Hello there guildy's your friendly neighborhood OP leader is here to help guide you down the path to serious raiding. Many gamers see HM content as a mark of a good gamer and want that badge of honor. Others simply want better gear to show off and have fun with. The reality of HM's though is they can be grueling and push players to their limits so lets do just that. Lets push you to your limits and then break the boundaries beyond that.

 

First lets explain what qualities are needed in a good raider! Then we can break down raiding into the three core roles. If you want to be a good raider its up to you but sometimes a little direction can propel you forward. First things first lets look at the tools you need to be an asset and not a hindrance to an operation.

 

General Game Concepts

 

These concepts are basic to SWTOR. You will need to have these concepts down if you hope to do tough endgame content. Understanding all the concepts will propel you forward into highend raiding. Build on these concepts with other tools like keybinding and you will be a force to be reckoned with.

 

Core Attributes

 

Responsiveness - This key attribute is what makes and breaks most players. The time it takes you to target, move across the battlefield, activate abilities, and make judgment calls all affect your viability in end game content. If you cannot respond properly or efficiently you will wipe your raid repeatedly due to missed mechanics, enrage timers and the like. Train your mind to respond quickly to what is happening around you and react appropriately. Control schemes, knowledge of the game and general good "common sense" all affect this aspect of your game

 

Operation Awareness - If you can understand what is happening around you, you will be much better prepared to respond in the correct manner. Being aware on a basic level may mean avoiding a red circle spawning on the ground. While being aware on a much more complicated level may mean keeping track of HP levels on multiple mobs while interrupting your current target. Raid awareness will help you multitask and avoid the "doom tunnel". This is when players get so caught up in individual tasks that they lose sight of the overarching goals. A player needs to understand what is happening in the operation at all times being reliant on self for information primarily.

 

Game Knowledge - This would include your understanding of your class, the enemies you fight, other classes and how all of this interacts. Understanding why a tank positions himself the way he does is different then simply knowing that the add or boss will be positioned there. Memorizing a rotation is one thing, understanding why that rotation is so is another. Your rotations will never be as complete or effective if you don't understand why they are set up in specific ways. Their are various systems that affect DPS, healing, and tanks. Learning these game specific systems will help you understand the "why" and help with the "how". Knowing the "why" is very important in this game, because it will change the "what" in everything that you can accomplish.

 

Precision - This final area is what holds everything together. Knowing what to do and doing it well is two different things. If you get amazing DPS parses, but take excessive damage in raid your not being precise as a DPS. If your outgoing heals are great, but you constantly run out of Mana your not being precise. If you can hold aggro and have great mitigations, but your always out of position with mobs your not being precise. Killing targets in the best order, healing in the most efficient manner and positioning bosses and adds perfectly are all expressions of precision. A little precision will elevate your game to a new level.

 

Controlling pulls - From level 1 to max, you will be encountering "Pulls". "Pull" refers to initiating combat with a localized group of enemies that usually all "aggro" or attack at the same time in a specific area. These pulls have a general radius that they guard and wont follow you outside it. Your job is to not bite off more then you can chew and deal with enemies in manageable portions. Killing things quickly, avoiding damage, and crowdcontrol all play a part in controlling the pull.

 

Kill order - It can be surprising how many DPS don't get this basic concept down. In any "Pull" there will be a variety of enemies to kill. Each enemy usually has a different amount of HP. When the pull starts your going to take the most damage because the enemy "Pull" is at full strength. As you defeat enemies the pull steadily gets weaker and weaker, lowering incoming damage. For this very point it stands to reason that you should almost always kill the weakest enemy first, take them outta the equation because that means less incoming damage. If you don't kill the weakest enemies first it generally makes the "Pulls" unnecessarily harder and in some cases impossible.

 

CrowdControl - Sometimes due to the composition of the group you may need to CC. Which is short for crowd-control. Using abilities that take certain mobs outta the fight will greatly help with some of the tougher "Pulls". Once something is CC'd you should not "derp" and break the CC. Some of the most annoying moments in this game is watching a player break a CC, because of carelessness. CC that break on damage are typically the longest lasting some up to a minute. Stuns that persist through damage usually last only four seconds. The standard CC is one that lasts for a min.

