Combat Medic Archive

After not reading the board for a week I went through my usual routine of reading the boards looking for the usual posts. You know, nerf this, nerf that, please give me this, please give me that......... sigh. After I read the main discussion board, I look at my server board (Bria) and then the combat medic board. It was interesting to see the increase in combat medic bashing in our own board. It's tiring enough to read it on the main boards, but it's almost unbearable to see people come in here and screw with us.

What I find annoying is reading through posts and seeing totally inaccurate information from people about how our class is, what our poisons can do, and how unbalanced we are. I used to try to educate them about how long a tick is in seconds, poison damage ranges, why poisoning/diseasing a corpse was a bug, etc..... but like the hydra every head I cut off spawned 2 more. I don't bother..... they don't listen and 1/2 the time when I post a long reply this wonderful message board software screws up and my post goes into oblivion.

After reading all these posts about our Godlike poisoning abilities I sat back and thought...... am I playing the same game as these people? Let's see....... the Bria server has some of the lowest quality resources out of the servers. My best poison has done around 380ish damage with a pretty short throwing distance. I have only been able to make 2 crates of poisons total due to resource issues (having to use 5 components per poison C pack is REALLY REALLY FUN). Let along the fact that some of those components are identical. So now a factory is in the picture.

When I did finally use 1 pack of those poisons, they worked pretty well. Lets see....... I apply poison. I get hit with knockdown/dizzy. This is followed by eyeshot or commando special. Bam I am dead. I watch as poison eventually takes down my opponent. Yea me! So I sit there until I get up. Oh did I mention they have assigned someone to me so that they knock me back down when I stand up. Yea me! Wow this is fun!

Now lets do the math..... since everyone seems to be a mathematician. I use 1 charge of my poison. Depending on quality it may be resisted. If it lands I do (whatever damage)/8 per second. This seems low, but our poison is the gift that keeps on giving AND armor has no effect once it lands. On the other hand, we use a lot of resources to make that pack, and it's only really effective if you have that master combat medic OR you have a master combat medic supplying you with poison. I just recently went into that business because I saw NOONE else selling poison packs.

Ok the above stuff is the generic combat medic "whine" that some people respond with by saying "why don't u quit and become a MCH, BH, or TKA/DOC". Well you know what..... I have played this class for months, taken the good with the bad, and decided to stick it out........ until I read the new stuff that was posted about poisons not incapping.

Let's see........ you apply a poison and run around and let the mob die to the poison. You can't loot it now because for some unknown reason the code thinks that you weren't the one that killed the mob. So instead of fixing the root problem, it looks like a patch will be introduced that will let the poison tick until the mob/player gets to 1 HP. Then the combat medic is supposed to finish off the mob with fists/gun/boot/sharp pointy stick. This also will 'fix' the imbalance that existed because a combat medic can lay down a poison, run off, and wait for the player to incap and then come back and DB them. Ok. PVP at this time is RULED by mind damage. You can buff all you like, but you can't heal that little blue bar. It'll get worn down and then you will fall down. As I see it (being a pistol wielding MCM), I can only be assured of a win by laying down health poison and then finishing off my prey with my pistol, which BTW only consistently targets health. But PvP is all about the mind damage....... so this means that now the PvP MCM will be forced to take on some profession that does mind damage consistently. Why target a pool if you can't finish them off? You may have buddies with you that can do mind damage.... ok fine. That fixes that problem, not by you being able to finish them off, but that your buddies can finish them off.

What about bleeds? Are bleeds going to cause incaps or stop at 1HP? Is there going to be consistency with how damage over time attacks are handled? Seems to me that there are a lot more issues that are raised with balance if this change is applied.

Pardon my pseudo rant. I tried to keep this civil and coherent and hopefully it came across this way.

Mordra Faile
Master combat medic - Bria