Current as of Patch 1.1.5, this thread is meant to be a pvp-oriented reference aid to both new and experienced commandos. If you'd prefer a guide that tends to have more of a pve flavor, check out B-rub's detailed post in these forums. For vanguard troopers, look to Yojack's excellent thread. This is NOT the be-all-end-all of how to spec/play a commando, but a place for thoughtful discussion about the class. I'll admit up front that I am definitely biased towards pvp which is why this guide is focused towards that end. That said, pve is given some attention as well. I plan to continually update this guide due to player input, and as SWToR evolves and changes. Useful criticism/opinions are appreciated. Hopefully, with enough support, we players can make this guide a useful reference to all players interested in GOING COMMANDO.

Since many players look to these guides for talent tree builds, I'll begin with those and detailed descriptions of each, then follow up that section with others focused on ability descriptions, FAQs, reader input, reference links, and a few images. On a personal note, even as a 76 Valor War Hero with 2 full sets of Battlemaster Gear, I feel like I still have a lot to learn when playing my commando and I know I make mistakes EVERY warzone I play. However, I do constantly strive to be better and hopefully through this thread, I will discover more ways to improve with help/advice from other players. With that in mind, please post and share your opinions/facts to help make this thread better. This guide is by no means finalized, nor will it likely ever be, and that's a good thing.

Fellow troopers, I salute you!

Jezazel, commando, Nadd's Sarcophagus

This guide is in a beta state, and still needs work. I'm posting it now because a few people asked me to throw up what I've typed to this point. Also, by posting it, maybe it'll motivate me to finish it faster rather than play more SWtOR!

Update: I'm slowly but surely plugging away and hopefully by the end of this weekend the guide will be in a relatively fleshed-out state. TY for the comments both on these boards and in-game. Please post your criticisms/views. The good stuff will be added in the Community Commentary section.

1. [jumpto=SkillTrees]Skill Tree Builds[/jumpto]

2. [jumpto=TalentDesc]Skill Tree Descriptions[/jumpto]

3. [jumpto=AbilityDesc] Ability Descriptions[/jumpto]

4. [jumpto=CommandoFAQs] Frequently Asked Questions and Tips[/jumpto]

5. [jumpto=FeedbackCommentary]Community Commentary[/jumpto]

6. [jumpto=MoLinkage]Useful Links[/jumpto]

7. [jumpto=TroopahPix]Commando Images[/jumpto]

• The Supercharged Hybrid (heals and Grav Round):
   
  This build and minor variations on it are by far my favorite to play and what I run 70-85% of the time. Primarily built for GROUP pvp (not 1v1), this is specifically meant to be played while running Combat Support Cell (CSC). Don't be fooled into thinking it's only useful in pvp however, because I used this same build to solo heal multiple hardmode flashpoints right when dinging level 50 (in supposedly "undergeared" groups where we were mostly wearing sub-level 50 blues/greens).
   
  As a hybrid, you are not a healer, nor a dpser, you are a "fill-in-the-gaps" kinda guy. One warzone you might drop 400k+ healing on your enemies, the next 250k dmg to go with 200k+ healing. To do this, your goal is typically to try and get 30 charges of CSC ASAP while also keeping your ammo count relatively high. Keeping your ammo high should always be a goal for any trooper unless you're trying for all-out burst dmg/healing (more on this in the FAQs and Tips section further below in this post). Ammo recharges more slowly as you drop it further and further which is a good move by Bioware that limits burst output (both healing and/or dmg). I typically use my Recharge Cells ability to keep my ammo count high rather than waiting till I am low or nearly out of ammo.
   
  Thanks to the Field Triage talent, you can easily get 30 charges of CSC by using Advanced Medical Probe (AMP) followed by Medical Probe (MdP) whenever you see an ally in need of healing. The two combined cost you almost nothing ammo-wise since you'll regen it quite quickly. Just keep sprinkling heals around every now and then. Your allies will appreciate it, and your allied healers in the warzone (if there are any) often benefit from you slowing down enemy damage a bit. Alternatively, you can act like a Ghostbuster, and run around in combat healing your allies with Hammer Shot (a great aid when respositioning yourself in combat). Hammer Shot healing has no ammo cost, puts up solid numbers (especially when criting) and is THE BEST on-the-go form of healing in the game. Just be aware the green beam draws a lot of enemy aggro and will often incur a "kill that healer now" response from the enemy. Personally, I love the green beam and use it to lure enemies chasing me deep into our ranks where my team can focus fire them with less worry about my stalker receiving heals.
   
