Combat Medic Archive

I just finished this guide and would really appreciate input. Thanks, everyone! -Rydia

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Rydia's Guide to Medicine in Star Wars Galaxies
ver. 0.95, written 7/21/2003

Prologue: I have written this document from memory as of the current retail release of SWG. I'll correct any mistakes that are pointed out happily, but please don't steal this work from me.

Introduction
So you want to know more about medicine. Awesome and welcome! You're about to learn about what I personally feel is the most rewarding aspect of all of Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) to date. Yours will be the power of life and death; your well-being is directly linked to the success of your entire team, no matter where you are. People will depend upon you, trust their lives to you, and look to you when they have little else.
At the same time, unlike any other profession in SWG I feel that medics have a duty. We're obligated to heal, not just for experience but for the others. Every person we refuse is damned to hours of sitting online waiting for their wounds to heal, or a search to find another healer. Yes, we have the right to refuse healing but be cautious as to whom you exercise this upon.
In this guide, I'll describe each of the core medical disciplines: medic, doctor, and combat medic. I'll begin first by telling you a little about each of them. Then I'll go into how we relate to the other starting professions, continue with a discussion of each one in depth, and I'll end with some comments about our tools, life as a medical professional, and the Master of Medicine.

Medical Profession Overviews
Medic - This is the starting level profession and still a highly useful one. While the other professions can choose which lines to specialize in with little penalty, the medic truly requires all their skills for they work together. Medics become adept at healing damage, which is white on a Health-Action-Mind (HAM) bar. This isn't to say that a doctor or combat medic is not better at healing damage; they are. But all of a medic's skills relate to healing damage. Medics also have the capacity to heal wounds (black damage to a HAM bar), but their skills are very limited in this respect. There are really two types of medics in the game: field medics and serious clinicians. I'll go into each of these a bit later on.
Doctor - It has been said before that if medics are the masters of damage treatment, doctors are the masters of wound treatment. Doctors have the capacity of healing any sort or type of damage in the game that isn't mental. They can treat states, make a mockery of even the most serious wounds, and eventually learn to resuscitate the dead. Again, there are two types of doctors: field docs (resuscitation specialists) and clinicians.
Combat Medic - The combat medic is the medical profession's offensive line. In my opinion this is the most difficult of all the medical professions for several reasons. One is that in addition to mastering medic (the requirement of a doctor), you have a requirement of field training in a ranged weapon. Second, the components of your medicines are drastically specific, and you will be on goose chases to find them all. Finally, your abilities appear paltry at first. (There's also several major development issues with current combat medics, but I have faith that these will be resolved quickly). In return for all this difficulty, combat medics gain something that no other line of medicine truly has: you can directly and effectively help people on the front lines. When I get into combat medicine, I'll tell you what I mean.

Medicine and the Other Professions
Brawler - Medics and Brawlers get along very well together. Traditionally the brawler steps up to the enemy and begins to pound the damage out. Traditionally, brawlers take a lot of damage. A good medic behind the brawler will keep him alive and well, and unless the brawler's mind pool is low this is a tactic to almost assured victory. Remember well that no medical profession can heal the mind, and remind your brawler that retreat is sometimes a necessity.
Marksman - The medical profession that has the most to offer a marksman is the combat medic. Marksmen typically are sniping and not taking damage, or they're running and shooting. Only a combat medic can heal for any sort of range. In addition, combat medics can poison and disease the stat that most of the marksmen are aiming for. Doctors do have a very necessary role to the marksmen, for they often don't run soon enough and end up as corpses.
Artisan - Medicine relies on the artisan in many ways along its path. First and foremost, the artisan has the abilities medicine needs to get its resources. (Forget medical forage; it's a waste of a command because it will never get you enough of any one resource to create a medicine). This becomes really important when looking for the stranger things in life like Lokian Wild Wheat or Dolovite Iron. Second, no medic is complete without a host of droids, including medical droids for healing and crafting on the run and combat droids to protect us while we heal and resuscitate. The factory is also a necessity, as we cannot make our highest level medicines without their aid. A few words about medic/artisan characters - this combination as well as scout/artisan has the ability to survey AND sample for organic materials. This ability makes choosing an organic resource much easier when setting down a harvester.
Entertainer - By far the medic's best friend. When a player dies so many times that their HAM bar is entirely black, the entertainer always has to treat them first (medicines have greatly reduced effectiveness in the presence of battle fatigue). In addition, entertainers are the only people that can keep medics themselves going. I remember well my first days in Mos Eisley. It was day 2 of the game (couldn't log in on day 1), the clinic was filled with wall to wall people bearing some of the most horrendous wounds, and I didn't know what a woundpack was yet. I would come crawling into the cantina with hundreds of fatigue and gaping mental wounds from tending all day, and I remember well the kindness with which the entertainers put me back into the clinic.
Scout - Scouts are invaluable to medics in the field. Their tents allow us to heal wounds (remember that the higher tents come very close to hospital quality in terms of helping us heal wounds, so if there's a lot of wounded in the party ask for the best tent possible). Their tents also allow us to call upon our droids for crafting or field wound tending. Furthermore, scouts harvest organic materials that serve excellently for components (and are required for some medicines). With a good scout in the group, a medic can work indefinitely with a stock of inorganic materials and a crafting tool.

