Ok, first let me say that YES, I already know that Mercenary/Commando is the easiest killable class in the game and is highly underpowered, usually focused first in Arenas, and in choosing to play a Mercenary/Commando you should expect to die a lot and experience a lot of grief, so before anyone else points all of that out, there I said it.

Now let's move on....

I love healing in Warzones, on my sorcerer I feel very competent, it usually takes about 5 players to burn me down. On my Operative, I experience less survivability but I can usually outheal around 3 DPS wailing on me long enough to slip away. However, on my Mercenary, I usually die to ANY DPS class in any given warzone 1V1. I find that I may not know the rotation well enough but I do what I can based on research and reading the perks, abilities, etc, to do the best that I can. I find that I am constantly waiting for healing abilities to come off of cool down and it is usually during this time that I am burned down because I cannot heal myself due to inability to use healing abilities aside from the free shot and the kolto cloud which is useless when you are trying to kite someone. I try using CCs, Jetout, etc but I get burned down faster than I can react to pretty much anything thrown at me.

So are there any successful Merc healers out there? Keep in mind that I know that ANY Merc class is unplayable in Ranked but I don't really do that. I just want to be viable in 8V8 or normal arenas.

Any advice on rotation, gear, etc? I cannot find anything online.

Thanks in advance!

kolto missile is off cd every 6 seconds or so, kolto shot is always up and reduces heat. merc heat sucks paenus, so you have to work kolto shot in. You don't really have a "rotation" so much as a priority list. It's basically which is the best heal I have off CD right now? Here is a general outline

Kolto shot: when there is little damage and/or to lower heat and/or to build stacks of SCG (supercharged gas)

Kolto Missile: Essentially on CD If you can manage your heat

Progressive Scan: Essentially on CD if you can manage your heat

Rapid Scan: Your filler. builds 2 stacks of SCG and a medium size heal (for a merc anyway). Also, each of these up to x3 reduces the heat of healing scan.

Emergancy Scan: part of your burst healing rotation, procs instant healing scan, sometimes it's best not to use the proc right away if no one is that hurt, naturally.

Healing Scan: try not to cast this, at the very least unless you are in SCG. it is your bread and butter, with power overrides (PS/Power Surge x2) you can crank these out at a pretty decent pace.

when their is only light damage being done kolto shot/Kolto Missile with progressive scan thrown in on CD will keep everyone up and build SCG. In a "burst" phase, when someone is dropping fast, or just ate something like an energy burst or a full gore window, I like to use something like this:

Kolto Missile > SCG/PS/Healing scan x2 > Emergancy Scan > Healing Scan > Kolto Missile (not a must) > Progressive Scan

You can toss in Termal Sensor Override wherever it is needed, Vent heat (improved vents utility is pretty much a must take) cant be used decently often but be careful not to burn too much heat when it is down. when it is up it can bring you from about 75-80 back down to 0 when combined with your natural heat regen and a kolto shot or two coming out of your burst phase to gather back SCG stacks.

These are the utilities I usually run:

Skillful:

Improved vents: If you're not needing some kind of extra heat vent, you're not pushing the class enough

Gyroscopic Alignment Jets/Custom Enviro Suit: Kind of a preference call here, I'm currently using GAJ to get that last little bit of heat

Power Barrier: you should always have it up, so it's an extra 5% damage reduction, pushes you almost to 40%

Masterful:

Supercharged Defense: +15% defense chance and interrupt immunity. It will save your life, and you may not even realize it. the second option is a preference call

Heroic:

Power Overrides: x2 healing scan every 40 seconds. Cannot overstate that. Take it. Love it.

Thrill of the Hunt: Because standing still every progressive scan is something you just cannot afford. It also helps when you're putting out off-dps with Unload.

For gear I'm running a very heavy alacrity build. Basically all Enhancements are alacrity and all augments are crit. you can take your pick from the crit or alacrity ear/implants with all alacrity it will put you about 13.06% alacrity (1.2s GCD's FTW) with around 37% crit IIRC. I balance my ear/implants either way so they're kind of interchangable on crit ear/implants I use alacrity augs and alacrity ear/implants I use crit augs that way no one piece is so heavily weighted towards one stat so I can mix and match to find a perfect balance.

Ok, first let me say that YES, I already know that Mercenary/Commando is the easiest killable class in the game and is highly underpowered, usually focused first in Arenas, and in choosing to play a Mercenary/Commando you should expect to die a lot and experience a lot of grief, so before anyone else points all of that out, there I said it.

 

Now let's move on....

