SWTOR Healer keybinds

11Jan12

A good player needs a well thought out interface…..

TL:DR version: I discuss focus frame, the peripherals I use and a keybind layout that helps me stay with my group and be a more active part of it. If you learn anything from this, my alt tank or dps will be happy to group with you!

When starting my Imperial Agent as a healer, I really missed mouse over macro’s and/or addons. Without them I have set something up that works equally fine for PVE and PVP, so I thought I would share it here.

I use the Focus Target unit frame. This frame is currently bugged for me, but is still very helpful. It is enabled in the ‘Enable Focus Target’ in the General Section of Controls within Preferences and allows you to have two targets.

Unfortunately the bug causes the unit frame to disappear from view quite frequently, however it still keeps the last focus target. Only reloading the UI seems to restore it when it goes.

You use this frame in conjunction with a modifier key, defaulted to ‘end’ key. End + hotkey will cast that ability on your focus target. Please fix the intermittent disappearing frame bug soon Bioware, and I’ll be happy to edit this out of my blog!!

With the Focus Frame, I try to have a friendly and an enemy targeted at the same time so I can heal, dot, CC and use all my time effectively. You cannot spam heals at any level, so this allows me to fill my cooldowns and use my resource free dps ability (or CC/DOT etc) to speed up our enemies demise in between healer duties. This makes a more active and fun game play experience, as well as speeding up the run. I like contributing to the DPS as well!

For keyboard and mouse, I use a Razer Naga and a Razer Nostromo game pad.

Out of the two, the Naga is the only essential. The brilliant thumb accessed number pad, used with modifiers Shift and Alt gives easy access to 36 key presses. It takes a few hours to train the muscle memory for new Naga users, but once learned, you’ll not want another mouse to play hotbar style games.

The Naga also has two useful buttons to the left of the left click button, I have mapped them to control two of my companion’s abilities (mapped to keys Control +1 etc). With these extra buttons, I can access Companion abilities quickly using my left mouse click finger and I use it for companion charge/leaps and taunts. Very handy!!

Make sure you unbind your disable music keybinds from Miscellaneous in the Keybindings interface, as you will turn it off using modifiers and the movement keys in the heat of battle!!

I use the Nostromo gamepad because I like to remap to default keys as much as I can, and I like the ergonomics. It is not essential as you can set up keybinds using SWTOR’s standard interface, so you do not need to do the same as I do. You could bind a very similar pattern using any keyboard.

If you use the Nostromo, one major warning I need to mention is the d-pad needs to be disabled, switch off the d-pad buttons, as it has an unfortunate ‘feature’ causing your character to be stuck moving in one direction, at best annoying, at worst leading to a ‘leeroy’ incident!! This fault is a great shame because it spoils an otherwise useful tool but it is avoidable at the loss of 4/8 buttons.

I set up the Nostromo as below. The only other real difference from another keyboard is that the Nostromo has an extra the scroll wheel and I like to use it to switch hotbars, the round thumb button on Nostromo I use to assign Focus Target, all these functions can be key bound on any keyboard through the SWTOR interface.

Tab	F1	w	End	CC		Focus Target		Tool bar 1
Alt	a	s	d	CC				Tool bar 3
Shift	F2	F3	F3					Tool bar 4

Tab = Target Nearest Enemy, you can also set this to Target Nearest Friendly if you group pvp a lot, then you can focus target enemies and switch your toolbars to an offensive primary bar.

F1 to F4 targets self and party member, in Flashpoints or to a less extent Warzones, you do not need to click unit frames saving time taken by screen clicks. I do miss mouseover macro’s, but this is a good alternative.

The ‘End’ buttons is the default key that allows you to cast abilities on your focus target. This means you have two targets.

I personally use my Focus Target primarily for a friendly group member (usually the Tank), or my companion depending on the circumstances. The thumb nostromo button makes switching focus target on the fly a lot easier. Sometimes I put my main character as focus target (usually in PVP 1v1 situations).

Using a friendly ‘focus target’ means you need to put your heal or friendly abilities on your primary hotkey bar, so they are accessed with ’1′ to ‘+’. Using an enemy focus target means you use your offensive abilities. You do not want to need an other modifier like alt or shift for your focus target, so this is an important consideration.

The two CC buttons are for crowd control ability, it is useful having two in easy reach positions, and this applies to both PVP and PVE. A healer using clever CC is a better healer in any situation!

I map 24 buttons using two toolbars through SWTOR’s Keybindings to shift + [1 to +] and Alt + [1 to +]. So having Alt and Shift in pinky range coupled to the Naga is how I get easy access to 36 abilities.

How you layout these abilities on the hotkeys is up to you.

Hope this helps!

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