Combat Medic Archive

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TheOtherDude wrote:

As far as your second paragraph goes, I can't imagine healers having any trouble soloing even if there was an extreme damage reduction mod added. Healers can survive much longer than non-healers, so even if they dealt significantly less damage they could still win a fight by dealing the lesser damage for a longer period of time.

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Actually the amount of healing is governed by the amount of points spent. A novice healer or even someone with just medic 0/4/0/0 cannot heal as well as an MCM or MDoctor. The amount of points spent to realize those healing amounts reduce the number of skillpoints that can be used on offensive, defensive, or crowd controlskills. In essence we've already taken our reduction and substituted it with something else.

I am an MCM/MRifleman however, my damage output is much less than an MBH/MRifleman and my defenses are much lower. In a 1 vs 1 DUEL my ability to heal coupled with their inability to heal (minus ruby biel and stims) will eventually let me get in enough damage to incap that person while avoiding an incap myself. Unfortunately, dueling is NOT PvP. PvP consists of multiple people attacking another group of people. High content PvE such as taking down Detachment HQ's (level 88+) or the DWB (level 90+) consists of multiple people attacking multiple targets. Acting as group support is where the ability really starts to shine. The others do the damage and I keep them alive.

Now I can see where much of this "nerf CM" stuff originated from in the minds of uber l337 Jedi. When hunted by BH they are caught in a forced duel with said person. This means they have to give up more precious l337 skills in order to cope with the damage. Its more balanced than you think.

The only argument that you can try and squeeze out of your logic is that lesser forms of healing ability should not come as close to master level healing abilities. In that case I agree. I believe that medic 0/4/4/0 and Jedi healing 4/0/0/0 should only heal small amounts and that to even break the 1k mark they'll need to pick up alot of CM or Doc or Jedi healing. To behonest, they need to makecurrent Jedi healing amounts available at masterjedi healer instead of agimpy single tree.

Message Edited by Brainplay on 07-19-2005 06:42 AM

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Gnuut wrote:

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TheOtherDude wrote:

The healer class is still needed. There is absolutely no debate about that. In fact, at least some CM/Doc/JediHealeris almost required to be effective in PvP or PvE.

I'm saying that since everyone has healing abilitiesin their templates, dedicated grouphealers are no longer needed. I don't think it should be that way, and I offered my solution in this thread.

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OK I'm not understanding the poiint you are trying to make. First you say the healer classes are not needed and then you say they are needed. Please decide which argument you wish to make. You can't base your assumptions on the template decisions of the players on Gorath. Not all servers have gone that way. Think globally, not locally.

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You have indeed missed my point altogether.

I'm saying that the fact that healing is so useful means that everyone has some healer in their template. You are lucky if this hasn't happened on your server, yet, but it almost certainly will. Once a few people get healer on your serverand start soloing CL90 ranged NPCs and dominating in PvP, more people will add healer to their template. Maybe, for some reason, you'll get lucky and this won't happen on your server, but I wouldn't count on it.

Now, here is my main point:

With all of these healers around (again, there may not be THAT many on some servers, but I'd bet there will be a lot more on those servers before long), all group members can heal themselves sufficiantly without the need for a dedicated group healer. As some people have pointed out, a group healer doesn't hurt in these situations (usually). However, ifthe person that is playing the role of the group healer was exchanged for another person that could (for instance) deal damage AND keep himself healed, the group would be no worse off. In fact, the group could very well be better off because of fewer problems with the tank holding aggro.

The solution I'm proposing is adding mods that reduce the damage the healer does. This would make healing professions less attractive to a lot of people. Thus, fewer people would have healing in their template, and their would be a true need for dedicated healers in groups.

not to miss the point your trying to make but i am sure i am... isn't your whole argument based on the fact that it is easy for just about any templete to pick up some healing.... yet in the example you just stated. They are Master CM which is not the issue. Also with the templetes you list, the MBH is always going to be useing duelest stance, as that is what makes a bh a bh... also for your damage done. Ok yes the healer will heal for a lot... but what your not takeing into effect is that the damage dealer is dishing out damage while that healer is healing... and you know what, if all your doing is rotating your heals as a healer... i don't care what foods/spices/buffs you have.. your mind is gone in 2 min's flat MAX, while the guy shooting at you can manage his own action, which will last longer then your mind... even if it does run out... there is still ranged shot... Ok, you are both rifleman... which means this is going to be a 50-65 range fight.... sorry your dot's/debuffs are uselless.... ok but let's stop this train of thought and go with what i thought was your original issue...

ok here it goes.. and tell me if i miss this... but what i understood was that your problem was with templets like these:

MBH/MRifle/CM4000

where their healing is almost as good as a MCM's with reativly small skill point investment...

is that close?