  Once you have 30 charges up, activate Supercharge Cells and you're ready to do some seriously kickass burst healing or dps (I usually pop my trinkets first since those last 20 seconds vs the shorter duration of Superchage Cells). If under duress from enemies trying to interrupt you, pop Reactive Shield and you can go about your business mostly unhindered. I'll usually lead off a Supercharged Cells sequence by throwing a Kolto Bomb (which heals up to 3 allies as well as reducing their damage taken by 10% for 15 seconds) and try to place the bomb such that it lands where multiple allies are being attacked; sometimes this is right at my feet to protect myself and nearby friends, other times it's off in the distance. After the healing and shield from Kolto Bomb hit, thanks to Supercharge Cells removing the cooldown on AMP, I'll start healing everyone like crazy with a rotation of AMP->MdP->AMP->MdP etc and finish off with yet another Kolto Bomb. This is all very ammo efficient and can turn the tide of battle. Alternatively, I may instead activate a crit/power trinket, pop Supercharge Cells, toss out the Kolto Bomb/shield, and then begin hammering enemies with Charged Bolts (with this build it has zero ammo cost while Supercharge Cells is active) to speed up the killing process.
   
  So by now you're probably saying, "where's the "hybrid" in all of this healing nonsense you keep babbling about? Most of what you've talked about so far is heals grrrr, I want to kill stuff DPS ZOMG!" Fear not my fellow trooper! Grav Round (GrvR) is fantastic, and with 2 stacks of the debuff going up per shot, you can really help your allies by tossing out a couple shots at whatever they are beating on. Consulars and Agents are also primary targets for your Grav Round because they take HUGE damage and it's great fun to make them miserable as you hound them all over the battlefield. Other potent offensive abilities that should be staples of your rotation are are High Impact Bolt (HiB), Sticky Grenade (SGnade) and your Hammer Shot basic attack (HShot). Be careful not to spam GrvR because you can easily run yourself out of ammo which is never a good thing (this is a common error that kill-hungry, or even veteran, troopers commit now and then). Keep your ammo high by mixing in a hammer shot attack/heal or reposition yourself to drop some AoE on the enemy. Maybe throw a few heals out. If your Grav Round gets interrupted (as it frequently will), Charged Bolts is great if enemies are beating on you, or Full Auto for pve situations. Full Auto can be used to good effect in pvp, but only if you're not being attacked directly. Otherwise enemy attacks can cause a bit of pushback to Full Auto and you won't pump out the entire amount of damage.
   
  Still want more dps stuffs? YES SIR! Trooper AoE attacks are among the best in the game which is why they have cooldowns so players must use them judiciously. Your best ranged AoE is Motar Volley (MV). However, in pvp enemies tend to move out from the circle quickly which can be frustrating. To make things easier, use your Reserve Powercell ability (if it's off cooldown) and lead off with an Incendiary Grenade (IGnade). Then follow it up with Motar Volley. The IGnade will set multiple enemies on fire, and in the confusion, they rarely notice the circle from your MV. If by that time, the enemies still haven't scattered, continue the rotation with a Hail of Bolts and laugh yourself silly as everyone's health drops massively. Still want more? Run in to point-black range and hit them with your Pluse Cannon. Depending on your ammo levels, you can then pop Recharge Cells (ReCells) to continue plugging away as you giggle maniacally.
   
  Back on the non-dps side of things, Trauma Probe, the heal-over-time (HoT) from Preventive Medicine and Kolto Bomb are just a few of the many excellent tools that allow you to successfully fill-in-those-gaps in pvp. The hidden treasure tho, especially in WZs is Tenacious Defense and Concussive Force. This allows you to AoE knockback 5 enemies every 20 seconds. Slap on 2 pieces of your pvp Eliminators set, and that drops the cooldown a further 5 seconds. This means, that every 15 seconds, you can knock 5 enemies back. So 4x per minute versus the default of 2. They also fly waaaay the heck back thanks to Concussive Force. Combined, these talents make your Concussion Charge godly for protecting nodes in Civil War or getting enemy groups off the door in Voidstar (although it's often better to pop Reserve Powercell and simply hit them with Incediary Grenade/Motar Volley/Hail of Bolts first, and then go in for the AoE knockback).
   