 

Group Threat - The group as a whole will be generating threat the key is to keep that threat largely on the tank. DPS should never start a pull and generally attack the weakest targets to help control threat. Going straight for the strongest target is the most irresponsible thing a DPS can do. Instead look for healers being attacked or weak mobs just sitting there. Let the tank have the "big" enemies and give him time to generate some threat. Healer threat wont be an issue if at least every mob has been hit by DPS or tanks.

 

DPS

 

Your primary role is kill your target as quickly as you can, while taking the least damage possible. DPS is science the damage you can deal is purely mathematical. Their is one maximum damage rotation you need to know and then execute. The execution is the hard part and can mean the difference between exceptional numbers and average. Execution primarily revolves around doing the correct rotation with maximum uptime.

 

Melee DPS - Your the most mobile in terms of DPS for your team. You generally will be more fluid then ranged DPS, because most of your abilities are instant cast. Instant cast abilities can be used while moving yet many players do not utilize this advantage melee DPS have. Learn to play with keybinds and most of your abilities will be available to you on the move. Use gap closers effectively to minimize your downtime on DPS. Melee DPS are especially vulnerable to frontal AOE damage called "cleaves", never stand in front of an enemy if possible. Always assume the add or boss has a "cleave", until its confirmed it does not. "Eating" cleaves shows poor raid awareness and responsiveness. Melee DPS are only required to be 10 percent ahead of the highest person, to "rip" threat; while ranged have to be 30 percent ahead of the highest person to "rip" threat. Anyone outside of 4 meters is considered a "ranged" character. This distance is measured from the center of the bosses frames, so it can change a bit from boss to boss.

 

Ghosting - Ghosting is a melee technique you can use to efficiently maintain DPS on different targets. Ghosting allows you to use the GCD of your instant cast abilities to travel quite a distance on the battlefield. From the moment you see your GCD go off and the animation start the damage from your abilities has been delivered. We are talking about instant cast abilities now, not channeled or casted abilities they require the player to remain motionless.

 

Noting in your mind that the damage has been delivered allows you some interesting possibilities. One you can react quicker to red circles or conal attacks that boss's deliver. This will also allow you to switch targets at the right moment to maximize your DPS up time. Never wait for the GCD to finish or the animation to end, move as they go off and "Ghost" to your new desired location. This is not a "make or break" technique, just a subtle way to show you have masterful control of your character.

 

Ranged DPS - You bring DPS constancy to the raid your superior range allows you to DPS when melee may not be able to. Ranged DPS tend to have greater burst AOE potential and should generally kill adds. Positioning is key with ranged you want to be able to DPS as many things as possible without moving. Gaining a central location is usually key. Ranged DPS sometimes contract "turret syndrome", because their abilities are channeled and they must remain still. The goal of a good ranged DPS should be to overcome this weakness and stay raid aware. Ranged DPS are much more likely in a general sense to "eat" damaging circles on the ground and not respond to mechanics that require movement.

 

Targeting - Understanding when to click target and when to use "tab targeting" is essential to efficient DPS anyone who tells you otherwise probably could improve quite a bit. It is not humanly possible for you to switch targets clicking as quickly as it is using tab targeting. Having said that though when there are large groups of enemies up clicking can be faster, than cycling through an endless list of adds. Tab targeting is always going to be more precise than click targeting, because quite simply it minimizes the risk of human error and "frame blockage". Frame blockage occurs usually for tanks, but for some DPS when adds or the boss block your field of vision to such a degree that they make targeting other adds or bosses difficult. Remember targeting should rarely be difficult and you don't want to be struggling with it.

 

If you don't use tab targeting learn to use it. It is more responsive then click targeting. If you don't like tab for targeting rebind a new key to function in that capacity. Click targeting has its uses but is more specialized to healing and specific DPS situations. Always line up your next target to DPS and minimize DPS downtime as much as possible, especially true for DPS that channel many abilities.