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Zimal wrote:

not to miss the point your trying to make but i am sure i am... isn't your whole argument based on the fact that it is easy for just about any templete to pick up some healing.... yet in the example you just stated. They are Master CM which is not the issue. Also with the templetes you list, the MBH is always going to be useing duelest stance, as that is what makes a bh a bh... also for your damage done. Ok yes the healer will heal for a lot... but what your not takeing into effect is that the damage dealer is dishing out damage while that healer is healing... and you know what, if all your doing is rotating your heals as a healer... i don't care what foods/spices/buffs you have.. your mind is gone in 2 min's flat MAX, while the guy shooting at you can manage his own action, which will last longer then your mind... even if it does run out... there is still ranged shot... Ok, you are both rifleman... which means this is going to be a 50-65 range fight.... sorry your dot's/debuffs are uselless.... ok but let's stop this train of thought and go with what i thought was your original issue...

ok here it goes.. and tell me if i miss this... but what i understood was that your problem was with templets like these:

MBH/MRifle/CM4000

where their healing is almost as good as a MCM's with reativly small skill point investment...

is that close?

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No, I don't think distributing the healing throughout the professionswould help anything. If people needed to go MCM/MDoc/MHealer to get the healing ability they are getting now they would almost all do it (Well, not sure about Jedi). It is easy to fit two high-damage specials and some crowd control specials into a MCM/MDoc template. Even if the template lacked speed, accuracy, and defense mods, the healing would MUCH more than make up for it (as shown in a previous post). Also, if players were forced to go MCM/MDoc, the extra (non-healing) branches of the professions would just take the place of many ofthe specials they lost. For instance, someone may lose a lot of speed during the switch from Doc4000 to MDoc, but Adrenal Boost would more than make up for it. Similarly, someone might have to give up the crowd control specials of Smuggler to move from CM4000 to MCM. However, Thyroid Rupture, Paralyze, ect would make him no worse of a crowd controller than he was before.

The simple solution to the overpowered healing problem would be to increase mind cost and cooldown timers and/or reduce the effectiveness of the heals. Balancing healing this way would mean making it so the healing from MCM is about as useful as the 5% quicker rate of fire and 5% better damage mitigation one could get by putting the skillpoints into othercombat professions(ie practically worthless). This would mean balancing the entire healer class around healing one person (himself). In other words, it'd be the death of the dedicated group healer.

By adding a damage reduction mod, healers could be brought into balance without crippling our ability to be group healers. I haven't really put much thought into it, but a defense reduction (as in healers get hit for much more damage) might also be a tool that the devs could use to help balance healers.

Message Edited by TheOtherDude on 07-19-2005 11:19 PM

Message Edited by TheOtherDude on 07-19-2005 11:21 PM

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TheOtherDude wrote:

This post is in response to those that say the skillpoint requirement is enough of a penalty for healers.

Consider these two templates:

Master Bounty Hunter/Master Rifleman/Master Marksman/Pistoleer0003 (Non-healer)

And

Master Combat Medic/Master Rifleman/Carbineer0440 (Healer)

Defensive Ability-

The Non-healer template has 40 more Melee Defense (185 Vs. 145)and 50 more Ranged Defense (260 Vs. 210) than the Healer template. Despite the seeming large difference in values, the difference in defense will prove to have a very small impact on the damage recieved. There is only a significant difference in damage mitigation when the Non-healer uses Duelist Stance. However, Duelist Stance takes up precious time that the Non-healer needs use to deal damage, and it can only be used while not moving. If we assume the Non-Healer is not going to use Duelist Stance, the Healer ends up being able to take damage at least 95% as well as the Non-Healer. First of all, that "small" amount you speak of is per hit and can equate to between 20-60 points depending on other factors like the number of states applied, etc etc. You and the other nooblets can discount that as a small amount but it is not and adds up quickly. In a DUEL it means little if the person has no healing. In group actions thats a big help. Secondly you are disregarding Duelist stance completely which is a BIIIIGG mistake and makes a huge difference. I'm surprised that aura isn't made like duelist stance.