  An added benefit of having Concussion Charge at a 15 second cooldown is that I'll often use it even on enemies with a full resolve bar up. Why? Because the Resolve Bar does not affect snares, and the secondary effect of Concussion Charge is a 4 second snare! Slowing down enemy movement is a great way to aid your allies because it limits enemies ability to run from melee, or LoS ranged/AoE attacks. A cautionary note is to NOT use Concussion Charge to kick juggernauts/marauders/sentinels/guardians (and in some cases powertech/vanguards) off of you unless you can quickly duck out of Line of Sight (LoS). Why? Because by knocking those particular enemies back without quickly LoSing them, you give jedi knights/sith warriors a nice and easy opening to use Force Charge/Leap. This not only puts them right back on top of you, but it also immobolizes you for at least 2 seconds, interrupts any action you were taking, AND it gives them +3 force/rage which = more pain for you. So use your godly knockback/CC abilities wisely in pvp, or your enemies will exploit it against you mwhahaha.
   
  Tenacious Defense also means you always seem to have Tenacity (your stunbreak) up for use when needed and are less reluctant to save it for critical situations. Most rookies panic and use their stunbreak too soon instead of building up a nice fat resolve bar, but that's another matter entirely.
   
  Although this build is what I run, there are a number of variations on it that might work better for your needs. I have many Imperial friends on my server, and I am told that every WZ I'm in there is a target marker floating around above my head because I'm a high priority target to many of Nadd's Sarcophagus Imps. As a result I have tweaked this Healing/Grav Round build for the abuse/focus fire I experience continually in WZs. When I used to be given less attention by multiple enemies in WZs, I found that I prefered switching the 2 points in Treated Wounds (dmg reduction) over to Med Zone (better healing when activating Reactive Shield). I also used to run with dps heavy groups, and during that time, rather than have the 1 talent point in Gravity Surge for the extra stack per shot, I instead placed it into Psych Aid. The reason for this is that when enemies use AoE stunning abilities like Intimidating Roar, I was able to quickly pop up (normally a death sentence since all enemies immediately focus on you) and use Field Aid on an ally so that two of us were back in the fight ASAP. I also really enjoy the hyperactive feeling I get when the alacrity/speed boost kicks in from First Responder, but when I regularly ran WZs with a friend on his healing Sage, I instead placed those two talent points into Kolto Residue to help him out since I toss Kolto Bomb frequently in WZs. Similarly, when I ran with that same sage, we dabbled with me putting two points into Charged Barrier instead of Heavy Trooper with neither of us noticing much of a difference in my survivability.
   
  Gear-wise, I find this build goes best with 2 pieces each of the pve and pvp Eliminator's sets. The two piece bonus from the pvp Eliminators, as mentioned above, will allow you to use Concussion Charge every 15 seconds while the pve Eliminator's set will make your Grav Round and Charged Bolts truly scary damage-wise. At this point, you may be wondering why I advise against the Combat Medic sets, and it really boils down to the set bonuses not being as awesome. The Combat Medic set bonuses are good, they're just somewhat underwhelming in comparison. My main complaints about the pvp Combat Medics 2 piece set bonus are that it is tied to an ability with a 2 minute cooldown which greatly reduces it's usefulness in pvp. As an alternative, some players may find it preferable to run 2 pieces of either Eliminator's set along with 2 pieces of their pve Combat Medic's set for 3 second increase to Supercharge Cells which is used much more often.
   
  Much of your gear decisions will really depend on how much of a beating you take in WZs. If you regularly run with healers, you may not need to worry so much about having a high Expertise stat to minimize damage and can instead wear pve gear to boost everything you do when not being beat on. In my case, Expertise and HP are king because I'm constantly being hammered hard. I'm often the only (semi-) healer in a warzone because I frequently solo queue warzones to meet new people vs rolling slam-dunking 4 man groups. More on mixing pve and pvp gear in the FAQs and Tips section further below in this post.
   