 

Rotation - Knowing "the" rotation is key. Learn the best most damaging rotation, then don't change it and repeat till its habit. There is only one best rotation and no room for "selfexpression". DPS rotations are pure science and require a great deal of precision to get down perfectly. Your goal with your rotation is to get to "DPS constancy" which means your DPS does not greatly fluctuate and remains consistent. Try to understand how your classes rotation works and you will begin to intuitively execute it better.

 

The first thing you need to know about your rotation is how you "open". The opener should do the most damage in the least amount of time possible. These usually tend to be bursty, which can lead to you "pulling" threat. Your rotation will diverge into a core rotation that will usually be built on proc's and priority based. Few classes have a static rotation where the priorities are always the same. Finally you need to learn to manage your resources whatever they may be. Most classes have a way to restore energy, ammo, or force in some capacity. Your basic attacks should only be used to control your energy flow and not be spammed in most cases. Try to keep your rotation as "clean" as possible remembering to keep your most damaging abilities on cooldown at all times.

 

Offensive Cooldowns

 

Using offensive cooldowns is key to maximizing your DPS. Every class has optimum times to use their cooldowns and these need to be learned. Cooldowns include abilities, relics, and adrenals, whether you use them all at once or at key moments is your mission to discover. Most cooldowns are simple, use them at the start of a fight and keep them on cool-down, but some fights have important "Burn" phases that you need to keep cooldowns ready for. I recommend if you have a "maintoon" you raid with, consider giving them the Bio-chem profession. Not using adrenals is lost DPS and some players don't want to spend the money to buy them. If that's the case for you switch to Bio-chem and make your own.

 

Defensive cooldowns - As a DPS you can make good use of defensive cooldowns to mitigate a lot of damage. Predicting when you will take damage and using the correct cooldown will make your healers so happy! Different cooldowns will work better on certain mechanics test them out and use the appropriate ones.

 

Target Priorities

 

When possible kill order should always be as follows weak, standard, strong, elite, champion, boss. Eliminating the weakest enemies first ensures the enemy's overall DPS is lowered as quickly as possible. Letting weak enemies survive longer then they should is just bad, don't be bad, be awesome. Choosing the correct targets will make the healer and tanks job much easier. Tanks hate DPS that attack the strongest enemy and compete with the tank for threat let the tank have it. Probably there's an add beating on a healer, that would greatly appreciate your intervention. View yourself as a secondary tank when it comes to healers, nothing should ever be hitting them period. Help the tank keep ALL adds off the healers. Killing adds that heal is also a must try to identify which adds are healing and take them out!

 

Interrupts and Cleansing

 

A DPS that can not interrupt well and consistently is not a good DPS. Interrupting enemy channels and casts is one of the most important roles you have in a raid or group particularly melee. A true interrupt will work on any enemy or boss, unless they have the "unshakable" buff. Knockbacks, stuns, and pulls can function as pseudo interrupts, but wont work on all enemies. Interrupting abilities is your contribution to damage mitigation and shows you are a responsive and a capable raider. If you don't feel comfortable interrupting or feel you miss interrupts often you probably click to interrupt. Never click to interrupt always keybind it. If there is one thing and one thing only you keybind it should be your interrupt.

 

Cleansing is primarily the healers job, but good DPS can also assist with this. If your class can cleanse try to lend a hand and cleanse yourself your healer will thank you. I generally would not recommend that DPS cleanse others unless a specific fight demands it.

 

DPS most critical attributes - Responsiveness, Precision

 

Tanking

 

Your two key concerns are holding threat and controlling the fight second maximizing your damage mitigation to yourself and the raid. You need to position adds and bosses in the most effective way possible. A good understanding of the games systems is key to proper tanking otherwise you will gear incorrectly and hurt your overall mitigation. Knowing the perfect balance of defense, shield, and absorb are key to your success.

