows me to get used to new abilities from a healing point of view one at a time, rather than having to figure out everything at once.

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#800bfRMRbcdkfzZrcoZb.2

This is a basically the build I use on my Mercenary, only in a Commando skill tree. There's not a huge amount of room for change within it really, but if you wanted to have a play around with it then you could take the 2 points out of Weapons Calibrations and put them into something like Cell Capacitor if you don't feel confident enough in keeping your heat low. Alternatively, for levelling purposes, you could benefit more from moving the points from Weapons Calibrations into Efficient Conversions and Combat Shield. That way, you've got a few bonuses for a bit of control without using heat and you can always pop your shield and carry on healing if your tank companion messes it all up!

From an end-game PvE sort of perspective, I'd highly reccomend the build I posted. It's pretty much got all the bread and butter skills and talents for the Commando healer, so you should be good to go with that

TL;DR - Take a look at that build, it's really good for an end game PvE Combat Medic. Leveling with Gunnery or the other DPS tree (forget it's name) would be faster than leveling with Combat Medic.

I leveled as a combat medic, mainly used Aric Jorgan until I got M1, then when Tanno came along I used him.

It was great fun and didn't take long, just remember to gear your companion and mortar volley FTW!

Tank companions are probably the best, make sure to keep them well geared tho' that way they do more dps, and because you don't need to spam heal them, you can do more dps.

Send tank in, give it a few seconds to grab aggro from all, then aoe like a good'un = all dead

I played when the game was first released then took a break. I played a commando before and am doing so again. Before I leveled as a healer and just used my DPS companion. Is this a complete waste of time? If not, could you help me with some possible builds? Should I go into DPS before I go into heals at all?

 

Any help would be great thanks.

I'm leveling my commando as a healer and finding it really simple to do. I'm using the combat medic tree and I'm doing the odd FP/WZ. Questing is ok as commando have a lot of AOE so trash packs aren't a problem. Either use the Mortar volley when off CD or Plasma Grenade and mix in some other moves that AOE. I'm loving it and personally I've started using tank companion for hard elites and normal trash using Aric. He is pretty good at mowing down trash.

All in all I feel its as speedy as any other with more control over how long you survive and also how long you can keep your companion alive.

I played when the game was first released then took a break. I played a commando before and am doing so again. Before I leveled as a healer and just used my DPS companion. Is this a complete waste of time? If not, could you help me with some possible builds? Should I go into DPS before I go into heals at all?

 

Any help would be great thanks.

If you inlocked your legacy tree, you can add legacy perks to increase the speed of your progression in game. Leveling a healing sage, and it's really easy because am gaining 36% XP on my class quest and PVP.

In my humble opinion, level as a healer. You can only get the rotation down well when you do that. I see players in level 50 PVP heal, it hurts to watch them, because they do not understand their abilities and haven't learned when to use them.

Of course you will eventually figure it out, but when you level a class, you can stop playing that class for awhile and comeback to it and pick it up like nothing.

I went full combatmedic. Accept I put all my extra points in AIM for gunnery.

I'm at 29 with mostly the Heal tree. The DPS from Commando even with a heal spec is so great that there is little need to get much from the other trees. I use Aric and I rarely have to heal him for much, even against elites, because I work to stay geared and as many levels ahead as possible. 5 or 6 lvls ahead makes the game go very fast, and it makes the heroics doable even with poor pugs. Aric can take out Golds by himself, and together we take out Champions and bosses very quickly. This is my 4th alt into the 3rd act (with 2 50's), so I have an extra 230 points of presence and that makes a huge difference as well.

I will set 4x up, but I hope I don't have to use him. Also, too, Elara. Sometimes you just have to be on the boss so you can get the interrupts done.

Finally, get the exp boost backs from the Cartel. 25% extra exp on everything for about $1 a level. Very much worth it.

So, yes, level as a healer. I have leveled a sage and a scoundrel as heals and ti went fine - as is this commando.