  Build Criticisms: the weaknesses of this build are primarily that it doesn't have any of the top shelf instant-cast abilities like Bacta-Infusion (BacIn) for healing or Demolition Round (DemR) for damage. This means that you're much easier to shut down with 1-2 enemies on you. A powertech bounty hunter with the talents to improve Quell for example can lock you down while also keeping you DoT'd which makes it tough to survive 1v1. If you want maximum survivability as a healer, go 31 deep and enemies will curse your name endlessly as you never seem to die. If you want to top the dps charts in your WZ or pve op, go 31points deep and get Demolition Round or Assault Plastique. But if you like teamwork, and helping make your allies better, the Supercharged Hybrid might just be the build for you.
   
   
  
• The Immortal Healer:
   
  With this build you can't kill a kitten, but 3 velociraptors, a TIE fighter, 2 angry chickens and Steve Urkel with a broomstick have no chance of taking you down. I kid, I kid. You can kill stuff, it just takes awhile versus a more damage-focused build. Your AoE attacks like Incendiary Grenade, Mortar Volley and Pulse Cannon still do good damage and your Hammer Shot allows you to chip away at an enemy's health while they have an exceedingly difficult time killing you.
   
  Bacta Infusion offsets one of a commando's main weaknesses by giving you an instant-cast heal that cannot be stopped by enemies, and when combined with 4-5 points in Potent Medicine, all your heals will crit for significantly higher amounts. Similarly, putting points into the alacrity improving talents helps in getting healing casts off more easily. You'll want to constantly keep Trauma Probe on yourself to minimize any incoming damage, but in a pinch you can even toss it onto an ally to buffer them a bit as you heal them back up to full. The talent point in Psych Aid allows you to wake allies up from enemy effects that would otherwise be unremovable by you (a Jedi Knight's Awe for example).
   
  If you'd like to add a bit more damage dealing back into this build while still retaining the almighty Bacta Infusion, I'd recommend pulling the points from Weapon Calibration and Heavy Trooper, and putting them into Steadied Aim and Muzzle Fluting. This will make your Charged Bolts and Full Auto more viable in PvP without sacrificing too much healing potential. Popping Supercharge Cells will reduce your Charged Bolts cost to 0 (yes, zero!!) meaning ZOMG IT'S TIME TO DPS DOO EET DOOO DEEEEPZ!... *ahem*
   
  Gear-wise, both the pve and pvp set bonuses are great with the 4 piece bonus of both being especially good as it lowers the cooldown on both Advanced Medical Probe and Bacta Infusion. A 1.5 second reduction of Advanced Medical Probe and 3 secs off of Bacta Infusion's cooldowns may not sound like much, but the difference is huge once put into action, and reinforces your durability and healing potential significantly. As a healer, you WILL be getting beat on frequently and often in warzones, so you'll definitely benefit from having some Expertise, although how much is debatable. I've heard plenty of people say that anything over 500-600 or 10% Expertise is a waste which may be true for their experiences. I typically have 1-3 enemies on me about 60-70% of the time every WZ, so stacking Expertise and HP has worked best for me. More on gear below in the FAQs and Tips section.
   
  Build Criticisms: because I'm consistently under pressure from enemies in most warzones, i find less usefullness in Kolto Residue because I am frequently unable to heal for 10 seconds straight without interruption, much less 15, unless Guarded by a tanking ally or paired with a second healer. However, if you have less attention thrown your way, you may prefer buffing your Kolto Bomb over, say, Treated Wound Dressings (dmg reduction) or First Responder (alacrity on crit). I also don't bother with Armor screen because while it looks good on paper, much of the damage experienced in the game is not mitigated by armor whatsoever (AFAIK this applies to "internal damage" and "elemental damage", but please correct me if I'm wrong). Armor Screen isn't a bad talent for either pvp/pve, it's just that I feel there are better options that ALWAYS benefit you vs the more situational advantages of Armor Screen's buff.
   