 

Sometimes patches completely change how your mitigations work you need to keep up with these changes. Being aware of as much of the battlefield is very important to tanking don't let healers take needless damage protect them. Tanks need to keep track of all adds and the boss and sometimes at the same time. Flashpoints are the best place to learn how to tank groups of enemies. Your goal should not only be to survive, but shrug off the damage you take. The right mindset will help you take your game further.

 

 

 

 

Mitigation - As a tank you have a plethora of mitigating mechanics at your disposal. The first is your armor it is your base mitigation and is static. Its the simplest of the three and is based mostly on armor rating and some tree skills. The second form of mitigation is defense it is an all or nothing stat, but has the possibility to mitigate the most damage. Avoiding an attack means you mitigate 100 percent of damage, but you can't shield what you avoid.

 

Which brings us to shield and absorb this stat supplements your armor rating because they mitigate together as opposed to defense. Your shield has a chance to mitigate the hit then whatever was not mitigated can be absorbed partially by your armor. Your shield rating determines how often your shield reacts and absorb determines how much that reaction "absorbs" or mitigates. The overall mitigation is much lower with absorb, but it reacts more often then defense. Shield and absorb tend to play a larger role in controlling how "spikey" a tank is, because with a healthy amount of shield and absorb you will be much more stable in endurance. Keeping a balance of all three is important, but they compete for priority with each patch keep up with the current standard.

 

Damage Types

 

Melee and Ranged Attacks - These are the standard attacks that most enemies use. The vast majority of your "Pulls" will have a healthy dose of melee and ranged attacks. Defense rating is valuable against these types of attacks as it can mitigate 100 percent of the damage when successful. Your shield can absorb these attacks as well on a lesser scale, but more frequently.

 

Force and Tech attacks - Some specialized adds and many bosses use this attack type. It completely ignores your defense chance and is only mitigated by your shield and armor. When your dealing with this type of damage make sure you have some healthy amounts of shield and absorb.

 

Kinetic/Energy and Elemental/Internal - Both Force/Tech and Melee/Ranged attacks can come in these varieties. Kinetic/Energy attacks respect your armor and shield, while Elemental/Internal ignore your base armor all together.

 

Threat - All the mitigations in the world wont help if the enemies don't "stick" to you. That is why threat generation is so important and each tank generate threat at different rates. Similar to DPS you have to learn the most threatbuilding rotation you can and learn to hold against the most "bursty" DPS. Any tank can hold threat, but you need to fully understand threat and how it works to hold it.

 

There are two core ways to generate threat. One is damaging abilities that gain a threat buff from your tank discipline tree and some abilities that generate a flat amount of threat. The second is taunting. Taunting builds threat on a percentage basis and gets exponentially more powerful the more cumulative threat has been built against your current target. You should very rarely open with a taunt or AOE taunt most pulls require damaging abilities to tank effectively. (Taunts don't build cumulative threat they buff existing threat by a percentage.)

 

DPS generate threat of course by damage and some small heals. Healers generate threat based on their heals, but the threat is halved. The dangerous thing about healers is more that the "healer aggro" goes out to every mob on the field for every heal they cast. Healers will often pick up aggro if stray weak and standard mobs are not killed first. Tanks should usually "tag" an elite or champion then help DPS kill weak and standard enemies. If "healer aggro" is not managed properly, and early it becomes challenging to redirect threat to you with anything short of a taunt. Gaurds can help with this healer aggro mechanic, but most tanks would prefer to keep that guard on a bursty DPS, as a tank make that call. (Melee DPS only have to beat the current tanks threat by ten percent, while ranged have to beat current threat by 30 percent to pull threat)

 

 

 

 

Taunt boosting - The distance that constitutes you melee or ranged is based on measuring 4 meters from the center of the bosses frames, because of the way ranged and melee threat works taunting at the right range is important. Many bosses will stay about 1.25 -1.5 meters from you this means that your taunt will only boost current threat by 1.1. To get the full 1.3 boost move away from your target enough to hit the sweet spot of generally 2.6 meters, but this will change based on the boss. Hitting a taunt at ranged is much more effective. (Your distance meter measures from the edge of the bosses frames not the center)

 

Targeting - Tank targeting behaves very similar to DPS, but the key is to never "blow" your taunt on the wrong target. Always check your target and make sure you have the right one again "tab targeting" or bound targeting will greatly help with target selection accuracy. Clicking will sometimes be the wiser course of action as a tank decide what the best course of action is and react quickly. If you target slowly your tanking will suffer tremendously.