Offensive Ability-

The Non-healer template has a significantly higher speed mod than the healer (135 Vs. 85). However, this onlytranslates into roughly a 10% decrease in modified speed for the Non-healer, and that decrease in modified speed translates into an even smaller increase in actual rate of fire. Some people even claim that midified speed doesn't matter at all on a weapon because the difference it makes is so small. The Non-healer also has a small accuracy advantage over the healer (285 Vs. 240). This difference doesn't translate into much of an advantage for the Non-healer, however. The Non-healer also has a slightly better damage combo than the healer (Adv. Critical Shot + Imp.Head Shot Vs. Imp. Leg Shot + Imp. Head Shot). Though Improved Leg Shot and Advanced Critical Shot do the same amount of damage most of the time, Advanced Critical Shot does occasionally hit for more (-Critical- hit). In some PvP and high-level PvE the healer can make up for those relatively small differences with his DoTs. Even if DoTs are taken outof the equation, theHealer certainly has no less than 85%the damage dealing ability of the Healer. The difference in speed is VERY noticeable. It affects both the warm up and cool down timers on everything and is not to be disregarded. Accuracy is a MAJOR fighting component now. The higher the accuracy the more damage you do. Do some tests. Compare high accuracy weapons using the same special on an unarmored person. See what happens when you have "blind" on. I can have my damaged reduced by HALF with states on me as well and the only way to get past that is with accuracy. High defense opponent + your low accuracy= lots of misses. Then you go to specials. Damage specials aren't that big of a deal. The other specials are what you use the extra points for. Crowd control, snares, roots, etc. Finally the last statement is just wrong. Sure the damage specials are in there but the speed and accuracy is not and I've already explained their importance. I suggest you do some real testing on your own instead of hearsay.

Crowd Control-

In this case, the Healer Combat Medic not doctor or medicprobably has better crowd control than the Non-Healer. The Healer Combat Medicnot doctor or medic has a mez, a speed debuff, an action regen debuff, a mind regen debuff, a ranged snare, a better melee snare, a state-resists debuff, a delayand a knockdown. The Non-Healer has a root, a delay, a ranged snare, a blind, and a knockdown. Fixed it for ya. Also take in mind that those are all 10m and apain in the rearto get on someone (other than a jedi or melee who has to be in that range) while trying to chase them down. But other than that sure I agree.

Healing-

This is the big one. The healer can effectively have a minimum of1500 more health. This assumes the healer gets off a Bacta Shot but is killed while waiting for thecooldown timer.Huh? Normally the healertakes a LOT more damage before dying because not many things can deal4500 damage in3 seconds or whatever it would be. So, though the healer may be taking ~5% more damage than the Non-healerthe healercan afford to take 50% more before dying. Similarily, though the healer may be dealing damage ~15% slower than the Non-Healer he can live to deal that damage for nearly 50% longer. See uneducated guessing..but I digress. Ok, the numbers are a bit off but sure. In a duel thats a really bad bad thing. In a group action that sets up a bigger emphasis on grouping that the devs said was what they intended to do in the first place.

Maybe you feel that my numbers are off. Perhaps you believe the 40-50 less defense equates to a greater difference than I believeit to be(and have tested it to be). Then I ask you to ask yourself if it adds up enough to make a difference in my general conclusion.

Also note that I left Instant Stims out of the equation for simplicity. Here's a look at the healing in a prolonged fight where the both stomachs would end full and the Healer's mind would run out:

Non-healer: 3000 (CL80 Health) +12000 (10 x 1200 Power Instant Stims) = 15000 Damage

Healer: 3000 (CL80 Health) +12000 (10 x 1200 Power Instant Stims) + 9800 (7 x Bacta Shot) + 7700 (7 x Bacta Toss) = 32500 Damage

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Thats nice kid. Really it truly is. I applaude your efforts to see that someone who can't heal wont last as long as someone who can heal. Heck we've known that since the first M.U.D's were around. We knew this in Everquest 1, 2, WoW, UO, etc etc etc.