An In-Depth Discussion of Medics
As I've said before, medics are trained to treat damage. At master medic level, a clinician has learned every they will ever know about the treatment of damage; the difference with doctors and combat medics is that the latter gain more experimentation points and higher level schematics.
First-Aid: This line of medical training teaches the medic how to treat damage more effectively. Every dose of medicine you use becomes more potent and more useful. In addition, advancement in this line grants the ability to cure bleeding and is thus a core necessity for field medics.
Diagnosis: This line allows the medic to heal damage more quickly. A novice medic must wait six seconds between damage treatments; mastering this line reduces that time to three seconds. This has obvious applications in the field.
Pharmacology: This line allows the medic to use more advanced medicines. An early note here about medicine at the medic level - a novice medic with no other training is capable of administering B level medicines. Pharmacology IV is required to use the next level, C. (It is possible via experimentation to reduce the required level to the Pharmacology III range on level C medicines). Thus, pharmacology is really a field that should be reserved for those aspiring to go on to higher medical education.
Organic Chemistry: This line provides more experimentation points and more schematics for the medic to use. A field medic needn't worry about this line as they can ask a clinician to produce the medicines they need. Thus, this line can also be reserved for those wishing to be field self-sufficient or those who are going on to higher medical education.
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Types of Medics
There are really two types of medics, field medics and serious clinicians. I use the term 'field medic' to refer to a character for whom medicine is not a focus but a suppliment. These characters tend to spend a lot of time in the field, and so they need or desire little medical education. The bare minimum you need to administer any medicine is Novice Medic. My personal recommendation is to get novice medic and first aid to the second level: this will allow you to treat any damage or wound on the field (with the acquisition of appropriate medicines) and you will also be able to treat bleeding. I also recommend purchasing your medicines from a master doctor, who has the most experimentation available to make the highest quality medicines. You want to purchase StimpackBs by the crate, perhaps two packs of health/action woundpacks, and one woundpack each for strength, stamina, constitution, and quickness. That should serve for most expeditions you go on.
Serious clinicians are those who intend to go onto further medical education, whether it be as a doctor or combat medic. You have no other option but to master medic first. My recommendation is to move up first-aid and diagnosis simultaneously, saving pharmacology for last. Craft all your medicines yourself, even if they aren't as effective. If you have extra medicine, donate it to other medics below you.
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Gaining Experience as a Medic
This section really only applies to serious clinicians, as field medics will have little problems getting the small amount of experience they need on the field. A few notes about medical experience in general:
1) Wounds grant experience at a 2:5 rate. Thus, two wounds treated equals five experience.
2) Damage grants expereince at a 5:2 rate (as far as I can tell). Thus, for every five damage treated, two experience is granted. Note that you can treat action and health damage simultaneously.
3) Medical crafting experience is not at a strict 1:2 resource to experience ratio as it is in most artisan fields. Some components of medicine give more, coming as close as 1:3 resource to experience. My personal experience is that crafting biological effect controllers is the most resource to experience efficient at 6/6 organics/inorganics for 35xp. The fastest crafting experience is Stimpack Bs, which can be made completely without a crafting station. These give about 200 xp when hand-crafted from bare resources.
Some tips for levelling your medic quickly:
-- Novice Medics: At this level you're just starting out. You can only make stimpack As, and rarely does someone come into the clinic with white damage. So what do you do? Get a pile of organics, whether by bazaar purchase, donation, hook, or crook. Get a pile of inorganics, and get a generic crafting kit. Walk into the local cantina and start crafting Stimpack As and using them endlessly on the entertainers. Entertainers have a neverending supply of damage for you to treat, and as long as you are using stimpacks you'll get experience as well. If the local cantina is full, find out where all the artisans are macro-harvesting and repeat.
-- Intermediate and Advanced Medics: At this point you have figured out the basics of a woundpack. Once you have Action and Health woundpacks, you are now ready to handle a small frontier clinic yourself. No, you won't be able to handle the wounds coming in but people are generally patient as opposed to having to purchase a roundtrip ticket to the nearest healer. You also can serve excellently as an apprentice to a doctor in a medium or large city clinic. Doctors generally handle major wounds, as their skills and medicines are wasted on the smaller ones. An apprentice handles the light wounds, and if your mentor is decent you'll also get free teaching and a portion of the tips as well.
-- Mastery level Medics: You're now ready to handle a small city clinic with the help of an assistant or two. Craft more medicines than you need, and give them to your apprentices for their use. You're almost ready to go on! Congratulations!