 

Interrupting - Similar to DPS your ability to interrupt key abilities will play a key role on certain boss fights. In general also its great to have a tank that actively interrupts targets especially healers.

 

Defensive cooldowns - These can have a huge effect on your survivability when used at the right time. Each tank has a varying amount of these cooldowns and needs to be intimately acquainted with how they function. Defensive cooldowns can be broken up into two primary groups.

 

Defense increasing cooldowns are one and base damage reduction are the other. There are also many specialized cooldowns that range from short health boosts to complete damage negation of certain attacks.

As you learn the boss fights use your combat logs made easier via a third party program. The logs will help you determine what type of damage your taking and what cooldowns are most appropriate. When your tanking flashpoints using cooldowns at the start of "Pulls" is generally the best use for them. In operations it will vary dramatically when the best time to use cooldowns is, so study and experiment to see what works.

 

Positioning - This is a very important aspect to tanking. As the tank, you control the pace of the fight and need to get your spacing down pat. The rest of the raid will depend on you to hold and position adds and bosses. Some fights call for more positioning then others, but in general its on the tank to get this right. Learn the best way to position a boss, so that the raid can have maximum up time on DPS. Always face the boss away from the raid and try to keep cleaves to a minimum.

 

Tanking most critical attributes - Game knowledge, Operation awareness

 

Healing

 

You are the last hope of your raid, you stand between victory and total defeat, you are the healer and carry the weight of your raid team. Nothing is possible unless you can perform your job well, healing is a big responsibility in a raid, but the most fluid in terms of how its played. Judgment calls is what you will be doing all raid long and you must judge correctly or people die.

 

Reactive Healing - This would probably be the most straight forward method to heal. You see someone take a lot of damage, so you react to that with responsive heals that execute quickly. Hard hitting channeled and casted heals are in this classification. They are best used to deal with damage spikes or burst damage.

 

Reactive healing could also be called "burst healing" and like burst DPS they peak and valley quite a bit. Bursty healing is great it saves tanks from certain death and generally is great for "oh no" moments. The main drawback with this style of healing is the "valley" of their rotation or available spells. Every healer in the game has reactive heals get to know them as some are better then others.

 

Proactive Healing - The most efficient type of healer in the game, if the damage stays consistent these heals can heal for ages without letup. They are able to deal with constant and consistent damage extremely well, having all the tools needed to make sure their resources do not run out. Hots are the baseline for many proactive heals when damage spikes are under control you want to Hot as often as you can on the most relevant targets.

 

Target Priorities

 

Your priority should always be the tank, yourself, then DPS. If your tank goes down its usually all over. Most operation fights will not allow you to lose tanks and be successful. Adopt one rule as a healer and that is; Tanks don't go down!. be willing to sacrifice DPS, before tanks, but having said that its better to keep everyone up if you can of course. Always try to spread heals out when necessary and focus them when the tanks take a pounding. Good judgment is needed to determine when you switch targets and who gets the heal at that time.

 

Single target healing - Healing a single target is the basic job of a healer. (Usually the tank will be the main person you single target heal.) Single target healing in a general sense deals with burst damage better then AOE at least on a single target. A few AOE heals in the game are quite good at dealing with damage spikes as well.

 

AOE healing - Healing groups of allies is always better then healing one at a time. The catch to AOE healing though is it does not heal people up as quick. Pound for pound AOE healing is by far, more efficient then single target. AOE healing is more for the DPS and yourself. Of course AOE healing does not work if people are not stacked to receive it.