What you keep forgetting or maybe just purposely avoiding is that this is an intended function. Healers HEAL not just themselves and others. If their group healing ability is turn on themselves it is a powerful thing (healing pauses them from doing damage as well).IN A DUEL THEYWILL BEAT ANYONE WITHOUT HEALING. That is because duels are stupid. There I said it. Then again anyone from any other game could have told you that too.

Of course the jedi vs BH deal brings up a whole different story now doesn't it. Since they removed group TEF (which alot of poor little jedi cried about) and made it a 1 vs. 1 deal they really made it something to contend with didn't they? But this isn't the BH or Jedi forum now is it?

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TheOtherDude wrote:

No, I don't think distributing the healing throughout the professionswould help anything. If people needed to go MCM/MDoc/MHealer to get the healing ability they are getting now they would almost all do it (Well, not sure about Jedi). It is easy to fit two high-damage specials and some crowd control specials into a MCM/MDoc template. Even if the template lacked speed, accuracy, and defense mods, the healing would MUCH more than make up for it (as shown in a previous post). Also, if players were forced to go MCM/MDoc, the extra (non-healing) branches of the professions would just take the place of many ofthe specials they lost. For instance, someone may lose a lot of speed during the switch from Doc4000 to MDoc, but Adrenal Boost would more than make up for it. Similarly, someone might have to give up the crowd control specials of Smuggler to move from CM4000 to MCM. However, Thyroid Rupture, Paralyze, ect would make him no worse of a crowd controller than he was before. You're overlooking the obvious already in the fact that all of those nice buffs can be had by anyone else (except a solo type). You're already overlooking the importance of innate speed, accuracy, and defense. Thyroid isn't crowd control (as opposed to a debuff) so much as electrolye for a snare and paralyze which is a mez and has a much shorter duration. With the new delays after mezzing the duration just became a big deal. Making getting master of a healing profession makes alot of sense and yes it would decrease others specials, etc etc.

The simple solution to the overpowered healing problem would be to increase mind cost and cooldown timers and/or reduce the effectiveness of the heals. Balancing healing this way would mean making it so the healing from MCM is about as useful as the 5% quicker rate of fire and 5% better damage mitigation one could get by putting the skillpoints into othercombat professions(ie practically worthless). This would mean balancing the entire healer class around healing one person (himself). In other words, it'd be the death of the dedicated group healer. Yeah the death of the dedicated group healer. Lets take more emphasis away from GROUPS and put more on SOLO. They increased the timers on healing because it wasn't enough in the old days or did you forget that? My healing timers are still longer than swithing between damage specials. Where are you getting this stuff?

By adding a damage reduction mod, healers could be brought into balance without crippling our ability to be group healers. I haven't really put much thought into it, but a defense reduction (as in healers get hit for much more damage) might also be a tool that the devs could use to help balance healers. Yeah we can see that part dude. We get hit for alot of damage in pve which is being worked on as we speak. Whats the point of making us go down even faster? Are you saying that 1 vs 1 fights should be of more importance or that pve isn't as important as pve? Would a damage reduction or defense reduction really be something viable? Have you still not figured out why in the heck they put ranged and melee defense in a healers template in the first place?

Message Edited by TheOtherDude on 07-19-2005 11:19 PM

Message Edited by TheOtherDude on 07-19-2005 11:21 PM

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Wild__Bill wrote:

Well I agree to extent that healing is a bit overpowered.

It is overpowered that a character with one column of Doc or Combat Medic can heal nearly as well as the Master Doctor or MCM. In most of the combat professions there is a big enough difference between effectiveness of a 4444 and master let alone a character with just one column in that profession. I really have no problems with characters have just the one healing line, but there should be a noticable penalty for not being a master.

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Hereis where I got my numbers, Brain.

I've done tons of testingon a variety of full templateplayers. The +190 General Ranged Accuracy givenby Deuterium Pyro generally grants a 0-12% increase in damage depending on the innate accuracy of the player using it, theinnate defenses of the target, and the difference between the min and max damage of the weapon. Because Defense Vs Accuracy is what ultimately determines the damage dealt,I was able to gauge the importance of defenses with these numbers.