An In-Depth Discussion of Doctors
As said before and earlier, doctors are the masters of wound treatment. When an entry level medic can heal perhaps 8-10 wounds every 20-30 seconds, you can heal 600+ per 10-15 seconds at your peak. You have the ability to add 1000-2000 to any stat you'd like (barring mental) for as much as an hour or more. Your stimpacks aren't rated for humanoids; you can heal 3-5k HAM pets with ease. And you can revive the dead. A master doctor is just as formidable in their element as a master of Teras Kasi, or Bounty Hunter, or even creature handler. Let's look at your skills:
Wound Treatment: This line is your bread. With it, you heal more wounds per application of medicine. A master of wound treatment has the potential to revive a player, although you'll need more than this to apply the resuscitation kit.
Wound Treatment Speed: This line is the butter that goes on your bread. Healing wounds every half minute is novice medic level. With this line, you can cut that down to quarters of a minute (sometimes it seems faster). A master of this will walk into a hospital full of heavily wounded patients and clear it in a few minutes.
Doctor's Medical Knowledge: Your higher level medicines have some insane requirements, and this is the only way you'll be able to use them. For simple stimpacks, it's possible to get a StimC into the 2000s with perfect resources and advanced components. If you're going to triage a medical tent in a major assault yourself, you want E level woundpacks under your arms. And the resuscitation kit's requirement is not a trifle, either.
Doctor's Crafting: Only a master of this can create resurrection kits. Most doctors will know a master of this line if they are not one themselves. In addition, mastery grants up to ten total experimentation points for medicine.
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Types of Doctors
Similarly to medics, they are dabblers and then there are serious clinicians. Field docs care only about the ability to revive their comrades, and thus must master wound treatment and touch upon medicine knowledge. Gaining experience for you is simple; go into battle and stimpack the incapacitated. Each administration should be good for 300-400 experience, and by this time you can perform that every three seconds.
Serious doctors belong in the clinics. In a medium to large city, you will be the cornerstone of the medical effort. Any wound over 150 should be brought to your attention, and you'll have to deal with everything if you aren't fortunate enough to have an assistant. Get a crafting droid because you'll almost never have time to run out to a private station. Eventually you'll need access to crates of components; I recommend collecting all the doctors on a planet and distributing cost and access time. One factory can probably serve the component needs for five to ten doctors. You are essential to the health and well-being of your community, just as a doctor is in real life.
The only real tip for levelling a doc is to go where the wounded are. On Tatooine, I had a network of medic assistants in most cities, and when seriously wounded came in I took the shuttle over and helped them. Towards the end of my career enough docs had surfaced and I just concentrated on my own clinic in Mos Eisley. When your PA or faction is involved in a siege, set up a triage tent with a ranger and treat the wounded there. And so on. The tips for getting through your massive crafting requirements are the same as with a medic: get a pile of organics and inorganics and go craft biological effect controllers or StimpackBs. As a doctor, you can either donate, destroy, or sell the StimBs you produce (with your training, they are very useful to field medics).