 

Resource Management - Managing force, energy, and ammo is key to healing effectively. Healing a lot of people and doing good numbers is great, but if you run out of juice your stuffed. Always keep a rhythm to your heals and try to regen as much resources as you can when the healing is not so intensive. Each healer manages their resources differently learn how they work and adapt.

 

Cleansing - This is the equivalent to DPS interrupts if your not "cleansing" as you heal your really not being as efficient as you could be. A good healer will try to cleanse everything they can and then begin to memorize what is cleansable and what is not. Each fight will put slows, dots, and other negative effects get rid of these with a cleanse. Think of cleansing as proactive healing you are removing the negative effect before it can do any real damage. If your slow on the cleanses your raid will definitely feel it. Keybinding your cleanse is a good idea similar to the way DPS keybind their interrupt. Some fights are incredibly difficult without cleanses then suddenly become a joke once you realize you can cleanse the worst of it.

 

Over healing - If you overheal your wasting heals unless you are putting Hots on appropriate targets. Never heal someone at full health and try to use an appropriate heal for how low their HP is. If you chronically overheal you will find your self starved for resources and often not able to keep up the raid as easily. This takes practice and good judgment, but a great healer will always give the right heal to the right person and not waste a single GCD.

 

Defensive cooldowns and Interrupting - Similar to tanks and DPS healers that make good use of DCD's will reduce the amount of healing needed on themselves. Interrupting may seem strange to make a healer do, but good healers find time to interrupt targets when its advantageous.

 

DPS is definitely not your primary responsibility, but if the heals are stable and raid looks good you can always throw in some DPS. Its better to throw in a little DPS if you can than simply standing on the battlefield doing nothing. I would not recommend this of course if spike damage is going throughout the raid very consistently.

 

Healing most critical attributes - Responsiveness, Operation awareness

 

Operation Terminology

 

Mechanic - during a fight with a mob or boss, anything that requires a specific reaction to what is happening.

 

Enrage Timer - The time before the enemy, becomes more powerful with increased damage and abilities

 

Aggro - How much the enemy hates you and will target you. Threat is the same thing.

 

Rotation - A string of abilities used in a certain order and at specific times, to achieve maximum effectiveness.

 

CC - Stun that breaks on damage and lasts a minute (crowd-control)

 

Interrupt - Stopping the cast or channel of an ability, hence interrupting it.

 

Channel - Abilities that require user to be motionless to function.

 

Trash - General enemies that exclude bosses and mini-bosses.

 

Cleansing - Using abilities to remove negative effects on players or yourself.

 

GCD - Global cool-down, after every ability is used, it has a 1.5 second cool-down.

 

Cleave - Attacks, usually melee, that can hit multiple targets at once.

 

Key Binds

 

Learning to use keybinds effectively will be one of the biggest game changers, you can experience. Look at the best players in your guild and ask yourself if they use keybinds, the answer is usually yes. Key-binds allow you to string together complicated execution patterns effortlessly. If you combine this with tab targeting, you can taunt one target, switch targets, stun the next, force-push the third, and get back on the one you taunted first in just a few seconds. The transitions happen so fast your group may not even realize how quickly your executing your abilities. They may think "hes a good tank", but not understand "how" hes a good tank. Understanding the "how" is so important in becoming a better player.

 

Is keybinding for you?

 

Ask yourself a few basic questions first

 

1. Do I understand why keybinds are superior to clicking? Some will say that clicking is no worse then binding, but they obviously have never tried keybinding. I say this because I never ever, ever met a clicker that switched to keybinds and could play at a highlevel go back to clicking.

 

2. Am I willing to put in the effort and time needed to learn keybinding? Switching to keybinding will feel very awkward at first, but very soon you will enter a world where your moves activate quicker. If you have patience and determination I guarantee you will nail keybinds, but if your prone to giving up easily in the face of challenges you wont. You may reason in your mind "I don't really need keybinds", but again it comes down to how good do you want to be. You can either be the guy that can "do" the content or the guy that can "smash" the content. Each individual will ultimately determine if they have what it takes to keybind.