The actual advantage a person with aspeed of 135 has over a player with a speed of 85 varies depending on the base speed of the rifle. For a rifle with aspeed of 2.5 (about average for rifles), the person with the higher skill mod would enjoy about a 10% lower modified speed stat. Though there has been much debate about whether this really means the weaponwill fire 10% more often, we can assume that it doesfor our purposes here, if you like.

If you consider those numbers, you can see why I tend to disregard the speed, accuracy, and defensemods. Huge differences in the values of the mods make relatively small differences in practice.

Just a few other points to note:

- I disregarded Duelist Stance and the DoTs for similar reasons, though I did make sure to note in my postthat they both make significant differences. Duelist Stance requires that you not move or perform any action during the charge up time. That, combined with the fact that it takes a good amount of time to use and consumes a reasonable amount of action, detracts from its usefulness. Among other things, the fact that DoTs require that you be within 35m really detract from their usefulness.

- The Devs classify Thyroid Rupture as "Attack Control" which is a sub-category of crowd control. That, and the fact that it does the exact same thing asLow Blow, is why I included it as crowd control in my post.

- You responded to the second paragraph of my response to Zimal by completely agreeing with me. I was showing the WRONG way to balance healing. The right way to balance healing, I believe, would be to add a damage reduction mod and/or a defense reduction mod. Sorry if I was unclear.

Message Edited by TheOtherDude on 07-20-2005 03:46 AM

Message Edited by TheOtherDude on 07-20-2005 03:47 AM

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TheOtherDude wrote:

I've done tons of testingon a variety of full templateplayers. The +190 General Ranged Accuracy givenby Deuterium Pyro generally grants a 0-12% increase in damage depending on the innate accuracy of the player using it, theinnate defenses of the target, and the difference between the min and max damage of the weapon. Because Defense Vs Accuracy is what ultimately determines the damage dealt,I was able to gauge the importance of defenses with these numbers.

The actual advantage a person with aspeed of 135 has over a player with a speed of 85 varies depending on the base speed of the rifle. For a rifle with aspeed of 2.5 (about average for rifles), the person with the higher skill mod would enjoy about a 10% lower modified speed stat. Though there has been much debate about whether this really means the weaponwill fire 10% more often, we can assume that it doesfor our purposes here, if you like. Umm..pre-CU rifles are 2.5 average but the new 82 SAC riflesare all 2.7-3.0 speed depending on the materials. However, just exactly where are you getting this 10% number. Is it based off of the dps number showing on a weapon in different template hands, approximation guess work, or did you pug the numbers in the diminishing returns formula and calculate?

If you consider those numbers, you can see why I tend to disregard the speed, accuracy, and defensemods. Huge differences in the values of the mods make relatively small differences in practice. Tested this all myself and I gotta disagree with you there. You're making light of differences that really are bigger than you take them for but oh well. Hmm, maybe I'll test and record the numbers for posterity. Not sure which board to post them on though.

Just a few other points to note:

- I disregarded Duelist Stance and the DoTs for similar reasons, though I did make sure to note in my postthat they both make significant differences. Duelist Stance requires that you not move or perform any action during the charge up time. That, combined with the fact that it takes a good amount of time to use and consumes a reasonable amount of action, detracts from its usefulness. Among other things, the fact that DoTs require that you be within 35m really detract from their usefulness. Both are still main skills that come with the templates. While you do have to be standing still for DS to work (or even CoB) its easily worked around with a macro timer. Something every good BH and melee has down pat.

- The Devs classify Thyroid Rupture as "Attack Control" which is a sub-category of crowd control. That, and the fact that it does the exact same thing asLow Blow, is why I included it as crowd control in my post. Ah I see

- You responded to the second paragraph of my response to Zimal by completely agreeing with me. I was showing the WRONG way to balance healing. The right way to balance healing, I believe, would be to add a damage reduction mod and/or a defense reduction mod. Sorry if I was unclear. I actually responded to both and in both cases I disagreed and listed why previously. I touched off the the damage reduction question but only lightly. Its still a bad idea.

Message Edited by TheOtherDude on 07-20-2005 03:46 AM

Message Edited by TheOtherDude on 07-20-2005 03:47 AM

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