  I also still haven't had time to give enough experimentation to variously balanced builds of +power/tech power/crit/surge/alacrity and Expertise/Aim/Endurance, but do hope to play with more of these variations in the future. In the current state of the game, itemization is a mess, and I just haven't done as much experimenting as I'd like beyond some modest stacking of Endurance/Expertise and/or crit/power/surge. I can say however that I am intrigued to do more of this in the future. I have watched some friends on their Sage stack Willpower, and their general consensus is that at a some point around ~1850 Willpower, it's better to just continue stacking their primary stat versus combinations of power/crit/surge.For now, I have not yet delved far enough into this aspect of metagaming SWtOR.
   
  Lastly, no commando guide that even mentions healing would be complete without linking to RuQu's guide for Combat Medics. Check it out, it's a thoroughly detailed treasure trove of information.
   
   
  
• Solo Act Superstar (Gunnery/Medic hybrid):
   
  This hybrid build is for players who prefer to focus on being a self-sufficient damage dealer rather than a team-oriented "fill-in-the-gaps" kinda commando. A variation on the Supercharged Hybrid from above, this build is spec'd to run Armor- piercing Cell for significantly increased damage, yet still retains the weakness of being dependant on abilities with cast times. You'll be less useful at healing others, but quite capable at healing yourself. Players should try to attain a decent amount of crit (around 25% should be a minimum IMO) to take advantage of Cell Charger/First Responder's effects as they pew pew Grav Round in between tossing Sticky Grenades and moving about the battlefield.
   
  Charged Barrier will help to minimize damage taken by the player and if they notice their health getting low, they can start running as they toss down a Kolto Bomb and look for a place to heal themselves safely (hopefully while the Kolto Residue effect is still active). Your teammates may not vote you MVP as often since you likely won't be tossing out as many heals as a commando running Combat Support Cell, but at the end of the match, your enemies are much more likely to fear the damage you dish out.
   
  Gear-wise, I'd recommend running 2 pieces of your pve Eliminator's set for the massive increase to crit chance and 2 pieces of pvp Eliminator's to reduce your AoE knockback/snare cooldown to 15 seconds. If you're frequently taking a huge beating from enemies, you may be better off just running 4 pieces of your pvp Eliminator's set but that 2 piece pve bonus is just so godly on what is probably your most important ability that I'd make sure to get that versus the less-potent 4 piece bonuses of either Eliminator's set (pve or pvp).
   
  Build Criticisms: when compared to the build below (The Demolition Man), you're losing quite a bit of dps and the highly useful instant-cast Demolition Round, but in exchange you're gaining more healing ability. Some players are of the mentality that if you're a damage dealing class, then doing that as well as possible is the best way to survive, and that is certainly a valid viewpoint. Yet not everyone wants to be a glass cannon and some players prefer to sacrifice damage to gain added survivability. I respec a few times each week just to have fun playing other builds (and keep my enemies guessing), so I see both sides of the coin. Which side you prefer is up to you.
   
   
  
• The Demolition Man (maxed Gunnery tree for pvp dps):
   
  Meant to be used Armor-piercing Cell, this pvp-oriented build is all about damage, death, and destruction. Demolition Round, Grav Round, High Impact Bolt, Sticky Grenade, Hammer Shot and Concussion Charge are the focus of this build which means it's pretty easy to play and has fewer buttons to fuss over vs many other hybrid or healing builds.
   
  Gearwise dishing out damage is what you do and you need to do it as well as possible. With this in mind you should definitely be wearing 2 pieces of your pve Eliminator's set for the awesome bonus to Grav Round and Charged Bolts. After that, it's a case-by-case basis for each player depending on whether they prefer the utility of the 2 piece pvp Eliminator's knockback cooldown reduction, or wearing full pve gear for the 4 piece bonus (1 less ammo for HiB). YMMV
   
  Build Criticisms: notice that the Full Auto boosting talents are almost completely ignored because I feel that it's an inferior ability in pvp versus Grav Round and Charged Bolts. That's not to say Full Auto should never be used in pvp, it's just that enemy attacks reduce FullAuto's ammo efficiency since they reduce some of the damage dealt. If you tend to spend most of your time with SW:tOR doing pve content however, then not only does Full Auto become MUCH more useful to your damage dealing abilities, but the points in healing become less so. With that in mind, I'd remove 2 points from Advanced Tech and 1 from Heavy Trooper in favor of Curtain of Fire. Cover Fire is still questionable but can be nice for slowing down the action in pve or to snare an enemy in pvp. If you're set on using Full Auto in both pve/pvp situations ( I will admit I love to see the animation of Full Auto and listen to the noises), and tend to have a healer rolling with you, this build might be more to your liking.
   