 

3. Do I want to be awesome at this game and not just average? Average can get you through a lot of the content, but awesome will allow you to play ALL the content. Awesome will allow you to be best in slot geared awesome will guarantee your not left out of content because the OP leader says "we need the right people". This is a personal choice a player can be as good as they want to be it just comes down to being willing to learn and change.

 

How to Key Bind

 

There are many, many ways to keybind. Some are good, others are awesome. Its up to you to pick the set-up that works for you. Any kind of keybinding is better then no key-binding at all. Talk to different gamers that bind and learn what they use. Gather some information then build your own binding control scheme. SWTOR has a very robust binding system it does not include macros, but macros are more for convenience vs function anyway. If you really want to use macros get a macro mouse or keyboard then program them in. They can help, but are definitely not make or break.

 

Dak's keybind set up - I was taught this set up from a veteran WOW PVP'r and it has changed my game considerably. Essentially the first thing to look at is how does your camera move. If your using arrow keys or awsd to turn your camera. don't! That is very "slothful" controlling your camera effectively is huge in an MMO.

 

Controlling the camera - Using the mouse to control your camera is the best way, period. The sleek and seamless motions of the mouse give you lighting fast reactions to what is happening on the field. Holding the left or right clicker depending on what you have in settings will allow you to spin your camera very, very quickly. When you click both right and left mouse buttons you move forward and here lies the brilliance of this control scheme. Your camera and movement are melded into one, so wherever you move the camera; that's where your "toon" will look then run and because you can turn the camera so quickly with a mouse your reaction times will increase. Use the mouse for movement its far more responsive then moving with keys on the keyboard.

 

Activating Abilities - This is another beautiful thing about this key-bind setup your entire left hand is free to hit keys. You can now key-bind the entire left side of your keyboard with out lifting your hand. Once your mind memorizes the key layout, it will behave very similarly to a console controller and give you many keys to activate abilities. I typically will keybind Q through Y, A through H, and Z through V. This gives me 16 key-binds that I can easily reach with fingers and my hand does not lift off the keyboard.

 

Since your using the mouse for movement using the keys on your mouse for ability activation will be very cumbersome, unless your still. I have a 12 key MMO mouse and only use the keys for cooldowns, summoning mounts, and other filler. I prefer to have both hands working together, but separate at the time same time. What I mean is each hand is dedicated to either movement (My right hand) or Activating abilities (My left hand). The nature of this control scheme is its very easy now to keep my rotation up at full speed while staying in constant motion if need be. You can really see how this layout greatly benefits PVP, but also works fantastic in PVE.

 

Mouse binding - We mentioned 16 available keys to comfortably reach on your keyboard with Dak's keybind method. Now lets add the remaining 16 bringing the grand total to 32 possible keybinds. Using an MMO gaming mouse I have 12 buttons on the side of my mouse. Now these are mostly utility moves as my main rotation is on the keyboard. The last 4 binds come from the mouse wheel up, down, and click, and finally the auxiliary button on top of the mouse below left and right click. The major advantage of this setup is no modifier keys.

 

Because with this setup your mouse is your primary method of movement its better to not bind abilities on your mouse that benefit from movement. having one hand do movement and the other abilities is much better then trying to move with the mouse and click abilities with your thumb. Secondary bindings work great on the mouse like cooldowns, medpacs, summoning mounts, etc.

 

Freedom of choice - One of the nicest things about this keybind setup is you can make any of those 16 keys behave in any fashion you want. Which key "tab targets" or which keys are your rotation are all up to you. I like to use V to tab target many players wont like that so use a different key. The choices are endless with this control scheme and theirs still plenty of ways you can tweak your settings to fit YOUR play style.

Edited October 15, 2015 by Island_Jedi

You sir, have just won Carl's Wall-o Text Award. Congratulations.

You sir, have just won Carl's Wall-o Text Award. Congratulations.

 

You sir, have just won the Carl's totally pointless comment award. Congratulations!

You sir, have just won Carl's Wall-o Text Award. Congratulations.

