SWTOR: Through Coruscant/Port Raga (now level 17)

So, I've been playing my Commando a lot the last two days, and finished up Coruscant this afternoon.

For those of you who like visual aids, ( this is my commando: )

I quested around a bit until I got HEALING BULLETS and then I mostly continued questing around, but offered my services as a healer for some heroic quests. Here's what I've learned about Commando healing:

- I found myself using Recharge cells pretty much on cooldown, and would recommend Commando healers take the talent that improves Recharge Cells before the talent that gives you more crit heals/makes crit heals proc extra alacrity.

- HEALING BULLETS do not heal for all that much, but they do give you stacks of Combat Support Cell, which lets you use your Supercharge cells ability, which improves your healing and helps you regen ammo. (It functions similarly to Evangelism/Archangel for priests in WoW. The stacks of Combat Support cell give a low +healing bonus, and the on-use ability gives back resources and improves certain abilities' healing for a short period. Hammer Shot with combat Support cell active works similar to spells like Holy Shock or Penance from WoW where it's an attack to hostile targets and a heal to friendlies.) Healing gets a lot easier once you get Supercharge Cells, and I would say that's the first talent point I'd spend in that tier. The talent that lets Medical Probe give Combat Support Cell stacks is also really awesome.

- I've only healed Jedi Shadow tanks so far and haven't had any problems keeping them up. But let me tell you that I can't wait until I get space Earth shield.

- I keep Sticky Grenade, Cryo Grenade, and Concussion Charge on my bars even as a healer.


Also, I got a stupid hat.


Crew Skills are going ok. I finally got the purple materials to make my reuseable medpack. I'm probably not going to keep up much with Diplomacy since I'm trying to save credits for training and hopefully a mount someday. If I were going to do it over, I'd take Slicing while leveling and then use the credits from Slicing to powerlevel your mission skill when you're closer to level 50. Assuming they don't nerf Slicing since it basically makes the in-game currency worthless. (Although it does have the bonus effect of making gold sellers pointless.)

I procced my blue/purple recipes for medpacks pretty quickly from reverse engineering, but don't seem to be proccing a blue/purple recipe for my stim. Maybe I'm mistaken and there isn't one? Or isn't one for the rank 1 stims.

I may need to go back to Ord Mantell/Coruscant to powerlevel Bioanalysis since I want to get my gathering done on Taris while I'm actually questing there since I hear there's a lot of stuff to gather there.


Other thoughts:
I never realized how annoying having to constantly go back to your trainer to train new ranks of your abilities was in WoW until they took it out and made abilities auto level. I'm so spoiled now. I do like having something new to learn every level, and a new talent point to place every level.

I love heroic quests, but still haven't done any Flashpoints.

So far, I'm having no problems questing as a healer, although for Elite mobs, or pulls of 2+ Strong mobs, I'm generally just retreating to doing nothing but healing Aric, which can get a bit slow at times, but gets the job done. If you're going to do this, you have to keep at least one companion pretty well-equipped/with up-to-date equipment. This is not too bad for Troopers since Aric and a healing Commando will use pretty much the exact same gear, so when you replace gear, you can give him the stuff you just replaced.

I am pretty sure Mortar Volley is cheating. Holy crap I love that ability so much. So so much.