  It's also quite feasible to pull all the points out of combat medic except the 3 in Field Training (more crit is good!) and throw those into the Assault tree as you make your way up to Parallactic Combat Stims. This is definitely the way to go if you regularly pvp with a healer IMO as it'll help to keep your ammo going strong as you kill one enemy after the other. Sure you might think it'd be better to heal your ally with the points you coulda had in Combat Medic, but why not just KILL THEM instead? mwhahah!
   
   
  
• Some Like It Hot, or, the Pyromaniac (31pt Assault Specialist):
   
  I will say up front that I think the Assault tree isn't nearly as potent for commandos as it is for vanguards. There are a variety of reasons, but that's my opinion (for now at least) and I'm sticking to it. Even worse is that the recent patch 1.1.5 changes removed damage-over-time abilities as a means of preventing enemies from capping points/doors in warzones which took away some of the usefulness of this tree. For the record, I think this change to DoTs and capping points was a GOOD move by Bioware, but for Assault specialists, it definitely took away a bit of their mojo. The Assault tree is by no means bad and is actually fantastic for 1v1 as well as group pvp, it's just that the burst damage is much more difficult to time and not on par with the Gunnery Tree.
   
  Now with all that said and out of the way, the Assault tree definitely has some awesome aspects to it, and if you're sick of being interrupted whilst in the middle of shooting Grav Round, the pvp-oriented nature of Assault might just be what you're looking for. Meant to be run with Plasma Cell, this build is all about setting every enemy you see ablaze. You're highly mobile since Incediary Round, Assault Plastique and High Impact Bolt are instant-cast abilities which lets you position yourself perfectly for the real magic of this build. See, as you're running around tossing out DoT's, the battlefield becomes a firestorm which makes it harder for players to notice little details like.... MOTAR VOLLEY. Oh yes my friends, thanks to the flames, you will often find yourself unconcerned about setting up Motar Volley with a Reserve Powercelled Incediary Grenade like what I described up above in the Supercharged Hybrid buid. Nah... you've already splashed fire all over the place with Incendiary Round, so it's pretty easy to just keep dropping Motar Volley each and every tiime it's up. The enemy healers will thank you for giving them something to do and the flames everywhere just give group combat a very chaotic feel which I love.
   
  Because Incendiary Round is instant-cast and so fun to toss at multiple enemies, it's very similar to Grav Round spamming in that you can very easily put yourself into a low ammo-situation. To avoid this, learn to not launch Incendiary Round at more than 2 enemies in Rapid succession, and be very aware of your ammo at all times. Keeping your ammo high should always be a goal for any trooper unless you're trying for all-out burst dmg/healing (more on this in the FAQs and Tips section further below in this post).
   
  Gearwise Assault commandos will probably do best going with 4 pieces of pvp Eliminator's gear for a 15% increased crit chance on High Impact Bolt. Depending on your playstyle, however, you may instead prefer mixing and matching two pieces of

  1. pvp Combat Medic's set for an increase of 3 seconds to their Reactive Shield. This boost from 12 to 15 seconds is further enhanced with Talent Points in Reflexive Shield which can shorten the cooldown of your shield when damage is taken. Mobility can be even further enhanced with two pieces of-
     
  2. pvp Eliminator's set bonus is a cooldown reduction of 5 seconds to Concussion Charge. This drops you down from 30 seconds to 25. Or perhaps you'd prefer-
     
  3. pve Eliminator's set bonus 15% increase increase to Charged Bolts crit chance. Very nice since this will be your 4th most important damage dealing ability (and probably your 1st or 2nd for burst damage situations). If you go this route, you may want to take note of the tweaks listed below in Build Criticisms.

   

  Build Criticisms: it's a tough call and will really depend on the playstyle of the individual, but you may prefer removing the 3 talent points from Field Training (losing that 6% increased ranged/tech crit rate) and place those points into Steadied Aim (pushback reduction) to make sure that when you need to fire Charged Bolts, you're able to do so baring tons of incoming damage or an interrupt by the opponent.