 

I love healing in Warzones, on my sorcerer I feel very competent, it usually takes about 5 players to burn me down. On my Operative, I experience less survivability but I can usually outheal around 3 DPS wailing on me long enough to slip away. However, on my Mercenary, I usually die to ANY DPS class in any given warzone 1V1. I find that I may not know the rotation well enough but I do what I can based on research and reading the perks, abilities, etc, to do the best that I can. I find that I am constantly waiting for healing abilities to come off of cool down and it is usually during this time that I am burned down because I cannot heal myself due to inability to use healing abilities aside from the free shot and the kolto cloud which is useless when you are trying to kite someone. I try using CCs, Jetout, etc but I get burned down faster than I can react to pretty much anything thrown at me.

 

So are there any successful Merc healers out there? Keep in mind that I know that ANY Merc class is unplayable in Ranked but I don't really do that. I just want to be viable in 8V8 or normal arenas.

 

Any advice on rotation, gear, etc? I cannot find anything online.

 

Thanks in advance!

This is just my perspective, and what I found in the past that seemed to optimize my performance on the healing merc.

Min/max your gears (obviously get augs for every slot too).

I am not going into rotations, you can find guides on PVE that explain rotations so you understand your abilities better if you lack understanding them and the procs they create.

-----> Dulfy 4.0 PVE Healing Merc Guide

The two factors to consider are what fits your playstyle best... Are you better at using LOS, hiding, and staying out of LOS of attackers or are you better at using defensive cooldowns and knowing how to maximize your heals when you have to stand and cast?

If you prefer mobility then you go with utilities that maximize your effectiveness of healing on the move. The most important thing is to get progressive scan on the move for this (Thrill of the hunt).

If you find that you'd rather be more sturdy and better at standing and casting, then you do not pick progessive scan on the move, instead you should pick energy rebounder so your energy shield cooldown gets reduced everytime you get hit.

You should always get the "stabilized armor" utility (heroic) for this class IMO, only because you will always get stunned and 30% DR when stunned or hit by AE is useful. Some people will say in regs, you probably don't need stabilized armor, again it's personal preference.

Honestly, I found picking utilities that centered around energy shield best. I stopped trying to beat other teams with mobility because this class simply lacks the tools to beat other classes via kiting.

Since 3.0, other classes all have superior ways to stay on target on a merc healer. it's futile trying to get away from attackers when you have no way to break tunneled damage.

The utilities I found the most success with:

SKILLFUL

-Custom Enviro Suit

Increases Endurance by 3% and all healing received by 3% (any boost to your self-survival is good, added healing is nice and added health too.)

-Power Barrier

Power Shot, Tracer Missile and Rapid Scan generates a Power Barrier that increases damage reduction by 1% for 15 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times.

-After Burners

Pocket Punch immobilizes the target for 4 seconds. Direct damage causes after 2 seconds ends the effect. In addition, Jet Boost’s knockback effect is stronger and pushes enemies 4 meters further away. (I like this because you can knock people off bridges easier with the added knockback, and the root on rocket punch is useful when you have a single melee that is tunneling you.)

MASTERFUL

-Protective Field

Increases all healing received by 20% while Energy Shield is active. (if you find yourself having a lot of trouble healing through tunneled damage on yourself, pick this up so that your survivability is increased.)

-Supercharged Defense

Activating Supercharged Gas increases your defense chance by 15% and grants immunity to interrupts for 8 seconds.

-Power Shield

Energy Shield now further decreases ability activation pushback by 30% and makes you immune to interrupts. (get this instead of protective field if you find yourself able to heal through tunneled damage on yourself.)

HEROIC

-Energy Rebounder

When you take damage, the active cooldown of Energy Shield is reduced by 3 seconds. This effect connot occur more than once every 1.5 seconds. In addition, when you take damage, you have a 20% chance to emit an Energy Redoubt, which absorbs a low amount of damage and lasts 6 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 10 seconds.

-Stabilized Armor

Reduces damage taken from area effects by 30%. Additionally, while stunned, you take 30% less damage from all sources.

When it comes to how to gear your merc... I find alacrity very useful for healing. I like alacrity because it enables me to get my heals off faster, and that means less chance for an interruption.

When I stacked crit or power, I honestly did not notice a huge difference in my healing amount per heal. What I did notice was slower healing, and more interrupts. This is a personal preference imo.

Alacrity not only quickens cast speeds, it also lowers cooldowns on many abilities too, so you can use them sooner than if you had zero alacrity. Just food for thought.