Combat Medic Archive

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jfang wrote:

(This post is not meant to judge whether the situation is good or bad. This is just an analysis of the current situation from a combat medic who does not PvP, but has read the forums considerably. I am making the assumption that because of SP, not everybody can be a 4000 doctor. This argument has been alluded to in the “make inoculations” arguments, among others, but never explicitly mentioned.)

It seems that a primary reason people view combat medics as overpowering in PvP combat is that by nature a combat medic is proactive, where as all the counters to it are reactive. This has the effect of inflating the strength of their attacks over all the counters, even if they are equal on a theoretical level.

For example, imagine you have two countries sharing a large border. How much larger an army would you need to defend your border from a concentrated attack from a neighbor’s smaller army, if the attack can come at any location and any time with no warning?

The same basic principle applies to fighting against combat medics. Since the combat medics are the actors, a person must always be prepared for the “sneak attack” from one. In theory you can always have a 35% Cho-nor active, and always be near a doctor. In practice, the food rapidly becomes too expensive and cumbersome to always use. And, as doctors are real people with their own ideas of fun, you can not always be near a doctor when you go into combat. This applies especially when you are looking for some quick fun, and go overt by yourself, looking for trouble.

And even when you do have a doctor with you, the doctor can’t do anything until after the combat medic acts. Since the combat medic can target player A 10m away, or player B 60m away, the defending team needs to cover both possibilities. So the potential of facing one combat medic can force a “well prepared team” to be comprised of 30% doctors (especially as doctors have no range on their cures), and to use up valuable stomach space for poison resistant food. There doesn’t even need to be an opposing combat medic, just the fact that you may face one causes this. Then, if you go against a comparably sized group which ignored the possibility of a combat medic, all of a sudden they are 30% more effective than you at equal numeric strength (which is probably part of the reason not all groups have a large number of doctors and we don’t see Cho-nor selling on any vendors).

From a combat medic perspective, there is nothing wrong with the situation because “hey, you should always expect to be poisoned, after all, that’s is all that we can do… why didn’t you do A, B, and C to kill me?” From a would-be victim perspective, it is very wrong because “how can I possibly *always* be prepared for your attack?”

As a result of this argument, no matter what arguments are said or numbers presented in this forum, nerf cries will likely continue until one of the following things happen:
1) Damage from combat medics is reduced to the point that it is basically ignorable (eg. 75% damage reduction)
2) The strength of combat medic counters drastically overpower offensive strength of poisons and diseases (eg. A 1 second delay doctor ranged and area cure at half the mind cost use, as compared to the combat medic 4 second throw time)
3) Everybody has a way to counter a combat medic (eg. The combat revamp and introduction of mind stims usable at the cost of 15 SP from your template, or making an “everybody can use” poison cure)
4) There is a way to enact a long term, passive defense to combat medics, effectively removing combat medics from being the sole “primary actor” in an encounter. (eg. Creating gas-masks, or inoculations)

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The biggest problem this game has, is that a lot of people playing it are major star wars fans. They have also probably come from games such as Everquest and DAoC where lets face it, they are not used to PvP based games.

The arguement I am hearing now, is the same arguement I heard when I used to play Ultima Online, people complaining that they didn't like having to actually (play with a brain) because someone used a tactic they weren't prepared for. To this day I am sure people are still crying about having to use Cure Potions in combat, because heaven forbid a pvper with a brain might bring a poisoned sword to a fight. That would be like a Police Officer crying in the middle of a gun fight, because he left his gun at home and instead choose to bring his baton, because he looks r33t with a baton.

Basically... get over it, this is a game about adapting, and to be quite honest, this is a game about having friends / guilds / teammates to play with. There is no one uber character class. CM's are great at disrupting a clustered group of people, or causing a few single combatants to worry due to being poisoned. A pair of CM's are even more devestating... But take a pair of Rifleman or Carbineers or Pistoleers or some sort of weaponry guy, and have them focus on a guy, and you'll notice the target drops mighty fast.

Combat requires a brain... individual combat requires a brain, and unfortunatly this game has a lot of Rock/Paper/Scizzor classes if you are looking at it, with a one vs one perspective. However if you play the game as its meant to be played, and actually utilize a team of people, you will quickly see that all classes and character archetypes have their place. Its nice to have some guys tank and get in peoples face, if that didn't happen our rifleman / carb guys wouldn't have as easy a time shooting, and god forbid our CM's would spend most the time trying to stay far FAR away from the TK guys.

So perhaps before you complain about a class being unbalanced, you might first try and learn pvp as its meant to be in this game. Forget the Quake / Unreal / etc.. mentality, and forget about Everquest / DAoC, we are not a bunch carebears gonna give u a group hug and a high five before we kill you. This is pvp, real, dirty, elite pvp... if u can't take the heat, then don't participate in it, cause god knows their are enough professions and things you can do in this game if you pvp isn't your thing.

- Grendal