   

  Something else important to understand about the Assault Specialist tree is that Burnout is IMO pretty much required in pvp if you hope to actually be able to kill many enemies when a healer is around. Otherwise, your damage is just so slow and consistent up till that point, it's quite easy for a healer to offset your damage with just a few heals. Even with Burnout, it's very important to try and time the combination of a Plasma Cell proc with Incendiary Round, Assault Plastique, HiB and a few Charged Bolts salvos. Not that you need to time all of those perfectly, but the more of them you can time together, the more frequently you'll kill. This is why Burnout is so key, because when you've gotten an enemy's health low, you NEED that added burst damage to help finish them off, or at least make the healer fight a bit to keep the targeted player alive.

   

  Fortunately, despite all the caveats to being an Assault Specialist commando, there is tons of flexibility in moving around points within the skill tree. Some players may prefer Rain of Fire over Assault Trooper (increased crits on key abilities), or a pair of points in Nightvision Scope which makes hunting stealthers a LOT of fun (even the players with 3 points in Obfusication/Sneaky/etc). As an added bonus, Nightvision Scope provides some dmg reduction which is never a bad thing in pvp. Unfortunately, despite the increase in spotting stealthers, don't expect to spot assassins when they vanish from sight by using Force Cloak (3min cooldown) because they have the ability to combine their cloak with the shorter cooldown of Blackout (60sec cooldown) which makes spotting them via Nightvision Scope a crap shoot at best. Instead, make sure to toss Assault Plastique (or Sticky Grenade if you don't have AP) on them before they cloak. This way they'll be ripped out of stealth when it explodes. Another alternative is to bind your Stealth Probes to a quickly accessible key and be fast to guess the direction you think it most likely for them to run towards. I have my Stealth Probes bound to the tilde key much like I did with Blizzard on my mage in WoW. I was damn good at uncovering stealthers in that game and the same tactic works well in SWtOR.

   

   

  If you're really intent on running a hybrid of Assault/Medic, I can relate a bit about a build I used to run. It wasn't as bursty as Gunnery/Medic, but great fun to play in a different way because of how mobile I was on the battlefield. I really liked that popping my Reactive Shield removed ALL slowing effects, and with Reflexive Shield it always felt like it was off cooldown. As previously mentioned, dropping AoE all over the battlefield was also really easy vs a Gunnery hybrid and with everything being instant cast, I had much more time to focus on positioning and healing vs a Gunnery hybrid. What I didn't like is that Assault needs Plasma Cell to excel just as Combat Medic really needs Combat Support Cell. Because of all this, Medic and Assault just do not go as well together (IMO) as Combat Medic and Gunnery. Perhaps that will change in the future, but for now, my recommendation is go deep into Assault and plan on using Plasma Cell, or don't bother at all. If you do go all out, it's great and truly gives you such a free-roaming playstyle that you'll feel less like the turret a commando is intended to be, and more like a vanguard trooper running around with a rifle. For reference, I ran a few variations but one of my (old) Assault/Medic hybrid builds focused on Combat Support Cell and this was the talent tree layout). Plasma Cell-related skills were shunned entirely since CSC was the focus and melee dps was much easier to deal with vs my hybrid gunnery build because i was constantly moving and had almost no cast times on my dps for them to interrupt except Charged Bolts.

   

  In the current state of SWtOR, Assault commandos can be a great combination in group play and 1v1 dueling. They toss DoTs around and keep the enemy healers busy as the burstier dps classes take advantage of the consistent DoT dmg to spike things down which is great because below 30% your damage will really help allies finish off enemies. An assault spec'd vanguard might perhaps be better as I've stated, but it's not like commandos can't do very well for themselves in this tree and the mobility really lets them be Johnny on the Spot whether they go full-bore 31pts deep or hybrid into another tree. Given the changes that have happened, if I was to run a healing hybrid for pvp, I'd likely run something akin to this Plasma Cell-based healer hybrid. It's rather similar to the Solo Act Superstar in that it only goes 18 points deep into Combat Medic for Field Triage and ignores the Combat Support Cell focused talents. Unfortunately, to pick up the all-important Field Triage skill in the Combat Medic tree, you'd have to give up the all-important Burnout in the Assault Specialist tree. You could instead delve only 13 points deep into Medic with the other 28 into Assault, but at that point you'd be gimping yourself hard on both damage and healing. Forget that nonsense my fellow troopers! Be an beast and go hard into Assault, or don't go at all!

