^ This

If you're a healer spec don't use anything but your healing cylinder. You'll just be gimping yourself. If you want to DPS while playing a healer just pop your 30 charges and spam powershots with a relic or stim active. Should do decent, or at least it use to. I personally haven't done this since 1.2. Too busy healing.

There have been so many of these threads. Maybe they'll add it, probably not, but right now they have more important things to do. Player bounties wont come until things calm down. Also they're not taking as long to implement changes as you think. From my experience in other MMO's they're working pretty quick. Side note~ I don't like the player bounty idea.

Oy, I hope all these children, at least I hope they are children acting in such a way, stay off my server when transfers happen. MMO's should really implement severs that have an age bracket. I don't know how they'd verify your age, but i'm sure there is a way. Or better yet, a maturity rating..... I can dream... I can dream.

I'm surprised(I shouldn't be) how unhelpful the replies above are. If you're interested in Pyrotech as the tree you want to spec in I recommend Powertech. The reason being is Powertech's talents work better for Pyrotech. Yes, the Pyrotech tree is shared, but there are difference between the two along with other talents Powertech can get in its other trees that makes it superior. One example of this would be Powertechs having a 100% chance to proc Combustible Gas Cylinder, thus allowing the use of railshot whenever it's up. If you want to closely examine the difference I suggest pulling up both the Mercenary and Powertech skill trees on torhead.

I don't see an issue with merc healing, seems to work fine for me. There are rare occasions that I overheat but that's only if the people I'm healing are taking way too much damage. Which is more of an issue with their gear vs their enemy(s). In pvp specifically, merc's should have no heat issues unless they are focus firing players which a good team will do. But ideally you wont be the only healer, so should be all good.

You can't kite a watchman. As a SENTINEL (not sentinal...) you should know this. That is of course if the watchman specs with close quarters..which he should. Not all classes have a slow ability. BH has a KB that slows down the target, but any sentinel who is worth anything will leap right back at him, making the 4 second slow worthless. Your entire defense for sentinel is based on them being kiteable, which as a watchman they are not. It also depends on a class having the ability to slow your movement down, which not all classes have.

I know from personal experience, but just by looking at powertech's skill tree you can see that it's better for pyro than mercenary. If pyro is your main goal for bounty hunter your best bet is powertech, imo. However, I don't know about pve, as I don't raid, but I imagine if powertech pyro is better in pvp it'll be better in pve too.

I can only speak from a mercenary bodyguard perspective, but mercenary healing is fine if not really good. I'm usually top healer in any warzone. Just make sure someone guards you.

I didn't go pure bodyguard until I got Torian as my companion. Prior to that I did a hybrid bodyguard/arsenal build. Essentially so I could have tracer missile and do some damage to enemies. This was pre 1.2, not sure if it'll work as well post 1.2

It's not broken I can assure you. The best tip I can give you besides telling you what I find to be the best spec for a healer, is to make sure you use kolto missile a lot. You should be using this to heal every time it's up. Kolto shell is also, pretty damn good still despite the heat cost on it now. You just have to plan who you place it on more carefully and can't spam it on to different people. *edit* Also, if you don't already, put a point into Heat Damping and use your stun and more offensive abilities to making healing easier for you. Ie. CC one of the DD's that's ****** one of your team mates.

Much better list than the OP's original. Tho juggs can be a beast if played right and sorc/sages are still pretty tough. Oh and I think a mercenary bodyguard (healer) is somewhere in the middle.

If you broke the first initial stun any advantage he had is gone. Also, concussion missile is so easy to spot, you could easily interrupt it. Only way you couldn't is if he uses the instant cast move. Also force leap has a range of 30m, so after the KB you could immediately jump to him. Unless of course it's a huttball match, which is the only place our KB is truly very useful.

I don't see the problem. Your heals can get interrupted, so can other healers? Unlike you however trooper/mercenaries can't force speed away from enemies. The only things they have to work with are a KB, a stun, and a mezz that takes forever to cast. I'm not saying L2P, but nothing you mentioned is broken. The example you gave is one that no one would survive. Also, pvp is not a solo game so if you get picked off by other players while you're on your own then it's not really your classes fault.

I found that 1-49 was the only place hybrid builds really worked for mercenary.