Some more excellent input! Hmmm.... I admit that I've been a clinician for 90% of my SWG medical career, and I was the fastest master medic on Starsider that I know of. Given a steady supply of patients, it's been my general experience that you get a good deal more experience in the clinic. But I've heard that medics in the field get there 'faster'... I'll have to play another medic somewhere to make a substantive decision. Until then, I will bring this role for a medic into the limelight a good deal more. What other medics do you consider existant?

But I see a rather excellent point in my choice of wording as a 'serious' clinician versus what I seem to be setting up as a dabbler. I never meant to put down anyone who takes medicine to help in the field with StimBs and the like, and I will definitely rephrase this. Personally, I think any character would benefit from taking novice medic and two levels of first aid... just like learning first aid and CPR in real life, they can handle the minor things on the spot, or keep their dancer dancing, or keep surveying, or what have you. Plus, it will boost the medical economy and be an overall good thing.

I would like more information on what you consider "waaaay offbase". I've had several comments on these 'rules' and I am going to revamp them greatly I suspect once I get out into the field and am able to test the various strategies. My focus that I meant to instill here are strategies for keeping your group alive: a medic outside of combat is much more capable of keeping it going in my experience.

A lot of people have played medics very differently (you should see the combat medic forum analog of this post for a case there!), but I was of the opinion that a guide describes the profession with a personal touch. I've done my best to relate every bit of information I gleaned in what I consider to be a successful and expedient medical career as well as to show how I got there and the values I learned. If you wanted a textbook description of medicine, I believe it's been done excellently in the strategy guide.

Again, thank you for your input and I look forward to your comments.

-Rydia

Rydia, that is some really useful information about the healing professions. You should submit this guide to Allakhazam.com for inclusion in their guides section. Also thanks to Sekir for some helpful advanced tactics.

One follow up I would like to see is a listing of the required components for all schematics. There are already several people working on it from what I have read. Over on SWGMedics.com there are a few threads as well. (www.swgmedics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29 is one example) This would help the up and coming Novice Medics begin gathering resources they might want to use on advanced components.

Hehehe. Thank you, Ollop. After the comments on the medic forum, it was nice to see this.

The guide has already been picked up by a few places, including the one you've mentioned. It's not really finished yet, so I feel bad about submitting it for now.

But I will keep working on it! I'll see what I can do about including a schematics list, but I have over a hundred medicines I can make.

-Rydia

it seems alright as a basic guide, a little too babyish for my tastes but that is just me and shouldn't really be worried about. i think what could improve it is not assume that combat medics are going to be just healers. my template of master medic, master combat medic and master pistoleer is just as much geered towards fighting as it is towards healing. your guide seems to assume master medic, master combat medic and master doctor which is a little mistaken.

some things that you might want to add (and forgive me if i put something that is actually in there, with these thigns i tend to only skim) is how to work on expiermenting medicines and how all that works not to mention suggestions towards races such as that squid race for doctors and zabarak for combat medic. another thing that could improve it is tell people what they want to do. tell them that they want to be pistoleer (or whatever you believe is best) for combat medic and that they must be zabarak. people while they may not admit it, but they want to be told what to do especially on stuff they are indecisive about.

I dont like the whole making stim packs a hotkey thing. I usually have stim C's and ranged C's on me myself and just use /healdamage.

Also I dont like to queue up healing. I'd way way rather do a /peace (or have it as a hotkey) and heal right away then if I want I can hit /headshot3 ( I took up some Rifleman skills) and then hit peace again to throw out another heal. That's my two cents. I dont really see the need for a stim pack bigger than C when I can get heals for 500 fairly common with B stim packs. PC's only have 1k HAM bars unbuffed anyhow. With decent secondary Mind stats, regen shouldnt be too much of a problem, unless you arehealing non stop for an extended period of time. Heck, only thing you might need em bigger for is CH pets.

One problem with /peace is that if you are not under attack then you will loose yor target and will spend time retargeting and if you are under attack it does not do anything.
It's better to learn to time your heals with shooting IMHO, however good rifles are slow, so you don't really have my choise but to piece out, that's why many combat medics recommend using carabines/pistols - faster time makes smaller delay - improves healing rate (in combat)

bump for a guide

No XP for healing pets as of the recent patch...

How about adding the medusage skill requirements for each Medpack?

Like stimpackA requires med use 5 . stimpackD requires med use 52 etc