Reserved for future content.

P.S. Please check this thread in the Bioware suggestions forum if you are in support of Bioware adding some sort of easily accessible dueling area within the fleet. If you approve of this idea, please spread the word to your server so we can hopefully get Bioware to implement something sooner rather than later.

I just made a medic commando.

Its honestly one of the most satisfying classes out there to PvP with. When you walk into a room and literally see the enemies leap towards you because they KNOW what you can do, you're doing something right. Love the survive-ability and utility of the class, and how we don't need a lightsaber to do so.

Lvl'ing up, so im looking forward to trying the Immortal Medic build, and to the expansion of your guide!

Good read so far Jez. Your thoughts on the different specs are pretty interesting.

I hope assault gets a little tweaked in 1.2 as the play style of that tree is the most fun for me, but the tree does seem to work better for vanguard as you mentioned. Also, when they do their pass on gear for 1.2 I hope it becomes a little easier to replace all the accuracy mods in the PvP sets. Since I do not PvE much buying other items to snag mods from is a pain.

I have been messing with 2 piece set bonus from Eliminators and 2 piece Combat Tech (yeah I know its Vanguard gear) for the -15seconds to Tenacity. 1m15s trinket is worth more then 15% HiB Crit to me.

-Clintak

Commando Nadd's Sarc

Thanks fellas, I aim to please (cheap thrills trooper joke. "AIM to please", get it? haHA!).

CaptFalc, I like the build and it's exactly how I feel about Assault in that it really demands players go all the way for it to shine. My fav Assault builds have been the one I posted above, or else one that goes 34 points deep. Although I never could decide if it was better to pull one point from Havoc Rounds and put it into Rain of Fire, or vice versa. I'm hoping that when patch 1.2 hits, we'll have better ability to stack Aim to the moon much like what I mentioned my friends have done on their sages instead of the current mish-mash of crit/power/surge/alacrity/etc.

I do have a question about your build. Are the 2 points in Weapon Calibrations (increased alacrity) there for your heals and Charged Bolts? Accuracy and alacrity are probably the two statistics that I've spent the most time re-slotting in my gear to find what impact they have, and I'm still not set on either of them. With Medic builds, I like to get up to around 10% alacrity so my heals are damn hard to interrupt or differentiate, but I can do just fine with around 6% alacrtiy and instead stack a bit more crit/HP/power. Accuracy on the other hand seems to make no difference to me except against those few juggernauts who dodge a lot of my hammer shots. Since you're Assault and much of what you do is instant cast, i'm curious what your total alacrity and accuracy percentages are, and if you've noticed any significant impact from either.

Clintak, awesome to see a fellow trooper from Nadds! I haven't tried the Tech set yet but it's great to know that someone is giving it a crack. I'll definitely have to give the Tech set a try because having a stunbreak nearly every minute does sound pretty freakin' awesome in pvp, and Concussion Charge would still be useable 3x per minute which isn't too shabby.

Currently, I'm just so freakin' happy with my gear composition, I'm having a ball in warzones/ilum/duels. I'm packing just shy of 18k HP and 600+ Expertise while wearing mostly Battlemaster Medic/Eliminator gear. But the magic comes from the 2 pve Eliminators set for a 48% crit rate on Grav Round. Only one of the two pve pieces I wear is Rakata with the other being Columi, but I've reslotted them a few times with mods from Battlemaster/Rakata/Columi gear. The biggest thing I really want to find out, is if troopers get the same benefits I've seen Inkeri/Juanadonde get on their sages. Once they were able to hit ~1850 Willpower, the results made it pretty clear that was the way to go and so they pursued stacking as much as possible while ignoring crit/power/etc. Inkeri topped 2000 Willpower about a month ago and Juan was always very close as well. I'm hoping that when the loot/mods/enhancements are there, we troopers can stack Aim in the same fashion.