 

<3 teh beastfurry, beast is love, beast is life

<3 teh beastfurry, beast is love, beast is life

 

Xalkizda who?

Punishment who? Viva la Vindication! Edited October 15, 2015 by eatmydeece

Tanks hate DPS that attack the strongest enemy

 

Unless youre setting up for DOT spread can't DOT spread usually on things that are lower than gold.

Of course if your tank is new and questions you, make sure to tell him in a nice way.

 

Over healing - If you overheal, your wasting heals unless you are putting Hots on appropriate targets.

 

Unless you're setting up buffs on people. (like for example, progressive scan gives a 10% armor buff for 45 seconds and it can heal 4 people, providing 4 buffs) On the tanks preferably

Edited October 15, 2015 by Faardor

You sir, have just won Carl's Wall-o Text Award. Congratulations.

 

 

YOU ARE NOT THE REAL BEASTFURY

You sir, have just won Carl's Wall-o Text Award. Congratulations.

 

i had to flick my mousewheel 11 times to make it to the bottom of that, any more than 5 and its a wall of text.

Thank you. Now i have something to link to those Operatives who keep Kolto Probes on 8 people during Heavy Single Target Healing Fights,

i had to flick my mousewheel 11 times to make it to the bottom of that, any more than 5 and its a wall of text.

 

Not sure what an "Elite" raider is doing reading a guide for beginners anyway?

 

1. Maybe your checking the guide for inconsistencies and trying to make sure its correct to make the community more informed? No?

 

2. Your trying to learn something from the guide itself? No?

 

3. Then maybe your just..... yea.... and enjoy being a troll. Bingo!

 

Not sure what the point of attacking a guide that's trying to help the game get more people into endgame is? BIg fish in tiny pond syndrome? maybe? It is unfortunate that you and your guild do not understand your a dying breed of player in this game, and you don't have the luxury to attack your peers. Your pond is drying up so fast and you don't realize your destroying your own interests. Namely getting more of the community into endgame. This game is on the ropes for endgame and all "progressive raiders" can enjoy being "elite" when endgame is in such a bad place.

 

I don't believe there is a response to this post that can explain why attacking this guide is logical. The only purpose of the guide is too help the game and its endgame. Its really sad that the games own player base is so egotistical and shortsighted that it would hurt its own.

Edited October 16, 2015 by Island_Jedi

If your outgoing heals are great, but you constantly run out of Mana your not being precise.

 

What is is this mana you speak of, I demand to have access to the mana. If not i curse you with bad pugs and undercutting on the gtn.

 

also just a small point, it never says anywhere that this is a guide for beginners, i mean once you read it it becomes obvious, and we all know ero needs all the help he can get

Edited October 16, 2015 by warnl

Wow, so much trolling in this thread.

Thanks for the writeup, excellent resource for beginners and experienced players alike. Granted, I knew before which parts of my game I need to improve on, but this is very well put and thus a great reminder!

Edited October 17, 2015 by CaraExas

 

lol, ****in thanil

lol, ****in thanil

 

jimmy is ugly

 

Well, not quite, but terminology sometimes... Ugh.

 

Also, 2 OP - i so freaking hate juggtanks opening with saber throw. The video you linked... Much hate. Lots of it. Semi-useless ability right atop of opening q_q

Well, not quite, but terminology sometimes... Ugh.

 

Also, 2 OP - i so freaking hate juggtanks opening with saber throw. The video you linked... Much hate. Lots of it. Semi-useless ability right atop of opening q_q

 

I don't have a problem holding threat using saber throw, but you CAN burst harder without it.

good times

Great thread, linking in to my guild website (and everyone who says "Hi, I'm new to this raiding stuff")

 

Cheers.

Great thread, linking in to my guild website (and everyone who says "Hi, I'm new to this raiding stuff")

 

Cheers.

 

Ty I just want to help as many new or returning players get back into the swing of things.

Check out the new Kaon Under Siege Guide! More to come! It is too much info to keep adding to this guide, so I must expand

Check out this guide if your a returning player or new to the game.